Protection Paladin Gearing Guide

The War Within Season 2 Protection Paladin Tier Set Bonus:

• (2) Set Bonus: Each time you take damage you have a chance to activate Luck of the Draw, gaining Guardian of Ancient Kings for 4s and 15% increased damage for 10s
• (4) Set Bonus: While Luck of the Draw is active, Shield of the Righteous refunds 1-3 holy power and extends Luck of the Draw by 0.5s for a max of 10s

In Season 2 of The War Within we’re getting a new style of tier bonuses, with all tanks sharing the same 2-piece bonus in Luck of the Draw, which is a short proc of your major defensive ability along with a separate damage buff. In the case of Prot Paladin, this gives you Guardian of Ancient Kings, which as a random proc isn’t super useful, however the 4-piece bonus granting holy power refunds and a way to extend the damage buff make it quite powerful as well as impactful on your rotation, as when this procs you’ll be able to spam Shield of the Righteous much faster than before, allowing you to maximize the effect.

The tables below aim to give you a general list of gear that is good for Protection Paladin, these lists are not a perfect replacement for simming your character.

• Overall
• Raiding
• Mythic+

In this section I’ll discuss the various trinket and very rare loot options available in season 2, going over the potential situations you would use them in and giving you my recommended choices. Note that this section will not include every single trinket, just the most competitive or controversial ones.

Very Rare Loot

Test Pilot’s Go-Pack (Very Rare Cloak, Sprocketmonger Lockenstock) - This back comes with an on-use effect that gives you a large speed boost for 1s on a 2min CD. This effect is relatively minor, though the stats are decent for Protection Paladin, so you’ll be happy to get this item but wouldn’t drop ilvl to wear it.

The Jastor Diamond (Very Rare Ring, Chrome King Gallywix) - A ring with an extremely powerful effect, giving you bonus stats based on the highest secondary of nearby players. This also has good base stats for Prot, making it the best ring available in all forms of content.

Titan of Industry (Shield, Chrome King Gallywix) - While this shield isn’t very rare, it still has a small offensive special effect along with the best stat combo for Prot. You won’t drop ilvl to wear it, but if you can get it at Myth ilvl it’s the best shield this season.

Raid Trinkets

Torq’s Big Red Button (Cauldron of Carnage) - An extremely powerful on-use trinket, particularly when paired with crit stacking and Avenging Wrath. The main downside of this trinket is that it kind of “all-ins” on the burst window, so if you end up missing crits on the damage effect it under performs compared to other options. That being said, if you crit all 3 hits it’s unlikely other trinkets will be able to match the damage output in pure ST situations.

Reverb Radio (Rik Reverb) - A simple Strength and haste stat stick which builds in power over time before resetting after reaching max stacks. The proc rate on this trinket is quite high, making it a very reliable trinket that is good in all situations and content.

Scrapfield 9001 (Stix Bunkjunker) - One of the few defense oriented trinkets this patch, this one unfortunately falls a bit short as both the power of the effect is quite low and the threshold to proc it is quite high, meaning unless you aren’t taking any damage you won’t be able to make use of the haste proc upside and would rather use something like the previously mentioned Reverb Radio.

Mister Lock-N-Stalk (Sprocketmonger Lockenstock) - This is a pure damage trinket which you can swap between a single target or AoE effect, though in general I only recommend using this if you want some extra priority target damage, so you’ll want to keep it in ST mode. This deals solid damage in that situation but has no defensive upside, so you may not want to use it in all situations.

House of Cards (The One-Armed Bandit) - This on-use trinket syncs up nicely with Avenging Wrath, making it a solid choice when it comes to damage output if you line them up. While this trinket does give Mastery as opposed to a better offensive stat, it gives A LOT of it which makes it a competitive option.

Zee’s Thug Hotline (Mug’Zee, Heads of Security) - Just a passive damage trinket with some fun flavor, nothing crazy powerful but a solid option. Technically this trinket gains value on shorter duration fights where Bloodlust uptime is higher, but even in those situations there are better damage options.

Eye of Kezan (Chrome King Gallywix) - A trinket that ramps up in power over time, making it the best option on long encounters or in dungeons where you can keep yourself in combat. Currently it takes over 4 minutes to build yourself up to max stacks which is quite a long time, but most likely worthwhile on encounters that last 5 minutes or more.

Chromebustible Bomb Suit (Chrome King Gallywix) - A haste trinket with a shield on-use effect, very similar to Swarmlord’s Authority from Season 1, this is looking to be the best defensive trinket available to Protection Paladins next patch as it can be used as an extra defensive on its relatively short 1.5 minute cooldown.

Mythic+ Trinkets

Ravenous Honey Buzzer (Cinderbrew Meadery) - If you’re looking for an on-use damage option this is one of the best ones this season, however keep in mind that the bug that caused this trinket to over perform at the start of Season 1 has been fixed, so there are now some other better options if you’re looking for max damage.

Cinderbrew Stein (Cinderbrew Meadery) - Another defensive trinket, this one actually puts out shields and gives primary stat to both yourself and one other ally. Unfortunately the uptime on this trinket is a bit suspect, which when paired with the fact that this has no passive upside leads me to generally recommend a trinket that gives you more consistent value instead.

