Has anyone gone to the test realm to see these supposed weird changes to AW, DS, and Forbearance?

I checked it just now. Forebearence now causes you to do -15% damage (I didn't check to see if it was just physical or if it was all damage; but I'd guess it's the latter - this makes DS/BoP a bit less powerful for PvP)


Avenging Wrath no longer causes Forebearence (that would be quite amusing it if it did) , but it seems to share a CD with DS now. It will not let me cast AW while DS is on CD, though the icon doesn't show it being on CD. Kinda sad, as I personally will never use AW in PvP ever again with this limitation.

Was this mentioned in the patch notes? Sounds like a pretty big nerf all around really (at least for solo grinding/pvp), having AW and DS on a shared cooldown is going to be somewhat annoying.

Question, though, does Forebearance reduce healing done at all? If that's the case it may just be the kicker for me levelling my priest.

It seems like they don't want Ret paladins owning people while bubbled, which is fine, but this nerf doesn't seem to make any sense. Why otherwise weaken the tree that still needs the most help?

Forbearance nerf is no big deal really, but linking AW and DS makes no sense at all without some other buffs to Ret to compensate.

Beside, there is room for bugs with AW causing Forebearance through putting DS on cooldown maybe... Seems a weird move, i hope its un-intended.. i thought AW was fine in Live's incarnation...

Forbearance nerf is actually quite annoying in arenas, make BoP much less appealing to use on your DPS classes, and as such DPS classes better targets. Can't say I really like the change. Don't have any opinion on AW, I never used it but for Heroics, when we needed a bit more burst, like steamvault last boss. Only used it when I knew I wouldn't need bubble anyway.

The biggest problem every paladin will always have is no reliable way to block out crushing blows against single targets, and we can't mitigate it through especially high armor like druids.
Until itemization eclipses 100% block with Holy Shield (Dream On) we simply won't effectively replace warriors as traditional single target boss tanks.

This is a common misconception; avoiding crushing blows does not require 100% block, it simply requires 100% total avoidance (miss + dodge + parry + block).

This being the case, eliminating crushes with Holy Shield alone only requires you to hit 70% base avoidance (which is pretty hard), or 65% base avoidance if you have a Libram of Repentance, which is entirely doable with pre-raid gear (although the upcoming nerf to Timewarden's Leggings might make it a little tricky.) I've done this myself and I can verify from looking at my own combat logs that I don't get crushed when I have Holy Shield up anymore.

If you haven't quite reached that threshold yet, you can still block out crushes for 15 seconds by using Holy Shield and the wonderful Dabiri's Enigma trinket. This can be useful to stabilize things on a pull, or to weather a brief period of heavier than normal damage (e.g., the death throes of an Arcane Protector.)

I'm not actually a full-time tankadin, I've been prot, didn't like it, but I tank normal (non-heroic) instances with whatever spec I happen to be at the time and I also talk quite a lot with a few paladin friends who are deep prot.

Damage: No. It's not noticably worse than a warrior in similar gear (in five-mans anyway) and about the same actual damage taken as a druid (the non-dodge-crazy ones anyway). What hurts is our lack of raw hp.
Mana: Remember to drink and you're fine tanking anything even in pure mitigation gear (unless you're tanking against a mage with +1150 damage who uses max-rank FB to pull, but that's a different story).
Threat: aside from aforementioned situations where people give you -3 seconds headstart, threat gen is generally fine, especially if you can sacrifice a little mitigation for spell damage.
AOE threat: you have to be kidding, this is where Paladins shine. Consecrate+Ret aura and mobs stick like glue (although you probably want 1-3 seconds headstart before the mages/locks start AE/hellfire).
Spike damage: this is what kills us - with our lack of HP and no guaranteed "crush? you ain't crushing me" buttons, paladins won't be as viable as warriors on the twin emps of TBC until either we plain outgear the encounter, or we can definitively push crushes off the table. Oh, and some way of fixing the 1200 HP gap would be nice but honestly I don't think it's gunna happen.

Threat isn't generally a problem as long as you wear a modicum of spelldamage gear; +200 spell is enough in most cases, and you can get 80% of that from the weapon slot alone. (Improved SoR is a terrible talent regardless, as it only affects the base damage of SoR and ignores all +spell effects).

