Tanking Glyphs...

[Herbert]

I've been away for a few months and there have been some changes to SoT and SoI, etc... For the longest time I've used Glyph of: Alabaster Shield, Consecration, Divine Protection.

I also used to use SoT on single targets and then SoI while questing or AoE.

Now I read a few forum posts where I should be only using SoI along with Glyph of Battle Healer and never use SoT since it's damage is minimal compared to the healing provided by SoI.


Looking at my current Major Glyphs, I'm having a hard time deciding which to replace with Battle Healer.

I mainly do heroics and I've just started RF, very casual.



Questions: should I only use SoI and Glyph of Battle Healer, if yes, which glyph to remove?


Thanks!

[Mushedcow]

I don't use consecration glyph, and depending on the heroic I'll change out divine protection glyph for blinding light when fights are heavy magic damage or for big pulls for the aoe 3 second stun. Although in heroics where no-one else should be taking damage I wouldn't use glyph of battle healer, as a paladin your healing yourself mostly so the healer needs something to do :>

And yeah keep SoI up.

[Herbert]

In regards to Glyph of Blinding Light, what's the difference between a knockdown and blinding?

[Fhi]

In regards to Glyph of Blinding Light, what's the difference between a knockdown and blinding?

Knock down is kind of a stun, so you can damage the mob while they are knocked down. Blinding lasts longer, but breaks at the slightest damage.

[Herbert]

So, should I buy Glyph of Battle Healer for when I do RF? And maybe replace Glyph of Consecration or something.

[MerinPally]

Drop consecration because you delay your rotation ever so slightly by having to drop the targeting reticule in the right location. Blinding Light is sometimes nice for a Challenge Mode but it's still not great because literally 1 tick of damage and it goes away so it's rather weak even then. You should really keep Alabaster Shield and DP, there are some times when you wouldn't want DP but another CD, especially one that is so short... it's great

---------- Post added 2013-02-04 at 07:45 PM ----------

So, should I buy Glyph of Battle Healer for when I do RF? And maybe replace Glyph of Consecration or something.

Battle Healer and Alabaster Shield are basically mandatory Battle Healer definitely is, Alabaster 99 times out of 100. The 3rd choice is the questionable one but I am an absolute hater of Glyph of Consecration, 99% of the time you'll want it around the mobs - which is where you are anyway. The only upside is if you need to be away from the raid but still want to do some dps, and that doesn't come up nearly enough. If it does then great, use consecration glyph - but it really doesn't happen enough to justify constant usage and DP > Consecrate in a heroic dungeon, easily.

[Nairobi]

I use:

ALWAYS:
Battle Healer (Obvious)

USUALLY:
Divine Protection (with Unbreakable Spirit, makes this amazing). Remove for magic heavy fights, like Lei Shi.

SITUATIONALLY:
Alabaster Shield - Great for trash, heroics, CMs, add fights...basically anywhere you're gonna be blocking a lot of frequent/small hits
Focused Shield - Great for...pretty much anything the above is not good at; single target fights, DPS increase
Holy Wrath - Good for CMs with elemental adds (SPM, TJS, SSB come to mind) and for Lei Shi on add phases.

I never use Cons, just because I've yet to see a place where I needed to drop one to pick up adds that I couldn't otherwise get with AS, taunt, or Judgement. Also, it severely delays your rotation since you have to target the reticule and then click to drop the cons. Using any other ability while the reticule is up will cancel the placement.
I rarely use Blinding Light since it DRs with Fist of Justice, and when all mobs get out of the BL stun, their swing timers are all synchronized (bad news).
I rarely use the AW glyph (heals while AW is up), but it does have some niche use for solo content when paired with SW talent (but I run Holy Avenger 99.9% of time).
I think that covers most of the pertinent ones.

TL;DR - Battle Healer, DivProt (unless gimmick magic fight), and either Alabster Shiled OR Focused Shield.

[Fhi]

So, should I buy Glyph of Battle Healer for when I do RF? And maybe replace Glyph of Consecration or something.

Glyph of Battle Healer only heals others, so only use it if you like the people in your raid group. :P

Kidding aside, it's very powerful because of Vengeance. Quite a bit of healing and it's all passive. Probably a sort of mandatory glyph if there is one. Glyph of Consecration is kinda meh. It may be wee bit better if they ever change Consecration to be instant tick for extra snap aggro, btu until then, you can do better with another glyph.

[Herbert]

Okay, I'll drop Consecration (I really hate the delay too) and get Battle Healer.

As for what gear to get and what to reforge, gem, enchant. I always use AskMrRobot and PVE: Control Mastery...

is that thing accurate and reliable? I follow everything on it.

