Quoting Ghostcrawler:

"Seal of Corruption's tooltip incorrectly stated that it did higher damage than it actually did. It actually did (and still does) the same damage as Seal of Vengeance. Vengeance's tooltip did not have the error. We changed Corruption's tooltip to be correct.

Actual damage did not change. You were not nerfed."

That was it. I'm mainly in Heroics right now. Thanks.

I just did ony 10 and the [Gleaming Quel'Serrar] dropped. I was the offtank and rolled and won it. I was thinking it is an upgrade over [Peacekeeper Blade]. WowHead comparison here

Now I am agonizing over whether or not this is truly an upgrade for me. I am in a guild that doesn't raid, and I generally get my fix from PuG'ing, so alot of far better upgrades are difficult for me to obtain at the moment, and the only benefit i can see to Quel'Serrar is the increased DPS for threat generation, and the weapons proc. The peacekeeper has higher stam, has strength, and even kicks in some avoidance.

I've never had a problem with threat, outside of a couple people throwing out massive dps or heals, but its nothing a taunt or two couldn't solve.

It seems to me that the peacekeeper is actually superior! Is there something I'm missing?

Edit: I can see hanging onto the Quel'Serrar for the raids where the extra TPS is important when i can't keep up, however, I'm suspecting the peacekeeper may be the better all purpose weapon when DPS/heals aren't peeling threat from my crap tanking :p

Edited again: i was being very down on PuG's, so i changed some wording since i actually enjoy them, and my original wording was unintentionally negative!

The uptime is between 50-75%, so assuming you were crit immune without the sword proc, the Sword provides a lot of mitigation. However, there are no threat stats on Quel, so it depends what you want. Personally, I need some passive Defense to be crit immune (690 defense rating), so can't use it yet (I might change around gems if I won it though).

New patch notes for 3.3 have been posted at mmo-champion, and a couple caught my eye:

First,

- Area-of-Effect Damage Caps: We’ve redesigned the way area damage is capped when hitting many targets. Instead of a hard cap on total damage done, the game now caps the total damage done at a value equal to the damage the spell would do if it hit 10 targets. In other words, if a spell does 1000 damage to each target, it would hit up to 10 targets for 1000 each, but with more than 10 targets, each target would take 1000 damage divided by the number of targets. 20 targets would be hit for 500 damage each in that example.

One of the things which made Paladins the AoE tanks back in BC was the way Thunderclap was capped on number of targets while Consecrate was not. From the way its written, I assume Consecrate would run afoul of this. While 10 targets is an ample number most of the time, situations like Ony's whelps, chain pulling in heroics and a few other situations could cause a noticeable decrease in the damage done by Consecration. While I prefer this solution to capping the actual number of targets affected, it still makes me cringe a bit. Can anyone test on the PTR to confirm that Consecration falls victim to this?

Second,

- Divine Guardian: This talent no longer increases the amount of damage transferred to the paladin from Divine Sacrifice. Instead it causes all raid and party members to take 10/20% reduced damage while Divine Sacrifice is active.

- Divine Sacrifice: Redesigned. The effect of Divine Sacrifice is now party-only and the maximum damage which can be transferred is now limited to 40% of the paladin’s health multiplied by the number of party members. In addition, the damage transferred to the paladin is now reduced by 50% before being applied to the paladin. Finally, the bug which allowed Divine Sacrifice to sometimes persist despite reaching its maximum damage has been fixed. Divine Sacrifice will now cancel as soon as its maximum damage value is exceeded in all cases.

So, Raidwall survives, but its nerfed and you need to spend a couple more talent points to get there. Well, its been OP since the moment it was released and I'm a little surprised it survived as long as it did in its current form. The potential is probably there to do interesting things with the tank party's composition still, though.

