path411

Yeah I'd recommend a holy paladin with RF just standing in your consecrate. If you are doing 25man though, just make your hunters sit on MD duty. With only a 20s cooldown, just even 1-2 hunters should make it alot easier, if they just constantly rotate it on CD. Also try to make sure atleast one has it up for when whelps spawn for an easy MD + volley.

 

◊ Cathela

I did Sarth+3 for the first time tonight (guild got it on farm while I was on a break) and I agree add duty is quite a challenge. In addition to dustbin and path's (excellent) advice, I suggest:

Turn on V-targeting, which makes it a lot easier to pick out mobs that might otherwise be hard to see.

Turn down spell detail to the minimum, which will remove a lot of the graphical clutter (though it also means you won't see your consecrates after you cast them, so be aware of that).

Have hunters drop frost traps on the portal, since the whelps come through in packs.

I'd go as far as having all your holy paladins (if you have more than one) heal with RF up. If the adds are going to beat on healers, you want it to be the paladins and not the squishier ones.

The new taunt is also going to be very handy for this, once the patch arrives.

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

 

Joasuf

Our first kill on this I was the add tank and was responsible for picking them up while being RL as well. We got it down in the end but it was hard work for the reasons mentioned. Now that DPS isnt really an issue (and tbh it never was the fight is about control as long as tenebron dies before a 2nd whelp pack) we have a DK act as a 4th tank to help me out and when things are quiet they go help dps. This is a major help when multiple lavas spawn and picking up the whelps becomes a non issue as well, this also means he can go through the vesperon portal and tank the acolyte as an added bonus.

At the end of the day this is a survival/control fight not a dps race and so if you cant maintain control dont be afraid to drop a dps.

 

fredshino

I did that. First I tried without the name plates to help me see my surroundings and the fissures but then it was hard to see the blazes.

But then with the name plates up, I sometimes have a hard time seeing a fissure on me when I have 10-15+ name plates on my screen.

Anyways, thanks for your ideas, I'll try them next time we attempt him.

 

Tharia

I do blaze duty on sarth 3d 25 and 10man and I agree it's quite challenging (especially with 15 fps or less :x). We have killed him for the second time this week in 25 man but are still working on the 10 man.
As we don't have that much dps, I need to do it alone. Usually with a holy with RF up, but have done it without when those stupid healers forget to buff themselves :>
What I do is this. I normally position myself in the middle of the isle so that I don't have to care about the wave from the right and turn the camera to the left. Thats also where I lay down my consecration for the welps (so not right under the portal but about 5 yds to the side where the 3 drakes land and a bit to the center of the isle). Every time I pick up an add, I go back there, it makes watching for waves easier if you have a defined postion and are not running around random. Also I have zoomed all out so I also see adds that run around behind me (HP bars above heads activated ofc, blazes can be quite hard to spot). That way I only need to scroll a bit to the left and right to check the whole isle. I use taunt a lot if there are multiple spawns at different ends of the isle. It reallys helps because usually all blazes/welps that are roaming free all go for one healer, especially if there is a pally with RF, so you can pick up up to 3 with one taunt. I try to avoid Avenger's Shield because it slows them down too much and they usually enrage in the next wave because I can't get them out fast enough. It's more like a last resort If I get overwhelmed.
There are some trys where we had like 10-15 blazes before the welps and ofc then it gets quite impossible to pick up all of them in time. But luckily this happens about once in 20 trys, normally there are less than 5 when the welps spawn because I have killed the first few that spawned already.
For the welps, I lay down a consecration, usually this is enough to pick up at least most of them. Sometimes shit hits the fan and nearly all of them escape my consecration and run towards a priest or shaman because the RF healer standing in my consec didn't get aggro either. I use HoP in this situation to save the first healer, by the time the mobs reach the second priest usually I or the RF pally get the aggro. I go at them with AS, taunt and HotR, judgment if one got lucky and didn't get hit by one of the multiple target abilities.
For fissures, of course I try to avoid them, but I get hit by one or two every second try. My healer (and Div Protection :>) is prepared for that case and basically the only way I die is if there are 10+ blazes and the welps on me and I go surfing the wave. Happens sometimes because I feel it is more important to pick up the add than to avoid getting damaged. Thats what DP is for and I pop it before the wave hits me, it usually works out fine.

