- Author: Kurathis
- Date: April 1, 2021
- Expansion: TBC Classic
When we look at running dungeons, heroics or raiding content, Protection Paladins have two general builds that they can choose between for effective tanking. Both have pros and cons, so let’s jump into this, beginning with the more popular or common Sanctity Aura build.
Sanctity Aura Build
The main appeal and sole reason for its existence is to grab Sanctity Aura, increasing our Holy damage by 10%. With this increase, our threat generation increases by 10%, as well:
- Consecration with Sanctity Aura: 64 DPS x 1.10 (Sanctity Aura) = 70.4 DPS x 1.90 (Righteous Fury) = 133.76 TPS
- Consecration without Sanctity Aura: 64 DPS x 1.90 (Righteous Fury) = 121.60 TPS
- Sanctity Aura provides 12.16 TPS extra which is 10% of 121.60
There are a few things to keep in mind if you do choose to use this particular build:
- Depending on how quickly your guild or group can defeat a boss, Sanctity Aura‘s benefit will fluctuate. For example, if we’re to look at Consecration during a three-minute fight, we’ll see an increase of 2,188.8 total threat, while in a two-minute fight, we’ll see an increase of 1,459.2 total threat.
- This particular build excels when fighting against Undead or Demon targets given the limitation of Exorcism in the Burning Crusade.
- Depending on your tanking and gearing style, this build may not actually generate any more threat than another build. For example, if we chose this build, had Precision for 3% Hit, and opted for “seal-twisting,” we may find that when compared to another Paladin who has higher Hit Chance with an alternative build that we’re actually providing less threat overall.
- If we have a Retribution Paladin in our raid group or party, our Sanctity Aura will be made useless since most Retribution Paladins opt for Improved Sanctity Aura.
- If we look at Retribution Aura, that is potentially 49.4 threat per hit we take. Unfortunately, it does not work when you Block, Dodge or Parry. However, if we look back at a three-minute long fight, and the boss is hitting you every two seconds, that would mean 90 attacks. Assuming we avoid 50% of those attacks, that will be 49.4 x 45 = 2,223 total threat. The downside to this would be when tanking caster mobs or bosses since it doesn’t trigger against spells.
- Most of the abilities that we will be using in our tanking rotation rely on either Melee Hit Rating or Spell Hit Rating. Apart from Holy Shield and Consecration (It is possible for it to not cause damage on its first tick, but after that it will generally cause damage on every tick), you’re not guaranteed additional damage unless you reach either (or both) mentioned Hit Caps. Another important note to consider is Expertise if we’re focusing on “Seal-twisting.”
- This build relies on favorable RNG.
Alternative Tanking Build
This build sees us picking up Improved Retribution Aura and Crusade at the expense of Ardent Defender. With our Tier 5 set providing a bonus to Retribution Aura damage (+15) this will bring us up to roughly 61 Holy damage per hit we take. This translates to roughly 115.9 threat per hit.
There are a couple of different things to take into consideration when considering this build:
- We do pick up Avenger’s Shield, which will act as our pulling strategy. Avenger’s Shield is also a great addition when we begin to engage a non-demon or undead target, since we can’t use Exorcism. Sitting at a roughly 780 mana cost to cast, though, most players find this to not be worth it. However, Avenger’s Shield – without taking into account increased damage – can cause, on average, 1,045 threat per mob hit.
- We do skip over Ardent Defender – we have to ask ourselves if the 36% reduction in damage taken at 35% health is really worth spending five points into this. This will depend on the content that you are currently running.
- If we look at a Pre-Raid geared Paladin tank having 12,000 HP, and find out that 35% of that is 4,200 – most regular dungeon bosses won’t cause that much damage in one swing. However, Heroics and Raids have been known to cause quite a bit of damage. This is especially the case if you happen to be crushed – while this shouldn’t happen since you should aim for uncrushability very early on, some tanks opt for pieces for threat rather than mitigation.
- We don’t go for Improved Seal of the Crusader, causing our party/raid damage to be slightly less if you do not have another Paladin who has this talent. However, you may be focusing more on maintaining Seal of Light or Seal of Wisdom on your target.
Hi.
Depending on raid composition, BoK is actually a very handy buff for a prot paladin. Your Holy paladin/s will have the improved versions of might and wisdom, so they will be giving out those buffs instead of BoK. If you don’t have it, then you restrict yourself to salv. Maybe you have a ret paladin with BoK, but maybe you don’t.
I’m not sure if you are familiar with the 0/40/21 build (sactity aura), but this is a very viable alternate to your build. It is very good when you are performing the role of OT and while tanking trash in dungeons/heroics/raids.
Blessing of Kings, by default, is a phenomenal spell. It increases every stat you have by 10% – this inevitably increases Critical Strike Rating, Spell Critical Strike Rating, etc. I definitely agree with the love that Blessing of Kings receives.
From a dungeon-tanking perspective, Blessing of Salvation should be prioritized. This isn’t necessarily an admittance of generating inadequate threat, it’s an understanding of potential threat output for DPS classes. For example, Protection Paladins are often limited to 3% Hit for both Melee and Spell, thanks to Precision, since many insist on stacking nothing but Stamina gems, while 99% of DPS today prioritize their Hit Cap above all other stats, ensuring they don’t miss any of their attacks. (Yes, casters will always have that 1% chance to miss their spells, but that’s a lot lower of a chance than Protection Paladins have to miss by default) And since we can’t reach the Expertise cap as a Protection Paladin yet, we’re also having to face dodges and parries, as well, while DPS will only have to worry about dodges (since they should be attacking from behind in most cases)
From a heroic-tanking perspective, this is only amplified, since unlike in regular dungeons, if a DPS or Healer happened to draw aggro and our Righteous Defence missed, they’re a lot more likely to die from the mob’s attacks. As well, in heroics, you may find that your DPS and/or healers are more geared than you are, and thus will require Blessing of Salvation.
