Protection Paladin Tank Simulations — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0)

Simulation programs, such as SimulationCraft (and its web-based front end Raidbots), are incredibly useful programs for World of Warcraft players. They can suggest to you what talents to use, what gear you have is best for you, or what stats you should prioritize.

Does this work for tanks? The answer is yes and no. You can simulate DPS gains for most tanks currently to a reasonable degree. This will have similar rules to simming damage-dealing specs. The difference for tanks is that you cannot simulate for survivability. There are several factors and metrics for tanking and different situations will weigh things differently. So the short version of this answer is, you can simulate for DPS gains, however ignore the survival side of simulations as there are too many factors that come into play to get an accurate depiction of what constitutes a survivability upgrade from simulations.

Combat Logs are a recording of all actions in a dungeon or raid, which are then formatted in an easy to read way. Websites such as Warcraft Logs serve as a directory where you can upload your own logs, or examine those of other players. You can use logs of yourself, or others of your class and specialization, to help improve your play.

WoW Analyzer is an exceptionally powerful and easy to use tool for analyzing a combat log. Even if you are inexperienced with combat logs, WoW Analyzer will quickly provide a wide variety of suggestions to improve your play, including stat weights.

To get the best results, we recommend using combat logs, the discord communities and programs like WoW Analyzer together to make the best choices for talents and gear.