Protection Paladin Raid Guide
Protection Paladin Raid Guide
11.1.5 - Nightfall
Welcome to the Protection Paladin raid 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!
Overview
Protection Paladin
Protection PaladinRaid
Hero Talents
Protection Paladin
- Both Lightsmith and Templar are strong choices for Protection Paladin. However, Templar pulls ahead due to its strong synergy with the current tier set bonus, and better performance during downtime windows that are common in raid encounters. Therefore, for raiding as Protection Paladin, we recommend Templar.
Templar
Lightsmith
- After casting Eye of Tyr, it is replaced with Hammer of Light for 12 seconds.
- Hammer of Light costs 3 Holy Power and deals high AoE damage.
- You should cast Eye of Tyr and then use Hammer of Light on cooldown. This changes Eye of Tyr to be more of an offensive spell.
- Shake the Heavens triggers an Empyrean Hammer on a nearby target every 2 seconds, for 8 seconds after using Hammer of Light.
- Higher Calling extends Shake the Heavens by 1 second every time you cast:
- Blessed Hammer / Hammer of the Righteous
- Judgment
- Hammer of Wrath
- Hammerfall causes your Shield of the Righteous and Word of Glory to call down an Empyrean Hammer on a nearby target. While Shake the Heavens is active, this effect calls down an additional Empyrean Hammer.
- Light's Deliverance allows you to cast Hammer of Light for free after triggering Empyrean Hammer 60 times.
- Undisputed Ruling changes Eye of Tyr to generate 3 Holy Power. Additionally, it makes Hammer of Light to:
- Give 12% haste for 6 seconds.
- Grant Shield of the Righteous.
- Place a Consecration under your target.
- Wrathful Descent causes Empyrean Hammer critical strikes to cleave to another target and grants you 5% damage reduction for 8 seconds against affected mobs. This effect significantly increases the value of critical strike in cleave and AoE situations.
- Unrelenting Charger fixes a lot of mobility issues for Protection Paladin by providing a 2 second longer Divine Steed and increasing your movement speed by an additional 30% for the first 3 seconds.
- As Lightsmith you receive Holy Armaments, which alternates between:
- Holy Bulwark: An absorb shield for 15% your maximum health, gaining an additional 2% absorb every 2 seconds for 20 seconds.
- Sacred Weapon: A damaging buff that has a chance to deal Holy damage to nearby enemies and lasts 20 seconds. The effect is increased on single-target and reduced when striking more than 5 targets.
- Holy Armaments has 2 charges and rotates from Holy Bulwark to Sacred Weapon.
- Both armaments can be cast on yourself or an ally. With Solidarity, casting it on an ally also grants you the effect, and vice versa.
- Blessing of the Forge:
- Activating Avenging Wrath summon an additional Sacred Weapon.
- This additional Sacred Weapon deals extra damage by echoing your Holy Power abilities.
- This makes Avenging Wrath an even stronger cooldown.
- Divine Inspiration can randomly trigger a Holy Armaments effect on a nearby ally.
- Blessed Assurance increases the damage of Blessed Hammer / Hammer of the Righteous by 100% after casting a Holy Power ability.
- Rite of Sanctification is a buff to armor and primary stat that replaces weapon oils.
Talents
Protection Paladin
Standard Build
When to use this spec
This is the default loadout going into any boss unless specified otherwise. You have to adjust the class talent tree based on the utility needed for the encounter. To make your life easier, boss-specific talent loadouts are available in the Raids section.
Gameplay Altering Talents
Discover all talents that significantly alter your gameplay within the Spec and Class Talent trees. This section gives a concise overview of these talents and their applications but for a more detailed look check out the Rotation and Deep Dive sections below.
Spec Tree
- Righteous Protector
- Reduces cooldowns of Guardian of Ancient Kings and Avenging Wrath, greatly improving their uptime.
- Blessing of Spellwarding
- Used to completely immune magic damage and prevent debuff applications on yourself or your allies .
