Protection Paladin Quick Guide

Off-speccing protection is one of the many benefits of having a retribution paladin.  It is extremely useful to have the ability to jump into prot pally mode for raids or soloing purposes, and it is one I recently switched to myself.  With a desire to tackle more Molten Core and Karazhan content solo, I decided to change my off-spec from holy to protection.

Now, retribution is clearly my favorite spec to play, but the benefit of being a paladin is that we can switch between all three roles in the World of Warcraft: DPS, Tank, and Heals.

Since this is a ret pally site, I figured I would make it a smidge more well-rounded by including some basic off-spec information.  Here we will focus on the Protection Paladin.

For further, detialed information, I suggest you follow the Elitist Jerks forums source links throughout this page.

Protection Talent Tree

First, we need to take a look at the talent tree spec we need to start off with.  This is current as of Patch 3.3, and is the most common talent configuration you’ll see prot paladins using.

0 / 53 / 18

Keep true ot the above config and you’ll be set.

Stats

Protection paladins will want to max defense at 540 to essentially become uncrittable, which is huge in terms of tanking, making your healers’ work much easier.  Stamina is absolutely critical, and any prot pally will probably find themselves gemming and enchanting mostly for stamina.  You also will want to focus on dodge, parry, and to a lesser degree, block and strength.

Here is some additional detailed information from the Elitist Jerks forums, from Cathela.

Assuming level 80 in all cases. Note that in item design, all primary stats and ratings “cost” the same amount per point, with the exception of stamina which costs 2/3 as much per point as the other stats and ratings (or equivalently, 1.5 stamina costs the same as 1.0 of any other primary stat or combat rating.) Note also that primary stats are affected by talents and by Blessing of Kings, while combat ratings are not.

Primary stats

• Strength (str)
  • 1 strength = 2 attack power (AP) = 0.14 dps weapon (white) damage.
  • 2 strength = 1 block value before talents, 1.3 block value with the Redoubt talent
  • The Divine Strength talent increases total strength by 15%.
• Agility (agi)
  • 59.89 agility = +1% dodge chance. This is somewhat less efficient than Dodge Rating at increasing your dodge chance (45.25 dodge rating = +1% dodge chance), but with Blessing of Kings the number decreases to 54.45 agility, which makes it roughly 80% as good as dodge rating for dodge purposes.
  • 52.08 agility = +1% melee crit chance.
  • 1 agility = 2 armor.
  • Agility is often overlooked as a tanking stat, but it’s actually an efficient way to get avoidance, mitigation, and threat from one stat.
• Stamina (sta)
  • 1 stamina = +10 total health (hp).
  • 10 stamina = +3 spell power (SP) from the Touched by the Light talent.
  • The Sacred Duty and Combat Expertise talents increase total stamina by 8% and 6% respectively, for a total increase of 14.48% with both talents. If you’re buffed with Blessing of Kings or Blessing of Sanctuary as well, then each additional point of stamina increases your total health by approximately 12.6.
• Intellect (int)
  • 1 intellect = +15 total mana. This increases the size of your starting mana pool and the maximum amount of mana you can store at any point. It also increases the rate of mana regeneration from effects that restore a fraction of your mana pool, such as Replenishment, Blessing of Sanctuary, and Divine Plea. This is a nice effect, but it doesn’t make intellect worthwhile as a stat for tanking gear.
  • 166.67 Intellect = +1% chance to crit with spells, but all Prot paladin offensive abilities except Exorcism use the melee crit rate.
• Spirit (spi)
  • Increases mana regeneration outside of the five-second rule. As a tank, this effect is negligible (and frankly it’s negligible for all paladin specs).

