Specialization : Protection in PvP

PVP Battlegrounds
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Lets get this part out out of the way, yes I do pvp as prot and I know Blizzard and other players really seem to hate that for various reasons.

But if you see someone in pvp like me “going against the grain” you don’t got to be a jerk by going out of your way to let them know prot is “not the way to play” or that they’re bad at the game (in less kind language). Chances are they already know how unviable prot pvp is.

I’ve heard enough of that just today and I’m pretty fed up. I shouldn’t be made to feel like crap because of the spec I ‘like’ to play. It’s a video game, and I pay to be here like anyone else. I get it pvp is competitive but nobody is in the big leagues running random BG’s like some how millions of dollars were on the line.

I don’t know what if anything could change that’d be less hated or in fact “less useless” as I’ve experienced today as well, damage output being catastrophically inadequate. I don’t control how squishy or DPS I am with what gear is available. I don’t know -who- decided pvp should be so biased against this choice of play style but it’s not cool to slam it any more than it already has been.

You can look at my gear and probably either laugh or be confused that I’m struggling, but as far as I’ve witnessed today the nerfs on prot are egregious. I’m fairly “seasoned” in pvp but I’m not a “follow all the meta-game stats” kind of player either though. I don’t have the focus to be that involved.

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But are you upset because prot specs are nerfed in pvp? Or because of perceived player viewpoint against playing prot specs in pvp?

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Personally, I don’t care what people play but there is a dualistic paradigm to the perspective as pertaining to this. On the flip side of your perspective, the other side is that you are also partaking in a team based cooperative. Playing a sub-optimal spec is a blanket hindrance to your team from those who complain about it.

Either way, just have fun and do your best. I’ve seen prot pallies do well.

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Obviously both. More on point hard programmed function obviously impacts perceived player reaction more than player reaction changes the former. Regardless, why is it okay for players to dump their perceptions of it on me when I don’t control programmed function beyond what the game allows?

Not any more than a player joining a BG in full greens. Or a new player getting into PvP for the first time and having no clue whats going on. It is supposed to be fun, and both of those kinds of players take some noise too.

The goal isn’t to be a hinderance, there’s only a certain type of player that goes into team based games just to ruffle feathers any way they can. I don’t care for that kind of behavior.

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I also play prot in pvp, I’ve made it to 2300 this season. Lmk if you want help :slight_smile: I also win over 95% of my randoms

I’d also be more than happy to do 2s with you on my sham

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Genuine advice how I can be better with this spec is welcome and appreciated, As is the 2’s arena.

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Your playstyle is like a really REALLY aggressive healer. Contrary to popular belief prot pally is one of the hardest healers to play in arena. 1 Mistake and you lose, and you use more globals than any other healer in the game.

Your stat priority is wrong, your talents are wrong and you’re the wrong cov for high level play.

Here is a link to my pvpcheck, it will give you all the stats/gear/legendary/talent info you need

https://check-pvp.fr/us/Moon%20Guard/Degenratebri

You stack mastery to play around your tier set, which gives you free judgements on enemy players based on your block chance. Being necro gives you 15%ish more block chance, and the auto fear for your Reign of the endless kings legendary so you can get a free wog off of the guardian proc, and they’ll be feared so they can’t easily interrupt the guardian. Allowing you to top yourself for free every minute without much opportunity to die.

Sin/Fury/Hunter/outlaw/boomy/feral/dk work great.

Your goal is to immune before the damage happens, not after. If you guardian someone at 10% hp they’re always going to die. Aggressively bubble so people want to hit you, you want to make yourself look juicy. Always ask the dps when they want to “go” in coms, and go for a cav/hoj/silence on healer.

It’s also a good idea to guardian/spellward/bop your partner when they’re bursting so they can’t be pealed.