Looks like basic DivSac from, say, a 50k health OT in a 5 person party would now absorb ~100k total damage (inflicting 50k to the paladin) before conking out. Unless you're taking MASSIVE raid damage, it feels like it'd be hard to overload that. Adding 2 points of DG sounds like it reduces raid damage by 20% (Raidbarksin rather than Raidwall, I guess), but doesn't increase damage absorbed. So, my reading is that the OT would be able to absorb 125k from members of his/her party before it conks out, and the absorb would inflict 40k to the paladin. If you can still combine it with bubblewall, that's just 20k plus -60% to regular incoming damage during the period. A MT could probably pull that off most of the time, so its versatility just got a huge boost, IMO. Again, can anyone confirm/deny this interpretation on the PTR?

Thinking a bit more, the DG/Bubblewall combo feels pretty spectacularly powerful (put the paladin in party by himself and it's a flat -60% to damage taken). I bet Div Sac gets tweaked to activate Forbearance or something similar, or, quite possibly THIS is will be our new 2nd defensive cooldown (since with party manipulation its Barkskin. Perhaps a glyph will be introduced at some point to let you do it automatically) and AD will get the really dramatic nerf many have been expecting for a while.

Edit - clarified a little better what is my interpretation vs reported patch notes

AoE damage caps have existed for a long time, and are certainly nothing new. Traditionally consecration has been (one of?) the only spells to be exempt from this rule. I believe death and decay also adheres to this. This change simply alters the way that they function in order to make them more consistent. Based on the wording, it would appear that previously, some AoEs were capable of doing much higher damage than others against very large groups due to differing caps.

In any event, there's nothing there that leads me to believe that there will be any changes to consecration.

Divine Sac still looks very powerful in some situations, especially ones which require rotating various raid members through 'the fire', or at least giving the group control over who gets exposed to it (such as Bloodboil's old bloodboil ability, or soakers on twins). I'm not sure how much use it'll see whilst tanking, though.

edit -- Preliminary set bonuses appear to have been mined

Item - Paladin T10 Protection 2P Bonus - Your Hammer of the Righteous ability deals 20% increased damage.
Item - Paladin T10 Protection 4P Bonus - When you activate Divine Plea, you gain 12% dodge for 10 sec.

4pc looks quite interesting -- 12% dodge on a 1 minute CD seems quite powerful, although it would cost a GCD, and depending on implementation might necesitate a cancelaura macro to remove and replace it, although I'd assume they'd attempt to implement it so that this wasn't necessary.

DiSac still seems dangerous to use if tanking, but very nice if you aren't tanking (like on Gormok it would be nice to use when the other tank has it).

The set bonus doesn't need any special macro, there is a specific spell event when casting Divine Plea different than the buff that gives mana.

They are giving DKs a similar bonus (when you hit Blood Tap you take 10% less damage), which also is on a 1 minute cooldown.

I don't quite agree with this. Any buffs that are only party wide are annoying mechanics, and don't really fit in todays raiding. Even blizzard themselves have admitted to this several times in the past that they want to get rid of the "party" concept while being in a raid.

Making DiSac party only is really nothing more than a crutch because they can't (yet) find a better way to make DiSac work without making it as OP as it is already.

I can already see the raid leaders whining over it, and solving some boss' damage issues by swapping the available paladins into the tank group so the effect can be gained on the tank several times during the same fight while also giving the tank his party wide totems and other party wide effects.

So now we're the new mitigation 'trinkets' for the tanks? I can already predict the next nerf to this: If a paladin in a raid gets swapped to another group, his Divine Sacrifice spell goes on cooldown for 2 minutes.

If I read that right, wouldn't it be possible to put the paladin in a group of his own? That way, DiSac becomes a raid-wall with no extra damage taken and no need to bubble. That seems useful, and can hardly be intended.

I dunno. 12% dodge comes out as a lot more than 12% less damage taken if it's not subject to DR. With the current avoidance levels, it's probably somewhere in the ballpark of 30% less hits taken.

