Gear
Tier Set
The Protection Paladin tier set for 10.2 can be a little frustrating to play around but with the most recent adjustments, it’s much more tolerable now. It’s a strong tier set numerically when you can utilize the full effects.
- 2-piece bonus: Judgment grants a stack of Sanctification, reducing your damage taken by 2% per stack. Upon reaching 5 stacks, your next cast of Consecration is empowered, increasing its damage and healing by 200% and its radius by 30%. Sanctification’s stacks are reset when your empowered Consecration ends.
- 4-piece bonus: While you are within an empowered Consecration, your abilities have a chance to deal 40% bonus damage or healing as Fire.
The necessity to be within your Consecration is emphasized majorly with the new tier set. It does open up the opportunity of rewarding optimally timed empowerment uses. You need to be aware of when something is about to happen that will force you to move out of your consecration, and delay your empowered cast appropriately. Be sure to line up empowerments with your cooldowns for maximum effectiveness.
Optimal Gear (Best in Slot)
The tables below aim to give you a general list of gear that is good for Protection Paladin, these lists are not a perfect replacement for simming your character.
Protection Paladin Combined Best in Slot
The gear listed below is a mixture of Raid and Mythic+ gear from Dragonflight Season 3.
| Slot | Item | Source |
| Head | Zealous Pyreknight’s Barbute | Tindral Sageswift / Creation Catalyst |
| Neck | Eye of the Rising Flame | Tindral Sageswift |
| Shoulders | Zealous Pyreknight’s Ailettes | Smolderon / Creation Catalyst |
| Cloak 1 | Drape of the Loyal Vassal | Atal’Dazar |
| Cloak 2 | Vibrant Wildercloth Shawl | Crafted |
| Chest | Zealous Pyreknight’s Warplate | Nymue / Creation Catalyst |
| Wrist 1 | Agonizing Manacles | Igira the Cruel |
| Wrist 2 | Primal Molten Vambraces (shadowflame) | Crafted |
| Wrist 3 | Allied Wristguard of Companionship | Crafted |
| Gloves | Zealous Pyreknight’s Jeweled Gauntlets | Igira the Cruel / Creation Catalyst |
| Belt | Smoldering Chevalier’s Greatbelt | Tindral Sageswift |
| Legs | Greaves of the Parallel Lives | Dawn of the Infinite |
| Boots | Fused Obsidian Sabatons | Smolderon |
| Ring 1 | Band of Burning Thorns | Larodar, Keeper of the Flame |
| Ring 2 | Arch-Druid’s Tainted Seal | Darkheart Thicket |
| Trinket 1 | Cataclysmic Signet Brand | Smolderon |
| Trinket 2 | Augury of the Primal Flame | Fyrakk |
| Trinket 3 | Fyrakk’s Tainted Rageheart | Fyrakk |
| Trinket 4 | Prophetic Stonescales | Dawn of the Ininite |
| Weapon | Gholak, the Final Conflagration | Fyrakk |
| Shield | Verdant Matrix Beacon | Nymue |
Protection Paladin Best Gear from Mythic+
The gear listed below are the best options exclusively from Mythic+ for Protection Paladins on Season 3.
| Slot | Item | Source |
| Head | Zealous Pyreknight’s Barbute | Creation Catalyst |
| Neck | Ironshell Pendant | Throne of the Tides |
| Shoulders | Zealous Pyreknight’s Ailettes | Creation Catalyst |
| Cloak 1 | Drape of the Loyal Vassal | Atal’Dazar |
| Cloak 2 | Vibrant Wildercloth Shawl | Crafted |
| Chest | Zealous Pyreknight’s Warplate | Creation Catalyst |
| Wrist 1 | Incarnadine Bracers | The Everbloom |
| Wrist 2 | Primal Molten Vambraces (shadowflame) | Crafted |
| Wrist 3 | Allied wristguard of companionship | Crafted |
| Gloves | Zealous Pyreknight’s Jeweled Gauntlets | Creation Catalyst |
| Belt | Unwinding Eon Girdle | Dawn of the Infinite |
| Legs | Greaves of the Parallel Lives | Dawn of the Infinite |
| Boots | Goldsteel Sabatons | The Everbloom |
| Ring 1 | Ring of Contempt | Black Rook Hold |
| Ring 2 | Arch-Druid’s Tainted Seal | Darkheart Thicket |
| Trinket 1 | Accelerating Sandglass | Dawn of the Infinite |
| Trinket 2 | Gore-crusted Butcher’s Block | Waycrest Manor |
| Trinket 3 | Prophetic Stonescales | Dawn of the Infinite |
| Weapon | Servant Splitter | Waycrest Manor |
| Shield | Disc of Indomitable Will | Atal’Dazar |
Protection Paladin Best Gear from Amirdrassil (Raiding)
The gear listed below are the best options you can acquire exclusively from Amidrassil, the Patch 10.2 raid for Protection Paladins.