This is how it would look in a decent MMR game. I’ve used this clip to highlight tbagging, but it gives you a good understanding of how prot arena is played.

https://clips.twitch.tv/AttractiveInspiringHamsterDogFace-wuVG_lE9vXhVPHho

In 5 seconds, I guardian the hunter so he can’t be stopped on his burst, spell warded the fury so he doesn’t get punted away, hoj’d the healer, preloaded the silence, and watched the pally for a trinket on the hoj. If the pally trinkets you immediately throw shield before they can get a global off, forcing bubble.

You then pop wings, and throw 2 necro hammers at kill target which can crit for 30-40k+

Prot pally comps are all about “set-up” when you’re doing dps/dps/prot or prot/dps in 2s. Yes this is a 3s game, but it plays the exact same in 2s.

YOU ARE NOT A TANK. YOU CANNOT RUN THE FLAG. YOU ARE A AGGRESSIVE HEALER.

This was a 1800 rbg. I was top damage and top heals.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/974686292317204510/980329105478262814/unknown.png

Hope this helps :hugs:

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It is very insightful information to doing arena.

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I’m glad!! Feel free to ask any questions, or you can add me

PAWGERS#1423

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Hey, I totally agree with you. I can’t stand it when people try to dictate how I play a game that I enjoy playing the best way I know how. It’s like people trying to tell me how to live my life. Mind your own gosh darn business and let me do things the way that I feel the most comfortable. I’m not over here telling you how to do whatever it is that you do. Embrace your individuality, folks! We play games to amuse ourselves, not others. :slight_smile:

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The best part of old expansions is how important Prot and Tanks were in PvP. You can’t have great PvP without Tanks. There is also nothing better than owning up PvP with a Shield.

WotLK was when Prot was the most fun and balanced maybe check that out.

No idea why they implemented the 50% increase damage taken in PvP it needs to be completely removed. I also think Warmode would be better if they removed ALL PvP modifiers for WPvP.

With that said enjoy playing Prot how you want, it’s your game.

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If I remember right, they increased the damage taken because of CTF in RBGs.

You would have your flag carriers go get the flag while the team fight happened. Didn’t matter who won. Tanks were unkillable until 10 stacks or so.

Both teams would sit at their graveyards and wait for stacks to get up. Then you would go into another team fight. By that point the timer is halfway through :rofl:

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Tanks were not unkillable until there were 2 healers with them. The problem wasn’t the tanks but that the team’s damage and control had to be split between 3 priority targets (the guy holding the flag and the 2 people keeping him alive). The exact same problem arises if you remove the tank from the equation and simply add in another healer to hold the flag.

Healers are far more problematic in PVP than tanks and become exponentially more problematic in greater numbers. If a bunch of tanks group up together you’re not going to notice much difference from a tank by himself.

People like to cry about tanks and how they slow down the pace of PVP while healers are doing for themselves and their entire team what a tank does for himself. Prot Paladin is a unique case in that its ability to off-heal isn’t too far behind true healers, but so far Blizz has been extremely quick to pull the trigger on nerfing Prot Paladin every time it creeps into a competitive stage while the same 4 or 5 specs are allowed to lord over PVP for literally years at a time.

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Watching tanks get upset amuses me. 10/10 post.

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people choose tank spec while leveling. it gives them a false sense of security because of the extra stamina. it’s usually slow reaction players because they need the extra hit points. need to be able to soak up damage while keyboard turning and clicking specials. i see it at 50 every day. my toons range fron 16-18k and leveling players with a 70 ilvl choose tank spec to pvp but have 14k hp lol.
on a related note i had to wait an hour and a half for a heroic dungeon at 50 when it finally popped our “tank” had 15k hp and wiped twice on trash mobs in mechagon. they got mad when i pointed out how bad this run was going and they said “i get instant pops bye” and left the group so i tanked the rest and every boss in a 4 man group on my enhance sham.

you’re overrated. dying slow isnt pvp. if you need a tank to hold a flag that means your offense is doo doo.

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And you’re basing this on what exactly? Because slow reaction, keyboard turning, and backpedaling seems far more prevalent in ranged dps players from my experience. And are you seriously going to try to argue that a little more health is a more effective set of training wheels than being able to PVE into your target from 40 yrds away?

