Paladin tanking guide

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Intervention
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Paladin tanking guide

#1 » Post by Intervention » 18 Jan 2011 05:40

There is a general tanking rotation to generate a high threat output, although i generally stick to my rotation for a while, always be prepared to swap. Here's a generally used rotation which most pallys use.

0.0 Holy Shield (9)
1.5 Hammer of the Righteous (6)
3.0 Judgement (9)
4.5 Shield of Righteousness (6)
6.0 Consecration (9)
7.5 Hammer of the Righteous (6)
9.0 Holy Shield (9)
10.5 Shield of Righteousness (6)
12.0 Judgement (9)
13.5 Hammer of the Righteous (6)
15.0 Consecration (9)
16.5 Shield of Righteousness (6)
18.0 Holy Shield (9) ... and repeat.

Now obviously you can chuck in Avenger's shield, Holy Wrath and so on when the time is right. For your convenience (more so mine) for lazy RHC tanking i'll give you this macro to use. It's high mana cost but at high damage AOE tanking.

#showtooltip
/startattack
/castsequence [mod:alt] Consecration; reset=5 Consecration, Hammer of the Righteous, Holy Shield, Judgement of Wisdom, Shield of Righteousness


Tuffey's alternative lazy macro information
Here is an alternative to the "Lazy Pally Tank Macro"
These macros require 1 point in Improved Judgements in order to bring the cooldown to 9 seconds.


First Macro (9 Seconds)
/castsequence Holy Shield, Judgement of Wisdom, Consecration

Second Macro (6 Seconds)
/castsequence Hammer of the Righteous, Shield of the Righteousness

(IF you leave the Macro image as a "?" then the next spell in line will appear on the macros)

These macros are basically the same as was mentioned above but breaks them down into two macros so you can track them easier, interrupt them easier and start the rotation back up.

This works in a way that you hit the 9 second macro, then 6, then 9,6,9. This is called the 96969 rotation. As was mention above.

You can use whatever judgement you like but Wisdom is good for keeping your Mana up.


POSSIBLE SPECS:

5/59/7 My current spec, this spec is both selfless and aggro building. It works best with high end gear to get a balance of both threat and survivability.
http://wow335.gamestool.net/paladint.ph ... 0000000000

0/53/18 This is a spec with higher aggro, concentrates on crit rating rather than over all damage, healing and selfless talents. It's good for dungeons and when you first grab some tank gear and a spec. I don't really recommend this for raids as some ret talents will be covered by well, a ret paladin. Also, it's a toss up between judgements of the just 2/5 or touched by the light 2/3. Judging by your strength which i assume would be low at the starting stage, it's better to go for judgements of the just 2/5 on the holy tree.
http://wow335.gamestool.net/paladint.ph ... 0000000000

STAT BREAKDOWN:

Expertise: Shield of righteousness is subject to dodge and parries now :( so this buffed the threat value of expertise immensely. Reaching the expertise softcap of 26 is the best thing a paladin can do for their threat, after that, the value of expertise drops to the fourth strongest threat stat. Keep in mind that glyph of SoV will always be the best single target threat glyph. Don't worry about the hard cap, 1. you don't exactly NEED it and 2. It's practically impossible to get it with ICC gear.

Strength: Strength is the second strongest threat stat available. Strength is subject to several multipliers which increase it's value and also has secondary benefits. Strength gives AP, BV, and SP when fully talented. The value of strength drops once you reach 2900 buffed BV so keep that in mind, i'll discuss how to gear well for threat below. :)

Block Value: BV isn't a terribly common stat on gear anymore after the 3.0 patches came out, but the odd pieces do still exist. Due to our heavy reliance on ShoR for threat, BV is the third best threat stat. BV contributes to capping out the DR on Shield of the Righteous much faster then strength would.

Hit: 263 hit rating is needed to stop melee specials from missing. Hit is one of the weaker threat stats but hitting that soft cap is handy. Depending on the fight, hit may increase in value because of the need for a taunt to succeed at a certain time. In most cases, it's a better idea to swap in a hit trinket or glyph HoR for those kinds of situations.

Other Stats, AP, SP, ArP, Crit, Agi, and Haste: These do not appear on tank gear. Their individual values will vary slightly but be aware they are pretty much always inferior strength, BV, AP etc.

How to gear for threat: While gearing, gemming, and enchanting for threat isn't something I would recommend, there's a simple three step process for determining your top threat stat.
1)With SoV (glyphed) up, do you have 26 expertise? If not, expertise remains your top threat stat.
2)Fully raidbuffed, do you have less then 2900 block value? If so, strength is your top threat stat.
3)Fully raidbuffed, do you have more then 2900 block value? If so, hit is your top threat stat.

