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Wrath of the Paladin: Tanking in the ExpansionFollow

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#1 Dec 12 2008 at 11:35 AM Rating: Excellent
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Contents

~ Introduction
~ Useful Links
~ Introduction to the Attack Table
~ Immunity to Critical Hits
~ Immunity to White Hits / Block Capping
~ Mitigation
~ Maximizing Threat, Stats & Rotations
~ Damage Modifiers
~ DPS, What the #$(*?
~ Talents
~ Pre-Raid Gear & Enchants
(Because it's what you REALLY want)

Introduction

The Burning Crusade opened up the floodgates, unleashing a torrent of Paladin tanks on the unsuspecting World of Warcraft. Many earned their keep through hard work, often having to show others that not only could they handle it, they could excel. Wrath of the Lich King brings with it many changes, and to continue to stand tall as a tanking class we must adapt to these changes. I hope this humble guide will provide some helpful information for Paladins that are trying to get raid-viable again in the new expansion, or even trying to get their foot in the tanking door for the first time. Not only is there new gear to aquire, the mechanics of tanking have changed. Where I had hoped people would seek other resources to learn about the mechanics of tanking for my TBC gear guide, I'll include some of the basic information in this one.

Throughout this guide I make two primary assumptions. I assume that you are not yet geared to enter heroics, though you may be able to handle them with great care. I also assume that you're attempting to gear up to enter heroics or Naxx10, though much of the information provided applies to other raids as well.

Also, please remember that this is a THREAD. Everyone is encouraged to discuss everything here. As we learned in TBC, the wealth of information that community discussion leads to can be just as valuable, if not more valuable than, the initial posts.

Useful Links

Maintankadin Forums
The best source online for information about Paladin tanking, especially theorycrafting and more comlicated information. Also the home of the Asylum, where CBH is just everyday and the hypnotoad will force Lightbeard into epic fail.

Elitist Jerks
Also fairly useful for tanking mechanics in general. There is at least as much false information on Elitist Jerks as there is useful information though. Don't assume anything you read there to be fact.

WoWWiki Instances By Continent
Because most people want to have an idea of what they're up against before getting their face pounded in by it.

Introduction to the Attack Table

Every time a physical attack is attempted by a player or an NPC, the outcome is determined by a single roll that is matched against the attack table, a list of all possible outcomes: 

Miss 
Dodge 
Parry 
Glancing Blow 
Block 
Critical Hit 
Crushing Blow 
White Hit

Now, a mob will never land a Glancing Blow on you, they are strictly for attacks made by you against mobs. Also, only mobs that are at least four levels higher than you can land a Crushing Blow. Since a raid boss is only treated as three levels higher than you, you should never receive a Crushing Blow either. The new table looks like this: 

Miss 
Dodge 
Parry 
Block 
Critical Hit 
White Hit

Each of those possible outcomes has some percentage of a chance of occuring on every attack. The percentages will always total up to 100%, and if you increase the chance of one of the higher outcomes you will decrease the chance of the lowest outcome by the same amount. Meaning, if you increased your Dodge % by 5%, you would reduce the chance of taking a White Hit by 5% so that the total of all outcomes remains 100%. This effect is called being "pushed off the table". We'll touch more on this in the next section.

Miss, Dodge, and Parry are considered "pure avoidence" because either of these outcomes will result in you taking no damage. A Block will reduce the damage you take by your Block Value. Critical Hits are hits for 200% normal damage (when dealt by a mob, not by another player) and are extremely threatening. White Hits are normal hits for standard damage.

Since the outcome is determined by a single roll, it is impossible for two of these outcomes to exist at the same time. For example, it is impossible to Block a Critical Hit. It can be one or the other, but not both at the same time.

Immunity to Critical Hits

We've seen that Critical Hits can be decimating, hitting for 200% of normal damage. Thankfully, we can do something to eliminate them. Defense Skill increases the chance that you'll be Missed, to Dodge, Parry, and Block by 0.04% each. In addition, it reduces the chance that you'll take a Critical Hit by 0.04% for each point. A mob that is the same level as you has a base chance to land a Critical Hit of 5.0%. Since you're gearing up to deal with raid bosses (which are considered three levels higher than you) you actually need to reduce your chance of taking a Critical Hit by 5.6%. It takes an additional 140 Defense Skill to do this.

In other words, to reduce your chance of taking a Critical Hit from a raid boss to 0%, you need a Defense Skill of 540. If you do this, your attack table for incoming hits will look like this: 

Miss 
Dodge 
Parry 
Block 
White Hit

You can also reduce your chance of eating a Critical Hit through the use of resilience. This is not an effective method for a PvE tank to become uncritable. It was acceptable to a certain extent in TBC largely because of the difficulty that gearing up a Warrior or Paladin tank entailed. While it still works, with the ease of obtaining gear in Wrath, one has to ask -- what's the rush? And a tank using resilience to reach crit immunity is rushing. If you're close enough to being immune to Crits to consider using resilience, you're close enough that within 24 hours you can obtain the Defense neccessary to get you there.

Immunity to White Hits / Block Capping

We're tanks. We want to reduce the amount of damage we receive by as much as possible. It's possible to gear so that every damaging hit you take is a Blocked hit, this is called Block Capping. Remember how the entire attack table adds up to 100%? If we were to make the chances of being Missed, Dodging, Parrying, and Blocking equal or surpass 100%, we'd push White Hits right off of the table! Again, since raid bosses are considered three levels higher, 100% isn't quite enough. For them, the magic number is 102.4% combined Block and Avoidence. Since Paladins are the only tank in the game that can reliably be Blocked Capped nearly 100% of the time thanks to Holy Shield -- reaching the block cap means we have the highest effective health of any tank in the game.

In order to achieve this, we stack stats that will raise the chance of an avoidence or block outcome. Where it was once easy to pick-and-choose which stat to take, there's very little choice now. Block Rating is hard to come by (primarily on Tier gear), Parry Rating is highly ineffective. We primarily stack Defense and Dodge Rating. Defense adds to all four of Miss, Dodge, Parry, and Block remember. Dodge Rating only adds to Dodge. Both are comparable in effect, and thanks to the diminishing returns mechanic in place for avoidence, they should ideally be stacked in equal proportions. Also remember that you always have a base chance of being missed of 5% against bossses.

So 540 Defense is vital for getting into raids, and 102.4% combined Block & Avoidence is useful (but not vital). These are good benchmarks to aim for. Don't get flustered trying to get Block Capped before hitting heroics and raids. It won't happen. By the time you're clearing Naxx10 or Naxx25 you should seriously be looking for it. Until we know what Ulduar has to offer, you should treat this as a requirement to start that raid.