 

vorda

I made a post in the sart3D topic under Public Discussion about how I do the blaze/whelp tanking.

Putting a mark on yourself and not having nameplates on works better for as well. Defenitly the raid mark on me helps me notice a void zone much quicker.

 

Russta

Just some things I did to make add control easier on Sart+3.

• Turning spell effects one up from minimum to block out the disgusting Death Knight effects, though this has the effect of preventing you seeing Consecrate.
• Using /console cameraDistanceMaxFactor 4 to having a wider view of what's going on.
• Freeing up as much space in the center of my screen as possible by shifting SCTD and BigWigs bars off to the side.
• Sticking a big blue square on my head.
• Having nameplates ON.
• Using Judgement of Light on Tenebron just before the whelps spawned. This is something you'll learn to "feel" in my experience.
• Dropping Consecrate in between the portal and the healers most likely to draw aggro while making it clip into the portal.
• Having people say on Vent if they had anything on them. If they did, i clicked them in Grid and hit F4 to taunt.
• To further refine that, I had a Holy Paladin healing with Righteous Fury on so he acted as the primary target for them all.

One other small note is that the whelps and blazes are only level 81 so you can drop down to 530 defense if you feel you can somehow benefit from using other items. This isn't something I'd necessarily recommend though as we all know how easy it is for the Sartharion tank to die on this fight and getting crit while trying to make the save would be bad.

 

◊ Cathela

I think the logical endpoint of the RF'd holy paladin strategy would be to have him stand right at the portal to heal, so he has a lower threshold to pick up aggro from the whelps before they hit someone else. Then you pick up three with a shield toss, another three with an RF targeted directly on him (one of the situations where that functionality really is quite useful) and whatever's left "manually".

And then if you really want to optimize things, have the holy guy spec 51/20/0 or something to pick up Toughness and Imp. RF, on the theory that the mana he picks up from SA while tanking the whelps will make up for the efficiency he loses by not getting Conviction, etc.

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

 

cutfang

Speaking as a Holy Paladin who is to be a likely candidate for RF heal pulling, i'd much rather trust in the 90% threat to pull adds onto me than tank them as soon as they appear, notwithstanding having amazing tanks I will likely bubble if I got too many on me for more than 2-3 seconds. I think it would be far easier for tanks to see incoming adds to me (if I stood on him) and to throw a Hammer / Shield to intercept than to react immediately to spawned adds.

edit: I havn't tried 3D yet, this is just theorising on my part

 

• promdates

Even though it's not currently on the PTR, Maaven did say that they were looking into the enchant being missing from the vendor. Someone posted it about a week ago saying that it was currently missing from the vendor and unable to be bought. Whether it will return in a later patch or just show up on Live in the end will have to be seen.

Enchant Weapon: Titanguard

"On a scale of one to mein kampf, how many racists does it take to make a guild look terrible?"

[03:28] L_J: it's "olololo hero class"

[01:09:39] <DeeNogger> Any of the resident grammer nazis on right now?

 

Disargeria

It is confirmed to be removed. Here's GC's response:

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Enchant weapon - titanguard removed
Seems a bit strange. DPS and healers all have a THE enchant. Why is this different for tanks? The moment they introduce a high level tanking enchant, it'll become a THE enchant, simply because there is nothing else.

 

• promdates

Well, since he posted that after I made my post, touche. On a good note, Maaven said he was looking into whether Greater Potency should be giving +str or +ap (as it currently is) since normal Potency gives +str. So either way, looks like we're either using Potency or something else.

"On a scale of one to mein kampf, how many racists does it take to make a guild look terrible?"

[03:28] L_J: it's "olololo hero class"

[01:09:39] <DeeNogger> Any of the resident grammer nazis on right now?

 

Russta

I'm glad they removed it for the exact reason Ghostcrawler pointed out. I just hope that they do actually give us a tanking enchant, perhaps some sort of creative proc based one. Maybe AC. If enchants stay as they are, once we get the hit cap, I'm not sure where to go after Accuracy except backward to Potency which surely can't be what's intended.

