Protection Paladin Tank Easy Mode

This page is intended for players who are new to the game or class, have no intentions of raiding Mythic difficulty, or simply want a more straightforward way to play their specialisation without being overwhelmed by the numerous subtleties and active abilities that need to be taken into consideration for optimal play.

1. The Basics

Protection Paladins are tanks with a very versatile skill set. In general, your damage intake will be relatively smooth, being able to block attacks and soften the blows with strong active mitigation and reactive self-healing. No other tank class has quite the array of tricks and utility up their sleeve that a Paladin does.

Aside from keeping yourself alive and healthy, you have a variety of abilities that can help the rest of your team out to ensure the best possible outcome in the encounter.

2. Talent Choice

These choices are optimised for ease of use. That said, only viable talents are suggested and the gains in survivability and DPS from choosing only the "best" talents are not gamebreaking.

Level 15: Blessed Hammer
Level 30: Bastion of Light
Level 45: any / situational
Level 60: Cavalier or Blessing of Spellwarding (against heavy magic damage)
Level 75: Hand of the Protector
Level 90: Judgment of Light
Level 100: Righteous Protector

3. Stat Choice

Currently, you will want to prioritise secondary stats as follows:

Haste;
Versatility;
Mastery;
Critical Strike.

4. Basic Rotation

The basic rotation of a Protection Paladin is based on the following priority.

Use Judgment (this will reduce the remaining cooldown of your Shield of the Righteous).
Use Consecration if one is not already active. Standing in it improves your active mitigation.
Use Avenger's Shield.
Use Blessed Hammer.

When facing 3+ enemies, you should prioritise both Avenger's Shield Icon Avenger's Shield and Consecration Icon Consecration over Judgment Icon Judgment in order to increase your damage output, provided that the targets will not leave your Consecration.

The Protection Paladin rotation is not very complicated, since all abilities have different cooldowns, and you basically just press whatever is coming off cooldown next. When two abilities are ready at the same time, you prioritise according to the list above. Having downtime with nothing to cast is not uncommon.

Note that the above-mentioned points do not include your active mitigation (covered below).

5. Active Mitigation Abilities

Shield of the Righteous Icon Shield of the Righteous and Light of the Protector Icon Light of the Protector are your two active mitigation abilities (though Light of the Protector is a heal, so it does not really mitigate damage). Both abilities are off the global cooldown, so fitting them into your rotation is easy, but it is important to talk about exactly when they are best used.

Optimal Shield of the Righteous Icon Shield of the Righteous timing depends greatly on your circumstances, but in general, you should aim to have it active whenever you are taking significant amounts of damage, while always making sure that at least one of its charges is used so that you do not waste the recharge time. Ideally, when tanking, you want to try to keep at least 1 charge in reserve in case of emergencies, and if you know heavy periods of damage intake are coming, save two charges. It is not possible to keep 100% uptime, so you should not even attempt this.

Effective self-healing from Light of the Protector Icon Light of the Protector is essential, as a big heal can turn the tide, while a small heal will be useless and put the spell on cooldown. If you are slowly getting low on health, you can reliably wait until you drop down to 30-50% remaining health before casting it to maximize the heal. If the boss has abilities that deal burst damage, try to time it right after a big attack has hit, so your health goes right back instantly.

Remember that since both of your active mitigation abilities are 20% stronger while you are standing in your own Consecration Icon Consecration, you should always aim to do so.

6. Cooldown Usage

Guardian of Ancient Kings should be used before a period of large damage, or when your healers are unable to heal you for a while.
Ardent Defender is best used to bypass deadly encounter mechanics, or to save your life in critical moments.
Lay on Hands should be used as an emergency reactive cooldown to top yourself off when you have dropped low on health. Note that you can also use it to save other raid members.
Divine Shield can be used to clear debuffs or avoid fatal damage, but note that since you become immune, the boss will not attack you and instead move to the next target on the threat table.

Additionally, Icon Eye of Tyr, your Artifact ability, should be used as often as possible throughout the fight, to reduce your incoming damage, or saved for periods of high damage.

About Our Reviewer

This guide has been reviewed and approved by Treckie, one of the best Protection Paladins in the world, who raids in Prime. You can watch his stream on Twitch and you can follow him on Twitter.

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