How to Calculate Avoidence

Go into your character screen and change the read-out to Defense. The percentages shown for Block, Dodge, and Parry are accurate. Mouse-over your Defense Skill and it will tell you how much it reduces your chance of being hit (At 540 Defense it is 5.6%). This is mostly accurate, but the mouseover ignores diminishing returns. Record all of these numbers, and add -- don't forget your 5% chance to be missed and 30% from Holy Shield.

Example: 
Base Miss:     5.0% 
Defense Miss:  6.0% 
Parry:        14.0% 
Dodge:        20.0% 
Block:        24.0% 
Holy Shield:  30.0%

This person has 99.0% Block & Avoidence and is nearly Block Capped.

Edited, Jan 26th 2009 4:11pm by Losie
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#2 Dec 12 2008 at 11:35 AM Rating: Excellent
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Mitigation

Alright -- so we're Crit Immune and we have a decent bunch of avoidence. Reducing the damage we take doesn't end there. When we actually take a hit, it's important to take as little damage as possible. The first things we turn to are Armor or Resistances. Armor will give a flat percentage reduction of Physical damage (not magic) for all incoming hits. It should be noted that the maximum mitigation that you can achieve through armor is 75%, called the Armor Cap. This shouldn't really apply to us very much, but it certainly makes a big deal to Druid and Death Knight tanks.

Resistances are a little more complicated. They will reduce the damage you take from partially resistable spells, and help keep fully resistable spells from hitting at all. Generally, it's not a good idea to stack Resistances for everyday tanking. You use them to your advantage by having a set of gear with Resistances on it for particular encounters, such as Sapphiron, in which a great deal of magical damage from a particular school is thrown around. Frost resist sets are the primary set in game right now, which is bound to change when Ulduar and further raids open.

We have more in our mitigation ******* than just armor and resistances. As Paladins, we have 12% damage reduction from talented Protection abilities. In a sense, this is being in our "Defensive Stance" as Warrior tanks can relate to. Incidentally, this is double the base-line mitigation that we used to have -- so take advantage of it.

Furthermore, we have our Block Value. Paladin tanks have the highest Block Values in the game. Add to this the fact that we can become reliably Block Capped nearly 100% of the time, and we have the highest effective health of any tank in the game. This is despite the fact that we generally have the lowest HP (by a very slight margin). Healers love a tank with a very flat damage intake that's easy to predict. Take advantage.

There are a few other less-than-reliable methods of damage mitigation. Sacred Shield will absorb a chunk of damage off of any kind of attack (physical or otherwise) once every 6 seconds, but isn't something that you can guarantee will be up at all times. Still, since you can self cast it, you might as well make the old college try. Also, some trinkets have proc effects that create a shield or reduce the damage that you receive from each attack. Generally they aren't great for boss tanking, but they can be awesome for AoEing trash packs down, especially in heroics. Finally, good old Ardent Defender, which is awesome but very specialized and can't be relied upon to keep you alive (despite the fact that it will more often than not).

Maximizing Threat, Stats & Rotations

Being able to take the big hits may be of utmost importance, but what good is it if we can't keep mobs off of everyone else? It's important to do everything we can to maximize our threat output while keeping our survivability up. To do this, we focus on a few key stats and skill rotations. The stats can be broken down into two key groups. Stats that modify the power of one of your abilities, and stats that modify your offensive attack table.

Stats

Stats that increase the power of your abilities are the most important threat stats. These are Spell Power and Attack Power. Each contributes a varying portion of itself to different abilities, and in the end the actual difference is mostly negligible. We get all of the Spell Power that we need through our Stamina. Rather than thinking of this Spell Power as a way to increase threat, consider it more as an equalizer that keeps out threat production on par with the other classes. Strength is far more important. Strength increases our Attack Power and our Block Value. It is then a useful threat stat as well as a mitigation stat. Further, since Shield of Righteousness is based off of our Block Value, Strength increases threat generation in multiple ways.

It is then prudent, when given the choice between Strength and Attack Power, to give favor to Strength unless the Attack Power gained is significantly more than twice the Strength that you could have gained. Spell Power can be entirely neglected. Paladin tanks no longer want, nor need, Spell Power -- beyond what is generated by our Stamina.

Stats that modify your attack table include Hit Rating and Expertise. A raid boss has a 9.0% chance of being missed by your auto-attacks and special attacks that use the physical mechanic. Attacks that miss don't cause threat and don't proc effects (such as seals). If your taunt misses, I hope your Hammer of Justice is up (if the mob can be HoJed) or you may have a dead squishy on your hands. Indeed, to be fully Hit Capped (so you will never score a miss) you will need 295 additional Hit Rating at level 80. Dodges and Parries are much the same. You aren't a physical DPSer, you can't attack from behind. To stop a raid boss from Dodging and Parrying you (for the most part, it's not a hard-cap), you'll need 26 Expertise Skill. I won't calculate how much rating that is because different races have different modifies to expertise, just as there are talents and glyphs that do this as well.

9/6/9 Rotation

We can't just spam a couple of abilities anymore. Modifications to the cooldowns of our abilities and the introduction of two key new abilities must be accounted for. Since these two new abilities, Hammer of the Righteous and Shield of Righteousness, are on six second cooldowns we can adopt a classic ability rotation for maximum threat generation called 9/6/9.

Im not a fan of strict rotations, so Im not going to give you a time line, basically 9/6/9 means you alternate your 9 second and 6 second cooldowns. For the purposes of the rotation you treat Consecration, Judgements, and Holy Shield as 9 second cooldowns. This means you should NOT glyph for Consecration because it will throw off your cooldowns. Consecration will be down for 1 second inbetween every rotation, Judgements will be off cooldown for 1 second (with 2/2 Imp. Judgement) before you cast it (or 0 seconds with 1/2 Imp. Judgement), and Holy Shield will still be up (since it lasts for 10 seconds). That's the key to this rotation, it can keep Holy Shield up 100% of the time, as long as the charges aren't used up. It also lets you use your biggest threat generating abilities, Hammer and Shield, the instant their cooldowns are up every time. Every fourth ability, there is a free cooldown (since there are only 2 @ 6 seconds and 3 at 9) that you can use to throw in Avenger's Shield, Hammer of Wrath, Exorcism, Avenging Wrath, Holy Wrath, hit your MP regen cooldown, Lay on Hands, Sacred Shield or whatever.

It's difficult to describe 9/6/9 without going into a time line, the best way to learn it is just to try it out. It's very intuitive, since every ability fits together nicely, and many pick it up as a habit without knowing that they're doing it. You can get more information on it here:

http://www.failsafedesign.com/maintankadin/viewtopic.php?t=13944

Damage Modifiers

This is how our primary abilities scale with Spell Power, Attack Power, or whatever stat that they scale with. 

