PsiVen any chance you could include actual dps for your spreadsheet? I know there are lots of situations where getting a bit more dps is more important than even more absurd tps, especially since nobody can pull agro as it is now.

How is 10% more damage for HotR idiotic? True its not the greatest ability ever but its a nice boost to both threat and damage that we will be using all the time anyway. Considering some of the set bonuses they have given out in the past I would hardly consider it terrible.

HoJ is our interrupt and it sucks hard right now, but GC said they added an actual interrupt effect apart from the stun which makes it entirely reasonable. Since we can talent it down to 30 seconds and it has a 10 yard range we aren't the pathetic sitting ducks that we are on live.

Mana burn and silence are pretty painful and to be honest they should just change aoe silence/mana burn to not effect the tank the same way lots of other raid wide effects don't hit the tank. Problem solved. Alternatively having HorR, SotR and HS castable through silence would mostly work around the problem. I would love to see more bosses have rage burn mechanics just so I can laugh at the tears of the warriors who mostly haven't had to deal with it.

We worked the numbers a few pages back but we aren't crippled by being OTs anymore. We have to stop consecrating and ease up on our rotating depending on incoming damage but thats not really any different from any other tank. The nerf to SotR has taken our OT threat down a ton but I think it should still be reasonable. Divine Plea and the new BoSanc also help a whole ton.

As far as our taunt it has its ups and downs. The range and ability to pull multiple mobs from an overzealous aoe is a huge plus. The fact that its reasonably buggy and will sometimes go off and not do anything (and not be resisted) is very frustrating. The lack of being able to pick a specific mob off another tank is also a drawback. I know I've had plenty of situations where I would have loved to be able to pull just a single hard hitting add off the other tank so neither of us got bursted down. As it is we have to rely on the other tank(s) being able to taunt something back off us after we pull it off them which is a clumsy mechanic and not possible for another paladin tank. Again a big concern here is 4h with 2 paladin tanks. I don't expect to be raiding with another paladin tank often but some solution would be nice.

Also this isn't the official forums, calling someone a retard and saying WTB fix isn't really that constructive.

Or, option 3) I wasn't aware they had changed divine protection to be a shield wall, which is why I asked for the clarification on its current live behavior vs beta behavior of the mentioned spells (how the fuck did you miss the first half of my sentence). If you bubble while you are tanking on a live server, thats generally a bad thing.

I try to keep up with all the paladin changes, especially the protection ones; that one in particular managed to elude me until now. I apologize for that. Cool the fuck out.

Cross-site redundancy issues aside, I'm at a loss as to how "tank" weapons are able to compete at all for threat generation. The only attack we have that uses weapon damage at all is HotR, which appears to represent a comparatively low percentage of our TPS. While strength scales better than spell power in general, that's a bit of a moot point when comparing a 25-30 str weapon to a 230-250 SP weapon (and of course the gap is even wider at 80). As soon as you add multiple mobs into the mix, weapon damage plummets in usefulness when looking at threat generation and the added spell power from "caster" weapons simply dominates. White damage still represents a tiny fraction of our overall threat generation, so the only real benefit of using a more traditional tanking weapon comes from the additional defensive stats that it might have.

Now, if overall threat generation stays at ridiculous levels like we've seen in beta the past month or so, I can see where trading spell power for additional avoidance would certainly have merit. But for raw threat generation, I can't see how a "tank" weapon comes even remotely close to competing.

Yeah Zapf (and any others I incedentally insulted) I lost it last night over things that were petty and stupid and not in the least WoW related, and lashed out in a personal attack fashion. Not okay.

I'm sorry for basically being a jerk, this board should be above that.


To add something constructive, I'd like to argue that our taunt is extremely powerful and -not designed for- in the current itteration of the game Rasczak. I attempted to imply that (in my stupid, stupid, bad post) but was unclear. I think we'll never see a taunt critical situation where that is the case in the future unless it is a situation where taunt/tauntback is available. From current design I personally don't think that pallies were designed to tank encounters (see: not being able to taunt off NPCs) until perhaps BT, but I think finally they've come around to the light that we're actually tanks. Admittedly this is instinct and hope, but..yeah.

