Protection and you! - Page 90

Tilted · 04/22/08, 8:21 PM

Originally Posted by Dragonwing

In addition to many of the suggestions listed, I do believe it is quite evident that the amount of threat generation is not an issue in Mount Hyjal or Black Temple. Being that the case, I find myself often using [Cleaver of the Unforgiving] for the additional stamina benefit, which I personal find a lot more useful than [The Unbreakable Will]

My reasoning is more so as to the amount hit points in comparison to spell damage taken than the amount of physical damage intake (which is "almost" balanced if gemmed correctly").

Rather I find myself tanking trash or bosses in Black Temple or Hyjal, I rarely find it neccesay to stack a high amount of spell damage, and generally stack block value and stamina on trash, and switch up for some avoidance on bosses in general.

- It is not an awful lot to offer, but I feel I have seen to many borderline deaths that a bit of switching out might prove useful for some.

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On another note, I find more paladins enchanting their weapons with 40 spell damage over mongoose. I rarely
find myself in any position that I would choose the first over the latter, mongoose procs an awful lot, and the avoidance gain from it is incomparable to some of the other available procs (enchants or otherwise).

I find it curious that such strong statements which tend to go directly against "conventional wisdom" in regards to paladin tanking have gone completely without debate. Using a non-spelldamage weapon seems like a bad idea, more often than not. You mention stamina as an added gain by using a warrior-esque weapon. A direct comparison of [Cleaver of the Unforgiving] to [Amani Punisher] shows a difference of 13 stamina (assuming +12 stam gem). I find it hard to believe that 100+ TPS is worth another ~160 HP fully raid buffed. Caster weapons in particular sacrifice raw melee damage for spelldamage, and given that it's our primary threat stat, it seems foolish not to take advantage of it in the gearslot where we gain the most to begin with.

Against trash, bosses, or random adds spawning here and there, survival stats don't mean a thing if you can't keep your target locked onto you.

Now, the Mongoose vs. +40 spelldamage debate makes a lot more sense to me. With Kings up, the Mongoose proc grants 5.28% dodge. If you're already packing 500+ spelldamage without counting the weapon enchant, it's certainly an option for boss tanking if you're looking for a boost to survival. However, I wouldn't recommend this for anyone starting out, as they're going to need all the threat generation they can get their hands on when it comes to the weapon slot.

Dragonwing · 04/22/08, 11:47 PM

I prefer the cleaver for 3 reasons, I use a 5 defense 7 stamina gem, so I get the 3 stamina bonus (bringing me 11 over the punisher), i get 20 parry, which is just short of 1% avoidance, and 12 hit rating, which (as I come to understand in the recent patch) is what our taunt is based on. the TPS on any mob that i can use holy wrath/ exorcism on is so high that not only do I have no problem holding individual targets and group targets, but because we tend to send DPS at necros first, I have plenty of time to accumulate more than enough threat to be uncontested with when eventually matched to the threat of the DPS.

I never take chances, If I am confident in my TPS, and am well ahead, I often find myself switching weapons (even if late into a fight) for the small effects that could make a world of difference. however, against mobs that are not undead/demon, I do agree that sticking with anything but a spell weapon would be an unlikely choice for a paladin without a death wish for his raid.

Gunn · 04/23/08, 9:09 AM

Originally Posted by Dragonwing

I prefer the cleaver for 3 reasons, I use a 5 defense 7 stamina gem, so I get the 3 stamina bonus (bringing me 11 over the punisher), i get 20 parry, which is just short of 1% avoidance, and 12 hit rating, which (as I come to understand in the recent patch) is what our taunt is based on. the TPS on any mob that i can use holy wrath/ exorcism on is so high that not only do I have no problem holding individual targets and group targets, but because we tend to send DPS at necros first, I have plenty of time to accumulate more than enough threat to be uncontested with when eventually matched to the threat of the DPS.

I never take chances, If I am confident in my TPS, and am well ahead, I often find myself switching weapons (even if late into a fight) for the small effects that could make a world of difference. however, against mobs that are not undead/demon, I do agree that sticking with anything but a spell weapon would be an unlikely choice for a paladin without a death wish for his raid.

The AOE DPS in your raid must be minimal. I usually roll with at least 600 spelldamage and often have to fight for threat on mobs. Of course my fellow guildies are spoiled by my high TPS and start DPSing early. I couldn't imagine for a moment of replacing my BEST TPS piece for more avoidance/def/stamina. Unless of course I was the 2nd-3rd tank and noone was expected to DPS my mob for 20secs or so and even then my healers wouldn't have trouble keeping me up. I would recommend getting more Warrior pieces to switch out in other slots then switching out your Main hand. IMO that's crazy talk. Especially on hyjal waves.

Eradorn · 04/23/08, 11:58 AM

Guys, question as a pali tanking Ads on Hydross.

I have read through the Hydross Resist thread, and there were good Main Tank numbers and lots of pointless debates, but really no good numbers for the OT.

Assuming I am going to be wearing a mixed set, what numbers should I look for in my resistances and how important is being Crit Immune when taking ads? Also as a pali in SSC at average gear for that place, should I be tanking all 4 ads? 3? 2?

Thanks!

kalbear · 04/23/08, 1:00 PM

You must be crit immune. The adds aren't level 73, but they're still going to crit if you let them. I'd recommend using gladiator gear for this; resilience makes it a lot easier by comparison.

