Paladin Tank 3.1 build suggestions.

[brillopad]

Hey all,

I've been trying to make a spec for myself and came up with the following:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I've been trying to play around and figure out if it's good or bad, but so far it's working well.

Anyone have an idea of the following:

1. is it worth getting : Judgment of The Just?
2 Is Divine Sacrifice and Divine Guardian worth to use points in?
3. Seal of the Pure, I never really had it, but tanks all around are using it. Is it worth getting, even thought I'm using Seal of Wisdom.

My Armory:

The World of Warcraft Armory

I didn't really change my Glyphs, but planning to do so very soon.

[Personage]

First of all im a total noob... Warlock turned holy paladin turned prot pallie... so when flaming please remember i warned you... although im a noob i try to read as much as i can.

Here are my thoughts on your questions...

First of all there is no reason to put a full 2 points into improved judgments, one point is just fine. 2 points dont do anything to help out your tanking rotation at all.

There is really no reason at all that you should HAVE to judge WIZ unless you are trying to be nice and help out the casters. With the proper glyphs you should never ever ever run out of mana. I will put a refrence at the bottom of the page explaining the glyphs.

Seal of the Pure - Yes its worth it because on your initial pull it helps you build threat when you judge Righteousness. Doing more damage with Righteousness causes more threat. Paladin tanks are so overpowerd at this point. The only way ANYONE should ever pull threat/aggro off of you is if you are dead.

Here is a refrence on the new glyphs and mana.

There's one standout glyph in Patch 3.1, and that's the Glyph of Divine Plea. You see, Guarded by the Light was buffed to ensure a 100% uptime for Divine Plea, which virtually guaratees we'll never run out of mana. As in, ever. As long as we hit things, we've got it up. Enter the new glyph, which reduces damage taken by 3%. With this glyph on, that's pretty much a permanent 3% passive mitigation on all damage. Permanent, powerful mana regeneration and decent mitigation? Yeah, it's crazy. And it's freaking true. I won't even mention other glyphs right now because, well, if this one didn't make you squeal with geekish delight, nothing will.

To the best of my knowledge Heart of the Crusaders dont stack so if there is a ret paladin in your raid this is useless. I sometimes take it because we never have a ret paladin avail.

[brillopad]

Thnx, that explains a lot! and makes it more clear, it makes sense.
So my main seal i would be using is Righteousness.

I'll play around with spec, taking your thoughts, and applying them to my build.

Thank you again!

[morelore]

Judgments of the Just is the best 2 points you could spend, mitigation wise, in the entire tree. It is practically mandatory if you are a main tank.

DS and DG are of... questionable.. utility. It gives you a decent tank-saving cooldown for when you're an OT, or on a single tank fight.

Whether its better to take seals of the pure or go deep in ret is a hotly debated topic. They come out very close in threat. I tend to prefer seals of the pure, but I've dropped it for now.

The best tanking seal is corruption/vengeance. Righteousness, with the right glyphs and reckoning, might just barely come out ahead in threat/dps on a single target.

[Akeber]

Judgments of the Just is the best 2 points you could spend, mitigation wise, in the entire tree. It is practically mandatory if you are a main tank.

/agree

DS and DG are of... questionable.. utility. It gives you a decent tank-saving cooldown for when you're an OT, or on a single tank fight.

/agree

Whether its better to take seals of the pure or go deep in ret is a hotly debated topic. They come out very close in threat. I tend to prefer seals of the pure, but I've dropped it for now.

The best tanking seal is corruption/vengeance. Righteousness, with the right glyphs and reckoning, might just barely come out ahead in threat/dps on a single target.

/disagree

Vengeance>Righteousness regardless of glyphs/reckoning.

Conviction/crusader spec comes out ahead of SotP for threat.

Read Maintankadin • View topic - Theck's MATLAB TPS analysis (A Jonesy derivative work) for all you want to know about prot pally threat.

