[Jayson]

Source: Halandir hey thanks for the link, I did the same for you with my guide.

Thank you sir.

Feel free to direct any Paladin-based gearing questions to this thread as well. I will be watching the thread and replying to any questions/discussion I see.

[Jayson]

Starting work on a 10 man only list. I expect to have it finished and posted in to reply#1 by next week.

Thanks for the support all of you who have commented.

[Halandir]

Source: Jayson If you are looking to build an Unhittable set as listed in the Warriors' guide, feel free to put Lavanthor's Talisman on as well as a few Block Rating pieces in your Avoidance set and call it good. Yay! for Holy Shield.

ugh. dang p******ns and your holy shield. /sigh

I've gotta add the sonic booster to my guide :P

[Jayson]

I am posting an excellent question that Eanin brought up in reply to my link to this thread over on Maintankadin.

Source: Eanin I really like it. I like seeing a guide that recognizes that you can't compare screwdrivers and hammers and doesn't try. My only complaint about it is that it overvalues hit for threat. On a couple of those comparisons, it's just way off on what is the best threat piece. Otherwise, I really like this guide.

I understand that point for point Strength beats out Hit on single targets at our current gear level. But the basic idea with my choices is that right now it is really easy to pick up enough hit pieces to get capped. At that point you then don't have to worry about Avenger's Shield missing on the pull or any of your first HotR/Judgement/SS rotation to miss, letting someone pull off initially.

In our last 10 man Naxx we decided (finally) to focus less on speed and more on safety, going for Undying. When we pulled Stalagg and Feugen, the first four abilities that Halandir threw all missed (you'd have to ask him, but I would guess he had somewhere in the range of ~3% miss chance)... Stalagg then took off running down the ramp towards a healer on my side who had hots up, this caused a Tesla Coil overload and the raid wiped... 1 in a million chance, but still... hitting on the pull is key.

Another thing to consider is that currently... I can tank any boss fight in any gear-set... and still be 50-75% ahead of the nearest DPS on threat (MTed Patch for the first time in a couple weeks, waiting for the WWS parse to figure out my overall TPS there). So my threat set mainly falls to trash where hit scales even higher in value when compared to Str due primarily to SotR single target mechanics.

Finally, if you check the TPS stat-graph that I linked in my Legend section, you see that in about the 1800-2000 Str range (I never actually check my character sheet in raid, but I would imagine that is about where we are), hit is starting to to look pretty solid in relation to Strength (again, till cap) so you gain the double benefit of stacking your 2nd best TPS stat as well as having 100% hit ratio on your pull.

Edit: Decided to go ahead and add a Threat designation to some of the Block pieces with high strength as well as Block value *shrug*. I still recommend shooting for Hit cap. Also corrected Eanin's typo per his request ; ]

[Telvannis]

Source: solocommand Us pallies are so cool they invented a new word for a ranged parry.

It's because our abilities are so OP that the boss can't stop them dead in their tracks, he can only manage to change their course just enough to avoid it.

Also thanks for posting this, though it just makes me hate that my luck even more, as Last Laugh is the only item I don't have for avoidance BiS, and we have still not had a single one drop. 7 betrayers though... /wrists.

[Halandir]

Source: Jayson In our last 10 man Naxx we decided (finally) to focus less on speed and more on safety, going for Undying. When we pulled Stalagg and Feugen, the first four abilities that Halandir threw all missed (you'd have to ask him, but I would guess he had somewhere in the range of ~3% miss chance)... Stalagg then took off running down the ramp towards a healer on my side who had hots up, this caused a Tesla Coil overload and the raid wiped... 1 in a million chance, but still... hitting on the pull is key.

yea my string of unluckiness went something like...

Shield Slam - parried
Taunt - missed
auto attack - missed
Devastate - missed
Taunt - missed

at that point he had already taken off toward the other side after our GM (resto druid at the time) who was like... what the heck???

I'm pretty sure at the time I was running less than 2% chance to miss (maybe even less than 1% depending on if I had a draenei in the party, I don't remember if I did or not).

/sigh

I fail at the RNG.

[Jayson]

Source: Halandir yea my string of unluckiness went something like... Shield Slam - parried Taunt - missed auto attack - missed Devastate - missed Taunt - missed at that point he had already taken off toward the other side after our GM (resto druid at the time) who was like... what the heck??? I'm pretty sure at the time I was running less than 2% chance to miss (maybe even less than 1% depending on if I had a draenei in the party, I don't remember if I did or not). /sigh I fail at the RNG.