- Consecration in Flame
- Extends Consecration duration by 2 seconds and increases its damage by 20%. This makes Consecration last 14 seconds, making it easier to weave into the rest of your abilities without having to worry about refreshing it very often unless there is heavy movement.
- Sanctuary
- The effects of Consecration persists for 4 seconds after leaving, which makes heavy movement more manageable.
- Sanctified Wrath
- Increases Avenging Wrath duration to 25 seconds.
- Boosts Judgment's Holy Power generation by 1.
- Shining Light
- Makes your Word of Glory free after 3 Shield of the Righteous casts, stacking up to 2 free uses.
Class Tree
- Light's Revocation
- Allows the use of Divine Shield even when you have Forbearance debuff.
- Resolute Defender
- Significantly increases uptime on your strongest defensive cooldowns - Ardent Defender and Divine Shield.
- Cavalier
- This talent gives Divine Steed 2 charges, which makes planning movement much easier.
- Divine Purpose
- Holy Power spenders have a chance to make your next Word of Glory or Shield of the Righteous free and deal 15% increased damage and healing.
- Divine Toll
- Casts Avenger's Shield on up to 5 targets, generating 1 Holy Power for every target hit.
- Instantly casts an Avenger's Shield every 5 seconds for 15 seconds via Divine Resonance (if talented).
- Powerful burst for AoE threat, Holy Power generation, and utility.
Rotation
Protection Paladin
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 a Raid is to minmax damage. Use high damage generators inside your offensive cooldowns, such as;Judgment and Hammer of Wrath, while also making sure you're standing in Consecration at all times.
Templar
Lightsmith
- Cast Eye of Tyr on cooldown to be able to cast Hammer of Light as often as possible and keep high uptime on Shake the Heavens.
- Important thing to note when using Sacred Weapon is that it cannot stack. This means that the Sacred Weapon that spawns from Avenging Wrath should be used first and the normal cast one used later after the first one has run out.
- This can also occur with Divine Inspiration, so be careful and make sure you track this buff well.
- Other than the above, use Holy Armaments off cooldown.
Priority List
Templar
Lightsmith
- Always stand in Consecration for damage reduction, aiming for 100% uptime.
- Use Avenging Wrath on cooldown.
- If talented, use Bastion of Light on cooldown.
- Use Judgment if you have 2 charges.
- Use Hammer of Light after using Eye of Tyr or with 60 stacks of Light's Deliverance
- Use Shield of the Righteous at 3-5 Holy Power.
- Use Eye of Tyr.
- Use Hammer of Wrath.
- Use Divine Toll.
- Use Avenger's Shield.
- Use Judgment.
- Use Blessed Hammer as filler.
- Refresh Consecration.
- Always stand in Consecration for damage reduction, aiming for 100% uptime.
- Use Avenging Wrath on cooldown.
- If talented, cast Bastion of Light and Moment of Glory on cooldown.
- Use Judgment if you have 2 charges.
- Use Shield of the Righteous at 3-5 Holy Power.
- Consume Blessed Assurance with Hammer of the Righteous or Blessed Hammer
- Use Sacred Weapon if the remaining cooldown on Avenging Wrath is more than 20 seconds; you don't already have a Sacred Weapon active, or it's remaining duration is less than 6 seconds.
- Use Hammer of Wrath on single-target.
- Use Divine Toll.
- Use Avenger's Shield.
- Use Judgment.
- Use Hammer of Wrath on AOE.
- Use Blessed Hammer whenever you cannot press anything else.
- Refresh Consecration.
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.
Deep Dive
Protection Paladin
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 with frequent heavy blockable magic hits. Examples in Liberation of Undermine are:
- Meltdown on Stix Bunkjunker.
- Pyro Party Pack on Sprocketmonger Lockenstock.
- Focused Detonation on Gallywix.
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 hit the boss.
- 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 and accelerating boss progression.
- 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:
- Briefly before the tank mechanic (less than 3 seconds) use Hand of Reckoning on the boss.
- Use Divine Shield or Blessing of Protection on yourself.
