This post was written during TBC with TBC mechanics in mind! Tankadins received a major overhaul between TBC and WotLK, making most of this guide irrelevant or actually incorrect! Read at your own risk.





Hi there, welcome to my guide.

So you want to be a tankadin, yet you are clueless where to get the gear, and how to spec for it. Well, my guide is here to help you on your way. If course since I wrote this guide, it'll be influenced by my view of things, but I'll try to be as objective as possible. First, let's go through some basics:



Basic Concept:

The basic concept of tanking consists of three parts, maintaining the aggro, mitigating the damage and staying alive. There are three classes considered to be tanking class, the Warrior, the Paladin and the Druid. Though any class has some form to maintain aggro, mitigate damage and staying alive, only Warriors, Paladins and Druids have skills and talents specific for this purpose, as well as items made for them. This guide focuses on Paladins, but also talks about Warriors and Druids. If you want to try to tank with your Shaman, Rogue, Shadow Priest or Hunter Pet, I wish you all the luck you can get, but I don't know enough of their mechanics, nor do I needlessly want to cluster this guide.

Maintaining Aggro:

One aspect of tanking is making sure the mobs attack you, not the other people in your group, since you're made to take the hits where the rest is not. Mitigating your damage is useless if you're not the one getting the damage, and you'll more likely to survive a hit than the other people in your group.

The threat caused by Warriors and Druids scales with stats such as Strength, Agility and Attack Power. Protection specced Warriors also get a lot of threat from Block Value. The threat caused by Paladins scales with Spell Damage.

Mitigating Damage:

Another aspect of tanking is minimizing the damage you'll be receiving. It's completely useless to keep the aggro from the cloth wearers, if you take as much damage as them. Your healers cannot keep you alive, unless you make sure to take the minimum amount of damage possible. Damage mitigation can be subdivided in two groups.

Damage Reduction means reducing the damage you'll receive when you get hit. The most basic form of damage reduction is Armor. The higher your armor value, the less damage you will take. A Warrior's Defensive Stance provides 10% Damage Reduction. A Paladin's Righteous Fury provides up to 6% Damage Reduction based on talents. These apply after each other. If you have a 60% Damage Reduction from Armor, then Defensive Stance only reduces 10% of the remaining 40% for a total of 64% Damage Reduction. Blessing of Sanctuary provides a flat Damage Reduction (80 at level 70), but before Damage Reduction from Armor and Stance is taken into account, so that Warrior with 64% Damage Reduction would only receive 28.8 less damage thanks to Blessing of Sanctuary. Block Value provides a flat Damage Reduction whenever you Block an attack, after Damage Reduction from Armor and Stance is taken into account. Druids have neither a flat Damage Reduction bonus, nor Block Value, but they have the highest Armor of all three classes to compensate for this.

Damage Avoidance means avoiding a source of damage altogether. Your Miss, Dodge and Parry chance avoid getting damaged altogether. Your Block chance avoids receiving Critical Hits and Crushing Blows, since these are mutually exclusive, with the exception of forced Critical Hits, like a Rogue's Cold Blood, which can turn into a Blocked Critical Hit. Though avoiding getting damaged altogether is a nice thing, it's only a chance, and therefore unreliable. It's chance based, and might or might not happen. It won't do you any good if it doesn't happen. Don't go through great lengths just to boost complete avoidance. It's a little different for Critical Hits and Crushing Blows. With the right talents and gear, these can be avoided completely by Warriors and Paladins, making it something you can rely on. By reducing the chance of Critical Hits and Crushing Blows to zero, you cannot get unlucky.

Staying Alive:

The more Damage Mitigation you have, the less your healers will have to heal you, but you will receive damage. No matter how low the damage you take is, if the healers don't have time to heal you, you will die regardless. Your heath bar is there for the sole purpose to give your healers time to heal you back up before you take the next hits. It does not reduce the damage you take or the healing you need in any way.

