Aestryd

Hey guys, I've been saying to a few people both in guild and out that I'd post something about pally tanking basics and gear, and I'm finally getting off my duff and doing at least posting links to answer some of the questions that a lot of the starting tankadins usually ask.

First off, knowing the attack table and how it works is the bare minimum any tank should know, in my opinion if for no other reason than being able to optimize your tanking gear for each situation at the least. Here's a link to a solid, succint post about the very subject:
http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.c...opic.php?t=331

Once you get past the basics, and have some tanking experience under your belt, it's definitely worthwhile to take a look at the stickies in this forum, as its' helped me with threat amongst other things.

http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.c...68127105611bba


Gear

Other links specifically for gear questions are as follows:

Pre-Raiding Gear Options
http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.c...opic.php?t=163

Reaching Uncrushability Gear Options List: (this thing was my bible while I was gearing up)
http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.c...pic.php?t=1049

Gems and Enchants
http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.c...68127105611bba

Tankadin Healing as more than just spot healing:
http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.c...opic.php?t=486


Tanking Rotation

My typical tanking rotation is as follows, as I have been asked a few times:

1. Prep Seal of Righteousness
2. Avenger's Shield, break line of sight/ have other players counter if the pull involves casters.
2a. If CC is necessary (and it usually won't be), apply it after the AS pull.
3. Judgement of Righteousness on the first kill target.
4. Consecrate, Holy Shield, up a Seal, in this order (to insure timers are appropriately staggered).
4a. If more threat is needed, Seal of Righteousness
4b. If it's going to be a long fight, judge Seal of Wisdom and back to righteousness
5. Keep Consecrate and Holy Shield up, rotating seals and Judgements as necessary.


Taunt Macro

The paladin taunt macro used to be something like this:
/cast [target=target,help] Righteous Defense; [target=targettarget,help] Righteous Defense

and I used to have this until I went snooping around and discovered that they recently changed how taunt affects non-buffable NPCs. It *is* now possible to throw a taunt debuff (Paladin, Druid, or Warrior) no non-buffable NPCs like the *hyjal knights or footmen*. However, the knights apparently will taunt the mobs themselves, or stun it as well and that stun can outlast the taunt debuff we're putting on them.

We've all been having problems taunting off of NPCs even though they reportedly fixed this. The problem here is that the taunt itself doesn't force itself to affect non-buffable NPCs as it assumes they are unbuffable. So, what we do is force the taunt on to the unbuffable-but-still-taunt-buffable-mob using this macro:

/cast [target=target,noharm] Righteous Defense; [target=targettarget,noharm] Righteous Defense

Basically the old macro says "Only taunt mobs and PCs, otherwise do nothing", making way that NPCs like thrall and Jaina are buffable and are therefor treated like PCs. The new macro says "OK, you can taunt NPCs now."



Lastly, I believe that our officers know a decent amount about pally tanks, but for more info for you guys, and everyone else in the platoon or guild here's a nice, condensed guide about tankadins:
http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.c...pic.php?t=1936

The only issue I have with the guide is that it states that bosses that silence (like Azgalor, for example) make the pally tank susceptible to crushing blows. However, any boss in the game that silences does not crush. They may do massive damage, but they don't crush.

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Aestryd 80 Prot Pally / Epimetheus 70 Feral Druid / Yuusei 71 Enhancement Shaman
Camsmule 70 Fury/Prot Warrior / Tamrissa 70 Affliction Warlock / Aegyn 70 Holy Priest
Shyff 70 Arcane Mage / Indrus 54 Combat Rogue

orion808

Good info. Thank you.

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Dominus

Maiden crushes I do believe? Also that website is a good place for all tankadins to look through also officers looking to find out more about the crazy paladins that said F You to healing, ran in and started pissing off npcs till they attacked them :P

Aestryd

My apologies. Thank-you Dom, Maiden *does* crush, I was foolishly thinking only of tier 5 and above. Hydross, Azgalor, Archimonde, Paladin add, Illidari council, and Illidan can't crush (though you still need to be uncrushable due to the shear mechanic of the fight).

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Aestryd 80 Prot Pally / Epimetheus 70 Feral Druid / Yuusei 71 Enhancement Shaman
Camsmule 70 Fury/Prot Warrior / Tamrissa 70 Affliction Warlock / Aegyn 70 Holy Priest
Shyff 70 Arcane Mage / Indrus 54 Combat Rogue

Aestryd

BTW, I can confirm that the taunt macro *does* work on NPCs in Hyjal...worked like a charm last night

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Aestryd 80 Prot Pally / Epimetheus 70 Feral Druid / Yuusei 71 Enhancement Shaman
Camsmule 70 Fury/Prot Warrior / Tamrissa 70 Affliction Warlock / Aegyn 70 Holy Priest
Shyff 70 Arcane Mage / Indrus 54 Combat Rogue

Arkamis

It's also worth noting that Veras Darkshadow, the rogue add on Illidari Council can crush, but is stunnable.

