Hey, main tank here with a Brew and Bear.
Thinking of diving back into my prot paly, but with how it felt at the start of the season I decided to swap off.
How do they feel now? Mostly for M+
I’m a bear main but I’m just about done pushing all my +10’s so I decided to try paladin for the first time.
At 560 a +2 pug key felt impossible to complete.
At 595 a +2 pug key is now doable but far from certain and at this point I was already pushing +7’s on the bear.
Over all I feel like I’m playing a BDK with the amount my health ping pongs but I lack the ability to heal it back up. I had assumed it played more like prot warrior in that it was smoother in its damage intake but that was incorrect.
I put their utility at about the same as bear. They lack things like Typhoon and Vortex but make up for it with offhealing.
A bit better than bear and plays in much the same way Incarn does. Line up wings with divine toll and see huge numbers.
Not sure really seems worse right now but I could be doing it wrong.
Pulls are back to back. You can always start a pack with Eye of Tyr and for massive pulls you can Divine Shield. You want to use GoAK as much as possible to get the CD reduction and Ardent defender is on a 1 min CD so its up nearly every pull depending on key level and dps in your party.
Thank you for the comprehensive explaination!
Ive timed a few keys at 5+ with my 605 Paly, and whike they felt okay, this was prepatch.
Id like to get back into him as he is one of my OGs. I probably will because the changes do seem pretty good.
The Block Chance on WoG is nice and you get free WoGs quite often I saw when I did a run today.
My downside is tge mana cost for WoG. They removed it because ProtPal could run with 4 DPS and it would be great. Wish they reverted it with tank changes in TWW
I timed a 9 at 609 ilvl before the changes. It was pretty tough. Played well prot is really solid post the recent patch. It may be close to a war now tankiness wise. We shall see if it doesn’t get nerfed…
Overall it didn’t feel to bad and you have to remember this is my first week of ever playing prot pally vs playing bear for years (part of why I compared the spells.) I think a large part of what might be feeling so difficult is starting out behind the curve. +2 dungeons are filled with people who are… sometimes struggling.
So while it felt squishy part of that may have something to do with the healer only doing 100K over all (I haven’t done a +2 since day one of the season so I don’t remember what these are supposed to be like although I’m pretty sure they are supposed to out heal the tank and I was doing 400k.)
I didn’t realize you had the gear and experience though otherwise I would have not said anything. I like it and the kit feels good to play (divine toll inside of wings is one of my favorite combos now in the game.) I just feel so squishy but part of that is probably not timing my mitigation CD’s or maybe its not getting enough shield of the righteous casts in.
I haven’t had mana issues at all but thats because I’m mostly using WoG only on the free procs and instead using holy power on SotR.
100%, you really feel it when DPS are not using their kit.
Yeah thats true. A change in healers and I felt safer as well.
I changed up some talents and focused on using SotR more and found I wasn’t as squishy as before, it definitely feels more in line with a bear with some more practice. In fact it seems to have the same struggle where you are in the most danger on pull so you need to pre pop a mitigation cd.
Ardent defender on pull into Divine shield with Wings and Divine toll allows for some nutty pulls. Hitting almost 2.8M dps on the pull at 600 ilvl.
For sure as well. I ran a +11 GB last night and I was on the edge of my seat because of how much self healing I had to do. We had a shaman healer who did sub-600k HPS overall HPS and I had to crank mine up to 550+ HPS to compensate.
That’s a lot of CDs all at once. I tend to be more conservative and don’t stack Ardent Defender with Wings. I use them separately for the most part. Divine Shield I also use extremely sparingly for emergency situations or pre-planned specific pulls.
I have been playing around with my talents a little at a time. Overall definitely feels tankier, but damage is lower. I made a change last night without testing it out and I think it will help.
https://www.wowhead.com/talent-calc/paladin/protection/lightsmith/DARBVAQQRVJFBUUQRIgVCQUOVVRVUURFFURgRQCUQEFVVUCAQ
This is my current set up.
Yeah as a bear trying to push out 600 hps is a seat of the pants run that I don’t care for at all.
I should have explained better its not at once but rolling.
Ardent defender while gathering 7 packs.
When AD is about to drop pop Divine shield to taunt everything and get some protection.
At 3 seconds left pop wings and divine toll to build up the absorb shield and do a ton of damage.
Obviously can’t do that in a +10 but I was testing myself in a +2 this morning.
Oh yeah I definitely misunderstood and that makes much more sense.
With the taunt on DS and being used with forbearance I’ve been messing with using it as a puller. Grab the first pack or two like normal shield into a third pack and pop it to make sure you have threat and can build up SotR and some aborbs.
I guess I’ve been looking at it a lot like a better survival instincts on bear.
I did mess up with its usage in raid though in a LFR where the other tank never taunted. I should have used BoP first to force him to take the tank mechanic. Than taunt back on my normal tank soak than used it on the third one as the forbearance doesn’t matter.
I’m still learning the kit though and trying to figure out all the things you can do with it.
Yeah just be careful with it because the taunt is only 15 yards. It also bugs sometimes on bosses where it doesn’t hold agro. The last boss of GB I have noticed does it so I make sure to manually taunt after Bubbling. I’ve bubble during his tank buster and he swapped targets and completely destroyed a DPS.
Ah good to know as I was going to use it for add gathering there.
Quick question would precasting freedom stop the knockback? I just thought about it and realized I haven’t read the tooltip enough to know offhand. Seems like a good use as you don’t have to position for tenticals than.
I wouldn’t pull more than 2 of the big guys with the little adds leading to the boss. The little guys give a shadow damage intake debuff and the corrupt ability from the big guys will wipe the group even if you survive.
Freedom doesn’t prevent knockback, it prevents and clears roots and slows. Circles close around the edge of the room so all you need to do is run into the boss’s hitbox, cause he’s gigantic, and the knock wont make you go much further than the melee attack range.
Ah ok, still good in Ara-kara and other spots.
Oh I meant the adds that are summoned by the boss during the knock back. I suppose though consecrate should still pick them up as well as any blessed hammers going. Or even save an Avengers shield.
To add to this, if an enemy ability is tied to a root/slow that also has a DoT you can essentially dispel the dot by removing the slow with Freedom.
With the new Sacrifice Talent that removes and prevents poisons and diseases, you can pre-sac someone during the last boss of Ara and it should be 1 less person that launches green balls.
Oh I see, yes you can do this I would just taunt the boss quickly just in case. I tend to save the Bubble to clear the ground of tentacles or to immune the Tank Buster if I’m out of CDs, but making sure to taunt before it goes off. It could have been fixed, but I’m not going to risk it so I just taunt to be safe.
Prot feels a lot better after the update.
My defensive cooldowns reset faster, WoG moves my health bar more, my health isn’t a ping-pong ball anymore, and my group healing has increased a lot with the new Dawnbreaker and buff to Lightforged Blessing. Also, you can easily get the Hand of the Protector talent and drop 3mil+ WoG’s on people who are low hp.
I’ve been messing around with a few talents to try and figure out what’s best for defensive usage in M+.
I would honestly like to try out Moment of Glory, but it’s impossible to budget for it without giving up something better.
Is there damage sacrifice with going more defensive?
I pug almost always, and defensive tanks with spot healing for groups are my thing. Paly, Monk, Druid.
Bit I try to run a more offensive leaning build usually so I can put up the damage
Yes, you can go full DPS and lose a lot of defensiveness or vice versa. You can also play around with it to find a middle ground that works for your needs.