Protection Paladin M+ Guide Season 2 TWW 11.1

Protection Paladin Guide for M+ in Season 2 of TWW 11.1

Is paladin going to be good in 11.1?
Talents
Default build: (lightsmith) {#default-build-lightsmith}
(templar) {#templar-build}
Raid
Season 1 sheet
Overall for season 2
Choices
Spec tree {#spec-tree}
Lightsmith tree {#lightsmith-tree}
Class tree {#class-tree}
Using the tier set (TWW season 2) {#using-tier-set}
Using your utility {#using-your-utility}
Random tricks / macros {#random-tricks-macros}
To use sacred weapon on a specific mob {#to-use-sacred-weapon-on-a-specific-mob}

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Is paladin going to be good in 11.1?

Prot paladin is going to be relatively worse than season 1, since we got a few nerfs and the tier

set is not as good for damage. However it still comes with somewhat OK self sustain along with

strong cds (although those cds will now be longer thanks to the nerf to uther’s counsel) and

group utility. I see it being a strong utility tank but not as good survivability wise as some other

options.

Note: In season 2 Temlpar is doing a lot better than season 1 (especially damage wise) since

the tier set works better with templar and tempered in battle was significantly nerfed. However

Lightsmith still has somewhat better utility and self sustain.

Note about refining fire - This was nerfed but it’s still better than two points in tyr’s enforcer so lol.

Talents

Default build: (lightsmith)

!Lightsmith talent tree

(templar)

!Templar talent tree

Raid - I change my build for almost every boss in raid, my logs are here so you can reference

for talents: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/character/us/illidan/yodafotm

Season 1 sheet - Yoda's dungeon talent cheatsheet for prot pally

Overall for season 2 M+ I would suggest starting out with lightsmith and trying templar once you

are more comfortable in the keys. I’m not sure what build / hero talent we will end up playing

but I am relatively sure that templar is capable of doing higher DPS in M+.

Choices:

Spec tree

1 - Blessing of Spellwarding, Inspiring Vanguard (pick 1). You take inspiring vanguard if not

playing spellwarding.

2 - Moment of Glory, Eye of Tyr, Basion of Light, Inspiring Vanguard, Uther’s Counsel (pick 2) -

A lot of paladins in TGP preferred moment of glory, however I am still a believer in bastion of

light for most dungeons. You can also drop Uther’s Counsel to play both if you want after the

nerf. Inspiring Vanguard can be taken as a simpler option that offers almost as much value.

Eye of Tyr can be taken if you need an extra defensive for certain tank busters although it is

probably not needed in season 2 (but you have to play it for templar).

3 - Crit wings vs Sentinel - I don’t think you can afford to lose the damage of crit wings since

tanks are so low on damage already but sentinel does still exist.

4 - As templar, you need to give up a talent point for inner light which can be bulwark of

righteous fury or uther’s counsel.

Note about refining fire - This was nerfed but it’s still better than two points in tyr’s enforcer so

lol.

Lightsmith tree

1 - Divine Guidance vs Blessed Assurance - Blessed assurance if playing hotr in raid, otherwise

divine guidance in M+. Note that when using Divine Guidance it’s best to use it when it will NOT

heal any allies if possible as the healing effect is much weaker than the damage effect, and it

splits equally among all targets (although this is not always in your control).

2 - Tempered in battle vs Authoritative Rebuke - Tempered in battle is broken, always play this.

3 - Divine inspiration vs forewarning - divine inspiration is more overall dps/shielding but can

result in awkward tempers and less control of your weapons so it’s reasonable to play

forewarning as well (~1% dps loss).

Class tree

1 - Fist of Justice, Blinding Light, Afterimage, Cleanse Toxins, Light’s Countenance, Turn Evil,

Holy Reprieve, Blessing of Freedom/Steed of Liberty (pick 4) - The first gate offers a variety of

utility, just take whatever ones you prefer or need for the dungeon.

2 - Consecrated Ground, Sacrifice of the Just, Blessing of Protection, Improved Bop - pick 2.

