Phase 4 New Gear for Prot Paladins - TBC Classic

[@SubtleFW]

*ADDITIONAL INFO* Uncrush set for no ele sham and no Tidestompers/Girdle: seventyupgrades.com/set/fcMQtB2axvhU1VRLPptKSP

[@fizin1]

I love to see a video not for people who are already maxed out in gear. Thanks for explaining all the thought process between each piece. Helps alot to understand which pieces to prio and things to keep in mind while getting gear :)

[@SubtleFW]

Happy to help! Got a lot of requests to talk about gear from the perspective of less geared prot pallies, so I'm trying to include perspectives on both bis gear and catchup gear in all my gearing videos now

[@gamewithkeg4201]

Heard you on Countdown to Classic, great stuff! Your content is clear and helpful, thanks!

[@SubtleFW]

Thanks! It was pretty surreal being on there after listening to the podcast the past couple years

[@JI-ev9pp]

Been watching your videos for a little bit now, liked and subscribed buddy. Appreciate the content and laid back attitude and pretty much zero cursing on top of it all :-)

[@SubtleFW]

Hey thank you! Just a forewarning if you watch my stream, there is quite a bit of cursing on it haha

[@JI-ev9pp]

@@SubtleFW thanks for the warning :-)

[@timferistreams2162]

What I have been doing is going Resil to chest to just guarantee passive crit immunity, i usually sit around 480 def then I have that extra resil. All in all I would say it is a slight bit better than the other enchants at this level but I also gem full stam except for belt and helm. Great video, I did a bunch of research beforehand for this phase, and to have it all summed up in one easy video for reference is awesome. Thx for representing the best class/spec in WoW.

[@SubtleFW]

Thank you! Yah I agree that resil to chest is the highest value enchant on chest if you'll benefit from the resil in that particular set

[@davenportjg]

Great video! I had been messing with sets and upgrades over the weekend, glad I can add your insight to my choices on what to go after!

[@SubtleFW]

Glad to help!

[@taylorcraig3668]

Awesome stuff. Just getting back into TBC, seems like this patch is a good time to do it. I've watched like 10 of your videos as this is my first go at tanking/prot. All so informational.

[@SubtleFW]

Thanks, happy to help! This is probably the best possible time to get back into the game. So many ways to catchup in gear fast now

[@aedrisgaming3949]

Hey Subtle, I wanted to point out something that I thought was neat and was reminded of while watching your video, I’m going to use handwavey math to illustrate the point, I’m sure I’m off by 10-15% but the point still stands: block rating is, point-for-point, equivalent to spell damage for threat with some base amount of spell damage and especially if conserving mana (only when holy shield charges are being used due to that extra block rating... i.e. when you’re not wasting block rating by being way over crush cap). Suppose 1% of block rating gives approximately 2.5-3.5 holy damage per block (holy shield and BoSanc). That’s pretty close to 5-8 threat per boss swing. Boss might swing about 1 time per 2 seconds so you’re looking at 2.5-4 threat per second from 7.9 block rating or 0.33-0.5 threat per second per block rating. Take 1 spell damage and assume you can’t miss (full spell hit). Consecrate will deal about .2 threat per second, holy shield will give another .05 threat per second, seal will maybe give .1-15 threat per second. I tend to say 1 spell damage gives approximately .4 threat per second. In short, depending on your total spell damage and spell hit. 1 block rating can give more threat per second that 1 spell damage if you’re not already unhittable for your target (uncrushable obviously only matters for bosses). At the very least, it’s close and it obviously also decreases your damage taken as well. Very important for new prot Paladins to note. We’re not like dual wielding warrior tanks; we can’t just forsake our shield and block rating to gain threat, we gain threat from block rating and it is about as good for threat as spell damage which makes hitting uncrushable even more important for new prot Paladins to focus on. I noticed this early on while gearing in Karazhan, my threat skyrocketed by adding non-spell damage pieces to get block rating to push from maybe 80%->102.4% (with holy shield active). This also means that one of the best threat librams is the Holy Shield badge libram that provides 42 block rating while holy shield is up. You get uncrushable more easily and therefore can trade out for more spell damage or spell hit elsewhere AND the block rating is quite valuable for threat by itself if you were to do that.

[@SubtleFW]

Hey, it's definitely a good point. I'd have to dive a little deeper into the numbers to truly value it but block is a very cool stat in that it's both offensive and defensive for us. However, one thing to consider is that anytime Redoubt is up, any extra block you have is kinda wasted, so you don't get full value from adding more block rating

[@justinhart6900]

Super great video subtle. Your content has helped me so much with learning prot paladin. I would love to hear some insight from you comparing different prot pally trinkets and when to use which, as that is something I struggle with. Keep up the great work!