If you completely strife for the most health, while disregarding actual damage mitigation, you will take more damage than your healers can keep up with, and you will die. If you completely strife for the most mitigation, while disregarding your health, an unlucky string of hits will kill you.



Damage Reduction from Armor:

Against mobs up to lvl59, the Damage Reduction in % is:
100 * Armor / (Armor + (Moblvl * 85) + 400)

Against mobs of lvl60 and up, the Damage Reduction in % is:
100 * Armor / (Armor + (Moblvl * 467.5) - 22170)

Against lvl73 mobs (Bosses are considered lvl73 for lvl70 player characters):
100 * Armor / (Armor + 11957.5)

The Damage Reduction for Armor is capped to 75%. Any Armor in excess of that becomes useless. For lvl73 mobs, this is 35872.5.



The Attack Table:

When a mob or character physically attacks another mob or character, WoW determines the result with a single roll. It adds all possible values together, using the following attack table:

Miss
Dodge
Parry
Block
Critical Hit
Crushing Blow (mobs only)
Regular Hit

There are formulas that determine the a character or mob's chance to Miss, Dodge, Parry, Block, Critical Hit and Crushing Blow in %. Those are placed below each other on a line from 0 to 100%. If the total of those values is less than 100%, the remainder is filled up with Regular Hit. If the total of those values is more than 100%, everything beyond 100% falls off the bottom (first Crushing Blow, then Critical Hit, then Block, etc...).

Example 1: There is a 10% chance a mob will Miss a character, 15% the character will Dodge his attack, 20% the character will Parry his attack, 15% the character wil Block his attack, 5% he will Critically Hit the character and 15% he will place a Crushing Blow on the character. Those values count up to 80%, so the remaining 20% becomes a Regular Hit.

One check is made. A result of 0-10% becomes a Miss. 10-25% becomes a Dodge. 25-45% becomes a Parry. 45-60% becomes a Block. 60-65% becomes a Critical Hit. 65-80% becomes a Crushing Blow. 80-100% becomes a Regular Hit.

Example 2: The character mentioned in Example 1 is a Paladin. He casts Holy Shield, which raises his chance to Block an attack by 30% (for a total Block chance of 45%). The values now count up to 110%, so 10% from the lowest value (10% Crushing Blow) falls off. A result of 45-90% becomes a Block. 90-95% becomes a Critical Hit. 95-100% becomes a Crushing Blow. There is no space for Regular Hits.

Example 3: The character mentioned in Example 1 is a Warrior. He casts Shield Block, which raises his chance to Block an attack by 75% (for a total Block chance of 90%). The values now count up to 155%, so 55% from the lowest values (all 15% Crushing Blow, all 5% Critical Hit, 35% Block) falls off. A result of 45-100% becomes a Block. There is no space for Critical Hits, Crushing Blows or Regular Hits.

Preventing Crushing Blow and Regular Hit:

At the above examples, you can see the basic principle of pushing Crushing Blow and Regular Hit off the table. By raising your total Miss, Dodge, Parry and Block chance to 100% or higher, there is not space left for Critical Hit, Crushing Blow and Regular Hit.

A Protection Warrior's Shield Block adds 75% Block chance to 2 blocks per 5 seconds. Protection Warriors only need 25% additional mitigation chance to reach 100%, which they already receive from base values and talents. Warriors without the Improved Shield Block talent can only use Shield Block for 1 block per 5 seconds, which results in it being down often, leaving the Warrior vulnerable to Critical Hit, Crushing Blow and Regular Hit.

A Protection Paladin's Holy Shield adds 30% Block chance to 8 blocks per 10 seconds. The Libram of Repentance raises this by 5.31%. Protection Paladins need 65% additional mitigation chance to reach 100%. They receive around 25% from base values and talents, so about 40% more needs to come from gear (excluding the Libram of Repentance). Protection Paladins also have Redoubt, which adds 30% Block chance to 5 blocks for 10 seconds. However, Redoubt is a chance result of getting hit and cannot be kept up permanently, making it ineffective to reliably prevent Critical Hit, Crushing Blow and Regular Hit.

