[Prot] WoD/Legion Alpha Discussion

[Theck]

Let me reiterate that this last post I quoted is exactly the sort of thing I mean when I say this forum tends to be hyper-focused on DPS.

1) Assumption that a 2%-5% increase in survivability is of negligible benefit without any supporting evidence or rationale. Why is that negligible? 5% is a huge increase in survivability in practice - that's like getting several significant gear upgrades.

2) Assumption that the personal DPS increase has a significant effect on DPS checks. How, exactly? Again, we're talking about a ~0.5% increase in raid DPS. We're shaving seconds, if that, off of any relevant dps check phase. Getting lucky with trinket procs during Seraphim/HA has a much, much larger effect on your overall damage variation. We're talking about the difference between mistiming your pre-pot by a second or so, that's it.

Are there situations where that DPS matters? Sure, but they're exceedingly rare, and generally happen on those last couple pulls (the ones where you're wiping at very low boss health, or missing a raid-wiping effect by seconds). It's almost completely irrelevant during the majority of boss learning.

3) Invocation of the "boss mechanics" red herring. Nothing about the SoI/SoR precludes you from being familiar with boss mechanics, coordinate externals, or use different raid strategies. People still die when doing everything "correctly" in progression, it's part of the job.

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You look through the signatures and posts on this thread, you see plenty of claims of superiority against raiders who've been competing for world firsts for longer than that player has had a sub, it just provides an avenue for those people to feel special.

I actually don't look at them at all. I try not to bias myself against an opinion based on the progression of the person providing it. I'd rather address the actual meat of the argument directly, rather than make it personal.

After all, I'm human and make mistakes. There's always the possibility I'm wrong about something, and if so I'd rather be persuaded by a well-articulated argument than continue to spread misinformation.

[Deleted]

I personally found that in recent months the point of the DPS-centric nature of this thread is less to do with it as an ideal to strive towards but more for players who don't raid at the highest level to validate themselves by claiming to be better than X major player simply by out performing their damage on logs. It was born with vengeance optimizing but has since just become ego-surfing.

You look through the signatures and posts on this thread, you see plenty of claims of superiority against raiders who've been competing for world firsts for longer than that player has had a sub, it just provides an avenue for those people to feel special.

While I have some of those people on ignore plainly for the fact that a) I don't need to see them shit-talking everyone they perceive as "beneath" them, and b) they are just looking for a fight if you don't kiss their arse and worship the ground they walk on, I think it's a little bit silly to pretend that "the bulk of posters" are sneering at WF tanks - they aren't - just because they have a more casual approach to raiding, have had more time to gear up to where survival isn't as big a deal generally, and have a desire to play a bit more on the DPS focused side for fun purposes or whatever. I also think it's a bit silly to automatically assume that just because someone has the time and desire to play at a high level that they are better than other players or that players without the time and desire to be at top rank level can't be better tanks than those that are. Tanks are not their guild.

The reason I care about DPS is because I came from playing a Ret Paladin. Before that I was a Prot Warrior until the Wrath changes made threat irrelevant, and in terms of what I enjoy it would go: threat play > DPS > meatwalling > healing, so naturally I just gravitate towards being as good a "tank" as possible, then push as much DPS as I can. I'm not #1 material anyway, and also: a) my guild wouldn't let me do risky cheesy things for the sake of a log, and b) I actually can't be bothered to do stuff like going up every chain hurl to AoE-peen on Kargath (for example). I just push my dps within the confines of still tanking "properly" without putting the raid at risk, and using regular tactics that get the boss killed, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. If tanks were made to always be last on damage, I simply wouldn't have as much fun with it.

It's funny that you're complaining about people's egos (which, bar Lazel, there aren't any majorly grating ones as far as I'm concerned) while writing everybody in this thread off because they aren't in top world ranked guilds, and so in your mind obviously aren't good enough to know what they're talking about or what they're doing. How is that any better than what Lazel does when people don't agree with him or lick his arse?

[Deleted]

Power to the people!

I am two tanking Mythic Impregantor as a paladin with my cotank BrM Transcending every debuff, cause of this im going to be the main target for both boss and adds. Probably a silly question but I guess this would be the best time to switch to Holy Shield? The adds in the first phase do quite alot of damage let alone the fortified ones that I cant stun. I would prefer to use Seraphim but I just want this kill and will do whatever causes me not to die

[Termintaux]

b) I actually can't be bothered to do stuff like going up every chain hurl to AoE-peen on Kargath (for example). I just push my dps within the confines of still tanking "properly" without putting the raid at risk, and using regular tactics that get the boss killed, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. If tanks were made to always be last on damage, I simply wouldn't have as much fun with it.

