Classic Protection Paladin Tank Guide

Champions of the light, Paladins bring powerful blessings, potent heals, and an array of auras that make them excellent at supporting a raid group. Paladins are also clad in plate armor, making them quite durable and hard to kill in PvP. Perhaps most importantly though, Paladins have a wide array of powerful cooldowns, some of which are considered to be among the most powerful in the game.

Protection Paladins are one of three possible tank specs in WoW Classic, along with Protection Warriors and Feral Druids. For raiding, Protection Paladins are far and away considered the worst of all three. Protection Paladins are considered to be not viable in raiding for a number of reasons, most notably because they do not have a taunt ability. This makes swapping with other tanks on enemies and bosses impossible, which makes them nonviable for many bosses and raids in WoW Classic. Paladins also are the only tank to use Mana, making their spell usage severely limited compared to other tanks since they need to worry about running out of Mana.

While Protection Paladins are not good for raiding, they can be incredibly strong for lesser content, specifically in dungeons. With strong AoE and cooldowns, Protection Paladins can be good for tanking dungeons when they do not need to worry about managing threat with other tanks and need to hold multiple enemies at once. Protection Paladins are also one of the best power levelers in the game at 60, which can be an incredibly profitable farming method by helping other people level in exchange for gold.

Strengths

• Powerful raid buffs.
• Strong cooldowns.
• Strong off healing.
• Strong AoE threat generation.

Weaknesses

• Only tank that uses mana, which severely limits spell usage compared to other tanks.
• No taunt.
• Poor single target threat generation.
• Damage toolkit is limited.
• Limited and poorly itemized gear options.

Protection Paladin is not very viable during Classic WoW as it has very little gear designed for it. In addition to gearing issues, the threat a Protection Paladin generates is significantly lower than that of other tanks, essentially preventing it from ever main-tanking bosses. Protection Paladin is, however, easily able to off-tank on bosses when needed, and excels at AoE tanking in both dungeons and open-world farming.

While Paladin was already incredibly flexible in WoW Classic, the Season of Discovery will make new builds possible, and increase the power of already existing builds.

Paladins auras are buffs that the Paladin keeps active for as long as they choose. Auras can be activated and de-activated whenever the player wishes to with only a short global cooldown, allowing you to use whichever aura is most beneficial. With 6 total auras available, you will have plenty of options to choose from such as Devotion Aura, Fire Resistance Aura, or Frost Resistance Aura, giving you a way to defend yourself against most attacks.

• Devotion Aura ‒ Increases armor when active, use this if you are primarily being damaged by Physical attacks.
• Retribution Aura ‒ Inflicts Holy damage to any enemies that attack you while activated. Great for dungeons and farming sessions!
• Concentration Aura ‒ Reduces the amount of casting pushback suffered when being attacked while casting spells. This is mostly used for PvP.
• Fire Resistance Aura ‒ Increases your Fire Resistance while activated. Use this when you are primarily being damaged by Fire spells.
• Shadow Resistance Aura ‒ Increases your Shadow Resistance while activated. Use this when you are primarily being damaged by Shadow spells.
• Frost Resistance Aura ‒ Increases your Frost Resistance while activated. Use this when you are primarily being damaged by Frost spells.

The best profession to have as a Prot is Engineering. It provides powerful items that you can use in both PvE and PvP content to either deal damage or help you get out of a tough spot. There are several unique items accessible only through Engineering that are considered to be some of the strongest utility items in the game.

While Engineering is a great profession, probably the more important thing to think about is how you plan to make gold. Gold is incredibly important in WoW Classic for a number of reasons and will be quite hard to come by especially at the start. Check out the Paladin Goldmaking section for more information on other potential professions for making gold.

Find our new guides for Paladin in WoW Classic Season of Discovery below! The new game mode will have players find and utilize Runes that can then be engraved onto their gear to provide them special bonuses that augment already existing abilities or allow the class to use entirely new spells.

While Paladin was already incredibly flexible in WoW Classic, the Season of Discovery will make new builds possible, and increase the power of already existing builds.