We break down all the reasons you should consider playing Protection Paladin in Patch 10.1 and even throw in a few reasons of why you might not. From all the changes since launch to the new tier set bonuses coming in 10.1, join us as we explore Dragonflight Season 2 Protection Paladin!
Why You Should Play a Spec in Dragonflight Season 2 Series
Blood DK
Havoc DH
Feral Druid
Guardian Druid
Preservation Evoker
Beast Mastery Hunter
Arcane Mage
Fire Mage
Mistweaver Monk
Retribution Paladin
Holy Priest
Shadow Priest
Assassination Rogue
Elemental Shaman
Affliction Warlock
Protection Warrior
Dragonflight Season 2 Paladin Tier Set
Why You Should Play Protection Paladin in Dragonflight Season 2 (and Why You Shouldn’t)
Before Dragonflight, Protection Paladin has been a niche tank for several expansions in a row. It might have had a blip here or there but generally it was the goldilocks tank. It was never the best tank nor was it the worst. It was just mid-tier. People always recognized its strengths of utility or good damage but also recognized some of its weaknesses.
At the start of Dragonflight Season 1, several people wrote off Paladin tanks as buggy, undertuned, and non-viable. It didn’t help that the raid had a few encounters like Dathea or Raszageth that were very Paladin unfriendly. But over the course of Season 1, because of bug fixes, improved talent layouts, and numerical buffs to damage output, Protection Paladin started to get recognition as a powerful tank spec. It is now the best tank for Mythic+ with potential for strong raid viability in Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible.
In this article, I’ll discuss the potential of playing Protection Paladin in Dragonflight Season 2 and the downsides of why you might want to avoid it.
| Why You Should | Why You Shouldn’t |
Why You Should Play Protection Paladin in Dragonflight Season 2
Protection Paladin Utility for Dragonflight Season 2
Protection has the best utility package of all tanks with some of it getting a chance to shine in Season 2 content. Here are some of the highlights.
If you’re a fan of being helpful to the group, of being valuable, this could be the WoW Season for you as a Protection Paladin. From week to week in Mythic+ or boss to boss in the raid, there is always a way for Protection Paladin to be a central member of any group. It will raise expectations of what you have to do, and it will help separate the good ones from the bad ones.
Improved Talent Trees for Protection Paladins in Dragonflight Season 2
Part way through Dragonflight Season 1, Protection saw changes to their class and spec talent trees. Deliberate changes that added more choices for different situations, improved talent power to be more appropriate for their location in the tree, added new pathing and potential combinations
Dragonflight Season 2 will be the first full season with all of these changes in place and everything can be fully explored from the start of a season, instead of the middle. There will be meta builds eventually but there is something fun about the potential that the trees have for a full season.
I can’t list every change here or it will be a giant list. Here are the highlights as far as I’m concerned.
Improved Gameplay for Protection Paladins in Dragonflight Season 2
There were two big gameplay changes to Protection Paladins as we head into Dragonflight Season 2; Of Dusk and Dawn and increased access to cooldowns.
The first change to the gameplay for Protection Paladins was Of Dusk and Dawn. It went from something that has to be constantly managed and maintained to something that happens naturally or even ignored. The previous version placed these restrictions on your Holy Power usage where you might want to heal with Word of Glory or press Shield of the Righteous but couldn’t as you had to follow an extremely strict way of spending Holy Power. But in the updated version, there are no more restrictions. You can do what you need to do with your Holy Power without any negative consequences. This does make Protection Paladin a bit easier to play but it has the benefit of not feeling handcuffed constantly in what you do.
The other change for Protection Paladin was the increased access to cooldowns. With access to Inmost Light , two ranks on Resolute Defender, two ranks on Uther’s Counsel, Protection has access to several cooldown options for different combat situations including the ability to do big pulls in Mythic+ or handle specific raid mechanics. Having a nice toolbox where you can pick out and use something can be very fun.
Why You Shouldn’t Play Protection Paladin in Dragonflight Season 2
Protection Paladin isn’t the only good Paladin spec for Dragonflight Season 2
Paladins are in an incredibly good spot overall heading into Season 2. With the 10.0.7 rework, Retribution is now a strong melee spec with better damage profile options, and more survivability. And as usual, Holy is always a factor in the raid meta because of their perceived utility that is not replaceable like, Aura Mastery.
