Need help with my Tanking!

[Rainbowings]

I need help learning how to control my active mitigation like shield of the righteous, sacred shield and other things like my cool-down's. I take a ton of damage in boss fights making the healers job harder in raids and such and causing a wipe or just a not so clean kill half of the time.

It seems i cant post logs to show you how bad i was doing but, my up-time for sacred shield was 35%, which i would say is meh, but can still kill me easily, and the up-time for my sacred shield is 9% which is horriable, i should be able to keep that up most of the time.

So what im trying to say is, please help me figure out a way of being able to fix my rotation. Having other protection paladins opinions on these kind of things can really help me on what to do. and thank you if anyone replys :l

[Sqeen]

you already pointed out two big flaws in your gameplay. maybe grab an addon to track these 2 spells may remind you to rebuff them more often

[Perryn]

To each his own, but I've found Weak Auras (the addon) useful for this. I have a set of auras for helping me with the rotation (else I just serial mash buttons until my keyboard whines at me) and another set that shows procs and buildup of Bastion as well as HoPo, and another set showing cd's and currently active abilities and cd's.

Also, keep things simple until you're comfortable switching things around (talents & glyphs etc).

Beyond that you'll have to be a bit more specific I think

[Deleted]

Sacred Shield should have an Uptime of 100% while you are taking any damage in a fight (which is pretty much all the time). So 35% on Sacred Shield is pretty bad.
Active Mitigation wise your SotR Uptime depends on how much Haste you have (and actually push the HP-Generators that is).

So what you want to do is track your important CDs and Tools (SotR, Divine Protection,...) with some kind of Addon. Tellmewhen or Weak Auras (which I am using) is pretty useful to keep track of your Uptimes while fighting.

I'd recommend a Smoothing-Rotation (which you can practice no problem on a target dummy) which is just doing your rotation with all the Generators and CDs. Try to keep the Times you don't have anything active at one point (Sacred Shield should be active 100% so this does not count) to a minimum. Which is done by timing your SotRs, DPs and so on so you don't have major gaps. Keep in mind - in those gaps you take unmitigated Damage. Which is exactly what you are trying to counteract.

I know I sound shameless if I link to my youtube video on Mitigation and Smoothing but maybe listening to this information could help you out there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VEr...K643-1ny-t6QhZ

I hope we could help you at least a little bit to improve your gameplay.

[Schadow]

I don't even use Sacred Shield, so the only thing that may be causing issues is your SotR uptime. You say to both Sacred Shield that it has an uptime of 35% and 9%, I assume SotR is on 9%. If that's the case, that's really low and I wonder more where you spent your HoPo on.

Linking armory and logs helps. You can post logs like this:

www . warcraftlogs . com/blablabla

[Deleted]

I don't even use Sacred Shield, so the only thing that may be causing issues is your SotR uptime.

You should. SS is by far the best choice in terms of Smoothing and because we don't have any more free WoG/EFs anymore EF is pretty bad too. Esp. because Bastion doesnt give you increased HoT Ticks like it used to back in SoO. So SS is pretty much the only choice in that tier.

[Schadow]

You should. SS is by far the best choice in terms of Smoothing and because we don't have any more free WoG/EFs anymore EF is pretty bad too. Esp. because Bastion doesnt give you increased HoT Ticks like it used to back in SoO. So SS is pretty much the only choice in that tier.

yeah, I've just been too lazy to set it all up, as it's an alt (although played for many many years by now), so it's more of a slack than saying "don't use SS". But I meant more that he may be doing something else wrong other than his SS uptime. It smoothens out damage, but if he gets hit hard, SS won't help much.

[Tommi]

Macro SS to SOTR. SOTR is off the GCD :P

[Deleted]

Macro SS to SOTR. SOTR is off the GCD :P

That's an absolutely fucking terrible idea. If you feel the need to macro SotR, tanking is not for you.

[sexybeast]

That's an absolutely fucking terrible idea. If you feel the need to macro SotR, tanking is not for you.

I think we both had a heart attack at macro SS comment lol.

Seriously though, SS is overly a set and forget and by just using it every free GCD you have you'd get up to like 75% uptime with it.
I can't quite understand how your only getting 9% SOTR uptime?!? What are you using your Holy Power on?

Try henkii, the rotation helper. That works for prot and will instantly get your SOTR uptime higher

[Schadow]

That's an absolutely fucking terrible idea. If you feel the need to macro SotR, tanking is not for you.

I think he meant that when you press SotR, you cast SS. What's so wrong with that?

[Ferbian]

I think he meant that when you press SotR, you cast SS. What's so wrong with that?

Waste of GCD? You could be pressing other buttons in the GCD that SS would take up from the amount of times you're supposed to be pressing SotR, when really a properly tracking WA / addon would be plenty enough to keep your SS uptimes at a proper level without wasting GCD's on pressing it all the time.

[Mongo42]

Take Empowered Seals. Be sure to switch to Righteousness and Judge at least every 20 seconds. This will maintain a 20% haste buff. After the Judge, switch back to Insight, which will be healing you for 2% every 3 seconds. When the haste buff is near wearing off, switch back to Righteousness and Judge for another 20 second haste buff. It's somewhat similar to Stance Dancing we did back in Vanilla with Warriors. The 20% haste will help you build Holy Power faster to keep getting the SotR mitigation buff more often. And remember that SotR is also off the GCD.

