Low Level Instance TankingFollow

I would like to pile on to his question as well. I am rapidly becoming frustrated with ZF. I am specced prot as well. I am running into a situation where I have the absolute hardest time getting aggro from the mobs. Yesterday in a pickup group which was me tanking, two rogues, one hunter, and another pali healing, all the pulls when something like both rogues sapping mobs then flagging the one they wanted to pull then they both started to attack the mob flagged willy nilly while I charged over there using my spell taunt and began to attack. Holy shield wasn't helping because they generated so much threat before I got there it was difficuult pulling the mobs to me for very long. I had righreous fury up the whole time. Stuck the blessing to limit threat on the hunter who was a damage machine. But after each combat one rogue kept berating me to get all the mobs on me. I suggested that one of them hit the mob they wanted to fight once pull it toward me if it wasn't a caster then vanish let me hit it and establish aggro then they all attack. This idea must not work in WoW like it did in EQ or FF because no one wanted to do this. They wanted me to use aura of concentration and spam consecration. I said this would wake up their sapped mobs. They wanted me try it and since I was tired of being berated I thought what the hell. As expected everything woke up and went crazy. The one who suggested it left group and vanished mid combat.

All around very frustrating experience. Been in a few other pickup groups in ZF with similar experiences. No one ever wants to take a more structured pulling approach and let me get aggro thinking its too slow or something, compared to wiping several times I think not. Is there anything I can do different, I end up feeling like a very poor DOT that casts a heal here and there.

I spam the macro in the FAQ for my taunt for whoever I judge to have the most threat, I was using the hunter in this group since she never stopping cranking arrows.

Always have Righteous fury up. Usually have the armor aura up, with holy shield and blessing of salvation.

Thank you for any suggestions and sorry about the huge text.

Yes, it depends on both bosses and the rest of the group. If you have an off-spec healer (spriest, nonholy pally etc) that struggles keeping you alive or a very good healer. Also depends on dps and CC.

If you need to help the healer out, Jol with SoR will help out. Switch to SoL if it's not enough, but then judge SoR when ever it's up. If healing is not a problem, I would say judge JoR, SoR, JotC, SoR again. But you need to fit it in, so Holy Shield is up as much as possible. If you're having threat problems, also spam consecrate. If your healer is up to it, don't worry too much about CC, just burn mobs down fast and agree on kill order. Remember to switch target before your current target is dead, as this will help you build threat before the others start with dps. It also helps using JoR on the next mob in kill order, if you have enough threat on your current target.

RF should naturally always be up.

For boss fights, I switch judgements and auras when needed. For a long fight where mana users can go oom, JoW is a godsend. If your healer struggles or you have a few melee dps, JoL helps. Ideally, for threat only, same rotation as above, with JoR, SoR, JotC, SoR. Heals should get you mana back, and if not an undergeared healer, this should net you loads of threat.



Ret is very nice if you have more than on mob attacking you, as it will build threat while your killing another mob. Dev aura helps healers as you will take lass damage from melee. Not so useful agains casters, tho.



That also depends on both you and the rest of your gruop. BoSanc is good for multi-mob tanking, while Kings give you a bigger health pool to deal with spike damage. I find that I never use the Greater Blessings on myself, as I tend to switch mid-fight if needed.



Cheers :)

And sorry for wall of text :/

Wow, just wow. Zebug, I'll get to you in a sec.



1) Be group leader and use lucky charms to mark kill order.
2) Rogues don't attack first. Sap is fine but if they're going all out then you're just not going to get aggro back at that level what with the lack of spell dmg gear. And not off 2 of them.
3) Blessing of Salvation should also go on the rogues as well as the hunter if they can't manage aggro.



You're horde aren't you. Back in the day we didn't have pulls, we pulled with our bodies, uphill both ways in the snow and we were glad to do it. Seriously though, learn to body pull and YOU pull. You'll be surprised how effective it is 99% of the time. There's no reason for the rogues to get the first hit.



You should have left before the pull after that comment. Consecration aside, what would Aura of Concentration have to do with ANYTHING.

You're going to encounter idiots in groups occasionally, not much more to say than that.


OK Zebug.

On trash the key is to frontload threat. So you want to start off with judgement of Righteousness. When I body pull, that's pretty much how I do it. Run up, judge, back up.

If the healer's having problems then go ahead and judge light the 3 judgement around (judge righteousness the second time to seal your threat) but usually it's not necessary. It's only really useful if a lot of people are both taking damage AND hitting the target with the seal on it. And in most cases the first is happening because the second isn't.

Usually I don't waste the mana yo judge anything other than SoR on trash because it just doesn't last long enough to make it worth it.