My issue with HotR has been pointed out by Tilted. It's just too low damage and TPS to overcome the massive advantage of +dam.

Can you link that GC post? I had not heard that till just now, and I'd like to read her exact wording.


Edit:
That's what I get for rerwriting an appology 9 times, I am also extremely sorry for insulting Zapf personally and any others I did.

I'm well aware most people in here would know Maintankadin. But hey, most people isn't all people

GC's post on interrupts: WotLK Beta (US-English) Forums -> [Tank] Boss abilities and Paladin Deficiency
There's also one later on in the same thread about Righteous Defense: WotLK Beta (US-English) Forums -> [Tank] Boss abilities and Paladin Deficiency
I really do like Righteous Defense, I wouldn't trade it at all, but the class being unable to taunt a single target just seems like the sort of clumsy design that Righteous Defense had at the start of TBC. Back when we couldn't taunt a mob directly, we had to switch targets and hope it was a player who pulled aggro, rather than an NPC. As far as I know we still can't use our taunt to force a mob to continue attacking us while we have aggro, something which a druid, warrior and presumably a death knight are all able to do.

If the encounter designers get a memo saying "don't rely on the tank having a single target taunt", that's cool and I'm happy I don't have to worry about it. But if they don't then alongside mana burn and silencing mobs, it's something paladins will need to work around that the other tanks won't.

There's a trivial solution for fights where you have to "exchange" a mob with another tank. Simply have the mob gain a "Cannot be taunted" buff for 5s after a successful taunt.

Start: Paladin A is tanking Mob 1. Paladin B is tanking Mob 2.

A taunts on B. Both 1 and 2 are now focusing on A. 2 has the buff.
B taunts on A. 1 switches to B, but 2 is immune to taunt so stays on A. 1 now has the buff.

End Result: Paladin A is tanking Mob 2. Paladin B is tanking Mob 1.

Given that mob exchanges are extremely rare (I don't think there's one in all of TBC), accounting for it through the specific fight mechanics is the easiest way to handle the situation.

Trying to play catch up one step at a time and looking at the numbers on the maintankadin forum, it seems that this idea would help us alot:
- The effect of Blessing of Sanctuary being merged into Righteous Fury (and merged with the imp. RF talent)

The scaling issue for Druids and Warriors where they have problems tanking lower tier instances has to be addressed in their own talenttrees - Not in ours. (Warriors already have a 'gain rage on block' talent).

On a side note, personally I would be very happy if someone on the US forums could stress it some more, that Righteous Fury needs to be base undispellable or at least give Protection a talent for it.

Well, I may have answered my own question.

In comparing [Hammer of Judgement] to [The Brutalizer], two weapons with identical ilvl and both available to the level of content I face, I started throwing some numbers together for single-target threat situations. The result threw me off, and it appears the devs might have actually done something right.

The raw DPS difference between the two is 59 DPS. After armor (using 25% reduction for theorycrafting) and dodge/miss/parry, this is closer to 35, and after the "baked in" salv boost to Righteous Fury, the TPS difference is about 50. Note that the expertise on the axe pretty much cancels out the lost hit from the hammer. Additional armor reduction favors the axe even more.

Here is where HotR comes into play. A 59 DPS difference between the weapons means HotR lands for 177 more per hit. When you consider dodge/miss/parry along with crits, that adds another ~450 threat per use, or 75 TPS.

So here's the question... Does the ~125 more TPS from switching to a tank weapon cover the difference that 236 SP would make? My calcs show that this much SP accounts for about 100 TPS, assuming SoV over SoR, meaning that for single target threat generation the tank weapon wins out.

I could be way off, but it looks like things might be moving in the right direction.

