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PTR
12.0.5
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Guide Contents
Patch 12.0.1
Protection Paladin Artifact Weapon: Truthguard – Legion 7.3.5
By celinamuna
Updated:
2018/06/28
This section of the Protection Paladin guide explains the best possible choices for the Netherlight Crucible, important traits and relic bonuses, and how to progress through your artifact weapon Truthguard. This guide is written by
Liminara
, creator of
TankChat
, moderator of
Paladin Discord
. Updated for the latest patch.
Artifacts in Battle for Azeroth
As of June 26th, completing the quest
The Power in Our Hands
will further empower your Artifact Weapon, enabling all traits and at least
Concordance of the Legionfall
level 75, further increasing in power over time until the Battle for Azeroth pre-expansion patch.
Therefore, only the Netherlight Crucible recommendations are relevant on this guide page leading up to BFA, as you already receive all Artifact Traits by default. This makes content easier to complete, especially some
content going away
such as
Ahead of the Curve
and
Mage Tower Challenges
.
In the
BFA pre-patch
, your Artifact Traits will be removed, and relics will simply increase the item level of your artifact weapon. However, many artifact traits are returning as talents or azerite powers in Battle for Azeroth and we have a compiled a
full list you can read here
.
Moving forward in Battle for Azeroth, you will still be able to acquire the Artifact Weapon which will mainly interest transmog collectors for the appearances. Learn how to unlock all appearances in BFA with our
Artifact Appearance Guide
.
Artifact Weapon:
Truthguard
Active Ability
Equipping Truthguard grants you the ability
Eye of Tyr
, which damages all nearby enemies, dealing moderate amounts of damage and reducing all damage they deal to you for a small period of time.
Relics and the Netherlight Crucible
The
Netherlight Crucible
is a new feature in patch 7.3 that allows you to empower your Prot relics with additional traits. It can turn even the weakest relics into viable options depending on how lucky you are with its randomly-rolled traits. Netherlight Crucible traits are randomly selected when a relic is first put into the Crucible, so one
Tumultuous Aftershock
may have completely different traits than another
Tumultuous Aftershock
! You should always preview a relic's potential traits before you use it or throw it away unless it is a significant item level downgrade. Previewing a relic's traits will bind it to your character, so if you are thinking of trading it to a party member, don't preview and lock it to yourself.
The Netherlight Crucible grants a simple 3-tier, branching tree of traits to each of your 3 equipped relics. You must choose one trait from each tier. The first tier is always a 5 item level increase to your weapon. The second tier is a choice between a light or shadow trait. The third tier is a choice between one of three weapon traits, and your available options are affected by which direction you went in the second tier (left vs. right). Your ability to choose traits for your relics is gated by your weapon's Artifact Level.
You must be at Artifact Level 75 to completely customize your Prot Paladin artifact at the Netherlight Crucible. At current Artifact Knowledge values, this is expected to take several months. Don't worry, it's something to work toward!
Here is a breakdown of Artifact Level values and trait availability:
At 60, you unlock the second tier of your first relic. At 63, you unlock the second tier of your second relic. At 66, you unlock the second tier of your third relic.
At 69, you unlock the third tier of your first relic. At 72, you unlock the third tier of your second relic. At 75, you unlock the third tier of your third relic. Job's done!
Tanking is, as always, a bit of a conundrum when it comes to making recommendations. If you're tanking cutting-edge, high-level Mythic raid progression, you will want different things from someone pushing high-level Mythic+ dungeons, working on Heroic raid progression, or occasionally filling in during farm raids on an off-spec. Moreover, the item level approximations that most DPS classes are able to make of their traits doesn't really translate to tanks at all due to the lack of functioning SimulationCraft modules for tanks (even if there were, making those pure DPS numbers translate into the broader picture would either be difficult or useless).
Consequently, the best recommendation I can make is to list the traits in order of value, first defensively, then offensively. I will weigh more heavily toward single-target scenarios for offense. Tanks do much better in AoE (and tank DPS is more relevant in Mythic+ than Mythic raid, for example), but single-target is much more reliable.
Tier 2 Traits
Because your choice in Tier 2 affects which traits you can reach in Tier 3, you need to balance both the Tier 2 and Tier 3 bonuses when you make your Tier 2 choice. With the opening of
Antorus, the Burning Throne
, it is now possible to obtain
Insignia of the Grand Army
, which increases the potency of your Tier 2 Crucible traits by 50%. It might be a really strong legendary if you are lucky with Netherlight Crucible rolls!
Offensive
Light Traits
Relic iLevel
Refractive Shell
0
Secure in the Light
+60
Infusion of Light
+60
Light Speed
+30
Light's Embrace
0
Shocklight
+35
Void Traits
Shadowbind
+110
Chaotic Darkness
+90
Murderous Intent
+30
Master of Shadows
+35
Torment the Weak
+120
Dark Sorrows
+40
To summarize again,
Secure in the Light
,
Infusion of Light
,
Torment the Weak
, and
Shadowbind
are hands-down the best traits for prot damage.
