The Libram of the Sacred Shield is definitely worth using. Even on sustained single target threat it's better since it should be benefitting all of your Shield of Righteousness uses, versus two out of three for the Libram of Obstruction.

Assuming a 20% crit rate (Which is pretty much what you get with talents and raid buffs):
Libram of Obstruction's proc adds 712 damage to each Shield of Righteousness, using the standard rotation over 18 seconds two of them will benefit from it, for 1425 damage added.
Libram of the Sacred Shield on the other hand adds 549 damage to each use of Shield of Righteousness, for 1647 damage added.

The damage difference is also small enough to not really make the Libram of Obstruction worth it over the Libram of the Sacred Shield even for burst single target threat. In a multi-target situation with continually spawning mobs (Like, say, the arena at Thorim), the Libram of Obstruction does become better. Since you really do want to be able to count on a hard hitting Shield of Righteousness initially there, and the Libram of the Sacred Shield is actually not to reliable on being up there, though that does somewhat depend on how effective your DPS is on killing the mobs that spawn.

So...I can't tank Steelbreaker on 25m. I get absolutely trucked, 20k hits. I'm confused with what I'm meant to be gearing for. 8.5 is packed with SBV, but we can't critically block. If I gem for agi, I'll have very low HP. I'm so stuck. Give me Demo shout please Captain!

Have a lock toss Curse of Weakness on to take care of the Demo Shout. Other than that, he just hits hard. Your healers need to be ready for that. Help them out with Sacred Shield (if you don't have another pally) and dispelling, but in the end, it's just about getting heals.

Gem for stam, gear for avoidance, for the most part. Ulduar takes a lot of stamina to tank effectively - rolling with 42k-44k buffed is very helpful.

It's just dumb that 8.5 is itemised so terribly. The warrior tank in comparison gets hit for around 5k less than I do. Something regarding Paladin block needs to change if the gear is pointing at it.

I tanked Steelbreaker and Runemaster Molgeim last night several times when the DK on Steelbreaker died on a few attempts. They kept me alive for more than 50% of Runemasters HP and eventually died because of my own fault. (stood in Rune of Power).

My guess is your healers are failing you if you're dying while only tanking Steelbreaker

edit: 25man

There is something else going on if you are being hit for 5k more.

Nope, Warrior. I'm getting hit for about 20k after blocking by Steelbreaker (no demo/CoW however) and the warrior for about 15k after blocking (though they could have been crits I'm not 100%). Fusion Punch + insta Melee is generally enough to trash me. Not even Immortal Guardians belt me that hard unless its the initial facepunch.

You're doing something wrong then. My average incoming hit on Steelbreaker was 10,853 (333-31,345) without a 1600 block value (give or take). It really shouldn't be much of an issue if you can break 42k hp and be at the 102.4%. If you're taking 20k after block, then I have no idea what's happening. On our kill, for some reason demo shout was only up on the boss for about half of the time he was beating on me.

Steelbreaker definitely doesn't hit for 20k normally on a Paladin, unless he's in a rune of power or other adds are dead.

I just don't see how it is worth it to try and stay block capped on fights tanking Steelbreaker. When he casts Fusion Punch, it has to be dispelled right away and you can't let him stand in Runes of Power. If you do that, it is better to gear for avoidance, hopefully avoiding a hit rather than shaving off some damage with a block. Even if you are block capped, and have some ridiculous BV like 2k, you will still need heals or you will get 3 shotted.
This is not the fight to be block capped.

Thank god getting 'block capped' is not something we have to work for. Just by wearing pre ulduar bis + 2x t8.5 and being raid buffed, I'm above the 102.4%. I'm pretty sure I had this pre t8.5 as well, since the kelthuzad shield is extremely good now anyway.

I have tanked everything in Ulduar and do not see how "bad" protection paladins are as you guys make them seem to be. If you gear for black value, you will get annihilated in there, this is comon knowledge (and holds true for warriors also). I am at 101.5% right now unbuffed without a single piece being block rating/block value exclusively. You should do more research before basicaly whining about a problem which you are creating yourself.

As for the steelbreaker issue, I haven't had any issues tanking him and getting "gibbed". You should really look at your healers or again, at your poor gear selection with block rating/block value instead of parry and dodge.

I actually find the Ulduar end game to be quite fun because, unlike naxxaramas, some of the fights (hard modes) feel quite challenging since they hit so hard and require more coordination. It really makes you as a tank and your healers have to use everything in your arsenal.

I find block capping (though not necessarily full out block value items) to be very useful on the hard hitting mobs here. My guild has traditionally had the most trouble on bosses that can 2 shot a tank, so if you can shave a boss' damage down enough through block to make it a 3 shot in lieu of 2, you've given yourself much more survivability when the RNG doesn't go your way, even if doing so makes you take a couple more hits / 100 than you would have otherwise.

I should have made myself more clear: I'm wearing 0 pieces with block rating on it (besides the KT shield). The only piece tailored to block value is the t7.5 head, which I like to use for TPS. (but swap out with the naxx 25 if I want pure avoidance)

Anyway, I've tanked everything besides yogg (was there as ret) in both 10 and 25 man, I've not seen any differences between me and our warrior -besides last stand vs ardent defender-. The high amounts of TPS some fights require and the fact that warriors these days run around with very low expertise again makes us good MT choices as well.

This is of course disregarding the imbalanced class DK is currently.

Talking about that, it had been a while since I did any AoE tanking with a DK, till we put ours together with me in the thorim arena. Since when does DnD create such insane amounts of threat?

Protection Paladins are fine. Research is what I have done, and only once a stasis was put up was I able to see my issue (besides no -AP modifier) - healing.

