Prinsesa

Wouldn't simply casting Holy Shield still generate threat, the same way casting Seals does?

http://armory.mmo-champion.com.nyud....63815BffMm.png

 

Cathela

Yeah, but mana sometimes gets tight in that situation. In my experiece tanking the demon (at capped FR), you tend to either get a string of resists on the fireball-thingy that leave you with a low debuff stack and taking very little damage, or you end up stacking the debuff fairly high, taking a bunch of damage and having oodles of mana. On the low-damage phases you tend to run pretty low on mana by the end so you don't want to be spending it on HS just to get a marginal bit of buffing threat. I guess there's no reason you couldn't do it when your damage intake is running high. Anyway, my experience has been that the extra threat from Exorcism, Holy Wrath, and the shield toss is generally enough to outweigh the loss of HS.

Which role is more optimal for a paladin tank really depends more on what you have in the raid anyway. I've done both, but we almost always run with two prot warriors who are good at the chase-and-pickup game, and I'm more enthusiastic about tanking the demon than our warlock tank, so we've done it that way. And I ended up needing the epic FR for Illidan anyway.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

Aranan

As far as professions go, is it pretty much a tossup between alchemy (trinkets and mad alchemy potions), JC (trinkets and bop gems), engineering (goggles and rocket launcher for sta/pulling), and enchanting (ring enchants).

Do any of these really pull ahead of the others?

 

Cathela

Not especially. I've been happy enough with engineering, but it hasn't given me anything game-changing.

Certainly there's no profession that gives us anything as significant as what blacksmithing gives for melee classes/specs, or tailoring for casters.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

• Chicken

If you want to completely min/max and you have the best equipment possible Jewelrafting and Enchanting would be the best profession combination. The difference is only 11 stamina and 8 agility though (And two situationally useful trinkets from Jewelcrafting). If you're lucky enough to have gotten your hands on the upgraded version of the Engineering tanking goggles from Sunwell Engineering is pretty good; at lower gear levels the unupgraded version is pretty good too.

Other professions don't really provide much of use, the most useful tanking potion remains Ironshield which doesn't benefit from the Alchemy trinkets, and the BoP tier 5 boots you can make with blacksmithing are outclassed by both of the Badge boots.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

kalbear

Given how hard it can be to get a T5+ helm, engineering gives a huge boost. If you're in a guild that will regularly down Vashj/Arch, then I'd say sure - engineering isn't going to be stellar. Otherwise it's a huge win.

I personally think that eng/ench works best; engineering for a fairly hard-to-replace piece of gear, and enchanting for more spelldamage and a nice synergy with soloing instances.

 

Kandir

I'm leader for a group that just made it to Illidian and on the first night we went with our tankadin as MT, with moderate success (made it to p3/4, with a few tank deaths that seem to be healing related). Before the upcoming week's training I'd like to do some min/maxing and would be very appreciative if you experts could cast an eye on him and come with some constructive criticism.

Here's the armory link:
The World of Warcraft Armory
Here's the WWS in question, linked to our best try:
Wow Web Stats

beimba claims he has 16 defense too much, but he claims that it's still better. Is that the case?

Looking ahead, I assume he should he be chugging ironshield pots in p5?

 

◊ Bryne

@Kandir: Don't worry about your tank's defense stat - you simply end up with excess of the stat through normal gearing, and since it gives avoidance there's really no harm in it normally.

However, it is a problem when your tank is socketing +defense gems (for a +block rating bonus on gloves, seriously?). The +defense enchant to cloak is also slightly more avoidance than the +dodge enchant and will make up for the loss from gems.

Mongoose is also a pretty terrible weapon enchant (for paladins) and he should have +40 spell damage. The Darkmoon Card should really be replaced by a better trinket as well; the Commendation from heroic MgT, for instance, is a much better option.

Overall he just looks slightly undergeared for tanking Illidan - have you had no luck with T6 tokens? - but it's not going to prevent you from killing him with some elbow grease and practice.

 

vorda

No it isn't, it's slightly less avoidance but the flexibility that defense give to resistance gear and benefit on AoE trash makes it a better enchant.

