No, it was defintely harder to do it before the introduction of the newer badge rewards. The chest/belt/boots are all excellant spell damage AND tanking pieces. T4 helm/shoulders is what I had for a while with the aforementioned badge rewards. Your weapon is hurting you, but nothing that couldn't get fixed with either a S1 or S2 mace. (or S3 if you can achieve the personal rating) The Amani Punisher in ZA is a great option as well.
No you shouldn't really feel too bad. You were doing content and trying things out before the devs added even more +stam to our protection talents with the change to combat expertise.
Ultimately how you play the game is up to you. If your guild really needs the resto shaman, then id suggest taking that route if raiding is your main form of fun. On the other hand if being a tank and making it work is how you have fun, and your guild is ok with your choice, then by all means go for it. Paladins have tanked everything in the game including Illidan, so the class as a whole has definitely made immense progress.
I've been prot ever since 2.0 was released before BC was even out. I'm still having fun.
Indeed, I use the Furies card on my tankadin primarily for the stamina boost, secondarily for the threat boost.
I poked through this thread a bit trying to find a post about a spell damage goal for tanking off various tiers of DPSers, and couldn't find anything. E.g. t4: Recommend __ - __ spell damage, t5: Recommend __ - __ spell damage, etc. I felt like I was really hitting a wall back when I was playing my tankadin, as I had to slot for pure stam to survive against 2.0/2.1 SSC/TK trash, and I really had no chance of surviving the hits unless I put on the offset kara warrior gear for raw avoidance and stam over the spell damage of prot t4. I felt like I was having to make a choice between appropriate threat generation and the ability to survive, and I never was even satisfied with either side no matter how I stacked my gear. Eventually I realized I was not measuring up to the bulls and bears, and rather than go holy simply stopped raiding.
Fast forward a few months, I reroll a resto shaman to be able to catch up with my guild in t6 content. Now I'm seeing dozens of prot pallies with obscene gear. 4/5 t6, the helm off illidan, bulwark, ToC main hand. Clearly there are people out there making it work, and I can't help but think I was just doing it wrong. DId I make a mistake stacking solid stars in my gear? Should I have bid on more of the tier gear and gotten 4/5 t4? I miss tanking really bad and I really want my assumptions on tankadin viability to be wrong, even though it's probably too late for me to get caught up in gear enough to tank in BC cutting edge content.
EDIT: Was going to armory link, but I'm logged out in heal gear. T4 helm/shoulders, all the kara offset pieces, SSC tank rings/neck/trink + Furies darkmoon card. Still using CoT revered sword due to not being allowed to roll on Gruul/Leo swords.
The period when you're just coming into SSC/TK is like hitting puberty. It's not pretty. Druids have massive healthpoints at that level, and kara plate gear is aimed at tanking warriors or healing paladins. There's no decent weapon that drops in kara. It's basically a miserable time. The only even halfway decent tanking weapon upgrades till Mt. Hyjal are Leo's sword, and well that's it. Especially Pre-2.3, our hp was crap, our available gear was decent at best, and people weren't used to us tanking which made it all the more difficult. Now, badge loot can effectively gear up your chest, legs, wrist, cape, boots and belt(? don't remember) to T5 levels, with spell damage on the chest, boots and belt(?). Still hosed for a weapon, not really sure why Blizzard hates us itemization-wise on that, but can get enough warriorish gear to flask/food/weapon oil the necessary spell damage.
As for levels, I did ok with ~300-350 in T5 content, and am perfectly happy with ~450/500 in the beginning of T6 content.
Specifically, grab some of the badge gear. If you're exalted with LC, get [Gavel of Unearthed Secrets], or do arena for the season 2 mace. Keep gemming solid stars, and build your avoidance stats as best you can. Part of the hard work is altering perception. There are a lot of people who discount a prot pally as even being good to tank. Once people figure out your strengths and weaknesses and play to them, your life will get a lot easier.
Anyway, best of luck. For me at least, tanking has definitely been worth the trouble getting here.
