Prot Paladins suffering from PvE mitigation/self-sustainment

Classes Paladin
1

I have been playing Protection Paladin since Legion and have loved doing Mythic plus since BfA.

I did however notice Protection Paladins have the worst mitigation and self-sustainment in the game. Each class has different means of making up for their flaws and most of the time they are baseline:

  • DHs have mobility/healing
  • DKs have % healing/passive mastery bubble
  • Druids have huge health pool/ active and passive self-healing/ passive mitigation
  • Warriors have IP bubble, huge amounts of defensive CDs, and the new talent Indomitable
  • Monks have Stagger/ Celestial Brew which can be a huge bubble/ passive and active healing from orbs and mastery

But Prot Paladins have no mobility, they making us choose between using HP for active mitigation or a flat heal, and most of our mitigation and healing comes from talents and conduits.

I think one thing that could at least help with our survivability is un-cap First Avenger talent (currently the bubble is capped at maximum 30% health) and increase the duration of the buff. I could build a pretty decent size bubble and then lose it all by the time I reach the next group because it only lasts 8 seconds.

In the long term paladins will fall even harder in survivability due to Shield of the Righteous not scaling well because of its Shadowlands nerf. At least buffing something else to help ease the damage intake whether a baseline passive heal, add a healing received to mastery, increase our health pool, reducing amount of SotRs required to get free Word of Glory, or as I recommended buff the First Avenger bubble to last longer and remove its max bubble cap.

Thank you all, and I hope we can help the class before it becomes obsolete later down the expansion and is too late.

9 Likes
2

I still find monks harder to heal. Especially if they don’t kite. But Prot is lacking some more passive defenses.

2 Likes
3

Not really much of a choice. Generally speaking, WoG is going to be the go to, especially with damage spikes and times when you can safely let yourself get a little lower to try to maximize the benefit from our ~250% healing boost.

I’ll break that down more in a bit.

It’s less that and more Paladins not understanding how to fully utilize their kit and making poor decisions regarding Holy Power usage.

So, to explain it to both of you (with real examples):

Average Word of Glory, low health (target range when possible) |
36kcritheal (8,000hps)
18kheal (4,000hps)
hps is being calculated using 4.5 seconds (duration of SotR) to more accurately compare the use of that holy power.
(Numbers below in italics (base armor/SotR total armor) don’t matter in grand scheme cause what matters is the difference from SotR but I’ve included it all for posterity)

Damage Reduction Against Dungeon Targets (since mythic+ was mentioned)
Shield of the Righteous (4.5 sec duration)

Damage required to prevent equal amount of WoG healing (non-crit / crit), dtps calculated over 4.5 sec duration per SotR:
Base Armor (1912 total armor) |
43.34% DR 41,532 total damage (9,229dtps) / 83,064 total damage (18,458dtps) *

SotR (3926 total armor) |
61.10% DR 29,508 total damage (6,557dtps) / 59,016 total damage (13,114dtps)

==========================

Difference with SotR (2014 armor) |
17.76% Physical DR - 101,351 total damage (22,522dtps) / 202,702 total damage (45,044dtps)

Note that this is all before other mitigation (Consecration, Ardent Defender, Guardian of Ancient Kings, Devotion Aura, outside mitigation) and doesn’t factor CC/kiting. All of which would increase the amount of required raw damage taken.

This also doesn’t take into account Shielding Words (conduit, which most paladin’s should be using regardless) which increases the effect healing of WoG by another ~20%.

=========================

Wow, that sure was a lot of words, I hope it all makes sense. So, knowing that, the general rotation/right time to use SotR would be when HP/HP capped (holy power/Health points) and you’re able to refill/replace those 2-3 holy power right after and/or if you have full/high health and a Divine Purpose proc (free SotR or WoG). That and of course when damage is super low and you can afford to safely dump the holy power to build towards a free WoG via Shining Light.

