We were running Sartharion last night and I'm pretty sure I saw a stack of SoV on him when I popped a JoW off as I ran by. (We only had two paladins last night, and the other was holy, so I was trying trying to cover the Judgement of the Crusader buff and JoW/JoL on the current focus target in addition to whelps. It went better some times than others, but I think it was only around 5 tries (mostly it seemed like our DK tank wasn't getting healed as quickly as needed and was getting 1-2'ed by a Sarth melee + breath).

I used to use tab-targeting and/or right-clicking on mobs, but when you're dealing with a whole horde of red mobs against a red background, at least the red nametags are a different color. I really wish I could put an aggro indicator under the health bar, but I just use the whitespace as a general indicator of how much threat I have and/or how much the mob needs to be controlled. (Full health = needs threat, half-health = probably good on threat)

With respect to trinkets, as a non-JC, the Repelling Charge is the only trinket which I'm missing. I tend to use Lavanthor's and Greatness on trash/adds to keep as much blocking as possible when tanking 3-4 mobs. Essence of Gossamer is nice when tanking dragons (the proc seems like it's up a lot of the time, although it's not much blocked each time), and I do use the Defender's Code when tanking Patchwerk for the extra damage reduction.

It seems to me that Repelling Charge could end up being a bit of a crutch later on -- with 84 defense rating, it's easy for the rest of your gear to de-focus on defense to the point that it's really hard to replace the trinket with a non-defense one (as in, need to get 2-3 drops and regem some pieces). I had that problem in T5 content with the Maiden gloves and S2 mace -- I couldn't upgrade to e.g. the Bonefist (badge) gauntlets for an extra 30 stamina because I'd be losing 3% on uncrushable, and I used the 18 resilience on the mace to survive at 481-487 defense or so (which made Hammer of Judgement in Hyjal an awkward upgrade that dropped my health due to re-gemming).

I doubt the Repelling Charge will be as much of a crutch as gear with Shield Block Rating was when going from tier 4 to tier 5. Defense is something every single plate tank class desires: Death Knights, Warriors and us all want to be crit immune at all times. That's very different from what attaining uncrushable used to be, for Warriors in TBC, Shield Block Rating became worthless very quickly for single mobs, while it retained it's value for us much longer due to the need for uncrushability. Defense rating, however, will never become useless for anyone.

I expect it to be the case that for people currently doing only 10-mans who will go to Ulduar-10, that they'll be able to phase out their defense gems as their gear will start providing enough defense to be crit immune without gemming for it. For people doing 25-mans, Ulduar-25 is likely to simply offer upgrades without having to worry and check if it'll drop you below the defense softcap. The only exception might be for the items with really unusually high defense, but I expect a full set of Ulduar-25 gear to easily provide you with enough defense to be crit immune without needing defense trinkets. A set of the current 25-man gear already does as well, though you'll need to skip some of the really low defense pieces currently.

Obviously Repelling Charge will be great if Blizzard ever introduces a resist fight where you actually want to wear resist gear though.

What settings are you using in Rawr? With Boss Attack at 30,000, Threat dialed to 0, and Mitigation at 7000 I see this ranking (when sorting by Overall):

Crab (JC)
Gossamer
Ruby Hare
Defender's Code
Alchemist's Stone (alchemy)
Sonic Booster (engineering)
Twilight Serpent (JC)
Emerald Bore (JC)

and about 8 other trinkets before it shows Repelling Charge.

You probably know something more about how best to configure Rawr than I do, and probably others, so please share. I honestly have no clue what the "mitigation" scale is for. 7000 was just the default. 7000 what?

I've never used Rawr, but I think what you're running into here is the fact that the value of defense depends hugely on whether you're already capped or not. For example, if you need exactly 84 defense rating to reach crit-immunity, then the Repelling Charge is clearly the best trinket in the game by a large margin. By extension, if you can add the Repelling Charge and then efficiently trade away defense on the rest of your gear for other stats (stamina especially) then it's also extremely valuable. If you're already crit-immune without it and you have no efficient way to trade away defense in other places, then it's going to be substantially less valuable.

So it really depends on what assumptions Rawr is making.

[e]: Responding here to the post below because I don't want to take up multiple posts in the thread talking about an addon I don't use.

So if Repelling Charge gets shoved way down the list for a naked paladin, I think that's a pretty good sign that Rawr just assumes you're uncrittable when evaluating gear no matter what you're wearing. At least, that's the best guess I can make.

That is logical, and it is how I am trying to evaluate gear outside of Rawr (particularly after recentd discussions here). However, Rawr, if I load the tankadin module with no character present at all (defense at 400 just knowing it is a blood elf paladin), still shoves Repelling Charge way, way down the list, and I find it odd.

If I've given too much weight to Rawr in the past, vs. spending significantly more time with Tankpoints or otherwise, I'm very interested to find out.

As something you might want to mention in OP. Expertise is no longer 'floored' meaning that every point of rating gives you dodge/parry reduction.

