Need help Prot gearing

[Khrormorgi 10]

I've been tinkering with tanking. Here is my armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/ghostlands/Khorgi/simple.  I did log out in tank gear, but the site hasn't updated.  I've read several sights and forums and feel totally lost on how to gear.  I want the spec just to tank flex and understand how pally tank mechanics work.

 

I get that haste is most important, I checked Fouton's character and it seems get hit and expertise cap then just stack haste.  That seems reasonable, but I've read everything that I should be using ret gear, stack stamina, etc.  What do I do?

 

Also, the trinkets have me confused.  I just removed a flex evil eye of Galakras to for the prison.  What are my trinket priorities?

[Fouton 266]

For trinkets, there's about 4 trinkets I have around incase I need them. I use double amp trinkets for the massive stat gains: my 588 prison and 582 Thok's account for like 7k stats between them, and most players using 560ish trinkets/Ilvl will find themselves getting about 5k stats. Since the trinkets are multiplicative, putting on a second one makes that second one even better than the first, so I recommend just using that as your base for trinkets.

As you get into 'progression' fights, or fights you find you need more CDs, you'll want a Vial of Living Corruption to help you get those big CDs out more often. Finally Rooks trinket is only for soloing Blood Rage, but that doesn't happen often on flex.

As for overall gearing: once you pass a 522 Ilvl it's generally considered better to go from 7.5%hit/exp to 7.5%hit/15%exp since the holy power gain, and consistency of your generating, is maximized. I don't know the exact point of when it converted to that method, but that's kinda where I switched. From there, as you said it becomes Haste>Mastery>Crit.

For getting upgrades and gemming, you basically want to pretend hit, expertise and haste are apl the same stat, since you can easily reforge them around to get the caps you're after. Fortunately that means you can throw on ret gear, put on a wep/shield, and roll on out like a tank. You'll miss the 4 set since it is so powerful for prot, but overall you'll find yourself to be an adequate tank.

For socket bonuses, basically you can get them all with exp/haste, haste, and hit/haste gems. If you are unable to get under a cap, no socket bonus is worth getting (unless it's just mathematically more haste)

[Boltt 28]

I'll give you my rundown of prot gearing which is just based on the guides on this site, mmo-champion and elitist-jerks with some added insight/opinions (I've tanked SoO flex).

 

The secondary stat priority most often thrown around in 5.4 is:

hit (to 7.5%) > expertise (to 15%) > haste > mastery > everything else

Obviously the primary stats are stamina and strength.

 

This stat priority is why prot paladins use 'ret' gear because both specs actually love the same stats this tier.

For gemming I go full haste (+320 haste) because I find the socket bonuses to be lackluster for tanking.

For reforging I use the addon 'ReforgeLite' to optimise reaching the hit/exp cap and then converting low priority stats to high priority stats, so the only stats I ever reforge into are hit/exp/haste/mastery.

 

Haste is sought after because it lowers the GCD and the cooldown of our abilities like crusader strike  and judgement.

This means our holy power generation rate is increased with haste, this gives us more frequent access to holy power spends.

This means haste directly increases our active mitigation uptime because we can cast Shield of the Righteousness more often (and faster access to Eternal Flame).

 

Mastery further increases our mitigation and healing through SotR, Bastion of Glory, and blocking.

This is good on it's own, but also acts in synergy with haste making the stats more valuable the more you have of one.

 

I've seen well geared protadins running Thok's Tail Tip and Prismatic Prison of Pride (which you have on your holy set).

So prot is using holy gear too, but only in this one case because of the amplification of haste and mastery (and the healing which I had never thought of until now).

I actually currently run Thok's Tail Tip and Vial of Living Corruption for the reduced cooldowns but I'll be working on picking up the prison trinket now.

 

That's what I could think of off the top of my head, i'm sure someone smarter than me will post some more or clarify things