EDIT: This only seems to hold true while tanking 1-3 targets at once. Against large packs SP still wins out.

This is in line with the spreadsheets I have seen linked here and on Maintankadin. They all show the physical DPS weapons on top of Hammer of Judgement in 3.0.2.

Aside from HotR, keep in mind that SoV scales a lot faster with AP than SP (one of the few abilities that does), with a formula of 0.019 * SPH + 0.039 * AP) * 6.

MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Would appreciate a Blizzard response re: SHoR

I wonder if this means that we'll get rank 1 of it earlier and rank 2 at 75.

Personally I hope the last rank comes at 80. The final rank of shield slam comes at 80 and has ~120 additional damage to the base over the rank available at 75. The later we get the final rank, the higher the base damage portion will be.

Will getting a rank at 70 make leveling a little faster? Yeah, sure but that only matters until level 75.

Will getting the final rank at 80 make the spell stronger for the entirety of raiding in WotLK? Yes it will, thus this is far more preferable to adding a little threat / damage to prot leveling prior to 75.

I probably wouldn't go as far as "idiotic" but the actual damage of HotR itself isn't really very much. Its main selling point is that it gets your seal onto three mobs at once, or in single-target situations that it gets you ~40% more seal activity. A bonus 10% damage to HotR isn't terrible, but it's pretty meh.

This is one reason why I'm really hoping our as-yet-unrevealed 11-point talent will have some kind of taunt effect. (And it would also be nice to have something to use when RD is on cooldown.)

Pretty much every spell that has ranks (for every class, not just Paladins) gets two new ranks between 71 and 80, so I'd guess it's probably going to be Rank 1 at 75 and Rank 2 at 80.

With regard to the 1st rank of ShoR, I'm a little curious whether they're willing to let us slide through the last month of 70 raiding with a severe threat deficiency. If they aren't the balance will be difficult to manage when we are missing one of our core 80 abilities. Exorcism and AS taking ShoR's place in the rotation mitigates it enough that it won't be an issue for those of us in Sunwell, but is it even a large consideration?

Jere, the numbers should be in there with the coefficients I've tested, IIRC I got results of 6% AP 18% SP plus a 1.3 multiplier from Shield of the Templar. They're under IHS (Improved Holy Shield) while the old unimproved HS numbers are just sort of sitting there unused.

I'll look into adding a real-damage component shortly, it won't take too much. Basically dividing all the holy damage by 1.9 and ShoR by another 1.2 should get you there.

Oh I know HotR isn't exploding mobs left and right but its a solid skill (that I personally hope to see buffed) that contributes solidly to our threat and damage. Compared to the t5 set bonuses +15 damage to ret aura, extra block for a single hit from a single target once per holy shield or the rather meager effect of SA giving 11% instead of 10% from t6, its not bad.

GC made a number of tanking related posts today notably this one about silence and mana burn: and Also important is From the sound of it GC/blizzard has been over the theorycraft that the community has done and isn't that convinced, or thinks that some changes they have internally have fixed it. Alternatively they have mostly noticed the contentless whining but missed the math that shows our serious weaknesses. She also said they are going to finish the dps pass before they do a serious tanking pass.

For the first one I would love to see some wws comparisons between the various tanks. Ideally someone would have a willing raid that would redo a fight swapping only the main tank from warrior or something to paladin. Depending on the number of sexual favors given the raid might even be convinced to throw the fight at 1% or something so the attempts could be back to back and reduce the number of variables.

As far as contentless posts vs number crunching I haven't been reading the beta boards much beyond the blues. if there have been a serious lack of quality posts I am willing to write one up giving the full rundown of our problems providing someone with beta promises in advance to post it and not just link it.

fake edit: psiven <3

I found this rather curious.

From WoW -> Game Info Updated 9/22

Warrior: Vitality - Protection - Updated stats/description, changed to three levels

Now, if you go to the beta talent calculator they modified, the stamina portion of this talent is gone. No more 2/4/6%.

