◊ Cathela

Well, I can see Imp. Conc being more useful in WotLK than it is now, since it'll be raidwide and many dps casters don't have 70% pushback-resist from talents. Still, Devo is going to be the more broadly useful aura on the vast majority of fights, and a holy paladin can pick up all the PvE healing talents and still have 20 points left to spend in an off-tree, so I think most Holy/Prot paladins will be picking up both DG and Imp. Devo.

And there are a lot of fights where you can use more than one DG and get good benefit from both. Two successive clothies getting Fel Raged for example, or 24 seconds of DG on RoS instead of just 12, etc.

I can see the need to drop it for specific fights, but for a general raiding build I think it'll be extraordinarily useful (provided it's changed so as to not affect DP.)

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

Prinsesa

Regardless of whether or not DG is included in DP or if we can leverage macro functionality that makes DP usable as a shield wall even with DG taken, I'm not sure any deeply specced Prot Paladin is ever going to have the points for it.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Nobbynob Littlun

I intend to take Divine Guardian, but it would be more impressive if, well, there were more attractive talents surrounding it for those who aren't planning on spending a lot of time tanking, so that holy or ret pallies pick it up on the way to something else (and then we won't have to).

For example, if BoSanctuary were replaced with... say... Phalanx. A spell that surrounds the paladin with four shields, which absorb damage in a similar way to the death knight bone shield. Hmm, in fact, I'd say the damage absorption from this make-believe Phalanx would complement Divine Guardian nicely! Anyone know a guy at Blizzard? :P

 

Strom

I think we are fine with emergency buttons now. With AD, DP, and LoH....we are covered IMO. I think it would be nice if BoSanct could be either folded into Holy Shield (or Imp Holy Shield), or if it could become a talent that may further improve our blocking in some other fashion.

 

RangerSix

With the new blessing/hand system and seeing the current problems that prot paladins are reporting to have (lots and lots of mana issues) I would personally get rid of blessing of sanctuary entirely and place a 1 point talent there that either boosts spiritual attunement, regenerates mana equal to the damage that retribution aura is doing or well, the overly suggested 30% of the amount of damage absorbed by your shield is turned into mana.

 

• Chicken

I have a request for beta Paladins. Could you run this macro:

/script local _,_,_,_,tht = UnitDetailedThreatSituation("target","player"); tht = tht / 100; DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(tht)

After using one of the following abilities on a mob:

1) Hammer of the Righteous.
2) Shield of Righteousness.

Include as well how much damage the ability did please. Also include whether or not you had Righteous Fury active.

Additionally I'd be interested in the results of the same macro if you buff yourself with a Seal after body pulling a mob. Include which Seal you used as well please. Results for any other abilities are welcomed as well, if it's a damaging ability or a healing ability please remember to include the damage or healing done.

Thanks in advance to anyone that decides to help.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

bellator

Was just about to grad a friend to do some aggro testing. Didnt know there was a clever macro thingy to work out threat.

I'm on it

Edit: Chicken, i've copied and pasted the macro, tried loads of abilites etc and whenever i press the macro it simply reporta 0 every time.

 

• Chicken

I was afraid that might happen. Looks like we'll have to test these things the old-fashioned way after all.

Thanks for trying in any case.

Edit: I've heard some report that my macro above should return the exact threat on a target, but only if there is another person on the target's aggro list. Even then it doesn't always update on the client instantaneously.

Stuff like this really makes me wish I had beta access, figuring out a method to get the exact threat reports the function is supposed to give would be a great resource.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

◊ Cathela

I'd kinda like to see something new and different in the BoSanct slot. I think one-point talents should give you something new and different, not just a numerical boost to some current ability e.g., Aura Mastery is a terrible 11-point talent.

We seem to be pretty well covered on the "oh shit" front with the new DP and 20-minute LoH, but it would be nice to see something else cool. Like an ability to transfer Holy Shield to someone else, with threat generated by the reactive damage coming back to the paladin. Say, with a 5-minute cooldown.

All regular EJ contributors/posters should have beta access.

I mean obviously, right?

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

Strom

With the mana problems I am hearing, maybe BoSanct could be changed to a talent that returns some mana on blocks.

 

Starfire

Be nifty if BoSanc returned mana or rage on block. Perhaps with a short cooldown though? (By which I mean restores 200 mana or 2 rage when a block occurs, this effect cannot occur more than once per 2 seconds).

 

Maelstrom

RE: BoSanc and mana return

Such a large fix to class mechanics should not be baked into a blessing, it should be fixed with a passive ability/talent. This removes the potential for "I ran out of mana, need more paladins in the raid for kings+wisdom+sanct" - an unlikely comment from a competent player perhaps, but I still feel that the trend of no longer trying to fix major class issues by packing in more talents should continue.

