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.

 

Triass

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

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

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.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

vorda

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

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

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.

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.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

Mandorallan

I have started using Sanc alot ya

 

• Snowy

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.

Paladin: Pyla
Mage: Pylah

 

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.

 

• Chicken

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.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

SmurfZG

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

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).

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

 

Left

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

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.

 

pope master

Drop consecrate, ensure HS is up and make sure I can get a judgement -> SotR -> SotR off. Fill with HotR if I have a free GCD.

 

Tilted

FWIW, in my current gear I've found the only attack that hits for more than Hammer of Wrath is Shield of Righteousness. So if survivability is a non-issue, I typically go with the priority of HS > ShoR > HoW > HotR > Judgement > everything else. The only tricky part is making sure the Judgement debuff doesn't drop, but most targets don't last more than the 20 second duration anyway so it's a simple matter of hitting it at least once.

However, if survivability is a concern and threat is under control, I switch to SoL and only watch my HS, Judgement, and HotR cooldowns. Especially with the Obstruction buff, I'm able to mitigate a lot of damage doing this, and HotR helps with additional healing procs. Of course, this has nothing to do with the target being under 20%, but the mob's health typically doesn't matter that much if I end up dying in the process.

 

injustice

I attempted to run Heroic Old Kingdom for the first time yesterday, as it was the daily, and ran into some major issues. Our group had next to no forms of spell reflect or interrupts, and the Spell Flingers ate me alive (their 6 second cast spell hits for roughly 12-15k).

Is this an instance where you simply need large amounts of interrupts/silences in your group for a prot paladin to be able to tank?

 

btmorex

Just curious: how did you manage to put together a group where no one but you has a spell interrupt or silence? You only need to interrupt one or possibly two casts as long as you focus them down. I typically just HoJ at the end of their cast and they're dead before they come out of it.

Also, the spell hits for 80% of your HP; it's not a static amount.

Edit: and you're a blood elf so you can arcane torrent the second cast if needed.

 

Prinsesa

I'm not sure this is possible. Everyone has at least ONE interrupt unless you're running with 4 Resto Druids.

You yourself have one interrupt, which should be more than enough to kill the Spell Flinger before it gets off a second cast if you designate it as the focus target.

If worse comes to worst, its possible to just tank through it if your healer can keep you topped off.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Exewut

Don't forget they are undead so you have holy wrath as well. Meaning you have 1 30s cd and one 1m one. Meaning you should be able to interupt them 2-3 times in one minute. If your dps can't focus and kill those in 1 minute then you will have problems on the worshipper boss anyway.

 

Hythloday

The spell flingers are pretty hideous and if you haven't learnt to LoS a pull by Old Kingdom then you're going to learn before you reach the end of it. (A death knight helps as a crutch.) That said as others have said you have 3 ways to break their casts as a blood elf and there's no pull with more than one of them - so the second time you see them should be much easier (at least that was my experience going back to Old Kingdom Heroic last night having only once seen it while levelling where they chewed me up).

 

• Chicken

You can also reliably "interrupt" their spells if you have a [Glyph of Turn Evil], though it has the obvious usual downsides a fear spell has (Though if you're focusing them down at the time it should break fast enough). Most of our other glyphs aren't majorly useful either, so it's not that big a loss.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

Jaydn

Spell Flingers are pretty easy.

Run into the mobgroup, use Avergers Shield for some initial aggro, then stun via Holy Wrath the first cast. That should give you enough aggro and time for a Cons and any other DD could distrupt the second cast, or you can usw Hammer of Justice.


Anyway:

Whats about just delay our rotation, if we want to reseal, use Holy Wrath in undead/demonic groups or just use Exorzism or Avengers Shield?

You loose 1 GCD, but not the important Holy Shield buff, who has 10s duration, but only 8s CD. Just your main thread rotation looses about 10% aggro, because its a bit delayed.


Another question:
Ive got now Repelling Charge and have about 555 Defense. After a few gem changes im @548. All Items, which would be an upgrade, have more defense and shield block, parry or dodge rating, but less HP. I dont like to see, dropping my Health under 27k unbuffed, but is it worth to change 600 HP against 50 or 80 block value and 0.6% parry or dodge?

 

vorda

More of a UI question but only relevant to prot paladins:

Is there a way to make TankPoints assume you always have holy shield on? Currently, I can check and write down my values (in pawn or so) with holy shield popped, but it should be something that isnt too hard to code/edit.

Reason I ask is because I dont value block rating at all on bossfights currently, since I have close to 100% HS uptime anyway (and I am at/very close to 102.4% total with HS up)