Druids cannot Parry or Block, so they can only use Miss and Dodge. They have no skills that drastically raise these stats and thus cannot prevent Critical Hit, Crushing Blow and Regular Hit in this way.

The mentioned method is quite situational. There are certain situations where this will not work, leaving you vulnerable to Critical Hit, Crushing Blow and Regular Hit:

- Mobs attack you in the rear.
- Mobs use ranged attacks.
- Mobs attack you more often than Shield Block (2 blocks per 5 seconds) or Holy Shield (8 blocks per 10 seconds) can sustain.
- You get stunned and cannot keep Shield Block or Holy Shield up.
- You get silenced and cannot keep Holy Shield up.
- You do not have enough rage or mana to recast Shield Block or Holy Shield.
- Holy Shield gets dispelled.
- You are disarmed and cannot Parry.
- You are casting and cannot Block.

For Crushing Blows and Regular Hits, nothing else can be done. Raising your total Miss, Dodge, Parry and Block chance to 100% or higher is the only method to prevent them. There is however a different solution for Critical Hits, that is more reliable.



Preventing Critical Hit:

Critical Hit% = 5% + ((Attacker's Weapon Skill) - (Defender's Defense Skill)) * 0,04%

For the average mob or character, both Weapon Skill and Defense Skill are 5*lvl. So if both the attacker and defender are of equal level, without bonuses to Weapon Skill or Defense Skill, the Critical Hit chance is 5%. Bosses are always considered 3 levels higher than you, so their Weapon Skill is 15 higher than your default Defense Skill, which raises the Critical Hit chance by 0.6% (to 5.6%).

By raising the Defense Skill high enough to reduce this chance by 5.6%, the Critical Hit chance from bosses is reduced to 0%. This requires 140 additional Defense Skill (which, at level 70, brings you to 490 Defense Skill). For level 70 characters, 2.4 Defense Rating raises your Defense Skill by 1. 336 Defense Rating raises your Defense Skill by 140.

Warriors and Paladins have a talent called Anticipation that raises their Defense Skill by 20. Characters with this talent only need an additional 120 Defense Skill. 288 Defense Rating raises your Defense Skill by 120.



Druids:

Druids have a talent called Survival of the Fittest that reduces the Critical Hit chance against them by 3%. Characters with this talent reduce the Critical Hit chance from bosses down to 2.6%. Reducing the Critical Hit chance by 2.6% requires 65 Defense Skill (which, at level 70, brings you to 415 Defense Skill). 156 Defense Rating raises your Defense Skill by 65.

For Druids, every point of Defense Skill:
- Increases the chance to be Missed by 0.04%.
- Increases the chance to Dodge by 0.04%.
- Decreases the chance to receive a Critical Hit by 0.04%.

Once 415 Defense Skill is reached, only complete avoidance helps. To upgrade complete avoidance by 1%, you need:
- 14.7 Agility (Druid)
- 18.9 Dodge Rating
- 30 Defense Rating (Druid)

Calculations:

As mentioned above, you need 490 Defense Skill to prevent Critical Hits from bosses. In addition, you need to raise the total Miss, Dodge, Parry and Block chance against lvl73 mobs to 100% to prevent Crushing Blows and Regular Hits from bosses. Warriors and Paladins can achieve this. Druids cannot.

For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to assume you do not have talent points in Deflection, Anticipation or Warrior Shield Specialization.

Base Agility @ lvl70:
Night Elven Warrior - 101
Human Warrior - 96

Human Paladin - 77
Dwarven Paladin - 73
Draenei Paladin - 74
Blood Elven Paladin - 79



Miss chance:

For Warriors and Paladins, every point of Defense Skill:
- Increases the chance to be Missed by 0.04%.
- Increases the chance to Dodge by 0.04%.
- Increases the chance to Parry by 0.04%.
- Increases the chance to Block by 0.04%.
- Decreases the chance to receive a Critical Hit by 0.04%.

