10 poins holy or 10 points retFollow

building up a pally tank, first time using one, i kinda like it. been playin him the pas 5 days or so got him to 35 so far. I have my tree pretty much planned out im just not sure which tree to put 10 points down. Pretty much alls goin prot except for 10, im either going 10 points down holy for divine strenght and improved seal of righteousness... or 10 points down ret for benediction and deflection.


Im just not sure which will be more important at the higher lvls for tanking. Obviously the ret way will be nice, 5% parry and less mana for judgments and seals.. my main mana drain other than consc. But flip side is im not sure how hard it is to hold agro at the higher lvls. Holy dmg is the main agro holder obviously with improved rightous fury, so i would think that having seal of rightousness do even more holy dmg would help you hold agro better.. is that the main seal you have going at higher lvls while tanking as prot? is it worth the mana recduction and parry id lose by not goin ret?

so which way? 10 in holy or 10 in ret?

tnx

Put it into deflection. You can never have enough parry, and as a prot pally you'll eventually try and minimise block and maximise dodge and parry rating. But as you level, you may want to put the points into holy. You'll have to respec at 70 anyway, like what arthoriuss said. the 5% parry will only really matter when you're stacking avoidance getting ready for raiding. With raid buffs and dpsers equiped with salv, threat usually won't be an issue, but survivability as a prot pally always will be something to look at.

As a end game raid MT this is the build that I use:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?tal=0000000000000000000005305033500021025215510503500000000000000000

I get lots of questions about not putting a point into BoK as a prot. spec. the way I see it there is almost always a holy pally in my raid and they spec. for kings so it is a useless point for me to have it.

As for your question I like the ret tree for the extra points for the lower mana cost on judgements. I also like to have the Imp. Crusader for the added 3% crit. that it gives the rest of the party. I only use it for the boss fights but it helps with the overall dps.

No question about it for a pally tank the only aura you should be using is ret. aura it gives you added threat. In end game tanking I use SoR of the trash but on boss fights I use SoV. Really the only blessing you should be using on your self is Sanctuary or maybe Wisdom if you are going OOM alot. Sanctuary give alot of treat when blocking. There is really no need to worry about you mana pool as you get healed it refills, on boss fights my mana pool drops to almost 25% at the start but then never really goes below 50% once the fight is in full swing. On some of the harder hitting bosses I never go below 75%.

Wrong any endgame pally tanking with Devo. Aura up is full of FAIL. The main reason is because shield specialization scales so well, redoubt is by far the better choice. The only reason you should not use Ret. Aura is if some Ret. pally being a total tard took imp. ret aura. Yes it is only 20 tps but it is 20 tps to every mob hitting you that with BoS, conc., and HS threat should never be a problem.



3% crit to dps is huge ask any really dpser going from 25% crit to 28% crit is huge and if any of your dps are going OOM then they are not doing a good job managing there mana, don't use a good pot rotation, are not using MP5 consumables or the fight is tanking to long.

http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t17193-paladin_retribution_dps_theorycraft/

Read Section 3: Effects of Judgments. Look at the level of MP5 produced by each class for the cost of 1 judgment. This means more consistent healing and more consistent DPS. Any class is capable of going OOM if they continue to push DPS to the maximum level. It's a fact of being high end DPS, T5/T6/Sunwell level DPS. Sure, for your heroics it doesn't help, but you said "endgame" not "fresh to 70".


Likewise:




First off, there isn't much logic to saying 1.5% DR is good for bosses but not for when there are multiple mobs attacking you. 20TPS is not enough to overcome the threat associated with a level 50 Druid's regrowth (I know, I have one). The threat is negligible when compared to something like consecrate or Holy shield. However, the damage reduction is flat and impassable.

The damage reduction represents an extension of life which is (as noted in a previous thread) the primary job of any tank. Also, taking less damage is extremely important for anything that is "new content" be it your first heroic or your first raid.

