Protection Paladin Mythic+ Guide

Welcome to the Protection Paladin Mythic+ guide for the World of Warcraft patch 11.1.5! This guide covers everything you need to know to understand your character! Are you starting out and leveling up from 70? Check out the leveling guide!

Protection PaladinMythic+

Single-Target

Average

AoE

Strong

Utility

Excellent

Survivability

Strong

Mobility

Average

• Both Lightsmith and Templar are very competitive choices. The new tier set has more synergies with Templar and it outperforms Lightsmith on big AOE. Therefore, for Mythic+ as Protection Paladin we recommend Templar.

Tier Set

• 2-Set: Each time you take damage you have a chance to activate Luck of the Draw! causing you to cast Guardian of Ancient Kings for 4.0 sec. Your damage done is increased by 15% for 10 sec after Luck of the Draw! activates.
• 4-Set: While you have Luck of the Draw! Shield of the Righteous refunds 1-3 Holy Power and extends the duration of Luck of the Draw! by 0.5 sec, up to 10 sec.

Opener

• The goal of your opener as a Protection Paladin playing in Mythic+ is to get aggro of all enemies as fast as possible by doing a lot of AoE damage, while also making sure you're standing in ‍Consecration all the time.

Priority List

Defensive Cooldowns

• Ardent Defender
  • Your primary defensive cooldown.
  • With Unbreakable Spirit and Resolute Defender, its low cooldown makes it ideal for frequent use.
  • Includes a cheat death component, allowing survival against extreme hits.
• Eye of Tyr
  • Applies a debuff to enemies within 8 yards, reducing their damage dealt to you
  • With Inmost Light talented, use it on cooldown for both mitigation and AoE damage.
  • Does not reduce environmental damage.
• Guardian of Ancient Kings
  • Biggest damage reduction ability in your toolkit.
• Blessing of Spellwarding
  • Grants immunity to magic damage and prevents application of magic debuffs.
  • Can be used for yourself or for others players.
  • Does not cause you to lose threat while active, unlike Blessing of Protection.
• Divine Shield
  • If used appropriately, this is your most powerful defensive that allows you to completely immune some mechanics. For more details check out the Deep Dive.
  • Final Stand allows you to keep threat of nearby enemies while Divine Shield is active.

Offensive Cooldowns

• Avenging Wrath
  • In most cases try to use Avenging Wrath on cooldown to make the most of the cooldown reduction from Righteous Protector.
  • Situationally (but very rarely), delaying a use to better align it with damage-amp phases or incoming adds can be beneficial.
• Divine Toll
  • Briefly delaying for incoming adds offers more value, otherwise use on cooldown.
• Bastion of Light
  • 2 minute cooldown that makes your next 5 casts of Judgment generate 2 extra Holy Power.
  • Provides increased cooldown reduction on most of your toolkit when active, so ideally use it inside of Avenging Wrath, or when it's on cooldown.
• Eye of Tyr
  • Becomes an important offensive cooldown with Templar.
  • Use on cooldown to activate Hammer of Light.
  • Consider holding for defensive purposes if needed.

Holy Shield and Spell Block

• Holy Shield enables Protection Paladins to block spell damage - a unique advantage compared to most tanks. This effect however is not guaranteed - it relies on your block chance, which is influenced by your Mastery: Divine Bulwark and certain talents:
  • Improved Holy Shield passively increases chance to block spells by 8%.
  • Barricade of Faith grants 10% block chance for 10 seconds after casting Avenger's Shield.
  • Faith in the Light grants 30% (with 2 talent points spent) block chance for 6 seconds after casting Word of Glory.
• Combining all these effects you can gain up to 48% increased block chance against spells for short amount of time. With high enough levels of mastery to reach 52% block chance baseline, you can guarantee that certain mechanics are going to be blocked. You need:
  • ~9400 mastery with a Skyfury buff from a shaman in your group.
  • ~10600 mastery without it.
• Note that this does not result in 100% physical block chance — the 8% bonus from Holy Shield only applies to spells, so full physical block coverage requires even more mastery.
• Building toward full spell block is a niche setup that’s only worth it in specific scenarios, such as bosses or mobs with frequent heavy blockable magic hits. Examples in Season 2 are:
  • Electrocrush on Big M.O.M.M.A. in Operation: Floodgate.
  • Magic part of Reaping Scythe on Mordretha in Theater of Pain.
  • Blazing Strike on Sir Braunpyke in Priory of the Sacred Flame.

Consecration and Movement

• Aim to maintain 100% uptime on Consecration to benefit from passive damage reduction.
• The best way to optimize uptime is by planning your movement to account for Consecration placement when possible. Don't randomly move out of an already existing Consecration if you can safely stay in it and still hit the mobs.
• Sanctuary helps significantly in movement-heavy fights, causing Consecration effect to persist for 4 seconds after you leave it.
• As Templar, Hammer of Light automatically places a Consecration each time it's used.
  • This helps maintain uptime without spending a GCD on casting Consecration, allowing you to fit in more impactful abilities like Judgment or Hammer of Wrath.
  • The Consecration is placed under your target, not yourself — something to be mindful of when positioning for its defensive benefit.

