Yes we got the nerf bat on us too, and we're the lowest TPS single target now.
But we're lacking talents point for some more TPS talent at the moment.

"We are probably going to modify a deep Holy talent or two to add additional damage (J of the Pure maybe). That’s pretty safe. We’re not hugely worried about Prot, because there’s this thing they can do with their shields that can do some pretty sweet burst damage…. "-Ghostcrawler


I think blizzard isn't too worried about 70 threat currently, and more worried about our 80 threat uncluding shield slam. I agree, though, our threat right now isn't too bad. Most raid mobs are demon/undead right now especially, so it should be OK for another week. If anything it IS a tad low, but shield of the righteous should equalize this. Only worry I have is fitting it into our rotation, the previously mentioned holy shield duration change would be amazing.

Oh, I know. I was just referencing Fieldings comment about lower threat in 3.0.3 than in 3.0.2.

I can't say I've noticed any difference in my threat from 3.03 compared to 3.02. Most of the things affecting us were hotfixed in prior to the patch being released, the only thing that's changed is that the tooltips have been updated to match as well.

The only thing I find I keep doing is trying to use Hammer of Wrath when something hits 35% while it's at 20% now, but that isn't making a large difference in threat (Though it is making a difference in how easily I can snipe Shield Orb kills but that's something else).

I'm not sure if the Judgement of Wisdom changes were hotfixed in though, so you might see a threat reduction when using Judgement of Wisdom. Judgement of Light still procs as much as it used to, and still heals for as much as it used to, so is still just as good for threat if it's not overhealing. It doesn't proc for casters yet though that I've noticed, I guess that'll be implemented later, much like removing Avenging Wrath from a full 2 minute Forbearance again.

While this is true, the biggest changes are HoW as you mentioned, and AW causing Forbearance. The only fights HoW really impact are ones with threat drops (noticed it most on Supremus last night), but the AW change is pretty massive. Basically, if I need to care about my survivability at all, my threat is going to suck, otherwise I run the risk of needing DP and not having it. This was very noticeable on Illidan flame detail, running with only 6 healers and the 2nd flame tank was an arms warrior in a FR suit. Healing was scarce, so I had to do everything I could to reduce the amount of healing required. I had 4-5 DPS riding my ass in threat the entire time (yeah, only 30 seconds, but still) where this was a total non-issue in 3.0.2 when I could pop wings and DP at the same time. Yes, this is purely anecdotal, but the difference was incredibly obvious.

So basically, add 1 vote for them fixing the DS/DP/AW fiasco they've created for PvE tank pallies because they wanted to fix an issue with PvP ret pallies. Knee-jerk design decisions don't tend to sit well.

While the change to Forbearance does suck, let's not blow this out of perspective. We happily were using wings before 3.0 when we didn't have a shield wall and we could tank almost everything in the game. You can do it now too. Our total mitigation has gone up, bosses hit for less and so forth.

You can still pop your wings because you didn't have a shield wall before 3.0 and you were doing just fine then!

Yeah. Keep in mind also that frequently you'll be earmarking DP for use at some predetermined point in the fight -- an enrage or whatever. (In fact, that was one thing I often pointed out back when people were comparing AD to SW.) In that case, if you know you'll be using DP, say, 3 minutes into the fight, then you can go ahead and use AW on the pull without worry.

When did they hotfix the dmg changes? I was comparing this last Tuesday to the Tuesday before. I probably should have clarified that a bit. It wasn't like I went to sleep Monday a tps machine and woke up Tuesday with a noticeable decline. Were the hotfixes done sometime that week? I think I remember the Thursday inbetween or something. We usually clear sw in about 1.5hrs on Tuesday and then I go and respec for quest grinding (achievement mega nerd).

When offtanking Brutallus and Sacrolash last night, I noticed that my threat wasn't as artificially high as it was last week. I noticed I had to actually try to catch up instead of doing whatever, riding Judgement of Light and taking it back when I wanted. Regardless, it wasn't really a big deal and I completely agree that we'll be where we need to be once we get Shield of the Righteous at 75.

Also, I don't know if anyone noticed this post;

Tongue-in-cheek and hardly original but I quite frankly would not turn down a form of charge. The idea that it's damage is based off AC is a really good idea too because it obviously makes it do more damage for Protection.

Now not, because you got time to spend in waiting of some cool down, but when we get the Shield yes you put Consecration on the last place of skill to fire for single target TPS, but still you fire it sometimes, just because you're waiting for some cool down too in a long rotation with skills overlapping cool downs, so you still using it but not so often and not every of its cool down but every now an then when you get time to fire it, and only if you got mana and you want to do the max TPS possible.

In my perspective for max TPS ( i still need to find a post with mats, huge forum is huge ... ) Shield of Righteousness > Hammer of Righteous > Judgment > Any other single/multi target spell if we can cast them > Consecration.

And still i cant figured out where to put Holy Shield on that rotation, because it's screw all, or you go defensive using it when pop up, and loose like 1/2K TPS, or you go for max TPS and you stay out of the 30% block for 2/3+ seconds ( and yes i played sometimes in beta at 80 too, finding myself doing 2/3k TPS using it every cool down, and instead doing 4K+ on never using it ) so yes it's so bad to have this defensive plus little TPS spell who scale inversely on gear up who need us to roll a GC for it.


I think if they put more down the protection tree and make it do 10yard effect it become so nice for trash pulling/defense or for some laugh time in BG ( arena is impossible for us in protection ).

Umm, sorry? Did you actually tried arena as Prot? It's far from being "joke" even now, actually i'd say it's at about same level as pre-3.0 ret with some fun differences. Mana burns kill you, fears can be quite painful too, chain-dispels are quite annoying, but you CAN fairly easily kill shaman and paladin healers if it comes to 1v1 (especially paladins, being able to ignore armor for 80% of your burst damage is big bonus), and can burst down many other classes in span of single HoJ with Avenging Wrath.

HotR with [Rising Tide] hits for MORE then Crusader Strike with [Torch of the Damned], and deals armor-piercing Holy damage, you got reckoning, your melee crits up to 1k, you get extra HotR ricochets when people try to peel you off their healer or focus-fire, you got snare in Avenger's Shield (or extra burst from it when you need it), you got 20s cd 7s stuns (glyphed) for limited "crowd control" or catching up to people running away, you don't lose ANY damage while bubbled, you only lose about 2% crit compared to ret (and on lvl80 you'll actually be able to get MORE crit then ret), and most ret damage bonuses are compensated by 1h spec flat 10% damage increase. It's fun, and while it's a bit less damage then ret in general, in some situations it can still be superior.

And all that - in basic raid tanking spec.