2.4 Defense Rating = 1 Defense Skill (@ lvl70)
60 Defense Rating = +1% Miss, +1% Dodge, +1% Parry, +1% Block, -1% Crit (@ lvl70)

Miss% = 5% + ((Defenders Defense Skill) - (Attackers Weapon Skill)) * 0.04%
Miss% = 5% + (Defense Rating / 60)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)



Dodge chance:

18.9 Dodge Rating = 1% Dodge (@ lvl70)
Night Elves have a 1% Racial Bonus to Dodge%.

Dodge% = Base Dodge% + Racial Bonus + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + ((Defenders Defense Skill) - (Attackers Weapon Skill)) * 0.04% + (Agility / Agility Ratio)%
Dodge% = Base Dodge% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% + (Agility / Agility Ratio)% (+1% for Night Elven Warriors) (+0.8% with Anticipation) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)

Warriors (Base Dodge% = 0.75%, Agility Ratio = 30):
Dodge% = 0.75% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% + (Agility / 30)% (+1% for Night Elven Warriors) (+0.8% with Anticipation) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)

Night Elven Warrior (Base Agility = 101, Racial Bonus = 1%):
Dodge% = 4.91% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% + (Agility Bonus / 30)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)

Human Warrior (Base Agility = 96, other Warriors match this closely):
Dodge% = 3.75% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% + (Agility Bonus / 30)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)

Paladins (Base Dodge% = 0.65%, Agility Ratio = 25):
Dodge% = 0.65% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% + (Agility / 25)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)

Human Paladin (Base Agility = 77, other Paladins match this closely):
Dodge% = 3.53% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% + (Agility Bonus / 25)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)



Parry chance:

22.4 Parry Rating = 1% Parry (@ lvl70)
Deflection gives a 5% Talent Bonus to Parry%.

Parry% = 5% + Talent Bonus + (Parry Rating / 22.4)% + ((Defenders Defense Skill) - (Attackers Weapon Skill)) * 0.04%
Parry% = 5% + (Parry Rating / 22.4)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (+5% with Deflection) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)



Block chance:

7.9 Block Rating = 1% Block (@ lvl70)
Warrior Shield Specialization gives a 5% Talent Bonus to Block%.

Block% = 5% + Talent Bonus + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + ((Defenders Defense Skill) - (Attackers Weapon Skill)) * 0.04% + Ongoing skill effects
Block% = 5% + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (+5% with Warrior Shield Specialization) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs) (+75% with Shield Block) (+30% with Holy Shield (+5.31% with Libram of Repentance)) (+30% with Redoubt)

Warriors:
Block% = 5% + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (+5% with Shield Specialization) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs) (+75% with Shield Block)

Paladins:
Block% = 5% + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs) (+30% with Holy Shield (+5.31% with Libram of Repentance)) (+30% with Redoubt)



Prevention chance:

Chance to prevent Crushing Blow and Regular Hit:
[Miss%] + [Dodge%] + [Parry%] + [Block%]

[5% + (Defense Rating / 60)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)] + [Base Dodge% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% + (Agility / Agility Ratio)% (+1% for Night Elven Warriors) (+0.8% with Anticipation) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)] + [5% + (Parry Rating / 22.4)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (+5% with Deflection) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs)] + [5% + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Defense Rating / 60)% (+0.8% with Anticipation) (+5% with Warrior Shield Specialization) (-0.6% against lvl73 mobs) (+75% with Shield Block) (+30% with Holy Shield (+5.31% with Libram of Repentance)) (+30% with Redoubt)]

15% + Base Dodge% + (Defense Rating / 15)% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Parry Rating / 22.4)% + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Agility / Agility Ratio)% (+1% for Night Elven Warriors) (+3.2% with Anticipation) (+5% with Deflection) (+5% with Warrior Shield Specialization) (-2.4% against lvl73 mobs) (+75% with Shield Block) (+30% with Holy Shield (+5.31% with Libram of Repentance)) (+30% with Redoubt)