Thanks for the input. Like I said, it's probably too late for me to try to gear from t4 up to BT/Hyjal tankadin gear - my guild has three t6-decked prot warriors and two equally decked ferals, and I doubt any competant guild would want to take on such a charity case. But I do miss it enough to start shooting for some of that yummy badge gear, and grab at least a s1 hammer for a 70 spell damage upgrade over continuum.
You could try convincing your guild leadership to give your Paladin a shot in Hyjal once 2.4 hits. I myself was initially in only ~300ish spell damage and tier 4 quality gear around the time (I figured the tier 5 healing set bonuses were too awesome to pass up, then next patch those got changed to their current form. Hurray timing.), and my tanking still made Hyjal significantly easier. And I'm pretty sure that if you've picked up badges gear you'll be much better geared and much more survivable than I initially was.
buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of
Get your Paladin into your guild's ZA runs. You'll be very useful in there, you'll get some good experience tanking again, and you should get some very strong loot upgrades. The plate gear in there is loaded with Block Value/Rating, which is very handy for Hyjal, plus the tanking trinket, shield and spelldmg mace are good drops as well.
Chicken, there's a big difference between a guild who's just killed Kael, in mostly t5 with some t4 (I'm the inverse of that), and a guild that's been farming t6 for months. I don't have the spell damage to hold aggro off AoE-ers with 1300 spell damage, and my low gear level would force the healers to work pretty hard; it's most likely I'd just go tits up on nearly every pull. There's also that small issue of getting Hyjal attuned. This probably sounds like whining; I don't mean for it to, I'm just saying that it's very unlikely I'll be able to pull up to my guild's content, especially since they do not value prot paladins. Hell, look at Gurg's comment in the 2.4 PTR thread: "paladins are still garbage." [Edit:] I actually PM'd Gurg about this, and he was making a joke on Dares' guildname. He values both prot and holy paladins greatly in any cutting-edge content raid.
Emily, we don't run ZA anymore. There's been zero healer interest since about a month after 2.3 hit. Most of our shamans and pallies have the mp5 trinket off Malacrass anyway, and typically log on and off their mains about five minutes before and after raids (myself included). The alts also don't have the gear to handle ZA, so the only off-night instance we run is Kara. I suppose I should probably make some friends in t5-level guilds and try to hit up some ZAs.
I don't have the spell damage to hold aggro off AoE-ers with 1300 spell damage, and my low gear level would force the healers to work pretty hard; it's most likely I'd just go tits up on nearly every pull.
Not true if you can just get a badge piece or two and farm up a better weapon. In Hyjal you use spell damage food, adept's elixir and superior wizard oil, and have the group constructed so you have a shaman for wrath of air. If you're north of 500-550 spell damage after that, you can hold aggro sufficiently well even off T6 AOE.
The survivability issue isn't really one, as long as your other tanks are getting Aboms off you. Having said that, make sure to have several stacks of Free Action potions and don't be shy about using them on Abom pulls if they're going to be sticking to you.
especially since they do not value prot paladins. Hell, look at Gurg's comment in the 2.4 PTR thread: "paladins are still garbage." This seems to be a common sentiment in the min-max community, that we can't do anything except provide manditory buffs and mediocre healing.
"paladins are still garbage" applies to holy paladins, and I'm positive that's the context that Gurgthock was using it in.
This probably sounds like whining; I don't mean for it to, I'm just saying that it's very unlikely I'll be able to pull up to my guild's content, especially since they do not value prot paladins.
You're right, it does sound like whining. There are plenty of people in this thread telling you that they made Hyjal work at a ~T4/badge gear level - and having geared healers is only going to increase your survivability. You've been presented with a multitude of ways to increase your viability for this job - farm the arena gavel, use threat consumables, get the badge gear - and that's really all it takes.
If your guild is simply unwilling to try you out in this slot or let you switch main characters, you have a guild problem, not a paladin tanking problem. The WoW forums are probably a better place for the "Why won't my guild let me tank" posts than this thread is.
You're right, it does sound like whining. There are plenty of people in this thread telling you that they made Hyjal work at a ~T4/badge gear level - and having geared healers is only going to increase your survivability. You've been presented with a multitude of ways to increase your viability for this job - farm the arena gavel, use threat consumables, get the badge gear - and that's really all it takes.