/point
/laugh
*snicker*

[Rime]

Awesome guide. After reading Halandir's guide I went and notebooked a copy for pallies, but ended up not posting it out of pure laziness. Our guides seem identical apart from one general point: items with def/dodge/parry are not necessarily BiS avoidance pieces. There are many cases where def/dodge items have superior amounts of avoidance, even including heavy dodge DR. Ancient Aligned is one of these (it's good to see it included in your guide), as it is always going to be superior to living iron for an avoidance set. If you socket living iron with a 16 defense gem you'll still have less stam and avoidance than ancient aligned, and if you socket it for stam your avoidance loss is pretty significant.

The main thing I'd like to mention though are your glove choices - for a pally, it seems like callous-hearted should not really be on the list. If you socket Valorous Redemption with an enduring you hit the same stam and fall .12% avoidance behind (before DR) - and gain 41 hit rating. The tradeoff, even for a set that wants to focus on avoidance, is not worth it in my opinion. Callous are mostly useful to warriors because their gloves are...well, not great from an avoidance standpoint.

Only other difference I notice is that I chose Chestguard of the Exhausted for an EH chest, since it's a wash otherwise and further BR does more for the set than will parry. That's assuming the pally is not already unhittable without it, which is unlikely in a physical-EH setup. Getting two dragonstorms will get the job done, but going double solid on an exhausted means you can focus your dragonstorm on avoidance.

[Jayson]

Source: Rime There are many cases where def/dodge items have superior amounts of avoidance, even including heavy dodge DR. Ancient Aligned is one of these (it's good to see it included in your guide), as it is always going to be superior to living iron for an avoidance set. If you socket living iron with a 16 defense gem you'll still have less stam and avoidance than ancient aligned, and if you socket it for stam your avoidance loss is pretty significant. The main thing I'd like to mention though are your glove choices - for a pally, it seems like callous-hearted should not really be on the list. If you socket Valorous Redemption with an enduring you hit the same stam and fall .12% avoidance behind (before DR) - and gain 41 hit rating. The tradeoff, even for a set that wants to focus on avoidance, is not worth it in my opinion. Callous are mostly useful to warriors because their gloves are...well, not great from an avoidance standpoint. Only other difference I notice is that I chose Chestguard of the Exhausted for an EH chest, since it's a wash otherwise and further BR does more for the set than will parry. That's assuming the pally is not already unhittable without it, which is unlikely in a physical-EH setup. Getting two dragonstorms will get the job done, but going double solid on an exhausted means you can focus your dragonstorm on avoidance.

Hey Rime, good to have you in the thread.

I agree with you that (unless you have really really weird Avoidance stats, like 29% Dodge and no Parry outside of base+talents+Def) the Living Iron will always be lower avoidance than the Ancient Aligned, that is why I put in the explaination of the choice.

As for the gloves... Bids/Rolls on Tier pieces are ALWAYS going to have more competition than non-tier tanking pieces. The reasoning here is that a Paladin Tier piece could have 2 more Paladins, 3 Priests, and 2 Warlocks (or more) all wanting the piece, Callous however, you only have 2 other tanks in raid... ever. So, the likelyhood of having 2 of the same tier piece is much lower than that of getting an extra avoidance set of gloves, even if I did have the opportunity to win a 2nd pair... I would pass them to anyone else who needed them for a main set, just helpin the whole raid more. I actually just got a pair of the Callous and put Agi on them last night.

On chest, yes, the EH potential is the same, but I would PREFER the Dragonstorm in my EH set because of the additional Avoidance (stretching the EH longer of course). However, I do currently wear the Exhausted with double Solids. This is only because I do not have a Dragonstorm (Hal took mine >_<). When I do finally get one off of Sarth, it's getting Solid x2 and will be in both my EH and Avoidance set just like that until/unless I get another. I consider the piece too valuable to put avoidance gems into my first one (as evidenced by the "MT" designation). But again, that is just my suggestion.

