Holyssa Posted August 1, 2008 Share Posted August 1, 2008 (edited) Hi folks. I could have added on to the old tankadin thread down below, but since there's so much more "new" coming out for us who love to roll their faces on keyboards & win, I figure it would be better to make a new topic than build an even bigger clusterfark. With WotLK in Beta, Holy has taken a small bite out of Northrend, and I will keep our fellow tankadins informed of class functions and changes. Don't forget that Beta is still very early and has only gone through so many changes, so don't hold your breath for something super-imba to make it onto a store shelf. Q: So uh...I've been kind of under a rock. How much has the class changed? A: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...50&sid=2003 Very long read, but it's Blizzard's official patch notes. Q: What seems to be the cookie-cutter tankadin spec @ L80? A:http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?paladin=05...011251533312321 As of Beta Build 8926, it seems Blizzard has pulled it's head out of Kalgan's egotistically colossal a$$. Let's look at the avoidable talents one more time: - Stoicism is still a PvP hybrid talent in my eyes. In groups and raids, you should take the necessary precautions to prevent getting stunned up the wazoo and make sure other group members got your back, even if it means keeping that PvP trinket by your side. Same rules apply with Guardian's Favor...it's totally situational. - Divine Guardian is a nice Holy/Ret utility, depending on how far down you go. You basically bubble, and become a living Grounding Totem, to a degree. - Improved Hammer is still more iffy PvP stuff. Great for soloing, perhaps, but how often do you walk up to a stunnable boss mob at endgame? - Improved Devo aura is (guess what?) another utility talent. More armor is nice, but the mitigation is only slightly noticeable. Not a bad talent to grab if survival is a major problem. - *gives Reckoning the chess-player stare* At endgame, avoidance will be rather high if you did your math correctly. If anything, this is nice for surprise threat, and the full talent even procs off of blocked hits, but not quite as crazy-powerful as it used to be with today's itemization gimmicks. - Points can be put into Judgements of the Just, but it's almost like having a warrior put points into Improved Thunderclap. It's good for mitigation, but not very useful for mobs that aren't affected by it at all. Not sure if it stacks with TC either...use your own judgement (no pun intended). Q: How will the new "downranking" of spells affect my tanking? (added 8/20/08) A: Until Blizzard has a change of heart (HAHA NO), mana consumption will be somewhat troublesome, but only for a few select spells. Holy Shield R1 was our most spammable tanking mechanic, costing a measly 135 mana for 8/10 charges and +30% block chance. Now? With talents, it costs a good 380 or so mana, roughly half the cost of a Consecrate. And speaking of Consecrate, Rank 1, which was a nice way to boost aggro, but not go over the top for certain AoE pulls requiring a 3rd offtank (Bloodboil trash or Hyjal for example). Now that offtank must establish a decent thread lead so that a paladin just beginning T6 content does not bite off more than they can chew. Q: Is it worth stacking Defense anymore? A: It is for overall avoidance and to remain uncrittable, especially if you have hopes of tanking high-end content. Crushing blows will not present a problem in the expansion, since they can only be delivered by mobs four levels above your own, not three like current endgame. So at L80 during your first raids, all you need to worry about is kicking critical strikes off the table. Do be aware of what happens in the great outdoors though...if you're going to try to drop a reckoning bomb on that camp full of L74 ghoulies, use your head! Some number crunching I found online to help make sense of it all: At level 60 you have 300 base defense. You need 140 extra defense, so the crit cap is 440. At level 70 you have 350 base defense. You need 140 extra defense, so the crit cap is 490. At