Utilizing Blessing of Protection and Blessing of Spellwarding

• Properly utilizing Blessing of Protection and Blessing of Spellwarding allows you to immune dangerous mechanics entirely, even if they are not targeted at you.
• Both Blessing of Protection and Blessing of Spellwarding share a cooldown.
• Blessing of Protection can be used to make a player that is fixated by enemies immune to physical damage, allowing them to maintain uptime on the boss and focus on DPS or healing instead of kiting.
• It also removes existing physical debuffs (e.g., bleeds) and stuns, while also preventing new ones from being applied.
• Blessing of Spellwarding on the other hand, does not remove existing magical debuffs — it only prevents new ones from being applied while active.
• Clever use of Blessing of Spellwarding or Blessing of Protection can save your teammates, often preventing wipes.
• Note that Blessing of Protection causes threat loss for its duration. Blessing of Spellwarding does not have same effect, so you can safely use it on yourself while actively tanking.

Using Hand of Reckoning with Divine Shield and Blessing of Protection

• Using Hand of Reckoning right before or during the effect of Divine Shield or Blessing of Protection allows you to keep threat of your target for the duration of Hand of Reckoning.
• This leads to you being immune - fully in case of Divine Shield, or against physical damage in case of Blessing of Protection - while still tanking the boss. It allows you to achieve the effect of Final Stand on single target without the need of talenting into it, but only for 3 seconds.
• On most typical boss fights these 3 seconds are enough to cheese tank mechanics - for example immune bursty tank hits or avoid tank debuff applications.
• To safely achieve this effect:
  1. Briefly before the tank mechanic (less than 3 seconds) use Hand of Reckoning on the boss.
  2. Use Divine Shield or Blessing of Protection on yourself.
  3. Wait for the boss to cast the mechanic you want to immune.
  4. Cancel Divine Shield or Blessing of Protection before the effect of Hand of Reckoning expires using a following macro:

/cancelaura Blessing of Protection  
/cancelaura Divine Shield

• Keep in mind that Blessing of Protection will only immune purely physical hits. It will only negate the physical part of the damage on mechanics of mixed type, and will not work at all against magic damage.
• Note that you will only keep threat on the target affected by your Hand of Reckoning which makes this technique only applicable on single target encounters.

Understanding Mechanics

Rotational min-maxing is just one aspect of mastering a specialization, but there are numerous other key mechanics that influence your performance. Use the following guides to improve them.

• Pandemic
• Spell Queue Window
• Stat Diminishing Returns

← Scroll for more Bosses →

Affixes

The Affix system got changed going into The War Within Season 1 retiring most Affixes as well as introducing new kiss-curse ones while also changing on which key level these appear.

• +4 Affixes -- Rotates on weekly basis
  • Xal'atath's Bargain: Ascendant
  • Xal'atath's Bargain: Voidbound
  • Xal'atath's Bargain: Devour
  • Xal'atath's Bargain: Pulsar
• +7 Affix -- Alternates between each other on a weekly basis
  • Tyrannical
  • Fortified
• +10 Affixes -- Alternates between each other on a weekly basis, is always the opposite of the +7 Affix
  • Tyrannical
  • Fortified
• +12 Affix
  • Xal'atath's Guile -- Replaces the +4 Affix

Following you get some useful tips for handling different Mythic+ Affixes as a Protection Paladin.

• Xal'atath's Bargain: Ascendant
  • Blinding Light as many orbs as possible.
• Xal'atath's Bargain: Voidbound
  • The Void Emissary follows you, keep it close to cleave and target it whenever its up.
• Xal'atath's Bargain: Devour
  • Cleanse Toxins yourself whenever its applied to yourself.

Understand your secondary stat priority and the tertiary stats needed for optimal performance during Dungeons as a Protection Paladin. For more detailed information, visit the Stats and Attributes guide.

Survivability

Damage

All secondary stats are affected by diminishing returns. Click here to learn more!

Tertiary

• Avoidance - Great stat to reduce the damage intake of "Area of Effect" abilities.
• Leech - Provides additional healing through damage dealing.
• Speed - Niche tertiary that can be very useful and has been proven useful in the past. This makes managing certain mechanics a lot easier.

In general, Leech is really strong for tanks in Mythic+. It can be by far the best stat you can have and allows you to ‍Word of Glory yourself less, which frees up more globals for other things and allows you to do more damage!

Trinkets

Below you can find active and passive alternatives to our recommended trinkets. Do note that some trinkets are better than others depending on the Raid boss.

