Pally tanking with a wild warlock

[sanguineraven]

The best build right now for tanking is...

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZ0eVAbuMtcIRhoxf0xbh

This is your opinion.

There's not really a best build, it all depends. My opinion follows:

- Personally, I think Ardent Defender, while a little short of Will of the Necropolis is still a solid talent to take.
- Judgements of the Just is also very useful since it depends on your group composition and you aren't guaranteed to have someone else keeping up a similar debuff.
- The proven optimal threat rotation is 96969 and for that you only need to use 1 point in improved judgements. You CAN spend 2 but it is not necessary to keep up the optimal TPS rotation.
- Kings is a big talking point and again it all comes down to you and who you usually play with. I put out insane threat so I can spare points in Kings. It is very useful for 10mans in case you don't run with a Paladin or with one that has not specced into Kings. If you are fairly confident there will always be someone else available to buff it then by all means pick up 5/5 Seals of the Pure or some ret talents instead.

[sanguineraven]

For the original poster and anyone seeking help, http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/ is considered your best source of advice and home to highly regarded paladin tanks. There is a forum available for talent discussion along with advice on rotations and gear.

[Eurytos]

Suggesting your build means I get to critique it. This should be fun.


Judgments of the Just is a crap talent. In a raid there are so many mob melee speed push backs available that it is the least of your worries. In a heroic, you really don't want to push back mob melee speed because you are robbing yourself of Blessing of Sanctuary full mana potential (you aren't getting hit as much meaning you can't dodge/parry/block as much) and spiritual attunement mana regeneration (your aren't getting hit as much meaning you aren't taking as much damage meaning you aren't getting as much healing and the healer is over healing anyways).

Improved judgments should be 2/2. It wasn't 2/2 in TBC because everything else was on a 9 second cool down. When everything got dropped to an 8 second cool down in Wrath 969 stopped existing and an 8 second judgment fits much better into a rotation.

To skip Judgement of the Just is ridiculous. If you have tons of mobs beating on you, having the attack speed slowed is taking less dmg. Why would you not want to take less dmg? I bet your healers like that.

As far as 2/2 Imp judgments, all you need is 1/2. The 969 rotation IS the best rotation for threat generation. There are hundreds of posts on this very site that you can look up the numbers on. That doesn't mean 2/2 is horrible, it just means that its not the best and your wasting a talent point. This is fact and undisputable.

To the OP, take the rest of what Daez has said with a grain of salt.

[Tybran]

Righteous Def as a glyph is helpful when you aren't rolling in hit from -raid- gear. Seeing as this OP is asking for trouble with -threat- Righteous Def and Judgement are good glyphs.

Judgement is added threat for no downside.

Glyph of Avenging Wrath is only really good when coupled with Glyph of Hammer of Wrath,and that's only for 20% of a boss fight. W/o Glyph of Hammer of Wrath, the mana consumption is too large.

As to your other posts. Your advice was not given in a joking manner

Suggesting your build means I get to critique it. This should be fun.

I welcome constructive advice, "This should be fun" Does not indicate you are giving someone joking advice, it means you are nagging someone for your own enjoyment.

[Risu]

Tell him to hold his aggro back, or no sex tonight.

It'll work, I promise you that.

LOL, yeah, it'd probably work...

So the trinket Essence of the Gossomer came up as a trinket to be replaced with the Monarch Crab (granted it wasn't directed at me, but it applies). What would you socket it with? Also mentioned was the emblem trinket. I thought dodge wasn't all that helpful to prot pallies in comparison to other trinkets?

As I said, all yellow/blue gem slots should be 8 defense 12 stamina and all red slots for your gear level are probably best off as 8 strength 12 stamina or 8 strength 8 defense.

Is there a point where you stop stacking defense? Since my pally has 560 defense, I used straight stam gems in my legs. Should I switch gems?

