Also, on an unrelated topic, Rhiannon and I have discovered something interesting about SoV stacking while poring over an old combat log. It seems that the SoV proc damage is being based off of the smallest stack size on the target; in other words, during the initial build-up phase, our SoV proc damage will be limited until all Ret paladins in the raid get their stacks up to full size.

This is odd, because the behavior I had read about earlier was the exact opposite for Rets - that they were seeing larger procs than they should be due to Prot's quickly-applied 5-stack. I can't remember for sure if that was only until they applied their first stack though.

<edit> Looks like Rhiannon beat me to it and posted it here in the Ret thread. Still probably worth mentioning here though, since it's a noticeable nerf to our initial aggro. I plan on submitting a bug report on this later today in any event.

<edit2> Found the post I was thinking of, suggesting that the Rets saw 5-stack level procs until they got their first stack. So this would be consistent with what we found (though again reversed) - that the proc value is based on the smallest stack applied by any paladin in the raid.

Exactly, the first few seconds are the most important in any fight that involves adds, being Thorim's Arena, Kolgarn arm adds or razorscales. The way how we handled this adds was pure nukage that relied on fast threat burst from Hammer / SoM/SoB... now the DPS has to hold back a couple of seconds before dumping the nuke.

The only thing that I know is that to keep up with the fast inital threat I had to downgrade my gear and place 2 pieces from T7.5 in order to grab first bonus from both T8.5 and T7.5 sets. While I dumped 4.5K DPS on aoe tanking in naxx25 trash with SoB/M now I am around 2.5K, not mention that in single target tanking my stable 8/10K TPS have dropped to 7K. This is a huge loss in TPS.

I used Righteouness aswell during TBC, started tanking on June 2006 doing Tidewalker and ended my tanking career on M'uru in Sunwell. By those were different days with different mechanics, I didnt had 30% crit+ raid buffed, neither I had the massive amount of strength and skills that now are available that are main hand dmg dependant.
Threat wise I would gladly revert all this changes, and would trade all the extra mitigation/avoidance for having instant Exorcism and SoB/SoM available again.

About the taunts... I'm sorry but those are just what they are, taunts... taunts dont provide initial threat burst at all.

Regardless of your preference for having Exorcism and Seal of Blood, those tools are gone and will not return.
Taunts can provide "burst threat" assuming your HotR SoV hits + Cons wasn't enough threat; the two taunts (both off the GCD) will add to your threat if someone is higher threat that you. Hand of Reckoning if used as a pulling mechanism provides burst threat. I usually use HoR then Avenger's Shield for pulling.

The damage for Hand of Reckoning is 1 + (.5 x AP). So you will do holy damage equivalent to the strength displayed in your character sheet (~1000-1200 for decently geared tanks), assuming you don't have an AP buff up. This damage can also crit. Works very well for the purposes of pulling and getting a start on threat. Like frmorrison said, an immediate follow up with AS and you should be set.

Ketheriel:

Regarding threat, if survival is such a non-issue that you were using Martyr/Corruption, then you can certainly afford to put on more threat gear. I have seen ridiculous numbers from HoTR with my threat set which is loaded block and strength (greatness plus new ret libram), and this is on 5mans, so not raid buffed, but the trinket and libram are good for a frequent +500 str. Basic point here is that if you need more avoidance and stamina for a big single target fight, then obviously use that gear, but if you are needing more snap agro on multiple targets, change your gear and SoV is just fine.

As an update to the expertise calculation, I've found and corrected some errors in the original version. They make expertise out to be a much stronger contender than initially estimated, again assuming all of the math is correct.

The details can be found here, unless you would prefer I just copy/paste them into this post:
View topic - Calculating the avoidance value of expertise - Maintankadin

Boy, if that's true, I'm going to be replacing the RD/HoR glyph. If I don't miss it, it's pure gain.

Thanks for bringing this up, this goes nicely with ret's T9 bugs to be fixed :| Ret's do see 5stack level procs until we get our first stack up, but this generally only occurs with DS hitting non-targeted debuffed targets, courtesy of prot spamming HotR. With any luck we can get this fixed for 3.2.2.

The maths looks correct, but I think it's worth adding a qualifier that this comparison is only accurate in situations where parry haste is active on a boss, and where a boss's ability to parry isn't inactive (be it a permanent condition, like Kologarn, or a temporary one, like a boss currently casting). The casting situation (I believe this is still correct, that both players and NPCs have their avoidance disabled while casting spells with a cast time) would be very difficult to accurately model, but would probably be the sort of thing easily handled with common sense.

fake edit -- there's also avoidable, non-auto-attack attacks by bosses, again probably just worth noting that this contributes to the subjective nature and importance of not simply making gearing decisions in a vacuum based on this info.

The casting could perhaps be modeled on average cast length per minute, or something similar where we can safely assume the boss will be casting X% of the time, meaning the value of expertise during that time is practically nil.


Another variable on expertise value is how much parry haste affects the boss based on the attacks it can benefit from being parry-hasted. As with players, a slower swing time for a boss will mean that parries have proportionately more effect to them, and thus expertise will gain value for those fights.

Here are a couple data points from my last night's raid. It looks like the dot application can be dodged/parried/missed. Is this a bug, or is this blue trying to bring paladin attacks in line with other tank classes?

2009-08-26 19:15:28.383 Saltycracker's Holy Vengeance(R1) missed Thorim.
2009-08-26 19:15:28.383 Saltycracker's hit Thorim for 682 damage.

2009-08-26 19:14:35.261 Saltycracker's Holy Vengeance(R1) was parried by Thorim.
2009-08-26 19:14:35.261 Saltycracker's crits Thorim for 1251 damage.

I couldn't find any hit/dodge combos in my log as I run about 5.5% expertise.