Protection for leveling. Am I going to have a bad time?

[Aruni 1]

So, I'm going to start a Dwarf Paladin, aiming to get it to level 60 to raid as Holy. I want to have fun while leveling too though, and would love to go protection so I can tank dungeons (got no plans for tanking at 60 though). Will I have a bad time if I go Holy unitl Consecration and then move over to the Prot tree? I have leveled as Retri before and found it pretty tedious.

[Xaph 1]

Consecration is terrible early on. The only issue with tanking is dps not realizing you can't just taunt stuff off them. Prot is fine for lvling but doesn't really get good until sanctuary/reckoning imo. The 3% hit is nice though. Imo consecrate early on is not worth it but some people swear by it.

[killerduki 54]

2 hours ago, Xaph said:

Consecration is terrible early on. The only issue with tanking is dps not realizing you can't just taunt stuff off them. Prot is fine for lvling but doesn't really get good until sanctuary/reckoning imo. The 3% hit is nice though. Imo consecrate early on is not worth it but some people swear by it.

If he is doing Dungeons this is not true , go for Consecration first and then prot talents is best choice to do as low levels .

https://forum.elysium-project.org/topic/24155-tanking-video-guides/

Everything you need to know and do as Prot from lowest up to highest.

/Kind regards Killerduki

[Aruni 1]

6 hours ago, killerduki said:

If he is doing Dungeons this is not true , go for Consecration first and then prot talents is best choice to do as low levels .

https://forum.elysium-project.org/topic/24155-tanking-video-guides/

Everything you need to know and do as Prot from lowest up to highest.

/Kind regards Killerduki

Yeah I want Consecration for the AoE threat while tanking dungeons.

 

Also, when leveling as prot, should I be using a shield+1h all the time? Or should I go 2h when not tanking?

[Harpper 0]

I'm currently leveling as prot. I'm lvl 53 with just over 6 days of play time so you won't be breaking any speed records as prot but it is great fun and finding 5 man groups is easy.

Not to mention tanking 5 mans as a prot pally is pretty easy. You'll probably pleasantly suprise a few group members along the way.

[Aruni 1]

15 minutes ago, Harpper said:

I'm currently leveling as prot. I'm lvl 53 with just over 6 days of play time so you won't be breaking any speed records as prot but it is great fun and finding 5 man groups is easy.

Not to mention tanking 5 mans as a prot pally is pretty easy. You'll probably pleasantly suprise a few group members along the way.

Thanks for the answer! :) Do you have any good pointers for someone just starting? Which talents to priorotise early on? Whether to Go 1h+shield or 2h? Was thinking of going down Holy for consecration first

Edited October 1, 2017 by Aruni

[Harpper 0]

19 minutes ago, Aruni said:

Thanks for the answer! :) Do you have any good pointers for someone just starting? Which talents to priorotise early on? Whether to Go 1h+shield or 2h? Was thinking of going down Holy for consecration first

I went for consecration first. This will be the key part of your tanking rotation. 

I used 2 handers for questing up until I got the SM quest sword around lvl 36. I've only used 1h since then (I have nothing to back that up as the correct choice!).

As for advice, I'm no expert but what worked for me:

1. Get mining/engineering. You are going to want to pull with grenades.

2. Mix a bit of int into your gear early on until you get seal of wisdom

 3. Get a fast 1h. The SM quest sword lasted me a long time.

4. Give people Salv if they can't control agro. They may bitch and moan, but it'll make run faster and they'll probably do more dps.

Edited October 1, 2017 by Harpper

[Aruni 1]

3 minutes ago, Harpper said:

I went for consecration first. This will be the key part of your tanking rotation. 

I used 2 handers for questing up until I got the SM quest sword around lvl 36. I've only used 1h since then (I have nothing to back that up as the correct choice!).

As for advice, I'm no expert but what worked for me:

1. Get mining/engineering. You are going to want to pull with grenades.

2. Mix a bit of int into your gear early on until you get seal of wisdom

 3. Get a fast 1h. The SM quest sword lasted me a long time.

4. Give people Salv if they can't control agro. They may bitch and moan, but it'll make run faster and they'll probably do more dps.

Thanks!

I've gone for Divine Intellect rather than Divine Strength, as I figured the extra mana might be better than strength. Also i have gone for Mining/Engi :)

[Harpper 0]

9 minutes ago, Aruni said:

Thanks!

I've gone for Divine Intellect rather than Divine Strength, as I figured the extra mana might be better than strength. Also i have gone for Mining/Engi :)

Yeah, thats the same choice I made.

I didn't take the anticipation talent in the prot tree as getting crit is key to other procs and being crit in 5 mans while leveling rarely matters. I'll probably respec at 60 and take it over reckoning.

[killerduki 54]

8 hours ago, Harpper said:

I went for consecration first. This will be the key part of your tanking rotation. 

I used 2 handers for questing up until I got the SM quest sword around lvl 36. I've only used 1h since then (I have nothing to back that up as the correct choice!).

As for advice, I'm no expert but what worked for me:

1. Get mining/engineering. You are going to want to pull with grenades.

2. Mix a bit of int into your gear early on until you get seal of wisdom

 3. Get a fast 1h. The SM quest sword lasted me a long time.

4. Give people Salv if they can't control agro. They may bitch and moan, but it'll make run faster and they'll probably do more dps.

Blessing of Wisdom will solve the mana issue until you hit lvl 40 for sanctuary , after lvl 40 use judge of wisdom and sor ;)

You don't have to worry about Int Gear , but good to have extra Int, skilled player never have mana issues as Prot Paladin and you can see that from my Videos.

