AoE Prot Grinding StrategiesFollow

My first suggestion would be to try a build more like this: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZV0tsx0zggop

Substitute the point in Avenger's Shield for a 5th point in Combat Expertise if you like. Reckoning is crucial for AoE grinding. It increases your DPS, and increases the effectiveness of your seals and judgments.

The next thing i see that is hurting your performance is some of your gear. I would say you have far too much mail and +Int gear. The lack of armor and stamina is really limiting your survivability, especially against multiple mobs. Start by upgrading any mail you have with plate pieces, and try to get some more +Stam instead of +Int. If you can find any +Def pieces that would be awesome, it will increase your survivability much more and increase your block rate to make more use of your Holy Shield charges.

After that your strategy will get easier to utilize in AoE grinding. I would try something more like:

Pull your mobs.

Throw down a Consecration if you like, but don't spam it or you will definitely outpace your Seal/Judgment of Wisdom. Let Reckoning and your reflective damage do the work.

Keep Holy Shield up.

Judge Wisdom on your first target, and Seal Light to keep the HP coming in.

Once the first mob dies, repeat Judgment of Wisdom on the 2nd and re-seal Light, etc.

Use Blessing of Sanctuary if you need the damage reduction (it is very slight due to how/when it's calculated) and the extra damage, otherwise use Blessing of Wisdom to keep your MP up.

From there you can adjust things to your tastes. At 70 i take a lot less incoming damage, so i tend to Judge Wisdom and Seal Righteousness for the DPS as an example.

I hope that helps you get things going in the right direction.

Also, here's my armory just as a credit that i at least have a little idea of what i'm talking about. http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Stormscale&n=Aeird

Edited, Jan 11th 2008 2:22pm by thekurt

I agree that a respec will do a little bit to help your situation. Guardian's Favor, Hammer of Justice, and Concentration Aura could be spent in more useful places. Reckoning being one of them. The spec that thekurt suggested looks pretty good, but Blessing of Kings and One Handed Weapon Spec are really tanking tools. I never find myself using Blessing of Kings for AoE Grinding, but if you're grouping I suppose it's nice to have the extra utility. Combat Expertise is valuable, Ardent Defender can be... but most of the time your health wont go below about 85% while AoE grinding so it's not too big a deal. The big thing that I would sacrifice for is Improved Righteous Fury 3/3 for the 6% damage reduction.

As for your strategy.. first: MAKE SURE RIGHTEOUS FURY IS ALWAYS UP. I'm guessing you probably do already.. but RF = 6% damage reduction for ALL incoming damage, and means the difference between your SoL/JoL combo keeping you full and taking progressive (though small) ammounts of damage against 5-6 mobs.

Consecrate is a big deal before Holy Shield, and it's important while tanking... but you don't absolutly have to rely on it while AoE grinding. I'd try working out a strategy without it first, and then encorporating it after you start getting some success. Also, drop the Seal of Righteousness/Judgement altogether for now. This is something that you do while tanking to keep aggro up, and it's something you can do later when your avoidance goes through the roof (and you can keep Judgement of Wisdom up) but right now it's just a mana sink.

Around that level, I usually find myself Judging Light, then re-sealing it straight through the first several mobs, and only turning to wisdom on the last couple. Unless of course I'm fighting at a place where runners keep pulling fresh meat to me, in which case I'll juggle the two a little more freely. As you get a little tougher, it's more practical to keep Light judged and Wisdom sealed, or vice-versa.

Good on you for keeping Holy Shield up. It reduces the incoming damage, and deals a good bit back out. If you run a damage meter that can break down your damage by ability (such as recount) Holy Shield should come in at #2 after Melee Auto Attack with anywhere between 20%-30% of your damage depending on whether you consecrate or not.

If you aren't consecrating.. you'll probably be able to keep your mana up while using Blessing of Sanctuary. Combined with Holy Shield and Redoubt, this will contribute a good chunk of damage. If you are dropping consecrate you'll probably find that you need to keep Blessing of Wisdom up to stay ontop of your mana pool.

As for a shield spike.. Get the mats and tip another Blacksmith to make and attach a Mythril one for you. No, it won't make a big enough difference under your current strategy to maximize your AoE grinding potential, but it is a pretty big deal. Especially after Holy Shield.

And yes, gear changes wouldn't hurt. STR/STA or STA/INT. INT alone won't cut it, STR alone is nearly pointless. No stats (chance on hit/chance on taking damage/etc) are probably even worse at your level.

It's hard to make suggestions because you're only level 50. I started my prot spec grind at level 60, as I was Holy the entire way from 1->60.

If you're AoE grinding as prot, first and foremost, expect your fights to be without healing. Your heals aren't going to be that strong, and casting a heal will set your avoidance to zero during that time, potentially setting you back a lot of what you were trying to gain.

My spec is in my sig. What I did at 60 was have all the prot talents, and filled in the ret talents as I leveled.

I would highly suggest taking 1h weapon spec. It increases all your damage by 5%. White attacks, seal/judgement damage, avenger's shield, consecrate, even retribution aura. It's better than reckoning for AoE.

