I'm running around with 23 hitrating (from Shiver) usually and I find this to be enough for ulduar hardmodes (and so do our MTs for 25mans - after all my protpally is only an alt). I keep a few pieces of gear with hit and a stack of hit food lying around if I ever need them and I use Glyph of RD/HoR for most encounters as HoR is imho our most useful pickup tool. Maybe ToC HMs will change my opinion, have not done them yet ofc. Right now I would never gem/enchant for hit over stam or avoidance except maybe in those pieces I only wear for hitcap anyway.

Thanks for catching that, I hadn't realized that deflects don't induce parryhaste. Time to go update the calculations. That's only about 10% of the attacks that trigger parries, so I suspect that it will only make expertise slightly weaker than the current version.

<edit> Actually, side curiosity: Is it really proper to call it a ranged attack, since it can also be dodged, and can proc our seals? Wowwiki also has an article (probably out-of-date) claiming that Ranged attacks can't be dodged or parried. I'm not familiar enough with Hunter mechanics to know whether this has changed recently though.

I've never seen a concise definition of what constitutes a melee attack vs. a ranged attack, outside of that one I linked. I was working under the assumption that melee atttacks could miss/dodge/parry and proc seals, while ranged attacks could only miss and could not proc seals. Under this convention, ShoR would count as a "ranged" attack, and HotR would be a "melee" attack. But deflections don't work well with that simple definition; I guess it could be a melee attack that just happens to be deflected rather than parried.

Also, where would Judgement fall under that convention? I've seen it called a melee attack with dodge/parry turned off, and since it procs seals I'd assume that's a better description than ranged attack.

The way I figure it, Judgement always counts as ranged because, well, it has a 10 yard range. It is in essence a spell with melee hit mechanics, isn't it? Just means 8% miss instead of 17% and it can't be dodged/parried/deflected.

I have always been curious about what the "deflect" on HotR actually means; I've just assumed it was a parry that wasn't really a parry. I've also been seeing "deflect" on my Arcane Torrent occasionally, too, and I'm not sure what to make of that.

Judgement is now a melee attack that cannot be dodged/parried (it used to be ranged). HotR is still a ranged attack.

If you saw "Deflect" on torrent, it just meant your Arcane torrent missed (uses spell hit). Hunters have Deterrence which should make Torrent deflect.

Of course; I saw the deflect on torrent on the hunter mobs in ToC and they probably pop deterrence somewhere along the line.

But to clarify, Judgement is just a physical ranged attack that deals holy damage and cannot be dodged/parried? The whole "melee" attack with a 10 yard range just gets... confusing. But I suppose it isn't unprecedented, as there are plenty of other examples of physical ranged attacks.

I'm unsure whether this has been discussed, though I do keep fairly up to date with the thread, but with the changes to Seal of Command in 3.2.2 coming sometime soon, has anyone evaluated it on the PTR as a tanking seal? If it procs on up to 3 targets from each attack, even with a low damage weapon wouldn't that be potentionally 9 (12 glyphed) targets with HotR?

Obviously I'm unsure how "smart" the AoE proc is, perhaps it will hit 4 mobs with 3 procs each, or 12 mobs with 1 proc each, etc etc. I also don't think Blizzard would disable it from HotR procs, as SoV currently functions that way. (Of course I'm glyphed for HotR, so using those numbers)

Finally, it would be useful for any situations in which you have more than a single target, which is most trash, every heroic, and many boss fights with adds involved. As an experiment, I tried running some heroics with SoComm, even without the change, and my single target DPS did not dip massively, but SoV obviously was superiour on multimobs right now.

I guess another consideration is Snap vs Sustained - if SoComm provides much more snap aggro from a melee or HotR hit, then it would be preferable for picking up lots of mobs instantly, but I think SoV will remain superior for sustained mob tanking, such as KT's adds, or Freya.

If this has been mentioned please forgive me, I searched the last 3 pages without result.

EDIT: Here is the quote for the change:

* Seal of Command: This ability now chains to strike up to 2 additional targets when it is triggered by an attack.

Actually there are the craftable bracer ([Saronite Swordbreakers]) which are best in slot that have some hit rating at least. But yes, hitrating is a bit lacking on TOC items, I'm not sure if that is a coincidence or a consent choice, so that there is a bit of a bigger difference between threat gear and mitigation/avoidance gear.

edit: I forgot about [Greaves of the Lingering Vortex] which are also very close to being BIS and have a very nice amount of hitrating on them.

The heroic version of the boots are best in slot (tied actually) and the wrists are almost best in slot behind the heroic version of the Bracers/Armguards of the Shieldmaiden from 25m Twin Valks. I'm still going to prefer the crafted wrists though, because of that lack of hit rating on a lot of gear.

This has already been finalized by the dev team actually:

Retribution

* Seal of Command now has an additional effect - When used with attacks or abilities that strike a single target, this additional Holy damage will strike up to 2 additional targets.


I imagine they'll turn off the cleave being available from our "ranged attacks", including Judgement and SotR, but SoC definitely won't be working with HotR or DS.