Combat Ratings

• Defense Rating
  • 4.92 defense rating = 1 defense skill (If you’re new to these stats, pay careful attention to the difference between defense rating and defense skill.)
  • 25 defense skill gives:
    • -1% chance to take a critical hit from melee or ranged (non-spell) attacks.
    • +1% chance to be missed
    • +1% chance to dodge, parry, and block (each).
  • Mobs have a 5% chance to crit a player of the same level with a fully trained defense skill (400 defense skill for a level 80 player). Each level of difference increases the mob’s chance to crit by 0.2%. Hence:
    • A level 83 mob (e.g., a raid boss) will have a 5.6% chance to crit a level 80 player with 400 defense. Accordingly, the player will need an additional 5.6 * 25 = 140 defense skill, or a total of 540 defense skill to be uncrittable by raid bosses. This is equivalent to 689 defense rating.
    • A level 82 mob (the highest level found in heroic 5-man dungeons) will have a 5.4% chance to crit a level 80 player with 400 defense. Accordingly, the player will need an additional 5.4 * 25 = 135 defense skill, or a total of 535 defense skill to be uncrittable in heroic 5-mans. This is equivalent to 664 defense rating.
  • Players with enough defense to be uncrittable don’t benefit from the crit-reduction aspect of additional defense skill, but they still gain miss, parry, dodge, and block chance as defense is added.
    • 25 defense skill gives +1% to miss, parry, dodge, and block. This requires 123 defense rating.
    • Hence, adding 1% total avoidance (blocked attacks included) requires approximately 31 defense rating.
    • Adding 1% full avoidance (blocked attacks excluded) requires 41 defense rating.
  • Increases to the chances to parry, dodge, and be missed generated by adding defense count towards the diminishing returns on those stats (see below). However, there are no diminishing returns on the chance to block.
• Dodge Rating
  • 45.25 dodge rating = +1% chance to dodge.
  • Dodge rating is affected by diminishing returns in WotLK: the more dodge you have, the more dodge rating is required to add each additional percent chance to dodge. This is a rather complicated system, but effectively it means that dodge rating is probably inferior to defense rating as a means for adding pure avoidance.
  • Dodging opens an opportunity for Overpower mechanics to hit you for a large amount of damage. This is primarily a concern in PvP (against warriors) but there are a very few raid bosses and mobs that have an Overpower-type mechanic. This is not generally worth worrying about, but it may come to bear on specific encounters.
• Parry Rating
  • 45.25 parry rating = +1% chance to parry.
  • Like dodge rating, parry rating is subject to diminishing returns.
  • When an attack is parried, your next attack will happen more quickly. (This is why parry is more “expensive” than dodge.) I won’t go into the exact mechanics here, except to note that (a) this effect is more pronounced with slower melee weapons, and (b) weapon-based threat is generally not significant enough for this to make much of a difference, and hence it’s not worth considering when gearing for tanking.
• Block Rating
  • 16.29 block rating = +1% chance to block.
  • This does not suffer from diminishing returns.
  • Block is far “cheaper” than dodge or parry or even defense per point of avoidance; however, blocking only absorbs an amount of damage equal to your block value whereas m/p/d avoid all damage. (It does, however, provide threat when Holy Shield is active.)
• Hit Rating
  • 32.79 hit rating = +1% chance to hit with melee or ranged attacks (-1% chance to miss).
    • For our purposes, this applies to melee swings (white damage), Avenger’s Shield, Hammer of the Righteous, Shield of Righteousness, Hammer of Wrath, and Judgements.
    • Against a raid boss, melee and ranged attacks have a base 8% chance to miss (this is changed from 9% in TBC), so 263 hit rating is required to eliminate all melee misses if there are no other bonuses to hit.
    • Draenei have a racial aura that gives +1% to hit. This reduces the requirement for melee hit-capping to 230 hit rating if you’re a draenei or have one in your group. (This is group-only buff, not a raidwide buff.)
  • 26.23 hit rating = +1% chance to hit with spells. For our purposes, this only applies to Righteous Defense, Hand of Reckoning, and Exorcism.
    • Against a raid boss, spells have a base 17% chance to miss. It appears that some raid bosses may have an artificially reduced resistance rate to taunting spells such as RD and HoR, particularly bosses where frequent taunting is necessary, but this shouldn’t be counted on.
    • The Draenei racial aura also applies to spells, as do the Misery and Improved Faerie Fire debuffs (+3% to hit with spells, only one of these can be present).
    • The Glyph of Righteous Defense reduces the miss chance of Righteous Defense by 8%.
    • It’s not worth going through all the combinations of buffs and debuffs and the hit rating required to cap spells for each, but a few are worth noting:
      • If you have no other buffs and no RD glyph, 446 hit rating is required to reach the hit cap for RD.
      • If you have the RD glyph, only 236 hit rating is required to cap RD. This is less than the hit rating required to hit-cap melee attacks, so once you reach the melee hit cap, the glyph will safely put you over the top for RD as well.
      • If you really want to cap RD without using a glyph slot, the best possible case is to have a Draenei around (+1%), and to have Improved Faerie Fire or Misery up on the mob (+3% hit bonus, only one can apply). This reduces the miss chance to 13%, which would only require 341 hit rating to cap (111 more than the melee hit cap.)
• Expertise Rating