I'll be the first to tell you, the "official" talent calculators are WAY behind the latest beta build, and this could just be a mistype or error. But it interested me enough to post it here.

WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Warrior -> Talent Calculator is the link to the talent calculator.

That would be a rather lopsided change:

Human Level 70 Warrior: 4444 base HP, 133 naked STA, no STA scaling
Human Level 70 Paladin: 3377 base HP, 126 naked STA, 12.36% STA scaling

The break-even point would be at 794 STA from gear

Dwarf Level 80 Warrior: 7941 base HP, 162 naked STA, no STA scaling
Human Level 80 Paladin: 6754 base HP, 143 naked STA, 12.36% STA scaling

The break-even point would be at 971 STA from gear

*Level 80 figures taken from here

Just as a note, the level 80 values for base health you got from that thread are off by 180 each. The poster used:

HP - Stam*10 = Base

rather than

HP - Stam*10 + 180 = base

as the original equation is:

base + stam*10 - 180 = HP

The base health values should be:
Level 80 Warrior: 8121
Level 80 Paladin: 6934
Delta = 1187 HP Base Health

It is worth noting this:

I farmed the best non heroic gear possible on my toon on Northrend and next to the other classes, I was noticeably inferior on the avoidance/mitigation/stamina side. Incredibly inferior on the stamina side. That being said, protadins are a threat rocket (even with the ShoR correction). At least that is solid. You don't really feel the difference between the classes until Maexxna, when you die during the second or third web with no last stand or other trick to save your ass since you already blew shield wall and a nightmare seed.

Honestly, I don't think they're terribly concerned with our tanking at the moment and the ShoR fix probably came from more Wintergrasp testing then anything else. I don't really see this as a bad thing, yet. It is a matter of continuing to collect information and highlight it. Especially the noticeable lack of Effective Health at the moment so that the right decisions can be made when they do go at it.

A few interesting tidbits I want to add as well from a general playstyle perspective:

- The Avenger's Shield glyph is amazing. I am so adjusted to this that frankly, I have a difficult time going back to live. Ranged Shield Slam? Yes please.

- It is possible to defense cap FASTER in WoTLK then you could in TBC. The people bitching about it haven't put the effort in, plain and simple. There is a nice mix of crafted plate, reputation plate, and drop plate in there for you to get it done in about 3 nights of concerted effort.

- Despite the homogenization of gear, I am very much surprised at how much BR/BV plate you can find still.

- I personally have found my threat so overwhelming at this point that I am definitely sticking with a traditional tanking weapon. I realize that the threat gen from the Titansteel Guardian is better, but if I'm providing enough TPS for balls out DPS already.. I'd be doing the raid a disservice by not trying to close the already far too wide EH gap.

That is my concern. Granted I am not a 80 yet, so all I have is the math, but I calculating some decent HP (and of course EH) gaps between the two now. It would be great if you could post this feedback on the beta boards too (you might have already done so), but some of the posts made indicate they are seeing us within 2% of warriors, which they are ok with. I am a bit more concerned.

As a side note, the Glyph of Seal of Vengeance seems good: 10 expertise while the seal is active.

I am thinking going with the judgment one (10% more judgement damage), SoV one (10 expertise), and the RD one (8% taunt hit)

To those chattering about DPS caster weapons being superior threat to traditional Tanking weapons (even slightly, moderately, or massively) ...consider this:

Our gearing, enchanting, and gemming choices have -always- been about the choice between avoidance, mitigation, and threat.

I think it may be entirely intended that our best threat weapons are not avoidance/mitigation weapons. I don't think Blizzard's comments regarding tanking weapons and same-gear-as-warrior should be taken to mean that there is 1 gear-set which is superior than all others for all circumstances for all classes.

