Need help with Paladin tanking.

[Avalanch]

I've never really had any problems tanking.. but my tanking partner is now a DK and I feel like I'm absurdly underpowered. The other option is that I'm bad, and I'd like to fix that.

First problem: Survivability - He can take a much larger beating than I can. My rotation is just the normal CS spam for holy power and then using either Shield for the threat or WoG for the extra healing if needed. Also, adding in the Avenger's Shield for bonus threat and holy power. I also think I use my CDs rather wisely so I don't think that's the problem.

Second problem: AoE Threat - I'm not entirely sure if he has a bigger threat advantage over me but I feel like I can almost never get more threat on AoE packs than he can even if I'm spamming my HoTR/Consecrate/Holy Wrath when available. However, my single target threat is far superior to his. This may be due to having at least some threat stats, i.e. Hit/Exp.

I have tried in the past to get rid of my threat stats when I can for extra Survivability, but I always mind myself getting frustrated when dps are flying over me on threat.

I would like to just know whether I'm doing something wrong or if DKs are just superior to Paladins at this point in the game. If I'm doing something wrong, just give some constructive criticism.. I'm not interested in reading any troll posts telling me I should uninstall.

Here is a link to my Armory - http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...valanch/simple

Thanks
-Avalanch

[xxAkirhaxx]

Threat stats are more important for a paladin than a DK.

Next time you run a raid look at your top damaging attacks and look at the DKs. The DK will have Deathstrike and Rune Strike as his top dmg attacks. You should have Crusader Strike and Shield of the Righteousness. The 2 top attacks done by the DK can be used off GCD when his resources let him, if he misses an attack he can immediately que that attack back up, sometimes missing an attack will not effect the DK at all due to his runes regain rate.

On the other hand when a paladin misses a CS it puts not only his main attack (CS) back another 3 seconds it also jumps his fillers up a spot, and that can sometimes force a consecrate that you didn't want. This also pushes back your Righteous Shield 3 seconds instead of a single GCD.

Blizzard tried to alleviate this with the AS procs, but in my experience AS procs are about as good as TV procs in ret. They're great but sometimes I get passed on the pull on threat and sometimes I get the perfect alignment of procs and the raid wonders if I've been asleep at the keyboard all night.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this; if a DK misses a main attack it sets him back a GCD, if a paladin misses a main attack it sets him back anywhere from a GCD to 2 GCDs and possibly interrupts the filler rotation. This means that paladins do have to worry about threat stats a small amount more than DKs. It's not a big deal though since, if you're using your CDs right you should be taking far less damage than him. In my opinion it's a good trade.

[Deleted]

They are not superior to paladins, we're in a pretty good place all around. With that said there will be certain situations where it will feel like they are, you gotta understand how DKs work to see why that is. The paladin's hallmark in terms of survival is predictable damage, in that regard DKs are our polar opposite. They are probably the most spiky tank in the game, which is where the difficulty of healing (and playing) a DK lies. I know DKs can go for insane amounts of time without taking any damage at all, and during certain phases they will look invincible but during other phases they will get absolutely obliterated.

A good example in T11 is Nefarian, a pally is far superior to tanking the constructs. A good example in Firelands is Baleroc, Pallies win on that one as well.

Also remember that if you go for hit/exp then naturally you will be a little harder to heal. It's not a huge deal though, just play to your strengths and don't worry about looking over to the other side of the fence. I just finished doing 6/7 Firelands with a Pally/Dk/War trio and all 3 of us were pretty similar on average.

[Vintage]

Using inquisition for AoE threat will help a lot. Even then, he'll probably pull off you. The only way I've been able to keep threat(off a DK tank) is to have Consecrate up, and using all of my AoE skills plus inquisition.

IMO, inquisition is a much better skill to use for AoE compared to shield and WoG. I only use WoG if I know I'm going to be hit hard.

[Homsel]

Hi Avalanch,

try to change every gem to fractured if you haven't covered the complete combat table yet. You've chosen the armor-meta, so you can stack all yellow gems. Similarly with reforging: if not combat table covered, reforge to only mastery (if possible). For the AOE threat-problem: I chose a different set with 5% hit on for trash. This might help as well. On boss adds I still go with my mastery set. I try to keep up Inquisition and boost my HotR (and other AOE spells). So far, this hasn't been an issue on threat, but I haven't done heoric modes yet.

[MerinPally]

I'll briefly talk about survivability.

Gemming is simple and as far as I can see with yours, correct. Yellow = Fracture, Blue = Puissant, red = Fine.

Enchants are also good.

With your gear, your avoidance is less than mine and your gear is far superior to mine. I would swap one of your trinkets to Mirror of Broken Images from Tol Barad, that's like a static 4% block which is better than you might imagine.

Talents - Reckoning > Hallowed Ground as a threat talent far as I was aware. Your AOE will easily be solved by usage of Inquisition.

That's really all I can see, maybe change Glyph of Crusader Strike for Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous, then you're pretty set far as I can see.