Night Elven Warriors:
19.91% + (Defense Rating / 15)% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Parry Rating / 22.4)% + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Agility Bonus / 30)% (+3.2% with Anticipation) (+5% with Deflection) (+5% with Shield Specialization) (-2.4% against lvl73 mobs) (+75% with Shield Block)

Human Warriors (Other Warriors match this closely):
18.75% + (Defense Rating / 15)% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Parry Rating / 22.4)% + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Agility Bonus / 30)% (+3.2% with Anticipation) (+5% with Deflection) (+5% with Shield Specialization) (-2.4% against lvl73 mobs) (+75% with Shield Block)

Human Paladins (Other Paladins match this closely):
18.53% + (Defense Rating / 15)% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Parry Rating / 22.4)% + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Agility Bonus / 25)% (+3.2% with Anticipation) (+5% with Deflection) (-2.4% against lvl73 mobs) (+30% with Holy Shield (+5.31% with Libram of Repentance)) (+30% with Redoubt)

Warriors:

Warriors do not have to worry about Crushing Blow and Regular Hit. As long as Shield Block is up, Crushing Blow and Regular Hit cannot happen. Their main priority is to get their Defense Skill up to 490. If they have the Anticipation talent, then this requires 288 Defense Rating, else it takes 336 Defense Rating. Additional Block chance is useless, as it falls of the table. Therefore, once 490 Defense Skill is reached, only complete avoidance helps. To upgrade complete avoidance by 1%, you need:
- 18.9 Dodge Rating
- 20 Defense Rating (Warrior and Paladin)
- 22.4 Parry Rating
- 30 Agility (Warrior)

Of course there are situations where you cannot keep Shield Block up. In these situations Block Chance has an effect. However, keep in mind that Regular Hit is the first value to fall off. The only effect is that you turn Regular Hit into Block. The damage mitigation is equal to [the difference in Block Chance] * [your Block Value].



Paladins:

Unlike Shield Block, Holy Shield does not push Crushing Blows off the table by itself. Additional prevention is required. Their main priority is to get their Defense Skill up to 490. If they have the Anticipation talent, then this requires 288 Defense Rating, else it takes 336 Defense Rating. Human Paladins with Holy Shield up and 490 Defense (with or without Anticipation) have the following Crushing Blow prevention against a level 73 mob:
68.53% + (Defense Rating beyond 490 Defense / 15)% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Parry Rating / 23.7)% + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Agility Bonus / 25)% (+5% with Deflection) (+5.31% with Libram of Repentance) (+30% with Redoubt)

Human Paladins need an additional 31.47% chance to prevent Crushing Blow and Regular Hit. To upgrade Crushing Blow prevention by 1%, you need:
- 7.9 Block Rating
- 15 Defense Rating (Warrior and Paladin)
- 18.9 Dodge Rating
- 22.4 Parry Rating
- 25 Agility (Paladin)

For the sake of simplicity, let's assume you have the Anticipation and Deflection talents maxed out and have the Libram of Repentance equipped (these are mandatory in your early days of fighting Crushing Blow, though you can possibly replace these later on). Since Redoubt is unreliable, I'll stop including it into calculations. If you managed to get 288 Defense Rating from gear, your avoidance will be:
78.84% + (Defense Rating beyond 288 / 15)% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Parry Rating / 23.7)% + (Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Agility Bonus / 25)%

That is 21.16% short of Crushing Blow immune. To reach 100% prevention of Crushing Blow and Regular hit while remaining immune to Critical Hits, you need:
- 288 Defense Rating + 168 Block Rating
- 288 Defense Rating + 318 additional Defense Rating = 606 Defense Rating
- 288 Defense Rating + 400 Dodge Rating
- 288 Defense Rating + 474 Parry Rating
- 288 Defense Rating + 529 Agility Bonus

Of course, you can use a combination of Block Rating, additional Defense Rating, Dodge Rating, Parry Rating and Agility Bonus, as long as the following formula gives a result of 21.16% or higher:
(Block Rating / 7.9)% + (Defense Rating beyond 288 / 15)% + (Dodge Rating / 18.9)% + (Parry Rating / 22.4)% + (Agility Bonus / 25)%

Dwarven Paladins need 21.32%. Draenei Paladins need 21.28%. Blood Elven Paladins need 21.08%.