Warriors themselves have DPS weapon alternatives for a threat boost, at the cost of avoidance/mitigation. Just because their threat weapons aren't caster weapons doesn't mean our threat weapons shouldn't be either.

Getting the best avoidance/mitigation weapon -SHOULD- mean that we lose a bit of threat. It is the way with the rest of our gear slots, enchantments, and gems, no reason it shouldn't apply to weapons as well. Blizzard has just done an excellent job to keep that threat loss approximately equivalent to the other tanks, instead of a 40-70% threat loss that Live experiences.

..and my threat on Beta is so ridiculously high, that unless they nerf it heavily, I could tank with a Sharpened Stiletto without suffering that badly. End game level 80 may see different, but not as it stands now.

I made this post over at Maintankadin regarding our stat scaling:


Edited to compensate for change to ShoR scaling.
And also with reference to what I posted earlier on that same thread:


In perspective, if our pink pompom followed the same formula as LK weapons, it would do ~57 DPS and have 298 Spelldamage.

I still think I'd rather keep the 3-target AS for the extra utility, but now that AS is instant-cast and its damage has been buffed considerably I do see the appeal of the glyph, and I find myself lusting to have both versions at the same time. It would be even nicer if the glyph reduced the cooldown to, say, 15 seconds; that would turn AS into a serious ranged-tanking tool.

As far as the defense cap, it still looks pretty tough to me. Assuming the base crit rate for mobs is still 5%(?) then you still need 140 defense skill above the level 80 base to become uncrittable (125 for -5% crit, 15 for +3 level mobs), which comes out to 689 defense rating at level 80. A quick scan of WoWhead shows that the best you can do with blue/green WotLK items is 798 skill, and this includes a lot of items that would be considered substandard at level 80 if you weren't specifically going for defense (the crafted saronite bracers and belt, for example). You can "trade down" to lower defense items in some slots to boost stam and other stats, but I still don't see a lot of room to work with. When level 80 enchants get fully implemented, that may open up some more room, but it still looks pretty rough to me.

Keep in mind also that the biggest complaints have come from DKs, who have two fewer slots to work with if they want to tank with a two-hander, which is far superior to dual-wielding for parry reasons. If you get no defense from either hand, the max possible with blue/green gear is 727, which barely leaves you any space at all.

There may also be some changes in store for us that haven't made their way out into the sunlight yet. Frankly I think the whole idea of balancing a flat health gap with a difference in scaling is a bad idea to begin with, because it guarantees you're going to have an imbalance somewhere in the gear progression. They really should just change one of our two +6% stam talents to give us a flat hp boost instead (+30% of base hp or whatever) and let us progress more or less on the same footing as warriors all the way along.

I guess it depends on whether they stick with this "every tank gets a crapton of threat now!" model. If 3.0 level 70 warriors are producing 300% of the threat of dps and paladins are only producing 230%, then it doesn't really matter. If they go through their next "tanking pass" or whatever and decide to scale everyone down to the point where tanks have to be well-geared/skilled to keep up with dps threat, then it could be a problem.

I was a lot more concerned about this until we discovered the "baked-in Salv" effect of RF; as it is right now I don't think lacking SotR will be much of a problem.

I think we're basically in agreement on this; it's one of the forgettable set bonuses (along with the ones you listed) rather than one of the good ones like the +10% cons damage for 4-piece T6. (One man's "meh" is another man's "not bad".)

Yeah, that sounds about right. I think a lot of us were assuming that the new mechanics would mean we'd always favor melee weapons, even for threat. That may or may not be the case (it could still turn out that way depending on how the devs end up tweaking the final numbers), but it doesn't really matter a lot; it was always the massive loss in threat from using a mitigation weapon that was the real issue.

Even if we do end up in a state where melee weapons are better than caster weapons for single-target threat, we're still going to want a caster weapon for those massive-AoE situations (i.e., 12+ targets) where boosting Cons threat will be more important than anything else.

I believe the official name is "Princess Peaches' Umbrella".