Protection and you! - Page 21

vorda · 11/13/07, 7:50 PM

Originally Posted by Phryxus

4. With 2.3 here has there been a definate decision on reckoning or one handed weapon specialization? Personally, im thinking of leaning towards reckoning, just because with a ret pally in the group im going to be keeping something other than sotc on the mob, like light. And more swings means more help.

First off, if you'r going to have to depend on JoL procs to survive or even help in healing you as MT, something is wrong.

In your case, ZA is going to be challenging, to say the least, and I defenitly would drop reckoning and go for 1h spec. 1h spec helps when offtanking, reduces the chance that you get a nasty string of parries but on the other hand reduces your soloing potential.

For your second question, due to the nature of RD and AS, I find running speed less important for us then say, warrior tanks. 3% less chance for a judgement/taunt to miss is too good to loose.

About dropping anticipation: While defense may not be the best stat out there once you hit 490, Anticipation offers a very nice amount of avoidance for not that high a cost. Once you have a certain 'gear buffer', its a good spot to drop points, but its not something I would do in your case probably.

♦ Oggie · 11/13/07, 7:50 PM

So, while this is probably getting fixed at some point in the future with no particular warning, at the moment you can do macros not unlike the following:

#show Consecration
/equip Libram of the Eternal Rest
/cast Consecration(Rank 6)
/equip Libram of Repentance

I'll see how it works tonight, might end up ripping these apart but with there being absolutely zero cooldown on libram swaps and damage calculations being decided at cast time you can do some...interesting things. The SoR libram, mind you, only effects SoR swings while equipped and it doesn't calculate on cast of the seal (I checked).

I don't suppose there is an /equiplastequipped <slot> or something?

Something else that (seems) to be bothering me- am I hallucinating or is HS having a lower uptime than it used to? The cooldown seems to trip on the client getting the server response that you can use HS, then only after the cooldown fully completes you are allowed to send another signal?

PsiVen · 11/14/07, 12:48 AM

Consecration recalculates every tick, so that macro would do nothing. There's a cooldown on libram swaps now (don't remember if there used to be) but I think if you put the swap after the cast it would operate as expected. Of course, that wouldn't work for Consecration either.

Something else that (seems) to be bothering me- am I hallucinating or is HS having a lower uptime than it used to? The cooldown seems to trip on the client getting the server response that you can use HS, then only after the cooldown fully completes you are allowed to send another signal?

This is kind of a hard thing to trace, but several of us reported the issue on the PTR as something that exacerbated the problem of Holy Shield's 10s cooldown=duration. I posted a thread on the PTR forums, but it got moved to the Suggestions forum so I don't think they acknowledge any change with the patch to instants' GCDs.

Prinsesa · 11/14/07, 1:08 AM

1. Which blessing is more important for tanking? I have always gone with Sanc but the other pally in the guild with Kings went ret and no longer has Kings, so which is more important? Kings or Sanc?

Kings. The STA bonus is huge, along with a marginal increase in avoidance (via AGI's dodge) and mitigation (via AGI's armor and STR's block value). Even the extra INT helps. I only use Sanc if we're running with 3-4 Paladins or it's a normal 5-man, where the threat generation from blocks might be more important (I'd still run Kings in a Heroic).

2. I have always used Ret aura, but after reading the discussion I think that im better off with Ret in 5 mans and maybe trash pulls in Kara, and Devo for bosses? How would having a pally with Sanctity Aura in the party affect this? At all?

Sanctity Aura is a huge boost to your threat, so much so that Ret might be redundant. In another case, you can still use Ret if you can have a Holy Paladin in your group to supply you with Devo. If you have neither, just call it either way depending on whether threat or survivability is more important.

When in doubt, use Devo. I find it better to err on the side of someone pulling aggro (which they should've been watching anyway) rather than err on the side of getting gibbed.

3. Which food to you generally go with? Stamina or Spell damage? I have always gome stamina but saw mention of spell damage food somewhere and wanted to check.

Similar judgment call between Ret and Devo Aura.

4. With 2.3 here has there been a definate decision on reckoning or one handed weapon specialization? Personally, im thinking of leaning towards reckoning, just because with a ret pally in the group im going to be keeping something other than sotc on the mob, like light. And more swings means more help.

One-handed Weapon Specialization. Reckoning's effectiveness decreases as your pure avoidance values increase, while OHWS's 5% increase in damage/threat scales upwards as your gear gets better.