  • 8.10 expertise rating = +1 expertise (As with defense, this can be confusing, so be careful.)
  • Each point of expertise reduces the chance for your attacks to be parried or dodged by 0.25% each. Hence, each point of expertise reduces the total chance for your attacks to be avoided by 0.50% (until the target’s dodge chance reaches zero.)
  • 32.79 expertise rating = -1% dodge and -1% parry for your attacks.
  • Human racial bonuses give +3 expertise when using maces or swords (-0.75% dodge and -0.75% parry). This bonus is worth approximately 24 points of expertise rating.
  • The Dwarf racial bonus gives +5 expertise when using maces (-1.25% dodge and -1.25% parry). This bonus is worth approximately 41 points of expertise rating.
  • The Combat Expertise talent gives +6 expertise. This is worth 49 points of expertise rating.
  • Expertise will affect normal (white) melee attacks as well as Hammer of the Righteous (a parry is reported as “Deflect”).
  • Expertise will not affect Shield of Righteousness, Righteous Defense, Avenger’s Shield, or Judgements, because these cannot be parried or deflected.
  • Since parries by bosses hasten their next attack (using the same mechanic as for players who parry), expertise can be useful for reducing this effect and preventing damage spikes.
  • Prinsea: “The estimated dodge cap is at 6.5%, which would require 26 expertise or 214 expertise rating to achieve. Removing all parries would almost certainly require much more than this, as boss parry rates ranged from 11% – 15%, but the dodge cap could serve as a decent point of reference until we get more WWSes and such for confirmation of the parry cap.”
• Crit Rating
  • 45.91 crit rating = 1% chance for a critical strike with all attacks and spells.
  • All critical strikes for Prot paladin offensive abilities except Exorcism (and possibly HoR?) do 200% of normal damage.
  • Critical heals do 150% of normal healing, or 195% with the Touched by the Light talent.
  • Crits are fun (especially with Shield of Righteousness) but crit rating is generally not an efficient tanking stat. Hit rating is much better, as it increases your threat more efficiently and makes your threat output more reliable as well.
• Haste Rating
  • 32.79 haste rating = 1% haste. This increases autoattack speed by 1%, reduces the cast time of spells by 1%, and reduces the global cooldown triggered by all spells (including instant-cast spells) by 1%. This does not affect the global cooldown triggered by special melee attacks.
  • While it’s always nice to be swinging faster, this is not very useful for a prot paladin, since for the most part they’re limited by cooldowns on key abilities rather than by the global cooldown or melee swing speed.
  • In theory, it’s possible that a large amount of haste might reduce the global cooldown enough to allow a greater variety of ability rotations, and potentially more threat. However, this seems unlikely to be worthwhile, since prot paladins generally produce plenty of threat already, and there are other stats that can more efficiently improve threat output.
• Resilience Rating
  • 94.27 resilience rating = -1% chance of taking a critical hit with any kind of attack, -2% damage done by critical hits against you, and -1% reduced damage done by players against you.
  • Resilience is almost exclusively a PvP stat. While resilience is more efficient than defense for eliminating critical hits (123 points of defense vs 94 points of resilience to get -1% crit), defense also provides a large amount of avoidance while resilience doesn’t. The reduction in spell crit provided by resilience is useless in PvE because mobs can’t crit with spells, and the reduction in critical damage is meaningless since a tank will (hopefully!) be immune to crits from mobs in the first place.
  • Nonetheless, it may be useful to use resilience for tanking on a situational basis:
    • When first gearing up for serious tanking, resilience gear may be useful as a temporary stop-gap measure to eliminate crits while you collect gear with enough defense rating.
    • Fights that require magic resistance may make it more difficult to reach crit-immunity through defense alone, and a few pieces of PvP gear may be helpful in keeping crit-immunity.
    • In cases where you need to tank a not-too-dangerous mob early in a fight and then switch to DPS or healing after that mob dies, PvP gear with high stamina and resilience may be useful. However, this is a role generally better-suited to a Ret or Holy paladin than a Prot paladin.
    • Armor
      • Armor reduces all incoming physical damage. While it does not work on magic attacks, it is guaranteed to mitigate all incoming physical damage. It does not rely on “chance” effects like blocking or avoidance, and it works even when you’re stunned or otherwise incapacitated. Armor is your most reliable damage mitigation. The amount of incoming physical damage mitigated by your armor can be seen by mousing over the armor stat on your character sheet; this number is usually referred to as the damage reduction, or DR, and is expressed as a percentage.
      • There is some confusion about “diminishing returns” on armor. The DR given by armor follows a diminishing-return curve, so the higher your DR is, the more armor is required to increase it by 1%. However, the value of each extra point of DR increases as your DR increases. For example, consider an attack that does 10,000 physical damage before armor is considered:
        • If your armor DR is 50% and you increase it to 51%, the damage done by the attack is reduced from 5,000 to 4,900, a 2% reduction.
        • If your armor DR is 60% and you increase it to 61%, the damage done by the attack is reduced from 4,000 to 3,900, a 2.5% reduction.

