Currently starting to tank 8’s. I don’t feel that squishy yet. I did before I got my gear and talents set up correctly, but with the two tank trinkets on 1 min cooldowns to cover my other cd gaps, I pretty much always have a cd up and running now.
At 8’s groups are also using cc and interupts better then the majority of +4-5 groups. It might also be the cooldown reduction affix which means I get my cooldowns back even faster, since I just started 8’s this week.
1 thing that really helped me and didn’t realized wasn’t in the same spot anymore when I loaded my talent was Strength in Adversity.
Turns out having 25%+ more parry helps a tons when going into a pack.
Definitely felt more comfortable afterward.
Rotation still feel bad though.
This is 100% a skill issue if you are struggling in 4s and 5s.
Really disheartening to watch vods of prot warriors sit comfortably at 80%+ health at all times in 12s unless something goes really wrong while we rubber band like a BDK.
I really think all that is needed is another 10% stamina and 20-30% armor tacked into Aegis of Light. If our WoGs aren’t going to meaningfully move our health bars then we should be more bulky in return.
I bookmarked your post for myself as a reminder for the days when I have the weird urge to want to main prot pally, because it encapsulates so perfectly what is fundamentally wrong with the spec from the get go. The philosophy I kind of get, this is supposed to be a “magical shield wielding tank” in that it’s not quite a prot warrior, so it’s more squishy, and also not quite a self-reliant self-healing tank like BDK, but somewhere in between for RPG and flavour reasons.
But the execution is just… well, you said it.
Maybe, just maybe if they allowed Consecrate and AS to generate HP, this can be salvaged from a design perspective, but honestly at this point I think a total redesign is needed.
Seeing the comments here and elsewhere, coping mechanisms like, “well it’s not a bad tank IF” where “if” is things like, “you need tank trinkets”, “you need to pop 2 defensive CDs before any pull”, and so on… it’s just, those things are not normal, IMO. Other tanks don’t have to worry about any of that. On my prot warrior, shield block uptime and IP basically negates 90% of stuff. Super low cooldown spell block also helps a ton, as well as a second spell block on longer CD. A bunch of “oh sh*t” defensives that honestly help a lot. The base class is so tanky that you don’t need a bubble or LoH to survive, you just need a cooldown to give a tiny bit of breathing room so that your baseline kit can kick in and mitigate stuff again. That’s how a cooldown should work. It shouldn’t be part of a base rotation.
Sorry for the long essay, but just saying out loud, more for myself I guess, how I just shouldn’t bother with this spec anymore until something fundamental changes. I know that it works, yeah you can do well in low keys, this and that, if you’re super geared and super mastered the rotation and situational awareness you can still push high keys etc, but for what feels like 15-20% of the effort of this, you can do just as well or even much better with another tank.
I have done 5s and 6s, most of the time I am the one living while the group is dying. One of my boss kills on Siege took 8 minutes because one of the DPS failed on the boss dragging and killed all but me and the healer (that was this week with tyr mind you).
In the hands of one who has mained prot paladin for years, even when we were at our lowest, we are still strong, in the hands of FotM rerollers/those that have not played a prot at our worst, ugh. Not saying we don’t need looked at and some things fixed but we are no longer the “easy mode” tank.
I got slapped around as prot pally in a 5 GB yet skated through the same dungeon on an 8 as prot war and blood dk with lower ilvl. pally needs some help. Can it due high keys? sure, with perfect game play, perfect team interrupting everything, and appropriate cc, and amazing healer, but you dont get all that in pugs.
Sorry to say, but you must be doing something wrong if you are getting slapped in a +5 on a Tyrannical week. I get that you did better on Warrior and DK, but that doesn’t mean you know how to play Paladin as well as the other classes. I’ll accept that other thanks are in a better position in terms of tankiness, but not to the degree you are trying to claim, struggling in +5 vs skating through +8.
Prot doesn’t feel good atm. The biggest issue is WoG barely moves your health bar and you’re pretty paper. A +10 siege will make you sweat. Bear tanks and Prot warriors are mitigation machines, but not invincible.
