Protection paladin multi-box guide.

[Starbuck_Jones]

Protection paladin multi-box guide.

The Golden Assumption
All theory crafting is inherently flawed because you cannot create a linear guide that will work for every situation. The individuals who read these guides are living breathing human beings with a brain of their own. They have the knowledge and capacity to understand that said guide will not always work. They have the ability to adapt and overcome these predicaments on their own and do not need to be spoon fed every possible variable involved. -Aleyona

Levels 1-60. Boost and RAF. If you can't do either then this is your learn to play time. Read the rest of the guide, but there are plenty of 1-60 guides and advice on this wiki and forums.

Level 60.

Your RAF is up and this is where most multi-boxing really starts.

Here is my recomended talent spec for your paladin.
http://thottbot.com/paladin/t#/gxuxnXYQd

Q: Why did you not go with Kings? Everyone says Kings is the best.

A: Kings is nice when you have stats that are unbuffed already over 1000 points (end game). But at level 60 an extra 11 stamina is not better than the flat 3% damage reduction and mana regen provided by Blessing of Sanctuary.

Key points to note:

Holy Shield: This is your class defining spell right here. +30% to block for 10 seconds or 8 hits is what makes you the reason that everyone will want to have your babies. It also deals out quite a bit of holy damage on each block. This keeps agro.

Righteous Fury: Increases the threat of your holy damage by 90% and a flat 6% damage reduction with talents. This is your easy mode agro holder. It needs to always be on. Try tanking w/o it and see what happens.

Concecration: AOE Holy damage, combined with Righteous Fury will generaly provide enough agro to keep all mobs on you. It does eat mana but that should not be a problem with if you have your Holy Shield active with Blessing of Sanctuary even on single mob pulls.

Hammer of the Righteous: 4x holy weapon damage that hits up to 3 targets in melee range. This is one of your absolute best spells. Primary reason other than hitting really hard, each mob that it hits, acts as a normal melee swing. What this means is that any ability or spell that you have that is triggered by a weapon swing/hit has a chance to proc 3 times on this spell. For example you can get 3 heals, or mana regens from your seal of light/wisdom from a single cast of this spell. It will also apply Seal of Vengeance/Blood DOT to all 3 targets.

Aura's: Pick the one that works for you. Use Devotion if you realy need the extra armor, but I prefer to just use Retribution as things die faster and more holy damage means more agro, and they cant do damage to you if they are dead. Resist auras are good on boss fights that require them and you dont have another class that can provide a better buff. If your useing Concentration Aura then your not doing your job as a tank, and if someone else is tanking then they are not doing their job either.

Seals and Judgements: This is where you get to do the most individual tailoring for your paladin. Remeber the Golden Assumption. Seal and Judgement of light when combined can provide you with the MOST damage mitigation possable. You can get some mad healing from these two spells, If you dont need healed, then the rest of your party can be DPS'ing and kill stuff faster. When I tank out of my multibox group this is the combo I use to help the healers out. Seal and Judement of Wisdom give back mana. Judgement of wisdom when I multi-box is the only one I use. The mana regen for my entire party make this the best choice by far. Seal of Vengence/Blood (level 64). I use this quite a bit. Extra holy damage means more agro means things die faster. I will usaly run with this on till my mana gets low then switch to Seal of Wisdom for a pull to get back to 100% mana.

Spiritual Attunement: You get a percentage of mana on each point of healing you receive. Seeing how your the tank and getting beat on, you should be getting healed as well. Free mana.

Spell Rotation:

Number one rule. Holy Shield needs to be active. No exceptions. It lasts for 10 seconds and has an 8 second cool down. This means you can always have it up, unless you pulled so much that you went through all of its charges in less than 8 seconds (this isnt a bad thing either as it puts out some nice agro, damage, and means you blocked 8 attacks that did not get to do full damage).

Pull spell. You have Hand of Reckoning, Avengers Shield, and Exorcism (if target is undead) that have 30 yard range to pull mobs with. Avengers Shield will hit up to 3 targets and is by far the best to use to build up that agro. It has too long of a cool down to be useful in a rotation macro.

Example one button smash tanking macro. Put this on every button press for your group. DPS button, Slave heal Button etc so its always going off and not wasting any of the global cool downs.

/castsequence reset=combat Holy Shield, Hammer of the Righteous, Concecration, Judgement of XXXX, Hammer of the Righteous, Holy Shield, Concecration, Hammer of the Righteous, Judgement of XXXX

There will be a few pauses when you are waiting for cooldowns on this sequence as your not high enough level yet for a proper 96969 rotation, but it will have Holy Shield active at all times and keep agro. This is not the only rotation you can use, there are several other including this popular one.

/castsequence reset=combat Holy Shield,Hammer of the Righteous,Judgement of XXXX,Consecration,Hammer of the Righteous,Holy Shield,Judgement of XXXX,Hammer of the Righteous,Consecration

In my personal testing the above macro did not do as much dps and I prefer Consecration to come sooner in the rotation for better agro when im smashing my dps button. Regardless, the goal is to have Holy Shield active at all times.