[@SubtleFW]

Thanks that's awesome to hear! I'll probably do a vid going in depth on trinkets sometime soon. But the short of it is I use Hex Shrunken/Icon/Pipe on rotation + Tome of Fiery Redemption for trash. For most bosses, I use Hex Shrunken + Crusade

[@Perk4475]

Both when I was doing prot on pserver and now for BT and Hyjal I just completely ignore spell hit outside of ToC and the head enchant, so with talents and the resto shaman I get about 7-8% without any particular hit gear. I've always found that just going for raw spell power yields a better balance of avoidance and threat overall than actually picking spell hit pieces, and I am nowhere near being caught on threat maintanking any bosses with people pushing 99's. Saying that, I am also getting external imp sanc aura from my holy paladin and run Avenger's Shield spec with Crusade, and not all paladins are in that situation. But imho most holy paladins should spec this way because their end talent is completely redundant unless your guild has really bad kill times on bosses.

[@SubtleFW]

One of the things I like most about spell hit is the increased consistency. Once you're close to spell hit cap, you'll rarely run into situations where you get either your opening Exo or JoR resisted. You can definitely have great threat going all in on sp too though. Agree on holy pallies going sanc in general. Kinda depends on how many healers you're running though. We run 5 healers and are eventually aiming to go to 4, so our Holy may actually need DI

[@1rilis]

Hey Subtle, thanks for the video, great stuff. I think you have the same threat set linked twice in your description of the video as they both link to the set that uses the badge belt with the one you showed in the video using BT belt and badge boots being absent.

[@SubtleFW]

Whoops, thanks for the heads up! Fixed

[@TygerByte]

Super helpful for those of use casual tanks who need catchup gear. Thanks.

[@SubtleFW]

Glad I can help!

[@TBNguyenschannel]

Thanks so much for the info @SubtleFW. As a prot Pally my guild mostly uses me for trash tanking and it’s hard to keep holy shield up cuz the multiple hits eat thru holy shield stacks. So do you have a recommended build that is passively uncrittable that still maxes out spellhit and power of course?

[@SubtleFW]

Hey happy to help! If you're mainly tanking trash, this is what I would aim for: seventyupgrades.com/set/t8sa3UZ5auPC72L822EARD

[@oliver9069]

Thank you for the videos! Hope you keep it up especially for Wrath!

[@SubtleFW]

Thanks, I will! Very excited for wrath prot pally. It's my favorite version of a class in all wow xpacs

[@mauricew1769]

whenever i see your gear i come close to tears. i whish my raid could heal me in this gear.

[@oshaghenesy]

Try stacking block value, there's a lot of new pieces that have a lot

[@darrak1]

@@oshaghenesy stacking BV? Lopata indeed

[@SubtleFW]

Yah definitely depends on your raid. I think the items themselves are good for most prot pallies on most bosses, but gems may need to be adjusted to be more stam heavy depending on your healers

[@justinedge9437]

I can appreciate this, my motto to the guild for tbc has been "all spellpower all the time". Luckily my healers are good and have learned I'm a paper tank, but it allows our pumpers to pump, so it evens out

[@ManU-nh7oe]

Nice vid! Thanks for that. One thing what is going through my head at the moment is the pros an cons of using 120 armor enchant on the new badge cloak compared to a dodge enchant. I also saw you using 120 armor in recent logs. Can you give me your thought prozess on this? Thanks

[@SubtleFW]

Thanks! In general, 120 armor is going to lower the ceiling on potential burst damage you take, while dodge will do a little bit more to decrease your overall damage taken over a full fight length. For bosses, generally the burst potential is the only scary thing, not the sustained damage over the whole fight, so 120 armor is generally preferred. If you're using an uncrush set and you're over 102.4% avoidance, you won't get the full benefit of the dodge enchant since it will be pushing some of your block off of the defense table and wasting some stats. If you're short of being uncrushable, then you should use the dodge enchant to help you get there

[@arthursmalle284]

hi subtle, have you tried the new libram of divine purpose ? it's better to wear it and loose some spellhit rather than take the repentance one ?

[@SubtleFW]

Hey, I just use it in my uncrit sets at the moment, I didn't like how many stats I had to give up to replace the block on Libram of Repentance

[@2facedjoker]

Is it really worth it to have the prot paladin in the ele shaman group for totem of wrath? I feel like it's a hard sell to my guild. Is it viable to get spell hit cap without totem of wrath assuming skull of gul'dan is not an option? Great vid as always.