Blizzard is at least addressing these issues with hotfixes and 11.0.5 has some big changes. I’m just not playing my Prot Paly until the patch.
The real issues come for me when I’m in a 10 or 11 and randomly just get something going on like all the mobs swing timers sync and I got form 100 to 0 in like 1 second.
SoTR does not drop, and you never see it coming. I don’t ever feel safe when I should be.
I just started rolling CDs anytime affix add is out or pull is large regardless if I am not taking hits because of this insta death PTSD.
Don’t even get me started about first boss in cot or last boss of siege on 11’s and up.
My warrior is not in the same key range but comparably at his level feels much sturdier.
I don’t think the changes for today will impact our issues much. But maybe with gear this will tone down.
But I would not recommend pally to someone if they are choosing.
That’s not just an issue with Prot Palys, but with all the tanks. There’s one pack in Mists that just completely obliterates the tank in the first 1s of the opener if you’re not walking in there without your armor buff and a hard defensive. There’s quite a few pulls like this in Siege as well.
I’ve seen about 80% of the tanks get murdered on the 2nd pull in Siege.
Right now keys are living and dying on the tanks surviving.
It helps, but all the goodies are in the new patch that’s probably coming out by the end of the month.
Ya those packs Im aware of and don’t run into that un prepared, the first pull gets real scary in stone vault too trying to pull them all.
But I was having it happen on some pulls that were not those, grim batol, non overseer packs that literally the days before didn’t have that issue with. I chalked it up to some weird server lag hopefully or connection lag.
It’s a bit frustrating from the healer PoV because the tank often goes from full or near full hp to 0% in 1-2s and it’s beyond my ability to properly react fast enough. I have to ping pong healing the group and the tank. It’s not fun from the tanking PoV either.
11.0.5 though is night and day difference on Prot Paly. The biggest buff is getting double armor for 30s when you LoH yourself and LoH is on a 4 minute cd. Tons of talents are baselined and trimmed down and you get defensives more often.
It’s just having to wait until the patch which sucks.
Ya I play three healers and I have seen some epic insta tank kills hahahah
Ya I wish we weren’t gonna have to wait till November for those, but paladin tank is something I have played since vanilla so I will suffer through, hoping for better days ahead, but this def reminds me of shadowlands season 1 almost
I think this talent is being misconstrued as a Prot CD, it’s more of a “ohh sh*t my tank is gonna die” utility option for all 3 spec, it just so happens that for Prot… well they are the tank.
I’m gonna die, I need to live! 
This scenario should already be effectively covered by WoG and it’s 300% increase heal on low health. (But WoG healing is bad, they are buffing it though)
Now the addition of this with the DS ignoring forbearance talent, effectively gives another tool but the amount of tools prot has at its disposition was not the problem.
If anything, this is just more bloat if taken with the intent of acting as a defensive CD.
At least it’s off GCD.
I just feel like, if you need that in the first place, there’s an underlying problem that needs to be solved.
Prot issues won’t be saved by a 4min CD.
Given the failure of SotR uptime reduction, why not give WoG procs give the SotR buff?
Sure SotR is off GCD, but then you don’t feel as much pressure to build back HP immediately.
IDK, those are all bandaids to me, they might help on the short term but the core flaws are still there.
I just hope this is the premise to a more in-depth look to Prot Pal further down the line, ideally this expac.
Because these are bandaids and if any major changes are coming, more so in 12.x than in TWW.
Most likely, although I do hold on a sliver of hope that it could be done within TWW, they did it for Ret after all.
Admittedly, Ret problems weren’t as deep rooted or complex, IMO.
Which patch did Ret rework took place in DF?
Not even a major one, 10.0.7.
Ok, there is a possibility. I dont know how much of a rework it was for Ret but for Prot we’re talking about potentially mechnical changes to SoTR, WoG, or even Mastery, to achieve the design where it should fall between Prot Warr and BDK. I find it hard to believe they will handle the spec in a minor patch.