[admo415]

Ok...so this is a stupid piece of advice, but since my offspec is a pally tank (main is a healing) I sometimes tank heroics for fun. Sometimes when I die/or when I am really focused I forget to put up Righteous Fury...perhaps that could be what happened?

[Daez]

This is your opinion.

This is not my opinion. It has been supported through theory craft and is generally accepted by the paladin community at large.

- Personally, I think Ardent Defender, while a little short of Will of the Necropolis is still a solid talent to take.

You are right given that your healer sucks. If your healer doesn't suck then its a crap talent. Any boss that is going to take you below 30% is going to kill you in the next hit unless you are healed back to full with or without this talent.

- Judgements of the Just is also very useful since it depends on your group composition and you aren't guaranteed to have someone else keeping up a similar debuff.

You missed the point as to why its a bad talent. Its a bad talent because a paladin tank should avoid this debuff at all cost. We get our mana through getting hit and taking damage. This talent keeps us from getting hit as much and taking as much damage. This talent starves us of mana. In a heroic its a bad idea to take a talent that starves you of mana. In a raid, I would love love to see a raid without a feral druid or a dps warrior. Thunderclap and Infected Wounds work the same way but are either base line or universal in a build. If you don't have access to TC or IW then it doesn't really matter either because this isn't a needed debuff to begin with.

- The proven optimal threat rotation is 96969 and for that you only need to use 1 point in improved judgements. You CAN spend 2 but it is not necessary to keep up the optimal TPS rotation.

This is OUTDATED information. 969 no longer exists. Look at the cool down on all of your abilities. Do you see a single ability with a 9 second cool down? The answer is NO. They were all reduced to 8 seconds in Wrath. That means that if you only put one point into improved judgments you are going to have ONE ability with a 9 second cool down meaning you would have 968 not 969 to begin with. Having all of your abilities with an 8 second or 6 second cool down makes the rotation much easier. Not to mention, the best libram for tanking right now is http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40707 which will only have 3 seconds of downtime if you have 2 points in improved judgments and 4 seconds of down time with 1 point in improved judgments.

- Kings is a big talking point and again it all comes down to you and who you usually play with. I put out insane threat so I can spare points in Kings. It is very useful for 10mans in case you don't run with a Paladin or with one that has not specced into Kings. If you are fairly confident there will always be someone else available to buff it then by all means pick up 5/5 Seals of the Pure or some ret talents instead.

For starters, kings helps but it is never needed. On top of that, even a pug 10 man normally has at least one holy paladin (although I would never put kings in a holy build either) or one retribution paladin (which should always have kings). Kings is also not a game stopping talent. You can raid without kings. The reason a protection paladin should never get kings is that they are spending 5 points for something that in no way benefits them. As a protection paladin you should ALWAYS be using Blessing of Sanctuary over Blessing of Kings so you can't cast Blessing of Kings on yourself. Personally, I have no issues with threat but wasting 5 points on a talent that doesn't benefit me in the least and that the raid can survive without isn't something I'm willing to do. By the way, if you are a good tank, and I don't mean that you think that you are a good tank but that people around you think that you are a good tank, then you don't need your buff that every paladin can get to be your "selling point".

[Daez]

To skip Judgement of the Just is ridiculous. If you have tons of mobs beating on you, having the attack speed slowed is taking less dmg. Why would you not want to take less dmg? I bet your healers like that.

I'm already taking an insanely low amount of damage because those mobs aren't "beating on me" because my AVOIDANCE means those mobs have about a 1% chance of ever actually hitting me. Every time they don't hit me they are giving me back mana through Blessing of Sanctuary. That is why this is a crap talent that should always be skipped.

As far as 2/2 Imp judgments, all you need is 1/2. The 969 rotation IS the best rotation for threat generation. There are hundreds of posts on this very site that you can look up the numbers on. That doesn't mean 2/2 is horrible, it just means that its not the best and your wasting a talent point. This is fact and undisputable.