[Byteme]

Talking as a pure tankadin, drop all of your major glyphs and replace them with Divine plea, Spiritual attunement, and(debatable for RD) Divinity. As for the minor ones, you should get glyph of Blessing of kings, not might. As for talents, you definitely need benediction, since all of the spells that you will use are all instant cast and it will help you hold threat longer. you can get the points you need for the full five by dropping heart of the crusader and the improved divine sacrifice. Also, Pusuit of Justice isn't very useful for tanks, pick up stoicism instead. Stoicism will allow you to get out of stuns and continue building threat as opposed to PoJ giving you a little more dps while not effecting your tps. Shoot for something more along the lines of: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

[Personage]

If you have 5/5 Seals of the Pure open up with and any time you use ur wings use Righteousness. After your initial wings wear off or towards the end switch to Seal of Vengeance.

[Ginevike]

For Raiding Judgement of the Just is a waste of points spent for a seroius raid tank. After reading numerous post in this site and understanding the mechanics of a Tankadin plus Raid tanking I came up with the following for my Patch 3.1 spec. If you notice no wasted talents in stuns or retribution bull only grab what is needed in holy and ret for tanking.

The World of Warcraft Armory

Note each and ever point can be shown its value to overall TPS, surviablity of raid, and overall good tanking. Also, IMO and from the mechanics of a WotLK tankadin discussions the Improved Judgements points can be spent more wisely since this throws off timing which in turn wastes mana and GC for more important things like a dam mage pulling single target aggro and you need to react quickly w/o losing ur rotation or being stuck in a GC issue.

[Thrune]

For Raiding Judgement of the Just is a waste of points spent for a seroius raid tank. After reading numerous post in this site and understanding the mechanics of a Tankadin plus Raid tanking I came up with the following for my Patch 3.1 spec. If you notice no wasted talents in stuns or retribution bull only grab what is needed in holy and ret for tanking.

The World of Warcraft Armory

Note each and ever point can be shown its value to overall TPS, surviablity of raid, and overall good tanking. Also, IMO and from the mechanics of a WotLK tankadin discussions the Improved Judgements points can be spent more wisely since this throws off timing which in turn wastes mana and GC for more important things like a dam mage pulling single target aggro and you need to react quickly w/o losing ur rotation or being stuck in a GC issue.

So explain to me how slowing a raid boss' attack speed by 20% is ever a waste of talent points? And why on earth you would waste points in benediction when we now have Divine Plea up all the time?

[headknocker]

The nice part of 3.1 is that there is room for more valid tanking talent options. Some things are personal preference, and some are "we'll see how that works in practice". For example, I personally run a suboptimal build because I LOVE PoJ. It is an unreasonable love in that it doesn't help with either DPS/TPS or mitigation, but I just seem to run better with it, so I use it. Doesn't change the logic that by any objective view its a sub-optimal build. I say all of that before I say this:

There are some points in this threat that are just not factually accurate. Specifically:

>> For Raiding Judgement of the Just is a waste of points spent for a seroius raid tank.

Justment of the just is the single best per point mitigation talent in the tree. The consistent argument that comes back is, 'but I've always got a warrior, druid, or dk that can do their version instead'. That's saying, I can't tank this boss unless you help me. That's just wrong.

>>Righteousness vs Vengence.
As Akeber pointed out, on a pure DPS/TPS level Vengence>Righteousness. If Glyphed properly, the extra 10 expertise you get is also precious.

>> Glyph of Spiritual Attunement.
This is a bad glyph. You don't need it. With 100% divine plea uptime, even 1 point in SA talent, you're OK for mana.

So on the rest there's lots of valid choices. Here's the general thinking:
- Both divinity and Divine Sacrifice/Guardian are 'meh' talents. You need at least 3 points in one or the other to get to 1HWS, pick one. Reckoning could also get you there, but I'm allergic to it and you don't need the extra threat.
- If you want SotP, most people pick that up to get the improved LoH build. So basically you end up Prot/Holy (other than deflection and 1 point in improved judgement). That is essentially the 'max survival' build
- If you want the max threat build, go deeper in the ret tree and pick up conviction and crusade. Something like The World of Warcraft Armory

The points in Heart of the Crusader are mostly wasted as is the benediction point, so you're just spending to get down to conviction.

Anyway, play around a bit, see what you like. There's more cool options than there used to be.

[Ballador]

I have trouble with Judgments of the Just ... Raid bosses are immune to the effects of stun and slow effects ... most raid trash is also immune, so I have never seen this as being useful at all, certainly not "the best 2 points you could spend, mitigation wise, in the entire tree."