If your guild is simply unwilling to try you out in this slot or let you switch main characters, you have a guild problem, not a paladin tanking problem. The WoW forums are probably a better place for the "Why won't my guild let me tank" posts than this thread is.
Ya, I mean Bryne comes across harsh there, but he's right. The gear and paladin talents have gotten substantially better since the last time you tried tanking. Badge and ZA gear is awesomesauce, and even without ZA, badge gear alone will get you to a pretty decent place.
As for Hyjal trash, you're going to be doing a lot more average threat per mob than whomever you have tanking it at the moment. Even with 300 spell damage against T6 tanks. Things going in your favor: It's undead (mmm Holy Wrath and exorcism), there's a lot of mobs coming from one spot( yay consecration ), and CC is limited to a few shackles and sheep at best.
Getting into Hyjal is a different story, but even then you're still pretty useful. Al'ar and Solarian are definitely easier with a prot pally. Same with KT and the weapons/phoenixes. In SSC, Leo/TW, Vashj, and if you have the resist gear Hydross are all made slightly easier with a prot pally (much easier for TW ). Getting into runs might be hard, but you may be able to convince a guild that's just one Vashj or KT to bring you along in return for you valuable insight to those fights.
Anyway, if you don't really want to tank, then that's a different issue. But if you're committed, you can definitely find a way to get it done.
I recently respecced Protection from Holy due to a lack of tanks for a few weeks and that the current Paladin Tank is actually an alt of a mage and he is being asked to run with his mage as it normally out-dpses better geared mages all te time.
The MT in my guild is continuously banging the OT drum. He wants me to practice OTing as opposed to MTing Karazhan (for example). He says I need to master being able to keep up threat generation to complement the MT. I haven't studied strats for BT/MH but the only times I have seen a requirement for an OT is when we do Gruul (and we don't do that anymore hence I am still wearing Kara warrior shoulders )
I have tried to OT trash just to try and keep up with the warrior tanking the add (the robot pairs in TK on the way to VR or Solarian for example). So I try to offload as much holy damage as possible without 'taunting'. If I start with Avengine Wrath... I have a better chance at keeping up, but I am OTing on an add/boss that isn't hitting me, so no HS hits, and not taking enough damage to re-gain back mana from SA.
When I single target trash tank, or MT in Kara, I normally:
1- Prep HS
2- Put up SoR
3- Pull using AS (if I can without messing up the pull for the other tanks) or JoR (and reload SoR immediately)
4- Pull mob back out of range of CC and consecrate
5- HS again... Jor->SoR -> consecrate (throw in an Exorcism or AS if I have cool down time)
Some times I'll use AW at the start... depends if I remember
For OTing...
1- SoR
2- JoR - SoR
3 - Consecrate (if no CC around)
4 - AS (if no CC around)
Repeat... (Sometimes I hit AW to try and stay up with the MT)
I am really noob to tanking, this post and others at maintankadin have helped me figure out a great many thing. My armory is linked in my sig block, be gentle
There is 450 spell damage, from never setting foot into a single raid. I typically tank Hyjal with no consumables, and have typically ran around 500-530 spell damage. And I haven't had issue holding aggro except against focused single target attacks, which I can just taunt anyways.
You sound much more like you're making excuses than trying to find solutions.
I recently respecced Protection from Holy due to a lack of tanks for a few weeks and that the current Paladin Tank is actually an alt of a mage and he is being asked to run with his mage as it normally out-dpses better geared mages all te time.
The MT in my guild is continuously banging the OT drum. He wants me to practice OTing as opposed to MTing Karazhan (for example). He says I need to master being able to keep up threat generation to complement the MT. I haven't studied strats for BT/MH but the only times I have seen a requirement for an OT is when we do Gruul (and we don't do that anymore hence I am still wearing Kara warrior shoulders )
I have tried to OT trash just to try and keep up with the warrior tanking the add (the robot pairs in TK on the way to VR or Solarian for example). So I try to offload as much holy damage as possible without 'taunting'. If I start with Avengine Wrath... I have a better chance at keeping up, but I am OTing on an add/boss that isn't hitting me, so no HS hits, and not taking enough damage to re-gain back mana from SA.