If 100% prevention is reached, additional Block chance becomes useless, as it falls of the table. Therefore, once 490 Defense Skill and 100% prevention are reached, only complete avoidance helps. To upgrade complete avoidance by 1%, you need:
- 18.9 Dodge Rating
- 20 Defense Rating (Warrior and Paladin)
- 22.4 Parry Rating
- 25 Agility (Paladin)

Of course there are situations where you cannot keep Holy Shield up. In these situations Block Chance has an effect. However, keep in mind that Regular Hit is the first value to fall off. When Redoubt is not up, the only effect is that you turn Regular Hit into Block. The damage mitigation is equal to [the difference in Block Chance] * [your Block Value].

When Redoubt is up however, there's a slim chance that you receive a Crushing Blow and no chance that you receive a Regular Hit, as Holy Shield has a slightly higher Block Chance than Redoubt due to the Libram of Repentance. Additional Block Chance would actually turn Crushing Blow into Block in those situations.



Checking immunity to Crushing Blow:

There's a simple method to check if you're immune to Crushing Blow or not. You can calculate this from the Defense tab on either your ingame characters sheet or your armory character sheet. Note that bonuses from buffs affect these values directly, so make sure you are unbuffed before starting the calculation.

Hover your mouse over the Defense line. It lists your Miss chance from Defense.
Add 5% base Miss chance to this value.
Add your Dodge chance.
Add your Parry chance.
Add your Block chance. Note, if you are in game, it's best to cast Shield Block or Holy Shield right before checking your Block chance.
If you cannot do that (for example, you're using the armory), then add the following:
- Warrior: 75% for Shield Block.
- Paladin: 30% for Holy Shield.
- Paladin: 5.31% for Libram of Repentance.

If the total is 102.4% or higher, then you're immune to Crushing Blow (as long as Shield Block or Holy Shield is up of course).

You need to surpass 102.4% instead of 100%, since the character screen assumes you're fighting a lvl 70 mob. A level 73 mob lowers your Miss, Dodge, Parry and Block chance by 0.6% each for a total of 2.4%.

Okay, that was a lot of theorycrafthing. It's ok if you didn't grasp it all, I'll guide you along further into my guide when we return to gear. For the moment, I want to look at another aspect, where I've referred to in the previous post, talents. I'm going to include a lot of placeholders here, in case I'll go completely nuts some day and add details about Warrior and Druid talent trees. For now, I'll stick to the Paladin talent trees.

Placeholder.

Placeholder.

Paladin Protection Talent Tree:

Tier 1:
Once geared up, neither talents are really impressive, but one needs to be picked to open up the Protection tree. Since Redoubt is a requirement for Shield Specialization, it's usually the best pick.

Improved Devotion Aura: (5) Increases the armor bonus of your Devotion Aura by 8/16/24/32/40%.
At level 70, Devotion Aura provides 861 armor (971 armor with Libram of Truth). Improved Devotion Aura will provide an additional 344 armor (388 armor with Libram of Truth). This is considered only a marginal upgrade. For example, if you are sitting at 15000 armor without this talent (55.64% damage reduction), then the talent brings you at 15344 armor (56.20%). If without it, you receive 44.36% damage and with it, you receive 43.80% damage, then you receive 1.26% less damage. The more armor you have, the less additional damage reduction this talent provides, which means of course that before you got 15k armor, this talent provides more damage reduction. Combine it with the fact that it only works when you're running Devotion Aura and only applies to physical damage, makes it an insignificant talent.