Perhaps what frustrates me the most is the response from other players, particularly in my guild. The log is my first attempt using seraphim in prot after reading this thread last week. The response is purely you're op that's why you were nerfed, not: our dps is poorly converting their ilvl to dps compared to you. It's frustrating when people who can't reach for a higher skill cap assume you're not and/or you're being given dps for no effort.

Oh I can't post links, lame. I did 31k dps at 677 ilvl on H Imp, I was second dps.


As a side note: I always do stands, I just assumed that's how it's done, I take second impale and every immediate impale after returning from stands. Not that strategy is a thing for M Kargath.

[Kanadei]

I might just be a heroic clearing player (my group only got 7/7 earlier this week, haven't even started on mythic kargath yet, lol what a noob) but for what it's worth I've always found this thread, outside of a couple misaligned posts or deliberately contentious posters, a solid source of both information and discussion around prot paladin. Sure I'm not currently clearing mythic, and maybe this thread gets diverted a little when Lazel starts talking about Kill la Kill or something, but I wouldn't say I could point to any one particular person in here who is consistently disparaging about wf paladins (maybe the off comment or two).

I guess what I'm getting at is, sure I may not be debating minuscule differences in how my guild approaches mythic imperator compared to others, and maybe that's a bad thing or counter to this forums purpose and if so then I apologise. But I am happy with my level of progress, happy with these forums as a resource and generally happy with the level of constructiveness which I usually see in here.

Once again, I don't raid mythic or wf so you should probably take anything I say with grain of salt or something, but that's how I see it.

[Candlemaster]

Even if Seraphim only excells at 45%+ uptime I don't see how that's bad. I average around 47% and I've only been using Seraphim for about a month. Once you get into the rhythm of things it's not that hard to play Seraphim near optimally (even though some people will argue that it's JOHN FUCKING MADDEN).

And if it is more fun then Holy Shield AND is better (even if only marginally) then I think it's still totally worth it.

has someone made a flow chart yet of seraphim? if not I feel one should be made. I dont know crap about PShop though so I cant do it.

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Am I the only one who despises externals , not sure why , been like that since MoP. Just feels bad calling out for it 24/7.

I learned how to do that in H 25 LK. Never had to ask before it until then. THANKS GHOSTS.

I mostly ever need externals on H imp and brack (also question about brack, disc priests are supposed to take CoWill for that fight right? or is PW:S enough on heroic?) I was wondering why his breaths just wrecked me so much when HoS isnt up.

[Mahrke]

I actually -like- calling for externals. I mean...I'm not gonna call for them whenever, but if I'm having to get externals, it really means the fight is taxing me as a tank. When I need externals to overcome that challenge, it really makes it feel like teamwork, and when everything is coordinated perfectly and I'm able to tank something I wouldn't be able to, it makes it feel like a well-executed plan rather than just brute-forcing away the damage with gear/individual skill.

That said, it probably only feels special and good because it -rarely- occurs that externals are neccessary.

[Deleted]

Power to the people!

I am two tanking Mythic Impregantor as a paladin with my cotank BrM Transcending every debuff, cause of this im going to be the main target for both boss and adds. Probably a silly question but I guess this would be the best time to switch to Holy Shield? The adds in the first phase do quite alot of damage let alone the fortified ones that I cant stun. I would prefer to use Seraphim but I just want this kill and will do whatever causes me not to die

We're currently employing the same strat, and I honestly feel like Seraphim is stronger than Holy Shield if you use your CDs correctly. The caveat is that I haven't seen the Fortify-Replication phase quite yet, but Seraphim with good CD and external usage feels much stronger so far, particularly for dealing with the Reaver.

If ever you decide to 3-tank, however, I fully support going HS if you're going to deal exclusively with adds.

[MerinPally]

Pitchforks!

Burn the witch!

Treckie!

THIS IS MY SWAMP

[Deleted]

Power to the people!

I am two tanking Mythic Impregantor as a paladin with my cotank BrM Transcending every debuff, cause of this im going to be the main target for both boss and adds. Probably a silly question but I guess this would be the best time to switch to Holy Shield? The adds in the first phase do quite alot of damage let alone the fortified ones that I cant stun. I would prefer to use Seraphim but I just want this kill and will do whatever causes me not to die

So, we 2 tanked it on progress - I used Holy Shield over Seraphim, I had to use either a large CD, or ask for a large external on every single wave of small adds - I tanked all of them despite us using a blood Dk and a portal in phase 3 where we alternated marks. Holy Shield smoothed the damage of the large and small adds in both phases, which was more than I could get from Seraphim as it lasted 30 out of 45 seconds, which made things a lot easier throughout the whole fight. You do less dps, but who cares... Also, not that it should come down to it now, but Insight is amazing on this fight (2/3 of Sacred Shield with 35% overhealing - which everyone seems to think is godly because it's the best thing on that row, but Insight is trash because it gives no dps???).