Avenger's Shield        -- 07% SP, 07% AP  
Consecration            -- 04% SP, 04% AP  
Exorcism                -- 15% SP, 15% AP 
Hammer of the Righteous -- 4xDPS + 29% AP 
Holy Wrath              -- 07% SP, 07% AP 
Judgement               -- 22% SP, 07% AP 
SoV/SoC                 -- 08% SP, 15% AP each tick per stack 
Holy Shield Does Not Scale

DPS, What the #$(*?

You may have noticed while tanking that you're able to push a very high (by TBC standards) amount of DPS. Sometimes rivalling what you would expect from a T6 DPSer in TBC. This is an element of Blizzard's new tanking mantra. Tanks are supposed to be contributing a very valuable (and possibly extremely neccessary, when we see new raids) chunk of the DPS on a fight. If you look at a DPS graph after a fight, you shouldn't see the DPSers at the top, with a big jump to the tanks, and another big jump to the healers. You should see the DPSers in the lead (uncontested if they're any good) with a smooth taper leading down into the tanks (who should still be at the bottom, but not at HALF the output anymore) and then a big drop down to the healers (if they're even on the graph). It's your responsability to maximize your DPS in addition to everything else, which isn't too hard since that basically means maximizing our threat. This comes very naturally to Paladin tanks, where Death Knights and (to a lesser extent) Warriors have to somewhat gimp their DPS output to generate more threat. At least Warriors increase the damage that the whole group/raid does by using their low-damage threat-generators though.

Edited, Feb 17th 2009 12:43pm by Losie
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#3 Dec 12 2008 at 11:35 AM Rating: Good
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Talents

I'm not going to cover every single talent available to a Paladin. Instead, I'm going to go over all of the vital talents that make a Protection Paladin, and then some of the wildcards that can add flavor to a build.

Vital Talents

Divine Strength (5/5)

Where this talent used to be garbage in the Holy Tree, it excels with the new stat system. 15% more Strength means more attack power and more Block Value. This is an excellent threat and survival talent and lays the foundation for further work in the Protection tree.

Anticipation (5/5)

An additional 5% Dodge is immensely important. Pure avoidence is not the easiest thing to come by with Wrath gear, so this is an absolute must have, very little else needs to be said.

Toughness (5/5)

Another no brainer. We're tanks, and 10% more armor is a major increase that helps every time we take a hit. Furthermore, a 30% reduction to the time of movement slowing effects is huge. We may have a ranged taunt, but we can't afford to be chasing mobs down with snares on us.

Improved Righteous Fury (3/3)

This gives us a straight damage reduction when we're tanking. It may not add to our threat, but without this talent our survivability goes down the toilet. Take it.

Improved Devotion Aura (3/3)

This is from a raid perspective. Sure, in a regular group you might not always have Devotion Aura up, but when you have other Paladins with their own specialized aura up and up to 24 other people all taking AoE damage, the healers will LOVE an increase to their healing raid-wide. This is a must have for serious raiding tanks.

Blessing of Sanctuary (1/1)

Since the change to Blessing of Santuary, it has become the primary tanking blessing. Reduced damage and mana regeneration, this is what makes our job possible in conjunction with Righteous Fury.

Sacred Duty (2/2)

We have less base HP than Warriors. Take everything you can that give us more value from our Stamina. And this is a big bonus.

One-Handed Weapon Specialization (5/5)

Lots of new tanks don't understand this talent. It does not increase your one handed damage, it increases ALL of your damage when you have a one hander equipped. This is amazing, and adds oodles to your threat potential. This is absolutly vital.

Holy Shield (1/1)

Holy Shield is the ability that lets us reach the block cap reliably. Not only that, it generates a good deal of threat. Sure, it might not be the core Paladin ability anymore, but it's still the most important thing to keep up 100% of the time while tanking.

Ardent Defender (5/5)

There's lots of talk about just how much Ardent Defender helps. It's the unsung hero of Paladin tanking. It WILL save you. It probably has saved you hundreds of times if you've been running with it. You just can't really tell because there's no visible sign of it working other than not dying. People have given it up before in favor of threat generating talents, but any serious tank would put a lot of thought into that.

Redoubt (3/3)

The increased chance to block proc is not a huge factor in taking Redoubt. Sure, it helps when you aren't block capped but you can't rely on a proc to get you there. The real value of this talent comes in the 30% increase to Block Value. That adds piles of mitigation and threat, and scales nicely with Strength.

Combat Expertise (3/3)

Increased Stamina & Expertise? Yes please! Same reason you take Sacred Duty for Stamina, you need all you can get. And the Expertise makes reaching 24 Expertise Skill much easier.

Touched By the Light (3/3)

This is an absolutly 100% vital talent. This generates Spell Power out of Stamina. It's what keeps our threat generation on par with that of the other classes while using gear that is not tailored for spell casters. You won't get anywhere without it.

Avenger's Shield (1/1)

Being able to front-load a large amount of threat on up to three targets (or a huge amount on one with a glyph) is an amazing ability. It's also instant-cast and can be thrown in combat for a healthy bit of threat as part of your regular rotation, or as a snare to slow your mob down. Furthermore, it is required for a vital talent in the next tier.

Guarded by the Light (2/2)

Not only does this talent increase your mana longevity, it gives you a nice healthy 6% reduction to all spell damage taken. You may have oodles of armor but it won't help against spells. Take it.

Shield of the Templar (3/3)

Another vital talent, Shield of the Templar further reduces all damage that you take, much like Blessing of Sanctuary and Improved Righteous Fury. Also, it increases the damage of all of your shield abilities. Since they're all nice threat generators, 30% more damage is a huge threat boost.

Hammer of the Righteous (1/1)

This is one of your most powerful threat generating tools against up to three targets. It's an attack that deals Holy Damage on a six second cooldown to up to three targets. Based on your weapon's DPS, it allows you to pump out huge threat from a conventional DPS/Tanking weapon rather than a low-DPS caster weapon with Spell Power.

Deflection (5/5)

This talent in the Retribution tree is similar to Anticipation. It adds 5% Parry, pure avoidence, straight to your defenses. The value of this is staggaring.

Improved Judgements (1/2)

At least one point is needed in Improved Judgements in order to fit Judgements into the 9/6/9 casting rotation. Without it, you'd have a lot of time where there's simply nothing you can use because all of your abilities are on cooldown. Ideally, you want to always be casting something, and you need this to do that.

Wildcard Talents

Blessing of Kings (5/5)

I like to treat Blessing of Kings as a single talent rather than 2. Holy Paladins will skip it 90% of the time, but it is a cornerstone talent of the cookie-cutter Ret build. This means that in a raid you will almost always have a Ret who can cast it. Yes, Santuary is a more powerful buff to have on the tank. No, Kings isn't "all that". Yes, Kings is a buff that you want to make damned sure you have available for a raid. No, Kings is not a buff that you want to make damned sure you have available for 5 mans. If you want it in 5 mans and PvP, grab it... Otherwise you probably won't get much use out of it unless you don't have a 100% reliable Ret.