[Lolyssian]

Take Empowered Seals. Be sure to switch to Righteousness and Judge at least every 20 seconds. This will maintain a 20% haste buff. After the Judge, switch back to Insight, which will be healing you for 2% every 3 seconds. When the haste buff is near wearing off, switch back to Righteousness and Judge for another 20 second haste buff. It's somewhat similar to Stance Dancing we did back in Vanilla with Warriors. The 20% haste will help you build Holy Power faster to keep getting the SotR mitigation buff more often. And remember that SotR is also off the GCD.

No. He/she should be using holy shield primarily. Seal dancing really is not worth it and adding more complexity to rotation is bad when you still struggle with the basics.

[sexybeast]

Take Empowered Seals. Be sure to switch to Righteousness and Judge at least every 20 seconds. This will maintain a 20% haste buff. After the Judge, switch back to Insight, which will be healing you for 2% every 3 seconds. When the haste buff is near wearing off, switch back to Righteousness and Judge for another 20 second haste buff. It's somewhat similar to Stance Dancing we did back in Vanilla with Warriors. The 20% haste will help you build Holy Power faster to keep getting the SotR mitigation buff more often. And remember that SotR is also off the GCD.

Telling someone who is learning the spec and trying to get the basics right to is like asking a toddler who's still leading to walk more then 15 steps to pick up a rugby ball and captain the springboks in the rugby World Cup this year, it's never gonna work, also the stance dancing part of emps is pointless, the heals are next to useless and you may as well be in SoR the entire time just for the haste buff.

Assuming this is you -

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...l=109&source=6

You lost 46 holy power by casting something other then sotr or WoG whilst holy power capped, that's 45 seconds worth of sotr lost! Sotr uptime stacks right, so there's no point in not pressing it at 5 hp on that fight as there's nothing you should be saving it for. By the looks of it, your wasting HP due to playing DP, which means your using holy power generators at 5 HP cause your not aware DP has procd so that has actually cost you more then the 46 seconds of uptime (most likely somewhere in the region of 1 minute) when DP has procced and your at full holy power just spam the fuck out of your sotr button. You'll be amazed at how long it can be up for due to lucky Procs.

Your haste is very low assuming again that this is you -

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...wings/advanced

So it MAY be an idea to play Emps BUT just sit in SoR for the haste buff. HOWEVER do not do this until you have somewhat mastered DP because it will only exasperat the issue.

Back to logs and defensive Cool downs -

You used Divine protection twice the entire fight, I mean worst case it's on a 1 min CD so it should be used at least 5 times in a 7 min odd fight. But as your actually playing unbreakable spirit you should be looking at using it almost on cd so that's around 12 times (cause there are down times in the fight after all. That a massive amount of difference there.
AD was never used, and as far as I can see neither was GoaK, AD i can see being used as a OMFG I'm about to die cd so yeah fair enough but GoaK really is a must when looking at smoothing damage.

That's all for now from me, trying to do this on my phone is a bugger.

TL;DR spam your sotr button more, get used to pressing SS on every free gcd and use your defensive CDs more

[Tommi]

I think he meant that when you press SotR, you cast SS. What's so wrong with that?

This. If you macro it corectly, then you use SOTR and cast SS at same time. All it does is simply help smooth a little bit while he is doing other things. Once he is comfortable then he would move away from the macro and have a weak aura for SS.

- - - Updated - - -

That's an absolutely fucking terrible idea. If you feel the need to macro SotR, tanking is not for you.

Calm down Doctor Solaire....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9rZkVIBLqw

[Ferbian]

This. If you macro it corectly, then you use SOTR and cast SS at same time. All it does is simply help smooth a little bit while he is doing other things. Once he is comfortable then he would move away from the macro and have a weak aura for SS.

- - - Updated - - -



Calm down Doctor Solaire....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9rZkVIBLqw

PTS is right though, it's a terrible idea, it's taking up global cooldowns by refreshing it every single (redundantly so if I may add) time you should be pressing SOTR.

[Tommi]

PTS is right though, it's a terrible idea, it's taking up global cooldowns by refreshing it every single (redundantly so if I may add) time you should be pressing SOTR.

Maybe he would rather have 100% uptime on SS due to it auto casting when he SOTR. Thats the whole point of the macro for a newer tank; to cast SS and SOTR at the same time in one button press. A more advanced tank wouldn't use the macro at all. I played with PTS in WoD, he is a more advanced tank than the OP. Things he does will not apply to the OP.

[Ferbian]

Maybe he would rather have 100% uptime on SS due to it auto casting when he SOTR. Thats the whole point of the macro for a newer tank; to cast SS and SOTR at the same time in one button press. A more advanced tank wouldn't use the macro at all. I played with PTS in WoD, he is a more advanced tank than the OP. Things he does will not apply to the OP.

But even a basic beginner tank shouldn't be spamming an ability that triggers a global cooldown which has a 30 second uptime (36-38 seconds if refreshed early), when those GCD's could be used elsewhere.

If you manage to press your SOTR at an average of every 5-6 seconds with proper Holy Power generation and haste level, you're effectively putting another 1-1.5 seconds of time out where you could've cast something else. In a lengthy fight thats a whole lot of wasted global cooldowns that could've been spent on something else, instead of simply having a solid weakaura that flashes up whenever you should be refreshing your SS. In a 10 minute fight pressing SOTR averagely every 5 seconds would leave you with 110 casts of SOTR and as a result 110 SS casts, and close to 2 minutes worth of GCD's (At a haste level enough to put the GCD at 1 second) that should've been used casting something else.

Really all OP needs is a proper means of reminding him that "Hey, your SS is about to run out, refresh it." not macro SS and SOTR together and waste casts on redundantly overlapping SS refreshes that aren't even remotely necessary.

[Malthanis]

In the future, please make use of the Fix my Tanking! thread for assistance with tanking.

Closing.