level 80 you have 400 base defense. You need 140 extra defense, so the crit cap is 540. At L80, there's bound to be a plethora of tanking items out there to help reach this number, since our Defense rating talent is gone. If you're a JC, trinkets will help push you even further, assuming Blizzard doesn't nerf the coefficient and cause the items to weaken at higher levels (Look up specific pre-BC trinkets for some insight on this). Oh, and make nice with your neighborhood smithy. With the full Tempered Saronite set available from Blacksmithing, you get the following: 15274 Armor 175 Block Value +289 Strength +526 Stamina (Roughly +157 Spellpower with prot talents!) +319 Defense Rating Q: I see some attacks are boosted by spell power AND Attack Power. WTB numbers! A: Tybalt was nice enough to give these odd changes a stress test and post results on the Official forums: Affected by SP only: - Holy Shield Affected by AP (or other) only: - Hammer of the Righteous (Our 51 point Prot talent) - Shield of Righteousness (The new Shield Slam) Affected by AP & SP: - Avenger's Shield - Consecration - Exorcism - Hammer of Wrath - Holy Wrath - Judgment of Light - Judgment of Wisdom - Seal of Light - Seal of the Martyr/Blood - Seal of Righteousness - Seal of Vengeance/Corruption - Seal of Wisdom So we have the following: SoR 8.27AP = 1DMG 3.85SP = 1DMG SoV/SoCu 2.86AP = 1DMG 5.92SP = 1DMG SoB/SoM (top end) 15.14AP = 1DMG 31.06SP = 1DMG Consecration 3.12AP = 1DMG 3.12SP = 1DMG JoL 5.63AP = 1DMG 5.77SP = 1DMG JoW 11.10AP = 1DMG 11.05SP = 1DMG And his Math for double-checking: ============== Seal of Righteousness ============== AP: 522 SP: 0 Tooltip: 68 Actual: 68 AP: 1688 SP: 0 Tooltip: 209 Actual: 219 AP: 522 SP: 497 Tooltip: 197 Actual: 217 ============ Seal of Vengeance ============ Note: Damage values are listed as a single tick (3 seconds) with a stack of 5 Holy Vengeance, It does not include the extra holy damage per swing. AP: 522 SP: 0 Tooltip: 182.5 Actual: 183 AP: 1688 SP: 0 Tooltip: 590.83 Actual: 591 AP: 522 SP: 497 Tooltip: 267.5 Actual: 294 ============ Seal of the Martyr ============ AP: 522 SP: 0 Tooltip: 92-143 Actual: 93/114/142 AP: 1688 SP: 0 Tooltip: 168-219 Actual: 171/191/213 AP: 522 SP: 497 Tooltip: 92-143 Actual: 106/134/158 ========= Consecration ========= Note: Damage values represent 8 ticks (1 second) for the full duration of Consecration. AP: 522 SP: 0 Tooltip: 743 Actual: 743 AP: 1688 SP: 0 Tooltip: 1116 Actual: 1117 AP: 522 SP: 497 Tooltip: 902 Actual: 904 =========== Judgment of Light =========== AP: 522 SP: 0 Tooltip: 97 Actual: 94 AP: 1688 SP: 0 Tooltip: 304 Actual: 313 AP: 522 SP: 497 Tooltip: 183 Actual: 181 ============== Judgment of Wisdom ============== AP: 522 SP: 0 Tooltip: 47 Actual: 47 AP: 1688 SP: 0 Tooltip: 152 Actual: 152 AP: 522 SP: 497 Tooltip: 92 Actual: 88 He used The Decapitator to conduct this test. (Holy's note: AP = attack power, SP = Spell power, respectfully). Q: OH NOES! Does this mean I gotta ninja warrior loot? A: NO! Keep in mind a good portion of those attacks are affected by one, if not most cases, both stats. Take a look at the Consecrate numbers for example. Enchants on the other hand will help make abilities scale slightly better. +40 spell power is still reliable if you enter Northrend in BC endgame items (T4 and up), but over time a new enchant WILL overwrite it as the spell power-to-threat ratio begins to slowly dwindle down and we discover how the new Northrend gear behaves when given to our class/build. Q: Eep. Stacking strength doesn't sound fun... A: There is one other hidden purpose behind the stat which most well-read warriors can happily tell you about: Block Value (not to be confused with Block RATING, which measures the chance to block. Value is the amount of damage ABSORBED by the shield). The new conversion (as far as I have heard) is 2 Strength = 1 Block Value Point. So 450 Strength will give 225 extra damage soaked up by a successful block. Q: Ok Holy, where's your 2 copper on all this? A: Personally, I like how it works, since tankadins no longer have to struggle to find a level of "zen" in their gear buildup in order to fill specific roles. Hell, even a healadin could possibly tank given the proper numbers and a bit of a stamina kick...Blizzard wasn't kidding when they wanted the option to tank instances to be more openly available to other peoples' playstyles. However, to suddenly vendor that Amani Punisher for a Mallet of the Tides would be hasty (no to mention flat out stupid). If anything, paladins will be just required to build up one extra set of gear: pure threat stacking with a white-damage sword/mace (see Hammer of the Righteous for the logic behind it), while still wearing usual BC gear for stamina stacking (which contributes to spell power if you were smart and grabbed Touched by the Light). What stats you'd lose from your weapon would come back from building upon everything else As for you lowbies, it becomes even better in retrospective: just think of how well damage will scale with a few quick trips to Scarlet Monastery or Blackrock Depths, allowing you to experiment with the possibility of tanking or levelling with much more ease. Early plate is crawling with strength, don't forget... Makes sense, doesn't it? Q: What weapons should I look for when I hit L80 for generating high tanking threat? A: Using the lastest Beta build, a paladin on the Maintankadin forums comprised a TPS (Threat Per Second) sheet using both strength & spellpower items. Clicky: http://www.failsafedesign.com/maintankadin...pic.php?t=12786 Q: With Patch 3.0, all of my tankadin gear will change! How will I know if my items are good/bad for threat generation? A: Spreadsheet time! The numbers have changed things far more than even I had originally anticipated. Honorshammer has put together a spreadsheet which list the best items for threat generation come time for patch 3.0. There's no Northrend gear listed: it's all current BC equipment. http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pxRKUgjn9TRr-KY-8OzuQRQ. His comments: Here is how I rank the following chests based on their 3.0 stats. Parentheses shows what gems I'm using in my analysis. (This assumes you are not hit capped and will have Touched By the Light).The ranking was based on a series of formulas that looks at how the item budget contributes to Mitigation (Armor, Defense, Block Rating, Parry, Dodge, Block Value, Expertise, Str), and Threat (Stamina, Str, Hit, Spl Power, Block Value). Then I take both the Mitigation Score and the Threat score and combine them to the overall score. 1. Lightbringer (sta/str, sta/str,sta/def) 2. Chestplate of Stoicism (sta) (best Pure Avoidance) 3. Shattrah Protectorate Breastplate (sta) (best Threat) 4. Glory of the Defender 5. Chestguard of the Warlord (sta,sta/def,sta/str) 6. Crystalforge (sta,sta,sta) (best Health) 7. Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian (sta,sta/def,sta/str) I was surprised to see how far down my current chest (Stoic Guardian) fell down the list. It looks like we are better off spending badges on Stoicism rather than Stoic Guardian. Do you agree/disagree with the ranking? I hope you have leftover badges to spend... Q: Oh noes! I need a new weapon to reflect the tankadin changes. Where can I find one outside of T5/T6 content? (Updated 9/19/08) A: Before I explain this, Beta Build 8926 has introduced a massive change to how Hammer of the Righteous behaves now. Disregard what I posted earlier. Old builds: "Hammer the current target and up to 2 additional nearby targets, causing 100% of weapon damage as Holy damage. This ability causes high threat." Build 8926: "Hammer the current target and up to 2 additional nearby targets, causing 3 times your main hand's damage per second as Holy damage." So how will this affect a tankadin? It's more of a buff than you think, despite losing the aggro boost on the old tooltip. We can pretty much use any weapon we want now, regardless of speed. But a fast hitting weapon will once again be king of the aggro buildup, because it will proc/refresh Seals more often while still relying on stats to do the work for us. If that weapon happens to have spellpower, it's even MORE threat and