When you go for instances, go as a tank, not a healer. You have your talents, you have your gear, use them!

Crushability isn't much of a factor in pre-raid dungeons. Crits are a far more hazardous thing, as very few people are crit immune while leveling (and a crit does more damage than a crushing blow)

Get the best shield you can, get the best +defense gear you can, get stam gear, and get avoidance gear, in that order of priority. You should be able to take groups of 5-6 mobs at a time without real issues, provided the mobs are melee and are at or under your level.

Yes, BoK was just in there for filler/utility. I was simply showing an example using the 41 points the OP has available, namely to show how to refocus the points and include Reckoning.

One Handed Weapon Spec is definitely a tanking tool, it increases ALL damage you deal while you have a 1H weapon equipped. This includes all of your holy damage, which equates to a marked increase in threat.

Don't spam Consecrate, even if it is only rank 1.

Paladins chew mana in two ways; casting Holy Light, and activating seals. Judgment doesn't cost much mana, but activating the new seal is about triple that cost. So regularly activating Righteousness just to judge it is an easy way to run out of mana, and if you run out of mana you run out of health. Instead, I usually use JotC, keep up SoR, and bang one mob down at a time while the others kill themselves on reactive damage. If that's not what you do, then be sparing with JoL and JoW because since you're AOE grinding, you won't always be hitting one mob.

Shield spikes add just a little bit more white damage that adds up. I'd advise putting a spike on every shield you expect to be carrying for a while. Carrying consumables doesn't hurt, though most save them for instances.

Just as a reference, you'll get under 200 mana from those 5 talent points. Personally, I wouldn't go for it. I'd say go for either reduced seal/judgement cost (mainly so that you can then get Deflection) or go for 1h weapon spec. Either of those will serve you better than +10% int.

As for it's tankability, yes, you should be able to tank 5-mans with that spec. Raid tanking is a completely different beast, and is something you don't want to worry about until you hit 70.

I swear you come up with the most whacked out comments.

Here's how I grinded insignias (granted this is a little higher level than you but it's pretty much going to be the same):

BoSanc and Imp RF up.

Seal light
Gather mobs (was 6-10 usually)
Judge light on one ofthe mobs (usually the most annoying if there was one)
Drop Consecrate (I used whatever max rank I had)
Seal light again or Righteouness depending on what I thought I needed.
Wail away on ONE MOB while the others beat on me.
When that mob died (or was close enough that I knew he'd just beat himself to death on me in short order anyway) I'd either judge Wis or Light again and then again make the call on what to seal depending on how it was going.

All the while I'm hitting max rank consecrate. Not every time it's up but periodically.

When I get down to the last mob I'd judge wis and seal light (or vice versa) and by the time I got that one down I'd be close to full health/mana.

Occasionally I'd have to bubble and bandage (not heal - save my mana for fightin!) but with a 5 minute cooldown on divine shield it wasn't that much of ahardship and was always up when I needed it again.

Only once did I have to blow LoH or pots but that was when someone was bitter that I was rounding up all the mobs and decided to train another 6 or so onto me. Actually it was pretty helpful, I downed those too and got more insignias.

Yep, my pally doesn't even have blacksmithing, but he has a Thorium Spike. It's funny, though, it seems like some blacksmiths don't even know they can do this. The guy who did mine said it's not in his bs list. So I said well, if I give you the spike (bought from AH), you can probably just right-click it then click my shield in the Not to be traded window. Worked. Taught him a new trick. :)

Kiragan

its really bugging me that everyone keeps saying that ardent defender is a instance thing. when its one of the secrets to AOE grinding.

when you aoe grind, it will serve you far better to mearly hover at 35% hp. ardent defender does alot of work if you play like that. you just have to be confident in the strat. ardent defender + JoL and SoL + Reckoning will make you stay at 35% effectively forever. with never a need to self heal. and if you get in over your head, thats what bubble bandage is for.

at 70, with mediocre solo gear at best. i use this strat at Black temple entrance to farm scryer rep killing about 20, lvl 70 mob per pull. and like i said, this is with mediocre plate gear. as my Real tanking gear is not quite suited for that strat at all.

Edit: you also need a relitivly fast one hand weapon. 2.0 or faster.

Edited, Jan 17th 2008 2:52pm by RuenBahamut

This makes no sense. You judge wisdom on a single mob (the one you're targeting until it dies, it's not like you're switching targets like crazy when you AoE grind), the fact that 5 others are pounding on you makes reckoning proc almost immediately and often. This earns back the mana spent on a single judgement of wisdom and then a whole lot more.

It works the same way when healing is more important than the mana cost of a single judgement of light.

Maybe :)

I try and start off judging wisdom, sealing light, hopefully before that seal has expired, one mob will be dead, judge light on the next one, seal wisdom, continue until all mobs are dead. That seems to do the best job of keeping me full on mana and health, and it lets me run Blessing of Sanctuary, which seems to really help a lot (granted, I'm only level 55).

Wow, that's an interesting build. I don't remember my pally having a frost tree...or arcane or fire...

:P