Protadin Burnout?

[DeadCows]

hello!
i've been raiding with my paladin for a while now as tank, but lately it seems i've entered a burnout period or something.. the threat i'm producing is usually around 5-6k in 10 mans and between 6-7k in 25 mans i know these numbers once looked high for me.. but it feels like dps is starting to do more tps and i'm staying the good ol'me my 969 rotation is flaweless, exp cap with soc, 250 hit so about 13 points under cap i can't find anything that would explain why our guild lock can match my tps.. so here is my armory and send the paladin docters on me!

The World of Warcraft Armory

[Unfurth]

I've actually experienced a lot of the same problems with DPS starting to gain on my threat. I can't see anything wrong with your spec, gear, gemming or enchanting. The solution I've found is just to throw out Hand of Salvation on the crazy warlock or feral druid (the 2 classes who seem to be giving me the most challenge to outthreat them).

Apart from that maybe see if they skipped over a threat reduction talent along the way or are forgetting to use their threat reduction talents.

[Niian]

I've noticed a severe drop in threat since the threat nerf a while ago.

When I used to pump out 7-9k TPS in Naxx25 gear, now I'm doing about the same in ToTC 25 gear. The DPS is at the same or higher, having to stop DPS or blow their threat wipe CD's a lot more than they used to.
We had a lock last night when we were clearing Uld25 (stupid shards) who had to stop DPS for about a minute or so just so he wouldn't overtake the tank, even after he had soul shattered.

I guess it means people actually have to watch what they are doing now, but it's really frustrating getting shit from people because "wah you're not threating enough"
No, I'm doing as much threat as I can, stop rolling your face on the keyboard and watch Omen for a change.

[DeadCows]

stop rolling your face on the keyboard and watch Omen for a change.

a few weeks earlier one off the other tanks in the guild (a warrior) said, in tbc people used omen to manage their threat, now all they use is recount to see their e-peen grow
and well comments like "you should do more threat" usually end in a response like, if you can do a better job roll a tank

[luv2tank]

im a warrior tank and pre patch nerf i could never catch a paladins threat, now i can actually catch it and beat it occassionally. AoE threat for you guys is still unreal. Tell the lock to soul shatter. I also wonder what my/everyones threat would be w/ hit cap...

[Aggathon]

Neither myself or our Pally have had threat problems. Idk what he's doing different 'cuz I know jack about paladins, Eraduun on Maelstrom if you want to armory him. The only times he has threat problems are when he forgets to put on righteous fury =P.

[Fetzie]

Tank threat tends to be fairly static, yes it increases as you get more strength, a better weapon etc but the DPS of the damage dealers tends to creep up to the levels of the tank tps quicker than the tps increases, adding the threat management component to a good dpser's gameplay (surfing the 124% threat wave is fun, I did it for 4 years).

Have you tried equipping the 200 strength libram? that would be a significant strength, AP and blockvalue upgrade.

[DeadCows]

hehe the dps sin't at 124% threat yet the only fights that concern me atm are fights where the tank can get stunned and dps'ers can keep on going, icehowl frozen breath and knockdown attack, Anub frozen slash those are the fights that i really gotta push hard thx god for anub being undead so i have a slight advantage over him

[Niian]

Not much you can do when you're in a fight that stuns you and not the DPS.
It's up to them to make sure that they don't steal agro and wipe the raid. However with two taunts it should be a non issue, and while we shouldn't have to we can also stop tanking for a sec and throw a quick salv on a threat hungry melee or ranged (if they are close enough).

[DeadCows]

hmm i do have 1 extra question, how important is it to be hitcapped? i mean i know i should never gem or enchant for it but atm i'm at 250 and the triumph ring is good to replace the valor one but i'll lose even more hit should i go for it or not?

[Hurmeli]

Depending on content, start using the 200 strength libram instead of dodge one. I haven't felt I'm in any risk of dying for a long time in normal 10 and 25 man toc. We are currently trying to work on twins at heroic 10 man toc and that's first encounter where the damage seems to get bit out of hands sometimes.

[Zothor]

Let's start with the fact that your knowledge appears to be a bit mislead - you're nowhere NEAR the expertise cap. What you're at is the Dodge cap, also called the Expertise Soft Cap. The Expertise -hard- cap is 54, so you will still be getting plenty of value out of expertise between additional threat from not getting parried, and significant avoidance from the reduction in parryhaste (yes, this is significant - recent calculations have shown that it's about half as good as dodge, despite functionally being a threat stat. Remarkable).