- Wait for the boss to cast the mechanic you want to immune.
- 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.
Liberation of Undermine
Protection Paladin
The following tips are applicable to Mythic Bosses and how to survive those the best. The recommended builds in this section are going to help you survive each encounter but are not giving you the most damage output.
← Scroll for more Bosses →
Vexie
Cauldron
Rik
Stix
Sprocketmonger
One-Armed Bandit
Mug'zee
Gallywix
Tank mechanics
- Tank Buster is the only tank mechanic of this fight
- This mechanic does physical damage, knocks the active tank back and leaves a physical bleed on them. On Heroic and Mythic difficulties it also leaves an Oil Slick.
- As the inactive tank, taunt when the cast succeeds and move the boss out of the Oil Slick.
Boss Tips and Tricks
- Position the boss in such a way that there are no Oil Slick pools between the boss and the abandoned Geargrinder bikes. Otherwise the launched bikes will get stunned in the pools, which will prevent them from removing Protective Plating.
- Make sure to interrupt Repair casts during the intermission with Rebuke and Avenger's Shield. This will ensure that the damage taken increase from Mechanical Breakdown stays on the boss as long as possible.
Tank mechanics
- Flarendo will cast Eruption Stomp on the active tank.
- This is a heavy magic hit, have a big defensive ready such as Guardian of Ancient Kings or Divine Shield.
- Torq will cast Lightning Bash on the active tank.
- This is a big physical hit, part of unmitigated damage is additionally dealt to you as nature damage, meaning you need to mitigate as much of it as possible.
- Every time Colossal Clash happens, swap sides and taunt swap the bosses with your co-tank.
Boss Tips and Tricks
- Make sure to help your group soak every Scrapbomb on Flarendo side.
Tank mechanics
- Sonic Blast deals sonic damage in a frontal cone with every melee attack, and applies a stack of Tinnitus.
- Rotate your defensive cooldowns whenever you are tanking the boss.
- Keep an eye out for Tinnitus stacks on your co-tank. Try to keep them from going over 4 stacks, but do not taunt back before your own debuff fades.
- Never face the boss towards the raid so it does not cleave other players with the tank mechanic.
- Do not be in front of the boss when you are not actively tanking to not accidentally extend your stacks.
- Resonance forces you to always keep the boss at least 15 yards apart from Amplifiers. Any of them gaining too much additional power can lead to a raid wipe. This means you have to move the boss away from new spawned Amplifiers after each Amplification! cast.
Boss Tips and Tricks
- Try to move the boss close to Pyrotechnics after Sparkblast Ignition cast to allow an efficient cleave on them. However, keep an eye on nearby Amplifiers - its better to give up on good cleave than to give additional power to an Amplifier.
Tank mechanic
- This fight consists out of 3 tank mechanics - Demolish, Meltdown and Rolling Rubbish
- While Demolish and Meltdown are the two tank hits the boss does, Rolling Rubbish is the main mechanic of the fight, that the active tank is forced into when the boss starts casting Electromagnetic Sorting.
- The boss always does Demolish into Electromagnetic Sorting followed by Meltdown so make sure that the off-tank taunts the boss after the main tank has been hit by both Demolish and Rolling Rubbish.
- While affected by Rolling Rubbish make sure to roll over as many Garbage Dump as possible and then straight into the boss for maximum amount of damage.
- Using Divine Shield with Final Stand talented can help you get threat on incoming Junkyard Hyenas.
Tank mechanics
- Melee hits of Lockenstock apply a stack of Gravi-Gunk to the active tank.
- Use defensives at high stacks of this debuff.
- Do not get caught off guard by the movement speed slow from this mechanic.
- Pyro Party Pack is a raid-wide AOE that deals fall off damage.
- As the active tank - move away from the raid with this mechanic to minimize the incoming damage to the group.
- As inactive tank - taunt when the cast succeeds.
Boss Tips and Tricks
- Use Blessing of Freedom on yourself or you co-tank whenever they have to run away from the group with Pyro Party Pack to get rid of the slow from Gravi-Gunk.