        So, even though your DR% will increase more slowly as you add more and more armor, each extra point of armor is providing roughly the same relative benefit. Hence, increasing your armor is always worthwhile. (For a more detailed explanation with math and such, see Quigon’s Protection Warrior Guide.)

      • The important thing to remember is that while your character sheet shows the changes in the absolute value of your DR, your healers will see the relative change in your DR. For example, if you go from 60.0% DR to 64.0% DR, your character sheet only shows a 4% increase, but your healers will notice you taking 10% less damage. (Actually they’ll see even more than that when blocks are factored in.)
      • Shields have a disproportionately large amount of armor compared to other armor pieces. Hence, almost any shield from a higher tier of loot than the one you currently have will probably be an upgrade, even if the other stats aren’t quite what you’d like. Even a shield with caster stats on it may be a mitigation upgrade compared to a lower-tier tanking shield. (Obviously however, you should respect the resto/elemental shamans and holy paladins in your raid regarding caster shields.)
      • There is a cap on armor DR at 75%. However, this value is rarely seen in normal practice, and can only be achieved through the use of multiple stacked buffs (Improved Lay on Hands, Inspiration, armor potions, etc). In general, unbuffed armor DR values for plate-wearing tanks in endgame gear in TBC were between 60% and 65%.
      • The following table shows the returns for adding additional armor at a few different DR levels. Note that the additional reduction in damage taken is always relative to the current incoming damage (before blocking).
        

