How viable are Prot Paladins in TBC?

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
122

Absolutely.

There are also plentiful choices in regards to enchancing melee capability, caster capability, and tank capability.

It’s not the difficulty, its the return on investment.

You specifically mentioned Resto, which is what I was addressing.

During Classic having an Enhance use SS and then just twist makes sense, with current scaling for melee, and the lack of scaling for enhance with shocks.

However in TBC group composition is different. If you have a Hunters group of: BM, BM, Feral, Resto/Enh, and then say a Ret. It means your only twisting for 1 player.

Thats 2100 mana per minute to gain ~160 DPS in Tier 5 on a Ret. You are limiting available cast time AND you have to twist at certain intervals.

Or you can just have that Shaman cast Lightning Bolts. That’s 7 bolts, cast in less time, cast for the same mana, cast when you want, for 120 DPS.

With Natures Blessing, ie INT > SP conversion, plus 1/3 of your healing also delivering +damage…a Shaman even in Tier 4 will have +500 spell damage at least, and increase crit to lightning spells to counter spell miss.

Conversely twisting in a tank group of RSham, RDruid, Prot War, Prot Paladin + Lock + Imp / or extra DPS also isn’t worth it.

There is no new Rank of Grace of Air. And thanks to new Agi scaling in regards to Dodge and Crit the gains towards DPS aren’t that appreciable.

Warriors, Shaman, and Paladins now need 40 Agi per Crit percentage…in Classic that’s 4.45% crit…in TBC that’s 2.23% crit…for at best 4 players and frequently less.

At least casting LB can be done when you want, it can be ducked if someone needs your attention, and it’s more fun than watching an Aura Mod timer for WF.

The gains aren’t there in any appreciable degree for Resto. And in Tier 6 it’s not really going to happen anyways.

This analogy is horrible.

Winning is Raid vs. Mob.

Killing a boss 10s faster is internet ego run wild, on a 15 year old game.

Which you accomplish by telling people the class they love to play sucks, or they have to endure doing something they detest or resent in terms of play style, to kill those few precious seconds faster.

123

Yeah, it’s well worth it.

And you specifically mentioned Enhancement.

That group makeup makes no sense, though. Why would you be putting a Ret in the BM group?

Instead, try using a more realistic example:
1 Protadin
1 Ret
1 Enhance
1 Arms
1 Prot Warrior

Now you’re twisting for 4 players.

And?

Except a Resto Shaman’s Lightning Bolt doesn’t have a 2x crit multiplier, it has a 1.5x multiplier.

And spells use a two-roll system, wherein they roll to see if they land, THEN roll to see if they crit, meaning a Resto Shaman, with likely 0 Spell Hit, is going to have a 0.83 or 0.84 if Alliance multiplier to their crit chance, which is already halved in terms of effective damage increase.

Put simply, if you have 20% spell crit (which is super generous):
20 / 2 * 0.83 = 8.3% DPS increase overall.

A 1% increase to spell hit would, in that situation, be more than 1% increased damage, because you’re getting more out of the crit you already have.

So no, the crit a Resto Shaman has does not make up for the loss of spell hit whatsoever.

And again, you’re assuming the Shaman is only twisting for one person (a RET, of all specs, who will objectively see the lowest DPS increase out of Windfury), and thus would only need to make up that much DPS. Try buffing 4 melee and telling me a Resto Shaman can do enough DPS between casting heals to outpace totem twisting.

Then tell me you’d actually tell a group of melee that you’d rather cast lightning bolts or do another Chain Heal that will overheal by 60% than buff their DPS by 100-200.

So maybe don’t create horrible groups like that?

In that case, though, you’d be totem twisting WFT and WoAT, probably, and the Prot Warrior would just have to live without Grace of Air. It’s definitely worth giving TWO tanks Windfury Totem, though.

Wrong on all accounts.

Paladins and Shamans get 1% crit per 25 Agility, and Warriors get 1% crit per 33.

Only Hunters and Rogues need 40 Agility for 1% crit, and they also get the added benefit of attack power.

It really can’t, though, because when you’re allowed is dependent entirely on if someone needs healing or not. If you have the free time to be casting Lightning Bolts, you can be totem twisting just as easily. More easily, in fact, because totems are instant and can be done while moving.

I’d take 2-3% crit and 77 attack power for hunters/rogues over an extra chain heal every 9 seconds any day of the week.

The HPS loss can be made up for by other healers since healing is a finite resource. DPS, however, is not finite, and someone doing less DPS doesn’t mean someone else does more; it just means less raidwide DPS.

Nah, you don’t get to come in here and state some subjective metric such as fun as a matter of fact.

I’d have more fun on my Shaman managing something like totem twisting than not.

And getting some extra heals off is what, exactly? More healing done that any other healer could’ve handled instead? Internet ego, as you put it, on the role that should care the least about that sort of thing.

Show me where I said anything of the sort. I’ll wait, but I won’t hold my breath.

Anyway, I’m tired of arguing about Shaman in a thread about Prot Paladin. Say your piece and then I’m done replying to you about this matter (in this thread, anyway).

