Protection and you! - Page 108

Russta · 06/26/08, 6:14 AM

Originally Posted by Anedris

Now, we expect the crushing blow mechanic to go out the window in Wrath, so we'll lose that edge, but only Blizzard knows what we'll be getting on the way to 80 (seal of last stand? Judgement of demoralizing thunderclap?).

Without turning this into another dreadful here's-what-I-think-should-happen-in-WotLK segue, I would still like to see the semi-useless daze mechanic of Avenger's Shield removed in favor of a helpful debuff that doesn't require a recast of AS to maintain.

Maybe it's because I played a main tank Warrior for so long that it annoys me but sometimes it feels like I'm being treated like a leper when it comes to tanking. Worshiped for holding an army of mobs in Hyjal yet apparently incapable of tanking the second mob killed in a 1v1 situation because a "Paladin can't put out as much threat as a Warrior". I went toe-to-toe with a Warrior the other day and kept the mob on me just fine. His reply was along the lines of a Warrior can't keep threat if he isn't hit. I didn't even know how to respond to that.

I'm with Snowy in that I think the true main tank should always be a Warrior, I just wish people would modernize their way of thinking when it comes to Paladins tanking.

Finally, a question. Is there some quick and dirty math to working out your rough effective health with Ardent Defender in conjunction with your current HP?

Dendrah · 06/26/08, 7:59 AM

I disagree.

The daze makes for time to CC.

Paladins and warrior have their utilities but the most important thing in both classes is the player sitting at the keyboard.
There are ways to work around all benefits/disadvantages each of the classes has.

And if your warrior wants to go the "I make more aggro" way with you, challenge him to a TPS race on 2 felreavers (or anything else that hits hard enough). You'll quickly see who makes the most threat on his Felreaver

You could also try this on trash with your DPS doing nothing for a while.

thedopefishlives · 06/26/08, 8:18 AM

Originally Posted by Russta

I'm with Snowy in that I think the true main tank should always be a Warrior, I just wish people would modernize their way of thinking when it comes to Paladins tanking.

Not to digress too far off-topic, but I have to disagree here. Perhaps it's because my guild has had nothing but paladin MT's since its creation, but I don't see any reason why the true main tank can't be a paladin. True, if you want to do gimmick fights like RoS you need a warrior tank, but why should that mean that the warrior should always be the head of the MT corps? As you demonstrated to your warrior friend, our single-target TPS is just fine (although I do admit to struggling versus my guild's feral OT, but he's also the best tank I've ever seen), and our survivability is comparable to a warrior. The only thing I can see is that it's more difficult to prepare a paladin for the job of main tank than it is a warrior, and given that crushing blows are supposed to be going away soon, perhaps that too will change.

rikimarutenchu · 06/26/08, 8:55 AM

Originally Posted by Russta

Finally, a question. Is there some quick and dirty math to working out your rough effective health with Ardent Defender in conjunction with your current HP?

I've always went with 35% of 30%:

0.30*0.35=0.105

+10.5% of your base effective health.

Left · 06/26/08, 9:24 AM

Originally Posted by Denogran

Right but there's a difference between first kills and farming. Also a difference between "optimizing" and going with what you got. I'm not saying that I couldn't tank Brut, and most likely even do it successfully. But try telling my guild (after 3 1% wipes this last week), that they should bring me and have the dps warrior keep up t-clap at the expense of some personal dps. It's just not going to happen.

Oddly, due to the nature of Holy Shield mechanics and paladin threat, it might be the case that you tanking would bring enough additional DPS via Holy Shield, etc., to offset the loss from the warrior keeping up T-clap. I haven't run the numbers on this, but since paladin threat comes directly from holy damage while warrior threat is a medley of various abilities, not all of them damaging, this might be true. I'm not familiar enough with warrior threat mechanics to figure out what their threat rotation (and subsequent DPS) would be for Brutallus, but perhaps someone else who is could take a stab at it?

• Snowy · 06/26/08, 9:32 AM

Originally Posted by Cathela

What do you not CC now that you used to? (Or, perhaps a simpler way to phrase the same query: What do you still CC in a BT clear?)

I just realized reading your post that we still CC exactly the same things in BT that we've always CC'd from the beginning, so now I'm curious as to how little CC it's possible to get away with.

Very, very little. You can AoE the big trash pack at the top of the ramp near Naj'entus. Might still banish an Illidari Defiler in one of the temple pulls. We've actually pulled all of Shade's room at the same time except for one 4 pack -- that's something like 18 mobs! -- and did it with no CC. :P Sheeping Blood Mages are unnecessary, since you just point them away from the raid and they're pretty harmless. Maybe the only other thing would be a Blood Fury in the pulls in the room to Gurtogg/RoS and I think we could get away with that even.

[e] I'm also our marker/puller so a lot of times I just take the Sebudai approach: Pull and let God sort it out. I might mark one or two things for OT's to pick up, otherwise my shield is flying into the next pack ASAP. The most common phrase you heard out of me in raids for a while was "Screw CC."

2ndNin · 06/26/08, 9:33 AM

Warrior also not tanking means no sunders, no sunders means Improved Expose armour is usable, isn't that a raid wide physical dps increase?

Tilted · 06/26/08, 12:00 PM

It depends on the physical DPS of your raid. Having a rogue put up Imp. EA means a) he has to spec for it, and b) he loses 5-pt Rupture from his cycle. It's not just a straight boost, but it is an increase in most cases.

Prinsesa · 06/26/08, 12:19 PM

I think the remaining gap in MT selection is the current: If it has a Paladin gimmick (AOE/dual-wield/Demon), use a Paladin; else, use a Warrior.