Aye, but the benefit of the damage reduction effects is that they can be used against the "tank killer" abilities - which are usually not avoidable. In current content, stuff like Impale, Icehowl and Anub's Stun -> melee combo; or going back to Ulduar, Unbalancing Strike, Plasma blast, Fusion Punch etc. We've got no reason to expect that Blizzard has decided to dispense with such abilities.

However, set bonuses usually go through several iterations before going live, so there's plenty of time to go before we can justifiably start moaning about the short straw.

That's true. However, I don't think we should underestimate the importance of the regular damage that comes in conjunction with these tank killers. Taking 30% off the melee damage that follows an Impale could well give the healers time to bring you back up. It's not EH, but if it works during that one impale where the healers are busy trying to heal through fire and an unlucky snobold, it could mean a lot.

Also, it gives us the option to cut the healers some slack when they need the focus for the rest of the raid. But that might be less important in a 25-man group with dedicated tank healers than it is in the 10-mans I usually raid. Come to think of it, I guess the 12% dodge means more in 10-mans in general.

I'm not saying the paladin set bonus is superior (and I like the T9 one better). But in the right situation it could prove valuable.

As far as I understand these are the 4pc CDs for the tanks:

DK: all damage taken reduced by 12% for 10 sec
Druid: all damage taken reduced by 12% for 10 sec
Warrior: a shield that absorbs 20% of max HP
Pally: 12% extra dodge for 10 sec

All are on a 1 min CD

I for one can’t say that I’m very happy about the pally one as avoidance as an “on use” ability is quite lacklustre. It’s just to random to be a good CD for phases where bosses temporarily increases their damage. You might get loads of extra dodges out of it for the 10 seconds it’s up, but you might just as well get no extra dodge at all. Of course it’s better than no CD at all, but if I get to choose I’d take a CD that guarantees damage reduction any day, even if the guaranteed damage reduction is significantly lower than the random one.

To make it even worse the our 4pc bonus only affects types of damage that can be dodged to begin with, thus making it useless for magic hits.

edit:

@ Neraya (post 1559), i believe you cant switch people between groups while in combat.

ok reading back on some of these forums and my somewhat understanding them is that for a pally tank the def rating cap is 540, hit rating is either 296 or 263 if a dranei is with you and well expertise is still up in the air?

Not sure whether or not this has been mentioned prior to this, but since I've been unable to find any mention of it, I did think I would bring it up.

I'm not a poorly geared tank (imho), but at the moment, I am wrestling with the defense line, and recently switched to the pvp shoulder enchant because it offers me a bit more leeway and stam to offset the minor avoidance loss. This got me thinking, what other options are there for other slots? I came across the [Arcanum of the Savage Gladiator] for the helm slot and almost immediately slapped myself for not realizing it sooner. This enchant offers 30 stamina and approximately 37 (36.6666~) Defense in terms of crit reduction, if my math isn't wrong.

While most people would see the loss of seven stamina and minor avoidance / mitigation, I thought it might be useful, primarily for replacing my shield enchant and cloak enchant. Basically, putting that on my helm allowed me to put +18 stamina on the shield and +22 agility on the cloak, more then compensating for the loss of avoidance and increasing my total stamina by 11.

Bottom line, I didn't see this posted anywhere prior to this, and regardless of the lesser stamina / avoidance, I think it maybe a better itemized enchant for the slot it occupies. For those well over the defense softcap and not using defense on either shield or cloak, this might be useless. But in the alternate case, it allows you more bang for each item enhancement slot.


edit: Clarity

On a 1-to-1 basis, resilience rating will always reduce your chance to be crit by more than defense rating does, so if we disregard avoidance completely and all we're looking for is a way to get the uncrittable minimum while stacking on as much STA as possible, then resilience is almost always better than defense.

However, you have to consider the entire picture.

The PvP shoulder enchant is almost always better than the Exalted Hodir shoulder enchant, because they have an equal amount of resilience vs. defense, but as I said, resilience is better for stacking STA, in addition to the STA that the PvP enchant already carries.

