Prot Paladin (PvE) Hit Me More, I Like It (Not yet finished)

[Turbopan]

Protection Paladins - 5.2

Firstly, I'll start off by saying that most of this guide is just based off other people's theory crafting that I've read around the internet.

Table Of Contents

1. Links to More Comprehensive Guides
2. Gearing Strategies
3. Stamina and Mr. Robot
----3.1 Stamina, It is not very useful
----3.2 Mr. Robot and Prot Paladins Do Not Mix
4. Ability Priorities
----4.1 Single Target
----4.2 Multiple Targets

1. Links To More Comprehensive Guides

This is a link to the protection paladin guide for 5.2 on elitist jerks.

http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t132202-prot_5_2_its_time_begin_not_hating_avoidance/

Another useful site to look at is icy-veins.

http://www.icy-veins.com/protection-paladin-wow-pve-tank-guide

What I'm going to try to do is a quick summary of the gearing strategies for prot paladins because with the launch of mists of pandaria, avoidance has become a fairly weak stat for us. However, avoidance did receive a bit of a buff for prot paladins with the release of 5.2 so it is now slightly more useful.

2. Gearing Strategies

I've listed all the gearing strategies for prot paladins below as seen on elitist jerks. Although these are all ways you COULD gear, they are NOT necessarily ways you should gear. The previous go to gearing strategy for prot paladins according to theory crafters was the Control-Haste strategy. However with the release of 5.2 more people are leaning towards the Control-Mastery build which is what I have used all along. I choose to use this gearing strategy because it smooths out the damage well for healers as well as doing a decent amount of dps. I believe any strategy which makes it easier for the healers while still allowing you to keep threat is a good strategy.

Control-Haste
Priority: 7.5% Hit == 15% Expertise > Haste > Mastery > Dodge == Parry
Pros: Highest DPS, great ShoR uptime%, Great at eliminating the biggest damage spikes
Cons: Takes a lot of damage, bad against medium and small sized spikes
How it works: Sacrifices everything else to maximize ShoR% uptime and reliability. If you're good and can time your ShoR perfectly, can do well.

Control-Mastery
Priority: 7.5% Hit == 15% Expertise > Mastery > Haste > Dodge == Parry
Pros: Excellent against big and medium spikes, great WoGs, doesn't really have any weaknesses
Cons: Pretty much none. Still pretty good anywhere it isn't great. I guess ShoR uptime is lowish but it is reliable.
How it works: ShoR isn't up as much as other builds, but when it is it'll stop a TON of damage. Also, much higher Block% than other builds which smooths out incoming damage nicely.

Control-Avoidance
Priority: 7.5% Hit == 15% Expertise > Dodge == Parry > Mastery > Haste
Pros: Pretty good against spikes of all sizes
Cons: Its basically like Control-Mastery, except slightly worse at most things
How it works: Kinda like Control-Mastery except instead of bigger ShoR damage reduction, bigger WoGs and higher block%, you avoid more attacks. Net result is you take very, very slightly less damage than Control-Mastery but you get worse spikes.

Control-Balance
Priority: 7.5% Hit == 15% Expertise > Mastery == Haste == Dodge == Parry
Pros: Its middle of the road at everything
Cons: Its middle of the road at everything
How it works: You equip upgrades as you get them, Good when gearing up

Pure Haste
Priority: Haste > All
Pros: Wow, that's a lot of haste. Extremely short GCD is probably fun to play.
Cons: While its pretty good at damage done (Hit/Exp are still better dps stats than Haste, but Haste is pretty good), its bad at everything else
How it works: Can crank out a ton of HoPo really quickly with super-short GCD and ability CDs, but lack of Hit/Exp makes HoPo generation, and thus ShoR% uptime, unreliable.

Avoidance
Priority: Dodge == Parry > All
Pros: Great at reducing damage taken (10% less than Control-Mastery), Superb against small and medium spikes. Very strong at AoE tanking.
Cons: Not great against big spikes but not terrible. DPS is terrible (have fun missing 1/4 of your moves plus a slow GCD), ShoR% uptime is poor AND unreliable
How it works: If you dodge a blow, it doesn't do any damage. Stripping the points out of Hit/Exp is enough to turn the corner on Avoidance, making it reliable enough to make up for the bad ShoR% uptime.

Avoidance/Mastery
Priority: Dodge == Mastery == Parry > Everything Else
Pros: Slightly more stable incoming damage and takes slightly fewer medium and big damage spikes than Avoidance
Cons: Takes very slightly more damage and very slightly more small spikes than Avoidance. DPS might actually be slightly worse than the Avoidance build
How it works: You're essentially swapping out some Avoidance for more Block%. It smooths things out a little bit, but less than I would have guessed.

Mastery/Avoidance
Priority: Mastery > Dodge == Parry > Everything Else
Pros: Allows fewer big spikes than the Avoidance build and fewer small spikes than the Control-Mastery build. Allows slightly more damage but slightly more stable incoming damage than the Avoidance/Mastery build.
Cons: Congrats on finding the worst possible build for ShoR uptime and DPS. Allows more small spikes than the Avoidance build and more big spikes than the Control-Mastery build (symmetry is fun).
How it works: Focuses on pumping up Block% (even more than the Control-Mastery build) which ends up being about a mid-way step between Control-Mastery and Avoidance

3. Stamina and Mr. Robot

Stamina, It is not that useful
One thing that I've never really understood is that when I look at other tanks gear, many of them have chosen to stack stamina over all else. While a certain amount of stamina is useful, so that you don't get 1 shot by a powerful magic attack or what not, stamina after that is kinda pointless. You should always be able to get enough stamina on your gear simply by having gear, after that you should focus on getting the stats that are best for your chosen priority because these will reduce the overall damage you take. Stamina just provides the healers with a bigger buffer window where they can heal you. Even though this can be nice sometimes, it is usually better to just gear in a way that makes you take less damage overall because then the healers don't have to heal you as much. More stamina over other stats means more health, more health that the healers have to heal up which means more wasted mana when you could just take less damage.

Mr. Robot and Prot Paladins Do Not Mix
Some people believe that Mr. Robot is a great tool to optimize your gear. I was strongly opposed to this fact until recently. Even though I've warmed up to it a little though, I must stress MR. ROBOT IS NOT GOOD FOR TANKS. The reason being is that Mr. Robot places a lot of weight upon stamina, and as I pointed out earlier, stamina stacking is a bad plan. It may be possible that if you set the stat weight of stamina manually on Mr. Robot that it would be a decent tool to use but I have not tried this yet. I recommend just using your stat weights for your chosen gearing option and not going to Mr. Robot as a prot pally.

4. Ability Priorities

4.1 Single Target

4.2 Multiple Targets

[Turbopan]

Bump

[Turbopan]

Bump again cause why not

[Anteres]

Awesome guide, thank you very much!