5. Ive seen a lot of talk about Imp Seal of the Crusader vs Imp Judgement, and Spell Warding vs PoJ. Ive even seen talk on here of taking anticipation out in favor of PoJ or Imp SotC. My question is... What if you took out Precision? If you took 3 from there and dropped it into PoJ you get the benefit of both it and Spell Warding. To me this sounds like the best option, but like I said, I dont crunch numbers. Is precision more important than anticipation or PoJ?

Precision is far more important than both Anticipation or PoJ.

Tank gear generally has a lot of Defense Rating on it, so it's easy to pass the 490 Defense cap enough to allow you to drop points from Anticipation. However, (spell) hit rating can be quite difficult to find (or make up for) on tank gear barring a few specialized pieces.

My question though is; Is it more amazing for a tank than 3% chance for a spell to miss, and +15% runspeed?

Yes. Getting missed by a spell is like getting missed by an attack: Your raid healers are always dropping heals on you, so it doesn't matter when you take damage or not. What matters is how much you're getting hit for.

Spell Warding's 4% reduction could mean the difference between being able to spam Flash of Light or rank 9 Holy Light on you (the former being much more efficient).

PoJ's 3% chance to miss means nothing. Your healer is still bombing you with the big green numbers either way.

Oxudes · 11/14/07, 3:13 AM

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

This is what I plan to use at the moment, but I'd appreciate any comments you have.

Prinsesa · 11/14/07, 4:54 AM

Oxudes, I too have been thinking about a similar build, as far as taking Imp. Seal of the Crusader is concerned, as well as taking only 1 point in Imp. Judgment (maybe it'll help me with my timing), but I really don't want to let go of Spell Warding. I've been tanking for the last few weeks with nary a point in Reckoning either, so I reckon (pun intended) my 2.3 build will be something like THIS.

jasura · 11/14/07, 8:58 AM

Originally Posted by JulianMaiev

So your NR phase MT has 365 resistance without an aura/totem?

On an unrelated topic, do we know yet whether or not +spell hit still affects RD, or if it's exclusively +hit now? This is pretty relevant to the question of whether to go for the BoJ chest or to wait and hope for the ZA chest to drop.

I think he does but don't quote me on this... I know we don't use a hunter's NR aura so he is likely at max without it; He's a very susperstitious tank and goes way overboard on resistances. He does the theorycrafting and knows that 365 should be the max but when we do Leo (He tanks Demon form, I solo tank Human Form) I have FR aura up and he's at almost 430 resist. He tried it with 365 with aura and he claims he noticed a huge difference. I just let him be; he's a great prot warrior so I don't mess with what he's got going.

As for talent spec: I don't see why any pally would want to spec into Spell Warding. It's a decent damage reduction for spell damage but how often do we find ourselves tanking mobs that do a LOT of spelldamage? That is almost always going to be the domain of prot warriors and is more or less the only area where they still have an appreciable advantage over pally tanks.

Also, I personally did NOT want to lose reckoning entirely so I put 3 points into that and 4 into 1HWS. On the ret side, I got the speed increase for fights like Al'ar and Leotheras. The minus to spell hit is just a side perk. We have a ret pally in our guild (Who has been inactive lately - go figure.) so if he is in raid, he'll have the improved crusader debuff.

I do also agree with what somebody else said about Argent Defender: As your gear scales, the effective area where AD kicks in gets higher and higher. I kept all of my points in AD for this reason. My final spec turned out to be this:

The World of Warcraft Armory

The only thing that I don't like about this spec is the lack of full toughness but with my current gear it's only 1-2% more physical damage reduction at most. That is a lot but I think the other talents are better.

Cathela · 11/14/07, 12:26 PM

Originally Posted by jasura

As for talent spec: I don't see why any pally would want to spec into Spell Warding. It's a decent damage reduction for spell damage but how often do we find ourselves tanking mobs that do a LOT of spelldamage? That is almost always going to be the domain of prot warriors and is more or less the only area where they still have an appreciable advantage over pally tanks.

It's a matter of personal taste and what you end up doing in raids. I AoE tank all the Hydross adds, tank demon-phase Leo, and tank the Al'ar adds and end up eating all the explosions, so it's well worth the two points for me.

The only thing that I don't like about this spec is the lack of full toughness but with my current gear it's only 1-2% more physical damage reduction at most. That is a lot but I think the other talents are better.

3% actually. A little bit more when shield block is factored in.

As a good rule of thumb, each point in Toughness reduces physical damage taken by 1% relative to the amount of damage taken without it before shield blocking is considered.

jasura · 11/14/07, 1:45 PM

Originally Posted by Cathela

It's a matter of personal taste and what you end up doing in raids. I AoE tank all the Hydross adds, tank demon-phase Leo, and tank the Al'ar adds and end up eating all the explosions, so it's well worth the two points for me.