        Armor	DR%	DR% w/ +100 armor	DR% w/ +1% armor
        16594	50.00%	50.15% (0.30% reduction)	50.25% (0.50% reduction)
        24891	60.00%	60.10% (0.25% reduction)	60.24% (0.60% reduction)
        38719	70.00%	70.05% (0.18% reduction)	70.21% (0.70% reduction)

    • Block Value
      • Each point of block value causes your blocks to absorb an extra point of damage, and causes your Shield of Righteousness to deal an extra point of damage. However, the increased ShR damage starts to show diminishing returns once your (buffed) block value exceeds 2400, and additional block value no longer increases ShR damage at all once your block value exceeds 2760.
      • Block value is increased 30% by the Redoubt talent.
      • Note that strength also increases block value at a rate of 2 str = 1 blkval. If you’re interested solely in increasing block value, items with direct block value bonuses are more efficient than items with strength. However, if you’re interested in damage and/or threat generation, strength is more efficient overall since strength increases the damage done by other abilities as well (via AP). Overall, pieces with both strength and block value usually give you the most bang for your buck.
      • Blocking is the last mitigation effect applied to incoming damage. Since armor is applied before block value, increases in armor also increase the fraction of total damage you block as well.

Prot Pally Gems

Now, with that wall of text regarding Protection Paladin stats, your gemming situation will vary greatly dsepending on your current gear.  Remember, 540 defense is the cap for being uncrittable, so you’ll want to aim for that.

As far as health goes, most heroic instances can be tanked with no troubles at around 31k or 32k HP unbuffed.  Heroic Halls of Reflection can get very intense and will require a good amount of gear and HP.

In terms of good Prot Pally gems, here are some of your epic quality options.  The rare versions can also be used, I’m just listing these to save a little time.

• Solid Majestic Zircon – Blue - +30 Stamina
• Flashing Cardinal Ruby – Red - +20 Parry Rating
• Precise Cardinal Ruby – Red - +20 Expertise Rating
• Subtle Cardinal Ruby – Red - +20 Dodge Rating
• Thick King’s Amber – Yellow - +20 Defense Rating
• Defender’s Dreadstone – Red, Blue - +10 Parry Rating / +15 Stamina
• Guardian’s Dreadstone – Red, Blue - +10 Expertise Rating / +15 Stamina
• Regal Dreadstone – Red, Blue - +10 Dodge Rating / +15 Stamina
• Enduring Eye of Zul – Blue, Yellow - +10 Defense Rating / +15 Stamina
• Champion’s Ametrine – Red, Yellow - +10 Defense Rating / +10 Strength
• Glimmering Ametrine – Red, Yellow - +10 Parry Rating / +10 Defense Rating
• Resolute Ametrine – Red, Yellow - +10 Expertise Rating / +10 Defense Rating
• Stalwart Ametrine – Red, Yellow - +10 Dodge Rating / +10 Defense Rating
• Austere Earthsiege Diamond – Meta – +32 Stamina and +2% Increased Armor Value

Prot Pally Glyphs

Information from Elitist Jerks:

There are a number of useful major glyphs for tanking, and the exact set that’s best for you comes down to personal preference and the types of encounters and roles you end up seeing.

Must Have

• [Glyph of Divine Plea]: Since the Guarded by the Light talent allows you to keep Divine Plea active full-time as long as you’re hitting something, this glyph effectively amounts to a flat 3% reduction to all incoming damage. This is probably the only glyph universally considered a “must-have” for tanking.

Good and/or Situationally Useful

• [Glyph of Seal of Vengeance]: 10 expertise (not 10 expertise rating) decreases your chance to be dodged and parried by 2.5% each, potentially increasing your chance to hit a mob by up to 5% if you’re not already at the dodge cap. Against a boss this is of debatable value; since Seal of Vengeance is a countinuous damage-over-time effect your threat doesn’t really suffer from a miss, but on the other hand reducing a boss’s opportunity to parry your attacks can help prevent damage bursts.Against groups of mobs, this glyph can often be very handy, especially in the case of trying to initially pick them up with HotR. HotR can be dodged or parried (“deflected”) so this glyph can potentially make the difference when you’re trying to get that first hit in on a mob.
• [Glyph of Righteous Defense]: Handy in multi-mob situations, especially if you don’t have much hit gear. Against bosses this is somewhat less useful than you might imagine; most bosses that require heavy use of taunting have artificially low resist rates.
• [Glyph of Salvation]: Useful if you need another damage-reduction cooldown. Obviously using Hand of Salvation as a mini-shieldwall will cost you threat, so make sure you’re running with a good threat lead.
• [Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous]: Good if you frequently find yourself managing crowds.
• [Glyph of Hammer of Justice]: Situationally this can be very useful, especially if you’re specced into the 20-second cooldown on HoJ and frequently find yourself dealing with stunnable or interruptable mobs.
• [Glyph of Avenger's Shield]: This is a matter of personal preference. I’ve never been interested, but if you’d prefer to have a stronger ranged threat burst on one target, then by all means go for it.