The second gate is relatively cramped since a few talents have been moved here from the

capstone tier (divine purpose / divine toll / resonance which are all mandatory in M+). Improved

bop also reduces the cooldown of spellwarding if talented. With uther’s counsel that makes it

just under a 3 minute cd.

3 - Eye for an Eye, Light’s Revocation, Judgment of Light, Lightbearer,points in previous gate -

pick 2. I’m unsure how strong eye of an eye will be - starting off with it talented to test how

much damage it does. The second gate is very cramped also and these are the only optional

talents in the final gate so if you want to get conc slow + bop + minute sac then you may need to

make sacrifices here. Lightbearer may also be playable in some dungeons where AOE healing

is difficult.

4 - Righteous Protection vs Lead the Charge vs Holy Ritual - Righteous Protection is worth

taking in any dungeon where it does something (any dungeon with poison/disease) since the

other two talents are kinda bad IMO, but you need one of the three in order to path to Seal of

Might. If there are no poisons or diseases in the whole dungeon then just take lead the charge.

The second gate is cramped too and the rest of the final gate is limited; you may need to drop

some points to reach Seal of Might.

Note about refining fire - This was nerfed but it’s still better than two points in tyr’s enforcer so lol.

Using the tier set (TWW season 2)

This tier set is extremely strong defensively. Whenever it procs, you will want to spam as many

sotr as possible. The refunded holy power not only gives you extra hits of sotr (and empyrean

hammer from templar) but also massive cdr on most of your defensives thanks to righteous

protector, plus the free GoAK.

With luck of the draw up you want to prioritize generating as much holy power as possible (so

non-interrupt avenger’s shield is not as high priority). However if you find that you would

overcap holy power, that’s when you use avenger’s shield / consecrate (usually happens if you

get back to back 2 or 3hp refunds or proc divine purpose).

Using your utility

Prot paladin has the best utility of all tanks IMO. Using it well makes you feel like you played a

role in every single thing that went well in the key, which is extremely fulfilling and one of the

main draws of prot paladin.

Tempered in battle - This is both the most OP and the most hated talent for lightsmith prot

paladin. In season 2 it is nerfed and can only proc once per use - however there is no limit to

how strong that proc can be. Be careful about killing your dps with this since if you take their

health they may die to damage that they would otherwise survive - the counter to this is simply

playing well with mitigation when you have a sacred weapon out. There are a few cool tricks

you can do with tempered in battle:

1. Bubble + temper. This effectively makes tempered in battle a 60%max hp heal on any

party member with weapon who hits 40% since they will attempt to equalize health with

you but bubble will immune any damage you were going to take from tempered in battle

plus any raidwide damage that you were trying to save them from.

2. Temper as a spot heal - a lot of bosses will put out debuffs on your allies, if you have

sacred weapon available you can toss them a weapon and it will usually heal for quite a

bit.

3. Temper on mc’d mobs - Temper in battle equalizes based on total health, not health

percentage. Any mob your party takes control of via control undead or dominate mind in

M+ is generally going to have multiple times your health, so if you give that mob a

sacred weapon then it’s equivalent to a lay on hands on yourself if you hit 40% during

the weapon. Be careful because if the mob stops being on your team during the weapon

then it can bug out and kill you.

4. Holy Bulwark + lay on hands. Not many people know but tempered in battle actually has

two parts - overhealing to allies with holy bulwark will be transferred to any allies with

holy bulwark, so lay on hands effectively tops both players.

Avenger’s shield - This is the most noticeably utility prot paladin has, divine toll + avenger’s

shield + grand crusader resets make it so you can output way more interrupts than any other

class. A common theme in multi-caster pulls is for you to solo one caster (or two with

resonance up) while your group handles another one. Note that the extra hammer proc from

punishment can also proc grand crusader which resets avenger’s shield, sometimes allowing

you to chain interrupts in quick succession on multiple enemies.

Hammer of Justice - This is a long single target stun. It can be used to make time for

interrupts to come back (which has more value than another tank’s stun since you can use this

to play around your own shield resets). It can also be used to stop something from meleeing

you if you’re short on defensives or need to reset stacks, or stop a non-interruptible cast, or on

fixate mobs.