I have yet to come across a single boss that these talent points actually affect. So I ditched these points a very long time ago.

Did they change something that makes this work more consistently, and work on raid bosses?

[brillopad]

Thank you all for points and tips.
I will read through them again when i get home from work, and come up with a little better spec than what I have. As for my judging techniques, they will have to change.
I need to get used to using Vengence and Righteousness and stay away from Wisdom.

[Ballador]

I would agree with that Brillopad. I always MT with Seal of Vengeance, using Judgment of Wisdom. If I am in an OT position where I am not taking enough damage to keep my mana pool, I will run Vengeance until I run completely out of mana, tap Divine Plea to get back some mana and after that, if I still can't keep mana, I will pull out Seal of Wisdom for a few moment, just till I get back above 50% of my mana pool, then switch back to Vengeance.

Is there any definitive proof out there that Judgments of the Just actually does much of anything to raid bosses or trash? Really want to know if I need to go spec it up again ...

[Ballador]

Also, for those that are interested, I have been rocking this spec ever since hitting level 80, and it really did not change at all with 3.1.0 ... with the exception of Kings points going into Divinity.

The World of Warcraft Armory

[headknocker]

So part of the confusion around JotJ is that it doesn't show up as a separate debuff, its just contained within the 'judgement' debuff. Bosses are not immune to it. I've done a quick scan and other than a tremendous amount of data both here and at maintankadin that supports this I can't point you to a WWS or similar parse, because it simply doesn't show up in those logs. There are occassional bosses that are immune to this effect (and all similar effects) like Patchwerk, but they are rare.

Blizzard has said that this is basically a fundamental mechanic of the game and they assume that this debuff (or another one from a different class of tank) will appear on the boss.

Oh, Judging Wisdom isn't necessarily bad, it was SoW that folks were commenting on I believe. The pecking order is generally:
- Ret pally does light
- Prot pally does wisdom
- Holy pally does justice.

If you don't have a ret pally, everyone moves up a tick (i.e. prot judges light). Its not bad if you just judge wisdom rather than light, however, it is wrong if two pally's judge the same thing, or the 'underpowered' pally spec judges the wrong thing.

[dagimp007]

do not use the concicration glyph... its is worthless

[dagimp007]

If u are tanking this should be your set up... and also the glyphs that u should be using

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

[Erichilles]

-this post was an accident :3-

[Erichilles]

The best tanking seal is corruption/vengeance. Righteousness, with the right glyphs and reckoning, might just barely come out ahead in threat/dps on a single target.

righteousness doesn't even compare to vengeance, and any paladin who has points in reckoning, I instantly lose respect for. Reckoning has a 10% proc chance when you have 5/5 points in it. Not bad... but when you consider that it only proc's when the mob gets a clean hit on you (meaning full damage; no dodge/block/parry/miss will proc reckoning, it's when YOU ARE STRUCK) that chance becomes slim to none. Though it will proc, the reason stated for taking it and righteousness was for initial, front in aggro (which we already have in great acess with wings+avenger's shield+shield slam), and i think we can all understand that the chances of proc'ing reckoning on the first hit of the pull are about the same chances of getting crit by deconstructor with 538 defense on the first swing of the pull.

Next.

Talking as a pure tankadin, drop all of your major glyphs and replace them with Divine plea, Spiritual attunement, and(debatable for RD) Divinity. As for the minor ones, you should get glyph of Blessing of kings, not might. As for talents, you definitely need benediction, since all of the spells that you will use are all instant cast and it will help you hold threat longer. you can get the points you need for the full five by dropping heart of the crusader and the improved divine sacrifice. Also, Pusuit of Justice isn't very useful for tanks, pick up stoicism instead. Stoicism will allow you to get out of stuns and continue building threat as opposed to PoJ giving you a little more dps while not effecting your tps. Shoot for something more along the lines of: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

some of the things you've said are HORRIBLY wrong (bolded).
1) glyph of spiritual attunement - increases mana gained through spiritual attunement by 2%.
2) Benediction - decreases mana cost of all instant cast spells by 10%

