Protection Paladin Tank Gear and Best in Slot — Season 4

Welcome to our Gear and BiS Page for Protection Paladin for Dragonflight Season 4. Check this page to learn everything you need to know about gearing a Protection Paladin, including the BiS Gear from all sources, Raiding, and Mythic+, information on the best Trinkets, Tier Sets, and much more.

Generally speaking, you will prioritize an item level upgrade over an "optimal" item at a lower item level as your survival is heavily reliant on Strength and Stamina. If you have a choice on the same item level, the alternative will likely, in generic circumstances, not make a difference defensively. We recommend just simming the choice and doing whatever helps you do more damage.

There are exceptions to this rule and encounter specific situations where a stat is massively devalued. You should keep an eye on the raid encounter guides to be aware of this. Similarly, certain Mythic+ key levels and dungeons require a slightly different gearing path. We linked the related guides below, but generally, we will add a note here as well:

Throughout this page, we will regularly refer to the importance of simming yourself on Raidbots, as it is an indispensable aspect of optimizing your character.

While we do offer generic sim charts for Trinkets, this should not be a replacement for simming. As they will neglect nuances such as two on-use trinkets, Avenging Wrath timings or rotational changes that occur from using a trinket.

If you are new to simming and Raidbots, check out our detailed guide below.

Embellishments are additional item effects present on profession gear, either as a baseline (such as Elemental Lariat) or added as an optional reagent when crafting (such as Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch). These grant a free, additional effect to the piece.

You may only have two embellishments active at a time.

For Protection Paladins, we recommend the following for Raiding:

• Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch on Primal Molten Vambraces.
• Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch on Primal Molten Greatbelt.

And the following for Mythic+:

• Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch on Primal Molten Vambraces.
• Frostfire Legguards of Preparation.

Alchemical Flavor Pocket can be added to crafted items and does not count as an embellishment.

With the launch of Season 4, Protection Paladins will be able to don the bonuses from Virtuous Silver Cataphract (Season 1 bonus) but with the appearance and name of Heartfire Sentinel's Authority (Season 2). This armor, when enough pieces of it are worn, unlocks two special bonuses for Protection Paladins:

• Protection Paladin 2pc — Avenger's Shield grants you and your closest ally Ally of the Light, increasing Versatility by 6% for 8 sec.
• Protection Paladin 4pc — Hammer of the Righteous/ Blessed Hammer increases your Parry by 5% for 10 sec and extends the duration of Ally of the Light by 1 sec.

Once available, you should aim to acquire the set bonuses as soon as possible.

1. The 2-piece bonus gives you another hook to Avenger's Shield and will increase the priority of this ability if Ally of the Light is not active.
2. The 4-piece bonus will be more impactful in Mythic+ than raiding, as the value of Parry is felt more there, but also serves to lower the priority of Avenger's Shield back to normal levels by extending the duration of Ally of the Light.

You have the option to force Ally of the Light to be on specific targets by moving on top of them, but should focus on your own positioning and survival before trying to game the set bonus.

With the 4-piece bonus you want to ensure that you are casting Blessed Hammer before pulling a pack of mobs to gain the extra parry chance.

Obtaining gear from rated PvP can boost your item level early in the season.

It is essential to note that all of these items have Versatility on them.

If you want to obtain PvP gear, we advise doing Rated Battlegrounds as either Protection or Retribution, or Solo Shuffle as Retribution.

Season 4 brings back all of the raids in Dragonflight and the 8 Dragonflight dungeons for Mythic+. Protection Paladins get to re-discover a wide array of trinkets with different effects.

We strongly recommend using trinkets that suit the encounter at hand. For instance, if you are not able to line up a defensive trinket with a mechanic, or flat-out do not need it, pick a generic trinket instead!

Caveat: All trinkets with a primary stat budget (Strength) or a secondary stat have defensive value. In fact, the bulk of any trinket's defensive value is in the Strength they have, as this provides armor and a noticeable amount of parry rating.