Prot Pally Enchants

Information from Elitist Jerks:

(Note: Many profession-specific enchants (and enchant-like effects) have been upgraded as of the 3.2 patch. These upgrades mostly have the effect of keeping all professions roughly balanced in terms of the item-points received from their perks.)

Head

[Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector] (44 item points)

[Mind Amplification Dish]: (30 item points)

The Argent Crusade arcanum is what you’ll be wanting to use on pretty much every tanking helm you ever get. If you’re not revered with the Argent Crusade, that should be one of your top priorities.

The Mind Amplification Dish is available only to engineers. Strictly speaking it’s a trade of 20 defense rating for 8 stamina compared to the standard Arcanum of the Defender. There’s also the mind-control ability it grants; the limits of this aren’t exactly known as of this writing (but don’t plan your raid-boss strategies around it.)

Shoulder

[Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle]: 35 itemization points
[Lesser Inscription of the Pinnacle]: 25 itemization points
[Greater Inscription of the Gladiator]:: 35 itemziation points

[Master's Inscription of the Pinnacle]:: 75 itemization points

The Sons of Hodir sell most of the shoulder enchants in WotLK, so getting to at least honored with them (through a quest chain that starts at K3 in Storm Peaks) is a good idea (unless you picked Inscription as a profession, obviously).

The Gladiator inscription requires some PvP to obtain, but it’s still an excellent choice for tanking. It’s the only choice that provides stamina in the shoulder slot, and the resilience can compensate for missing out on defense rating.

Cloak

[Enchant Cloak - Titanweave]: 16 itemization points
[Enchant Cloak - Major Agility]: 22 itemization points
[Enchant Cloak - Mighty Armor]: 16 itemization points

[Flexweave Underlay]: 23 itemization points

The raw efficiency of Major Agility is mitigated somewhat by the fact that agility is not an optimal tanking stat, but it’s still the best enchant to get if you’re interested in pure avoidance. Mighty Armor is good if you’re going for mitigation, and Titanweave is obviously the best enchant to get if you’re still looking for defense.

Chest

[Enchant Chest - Exceptional Resilience]: 20 resilience
[Enchant Chest - Super Health]: 275 health
[Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats]: 10 to all (primary) stats
[Enchant Chest - Greater Defense]: 22 defense rating
[Heavy Borean Armor Kit]: 18 stamina

[Enchant Chest - Super Stats]: 8 to all (primary) stats
[Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats]: 10 to all (primary) stats

Greater Defense is the most itemization-efficient, and definitely the way to go if you still need/want defense, or if you can use the enchant to switch defense gems to something else. The super and mighty health enchants are only worth ~15 and ~10 stamina, since they don’t get any effect from BoK or stamina talents; generally the stat enchants are going to be better than these if you don’t want the defense. Resilience should only be used if you absolutely need it to reach the crit cap (such as with resistance gear). The armor kit comes out to 227 hp on average with talents and BoK; not as good as the health enchant, but not far off and a great deal cheaper.

Wrists

[Enchant Bracer - Major Stamina]: 40 stamina
[Enchant Bracer - Major Defense]: 12 defense rating

[Leatherworking: Fur Lining - Stamina]: 102 stamina (req. 400 leatherworking)

Major Stamina is the most efficient option here by a significant margin. The only reason to go with the defense enchant is if you absolutely need it to reach the crit cap and you have no other options.

(Blacksmiths have an option to add a prismatic gem slot to their bracers. This does not count as an enchant.)

