Pre-Raid Uncrushability: A Paladin Tank's GuideFollow

I need help this is my armory ( http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Moonrunner&n=Distantpast ) I have followed your guide pretty closely, but I cant seem to become uncrushable, what should I do?

Armory must be outdated, I have glyphs on things. Do I really need the Crystalforged? That thing goes for like 500g, and I still have enchants/gems to buy.

Rate up! Thanks! I got the SL trinket just a few minutes ago, I am going to start running SV for my devil shark. If THAT plus enchants wont boost me to uncrushable, I'll start doing things like getting the crystalforge!

It might sound arrogant, but I would really like to keep these spiffy shoulders.

Got the Libram, going for the Cape/FotC/Enchants! Thanks!

I am now in my Prot Gear again, and I got some wicked improvements in Kara, namely - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28597 my t4 helm and Mantle of Abramhis (or something). Any advice on what my stats are/should right now?

Unfortunetly, for a good 3 weeks not a signle peice of badge gear will be Prot related, I am my guilds PvE Ret as well, but we seem to need tanks more than DPS. But, I like Ret a bit more than Prot (and I am much better at Ret).

I've been hoping for Attun's bracers. I respecc'd to ret just now so my gear will have changed. Next week I will be specc'd back (hopefully getting my FotC, but I can only run instances on saturdays.) I am hoping to get my Justicar Gloves from Curator as well. We do a full kara clear saturday.


I managed to get to: Part tank netherspite, tank the big fleshbeat before prince (and wiped half my group to boot). Moroes adds (two). Some AoE pulls, Kil'Rek (that was a major failure on my part, he rezzed and I didn't see him so I kept whacking away on Illhoof and then oomed myself trying to get him back only to realize that Illhoof was down to 2%. The Ushers hit like MONSTERS! Other than that pretty cool, I saved our group from wiping on nightbane by AS'ing + Exorcism before he could gib our healers .

That's perfectly normal. Earlier on it doesn't really matter. I remember running heroics in my raid set with a ton of stamina junk sitting in the bank. One of my main healers built a Protection Paladin (which I helped him learn) that's now geared to handle any of the gimmick encounters (trash in Hyjal, etc -- like most Paladin Tanks out there that don't get to tank big things -- in this case because he likes to tank for alt runs and less geared runs) and he noticed the exact same thing when we was just turning Kara-viable. While it is better.. it's not always necessary to swap out of raid gear into Stamina heavy heroic gear.

It is absolutely 100% necessary later on though. It's extremely difficult to keep things stuck to you in heroics when you're in your Tier 6 & SPLAT25 survivability gear with decent geared DPS (All ilevel 120+ epics). You need to lose tons of avoidance, especially Dodge, and maybe even a little armor. I fall into the camp of trading those for Spell Damage and Stamina, and unloading EVERYTHING you have every single fight (and drinking every single fight) and sitting down during combat if absolutely necessary. The other major form of "heroic set" is taking something off... usually pants or helm -- which isn't really a heroic set.

Getting into the habit now is good. Even if swapping gear is really more of a convenience for you right now for heroics, it's good to be used to it -- and not have to start from square one later when you really need to.

Might I suggest a quest chain in Blade's Edge Mountains for Natasha's Battle Chain?

It is easy enough, adds a nice amount of stamina and defense and block value.

Most Prot Paladins tend to go for the 75 Badge chest and the 100 badge legs first (most of the other gear can be from drops in Kara such as http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=28518;source=live,http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=28502;source=live , nice prot boots, etc.)

I am posting from work and don't have time right now to put in the actual links to all of the items here, but if you see a 75 Badge chest and 100 badge legs that look like they were made for a Prot Paladin, they are the right ones :)

There is a pretty nice prot Chest in Kara http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=28597;source=live but it is more for a warrior, as it has no spelldamage on it.

You don't need to be uncrushable (102.4% avoidance) for heroics, so if you want to tank heroics, the best thing to do is keep 490+ defense so you are still uncrittable, and switch a lot of your avoidance gear for gear that has TONS of stamina and some more spelldamage on it. When I am doing Kara, my unbuffed health is probably 12.5K... When I switch to my heroics tanking gear, my unbuffed health is probably 14K. If you like going holy for heroics, it is fine, but if you get a stam necklace http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=34680;source=live for example, and switch to rings that still have some defense but have higher stamina, you can tank heroics just fine too!

Edited, Sep 30th 2008 3:26pm by jeromesimina

Edited, Sep 30th 2008 3:31pm by jeromesimina

Generally as you first hit 70, spelldamage isn't a big deal unless you are tanking a dungeon with people that have much better gear than you do. If you are tanking things with other people who are recently 70, your threat will be sufficient, especially if you give the dps (and maybe even the healer) salvation. If you are tanking with dps/healer that are overgeared compared to you, you all better have Omen and make sure the dps knows when to back off, and be prepared to defend the healer if he gets off one too many crit heals. Also make sure the dps are following the kill order (mark targets with skull, x, star, moon for cc targets, etc.) having them follow your marked kill order will ensure that they are dpsing the target that you have maximum threat on.

For now, stamina and defense are king (you don't even need 102.4% avoidance until you start doing Kara). If you die, generally the party/raid dies, so surviving is paramount. You will gradually get more spelldamage as you gear up, but it takes time. Don't worry about spelldamage yet. Once you get some Kara/Badge gear your spelldamage will just naturally get better and so will your threat because of this.

Once the next patch comes out, prot pallies are supposed to get a conversion of stamina to spelldamage where 1000 stam will give you 300 spelldamage, so this will help as well. Also, from what I have heard, level 80-83 raid bosses don't crush, but I think they may be leaving crushes in if you plan on doing Kara and the level 70 raids, so 102.4% avoidance won't be as necessary in WOTLK, but it still won't hurt you to have that much avoidance.

If you click on my armory link from one of my previous posts in this thread, you will see that I am doing Kara and still only have something like 235 spelldamage, but my groups always have Omen, and they always know how I mark kill order, so it really isn't an issue except when the 13 year old in my guild that has a 70 hunter decides to yell "LEROY JENKINS" and go aggro a whole room in SLabs or something... then it can be kind of a challenge....

Edit: With only base defense and 320 spelldamage at level 69 (or whatever level you were as you wrote your post) and much less stamina than you could potentially have, mobs will stick to you like glue, but they will pound you to a pulp, which generally isn't good :)

Edited, Oct 2nd 2008 4:13pm by jeromesimina