The Protection Paladin Field Manual (WoW-3.0/WotLK) - Page 11

Intoxify · 12/08/08, 2:14 PM

Originally Posted by Triass

Achieving unhittable (assuming you mean 102.4% avoidance) isn't too hard with just holy shield up in raid gear.

As far as the meta goes, that's partially why I like my JC, it enables me to just use pure stam gems in and still obtain the meta requirements. I'd personally use parry/stam gems to fufill the requirements of the +DEF/+SBV meta if I didn't have the option of prismatic gems. There's a few more orange/purple gems that are potential options.

For the most part, there seems to be quite a bit of +hit on 25man gear. I'm basically hit capped in my current gear on raid bosses assuming there's a +3% hit debuff on the boss.

Can I ask why you prefer parry/stam over dodge/stam, considering parry is arguably the weaker of the two avoidance stats due higher rating cost per skill point and DR affecting it much more harshly than dodge?

On a personal note, I prefer the def/SBV meta, and I'm finding it no trouble to meet the meta requirement; Even without dual solid dragoneyes in my JC trinket, there are some very attractive socket bonuses floating around. In a pinch, I suppose you could sacrifice the socket from an Eternal Buckle to fulfill the requirements.

edit: And as a matter of curiosity, are there any particular cooldown addons people are using? I started using Heatsink when Cooldown Timers was upgraded to CDT3, but both addons have a nasty habit of not recognizing Holy Shock, ShoR rank 2 or Divine Protection cooldowns.

Triass · 12/08/08, 10:44 PM

Originally Posted by Intoxify

Can I ask why you prefer parry/stam over dodge/stam, considering parry is arguably the weaker of the two avoidance stats due higher rating cost per skill point and DR affecting it much more harshly than dodge?

On a personal note, I prefer the def/SBV meta, and I'm finding it no trouble to meet the meta requirement; Even without dual solid dragoneyes in my JC trinket, there are some very attractive socket bonuses floating around. In a pinch, I suppose you could sacrifice the socket from an Eternal Buckle to fulfill the requirements.

edit: And as a matter of curiosity, are there any particular cooldown addons people are using? I started using Heatsink when Cooldown Timers was upgraded to CDT3, but both addons have a nasty habit of not recognizing Holy Shock, ShoR rank 2 or Divine Protection cooldowns.

We haven't seen many drops with parry, so at the moment I have 24% dodge and 17% parry, with the DR on avoidance it comes out pretty close in total avoidance.

As for cooldown timers, I personally use OmniCC.

Ivriniel · 12/09/08, 3:43 AM

Has anyone found a mod that calculates DR on dodge and parry?
Ratingbuster only converts ratings from what I've seen.

Personally I am using some parry/sta gems for red sockets too now, because it just feels more effective with my low parry, but I don't have the numbers to back this up.

A mod would be pretty nice to see if an upgrade is actually an upgrade.

Prinsesa · 12/09/08, 4:13 AM

TankPoints (also from Whitetooth, the creator of RatingBuster) gives you a DR-inclusive breakdown of your avoidance numbers, and I swear by it for upgrades.

vorda · 12/09/08, 4:20 AM

Ratingbuster shows the base (non DR) values in the rating conversion, but does take into account the DR in the 'upgrade' section (the part that summarizes and compares stats with what you have equipped).

And yeah, tankpoints is just amazing.

Selph · 12/09/08, 7:34 AM

Hi everyone,

Just out of curiosity, I noticed a lot of people saying they drop Judgments out of their rotation instead of consecration. I am just curious, why you would pick judgment, since it also has 20% melee slow on the target with Judgment of the Just. I understand the dmg output and threat generation are pretty negligible, but isn't the 20% slow worth using? (Granted there are a lot of mobs that are probably immune to this)

Also, just out if curiosity, do you find yourself using Sanctuary more now that they changed it to give dmg reduction and mana on dodge/block/parry or do you still use kings?