When I single target trash tank, or MT in Kara, I normally:
1- Prep HS
2- Put up SoR
3- Pull using AS (if I can without messing up the pull for the other tanks) or JoR (and reload SoR immediately)
4- Pull mob back out of range of CC and consecrate
5- HS again... Jor->SoR -> consecrate (throw in an Exorcism or AS if I have cool down time)
Either use Judgement of the Crusader on the pull, or use it as your second judgement if you absolutely need some snap aggro on the pull. The damage lost from not judging righteousness is very quickly made up by the increased holy damage done.
Also, make a macro:
/cast Judgement
/cast Seal of Righteousness
To automatically seal after a judgement, so that you don't lose time on it.
Some times I'll use AW at the start... depends if I remember
For OTing...
1- SoR
2- JoR - SoR
3 - Consecrate (if no CC around)
4 - AS (if no CC around)
Repeat... (Sometimes I hit AW to try and stay up with the MT)
I am really noob to tanking, this post and others at maintankadin have helped me figure out a great many thing. My armory is linked in my sig block, be gentle
Same deal, but while maintaining secondary aggro, putting up JotC is incredibly important, and you have no excuse for not putting it up immediately.
Consecration is mandatory while maintaining secondary aggro as well. If you can not consecrate due to CC, move the target. There will be no way, unless your DPS is very terrible, that you will keep up with secondary threat if you can't consecrate.
but the only times I have seen a requirement for an OT is when we do Gruul (and we don't do that anymore hence I am still wearing Kara warrior shoulders )
In fact, the next OT situation you will find yourself in is Void Reaver, which, incidentally is where the next tier of shoulders drop.
You sound much more like you're making excuses than trying to find solutions.
Maybe, I just wrote it without re-reading it. It does sound quite pathetic. My appologies. I have tried to read everything I can get my hands on but the real truth is that I have been doing this for 3 weeks. Never been anything but Ret or Holy all the way through to now. Been holy since hitting 70.
Maybe, I just wrote it without re-reading it. It does sound quite pathetic. My appologies. I have tried to read everything I can get my hands on but the real truth is that I have been doing this for 3 weeks. Never been anything but Ret or Holy all the way through to now. Been holy since hitting 70.
Sorry, I was actually responding to the KRIS's post with that, not yours.
Yes, I do judge Crusader after a couple of cycles of SoR->JoR, sorry for not ebing specific. I think I am doing it right, just need to do it better. Just sounding it out here.
As Zedrich pointed out, spelldamage consumables can provide quite a bit of threat on their own.
Also, as mentioned earlier in the thread, Stratholme Holy Water can provide a huge burst of instant AoE threat. What makes it great is that (a) it scales with spelldamage gear, (b) it's holy damage so gets the RF threat multiplier, and (c) it can crit. You'd have to farm up a ton of it if you want to use it for every pull (although you could do it, since it has a 1-minute cooldown), but if you alternate holy water with AW on pulls, you should be able to use one or the other every time.
My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.
I recently respecced Protection from Holy due to a lack of tanks for a few weeks and that the current Paladin Tank is actually an alt of a mage and he is being asked to run with his mage as it normally out-dpses better geared mages all te time.
The MT in my guild is continuously banging the OT drum. He wants me to practice OTing as opposed to MTing Karazhan (for example). He says I need to master being able to keep up threat generation to complement the MT. I haven't studied strats for BT/MH but the only times I have seen a requirement for an OT is when we do Gruul (and we don't do that anymore hence I am still wearing Kara warrior shoulders )
I have tried to OT trash just to try and keep up with the warrior tanking the add (the robot pairs in TK on the way to VR or Solarian for example). So I try to offload as much holy damage as possible without 'taunting'. If I start with Avengine Wrath... I have a better chance at keeping up, but I am OTing on an add/boss that isn't hitting me, so no HS hits, and not taking enough damage to re-gain back mana from SA.