Edit: Clarification

 

Nobbynob Littlun

I've been playing in the beta all day, trying out different gear and spells. I've only experienced downtime, in or out of a dungeon, when using... well... the kinda gear you guys are talking about as ideal. Swapped to some holy items - spellpower, int, sta, crit, mp5, haste - went back to SoRighteousness instead of Blood, and downtime just vanished. DPS in all scenarios was the same or better, though that could just be leftover TBC gear and my propensity for huge pulls talking. Divine Plea stretches further that way as well. In any case, I think I'm going to drop Divine Strength temporarily and pick up Seals of the Pure instead. Oh yes.

Are those reporting mana problems skipping Guarded by the Light and/or Shield of the Templar?

My eyes keep coming back to the crit heal bonus on Touched by the Light. I can't help but think that Blizzard is pointing us towards some alternate route for dealing with places we've overgeared.

 

ZulazeeluIcecrown

Well I see the crit heals bonus as just a "we want Prot Paladins to wear Holy Paladin gear when healing, not Resto Shaman gear" effect. The idea I believe is still that Prot Paladins will heal on fights they are not tanking, and if you do it wearing Holy Paladin gear you'd normally have a bunch of crit that is fairly useless (since you lack Illumination). With the bonus from Guarded by the Light, all that crit is more useful. I really think that's all there is to it.

 

Thegodthor

Hello all my name is TheGodthor and I am a tankadin. I have a few questions regarding gems, gear, and rotation of spells.
This is a link to my character The World of Warcraft Armory. The World of Warcraft Armory
1) Ok first question about gems. I have been told numerous things from tanks in my guild such as stack nothing but stam gems. Or gem for the socket bonus. Most of the other tanks in my guild are prot warriors and require diff things than an armored tankadin.
2) Second question is about gear, what should i be looking for in gear when getting a new badge gear item, or from a raid/instance. I have read that paladins need more block then parry/dodge beacuse they generate threat greater form being hit. True? Also should I try and get more spell damage in my gear. Currently I am around 390 and have read that 400 is the mark to reach.
3) What is a good amount of stam/hp for a prot pally to have prior being buffed. 15k? 16k?
4) Last question, what is a good spell rotation. I currently do holy shield, seal of rightous, judgement, consecrate, and repeat in that order.. Tips?

Well thank you for your help guys. And hope to get some feedback about this soon.

Thor

 

Anedris

Don't sign your posts.

1) Protadins scale very well with stamina and stamina is probably the best thing to gem until late BT (and in Sunwell Kalecgos and Felmyst favour stamina while Brutallus, Twins, and M'uru favour avoidance). So ya at your level I would stack nothing but stamina gems.

2) Badge gear versus raid gear is not usually an either/or question. If raid gear drops and you can get it, do so. When you have enough badges to get gear that way, do that. I would probably make the badge pants my next purchase if I were you. I'd also replace your violet eye trinket with a commendation of Kael'thas.

Any time the boss threatens your health you will want as much true avoidance (parry/dodge) as you can get - block is of limited use against heavy hitters (apart from assuring uncrushability). Against small hitting mobs (like AoE packs) block is good, although in Hyjal the abomination stuns reduce its effectiveness (since the only time you're seriously threatened tends to be when you're stunned).

There is no "mark" for spell damage. If you are having threat issues, stack more. If you are not, do not. More is always better, but it is almost never worth sacrificing survivability for spell damage (for progression gearing; farm raids are obviously different).

3) What level of content are you talking about? 15k unbuffed is probably fine for most of t5 (might want more if you're tanking Morogrim or something).

4) Keep holy shield up and use your other abilities (judgement, exorcism, consecration) as often as possible. Assuming you don't want to be crushed the holy shield cooldown forces a 10 second cycle, so you just cast each of the three once per 10 seconds, adding in exorcism if applicable.

 

Staudamm

What do you think about this?
If you are @ 490 defense and crush immune, check your total avoidance resp. check how much mana and/or surviving-problems you have.
- If you have problems dying to fast from a lot of big hits in a row => avoid
- If you go oom too fast => Stamina

Staudamm doesn't have any pure Stamina gemming and is doing quite well.

Already answered above

Depends on content. Just test & tweak.

First put priorities. Then find your own rotation.
I currently do holy shield, seal/judgement, consecrate and so on.

 

Tilted

Regarding mana problems, what sort of rotations do you guys use? Did you pick up Improved Judgement for an 8s cycle or are you sticking with the 10s cycle? It doesn't surprise me at all to hear of mana problems in beta when I run into mana problems in live now without all the nifty new talents/spells. Toss in Shield of Righteousness and Hammer of the Righteous and I can see mana starvation being a very real problem.

That said, with a fairly substantial boost to threat generation, it's entirely possible we'll be able to hold aggro just fine without using every single ability on every cooldown.

 

Anedris

I've never specced imp. judgement because I don't really have points to spare and in a sustained threat situation it clips with the holy shield cooldown. My rotation is generally judgement, shield, consecration, repeat. We have so few threat skills at the moment that it's hard to complicate it, really... the only other thing you can do is increase consecration uptime by letting holy shield dip (and potentially letting a crush through).

