There's really not a lot we can do to help our offtanking.

If we're not being hit, we lose all of the threat from Ret Aura and Holy Shield. We're not getting damaged either, which means Consecration is unsustainable without the mana return from SA.

Some options though:

1. Ask to be the MT - Warriors, and to a greater extend Druids make better offtanks than us because they generate rage (which they later translate into threat) via white hits, in addition to the fact that their threat-generating abilities do not rely on being hit themselves.

If you're on Gruul and there's only 2 of you, ask to MT Gruul - your DPS might be threat-capped far too much by letting you be the Hateful Strike tank.

Similarly, ask to be first-up on VR. Who knows, he might never come off :P

2. Heal/DPS - We are of course hybrids, and just as Ret Paladins are at times asked to help tank Hyjal trash waves, so can we strap on our healing/skull-cracking for the raid's greater good.

3. Chug pots - If there's just no way around it, drink those Super Manas like water and hope for the best. This isn't so bad for Gruul where you can make significant tradeoffs in terms of tank stats in order to maximize your spell damage/mana longevity, but for fights like VR where you can still expect to actually do some tanking, it can definitely get expensive.

As a fourth option, I've also been toying around with the idea of going with a Warrior-item-heavy setup and using Seal of Blood in conjunction. Maximize our self-inflicted (as opposed to reflected) damage, gain some SA mana regen from SoB's self-damage and hope for the best.

Whilst I agree our offtanking capabilities are limited it's not quite as bad as some make out.
Some people will swear blind that a paladin cannot OT Gruul and yet I have done it a number of times (before 2.3, haven't been to visit him since). Yes, I often had to use mana pots and did go with extra spelldamge food/elixirs, but my gear stayed the same as it would for any other boss. Using SoVengeance helps, as it still ticks during the shatter, as does using Avenger's Shield straight after shatter, before you run back into range - you have to be quick on it though, or one of your melee may take the strike instead.

I agree on Void Reaver, our job is much easier if we go in first, but again it's not all woe if you lose aggro - the constant poundings tend to give you sufficient mana to keep max rank consecration up and again I'll use SoVengeance, judging every 10 seconds. I'll use Avenger's Shield when mana allows and Avenging Wrath when it's available again (use it on the pull) but making sure I have a decent amount of mana ready to make full use of it.

At Tidewalker I tank murlocs, and while the guild have done it without me - 2 other paladins cross healing each other for aggro I believe - it's much smoother when I'm there. We tank Tidewalker in the doorway of the tunnel to Karathress's room and I stand at the base of the ramp, near his initial spawn point. Ranged dps and healers stand at the top of the ramp, at max range to Tidewalker, but in range and line of sight to me. In this position I avoid all watery graves, due to LoS or range and am at the point where both sets of murlocs will arrive at me at the same time as they run in from the opposite ends of the room. Usually have 1 holy paladin assigned to heal me, and he tops off the people coming out of the graves too. if we're short on warlocks then we have one lifetap so I can get 3 holy lights on him, if not I just have 3 warlocks set as player targets in oRA2 and hit each one with a max rank holy light as soon as the earthquake happens. Unless another healer has been silly and hit PoH or let a full stack lifebloom expire on the tank, then all the murlocs come to me every time. 2 or 3 consecrates while the aoe comes in and wait for next earthquake.

The tricky part comes once he's under 25% and we move into the tunnel fully, as then one set of murlocs is on us almost immediately after earthquake, meaing I don't get time for the healing aggro moves, and instead have to rely on consecrate alone with liberal use of taunts and BoP from all the paladins.

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In my build I've taken 3/3 pursuit of justice for the increased chance for spell misses and was wondering about others experiences on with it?
Biggest place I have noticed a difference is while tanking the adds at Al'ar - I seem to get hit less by the explosions when the birds die, making it much easier for me to position for the next one. I did also think it was affecting fears, but then at Vashj attmpts last night I don't think I resisted a single one from the striders (we're still learning to kite them properly) so now I'm not so sure.

Did my first 25man paladin tanking yesterday in Mount Hyjal for trash packs, felt really useless on banshee packs Apart from that, it went swimmingly...was good fun

Well thanks for the advice so far. I never doubted we can OT I just have a hard time myself. Since BE dont have SoV are we using SoB or SoR to better maintain the agro as OT?

300 Spell Damage is not quite enough for TK and some parts of ZA. When I started tanking, I would use high-spelldamage pieces even if they were not plate or even designed for tanking. For example, on Morogrim on our first kills I used the big bad wolf's helm from Karazhan and the boots from heroic BF. I would later switch to using the boots from Heroic SH, wrists from Heroic Arc and belt from Heroic BM.

Taking a look at your gear, you are wearing a lot of "Warrior" gear. Wrynn Dynasty Greaves, Battlescar Boots, Crimson Girdle, your wrists, helm etc are all designed primarily for warriors and as such you're losing out on stats that pallies need like SpellDamage and Intellect.

The biggest upgrade that you can get is your weapon. If you can, grinding out the arena points to get the S2 Mace would be a HUGE upgrade. That alone would give you 100 spelldamage. The rest of the additional spelldamage that you will need should come in the form of Tier gear and the excellent badge rewards for pallies. The tier 5 legs are a nice upgrade but obviously won't come until you're deep into SSC. I would still acquire the rest of your Tier 4 set except for the chest, even if it's for high-threat/offtanking purposes. Running Heroic SH (EZMODE), Heroic Arc and Heroic BM will give you some very nice pally tanking off-set items in the form of wrists, boots and a belt. They have less avoidance and stamina than warrior equivalents but stamina and mitigation/avoidance mean squat if you can't hold aggro!


Beyond that, get creative with your damage rotations. For example, when I am offtanking I will wear my high-threat gear and wait for my Al'Ar trinket to proc (290 extra spelldamage). I'll then pop avenging wrath and start stacking Seal Of Vengeance on the mob. Using this method, I've had 5 stacks of SoV tick for more than 500 damage. That's ~300 TPS if I don't do anything. Factor in white damage and SoV 5-stack hits and it ends up being 500 TPS by just swinging my weapon with SoV on. Factor in judgements which hit way harder than SoR judgements as well as consecrate and avenger's shield and you can do a LOT of threat OTing.

I know that you are a blood elf and cannot do this but I was just trying to give you an example. As a previous poster also said, you will need to chug mana pots. This is kind of unfortunate but it's just how pally tanks work. I chug mana pots on more or less every boss fight.


The biggest thing that you need to do is build up a "High-threat" suit of gear for OTing. Shoot for more than 500 spelldamage buffed and once you get to that point, shoot for 600 spelldamage buffed. This is a lot easier than it seems as long as you put in the effort to get the gear. Run those heroics!! You need both the rewards from Heroic SH, Heroic BM and Heroic Arc as well as the badge rewards.

I'm going to pick up Imp BoM over Benediction next time I respec. To be honest, the situations in which I'm manastarved aren't situations where judging is all that important anyway-- I'm paradoxically much more likely to be starved in a multimob tanking situation where I need to be leaning on the Consecrate button the whole time.

Please stop saying that paladins need intellect. This isn't just you; this is the entire world. Stop saying it. It's just not true. If you're OT you don't need it either; you're still going to go OOM with a bigger mana pool, you'll just do it in 20 seconds instead of 10. Honestly, paladin healing gear is better in that case, since it has boatloads of mp5 which might be useful. If you're the OT, I think that you'll need to give yourself BoW if you don't have it normally, make sure you've judged wisdom and chug and chug.

I think that alliance paladins can get away sometimes with OTing thanks to SoV. I think it's pretty much impossible for BElfs, though using SoB and forcing heals to come your way isn't the worst idea ever floated out there.

I absolutely disagree.