[MerinPally]

No, follow the guide on here or EJ which both say 7.5% hit > 15% exp > Haste > Mastery

It's just better than mastery for everything other than 25man heroic raiding where haste is less important and some go for mastery but you'd be fine either way so most (almost all) stay with haste.

[Atrea]

No, follow the guide on here or EJ which both say 7.5% hit > 15% exp > Haste > Mastery

It's just better than mastery for everything other than 25man heroic raiding where haste is less important and some go for mastery but you'd be fine either way so most (almost all) stay with haste.

That's not strictly true. The rub of it is, if you go Haste > Mastery, you need to go all out on it. You can't do a 'hybrid build', because it defeats the purpose.

A Haste > Mastery build speeds up your rotation, and makes keeping SoR up a priority , whereas with straight Mastery builds, you can hold your SoR for a few seconds if the encounter favours it. (Such as Sha of Fear; hit SoR before the Thrash, rather than using it as soon as you have 3 HoPo, and your Sacred Shield will often be enough to ensure you take ZERO damage from Thrash, rather than 300k+)

You won't be able to do that with a high Haste build due to the faster rotation -- you'll cap your HoPo, and your SoR and self-heals will be reduced enough to not make it viable, so you'll want to burn it as fast as you generate it. Which, as I said, may not be the best choice for all encounters; particularly ones with very hard-hitting (but predictable) attacks.

As has been the case for awhile now, what is 'best' varies from encounter to encounter, and it would behoove you to take into consideration your progression content. If you are farming bosses, it really doesn't matter what you're doing, but if you're stuck on a boss, and tank damage (or maybe DPS) is a concern, then you will want to adjust accordingly, until you and your group are comfortable with the encounter.

[Zoopercat]

Herbert, there are a few different stat weights people like to use. You can switch between them in our stat weight drop down box. We have these presets:
- PvE control /Haste
- PvE avoidance build
- PvE control /Mastery

The control/Haste and control/Mastery are by far the most popular.

And of course, you can enter in custom stat weights if you'd like. But those presets work out really well for Prot Pallies.

[Rivin]

A Haste > Mastery build speeds up your rotation, and makes keeping SoR up a priority , whereas with straight Mastery builds, you can hold your SoR for a few seconds if the encounter favours it. (Such as Sha of Fear; hit SoR before the Thrash, rather than using it as soon as you have 3 HoPo, and your Sacred Shield will often be enough to ensure you take ZERO damage from Thrash, rather than 300k+)

You won't be able to do that with a high Haste build due to the faster rotation -- you'll cap your HoPo, and your SoR and self-heals will be reduced enough to not make it viable, so you'll want to burn it as fast as you generate it. Which, as I said, may not be the best choice for all encounters; particularly ones with very hard-hitting (but predictable) attacks.

You can still hold onto ShoRs for a couple seconds with a haste build. Holy Power caps at 5 now, so you'd have at least two GCDs to hold ShoR before you risked overcapping (probably more than two due to ability cooldowns).

[Deleted]

If you are just playing casually. You do not really need to make it harder than it is.

The simplest way and most all-round way is to use SoI

Battle Healer
Alabaster Shield
Divine prot(if you need physical damage reduction) / Focused Wrath (if it is single target figth) / Final Wrath if you do not need any of the others

If you start with raiding and especially heroic modes there are some other glyphs to consider.

I also find myself using SoT sometimes. Then ofc being able to drop the battle healer for another glyph.

My common glyphs are alabster shield, focused shield, final wrath, battle healer, that double judgement whatever it is called, divine protection.
I swap around glyphs alot depending on figths.
Though if you are just staying in LFR and Heroics, just use as I mentioned above earlier.

[Atrea]

You can still hold onto ShoRs for a couple seconds with a haste build. Holy Power caps at 5 now, so you'd have at least two GCDs to hold ShoR before you risked overcapping (probably more than two due to ability cooldowns).

You can, but in so doing, you're almost negating the overall value of the haste - the value being, your uptime with SoR is higher.
If you continue your rotation, so as to keep your DPS high (the other value of using haste), then you'll HoPo cap.

It's also worth noting that your ability cooldowns scale proportionately with your GCD due to Sanctity of Battle, so with either 0 haste, or 10000 haste, you won't find abilities suddenly no longer usable at the same time. Your rotation is simply faster. The only time this changes is when you pass the 1.0s GCD haste breakpoint, which would take almost 22k haste (unreachable at present gear levels, except with trinket procs, heroism, etc.) At that point, your GCD would remain the same, but your abilities would continue to lower in CD. (You would not find a point, however, when you're suddenly waiting for abilities cooldowns to finish that were previously not happening.)

---------- Post added 2013-02-04 at 02:18 PM ----------

If you are just playing casually. You do not really need to make it harder than it is.

