Intermittent Pally threat issues

[Akeber]

Don't tank heroics in "heavy gear", make a heroic set.

-Get yourself a +90 str darkmoon card
-Use the ret T9 libram if you're using SoV in 5 mans. +200 strength is a ton of threat
-stack up some BV to make ShoR hit harder
-uncrittable for heroics is 535 defense skill. drop some tank gear and throw on a ret ring, neck, or cloak.
-Did you keep your old T9 gear? The t9 legs and helm have a ton of BV, and if you're not using them for raid tanking anymore, gem them out with strength. If you still need them and are swimming in emblems, get a second set to gem out with strength.

If you're running one of the ICC 5 mans and/or unsure of your healer, you may want to throw the heavy gear back on. For everything else, gear up for threat/dps.

[Hammerfists]

If you have divine plea, 1/2 sa and Sanctuary on, you just won't get low on mana unless you grossly overgear the fight(as in, t10 against ONE enemy in a heroic instance). And if that is the case, you're much more likely going to be able to manage just fine by, say, dropping consecration.

I said use Seal of Wisdom when during the when you dps during a fight as a tank. Spiritual Attunement and Sanc wont help you unless you are taking direct damage. And this is something to think about if you do get mana issues.

Im speaking from raid experience for Heroics just pull more groups and use Avenging Wrath to make Consecrate draw more aggro. Tab around to see if they are/arent assisting find their target taunt it to you and attack it.

[Synapse]

I said use Seal of Wisdom when during the when you dps during a fight as a tank. Spiritual Attunement and Sanc wont help you unless you are taking direct damage. And this is something to think about if you do get mana issues.

Im speaking from raid experience for Heroics just pull more groups and use Avenging Wrath to make Consecrate draw more aggro. Tab around to see if they are/arent assisting find their target taunt it to you and attack it.

That's when I use DG/HoSac.

[Hammerfists]

I don't think I ever implied that I used DG to get mana back in raids. Sorry if that's what it sounded like.

And you also get a stronger sacred shield. Between "quasi-useless more healing intake", "quasi-useless raid wall and reduced damage intake" and "quasi-useless extra threat output", i'll stick to the reduced damage intake. If there's a holy paladin, he can either use it on the nonpaladin tank, or you can use yours on the nonpaladin tank.

Im confused you're hopping around from its raid utility to saying its only for heroics. But to clarify Sacred Shield does nothing but impede mana regen in heroics. Also no doubt you are well geared to pop it during heroics if you see fit that you need more mana. Sorry for the confusion, i was speaking from a raid point of view and it appears you were from a heroic point of view.

To clarify my point choices, Gotankadin, i went 3 points into Reckoning because my guild runs with a near full ilvl 258 with legendary mace holy paladin. Im blessed to have him because when he is there its like i dont need to use cooldowns. Im third string tank when the GM is there or ot when he isnt (a warrior is my guild's mt). So i go Reckoning for the small added single target threat as i see the other choices (3 points in Divinity or Divine Sac/Guardian) not something my guild needs at this time in ICC. For Twins i go ret and i have divine sac to help absorb the other color for the door strat.

[Synapse]

I meant it has it's uses on both scenarios, while the others falter.

[Insahnity]

For reference, here's the spec you need. You can change 2 points out of conviction into pursuit of justice, if you wish, the rest shouldn't be changed.

Note the 1 point in Spiritual Attunement, and one point from Improved Judgements into Benediction. You don't need 2 points in improved judgements to get the 969 rotation to work, and there are no benefits to threat. That just leaves benediction or imp might, and 1 point in imp might doesnt do much.

To Hammerfist, the reason you take DS/DG is that you need to get to other talents further down. The alternative is reckoning, which is a garbage talent without seals of the pure, and even that combination isn't as good as heading for crusade (which you couldn't do while speccing into seals of the pure). The fact that DG increases the strength and duration of Sacred Shield alone makes it worth getting. Having to recast a weaker Sacred Shield every 30 seconds is very bad, as opposed to a 20% stronger one every 1 minute, the time spent using another ability instead of casting Sacred Shield is way more threat than reckoning provides.