124

WF twisting has a timer. Its every 10s.

Casting LB does not have a timer. You do it when you want.

Your ranged group… ie Hunter, Hunter, Hunter, Feral (5% crit), Resto/Enh already have talented GoA…and 5% crit from Imp LoP. There is NO gain from twisting in that group.

Twisting only appreciably affects 4 Classes in terms of damage output. which was what you were harping on.

DPS Warriors.
Rogues.
Enhance Shaman.
Retribution Paladins.

All of those classes, if you have them, should be in the Enhance Shaman group…who does in fact twist.

Of the tanks Ferals gain nothing from WF, Prot Paladins gain minimal threat or DPS from GoA, and even Prot Warriors gain far less from GoA than in Vanilla due to the difference in rage generation and scaling the base threat values.

If you don’t have a pure melee group, then my all means the enhance should be in your tank group.

If you do have a pure melee group, then a Resto Shaman, your Resto Druid, and typically your third Warlock w/IMP goes in with your tank group. You would be twisting for 2 people with minimal results.

You will have 2 or 3 physical groups. 1 Requires GoA exclusively, 1 is your tank group which has reduced gains, and your third (if you have it) is your pure melee group which should have your twisting enhance.

There is no need to have a Resto Shaman twist.

Also Nature’s Guidance (3% hit) is in the Resto Shaman tree for nukes FYI, if they are nuking…

125

Okay I’ll concede this and state that viability concerning an individual in PvE still means the boss dies, but it dies while you did your job without critical failure. That would be specific to the “job” but generally speaking:

  • DPS is viable if it can deal enough DPS to kill the boss before wipe mechanics kick in, typically enrage timers
  • Healing is viable if it can manage some baseline damage output without their targets dying
  • Tanking is viable if it can manage to hold aggro sufficient for DPS to meet their minimum and survive sufficiently for Healing to meet their minimum

I get there is some interplay between all of this, especially between incoming damage on a Tank and how much Healing stress we can honestly place on people, but this generally hits all the thresholds. And I agree about DPS, I wouldn’t count really subpar DPS output as “viable” just because its propped up by several other very strong and well performed DPS. DPS is probably the easiest to measure because you typically know X Tanks, Y Healers, and Z DPS are available and you can multiply the DPS in question by Z and find out if you meet the threshold or not.

Without diving too deep into every time someone asks, this is probably correct. But sometimes we get posters who already have a sense that they’re getting frowned upon for being the “wrong” spec and want more answers, so being able to explain that, “Yes, you’re more than capable of doing DPS in excess of what is needed to drop encounters, but no, you’re always going to be 20%+ behind other classes, so maybe think about swapping” is helpful.

126

I agree, but there’s a lot of folks who will viciously lash out at anyone who mentions that sort of objective data (e.g. 20% behind other classes) for all the reasons I’m sure you’re aware of.

“It’s just a game.”
“That only matters if you’re in a top 1% guild.”
“Quit trying to tell other people how to play.”

To a fault, I am driven to respond to these kinds of people and discuss the data with them. Even if starts out loosely related, the conversation devolves into some unrelated crap like how good Ret is or whether totem twisting is worth it (see above).

The OP got their answer a few replies in and probably hasn’t cared about anything said since then, least of all how we define “viable.” lol

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127

Ummmmm righteous defense isn’t a taunt now? I believe it not only taunts 1 mob but 3 even. Not to mention you can bubble anyone who pulls agro if you really get desperate. I think your confused. I played with a few very good Pally MT’s in TBC. Pally were strong. I’ll admit not as strong as WOTLK when they become ridiculous. Umm kinda required for some fights? Hmm I believe it was almost a requirement to have a pally MT in the entire raid for ZA if you want to be able to get your Armani War Bear. I have mine and it was a paladin tanking the timed event when I got it.

128

Remember that Paladins excel at AoE tanking, so any fights that require proficient AoE tanking are gonna be great for Prot Paladins and make them almost necessary, since Warriors and Druids improve at AoE tanking in tbc, but still aren’t anywhere near Prot Paladins’ level. On fights where a 3rd tank isn’t needed, prot paladins are usually relegated to healing, so if that’s a deal-breaker, I’d suggest playing Druid instead, since they do cat DPS on fights they don’t tank.

You’ll also be providing notable utility to your raid in the form of extra blessings, which is great because most raids will only run 2-3 Paladins, yourself included.

129

Prot is the best aoe tank. The end.

But if you really want the truth, since some in this thread are wildly off, depending on tuning depends how tanks will go.

Are the bosses deadly/a threat? Warrior cds might be needed. If their not? Warriors cds suddenly aren’t that great. They can’t beat a geared bear in single target threat nor a paladin in aoe.

All the tanks have their niches however its heavily influenced by the difficulty of the content. Depending on tuning depends how raids will go. If its too easy warriors are hurt the most. Aoe and 5mans paladins are best regardless of tuning and any serious guild will have a prot paladin regardless of tuning.