I wish there was enough impetus to turn it around: If it has a Warrior gimmick (Fear/Reflect), use a Warrior; else, use a Paladin.

Cathela · 06/26/08, 12:23 PM

Originally Posted by rikimarutenchu

I've always went with 35% of 30%:

0.30*0.35=0.105

+10.5% of your base effective health.

Not quite.

In the best possible case (no leapfrog at all), the last 35% of your gets multiplied by 1/(1-.0.30) and the remaining 65% counts as normal, so the AD multiplier is:

0.35/0.70 + 0.65 = 1.15,

so a +15% bonus to your base health. Worst possible case is of course AD never activating at all (getting one-shotted from 36%) so the usual effective bonus is somewhere between 0 and 15%.

Originally Posted by Snowy

Very, very little. You can AoE the big trash pack at the top of the ramp near Naj'entus. Might still banish an Illidari Defiler in one of the temple pulls. We've actually pulled all of Shade's room at the same time except for one 4 pack -- that's something like 18 mobs! -- and did it with no CC. :P Sheeping Blood Mages are unnecessary, since you just point them away from the raid and they're pretty harmless. Maybe the only other thing would be a Blood Fury in the pulls in the room to Gurtogg/RoS and I think we could get away with that even.

Interesting stuff. The Blood Mages, the Defilers, and the Blood Furies are the ones that scare me. Looks like we'll have some fun new stuff to try next time we do BT.

• Snowy · 06/26/08, 12:32 PM

Originally Posted by Cathela

Interesting stuff. The Blood Mages, the Defilers, and the Blood Furies are the ones that scare me. Looks like we'll have some fun new stuff to try next time we do BT.

The Blood Mages really are harmless if you just tank them facing away from the raid. For Blood Furies, you can easily burn one down (it's the first target for us) before its whirlwind is even an issue. I think 2 tanks could easily tie up the other one, while I tank the rest of the trash mobs.

Denogran · 06/26/08, 12:42 PM

Originally Posted by Left

Oddly, due to the nature of Holy Shield mechanics and paladin threat, it might be the case that you tanking would bring enough additional DPS via Holy Shield, etc., to offset the loss from the warrior keeping up T-clap. I haven't run the numbers on this, but since paladin threat comes directly from holy damage while warrior threat is a medley of various abilities, not all of them damaging, this might be true. I'm not familiar enough with warrior threat mechanics to figure out what their threat rotation (and subsequent DPS) would be for Brutallus, but perhaps someone else who is could take a stab at it?

T-Clap isn't a dps boost, it's a necessary survival debuff. Applying thunderclap reduces the amount of burst damage the tanks take significantly.

Cathela · 06/26/08, 1:10 PM

Originally Posted by Snowy

The Blood Mages really are harmless if you just tank them facing away from the raid. For Blood Furies, you can easily burn one down (it's the first target for us) before its whirlwind is even an issue. I think 2 tanks could easily tie up the other one, while I tank the rest of the trash mobs.

That's what I was thinking about the Furies; we've been killing the dogs first in those packs for reasons I'm not entirely sure I remember. I hadn't realized the Blood Mage attack was directional; it always seemed like a targeted AoE of some kind.

Originally Posted by Denogran

T-Clap isn't a dps boost, it's a necessary survival debuff. Applying thunderclap reduces the amount of burst damage the tanks take significantly.

Right, but what he's saying is that a dps warrior could keep Tclap up at a cost in his personal dps, which (in theory at least) might be made up for by higher dps from the prot paladin. Seems plausible to me, although regardless of how the math comes out it's not going to be a noticeable difference either way.

kalbear · 06/26/08, 1:10 PM

There's a bit more than 'warriors take slightly less damage' in their advantages to Paladins tanking. Warriors deal better with fears, silences, and anything that casts spells. Silence is especially a bad mechanic for a paladin given the reliance on remaining uncrushable. Anything with mana drains can be problematic too. And that doesn't get into the issues with paladin threat vs. warrior threat as gear improves, how a warrior can gear simultaneously for mitigation and threat and the bad mechanics of itemization a paladin has, etc. That doesn't mean it can't be worked around or otherwise dealt with, but it does mean that if you have a choice between two equally skilled, equally geared tanks, if the encounter has something of the above you'd take the warrior.

This shows up especially idiotically in Hyjal, where 3 of the 5 bosses are not fun at all for a paladin yet all of the trash virtually requires it. Between mana drains, silences and fears, the last three bosses outright suck for paladins.

I would like to think that the days of 'one MT for a guild' are kind of done though. There are enough encounters out there that either have no preference or have multiple tanking requirements or specific tanking requirements that I think any guild that focuses solely on one really awesome tank would be hurting themselves.

Denogran · 06/26/08, 1:24 PM

Originally Posted by Cathela

Right, but what he's saying is that a dps warrior could keep Tclap up at a cost in his personal dps, which (in theory at least) might be made up for by higher dps from the prot paladin. Seems plausible to me, although regardless of how the math comes out it's not going to be a noticeable difference either way.

Ahh, right that makes sense, my misunderstanding.

I think on Brutallus though, unless you're one of those progressive guilds with a paladin or druid main tank, you're likely by the time you get to Brut to have at least one really well geared prot warrior who's your main tank. That's the model for all the late BT/early SW guilds on my server at least. So then the discussion isn't whether you have a prot warrior tanking, but rather whether your second tank is a paladin, druid or warrior. Obviously, if the gear gap is significant, you go with the best geared. But otherwise, all things being equal, I think you have to take the druid as your second OT. Low spike damage, "free" b-rez, good threat.