[Deleted]

I'm a blood tank, first raid on sunday so can't comment on firelands tho.

Are you both at the same vengance, since DK's don't have a shield nor blood shield up at start we can take a beating and gain the vengance kinda fast.
Is the DK using his death strikes for threat or to actually heal after spikes, seen alot of DK's miss using the death strikes (usually the regular and biggest problem healers have with DK's that randomly dies )


Other then that, i wish you the best of luck!

[Avalanch]

Thanks for the help guys. I went on a rep farm run in firelands and using inquisition really helped with my AoE threat.

Regarding my spec, this is my AoE spec, which is why I have points in Hollowed Ground. My boss spec doesn't use this.

I need a better trinket. My Porcelain Crab is good on fights when I need the Mastery, but I would really love to get a mirror.

The fight I was referring to where the Blood DK would never die was on Shannox. I would die at around 13-14 stacks of the bleed debuff and he would crap out at 20 or so.

Again, thanks for the help =)

[Halthane]

You don't want that many stacks in the first place...

[rabbimojo]

Thanks for the help guys. I went on a rep farm run in firelands and using inquisition really helped with my AoE threat.

Regarding my spec, this is my AoE spec, which is why I have points in Hollowed Ground. My boss spec doesn't use this.

I need a better trinket. My Porcelain Crab is good on fights when I need the Mastery, but I would really love to get a mirror.

The fight I was referring to where the Blood DK would never die was on Shannox. I would die at around 13-14 stacks of the bleed debuff and he would crap out at 20 or so.

Again, thanks for the help =)

The bleed debuff is one of those scenarios where a DK is going to do particularly well. As that damage ramps up, so does the DK's death strike output, allowing them to survive considerably higher numbers of stacks. Since bleeds are predictable as well, the DK can time DS perfectly to maximize, and since that bleed ticks every 3 seconds, a skilled DK will always have 2 of the bleed ticks on his or her "last 5 seconds" intake. It's close to a perfect formula for DK survivability.

Napkin math: At 20 stacks, the DK is taking 60k ticks of the bleed. So, every DS will have at least 120k in the "last 5 seconds", meaning he can heal himself for 24k without VB up, without Improved DS. Add in the talent, 34800. The blood shield created by this should absorb the bleed as well, since bleeds are physical (though they do ignore armor). Altogether, DS/blood shield is an anti-bleed-stacking machine. :P

So, don't feel bad. A warrior would likely be in the same place. A bear might be somewhere above, if Savage Defense properly absorbs the bleed.

[Avalanch]

You don't want that many stacks in the first place...

We know that... We only did a few attempts on him and our other tank had trouble pulling threat off me fast enough. So I'd end up dying from high stacks and then he'd die later on.

[razisgosu]

We know that... We only did a few attempts on him and our other tank had trouble pulling threat off me fast enough. So I'd end up dying from high stacks and then he'd die later on.

You don't want him to pull threat. One tank one boss and one on dog. Trap dog in ice when spear is thrown. Bleeds on both tanks drop.

[Avalanch]

You don't want him to pull threat. One tank one boss and one on dog. Trap dog in ice when spear is thrown. Bleeds on both tanks drop.

We're trying that strat on sunday. Our original strat was to have 1 of us tank both shannox and riplimb and then have the other tank pull aggro off. We were trying to do this by having myself and the other tank at #1 and #2 on threat so we could switch quickly.. but it wasn't very smooth.

The strat you mentioned seemed a lot more promising to us, so that's what we're gonna try to do.

[announced]

just use inquisition. as far as ur talents go id never get hallowed ground even for aoe threat. the talent is jus crap. if ur really hurting for threat get a bit more hit rating although that takes away from ur survivability.

[Deleted]

We're trying that strat on sunday. Our original strat was to have 1 of us tank both shannox and riplimb and then have the other tank pull aggro off. We were trying to do this by having myself and the other tank at #1 and #2 on threat so we could switch quickly.. but it wasn't very smooth.

The strat you mentioned seemed a lot more promising to us, so that's what we're gonna try to do.

Nah, the old-style threat race/switch pretty much became obsolete due to the vengeance mechanic unless the active tank -really- holds back on threat/damage.

Separate tanks is definately the way to go for Shannox.

[jeffersonian000]

I've taken to using Inquisition as my go-to finisher regardless of single-target or aoe, with SotR used while Inquisition is up doing 10-14k dps single target, and at the moment, DK's are having issues pulling threat off of me. I'm normally paired with a Bear during raids, and we have no issue with threat; however, if the bear isn't available I've had to drop back to a dps slot as our DK just can't taunt off me even after I stop my rotation and just stand there. And I'm midigation focused, not threat (1.6% hit, 4 expertise, 91% ctc unbuffed)

SJ

[Avalanch]

Thanks for the help. I have fixed my problem regarding AoE threat thanks to using inquisition more often. Also, that strat for Shannox worked great last week. Moving onto Alysrazor (Don't know the spelling) this sunday.