[@Trivi10]

Not if you have 4 locks or 3 locks and a boomkin.

[@SubtleFW]

It totally depends on your raid comp. My guild only has 2 locks and a boomkin, so if I didn't go into the ele sham group, it would just be a healer. My advice is to always let dps get their ideal group first and then prot pally goes into the best group available after that. We benefit from a ton of different group buffs, so there's always something we can get out of pretty much any group. It is viable to hit cap without an ele sham. You may need to throw in some extra spell hit gems, or you can throw on faceplate of the impenetrable and rock the double badge boot/belt. Here's an example: seventyupgrades.com/set/fcMQtB2axvhU1VRLPptKSP You don't need to use scroll of agi 5 with that build either

[@alexlloyd7499]

Really great video - appreciate the effort you put into these. I've always been told to make sure I'm at 490 defense, but you mention that you can get to crit immunity through avoidance. How does that work? Thanks

[@SubtleFW]

Thank you! Avoidance uncrit is the same concept as uncrushable, we're pushing crits off the defense table. The defense table just goes from top to bottom until the total is 100% (keep in mind bosses remove 2.4% of your avoidance, hence the need for 102.4% avoidance to make up for that). Once 100% is reached, anything after that point cannot happen. This is the order of the defense table: Miss Dodge Parry Block Crit Crush Normal The biggest thing you have to worry about with avoidance uncrit is making sure Holy Shield is always up, or you will be crittable. There are some situations where this is more difficult, like when bosses silence. Any time you might not be able to have full uptime on Holy Shield, you definitely want passive uncrit

[@braydon62509]

Hey man great video, Im personally looking forward to swaping T6 Belt and Chest out so I can convert the SP+Block to SP+Dodge. Just to reiterated though, is the new libram better than the Eternal Rest Libram for pure Threat on bosses?

[@SubtleFW]

Hey thanks! Those are definitely some solid swaps, especially for something like Gurtogg where dodge has a lot more value than normal. Libram of DIvine Purpose is quite a bit better than Eternal Rest for single target boss threat

[@murkiest2070]

I'm a new prot pally. I'm just confused at what the difference is between uncrittable and uncrushable. So you're saying if my avoidance is over 102.4% or w/e it is with holy shield up I don't need 490 defense? I assumed for all raid bosses I needed uncrushable + 490 defense.

[@murkiest2070]

Also, while I'm at it, how big of a priority is spell hit cap and is uncrittable while not being uncrushable only relevant in dungeons and trash packs?

[@SubtleFW]

So there are 2 ways to get uncritable, passively with reduced crit chance from defense and/or resilience, or through avoidance by having 102.4%+ so the only outcomes of an attack are dodges, misses, parries, and blocks. For a newer prot, you'd probably want to use passive uncrit until you feel confident keeping Holy Shield up all the time. Uncrit through avoidance is only for times when there's no risk of Holy Shield not being up. Here's some info on the defense table: When you are attacked, the game will go from top to bottom on this list until the total is 100% to determine the probability of outcomes. Anything after 100% is reached cannot happen. Keep in mind mobs will deduct 0.2% dodge/parry/block/miss each for every level they have over you, for 2.4% total avoidance reduction against boss mobs Miss Dodge Parry Block Crit Crush Normal Spell hit cap is great but you should prioritize staying alive first, and then you can add in spell hit. Uncritable without uncrush is used for some weaker bosses such as Rage Winterchill and bosses who are coded to not be able to crush, such as Supremus

[@zaetayo]

Haven't gotten any off-pieces from BT yet, so might go for both belt and boots from badges.

[@SubtleFW]

Oof that's unlucky. Here's another example set I threw together that doesn't use the BT belt/boots: seventyupgrades.com/set/fcMQtB2axvhU1VRLPptKSP If you have Bracers of Determination, you could throw those in and change the cloak enchant to dodge

[@RoliRegenbogen]

When are you doing Phase 5 badge gear guide? :D

[@SubtleFW]

Soon! Hoping to have it done in the next week

[@wizzchan]

What second trinket would you suggest when you dont have mark of the champoin and skull isnt an option for you? Maybe the dmf card?

[@SubtleFW]

DMCV if you need extra hp, DMCC if you want threat and the debuff isn't gonna fall off, Tome of Fiery redemption if you aren't into pre procing it (doesn't make sense for some fights, also I've cut down on pre-procing it due to time waste and not needing the extra threat for most bosses), Ashtongue at spell hit cap (but it's very rng). If none of those make sense for the boss, you can still use Icon, but it will be on a 20 sec cd when you use Hex Shrunken Head

[@mbr9863]

Hi Are u saying if im uncrushable with holy shield up all the time i will be crit immune all the time right?