Additionally, there is optimal value in dumping HP into SotR during Ardent Defender with the Resolute Defender conduit (as it will further increase the duration and reduce the CD on it.

tldr: When using Shield of the Righteous, you would have to take on average roughly 300k (physical) damage in 4.5 seconds (duration of SotR) or 66,666 (generally lethal) damage per second to match the throughput of Word of Glory. Generally speaking, high/spike incoming damage -> WoG (appropriate health levels). Full health/Low damage/High holy power/Divine Purpose procs -> SotR.

Granted, it feels kind of backwards but it is what it is =/
Additionally, sorry for the poor formatting, not a lot of options and I haven’t slept in a while lol

edit: In before I get roasted out of existence and/or ignored lol

8 Likes
4

It has definately been a different feel than other expansions. Granted I skipped a few. Early into mythics I felt the same way, but with better gear I do think it scaled pretty well. Keeping up with your rotation to maximize SoTR uptime and using defensives to fill gaps is important. So is using defensives preemptively when you know a nasty pull is coming. I feel like in the past I would use defensives when I was about to die, but this expansion is using it proactively instead of reactively.

5

Sorry if i am a bit daft but if I understand correctly we should be healing ourselves when below full health versus sotr?
I am struggling a lot with my paladin just keeping alive and it’s not fun as compared to bfa.

6

No, you want as close to 100% uptime of SoTR if possible. Using WoG for emergencies or when it becomes a free cast.

Looking at your character, your haste is very low. Try and get that to 20%, if not higher. Running Blessed Hammer can also help build up holy power more steadily since you get 3 charges of them.

1 Like
7

That’s what I normally do, basically the opposite of what Sosari has suggested. However they are likely regularly in much higher keys based on their profile, unless of course they paid for carries lol. What that means though is their much more likely to hit the damage thresholds for where SotR begins to scale past WoG.

Generally though, if you’re half health, WoG is going to do more for your survivability than SotR. Ideally you have enough time where you’re stable enough to stack up SotR to like 8+ seconds and that will help with WoG.

My point was that, again generally speaking, WoG will provide more value per holy power than SotR.

Case and point, if you’re full health and have a free proc, WoG will do nothing while SotR will be nice padding.

Sosari’s call out on haste is solid though as that helps reduce the CD on your HP generators and reduce the GCD, definitely nice to have.

Lower level dungeons/keys, I’d recommend trying out prioritizing WoG over SotR just to see how it feels (when you can, preferably when you’re 50%~ HP to maximize the healing bonus) but for higher stuff with a good healer, SotR should shine somewhat more.

And don’t be scared to hit Ardent Defender while setting up as it has a rather short CD, especially with conduits/talents. Saving Guardian of Ancient Kings for ‘oh shhhh’ moments.

Last thing I’d mention is that SotR is only physical damage reduction and provides even less on higher level targets vs just dungeons where as WoG will always provide a much more consistent survivability. I’ve found it’s a good button to hit and to try to keep up to help boost the effectiveness of WoG but prioritizing WoG works out better for me.

At the end of the day, it sounds like what Sosari is suggesting is what you’ve already been trying, won’t hurt to try what I’m suggesting and see what works for you :slight_smile:

Regardless, go for the 20% haste and Blessed Hammer is actually really fun for stacking HP between pulls or downtime on select bosses. Really wish Holy Shield was just passive at this point as it’s so good >.>

==========

Last note, you’re not daft, I just can’t format to save my life lol but yes, that’s basically how I play it (almost like a Blood DK) while also dumping power when I can into SotR

Whatever you do, I hope it works out for you!

4 Likes
8

You bring a lot of good opinions and no I was not carried, all 200+ timed runs are there to view on io.

I think WoG is fine, but maybe closer to 20-25% hp. The way you wrote it out, it sounds like solo play and not really incorporating the role of the healer in the group. The healer is in charge of keeping you healthy, although you will have to self heal at times. Just not all the time.

WoG may work at lower keys, but it is a bad habit once you get higher. The damage intake is very noticeable with SoTR on vs off. There are many many bosses with tank busters.

Using defensives as Necrachilles said is a big one. Especially using them proactively at the start of a pull, not when you are already almost dead.