Hands

[Enchant Gloves - Armsman]: 10 parry rating, +2% threat
[Enchant Gloves - Major Agility]: 20 agility
[Enchant Gloves - Precision]: 20 hit rating
[Enchant Gloves - Expertise]: 20 expertise rating
[Heavy Borean Armor Kit]: 18 stamina

[Enchant Gloves - Major Strength]: 15 strength

[Reticulated Armor Webbing]: 885 armor (req. 400 engineering)
[Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket]: 1654-2020 fire damage, 45 second cooldown (req. 400 engineering)

All of the WotLK enchants are viable choices here, depending on what you want/need. Personally I’d recommend skipping Armsman until you get to the point where threat is actually a concern. The Major Strength enchant is from TBC, and should only be used if you’re hell-bent on maximizing block value and dps. The armor kit is less efficient than the other options but if you really really want stamina, there it is.

If you’re an engineer, the armor modification is excellent. At normal armor levels for a prot paladin, it’ll reduce incoming physical damage by roughly 1.5-2% before blocking. The hand-mounted rockets are a fun toy, but between HoR, AS, and Exo, they’re not likely to be necessary.

zeida: A note about the pyro rocket modification: They have an extremely wide firing arc (nearly 180 degrees) and a 45 yard range. Although the new single target taunt obviously offers superior damage and threat, and doesn’t consume an enchantment slot, it will not possess this range or arc of the glove enhancement. I must confess I do use these, because I like to chain pull trash and they cut downtime substantially, but from a pure tanking standpoint, they are indeed hard to defend in terms of utility and worthiness.

Waist

[Eternal Belt Buckle]: Extra prismatic gem socket

The one and only good thing to put on your belt. Doesn’t affect the belt socket bonuses in any way, so fill it with whatever you need most.

Legs

[Frosthide Leg Armor]: +55 stamina, +22 agility
[Jormungar Leg Armor]: +45 stamina, +15 agility

(Leatherworkers get a cheap leg armor patch with the same stats as the epic armor kit, but they can only use it on their own armor.)

The blue armor kit is a good deal cheaper than the epic kit, so plan accordingly if you’re expecting upgrades soon.

Feet

[Enchant Boots - Greater Fortitude]: 22 stamina
[Enchant Boots - Tuskarr's Vitality]: 15 stamina, +8% run speed

The run speed improvement on Tuskarr’s Vitality does not stack with the 15% increased run speed from the Pursuit of Justice talent. Take this into account when planning your build and your enchants.

There’s also an engineer-only boot gadget, [url=http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=55016]Nitro Boosts][/b], which increases your run speed for 5 seconds on use, with a 5-minute cooldown. At first glance, this looks like a nice answer to one of the weak spots of paladin tanks: the inability to close distances quickly (e.g., Intervene, Feral Charge, Death Grip). However, the rather unfortunate drawback is that the boosters have a chance to backfire and launch you straight up in the air. When this happens, mobs that you’re tanking will lose aggro on you and run off to beat up other people, and you’ll parachute back to the ground. While this can obviously be an entertaining effect, your 25-man raid might not be particularly pleased if they wipe on a difficult fight because your boots malfunctioned. So use these only if you’re really sure they won’t get you into trouble.

zeida: The nitro boost boots modification may in fact malfunction and knock the user high into the air, dropping aggro, but should this occur, he will not fall to the ground and die instantly; instead he receives the Parachute buff (just as he would being dismounted flying over Wintergrasp or Dalaran) and will fall slowly to the ground. I do not know whether this breaks on damage or not.

They have an additional possible malfunction not mentioned – they will sometimes be fully ineffective and do absolutely nothing.

I personally do have the nitros on my tanking boots as a PoJ specced paladin, simply because I believe having the capacity to quickly cover great distance (even unreliably) is far more potentially decisive than 22 stamina. Obviously, using these things when I am actively tanking a major mob would be irresponsible except in dire circumstances; nonetheless I like having the option available to me.”