[@scrubbsgaming.3784]

For anything that doesn’t do spell damage.

[@scrubbsgaming.3784]

But essentially yea if the damage incoming can be blocked dodged or parried and your uncrushable you can’t be crit by the attack.

[@moxrelated764]

If you have alot of options to switch around yes. But with phase 1 and 2 gear it's kinda hard to achieve that. U kinda need t6 pieces to achieve that and keep a decent hp pool+ sp

[@SubtleFW]

If your boss total avoidance with holy shield is 100% on seventyupgrades (theyve already taken into account the avoidance penalty for fighting a boss mob) or 102.4% in game, you cannot be crit. This does rely on having perfect holy shield uptime though. This is gonna get a little complicated, but it is technically possible to be critable and uncrushable at the same time if your avoidance is lower than what I mentioned. For example, if you had 101.9% total avoidance and a 0.5% chance to be crit (percent chance of total outcomes adding up to 102.4%), you would be critable but uncrushable because crits are above crushing blows on the defense table, so crushing blows would never be reached, despite avoidance being below 102.4% because crits are covering that missing 0.5%. Just something to be aware of. But if you have 102.4% total avoidance in game / 100% total boss avoidance (holy shield) on seventyupgrades, you're totally fine

[@henshire]

why uncrusth next i m seeing that has like 470defense ? im super newbie en prot pala, im learning a lots with u but my english is sucks, when have i use 40/21 build with aura for more threat vs more defense gear? iwas "boosted" until 70, normal hehe now how can i start to get gear without buy items of raid ? i did like 4 pieces epic craft of BS, is good trinked of Deck ? Thanks bro, im learning a lot of palatank with u more videos !!

[@SubtleFW]

You can become uncrittable either passively (-5.6% combined crit reduction between def and resil) or through avoidance. If you have 102.4% avoidance against a boss, you'll be both uncrittable and uncrushable, so I generally don't bother going for passive crit immune if I'm already avoidance crit immune. There are some times you might want to though, like if your holy shield might not be up the whole time or you might get stunned. I'd go with 0/40/21 for most things unless you end up with a ret pally or a holy pally with sanc in your group when you start raiding. Darkmoon Card Crusade is still pretty good but Darkmoon Card Vengeance is mostly repalced. I would just work on getting lots of badges right now. Do as much kara and heroics as you can and then start doing ZA when you can. Happy to help!

[@rivalry5023]

what bosses on mh/bt that we really need to be either crush capped or crit capped?

[@SubtleFW]

Archimonde, Azgalor, Supremus, Shahraz, Essence of Suffering, Illidan, and Gathios cannot crush. I'd wear crit cap for every boss myself, but you could get away with being critable on Rage Winterchill. For Rage and RoS I wear crushable sets, as they hit pretty weak, everything else I wear uncrush if the boss is capable of crushing

[@JAlvarez1104]

Yea, I can see that Girdle of the Protector in almost all my sets. Would be nice if any of those off-set BT Paly pieces would drop :/

[@SubtleFW]

Still chasing those Tidestompers myself =(

[@elere9932]

Hi, can you add a link to that seventyupgrade I want to share it with my non-english speaker friends. plz :)

[@SubtleFW]

Yep here you go: seventyupgrades.com/set/jGrWmqH9hXi8KdAaS7fLV4 For future reference, I always have seventyupgrades links in the video description

[@elere9932]

@@SubtleFW mb, did not expand the description. Many thanks to you. keep up the good work

[@onima1753]

i was literally googling if any of the ZA/Badge gear is any good for us if we're at t6 bis (or close) and then u upload this hahaha

[@SubtleFW]

Haha perfect timing!

[@radiiliev1892]

Hey, thank you for the great video ! I have a question since I'm kinda the back up prot paladin for our raid when our main prot pala is unable to attend the raids. Generally since I mostly tank trash in hyjal and some of the trash in BT, and I'm not able to make multiple sets (e.g. spell power one or defensive one, or balanced) If I want to make mostly trash set should I lean more towards defensive stats like dodge on items and stam gems and less towards spell power, or the opposite ? Also approximately how much spell power is needed for decent threat on trash? Thank you !

