I want to comment really quick on the viability of a holy build as an offtank build. Basically since I hit 70, this (Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft) has been my Holy build whenever I'm not full protection. I used it for pvp, arena, 5 mans, kara, heroics, and 25 mans and I used it right up to the point that I got put into a predominantly tanking position in our raids. You can very very easily tank every 5 man with this spec. You can tank heroics as well - to prove that paladins can tank I took my gm on a heroic mech run that I tanked as holy while he thought I was protection. Run went smoothly, I was wearing no better than kara gear (and if you check my armory you'll notice I'm still short on armor, I have a blue chest piece still!) I have been the resident paladin tank since we started doing 25 mans and each situation that I've tanked in a 25 man up until about 2 weeks ago, I did as full 41/20 holy prot.

I tank the murlocs during tidewalker in full tanking gear with a holy spec. I tank tons of trash, most notably the trash on the way to and in the room of solarian. Holy Guidance is actually quite helpful, for example, on tidewalker because I use heals to get aggro on all of the murlocs and every extra bit helps. I tanked heroic black morass, mechanar, slave pens, and sethekk and I'm sure I could do more. The caveat is that at the time that I was needed to be tanking heroics for people, I had most of my kara tanking gear already - take that as you will.

If you're going to tank bosses, go full protection (41/12+8) but for healing with some offtanking on the side, I don't think any more than 13-14 points in prot is required, bearing in mind that you need to be prepared and make smart gear choices (keeping 490 def can sometimes be a bitch if you don't have anticipation given how paladins stack stamina).

Please excuse my ignorance, but isn't the [Bloodmaw Magus-Blade] that drops from Gruul a decent tanking upgrade in between [Gavel of Unearthed Secrets] and [Fang of the Leviathan]? Or is it just a caster weapon because of the crit?

Edit: Nevermind - i saw the note about them being low on stamina.

I found the stamina a bit too low myself, but it's still a good addition to the list.

What macro do you guys use to break out of fear by using bubble and than dispelling the bubble?

The first condition casts the spell on your target if it's friendly. The second condition casts the spell on your target's target, if it's friendly (i.e. you're tanking a mob, someone pulls aggro, this taunts it back to you). The last simply gives you a glowy hand so you can then click on a party members frame, I use this part when we get adds or if AoE tanking and a non-target mob changes targets. Much easier than manually changing targets.

Really simplified version:

5 stack SoV - 100% of your +dmg over 15 seconds, or 6.67% of your +dmg as DPS, 50 base DPS
5 stack JoV - 43% of your +dmg, 600 base damage; judged every 10 seconds, that's 4.3% of +dmg as DPS, 60 base DPS.

TOTAL SoV damage: 11~% of +dmg as DPS, 110 base DPS


1H SoR - 9~% of your +dmg as DPS, 30?? base DPS (I forgot the exact number, but it's around 30)
JoR - 73% of your +dmg, 170~ base damage; judged every 10 seconds, that's 7.3% of +dmg as DPS, 17 base DPS

TOTAL SoR damage: 16.3% of +dmg as DPS, 47 base DPS


SoV has better base damage, SoR has better scaling.



For SoR's scaling to catch up to SoV's base damage, you need
difference in base DPS - 110 - 47 = 63 DPS
divided by
difference in DPS scaling - 16.3% - 11% = 5.3% +dmg/DPS


63 / 5.3% = 1189 +dmg

SoR has better overall damage than SoV when you have more than 1189 +dmg, the point where SoR scaling makes up for SoV's higher base damage


This analysis ignores
- unequal effects of +damage% modifiers (SoV didn't get the effect of 1h spec when I tested it a few PTRs ago, but that was before the 10%->5% damag echange
- the ability to boost SoV's DoT damage via AW+trinkets (like trinketed lifebloom ticks, or the poison stack from scorpid pets)
- the ramp up time of SoV (have to build up 5 stacks to have all of SoV's scaling)
- the tendency of SoV to fall off or get resisted on boss type mobs
- proc rate unreliability on fast weapons (combined with point above, makes it tougher to use on some fights)
- instant damage procs on 5 stack SoV (which are weapon speed dependent...)
- EDIT: The effect of Reckoning on SoR/SoV scaling (favors SoR)
- EDIT: The iSoR talent




[shameless self-plug]
If you want a detailed analysis of SoV, you can look at my old but still somewhat relevant Seal Mechanics thread.

http://elitistjerks.com/f33/t9673-pa...eal_mechanics/
[/shameless self-plug]


EDIT: Formatting, highlights

I've been using Bloodmaw basically since our second gruul kill, many months ago. It's good for spell damage but like has been said, it's about 15 sta short. I keep my cont blade around for those times that I don't need extra threat but may need the extra stamina, same reason I keep around my crest of the sha'tar after having the NB shield for so long.