Stoicism (3/3)

Probably one of the more important wildcard talents, Stoicism reduces stuns by 30%! When you're stunned you can't Block, Dodge, or Parry. Nor can you move our of damaging AoE or position yourself for boss mechanics. The value of this talent is immense. Even then, making sure the raid has Kings available is a bigger deal (despite the fact that it's probably no longer your responsability). It falls down to group makeup, and you just might not have the points for Stoicism.

Improved Hammer of Justice (3/3)

This will reduce your Hammer of Justice cooldown to half. It's actually pretty valuable in heroics and raids against trash mobs when you're AoE tanking. You can effectively remove one of the mobs from the fight every thirty seconds. The downside is, most trash fights still aren't long enough for more than one cooldown to reset, and bosses are all immune.

Judgements of the Just (2/2)

This is extremely powerful. Frankly, it is my opinion that this is a MUST HAVE talent, despite the fact that many people feel differently. You always want to have a slow up on the target, especially bosses. Always. Yes, other classes can put up slows as well. The fact is that if you have more than one tank in a raid, presumably the other tank(s) are busy taking care of their own @#$(. That means you can't rely on them to slow your mobs for you. Nor can you rely on DPSers to gimp themselves to do it. Every tank now has the ability to slow attacks, and for a good reason. It's our responsability. Just take the damned talent.

Improved Judgements (2/2)

Okay... so, the 2nd point in Improved Judements is a wildcard. It doesn't fit in the 9/6/9 rotation, but like I say... I don't subscribe to strict rotations, and if I want to break my rotation to re-judge a mob (lets say they resisted my Judgements of the Just proc) a second earlier is great. Personally, I only take 1/2, but to each their own.

Seals of the Pure (5/5)

This Holy talent is a meagre boost to threat generation. While it's not much, it's more than Conviction has to offer from the Ret tree. A decent candidate for a Wild Card.

Unyielding Faith (2/2)

Paladin tanks and healers already get #1 priority for Fear Wards and a single Shammie of any spec can provide the same benefit reliably. While it may have uses, it's generally not neccessary.

Benediction

Benediction is usually taken to get enough points in Retribution to grab Conviction. If you need the mana-longevity, you're doing it wrong. Really.

Conviction

5% crit will generate a little less threat than Seals of the Pure. Not a significant amount less, but it does. It can be useful for off-healing (as Prot.. nice) or to get you deeper into Ret for some reason... otherwise Seals of the Pure is generally a better Wild Card.

Sample Builds

Coming soon

Edited, Jan 26th 2009 4:39pm by Losie
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#4 Dec 12 2008 at 11:35 AM Rating: Excellent
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Pre-Raid Gear & Enchants

Here it is, the big list! The only reason that 90% of the people reading this thread care about it :D My usual M.O. applies. I didn't include EVERYTHING, just things that I consider easy to obtain or WORTH working on obtaining. This means that if something takes as much effort to obtain as another piece, but is really worse or a cross-grade at best, it probably isn't included. I comment about heroic/raid pieces, but I don't include any in the list. As always, please discuss -- this is a THREAD and the wealth of information that discussion leads to is as valuable as the initial post.

Head

The Crusader's Resolution (Quest: Icecrown)
Tempered Saronite Helm (Craftable BoE: Blacksmithing)
Helm of the Ley-Guardian (Eregos: Oculus Drop)
Tempered Titansteel Helm (Craftable BoE: Blacksmithing)
Armored Titanium Goggles (Craftable BoP: Engineering)

Engineers will almost certainly want to make their Goggles ASAP. For everyone else, the Tempered Titansteel Helm is certainly the front runner, but if you don't want to drop the money/time on mats for it, the Crusader's Resolution is the traditional standby. It may be helpful to have a Tempered Saronite Helm for the oodles of Defense if you're having trouble getting capped.

Enchants:
The Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector (37 STA/27 Def) is the primary choice. Stick a Borean Armor Kit on it until you have Argent Crusade Rep.

Neck

Betrayer's Choker (Quest: Zul'drak)
Amulet of Deflected Blows (Skadi: Pinnacle Drop)
Burning Skull Pendant (Trash BoE: Gundrak)
Titanium Earthguard Chain (Craftable BoE: Jewelcrafting)

Craftables win the day again. The Earthguard Chain is just amazing. Failing the multiple thousands of gold that it will set you back (or prevent you from making) the Burning Skull Pendant is also excellent. Remember, Block Value is our bread-and-butter now (amazing change from TBC, eh?) so take advantage of it. The Betrayer's Choker is SO easy to get WAY before 80 and has a hawt gem slot for customization. It's a great piece to start with.

Shoulder

Tundra Pauldrons (Quest: The Nexus)
Tempered Saronite Shoulders (Craftable BoE: Blacksmithing)
Pauldrons of Reconnaissance (Quest: Halls of Stone)
Wapach's Spaulders of Solidarity (BoE: World Drop)

It's amazing how you can easily get ahold of epics these days eh? Wapach's Spaulders will last you well into raiding, dare I say their first significant competition comes in Naxx25 (with tons of cross-grades in Naxx10). Again, failing that -- the Tempered Saronite Shoulders are fantastic and many tanks start raiding in them. There's a heroic piece in Gundrak that's a valuable upgrade, but not neccessary. The Tundra Pauldrons just look badass if you're too lazy to farm/buy mats for the Saronite ones.

Enchants:
The Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle (20 Dodge/15 Defense) or the regular version (15 Do/10 De) from the Sons of Hodir are the standard here. Again, Borean armor until you have the rep -- unless you got Aldor/Scryer exalted in TBC... Then use their inscriptions.

Cloak

Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions (Rep Reward: Wyrmrest Honored)
Flowing Cloak of Command (Salramn: Stratholme Drop)
Screeching Cape (Erekem: Violet Hold Drop)
Durable Nerubhide Cape (Craftable BoE: Leatherworking)

The Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions is the first choice here. Lots of Defense to reach the cap and overall a nice piece. Wyrmrest honored can be attained without championing any instances, though it may speed it up if you blew through Dragonblight or grinded to 80. The Nurubhide Cape, while epic, lacks Defense. It's aimed primarily at Druids.. though if you have tons of extra Defense (not likely... at least not THAT much, and if you do -- you probably didn't factor in that you're going to lose LOTS when you upgrade out of that Tempered Saronite and Daunting junk) you might consider it.

Enchants:
Titanweave is the best choice at the moment (16 Def). If you can't afford Titanweave, Steelweave is still useful (12 Def). Though there are other options, they aren't very valuable to a tank and since at this gear-level Defense is a big issue, it's probably not a contest.