[@SubtleFW]

Hey thanks! It's gonna vary guild to guild how much survivability vs how much threat you'll want. Number 1 priority is always staying alive. If you have no issues with survivability, then you can start adding sp for threat. I run 901 unbuffed sp for trash atm. but more or less could be needed depending on the guild. If you do need to gear more defensively in your guild, you can make up for this a bit with things like Stratholme Holy Water, Bloodthistle (horde only), Scourgebane Infusion (horde only), Oil of Immolation, and greater blessing spam (spamming your assigned blessing for threat on the class you have the most of in raid, usually shaman)

[@radiiliev1892]

@@SubtleFW thank you !

[@radiiliev1892]

@@SubtleFW hey, sorry for the bother but I have one more question. If you are main tanking a boss, how do your spells rank as of TPS done. Should it be something like : Concecration JoR Holy Shield Exorcism (if the boss is a demon) SoR Also if you have WF SoR goes below JoR or something like that ?

[@SubtleFW]

@@radiiliev1892 Hey no worries. Here's my threat breakdown for our last Teron Gorefiend kill to give you an idea: Ability Threat (*) Per 112.58 seconds Consecration 55083.77 489.26 Seal of Righteousness 48314.13 429.13 Judgement of Righteousness 40110.79 356.27 Holy Shield 22217.62 197.34 Melee 18136.62 161.09 Exorcism 16688.12 148.23 Hammer of Wrath 7511.69 66.72 Enduring Judgement 5982.61 53.14 Earth Shield 1890.41 16.79 Spiritual Attunement 1634.26 14.52 Greater Blessing of Salvation 1517.18 13.48 Prayer of Mending 1209.63 10.74 Super Sapper Charge 1156.68 10.27 Misdirect (Arcane Shot) 1144.50 10.17 Thorns 1099.56 9.77 Misdirect (Multi-Shot) 742.70 6.60 Misdirect (Auto Shot) 506.80 4.50 Reckoning 42.96 0.38 Redoubt 30.60 0.27 Band of the Eternal Sage 20.40 0.18 Total 225041.02 1998.85 SoR difference is pretty minimal between WF and WoA. This is the threat graphing tool I use: voomlz.github.io/threat/

[@radiiliev1892]

@@SubtleFW Thank you very much !

[@joncfollowell]

I gotta say your content is always loaded with good info. It is unwatchable until I turn up the video speed to 1.75 speed. I appreciate the thoughtful content and videos but you may consider working from a script to keep things flowing smoother.

[@SubtleFW]

I'll work on that, thanks for the feedback

[@m1tchell23]

when you say uncrittable sets, would these sets only be used for trash? trying to think of scenarios where you'd only need to be uncrittable, but not uncrushable.

[@ChessJew]

Maybe Hyjal trash where you're confident in your heals and trying to max threat and damage

[@SubtleFW]

This could be for weak bosses, such as Rage Winterchill or RoS where their crushing blows dont really do enough damage to matter, or one of the bosses who is coded to not be able to crush (Azgalor, Archimonde, Mother Shahraz, Supremus, Gathios) though I would generally lean a bit tankier for the non-Supremus ones in that list

[@_Emyn]

Great Video 👌

[@SubtleFW]

Thanks!

[@wresler103]

Just re:spell haste, don't we benefit from faster (and more, at certain breakpoints) cons ticks? I think the value of spell haste with respect to threat/haste is understated here.

[@ChessJew]

Haste doesn't impact DoTs yet

[@SubtleFW]

Yah as John mentioned, consecration unfortunately doesn't benefit from spell haste

[@Rupert40k]

Thanks boss 😘

[@SubtleFW]

Anytime!

[@Andybiksta]

12% hit on those bis sets you have shaman totem and racial active

[@SubtleFW]

No racial on there, but it is with ele sham totems to reach 16%. Can swap in more spell hit gems if you don't have an ele

[@allstargaming5270]

Seekers and Tidestompers don't exist for us 😝 we've had so many warglaives, scepters, bows, shields tho lol

[@SubtleFW]

Haha I'd trade my seekers for some glaives any day

[@donniecarlson9677]

this whole time i was like. how does he have so much more SP and stam then i do, i didnt realise u could add Buffs on seventy upgrades! lol,

[@SubtleFW]

Haha yah they added that I think a month or 2 ago. Definitely an awesome change

[@donniecarlson9677]

​@@SubtleFW OH ok it is fairly new, so im not totally crazy for not noticing it. hah. thats huge, no more guessing how much buffs will add to uncrush!

[@Brownboy42069]

14.5k hp fully buffed xD Absolutely delusional and self-centered parse-fiend "tank" build