/Kind regards KIllerduki

[Roxanne Flowers 15]

6 hours ago, Aruni said:

I've gone for Divine Intellect rather than Divine Strength, as I figured the extra mana might be better than strength. Also i have gone for Mining/Engi :)

I see a lot of people doing this and I honestly have to question the wisdom of doing it.  As a Paladin you'll be getting a point or two of Strength almost every Level Up, but you'll hardly ever gain any Intellect at Level Ups.  Almost all of your Mana gains, as a Paladin are just from gaining Levels, not from gaining Intellect.

My Paladin just reached Level 34 this morning and has like ~120 Strength (with gear) and less than 50 Intellect (more like 43).

10% of 120 is how much?
10% of 40 is how much?

My point being that for a LONG time, the itemization on your Mail/Plate armor items is going to be geared for Strength and Stamina, not for Intellect.  Strength will not only give you Attack Power, letting you do more damage, but it will also increase the Block value of your Shield, improving its protective worth to you, meaning less damage taken when you successfully Block.

I don't know about anyone else, but my thought is that for the same amount of talent points spent in the Holy tree, I'd rather get +3 Strength than get +1 Intelligence.  Your mileage may vary, of course.

Now, that all changes when you're looking at the endgame and grinding for BiS and pre-BiS gear, because by then you'll have enough attribute stats for that +10% to have something to multiply in useful quantities, but while you're leveling the return on investment in Divine Intellect is really quite negligible.  It's there, don't get me wrong, but it's NOT MUCH in comparison to the alternative.

[killerduki 54]

I agree that Divine Strength is better than Divine Intellect, it gives extra block to survive the damage income + work good in combo with redoubt and it gives at same time extra tps (ap) .

But if i have to choose for leveling between Divine Intellect and Imp SoR , then i would choose Divine Intellect.

Imp SoR will give you 1-2 TPS as max while leveling , but 4 Int = 60 mana , it's not that bad when you want to control over the situation about mana , but that's me , with bigger mana pool you can predict and have more freedom to toy with your abilities and do things rather than 1 extra tps by Imp SoR.

Still there are some items for low lvl who gives Int , i personally had plenty of them while leveling , Armor>Sta>Int>Avoidance is all you need while leveling with some strong tps weapon.

p.s Engineering is making things easier , but it's not that important to have , you can see from my Tanking Videos how things goes without Engineering ;)

/Kind regards Killerduki

[Roxanne Flowers 15]

5 minutes ago, killerduki said:

I agree that Divine Strength is better than Divine Intellect.

Yeah, at Tier 1 Holy, if it's just a question of getting further down the talent tree, going for Divine Strength is the better of the two options until you have the luxury of dealing with endgame itemization.

6 minutes ago, killerduki said:

But if i have to choose for leveling between Divine Intellect and Imp SoR , then i would choose Divine Intellect.

Imp SoR will give you 1-2 TPS as max while leveling , but 4 Int = 60 mana

5/5 Improved Seal of Righteousness works on a +1 per 6.67 Damage (basically 1/0.15=6.67) basis.  At Level 26/Rank 4 Seal of Righteousness that basically amounts to a +1 to +3 damage bonus, which is very nearly a rounding error in the amount of damage the Seal is doing per melee hit.  At Level 42/Rank 6 you're still only looking at +2 to +6 damage per melee hit.  At Level 58/Rank 8 you're looking at +3 to +10 or so per melee hit.  Not exactly overwhelming damage bonus stuff here.

Indeed, you can EASILY exceed that amount of damage bonus just by doing a Judgement of the Crusader plus Seal of Righteousness combo, since the JotC will amplify the Holy Damage being done WAY BETTER than what you could be getting out of Improved Seal of Righteousness (up to the JotC rank cap), and you don't need to have Improved Seal of the Crusader to get the most out of Seal of Righteousness.  These two really work well together straight out of the spellbook even without spending talent points on them.

So in that regard, I'd say that killerduki is giving sound advice here in that the return on investment in Improved Seal of Righteousness is primarily aimed at improving the damage throughput of doing Judgement of Righteousness, rather than of improving the SoR functionality all that much.

I will however contrast myself with killerduki by recommending investment into Divine Strength and Spiritual Focus as my personal preferences for tiers 1 and 2 in Holy, rather than spending (precious) talent points in Divine Intellect and Improved Seal of Righteousness, for a leveling build that isn't dealing with endgame itemization opportunities.  Things change when you're either at or getting close to the Level Cap, but until then, I think that the return on investment is greater for Divine Strength until you can collect a set of "caster gear" meant to support an Intellect based playstyle that revolves around spellcasting rather than (just) using autoattack.

[killerduki 54]

I think you got me wrong there , i said Divine Strength is better to have , but second talent i would invest will be Divine Intellect and not Imp SoR .

I didn't said Divine Int+ Imp Sor > Divine Str.

So you basically choose Divine Str+Divine Int+Consecration but skip Imp SoR as Imp SoR is useless.

Hope this will make clear.

/Kind regards Killerduki

[Roxanne Flowers 15]

You did.  Your preference is:

• Divine Strength
• Divine Intellect
• Consecration

My preference is:

• Divine Strength
• Spiritual Focus
• Consecration

[killerduki 54]

11 hours ago, Roxanne Flowers said:

You did.  Your preference is:

• Divine Strength
• Divine Intellect
• Consecration

My preference is:

• Divine Strength
• Spiritual Focus
• Consecration

I stand corrected then ;)

/Kind regards Killerduki