Everybody agrees, Divine Plea and Seal Of Vengeance are must glyphs. The third one is open to choosing.
Glyph of Righteous Defense, if you are missing taunts
Glyph of Judgement for stronger single target threat
Glyph of HotR for extra damage on multiple mobs (you currently have this)
Glyph of Holy Wrath if you tank exclusively in Icecrown Citadel (I doubt you do)

I would actually switch one of your minors. Glyph of Blessing of Kings is pretty useless, 99% of the time you bless people out of combat. If it costs more mana, just drink!
Your better bet is to go with Glyph of the Wise. This is a mana reduction in combat, which sometimes helps, especially since you would only cast Seal of Wisdom when you are running low on mana, might as well have it cost less!

Finally to get back to your original post as to intermittent threat..
It's very difficult to diagnose that problem without a combat log. Your threat stats (hit and expertise) are doing OK, your gear is decent, this just leaves inefficient 969 rotation. You may get away with that sometimes because you have good gear, but if you have an equally geared DPS and you are not doing 969 properly, your threat will go down the crapper.

[Gotankadin]

If you want a more specialized aoe spec, SoComm + Reckoning is amazing too.

Someone in game was telling me this same thing today. I may try it out to see what works best for me.

[uglybbtoo]

It's not worth setting up a 2nd spec for heroics as Akeber suggested load up some ret pieces you are way over def cap and you can play see if dps can out dps the tank its fun ^.^

H-HOR is the only instance I suggest you back to normal gear

DPS weapon - mongoose chant, +200 strength libram slide in any other ret pieces you have and can still keep 435 def and go.

I am routinely running 3.6K dps as tank atm.

We got a newbie DK tank in h-fos the other night when I was helping a guildie on his ret alt. The DK had like 4 tank pieces and couldn't hold agro at all, I was healing on priest after a couple of wipes I got the ret alt to turn on RF and tank. I healed him easily he was a bit spikey but was no real trouble so I am considering probably tanking heroics from now on in full ret gear if I have a known reliable healer.

[Hammerfists]

@Insahnity: I did a little math on Sacred Shield since people bring that up a lot (btw my spell power is 822 and my holy pallies is 2877)

me: 500 + (822 x 0.75) = 1116.5
holy pallie: 500 + (2877 x 0.75) = 2657.75

with DG/DS i would have I would have 1339.8 damage reduction which is still below his capability. Only time I would be casting this is on myself when i am not the active tank in an encounter. To stress the point more my holy pallie went into the prot tree and picked up DS/DG. Making his sacred shield absorb 3189.3, nearly 3 times mine, as well as being able to do a raid wall. For me to do that i would have to take the forbearance debuff and not be able to bubble wall myself, if i could lay on hands myself this wouldnt be a big issue but blizz took that away from us.

Reckoning - With the advent of faster-swinging bosses in Icecrown Citadel, Reckoning has risen considerably in usefulness. What used to be a very weak DPS/TPS talent now out-threats Conviction point for point in single-target situations. In addition, it is the only threat talent we have the option to take with our three discretionary points in the Prot tree.

I pulled that from maintankadin. ICC actually makes this talent not worthless.

To recap these 3 points are optional. They are dependant of if you have a holy pallie and what your other pallies spec into. For my situation someone else is already taking care of that. Sacred Shield from a holy pallie will trump ours only time we will use is if the holy pallie called in sick or if you are not the active tank at the given moment in a fight. Also DS/DG has no penalty for holy pallies and for us that forbearance debuff can mean a lock on our bubble wall when we need it most.

[Insahnity]

To recap these 3 points are optional. They are dependant of if you have a holy pallie and what your other pallies spec into. For my situation someone else is already taking care of that. Sacred Shield from a holy pallie will trump ours only time we will use is if the holy pallie called in sick or if you are not the active tank at the given moment in a fight. Also DS/DG has no penalty for holy pallies and for us that forbearance debuff can mean a lock on our bubble wall when we need it most.

I'd still take it, because unless you have 2 holy paladins, it's better for him/her to put it on your 2nd tank (bear/warrior/DK).

I'm starting to use DS more often in times when the raid takes a lot of damage, but relative to your HP, it's pretty small. I can usually pop DG without even having to bother worrying about Divine Protection. As with other abilities, I am not "saving it", I am using it frequently in some fights. Say the party is taking 12k damage in the bone storm on marrowgar. That's 20k damage to you, easily healable with a Holy Light from a paladin, and you get some mana back. In return, the raid healers only have to heal 7k instead of 12k on each party member there, a little bit easier to cope with. And sure, the holy paladin can do it, but isn't having 2 DS much better? or more?