Season of Discovery Protection Paladin Tank Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities

As a Protection Paladin in Season of Discovery, Mana is much less of an issue, but certainly something you must consider at all times. Your threat will be primarily generated by keeping up Seal of Martyrdom for holy damage procs and using rotational abilities like Judgement, Shield of Righteousness And Hammer of the Righteous on cooldown to maximize not only your damage output but your threat generated.

It is increasingly popular to tank using Divine Storm in place of Aegis, as it not only greatly increases your DPS/Threat output, but provides some healing to yourself and some party members. This depends entirely on the difficulty of the content you are doing and if you find yourself in a situation where you are taking low amounts of incoming damage it is something to consider though defaulting to Aegis will always be a safder choice..

Your rotation should look something like this:

• Ensure you have Righteous Fury active.
• Ensure you have an Aura active.
• Ensure you have a Blessing active.
• Cast Exorcism pre-pull.
• Cast Avenger's Shield on cooldown.
• If the mob will survive longer than 20 seconds, use Seal of the Crusader and unleash it with Judgement to apply the debuff.
• Keep Seal of Martyrdom up.
• Cast Holy Shield on cooldown.
• Use Shield of Righteousness on cooldown.
• Use Hammer of the Righteous on cooldown.
• If Runed for, use Divine Storm on cooldown.
• Use Judgement on cooldown.
• Use Exorcism on cooldown.
• Use Hand of Reckoning if you lose threat on your target.
• If a mob is fleeing and you are not currently being melee attacked, cast Hammer of Wrath.

With the changes to make Seal of Martyrdom baseline this has now become our default choice as it not only deals a considerable amount of damage compared to other options but it also returns a small amount of Mana. If you find yourself in a situation where incoming damage is far too much you can consider swapping to Seal of Righteousness as it removes the self-inflicted damage of Martyrdom but will yield considerably less damage of the course of an encounter.

Blessings are incredibly powerful buffs unique to Paladin, Each Paladin is able to have 1 blessing active per friendly target so make sure if you are playing with another Paladin to coordinate who is giving what blessing to each party member. Remember with utility abilities like Blessing of Freedom and Blessing of Protection this will remove the buffs so make sure to reapply them after using either of these.

Blessing of Freedom removes all snare/slow effects and makes the target immune to them for the duration of this buff. This is an incredibly powerful tool both for avoiding slows but in some cases completely ignoring boss mechanics.

Blessing of Protection makes the target immune to all Physical damage. It can also be used to remove pesky stuns like Kidney Shot. This blessing shines especially on caster DPS who either pulled aggro or find themselves in the middle of a pack of mobs.

Blessing of Sanctuary reduces damage dealt from all sources by up to 10 for 5 min. In addition, when the target blocks a melee attack the attacker will take Holy damage, increased to 10 minutes with Enhanced Blessings.

Blessing of Might increases the Attack Power of the friendly target for 5 minutes, increased to 10 minutes with Enhanced Blessings.

Blessing of Wisdom increases the Mana per 5 of the friendly target for 5 minutes, increased to 10 minutes with Enhanced Blessings.

Blessing of Salvation Reduces the threat the the friendly target generates by 30% for 5 minutes, increased to 10 minutes with Enhanced Blessings.

Blessing of Light Increases the amount of healing the target receives with Holy Light and Flash of Light for 5 minutes, increased to 10 minutes with Enhanced Blessings.

Auras are passive buffs the Paladin can choose which will benefit allies within 30 yards, these range from extra resistances against specific schools of magic to less spell casting push back. Each Paladin may only have one Aura active at a time so make sure to coordinate if there is another Paladin in your group.

Concentration Aura gives a 35% chance to ignore spell push back when taking damage.

Frost Resistance Aura increases Frost resistance of all party members.

Fire Resistance Aura increases the Fire resistance of all party members.

Devotion Aura increases the Armor value of all party members.

Retribution Aura causes Holy damage to anyone who attacks a friendly target this aura active.

Lay on Hands is a massive heal that heals a friendly target for the Paladin's total max health. This costs all of your current Mana, so make sure only to use this in an absolute emergency.

Divine Protection is drastically changed with Malleable Protection allowing this ability to be used as a 50% damage reduction while still being able to maintain threat and this should be used in any situation where you expect to take large amounts of incoming damage or you need to react quickly to a large burst of unexpected damage to re-stabilize your health.

Divine Shield protects the Paladin from all incoming damage and spells for 10 seconds, but increases attack speed by 100% while it is active. This is an incredibly strong cooldown that can be used not only to mitigate damage but in some cases completely trivialize mechanics.

Divine Intervention the Paladin sacrifices themselves to shield an ally from all attacks and spells. This effect will render the target completely immune for 3 minutes though they will not be able to move or act while the buff is active. This ability only really should be used as wipe protection in a situation where your group is certainly going to die.

Hammer of Justice stuns the target. This can act as a psuedo interrupt and should be used often to mitigate as much damage as possible.

Cleanse cleanses a friendly target, removing 1 disease, poison and magic effect.

Purify purifies a friendly target, removing 1 disease and poison effect.

Turn Undead fears an Undead target for 15 seconds.

Sense Undead shows the location of all nearby Undead on your mini map.