Lazel mentioned calling for CDs, I dislike doing it, but we would never have gotten anywhere close to killing the boss if I didn't call for them. It became something similar to just using my own personals at certain points, our Blood Dk didn't need them because he never had to tank the adds, so I could just line up everything we had in the raid to suit.

When you look at what someone says in this thread, you shouldn't judge them based on how much they have cleared or whether they log highly, try and make your own judgement on what they are saying and if it's applicable to you. It doesn't matter what people think, they have an opinion and it has to come from somewhere. If someone has that opinion, then it must be based on what they think about the class, so try and collect as much information as you can and then choose what you feel is the best overall opinion. I often tune in to to listen to Treckie and Sloot talk about what they think about certain things on their respective streams. I can assure you that I disagree with at least a third of what both of them say, whether its limited to Protection Paladins or just Tanking in general. But they must have a reason for thinking the way they do, just as I do - so at some point during a boss fight, their way of doing things could be better than mine. It's harder to realise that if you don't know about a certain way to do things.

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We're currently employing the same strat, and I honestly feel like Seraphim is stronger than Holy Shield if you use your CDs correctly. The caveat is that I haven't seen the Fortify-Replication phase quite yet, but Seraphim with good CD and external usage feels much stronger so far, particularly for dealing with the Reaver.

If ever you decide to 3-tank, however, I fully support going HS if you're going to deal exclusively with adds.

I went with HS and then used HA at set moments (despite not affecting the damage the arcane adds do to you, it does reduce boss damage you take). I used HA on the first add in p1, directly when the boss came down in p2, on the reaver in the second intermission, when I was tanking small adds + boss in 3rd intermission and HA was off CD, on the large wave of Cho'gall adds at the beginning of p4 (omg spoilers) and then on CD again during p4.

I don't know whether most people stick to HA, but it's possibly my favourite CD in the game because of how long you can extend it and I think its very underrated for it's defensive purposes. If you do stick to Serraphim, can you let me know how it goes in p4 when you get there, because I've never tested that out.

[Deleted]

So, we 2 tanked it on progress - I used Holy Shield over Seraphim, I had to use either a large CD, or ask for a large external on every single wave of small adds - I tanked all of them despite us using a blood Dk and a portal in phase 3 where we alternated marks. Holy Shield smoothed the damage of the large and small adds in both phases, which was more than I could get from Seraphim as it lasted 30 out of 45 seconds, which made things a lot easier throughout the whole fight. You do less dps, but who cares... Also, not that it should come down to it now, but Insight is amazing on this fight (2/3 of Sacred Shield with 35% overhealing - which everyone seems to think is godly because it's the best thing on that row, but Insight is trash because it gives no dps???).

Lazel mentioned calling for CDs, I dislike doing it, but we would never have gotten anywhere close to killing the boss if I didn't call for them. It became something similar to just using my own personals at certain points, our Blood Dk didn't need them because he never had to tank the adds, so I could just line up everything we had in the raid to suit.

When you look at what someone says in this thread, you shouldn't judge them based on how much they have cleared or whether they log highly, try and make your own judgement on what they are saying and if it's applicable to you. It doesn't matter what people think, they have an opinion and it has to come from somewhere. If someone has that opinion, then it must be based on what they think about the class, so try and collect as much information as you can and then choose what you feel is the best overall opinion. I often tune in to to listen to Treckie and Sloot talk about what they think about certain things on their respective streams. I can assure you that I disagree with at least a third of what both of them say, whether its limited to Protection Paladins or just Tanking in general. But they must have a reason for thinking the way they do, just as I do - so at some point during a boss fight, their way of doing things could be better than mine. It's harder to realise that if you don't know about a certain way to do things.

Out of curiosity, Astur, what was your iLvl when you 2-tanked it? Currently sitting at 680 and tank damage doesn't feel like an issue at all, but I can imagine if you were say 10 iLvls lower that it would be a much bigger problem.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

I must say, tanking with 30% haste before seraphim feels a lot better. It also makes using seraphim a lot easier, because you can often slip in an extra ShoR before stacking to 5. It almost halved the "deadline" for using ShoR before going to 5 for Seraphim.

[Deleted]

You don't say. 2050 haste unbuffed and it feels like a different class almost.