| Slot | Item | Source |
| Head | Zealous Pyrekngiht’s Barbute | Tindral Sageswift |
| Neck | Amulet of Eonar’s Chosen | Nymue |
| Shoulders | Zealous Pyreknight’s Ailettes | Smolderon |
| Cloak 1 | Inflammable Drapeleaf | Gnarlroot |
| Cloak 2 | Vibrant Wildercloth Shawl | Crafted |
| Chest | Zealous Pyreknight’s Warplate | Nymue |
| Wrist 1 | Agonizing Manacles | Igira the Cruel |
| Wrist 2 | Primal Molten Vambraces (shadowflame) | Crafted |
| Wrist 3 | Allied wristguard of companionship | Crafted |
| Gloves | Zealous Pyreknight’s Jeweled Gauntlets | Igira the Cruel |
| Belt | Smoldering Chevalier’s Greatbelt | Igira the Cruel |
| Legs | Zealous Pyreknight’s Cuisses | Larodar, Keeper of the Flame |
| Boots | Fused Obsidian Sabatons | Smolderon |
| Ring 1 | Band of Burning Thorns | Larodar, Keeper of the Flame |
| Ring 2 | Signet of the Last Elder | Igira the Cruel |
| Trinket 1 | Cataclysmic Signet Brand | Smolderon |
| Trinket 2 | Augury of the Primal Flame | Fyrakk |
| Trinket 3 | Fyrakk’s Tainted Rageheart | Fyrakk |
| Weapon | Gholak, the Final Conflagration | Fyrakk |
| Shield | Verdant Matrix Beacon | Nymue |
Trinkets
Cataclysmic Signet Brand - S TIER
This trinket is your BIS. It builds in strength the longer you keep yourself in combat, stacking up to a total of 15 stacks, it applies a damage over time burn that scales exceptionally well. In Mythic plus you’ll need to formulate different ways to maintain this buff and keep yourself in combat as much as possible to fully optimize this trinket, whereas in raid it’s a no-brainer that takes roughly 2-3 minutes to reach full stacks.
Augury of the Primal Flame - S TIER
As the trinket comes with critical strikes as opposed to main stat, it creates a small feedback loop within itself since its proc is heavily weighted around your own crit. The trinket proc itself does a large amount of damage and is worth using in every situation, both single target and cleave, albeit not as strong as Signet Brand.
Rezan’s Gleaming Eye - A TIER
Making a return from BFA, this trinket is coming back in a slightly nerfed version having lost its haste proc. The trinket itself is still very strong and outputs a large amount of DPS.
Branch of the Tormented Ancient - A TIER
A drop from the first boss of the raid: Gnarlroot. This trinket deals a large amount of burst damage on a 2:30 cooldown. It debuffs you with a minor slow while you attempt to proc its effect, but it’s not bad and you can even immune the nuisance with things like freedom. It’s definitely worth having if you can get your hands on it and with its damage increasing up to 5 targets, it’s even good in Mythic+ as well as single target.
Fyrakk’s Tained Rageheart - A TIER
This trinket is both good defensively and offensively. You get a large absorb shield on as 1:30 cooldown, alongside a sizable damage proc every 2 seconds for 10 seconds. It’ll be more valuable in Mythic+ but the damage it provides on damage amplification bosses such as Gnarlroot and Smolderon isn’t something to be overlooked, as well as the safety net of the absorb it’s definitely notable.
Prophetic Stonescales - A TIER
A cheat death trinket that restores a large portion of your health as well as providing a huge haste buff and 20% damage reduction. The effect can only occur once every 8 minutes. This trinket is a must have for progression raiding or high mythic+!
Beacon to the Beyond - A TIER
Although this trinket is from the Aberrus the Shadowed Crucible, it still does a huge amount of damage despite the nerf. It’ll likely be irreplaceable until you manage to get your hands on some of the new heroic raid trinkets. It provides mastery as a base stat, which is great for Paladin defensively. The on-use effect is a channel that deals a massive amount of cosmic damage split between all nearby enemies, increased for each enemy struck (up to 5).
Pip’s Emerald Friendship Badge - B
A big stat stick. Doesn’t synergise particularly well with Protection Paladin but if you manage to get it to trigger during wings you’ll output a large amount of solid damage. Every 12 seconds you have a chance to trigger the trinket, providing a massive amount of secondary stats before diminishing over 12 seconds, giving you a chance to proc it again. It’s proc chance isn’t great, but it’s not an awful option.
Accelerating Sandglass - B
The haste buff from this trinket is nice but similarly to Pip’s trinket, it’s nothing special. You gain up to 8 stacks of a haste buff. Once you receive your first stack, a 20 second timer starts and that’s when you’ll begin to build stacks. When the buff expires it deals damage and the effect repeats.
Gore-Crusted Butcher Block - B
Another BFA trinket coming back into the mix. Butcher Block is a crit stat stick. It has good value in mythic plus, less so in raid. It’s a solid choice but there are definitely better options on the market.
Gift of Ursine Vengeance - C
This trinket isn’t great. It was a powerhouse of an option before the most recent round of nerfs, seeing its potential drop massively. It’s still an okay option if you have nothing else. It’s a stat stick that procs from any damage event every 3 seconds.
Key items/Crafted gear
Gholak, the Final Conflagration
A drop from Fyrakk, this weapon has massive value, providing a large damage proc. There is the downside of it dealing damage back to you, but the amount is negligible.
Servant Splitter
Easily the best weapon from Mythic+ that’s obtainable. If you’re unable to get your hands on Fyrakk’s weapon, this is the next best thing. At the cost of some secondary stats not being present, it gives you a large damage dot proc.
Best Embellishments for Protection Paladin
- Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch (2x is bis)
- Unstable Frostfire Belt (if you still have access to Eranog ring from previous tier)
- Elemental Lariat (If you have 5+ sockets on your gear)