Chest

Tempered Saronite Breastplate (Craftable BoE: Blacksmithing)
Silver-Plated Battlechest (Quest: Pinnacle)
Reanimated Armor (Gortok: Pinnacle Drop)
Breastplate of the Solemn Council (Rep Reward: Wyrmrest Revered)
Icebane Chestguard (Craftable BoE: Blacksmithing)

The Tempered Saronite Breastplate is the easiest to obtain, but anyone who was heroic-capable in TBC already has a better level 70 chest. Great for new players though. The Silver-Plated Battlechest is my pick for instance pieces (instance quest in this case) since you're guaranteed to get it if you clear Pinnacle, no drop rate. Solemn Council seems to be the popular pick, but WILL require championing for the Wyrmrest Accord. Icebane is actually a cross-grade to the Tier 7 chest (and actually is 13 item levels higher than it) and can be used with clever gemming and enchants.

Enchants:
There are a few options for the chest. First, Greater Defense (+22 Def) is incredible for reaching the cap. Also, since Defense gems come in 16s and Stamina in 24s, you get more value by enchanting Greater Defense and then using a Stamina gem elsewhere. Super Health (+275 HP) and Super Stat (+8 Each Stat) are the major rivals. Remember that Super Health is not modified by Stamina modifying abilities/talents and a 24 Stamina gem is worth much more effective health to us.

Wrist

Tempered Saronite Bracers (Craftable BoE: Blacksmithing)
Svala's Bloodied Shackles (Svala: Pinnacle Drop)
Bracers of Reverence (Quest: Oculus)

I'm fond of Svala's Bloodied Shackles for the pre-heroic gear level on bracers. The Tempered Saronite Bracers are nice for new players, but again -- anyone who spent time in TBC heroics or was able to down Attuman in Kara will have better bracers already.

Enchants:
Most of the options for bracer enchants were made obsolete by patch 3.0.8. Major Defense (+12 Defense) is still the clear choice when you require Defense to get crit immune. After that, the effective health provided by Major Stamina (+40 Stamina) far outweighs the other options.

Hands

Daunting Handguards (Craftable BoE: Blacksmithing)
Refined Ore Gloves (Trash BoE: Halls of Stone)
Gauntlets of the Disturbed Giant (Quest: Nexus)
Fireproven Gauntlets (Rep Reward: Kirin Tor Exalted)

The Fireproven Gauntlets are amazing, but will require excessive championing. You probably won't reach Kirin Tor Exalted before you're ready to hit heroics. The Daunting Handguards are the next best thing. They're extremely easy to obtain and offer craptons of Defense.

Enchants:
Armsman (+2% Threat/+10 Parry Rating) is the major player here. If it's too expensive you're probably best off sticking Borean Armor on.

Waist

Tempered Saronite Belt (Craftable BoE: Blacksmithing)
Waistguard of the Risen Knight (Trash BoE: Drak'Tharon)
Icebane Girdle (Craftable BoE: Blacksmithing)

Tempered Saronite wins this match-up, especially with a belt socket added. The ease of obtaining one far outweighs any minor boosts from other options. Icebane is again very useful (and ilevel 213 again) if you gem/enchant strategically.

Enchants:
Wow, we can enchant belts now, kinda. Stick a Belt Buckle on this sucker and get a freebie gem socket. Gem to taste. Easy, eh?

Legs

Special Issue Legplates (Rep Reward: Argent Crusade Honored)
Daunting Legplates (Craftable BoE: Blacksmithing)
Void Sentry Legplates (Zuramat: Violet Hold Drop)

Daunting Legplates SHOULD be the standard by which others are measured. The Special Issue Legplates hold this honor for some screwed up reason. Both are extremely easy to get and at this gearing level you almost certainly get more value out of the dungheap of Defense on the Dauntings. Also, you don't need to worry about upgrading into new pants and losing Defense later, because the next upgrade is from Heroic Violet Hold and offers more than 80 Defense Rating as well.

Enchants:
Frosthide Leg Armor (+55 STA/+22 AGI) is the only thing really worth mentioning. If you can't afford it, get the baby version -- Jormungar Leg Armor (+45 STA/+15 AGI). Expect to upgrade to Frosthide either when you have money or when you get the Heroic VH pants, because it's a big upgrade.

Feet

Tempered Saronite Boots (Craftable BoE: Blacksmithing)
Tempered Titansteel Treads (Craftable BoE: Blacksmithing)
Toxin-Tempered Sabatons (Rep Reward: Ebon Blade Honored)
Sabatons of Draconic Vigor (Rep Reward: Wyrmrest Revered)
Slaughterhouse Sabatons (Meathook: Stratholme Drop)

Tempered Titansteel wins another category. Again, if you don't want to shell out that kind of cash, the Tempered Saronite Boots are available immediatly and have good value. The rep reward boots are grat too, but Wyrmrest Accord Revered will require some instance grinding (not much) at 80, and Ebon Blade seems to be the most neglected rep of all. People don't champion it because you can get Ebon Blade rep from Icecrown dailies while championing someone else. If you've got it, great.

Enchants:
Greater Fortitude (+22 STA) and Tuskarr's Vitality (+15 STA/Minor Run Speed) are the main choices. Tuskarr's Vitality is expensive, but the speed boost can really save the day with the highly mobile fights in Wrath. If you can't afford either yet, Borean Armor Kit ftw.

Weapon

Blade of the Empty Void (Quest: Icecrown)
Hammer of Quiet Mourning (Quest: Zul'drak)
Sword of Heartwrenching Slaughter (Quest: Zul'drak)
Reaper of Dark Souls (Rep Reward: Ebon Blade Revered)
Titansteel Bonecrusher (Craftable BoE: Blacksmithing)

The Zul'drak quest rewards and Icecrown quest reward are almost identical. I'd give preference to the Hammer of Quiet Mourning because the itemization is slightly (read: barely) better for Paladins -- and it's a mace. Geez, we've gotta keep the mace torch alive as long as we can, afterall -- there's a bloody AXE for tanking in Naxx25. The Titansteel Bonecrusher is an AMAZING threat/DPS weapon. It's better for threat generation than anything you'll get up to Naxx10. The Naxx25 tanking weapons will take it for a ride though.

Enchants:
Accuracy (+25 Hit/Crit Ratings) or any of the various enchants that increase Attack Power, like the entire Potency chain. Basically, enchant to increase DPS and threat. What you choose will depend on what you need. I suppose a weapon chain isn't a total waste either.. but, probably not as desireable.