 

vorda

Maybe you can shed some light on it for me then. Casters all use 63 spellpower. Melee dps all uses Berserker/110 AP, rogues all use mongoose, hunters all use 110 ap.

What would be wrong with tanks all using the same enchant as well? (3 specs that would use this enchant, compared to 10+ caster specs using the same one)

 

Russta

Classes using AP and SP are usually just starting out though. Warriors and Rogues, for example, will use AP on their starter weapons and would then move onto Berserking as they get something good, a new and somewhat original enchant. Mongoose and Executioner were new enchants in TBC, upgrades from the wholly original Crusader. Casters moved up to Sunfire and Soulfrost. There's always going some classes that use static values, that's unavoidable.

Putting aside the scaling issues, my main problem with a stamina to weapon enchant is that it's boring and uninventive. That precedent hasn't been set yet and I wouldn't like it to be. Make an enchant that procs stamina and armour then scale it into oblivion at 90 and add something else creative.

 

• Smithist

This isn't a very good reason to remove it from the game though. You may not like personally, just like I'm sure plenty of people would find a proc based enchant annoying. No solution is likely to please everyone. The post specifically said that a stam enchant would be bad for the game and that just makes no sense to me. As others have said, 63 spell power is shared by multiple specs of several classes and I hardly think the game is any worse off as a result.

 

Xequecal

The issue with Titanguard is it's SO good that it would beat out all enchants even released in the NEXT expansion, unless of course they upgraded it. 75 STA beats anything else they would do. From TBC to WotLK the enchant numbers have increased about 60%. (Savagery -> Massacre, Major Spellpower -> Mighty Spellpower) What other enchant is there that they could increase 60% and then would become preferable over Titanguard? I know I'd take it over 42 Agility or STR.

 

Nobbynob Littlun

The problem as I see it as that they've managed to get it where a tank can choose from a variety of weapon enchants according to their personal needs without compromising survivability, and in game design this a good thing. Why should they throw that away with an enchant that every tank uses? If every tank has 50 more stamina, then every boss will need to do 50 more stamina's worth of damage. It'd effectively be the same, but without having something for you to choose among and say "mmm i lik dat 1".

I'd like to see tanking enchants more like...
Notshockwave - Chance on hit to deal X damage to all targets in a cone in front of the caster. This causes additional threat. (it'd not be much damage, doesn't break CC.)
Mist - Chance on hit to envelop all nearby foes with cloying mist, reducing attack speed by 20% and inflicting X damage over 12 sec.
Lightning Eel - Your parries inflict X nature damage upon the attacker.
Lifeward - Chance on hit to heal yourself for a non-sucky amount.

 

path411

I really don't see this. The only reason why a warrior or rogue for example grabs an AP enchant over something like berserking is because it is significantly cheaper at the cost of losing some dps.

Almost all melee/caster enchants from TBC through wrath have had select definite upgrades and positive best enchants to use. Throughout wrath we have seen the same types of upgrades of weapon enchants for casters/dps. (simply a higher spellpower and higher AP enchants). Blizzard seems to be pushing this with examples such as nerfing mongoose proc rates at 80 and lowering berserking armor penalty to ensure that the highest enchants are the best enchants for every situation.

I really don't see how adding a 50 or even the original 75 sta is any different than adding spellpower to a caster or raw AP to a dps, it's almost always the best stat to stack for that class. GC's reasoning for having to tune bosses also doesn't make sense as they have to tune dps requirements based on every DPS having access to the best enchants.

I guess the basic points of what I'm trying to say are:
-Everyone else gets to stack their best stat on their weapon, why can't we?
-Tanks are basically the only role that a serious enchant hasn't even come out for this expansion.
-They act like they have no ideas, while enchants like battlemaster/lifeward are sitting there just terribly done.
-At the very least throw out some less than perfect enchants on level with the lower wrath enchants for tanks to use. Spending several hundred gold for a 20str to weapon is getting old, while something like 50ap is practically free.


