Protadin Stat Priority Thoery

[Vengified 0]

So here is my question: Why are Prot Paladins ridiculed for stacking stamina, and endeared for stacking haste or mastery?

 

I understand haste = lower GCD, more shield of the righteous, more melee swings, etc. However, stamina = increased spell damage with the passive Touched by the Light or Guardian of the light, cant recall the name offhand.

 

Are not almost all of our spells holy damage? And isnt holy a type of spell?

 

The only reason I ask, is because as a prot paladin, I have followed the general consensus, and stacked haste/exp to make sure hit capped, with only a little stamina, was even using str/haste trinkets. When swapping to a stamina trinket, of the same ilvl, my dps increased from 71k on single target, to 110k on single target.

 

Granted we arent a dps class, however, more spell power would = greater heals, and to get more spell power, u get more stam, which would = more survivability as well.

 

Im sorry if this has been answered, but I was wondering if anyone had some actual NUMBERS to back up haste vs stamina? Or maybe someone who is great at math or thoerycraft could work something up. I am trying to decide whether I want to regem and re enchant for more stamina, as my dps increased the last time I added some stamina.

 

Any help would be appreciated. Please dont just say stack haste because thats what everyone else does, I have lots of haste myself, but after getting a stamina trinket and seeing a dps increase, im reconsidering my stat priorities.

 

THANK YOU!

[Fouton 266]

Firstly, your information provided is very vague. What trinket? What was your gear beforehand? Do you have logs to prove your theory? Can you show that it wasn't a vengeance gain from standing in attacks or being melee'd more often? Was it a completely different fight?

 

Every single variable is important. DPS changes significantly between fights, even your skill can vary from fight to fight. You can also do a fight one week perfectly fine, but the next week get wrecked and fail to kill the boss. You can pop CDs and have good procs at the right times and do double the dps compared to the same gear, fight, and group on that same boss last week. It's all very dependent, and requires logs to prove such a theory.

 

The biggest thing is that stamina DOES NOT give spell power. It increases your vengeance cap, which allows for more attack power, and 2 attack power = 1 spell power. If you gained damage from a stamina trinket, its purely from different sources.

 

If you want math behind every single thing here, I recommend checking out SacredDuty.net, since Theck is the best theorycrafter for prot paladins you will ever find. He knows exactly what hes talking about, and has a degree in this sort of field. We don't blindly follow haste, we follow it from an extremely educated individual.

 

If you don't want to go visit that website, I can give you the basic information on it. Haste, as you have said, reduces the cooldown of your abilities. It allows you to attack faster for more dps, and gives you the ability to apply your shield of the righteous more often. Mastery does an almost equivalent effect, increasing SOTR's damage, and damage reduction. They're fairly close in value, but SimC has proven haste to be much better in terms of consistent survivability.

 

Stacking stamina would only give you a higher health bar, which is never the reason any geared tank dies. If you're dying because you get hit too hard for your healers to heal you, its likely because you're not applying your mitigation or defensive CDs often enough. Stamina will almost never make or break living a swing in a way that is better than haste or mastery.

 

Haste also increases your damage, by a large rate. 425 haste = 1%, which means you spend very little stat itemization per %. Each gem you place in your gear is 0.80% haste, versus 240 stamina. That 240 stamina will equate to 3300 HP. This isn't a large increase in your vengeance cap, and certainly not a 30k DPS gain.

 

Another thing to remember is that secondary stats on gems give double the itemization other gems do. This means that normally you'll find 3k stam trinkets vs 2k stat trinkets, but gems come down to 240 stam vs 320 haste. The 3:2 Ratio becomes 3:4, and that's where stam loses. Next, the amplification trinkets giving potentially 8+% haste means that you need 1600+ less haste than you normally needed to cap, it will also give extra mastery, and give you some crit for damage.

 

Basically what I'm saying is that every single slot of gear has methods to make Haste > Stamina. When it comes to trinkets, there are additional benefits for each trinket, which could also help change the weights. Thok's Tail Tip comes with a great strength proc for attack power, which outweighs any stamina increase for a vengeance cap, since the attack power from the trinket doesn't count to any cap. You can also stick with the old Spark of Zandalar, for a huge haste buff and another strength proc.

