I can't even get armory to load at all to verify. If that's what it's showing, it's being wonky and showing me in a hybrid set I use to run heroics, which is not what I logged out wearing. I have 504 defense in full tank gear if my memory serves. That said, though, you're missing that I am uncrittable in the combo set. The resil on the S1 mace puts me over.

EDIT: Yep, armory is showing old data for some reason. I've logged in and out a few times trying to get it to refresh, and no dice.
I definitely can't afford to do that. I already see ridiculous numbers of resists popping up, and Avenger's Shield wiffs at least one of its three targets nearly every single time, prompting laughter from my group at the wildly-careening spell graphic. If anything I've been thinking about getting some more hit.

Even in my heroics set with the Kara trash holy cape, at over 500 spell damage, I still struggle to put out enough threat against psycho DPSers in t6 with close to 1400 spell damage. Of course, I don't think I'm doing anything wrong - they're just way too overzealous and not respectful of aggro in anything less than t6 content. When your mage pulls with Pyroblast every time, you know they're not taking it seriously, but then they're all "wtf, paladins suck at tanking" when they die!

This wasn't directed at me, but thanks a ton for pointing it out! Back when I got the Illhoof cloak that enchant didn't EXIST on our server, due to poor luck in AQ. I'll probably just wait and pick up a Slikk first.

Hello everybody,

I'm a really excited reader of this thread!

I have a question about a talent spec I'm considering for 70 - Heroics, Karazhan, Zul'Aman till we decide to raid 25's.

0/51/10

The cookie-cutter 0/49/12 is a good spec in my opinion but I don't see why i should waste points in Spell Warding and Improved Judgement if i could grab Reckoning which really pulls out some nice DPS while farming and on trash waves.

What do you think?

I don't usually count resilience, completely an oversight.

Your avenger's shield misses? I'm rocking basically no hit with no precision and I rarely miss. As well, I hold aggro just fine in a t6 guild, with 470 spell damage. It's not your fault your DPS is dumb. You shouldn't need that much. So basically, all the questions about holding aggro etc. can't be answered here - you will have to talk to your DPS and explain what threat is. As for survivability, my suggestions still stand.

1: There are spell caster trash mobs. 4% adds up quickly.
2: I don't usually use Imp judgment. That will change when Mother decides she wants to drop my libram, of course, but for now I find that normal judgment is just fine.
3: Reckoning is ok, sure, but if you want to go 0/51/10, take 2 points of it or precision and put them in spell warding.


The talent tree you see on my character is 15 days old - that's how long it's been since armory updated me. I change specs at least 3 times a week due to switching between holy and prot depending on the guilds needs. I've experimented with 20/41/0, 13/48/0, 13/41/7 etc. etc. etc. Lots of different combinations. All in all, I find 0/49/12 or 0/41/17 to be the most stable.

Hiya, I see your point. I happen to have PoJ and I got rid of Imp Judgement because we actually have a raiding retadin.

I guess my response is that shit happens in a raid. Since noone can generate more threat then me often I'm picking up loose adds, saving CCers when CC breaks, etc. On morogrim maybe my healer gets Graved from not paying attention, and I need that little bit to stay alive. Then there are trash pulls like in ZA where Ardent defender goes along way.

I happen to like it for everything except boss fights, but that's just me.

Re: Ardent Defender
To me, this is one of the most valuable talents we can take. In the inevitable comparisons to warriors as tanks, Shield Wall is always brought up. This is our constant passive Shield Wall. And for me, it is active ALOT. Probably more than it should be, but even if healers kept me 90%+ 100% of the time, I would still take the talent, because we can't ensure that healers will always on top of their healing on me. Whether switching to new targets, sudden LoS issues, spell pushback, etc. On RoS Phase 1 (first attempt last week), I was holding cycle after cycle with Ardent Defender. I would drop steadily till 35%, then the 30% reduction is enough to be able to almost full block incoming attacks, and my health takes forever to drop from there.

One thing that many people don't realize, is that even with T5 level gear, Ardent Defender is active for nearly as much health as the priests and mages have. Giving us even more reduction during that range of health to allow the healers to shift if needed is massive.