A) I'm not the _best_ geared tank in my guild. I'm arguably the 2nd best at this point in time, but for a while was 3rd-4th. Sometimes this is just the way it is. I'm not going to insist that I main tank something just because it's hard for me to off-tank. News-flash, it's hard for warriors to generate rage when they're not getting hit as well. It's not an ego thing, I'm just simply not as well-geared. This matters less on something like VR, where you're gonna have to tank at some point, but on Gruul? There was no way I was gonna MT him so our extremely well geared warrior could be there to just take hurtful strikes.

B) It's not easy, but it's hardly impossible to Off-tank. And you really don't need more than 300ish spell damage to do so. First, it takes some practice. The first couple of times I did VR, my aggro was awful. I didn't pot correctly, didn't time my spells correctly - and with VR, if you don't get aggro fast enough, you can't regen enough mana through SA to sustain your cycles. Gruul is almost comically easy, as there's pretty much damage happening all the time. Judge crusader, burn your wings and use seal of vengeance if you're alliance(if you're a BE, I'm pretty sure you should be using SoB in threat-starved situations - but I'm not a BE so I'm not certain). Your main concern will be potting early (before the Hurtful Strikes become meaningful), and not pulling aggro off the tank. Don't be afraid to stand in a cave in or two to start either, your healers will still be rather bored at this point and won't have any issues healing you up.

C) I really can't agree with jasura and the spell damage outfit while sacrificing plate (read: armor), and defensive stats. I think we've always got to remember that we're tanks, and are expected to not be squishy. I have outfits that'll put me pretty high up in holy damage, but all the times I've tried them I've taken far too much damage for my own liking. If you're dead, it doesn't matter how much threat you're generating.

Get used to chain potting if you're OT'ing. This applies to Gruul OT'ing (not a problem with [Blue Ogre Brew] if you're cheap), VR when you're an OT for a while ([Bottled Nethergon Energy] is your friend here) or something like tanking Al'Ar adds, something that I could and should have used a different tanking set for. (less avoidance, more spell dmg)

If you can hold onto threat than you're fine. Certainly would be better to have the best geared tank. My point is if you're having trouble maintaining high threat, than you should go first if you have the Stats to do it.


I don't think it should be a necessity to blow through 8 pots in a boss fight just because you're being made to Off-tank. My point is, If the Paladin can do the job and do it well, then they should go first. We build threat faster, we build it better, and ultimately it helps everyone for us to go in first.

Now if you can't handle MTing the boss because of gear/experience/inability that's one thing. I'm no where near suggesting that you should demand being MT just because you're a paladin.

If you look at what I'm wearing currently. I went spell damage and had ZERO problems tanking Al'ar's Adds.
Although for each fight you're doing you can figure out what's best for you. For trash mobs, I like to run alittle more in spell damage once I hit the sweet spots in avoidance and defense.

Request:

I noticed in the warrior protection thread there is a section on raid make up. Could a Protection Paladin please provide some basic raid group preferences for optimal tanking?

Thanks

If you're geared such that you're having trouble getting threat, then you're either not aware of how to gear properly, or are going to be a lot harder to keep up when you switch gear. Or, you're just not trying hard enough, which leads to your second quote:

First off, the longest fight that you have to chain-pot throughout is VR, which has a 10 min enrage, putting you at 5 mana pots. Not the end of the world. Secondly, you only have to down mana pots for a very select few fights. Nowadays, I only use them for VR, sometimes Al'ar and sometimes TW. Here and there on KT too.

Additionally, I think it's very rare for a guild to have more than 1-2 MTs. If you're one of these, then go ahead and ask to go first. If not, I've personally noticed that there's a psychological advantage to having your *MT* start the fight. The DPS and healers tend to be very comfortable with how they perform, and tend to do better because of it. This alone is enough for me not to ever demand that I go first, and often I'd rather sit in the back and heal if that's an option. Saves my mana pots .

