- Author: Nevermore
- Date: July 27, 2022
- Updated: July 28, 2022
- Expansion: WotLK Classic
Besides your gear and talents, there are 3 additional ways you as a player can increase your character’s power: gems, enchants, and consumables, which make your character significantly more powerful when combined correctly.
Many guilds and raid groups may not invite you at all if you don’t have the correct gems, enchants and consumables — but worry not, this guide will help you avoid that problem!
Gems
This is the best meta gem that you can acquire, increasing your stamina by 32 while also giving you a 2% increased armor from items.
Expertise is an incredibly powerful stat for tanks, as it reduces the chance that your attacks get dodged OR parried. It’s no wonder then that these pure expertise gems are extremely good for us.
You will need at least 1 Red gem in order to activate your Meta gem. After that is done, you should keep socketing these gems into Red sockets while you’re under the expertise soft-cap — see the Stat Priority section for more information.
We recommend socketing any Red gems you may need for your Meta gem or expertise soft-cap into Red sockets, allowing you to activate their socket bonuses along the way. After that point, you should socket Blue gems into your Red sockets.
In general, gems that match Yellow sockets won’t be very powerful for you, so you will generally prefer to use pure stamina Blue gems (Solid Sky Sapphire / Solid Majestic Zircon) in Yellow sockets instead.
However, if you have an item with a Yellow socket that offers a really strong socket bonus, such as stamina or strength, and you’re under the hit cap, you could consider using the gems listed above. This will generally be really rare, however – 90% of the time, you’ll be using Blue gems here.
As a tank, pure stamina gems like the ones listed above are your bread-and-butter. You will want to use them in nearly every single socket available in your equipment, with the exceptions listed above.
Alternatively, if you’re getting close to either the expertise soft or hard caps, you could consider using a couple of Stamina + Expertise gems (Guardian’s Dreadstone / Guardian’s Twilight Opal) even in Blue sockets, in order to round up your expertise. This however will be rare.
Enchants
Engineers who have enough defense should use the Engineering-exclusive Mind Amplification Dish. Everyone else should use Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector.
Greater Inscription of the Gladiator is your best option for a shoulder enchant, offering some much-needed stamina. It is purchased from your faction’s honor vendors (in Stormwind / Orgrimmar) for 10,000 Honor points.
Alternatively, you can also use Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle, which requires Exalted reputation with the Sons of Hodir. However, it’ll generally be inferior to Greater Inscription of the Gladiator.
Enchant Cloak – Mighty Armor is your best option for a cloak enchant. However, players with the Engineering profession could apply the Flexweave Underlay to a second cloak that they can then use for its slow fall effect — but it’s strictly speaking inferior for tanking.
From a tankiness perspective, Enchant Chest – Super Health will be your best option for a chest enchant.
However, if you feel that you’re beefy enough, you could also go for the Enchant Chest – Powerful Stats instead. It trades ~150 HP for +10 strength and +10 agility, which increase your attack power, parry chance, crit chance and dodge chance by a small amount as well. This means it’s slightly weaker for tanking, but better for your damage and threat generation.
Players with the Leatherworking profession should use their profession-exclusive Fur Lining – Stamina enchant here, while everyone else uses Enchant Bracers – Major Stamina.
Additionally, players with the Blacksmithing profession should use Socket Bracer to add an extra socket to their bracers. It stacks with enchants.
Alternatively, if you find that you’re just slightly under the expertise cap, you could use the Enchant Bracers – Expertise enchant instead — though this should only be temporary, you’ll generally want to avoid capping expertise with enchants, and the stamina loss is massive.
Players with the Engineering profession should use their exclusive Reticulated Armor Webbing enchant in this slot. Everyone else should be using the incredibly powerful Enchant Gloves – Armsman enchant instead.
Alternatively, if you find that you’re just slightly under the expertise cap, you could use the Enchant Gloves – Expertise enchant instead — though this should only be temporary, you’ll generally want to avoid capping expertise with enchants.
The only possible and viable choice for your waist.
This is by far the tanking-focused leg enchant in the game.
If you’re slightly short on gold, you could go for the cheaper and weaker Jormungar Leg Armor instead.
Players with the Engineering profession should use their exclusive Nitro Boosts enchant in this slot. Everyone else should use Enchant Boots – Tuskarr’s Vitality instead.
Enchanters have access to this exclusive ring enchant, that they can apply to both of their rings.
The TBC-era Enchant Weapon – Mongoose enchant is the most powerful enchant you can have on your weapon. Its incredibly high amount of agility is simply unparalleled, giving you a whole lot of dodge and armor, and a small amount of crit chance to boot.
Alternatively, you can use the Enchant Weapon – Blade Ward enchant, though it’ll generally be slightly weaker. It’s best used when your parry chance isn’t too high, and the damage component can help your threat somewhat if you’re undergeared.
This enchant will generally be your best choice for this slot, giving you a small stamina boost.
Alternatively, if you’re short on Defense Rating, you could use the Enchant Shield – Defense enchant instead.
Consumables
Your best option for the flask / elixir slot will be the Flask of Stoneblood. A very straightforward option that increases your health.
Alternatively, you can use the combination of Elixir of Mighty Strength and Elixir of Mighty Fortitude. This option is slightly less tanky than the flask, but on the upside it increases your damage and thus threat somewhat. Bear in mind however that Elixirs do not persist through death, so if your guild wipes often, this may end up being more expensive than a plain ol’ flask.
Your best option for buff food will generally be Rhinolicious Wormsteak, granting you some much-needed expertise along with the standard +40 stamina.
If you’ve already reached the experise soft-cap (26 expertise), you could use Dragonfin Filet to buff your strength instead. Alternatively, if you’re not hit capped, you could use Snapper Extreme — but in general you should not rely on buff food for your hit cap.
The best potion that you can utilize as a Protection Paladin is the Indestructible Potion, which increases your armor.
You will want to activate this potion 2-3 seconds before your raid pulls the boss, known as pre-potting. This allows you to use a 2nd Indestructible Potion during combat, after the first one fades 2 minutes later.
If you’re not tanking, you could use Potion of Speed instead, which will increase your DPS by a small amount. Like with the Indestructible Potion, you will want to pre-pot so you can use it twice per fight.
These scrolls do not stack with buffs from other classes; specifically, Priests and Shamans / Death Knights in this case. If your raid doesn’t have a Priest or a Shaman / Death Knight however, such as in a 10-man raid for example, you could bring these scrolls and get the corresponding buff. In 25-man raids however, they’ll generally be useless.
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About the Author
Okey one question how do you put blue gems in red slot?
You can place any gem in any slot (I think except metas) the only thing is you will not get the bonus from that slot which is ok in this case.
Why isnt Berserking the better enchant?
cuz this is a prot paladin my guy dafuq u talkin xd