Tanking Necrotic + Raging as a Paladin -- any tips?

[DigiHound]

I'm a Pally tank at ~ilvl 862 (Varies a bit, depending on gear) who tried to take on a VoW 7 with Raging and Necrotic last night. It did not go well, and my attempts to kite the mobs weren't very effective (the first mini-boss is immune to snares and trashed us pretty thoroughly).

I'm wondering if there are any gear or spec-specific strategies I can use to mitigate this problem, or if it's really a question of bringing the right group members with appropriate snares and stuns to lock things down. On the talent side of things, it looks to me like Aegis of Light is an easy go-to for damage reduction and it gives us a third way to reduce damage, albeit on a long cooldown. I normally use Righteous Protector, but does Last Defender perform better with this combination of affixes? Given the severe retardation to our healing from the stacking Necrotic, is Final Stand a better choice than Hand of the Protector?

I'm also wondering if there's any benefit to using a different gear balance when running with these affixes. Does it make sense to weight different stats differently -- like putting more emphasis on Critical Strike (to raise avoidance), or heavily emphasizing Mastery / Versatility to reduce incoming damage?

I'm not sure how much impact the tank's gear can have on things, but any advice would be welcome.

[yeto]

Im using conceraction with slow effect to kite them, alsow have bobbel taunt to reset and still tank them

alsow using the legendary belt since i dont relly have better options and the heal form the hands when using that belt bypass necrotic heal reduction

[Nevcairiel]

Make sure to get Blessing of Spellwarding, as long as its up on yourself mobs cannot apply new stacks of Necrotic, so it can expire if done properly.
Otherwise you can bubble them off with an instant cancel-aura macro (or with Final Stand to taunt the mobs, although maybe not the ideal talent to run with).

[Wellendowed]

Don't pick aegis of light; it's a stupid talent. You're gonna be taking more damage by using it from losing 6 seconds of ability usage than you mitigate by channeling the thing.

Just pick spellwarding and pop it at the start during big pulls, then after it runs out and stuff starts raging run away while slowing them with consecrated ground.

Very few things are able to kill you, thanks to consecrated ground. Only real threats are big, unsnareable mobs, like the bears in DHT, or the fear guys in MoS, miniboss in VotW, etc., which can smash your face with raging without you being able to do much about it other than save cooldowns. Final stand is always nice, I guess, since it lets you safely do a massive pull every time bubble is up, and the loss of hotp isn't a big deal since by the time hotp is really needed (you're at high stacks of necrotic and/or the mobs are raging) you're going to be kiting the mobs anyway instead of standing there taking the beating to the face.

Miniboss in VotW is nearly always going to destroy low-dps groups and undergeared tanks with raging, but at least you can just corpserush it so whatever.

If you're not running seraphim, you should be running last defender for mythic+, unless you really seriously struggle only with killing the bosses somehow.

alsow using the legendary belt since i dont relly have better options and the heal form the hands when using that belt bypass necrotic heal reduction

Pretty sure that's wrong.

[DigiHound]

If you're not running seraphim, you should be running last defender for mythic+, unless you really seriously struggle only with killing the bosses somehow.

I have experimented with Seraphim but thought Shield of the Righteous was preferred. Is Seraphim the better talent overall?

[Wellendowed]

I have experimented with Seraphim but thought Shield of the Righteous was preferred. Is Seraphim the better talent overall?

It's a huge dps boost.

[darkwarrior42]

It's a huge dps boost.

But a loss of defenses. You don't mitigate as much damage with seraphim as you would have mitigated with the charges of SotR you use to activate it.

My very basic advice for someone not sure what to take is:
-If you don't need more defenses: Take Seraphim. Huge DPS boost, fantastic so long as you don't die using it.
-If you need defenses and are doing dungeons: Take Last Defender. Boost to damage and defenses that scales nicely with mob count.
-If you need defenses and are doing raids: Take Righteous Protector. Solid boost to damage and defenses ideal for single target fights.

[DigiHound]

But a loss of defenses. You don't mitigate as much damage with seraphim as you would have mitigated with the charges of SotR you use to activate it.