I know there are more survival stats but THESE are the most crucial:

Armor: armor has gotten a new meaning in ICC. Prior to Icecrown, there were only one or two high armor pieces tops per tier so the stat wasn't exactly stackable, just something that increased with gear level. Armor can drastically scale the value of your effective health in fights were physical damage is a primary concern.

Strength: Strength provides BV at a rate of about 0.707 BV per point of strength when fully talented. Not a major concern but strength is on practically all tank gear so it's worth mentioning.

Defense rating: Defense rating increases our dodge, parry, and block chance as well as our chance to be missed and critically hit. A defense skill of 540 is a requirement to remove a bosses' chance to crit you in a raid setting making 540 defense skill the softcap. Defense past this level is not wasted however, as defense is our best avoidance stat increasing dodge, parry, miss, and block chance. The combined dodge/parry/miss of defense will provide more point-for-point avoidance then other stats like dodge rating, parry rating, and agility.. In ICC, the radiance effect reduces our total dodge by 20%, making the magic 102.4% number rather difficult to hit. So Dodge is the cheapest avoidance per rating stat to start building on, but lets not forget about Diminishing Returns!

OMG what are Diminishing Returns?!?!?!?!?!

While Dodge Rating gives better avoidance then Parry Rating the more Dodge Rating you have, the more Dodge Rating it will take to make up 1% Avoidance but in the same way the more Parry Rating you have, the more Parry Rating it will take to make up 1% Avoidance. This works the same for Miss rating.

Block value: The amount of damage stopped by a block is equal to our total block value. As a stat, the value of block depends entirely on the swingspeed and size of the incoming hits. Fast, relatively weak hits will increase the usefulness of block whereas slow, hard hitters will decrease the value of block.



ENCHANTS AND GEMMING:

There's only a few “debatable” options where people go back and forth on higher budgeted enchant. A good rule of thumb is that if you're having no issues hitting the def cap (duh), then you're likely better off using a health enchant. I've excluded profession based enchants, they're covered in the profession section :D

Head: 37 stam / 20 def
Shoulders: 30 stam / 25 resil OR 20 dodge / 15 defense
Back: 225 armor OR 16 def
Chest: 275 health OR 22 def
Bracers: 40 stam
Gloves: 18 stam OR 240 armor OR Armsman: +2% threat generation and 10 parry rating, Precision: +20 hit rating (if you're having trouble getting to the softcap), Expertise: +15 expertise rating (for those w/o the SoV glyph and need the extra expertise) (Thanks ctrlaltdel)
Belt: belt buckle (additional socket, should be filled with a 30 stam gem)
Legs: 55 stam / 22 agi
Boots: 22 stam
Weapon: Blood Draining OR Mongoose
Berserking: Not the ideal enchant, but does give extra attack power, which can mean higher threat. Again, this all depends on your other stats.
Bladeward: CoH to increase parry rating by 200 (stackable) and deals 600 - 800 dmg on next parry (increased by AP and # of stacks (Thanks again Ctrlaltdel) )
Shield: 81 BV OR 20 def OR 18 stam
Ring: Stamina: +30 stamina (enchanter only)


Red socket, bonus worth meeting: shifting dreadstone, regal dreadstone
Yellow socket, bonus worth meeting: enduring eye of zul or Solid Magestic Zicron.
Blue socket or any socket without a worthwhile bonus: solid majestic zircon
Meta: austere earthseige diamond

Major:
Divine Plea (required): Glyph DP is a flat 3% damage reduction whenever DP is up. With the appropriate talents, DP is up pretty much 100% of the time.

Seal of Vengeance (almost required): The best threat glyph ever, giving us a huge amount of expertise for a single glyph slot. No other glyph comes close to approaching this in terms of threat unless you are at the expertise hard cap...(LOL)

Other optional glyphs: HotR, Judge, Avenger's Shield, and Righteous Defense. All these have situational uses. Judge and AS are minor threat boosts. While HotR is good for multi-mob tanking past 3 mobs. RD is worth glyphing if you're low on hit and in a taunt-sensitive encounter. Know the fights beforehand, and choose the appropriate glyphs.

Minor:

Lay on Hands and Sense Undead are both very useful for obvious reasons. There really isn't third minor glyph with any great benefit. I use Glyph of the Wise, but that's entirely optional.