Defensive
Light Traits
Value
Refractive Shell
Good
Secure in the Light
Mediocre
Infusion of Light
Mediocre
Light Speed
Great
Light's Embrace
Good
Shocklight
Mediocre
Void Traits
Shadowbind
Mediocre
Chaotic Darkness
Mediocre
Murderous Intent
Good
Master of Shadows
Great
Torment the Weak
0
Dark Sorrows
0
Traits
Weapon Traits
Name
Max Level
Description
Bulwark of Order
Major
Avenger's Shield
also shields you for 8 sec, absorbing 20% as much damage as it dealt.
Light of the Titans
Major
will also heal for (500% of Attack power) over 15 sec.
Tyr's Enforcer
Major
The knowledge of the
Watcher
s causes Truthguard to deal (37.5% of Attack power) damage to all enemies within 5 yards of each target hit by
Avenger's Shield
.
Forbearant Faithful
1
Each active
Forbearance
you have caused increases the cooldown recovery rate of all your
Forbearance
causing abilities by 50%.
Painful Truths
1
While
Ardent Defender
is active, all melee attacks that strike you deal (80% of Spell power)
Holy
damage back to the attacker.
Sacrifice of the Just
1
Reduces the cooldown of
Blessing of Sacrifice
by 60 sec.
Truthguard's Light
1
Increases Holy damage dealt by 5%.
Bastion of Truth
3
Increases Block chance by 2%.
Consecration in Flame
3
Increases the duration of
Consecration
by 1 sec.
Faith's Armor
3
Increases your armor by 10% when under 40% health.
Hammer Time
3
Increases damage done by
Hammer of the Righteous
and
Blessed Hammer
by 5%.
Resolve of Truth
3
Increases maximum health by 1%.
Righteous Crusader
3
Increases damage dealt by
Shield of the Righteous
by 3%, and
Shield of the Righteous
reduces damage you take by an additional 1%.
Scatter the Shadows
3
Increases healing done by
by 10%.
Stern Judgment
3
Increases the critical strike chance of
Judgment
by 3%.
Unflinching Defense
3
Reduces the cooldown of
Ardent Defender
by 10 sec.
All of the 3 point descriptions is how much you get per point.
Empowered Prot Traits
New traits explanation
decent defensive trait, doesn't work on magic damage, and doesn't have synergy with holy shield, but can help with extra Grand Crusader procs.
increases the value of using Ardent Defender as a defensive cooldown to mitigate damage, as opposed to holding on to it, to prevent a death.
very useful for surviving nuke attacks, especially if they are magical. Furthermore helps us with a minor dps buff.
Recommended Prot Paladin Artifact trait path
Original Trait Build Paths
Currently we want to go for the most important Prot Golden traits, while picking up as many helpful smaller traits on our way there.
As it stands right now, all of our golden traits are somewhat weak compared to their earlier versions.
Bulwark of Order
is weak due to its low damage conversion, however it does get some value on AoE fights, where it gains absorbs from each target it hits, this also increases it's potency when combined with the extra AS jumps legendary armor.
Light of the Titans
is a decent hot, around twice as strong as our
Judgment of Light
talent.
Tyr's Enforcer
has lost a significant portion of it's damage, however it is still useful for picking up adds from the range due to the small pulse effect.
In order to get to
Tyr's Enforcer
we can go through the left or right side at the bottom, and then left or right on top (picking up
Hammer Time
every single time). I believe that for our general survival the bottom left is stronger, and it's a bigger dps gain at the same time. In a similar sense i prefer increase on
Consecration
duration over judgment critical chance, as it is much bigger dps increase, while judgment offers incredibly miniscule survivability one.
After that we will go with the following path, which quickly gets us to
Bulwark of Order
trait, and will help us with our survival as we grind out 5 mans prior to raid opening.
Once we get that, we can quickly pick up
Painful Truths
for AoE trash dps gain, or go with survivability gain from lotp increased healing and AD's reduced cooldown. After we unlock all of those traits we should be at 21 points, which is probably the amount that we're going to get before raids open up.
Following the raid opening we will most likely go for block chance (
Bastion of Truth
) and
Light of the Titans
golden perk.
After we have all the large goldens we can go for any of our leftover minor traits. Conveniently enough we have all of them available instantly. One that is often overlooked, but still useful, is the bottom one that reduces
Blessing of Sacrifice
CD by 1 minute.
Relics
If you want to go your own route, here is the basic summary of our Protection Paladin artifact minor traits.
Damage Rankings for Minor (3/3) Traits :
Consecration in Flame
>
Hammer Time
(if
Blessed Hammer
) >
Stern Judgment
>
Righteous Crusader
>
Hammer Time
(non
Blessed Hammer
)
TMI Rankings for Minor (3/3) Traits :
Resolve of Truth
>
Bastion of Truth
>
Righteous Crusader
>
Scatter the Shadows
>
Unflinching Defense
>
Faith's Armor
>
Stern Judgment
DTPS Rankings for Minor (3/3) Traits :
Bastion of Truth
>
Righteous Crusader
>
Faith's Armor
>
Unflinching Defense
>
Stern Judgment
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