 

The next thing to remember is that stamina only increases your damage when you reach a point where your vengeance caps. This doesn't happen in every fight, and the fights that it does happen isn't very often. Haste/Mastery is always a DPS gain and a survivability gain in both healing and damage reduction.

 

Pretend you're comparing 22 gems worth of stamina, and an additional 3k stam trinket, vs 22 gems of haste or mastery and a 1.5k haste/mastery trinket (were assuming the stamina trinket was a higher ilvl than the other stat trinket). This means you're getting a total of 11385 Stamina after all buffs, or 113850 health. This will increase your vengeance cap noticeably, and give you about 40% of a melee swing in HP, but you're losing 8540 Haste or Mastery. This is 20.09% haste, or 14.23% Mastery. 20.09% Haste is essentially a DPS increase of around that same %, a survivability increase because you can apply your shield of the righteous 20.09% faster, since you're generating more holy power now, and you also can apply your Eternal Flame that more often. In terms of mastery, 14.23% mastery means you're adding 14.23% damage reduction to your shield of the righteous, and up to 80% healing from Eternal Flame if you use it at 5 stacks of Bastion of Power.

 

There's pretty much no real comparison between the two, I'd take Haste or Mastery hands down before a stamina trinket. In fact I'm using a 561 healer amplification trinket purely for the haste, and passed on the stam trinket from Fallen Protectors. The AoE damage reduction never comes into play for me since my group doesn't solo tank Blood Rage, and the trinket is providing me with 450 mastery, 1100 haste, and 8% crit damage.

 

Anyways, I could get more detailed (and accurate) with my math, but I'm pretty sure this should explain it enough. I'd like to see logs to show your damage change, and perhaps an armory to go with it all, just to show what actually made your damage change.

[Fouton 266]

TL;DR:

 

No, Haste/Mastery > Stamina for dps, survivability, and healing.

 

Stamina doesn't provide any dps bonus except for lifting the vengeance cap higher.

 

Haste is 425 rating for 1% of haste, which is a very easy way to get all those aspects of your play.

 

Mastery is 600 rating for 1% of essentially the same haste value, but with math its less awesome than Haste.

[Vengified 0]

Here is my Armory:

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/the-forgotten-coast/Veng%C3%AEf%C3%AEed/simple

 

and its not just one fight, it is every single fight, regardless of how close im watching rotations or not. 

 

Every fight I have done, and spanking a test dummy, have shown me with more DPS, then when I had the Alacrity of Xuen timeless trinket, as opposed to the vial of corruption I have now. My gear isnt amazing, but I can tank the flexes with ease, and do have haste, and I am exp/hit capped, trying to maximize dps as prot, which pallies never seem to do as well as monks, dks, or druids.

 

I understand all the positives of haste, and hence, I have tried to stick with the crowd and get as much as I can, but it doesnt explain why more stamina helped me, other then the vengeance cap you mentioned, which wouldnt come into play when fighting a test dummy.

 

As far as logs, I dont have any, nor do I know how to load them or anything.

[Fouton 266]

I honestly don't know how that possibly could have given you a 30k damage increase. I'm sure logs would be able to identify that, which you can upload to warcraftlogs.com

 

Basically to do logs you create an account, learn how to upload onto their website from them, and use their program to do so. To log in-game, just type /combatlog to start logging, which you should do before each raid. Then turn it off after the raid, upload the file, then delete the file. That way the file doesn't get too big either. I think theres a post on these forums for help on that, but back on topic.

 

The trinket you have also reduces Avenging Wrath's CD by 19%, so that could be a bit of a DPS increase. Other than that, I'd guess that you're getting a bit more vengeance than you normally do from odd places. For an example, I stand in Borer Drill for vengeance on Juggernaut by popping defensive CDs. If that trinket gives your defensive CDs a faster return, then you can do it more often. I doubt you were doing that since its also dangerous and poor tanking, but it's possible that sort of thing was happening.

 

Basically, math dictates that stamina isn't the cause for your damage increase, but I cannot figure out what it was from.

[Brewmonksta 157]

 

.....and do have haste, and I am exp/hit capped...

I see sometimes a similar style of comment regarding BrM and mastery vs Crit.

 

You cant have "some"haste and expect wonders. The more haste you have the better it gets.

 

you could do a reforge/regem like this:

http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/2755972b-9160-42c9-8c6e-a8e48d925369

 

This would DOUBLE your haste at the expense of 38k health.

 

I am not a prot pally but im pretty sure the haste cap you will aim for is up around 50%ish  not in the 10% region you are at now.

 

If this sounds a bit rude i apologise and its not my intention however, if you are going to try and play a build you cant "half ass it" and expect results. You have 10% haste and can possibly double that and have not.

 

Give a high haste build a try, give yourself time to readjust to the higher haste and if you are prioritising correctly you will see an increase in your damage.

[Fouton 266]

I currently have about 38.9% on my better geared paladin, and the difference is great. Things come off CD so fast, I do over 160k damage single target with moderate vengeance. It's a lot of fun. On the pulls of fights like Warshamans, I can burst 400k dps and sustain it for about a minute with the rest of our DPS, its so wonderful.

 

Personally I think it's also stupid and overpowered, but it does feel nice to poke my DPS friends and ask them why a tank is beating them.

 

Holy Avenger + Avenging Wrath + Dancing Steel (I only take it for soloing old content, windsong is better) + Strength Potion + 4 Targets. Delicious.

[song 3]

That's a nice topic - without creating a new one, may I ask something ; firstly is askmrrobot.com accurate for prot paladins ?

 

and secondly, i have leveled my alt and trying to get a bit gear so we can do some alt runs etc (flex) and the easier access I had was shadopan assault items (ilvl 522). With what you said, i take it would be better to choose items with haste / stamina rather than parry/dodge for a paladin then ?

 

thanks

[Fouton 266]

Indeed it would. Dodge Parry only work on melee swings/physical targeted abilities (that can be avoided, most tank swap debuffs can't), which means the stats are almost worthless.

 

AMR's weights are accurate, if you click the edit weights and then click low stamina. I don't think anyone should use medium unless they're getting 1shot by abilities like juggernauts fire breath, Thoks shadow debuff, or some other tank debuff that hits hard.

[Belloc 6]

Some other things to note: Haste increases the amount of ticks you get from Eternal Flame and possibly Sacred Shield. Mastery increases the amount that Eternal Flame heals for. Both of those = more healing.

 

Haste increases your auto-attack rate, which increases the amount of Seal of Insight procs you'll get.

 

When is stamina something that you, as a prot paladin, desire? In 25-man heroic raiding. That's pretty much it. If you're raiding 10-mans, you can afford to completely skip out on stamina gems/trinkets due entirely to the reduced melee damage being put out by bosses. In 25-man, however, the bosses hit hard enough that a little extra stamina will prevent deaths on occasion.

As a 25-man heroic prot paladin, I tend to gem for haste/stamina. If I were to join a 10-man heroic raiding guild, I'd switch out all of my stamina gems for either pure haste or pure mastery, assuming I hit the haste cap.

 

 

As far as the 30k DPS gain, OP... there are a variety of things that could cause that. First, and almost certainly the correct answer, is RNG. Maybe you had a good streak of avoidance and lost out on some vengeance gains. Maybe you had more crits than usual. Any number of RNG things could cause this. Then there are external buffs. Do you receive tricks from rogues? Do they keep tricksing you throughout the fight? Getting hit with tricks right after getting high vengeance and popping a big cooldown can do wonders for your DPS.

Edited February 3, 2014 by Belloc

[Fouton 266]

Avoidance doesn't hurt vengeance but yes, RNG or slight difference in frequency of tanking/ground effects is likely the answer

[song 3]

 

Indeed it would. Dodge Parry only work on melee swings/physical targeted abilities (that can be avoided, most tank swap debuffs can't), which means the stats are almost worthless.

 

AMR's weights are accurate, if you click the edit weights and then click low stamina. I don't think anyone should use medium unless they're getting 1shot by abilities like juggernauts fire breath, Thoks shadow debuff, or some other tank debuff that hits hard.

 

 

Thanks a lot - i have a feeling that i will bug you more in the future as i do enjoy my paladin but taking a break after Wotlk , i have found a bit daunting to get into playing it again ( its an alt anyway!) :D