I've always wondered why Hammer of Justice never had an interrupt mechanism attached to it. As it stands, it's moderately useful in certain encounters, but against mobs which can't be stunned (bosses and certain elites, for instance), it's just plain useless. Throwing in a 'kick' functionality would help, especially for encounters where a group is running interrupt-light. (Think certain setups for Araan, for instance.) The beauty? HoJ is already on a cooldown, and it would increase interest in taking Imp'd HoJ in the prot tree from zero to...something. (Or hell, they could simply throw that functionality into the talent.)

It's an issue for all tanks that I'm aware of. Druids are somewhat less troubled by it, but Prot Warriors? They'd rather sit down and drink in between every pull like we have to do if not managing mana properly than be stuck with their low incoming rage.

Yes, warriors have to do this. I gradually put on pieces of my pvp set throughout the instance until the healer(s) cry uncle - if ever (pvp gear has lots of stamina and dps stats, but no dodge/parry/block, so I don't have avoidance streaks). In extreme cases, I start dual-wielding. It's a deeply unfortunate setup that we fortunately wont have to tolerate in WOTLK thanks to our new talents. Getting +2 rage every time we dodge or parry will be pure love.

That's part of the reason I like the original Guarded by the Light talent...it made use of Dodge and Parry, and finally made them worthwhile to get. I'm not arguing that the new version is bad, but it does remove the use that balancing avoidance would give, especially in outgeared instances.

Guess we'll have to see how well it plays out.

Has anyone done tests on the actual mechanics of the aggro of casting a Seal? Someone had mentioned to me that recasting SoR had a decent chunk of aggro associated with it, and I tested it out on felmyst's skeleton waves this week.

It wasn't super scientific, but no one died or even got low to them on any of the waves of adds, which is a bit cleaner than usual. I also had many, many times where a skeleton that was 90 yards away chasing a priest would suddenly turn and beeline to me, though I was also getting some substantial power gain aggro from the healing I was taking.

Either way, the initial impression was that there is definitely something worth exploring there.

Exactly. It's something that I still don't understand - why on earth do tanks have to downrank gear to hit a sweet spot that the instance is designed for, just to be effective? Well, that and why do tanks accept this? I was hoping for some kind of Imp'd SA talent that would do just that. Guarded by the Light (in its original iteration) was a good start, but making it proc based could lead to problems even still.

Consider the old GBTL:
1. If you only had a few mobs on you, you might not proc the mana cost reduction. You'd want to pull more mobs to proc it more often, but that's what we already do if we're mana starved (and the healer can hack it) anyway.

2. If you had a lot of mobs on you, then you're proccing the reduction rather regularly, but the increased damage intake (and subsequent mana gains) from the multiple mobs means you're probably not mana starved in the first place.

I consider the change to a flat mana reduction a buff - we're essentially getting free downranks on our Consecrates.

I admit I liked the idea of a "mana restore proc on dodge/parry" as a Paladin version of Stalwart Protector, but I also couldn't shake off how a Paladin might be able to "go infinite" if it did. Consider the amount of parries/dodges you'd get from the Demon Hunter Supplicant pulls in SMV.

@ vitae:

sor (and other various buffs) do cause a small amount of aggro, modified by salv and RF. But you get even more aggro from casting an expensive buff, and then having the mana it cost restored via SA. A good place for this is illidan for example, i recast RF whenever i can, and because im being hit so hard/so often i have unlimited mana income. Recasting RF once every 10s or so is netting me about 150 tps for using up a gcd basically.

@gunn:

most of the outgearing discussion is concerning beta/wotlk, where they didnt seem to address it properly... a mana gained per dodge/parry would be fantastic. Also don't forget when you are leveling you need more def to prevent crits, though some of it comes naturally while being hit.... also crushings are being pretty much removed in wotlk, so we won't have to deal with the 102 number anymore :/

Arikah:

That's actually not feasible for the Felmyst skeletons scenario. The bottleneck for SA is the amount of damage I'm taking, not the mana I spend (this is actually the case for almost every fight for me, even most bosses). Additionally, it's healers I have to keep aggro off of rather than DPS (particularly on freshly spawned skeletons), so I'm hesitant to view chain sitting down or something to lose more health as a viable tactic.

The question in particular is how MUCH aggro does SoR generate, as a TPS figure - and if it's split amongst targets at all, what the range on it is, etc. Well, those are my questions at least.

From the Theorycrafting Think Tank post (Linked in the very first post of this thread):

Not sure on range, or threat split. But I would say it's unlikely to be the reason why the skellies are finding you.

Right, but given the information tested in the threads so far (easily gotten via a simple search), this is the most that has been tested. You can even read Shalcker's post to get an idea for how to test it (and it's not that difficult). If you want to test the range, have a friend aggro a mob, throw them a small enough heal to not pull aggro but to put yourself in combat, then spam the seal till you pull aggro.

Also, why would you assume that the threat is not split? Were that the case, simply casting a seal would immediately snap aggro to you in any number of situations, as it'd be close in threat to consecrate( better even if at a distance like you're suggesting). In my personal experience, that has not been the case.

In your case, I would believe that you're getting threat from reactive healing spells( PoM, earthshield, etc) primarily, and very little from casting a seal. Feel free to do some testing to prove that wrong, but given that a) no one's seemed to find this before (as you no doubt saw in your searches), b) it's counter-intuitive (a single seal cast being as powerful as consecrate at range?!) and c) goes counter to mine (and possibly others?) experiences on multiple fights (murlocs on TW, any Hyjal wave, trash before Supremus/Bloodboil/Gorefiend, Felmyst), I think the responsibility lies with you to prove it, rather than with everyone else to disprove it.