Tank mechanics
- The Big Hit is the main tank mechanic of the fight
- The ability does heavy physical damage and leaves a Shocking Field at your location shortly after dealing damage.
- Make sure to not stack any Shocking Field on top of each other, as they will jump out and cause more area denial.
- As the inactive tank, you can taunt at any point during the cast or after it is over as it does not change targets.
- With high enough levels of haste Ardent Defender is available for every The Big Hit, which enables you to use your other defensives freely throughout the fight.
- The ability does heavy physical damage and leaves a Shocking Field at your location shortly after dealing damage.
- Some of the Token combinations will spawn a Coil as a Fabulous Prize. Activating them will do physical damage to you, knock you back, clear the 2 closest Shocking Field, and have an extra effect based on the type of the coil:
- Coils always spawn at the position of an active tank, so be aware of your position when Fabulous Prize is dispensed. It is recommended to place them at the edges of the room to make it easier for the group to deal with the coil mechanics.
- Use these Coils throughout the fight to clean the room if needed.
- Have Shield of the Righteous and a defensive up whenever you have to click a coil.
Boss Tips and Tricks
- Position the boss on top of new adds after each Spin To Win! cast.
Tank mechanics
- This boss has two tank mechanics, Molten Gold Knuckles and Double Whammy Shot.
- Molten Gold Knuckles does high physical damage and low magic damage, it also knocks you back and applies Golden Drip.
- You will be affected with 30 stacks of Golden Drip. To remove these, you simply have to keep moving your character. Until all the stacks are removed you will be taking heavy magic damage, so use Blessing of Spellwarding or Divine Shield to keep yourself alive.
- Double Whammy Shot is targeted on a random player in the raid, as a tank you have to stand in between the boss and the targeted player and try to mitigate as much damage as possible when the shot goes off.
- Ego Check is the tank mechanic that happens throughout the whole fight.
- It is a big physical hit, with unmitigated damage being stored as Checked Ego - a heavy hitting physical dot.
- Try to mitigate the initial hit as much as possible to reduce the dot damage.
Phase 1
- Bigger Badder Bomb Blast is a big hit, doing a mix of physical and magic damage.
- Go away from raid with this to not cleave people with the circle.
- Bigger Badder Bomb Blast spawns 4 1500-Pound "Dud", these need to be soaked by a tank.
- Interacting with a Dud knocks you back and applies a stack of Focused Detonation to you - a heavy magic dot.
- Try to soak these as fast as possible to minimize uptime of Focused Detonation.
- Divine Shield and Blessing of Spellwarding are very strong tools to deal with the heavy dot - use these as soon as you get to 4 stacks.
- Alternatively, use the immunities earlier to soak the Duds placed in mechanics like Giga Blast or Overloaded Rockets.
- Beware that the initial damage of activating a Dud pierces immunities - so you might die even while Divine Shield is active.
Phase 2
- Scatterbomb Canisters is a frontal soak cone. Aim it at the assigned side of the platform and don't move unnecessarily before it goes off, so people are able to soak it.
- Some casts are overlapping with a lot of void-zones on the ground - use Divine Shield after Scatterbomb Canisters cast has started to be able to stand still and prevent the frontal from changing directions.
Stat Priority
Protection Paladin
Understand your secondary stat priority and the tertiary stats needed for optimal performance during Raid as a Protection Paladin. For more detailed information, visit the Stats and Attributes guide.
Survivability
Damage
Higher Item level items are better in most scenarios. For an accurate representation of what item to equip you should use Simcraft! A static "Stat Priority" is just a starting point and can easily shift depending on your individual gear.
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. Makes playing certain mechanics a lot easier.
In general, Leech is really strong for tanks. Avoidance is great but most of the time tanks are not struggling to survive the typical Area of Effect abilities.
