Protection 3.3.5 PVE Tank

2019.02.10

Introduction

Protection paladin is one of the best if not the best tank class in this expansion. It has a lot of raid utilities, great threat generation and amazing survival abilities both cooldowns and maintainable survival spells like Holy Shield. Protection paladin is a must-have for both 10man and 25man raids during all the expansion.

Talent

There are many talent variations, but i prefer this one for the huge amount of aggro that this talent can provide, but you can costumize for you many things such as using Aura Mastery or Vindication. Prot paladin talent is really flexible, although I would never use Seal of Command.

Glyphs

1. Major Glyphs

- Glyph of Divine Plea While Divine Plea is active, you take 3% reduced damage from all sources.

- Glyph of Righteous Defense Increases the chance for your Righteous Defense and Hand of Reckoning abilities to work successfully by 8% on each target.

- Glyph of Seal of Vengeace/Corruption Your Seal of Vengeance or Seal of Corruption also grants 10 expertise while active.

- Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous Your Hammer of the Righteous hits 1 additional target.

2. Minor Glyphs

- Glyph of Sense Undead Damage against Undead increased by 1% while your Sense Undead ability is active.

Gems

Meta: [Austere Earthsiege Diamond] +32 Stamina and 2% Increased Armor Value from Items

Red: [Guardian's Dreadstone] +10 Expertise/+15 Stamina
(Option 2 : [Shifting Dreadstone] +10 Agility / +15 Stamina, not advised)
You need 1 red gem for your meta, and if you can have a good socket bonus, it can be worth of course. Your threat benefits from your expertise, and some bosses needs you to have enough expertise anyway.

Yellow: Solid Majestic Zircon +30 Stamina

Blue: Solid Majestic Zircon +30 Stamina

You want to match your caps like defense, hit and expertise, so you should gem according to that.

Enchants

Head - Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector +37 Stamina +20 Defense (there fire, frost, shadow resist + stamina enchants as well, feel free to use them if you think you might them for a couple scenarios)

Shoulder - Greater Inscription of the Gladiator +30 Stamina +15 Resilience
Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle +20 Dodge +15 Defense (only if you need defsense)

Cloak - Mighty Armor +225 armor

Titanweave +16 defense

Chest - Super Health +275 health
Greater Defense +22 Defense
Powerful Stats +10 All Stats

Bracer - Major Stamina + 40 Stamina

Gloves - Glove Reinforcements +240 Armor
Heavy Borean Armor Kit +18 Stamina
Armsman Permanently enchant gloves to increase threat caused by 2% and increase parry rating by 10.

Waist - Eternal Belt Buckle + 1 belt socket

Legs - Frosthide Leg Armor +55 Stamina +22 Agility

Boots - Greater Fortitude +22 Stamina

Weapon - Mongoose Permanently enchant a Melee Weapon to occasionally increase Agility by 120 and attack speed slightly.
Blade Ward Permanently enchants a weapon to sometimes grant Blade Warding when striking an enemy. Blade Warding increases your parry rating by 200 and inflicts 600 to 800 damage on your next parry. Lasts 10 sec.

Shield - Titanium Plating +81 Block Value
Major Stamina +18 Stamina
Defense +20 Defense

Stat priorities

1. Defense cap 540 for all raids, 535 for dungeons.

2. Hit cap 263 = 8%

3. Expertise cap 26, not that important for basic tanking, but it helps a lot to hold aggro and if you tank bosses with parry-haste mechanic like Sindragosa or Halion, whenever you parry against them their melee attack speed doubles for a couple hits.

4. Armor and Stamina stacking! If you have all your stats capped, you can go and stack stamina and armor. Both can be stacked limiteless (armor is worth less if you reach 75 000 which you can't achieve anyway so it does not matter).

5. Block value increases the amount you can block and increases your Shield of Righteous' damage.

6. Block rating increases the chance to block.

7. Agility gives you armor and crit.

8. Parry

9. Dodge (in ICC your dodge is reduced by -20%)

Professions

Jewelcrafting : 3 big gems >> +63stamina

Engineering : Gloves enchant +885armor / 885-240 = +645 armor

Leatherworking : +62stamina

Blacksmithing : +2socket >> +60stamina

Mining : +60stamina

Enchanting : ring enchant +60stamina