Remnant of Darkness (Darkflame Cleft) - This trinket is essentially a stat stick that replaced the secondaries with more primary stat, which in theory would be powerful except that the proc rate is a tad low and it requires you to be at 3 out of 5 stacks to be better than the passive stats on other primary stat trinkets. Because of this the trinket is overshadowed a bit, but a fine option for early in the season.

Signet of the Priory (Priory of the Sacred Flame) - The other big stat on-use trinket this season, this one has a slightly longer cooldown and gives less stats than House of Cards, however it gives you your highest secondary stat as opposed to Mastery and has a longer buff time, making it a nice pairing with Avenging Wrath if you’re looking for damage output.

Tome of Light’s Devotion (Priory of the Sacred Flame) - This trinket swaps between giving passive armor with a magic shield proc and passive crit with a damage proc, and actually is one of the most powerful offensive options available to tanks this tier. It has an on-use effect on a 1.5 minute CD that immediately swaps what effect the trinket gives without hitting the 50 stack swap threshold, and if you use it such that you stay in the crit and damage proc effect as much as possible this can do upwards of 10% of your damage output. Importantly this on-use effect does not share a cooldown with other on-use weapons or trinkets, so it can be paired with another on-use trinket without much fuss.

Improvised Seaforium Pacemaker (Operation: Floodgate) - Another passive trinket option, this one instead offers a crit buff that procs every minute and can be extended by further crits, up to a max of 30s. Because of this extension it makes it a lot better in AoE situations where you have more total hits to maximize it, so while a solid option for Mythic+ I don’t think it’ll see much use in raid.

Viscera of Coalesced Hatred (Theater of Pain) - This is a damage oriented passive trinket that does a very small amount of healing. The proc doesn’t have the most output on its own, but it also comes with Primary stat where many other damage trinkets do not, giving it a boost in passive value. In terms of use this is better in single target situations than AoE, as the proc only hits one target.

Noggenfogger Ultimate Deluxe (Delves) - As an honorable mention I wanted to include this delve trinket as it is the only one in my testing that has punched above its weight class, outperforming most trinkets in terms of damage output when at the same ilvl and even competing with some myth track trinkets despite maxing out on the hero track. I doubt this will be the overall best trinket, but it is quite strong if you get it early so keep on the lookout!

Funhouse Lens (Delves) - The 2nd and final delve trinket on this list, this one doesn’t punch above its ilvl, however it does offer an effect that outperforms similar trinkets like House of Cards and Signet of the Priory at the same ilvl since it guarantees either Crit or Haste while being on a 1.5min CD to allow for good line-ups with Avenging Wrath casts.

Trinket Recommendations

• Raid - Tome of Light’s Devotion and either Eye of Kezan (>5min fight) or House of Cards
• M+ Dungeons - Improvised Seaforium Pacemaker and House of Cards
• Defensive Option - Chromebustible Bomb Suit

In The War Within you’re able to equip 2 pieces of crafted “embellishment” gear, though the throughput value these provide has been significantly decreased compared to Dragonflight. That being said, if you are looking to optimize your gear, you will want to make sure you craft one of these 2 sets.

Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension (Weapon) + Writhing Armor Banding (Flexible)

This embellishment combo is especially strong during the start of the patch when you don’t have a high ilvl weapon yet, but it loses value once you obtain a weapon on the Myth track or if you’re doing short duration content, as the Ascension buff itself takes 80 seconds to ramp up to its full value. This means that in M+ content or raid bosses that are less than 5mins long you’ll likely want to use something else.

Elemental Focusing Lens x2 (Flexible)

An embellishment that scales with ilvl, this gives your abilities a chance to deal a flat amount of damage depending on the gems you have socketed, but because of this it does require you to have at least 1 gem in your gear to have an effect. Unlike Ascension this has no ramp up time, and is looking like the best long term option for Protection Paladin this season once you obtain a Myth track weapon. I recommend putting these on some combination of your Bracers, Belt, Boots, or Cape depending on which are your worst slots.

Dawnthread Lining x2 (Flexible)

If you prefer stats instead of damage procs then this is the embellishment for you, though it has the downside of only being active while above 80% health which can be difficult to maintain as a tank player in some situations. Because of this I generally will recommend Elemental Focusing Lens instead, but this is still a fine option. I recommend putting these on some combination of your Bracers, Belt, Boots, or Cape depending on which are your worst slots.

Binding of Binding (Ring) + Elemental Focusing Lens OR Dawnthread Lining (Flexible)

For competitive M+ pushers this may be your preferred loadout, as the Binding of Binding ring allows you to buff up either a single other ally who also has the ring, or the rest of your party if there’s no one to bind to. Outside of being a ring you get to choose the stats for this has no benefit to you, which is why I generally don’t recommend it. As your 2nd embellishment you can use either Elemental Focusing Lens or Dawnthread Lining depending on which you prefer, once again putting it on any of Bracers, Belt, Boots, or Cape.

Cyrce’s Circlet

Added in patch 11.0.7, the Cyrce’s Circlet ring can be obtained on the Siren’s Isle, and can be socketed with 3 unique Citrine gems to give it special abilities or increase the stats ir provides. This ring can also be upgraded all the way to 658 ilvl, making it very powerful until you obtain higher ilvl rings in Season 2.

For Protection Paladins the recommended gems setup would be:

• Singing Thunder Citrine: Stormbringer's Runed Citrine
• Singing Sea Citrine: Fathomdweller's Runed Citrine
• Singing Wind Citrine: Legendary Skipper’s Citrine