Flames of Azgalor on Illidan cannot crush, contrary to what some guides say.

Kalecgos and Sathrovarr do not crush. Brutallus and Felmyst do not crush. Lady Sacrolash on Eredar twins does crush. Entropius and adds in P1 Muru do not crush. Kil'Jaeden does not melee you. He simply melts your soul with his mind.

Also worth noting is that Kalecgos and Sathrovarr can resist taunt. Brutallus can resist taunt, but it is the baseline 1% chance, and is not affected by hit rating.

Aestryd

Well, with Wrath right around the corner, I thought I'd finally get around to updating this as a few more things seem to be stable with the prot paladin mechanics. I am however writing this with the caveat that it may very well not stay correct, as there is a lot of speculation that aspects will change, and be added to pally tanking.

First off, Blizzard stated that encounters in BC were created with the warrior tank in mind, and that this won't be the case in Wrath. As well, they also stated that they wanted to get all 4 tanking classes to be viable main tanks, so from the get-go the ideas are much better than BC tanking for prot pallies. In addition to non warrior tanking classes being made (at least in theory) equal, the dynamics of tanking itself has changed quite a bit from 3.0.2 and onwards. The biggest changes though have been that there are no real aggro modifying buffs, and as such everything is baked in to either the tanks' prot "stances", or salv is baked into DPS abilities from the get-go. As well, tanks are getting aggro through damage and no so much "high threat" tagged abilities, which is being done along with a more proactive tanking schema, in an effort to make tanking more "fun" - and boy howdy is it ever! (yes, I said "boy howdy"...stop sniggering)

Gear:

The changes that 3.0.2 brought to our class/spec are many and varied, more or less completely changing how we gear as prot. This is not so much an issue as most/all of the pally tanking pieces have been revamped to be much closer to the itemization needed for the new model of pally tanking. Our itemization has been shifted to be the same as warriors and DKs as far as what we're looking for on our gear for threat and mitigation.

Previously, spell power (SP) was our main threat stat, followed by +hit and expertise. Now, before wrath hits our main threat stat is probably AP, followed *very* closely until we hit hit cap (which is 150 atm), then soft expertise cap (which atm is 25) which eliminates dodges from the attack table but not parries. This is because the 51 point prot talent HotR (Hammer of the Righteous) scales with AP and the DPS of the weapon that you're using. Also (and this is perhaps the bigger reason), 90% of our spells scale off of AP and SP, and most scale better off of AP - at least for prot's purposes. The only spell that doesn't (to my knowledge) scale off of AP at least partially is holy shield.

Post wrath, BV (block value) will be a huge boon to threat come level 75 and SotR (Shield of the Righteous), after which will follow AP, +hit, and expertise same as before. This is because SotR does holy damage equal to 100% of BV plus 390 (as of Nov. 4th), and according to beta pallies accounted for nearly 30% of their threat on average.

The following is a list of threat stats in descending order based roughly on their TPS contributions at 80 (from what we can tell so far):

Str: gives us AP, and due to talents and kings scales so well for us. 15% from Divine Strength Talent and 10% from BoK Also, gives us BV at a rate of 2 STR for 1 BV, working double duty as threat and mitigation, especially come level 75 and SotR.
-Straight AP is much less useful for us in that it doesn't scale well, and also doesn't give us BV.

BV: gives us mitigation, but also is sole contributor to our largest single TPS ability at 80. Straight BV is cheaper than STR from an ilvl standpoint as well I believe, so we tend to see more raw BV than STR on most gear.

+hit: basically now affects pretty much all of our attacks (except the meat of consecration) including judgements, and with large portions of our threat tied up in a few specific moves it has become more detrimental to our threat to miss than previous to 3.0.2 where consecration and never miss judgements carried the load. Cap for this is 150 at lvl 70, I'm not entirely sure if/how much it changes at 80 as I've been lazy about this. <i>This being said, it's not reasonable to stack hit above all else, especially in MT gear, though this appears to change with lvl 80 gear. [/i]

Expertise: soft cap, or where dodges are eliminated is 25, and is a good goal to strive for, as our HotR and SotR can be dodge/parried, I believe hard cap is something like 70 or so, but it's also the point where parries are pushed off the attack table as well. To that end, Humans generally favor swords/maces and dwarves axes for the extra expertise.