Shield

Saronite Bulwark (Craftable BoE: Blacksmithing)
Titansteel Shield Wall (Craftable BoE: Blacksmithing)
Riot Shield (Xevozz: Violet Hold Drop)
Leeka's Shield (Mal'Ganis: Stratholme Drop)

If there was a single Titansteel piece that you were going to make, I'd suggest it be the shield. It's amazing. Of course, the Saronite Bulwark is cheap and super easy to get to hold you if you'd rather run Heroic Stratholme a few times for that shield (or get the badge shield). The Riot Shield seems popular, probably because Violet Hold is a popular instance. It's just nice to have an epic shield to start heroics with if possible. Remember, take advantage of all of the Block Value that you can, it's a Paladin's best friend.

Enchants:
Defense (+20 Defense), Major Stamina (+18 STA), and Titanium Plating (+40 Block Value) are the front runners for Shield enchants. I suggest Defense if you need it, and Titanium Plating if you don't. 40 raw Block Value is just insane.

Fingers

Tooga's Lost Toenail (BoE: World Drop)
Gal'darah's Signet (Gal'darah: Gundrak Drop)
Staunch Signet (Quest: Oculus)
Solid Platinum Band (Quest: Gundrak)
Titanium Earthguard Ring (Craftable BoE: Jewelcrafting)
Signet of the Accord (BoE: Sartharion)

So.. if you have the money the choice is fairly clear. The Earthguard and Accord are an amazing pair (and the Earthguard can be gemmed). They'll set you back around 10,000 gold on most realms at the moment though. For more realistic or frugal tanks, the Staunch Signet and Gal'darah's Signet make a great pair. You'll notice that I didn't include the Blue quality Jewelcrafter ring, because it's GOD AWEFUL FOR PALADIN TANKS AT THIS GEAR LEVEL. Leave it for the Druids, you'll need Defense.

Trinkets

Seal of the Pantheon (Loken: Halls of Lightning Drop)
Figurine - Monarch Crab (Craftable BoP: Jewelcrafting)
Figurine - Ruby Hare (Craftable BoP: Jewelcrafting)
Indestructible Alchemist's Stone (Craftable BoP: Alchemy)

I'm hoping to expand this section in the near future. The Seal of the Pantheon is great for all tanks, but the best others come from professions and they're BoP. Jewelcrafters can make an amazing pair of trinkets in the Monarch Crab and Ruby Hare. I actually have a Ruby Hair with Defense gems sitting in my bags that I use while tanking the first boss in the Arachnid wing of Naxx25/Naxx10, it makes escaping the swarm easy. Gimmick trinket? Maybe. The Alchemist's Stone has no Defense or gem slots, which makes lots of Alchemist tanks sad pandas. It's a great Druid trinket though, amazing one might say. There are some good trinkets in heroics, so don't worry too much if you can only find a couple options pre-heroic.

Librams

Venture Co. Libram of Protection (Venture Coins: Grizzly Hills)

Really, until you can get the Libram of Obstruction with heroic badges, who cares what you use? This one will give you a bit of oomph for your shield, and a DPS/threat boost with it.

Edited, Feb 17th 2009 12:46pm by Losie
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#5 Dec 12 2008 at 12:02 PM Rating: Good
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Losie,

Great write-up. Glad to see your post back.

One side note: Maybe include the fact that you can add some resilence to reach the 5.6% crit-immune instead of relying completely on DEF.

EDIT: Thanks for the blurb about RES. I know it's not as good as DEF, but just wanted to mention it ;)

Edited, Dec 12th 2008 10:36pm by dwarorc
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#6 Dec 13 2008 at 2:53 AM Rating: Good
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Thanks for the write up...it's appreciated.

I was looking at the Titansteel Bonecrusher but wasn't sure if it was an appropriate upgrade. I'm currently sitting at something like 558 defense and 93% (w/ Holy Shield, ofc) avoidance and I'm using the sword from the Ragemane quest in Zul'Drak. There's a bit of avoidance on the sword but I doubt so much that I'd be gimping myself if I want for something with a bit more punch for threat.

I peaked at 4700 tps on Meathook in reg CoT: Strat tonight...then bottomed out at 1800 tps on a fair chunk of heroic VH shortly after (and I did double check to ensure I had Righteous Fury up).

Pally dps is obscene by TBC standards. On most runs I sit somewhere in the 1100-1200 range, and if I remember to use Avenging Wrath often, I've pushed upwards of 1400 dps over the course of a run.

(Now if only I could find dps who consistently outstrip me on the end-of-run Recount report >.<)
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#7 Dec 13 2008 at 6:01 AM Rating: Good
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There's also Leeka's Shield which is in the chest at the end of regular Stratholme.
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#8 Dec 13 2008 at 10:18 AM Rating: Excellent
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I loved the Bonecrusher until I got Broken Promise off of the four horsemen. Without changing anything else (the way you play or other gear) it will easily let you generate about 100-200 more DPS than the Icecrown/Zul'drak Blues and around 100 more DPS than the sword from Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle. Of course the sacrifice is defense stats. I used it where being more survivable really isn't a big issue.. heroics, 10 mans, and even a large chunk of Naxx25. I did swap out for the Pinnacle sword for a couple bosses.

With Broken Promise I get *almost* the same overall damage, maybe slightly less -- but huge tank-stats bonuses that I can't really ignore. It looks way better too. Swords always seem to look so amazing compared to maces, which are little more than stumps sitting on your hand. We havn't seen Last Laugh drop in Naxx25 yet but I'm certain that you could match or beat the Titansteel Bonecrusher's DPS with it and still have Defense on your weapon. On the other hand, my Axe skill is 1/400 and I don't feel like having to imp it right now.... Damn tanking axes...
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#9 Dec 13 2008 at 10:48 AM Rating: Excellent
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Stickified!
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#10 Dec 13 2008 at 11:02 AM Rating: Excellent
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Thanks Wordaen :D
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#11 Dec 14 2008 at 1:49 AM Rating: Good
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Losie wrote:
I loved the Bonecrusher until I got Broken Promise off of the four horsemen. Without changing anything else (the way you play or other gear) it will easily let you generate about 100-200 more DPS than the Icecrown/Zul'drak Blues and around 100 more DPS than the sword from Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle. Of course the sacrifice is defense stats. I used it where being more survivable really isn't a big issue.. heroics, 10 mans, and even a large chunk of Naxx25. I did swap out for the Pinnacle sword for a couple bosses.


I went from a pretty consistant 1100-1200 dps in dungeons to 1400-1500 after I upgraded to the Titansteel Bonecrusher today. I'm still not using AW nearly as often as I could be, but it's going to be the next thing I try to work into my rotation.

I got rid of my Glyph of Consecrate today and noticed that my standard rotation got a lot more fluid. Threat still seems to be all over the place, but for the content I'm running I think I can afford to be looking at hit and expertise with a bit more emphasis on making sure that the rotation I'm already using is getting the full effect more often.