Gear
Protection Paladin
Overall BiS
Farmable Alternatives
| Slot | Item | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Head | Fullthrottle Facerig | Vexie and the Geargrinders |
| Neck | Semi-Charmed Amulet | Rik Reverb |
| Shoulder | Aureate Sentry's Roaring Will | Tier / Catalyst |
| Cloak | Undercircuit Racing Flag | Vexie and the Geargrinders |
| Chest | Aureate Sentry's Encasement | Tier / Catalyst |
| Wrist | Everforged Vambraces | Crafting |
| Gloves | Aureate Sentry's Gauntlets | Tier / Catalyst |
| Belt | Venture Contractor's Floodlight | Operation: Floodgate |
| Legs | Aureate Sentry's Legguards | Tier / Catalyst |
| Boots | Everforged Sabatons | Crafting |
| Ring 1 | Miniature Roulette Wheel | The One-Armed Bandit |
| Ring 2 | The Jastor Diamond | Chrome King Gallywix |
| Trinket 1 | Eye of Kezan | Chrome King Gallywix |
| Trinket 2 | Chromebustible Bomb Suit | Chrome King Gallywix |
| Weapon | Rail Rider's Bisector | Darkflame Cleft |
| Shield | Titan of Industry | Chrome King Gallywix |
Below you are presented with a good list of farmable alternatives that are obtainable outside of WoW’s weekly lockout system. While replaced in time as you progress, these offer immediate character power.
| Slot | Item | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Head | Waxsteel Greathelm | Darkflame Cleft |
| Neck | Strapped Rescue-Keg | Cinderbrew Meadery |
| Shoulder | Skyscorcher Pauldrons | The MOTHERLODE!! |
| Cloak | Cloak of Questionable Intent | The MOTHERLODE!! |
| Chest | Slashproof Business Plate | Cinderbrew Meadery |
| Wrist | Fuzzy Cindercuffs | Cinderbrew Meadery |
| Gloves | Jumpstarter's Scaffold-Scrapers | Operation: Floodgate |
| Belt | Venture Contractor's Floodlight | Operation: Floodgate |
| Legs | Galvanized Oxxein Legguards | Theater of Pain |
| Boots | Sabatons of Rampaging Elements | The MOTHERLODE!! |
| Ring 1 | Wick's Golden Loop | Darkflame Cleft |
| Ring 2 | Bloodoath Signet | Theater of Pain |
| Trinket 1 | Tome of Light's Devotion | Priory of the Sacred Flame |
| Trinket 2 | Ringing Ritual Mud | Operation: Floodgate |
| Weapon | Rail Rider's Bisector | Darkflame Cleft |
| Shield | Barricade of the Endless Empire | Theater of Pain |
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
- Improvised Seaforium Pacemaker
- Passive stat stick that gives you critical strike with close to 50% uptime.
- 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 Elemental Focusing Lens.
- Craft preferred on Rings, Neck, Bracers.
- It's possible to put on any crafted piece.
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 Elemental Focusing Lens.
- 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, Hands 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.
Consumables
Protection Paladin
- Phials
- Flask of Tempered Swiftness
- Food
- Feast of the Divine Day
- Combat Potion
- Tempered Potion
- 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
| Head | S.A.D. |
| Neck | Magnificent Jeweler's Setting 2x |
| Cloak | Enchant Cloak - Chant of Winged Grace |
| Chest | Enchant Chest - Crystalline Radiance |
| Wrist | Enchant Bracer - Chant of Armored Leech S.A.D. |
| Belt | S.A.D. |
| Legs | Stormbound Armor Kit |
| Boots | Enchant Boots - Defender's March |
| Ring 1 | Enchant Ring - Radiant Haste Magnificent Jeweler's Setting 2x |
| Ring 2 | Enchant Ring - Radiant Haste Magnificent Jeweler's Setting 2x |
| Weapon | Enchant Weapon - Authority of the Depths |
You buy S.A.D. from the Great Vault Vendor to add sockets to your Helm, Wrists and Belt.
Races
Protection Paladin
In this section of the Protection Paladin Raid Guide, we showcase and explain how impactful certain racials can be in World of Warcraft:
- 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.