DPS for us, since it will stack with the Holy damage being done via HotR's damage conversion. Psiven, using the L80 weapon threat spreadsheet up above, put in endgame BC items, and a few new Naxxramas/25-man items. The results? Unless you're in a superstar Arena team, Tempest of Chaos is STILL the king of PvE tanking weapons. Titansteel Guardian is the best pre-raid weapon outside of 10-man Naxxramas (unless Blizzard makes more weapons that accompany/counter it). Q: So, with this whole Strength-stacking "thing", what should I enchant my weapon with? Is +40 Spellpower still viable? A: While gear is still somewhat inconsistent and numerous wacky theory-crafting tricks are still going on in Beta land, Major Spellpower is now but a mere DPS boost. Instead, there's... Potency (+20 Stength) You get a threat, DPS, and Block Value boost, despite how little 20 strength may look like to the naked eye. Can't go wrong here, and there's bound to be a better enchant once the expansion is released. Q: I want to see Naxx so bad! But I never got T4-T6. What should I be looking for in terms of Northrend gear? A: A list is kept here: http://www.failsafedesign.com/maintankadin...pic.php?t=13183. It's not complete by any means, because Blizzard is still adding items to both Normal & Heroic instances/quests (like the new Violet Hold). But if you didn't become super powerful via BC epics, this is a great Wish List. Q: Hey Holy, what's this "969696969" rotation I keep hearing about on Beta/PTR? Some kind of secret jiggalo handshake for paladins? A: No, nubsauce. Take that hand out of your pants. It's the new attack rotation for tankadins that makes the most of threat stacking, and the global cooldowns on all our new and old spells. Bear in mind that this is for PTR/Beta only- it's pointless to use this on Live right now. Once again, I'll take a page from Mr. PsiVen on this, for I'm still trying to learn the ropes of it myself: With the 3.0 patch will come the changes to our cooldown abilities:- Cons still 8s, can Glyph to 10s - HS now 8s, lasts 10s - HotR, new spell at 6s - Judgement now on the GCD at 8-10s - AS, now instant at 30s - Seals now cast much less often Barring some revelation I will assume that the principles behind the 9/6/9/6/9 hold true for L70 even though we are missing Shield of Righteousness. This means that you need to be able to treat Cons/Judge/HS as 9sec cooldowns, so the Glyph of Consecration will screw up your rotation, and you need 1/2 Imp Judgement at least. In the 70 version, we skip a GCD for ShoR: Prep SoV (Holy's note: Seal of Vengeance/Corruption) 00.0 HS (Holy Shield) 01.5 HotR (Hammer of the Righteous) 03.0 Judgement 04.5 (free) <-- AS (Avenger's Shield) 06.0 Cons (Consecrate. Duh.) 07.5 HotR 09.0 HS 10.5 (free) 12.0 Judgement 13.5 HotR 15.0 Cons 16.5 (free) 18.0 HS (starting over) 19.5 HotR 21.0 Judgement ... First of all, notice one thing. If you have 2/2 Imp Judgement, you can sacrifice the GCD at 10.5 to cast at 11.0. This lets you recast by 19, but you can't cast it anyway until 21.0! Those two seconds you gained are completely wasted. Similarly if you take 0/2 Imp Judgement, you can't Judge a second time at all until 13.0, but there's no open GCD until 16.5 unless you want to push back your entire rotation by a second which would cut your TPS by ~7%. Waiting until 16.5 to Judge leaves you judging as if your cooldown was 13.5sec, then 12sec, repeating so a loss of about 29% of your Judgement damage relative to the 9sec cooldown. Secondly, you'll see we have 3 free GCDs in those 18sec. If we have the mana -- and on a boss, we almost certainly do -- we can do a couple of things in there to increase our TPS. Avenger's Shield on cooldown fits perfectly into the rotation, taking up 1 GCD out of every 5 open ones. This leaves clusters of 4 GCDs at 6sec intervals, 12sec apart. That means it's seal twisting time. Now, like RF spamming on Brut, this has limited application. Don't be going OOM trying to do this because aside from what I just mentioned, it's definitely the least efficient thing you can possibly do with your mana pool! With Vengeance