Re: Spell Hit
I have been seeing more and more comments on Precision and Spell Hit / Melee Hit. Most people seem to regard it as useless. I also see alot of comments about Vengeance not being reliable enough. On single target fights, I run around +8% spell hit and +5% melee hit, and the ONLY time I drop a Vengeance 5-stack is if I can't (or don't) swing on the target for at least 8 seconds. I have even been very successful in weaving Vengeance and Righteousness because my Vengeance proc rate and reliability has been so good. I have even been able to toss off Holy Lights while offtanking and still be able to keep 5-stack up.

I recognize that Spell Hit is nearly useless in AoE tanking, but don't ignore it for the single pulls or the bosses. It really does make a difference. 2.4 is pushing that even more with Spell Hit on so much of our specific gear. (As they give us less Block Rating and more single-target tanking stats)

I personally see the value in having spell hit as well, however, in it's current form spell hit is largely useless because there is almost no gear which provides both good spell hit and good other tanking stats at the same time. And as I've said previously, outside of situational cases I consider survivability to be the first priority in gearing.

I haven't properly checked out the 2.4 gear however; if it really does provide a good mix of tanking stats, spell damage and spell hit I'd be pleased.

Has section 1b been updated since they added the 5-stack proc to SoV?

And with regard to:Judgement of Vengeance/Blood - 0.81 threat per hit (0.08 threat per second)

The text below somewhat implies that this is per stack. So a 5-stack of Vengeance is .4 threat per second. Is that correct?

Thanks!

Hello! I don’t know if any of you guys can help me with this, I’m going to MT Kael tonight, due to our Warrior Main Tank being out of town for the week, anyways… I have no problem whatsoever MTing almost any boss that we have downed, but phase 4 Kael and his Pyroblast is getting me nervous so….

How viable is to use Divine Shield on the second Pyro? Is he gonna bug and 1 shot a healer or something? Or Am I gonnan lose all agro and wipe the raid, heh, I’m actually just considering to eat all the Pyros except for the first one that is going to be mitigated by the Bulwark. My stats with my stam/mitigation gear self buffed with kings and food is exactly 18k hp, so with the Imp, mark, Commanding shout, flask, + the % of talent and kings, I should be at least from 21.5 to 22k hp fully buffed, (I haven’t checked the exact amount yet cause I’m at work ><).

So for some of you that have Main tanked him before and if we disregard the “just eat the Pyros strategy”. What would be the best way to deal with the Pyros? I was thinking taking them in this order: 1.Bulwark, 2.Divine Shield, 3. Seed and if it comes to a 4th one, Fire Res Pot.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

What is a good amount of TPS for T5 level pally to produce? And what are some ways to help them with that threat? We recently brought in a prot pally to round out our tanking lineup. We have BT on farm, and are almost fully geared. he's coming in with mostly T5 level loot. So far, threat is a pretty big issue for him. People are capped a ton. For example, on Naj'entus, people were reporting him at ~high 600 to low 800 TPS. As a raid leader, I really want to give it my best shot to make this work. But we really need to buff his threat output. Now clearly gear will help that, but how much can I reasonbly expect from him, even fully geared (which may take some time)?

For our raids tonight and next week, I am planning on trying to give him a shadow priest for mana on low incoming damage fights, as well as a resto shaman for WoA totem. What else can I to pump the numbers for him?


I would recommend eating the first pyro, then using the shield for the 2nd. The reason? It gives your healers a long time to get you healed back to full. Also, I don't think you can DS it (maybe with perfect timing). he's casting it on someone, if it's not you, it's a DPS.

That seems somewhat low. Make sure he's using spell damage food and Superior Wizard Oil along with that Wrath of Air Totem. Flask of Blinding Light would be preferred for him, since I'm assuming your healers can keep him up with BT on farm. (alternatively, using a Mark of the Illidari for just a Supreme Power flask would work) Personally I sacrifice a bit of mitigation for damage when I find myself surrounded with T6 people, as I assume the survivability is less of a concern.