Second, your gear is just way, way behind. Your DPS is probably catching you on threat because they outgear you. You're tanking TOC 25 stuff Ulduar level and in NAXX gear?! No wonder they're catching you. Item level matters for threat because STRENGTH matters. A lot. Get that badge ring RIGHT QUICK, it's an enormous overall upgrade. Your first big mistake was buying 232 level tier gear because it was tier. Uhh, forget the tier bonuses. You should be buying the 245 Shoulders and Helm with your badges. Tanks do not have the luxury of e-peening with trying to get tier sets, especially at 232. Every time I see a player with 4 piece 232 I know I'm seeing a player who functionally doesn't understand the mechanics of the game.

I hope you're not passing on valuable upgrades because of your concern with the hit cap. You're going to drop well below the cap in TOC gear, that's just a fact of life because there isn't enough it on it. You're going to gain a ton of overall threat between strength and BV on the gear. You need a new shield, like STAT. I see you using the 200 str libram now which is good - I frankly NEVER take that off except for my block set, because avoidance is basically bitch tits at this point since all the dangerous damage is unavoidable.

To the poster who said that DPS gains threat faster than tanks, yes they do slightly - but only because we started out with such a huge lead in T7 level content. Fact of the matter is on the direct damage tank and spank phases of fights I'm doing a sustained 9k+ TPS, with spikes into the 10-11k range, without a single piece of 258 loot. If your threat has stopped increasing, you've probably stopped paying attention to improving it. If it's still good enough? Fantastic. If it's not though and you're threatcapping your DPS, you're hurting your raid.

[jere]

As a small note, the expertise hard cap isn't 54. It is either 56 or 57. (between 14% and 14.25%), at least according to the folks that tested it back at EJ.

[Niian]

hmm i do have 1 extra question, how important is it to be hitcapped? i mean i know i should never gem or enchant for it but atm i'm at 250 and the triumph ring is good to replace the valor one but i'll lose even more hit should i go for it or not?

At the moment I have 53.

For tanking a boss it's fine, but for adds I want to be sure my spells don't miss so I'll either put on downgrade boots to get myself to 100, or if needs be swap out a HP trinket for a 128 hit trinket.
For some fights losing the HP is worth it (Anub add tanking).

Keep your old gear, if you find yourself missing too much because you're extremely low on hit swap in some pieces when needs be.

[Zothor]

As a small note, the expertise hard cap isn't 54. It is either 56 or 57. (between 14% and 14.25%), at least according to the folks that tested it back at EJ.

While admittedly I read in several places that it was 54 when checking that figure to be sure, it's possible that was including a racial talent and that I misread it.

still, it's drastically higher than previously disucssed.

[Lightshard]

Zothor, why do you believe that a tank that has 4 Piece T9 232 does not understand the mechanics of the game?

I have the 4 set, and it is very beneficial for the decreased cooldown. I am, of course, accumulating badges for my 245 T9, but I need to win a trophy for that.
Also, the 232 pieces are excellent for smaller upgrades, I can get 2 232 pieces for less than the 245 Helm. It all depends on if you want to wait for massive upgrades, or get small, consistent upgrades. It depends on playstyle, how you wish to gear up. You need to take set bonuses into account as well, it is not all about raw stats.

[DeadCows]

Let's start with the fact that your knowledge appears to be a bit mislead - you're nowhere NEAR the expertise cap. What you're at is the Dodge cap, also called the Expertise Soft Cap. The Expertise -hard- cap is 54, so you will still be getting plenty of value out of expertise between additional threat from not getting parried, and significant avoidance from the reduction in parryhaste (yes, this is significant - recent calculations have shown that it's about half as good as dodge, despite functionally being a threat stat. Remarkable).

Second, your gear is just way, way behind. Your DPS is probably catching you on threat because they outgear you. You're tanking TOC 25 stuff Ulduar level and in NAXX gear?! No wonder they're catching you. Item level matters for threat because STRENGTH matters. A lot. Get that badge ring RIGHT QUICK, it's an enormous overall upgrade. Your first big mistake was buying 232 level tier gear because it was tier. Uhh, forget the tier bonuses. You should be buying the 245 Shoulders and Helm with your badges. Tanks do not have the luxury of e-peening with trying to get tier sets, especially at 232. Every time I see a player with 4 piece 232 I know I'm seeing a player who functionally doesn't understand the mechanics of the game.

I hope you're not passing on valuable upgrades because of your concern with the hit cap. You're going to drop well below the cap in TOC gear, that's just a fact of life because there isn't enough it on it. You're going to gain a ton of overall threat between strength and BV on the gear. You need a new shield, like STAT. I see you using the 200 str libram now which is good - I frankly NEVER take that off except for my block set, because avoidance is basically bitch tits at this point since all the dangerous damage is unavoidable.