[Rime]

Fair enough. Rarity (especially since tier crosses role borders) is a very valid reason to prioritize callous. I should note that I'm biased because our prot token seems to be cursed and our vanq token is less common than it should be. Chest is also definitely a matter of taste. You'll never hear me complaining about more DR, I'm pretty obnoxiously gung-ho about avoidance/armor setups (though on a pally it's much harder to optimize with it)

Mainly I mentioned exhausted because I view gearing in two veins: damage-spreading and damage reduction. EH and BR fall solidly into the former, so I just automatically differentiated between the chests in that way.

[Rime]

Oh, and Hal clearly doesn't understand how gear prioritization should go!

Prot Pally>DK>Ret Pally>Alt Prot Pally>Non-combat Pets>Warriors. Amirite?

[Telvannis]

Source: Rime Oh, and Hal clearly doesn't understand how gear prioritization should go! Prot Pally>DK>Ret Pally>Alt Prot Pally>Non-combat Pets>Warriors. Amirite?

Indeed.

[Jayson]

Source: Rime Oh, and Hal clearly doesn't understand how gear prioritization should go! Prot Pally>DK>Ret Pally>Alt Prot Pally>Non-combat Pets>Warriors. Amirite?

Hahahah, most assuredly. Probably even need to bump DKs down below Ret Pally imo ; ]

[solocommand]

Source: Jayson Hahahah, most assuredly. Probably even need to bump DKs down below Ret Pally imo ; ]

Damn straight!

[Echo]

I have a question Ive been curious about. Why is it that expertise is said to be a decent threat stat for warriors, yet not so great for paladins?

I always read paladin threads saying expertise is "broken" or "garbage" for paladins. What does that mean :S

[Akeber]

Source: Selyndia Expertise is not very useful for Prot Paladins at all, and thus affects a lot of the weightings. Glyph of Seal of Vengeance gives 10 Expertise Skill, while talents provide an additional 6. Add in that the only abilities that Protection Paladins have that can be Dodged/Parried are White Attacks and Hammer of the Righteous, and additional Expertise isn't really that helpful.

This is why paladins don't value expertice as much as warriors.

Glyph of Seal of Vengeance is priceless in terms of item budgeting. It takes 32.78998947 expertice rating to equal one expertice skill, so that glyph is worth about 328 expertice rating points. That is a ton of expertice we don't need from gear.

Additionally, only white melee and one "special" attack are parriable/dodgeable. That is why expertice is largely a "wasted/garbage" stat for us.

[Echo]

Cool. Thanks!

[Jayson]

Source: Echo I have a question Ive been curious about. Why is it that expertise is said to be a decent threat stat for warriors, yet not so great for paladins? I always read paladin threads saying expertise is "broken" or "garbage" for paladins. What does that mean :S

Yeah basically...

Source: Jayson Shield of the Righteous and Judgements either Hit or Miss, no dodge or parry. Holy Shield and Consecrate of course cannot be dodged or parried either as they work under spell mechanics (i.e. Hit/Miss/Resist[which is also affected by hit rating]). That is 4 of the 5 abilities in our basic rotation and they do not benefit from Expertise. Of course, our Auto-Attacks can be dodged/parried but white damage only increases our DPS and does not assist our threat in a significant manner. Other abilities you might use are: Holy Wrath (Hit/Miss/Resist), Exorcism (Hit/Miss/Resist), Hammer of Wrath (Hit/Miss, not 100% sure on this as I don't use it often myself). So Expertise fails for threat with Paladins.

That is a quote from page one where we were discussing Expertise v. Hit in particular as a threat stat.

[rmd83]

Ahh, thanks for this awesome thread man. I have alot of the high end gear atm and i've passed on a buttload of T7.5 pieces to guildies who need it a bit more :P. Hopefully repelling charge will drop soon though, around 15 kills and hasn't dropped once sorry for the off topic comment there :P.

[Jayson]

Source: rmd83 Ahh, thanks for this awesome thread man. I have alot of the high end gear atm and i've passed on a buttload of T7.5 pieces to guildies who need it a bit more :P. Hopefully repelling charge will drop soon though, around 15 kills and hasn't dropped once sorry for the off topic comment there :P.

Not a problem : ] I appreciate the compliment. So far it's looking like the Repelling Charge is going to be staying a top (if not THE top) avoidance trinket in game through Ulduar, so keep farmin it! The General's Heart isn't really looking much better than the Valor Medal of the First War at this point, especially with the weak, non-avoidance proc.