Level 64 and 66. Not much to add at these level except you pick up your Seal of Vengeance/blood at 64, and by 66 you have enough talent points to grab 5xDeflection for more avoidance and mana from Sanctuary and a point into improved judgements to make their cooldown a proper 9 seconds so you will see your macro smooth out. You dont need to put a second point into judgements as it wont help.

Level 70 you get Avenging Wrath. Its a great spell to hit when pulling for extra damage and bonus agro, but its long cool down means it doesnt get used too much. Like every 4 or 5 pulls if you have no down time. As for talents. get 3x heart of the crusader as it will be a boost to your whole group. Past here you can put the rest of your talent points where you want. I like Benidiction as cheaper spells means I dont have to switch to Seal of Wisdom as often and can keep Vengence/blood up longer.

Level 75. Here you pick up Shield of the Righteousness. Now you can build a proper 96969 macro and have your paladin doing something after every global cool down with no pauses and will be an aoe aggro foo! here is an example order you can use. One problem is the 250 character limit with the built in macro isnt long enough. So you will need to get an addon that lets you do longer macros, or get creative with /click if you want to add in your trinkets and disable the error noise.

Holy Shield, Hammer of the Righteous, Consecration, Shield of Righteousness, Judgement of XXXX, Hammer of the Righteous, Holy Shield, Shield of Righteousness, Consecration, Hammer of the Righteous, Judgement of XXXX.Shield of righteousness.

[Starbuck_Jones]

A rough draft so im sure there are all kinds of errors in it. Feel free to comment/correct.

[wowphreak]

I would advocate picking up 5 points in ardent defender as soon as possible, its one of those abilities that has saved me from many a wipes.
Also deflection is a good one to pick up early on.
And pickup touched by light as soon as possble after 60.

devotion also helps healing for 6% which wont amount to much by itself but can add up in long boss fights.

"Seal and Judgement of light when combined can provide you with the MOST damage mitigation possable."
Dosent make much sense.

Majority of the time I end up using Seal of Wisdom due to the fact if yer outta power yer damage goes to shit the rest of the group catches up to yeh in aggro and pulls something off yeh.

And in 3.1 prot tree gonna change a lil
"Blessing of Kings is now trainable at level 20. Removed from talent trees."

[Powerwar]

Use the improved devotion aura points somewhere else if you have shamans in your team. Their totems will give you the same extra armor and you can use retribution aura with no problems.
Also with the crazy armor values on items in TBC and WOLK you will not need to use that aura. I have invested these 3 points in the improved hammer of justice. It makes my paladin a bit more useful in BGs where some suicide charges to my group just to get stunned by the pala


Other than that, the build is good

[merujo]

Bok is a great blessing to have, at least till 3.1 comes out. Not to put on u, but to put on ur group.
BoSanc is the only bless that matter for the prot pala himself.
Also, don't pick reckoning over ardent defender, as AD is a must have.

[Cyndaen]

I find that Improved Devotion Aura, Ardent Defender, and Kings are all pretty integral to our multi-Box tanking needs. The only time I might think about giving up Imp Devo would be if I were positive I didn't have a Tree along, and Kings is still nice even if you have another pally in the raid. Sanc/Kings on the tank and ImpWis/Kings on the Holy is very nice. In such case, both paladins would need kings. Ardent defender is just too good to pass up in any reasonable scenario in my opinion. Just a couple thoughts from a long time Paladin.

[Los]

Having more then 3 in reckoning is of no use (sourced, check some theorycraft sites), get bok, not just for yourself, but for your team as well. Besides it would be better to swap bok with reckoning complelty, since reckoning does not do that much extra damage where as bok can help your whole team with quite a lot.

[Starbuck_Jones]

[align=left]I agree with picking up AD in the build, and there is arguement about not takeing reckoning because the extra hits can casue parrys and reposts and reset swing timers on bosses and that means extra hits on you, but thoes extra hits also give extra procs of judgement and seal. However thats a level 60 build to get to HotR and I would rather have recogning over AD as its not a final level 80 build.[/align]

[Talamarr]

As a boxer, one of my main goals is to reduce randomness and increase predictability. I'd take an always on BoK over a chance based skill, like Reckoning, any day. Threat is just not an issue and I don't see the extra returns from "... of Light" procs that make it worth the talent points.

[BobGnarly]

A few comments:

- I understand that your build above is level 60, and is cramped for points. I still think kings is worth it because it is affecting ALL of your stats, not just stamina - but it's probably debatable. What I don't think is debatable, however, is having it at level 80. You should put a "final level 80" spec in that you'll respec to at 80, and it should have kings.

- I disagree with a few of your tanking macro rotations, but I think that sort of thing is really a lot of personal preference and I haven't t-crafted mine into the ground, so I'll just mention that people should consider their own team and what their needs are rather than blindly assume a given macro is always the best way.

- This isn't from the OP, but I strongly disagree with the assertion that improved devotion aura isn't worth it. First off, it's solid increase in armor (and therefore mitigation) against the by far most common type of damage in the game. Plus, the thing most people forget, is it provides a 6% boost in healing, and this applies to the entire group! So, by taking this talent, you are reducing the damage your tank takes (= easier to multibox), but also improving the healing you spend on the tank (= easier multibox) and the rest of the group for those aoe fights. I believe this talent should be very highly weighted.

Good work overall, some solid info there. Look forward to future versions