The Iron Council try 1 : Rigid

I'm still mitigating ALOT. Only had one healer though because the holy paladin assigned to me is a retard.

RNG is RNG, sadly.

It seems to me it is better to err on the side of caution with talents. That is, talents like divinity may not always save your hide, but they might. HoJ might not always be necessary, but sometimes it doesn't hurt if you need an extra interrupt (i.e. council, general, etc). Even a stun on assault bots on Mirmiron is nice. I have yet to encounter a fight that made me have the slightest inclination or desire to add additional talents into Ret for threat. I would say, though, PoJ is invaluable.

Still haven't found a situation where the notion of using sacrifice as a tank seemed viable.

I am not trying to say my spec should/is the cookie butter, but from my experience thus far in Ulduar I have yet to encounter threat issues. As such, as stated before, it would seem somewhat irrelevant to pick these up? If there is experience or evidence to the contrary--beyond theoretical--I would be interested in hearing it.

I can name 4 bosses off the top of my head where threat is an issue (on hard mode). I guess it doesnt really matter if your dpsers cant pull 8k+ dps.

I can't think of a single boss in ulduar who really hard where you would be able to do that. Even with 2k block value, if he is going to two shot you, that's going to happen regardless of whether you block it or not. I know there is still a lot of people clinging to BC uncrushable, but it is no longer worth it. Game mechanics have removed uncrushable and now avoidance is always better on hard hitting mobs, minimizing the amount of block rating/block value and maximizing the amount of Dodge/Parry is the way to go. If you disagree I'd love to hear a counter-argument with some new information.


The Focusing Iris neck also has block rating and you're wearing it.
I have a question though, having tanked everything in ulduar... Did you have serious problems on Vezax? Was that why you put 2/2 SA? How difficult was it to do without DP giving you mana back?

What spec is your DK tank who steals AoE aggro off of you?

I can't answer for vorda, but in 10 man I have noticed that if I have a rather long string of avoidance that I will begin to go oom rather quickly. Additionally, raiding with a disc priest and all of their bubbles actually hurts you as well, even though they are great for the encounter. We did have a couple of attempts where I ended up just keeping up HS and using ShoR whenever possible until I took 2-3 hits and had a good chunk of mana back. It actually got to the point where I considered putting my back to Vezax just to guarantee a hit at one point. Thankfully we've been doing 10 man with 3 pallies (ret/prot/holy) so it hasn't become a major issue but I can definitely see where 2/2 SA would be extremely helpful if we didn't.

I must say, even more annoying than having an empty blue rage bar though, is that currently he was bugging out on us and running at 100% speed when he used Surge of Darkness. What I'd give for Intervene ...

Is this the case even if you gear up a bit before doing them? (i.e. 4pc, better gear/weapon, etc). Thank you.

I went through the OP again and decided to put down my notes on expertise, threat talents and Glyphs, as much for myself (so I can find them easily) as for this thread.

Cathela, feel free to incorporate as much or as little of this in the OP as you like.

==============

The dodge cap for expertise is 6.5%:

* 214 expertise rating with no talents/racials
* 164 expertise rating with Combat Expertise
* 140 expertise rating with Combat Expertise for a Human with a sword/mace
* 123 expertise rating with Combat Expertise for a Dwarf with a mace

==============

The parry cap for expertise is 14%:

* 460 expertise rating with no talents/racials
* 410 expertise rating with Combat Expertise
* 386 expertise rating with Combat Expertise for a Human with a sword/mace
* 369 expertise rating with Combat Expertise for a Dwarf with a mace

==============

Primary threat and glyph reference

Threat talents, from best to worst:

1. One-Handed Weapon Specialization
2. Touched by the Light
3. Crusade
4. Conviction
5. Seals of the Pure
6. Reckoning

#1 and #2 won't matter in the long run, since they're mandatory parts of the baseline Prot spec in first place.

The only reason to ever get Seals of the Pure would be if you really want the low-tier Holy talents such as Improved LOH. Conviction and SOTP are actually close in terms of threat, but Conviction is ranked higher because it's better for DPS.

Reckoning is the worst, but makes up for it because it's already in the Prot tree, which means you don't have to spend filler points in Ret to get to Crusade/Conviction (assuming you consider Heart of the Crusader and/or Improved Blessing of Might as filler). 3/5 Reckoning is a viable alternative to 3/5 Divinity, or 2/5 Reckoning if you want Divine Sacrifice.

Seal of Vengeance vs. Judgement for threat:

If you have more than 82 expertise rating from gear only, Glyph of Judgement is best for threat.

If you have less than 82 expertise rating, Glyph of Seal of Vengeance is best for threat.

If you are a Human with a sword/mace, the cut-off is 57 expertise rating.

If you are a Dwarf with a mace, the cut-off is 41 expertise rating.

It becomes even worse. As dpsers ramp up their damage, tanks seem to not be scaling as fast. You can look at my gear, I currently have the new 4 piece from 24 man + every offpiece with hit. I am almost sitting at the hit cap. With the 4 set bonus and judgement libram, I am sitting at 2350 block value raid buffed. On a typical debuffed raid boss, I am pulling around 8-9k TPS on average. Mages in my guild are doing up to 10k dps on some of the fights... They can peak even higher with no mana to worry about. So the gap is closing in on fights wheere pushing dps matter (hodir for one, General Vezax also).

When our warrior tank tries to tank these, dpsers cath up within the first 20 seconds. And mind you he is a great tank that expereienced muru hard mode and tanked his 3 adds without any form of cc... So he knows what he is doing, its just the mechanics evolving in that direciton. I wont list all the tools available to combat agaijnst that, but im just pointing out that the days where you thought "TPS doesnt matter" are almost gone and it will start to matter if you want to get these hard mode encounters down,.