Newish Prot Pally: Am I ready for heroics?

[digitelanimefan]

So I just got the required average item level to queue for heroics-but before I rushed in, I thought I'd make sure I'm not getting in over my head. Some of my gear is still green, which makes me a tad uncomfortable. :/ I've bought the gear I can from the various factions. I'm closest to ranking up next with Wildhammer(2k away), which will replace my head and hands, and then I guess I'll grind out Therazan for the head enchant before moving on to the others. I've also gemmed the, uh, ONE socketable item I've got (seriously, shift+right click? Thanks for having that in the tooltips somewhere, blizz...), and enchanted what I can with my current mats. I've got some things unenchanted still, and I'll fix that as soon as I can.

However, my worry is not entirely gear related-I haven't been in most of the cata dungeons in normal mode even, and I'm worried that the heroic mechanics will kick my butt. I do have guides and such bookmarked for easy reading when I end up in dungeons, but I'd still be learning them a bit on the fly.

Anyway, thought I'd get some thoughts from you guys-thank you!

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...kangura/simple
(Btw, the equipped AIL is a bit lower than the average because of my holy offspec gear.)

[Deleted]

Yes. Make sure you CC a lot in the start though since both your block and hp levels are quite low. Almost every class has some kind of cc nowadays so you can pretty much make sure that you only get hit by 1 mob at a time. And as far as bosses goes... well, if you get killed there it's not a gear problem.

[Mildennais]

From what I'm seeing, you should do fine in heroics. I would try to get a bit more expertise, though. Your health is around what I started with. Make sure to rotate your CDs, and as Bzan said, CC mobs, and you'll do fine.

[Kewi]

1) Your parry is way too high, you want to balance Parry and dodge (By rating, not percent)
2) Not much reforged into mastery, you want to reforge into mastery to provide better (stable) incoming damage taken
3) Missing enchants, gems
4) you're actually under the recommended heroic ilvl, however gear in your bags is pushing you over the 329 value. You will find heroics difficult with a weak/under geared healer

Fix what you can from the above items.. as for #4, with good guildies you'd be fine, or at least a heroic-geared healer. However, many PUG's may find your damage taken quiet high unless you properly use CD's, CC's, and strong tanking knowledge in your favor (skill level can bump item level in some degree)

As you're new to tanking, strong tanking knowledge doesn't work for you, however you'll see certain situations where you want to save your shield toss as an interrupt (and not a pull mechanic, unless pulling a caster) and certain mobs that saving your HoJ will be beneficial (like stopping the Enforcers whirlwind in Grim Batol)

I would continue to run normal dungeons until you have done all of them with confidence.. and wait on heroics until you have a strong support healer, or at least a good DPS/CC buddy to help you out and to que with -- as knowing your CC'er or healer are good is a benefit on running heroics.

[Theiea]

I would at least do the normal modes of each dungeon before heading to heroics. Not only do you get a basic idea of the encounters, but you'll get quite a few gear upgrades as well. (HoO has like 4 or 5 tank drops IIRC)

[digitelanimefan]

I did notice some of my stuff wasn't reforged-I went and fixed that, turned anything not hit or exp. into mastery.
Parry is high, I agree. No idea why, honestly, but if I had to choose between reforging parry or dodge, I picked parry.
Also noticed my libram had a gem slot, so I picked up a +mastery and +stam gem for it. Armory may not be updated yet for all of this, mind.

I've been only doing guild runs so far anyway, so getting a good guild group isn't a problem. I may just avoid nastier heroics until I change out my gear-on that note, what ARE the nastier heroics? :P

I've basically been using my shield for pulling casters, because its so utterly WONDERFUL for that. Haven't needed to do any interrupting yet so far, but imagine it would also be wonderful for that. Personally, I can't wait to train rebuke.

[Kewi]

Part of the issue is you're running with so much DPS gear (Crit or haste = DPS).. as you replace it Dodge/parry balance will be easier.


you also have 1 reforge of Dodge into Hit -- don't want to do that, especially with dodge being your weakest stat (that can benefit the most from less effect of DR)

Also, take off your guild tabard, put on Therazane tabard or any rep tabard. I found Therazane rings (both dps and tank) acceptable at the start for tanking heroics.. not to mention the enchant

[digitelanimefan]

Also, take off your guild tabard, put on Therazane tabard or any rep tabard. I found Therazane rings (both dps and tank) acceptable at the start for tanking heroics.. not to mention the enchant

Mentioned I was going to do basically that in my first post, but thanks.

[Kewi]

eh, forgot about it since my other replies ;-)

[Alcsaar]

Number one suggestion is to run all the normal dungeons atleast one or twice before moving on to their heroic counterparts.

Also, I'd suggest checking tankspot or some other such website for videos and strats on heroics. They'll explain boss mechanics, skills, ect and show the fight in action; almost always in the tanks perspective even.

[Cursedfate]

your gear is ok i started with something like that, just be sure to blow your defensive cds also on trashes when needed because they hit more than the bosses like everywhere :P

[digitelanimefan]

Number one suggestion is to run all the normal dungeons atleast one or twice before moving on to their heroic counterparts.

Also, I'd suggest checking tankspot or some other such website for videos and strats on heroics. They'll explain boss mechanics, skills, ect and show the fight in action; almost always in the tanks perspective even.

Oooooh....that sounds useful! Thank you!

And really, thanks to all of you guys, you've been really helpful!

[verator]

You can completely ignore hit an expertise. Vengeance is a strong enough mechanic that right now, expertise and hit are completely unnecessary to maintain threat.

Stack as much dodge, parry, and mastery as possible. Mastery primarily is your best stat, get as much of it as you can. Most of your gems should be mastery/ stamina.

