Protection Paladin - HS vs BH

I recently made a new Paladin Tank that I am now pushing keys with. Given how young my character is, my gear is obviously not the greatest (202 atm). However, I was looking around on the leaderboards on Raider IO for Protection Paladins and noticed that the top ranked Paladin tanks all run Blessed Hammers over Holy Shield and that is quite confusing to me. So I thought I’d reach out here to get some clarity on why this is done.

First, given how bursty our damage taken is and that Shield of the Righteous only adds physical mitigation it’s an odd choice to me to not have spell-blocking, not to mention the additional block chance.

Second, Blessed Hammers only provide a flat damage reduction to from the mobs on their next (one) attack. Surely that damage reduction isn’t enough to really warrant giving up the spell-blocking? I’d like to know.

My thoughts so far are that these people have so much blocking through their gear already through mastery, damage reduction through versatility, and the coordination in their groups let them interrupts more or less all spellcasts to allow for the use of Blessed Hammers, and even make those hammers provide more damage reduction over all. I also don’t know the scaling the damage reduction on those hammers have. Is it affect by Strength? Or Armor? Just some clarity on this would be wonderful so I have a chance to make an informed decision before going into any particular M+.

Also, as a side topic: What are our actual preferred stats? Icy Veins isn’t always the most trusted website, and it’s my understanding that Haste is king, but given what I wrote in the previous paragraph I am starting to wonder if Mastery is actually better.

So that’s my inquiry today. Thanks to those that respond with proper information and explanations. I am aware that not everyone runs the meta, and that the top M+ teams tend to have their own way of doing things, but please don’t fill this thread with ‘‘just run this’’ or ‘‘this is better’’ because I am really just trying to understand why they do what they do.

Hey! Welcome to paladin tanking. It can be really powerful and a lot of fun, even if once in a while you get globalled in high keys.

The paladins doing the highest keys run blessed hammer because it gives them:

  • The ability to do damage whilst kiting and mobs are chasing you (thus helping with aggro somewhat)
  • The ability to generate holy power without being engaged in melee combat so that they can heal

Youll also notice that many of them run the 35% shield reset legendary, since that is the name of the game - kite and generate holy power with abilities that don’t need you to be in melee range. Some of them run with Holy Avenger, which means you can make a massive pull, run around, and have access to Word of Glory every other global whilst only taking damage from the ranged mobs. This is of course a specific practiced strategy and needs plenty of team coordination and setup, knowledge of the exact pull, etc. So in the end it doesn’t really have anything to do with the mitigation that Blessed Hammer provides but more with the playstyle it unlocks (similar to arena prot paladin healer).

For us normal key runners, 1-10 you can really run with whatever you want and play around, for higher keys Holy Shield is the go to if you’re actually tanking the mobs and are doing damage (e.g. because you’re using the Righteous Fury legendary).

Our stats are Haste > Mastery > Versatility. I’d say that mastery edges ahead of Vers even though they’re pretty close, because it smooths the incoming damage. The damage reduction in consecration which comes from our mastery is very high value (WHILST standing in it, which is not 100% of the time). Haste is always going to be your best stat because it increases your Holy Power generation, which drives your active mitigation and WoG healing. Your WoG can be insanely powerful and if it crits from low health, pretty much top you to full. Keep track of those Shining Light stacks!

Hope that answers your question.

Thank you! That was very helpful and told me exactly what I needed to hear. Much appreciated :slight_smile:

Blessed hammers has 3 charges, you only get 2 charges on the same CD with holy shield so your holy power generation is worse with holy shield.

Holy shield also kinda sucks for aggro. The couple of times I’ve used it I’ve regretted it, people seem to rip aggro from me easily.

I used holy shield specifically for a 14ish Necrotic wake and it felt like it did a grand total of diddly squat on the last boss which is pretty much a 24/7 caster.

Yes, you get slightly better HP generation with Blessed Hammer, though it isn’t very much - it’s essentially an extra ‘bankable’ HP, as the cooldown is the same on Hammer of the Righteous. On longer pulls and bosses it doesn’t add much beyond the beginning unless there is a lot of running around / downtime where the 3rd HP can be banked again.

That talent row isn’t super impactful on aggro - note that Blessed Hammer is 10% attack power, whilst Hammer of the Righteous is 27%. Difference is of course AoE and that Blessed Hammer can hit the same target multiple times, but you also have you remember that whilst standing in Consecration, Hammer of the Righteous also hits in AoE.

Defensively, Holy Shield is very significant. 15% extra block chance rounds out to around 5% reduced damage intake, as well as the chance to block spells. When tanking raids / hard hitting dungeons, you will feel the difference in your survivability, and so will your healer/s. Ultimately you should run a few dungeons and use details to investigate the actual numbers and your overall damage taken.

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