I don't get why you're wearing what you're currently wearing. I highly doubt your dps is _THAT_ good(i.e. BT and Hyjal gear while you're rocking Kara epics), such that you need to output that kind of threat. Those birds hit me, with 16k armor, for around 900-1k. Say they're hitting you for 1k. Your avoidance(or rather, lack thereof) means you're getting hit fully far more often than not. You're not max defense, so you're often getting hit for 1.5k instead. You have less than 10k hp buffed, which prolly means somewhere around 13k fully buffed. Basically you're a bad sequence of crit hits and an explosion away from dying, for no apparent reason. Do you tank more than one add?

I guess what I don't understand is why you're not using the strengths of a protection paladin to your advantage. There's no way you can tank many multiple mobs in that. Al'ar is a great fight for a prot pally because it's super easy to hold many adds with "free" damage done to them till phase 2, and it's easy to just off-tank a number of adds to speed up the end of the fight. Have you tried running with ~400 damage and actual tank gear? You could prolly do the same strat, substitute a dps for that extra healer you're requiring, and have an immensly easier kill.

Prot pallies aren't major damage dealers in raids, nor should we be - we're tanks. If you have enough threat to hold your target, any extra is wasted, and could be used toward survival.

Please stop listing Stoneskin as mitigation.

That said, I agree with most of your choices. The thing that you're kind of glossing over is the relative merit of each threat/mitigation gain, especially because you're going to have an OT (or be an OT). Our per-gain threat is almost identical with WF and WoA (in fact, past a certain level of +dam, WF is more), and the rest of the raid is going to benefit more from the ele shaman being in the caster dps group (so no ToW). I also find that putting a druid into that group is a pretty bad idea (better to toss them in with the hunters) unless they franticly need the extra HP boost.

I'm seeing a lot of talk back and forth about going in first or whatever. It shouldn't matter what order you run in to a boss paladins are hands down the fastest threat building tanking class. For fights like VR it is possible to sacrifice tanking gear for spell damage gear. If you do decide to sac some tanking gear make sure you have the health pool to support yourself. Other fights where spell damage gear might serve you better then straight tanking is Hydross / Tidewalker / Solarian / Leotharas. If you aren't generating enough threat w/o using holyshield/ret aura then maybe it's your playstyle or spec, or your gear might not be up to par just yet.

Take a look at this guide:Maintankadin :: View topic - An Officers Guide to the Paladin Tank It has the info you are looking for

I was just listing what would be preferential to form the best 'tank party,' not necessarily raid. That said, Windfury Totem can be deadly with parry-haste and multiple tanks. You'll also note druid is last on the prefered '5th' member list since LotP sucks for tanks, and they don't need the HP.

First thing that came to mind was Vashj's stun in phase 1. I also didn't mention the +hp/mp totems.

Offtanking... I fiddle with gear and consumables in OT'ing situations quite a bit. I do find druids to be the uber OT. I happen to believe warriors struggle at least as much as pali's as OT's.

Maintanking I wear and use;

[Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx]
[Iron Gauntlets of the Maiden]
[Spicy Crawdad]
[Ring of Unyielding Force]
[Superior Wizard Oil]
[Darkmoon Card: Crusade]
[Azure-Shield of Coldarra]
[Ironshield Potion]

Off-tanking these can change to;

[Bracers of Dignity]
[Justicar Handguards]
[Blackened Sporefish]
[Ashyen's Gift]
[Superior Mana Oil]
[Quagmirran's Eye] (there are better out there for us, but its what I have)
[Dragonheart Flameshield] (damage and healing AND mana regen).
[Super Mana Potion]

You can probably get the drift of what I'm saying. When I'm OT'ing, I end up as not quite as indestructible as when MT'ing, so the odds of a wipe if the MT goes down go up a bit. I also find I have to be careful at times not to pull agro from the MT. There is a point of spell damage gear where this becomes an issue for me, so its a matter of finding the right balance of offsets.

Basically... when I'm main tank I generate more agro so need less spell damage and all the heals keep my mana pool in good shape. Also, as MT the emphasis needs to be on surviving, so armor and stam etc. become king.

As off-tank, the gear switches to maximizing spell damage and preserving/maintaining the mana pool within the context of 490 defence and uncrushable.