[Sacredknight19]

Am I the only one who despises externals , not sure why , been like that since MoP. Just feels bad calling out for it 24/7.

It irritates me to no end, and I have yet to find an addon I like for tracking other peoples CD's...

[Snuzzfizzle]

It irritates me to no end, and I have yet to find an addon I like for tracking other peoples CD's...

How about Blood Legion Cooldown?

[Inuyaki]

It irritates me to no end, and I have yet to find an addon I like for tracking other peoples CD's...

hermes?

If some people here think that 5% survivability isn't so important but 10% dmg is, I wonder if they give all items away to their dps during progression

[Snuzzfizzle]

We're currently employing the same strat, and I honestly feel like Seraphim is stronger than Holy Shield if you use your CDs correctly. The caveat is that I haven't seen the Fortify-Replication phase quite yet, but Seraphim with good CD and external usage feels much stronger so far, particularly for dealing with the Reaver.

If ever you decide to 3-tank, however, I fully support going HS if you're going to deal exclusively with adds.

Remnants in p3 will be the cause of quite a few tank deaths. Other than p3, incoming tank dmg isn't an issue at all.
I just went with Seraphim and SoI in the end because DP and an external was sufficient to survive them and HS wasn't needed for any other phase.
Also, I see very little reason not to 3 tank the fight. It helped us a lot during p3 and p4.

[Deleted]

Out of curiosity, Astur, what was your iLvl when you 2-tanked it? Currently sitting at 680 and tank damage doesn't feel like an issue at all, but I can imagine if you were say 10 iLvls lower that it would be a much bigger problem.

I did the majority of our tries at 671 I think, may have been 672 - I was 675 on the kill according to WoWProgress, but I noticed a big difference between that and the tries the reset before. I still roll CDs and externals on both my paladin and my druid (druid was 681 when i tanked imperator for the first time) and even though the gear is really noticeable, there is still no reason in my opinion to not play safely on that fight. If you're at 680 then I assume thats similar to the others in the raid and in that case you overgear the encounter by about 7 ilvls so you don't need your prot paladin min-maxing dps, you need your prot paladin to be playing safe and just seeing the last phases as much as possible

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Remnants in p3 will be the cause of quite a few tank deaths. Other than p3, incoming tank dmg isn't an issue at all.
I just went with Seraphim and SoI in the end because DP and an external was sufficient to survive them and HS wasn't needed for any other phase.
Also, I see very little reason not to 3 tank the fight. It helped us a lot during p3 and p4.

With the nerf to tank aoe damage, there is very little reason to 3 tank it given your 2 tanks can handle it easily. Obviously the third tank helps a little, but having 2 tanked the fight from the start, we would never change to a 3 tank strat as we know that even having one of our tanks on his main alt, we can handle the fight easily. It's easier to learn with 3 tanks, but only slightly.

Also, depending on what you do in p4, Holy Shield can destroy the adds in p4. Both myself and Treckie would tank a full wave with Holy Shield, then as the second wave came in we called for burst AoE (frost orb / bladestorm etc). If you passively cleave like Paragon did with an Enhancement Shaman, then Holy Shield is weaker in p4, if you Holy Shield off-tank them, the Holy Shield will probably do a lot more damage than Seraphim during that phase and makes tanking safer.

[Theck]

If some people here think that 5% survivability isn't so important but 10% dmg is, I wonder if they give all items away to their dps during progression

Actually, I think most of us do. My guild certainly does, anyway. Traditionally, conventional wisdom has said you get more mileage out of those upgrades on a DPS player than a tank. That's not to say that the upgrades aren't important for tanks. You can definitely feel the difference. But a tank can more easily cover for lack of gear with good play than a DPS, I think. Although that's probably very subjective.

I'm beginning to question that conventional wisdom though, because it feels like we've had a lot more tank deaths during progression this tier than in previous expansions. I'm not sure exactly why yet.

[Inuyaki]

hmm, ok... I admit I raided progression only during Vanilla and TBC and back then you tried to equip the tanks first. After that only semi-hardcore, so I don't know how much that changed.

But I just thought a little bit about my comment and I must say... it indeed would make more sense to give the items to a tank, at least in this (half) tier.
If you know that you 3-tank the fight and have a blood dk with #2 in dmg at the end, would you rather give items to plate dd for a dps upgrade or a tank for dps upgrade + survivability upgrade...
Ofcourse tank dmg is rarely higher than dd dmg in most fights, but even then, give the dd 1k extra dps or give the tank 0.8k dps + extra survivability? Hard one... but I don't raid progression anymore, so I don't care