TBC Classic Protection Paladin Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities

If you have not already, please read the spells summary page. Knowing how each spell and ability works in detail will greatly increase your understanding of the topics discussed on this page.

Protection Paladins are extremely powerful tanks but require you to be ready and know how to handle the various situations you will find yourself in as a tank in order to be able to maximize your threat and survivability. There is fairly little improvising as a Prot Paladin because of their main resource Mana being quite limited at times so it is crucial you have a plan going into each and every fight.

This guide assumes you are using the talent build that can be found at talents page and are playing a max level character. If you are looking for leveling based help please refer to leveling page for a leveling-specific rotation.

Protection Paladins are known to have very strong AoE/multitarget threat, when properly utilizing all of your tools Prot Paladin is by far the best tank for holding threat on 4+ targets. It is important to note that finding the right mix of survivability and threat can be difficult and different people prefer different gear set ups but below will be a general outline of how to maintain threat on groups of mobs.

• Seal of Wisdom will be your go-to seal in most AoE threat situations, as a Prot Paladin your most limiting factor will be your Mana and it is important to maximize your incoming Mana to be able to maintain your threat for as long as possible, melee attacking with this seal active does not grant the most single target threat but it will allow you to use your abilities on cooldown until threat is established.
• Consecration is your largest source of AoE threat. Using Consecration can sometimes be difficult because it is a ground effect that cannot be moved until your next cast so it is crucial to plan where you will be casting it to ensure the mobs you are tanking stand in it for as long as possible to get the most damage/threat for your Mana spent.
• Spiritual Attunement gives the paladin Mana based off of how much healing they receive, in situations where you are tanking multiple mobs you are likely to receive more healing that will then grant you even more Mana to cast your threat generating abilities.
• Blessing of Sanctuary is a powerful buff that both reduces your damage in take and deals damage to those attacking you. This buff is especially potent in a situation where you already have aggro on a lot of small mobs and just need to maintain threat. While this buff does seem very strong in any situation where you are tanking if you are the only Paladin in your group it is often times better to be using Blessing of Kings or Blessing of Wisdom unless you are tanking 4 or more mobs, the Stat gains from Kings will often lead to more survivability on smaller pulls or Wisdom may allow for additional spells to be casted.
• Holy Shield is an extremely powerful short cooldown ability that considerably increases your block chance and deals damage every time you block an attack while it is active. Due to the fact this buff is based on charges it is important to recognize that it may be necessary to kite when you do not have it up as it is a considerable survivability increase.
• Avenger's Shield is a strong ranged ability that can help gather mobs or maintain threat on those that may be outside of your consecration.
• Greater Blessing of Kings Greater Blessing of Kings is a bit of an unorthodox way to generate threat but is very strong especially in a situation where you are fighting a lot of mobs. Casting the buff generates a good amount of threat and is sometimes the only ability you have that is not on cooldown so it is a strong filler ability when you need to continue to generate max threat. Spamming Kings is only really recommended in a situation where you will have consistent incoming healing because of how costly it is Mana wise.
• Judgement is a strong tool to maintain threat even in AoE situations. It is important to have a gauge of how much threat you have on each of the mobs that you tanking if you see you are starting to lose threat on one specific mob than it is often worthwhile to cast judgement on that target to re-establish your threat lead. Make sure that you are aware of which of the mobs you are tanking you judged last so you can take full advantage of the debuff you applied.

Paladins are also very capable boss tanks thanks largely to spiritual attunement, there are many bosses where because of the healing you will be receiving will your Mana pool will be nearly unlimited. Again it is important to note that the balance you establish between threat and survivability gearing wise is largely subjective and there is rarely an exact 'correct' choice, your gearing set up for tanking bosses may be drastically different than what you use when AoE tanking.

• Seal of the Crusader Seal of the Crusader is only worth using to maintain the Judgement of the Crusader debuff up on the mob, if you are playing with a Ret paladin you will not have to worry about keeping this debuff up but if you do not have one you need to make sure to keep this debuff up as it is a massive spell damage/threat increase.
• Seal of Righteousness is the seal you will most often be using when tanking bosses, the flat damage increase that scales well with your gear makes this seal the largest threat per second increase both auto-attacking and judging.
• Consecration is another large source of threat, making sure you are positioned in a way that you can ensure the mob you are tanking will be inside the ground effect for its entire duration will greatly increase your threat.
• Judgement is a powerful tool that both provides a good amount of snap threat but also applying or maintaining one of the many seal debuffs.
• Holy Shield is an extremely powerful short cooldown ability that considerably increases your block chance and deals damage every time you block an attack while it is active.
• Greater Blessing of Kings Greater Blessing of Kings is a bit of an unorthodox way to generate threat but is very strong. In a situation where you are tanking a boss you will often find yourself without a spell off cooldown to cast, Greater Blessing of Kings can fill this void, this spell should only really be used as a filler when no other ability is available. Its only major downside being the fact it costs a considerable amount of Mana but if you are tanking a boss the amount of healing you will receive will likely negate the Mana spent on this ability.
• Avenger's Shield is a strong burst of threat and damage but it is important to make sure you are not going to get meleed when casting this because you cannot mitigate damage by blocking, dodging or parrying when you are casting a spell.

Your Blessings are incredibly powerful buffs that should be kept up at all times. You will want to coordinate with the other Paladins in your raid to see who should be buffing what on each class, since you can only use one on any given person at a time. With the Greater Blessings they will last 30 minutes, so you generally will not need to worry about refreshing them in the middle of a fight, but you will want to check between pulls to make sure none are in danger of falling off.

• Avenging Wrath is a 20 second buff that causes you to deal 30% increased damage. It also gives you the forbearance debuff preventing you from being able to use Divine Shield, Divine Protection or cast Blessing of Protection on yourself.
• Blessing of Protection gives a friendly target a buff that gives them immunity against physical attacks and debuffs for 10 seconds, however they cannot autoattack or use physical abilities during this buff.
• Blessing of Sacrifice provides a party member with a buff that transfers some of the damage they would be taking to the Paladin each time they are hit.
• Blessing of Freedom removes all movement impairing effects on a friendly target for 10 seconds.
• Lay on Hands heals a friendly target for an amount equal to the caster's maximum health and gives the target 900 Mana. This however takes all of the Paladin's Mana so only use this in true emergencies.