My very basic advice for someone not sure what to take is:
-If you don't need more defenses: Take Seraphim. Huge DPS boost, fantastic so long as you don't die using it.
-If you need defenses and are doing dungeons: Take Last Defender. Boost to damage and defenses that scales nicely with mob count.
-If you need defenses and are doing raids: Take Righteous Protector. Solid boost to damage and defenses ideal for single target fights.

So in a mythic+ situation with Necrotic and Raging, you'd say that Last Defender is the best call?

[darkwarrior42]

So in a mythic+ situation with Necrotic and Raging, you'd say that Last Defender is the best call?

Normally, for Mythic+ I would run Last Defender, but for this circumstance I might run with Seraphim instead. Depends on how much time you spend kiting vs. standing up in melee.... Last Defender has damage reduction that scales with mobs near you, which is always good, but it doesn't help you reset your stacks... kiting does that, but that also means less time spent near enemy mobs.

Most of what you're going to do to mitigate raging + necrotic is positioning and other abilities (all the tricks already described here; blessing of spellwarding, kiting with consecrated ground, divine shield.... don't forget having other dps use their abilities to snare or stun mobs when you need it), so if you're not getting trashed by the mobs before necrotic stacks up, you'd probably be fine with Seraphim (and getting more damage out before you have to kite isn't a bad idea either).

*shrug* Last Defender is probably a safer choice, beyond that it really depends on how solid you feel about your defenses... Last Defender is also an easy option, since it's entirely passive.

About the only thing I"d say with 100% certainty is that Aegis of Light is crap. I want to like it, but outside of raids I haven't found any particularly good use for it that was worth giving up other talents in the tier (and even in raids it's not something I consider essential).

[DigiHound]

Normally, for Mythic+ I would run Last Defender, but for this circumstance I might run with Seraphim instead. Depends on how much time you spend kiting vs. standing up in melee.... Last Defender has damage reduction that scales with mobs near you, which is always good, but it doesn't help you reset your stacks... kiting does that, but that also means less time spent near enemy mobs.

Most of what you're going to do to mitigate raging + necrotic is positioning and other abilities (all the tricks already described here; blessing of spellwarding, kiting with consecrated ground, divine shield.... don't forget having other dps use their abilities to snare or stun mobs when you need it), so if you're not getting trashed by the mobs before necrotic stacks up, you'd probably be fine with Seraphim (and getting more damage out before you have to kite isn't a bad idea either).

*shrug* Last Defender is probably a safer choice, beyond that it really depends on how solid you feel about your defenses... Last Defender is also an easy option, since it's entirely passive.

About the only thing I"d say with 100% certainty is that Aegis of Light is crap. I want to like it, but outside of raids I haven't found any particularly good use for it that was worth giving up other talents in the tier (and even in raids it's not something I consider essential).

I've never thought Aegis of Light was remotely good enough to be worth taking compared to the other talents in its tier, but the one thing I noticed in our run is that trash in VoW stacks up that debuff so quickly, any form of flat damage reduction seemed like a good idea. I also had the somewhat-crazy idea that a set of demonsteel armor that was leveled up to 855 and focused on Versatility and Haste might be worthwhile, since those are our top damage-reduction talents in normal runs (useful for SoR procs and versatility is self-evidently useful). Using Demonsteel in some gear slots wouldn't be problematic, but I don't want to drop that kind of cash unless I know it's a worthwhile strategy. Switching from 9% Versatility to 15% Versatility in the run didn't seem to make that much difference (I have a tank set that's optimized for Versatility / Mastery above other secondary stats, and a Haste / Versatility / Mastery set that I use more generally).

[Wellendowed]

But a loss of defenses. You don't mitigate as much damage with seraphim as you would have mitigated with the charges of SotR you use to activate it.

True enough. You will take less damage in the same amount of time without seraphim. But with seraphim you will spend less time taking that damage. Which indirectly increases survivability, not just through the obvious taking less damage from stuff dying faster, but also from giving higher in-combat uptime to defensive cooldowns, stuns, healer cooldowns, interrupts, etc.

Basically, whenever I feel like I always have a cooldown available when I need one, I go with seraphim. If I find myself running out of cooldowns and often having to rely just on the healer and passive mitigation+hotp to stay alive, I go with last defender.