The simplest way and most all-round way is to use SoI

Battle Healer
Alabaster Shield
Divine prot(if you need physical damage reduction) / Focused Wrath (if it is single target figth) / Final Wrath if you do not need any of the others

If you start with raiding and especially heroic modes there are some other glyphs to consider.

I also find myself using SoT sometimes. Then ofc being able to drop the battle healer for another glyph.

My common glyphs are alabster shield, focused shield, final wrath, battle healer, that double judgement whatever it is called, divine protection.
I swap around glyphs alot depending on figths.
Though if you are just staying in LFR and Heroics, just use as I mentioned above earlier.

Alabaster Shield sucks if you are not fighting either a fast-hitting boss, or are tanking more than one mob.
Getting past 1 stack is rare and your overall DPS is increased a great deal more if you replace it with Focused Shield on fights that do not meet the above exception.

[Rivin]

You can, but in so doing, you're almost negating the overall value of the haste - the value being, your uptime with SoR is higher.
If you continue your rotation, so as to keep your DPS high (the other value of using haste), then you'll HoPo cap.

It's also worth noting that your ability cooldowns scale proportionately with your GCD due to Sanctity of Battle, so with either 0 haste, or 10000 haste, you won't find abilities suddenly no longer usable at the same time. Your rotation is simply faster. The only time this changes is when you pass the 1.0s GCD haste breakpoint, which would take almost 22k haste (unreachable at present gear levels, except with trinket procs, heroism, etc.) At that point, your GCD would remain the same, but your abilities would continue to lower in CD. (You would not find a point, however, when you're suddenly waiting for abilities cooldowns to finish that were previously not happening.)

None of that changes what I said. You can still hold on to a ShoR for a short period no matter what build you use. Even if you had enough haste to build 1 HP every second, there would be two seconds available after reaching 3 HP to hold on to a ShoR before you risk overcapping, since we can hold 5 HP at a time. It doesn't negate the value of haste at all since you're not losing any HP by holding on to a ShoR for those two seconds.

[Nairobi]

Alabaster Shield sucks if you are not fighting either a fast-hitting boss, or are tanking more than one mob.
Getting past 1 stack is rare and your overall DPS is increased a great deal more if you replace it with Focused Shield on fights that do not meet the above exception.

What he said. I thought I made that distinction above, but I guess it wasn't clear. Alabaster for trash/adds/CMs/lost of hits, Focused Shield for bosses/DPS.

Honorable mention to Final Wrath I suppose, I just never use it since I prefer to have something that's active start to finish (AS/FS), but YMMV.

[Deleted]

Alabaster Shield sucks if you are not fighting either a fast-hitting boss, or are tanking more than one mob.
Getting past 1 stack is rare and your overall DPS is increased a great deal more if you replace it with Focused Shield on fights that do not meet the above exception.

Yeah? Which is why I said that is the most all-round, since he said he was doing alot of LFR and 5 mans, which means alot of mobs, which means focused shield is bad and alabaster good.

[Atrea]

Yeah? Which is why I said that is the most all-round, since he said he was doing alot of LFR and 5 mans, which means alot of mobs, which means focused shield is bad and alabaster good.

Glyphs and talents cost a few silver to change, you should never have an 'all-round' setup.

---------- Post added 2013-02-04 at 03:10 PM ----------

None of that changes what I said. You can still hold on to a ShoR for a short period no matter what build you use. Even if you had enough haste to build 1 HP every second, there would be two seconds available after reaching 3 HP to hold on to a ShoR before you risk overcapping, since we can hold 5 HP at a time. It doesn't negate the value of haste at all since you're not losing any HP by holding on to a ShoR for those two seconds.

That's only if you have such an attack on a 5s repetition cycle, which is not the case for any encounter I'm aware of.

And even if it were the case, it still negates the majority of the value of haste, as its defensive ability lies in the uptime of SoR, and not in the HoPo generation.

With high haste, your uptime of SoR is ~50-60%, whereas with a 0 haste build, you're looking at ~15-20%
That is why it is a viable defensive stat.

Without the mastery you would ordinarily have, you will block less, take more damage even with SoR up, and your WoG will not heal you for as much. If you don't use SoR on cooldown, you are doing a haste build wrong, and you are taking buttloads of damage you shouldn't be, with no way to compensate for it other than an increased auto-attack speed (which increases your SoI healing a bit.)

[Deleted]

Glyphs and talents cost a few silver to change, you should never have an 'all-round' setup.

If you are running only LFR + 5 mans this far into the expansion, it is very likely that you simply do not care that much about PvE. In which case overcomplicating it is not worth it and having an all round setup, whilst not being optimal for the character, can still be the optimal choice for that player.

Just saying, this thread is not theorycrafting for people that are pushing heroic raids server first. Its topic was 5 mans and LFR.
You need to adapt your tips and tricks accordingly.