- Arcane Torrent -- Blood Elf
- Strong racial to dispel or purge enemies, the value is very limited but sometimes can come in handy.
- 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
Recommendation
I 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.
Macros
Protection Paladin
Discover recommended macros for Protection Paladin for Raids and watch a quick video guide on creating simple macros for your character.
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 ReckoningBoss 1 Taunt --- Casts Hand of Reckoning on Boss1
/cast [@boss1] Hand of ReckoningBoss 2 Taunt --- Casts Hand of Reckoning on Boss2
/cast [@boss2] Hand of ReckoningBlessing of Freedom Mouseover --- Mouseover macro for Blessing of Freedom to use on allies (do not use this on yourself as it's less efficient than the next macro)
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover] Blessing of FreedomBlessing of Sacrifice Mouseover--- Mouseover macro for Blessing of Sacrifice that allows you to external someone quickly.
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover] Blessing of SacrificeWord of Glory Mouseover --- Mouseover macro to use Word of Glory on allies, as with Blessing of Freedom, do not use this on yourself as it is less efficient.
#showtooltip Word of Glory
/cast [@mouseover] Word of GloryLay on Hands Mouseover --- Mouseover macro to use Lay on Hands on allies.
#showtooltip Lay on Hands
/cast [@mouseover] Lay on HandsCleanse Toxins Mouseover --- Mouseover macro to use dispell on allies.
#showtooltip Cleanse Toxins
/cast [@mouseover] Cleanse ToxinsFocus Target Macro --- This is one of my favorite macros that puts a target in focus on mouseover and also marks the target as "Cross" (red). This is a very very good macro to have for high level play and it also comes with an easy way to clear focus as well.
/focus [@mouseover,exists]
/run if not GetRaidTargetIndex("focus") then SetRaidTarget("focus",7) end
/clearfocus [@mouseover,noharm]Focus Interupt --- This macro casts "Rebuke" or interrupt on your focus target. It also interrupts your main target if your focus target is out of range or if you do not have a focus target. Very solid macro for general use play.
#showtooltip
/cast [@focus,harm,nodead][] RebukeFocus Avenger's Shield --- Macro that puts your Avenger's Shield on focus target if you need to kick or silence your focus target
#showtooltip
/cast [@focus,harm,nodead][] Avenger's ShieldCancelaura macro --- Here is a very important macro that you want to fill with any buff that is an immunity that you would need to cancel in a given scenario. For example; Divine Shield Taunt fails and doesn't taunt so you need to cancel Divine Shield, or you used Blessing of Protection to get rid of a debuff quickly and need to cancel so that you can continue being the primary aggro target before your allies are tanking instead. In the case of Blessing of Spellwarding, sometimes certain mobs fail to do their primary threat ability on the tank if you are protected by Blessing of Spellwarding, although this is rare.
/cancelaura Blessing of Protection
/cancelaura Blessing of Spellwarding
/cancelaura Divine ShieldCasting Divine Shield --- Essentially this lets you have less delay on casting Divine Shield, if you are for example casting a mechanic in the Raid, or a trinket that has a cast time or pressing flash of light etc.
#showtooltip Divine Shield
/stopcasting
/cast Divine ShieldWord of Glory at Self--- This macro casts Word of Glory on yourself which is very efficient when you want to use Word of Glory as a self heal. I recommend using two binds for Word of Glory, just like Blessing of Freedom.
#showtooltip Word of Glory
/cast [@player] Word of GloryBlessing of Freedom on Self --- This macro puts Blessing of Freedom on yourself instantly, which is more efficient in terms of pressing faster than if you used a mouseover macro for yourself. In general, it is good to have two binds for Blessing of Freedom, one for mouseover and one for player (self) as it is a lot more efficient.
#showtooltip Blessing of Freedom
/cast [@player] Blessing of FreedomLay on Hands Self --- This macro you should use in order to use Lay on Hands as a "self heal".
