Need a Crash Course: Paladins

[keep]

I started playing WoW the week Wrath was released, as an ally mage. By the time i reached northrend, thee were slews of 80's running around already (PVP Server). On particular problem I had was the inability to stop a pally from killing me. While most other classes it varied, and I had droped at least one of each class, including a lock.

A guildy, and very good friend was Main Tanking Naxx 10's (Pally) for our guild then, so when I hit 80, I hopped right into Heroics, and they ,mostly carried me through them, with my mere 1200 DPS as frost.

That's all pre-Ulduar stuff.

Stuff happened, guild fell apart, I moved across the country.. and quit wow, for a year. Now I'm back. A good friend of mine tells me that his guild can't raid, the only capable tank in the guild doesn't have a clue what his taunts are for. And the for the most part the DPS cant hit over 1K DPS, in heroics in full Triumph gear.

My response: "WTH is Triumph gear?"

So I pop into game, do some looking around, find out what's been added, and then server swap to my buddy's realm. I know I wont have my 80 to help me... I wont have much help at all I assume.. But he is my best friend, so, wth, its only 80 levels to grind. I roll a pally, the unkillable class from my mage days.

Now, I'm 80. i have a prot set, though its not "epic'd out" mostly bues a few purples, and a green back that needs replacing badly. I planned this from level 1, based on what I know of WoW, and for professions I chose Jewelcrafting. For the JC Specific gems that are above all else. I didn't know that you could only equip 3 of them at the time though.

I get my defense rating to 502, not capped, but high enough. Hell i remember tanks with lower then that and we managed. I got laughed out of several heroics. Vote-kicked repeatedly. The game has obviously changed much. So now, Im farming ToC, and FoS for gear. The two hardest instances I know of, should give me the best gear and set me up for heroics -> or that's my logic anyway.

I'm having problems though. I use my taunts as often as required, to save healers / DPS. Still i'm constantly caught while they are on CD, so i try to smack their targets with hammer of the rightous, and i make sure that a Consecrate is always down. Still theres manic hell when ever i have to face more then 4 mobs. especially when there's a few casters involved (FoS / PoS in particular). As a blood elf, I utilize my racial to silence casters, and bring them into melee range, or Avenger's Shield to Silence them if its not on CD. (I tend to save the racial for its long CD).

Honestly, I don't know how much of my issues holding aggro is normal, and how much of it is just situationalaly dependent. And how much f it is just not knowing my class, bowing the wrong cool-downs too soon.

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So I guess in all of that above, I'm asking, for advice, any available. Recommended methods, tips, tricks, gear i should def get that I can get right now, or relatively soon.

I don't want to be the fail tank that everyone hates, and just makes instances a real PITA. I'm still learning some of the instances, like the irritating scripted opening of CoS (never did it with my mage), and all of the Storm peaks / Icecrown dungeons.

I've leveled this toon, with one goal in mind.. to help my buddy, and my new friends in his guild. How much of that is really possible I don't know, but I know I cant help anyone if I cant do my job properly. And good tanks, Really good solid tanks, are hard to come by.

[EDIT:]
Armory Link: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...er+The+Sunwell

[uglybbtoo]

You should have no trouble holding agro to like 3-4KDps even in your current gear with that mace so something is wrong. Okay lets do this by the sequence.

1. Do you have Righteous Fury on?

2. Fix your spec
the long version: http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.c...pic&start=1470
One version of a 53/18 build: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sZV0t...fdxfMh0c:Gp0Vm

3. Next you need to do 969 rotation here is a video explaining http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZyOoMKtREI

4. Finally you need to gem and chant your gear properly http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.c...m-enhancements


Start with that and see how you go.

[keep]

I guess I should have added,
I don't have problems with single target aggro.

My issues start arising when things get hellish. like when pulling a large group of mobs.

A good example is after the second boss in Pit of Saron. You have groups of 5 that you pull. three hybrids in the front, and two frost casters in the back. The Hybrids start with fireball, then go to melee, and will occasionally cast fireball again through out the fights. I'll always target one of the frost casters in the back, and hope that avenger's shield hits both of them, silencing them. and bringing them in to melee range. If they cast after that, I generally don't care, so long as they're standing on my consecrate. But that's not always what happens, sometimes Avenger's shield does not hit both of them. Some time's oddities happen like some dumb ass hunter not shooting at the one marked >skull< and pulls him off me. At that point, I'm frantically trying to re-establish aggro with that mob, and maintain aggro with the four still on me. Which never works well, and I'll usually lose a different mob to someone using an AOE, like blizzard or volly.

To answer your questions:
Yes I make sure that I've turned on righteous fury.

I d need enchants, I knew that, my gear is gemmed with the best stuff I can cut. Mostly high def-rating gems, and stamina. My hit seems fine, as I miss very little, though I could do with some expertise, as I catch parry often enough to annoy me.

That vid is pretty awesome, and I'll definately give that a go. And roll over my spec.
Thanks much for the help.

[Wario]

Mate, Once you get the basics of tanking with a pally you be fine. AoE is the easiest part for a Pally so getting good at it would be a positive.

[theodisius]

Well, with the two pulls after the second boss in PoS, you are talking about what in my opinion are the hardest pre-raid pulls in Wotlk, so if you are struggling there, that is no indictment of your skill. The trick for paladin there is holy wrath. Remember almost everything in the ICC is undead, so turn on sense undead (with glyph) and more importantly use holy wrath for instant aggro plus a stun. I tend to prioritise the two fire casting mobs as skull and X, as I think they are the hard hitters.