He may want to tweak his spec to a 0/51/10 for tanking bosses if having threat issues, in order to ensure he has Reckoning, if he does not have it already.

Well 600 to 800 TPS is really low for a T5 pally, my guess is that he is using too much mitigation gear and not enough spell damage, I have seen a lot of prot pallies that commit that mistake while gearing up, there has tobe always a balance , and of course you need to have different sets for every situation. I personally have just 2 sets one for Mitigation/Stamina, mainly Mting in 25 man, and the threat set for AOE taning , offtanking etc...
If he is T5 he would need to have at least 400 to 500 spell damage unbuffed and thats is really enough for sustaining from 1000 to 1200 tps, and thats offtanking trash , you should have even more by offtanking bosses adds or heavy hitters.

Another thing that can help with his threat is, using spell damage food, wizard oil in his weapon, and even a spell damage flask if things are really bad, thats like 140 more spell damage right there.

Well its really difficult to generalize, so the best thing you can do is to know the fight and know what are u going to be tanking, lets put an example if you are tanking multiple weapons in Kael, first thing you need to know is which weapons are you gonna tank, what abilities do they have , and how much damage do they do, knowing that you can then make up a gear plan, in my case for example when Im tanking 3 weapons, usually mace, swords shield, those things can hit pretty hard, so I use my mitigation gear, but with a spell damage flask to balance things out and to have good threat.

So the idea is just to inform you, or if you are learning an encounter for example you could just use your threat gear for the first tries and then add some mitigation if needed, trial and error since you are still learning the fight it really doesnt matter, you just gotta perfect the job you are supposed to do.

Jamor:
I am going to assume the Pally in question is Megor, as his gear sources seem to point more to being a main than the other Prot Pally I found in your guild. He is sitting at 512 spell damage, which is just shy of what it should be against T6 DPS. Flasking/Potting + Oil + Food should put him well over +600 spell damage, which is into the range that he needs. Adding a shaman for Wrath of Air is something all prot pallys pray for, and would definately give his threat a significant boost.

If he is cycling his threat correctly or even close to correctly, but still having threat issues, then have him re-gem for less stamina and more spell damage. Your healers should be able to keep him up with as much as 2k less health.

If this can help you gauge what kind of threat he should be generating, last night I did some testing against my guild since I noticed that our DPS was slowly catching me at buffed +489 spell damage as the raids progressed. I re-geared re-gemmed slightly to put me up to +635 spell damage, with Tome of Fiery Redemption proccing me to +925 frequently, and I was leaving our DPS in the dust in threat, even when they would open up as I engaged. (MH 5/5, BT 5/9)

If he can get to these ranges and is still having trouble, then point him here so we can chat with him to figure it out.

Yes, it is indeed Megor -- I'll talk with him about it and then send him over here if needed.

Make sure he or some other paladin is keeping JotC up as well. That's another +219 spelldamage.

Here's the deal.

I wore what I consider to be my average tanking suit for Najenteus that night (what you see in my current armory) because it was my first time ever tanking him. Mana was not an issue (although I did pot), yet the end result for that fight was poor TPS (600-800).

On the other hand, in that very same gear, I have no problem sustaining 1300-1400 TPS (with frequent 1700 spikes) on Teron and 1100-1200 or so on Supremus. Parsing the threat from Exorcism, undead and demonic targets only grant me another 115 TPS on average, so Exorcism is not a magic wand for paladin tanking undead/demons (besides the insane initial and ranged burst). I run the exact same rotation on all of the above mentioned bosses (with Exorcism being the only exception, of course), and yet the massive contrast of threat I am capable of out putting from one encounter to another is staggering. My only theoretical explanation for this is Holy Shield. Against mobs that tend to eat up five or so blocks per cooldown, my TPS is easily over 1k all the time at a minimum (one good example is the sustained 2k TPS I can put out against the Malicious Instructor mobs in Shadow Labs).

