Protection Paladin Guide

Bowser

Tribe of Judah StarCraft Series Chapter Leader
Protection Paladins

This class guide should be useful to raid and class leaders who are interested in learning how their fellow classes work, as well as those who are interested in spending talents to be a Protection Paladin.

The Protection Paladin's main role is tanking. Whether that be main tanking or off-tanking it doesn't matter, but this talent tree is built to be taking hits and keeping aggression. Sometimes paladins are asked to fill multiple roles, which may be healing and cleansing (IE: just because you're specialized in Protection doesn't mean you can't contribute to the group by doing other tasks).

The Basics:

Level 60 Protection Paladin

36.76% chance to block any melee attack (w/ 322 defense, and with Holy Shield activated)
90% increase of threat to the paladin by his attacks
Damage taken by the paladin is reduced to 25 for each attack (w/ BoSanctuary activated)

When struck in combat, the paladin has a 10% chance to increase his blocking to 66.76% (w/ 322 defense) for ten seconds. Furthermore, he has a 10% chance when struck to produce four extra swings with his weapon in a period of 8 seconds. Additionally, blocked attacks will provide a total of 153 holy damage to the attacker, and increases the threat generated by the paladin by 125%.

A big misconception that paladin's have about tanking is that it is just about holding aggression. That's only part of it, because you have to be able to take the hits, too. That means you need good gear with high stamina, high armor and resists, and a high blocking percentage (or high defense).

Being a good protection paladin means knowing when to tank and when not to. The only time you should be tanking in a raid is when the raid leader designates you as a tank, or when you see a mob/creep attacking a class other than a warrior. Be warned, most healers will not heal you if you take aggression when you're not supposed to (and I don't blame them, because I don't heal under those circumstances either – and there's a very good reason for it).

There are many techniques that paladins can use to hold aggression on either one or multiple mobs.

When you're holding on one mob as a main tank then I strongly suggest the following spells: One Resistance Aura (Devotion, Fire, or Frost), Righteous Fury, and Blessing of Sanctuary, as well as any raid buffs other classes can give you (remember to always debuff BoSalvation if you get it). Judge Crusader on your target, and spam Seal of Righteousness and Judgement of Righteouness as often as you can. Also, spam Holy Shield. Call out for the DPS of the raid to dig in after at least your first judgement of Righteousness (on a raid boss, judge it twice before calling DPS). If you ever lose aggro on a mob there are a number of things you can do. 1). Stun the target 2). Cast Righteous Defense (taunt) using "Show Target's Target" in the interface options 3). Cast BoSalvation on whoever is taking the aggrression 4). Spam Consecration for additional threat 5). Cast BoProtection on whoever is taking the aggression. You can even stack some of those, like stunning the target and then casting Consecration to slowly soak up threat. If you continue to lose aggro then it is best to just say so and step down to let another class tank if available.

There are two main disadvantages to Paladins with this specialization. The first is that they are absolutely useless in PvP, Duels, and Arenas. The second is that, even though they are specced to be a tank, they will rarely ever be asked to use their abilities. If you are looking forward to tanking in raids in the long term then I suggest start out small. Invite people into your groups, and slowly show them what you can do. Show your leaders and friends that you are attentive, flexible, and capable of accomplishing whatever task is ahead of you.

The cool thing that sets Paladins apart from other tanking classes (Druid, Warrior) are threefold. One, they don't rely nearly as much on +Defense gear as Warriors do, thanks to Holy Shield and Redoubt. Secondly, in the event that we might lose aggro (which happens ALL the time, even to Warriors, mainly because of how the boss/mob is script), we have a really cool long-ranged taunt ability that will draw the aggro back to us (I cannot stress enough just how useful this ability is). Thirdly, no other class can off-tank quite like the Paladin can, thanks to their ability to heal themselves using Judgement and Seal of Light, Hammer of Justice + casting Holy Light on themselves, and their high blocking rate.
 
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