Finger

[Enchant Ring - Stamina]: +30 stamina (req. 400 enchanting)

This is the “perk” for being an enchanter: you get 60 extra stamina from enchanting your rings in a slot where non-enchanters get nothing.

Weapon

[Enchant Weapon - Blood Draining]: Potentially up to ~2k self-heal when you drop under 35% health
[Enchant Weapon - Blade Ward]: Chance for +200 parry rating and damage on parry
[Enchant Weapon - Accuracy]: +25 hit rating, +25 crit rating
[Enchant Weapon - Exceptional Agility]: +26 agility

[Titanium Weapon Chain]: +28 hit rating, 50% reduction in duration for disarm effects.

[Enchant Weapon - Potency]: +20 strength

Blood Draining and Blade Ward are the two high-end enchants at this point, and which is preferable depends on personal preference. Blade Ward procs significantly more often now that SoV procs count as weapon attacks, and the removal of the “leapfrog” effect from Ardent Defender means there’s no real downside to Blood Draining.

As for the lower-end enchants, the Titanium Weapon Chain is very nice for hit-capping. Accuracy has almost as much hit rating and a lot of crit, so it’s a solid enchant. Exceptional Agility is the only option if you want steady avoidance. Potency is included because it’s the only +strength enchant, so it’s the only way to increase block value if that’s what you’re really after.

(The planned Titanguard enchant for +50 stamina to a weapon has been removed and won’t appear in the game.)

Shield

[Enchant Shield - Defense]: 20 defense rating

[Enchant Shield - Major Stamina]: 18 stamina

[Titanium Plating]: 81 block value, reduced disarm effects by 50%.

Defense or block value is generally the way to go here; Major stamina is a TBC enchant and should only be used if you really really really want stamina and you can’t get it anywhere else.

The Hit Table

Information from Elitist Jerks:

It’s often assumed by casual observers that the different kinds of avoidance are checked in sequence, e.g. first the server checks to see if the mob misses you; if it doesn’t miss then the server checks to see if you parry; if you don’t parry then the server checks for a dodge, etc. This makes intuitive sense, but it’s not the way things actually work.

What actually happens is the server makes a single “roll of the dice” to determine what happens on an attack, and all your avoidance chances, as well as your chance to be crit, are applied at the same time to that one roll. So for example, if a tank is naked and using a trash can lid as a shield, and has a 5% chance to be missed, 5% chance to dodge, 5% chance to parry and 5% chance to block, the server constructs a hit table that looks like this:

01 – 05: miss (5%)
06 – 10: parry (5%)
11 – 15: dodge (5%)
16 – 20: block (5%)
21 – 95: hit (75%)
96 -100: crit (5%)

… and then a single random number between 1 and 100 determines the outcome.

If a tank has a 10% chance to be missed, a 10% chance to dodge, 10% chance to parry, 10% chance to block, and has enough defense to be immune to critical hits, the table looks like this:

01 – 10: miss (10%)
11 – 20: parry (10%)
21 – 30: dodge (10%)
31 – 40: block (10%)
41 -100: hit (60%)

If the tank has Holy Shield active, the chance of a block goes up to 40% and the chance of a regular hit goes down to 30. If the tank has Holy Shield active and Redoubt procs, the chance of a block is 70%, and it is impossible for an attack to hit without being blocked.

The important thing to be aware of here is that the more of each kind of avoidance you have, the more valuable the rest of your avoidance becomes. Every increase in your chance to parry, dodge, or block comes directly out of your chance to take a hit.

Oggie: “I don’t have quite enough data or armor pieces to really verify this, but it seems like dodge/parry diminish at the rate they improve in value, so x dodge rating is always worth the same amount of incoming damage. Aka, like armor, avoidance stats can now be measured at a constant value for time-to-live.”

Prinsea: “Oggie is correct in that you can basically consider avoidance as a constant increase to your TTL with these diminishing return mechanics. Technically, the fact that miss, parry and dodge are on different DRs can mean that it may be possible to reach unhittable (as galzhohar pointed out), but there is nothing to suggest that the itemization exists to support this.”