Ninja edit:

Titanguard was changed to a much more reasonable 50sta.
Next expansion would simply release an 80sta enchant if you are following the 60% increase. Comparing 2 different stats to each other like that makes it seem very unreasonable.

a ~31sta enchant would have been quite reasonable in TBC (if you want to again follow a 60% pattern). Especially since 50 sta is worth alot less as tank hp has nearly doubled and bosses hit alot harder.

 

Hythloday

Well, tank itemisation doesn't work the same way as DPS itemisation. Tanks generally have (at least) avoidance, EH and threat gear, whereas DPS generally have "DPS" gear (maybe with stamina gear for some fights, though I don't think that's prevalent in WotLK), and healers generally have "healing" gear (though, again, some healers had a haste set). But one of them have to make any qualitative gear decisions, ever, since they don't do any kind of independent variable analysis.

 

Deadmaus

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Ot spec, what do you think? pointers?

 

Exewut

Why 2/2 judgement instead of 1/2? It won't make a difference for your rotation really.
Why no judgement of the just? Our melee slow is the easiest one to keep up for 100% for the time, there's not really a reason not to take that talent really.
Why oh why did you take reckoning? It's a marginal increase in threat (good) at the price of doubling your chance for parry hasting. Please, just drop that talent already, it's not a good tanking talent, it's a bad tanking talent, it will decrease your survivability. Put those points into ardent defender.
Personally I like conviction better than seals of the pure because I just love my large shield slam crits. I'm not sure if anyone ever worked out which one is better so it could be that seals of the pure gives a huger TPS increase.

So basically my advice to you is, spec the cookie cutter main tanking build even if you're only going to use it for off tanking.

On the subject of the weapon enchant. I'm glad they didn't go trough with a 'boring' +stamina enchant on weapon. I hope this means they'll release a proc one soon. I quite like the ideas of Nobbynob Littlun (damage on a parry, proc aoe damage) and some +BV proc would be nice as well.

 

galzohar

Your spec is missing critical talents just to get silly ones. Please read the thread for more information. Main post specifically says which talents are important and which are not, and there are quite a few specs that had been discussed already. If you're too incompetent for that, you can just copy this spec (doesn't matter if you MT or OT, threat shouldn't be an issue anyway and the talents I leave out don't really help much with threat anyway): Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

kings for prot
The only time you won't want kings is if you have all of the following in every raid:
-2 warriors with improved shouts
-a non-holy paladin with kings (if the only other paladin is holy he'll be doing improved wisdom so you need kings still)
Even if you have the above (and at least 3 paladins so one can buff improved might) you still gain the small benefit of saving 1 warrior a GCD and some rage every 3 minutes. Of course often you will find yourself not meeting the conditions anyway, so might as well take kings anyway. It's not like you're really hurting your threat (which should already be way higher than any DPSer can pull off), nor your DPS, since both reckoning and seals of the pure are rather weak talents. If you still insist dropping kings, at least do it in order to get seals of the pure, and not other talents since they're all even more useless.

 

Yelp

The problem with Titanguard is that many, many tanks over-value stam. DKs would be using it and not their special chants. So would all the tanks who don't understand mitigation and EH, but do understand that they can't get groups if their hp is too low. If blizz later (be it as soon as Ulduar or as late as the next exp) puts in the really nifty proc-based tanking enchants that WE want, most tanks will completely ignore them because they can get stam instead. They can't put in Titanguard because there are simply too many people who WILL use the enchant forever, even if they never do a bigger stam chant.

 

Kellee

I think the problem with proc-based enchants is that they are exactly that, proc-based and unreliable. Do you depend upon Ardent Defender? Even if there was an assortment of proc and stam enchants i am for sure that i would be taking the highest constant EH or mitigation enchant simply because i can depend upon it being there when i need it. the only time i would take that proc based enchant is if was a completely substantial boost compared to the constant weapon enchant.

Concerning the spec i believe SotP is mathematically proven to be completely inferior to Conviction. JotJ is situational, if you have two feral druids in cat form for some reason or a reliable offtank paladin with it (as i have in my raids) you do not need it. however if any of them have a chance not to be at your raids then you need to spec JotJ. Reckoning is a good filler for 3 points to the lower tier as you should have a ret pali with kings and you should be buffing imp might =].

Yelp may i ask what your block value is at, i am far too lazy in the morning to find out myself >=)