Now, if you're considering the [Arcanum of the Savage Gladiator] enchant, it has 25 resilience rating vs. the [Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector]'s 20 defense rating, but the Stalwart Protector has 37 STA compared to the Savage Gladiator's 30 STA.

If you're stuck below the uncrittable minimum and the Gladiator will take you over, but the Protector won't, then obviously the Gladiator is pretty much mandatory. However, if it's possible to juggle between the two, then the Gladiator will only be better than the Protector if the extra crit chance reduction will allow you to wear/gem/enchant something else that would yield more than the 7 STA you're giving up.

I apologize if I've overlooked this post somewhere, but I can't seem to find it for the life of me. Can someone please direct me to a 3.2 list of BiS Prot Paladin gears pieces for mitigation? I'm even unsure if one "list to end lists" even exists for protection as it does for retribution.

For what it's worth, since there is no Rawr Protadin module thread, here's my settings for the Prot module:

The only two gem setups that should be checked are the Epic one with all stam gems and an Austere Earthsiege, and a custom one with Shifting Dreadstone, Enduring Eye of Zul, Solid Majestic Zirconx2, Austere Earthsiege.

Make sure you have the appropriate raid buffs checked.

I use an unmitigated boss hit of 70,000 - input is welcome on this one. My setup is for reg ToC25.
You can compare with parry haste toggled on or off at your preference.

Under ranking I use the mitigation scale with threat dialed down to zero (depends on your guild's DPS) and mitigation slider dialed down to .7 or .6 (I wish there was a .65). A setting of .7 causes it to want to socket for 6 stamina bonuses (wrong IMO) while a setting of .6 causes it to recommend [Greater Inscription of the Gladiator] over [Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle] even well over the defense minimum (also wrong IMO).

The 6 stam bonuses are a net loss, but the shoulder enchant given the parameters does sound right if you're valuing stamina that high in relation to other things. Neither one offers threat, and both enchants offer about the same uncrittability/mitigation/avoidance.

Over the defense minimum, 15 resilience is equivalent to 0 defense. It gives you nothing. I don't think 30 stam is worth quite 20 dodge and 15 defense, although I could be wrong. Hence my desire for finer control over the mitigation slider.

Dodge and defense are allocated at 2/3 of stamina (epic gems for each are 20, epic stamina gem is 30). A .6 modifier to 35 = 21. 2/3 of 30 = 20. 21 > 20, but maybe Rawr is valuing defense over the cap slightly less, which would cause exactly the behavior you indicate - the 30 stamina is valued higher than the mitigation on the standard tanking enchant. You'll note that many tanks use the 30 stamina enchant for that exact reason.

Most tanks simply use the 30 stamina enchant because of things like Gormok's Impale and Anub'arak's Freezing Slash where avoidance does absolutely nothing. I feel like I have enough health that I still use the other enchant, however, partly because I still don't like the wasted itemization on resilience. Then again, if I can't avoid an attack, the whole thing is wasted itemization, isn't it? To me, it's really a personal preference thing, though obviously most tanks just use 30 stam if only so they can skip grinding Hodir rep.

And there are several good lists over at Maintankadin, most linked from The Maintankadin Consolidated Gearing Guide.

Avoidance is weak compared to stamina, because of unavoidable magic/bleed damage and healers are heal spamming you anyway, so might as well give them a bigger bucket to fill. I use non-stamina gems for 9 or 12 stamina two gem bonuses. I really like the 10 to all stats gem for the one red you need.
However, I do like avoidance in that it allows you to get unhittable (so if a melee hits you, it will be 2500 less with my gear) and it is my profession benefit to have shoulder enchants.

Note with gear lists like the one you linked, it doesn't show items that favor one tanking playstyle (I like unhittable) over another. However, all Prot Pallies should want the four piece.