The one thing I'm noticing, however, is the dire shortage of glyphs for protection pallies. I haven't seen a Glyph of Vengeance on my realm yet. I'm not sure any of the scribes have discovered it. Right now my paladin is running with Judgement and Righteous Defense...no 3rd major glyphs, no minor glyphs at all. I'd like to see a little more love for prot pallies with a future patch in terms of glyphs, but in the meantime I'll keep my eyes peeled for whatever I can get.
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#12 Dec 14 2008 at 1:41 PM Rating: Excellent
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First, I updated the guide because I must have been thinking of a boss' chance to crit when I wrote the section on hit capping. I said you need to make up 5.6% to hitcap for physical attacks when I meant to write 9.0%. Hopefully I don't run into any more of these stupid mix ups :D
==============================
That's a nice boost to DPS I'd say, especially for a single upgrade.

I'm planning on adding a section on glyphs in the near future but it wasnt a really high priority because glyphs aren't really a vital component of Paladin tanking, though many can help.

I'm personally using Judgement, Vengeance, Righteous Defense, and Detect Undead. I can't remember the other two minor glyphs but they're totally trivial. Detect Undead seems to be valuable on the whole. I pushed 2300 DPS (AoE included) in the waves section (first 2 bosses) of heroic Stratholme last night. The only non-undead targets in that section are the Necromancers, Master Necromancers, and Acolytes (which total up maybe 10 kills over the various waves) so the vast majority of that damage was against undead targets. It's not hard to believe that the glyph was pulling in ~20 DPS for me overall. Not amazing, but for a minor glyph? Considering it even adds to damage at all is amazing.

With Vengeance, I find I'm at or around the soft-cap for expertise, anywhere from 21 to 24 depending on what other gear I have on. Expertise is really the last of the threat/dps stats to focus on extensively and it's worth way more to hitcap at the expense of a bit of expertise... but it's nice to not really have to worry about it to a great extent.

I can't bring myself to replace Judgement with Avenger's Shield. It provides more DPS against bosses if you spam Avenger's Shield as part of your rotation, but looking at it from a min/max standpoint -- NOT glyphing will provide you with more overall damage (the majority of fights are not boss fights) as long as you have three targets, a multi-target slow, and a way of grabbing snap threat on multiple targets if surprises happen. Add to that a three-target ranged taunt and there's just too much synergy with other Paladin abilities for me to justify glyphing it.
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#13 Dec 14 2008 at 8:47 PM Rating: Excellent
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I added a little blurb in the threat section about judging Light. It's of immense importance that the tank ALWAYS judges Light (with the possible exception being 5 mans where threat is nothing and mana is a global problem). Light produces immense amounts of threat, and it scales with group size. In 25 man raids, it gets into the thousands TPS. It's what lets us sustain insane threat amounts, like 7000 TPS for a minute at a time.
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#14 Dec 14 2008 at 10:52 PM Rating: Good
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Losie wrote:
I added a little blurb in the threat section about judging Light. It's of immense importance that the tank ALWAYS judges Light (with the possible exception being 5 mans where threat is nothing and mana is a global problem). Light produces immense amounts of threat, and it scales with group size. In 25 man raids, it gets into the thousands TPS. It's what lets us sustain insane threat amounts, like 7000 TPS for a minute at a time.


That's exactly the kind of information I've been looking for. I've found that while solo, I prefer to judge Wisdom. As a result, the habit is to continue judging wisdom in dungeons, but I'm noticing my tps is anything but consistent. I know enough to understand that different situations will result in adjusted TPS values as reported by Omen, but when I can do 4k tps on day on a fairly consistent basis and the next day I struggle to break 2k tps, I know there's a problem.

I'll make a point of judging Light on my next few dungeon runs to see how it goes. We've got some guildie caster dps that are starting to catch up to me in tps (still not close enough to be concerning, but I like to be a big step ahead ;D). Given my current gear level and the content I'm spending most of my time in (reg level 80 dungeons for 76-80 guildies and lower difficulty heroics), 7k tps is an insane number to me (my SoR still has yet to break 7k damage on a crit). I'm getting there, though, and I'm grateful for the information :D
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#15 Dec 14 2008 at 11:46 PM Rating: Good
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We actually had a 2nd Paladin tank with us in Naxx25 the last time and he was the #1 hateful tank on Patchwerk (he had the most HP of the hateful tanks). Right as we pulled, he had an emergency so I told him to Judge Light, take care of it (and refresh the judgement if he could) and then come back. He must have found the time to refresh it because he was gone a good minute at least -- but when he got back he was just a hair ahead of all of the DPSers for threat and effectively the only thing he was using was hit auto-attack, a seal, and Judgement of Light.

I knew that Light accounted for a huge portion of our threat, but I couldn't put a quantifiable number to it until then. And it only scales as the group gets larger.
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#16 Dec 15 2008 at 3:15 AM Rating: Good
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Was going through your list Losie, and I should add it's great for getting people on their way to some Heroics/raids. I did notice 1 piece however that I found very easy to get that you don't have listed: Pauldrons of Reconnaissance. It's a from a Halls of Stone quest title, well, Halls of Stone :) If I remember correctly it starts in the instance. Easy dungeon, guaranteed piece of gear, and a good one at that.
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#17 Dec 17 2008 at 2:11 AM Rating: Good
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I like guaranteed gear :D No one has anything to fuss about going after guaranteed gear. Thanks!

As for other updates, I've been working on pruning out some of the useless flavor text through the whole thing and adding more sub-divisions to break up the text. There's just so much stuff in there, I don't want it to feel like a wall of text.
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#18 Dec 17 2008 at 4:10 PM Rating: Good
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I managed to overcome my habit of judging Wisdom while tanking heroics and have had good results. Definitely an overall increase in threat...I peaked at 5700 tps on the floating eye demon in heroic VH. Still not seeing the consistency in threat that I would like, but I've been squeezing in extra +hit and expertise where I can (finally found a Glyph of Seal of Vengeance on auction not 5 mins ago). That puts my expertise at 27 w/ SoV active and my hit rating is somewhere around 108.

I just joined a new guild and within 15 mins of joining was off to my first Naxx10 run. OT'd the Spider wing and was given the 1h mace from Maexxna. Same weapon dps as my Titansteel Bonecrusher but 1.6 speed instead of 2.6. I'm curious to see how that impacts my threat.
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#19 Dec 17 2008 at 6:18 PM Rating: Good
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It shouldn't really have any big change on threat from weapon speed alone, though I don't have the other stats handy. Now, if you had the entire raid upgrade to a faster weapon you WOULD have a threat increase from Judgement of Light (the Judgement is a flat % chance, the Seal is a Proc-per-minute). If you noticed an increase in 5 mans, multiply the difference by 4-6 to get an idea of how much of a difference it'll make in 25 mans.