Because of the silence... Gruul is not a good fit for prot pali's. I've done both MT and OT on him, but if a warrior and druid tanks are both present, I expect to be healing this fight.

I use SoV a lot on OT'ing situations. I find it to be more mana-efficient than SoR.

I think it's worth noting that because our spells are all instant-cast, we see very little returns on Heroism/Bloodlust - SoR swings a bit faster (and consecration ticks faster? I'm not sure).

While a shaman definitely deserves a mention in the "ultimate tankadin group", in terms of the opportunity cost of not putting them in the raid I'd rarely look for one in my group.

(I tend to go with prot warrior/aff warlock/2 others. I would dearly love a ret paladin in the guild to half-inch for threat-sensitive fights.)

Even if I was wearing a few non-tank items, I was taking less damage than the healers who otherwise would've ended up tanking the murlocs. At that time, I didn't have my T4 helm and was using eternium greathelm. Going from Eternium to the Big Bad Wolf's helm gave me like 60-70 more spelldamage. Going from my Chess Event boots to the Mail boots gave me a huge spelldamage increase as well. I also had a shammy in my group for the spelldamage increase. Holding aggro on the mobs was my number one concern. Through better gearing, I now no longer even have to make major gear changes for particular fights. I may switch some pieces up but since I have more than 500 spelldamage and 21k hp buffed, threat nor HP are a concern. What I am trying to say is to gear specifically for the fight until you vastly overgear it.

I really cannot stress this enough - Mitigation or Avoidance means NOTHING if the mob is not hitting you. Using gear and gems in-game, you can get a tank to be near unhittable. I supposed that if you REALLY push for max avoidance, they could reach complete immunity from normal physical damage. Would this be good for a warrior or druid? No, because they would never generate enough rage. They would then lose aggro and the warlock with 10% avoidance and 10% mitigation would then be tanking... And he wouldn't do so well . The same could be said about a pally because they would probably have little to no spelldamage with the same gear and quickly go oom from lack of SA mana.



How much 25-man raid tanking have you actually done Kalbear? I see the pally intellect argument being the same as the intellect argument for druid tanks... It's not something that you go out of your way for but it comes on the gear because you need a small amount of it. As a pally tank, the more intellect you have, the more mana you have and the earlier that you can pot without wasting some of the mana pot. That means that you can pot again earlier before you go OOM and generally go OOM slower. Yes, you will still go OOM, but it will happen slower. Plus, I go OOM on every single 5-man and 10-man, especially trash pulls. Heroic SH? I'm OOM after almost every single pull and there's of course no CC being done.

Pallies need pally gear either way. Try holding aggro wearing all off-set warrior items from T5 / T6 instances and see how miserably you would fail. Different tanks need different stats. The tier sets for pallies are usually lacking in stats in comparison to warrior equivalents but you still need them or you'll simply go oom too fast and/or not hold aggro. I wouldn't make intellect alone a sole deciding factor between item choice but whether or not the item is actually designed for pally tanks does need to be considered. For example: I think that Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian - Items - World of Warcraft is way better for tankadins than Justicar Chestguard - Items - World of Warcraft. Even though you lose 30 int, it is still an all-around upgrade for pally tanks. Likewise, the first BP is better than Chestguard of the Warlord - Items - World of Warcraft

Well the simple answer is "I am using the strengths of the protection pally to my advantage" which is precisely why I'm wearing that gear for the Al'ar fight.

I'm tanking the adds. I draw the adds by Healing aggro. Once they get to me I build up threat and folks DPS them down. The faster I get my threat up the quicker they can attack. I was wearing protect full gear the first couple times and I was running out of mana quickly. I wasn't gaining it back fast enough from heals because I was barely being hurt except on explosions, which only take about 7k damage. As long as I'm not in flame patches and we don't kill 2 Adds at the same time I'm good to go. THusly the gear I had on worked very well for me on Al'ar Adds.

If you look at my gear I have on currently. It's more normal gear for tanking

What do people think of [Battlemaster's Audacity]? What kind of situations do you think it would be a useful item in?