Fully buffed I run with around +600 spell damage (oil + spirit, WoA is not always made available to me). I generally flask up with fort to increase my survival against most BT encounters (including Teron, Supremus). Obviously, I will have to re-think Najenteus next time and try a flask of blinding light instead to see how far that pushes me. I will also attempt to aquire a pair of T4 or T5 legs and gloves as soon as possible in order to deal with this TPS issue in any way that I possibly can. I have deliberately avoided T5 in the past as there was never any logical reason to use it for the poor mitigation and health it offered in previous T4-5 guilds where TPS was never an issue for me.

The very frustrating outcome of this conclusion, however, is that I am never in direct control of the quality of my TPS once combat has initiated. In situations where I equip extremely high spell damage gear (hitting +600 in gear alone) in effort to resolve the issue of my "horrible TPS" on trash, I often end up dead on the floor as the spike damage I can suffer in such gear is outrageous. Ultimately, my formulating opinion on paladin tanks is that we are only truly reliable on AoE trash and a small handful of bosses that inately make the most out of Holy Shield. I do not see the point of sacking my mitigation to such an extreme degree for a boss like Najenteus in which a warrior could simply mitigate better while pushing the same TPS.

I have no knowledge of BT stuff, but keep in mind when you swap in on-use items like [The Decapitator] they trigger a 30 second initial cooldown before you can use them. That's 30 seconds without the added spell damage from your normal tanking weapon. It certainly has its uses as a single-target ranged attack, but it's definitely situational. That might affect your decision to use it in that fight.

1) On Gurtogg I have noticed the absolute same thing you are talking about. OT'ing VR is a mana drain fest in complete contrast to Gurtogg. For one, the stacking debuff forces a ton of healing on all the tanks, which keeps our mana topped off almost non-stop (besides when we reset our debuff, but it VERY quicly comes back). Secondly, Gurtogg has several "drop aggro" moves, which greatly help in keeping the tanks close to one other on threat as well. Thirdly, I also believe that he hits fairly fast and thus makes good use of our Holy Shield on top of all that (comparitively to VR's constant de-targeting for "pounding").

2) AS scales with spell damage yet is melee hit based-- a true modern marvel (/smirk). I wear as much melee and spell hit (for JoR) as possible in order to insure safe pick-up each and every time. That said, however, if and when he gets Blessing of Spell Warding, you are entirely screwed. At that point, the only hope we have is to call for a ninja MD ASAP and hope that it give us enough threat to hold him until he ceases to be magic immune.

Veras only gets offtanked (at least in most standard strats) so threat is really a non-issue. I was planning to keep it equipped the entire fight.

Okay, so spell warding makes him immune to AS? That's exactly what I'm thinking the Decapitator would be good for.

I'm pretty sure the on-use abilities have a 30 second cooldown, not the equip bonuses.

I would attribute this 100% to the sustained offtank damage with Bloodboil. Void Reaver has a much lower damage intake when you don't have the focus compared to Bloodboil. I struggle and pot to keep enough mana to keep a sustained threat on void reaver, until he turns to me, and then I don't lose him after that. Bloodboil has enough offtank damage that you shouldn't have mana issues. (I haven't tanked Bloodboil yet, first downed him last week on our 5th attempt, and was healing)

Megor:
It sounds like you know what you are doing, and your gear level should be sufficient. I don't see a quick explanation to the problem. My gut tells me that it is a difference in the fights that some aspect to your threat isn't up and running for Naj'entus. (like reflections not all reflecting for Naj'entus) Holy shield is a partial answer, but doubt that it is the complete answer.

On a side note, we went back to TK last night, and had a really wierd aggro drop problem on holding Telonicus, Phase 1. As far as I can tell, he simply dropped me from his aggro table. I engaged him and positioned him normally, was building threat on him. Then suddenly I disappeared from Omen and he went wild killing DPS, and as I attempted to get him back, Omen was showing threat as if I had just engaged, 25th out of 25 on the meter, and a bare sliver at that.

Hopefully this was a 1-time freak bug. I held him fine for the next 2 attempts (attempts, due to one of our new warriors not handling pyros well)

Yup, immune. Decapitator would work, but that would be your ONLY option. No other TPS unless you add in a MD.