Beyond directly making your character stronger through talents, equipment, enchants, etc, there are 2 more things you can use to improve your performance as a player: addons & macros. It cannot be understated how much of an impact they can have on your gameplay — increasing your DPS or healing by a large percentage, preventing you from dying, etc. You will need the best addons & macros to be the best Protection Paladin Tank.
Addons
Addons are direct quality-of-life improvements to the existing game features. They can range from User Interface modifications to simple tools such as a Damage Meter or Threat Meter. Addons can also be used to generate text notifications or even in-game vocal notifications to keep better track of your buffs and procs. They can also be used to display boss tactics and notify you of impending threats.
- DeadlyBossMods – Allows you to track boss abilities. A must-have for raiding.
- Details – Shows you how much damage, healing, etc everyone in your raid is doing. Flex on your friends!
- WeakAuras – Extremely versatile addon that can be used to track buffs, debuffs, or create audio notifications.
- Auctionator – A great tool for any interaction with the Auction House
Macros
Protection Paladins can make use of a plethora of macros! Besides the general essential macros, they have many utility spells in their kit that can be utilized much more efficiently through multiple macros.
Startattack Macro
It is optimal to have the /startattack command on all of your abilities as a melee character. Doing so allows your character to begin auto-attacking your target right away, even if you aren’t currently in range to attack them, that ability is on cooldown, etc.
#showtooltip
/startattack
/cast Hammer of the RighteousDivine Shield Cancel Macro
There are occasions where as a Protection Paladin you’d like to use Divine Shield in order to quickly remove a harmful spell from yourself. However, while you’re invulnerable, any targets previously attacking you will temporarily switch their attention to the next highest threat target that they can attack — which will very likely be a DPS or healer.
In those situations, you need a macro like this one. It uses your bubble but then cancels it right away if you press the macro twice, so the boss won’t have time to attack someone else.
#showtooltip
/cast Divine Shield
/cancelaura Divine ShieldCancel Aura Macro
Similarly to the Divine Shield Cancel Macro, you can create macros for just about any effect in the game! Protection Paladins usually utilize such macros to remove spells such as Hand of Protection. In order for the macro to work more efficiently, you can pair it with another ability such as Judgement to make sure that you don’t experience any downtime. You will have to press it twice quickly for it to work for invulnerability effects and only once for effects such as Hand of Sacrifice.
#showtooltip
/cancelaura Hand of Protection
/cast Judgement#showtooltip
/cancelaura Hand of Sacrifice
/cast JudgementMouseover Macro
This macro can be used to cast an ability on any target by simply hovering your mouse over it. You can either hover your mouse over the target itself or over the UI raid or party frame in the case of a friendly target. For any beneficial spell, you will want to have “Help” in your macro, and for any damaging spell you will want to have “Harm”
Protection Paladins have traditionally used those macros for their “Hand” spells, making it easy to provide utility to their raid or dungeon groups. This macro also works with abilities such as Righteous Defense, making it easy for Protection Paladins to taunt multiple enemies at once.
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover, help, nodead] Hand of Freedom#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover, help, nodead] Hand of Protection#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover, help, nodead] Hand of Salvation#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover, help, nodead] Hand of Sacrifice#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover, help, nodead] Righteous Defense#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover, harm, nodead] Avenger's Shield
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