That's alot of Expertise, which is okay. The reason Expertise is said to "soft-cap" at 24 is because after 24 each point becomes half as effective. That's when Dodge is eliminated (ie. if you were attacking from behind you'd be set), but a boss still has a good chance of parrying. It's unrealistic to think one can reach the true Expertise cap without major sacrifices -- and being as Expertise is only half as effective after 24 it's far better to stack something that still has full effectiveness.

If you're hitting 5700 TPS you're in a very nice spot. You can proudly say that you're generating more threat than could possibly matter at this point. Even if we call that 4000 TPS consistently, a DPSer would have to do between 4000 and 6000 DPS consistently to rival that (depending on class). 4000 is conceivable right now with ideal conditions and clever use of cooldowns, but I doubt you have to worry about anyone pulling consistent 6000 DPS strings for a little while still.
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#20 Dec 17 2008 at 8:45 PM Rating: Good
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It's been a busy night. 1 hour after Naxx10, I was in Naxx25. Guild first downing of Instructer Rasuvius and Gothik the Harvester before we ran out of time after 2 wipes on 4 Horsemen. I was given a fantastic new set of epic legs which promptly got a Frosthide Armor Kit.

As the only pally tank in the guild (huzzah!) I was also given the Libram of Resurgence...+141 spell damage to Consecrate. I figure I'll hang onto it for low damage AoE pulls as an alternative to my Libram of Obstruction.

I placed 11th overall on the damage meter and my threat was going between 3.5-6k, depending on the situation and the length of the fight.

I'm loving pally tanking in WotLK raid content. Still lots of room to improve my gear but I held my own fairly well and it's tons of fun :D

Edit: Almost forgot...

Aside from getting a full 5-stack of Vengeance on a target a wee bit quicker, Maexxna's Femur boosts my avoidance by almost %0.5 at the expense of 26 stamina. My own opinion on it is that it's about an equal tradeoff. I'm sitting just over 96% avoidance w/ Holy Shield. Being the only pally tank in the guild atm I would expect to have a spot in a lot more raids than if I were a warrior tank or even a feral druid (we've got 2 of each atm).

Unbuffed I'm at 24.3k health and 22.3k armor (w/o Devotion). I've seen warrior tanks with 30k health unbuffed already, and my new guild's warrior MT sits at just over 26k unbuffed, so I know I've got a ways to go but so far what I have has been adequate.

Another go at Naxx25 tomorrow night with 4 Horsemen first on the list...can't wait :D

Edited, Dec 17th 2008 8:54pm by AureliusSir
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#21 Dec 17 2008 at 10:45 PM Rating: Good
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A Warrior tank with 30k HP totally unbuffed is doing it wrong. They're making way too many sacrifices for EH if a Warrior has more than about 28k. Grats on the new gear :D

Also.. there are only 3 Librams in the game right now that are epic ilevel 213+ and your new one is one of them. They are all relatively poor tanking librams, but you need one of them to get the Epic achievement :D That achiement is the biggest bunch of fail ever. Even worse for DK sigils.
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#22 Dec 18 2008 at 8:22 AM Rating: Excellent
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If you already have the needed defense rating, this trinket:

http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=37872;source=live (Lavanthor, Heroic VH)
is ridiculous. (In a very GOOD way!)

Edited, Dec 18th 2008 11:23am by jeromesimina
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#23 Dec 18 2008 at 10:46 AM Rating: Good
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Holy hell, I havn't even seen that trinket browsing through loot tables before. It'd be amazing for pushing yourself to the Block Cap, and I think I'd finally be able to get an 11k Shield crit with that thing active.

I'm going to look into information on the cooldown since it's not in the tooltip and definitly add it later :D Thanks.
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#24 Dec 18 2008 at 11:26 AM Rating: Excellent
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Losie,

If I remember correctly, it is active for 20 seconds and has a 2 minute cooldown. The 74 block rating is a huge increase in your chance to block (4.51%), and yes, with the Libram of Obstruction and that trinket active, SoR crits are off the charts.

This trinket makes figurine of the colossus look like a kid's toy.

Also, everyone probably already knows about or has this trinket:
http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=36993;source=live (Loken, regular HoL)

But the Seal of the Pantheon makes it MUCH easier to stay over 540 defense and strictly gem/enchant for threat or effective health. (Use also has 2 minute cooldown on this one.)

Edited, Dec 18th 2008 3:18pm by jeromesimina

Edited, Dec 18th 2008 3:19pm by jeromesimina
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#25 Dec 18 2008 at 9:20 PM Rating: Good
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I did a spec tweak last night after Naxx25 to adjust for some things that were problematic (namely, mana issues as OT and I put 1 pt into Improved Judgements to smooth out my rotation.)

That 1 second off the Judgement cooldown seems to make a huge difference. It's difficult at this point to assess what impact it had on my tps, but it definitely made my rotation more manageable. I still can't quite manage to sync my Judgements to line up with a SoR every time, but I spend a lot less time waiting on cooldowns at the end of my rotation and find that I get a lot less overlap in cooldowns becoming available all at the same time.

Also, T7.5 chest is teh zomfg.
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#26 Dec 19 2008 at 5:58 AM Rating: Good
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To me, calling our rotation "9,6,9" is a bit confusing in a way, but it also makes sense. Basically it is based on our abilities having a 9 second cooldown and a 6-second cooldown, but of course you are'nt going to judge, do just one of your 6-second ablilities, wait..... and judge again. That would be silly. The rotation actually becomes fairly intuitive after you do it for a while.

The main thing to remember is that after you have the Libram of Obstruction, you want to make SURE you use SoR within 5 seconds of a judgement. SoR damage is based off of Block Value, and for 5 seconds after a judgement, our block value is increased by 352. Making sure to time SoR correctly will give you a lot more damage/threat than throwing it in more than 5 seconds after you judge. I know most of us already know that, but some new Paladins might not be thinking that deeply about it I suppose.

In most cases, I still open with AS, then get Holy Shield up while they are still coming to me, Consecrate, Judge, HoR, SoR, maybe throw in another consecrate (or exorcism or holy wrath if there are undead involved), keep HS up, Judge again, HoR, SoR....etc. Especially if there ARE undead around, there should be precious few "dead spots" in your rotation. Even without undead around, due to the GCDs involved, you should be able to just fall into this so-called 9,6,9 type of rotation on your own without really even analyzing it.

This is why most people/sites recommend 1 point in improved judgement. It is in the normal flow of your rotation to judge every 9 seconds. 8 seconds is too soon, and 10 is too late, and either can throw off your rotation.

If you do encounter a small "dead spot" in your rotation occasionally, you can always throw in another AS for added threat and damage, or a HoW if the target is below 20% health, and you can always HoJ when you have time to help mitigate incoming damage or as a spell interrupt.

I find that with 1 point in imrpoved judgements, I have something to do for almost every GCD and still occasionally have room to get a little creative and/or adapt to what is going on when I have to.
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