Personally, I have divine shield hotkeyed and I have a separate macro for when I want to cancel it. This way, when I know I need to just break something, I hit my hotkey while moving my mouse over the extra /cancelaura Divine Shield macro. This means that I can still spam my DS hotkey without fear of it accidentally cancelling my shield and I can quickly break debuffs while tanking with an extra click.

I have a mage alt and I use the all-in-one that is mentioned above except with the cancelaura first:
/cancelaura Ice Block
/cast Ice Block

Hit once for a block, twice to break things quickly.

An update (from the [Paladin] MT Viability thread, which I am posting here because this new thread is easier to browse):

Illidan is dead. I tanked him the entire time. This was our guild first kill of him, so this was not a case of severely out-gearing the encounter or having the boss on farm already. I'm not sure if this is a "world first" but I can say it was not easy. I think we took a few years off of the lives of our healers during that fight...

However, it became abundantly clear during the final phases of the fight that Warriors are simply better tanks for MT situations like this.
- 6% reduction vs 10% reduction means he hits for ~1k more on average, but top-end damage means he can hit for 9k, 5k, 9k in a matter of 1.5seconds on a protpally where a warrior would only take 8k, 4k, 8k - in split-seconds like that, 3k damage can be the difference of "insta-gib" and "barely making it." This becomes even more apparent during Phase 5 when he Enrages and begins hitting for 11k/8k even faster...
- The 1500hp difference between Warriors and Protpallies makes the above "insta-gib" factor even more likely to occur - if the healers are already not winding up heals and loading you up with full HoTs, you're gonna get splattered.
- The fact that Protpallies have no Last Stand or Shield Wall to help with Enrage or similar abilities means that your healers have to be balls-to-the-wall 100% of the time, and an unlucky streak (which WILL happen) simply will be too much for even successive-9k-heals to overcome.
- Holy Shield sucks for MT purposes as it is now - it is impossible to remain uncrushable reliably with it on boss fights because of the .5-1sec lag-time between it falling off and the cooldown allowing you to put it back on... as opposed to Shield block that has 1sec longer duration than the cooldown.

So either you gotta be really lucky or much more geared than a Warrior at the same level to begin to reach for the upper-echelon MT spots. It's unfortunate, but until we start getting some more "oh shit" buttons and more passive damage mitigation we won't be able to stand toe-to-toe with Warriors - the HP buff in 2.3 helps get near them, but it isn't going to be enough to compensate for the other deficiencies.

Another note:
I hit the buff cap during the fight regularly, and I often found my flasks getting pushed off because of all the HoTs and buffs I received during the fight. I'm not sure if this is a problem specific to Protpallies (since we have Righteous Defense up, another buff in the slot) but I'm fairly sure it caused a wipe once or twice when my max health suddenly dropped due to Fort/MotW and Flask falling off.

Holy Wrath 19.05%
Avenger's Shield (per target) 13.57%

From wowwiki - which while not the more reliable source has the other coefficients right so I'm guessing these are correct as well.

Random question but does reckoning work with windfury? As in can both hits proc it, MH only, or does the extra attack from reckoning prevent windfury from going off at all.

Hey Fiola, just to let you know that the coefficient for a 5 stack SoV tick is actually 85% not 100% of spell damage. There is a discussion in the first page of this thread between Theras and myself about it.

I do also believe that SoV is being effected by 1HWS from the numbers i tested.

I have a spreadheets simiar to my ret spreadsheet for paladin TPS. Will try to get it into a publishable form if i get the time.

Two question you might be be able to answer that i've asked in the Ret thread but is more applied to tanking damage is with consecration....

1) When you downrank consecration, the extra damage cause by +spell damage is scaled down. However the extra damage caused by JotC (219*0.95) is not scaled down and is still applied in full to Rank 1 Consecration. Why is this?

2) The extra damage from +spell damage gets effected by dmg modifiers such as sanctity aura, AW etc etc, but the extra damage caused by SotC is not. Again, why is this.

Cheers