More generally, you seem to know the basic tools for getting aggro on a group, so I think with practice you will be fine. In tricky pulls like the PoS caster groups, I tell dps - and ideally the healer - to hold off for a few seconds to let me pick up the mobs.

Looking at your gear, you are rather "old school" in relying on drops. What you want to aim at, is running random heroics to get emblems and gearing that way. Yappo has an excellent guide to what to spend your emblems on in the gear sub-forum of maintankadin. First purchase will probably be a libram - the extra strength one (valiance?) is probably good for heroics, as it gives block as well as threat. Getting two pieces of T9 will help you a lot as it reduces the cool down on hand of reckoning by 2 seconds. (I tend to use righteous defence to protect the healer and HoRec for single loose mobs). It will be rough PUGing heroics with your gear, but if you can get over the hump, it will soon get easy and lucractive. Trying stacking stamina subject to the 535 defence minimum - perhaps some crafted items and epic stamina gems can help here. I saved up and got the Tempered titansteel stuff, the Breastplate of the White Knight and the Savage Saronite bracers. The Black Heart and Essence of Gossamer will also help you stack stamina. Running at least one daily with guild mates might help - it is so much more pleasant learning to tank with friends than with PUGs and surely they want frost emblems at least? Once you have run every instance at least once, random heroics should hold no fear.

[keep]

I actually have [The Black Heart] Trinket, I dont equip it because doing so would cut my defense rating under the 540 cap. Ive bene waiting to get better gear from badges before I equip it. So far I have been doing better. I can now tank all non heroics without many issues, and without fear. I've started doing that thing that everyone hates that pally's tend to do.. you know.. chain pull without stopping untill some one screams OOM.

I did a few random heroics with some guildies specifically AN, UK, and Gun'Drak. I seemed to do surprisingly well. My JC has paid off Finally, cutting the JC specific gems for Stam and Def rating, getting me to 540 def, and roughly 25K HP. Once again, I'm now more in the slump of just needing better gear.

I'm not horribly old school, but yeah, most of the lessons I learned about WoTLK was learned while playing an 80 frost mage about a 2 months after Wrath was released. Again, thats pre-ulduar content, and Naxx was "the raid" to do.

As far as holy wrath goes... I love that spell, and I abuse it whenever I get an opertunity to. I'm overly aware of undead around me, and I can be quoted in /g saying "Undead, Paladin, it's a thing" so yeah that makes things a bit better in ICC instances. I drop aggro not so often anymore, and I hold something like 1200 DPS for the length of the instance. And about the only classes that give me an issue with threat are .. warlocks.. no surprise there i'm sure. Holy Pally healers, DK's and Warriors. DK's purely for the insane damage they do, and lack of threat reducing talents spec'd. and I swear sometimes warriors are taunting off of me, for as often as they pull stuff.

All in all I think I've got this now. I just need to get badges for gear, and then gear up so I can replace def raing gems with stam, and mitigation gems. I know that a lot of tanks now are purely stacking stamina, I think that's silly, as more then 40K HP is not required. Once you hit 38K + nothing is going to hit you hard enough to eat through that. And mitigation should be a priority. More armor, more dodge / block / parry.

now, Ive not seen the lich king fight yet, so Ive no idea how hard he can hit. and on 25 player Hard mode, i guess 40 - 45K HP might really be needed. The only raid Ive ever been in thats 80 level, is naxx 10 man, and then my tank buddy has like 36K HP, and he did fine. Even Patch, who at the time was little more then a Gear check boss, gave him no trouble. That same buddy chose to stack more mitigation then Stam, compared to most tanks at the time. I don't dare say that Stam isnt important, it is, very much so. But Dodge, Block, and Parry shouldn't be forgotten. They are important mechanics to the way tanks work, and ignoring it would be silly. Or at least I think so.

I have to get a new computer before I raid tank anyway. This one gets like 3.2 FPS in 10 mans, and it will only get worse. The machine is like 5 years old, and I didnt buy it for gaming. I needed something to program on, so it runs my C++ and C# IDE's as well as my SSH Shell program that I need to talk to my Server. (No itz not a wow private server! i run apache / postgres). So its not built for gaming, and I desprately need a new machine. I'm way under spec.

I appreciate everyone's input. It's helped my confidence a lot. I ave tweaked my spec, Though Ive still not gotten enchants. (I cant find an enchanter with good tank enchants!). Even without them though I seem to do wel enough to keep most groups happy. Except the ones that queue up just to greef people about not having 40K HP, or not doing 4.5K DPS, or not having a 5K + Gearscore. (mines like 3500 in prot gear).

[Skaggi]

now, Ive not seen the lich king fight yet, so Ive no idea how hard he can hit. and on 25 player Hard mode, i guess 40 - 45K HP might really be needed. The only raid Ive ever been in thats 80 level, is naxx 10 man, and then my tank buddy has like 36K HP, and he did fine. Even Patch, who at the time was little more then a Gear check boss, gave him no trouble. That same buddy chose to stack more mitigation then Stam, compared to most tanks at the time. I don't dare say that Stam isnt important, it is, very much so. But Dodge, Block, and Parry shouldn't be forgotten. They are important mechanics to the way tanks work, and ignoring it would be silly. Or at least I think so.

You will change that when you are there. I stacked more avoidance and threat stats during ToC times when we already outgeared the encounters. Last night was first time heroic LK and that guy tends to hit for over 40k on a tank. You'll be stacking nothing but stam and armor there. Our bear was lieing flat within two hits despite his lifepool of more than 70k. I could swear there were some healers cackling madly in the back

Always remember that a tank gears for the encounter and not for the opinion of someone else.

Cheers!
skaggi