I've never really had mana issues... if the mobs aren't hitting me hard enough to give me mana back, I pull more of them. Consecration ensures that the only limit to the amount of mobs a protadin can tank is the protadin's own survivability. You don't want to mass pull casters, of course, but casters tend to do a good amount of damage (because they ignore armour and block) so that balances out.

I'll also fairly commonly not spend mana building threat on a weak mob, but just use hammer of justice and taunt to keep it from killing anyone before it dies.

Against bosses I stop consecrating if I'm worried about running out of mana, but there aren't many bosses where that's a concern. Curator would be one (in that fight I save AW for the evocation of course and use everything there).

 

Tilted

I'm specifically concerned about people with access to the beta realm. The main reason I asked about Improved Judgement is that in beta it allows for a "true" 8s rotation now that Holy Shield is on an 8s cooldown. Now that Judgement is going to be put on the GCD it becomes another 1.5s that we need to account for in our cycles. That, and an 8s rotation will use ~25% more mana over time compared to a 10s rotation.

 

◊ Cathela

Just as a nitpick: If you're referring to tanking skeletons on Felmyst, surviving that is so trivial that it's not worth considering when you're gemming/enchanting. I don't think I've ever dropped below 75% health while skellie-tanking unless most/all of the healers were dead.

Regarding Twins: We first got Felmyst down this past week, so we haven't had time to do more than a few exploratory pulls on these two. Is a paladin actually a viable tank on Sacrolash here? I was assuming the need to build OT threat would make that difficult.

I was also thinking about possibly trying to range-tank Alythess; obviously threat would be weaker than with a lock/hunter or something else, but I'd have a good lead time to build threat while Sac gets killed.

This is mostly academic; I'll probably be going holy on this fight due to the obscene healing requirement (and the fact that we have plenty of people with the gear/brains to handle the tanking roles) but I'm curious.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

◊ Cathela

If you're trying to harmonize your rotation, I think 1/2 Imp. Judgements is going to be your best bet. 9 seconds is an integral number of GCDs (6), and two HS/Judge cycles would take 18 seconds, which very neatly splits into 3 HotR/ShoR cooldowns.

With a 9-second cycle, you spend your GCDs on:

1) HS
2) Shield
3) Judge
4) Hammer
5) Cons
6) Shield
7) HS
8) Hammer
9) Judge
10) Shield
11) Cons
12) Hammer

You'll have Cons sitting idle for one second out of every 9, but other than that everything works out very neatly. With an 8-second cycle, you're going to end up crowding something out.

An 8-second cycle would be better for tanking massive numbers of AoE mobs, since shield/hammer/judgement don't matter too much compared to Cons/HS in that case.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

Anedris

I was thinking about MTing Felmyst where you would want low avoidance (because she normally doesn't hit very hard so mana could be an issue) but a high health pool to survive corrosions. Agreed that the skeletons are completely trivial.

I haven't actually tanked Sacrolash (always been on my holy priest alt due to the mentioned healing demands) but I think a paladin should do well. She's a dual-wielding demon who crushes, which, if you can get avoidance high enough to be uncrushable even under Sunwell Radiance (which isn't easy but should be entirely doable if you have most of the best-in-slot gear up to that point), makes her almost ideal. The paladin would be the starting tank and would generate a huge threat lead with AW off the pull, and then have a feral OT who will tank when you're confounded. (Basically avoid our poor TPS when not getting hit by having the paladin tank for the entire time that s/he is not confounded. Druids are good enough at OT TPS that a feral should be give the DPS enough threat room even with minimal tanking time.)

Alythess can actually be tanked in melee in p1 (just move slowly around her) and you can generate enough threat in p1 to simply spend p2 dancing around the room (and occasionally running in to get the shadow nova). We used a prot warrior to tank her a couple weeks ago and it worked fine.

 

◊ Cathela

Ahhh, I see. I hadn't quite dived into the details of the threat mechanics; I was thinking the confound had some kind of threat-reducing knockback kind of effect, so there would be actual tank switches instead of just "tank for a few seconds until confound wears off the MT".

Thanks for the info.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

BFG

Yes, prot paladin can tank Sacrolash, I did that twice when there were no ferals available. You should be the starting tank, get misdirect, pop AW and do your best to keep #1 position in aggro list. When after several Confoundings you lose it, it's a slippery slope. Without Holy Shield aggro, even with infinite mana and AS/exorcism on cooldown I couldn't come close in threat to a good warrior. I had ~700 spelldamage, geared for sta+sd, didn't even consider getting 127.4% avoidance, 10k crushes are rare and healable, never been the reason for a wipe. Aggro is way more important. And you want pal+war, not pal+dru because Commanding shout + sunders are better than no shout + DPS lost to EA, even if you have a debuff-bitch to apply Demo and TClap.

However, the best way to do it is war+dru because of druid's stellar OT aggro (yes I'm jealous) and for you to respec holy.