It’s the same kind of thing in raids – except for the fact that since the DPS are fully buffed, have their consumables and whatnot, it’s going to be that much harder for you to hold aggro if there’s no Blessing of Salvation active on your DPS. It’s made even more difficult since most raid bosses are immune to taunt effects – whether we’re talking Righteous Defence or Taunt/Challenging Shout/Challenging Roar. This would lead most harder-hitting DPS to have wait a certain amount of time before attacking, which will in fact reduce their damage output.
In terms of 25-man raiding, most groups have at least three Paladins (more often than not, at least two healers and a tank – Retribution Paladins are slowly becoming harder to find than Protection Paladins these days) Generally speaking, all three of those Paladins will have Blessing of Kings and the two Holy Paladins would have Improved Blessing of Might, so if we look at every class in the game, we’ll come up with this:
Warrior – Blessing of Might/Blessing of Kings/Blessing of Sanctuary
Rogue – Blessing of Might/Blessing of Kings/Blessing of Salvation
Mage – Blessing of Wisdom/Blessing of Kings/Blessing of Salvation
Warlock – Blessing of Wisdom/Blessing of Kings/Blessing of Salvation
Feral Druid – Blessing of Might/Blessing of Kings/Blessing of Salvation
Balance Druid – Blessing of Wisdom/Blessing of Kings/Blessing of Salvation
Resto. Druid – Blessing of Wisdom/Blessing of Kings/Blessing of Salvation
Priest – Blessing of Wisdom/Blessing of Kings/Blessing of Salvation
Holy Paladin – Blessing of Wisdom/Blessing of Kings/Blessing of Salvation
Prot. Paladin – Blessing of Wisdom/Blessing of Kings/Blessing of Sanctuary
Elemental/Resto Shaman – Blessing of Wisdom/Blessing of Kings/Blessing of Salvation
If we look at Enhancement Shamans, Hunters of any spec, and Retribution Paladins, it’s a bit of a different story:
Improved Blessing of Might should be on each of these players, without a doubt. Blessing of Kings will be an asset, as well. The question that comes up is whether you’d prefer to use Improved Blessing of Wisdom for roughly a 1,764 mana return on a 3-minute fight over Blessing of Salvation.
This question is further probed by asking what mana regeneration abilities these players possess. Hunters, for example, have Aspect of the Viper. Retribution Paladins have access to Seal and Judgement of Wisdom, along with Seal of Blood to damage themselves to benefit from Spiritual Attunement. Enhancement Shamans, if necessary, have access to Mana Spring Totem which would regenerate 1,200 mana over two minutes.
TLDR: Only three class/spec combinations can benefit from all four blessings (Wisdom, Might, Kings, and Salvation) and of those three, none necessarily need Wisdom. I’m not saying you’re wrong by any means, since Blessing of Kings IS a phenomenal spell, but it’s not beneficial enough for a Protection Paladin to sacrifice a point (Generally taken from Ardent Defender or Pursuit of Justice)
This is all well and good, in theory. However, in my experience it’s often a case of when you don’t have BoK, your raid/party members want it.
5-man normal dunegons/heroics: It’s been a while since I’ve done a normal, but it’s quite easy to get a few pieces with spell hit (sword from caverns of time, ring from spirit shard hand ins, ring from cenarion expedition, etc). Not that any of this stuff is really essential for normals, as you could just run heaps of spell damage to counter any threat issues. Mitigation is hardly needed as it will ruin any potential mana returns from spirit attunement. Heroics are a bit different because of course you’ll want to look after your healer, and not give him/her a heart attack. Being the only paladin in a 5 man, which is generally the case, can leave some of your dps classes feeling pretty annoyed if you can’t give them BoK. Rogues and Hunters have very little need for salv since they have their own abilities to drop threat (and prefer BoK over might). Mages/druids/warriors/shaman/priests are 50-50 as to whether or not they need/want salv (I’ve experienced players of these classes expect BoK over salv). The only dps class that MUST HAVE salv is a warlock. I have also seen healers prefer BoK over wisdom.
25-man raids: I’m yet to attend a raid with more than 2 paladins (but I do play Horde, and we do tend to have less of them in our overall population). When you talk about DPS classes having full buffs/consumables, a paladin tank should also have these things (which will increase their threat output). If you aren’t using weapon oils/elixirs/potions/flasks/food/scrolls to improve your tanking performance, then you shouldn’t expect your DPS classes to do the same (or you shouldn’t be raiding with them if you are neglecting your consumable use).
TLDR: Personally, I am much happier knowing that I can give BoK, instead of having 5% more movement speed and 1/5% more spell avoidance (I wonder if Blizzard will ever fix this?).
I can vouch for the build that includes sactity aura. It is great in the current phase of the game.
No offense, but your “Notes for Sanctity Aura Build” are really weird.
It just seems like you are throwing lines of text at people to confuse them.
0/46/15 is the boomer prot pally spec. You want to be 0/40/21. Sanctity Aura is so much better than Avenger’s Shield.