Mana supply generally isn't a problem either; for situations where it is, it's almost always because you're taking too little damage, and in such cases you can swap out some mitigation gear in favor of more int/mp5/spelldamage (essentially the same phenomenon whereby raid-geared warrior tanks have to wear lower-mitigation gear to tank 5-mans and not be rage-starved.)

Mitigation is really where the difficulty lies. It's certainly very possible for a pre-raid geared paladin to eliminate crushing blows (see my post just above) but there's no doubt that it takes a little more gearing focus to accomplish this for a paladin than for a warrior. When you reach this point, your mitigation against a slow-swinging, hard-hitting target will essentially be "warrior lite" -- slightly lower flat mitigation, slightly lower block value, slightly lower hp pool. On the other hand, paladin mitigation against fast attackers is actually better than a warrior's due to Redoubt not being charge-limited over time.

For gearing up as a paladin tank, I would suggest the following goals in order (i.e., start at the top of the list and move down as you meet these thresholds):

1) 490 defense, to eliminate crits.

2-3) Around 10.5khp unbuffed, and around 200 spelldamage.

4) 65% base avoidance against a level 73 mob (miss + dodge + block + parry) and a Libram of Repentance, so you can eliminate crushing blows with Holy Shield alone. Download the TankPoints mod to show your avoidance stats. Remember you can reach this threshold raid-buffed, and if you're a few percent shy you can close the gap with tricks like agility elixirs.

5) 70% base avoidance against a level 73 mob, so that you can eliminate crushes with Redoubt alone. This is going to be extremely difficult to do without sacrificing other stats, and will almost certainly require substantial raid gear in any event.

I was wondering how you guys deal with threat.

Though I'm typically good for threat generation, running as an offtank in karazhan I've been noticing that while I'm normally fine, I'm still behind the warrior.

In a fight like Moroes, where I can't lay down consecration or else risk one of the shackled targets breaking and running into it and being unable to reshackle, I'm sitting at about 300-350 TPS sustained, where a fire mage with salv can easily hit 375 TPS if they're not careful. The warrior was able to easily do 500-600 according to my KTM.

Offtanking a fight like that I can't use Holy Shield or BoSanct to generate aggro, consecration is risky, and I can use it occasionally but not constantly, and I need to ensure I'm always #2 on threat or else I might as well not be there. But all I have is SoR, SoV, Judgements and Exorcism in this particular fight to generate threat.


The other thing I notice most about being a paladin tank is the lack of tools I have. Last night we were doing the opera event. I had no disarm to help with Romulo, no shield bash to interrupt julienne's heals.

The fact that I cant completely push off crushing blows has yet to be a problem, but I'm sure when it comes to harder hitting bosses it will be.

As for stats I'm 10.5k hps, 530 defense, about 50-55% miss+dodge+block+parry. I'm lacking a good spell damage weapon, which hurts my threat generation, so hopefully getting one and getting it enchanted helps my threat woes, but in my testing it wont help all that much vs a fight where you can't consecrate and aren't being hit.

Moroes is tricky. A couple things that I've found helpful for OTing him:

First, if the raid is willing to heal you through Moroes beating on you for a few seconds at the start, it helps a lot of they let you pull him. Shield toss + Holy Wrath + Exorcism can build you a lot of threat quickly at the start of the fight. Naturally this depends on your MT being able to rip him off of you.

Second, it helps tremendously if the raid burns down one or two adds before starting on Moroes.

Third, save Holy Shield for the gouges, and pop it immediately when Moroes turns on you. The extra threat bumps there can help.

True, but on the other hand Redoubt will give you more blocks against a fast attacker like Romulo. Also, you can self-cleanse the poison, which makes things easier on your healers since they don't have to waste a GCD doing it themselves. (You could equally well tank Julianne and cleanse the Romulo tank, but it's preferable to have a warrior on Julianne for shield bash.)

I agree with most of whats been stated here.

My big issue with Pally tanking is the multiple stats required to pull it off, leading to a deficiency in stamina and raw defense percentages. As of yet I have had very little problem with spike damage unless I am stunned, but thats no different than a warrior. Threat generation has been ok for the most part, I chose a build with Sanc aura to get an extra 10% threat.

Max

I'd love to see the gear you're using to achieve this.