PROFESSIONS:

JC: JC is still the best profession for tanks as it gives a bonus of 63 stamina from 3 JC-only gems.
LW: Gives an extra 62 stam from the enhanced wrist enchant.
Mining, BS, enchanting: All give 60 stam increases (i got this BS&mining)
Alchemy: Gives 520 additional health with flask of stoneblood up
Tailoring: Don't take tailoring. Just don't...JUST seriously, quit if you do...
Herbalism: Situational at best, calculated EH values vary with health but are all significantly less then 60 stam.
Skinning: 40 Crit, a weak threat stat....just don't..
Inscription: 40 dodge rating, not preferable to EH type enchants.
Engineering: Flexweave cloak enchant (1 extra agi), charge-like boot enchant (trade off for stam enchant and on a long CD), 885 armor glove enchant. It's weird and it's fun and it gives you those saronite bombs everyone cares so much about now ;D, it's iffy, however that glove enchant is good.

Anyway that's about it =/

So read it carefully, go back to it blah blah blah!

Post a comment here and i'll reply to any questions OR mail me or whisper me ingame.

Cya guys, enjoy tanking! :)
Last edited by Intervention on 26 Mar 2011 03:10, edited 2 times in total.
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Bleed

Re: Paladin tanking guide

#2 » Post by Bleed » 19 Jan 2011 01:42

you really are starting to career this spec huh :D
its kinda cool.
but
Can you compare Warrior(Prot) and DK(Frost) from Pally Prot?

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Re: Paladin tanking guide

#3 » Post by Intervention » 19 Jan 2011 04:47

Well i'm not 100% sure what you mean by compare but i can't really.

I prefer to DPS as DK but DK's have useful interrupts of course which is handy. Warriors can be slightly more complicated and i've only ever leveled a warrior prot to 40 so i'm not 100% sure. I guess you could read the other guides and compare and contrast.

However, i know one thing that will always be different is your enchanting and gems. I mean, a DK wouldn't concentrate on SBV so he'd look more to parry for example. I guess pallys can be slightly more flexible as they have healing/dps/tank as their 3 specs. So you can mix alot of prot with some dps and even some healing to keep you alive.
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Re: Paladin tanking guide

#4 » Post by Intervention » 20 Jan 2011 01:08

Also, if anyone here wants me to put up a quick PVP prot paladin guide in the Player Vs. Player forums i'll do so.

I notice not many actually play PVP prot pally on this server. I can only assume they're new to paladins and go Ret because it's friendly dps or maybe they've never had a look at retail. Let me know! :D
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Re: Paladin tanking guide

#5 » Post by Ondo » 21 Jan 2011 13:57

Oh, yes please.

I'm well aware of my suckyness at PvP in general, so any help to improve my skills would be much appreciated. XD

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Noblesnipe

Re: Paladin tanking guide

#6 » Post by Noblesnipe » 25 Jan 2011 22:36

Great job thxs for the share.

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Re: Paladin tanking guide

#7 » Post by Vyrath » 24 Feb 2011 11:08

I use a mix of ret and prot for maintaining aggro (Seal of Command and consecration spamming judgements ect)...still lvling my tank up so any suggestions for mid range tanking? 50-70 would be very helpful in the near future. I found that Glyph of Seal of command and blessing of sanct work great for mana problems but im still a little lacking in the hit department. will see if i cant make some expertise enchants. Will be changing professions though, thank you for the awesome guide Vent.

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Re: Paladin tanking guide

#8 » Post by Intervention » 24 Feb 2011 11:19

In PVE you should never use Seal of Command. It's harder to maintain aggro with these bugged talents but it can be worked around i guess. You should focus all the way down to the end of Prot first. Keeping Sanctuary up to secure mana problems. Also once you get the talent to refresh divine plea it's even better.

I'm not sure what Glyph of Seal of Command does, can't recall sorry. Don't worry too much about hit rating at lower levels, you don't need much and the gear is so mixed it's practically impossible to hit any type of cap anyway.
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Re: Paladin tanking guide

#9 » Post by Ctrlaltdel » 24 Feb 2011 11:29

Intervention wrote: I'm not sure what Glyph of Seal of Command does, can't recall sorry. Don't worry too much about hit rating at lower levels, you don't need much and the gear is so mixed it's practically impossible to hit any type of cap anyway.

the Seal of Command glyph restores 8% mana when you use a Judgement with it active which is good at lower lvls when you don't have Divine Plea but becomes obsolete once you do have it

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Re: Paladin tanking guide

#10 » Post by Intervention » 24 Feb 2011 14:12

Yeah it's more effective if you're going to play prot in PVP. Because you are just constantly smashing your enemy/ Divine Plea isn't as effective and Sanctuary, well you just won't block, dodge, parry as much.