Cataclysmic Signet Brand is by far one of the strongest trinkets acquired in Season 4, both for single-target and AoE. All of your direct damage abilities have a chance to apply a strong DoT to your target, and gives you a stack of Firestarter. Each application of Firestarter increases the damage of the DoT by 2.5%, stacking up to a maximum of 15 times. Above 5 stacks, this DoT also deals 50% of its damage to you. At 15 stacks, all enemies within 8 yards of the DoTted target also take 10% of the damage from the DoT, split between them. Every 5 seconds spent not in combat causes a stack of Firestarter to fade, with all stacks fading after 15 seconds (Similar to Elementium Pocket Anvil you want to make sure you chain pull in M+ to prevent the stacks from fading).

Elementium Pocket Anvil adds a chance for your Hammer of the Righteous / Blessed Hammer (and auto attacks for Protection Paladins!) to deal additional damage. The on-use aspect of this trinket boosts the damage from this proc up, and this additional damage buff can stack up to 5 times. The buff from the on-use effect will fade when you leave combat, and you have 15 seconds to keep the buff up.

Manic Grieftorch is the trinket of the season. An old favourite returns with new functionality. You can now move whilst channeling the trinket. This trinket provides a very large amount of priority damage and has a small chance to cleave to nearby enemies. Furthermore, the cooldown is reduced by 90 seconds if someone in your team dies making it that much more impactful for raid progression scenarios as the tank will be the last one alive most of the time.

Storm-Eater's Boon drops from Dathea returns and is one of two trinkets with uncapped AoE damage (the other being All-Totem of the Master). After activating the trinket you will be rooted for 10 seconds and pulse damage around yourself. Timing the use of this trinket well is an essential requirement as if you do not consider the next 10 seconds of the encounter you may find yourself dying to otherwise avoidable damage.

All-Totem of the Master synergizes well with our 4-piece bonus and increases the likelihood of this trinket triggering on cooldown. Every time you parry or dodge an attack, you damage everything in front of you (with no cap). The trinket goes on a 30-second internal cooldown. The stances are the following:

• Elemental Stance: Earth increases your armor by a flat amount.
• Elemental Stance: Fire has a chance to apply a DoT to your target, burning them for a small amount of fire damage for 6 seconds.
• Elemental Stance: Air increases your Haste while it is active.
• Elemental Stance: Ice heals you for a large amount while it is active.

The order in which the stances rotate is always the same and is not reset by dropping combat:

• Earth
• Fire
• Air
• Ice

Branch of the Tormented Ancient allows you to tether yourself to a target, which slows you by 15% per root, with 4 roots total. This slow effect can be removed with Blessing of Freedom. Every direct damage ability damaging a rooted target deals a large amount of shadowflame damage, split between all nearby targets.

Irideus Fragment is an on-use trinket with a lot of Mastery and provides a large boost to Strength for 20 seconds when used. However, the amount of Strength reduces per ability you cast. The Strength bonus will decay rather quickly as a Protection Paladin as you will typically be casting an ability every GCD. The only downside to this trinket is the 3-minute cooldown, as it will not line up with every cast of Avenging Wrath.

Dragon Games Equipment is a strong DPS trinket. When you use it, kickballs will spawn nearby, and when you run into one of them, they will deal a large amount of Physical damage to your current target (if it is 15 yards or closer to you). The kickballs spawn nearby to you, so finding them is not difficult.

Coiled Serpent Idol creates Hydras, which attack your target when you critically strike. Every third Hydra created spawns 3 Hydras. If the target dies, it will deal AoE damage instead. This trinket will likely perform better in raid scenarios than in dungeon scenarios due to the nature of when the effects may trigger.

Augury of the Primal Flame, the Very Rare DPS trinket from Fyrakk, which means it drops at a higher item level to any other item in game on Mythic. It gives a large amount of critical strike rating and triggers on critical strikes, creating a feedback loop. The proc has a chance to apply a very large amount of fire damage split between all targets.