SP: Though this isn't the lowest on a point for point standpoint for threat compared to say AP, it is fairly expensive as far as ilvl goes, and to that end it's generally easier and more effective to stack AP.
-For an example about what I mean about ilvl costs look at the trinkets in game atm: the badge SP trinket gives 44 while the badge AP trinket gives 72 AP

Note: AP and SP currently are about equal contributors to threat for pally tanks on a 1 to 1 ratio. However, AP is generally found in greater amounts so is generally stacked over SP except in the weapon slot where there is some debate depending on the situation.

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Aestryd 80 Prot Pally / Epimetheus 70 Feral Druid / Yuusei 71 Enhancement Shaman
Camsmule 70 Fury/Prot Warrior / Tamrissa 70 Affliction Warlock / Aegyn 70 Holy Priest
Shyff 70 Arcane Mage / Indrus 54 Combat Rogue

Aestryd

New and Changed Abilities:

HotR: (51 point talent)
-attacks with 4 times weapon DPS modified by attack power as holy damage to up to 3 targets
-DPS in this case is as it reads on your character sheet, and notably has nothing to do with the weapon damage range of the weapon, but works instead off the DPS of the weapon as stated on the item, as such the speed of the weapon has no effect on this ability
-pre 75 is our highest TPS/DPS ability

SotR: (attained at lvl 75)
-supposed to have 2 ranks, but only one I see does 100% of BV as damage plus 390 as holy damage
-is not modified by anything but BV and various damage percentile scaling buffs like avenging wrath (AW)
-at 80, is our highest TPS/DPS ability, and even before then, I expect to level as prot exclusively from 75 onwards

Holy Shield - Revised
-Base 8 charges, 8 sec CD and 10 sec duration
-Now much easier to have up 100% of the time for bosses even though it's not crucial as it was before crushing blows were removed.
-scales only with SP

Judgements - Revised
-All of them now scale to differing degrees with AP and SP depending on the seal
-can now also miss, modified by hit up to spell hit cap
-Pretty much the prot seal for anything lasting more than about 10 seconds is SoV, and especially on bosses SoV, as it provides high, predictable threat that scales well with our gear distribution (also the glyphed version giving expertise is nice)
-SoV also works for OT duties as well

Hand of Salvation - Revised
-reduced target's <b>total threat</b> by 10% over 10 seconds, and has a 3m CD
-this is what we have instead of BoSalv, and can be very useful with proper coordination

Hand of Sacrifice - Revised
-You take 30% of the target's damage over the next 10 seconds, has a 3m CD
Extremely useful for OT situations

Blessing of Sanctity - Revised
-Target takes 3% less damage (doesn't stack with Grace from priests), and when the target parries, dodges, or blocks an attack they gain back 2% of base mana (don't feel like looking at numbers presently, correct me if wrong)
-*the* tanking blessing for and tanking class when they outgear the content, or you have another pally with Kings, and darn useful for soloing as well
-Bless this on yourself if you overgear the content you're facing, otherwise generally get kings since it gives more health, a bit more crit and armor, more BV and AP, besides at 71 and beyond we have Divine Plea, an ability that should help us out with some of the mana concerns apparent when soloing with BoK on

Avenger's Shield - Revised
-No casting time, so can be (and is meant to be) put into our regular tanking rotation

I'm quite sure there is more that I'd like to cover, notably mitigation and talents, but I will post that within the week hopefully. As always please feel free to lemme know if there are discrepancies here, and if you feel there is some debate about what I've posted.

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Aestryd 80 Prot Pally / Epimetheus 70 Feral Druid / Yuusei 71 Enhancement Shaman
Camsmule 70 Fury/Prot Warrior / Tamrissa 70 Affliction Warlock / Aegyn 70 Holy Priest
Shyff 70 Arcane Mage / Indrus 54 Combat Rogue

Aestryd

reserved for talents

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Aestryd 80 Prot Pally / Epimetheus 70 Feral Druid / Yuusei 71 Enhancement Shaman
Camsmule 70 Fury/Prot Warrior / Tamrissa 70 Affliction Warlock / Aegyn 70 Holy Priest
Shyff 70 Arcane Mage / Indrus 54 Combat Rogue

Aestryd

reserved for mitigation

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Aestryd 80 Prot Pally / Epimetheus 70 Feral Druid / Yuusei 71 Enhancement Shaman
Camsmule 70 Fury/Prot Warrior / Tamrissa 70 Affliction Warlock / Aegyn 70 Holy Priest
Shyff 70 Arcane Mage / Indrus 54 Combat Rogue

Tarenth

Just on a side note, although you 'reserved' those posts you should probably make them soon (like 24 hours) or you'll have to get a mod/TG officer (not TG-WoW officer but TG officer) to do the edits for you. Normal, and even supporting, members lose editing rights after a certain period of time has passed.