When I single target trash tank, or MT in Kara, I normally:
1- Prep HS
2- Put up SoR
3- Pull using AS (if I can without messing up the pull for the other tanks) or JoR (and reload SoR immediately)
4- Pull mob back out of range of CC and consecrate
5- HS again... Jor->SoR -> consecrate (throw in an Exorcism or AS if I have cool down time)
Some times I'll use AW at the start... depends if I remember
For OTing...
1- SoR
2- JoR - SoR
3 - Consecrate (if no CC around)
4 - AS (if no CC around)
Repeat... (Sometimes I hit AW to try and stay up with the MT)
I am really noob to tanking, this post and others at maintankadin have helped me figure out a great many thing. My armory is linked in my sig block, be gentle
To preface this, my pally is now my main, and I switched over from my mage that frequently topped the charts. Small world, eh?
I personally feel your MT is off the mark by asking you to OT Kara with the gear you have and the fact that you're working T5 content. Ultimately, your threat generation suffers a LOT by not getting attacked, so it's not realistic to expect that you'll be able to match his threat generation. Threat from Holy Shield + Retribution Aura + Thorns (etc) is non-trivial, and contributes a good chunk of threat along with receiving SA mana gains for you to sustain it. And besides, you don't need to match him, you need to provide "enough" threat for DPS to unload while not being a burden on your healing core. Your spell rotation looks fine, and your gear has ample spelldamage for the content you're up against. If anything, I'd say you might have too much spell damage given where your max HP is at.
On top of that, you're going to get more practice with the added stress of knowing that if you screw up a DPS will pull aggro -- sometimes it's good to have that pressure to keep you with your A game rather than just doing enough to get by. The best way to get you into the mix is to start you off as OT for a bit, then once you're comfortable with that take the reins for a bit as MT. Kara is a perfect place for that when you're in a guild at your progression level. Personally, the past few weeks we've only run Kara with 1 tank-specced person (me), and we just have a fury warrior put on tank gear for the very few spots you actually need 2 tanks. It's worked incredibly well, and I'm sure a feral druid would do even better in this situation.
PS - +12 stam gems are your friend, and you're well past the 490 defense benchmark
Either use Judgement of the Crusader on the pull, or use it as your second judgement if you absolutely need some snap aggro on the pull. The damage lost from not judging righteousness is very quickly made up by the increased holy damage done.
This quote is in regard to spell rotation on trash pulls, and in most cases I completely disagree. JoR right off the bat gives you a solid chunk of threat and virtually eliminates DPS pulling aggro with a string of early (un)lucky crits. Most trash mobs don't live long enough for the added threat from JotC to matter. If your target is #2 or later to be killed, the only thing that matters is initial threat, because by the time the first mob dies you should have enough threat for you to go AFK if you wanted. And JoR is especially critical in scenarios with CC'd mobs, since Consecration becomes a double-edged sword (admittedly though, you shouldn't be tanking the 1st DPS target in these cases because overall threat generation suffers greatly). I used to be an advocate of JotC on trash, but it's gotten me into too much trouble to continue using it. I've lost threat too many times on targets that changed directions after I judged JotC because a warrior popped Bloodrage before the pull and a tick of +1 rage put him above my 0 threat.
To preface this, my pally is now my main, and I switched over from my mage that frequently topped the charts. Small world, eh?
I personally feel your MT is off the mark by asking you to OT Kara with the gear you have and the fact that you're working T5 content. Ultimately, your threat generation suffers a LOT by not getting attacked, so it's not realistic to expect that you'll be able to match his threat generation. Threat from Holy Shield + Retribution Aura + Thorns (etc) is non-trivial, and contributes a good chunk of threat along with receiving SA mana gains for you to sustain it. And besides, you don't need to match him, you need to provide "enough" threat for DPS to unload while not being a burden on your healing core. Your spell rotation looks fine, and your gear has ample spelldamage for the content you're up against. If anything, I'd say you might have too much spell damage given where your max HP is at.