Tailoring is a completely useless profession for tanking, if you can I'd recommend getting jewelcrafting, engineering, mining, blacksmithing, or leatherworking. All provide pretty decent benefits for a tank, leatherworking probably the most so.

Stamina trinkets are not that good, try to get trinkets with a lot of mastery or parry or dodge.

You can talent out of seals of the pure and hallowed ground, neither talent is of much use to you as a tank. You want to also take 1 point out of reckoning. Place those talents into pursuit of justice and judgements of the just and maxing out rule of law.

Switch glyph of consecrate for glyph of lay on hands, reducing the cooldown on a very powerful tanking CD is incredibly useful, and you use consecrate very rarely now, and in the situations where you do use it, you want to cast it more often, not have it last longer.

Replace glyph of crusader strike with glyph of word of glory, word of glory is an amazing ability, use it any time your hp drops below 70% (if you have 3 holy power.)

You want the mastery enchant on gloves, not expertise. And put mending on your weapon for now.

For the actual heroics, remember glyph of holy wrath, the aoe stun is very useful. In throne of tides on the first boss, you need to save avenger's shield as an interrupt for shock blast, remember hammer of justice is also an interrupt. You also need to save interrupts for the first boss in shadowfang keep. totalhalibut's channel on youtube has good informational videos for learning the heroics also.

[Cursedfate]

You can completely ignore hit an expertise. Vengeance is a strong enough mechanic that right now, expertise and hit are completely unnecessary to maintain threat.

Stack as much dodge, parry, and mastery as possible. Mastery primarily is your best stat, get as much of it as you can. Most of your gems should be mastery/ stamina.

Tailoring is a completely useless profession for tanking, if you can I'd recommend getting jewelcrafting, engineering, mining, blacksmithing, or leatherworking. All provide pretty decent benefits for a tank, leatherworking probably the most so.

Stamina trinkets are not that good, try to get trinkets with a lot of mastery or parry or dodge.

You can talent out of seals of the pure and hallowed ground, neither talent is of much use to you as a tank. You want to also take 1 point out of reckoning. Place those talents into pursuit of justice and judgements of the just and maxing out rule of law.

Switch glyph of consecrate for glyph of lay on hands, reducing the cooldown on a very powerful tanking CD is incredibly useful, and you use consecrate very rarely now, and in the situations where you do use it, you want to cast it more often, not have it last longer.

Replace glyph of crusader strike with glyph of word of glory, word of glory is an amazing ability, use it any time your hp drops below 70% (if you have 3 holy power.)

You want the mastery enchant on gloves, not expertise. And put mending on your weapon for now.

For the actual heroics, remember glyph of holy wrath, the aoe stun is very useful. In throne of tides on the first boss, you need to save avenger's shield as an interrupt for shock blast, remember hammer of justice is also an interrupt. You also need to save interrupts for the first boss in shadowfang keep. totalhalibut's channel on youtube has good informational videos for learning the heroics also.

stamina trinkets are the best atm, the top guild's tanks use them and gem for the avoidance bonuses, about the hit, i agree that you dont need to be hard capped since losing aggro atm is really hard, i would reforge most of the stuff to mastery and the one with mastery already on it to hit to mantain a good level of hit without losing mitigation.

[verator]

The top guilds have been using avoidance trinkets until they hit hardmodes, the MT of paragon was using two avoidance trinkets till he got the heroic version of the symbiotic worm. None of the content before hardmodes is hitting hard enough for stam trinkets to be necessary, you can easily survive 3-4 hits before dying. Avoidance is far more important.

[zealous]

Don't rush into hcs unless you have at least 2 competent/geared friends to run it with.
Read up hc tacs, many bosses are drastically different from normal.

Ozruk in Stonecore is a prime example - normal he is just a tank and spank, I basically ate all his attacks w/o moving on normal. On hc he requires attention and tacs knowledge, both his shockwave and shatter will one shot even a tank and incorrect positioning might make the shockwave kill the entire group.

For gearing - mastery is king as many have already said here, balance it with stamina, favoring the former. Trinks are a tricky business, I have only one stamina trinket from heroics but the avoidance ones seem lackluster to me so far, so my 2nd trinket is still the frost badge 264 ilvl one. I've tried heroic throngus finger and in numbers it seems a tad better but I don't like depending on RNG to survive.

Relics are currently a problem to acquire. Stonecore 2nd boss has a tanking one, but I, for example have been unlucky with it, so I carry a str dps one, luckily reforging allows to minimize lost stats so all I have really wasting there is the ~30 haste.

Prioritize your rep grinds. Hyjal has an epic cloak for us. Dragonmaw have a 346 helm and epic boots (recommend going for them first if you are still buying stuff for JPs, so as to get helm and not waste JPs on the vendor one, then grind for boots).
Ramkahen have epic bracers for us.

Get the BS shield>belt>chest as gold allows. They are stupid good if you are not yet raiding.

If you are not running a 346+ ilvl grp, CC is your friend. With a skilled/dependable healer and good dps I am currently able to zerg most anything if I pop some cds on each pack, but that will NOT work with starter gear. CC, stun, interrupt casts if you want to survive.

If you can execute those correctly, sheep pulls are the way to go. Set focus on your CCer, let him pull with sheep/hex/whatever and use our aoe taunt on him. Then when mobs are away from the CCed dude, AS - proceed with rotation. Caster mobs will not run towards you so try and CC them and not the melee ones.

Use your 1 min cd liberally. Like on each pack if you need to. It's meant to be used that way. Use the other two when things feel hot. Don't wait for 15% hp to use Ardent Defender, it's better used as a 20% damage reduction beforehand, unless you are 100% sure you are going to getting dropped to that low in the next 2 seconds.

Get a threat addon and when you are ahead on threat, keep using WoG instead of SoR. Unless ofc you are on a dps race fight.