And for another note, a few pages back there was some mongoose discussion, but it was using the lvl 70 ppm of 1.2, where lvl 80 ppm of 1 makes mongoose fall even further behind.

I hadn't heard about that. Can you elaborate a bit (or point me to someplace where it's explained?)

In one of the Rogue threads, and mentioned in the Combat Ratings at 80. The tests proved that every point of expertise rating is useful, not just in .25% increments.

That makes expertise slightly more useful for melee classes.

Interestingly, even tankpoints doesn't like Charge over Gossamer - even if I remove two pieces of gear so I need every point of defense Charge offers to avoid being below 540.

Can't someone create the perfect tool to avoid us having to think too much? (kidding)

The only place I have found charge to be useful is in an avoidance set, where stacking defense is your best bet for mitigating damage intake. It should not be used as a crutch to maintain the defense cap.

Of course there are other ways to pick up the defense you need without using the Charge. I find that it gives me more flexibility in choosing higher-stamina pieces with less defense, or particularly in switching out defense gems for stamina gems. I suppose it depends on personal preference, because you can certainly gear yourself without it.

Hey, I like my 2.3k SBV raid buffed (+ libram). I'll take the trinket hit.

I'd actually think about regemming and setting everything up if I had a few other pieces- a higher AC value shield (note: I think these are a myth), a couple of decent defense pieces, and if there was any real content that required it on an absurd level- since I'm not optimum for MTing Sarth himself (we have ferals and DKs) I'm good with my current standard gearset. I do have a defense capped double JC stam trinket set, just pretty much never equip it.

Of course, I do realize I'll likely redo most/all of my gear, gems and enchants come 3.1 even hitting test (soon, I hope), and I'm comfortable with that. In the meantime I put out a decent threat amount, healers claim I'm easy to heal, and I have no real difficulties with my current gear choices.

I also am not the biggest fan of Rawr as a modeling system for gear selection bias. It certainly calculates effective health without major issues, and obviously can provide guidelines, however I don't feel it takes into account the various factors that contribute significantly - what roles you will play on a specific fight, what the healing structure looks like, and what the gear of other tanks looks like, as well as likely other things. Don't get me wrong, its' a fantastic tool within it's limits, but I do think sometimes people rely on it overmuch to make all gearing choices (and there's no way to make it better without doing a lot outside of the scope of it, such as specific boss mechanics and raid comps).

On a random aside, but related to gear comps, I'm going to cry if I can't build a mostly expertise-free set using Uldar gear. So sick of this stat.

How is your 51/20 build working out in raids?

Also, why does your gear set have the 7k gold expertise ring? You weren't def capped, sounds like a wardrobe malfuction.

Also, I see that Rawr isn't that good of a Prot gearing tool, what do you recommend?

To clarify the expertise discussion a bit:

The currently accepted expertise soft cap (no dodges) is 6.5%, or 26 expertise.

That works out to 214 expertise rating without Combat Expertise, and 132 expertise rating with.

THIS POST confirms that the expertise hard cap (no dodges AND parries) is 14%, or 56 expertise.

That works out 460 expertise rating without Combat Expertise, and 378 expertise rating with.

THIS POST also confirms that expertise is not being rounded down to the nearest 0.25%. In practice this will probably not anything except for someone who wouldn't take an expertise piece because it's 1 rating short of the next "tier", so to speak.

It's possible that the actual soft cap is somewhere below 6.5% but above 6.25% (a range of roughly 9 rating points), but until someone makes a conclusive test, we just don't know yet.

Not trying to be sarcastic, but most tanks try to understand how their tanking stats interact with a specific fight environment. Rawr's usefulness lies in helping players have a better grasp on stats weighting by making gear lists and such.

In the end, most fights can be categorized like this:
- What gives me the most avoidance
- What gives me the most total HP
- What gives me the most mitigation
- What gives me the most effective HP
- What gives me the most threat

Then it becomes a matter of figuring out what pieces to use depending on the fight, which is where Rawr comes in. Being redundant here, but I certainly wouldn't recommend anyone using Rawr to choose their gear sets. Even if there were a mod that automatically switched your gear around based on which fight you're about to do, I wouldn't be to trusting of it.

I apologize, I had no intention of putting anyone on the defensive or coming off as aggressive. It's difficult to read tone into posts, but if it came off overmuch that way, I'm in the wrong. I will answer if these were honest inquiries though.

My 0/51/20 tends to help a bit with DPS, and that raids are trivial and I cleared it with the healers, as well as the dps, I seem to do all right for myself. We're not currently achievement hunting to any significant extent, so it's more just a semi-convenient farming build that happens to work for raids and heroics working on the quicker kill achievements. The loss of AD hurts during the harder hitting bosses (well I assume) but hasn't been any significant hindrance during Sarth 3D-25. It's certainly not always my spec.