Redoubt: (5) Damaging melee and ranged attacks against you have a 10% chance to increase your chance to block by 6%/12%/18%/24%/30%. Lasts 10 sec or 5 blocks.
This raises the chance you can block, and thus provides less damage. In addition, if you get Holy Shield as well, it raises the chance that Holy Shield charges get used. However, it's unreliable, and since eventually you want to be crush immune without relying on Redoubt, Redoubt will become useless once you hit that point and have Holy Shield up. Redoubt still provides a small purpose in case all your charges are used before the cooldown has passed, as well as in the case you get struck right after Holy Shield expires but right before you recast it.

Tier 2:
Toughness is a musthave talent, since it provides quite a bit of armor, and is enough to get you further into the Protection tree. Precision and Guardian's Favor are optional talents. Look at the more important talents further into the three before considering these.

Precision: (3) Increases your chance to hit with melee weapons by 1%/2%/3%.
This makes your weapon damage apply more often, but since we usually wield a caster weapon, it's not that big of an influence. However, since seals can only hit when your weapon hits, it also applies your seal effect more often. Seals are only a small part of our aggro, so this is far from a required talent. When you have a Judgement applied to the boss, this talent will both make the Judgement stay up more consistently and make it proc more often, but the differences are minimal.

Guardian's Favor: (2) Reduces the cooldown of your Blessing of Protection by 60/120 sec and increases the duration of your Blessing of Freedom by 3/6 sec.
Blessing of Protection can be a real lifesaver when applied in time to a clothie, when it get's aggro. However, it shouldn't have gotten aggro in the first place. If you need to cast it so often that you need this talent to cast it enough, someone should reconsider their playstyle. It's more of a PvP talent.

Toughness: (5) Increases your armor value from items by 2/4/6/8/10%.
More armor means less physical damage. You'll be seeing a lot of physical damage, so this talent cannot be bad. Take this talent, it is a musthave.

Tier 3:
The whole Tier is nice. Improved Righteous Fury is a musthave for tanking. If you read the theorycrafting earlier in my guide, then you know Anticipation is too. Blessing of Kings and Shield Specialization are very useful as well, but you might hold out on taking them until you took some more important talents.

Blessing of Kings: (1) Places a blessing on the friendly target, increasing total stats by 10% for 5 min.
10% can be a lot. For a wellgeared paladin, Blessing of Kings gives more stamina than Power Word: Fortitude does. The only downside is that you can only cast one blessing at yourself. For only one talent point, this is really hard to skip.

Improved Righteous Fury: (3) While Righteous Fury is active, all damage taken is reduced by 2/4/6% and increases the amount of threat generated by your Righteous Furt spell by 16/33/50%.
6% damage reduction against everything, on top of armor reduction makes it worthwhile alone. It also increases threat from Holy damage from 160% to 190% which is musthave to keep the aggro in most cases. Simply don't go without this talent.

Shield Specialization: (3) Requires Redoubt. Increases the amount of damage absorbed by your shield by 10/20/30%.
Basically increases your block value by 30%. However, unlike Warriors, Paladins don't gain anything special from block value, it only reduces the damage we take when blocking. Redoubt and Holy Shield allow us to block a lot, so if you play into our key role, multimob tanking, then this is a pretty nice talent, but the block value doesn't scale with the damage we get, so it's quite useless against single hardhitting bosses. It's a nice talent, but not required. Pick the more important talents from further into the tree before considering this one. Certainly pick it up if you have the points to spare.

Anticipation: (5) Increases your Defense skill by 4/8/12/16/20.
Decreases the chance we receive a crit from a physical attack by 0.8%. Decreases the chance a mob will hit us with a physical attack by 0.8%. Increases the chance we dodge, parry or block a physical attack by 0.8% each. This talent helps out on both crit immunity and crush immunity. Without this talent, it's a lot harder to reach crush immunity, requiring you to nerf yourself on other aspects, such as stamina and spell damage. Take it.