Looking forward to hearing back from you guys!

• Chicken · 12/09/08, 7:45 AM

Originally Posted by Selph

Just out of curiosity, I noticed a lot of people saying they drop Judgments out of their rotation instead of consecration. I am just curious, why you would pick judgment, since it also has 20% melee slow on the target with Judgment of the Just. I understand the dmg output and threat generation are pretty negligible, but isn't the 20% slow worth using? (Granted there are a lot of mobs that are probably immune to this)

On dropping Judgement over other abilities: You will not be consistently dropping it from your rotation, it's just a popular choice to replace once in a rotation if you need to re-seal (For obvious reasons) or cast some other spell you don't regularly use. Holy Shield is a spell you obviously never want to drop from your rotation, Hammer of the Righteous and especially Shield of Righteousness are too important for threat to drop, and Consecration is higher threat than Judgement is.

Obviously there's secondary factors affecting your choice as well. Judgement is far more mana efficient than Consecration is, which can be important in specific situations. Judgement will also not break any crowd control effects near you. Judgement has an extra survivability benefit and a raid benefit while consecration doesn't. I find my miss rate low enough on a typical boss to still be able to drop Judgement and keep it's full benefits though. There are some specific fights where I'll never drop it from my rotation as the attack speed slow is too important, Maexxna is one of those examples.

The attack speed slow also works on everything. Yes, everything.

Also, just out if curiosity, do you find yourself using Sanctuary more now that they changed it to give dmg reduction and mana on dodge/block/parry or do you still use kings?

Sanctuary is my preferred choice in 5 and 10-mans, while I see Kings as first priority in 25-mans. There are specific exceptions though. 10-man Malygos for example does enough damage in large enough spikes that Kings is probably the better choice, while in 25-mans Sanctuary is probably preferrable over Kings for trash or adds you tank during a fight.

Mandorallan · 12/09/08, 9:01 AM

I have started using Sanc alot ya

• Snowy · 12/09/08, 10:25 PM

Moving the whole judgement discussion to the dung heap, since it's just cluttering this up. I'm not sure how the original poster could miss that judgements still did damage by the number that would show up over the mobs head when pressed, but there you have it.

Jaydn · 12/10/08, 4:22 AM

Isnt it careless to drop Judgement out of our roation? It grants you a free Thunderclap, gives your party/raidmember regeneration of mana or health and a much higher threadgeneration via [Libram of Obstruction].

I dont like Cons in WotLK, it costs a huge amount of mana and thread shouldnt be a problem anymore. My experience is, that i generate over 100% more TPS that the best damage dealer. So why should i give up the pros of judgement for more threadgeneration?

All cogitations are for mobpacks whit 3 or less enemys.

• Chicken · 12/10/08, 5:38 AM

Originally Posted by Jaydn

Isnt it careless to drop Judgement out of our roation? It grants you a free Thunderclap, gives your party/raidmember regeneration of mana or health and a much higher threadgeneration via [Libram of Obstruction].

I dont like Cons in WotLK, it costs a huge amount of mana and thread shouldnt be a problem anymore. My experience is, that i generate over 100% more TPS that the best damage dealer. So why should i give up the pros of judgement for more threadgeneration?

All cogitations are for mobpacks whit 3 or less enemys.

Again, no one is talking about completely dropping Judgement, a lot of us just find it the best choice of spell to replace once in a situation where you need to cast something else, which is something which will come up at least once every 2 minutes.

Tanks also have a secondary role now while tanking. Pre-WotLK if you were tanking, you were tanking. Your damage didn't matter as long as you kept aggro. Tanks still don't do as much DPS as real DPS would, but our DPS is much higher relative to what it used to be. Optimizing things so you get the best combination of survival and damage dealt should be your priority, and once you have enough +hit, Judgement is low on that priority. You only need to cast it once every 20 seconds to keep gaining it's full benefits, outside of the Libram.