On bosses I start with shield and a JoR but then I'll apply either SotC or, if there are a lot of casters (or I'm having problems) JoW once after the first JoR then go back to SoR/JoR. When I do the JoW or JotC I'll leave SoR up until my judgement cooldown is ready then I'll reseal with the other so I keep early threat gen going until I'm ready for the special seal. But then again, sometimes the group is good and damage heavy so the bosses go down almost like trash does anyway. It's situational.

As for Auras, I almost never use Devo. Usually it's Ret unless there's something special going on like high shadow/frost/fire damage then I'll switch to that (assuming no one else has a resist, as they don't stack).

That's the basics of what I do, I may be missing something, I'm still reeling a bit from Groo's post.

Excellent!!! Makes so much more sense now. Starting with a JoR to get that burst threat....guess I have to learn to mark the mobs now.

Is there a general order that most people mark? Like is it almost always, skull first then x then whatever (I can't even remember the marks, like I said, I've always been DPS)

Pretty much what Gaudion said one thing I'll add is: After you've explained it, make sure you're consistent about it. Nothing confuses a group new to marking more than having the first kill target be skull 1 pull then X another and having sap switch from star to moldy nacho at random.

You really shouldn't need to drop consecrate so often that it jacks your GCD for other stuff. Seriously.




No. First of all, if you're not spamming consecration uselessly you're generally going to be ok unless you're pretty well overgeared.

If you find yourself needing mana: (Note these apply to the OP's level, not raiding - by the time you're raiding hopefully you'll have a good idea of what you do and don't need to do)

The first thing you do is judge wisdom and then resume SoR/JoR.

The second thing you do is take a quick look at the level of damage you're taking and your healer's mana. If you're not taking a crapload of damage and/or your healer has a bunch of mana left then you don't necessarily have to keep that mana hog of a Holy Shield up. yeah, it's great, yeah it's nice threat, but it sucks you dry and if you don't need it then why use it.

I'll usually stop casting holy shield before I stop casting judgements when I'm overgeared in a non-raid. Or I'll take my pants off...

Generally speaking I threaten to do it just to freak people out.

But additionally, if you're taking more damage you're getting more heals. If you're getting more heals you're getting more mana return from Spiritual Attunement.

I was speaking from a lower level perspective. I do many MANY things at higher levels and have to to keep up with my guild rogues and hunters who seem to have misplaced their feint/vanish or FD buttons (respectively). WHat I've been outlining are the basics. And even those are situational.

I'm not sure that de-panting is something you only do after you know what you're doing. There are many aspects to paladin tanking, mana-management, threat mgmt, optimal seals, GCD mgmt. It's hard to pull it all together at once so try different things, including disrobing.

Juggling the GCD IS an important skill but to propose that someone learn it by spamming consecration (the hallmark of a bad paladin tank in many cases) helps them learn the wrong things.

Relying on ANYTHING to keep you alive/mana'd up etc in an instance isn't good but learning just how much mana you can expect back vs what you're throwing out is. I highly reccomend pallies use and learn when it's best to use JoW. It's often quite a good thing to do. You're likely going to need to pot anyway but that can mean all the difference between running out of mana (and threat, and avoidance) before the pot cooldown or not so you may as well get used to doing it.

You said it yourself, lower level instances are for learnin.

As for the Holy Shield vs JoR - HS isn't a spitball, it's quite the mana hog AND it prevents mana regen by proccing blocks. If the tank and healer are staying afloat then I think it's better to use a near guaranteed threat hit (judgement) than a "Gosh I hope I block him instead of dodge/parry/get hit so I get a proc". It's the same reason why I think SoV is a crappy tanking seal. I don't like to rely on chance when I tank.

If the tank and healer aren't staying afloat then something's wrong because if you need the blocks, you're also getting hit fairly hard and you should be getting heals to get the mana.

After reading all of this, I think I need to open another bottle of rum.... but Cel is good. He's helped me very well too.... mmmm.

These guys pretty much covered it. My 2 shots?

A lot of players don't understand that it really takes a group effort to run an instance and won't learn it till they sober up (around the time they start running ST and up). Pally tanks need that group to work together more so at low lvls or you really are just a gimp with a sword and board. To me it sounds like your pugs are full of toons that want to see how hard they can hit. I like to see how fast you can complete the instance.

BUT, if you do find a group that will work with you (holds true for ZF big time) you can shave a good 20 min off your run time.

As for pulling... we haven't touched Linken's Boomerang yet. At lvl 52 you can start this quest. The god for saken long chain (13 parts... yes 13) starts with It's a Secret to Everybody. Yes, it's a bit of a pain in the rear... and takes at least 2 bottles of rum, but it is the only single ranged pull avil to a pally, and I found, worth it.

BTW, on marking, for the kill order, I just reapply skull on the next mob to kill, so the kill order is skull-skull-skull. Works wonders even with the most thick-headed PUGs.