Active Trinket alternatives

• Ringing Ritual Mud
  • A great alternative to Chromebustible Bomb Suit.
• House of Cards
  • Provides you with a massive mastery buff for 15 seconds which can be used in combination with Avenging Wrath and Moment of Glory since they share an almost similar cooldown.

Passive Trinket alternatives

• Cinderbrew Stein
  • A defensive trinket that will passively give you absorb shields, as well as primary stat to you and your allies. Comes with a downside of giving a lot less primary stat in comparison to other trinkets of the same item level.
• Eye of Kezan
  • A good passive trinket that loses a lot of value in mythic+ because its stacks drop of from leaving combat which often occurs in dungeons.
• Tome of Light's Devotion
  • Passive trinket that has its biggest value offensively, make sure to always have the "The 50 Verses of Radiance" buff up.

Embellishments

• 2x Dawnthread Lining.
  • Craft preferred on Wrists, Boots, Waist or Cloak depending on your available gear.

A good option for early season is crafting a 675 weapon with Darkmoon Sigil: Symbiosis and a 675 Shield with Writhing Armor Banding. As soon as you get access to a 678 weapon and shield this option loses value compared to 2x Dawnthread Lining.

• Darkmoon Sigil: Symbiosis
  • Passive secondary stats with almost 100% uptime.
  • Has to be crafted on a weapon.
• Writhing Armor Banding
  • Empowering your Darkmoon Sigil: Symbiosis.
  • On Wrists, Boots, Waist or Cloak depending on your available gear.

Remaining Sparks

• Crafted items are 675 item level and regular items are 678 on max item level, therefore, it's a small loss to equip crafted items outside of your 2x Embellishments unless you don't have access to other high item level gear on that slot.

Simcraft

To find the best combination of gear available to you or identify the best possible upgrades, visit our Simcraft guide to learn how to utilize Simcraft easily and effectively.

• Phials
  • Flask of Tempered Swiftness -- less DPS but more survivability.
• Food
  • Feast of the Divine Day
• Combat Potion
  • Tempered Potion
  • Potion Bomb of Power -- group potion, this is a DPS loss for you.
• Health Potion
  • Algari Healing Potion
• Weapon Stone/Oil
  • Rite of Sanctification -- as Lightsmith in every situation
  • Ironclaw Whetstone -- as Templar if you have a bladed weapon
  • Ironclaw Weightstone -- as Templar if you have a blunt weapon
• Augment Rune
  • Crystallized Augment Rune
• Sockets
  • Deadly Emerald
  • Culminating Blasphemite -- Unique, use one of each gem colour to enhance your Blasphemite.
    • Quick Onyx
    • Quick Ruby
    • Quick Sapphire
  • Culminating Blasphemite is the best raw output option but using ‍Elusive Blasphemite can help you maintain uptime and dodge mechanics easier. This is an extremely minor dps gain in exchange for a valuable 10% movement speed.

Enchantments

or min-maxing a Protection Paladin in Mythic+ Dungeons, different racial traits can provide a tremendous benefit to your characters. If this is not your top goal, picking a race that fits your style works just as well.

• Stoneform -- Dwarf
  • Might of the Mountain gives 2% crit damage and healing, which is very strong for Protection Paladin.
  • Valuable due to the fact that you can dispel yourself or remove dangerous bleed effects.
  • Gives 10% physical DR which can be like a small extra personal as a tank for 8 seconds.
• War Stomp -- Tauren
  • Strong AoE stun that can be used as a stop that lasts for 2 seconds.
  • Brawn gives 2% crit damage and healing
• Arcane Torrent -- Blood Elf
  • Strong racial to dispel or purge enemies, the value is very limited but sometimes can come in handy.

Recommendation

II almost always play Dwarf since they are the overall strongest offensive (tied with Tauren) race, as well as being the strongest defensively because of Stoneform ability to remove nasty debuffs.

Discover recommended macros for Protection Paladin for Mythic+ and watch a quick video guide on creating simple macros for your character.

Macro Import Guide Video

Taunt Macros

Taunt at Mouseover --- Mouseover macro for Hand of Reckoning (Taunt) that allows you to get aggro easily from targets that just come into view or spawn without having to change target. If you have no mouseover it taunts your primary target.

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead][]Hand of Reckoning

Boss 1 Taunt --- Casts Hand of Reckoning on Boss1

/cast [@boss1] Hand of Reckoning

Boss 2 Taunt --- Casts Hand of Reckoning on Boss2

/cast [@boss2] Hand of Reckoning

Mouseover Macros

Focus Macros

Utility Macros

Player Macros

Below, you see a screenshot of the author's User Interface for their Protection Paladin, outlining which addons are used and how they are utilized in Mythic+ to make your life easier.

Addons

Weakauras

Patch 11.1

Q: Why do I keep dying?

Credits

Written By: Tief

Reviewed By: Miniaug