Tier 4:
Where the previous Tier was full of nice options, this Tier is in complete lack of them. The best solution is to spend enough points in earlier Tiers, so you can skip this Tier entirely.

Stoicism: (2) Increases your resistance to Stun effects by an additional 5/10% and reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by an additional 15/30%.
Even with this talent, you will most likely still be stunned, the chance is just too small. Though we are pretty vulnerable to dispels, as nearly our entire combat system relies on selfbuffs, there are only very few mobs that do dispel us, and usually those are trivial encounters, making it not worth the talent. PvP talent, skip it.

Improved Hammer of Justice: (3) Decreases the cooldown of your Hammer of Justice spell by 5/10/15 sec.
Though stunning a target here and there can help out a lot to control the situation or reduce the damage you'll take, bosses and similar creatures are immune to it's effect. Some encounters make having a stun really useful, but they don't require you to stun more than once per minute. Being able to stun a bit more often is not really worth 3 talent points for a tank.

Improved Concentration Aura: (3) Increases the effect of your Concentration Aura by an addtional 5/10/15% and reduces the duration of any Silence or Interrupt effect used against an affected group member by 10/20/30%.
Nearly all the spells used as a tankadin are instant cast, and the ones that don't do not allow us to block, making them bad options when we're in melee combat. Therefor the increase to the original effect and to Interrupts is useless. Reducing the duration of Silence can be very useful in certain situations, but then we'd have to run this aura, while there are better options. PvP talent, skip it.

Tier 5:
Blessing of Sanctuary is required for Holy Shield, which makes it a musthave. The other talents are optional.

Spell Warding: (2) All spell damage taken is reduced by 2/4%.
A flat damage reduction against magic damage. Since we don't have much defense against magic damage, this talent can help out.

Blessing of Sanctuary: (1) Places a blessing on the friendly target, reducing damage dealt from all sources by up to 80 for 5 min. In addition, when the target blocks a melee attack the attacker will take 46 holy damage.
Since it's required for Holy Shield, this talent is musthave to pick up. It's use is limited. The damage reduction applies before percentile reductions such as armor, Improved Righteous Fury and Spell Warding. For tough encounters other blessings such as Blessing of Kings are usually a better option. For trivial encounters this might be your best blessing as it helps you to keep aggro.

Reckoning: (5) Gives you a 2/4/6/8/10% chance after being hit by any damaging attack that the next 4 weapon swings within 8 sec will generate an additional attack.
More weapon swings not only means more white damage, but also more Seal applications, and depending on the Judgement you applied on your target more Judgement effects. The more mobs you tank, the more this takes effect, making it very useful for tanking multimob packs, but less so against single, hardhitting bosses. It gives some nice extra threat on the main target when it procs, but doesn't help control aggro on an entire mob pack. It's a nice talent, but not a requirement.

Tier 6:
Not much here, but what is here, is good. Take both, if possible.

Sacred Duty: (2) Increases your total Stamina by 3/6%, reduces the cooldown of your Divine Shield spell by 30/60 sec and reduces the attack speed penalty by 100%.
6% extra stamina is the reason this talent is so useful. The cooldown can sometimes be useful to dispel really annoying debuffs, but the attack speed penalty reduction is useless, since you need to remove the buff right away, as Divine Shield makes you lose aggro.

One-Handed Weapon Specialization: (5) [i]Increases all damage you deal when a


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Placeholder - nonprotection talents.

Placeholder - druid talents.

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Strengths and Weaknesses:

To come: The strengths and weaknesses of a Protection Paladin.

Tankadin Macros:

To come: Macro's that are useful to a Protection Paladin.

Mana cost comparison and Spell Damage coefficients:

To come: List of threat abilities, their standard threat, their threat/mana and their Spell Damage coefficients.

Current bugs related to Protection Paladins:

To come: List of bugs currently related to Protection Paladins.

Suggestions to improve the Protection Paladin:

To come: Suggestions that would improve the quality of Protection Paladins.