The argument for redoubt (at 70) is that it produces shield specialization. Redoubt, itself, is entirely useless at 70, since it is entirely pushed off the table in any 70 tanking situation past your first 1-2 heroics. Shield Spec is useful insofar as a geared prot pally (I've got one that can tank Kael) has around 300 block value (I'm low at 276). A 30% increase is nice, representing 83 damage from each blocked hit. Devotion Aura, at a 1.5% damage reduction/hit, means that it is better than shield spec. whenever the base damage is >5000 damage (pre-armor) devotion aura represents a greater damage reduction than shield spec at the cost of 3 LESS talent points and 20TPS (I put out around 900 on my pally using Devotion Aura).

5000 damage base hits are what you will normally experience from a heroic instance boss, most raid bosses hitting for around 10k before mitigation. Devotion represents a much more significant decrease in damage taken than Redoubt(which is none) or Shield Spec (which, for bosses, is about 1/2 the damage that Devotion Aura will absorb).

QFT

I'm one of those Prots that run Ret Aura almost exclusively, but there are times that I know the slight armor increase will be of more benefit to me. imo it's just like any of your Resistance Auras: situational, and the more experience you have, the better your knowledge of when you need it and when you don't. If you're not needing it to stay alive, then why the hell use it? Put up Ret and get that extra threat. Yes, it may be a small amount, but we can use all the threat we can get.

ya i overstated this. correction noted.



i play the mana-inefficient frost mage. i've only taken him as far as Kara clears. the only fight where mana is an issue is Prince, which is a tradtional tank n spank spam for casters. but with frostbolt spams my gem/pot rotation is seamless(with an Invis/Evo at 60%). if oom is the issue, that means dps doesn't have the output it should and fight is running too long and chances are your healers are almost out of steam as well.

an argument could be made that with JoW up, battle pots can be substituted to add more dps. but this is a thin argument.

also as with JotC, JoW only affects a portion of the raid...so utility is decreased respectively.

except the fights where melee sucks and you'd leave the Ret at home. or when that Ret hops into tankadin gear and respecs for the fight/instance.

The seal that I use the most for boss fights is seal of vengeance, it does good holy dmg. when judging it plus it puts a DoT on the boss also. Blessing of Sanctuary is really the only blessing I use on my self, at max. rank you get 80 dmg. reduction and 46 holy dmg. every time you block. Wisdom is ok if you are helping with lower lvl content and need the mana regen. But on endgame content you should be getting healed enough that your mana should stay at a decent lvl. only having to drink every 5-6 fights give or take.

TPS is threat per second.

From the things that I have read the one hand Specialization is a must for any pally tank.

There are so many good prot and ret talents that far exceed dumping 10 points in holy for a minor increase in your damage from SoR. Take a look at Losie's new thread, as he goes over all the talents that a tank should get, and optional "Wildcard" talents that you can choose from.

Neither Divine Strength or Divine Intellect is worth it, as neither one of those stats will be high when you are a tankadin. (You don't stack strength and intellect is a stat that just sometimes comes along for the ride). Imp SoR is alright, but it is only a threat increase against your target (and not much at that), and most of the time you will be AoE tanking.

So stop leaning that way... lean the other way.

Prince is a what? 3 minute fight? 4? I've done all of Kara w/ a pair of level 68s as the healers. Most fights after HKM extend to be about twice that length, some even longer. Healers come packed full of MP5 or spirit, their respective regen of choice. DPS doesn't. MP5 is a "wayside" stat to most DPS, not because it isn't useful, but because it has such a high cost in item budget. It is one of the highest cost stats and therefore cannot be stacked by DPS. Spell crit, however, is easily aquired because it is a stat that doesn't scale nearly as sharply. MP5 is wasted in small quantities (under 50) and insane at high quantities (much the same as spell haste, actually).

Try plugging in the MP5 values into a few DPS spreadsheets and see what kind of results you end up with. Do the same with 3% more crit.

Fight w/ Aggro drops give tanks a good chance to rebuild threat, sure, but Hydross and Leo are the exception, not the rule. Aggro drops, complete wipes of the table, are not all that common unless it's a phase change. VR, A'lar, Kael, Morogrim, Lurker, Vashj, and FLK are all fights much longer than Hydross and, with the exception of A'lar, not real rest time. The fights on which JoC is the better choice are the exception, not the rule.