[DigiHound]

True enough. You will take less damage in the same amount of time without seraphim. But with seraphim you will spend less time taking that damage. Which indirectly increases survivability, not just through the obvious taking less damage from stuff dying faster, but also from giving higher in-combat uptime to defensive cooldowns, stuns, healer cooldowns, interrupts, etc.

Basically, whenever I feel like I always have a cooldown available when I need one, I go with seraphim. If I find myself running out of cooldowns and often having to rely just on the healer and passive mitigation+hotp to stay alive, I go with last defender.

It's also possible that Seraphim works better with Necrotic by providing significant gains to short-term damage mitigation. If you can kill adds within the window of time Seraphim is up, it might work out to be the better solution.

[Deleted]

Personly not stepping foot in necro, weeks with that i'm just not playing 7 or higher.
3 and 5 minute cd possibility isn't that great, in cases with a lot of mobs double horse talent is not even enough maybe
I just don't like all the hassle and for what, not like there's great loot coming of it. better farm 6 3 chest than stepping foot in anything different.
Maybe when having a legendary with speed i'll try again, but what are the odds on that. or to get speed on all items.
For those who like it nice, but it's blocking out whole weeks for those who don't.
Things like a hunter sometimes having to kite stuf in raids used to be a weird thing already, usefull but weird.
Having to kite a whole dungeon is mentally wrecking, maybe even when i would do one, it would be the only one in a week hahaha.
Besides that it feels realy dumb running around all the time.
Probably am able to do some, am 880 but not worth the effort. Only on some depleted key to hike along for weekly chest.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

HOLY SHIELD - From what we could tell tonight, running with and without it, not only blocked some dots but actually blocked the application of stacks! My stacks accumulated about half as fast while running Holy Shield as they did while running Blessed Hammer. We switched back and forth, and it was making a huge difference.

[srathgar]

Necrotic week is fantastic as a paladin tank. Gonna have to test the Holy shield thing but it sounds logical that it acts that way.
First thing to note, i do overgear it a bit when its not 10 or above, so that does have an impact. http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Bbileus/simple

Anyways, if you are struggling with it and have sephuz and or Uther's guard in your bags, consider em your best friends during necrotic.
Sephuz helps with kiting
Uther's allows you to Blessing of spellwarding for 15 seconds meaning it will reset your stacks 100% of the time.

Thoose items aside, someone mentioned our lvl 100 talents. Righteous protector is garbage in necrotic week as our heal is most likely not gonna be that fancy. Last defender or Seraphim is your go to here, i personally stick to seraphim as it is a dmg increase that is just too high to ignore.

In the lvl 60 talent row i take Blessing of spellwarding as it prevents stacks of necrotic being applied (note: it does NOT remove em, just no further applications)(Further note: if you do NOT have uther's guard you have to make some distance to the mob when the blessing runs out or you risk it applying it before it runs out entirely as necrotic and spellwarding are 10 sec buffs/debuffs)
in the lvl 90 one i always run consecrated ground as a 50% slow is just that much stronger than the alternatives in mythic+ in general.

in the lvl 75 one, Final stand allows you to still do monstrous pulls in an enraging necrotic week, say the Maw of souls pull where you do everything before 1st boss at once, with final stand you just use your ardent defender/guardian initially and when they are gathered and the dps is smacking em you final stand and watch em die while they do 0 dmg to you despite being enraged.


Rather excited about trying the holy shield thing as i did not realise it might do so, gonna take some time getting used to not running with blessed hammer though

All in all, embrace the necrotic week, it is the week you are a god in, where you can carry most groups to +3 or +2 as everything is something that you handle, and not the dps. And with all the tools protection paladins have avaiable for it, we are most likely the best necrotic tanks.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

Necrotic week is fantastic as a paladin tank. Gonna have to test the Holy shield thing but it sounds logical that it acts that way.
First thing to note, i do overgear it a bit when its not 10 or above, so that does have an impact. http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Bbileus/simple

Anyways, if you are struggling with it and have sephuz and or Uther's guard in your bags, consider em your best friends during necrotic.
Sephuz helps with kiting
Uther's allows you to Blessing of spellwarding for 15 seconds meaning it will reset your stacks 100% of the time.