All Paladins being good increases spot competition for Protection in the overall Paladin meta, meaning that finding a Mythic+ group or a raid spot will be more difficult. The typical key group will want at most one Paladin and the typical raid will want at most two. Given the state of balance among other roles and how tanks are used to fill gaps in buffs/debuffs or utility, Protection could be the odd spec out because Retribution and Holy could be better than specs of their same role especially in raid.
Between Retribution and Holy, Retribution looks particularly good on paper for Season 2 in all PvE content. They have a lot of the same utility as Prot, including things like Unbound Freedom, Cleanse Toxins, Hammer of Justice, and with their above average damage output and excellent survivability, they could become the Paladin spec of choice in Mythic+ and raid.
Protection Paladin is a nerf target for Dragonflight Season 2
I’m not going to hide that Protection Paladin ended Season 1 as an extraordinarily strong tank. With the outlook for Season 2, it could be extraordinarily strong again. That perceived strength could draw the Eye of Blizzard. And like Sauron crushing Minas Ithil, Blizzard could come in and crush Protection Paladin from several different angles including passive mitigation nerfs, or damage nerfs. Protection Paladin as we know it might not be the same spec we know once Blizzard is done with it. And we know how Blizzard reacts to such things — they overreact and over nerf something into oblivion.
This is a possibility that people must accept and be weary of going into Dragonflight Season 2. The real question is — is it worth the risk? Is it worth the risk of playing a flavor of the month spec only for it to be nerfed part way and have your time wasted? Do you want Blizzard to invalidate your time investment? Or is it worth investing your time in another tank that won’t get nerfed and you might have as much fun on?
This is obviously a personal decision. How people spend their time is up to them. But the potential for nerfs, hang over Protection Paladins like the Sword of Damocles; they could hit at any time, and without any notice.
It looks like Blizzard put in the nerf that will go live with 10.1. For those that haven’t seen, the nerfs were:
- Aegis of Light (specialization passive) stamina bonus reduced to 30% (was 35%) and armor bonus reduced to 10% (was 15%).
- Righteous Protector’s cooldown reduction is now 2 seconds (was 3 seconds).
- Sentinel’s health increase per stack is now 1% (was 2%).
This is the type of nerf I was expecting given how close we are to the patch. This is a mitigation nerf that is targeted at Mythic+ for the most part as Sentinel is rarely used in raids. The part that does affect raids is the damage nerf from having less Avenging Wrath casts.
Numerically, the impact of the nerf is:
- Sentinel will have a ~33% longer cooldown
- A reduction of 3-4% EHP from less armor/hp
- Guardian of Ancient Kings will have a ~20% longer cooldown
- A ~3.5% damage nerf in Single Target
Overall, I don’t think this is a big nerf to Protection Paladin. As mentioned, the only effect on the raid environment is slightly less damage output. But for Season 2 Dungeons, it’s still more than viable because of its utility. Protection Paladin still has multiple counters for dungeon affixes and mechanics. You might need to plan out cooldowns a bit more especially if you push into higher key levels.
It’s a nerf and we hate nerfs. But it’s not the end of the world.
Protection Paladin Tier Bonus for Dragonflight Season 2
The tier bonus is a reason not to play Protection Paladin in Dragonflight Season 2. The bonus for Season 2 is shaping up to be particularly good for damage and not really anything else. It’s worse for tankiness and survivability compared to the 3% passive DR and 5% Parry from Season 1. The healing and Holy Power gains will have much smaller impact than having 20-33% more parry did in Season 1 or just more passive stats. The total passive mitigation for Protection Paladins will be lower in Season 2 because of the loss of the Season 1 bonus. Upgrading your tier set will be a soft defensive nerf, especially in Mythic+. Damage is good and can be helpful, but the bonus is not as well rounded as other tank bonuses.
About the Author
This content was written by Lincoln. He is a moderator for the Hammer of Wrath Community where he helps players on a daily basis get better at playing Protection. Feel free to message him questions, comments or concerns about what you read here.
You can find him posting random opinions on Twitter.
For more information on playing Protection Paladin, please see our class guide updated for Dragonflight:
Protection Paladin Guide