To the poster who said that DPS gains threat faster than tanks, yes they do slightly - but only because we started out with such a huge lead in T7 level content. Fact of the matter is on the direct damage tank and spank phases of fights I'm doing a sustained 9k+ TPS, with spikes into the 10-11k range, without a single piece of 258 loot. If your threat has stopped increasing, you've probably stopped paying attention to improving it. If it's still good enough? Fantastic. If it's not though and you're threatcapping your DPS, you're hurting your raid.

haha yea i didn't mean the hard cap, i ment soft capped but cool i don't get why you say i'm tanking in naxx gear the only "low lvl" item i have on me is the black heart and the platinum cloak which is quite decent until you get a toc one i haven't really been passing on upgrades cause of hit rating main stats i look at is: hp gain, dodge %, parry %, defense and i also know i should have waited for trophies before i bought my tier gear but its as you said when they released em everyone just wanted to get their hands on em as quickly as possible including me.. foolish move but i can't hand em in anymore atm my dps'ers don't really have to step on their toes when it comes to threat, they just come really close like in fights where i can get stunned but even then i'm still leading and i know my shield is.. outdated waiting for the toc one but only time i saw it drop our other guild tank won it

[Synapse]

hello!
i've been raiding with my paladin for a while now as tank, but lately it seems i've entered a burnout period or something.. the threat i'm producing is usually around 5-6k in 10 mans and between 6-7k in 25 mans i know these numbers once looked high for me.. but it feels like dps is starting to do more tps and i'm staying the good ol'me my 969 rotation is flaweless, exp cap with soc, 250 hit so about 13 points under cap i can't find anything that would explain why our guild lock can match my tps.. so here is my armory and send the paladin docters on me!

The World of Warcraft Armory

Your spec and gearing seems in order, and I can't fail to notice that you mention warlocks as the problem.

Thing is, warlocks are very crit-happy, and very threat-sad. They naturally challenge threat second only to hunters and tied with kitties.
There's not much to do there, really. Salvation every now and then, telling him to learn to soulshatter...
Also, there was no such a thing as a "severe threat drop" when they nerfed our threat by roughly 5%. It's still at the top.

[Synapse]

At the moment I have 53.

For tanking a boss it's fine, but for adds I want to be sure my spells don't miss so I'll either put on downgrade boots to get myself to 100, or if needs be swap out a HP trinket for a 128 hit trinket.
For some fights losing the HP is worth it (Anub add tanking).

Keep your old gear, if you find yourself missing too much because you're extremely low on hit swap in some pieces when needs be.

Ah, I missed this post.

The spell hit % necessary to hit a +3 mob is much, much greater than to hit a +2 mob, talking about a 6%~ gap there if I recall correctly. 3% or 4% melee hit pretty much covers that spell hit.

[Zothor]

Zothor, why do you believe that a tank that has 4 Piece T9 232 does not understand the mechanics of the game?

I have the 4 set, and it is very beneficial for the decreased cooldown. I am, of course, accumulating badges for my 245 T9, but I need to win a trophy for that.
Also, the 232 pieces are excellent for smaller upgrades, I can get 2 232 pieces for less than the 245 Helm. It all depends on if you want to wait for massive upgrades, or get small, consistent upgrades. It depends on playstyle, how you wish to gear up. You need to take set bonuses into account as well, it is not all about raw stats.

Because the fights are not tuned to require, nor DO they require, the 90 second shieldwall.

You specifically say "it all depends on if you want to wait for massive upgrades" - well, the 245 Helm and Shoulders, both offset and available for similar (if not exactly the same) amounts of badges, are both significant upgrades over the 232 tier. And they are worth it. That's assuming you've never even seen a 245 tanking piece drop - but the Chest and Legs, both slots you can't buy with badges, drop off the first two bosses of ToC 25! Pugs clear those bosses, regularly and often. When it comes to tanking gear it is very, VERY rare (Boreal Guard being the only exception I can think of off the top of my head, although I'm sure there are others, excluding trinkets which everyone knows are crazy) where a piece will be so slanted in one direction or another that the lower item level value is more valuable overall than the higher one.

Upgrading your item level at the expense of a set bonus gets you:

Extra stam
Extra armor
Extra Strength which is extra Threat
If similarly itemized, extra avoidance
Extra defense, which allows you to comfortably swap out enchants and gems you might still have for extra stam.

Every one of these things helps you on every single boss swing of nearly every single fight to be a better tank.

You are trading them for a 90 second shieldwall, but the content isn't tuned to warrant it. Even the most cooldown heavy situations, such as solo tanking pre-nerf Vezax hard mode, this won't help you. 2 minutes is already a REALLY short cooldown for something as powerfull as bubblewall. 90 seconds? Yeah it's really short, and yeah I love that I have my four piece, but it's valuable in a fraction of tanking situations. The extra itemization value you get from using higher level offset gear vs. tier gear is valuable in EVERY tanking situation. Every single one.