I'll adress these two together becuase it's the same issue, along with you using seal of wisdom in a raid.
IF YOU ARE HAVING MANA PROBLEMS IN A RAID, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG!
even if you are off-tanking, between healing, sanctuary, and rolling divine plea, you should NOT need an extra 2% from spiritual attunement (which assuming the average heal is for 5k, an extra 100 mana ) and you should not need 10% mana cost decrease. Now there will be fights where you don't have any adds to tank, or you're not getting mana through sanctuary and therefor not getting mana from healing because you're not taking damage, and in these situations you can throw on seal of wisdom and STILL be just fine.

for glyphs i recommend hammer of the righteous, divine plea, and either judgement, exorcism, or salvation (the underlined are new 3.1 glyphs and may not be available on your server for a while)

3) Stoicism - Reduces the duration of all stun effects by 30%... (rest doesn't matter for pve)

To be completely honest... this is a pvp talent for ret and holy pallys. I have never wiped a raid becuase i got war stomped, conflag'd, -generic stun-'ed and lost aggro. This is 1st of all because on all trash YOU HAVE OFF TANKS! THAT'S WHAT THEY'RE THERE FOR! TO PICK STUFF UP WHEN YOU DON'T! TO BE 2ND ON AGGRO! 2nd of all, on bosses, if there is a boss that stuns your MT, it's probably meant for you to have an off tank pick the boss up, or just have your MT eat it. Blizzard gave tanks this wonderful ability called taunt, or for pallys, hand of reckoning. It automatically puts you at #1 aggro. Even if you haven't touched the boss yet, when you see the MT in danger, just poke the boss. all of a sudden you have (MT's aggro)+1 and you're the new target. It's a waste of talent points.

Here's what i recommend.

- you can take divine guardian, it has it's uses. Check with your guild, see if you can come up with some strategies to use it. Be realistic. Would there be times when it would save you? Yes, but not many.
-I don't want divine guardian, so what should i do?
Get imp-hammer of justice. Why? it's a nice use of temporary CC. something is lose? HoJ it. now you have 6 seconds to make up for lost aggro, or to throw a salv on whoever pulled aggro, OR BOTH if you act fast enough. In addition to that, it now interrupts spell-casting even if the mob is immune to the stun. With imp HoJ and JotJ, your HoJ will be a 20 second cooldown. that's a shorter cooldown than a mage's counterspell (24 sec. i believe).

For Raiding Judgement of the Just is a waste of points spent for a seroius raid tank.

This i disagree with aswell... Could you argue that you don't need it? Yes. if you have a warrior tank using thunderclap and or a death knight using icy touch than you're all fighting the same battle. But not every fight involves 3 different tanks on the same boss, so why not take it? you're goign to be judging anyway and as i explained in the previous paragraph the HoJ CD reduction is nice.
(figuered i would work that in while i was speaking of JoJ)

-What to do with all these extra points?
Here are some nice talents after you spend the initial prot points and the 5 for deflection
1) 1/2 Improved Judgements
2) Seals of the pure
3) conviction (to get to conviction i normally do 1/2 imp judge. 3/3 HotC and 1/2 imp might. you could also move 1 point out of HotC and get 2/2 imp might)

It's up to you really. I prefer the crit from conviction over the seal damage from Seals of the pure, but that's just a personal preferance. I also pvp as prot a lot so it's fun there (12k shield slam crits. Poor pvpers never saw it coming from a prot pally)

Edit- here is my current prot spec
The World of Warcraft Armory
As i said earlier, if you don't like what i did in ret, you could take 3 out of conviction, 3 out of HotC and the 1 point in imp might, and put 5 in seals of the pure and have 2 left over. With these 2 you could get imp might, HotC, you could even put a point or 2 in divine guardian/sacrifice. Or if you're really quick about it, you could get 2/2 guardian's favor. IDK how often you pallys use HoP, but it's on cooldown almost constantly for me. It's more something you use on trash or bosses with adds (like razorscale or sarth 3d) for hunters/mages who can crank out the aoe damage and pull off of your little consecrate damage.

[Ballador]

Thank You!! I really appreciate your post, Erichilles! There are a few aspects of the talents and what exactly they meant, or how they were coded to function that I just didn't quite understand. I will be changing my spec this evening! Thank you again!