6 Likes
9

The runs all looked legit to me but I threw it out there just in case lol

but nah, I was writing it regarding dungeons as well. Especially since healers generally have to keep others up as well so any assistance you can provide is appreciated. Prot to me is more like a blood DK currently though (DKs self healing also scales with damage taken). So in a way that is our mitigation.

All helpful feedback though :smiley:

4 Likes
10

Really good suggestions from both of you thanks. I had higher haste around 17% but was getting trucked in dungeons so I put on some enchants for vers to see if it helps.

Will try stepping into a dungeon on my paladin soon to try those ideas out meanwhile I am having a blast on my guardian - don’t feel like a paper tank lol

1 Like
11

Aside from that, I strongly suggest farming DoS for the Bloodscale trinket. It is a free 20k absorb with a fairly low cd.

1 Like
12

yeah using WOG most of the time over SOTR is very much the DK mentality of screw mitigation i’ll just heal through it. which paladin really doesn’t have the tools for and is not really playing to the class’s strengths

2 Likes
13

It’s not that simple. In organized groups sure but in pugs when I’m at like 20 percent or below health and don’t wog I’m dead. Even with a cool down up more times then not, I abuse that AD cheat death and even then I have died a second time from lack of heals. ( shamans really seem to be the majority of healers that can keep up)

The truth lies somewhere in between. Depends on group, dps, healer, dungeon, affixes etc

Situations for example If the whole group is low on health, is it just you, what is coming next from incoming damage.

The times I shield of righteous at like 30 to 40 percent expecting some incoming heals, I usually get disappointed.

My main focus is just staying alive. A dead tank is not useful even if I went the ideal play mechanically.

Sometimes using wog to go full health saves a cd for another time that may be more necessary.

I have played since vanilla and im not a fan of the run for dear life kiting so much, however you have to know when you use all your resources to stay in the game.

But we are squishy. I can’t speak if this is the same for all tanks or not. Luckily we have a ton of o crap buttons but once those are gone it’s not pretty.

6 Likes
14

Tried a 9 mists today - cast wog
instead of SOTR , actually on some packs I didn’t even look at my health and just kept casting wog as soon as it was available . I think I felt less squishy but I need more dungeons to test. Overall the gameplay feels bad. I don’t know how other paladins are timing keys and enjoying their class

15

While I agree that it is definitely situational, such as overall group health, SoTR is generally the better way to go. I pug exclusively and some groups are definitely more synergized than others.

From reading your response, it sounds like you are saving your defensive CDs for emergencies. At least with Argent Defender. I played paladins in previous expansions and felt like that was the way to use them. In the current expansion, it has been much more useful to use CDs in a proactive approach, before you feel like you are almost dead.

Trash pulls typically stay up a short amount of time and even big pulling going down by about ~50 seconds. Using a defensive at the start or a few seconds in will grant you the extra survivability for a good portion of the pull. By the time it wears off, some of the trash should be dead or you can begin to kite a little bit to let your healer get used to your defensive being down.

2 Likes
16

I use cd’s for big pulls and gap fillers mostly unless there is a boss fight on tyrannical I need them

17

Take WoG off the GCD

2 Likes
18

well its a good thing ion just nerfed ardent protector’s sanctum into the ground for no real good reason, now we have even less mitigation

When Ardent Defender saves you from death, it restores 40% additional health.
When Ardent Defender expires without saving you from death, reduce its remaining cooldown to 60 seconds.

PTR patch

19

Yeah, they nerfed the additional DR. In exchange, they boosted the heal from it when it saves you (total of 60% instead of the base 20%), and if it expires naturally its cooldown is HALVED. Those in combination may very well be worth the loss of the extra 10% DR.

20

I’m sad cause it’s a nerf to my ability to use it as a CD for when I’m prot healing.

However, overall I think it’s a buff. Between Unbreakable Spirit (30% CD reduction on AD, down to a minute and 24 second) and Resolute Defender (Shield of the Righteous extends AD duration by 20% and reduce it’s CD by 1.4+ sec) we could be looking at close to 100% uptime on AD (unless of course it pops)