Healers make a living out of it, actually. But prot PVP isn’t about dying slow. It’s about effectively disrupting the enemy team to create an advantage for your own team.

Just looking at a scoreboard you might see yourself having killed an enemy FC and returned the flag, but you won’t see anything about the fact that the only reason you were able to do so is because I hit both of his healers in Sigil of Silence and was able follow up with an Imprison on one and chain Illidan’s Grasp into 30 yrd throw into Sigil of Misery on the other.

Even on maps where there are no flags involved, if you disrupt the enemy team well enough you become a priority target. All the damage and CC that gets thrown at you is damage and CC not being thrown at your allies. The challenge is being able to balance your disruption of the enemy team, drawing their fire, and being able to survive without becoming a detriment to your team by OOMing your healers, assuming they bother healing you at all.

And how exactly is an undergeared tank in a heroic dungeon at lvl 50 in any way related to Prot in PVP? You’re so eager to try to trash the tank spec you can’t even stay on topic. Just admit that you have no rational argument.

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See that after that I couldn’t take you serious :rofl:.

But no, they really were unkillable and it made the games completely boring. Heeler’s jobs are to heal. A tank does not have an actual job in PvP. As much as they really want to think that they have one and a place they just don’t.

But they added the damage increase taken because of what was going on. In rated. I mean people sitting in a game AFK for close to half the game waiting for stacks.

And also they made tanks just incredibly easy for anyone which I think is the problem. This does go into PVE but it’s still transfers to PvP. If a heeler dies, the tank can continue a entire fight without a healer if he knows what he is doing. It’s not like in the old days where the group would wipe and try again. Now you take all that amount of self-healing and mitigation that they give tanks and now add it to PvP.

Most players just see tanks as a gimmick. It’s just a spec people roll because they are hard to kill.

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None of that long winded rant had anything to do with playing a tank in endgame pvp.

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It should be for lvl 60 only (if that). Low level tanks don’t have all their mitigation available so they just get 1-2 shot. It makes no sense. I feel guilty every time I chaos bolt a leveling tank, they just get deleted.

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I would like to hear what you find inaccurate about the statement.

As I mentioned earlier, a tank’s job is to disrupt the enemy team to create an advantage for your own team. Doing this well enough draws fire from your allies, which was a good thing before they went overboard with how much extra damage tanks take in PVP because you were better suited to mitigate damage.

In the existence of the game there have only been 1 or 2 tanks viable in PVP at a time. The problem was not the tanks, but the healers. The 1 or 2 outlier tanks could have been addressed individually without the entire role being nuked from orbit. Dampening remained a necessity with or without tanks until this expansion where players have the life expectancy of a first person shooter.

This is probably the most laughable comment I have ever seen on the forums. Playing a tank in PVP right now is the PVP equivalent of the Mage Tower. Unless you’re a Guardian with a busted Legendary, you are quite literally playing the game on challenge mode. There’s a reason you see 971239874 Fire Mages, Warlocks, Hunters, and Rogues in competitive PVP but maybe 7 tanks across all specs.

You’re talking about a matter of fight mechanics. If tanks were as powerful as you claim them to be there would be no need for a healer as long as you had competent dps. But the fact is that you don’t see groups running 1 tank and 4 dps without significantly overgearing the content.

I agree that’s how most people view tanks, but it’s a narrow-minded point of view that is sorely lacking in rational thought or fundamental understanding of what tanks can bring to the table when they’re not taking so much additional damage that they’re more fragile than the dps.

Simple logic SHOULD dictate that anyone with a problem with tanks in PVP would be far more outraged at the existence of healers, but this is not the case. Never mind that dampening exists because of healers. Never mind that for the majority of the lifespan of the game, victory or defeat in a BG was often determined by who had more healers.

You couldn’t be bothered to comprehend that all you had to do was deprive the tank a melee target while your ranged dps burst him down so the role must be forever rendered useless.

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