SmurfZG · 12/10/08, 1:02 PM

Originally Posted by Chicken

You only need to cast it once every 20 seconds to keep gaining it's full benefits, outside of the Libram.

The libram benefits are very good though; 480 BV with meta and talents is a decent chunk of dmg reduction. In a single target situation the extra shor damage (and judgement damage of course) makes up for some of the damage loss from replacing hotr or consecration instead. In a multi target situation, the 480 BV is extremely powerful. I'd lose a consecration if the targets were few, or a hotr if they were many. I would not replace my judgement cast unless I didn't care about mitigation at all.

To be completely honest though, I usually find it easier to just delay my cycle by casting the SS or hand spell and then just continuing with what I was going to cast before.

Cathela · 12/10/08, 1:36 PM

With full points in One-hand Spec and Shield of the Templar, that 480BV translates to 684 damage on ShR. Since each judgement is going to make the libram active for one ShR (in a normal 6/9) you can basically treat the libram as adding 684 damage to each judgement for threat purposes (a bit more if you've got something like a Sanct Ret buff or the Sense Undead glyph or whatever.)

Factoring that in, it seems to me like that puts judgements ahead of Consecration, or at least even, for threat/GCD (single target, of course).

Left · 12/10/08, 1:47 PM

Originally Posted by SmurfZG

To be completely honest though, I usually find it easier to just delay my cycle by casting the SS or hand spell and then just continuing with what I was going to cast before.

This is what I find easiest as well. Ideally, to maximize your goal (threat, mitigation, or efficiency) you would choose precisely which ability to drop when you reseal, use Divine Plea, or use another spell. In practice, only re-sealing and Divine Plea can be used this way; Hand spells, cleanses, etc are usually reactive so you cannot as easily wait for the ideal spot in the rotation. Couple this with the amount of concentration that I find it still takes to maintain the 96969 rotation (though I'm sure this will get easier with practice), and I usually just delay my whole rotation by a global cooldown and pick up where I left off.

One potential pitfall, however, is when you have to use two or more GCDs that interrupt your cycle. In such cases, you are likely to get significant gaps in Holy Shield uptime. Delaying one GCD isn't too bad; you go from 9 seconds between Holy Shield refreshes to 10.5, which is only a half second drop. Delaying two GCDs, however, puts you up to 12 seconds between refreshes, and your chances of getting an unblocked hit go up significantly. In situations where I'm finding myself needing to delay 2 or more GCDs each rotation (or replace rotation spells with other spells instead), I find myself saying "the heck with it" and going back to a priority system: Holy Shield > Shield of the Righteous > Judgement > Hand spells/Cleanses/Hammer of Justice/etc, and I just skip Hammer of the Righteous and Consecration entirely until I can settle the extra casts.

I'm sure this is probably more of an issue in 5-mans (what I'm running now, not being 80) than it is in a raid setting where others are handling these other things, but it's worth keeping in mind.

--------------

As an aside, what are other prot tanks doing sub-20%, when Hammer of Wrath is available? I find myself switching my rotation from HotR/SoR to HoW/SoR (if I'm fine on mana), or else replacing Consecration with Hammer of Wrath (If I'm worried about my mana). What do others do?

thedopefishlives · 12/10/08, 1:53 PM

Originally Posted by Left

As an aside, what are other prot tanks doing sub-20%, when Hammer of Wrath is available? I find myself switching my rotation from HotR/SoR to HoW/SoR (if I'm find on mana), or else replacing Consecration with Hammer of Wrath (If I'm worried about my mana). What do others do?

I typically drop Consecration out of the rotation in favor of HoW if I'm tanking something raid-boss-like. In 5-mans, I'm just as likely to drop Holy Shield and just spam my offensive abilities in a "kill it before it kills me" frenzy. It's probably not the smartest idea, but as long as the target doesn't hit terribly hard (hi2u arakkoa boss in heroic Violet Hold), it seems to work out alright.