Since Blizzard had to pretty much nerfed everything with Pally damage they released the damage coefficients for most of the abilities effected. Might as well toss up that information as well.

Judgement of Light - Now heals from spells and ranged attacks. I mention this because they correctly attributed the healing aspect to the paladin who judged instead of the attacker. This means you get healing aggro (1 point per 2 hp recovered), but it might be better to leave this judgement to holy paladins since combined with bacon of light will cause all judgement heals to heal the bacon since they're now the applier's heals. Will heal 10% of AP + 10% of Spell Power from the Paladin.

Judgement of Wisdom - They reduced the proc rate which restores 1% of maximum mana by roughly 50% as well as the recovery rate from 2%. Like JoL the energy recovery grants threat to the applying paladin at a rate of 1 threat per 2 mana recovered.

If you have 1000 AP and 400 SP your JoL will heal 140 hp and generate 70 base threat (before RF and other modifiers). If you want to tempt fate and use that as a Holy Paladin with Bacon then the JoL heal will also heal your Bacon for 140 hp and generate another 70 base threat.
If your target has 10000 mana they will generate 100 mana and 50 base threat (again before modifiers).
No threat is generated for overhealing or excess mana regneration beyond maximum because no health or mana is recovered. If your group isn't taking damage to be healed then you're not getting threat.

Blessing of Sanctuary (Not Sanctity) - Generates 2% of your MAXIMUM mana and not your base mana when dodged, parried, and blocked. If you're off tanking then this ability will also restore 10 rage for Bear Druids and Warriors as well as 20 Runic Power for Death Knights. Unlike judgements I believe the energy gain is attributed to the target and not the paladin. That means if applied on you the energy gain will give you 1% of your maximum mana as base threat (2% of maximum mana recovered and 2:1 threat ratio) while if applied to other tanks they will get 5:1 threat for rage recovered for 50 base threat and an unknown amount to Death Knight tanks for runic power recovered.

Seal of Wisdom - Restores 4% maximum mana on proc and generates half that amount as base threat. Does 16% AP + 25% Spell Power + 1 damage when judged.

Seal of Light - Chance to heal paladin 15% AP + 15% Spell Power and generates half that amount as base threat. Does 16% AP + 25% Spell Power +1 damage when judged.

Seal of Righteousness - Grants 2.2% of Melee Weapon Speed * AP + 4.4% of Melee Weapon Speed * Spell Power each attack. Deals 20% AP + 32% Spell Power +1 damage when judged.

Seal of Justice - Deals 16% AP + 25% Spell Power + 1 damage when judged.

Seal of Command - Chance to deal 45% additional damage. Deals 16% AP + 25% Spell Power + 24% of minimum weapon damage - 16% AP + 25% Spell Power + 24% Maximum weapon damage when judged and will always crit if target is stuned or incapacitated.

Seal of Corruption/Vengeance - Deals 15% AP + 25% Spell Power additional damage over 15 seconds and can stack to 5. Deals 14% AP + 22% Spell Power + 1 damage when judged which is increased by 10% for every stack of the DoT applied. Also deals an unspecified amount of additional holy damage directly while refreshing the DoT if 5 stacks have been applied already.

Seal of Blood/Martyr - Deals 22% minimum weapon damage - 22% Maximum weapon damage every attack. Deals 16% AP + 25% Spell Power + 36% minimum weapon damage - 16% AP + 25% Spell Power + 36% Maximum weapon damage when judged.

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My sanity is not in question...
It was a confirmed casualty some time ago.

Aestryd

Thanks Tarenth, I did not know that...I'll post something soon rather than later. As for the rest of your post; I was specifically trying to avoid specific numbers as they (currently) change frequently, are largely irrelevant, can be confusing to people not used to theorycrafting, and if you're going to look into seal coefficients, it's more worthwhile to look at numbers behind almost any other spell first as seals do so little of our threat atm.

That being said, thanks for the feedback and effort.

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Aestryd 80 Prot Pally / Epimetheus 70 Feral Druid / Yuusei 71 Enhancement Shaman
Camsmule 70 Fury/Prot Warrior / Tamrissa 70 Affliction Warlock / Aegyn 70 Holy Priest
Shyff 70 Arcane Mage / Indrus 54 Combat Rogue

ScratchMonkey

This is why a wiki is better than a forum thread for this kind of information.

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