Something we should check and make absolutely sure of:

With full Vengeance, does the priority change in our rotation? With ShoR at 120% AP, it was ShoR > CS > J > AS > HW.
But now, with ShoR at basedamage+60%AP, at full Vengeance, does Avenger's Shield outscale it? I've seen no concrete numbers yet and cannot run them myself at the moment (posting between processing ground penetrating radar data).

I think double checking is warranted in this situation. If AS ends up hitting harder than 3HP-ShoRs, then the priority would become AS > ShoR > CS > J > HW, basically meaning you use Grand Crusader procs as they appear. Also it should be checked with and without the Glyph of Focused Shield.

Thanks Theck.

I suspect if expertise were hard-capped, the difference between always using Grand Crusader procs and doing it the standard 939 way would widen again (standard 939 prioritizing ShoR would win by a larger margin at expertise hardcap). This is because Avenger's Shield can't be dodged or parried. I strongly suspect that at low levels of expertise (ie: leveling or fresh to level 85) it will be a DPS increase to prioritize AS over ShoR and take advantage of Grand Crusader procs. I don't think it'll be much, but it should be noticeable. It would be interesting to see at various levels of expertise.

As an aside, what's the base damage on ShoR anyway?

(610.489585+0.1*player.ap)*(1/3/6) for 1/2/3 Holy Power at level 85. The base damage scaling factor for level 80 is 1.11555, so it's only about (547+0.1*ap) at level 80. Multiply the result by 1.1 if glyphed and by the appropriate spell damage factor if you have raid debuffs applied to your target.

Theck
I ran a few tests on dummies to compare HotR and CS tonight and it appears that one element was forgotten.

HotR doesn't trigger SoT as the single target part nor the aoe part trigger SoT dot application. In the contrary, each CS triggers SoT which dommage is roughly 10% of CS.

With glyphed HotR and 2T10, HotR is slightly more dps than CS at 80 on level 85 dummies. But it costs a primary glyph. With the glyphe of judgment with a CS rotation, I suspect that CS is still better for single target fights.

At 85, 2T11 will give +10% CS instead of +20% HotR with 2T10. With the SoT proc taken into account, I think that CS will end far better.

I would be pleased if someone can verify all this.

The profession section could stand updating now that more info is available. I'll try to get something to you this morning.

Even without 2T11, CS should be superior for single targets at 85. The temporary weirdness of HotR pulling ahead in certain situations at 80 is just a side effect of the abilities being balanced around level 85 weapons.

I was surprised that you did not include Glyph of Consecration in your Major Glyphs section. If you are aiming for more AoE rather than single target threat, dropping Focused Shield for less single target damage for more AoE damage from consecration seems viable. Is there something wrong with Glyph of Consecration that makes it not an acceptable Major Glyph for tanking Paladins?

As of 4.0.3a, you should not be using Crusader Strike. HotR is better than CS for both single target and AoE.

You are kind of taking it out of context.
- "this is in a particular gear set"

It is not an across the board statement that HotR is better than CJ. It is a quirk of the extra spell hit when you are also low on melee hit. At 8% hit, you won't see this.

You have that backwards. At low hit/expertise, CS can eclipse HotR. At higher hit/expertise values, HotR generally pulls ahead. CS and the physical component of HotR have the same chance of landing (based on hit/exp). The fact that the spell component of HotR is on the spell hit table is irrelevant now that we get 8% spell hit baseline. However, the spell component doesn't go off unless the physical portion connects, which devalues the spell component considerably at low hit/exp. It's the same reasoning as crit devaluation from to two-roll critical strike mechanics.

The issue is that because the abilities are balanced around level 85 weapons, at level 80 the raw damage of one HotR (phys+spell) is greater than one CS. That's going to be the case in almost all gear sets, at almost all Vengeance levels. However, since net HotR damage drops faster with decreasing hit/exp than CS does, at low hit the two will be neck and neck. You can come up with certain gear sets where CS will edge out HotR (usually with a 2.6-speed DPS weapon), but the difference is not very significant.

Regardless, you're correct that the point is not "you should only use HotR." This is a temporary issue, not a fundamental problem with either spell. At 85, CS will reclaim the single-target throne and everything will be fine. In the meantime, use whichever you prefer - HotR might eke out a tiny bit more DPS in most situations, but it's not a huge deficit to use CS if you prefer to work on your muscle memory.

In 4.0.1, the CS glyph was slightly ahead of the Judgment one for single-target threat. CS was nerfed slightly in 4.0.3a, and I haven't re-run the calculations, but my educated guess is they're roughly neck and neck at level 80 right now. I haven't finished the calculations for level 85 yet, but I suspect that CS will pull ahead again due to the jump in weapon damage. Judgement will be more versatile, since you use that in both single-target and multi-target situations, so you may still choose to use that over CS for versatility at 85.

I need to amend my previous post, because I now have evidence that the physical component of HotR cannot miss or be dodged/parried anymore on live.

This was not the case on PTR or beta (at least, in whatever build we last tested it), so it could be a bug. However, I suspect it's an intended change to guarantee that the spell component is always cast. So for the moment, concerns about HotR's spell component seeing two-roll like reductions at low hit are irrelevant.