130

In Classic, Paladins are not ‘viable’ tanks for two major reasons:

  • Lack of taunt

  • Unsustainable mana demands

These two issues are fundamental game-breakers for any sort of serious tanking in raids - and problematic even in 5-man content. Both of these issues are addressed in BC.

Which means Protection Paladins go from qualitatively inferior tanks in the same way that Enhancement Shaman are qualitatively inferior tanks to ‘viable’ tanks that you can make quantitative arguments about.

131

well it’s a good thing that paladin also has a dps spec, so if they aren’t needed to tank they can dps.

132

No dual spec makes this invalid. It’s alot easier for the prot to throw on healing gear or the bear to switch to cat form for the whole fight than sustain respecs.

People seem to forget the additional cost of respeccing your hyjal/kara rings when factoring in “just change spec”

133

Nowhere did I say you had to respec. Prot paladins can offheal fights where they’re not needed without changing specs. Obviously it’s not as good as a full-blooded healer, but it’s better than having them do piddly damage

134

This isn’t really a thing in TBC. All of the killer mechanics during any given boss encounter comes from raw persistent incoming damage, not big moments where you can effectively time a CD. If your Tanks are dying to Tidewalker because he hits really hard, there is no best time to blow a CD since he is just regularly smashing your face in and using his specials very frequently.

Warrior CDs can certainly save a wipe every once and a while, but that’s few and far between compared to all the times you blow Shield Wall and still die because Healers were asleep or caught up in some mechanic, or you blow Shield Wall and don’t even come close to needing it because you went on a Dodge streak or another Tank taunted off of you or whatever.

Wrath is the first real PvE setup where “Boss Casts Doom Breath” necessitated cycling your CDs and your Healers’ CDs.

135

This.

Also what Thunda and Fasc touched on.

Most Holy Paladin talents are there to support HL casts over the length of a fight.

For FoL casting, Illumination, Divine Illumination, and Divine Favor simply aren’t needed…especially in a Tier 6 environment.

Factoring in untalented Spring, BoW, Consumes, Food, and Oil, then a Prot Paladin has access to 3500 mana per minute without SA or MP/5 on gear swaps.

Max rank FoL, without haste and factoring in lag, is just under 5k mana per minute.

That’s a lot of patch healing when you need it, and as a result when a Prot doesn’t tank they will heal a tank.

It’s also the reason when you have a Prot Paladin you should never have more than two Holy Paladin’s in a raid. Its simply a level of redundancy that isn’t needed that comes at the expense of other metrics.

136

I’d imagine it’d be hard to say “X spec SUCKS” in TBC. They’re all decent at worst. Heck even if Warrs and Rogues give up Fury/Combat for more survivability they’d still be decent since right now their dps is through the roof.

137

How AOE heavy is TBC? Right now I Can confidently tank about 5+ targets as long as people following the raid markers. IF there are like 10 mobs at once, then paladin tanks are truly needed.

138

A Paladin laughs at the need for “follow the marks”

Heroics are the primary feature for AoE threat and survival. Warriors will be better than they presently are at snagging AoE targets, but Druids and Paladins get that much better as well. You can bring a pair of pocket Mages to every run if you want, but even that won’t allow a whole lot of controlled CC for many pulls.

Beyond Heroics, you have raids where AoE is a touch and go matter. Plenty of SSC and TK pulls can be handled by good AoE Tanking, but many of them are dangerous enough that chain Fear casts on particular mobs can be much smoother and safer while you single target everything. Only High Astromancer and Tidewalker have AoE needs as far as bosses go, so really you can not have a Paladin all the way to the end of T5 and be just fine.

Then comes T6 where Hyjal is just one endless playground to Paladins that make us all jealous. Endless wave after wave of dozens of undead mobs before each boss and Paladins can just soak it all up without much issue. Plenty of AoE packs in BT as well that can be easily handled by a single Paladin as well. Bosses don’t really have any AoE needs in this tier, but Paladins are plenty capable of doing them all.

Then finally we get Sunwell, where everything is tossed at you at high speed with high damage and little room for error. Paladins have plenty of AoE opportunities to shine and are absolutely fantastic for Felmyst and M’uru.

Warriors will do just fine throughout, but Paladins just straight up trivialize the AoE stuff, sometimes so much so that not using a Paladin feels like you’re doing it wrong.

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139

It sounds like it’s best to have one warr tank the kill target, then one Prot paladin to tank the rest.

If only one tank is needed, the paladin will swap to healing gear.

One feral cat should have tank gear to help if 3 tanks are needed.

140

Ideally you gear one of each and use as needed. For single target though the Druids are going to dominate like crazy if threat is an issue, but I don’t think any of the Tanks are bad at it.

141

This is generally the case, but only because Feral typically does better DPS than a Protection Warrior using a 2H.

Otherwise it’d basically be:
Need defensive cooldowns - Prot Warrior
Need AoE - Prot Paladin
Everything Else - Feral Druid

Prot Warrior sucks at DPS, though, even when using a 2H or dual wielding, so you just have the Prot Warrior tank everything the Feral would most of the time.