That tank looks pretty undergeared yeah, any reason he doesnt have a single piece of t6? He's using Figurine at the moment so I'm not sure if this is his 'boss' tanking gear though.

He should also calculate if libram of repentance is still needed with his gear.

 

◊ Bryne

You're right, it's 0.03% less pure avoidance but it's also 0.2% more block, which is relevant in this situation.

 

• Chicken

Enchant Cloak - Dodge is actually slightly better for being able to push out Shear because Miss doesn't count for it. As miss is 0.2% of the 0.8% uncrushable from Enchant Cloak - Steelweave, the Enchant Cloak - Dodge is in fact 0.03% more avoidance for getting rid of Shear. Of course, 0.03% rarely makes the difference; I use Steelweave myself due to slight extra resist gearing flexibility the 0.2% crit reduction from it's defense gives.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

Nobbynob Littlun

Criminy! I skimmed+searched through this thread and am not finding any dirt on how spell hit affects partial resists - just info on full resists.

I'm seeing some pretty significant mitigation in WWS reports, and some pretty significant fluctuation from fight to fight as I switch from trash to bosses, as well as from boss to boss as I change gear (thus changing total spellhit rating). Can I assume that, while our spells have some unusual hit-or-miss rules, partial resists work the same way as they do for everyone else?

Seems reasonable, nearly obvious, but I don't like making assumptions if I can help it

 

Braque

I'm surprised that a T6 raid group doesn't give their Main Tank epic gems, even if he's not always MT.

 

Kandir

Had that exact same thought this morning but concluded that he's had full access to the gems, but just didnt see the value in the small upgrade when someone else could use it more. Am basicly forcing them on him now though hehe.

Thanks for the feedback so far guys.

 

Devil

First off, Kael is still in mostly kara and t5 gear, why are you insisting he tanks Illidan? With his low armor and dodge, he would most likely be taking up to 14k mainhand hits during the p5 enrages which will be hard to live through. But it has been done before so my suggestions would be:

Currently he is using two stam trinkets, the abyssal ring and is ~4.5% shearable unbuffed(97.27%, need 101.8%).

I would swap his cloak for [Slikk's Cloak of Placation] increasing both his avoidance and armor.
Swap the Abyssal ring for either the [Ring of Sundered Souls] or [Ring of the Stalwart Protector] increasing avoidance and armor if using the badge ring.
Swap out a stam trinket for an avoidance trinket for use during enrages, preferably the pocketwatch as it should be off cd before his next enrage.
Get him some T6!, especially the gloves as they offer a lot of avoidance.

I would also suggest not using CoR when learning any fights or using an undergeared tank and make sure the warrior keeps up DS and TC.

 

rikimarutenchu

Not quite sure what you meant. Holy doesn't have a partial resist as far as I'm aware ("binary element") as there is no resist category for it. It either hits or misses. If you're talking about US resisting, then disregard.

On another note: I'm in a guild that's 4/5 SSC, 3/4 TK, and 2/5 Hyjal. Including part of ZA, we've downed 8 new bosses in the last week and a half. This'd be great, except I'm a tank, who is in the navy and underway an excessive bit, so I fall behind fast. (I'm in a little more frequently than once a month, for about 2 days.) I'm looking for advice on what would be the best upgrades for me overall, piece by piece. As in, I know I need a shield, but [Aldori Legacy Defender], or [Bulwark of the Amani Empire]? Knowing where my guild is progression-wise, what would be the best for me in a short period of time? I have limited time in, so I'm looking to see what I should pursue first. I currently have 0 badges, so badge loot is a last in line for recommendation thing. My armory (lite is better IMHO) page:
Salidapali of <PETA> Firetree

Fake edit: I know the general rule is "Socket for stam, to hell with your socket bonuses," but right now that obscure gemming has me at 102.7% avoidance. so for the most part, it's non-negotiable.

 

Nobbynob Littlun

A screenshot of Recount showing partial resists on Seal of Righteousness, and a couple different links to WWS reports that show my pally spells doesn't just miss (full resists) but is mitigated (partial resists).