3% actually. A little bit more when shield block is factored in.

As a good rule of thumb, each point in Toughness reduces physical damage taken by 1% relative to the amount of damage taken without it before shield blocking is considered.

Definitely. I don't tank all of the adds during hydross (We bring 5 tanks), I solo tank human form Leo (Guild's never killed him without me tanking human form) and tank Al'ar in P1 and P2 so I guess you got a good point! Also, thanks for the quick pointer on how much toughness would actually end up affecting incoming damage; I had been wondering about that for a while now.

Has anybody done any of the bosses in ZA yet? I've done the first two and the trash leading up to the fourth. Having a pally tank for trash before second and fourth bosses seems to help out A LOT. Otherwise, there seems to be little difference between tank classes that I can see so far. Of course, the second boss requires only one tank so having a feral or prot pally who can heal for this fight would probably help a bit.

Any other thoughts on ZA specifically with regards to pally tanking?

Phryxus · 11/14/07, 2:24 PM

I have a new question. I just noticed that the tooltip text on One Handed Weapon Specialization reads "Increse all damage you deal when a 1 handed melee weapon is equpped by X amount." Now, I may be wrong but I seem to recall it used to say Increase all Melee damage.... Does this mean that all spelldamage is increased 5% now?

Cathela · 11/14/07, 2:29 PM

Originally Posted by Phryxus

I have a new question. I just noticed that the tooltip text on One Handed Weapon Specialization reads "Increse all damage you deal when a 1 handed melee weapon is equpped by X amount." Now, I may be wrong but I seem to recall it used to say Increase all Melee damage.... Does this mean that all spelldamage is increased 5% now?

Yes, it was changed because the old version sucked. It now increases all damage dealt while a one-hander is equipped, including Ret Aura, Consecration, Vengeance card, and stuff like that.

missiletoad · 11/14/07, 2:34 PM

After some deliberation I've settled on this 0/51/10 build for now. I've been using a spam-heavy tank style up to this point, usually with JoW up on trash mobs and soft hitting raid bosses to prevent mana starvation and to keep the flow going from pull to pull. I've been very reluctant to drop Reckoning because of that... the extra swings are definitely noticeable in mana gain.

Given changes elsewhere I'd like to adopt a more conservative approach, using JoC and relying on the extra holy threat over spamming all I can. It'd definitely be nice to grab the new Improved JoC. I'd be interested in hearing other's experience in doing a similar stylistic and talent change.

Cloak pondering: I'm debating between purchasing the Farstrider Defender's Cloak and the new Slikk's Cloak. Either would be an improvement over my current Gilded Thorium Cloak. Nice as the latter one is, the former still seems superior for a paladin tank to me with its high block value.

Foofu · 11/14/07, 2:43 PM

Originally Posted by Phryxus

I have a new question. I just noticed that the tooltip text on One Handed Weapon Specialization reads "Increse all damage you deal when a 1 handed melee weapon is equpped by X amount." Now, I may be wrong but I seem to recall it used to say Increase all Melee damage.... Does this mean that all spelldamage is increased 5% now?

What I remember about it from our old thread is:

That was a tooltip change in 2.1 (2.2?).

The talent itself was already doing what it does today at least 1 patch before the tooltip change.

Fiola · 11/14/07, 4:02 PM

So, what's the deal with RD based on melee hit?

Is it -

1.) Melee hit only
2.) Spell hit AND melee hit

and

A.) 9% resist rate on skull-level mobs
B.) 17% resist rate on skull-level mobs

Has anyone seen any evidence for things being one way or the other?

♦ Oggie · 11/14/07, 5:03 PM

Originally Posted by Fiola

So, what's the deal with RD based on melee hit?

Is it -

1.) Melee hit only
2.) Spell hit AND melee hit

and

A.) 9% resist rate on skull-level mobs
B.) 17% resist rate on skull-level mobs

Has anyone seen any evidence for things being one way or the other?

I can't say with certainty, but on 3 vashj pulls with multiple taunts and shield tosses nothing missed or resisted ever. Hardly conclusive, but I don't fight many tauntable bosses (I'm on add duty on Alar). Got to say I'm damn happy I picked up the BF trinket though.

As for Cons, you're right in that they did put a GCD on libram swapping, but you're incorrect about the calculations on it. I'm not sure if it's just librams that work like this, but if I equip Eternal Rest and hit cons then swap I still get the (slightly) amped version. I tested it multiple times yesterday (though because of some odd macro behavior with the GCD I disabled it about halfway through the run), and again today and I am entirely certain that the tick calculation is not calculated on tick but on cast. I banked my +dam trinkets so I can't test that just now.