Gift of Ursine Vengeance is a very interesting trinket from Amirdrassil. Every time somebody near you takes direct damage, you gain a stack of Rising Rage, up to once every 3 seconds. This buff gives you a stacking amount of Strength. When you reach 30 stacks, these are converted into Fury of Urctos, causing you to deal damage to any enemy within 8 seconds that  damages you, and regenerating a small amount of health every second while this effect persists.  The counterattack proc has a 0.1s internal cooldown, allowing you to deal a significant amount of  damage in AoE.

Finally, there is Ashes of the Embersoul. The on-use Strength bonus is great for damage cooldown windows, however, it comes at a price, and this is losing a large amount of Haste for 1 minute. This downside makes the trinket not valuable for Protection Paladins. There is also another dangerous aspect of the trinket, and it requires you to go below 15% HP to reset the buff. Avoid this trinket.

Season 4 also bring a number of stat stick trinkets. Rather than endlessly copying descriptions, we have instead created a table to represent what they do:

                                                                                               

Trinket	Stat	Cooldown	Notes
Pip's Emerald Friendship Badge	Cycling between all secondaries	Passive	Cycles every 12 seconds between secondaries and decays for 12 seconds thereafter.
Ominous Chromatic Essence	A secondary stat of your choice	Passive	Buffs you and all other users of this trinket
Whispering Incarnate Icon	Versatility	Passive	Buffs you and all other users of this trinket

Season 4 brings back a few additional defensive trinkets to the mix. Most of them either have a very concrete (but niche) use case or deal enough damage to be considered hybrid. We have listed them here, along with their use case

                                                                                               

Trinket	Use case	Notes
Fyrakk's Tainted Rageheart	Shield every 1min30	Deals a high amount of damage to targets when used. You have a    very strong incentive not to delay using this trinket. You would use   this for burst damage with the on use rather than the shield.
Prophetic Stonescales	Cheat death	Cheat death trinkets are great for learning a new, difficult encounter   or just having a safety blanket. When you've learned the encounter and the   trinket is not going to proc this becomes a wasted trinket slot and should   be replaced with another option.
Ward of Faceless Ire	Shidld every 1min and usable on anyone	This trinket has seen some changes since the last time it was available   in Season 2 and is in a now much more usable state. The cooldown got reduced from   2 minutes to 1 minute, however the absorb has been lowered. Overall this buffed the   trinket in usability as you can rotate the effect in your cooldown plan more   effectively.
Treemouth's Festering Splinter	Shield every 1min30	A worse version of the above two trinkets./td>

Season 4 offers a way to target specific, powerful items with the new Antique Bronze Bullion. This list will focus on the items that will be the hardest for a Protection Paladin to obtain.

1. Seal of Diurna's Chosen - This ring is desired by pretty much every class in game.
2. Voice of the Silent Star - This cloak will be highly desired by many DPS specs.
3. Elementium Pocket Anvil / Cataclysmic Signet Brand - Both of these are your go-to trinket options and should be obtained next.
4. Storm-Eater's Boon (M+) / Seal of Filial Duty (Raid) - Once again highly contested items

Dragonflight Season 4 continues the same trend of item level upgrading which started in Season 2. They can also upgrade Crafted Gear up to iLvl 525, which is late-Mythic Item Level.

For more information on the new Gear Upgrades system, check out our dedicated page for it below.

 

As with Valor, the cost to upgrade scales differs per slot but now also increases quickly as item levels go up.

We recommend upgrading your Weapon and Shield first, as these will provide you with the largest offensive and defensive gain.

Once you have obtained a piece of gear containing a prismatic socket or needing to be enchanted, you will need to know how to modify it. Details about these tweaks can be found on our dedicated gems, enchants, and consumables page.

A new helm enchant was added with the launch of Amirdrassil. Don't forget to complete the raid-only quest to unlock access to Incandescent Essence!