Blinding light - Nothing special here, just a 1:30cd aoe stop.

Blessing of Sacrifice - The low cooldown on this is another one of the main strengths of prot

paladin. You can use it if you know a cast is about to go off on someone, or if unavoidable

damage is coming and you know they have no personal (or you just don’t believe in them to

push one themselves). Try and use this when you bubble. It can also immune

poisons/diseases if you take righteous protection which is useful in some dungeons (and can

save you mana).

Blessing of Spellwarding - While this is usually better used on yourself, you can also use it on

allies to immune certain effects or just to save them from AOE damage.

Blessing of Protection - This makes the target immune to physical effects. It can be used to

immune melees from aggro, physical damage casts, or to drop physical debuffs such as bleeds

(as well as myriad other uses which I won’t list).

Cleanse Toxins - You can dispel poison and disease, be careful using this too often as prot

paladin mana pool can sometimes be under attack and this costs 10%.

Lay on hands - This is an off-global instant full heal, you can use this either to help out a tough

raid damage event or if you notice someone is about to die from something your healer didn’t

predict.

Word of Glory - After the nerfs and mana changes, it is a lot less practical to use this on others

since it heals them for much less than yourself - try and do something else to save them but

there are rare cases where this can be good if used on others.

Blessing of Freedom - You have access to this as well which removes all slows and makes

players immune to slow. In rare cases it can also immune players from multi-part abilities if part

of the ability is a slow.

Holy Bulwark - When your lightsmith activation is on holy shield you can use it on an ally to

save them from 1shots or just as an HPS gain.

Random tricks / macros

1. I play with two important macros to help me manage interrupts - the first one is focus

avenger’s shield (casts it at my focus target) and the second is target focus. I use this to

target either a prio mob or a different caster, then quickly swap to my focus before

getting a resonance proc.

/cast [@focus] avenger’s shield

/target focus

Of course, surely everyone has focus kick by now in M+ but in case you don’t have:

/cast [@focus] rebuke

Note that this macro will only kick your focus, there are some more complicated macros

that can conditionally kick your focus/mouseover/target but I don’t use those, I only have

the baseline rebuke and the one that kicks my focus.

2. I don’t play with these, but you can probably find various mouseover macros on the

internet for the abilities you cast on others.

3. However I do use a few macros to help with spellbop/bop/sac:

(separate macros)

/cast [@charactername] blessing of spellwarding

/cast [@charactername] blessing of sacrifice

/cast [@charactername] blessing of protection

Usually you can write this in before a key if you know in that key that you will be casting

one of these abilities on a certain player.

This one is also useful:

/cast [@targettarget] blessing of sacrifice

This will sac your target’s current target, useful if bosses target a player before doing

damage to them (ex: blightbone in TNW). Similar macros also work for

freedom/bop/spellbop but those situations come up less frequently.

4. Cancelaura is mentioned a few times, you very often will want to cancel bop and

sometimes want to cancel bubble as well if it bugs out and fails to taunt. Feel free to put

both lines into the same macro since you will never have both active on you.

/cancelaura divine shield

/cancelaura blessing of protection

5. You can pull through some walls with divine toll resonance. It’s done by casting divine

toll as normal then targeting a mob that is in range but through a wall when resonance is

about to come up.

6. Rite of Sanctification will fall off if you change any talents, but the ui will still show that

your weapon has a buff. You need to re-enchant your weapon with it every time you

change talents or you will play without the extra 2% str / 5% armor. There is a separate

buff that looks like a scroll (id: 433550) that you will have if you have the buff.

7. To use sacred weapon on a specific mob:

/target (mob name here)

/use sacred weapon

/targetlasttarget

Video version:

My In-Depth Protection Paladin Guide for M+ in Season 2 of TWW! (11.1)

Note: M+ tanking is a problem that doesn’t have one unique solution. I highly recommend

looking at what others do as a guide but trying to think of things on your own as much as

possible. Also this guide will probably be updated a lot in the future as we learn things. If