 

Finkum

I think the current theory is that bosses have some sort of global +resist that cannot be reduced via a warlock curse or spell penetration, and it is probable that this affects holy attacks as well.

 

Braque

How are other people handling the problem of going OOM?

I don't tank full time, but this of all things is becoming my main weakness as a tank as my gear improves.

Specifically, on ZA trash, during a bear run, when there is no time to drink, and very little scope to down-rank my threat output, I find myself going OOM even with 2 part T6, a spriest, and frequent mana potions! It's not game breaking, but it is annoying to go through 2 stacks of mana potions and still have threat dips due to mana starvation. If nothing else it's wasting a potion cooldown that should be saved for emergency health pots.

My tanking gear is a mix of paladin tanking items and more warrior orientated pieces, almost all of which is T6 quality. I use the spell damage mace from Hyjal as my main weapon.

In ZA I bless myself with BoK if I'm the only paladin, and BoW/BoK if there are 2 of us. I use spelldamage food for threat (though that could be sta/mp5), and elixir adepts/fortitude.

Is this a fundamental problem for paladin tanks? Or could I be doing something differently to make things go smoother? I don't feel I can risk down-grading my gear in a ZA run to take more damage and thus gain more regen. More importantly, I don't feel like I should have to do that, as none of the warriors I know suffer from rage starvation in the same content & gear-level.

 

Joasuf

Im typically holy but respec prot for the gimmick fights, or when we have a lack of warriors/feral druids online but by the sounds of it we are pretty similar on gear levels.

Once you have a decent level of gear so that survival or threat dont become too much of an issue I would say mana regen is probably the biggest problem we face. In BT I would typically be the 3rd tank so will only be tanking Bloodboil and on all others will switch to healing gear, unless the warriors decide they want to pew pew and we have planty of healers in.

On trash, mana is a complete nightmare and potting is unfortunately necessary unless you can grab mana breaks. On bosses such as Bloodboil unless I grab aggro reasonably quickly I will be oom after a couple of minutes and then my threat plummets.

Only real method we really have to mitigate this is if your threat isnt an issue, or your not tanking at a particular moment, then judge wisdom and seal wisdom as often as possible as long as the mobs are going to live long enough to see a benefit. Classic example is when Bloodboil enrages seal wisdom and swing away until hes about to resume normal phase.

The other situational method you can use is to tank more mobs at one so your getting more SA mana back.

From a purely ZA perspective I tend to run with Elixir of mastery over Adepts for the extra stam and int and MP5/stam food as I have over 500 Spell damage, and if the dps have to hold back slightly because of my threat its better than me going oom and them over aggroing/wiping us.

One final thing. Raid buffed I run at just over 7k mana and about 21k hp and have tended to sacrifice a bit of stam and mitigation for int to keep the mana up.

 

Qalor

For ZA, you do have ways to help. Get up to the next pull, and drop and drink for 5 seconds...even if it's not a full refill, it's something as mobs run towards you. Also, have dps focus on the other tank's mob first if needed, so you can build aggro a little slower.

If you have a druid, have him toss innervates at you from time to time. It's crappy, but it's something.

 

Cathela

The last time I opened my mouth on this topic I was proven thoroughly wrong, so don't quote me on this, but I believe it's 8 points of resistance per level of difference, applying to all schools including Holy.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

• Snowy

At that gear level, if you're running out of mana in ZA you need to pull more mobs. My OT is a bear, and he'll pick up one mob at most and will just stay in kitty form and DPS on a lot of pulls. I can take a severe beating having 5 pc T6 + Bulwark -- that also means I WANT to take a severe beating since I'm perfectly safe and that keeps the mana rolling in. Occasionally I will have to pot anyways during the Dragonhawk gauntlet if we get a favorable roll on the random scouts, and maybe pot during the lynx trash since they just don't hurt, but 2 pots per bear run is perfectly reasonable.

Also remember: You can always turn your back to mobs to force yourself to take damage. I use this trick occasionally.

 

Moshimoshi