969 DOES NOT EXIST!!!!!!! It has not existed since TBC. Every post saying to use 969 is either outdated or made by someone that doesn't realize that their information is outdated. When you show me one other ability with a 9 second cool down (which is what 969 is based on) then I will allow you to go on believing that 969 still exist in Wrath. IN 3.0, every single paladin ability was lowered to an 8 SECOND COOL DOWN, which means the 9 of 969 DOES NOT EXIST. Its really not that hard to comprehend logic greater than other people's opinions is it?

To the OP, take the rest of what Daez has said with a grain of salt.

Yes, because clearing all of the end game content, being the top rated paladin tank on my server, and having all BIS by all means puts me on par with someone that doesn't realize that when you have no 9 second cool downs in your rotation you can't have a 969 rotation.

[Clarkis2001]

NOTE TO YOUR WILD WARLOCK:

Give the tank a second (or two depending on your respective gear) to get aggro then do whatever you want BUT be ready to use Soulshatter when the mobs aggro you. I usually want until they're halfway to me and then use it. I don't think this ability can miss anymore but I'm not certain about that since I'm not a big PvE player.

But don't ever doubt the utility of Soulshatter: it has saved me many times from either bad tanks or recklessness on my part! =D

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about:
Soulshatter
8% of base health
Instant 5 min cooldown
Reagents:
Soul Shard
Reduces threat by 50% for all enemies within 50 yards.

[Daez]

Glyph of Avenging Wrath is only really good when coupled with Glyph of Hammer of Wrath,and that's only for 20% of a boss fight. W/o Glyph of Hammer of Wrath, the mana consumption is too large.

When you are raid tanking with maximum avoidance and getting heal spammed with over healing mana regeneration is the LEAST of your worries. When I'm not the one tanking the boss, I use Seal of Wisdom instead of Seal of Vengeance and pop divine plea every time its off cool down and mana regeneration has still been the least of my worries.

As to your other posts. Your advice was not given in a joking manner

Yes it has. Your sense of humor and mine might be a little different, but you opened yourself up for it when you said that the poster should respec to a spec that no paladin would ever actually use except obviously for you because it was completely flawed in its design. I'm sorry if the truth hurts, but its still the truth.

I welcome constructive advice, "This should be fun" Does not indicate you are giving someone joking advice, it means you are nagging someone for your own enjoyment.

I actually stole that line from House in the last episode. I have the tendency to just tell it how it is and I personally do enjoy going through people's specs and gears to point out where they could improve, so yes it was fun.

[getefix]

2) I am going to seed a target because you are a paladin and your damage will trigger it soon. Figure out which mob I'm targetting (bad warlocks tab target, as I said) and DONT HIT THAT ONE. Seed doesn't damage that one so you don't need to tank it.

a tank should never ever have to pick his target based on what a DPS decides to target.

[Daez]

So the trinket Essence of the Gossomer came up as a trinket to be replaced with the Monarch Crab (granted it wasn't directed at me, but it applies). What would you socket it with? Also mentioned was the emblem trinket. I thought dodge wasn't all that helpful to prot pallies in comparison to other trinkets?

Monarch Crab should be socketed with 8 defense 12 stamina in both sockets. The emblem trinket isn't ideal but its the best in slot available currently. Dodge is our second best scaling avoidance stat (after defense) that grants full avoidance. Even Blizzard puts this trinket near the top for paladin tanks on the armory.

Is there a point where you stop stacking defense? Since my pally has 560 defense, I used straight stam gems in my legs. Should I switch gems?

There is never a point where you stop stacking defense. EJ has pointed out that defense is always the primary avoidance stat. Paladins are avoidance tanks. Therefore, you should never stop stacking defense. Your gear should go for defense>dodge>block rating>parry>stam after you have 27k health unbuffed (the gear that has the ratings on it will be more than enough to pull you up to 30k when you have all bis unbuffed). You should still be using 3 41 hp gems as a jewel crafter, but 8 defense 12 stamina gems are always better than 24 stamina gems.