I had hearthed from working on my rep achivements. I have gotten into the habit of equipping that ring before I hearth over my primary due to then having the hearth ring up. It's my ret ring, bought since our melee dps rings have been in short supply, there's no tanking ring I like, my healing rings are fine, and wanted a second Dalaran hearthstone and had money to burn. My second tanking ring fluxuates from the badge 25 one and the SBV one, as well as 4-5 others depending on what I'm shooting for (I'm not above using the FR ring in a stamina set).

I believe I created the wrong impression on Rawr. It's a good program, and fanstastically maintained. I use it for my ret suit, my cat's DPS suit, and recommend it strongly to all my friends. I simply feel that there is too much complexity in most situations to relate the best gear for slot x in an absolute sense. I think what it does, -effectively-, is counterbalance the ilvl of a gear vs the stats it gives you, and the valuation that gives -you-, so in my experience (this could be horribly wrong) an item with a single focus stat is simply not as good as a multifocused item. Which is, without exception, correct, due to WoW's stat level budget system. I repeat, I could be wrong, and I do think most of the evaluations it gives are spot on.

In short, I love Rawr. I think it's a great program. I think it's treated as a bible of all upgrades sometimes, which it is not- nor does it claim to be- but it's a very good guideline on what is better than what based on what you're currently wearing, or the items you equip that with. It can eventually fall prey to the 'program/website tells me x must follow commands' syndome, but that's hardly the fault of the writers/maintainers, that's user error.

Note: I personally haven't touched the Rawr Protadin module in some time. Not because I don't trust it, but because I like to personally work out what works better for me for gear. I like to play with stats and valuations, test them out on patchwerk/mally/certain 5man bosses (loken ROCKs for TPS testing, just get a healer to let you stand in on the blast). However, every time minus perhaps 2 (both having to do with SBV gear) when someone comes to me and asks 'which is better, x or y, Rawr told me y' Rawr agrees with my personal opinion. I cannot personally verify that it has always agreed with me and/or always been right, but the rest of rawr generally seems absurdly spot on.



Edit:
Prinsella, don't forget the 10 expertise from the glyph. Which I hate, but I'm taking anyway because I honestly can't think of anything better. 10% judgement damage technically does less for me. Which I hate.

Edit2:
To clarify, on burst and sustained threat, according to my math, 10% on judgement is worth less than 10 expertise due to autoattack with Laugh Laugh. My math could be wrong (oh god please tell me it is), and with my abysmal hit I can't count on judgement spikes in any case (again, plan to work on, not really modivated till I know what they changed).

My primary source of frustration are the 7.5 helm (with a lovely 168 raid buffed SBV) having expertise instead of hit, and my shoulders (worn to maintain 4p 7.5, also because I can't find a pair of shoulders I like) also having expertise instead of hit. Expertise is just not a primary stat for us, so I try heavily to avoid it like the plague, but I'm still generally well above the dodge cap (26, as posted).

Edit3:
Yes, I love that expertise doesn't seem to be truncated. This makes me highly curious if defense is not modulated (rounded down to nearest significant digit in the rating->value) as well. If so, that is a Good Thing.

Nothing is stopping us from using both though, right?

Indeed, however the point is that if there was something better, the Judgement one could be dropped easily, since it's TPS is not all that great.


I decided after trying a few different programs and add-ons, I decided Tankpoints works best for me to pick Prot gear.

Does anyone actually understand what the "Mitigation" scale value means in Rawr? The default is 7000. 7000 what?

I love the interface for rawr, and use it along with tankpoints a lot, but it bugs me that I'm using it but have no idea how I have it configured in one of the three configuration points.

Nothing at all. The depressing thing is that a glyph which improves mostly white damage, which is the only part of our damage *not* granted an improved threat modifier, is better than one that improves one of the characteristic abilities of Paladins.

Oggie, when you say DPS you really mean DPS or did you mean TPS? I mean, the DPS increase from using that kind of gear and spec you're using is probably not really noticeable on a 25-man raid, correct me if I'm wrong.

The TPS increase on the other hand is probably substantial. What's the TPS you're pulling usually? I don't know man, but even gearing for max EH, I'm still pulling 6-7k sustained TPS and that's seems enough in my case. The only time I really feel I could use more threat is when we do 6-min Malygos, which the casters tend to get ahead of me during the vortex - but even then I just taunt when I hit the ground and never really had a problem with that.

Are your DPSers so much better than ours?

I've confirmed with from EJ and other sources and the current defense rating required in order to be crit immune is 689. I'm currently running at 691 in order to have some "insurance" against how WoW may round off numbers. Much to my surprise while running Heroic UK last night I was critted on once by Prince Keleseth. Continued with the rest of the dungeon without any problem. I verified with Recount that I was indeed critted on one time during the Keleseth fight but at no other point during the instance.

Does anyone know why this may have happened? From what I can find Keleseth has no ability that either increases his crit chance or lowers defensive stats. Is this a fluke? I'm an on/off raider and as a tank it's very distressing to see crits happen when you have carefully geared to prevent them.