However yeah. good for leveling. But, i just leveled with sanctuary up and seal of wisdom up, i never went oom and my health was easy fixable with a heal.

Everything here is more in regards to finally gearing your Protadin up, rather than leveling with it, so sorry if you question some things that aren't there :P
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Re: Paladin tanking guide

#11 » Post by Vyrath » 28 Feb 2011 09:45

Well tbo i tank constantly with my questing party and with seal of command and glyph of seal of command really all i have to do to keep aggro is judgement of light and consecration, use hand of reckoning for the odd mob that gets unaggroed. i was geared mostly for dodge and defense rating but tonight i went up against a ret paladin (i believe) and got my ass handed to me. should i be stacking more strength then and go pure prot tree for pvp and pve then? i dont like trying to keep aggro with avenger shield the cd is way higher then using seal of command to hit multi targets 8 second cd on judgement vs 30 seconds for AS
for keeping my health up i have crusader enchant on my devout aurastone hammer im thinking though that i might switch to the heirloom sword with crusader enchant. idk my toon has alot better gear then the guy that wooped my ass tonight IMO but he is pure ret and i was prot/ret mix.
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Re: Paladin tanking guide

#12 » Post by Intervention » 01 Mar 2011 07:20

Well. Every level 80 paladin tank should be using Seal of Vengeance not Command. But for leveling Command can be okay.

As to your question about your Ret paladin that beat you. Well, that's PVP, it's a whole different kettle of fish. If you go to my armory you'll see both my specs. One PVE and one PVP. (3/52/16 is PVP) Anyway, i wouldn't worry too much about my spec, it's not as i would have liked it because of bugged talents. So i had to work around them. My point is, you shouldn't go pure Prot tree for PVE or PVP. Some talents are purely PVE based and hold no use or very little use in PVP. For example, what's the point of having "Spiritual Attunement" in PVP (It's bugged by the way, that's besides the point).

It's always harder to keep aggro at lower levels because gear is so mixed and you never have all the spells to actually hold aggro. You'll see as soon as you get Hammer of the righteous you will be able to keep a lot of aggro as it hits 3 targets (4 with a glyph). Avenger's shield is a good aggro keeper when it hit's 3 targets but you should never sit on it and wait for it to cooldown. If you got heaps of mobs around you, try switching targets. E.g. drop a judgement of the wise on the left target, then hit the right target with your shield then back to the left target.

PVP specific, stacking strength and critical strike rating is your best friend. Strength grants both attack power and block. Both are needed to increase damage done by your two main attacks:
Shield of the righteousness, Hammer of the righteous. and Critical strike rating speaks for itself. You obviously don't hit as hard as a Ret pally, for obvious reasons so hitting those crits is big. If you can hit a 6k and a 5k followed that's 9k damage plus your seal doing over 1k damage and your sword swinging for a bit too. That's a little over 11k damage in about 2-3 seconds depending if you have reckoning proc'd.

As for PVE, i wouldn't focus on stacking strength. Maybe a +10str and +10 defense rating once or twice but i would never focus on it.

Practice also comes into play ;) Playing prot is alot of burst damage, you need to know when to pop what when and for who.

Hope that answers your question.
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Warpath

Re: Paladin tanking guide

#13 » Post by Warpath » 13 Mar 2011 22:39

First of all, I just read ur guide and its great. Just 1 thing, where is ur Sacred Shield in ur rotation ??? Im not rly skilled when it comes to pala tanking, but I think u need sacred shield. Or am I wrong ?


And Prot should always beat Retri in a 1v1 :D

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Re: Paladin tanking guide

#14 » Post by Intervention » 14 Mar 2011 08:47

Prot generally always does beat Ret in 1v1 :P

Um my Sacred shield rotation isn't included in there. Why? because it doesn't fit with the other small CD's. It's like Avenger's shield in a way, just use it when you can. General experience tells me that by the time i do 2 rotations i refresh it. :)
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Eamac

Re: Paladin tanking guide

#15 » Post by Eamac » 25 Mar 2011 11:50

Warpath wrote:First of all, I just read ur guide and its great. Just 1 thing, where is ur Sacred Shield in ur rotation ??? Im not rly skilled when it comes to pala tanking, but I think u need sacred shield. Or am I wrong ?


And Prot should always beat Retri in a 1v1 :D
SS is not a must to be used on yourself but only help you to decrease the damage you take if you really find yourself in a time of need. Like a party wipe and you solo the boss down. Times like this, it is also useful for it's crits of FoL.

I mostly use it to protect ones who have a tendancy to die faster thou. :j

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