[Tybran]

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Have you written a Paladin tanking faq? I'd love to read it.

[Zarcob]

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Have you written a Paladin tanking faq? I'd love to read it.

There is no Daez FAQ, only the Daez shrine. You must worship at it twice a day or be consumed by his all powerful intellect and brilliant tanking insights.

[Daez]

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Have you written a Paladin tanking faq? I'd love to read it.

None of my ideas are new or revolutionary. They are mostly from EJ or gleamed from other posters on the forums here. I've just been around learning all that I possibly could about paladin tanks since early December. I don't take credit for any of the ideas I have. If you need advice on paladin tank I highly recommend the elitist jerks website. EJ has the most up-to-date information on the vast majority of class mechanics.

The problem is that there is a lot of out dated information out there that leads to people like the guy that told me that 969 was the best tanking rotation although if you understood what 969 was based on you understood that it required your abilities to have either a 9 second cool down or a 6 second cool down.

The problem with that is that none of your abilities (except for Improved Judgments) has a 9 second cool down (only if you put one point instead of 2 into it). While it is completely accurate that in TBC a 9 second cool down on Improved Judgments was not only the norm but was preferred by the majority of paladin tanks that simply stopped being the case in Wrath. The average person that is learning about paladins finds a post and doesn't check the date and still takes the information as valid.

[Daez]

There is no Daez FAQ, only the Daez shrine. You must worship at it twice a day or be consumed by his all powerful intellect and brilliant tanking insights.

Welcome to trolling mmo-c young one. That was both insightful and humorous. I give it a 9/10 just because your post count is only a mere 261 and I don't want to get your head to big.

[Risu]

Monarch Crab should be socketed with 8 defense 12 stamina in both sockets. The emblem trinket isn't ideal but its the best in slot available currently. Dodge is our second best scaling avoidance stat (after defense) that grants full avoidance. Even Blizzard puts this trinket near the top for paladin tanks on the armory.

Seeing that I was lucky enough to pick up the defense trinket from Naxx10, should I skip the crab and go for the emblem trinket since I see that I have 28k health?

Should I switch the 24 stam gems for 41 stam dragons eye or the def/stam rare gems?

Sorry for the 20 questions, figured I might as well get all my ducks in a row at the same time.

[burningcacti]

As far as 2/2 Imp judgments, all you need is 1/2. The 969 rotation IS the best rotation for threat generation. There are hundreds of posts on this very site that you can look up the numbers on. That doesn't mean 2/2 is horrible, it just means that its not the best and your wasting a talent point. This is fact and undisputable.

2/2 imp judgments is usefull and by no means a waste of a talent point, tell me how often you are being pressured into using your max threat potential? where else would put the point if you want to get farther into the ret tree? lol benediction? 1 in might then an extra there to max it?

[Eurytos]

Maybe you should stop contradicting yourself Daez. In one post you say JotJ isn't good because it starves you of mana because your not taking dmg from which you would be healed. But right below that you say that your avoiding so much that you gain mana from Sanc. Which is it? Would you rather avoid dmg and gain mana or would you rather take dmg and gain mana? Or would you rather both? Of course YOU are going to be starved of mana because you have out geared the instances that the OP is tanking. Although I really dont know if your telling the truth because you have no sig or armory link or anything to let us lowly non-hero members know that your telling the truth.

You can argue all you want about 969 being "outdated" but as of right now, IT IS THE BEST for THREAT generation. There are no numbers to back up what your talking about. But by all means you should post them if you have them hiding where us non-hero members can't see them.

P.S. And since JotJ works on BOSSES, I'm going to take it. And please feel free to armory me, I've cleared all end game content as of now too. Not much to brag about, so lets leave that out, podnuh. Oh, and you really don't need to gem for defense. You can get all you need from gear. Stam and Str are the best. Though if your gear isn't "end-game" then defense is cool.

[burningcacti]

what kind of tank wants to take extra damage?