#showtooltip
/cast [@player] Lay on HandsCleanse Toxins Self --- This macro you should use for dispelling yourself as it is more efficient.
#showtooltip Cleanse Toxins
/cast [@player] Cleanse ToxinsAddons
Protection Paladin
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 Raids to make your life easier.
- Shadowed Unit Frames (SUF) -- Full User Interface replacement
- Addon to replace your Unitframes and other UI Elements with a more clean look. Takes quite some time to configure but there are plenty of pre-done profiles that you can easily import and check out.
- BigWigs -- Generic Boss Mod
- BigWigs is a boss encounter add-on. It consists of many individual encounter scripts, or boss modules; mini add-ons that are designed to trigger alert messages, timer bars, sounds, and so forth, for one specific raid encounter.
- Weakauras -- Jack of all trades
- WeakAuras is a powerful and flexible framework that allows the display of highly customizable graphics on World of Warcraft's user interface to indicate buffs, debuffs, and other relevant information. This addon was created to be a lightweight replacement for Power Auras but has since introduced more functionalities while remaining efficient and easy to use.
- Plater -- Advanced Nameplates
- Plater is a nameplate addon with an extraordinary amount of settings, out of the box debuff tracking, threat coloring, and support for scripting similar to WeakAuras and wago.io + the WeakAuras-Companion for Mod/Script/Profile updates.
- Details -- In-depth Damage Meter
- Most powerful, reliable, handsome, damage meter for World of Warcraft.
- MRT -- Notes, Raid cooldowns, and more
- Helpful addon for raiders, especially for raid leaders and officers.
- Echo Raid Tools -- Notes, Raid cooldowns, and more
- Echo Raid Tools is a World of Warcraft addon designed by Echo Esports to enhance raiding efficiency. It offers "Echo Approved" WeakAuras for each raid boss accessible through an in-game Dungeon Journal interface, allowing easy import and customization.
- Bartender -- Action Bar Changer
- Bartender4 is a comprehensive action bar replacement addon for World of Warcraft. It allows full customization of action bars, including scaling, alpha settings, and visibility based on macro conditions.
Divine Resonance
This aura shows how many Avenger's Shields you have left from Divine Resonance and when they are triggering.
Changes this Patch
Protection Paladin
Paladin:
- Seal of the Crusader healing reduced by 50%.
- Lightforged Blessing now heals 1% of health (was 2%).
- A Just Reward now has a more just reward, its healing increased by 140%.
- Blinding Light and Repentance now break on a damage threshold instead of breaking on any damage.
- Templar
- Empyrean Hammer now prefers player targets over creatures/summons.
- The Hammer of Light implementation has been revamped to resolve issues such as casting delays, tuning difficulties, and the limited scalability of its infrastructure.
- Hammer of Light now displays the correct amount of damage done by its secondary target damage effect for Retribution Paladin.
- Hammerfall internal cooldown reduced to 0.1 second.
- Lightsmith
- Tempered in Battle: Sacred Weapon’s health redistribution may only occur once per cast.
Protection:
- Strength in Adversity reduced to 3% parry per enemy struck (was 5%).
- Strength in Adversity now displays with stacks.
- Cooldown reduction from Uther’s Counsel reduced to 15% (was 30%).
- Refining Fire damage reduced by 30%.
- All ability damage increased by 15%
- Templar
- Undisputed Ruling has been updated – Hammer of Light grants Shield of the Righteous, erupts a Consecration beneath its target, and increases your Haste by 12% for 6 seconds. Additionally, Eye of Tyr grants 3 Holy Power.
FAQ
Protection Paladin
The biggest tip I can give is to always figure out why you died in any given scenario and how you can improve. Tanking is tough, with constant opportunities to better use your externals, rotation, and defensives. Recording your gameplay and reviewing Warcraft Logs are great methods. Being good at tanking requires cognitive flexibility—focus on what you could have done better instead of blaming others. This mindset is more rewarding and healthier for becoming a better tank!
Credits
Written By: Tief
Reviewed By: Rycn