The standard number I've seen for mixed sets is 200. I'd go lower, honestly, especially on the frost set, but that's a good one to aim for. It really depends on how many you're going to tank. If you tank 2, I'd not even bother with resist gear; they don't hit ridiculously hard and you won't be having the mark on you when you're killing them. With 3 and 4, you're probably going to be pushing your healers pretty hard, and that's where I'd want a true mixed set that's closer to 150-200. There's no reason for you to ever tank 4; let the prior tank who just switched tank that add.

But absolutely be crit immune. They can't crush, and you can't block, but they certainly can crit.

Tilted · 04/23/08, 1:02 PM

I'm in the same boat Gunn is when it comes to Hyjal trash. I typically pack around 550 spelldmg and mobs break loose on almost every single wave. Giving our warlocks their own boomkin was both a blessing and a curse, but I digress. Long story short though, I couldn't imagine dropping this number down to 200ish just for a little more avoidance; we'd lose AoE casters on every pull.

EDIT: For what it's worth, I would routinely tank all 4 adds on Hydross back when we were farming him. I was quite crittable with about 220-ish FrR and NR. The adds really don't hit that hard until the mark starts to add up, and if your DPS is on the ball they'll be dead before Hydross bumps the multiplier up to 50%. Just have your resto druids get a rolling Lifebloom going on you (and the MT for that matter) ASAP after the phase shifts and your health spikes will be much easier to manage for the other healers to keep you up.

Melufa · 04/23/08, 3:04 PM

Regarding the adds on Hydross, I've regularly tanked all 4 using a stam set with mostly pre-2.4 badge gear and some tier 5. I used no resistance gear at all, only my frost aura and a nature resist totem. Our usual strat was just to drop a consecrate on top of Hydross after the transition, and aoe all 4 adds down on top of him. Stunning one of the adds with HoJ helped, as well as making sure to bubble out of the -50% damage buff is you happen to get it right before a transition.

• Snowy · 04/23/08, 3:21 PM

Yeah, I've tanked all the Hydross adds with no resist gear, just making sure I was uncrittable. The hardest part was just convincing DPS to hold off for a few seconds to let me actually round them up.

Cathela · 04/23/08, 3:31 PM

Originally Posted by kalbear

You must be crit immune.

I only have ~430 defense in my Hydross add-tanking gear (so, an incoming crit rate of ~2%) and I never have survival problems tanking 3-4 adds. It's a bunch of small attacks, and if you stack resists with crafted epics and AH greens (~300 buffed NR/FrR) then crits just aren't very big at all.

See this post by Octopa in the old thread and the subsequent discussion for details.

kalbear · 04/23/08, 3:35 PM

That's the point. If you've stacked resistance gear, no - you don't need to be crit immune. I personally found it a lot easier to have better tanking gear while stacking minimal resistance gear and remain crit immune (especially with pvp gears) than I found it to stack resistance gear while not remaining crit immune.

I guess I should've said it this way: either stay crit immune or stack a lot of resistance. You need to do one or the other.

Dragonwing · 04/23/08, 11:18 PM

Generally speaking, unless it's a wave of pure ghouls, the target order is to deal with necros / banshees single target, then focus down aboms while AoE starts. I've never had a problem holding threat with the group, but I see one or two slip every now and then, i'd like to add I tend to tab target stack SoV on everything but ghouls as well, and switch up and judge righteous everytime my judgements up on a target that doesn't have any stacks on them, if an add starts to get away, I either taunt it, stun it, or judge it, or AS it (we keep a conc pally in my group), but I tend to prefer that as a last resort.

It may just be the way we execute our strategy on Hyjal, we don't spam AoE as soon as i've got the group, the AoE people are always helping with single target until it's time to just focus on the large group. So I do get about 10-15 seconds i'd say accumulating threat, that may very well be the difference.

One more note, I don't initially run in, a warrior does and I holy wrath, so that's another good chunk of threat.

vorda · 04/24/08, 6:56 AM

You've been holy for the past 3 days or so now dragonwing

Mind sending me a PM when I should check your armory for that passive crush immune set?

Cathela · 04/24/08, 2:30 PM

Originally Posted by kalbear

That's the point. If you've stacked resistance gear, no - you don't need to be crit immune. I personally found it a lot easier to have better tanking gear while stacking minimal resistance gear and remain crit immune (especially with pvp gears) than I found it to stack resistance gear while not remaining crit immune.

I guess I should've said it this way: either stay crit immune or stack a lot of resistance. You need to do one or the other.

That's true. What I would say though is that stacking resist as high as you can and not particularly worrying about crit will leave you taking substantially less damage than reversing the priorities, and that could easily make the difference for a guild just learning Hydross. (That was certainly the case for us.)

kalbear · 04/24/08, 7:14 PM

Heh. We tackled it a different way; we let our non-main tanks gear normally or have minimal resist gear and took more of them. Our DPS was sufficiently decent on Hydross that the enrage timer wasn't an issue, and multiple tanks meant a bit easier time of downing the adds in a hurry. But I can see the notion of minimizing damage being a good one.

Personally, I'd rather minimize spike damage than overall damage; it's a lot easier to heal consistent damage than it is inconsistent damage in general. It's also a bit easier to acquire the crit-immune but otherwise light resist gear. Usually auction house items will do, if that. Really up to you. The only time I've actually used my resist gear was on our first kill of Hydross. After that I don't even bother bringing it any more.

Dragonwing · 04/25/08, 4:41 AM

Sorry lol, i've been bouncing back and forth with my arena team lately, im not sure what time zone you are, but im prot for raiding, of course- I don't know how often the armory updates. I am central time, if you armory me around raid time i'll raid in it tonight (Since were not doing anything important really) , I raid from 8 central to midnight.