Going from memory, I think I had it with:

Felsteel Helm
CE Revered neck (stam/def/dodge)
Righteous Shoulders
Aldor Vindicator Chest (Aldor revered)
Junior Technician's Bracers
Felsteel Gloves
Sha'tari Vindicator Belt (Arcatraz Key quest reward)
Timewarden's Leggings
Flesh Beast's Metal Greaves (Mana Tombs quest reward)
Andormu's Tear
Elementium Band of the Sentry
Dabiri's Enigma
Figurine of the Colossus (Not sure? The one with +block rating on it)
Continuum Blade
Sha'tar exalted shield
Libram of Repentance

Notes:

1) The only 5-man drops were the Righteous Spaulders, the Elementium Band of the Sentry, and the Figurine of the Colossus. The rest are all craftables or rep/quest rewards, which means you're guaranteed to get them with a set amount of work.

2) Figurine of the Colossus and Andormu's Tear are probably the lynchpins of the whole setup, since each provides about 4% avoidance. Neither one looked impressive to me at first, but I'm glad I took them and kept them.

3) Generally sensible enchants/gems on these -- clefthide leg armor for the legs, KoT revered tanking enchant for the helm, etc. All gems were blue +stam, green +def/+stam, or purple +spell/+stam (but this may require a few green gems with +def in blue slots, for example).

4) I did this with full points in Deflection, but without Anticipation -- I'm running a 10/41/10 spec (so I can heal through arcane missile volleys on Aran). If you're going for a hardcore 0/49/12 tanking build or something like that you'll have an extra ~2.4% avoidance from Anticipation.

5) If you're finding yourself just short because one particular item won't drop, you can "cheat" a little by self-buffing with BoK and having a druid put MotW on you to simulate raid conditions. If that doesn't fix it, an Elixir of Major Agility will give you an extra 1.4% dodge.

If you're working on eliminating crushes, I highly recommend the TankPoints mod, which does all the calculation drudgery for you and shows you the results on your character sheet.

Thank you everyone who replied (and yes, the aoe aggro thing was jsut to see if you were paying attention).

My current thought for spec is http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=aZVhtIx0dgpxoVfx

It's basicly zero flexibility- maximum threat, maximum survability, but I'm not grabbing the weaponskill (for parry, tohit) or imp Conc aura...and I'm not sure how well my talent choices will hold up at the higher end. I took a bit of an emphasis on threat generation over anything else, and I think the lack of HF is going to hurt a bit, but as the most 'pure' tankadin build I can think of I think I like it...

Or did I do somethign fundementallys tupid?

My thought process was that tps might be an issue (hence 1h and imp Crus), imp hoJ is going to be mostly useless on bosses, GF's a lot less appealing now that there's a downside to BoPing someone, and is stunning really -that- common?

But I take it these are more or less personal preference things rather than absolute 'omg this ability rocks for all these situations', so I'm moderately confident to respec into this at 70 (I'm leveling as a prot/holy hybrid)

My view on it is that HoJ and BoP are our backups when RD fails or is on cooldown -- our answer to Challenging Shout and Mocking Blow, if you will -- and a mage with Forbearance is still doing vastly more damage than a mage who's facedown on the floor.

As for Stoicism... yeah, I'm really not sure why I mentioned it at all.

EDIT: And I've found that 98% of the time when I have threat issues, it's because I did something dumb like letting RF expire, so I've never seen a need for 1-h spec or Imp Crusader.

Precisely.

Personally I can't say I've had much trouble at Moroes, it's just a matter of good positioning to make sure you're free to use Consecrate, and Consecrate by itself will generate enough threat to outaggro everyone except the MT until the point that you start focusing on Moroes himself. Just make sure the people you're working with know how your abilities work as well; so that the MT makes sure Moroes isn't tanked to close to where some of the other mobs are shackled, etc.

The biggest issue I usually have in fights where I off-tank is running out of mana as the healing I need isn't large enough to sustain my mana pool.

Oggie have you thought about picking up Sanc aura? You really wouldn't have to give up alot. I don't think avenger's shield is really required for high end tanking (or any tanking), just lead with a judgement of righteousness and get holy shield and consecrate working right away. I mean for a paladin is initial aggro even in the top 5 of our tanking concerns?

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=qZVhtIb0dgtZVbe00fzb

One of the things I've noticed is that if I pull with Avenger's Shield, DPS can get started right away (hell even if the mobs still on the way to me) and I won't lose aggro. It also ensures I won't lose any mobs to quick healing if they haven't got to the consecrate yet.

I agree. Sustained threat is trivial; opening threat isn't always.