On top of that, you're going to get more practice with the added stress of knowing that if you screw up a DPS will pull aggro -- sometimes it's good to have that pressure to keep you with your A game rather than just doing enough to get by. The best way to get you into the mix is to start you off as OT for a bit, then once you're comfortable with that take the reins for a bit as MT. Kara is a perfect place for that when you're in a guild at your progression level. Personally, the past few weeks we've only run Kara with 1 tank-specced person (me), and we just have a fury warrior put on tank gear for the very few spots you actually need 2 tanks. It's worked incredibly well, and I'm sure a feral druid would do even better in this situation.
PS - +12 stam gems are your friend, and you're well past the 490 defense benchmark
Well, our guild is pushing 5/6 SSC and 3/4 TK hoping to at least down Vash and Kael just to say we did it, and do it before 2.4 We're a casual raiding guild so our progression isn't as accelerated as others.
I tank Kara with an arms/fury Warrior or Druid Bear OT too, been doing Kara since April and I continue to do it for badges. I like tanking it, it's fun and relatively easy instance to do it with my gear. And OTing VR... did that a week ago... my AS hit VR just before the MT hit it... ops . So I ended up staying on top of the meter until he was dead... FUN!... then we did Gruul... I wasn't the OT, but I was expected to maintain threat (like I did on VR), I am thinking so they can say: 'See? It's not as easy at it looks!'... Of course, I wasn't able to keep up with the DPS.
One thing though, TANKING ROCKS!! and this post was a great help to me!
This might be worth noting in regards to weapons starting or respecced protadins might be interested in, but 2.4 is bringing 2 new weapons (or rather 1 new and one heavily buffed). [Cudgel of Consecration] comes from Kael in the heroic mode of magister's terrace, and [Blade of Twisted Visions] is getting 12 spelldamage and 33 stamina added to it.
Has anyone happened to do some theorycrafting on the new metagem (defence + 10% increased block value) and determined if it might be worth it for tanking as a prot paladin?
A quick note on Paladin tanking auras since I didn't see it posted anywhere else, and it's a question that's come up.
Retribution aura is ideal for multi-mob tanking for an agro boost where you're not at a high risk of death, especially for really large aoe groups like the murloc packs on Morogrim.
Devotion is the way to go for single target boss tanking, even though the armor benefit reduction is only around 1-2% depending on your current armor it still adds up over the course of the fight.
Obviously resistance auras are the natural choice where applicable.
Concentration can be very nice if you happen to have casters, especially healers in your group where a relatively constant aoe source is going to effect their casting ie. Netherspite or Vashj, since them getting the heals off timely will be far more valuable than other factors auras might provide.
Crusader aura, it's kind of like leaving a riding crop on for the whole group, funny at first but people are just gonna laugh at you.
Sanctity is far too deep into the Ret tree to really be specced for without leaving major holes in your protection, but on the off chance your guild raids with both a Ret pally and a Prot pally the two of you should be inseparable.
Protection is the way to go for single target tanking, even though the armor benefit reduction is only around 1-2% depending on your current armor it still adds up over the course of the fight, and it's the natural choice since Retribution won't work. Taking into account the simple fact that you'll be running holy shield constantly and you can never take a clean hit (assuming of course you've made the uncrushable mark you'll always get a miss/parry/dodge/block) and as such no retribution reflects can ever occur.
A couple quick corrections...
I think you mean Devotion instead of Protection.
Also, Retribution Aura's reflected damage can in fact proc off blocked attacks, just not blocks that block 100% of an attack's damage. So long as you take 1 or more melee damage from a hit, Retribution Aura will reflect damage to your attacker along with any other damage reflection you have active (Thorns, Fire Shield, whatever).
Also, Retribution Aura's reflected damage can in fact proc off blocked attacks, just not blocks that block 100% of an attack's damage. So long as you take 1 or more melee damage from a hit, Retribution Aura will reflect damage to your attacker along with any other damage reflection you have active (Thorns, Fire Shield, whatever).
Yes and Hrm.
Protection/Devotion
Hadn't noted the procs on blocked attacks, which just goes to show what a nice little bit of threat you can generate with retribution.
02/13/08, 7:43 PM
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