Thoose items aside, someone mentioned our lvl 100 talents. Righteous protector is garbage in necrotic week as our heal is most likely not gonna be that fancy. Last defender or Seraphim is your go to here, i personally stick to seraphim as it is a dmg increase that is just too high to ignore.

In the lvl 60 talent row i take Blessing of spellwarding as it prevents stacks of necrotic being applied (note: it does NOT remove em, just no further applications)(Further note: if you do NOT have uther's guard you have to make some distance to the mob when the blessing runs out or you risk it applying it before it runs out entirely as necrotic and spellwarding are 10 sec buffs/debuffs)
in the lvl 90 one i always run consecrated ground as a 50% slow is just that much stronger than the alternatives in mythic+ in general.

in the lvl 75 one, Final stand allows you to still do monstrous pulls in an enraging necrotic week, say the Maw of souls pull where you do everything before 1st boss at once, with final stand you just use your ardent defender/guardian initially and when they are gathered and the dps is smacking em you final stand and watch em die while they do 0 dmg to you despite being enraged.


Rather excited about trying the holy shield thing as i did not realise it might do so, gonna take some time getting used to not running with blessed hammer though

All in all, embrace the necrotic week, it is the week you are a god in, where you can carry most groups to +3 or +2 as everything is something that you handle, and not the dps. And with all the tools protection paladins have avaiable for it, we are most likely the best necrotic tanks.

All good tips. For raging-necrotic I spec http://us.battle.net/wow/en/tool/tal...bZa!0010222!ba :

• Holy Shield - to block applications of necrotic as well as subsequent dots
• First Avenger - all about the dps to burn add packs faster
• Repentance - for pelters and other dangerous mobs we need to CC
• Blessing of Spellwarding - to drop stacks of necrotic
• Final Stand - to drop stacks and facilitate massive nuke pulls
• Consecrated Ground - to slow mobs for kiting
• Last Defender - my go-to for 5-mans, best balance of offense and defense.

And I agree about it feeling odd not to run with Blessed Hammer. I disliked that spell at first, but I've gotten so used to it as another tool for AoE tanking that playing without it feels awkward. Worth it this week, but awkward. :P

[Deleted]

All good tips. For raging-necrotic I spec http://us.battle.net/wow/en/tool/tal...bZa!0010222!ba :

• Holy Shield - to block applications of necrotic as well as subsequent dots
• First Avenger - all about the dps to burn add packs faster
• Repentance - for pelters and other dangerous mobs we need to CC
• Blessing of Spellwarding - to drop stacks of necrotic
• Final Stand - to drop stacks and facilitate massive nuke pulls
• Consecrated Ground - to slow mobs for kiting
• Last Defender - my go-to for 5-mans, best balance of offense and defense.

And I agree about it feeling odd not to run with Blessed Hammer. I disliked that spell at first, but I've gotten so used to it as another tool for AoE tanking that playing without it feels awkward. Worth it this week, but awkward. :P

Have you got any real evidence of holy shield preventing necrotic applications? Other than 'feeling' like getting less stacks with holy shield than blessed hammer. cos that is not how it should work at all and if it really is doing that it would be a bug.

[srathgar]

Have you got any real evidence of holy shield preventing necrotic applications? Other than 'feeling' like getting less stacks with holy shield than blessed hammer. cos that is not how it should work at all and if it really is doing that it would be a bug.

Well as i said in mine, i have to look into this when i get necrotic after wednesday again, but since necrotic is a spell (Blessing of spellwarding stops further applications) it would make sense that we can also block it with holy shield. But i have to test it myself before i can say for sure that it is so

[Angusmcdowel]

Have you got any real evidence of holy shield preventing necrotic applications? Other than 'feeling' like getting less stacks with holy shield than blessed hammer. cos that is not how it should work at all and if it really is doing that it would be a bug.

Looking at some logs it seems that blocked melees still apply a stack of necrotic rot. This holds true when Holy Shield is talented as well. Parry/dodge/miss do not apply stacks, block/hit do.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

Have you got any real evidence of holy shield preventing necrotic applications? Other than 'feeling' like getting less stacks with holy shield than blessed hammer. cos that is not how it should work at all and if it really is doing that it would be a bug.

I do not have hard evidence. My healer and I both felt the difference was significant, but I'm not sure how to look for that in logs.