at 15sec, it's too dangerous to leave SoR up for that 12 second time window -- one miss or mistiming and the stack falls off. So what we want to do is open the fight with SoV and use those 4 GCDs to do SoR,SoV,SoR,SoV. This gives us 12/30 or 40% uptime of SoR, at the cost of 40% of our SoV Hits (the tiny bonus damage at a 5-stack) and 9% of our Judgement damage (since 40% of the time they're doing 125% instead of 150%). It also drains 413 mana per cast, which translates into 55 mana/sec or 52 TPS from Spiritual Attunement. The final rotation: Prep SoV 00.0 HS 01.5 HotR 03.0 Judgement 04.5 (free) <-- AS 06.0 Cons 07.5 HotR 09.0 HS 10.5 (free) <-- SoR 12.0 Judgement 13.5 HotR 15.0 Cons 16.5 (free) <-- SoV 18.0 HS 19.5 HotR 21.0 Judgement 22.5 (free) <-- SoR 24.0 Cons 25.5 HotR 27.0 HS 28.5 (free) <-- SoV 30.0 Judgement 31.5 HotR 33.0 Cons 34.5 (free) <-- AS ... To the folks adapting the TPS spreadsheet for level 70, the proper uptimes for this twisting rotation are as follows. Note that I mentioned SA threat up there which isn't modeled at all in my spreadsheet, but mana costs are independent of weapon choice. HotR,SoV,AS = 1.0 Judge = .9333... Cons = .888... SoV-Hit = .60 SoR = .40 TL;DR: 1/2 Imp Judgement No Glyph of Consecration 96969 using AS in place of ShoR Q: Great merciful crap, Lich King has MORE factions! Which ones should I focus on for gearing up? A: Warriors and DKs should take this list into consideration also. Argent Crusade Honored Special Issue Legplates Revered Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector Design: Guardian's Twilight Opal Kalu'Ak Honored Ivory Reinforced Chestguard Design: Defender's Shadow Crystal Kirin Tor Exalted Fireproven Gauntlets Knights of the Ebon Blade Honored Toxin-Tempered Sabatons Revered Reaper of Dark Souls Sons of Hodir Honored Lesser Inscription of the Pinnacle Exalted Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle Wyrmrest Accord Honored Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions Revered Breastplate of the Solemn Council Sabatons of Draconic Vigor Exalted Design: Glimmering Monarch Topaz Opposed Factions You must choose either Frenzyheart or Oracles, as per Shattrath city factions in TBC. If you're a tank, go Frenzyheart! To begin this rep grind, you must slay a cat named Pitch, who resembles Humar the Pridelord. Loot him & follow the quest item's instructions. Frenzyheart Revered Giant-Sized Gauntlets Oracles Nothing so far. Edited October 6, 2008 by Holyssa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holyssa Posted September 9, 2008 Author Share Posted September 9, 2008 (edited) Updated 9/9/08 with a link to PsiVen's TPS (Threat Per Second) tank weapon spreadsheet. 9/10/08 - Added a link to some blue dungeon gear for tanks that can help prepare for Naxx/L80 content. Warriors/DKs can look at it too due to the changes in paladin tanking gear making the pieces so similar. Oh, added a handy-dandy WoWHead filter for potential tanks looking for a Patch 3.0/WotLK-friendly weapon. Edited September 10, 2008 by Holyssa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orcala Posted September 9, 2008 Share Posted September 9, 2008 Bear in mind that it is a work in progress while Blizzard is still mucking with item values & tankadin formulas. Quit saying bear so much! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holyssa Posted September 16, 2008 Author Share Posted September 16, 2008 HUWAAAAA~!! *headbutt's topic* Sorry for the bump, but with the changes to 3.0 tankadin gear, threat will scale rather oddly compared to current endgame for us pallies. I added a nice Threat gear spreadsheet I stumbled onto which serves as a nice last-minute shopping list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holyssa Posted October 6, 2008 Author Share Posted October 6, 2008 *bump* (10/6/08) Added info on our attack rotation, and specific factions to grind for good tanking gear. If you plan to tank with a Death Knight, you may see some things you'll like as well! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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