Long timer troller, first time seeking real help.

I've been reading and reading throughout the last few weeks. Since 3.2 really, and haven't been able to find an answer for something another prot paladin reccomended to me.

It's been suggested to ignore the 102.4 avoidance cap as it exists for wotlk, based on the assumption that Ulduar mobs hit hard enough to make it not as vital as it was before. I've always paid attention to this cap and had good success.

Do we still care about this cap? With the lack of block rating items available in Ulduar and the change bringing parry and dodge on par for ratings points should I let my block rating go as it's this that keeps me above the 102.4 cap?

I've often used an avoidance macro from the maintankadin site to test where I'm at. Is there still a valid one given the dodge and parry changes? Without a macro I actually don't know and cannot find the calculation to determine my avoidance accurately.

The World of Warcraft Armory

please lend a sad dwarf a hand.

p.s. I have read the rules and understand "here's my armory, help me not suck." Hope I'm not too close to the line of this. I've been sifting through the forums for quite awhile trying to find the answers with significant lack of satisfaction.

The avoidance cap has been discussed fairly recently, and while there are benefits to it, it seems the general consensus is that not having it is not a big deal, and not focusing on it (unless it happens to be convenient with your gear choices) frees you up to build up stamina and other avoidance stats than BR.

As far as determining the 102.4... unless I'm mistaken I think it's as simple as adding up your parry, dodge and block rating with holy shield active.

Ranged attacks cannot be dodged, nor can they be parried.

For Judgement, we consider it a melee attack because Blizzard says so. For all practical purposes however, a melee attack with a special clause that says it cannot be dodged nor be parried is really not much different from a ranged attack, except perhaps for whatever coding structure the spell has such that it NEEDS to be a melee attack (but that's invisible to the player anyway).

HotR seems to be another special case. It's not strictly a ranged attack because it can be dodged and deflected/parried, but it's not strictly a melee attack either because of its chain-ing behavior.

As for SHOR, it could really swing either way. Either it's a ranged attack, which is why it cannot proc Seals and cannot be dodged nor parried, or it's a melee attack with the same special clauses as Judgement - does not proc Seals and cannot be dodged nor parried.

Dear all,

I didn't know where else to post and did not find reliable information elsewhere.

Can resilience stil used to obtain crit immunity and how is the conversion factor? Reason is my Pally is new for tanking and I can get my hands on 3 pieces of gladiator gear fairly simple - but it has resilience on. AFAIK resilience is cheper than def since it doesn't give avoidance in PVE just crit counts towards obtaining crit immunity also in PVE.

DOes this still hold true?

Thanks!

Yes resilience still works fine in PvE for crit chance reduction, there were rumors about Blizzard turning it off in PvE but they were just that - rumors.

When you're considering resilience, keep in mind that you will be reducing the secondary effect of AD, the severity of which depends on the amount of defense you sub resilience for (in addition to the obvious loss of avoidance). Whether that's a big deal or not is debatable, but you should keep it in mind while making the decision.

The macro is still accurate. The dodge/parry numbers it uses are the same as the ones that appear on your character sheet (which are post-DR.) The only avoidance stat the macro actually calculates the effect of diminishing returns on is miss.

When you refer to parry haste you are talking about the mob/player firing an immediate shot right after the parry, regardless of weapon speed? I'd look on wowwiki and such, but the work filter unfortunately blocks it.

Also how important is block? I find it rather useless in anything over a lvl 200 instance, 226 and up blocking 1500 seems pointless, so I have been working on dodge.

Good to see it cleared up.

I just went through two gigs of combatlogs for full august and there are no deflected attacks on bosses for anything other then HotR.

Hunter deflect everything when they pop Deterrence though, including hunter NPC in ToC faction champions encounter, but since they don't melee parryhaste is irrelevant there.

Hey there guys, Been reading over the forum for the last two days or so trying to find out how to better my pally. Early on I found a list of UI's that were recommended. Honestly I do not remember in what forum they were listed. I don't know if this should be posted here but I figured someone here may know or point me in the right direction.
Thanks
Savassan

Parry haste happens to players and mobs. After you parry an attack, it gets speed up to 40% faster, however depending when the attack was parried it could do no speed increase.
The log is something like this:
0.0 Boss Swings
2.0 Boss Swings
2.2 Boss parries your attack
3.3 Boss Swings
So you get "burst" damage at times, rather than a steady damage hits.

Block is a decent mitigation stat (like armor) which makes you easier to heal. It also adds threat/damage to Pally Shield Slam.

I'd read some time ago that the "deflect" on HotR was simply inconsistent naming on Blizzard's part as it still did behave as a parry, but I can no longer find that post. Best I can do is reference one of the several posts using parry/deflect terminology interchangeably.

Another update: Here's a long post using combinatorics to try and treat the spike damage question properly, including the possibility of double parries as Mex suggested.

It's a bit trickier than I thought, because all of our parry-able attacks come in two-attack bursts (auto+HV application, or HotR+HV), which is why it took so long. You can't treat them as independent events because of the "bunching" of attacks.

Cutting to the chase: