Pally tank, doubts, stats, caps, talents etc.

[Taoh]

Hi there,

I recently grinded my pally to level 80, and I'm a bit confused on stats, caps etc. for tanking. First of all, I want MY own character, lots of people tell me 'copy talents from this and that and from the best pally in the server', I want my character, first of all because I won't know how to use it, and secondly because I want MY own personal character, better or worse? I don't know, but I like so. I spoke to different tanks that told me different caps, stats and ways of tanking, so I decided to gather my own info and make my own compilation out of all the good tanks I know. so know let's start with the questions.

1. Hit Cap, some tanks have 5%,6%, and others, I've got 8%, what's the hit cap for you?

2. To determine how much Hit should I have, I went on some random heroics, and I used Recount to know the % of hits missed, with 8%, I had no misses etc, I only had round 7.4 Glancing on melee hits.

Should I have so much Glancing (or any glancing at all)?

EDIT: 2.5. This is my recount for the heroic training dummy (Orgrimmar, Litlle Skull level), only with seal, aura and blessing of san. I used no other buffs.



3. I currently have 30 Expertise (7.50%) , only what my gear gives me, I don't have any enchants nor gems. I had no parried/block at all in the Recount that I repeated multiple times to make my test fully reliable. I have 24 expertise as a 'cap', Expertise doesn't influence Glancing right? Do I have enough/too much Expertise?

4. Some tanks have told me they have Strength gems, they have a 'cap' of 1900 Strength, I personally believe that's not true isn't it? I've got 1447 Strength should I go form more or just get the strength my gear gives me?

5. I'm using Seal of Command for tanking to hold aggro well, Am I doing alright?

6. My talent scheme (0/53/18), check and give some suggestion if you can with glyphs and talents.

7. Here's my character, if you see anything wrong with gems or so please say so: Taoh - Shen'Dralar - EU

8. What instances do you think am I ready to tank?

EDIT: 9. What is the stat hierarchy? e.g: Def <- Stamina <- FILL IN WITH STATS AND ARROWS

EDIT: 10. Should I get gemmed for 60 % avoidance? I've got 57.28% completely unbuffed.

Thanks beforehand, Taoh

P.D: I'm spanish so please mind any spelling etc.

[bling581]

First of all, heroics aren't the best place to analyze stats like this because raid bosses require a higher cap than your normal heroic 5 mans. 8% hit and 26 expertise are the cap, though the need for reaching 8% hit isn't great enough to be gemming hit. You shouldn't be gemming for 20 hit and only use hybrid hit/gems if the socket bonus is 9 stam (if you feel you really need the hit), otherwise 30 stam is better. I'm not positive but I don't think you can ever prevent glancing blows. There is no cap on strength and I don't know why they would be gemming for strength except for more threat, but it shouldn't be necessary. Seal of Command is great for trash and aoe tanking but Seal of Vengeance/Corruption is for single target. At the very least grab the glyph for sensing undead for 2% more damage, but I don't see a reason not to have the lay on hands glyph as well. If you do a lot of ICC tanking I would take some points out of Conviction and put them in Crusade. I would swap out your Judgement glyph for Divine Plea, and the taunt glyph is only great for bosses that require taunt rotations/tank swaps. I would fill it with either Hammer of the Righteous or Salvation if you want another CD to use.

[Taoh]

I'll try this tomorrow morning, thanks for your help! I won't use Divine Plea Glyph, I don't really need that little mitigation for the content I'm daring to raid. Could you please estimate what am I able to raid?

THANKS, Taoh

P.D: 2 questions (9,10) added, + question 2.5

[Harmacy]

(WARNING: Tolstoy below, read at your own peril)

First of all, I totally understand the need to customize/attune your character to your own liking, but... there's a reason that the cookie cutter 53/18 spec is so popular. Everybody specs into Crusade because it's a very good threat talent, and is a damn sight better than Conviction (3% crit is not as good as 3% total damage - and of course, on many mobs and most raid bosses that goes up to a very nice 6% damage). People use the Divine Plea glyph because it's the absolute best defensive glyph, people use the Seal of Vengeance glyph because it's the best threat glyph (much much stronger than Glyph of Judgement), and nobody ever uses the Consecrate glyph because it messes up your 96969 rotation.

If you don't already know the 96969 rotation, look it up on Maintankadin or someplace. Your spec is almost there, just need to shift a few points from Conviction into Crusade, but those glyphs stick out like a sore thumb. Divine Plea is required for any raider (3% overall damage reduction - take it, no ifs ands or buts), SoV is pretty much required (unless you're over 50 expertise or so from gear alone, it is your best threat glyph by a mile). The third one there are several options - Righteous Defense and Judgement are both good options, but never ever glyph Consecrate because as I mentioned it screws up the entire rotation. (It might be a useful glyph if they shortened it to 1 extra second)

Minor glyphs, the only useful ones are Sense Undead and Lay on Hands. For the other slot, meh who cares.

As the other poster mentioned, 8% hit is the hit cap. 26 expertise is the "soft" cap where your attacks cannot be parried (26 expertise, contrary to popular knowledge, is actually the most important benchmark for Pally threat). The hard cap is something like 52 or 54, I forget exactly (because there's no need to have that much expertise).

There is no such thing as a strength cap, more is always better. My understanding is that 26 expertise is your most important threat stat, then after that Strength Hit and Expertise are relatively equal. I may be slightly wrong there. That being said, if you're properly specced/glyphed, understand the rotation, and are reasonably geared for the content you're raiding you should have few if any threat issues, and thus have no need for threat gems.

As far as I know, there is no way to avoid glancing blows for your melee hits. Not that it matters much, because our direct melee hits aren't a huge part of our overall damage - they are mostly useful for proccing your seal (and glancing blows still proc SoV or SoComm).

Seal of Command is awesome for tanking trash, be it in heroics or raids. Any time you're tanking multiple targets or any time you're tanking stuff that dies too quickly to get your seal stacks up, Seal of Command will be superior. You should still be switching to Vengeance (or Corruption for you) for single-target, especially for raid bosses.

Gear looks mostly good, a few issues:

- All the tailoring bonuses are garbage for a tank. If you have the cash drop it. If not, just don't use its bonuses at all. Any of the other crafting professions have good benefits, although Inscription is weaker than the others and Engineering is slightly stronger (bonus armor is hawt). Since you're a miner and thus can farm ore and stuff, JC BS or Engineering would be good choices for you.

- All your gems should either be full stam or part stam, for any raiding Pally tank (or any tank but a Bear - Druid tank itemization is a foreign concept to me).

- Hit is not so crucial to a Paladin. Respeccing into Crusade and using the Seal of Vengeance glyph will give you a significant amount of threat.

- The Onyxia trinket is nice if you're a fresh 80 scraping for 540 defense, otherwise it's a gimmick trinket for tanking adds or something like that. Don't vendor it, but for your "regular" raiding gear I would use a second EH trinket like Black Heart or Glyph of Indomitability. The Glyph is particularly nice, because it's both easy to obtain (Triumph badges) and gives you a ton of armor, with a decent on-use.

- I'd recommend either speccing into Pursuit of Justice (you trade 2% crit for 15% move speed), or using the Tuskarr's boot enchant (you trade 7 stam for 8% move speed). Movement speed is nice for any raider, very nice for any melee, and extremely nice for a tank.

- Definitely get the Frost badge cloak when you get enough. It is an unfathomably big upgrade.

- If you have the cash (that is, if you've replaced Tailoring with a better profession and still have a few hundred gold to spare), replace your weapon enchant with Mongoose or Blood Draining. Mongoose is a nice mix of threat, avoidance, and a small amount of armor - it has a great uptime for a Paladin tank because of the way our Seals and Judgements work. Blood Draining offers nothing in the way of threat, but is the best EH enchant (it's not strictly Effective Health, but is the closest thing you'll get from a weapon enchant). A cheap but pretty effective weapon enchant is +26 agility, too. Please don't waste the gold on Blade Ward, it's inferior to Mongoose for a Paladin, costs more, and most importantly doesn't have green lightning!

- Agility > dodge rating for a Paladin. We get almost as much dodge from a point of agility as a point of dodge rating, and it also gives you a small amount of armor and a sizeable amount of crit.

- If you respec and glyph the way I recommend, you will undoubtedly have threat to spare. Replace your glove enchant (2% threat is very little, and 10 parry is nothing at all) with +240 armor or +18 stam, both leatherworking kits. I use +240 armor.

That's about it (whew). Hope I helped ya

[Fluxx]

Above poster has a nice guide though there are some errors.

- Expertise hard cap - Removing the parry from raid bosses and parry haste* (only a few bosses in ICC (Inc. Lady deathwisperer and Sindragosa) more in Totc though(Gormock the impaler / worms ice howl (Not sure?) Lord Jaraxxus and Twins (Not sure?))
- Mongoose vs. Bladeward - Mongoose is more bang for the buck in ICC at the moment, dont be fooled by the description they have both about the same up time. but if your really in maxing your possible outcome i would advise you to look some theory crafts on this forum and on other known forums (Main tankadin / elitejerkists)

Further there are things you want to figure out for your self. If you go Stamina all the way or Threat enchancement or avoidance or migration there are some minor out comes.
(Easy examples)
- Stamina (Note: Keeping Judgment of light on your target will increase your threat on that target.. because your healing so its a holy spell so it gets modified by the 80% threat extra and more health means more healing per proc)
Pro: Larger health pool, Less healing spells cast on you so more mana for healers
Con: Less threat, Spike damage
- Threat
Pro: Shorter boss fights because DPS can go full on you and just go buttonbash crazy, Less time on a boss is less mana for the healers
Con: Less health so you are risking a death when you make an error because you didnt move out of the green shit.
- Avoidance
Pro: Less actuel hits
Con: Spiky damage, less threat
- Migration (Armor / block)
Pro: Less damage per hit, No spiky damage
Con: Less health and less threat

Further more i would advise you to put all stats(Stamina, Str, Agi, Armor, Expertise etc.) on piece of paper and see what they do and what you think is important

Keep the treat,
Fluxx

[Taoh]

(Note: Keeping Judgment of light on your target will increase your threat on that target.. because your healing so its a holy spell so it gets modified by the 80% threat extra and more health means more healing per proc)

Actually it's not, it's a retribution spell, so I'll rather use Judgement on Wisdom. But thanks for all of the answers both helped me.

[bling581]

Actually it's not, it's a retribution spell, so I'll rather use Judgement on Wisdom. But thanks for all of the answers both helped me.

I'm pretty sure Righteous Fury is affected by the spell type and not the spell tree that it's in. A Holy Paladin with RF on will easily pull aggro on new mobs entering combat. Same reason why Prot uses it since it affects Prot abilities that deal Holy damage

[Therah]

I'm a pally tank wondering if i sould improve on anything

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...fist&cn=Therah

[Martie]

First of all, I want MY own character, lots of people tell me 'copy talents from this and that and from the best pally in the server', I want my character, first of all because I won't know how to use it, and secondly because I want MY own personal character, better or worse? I don't know, but I like so.

People tell you to go a certain way because that certain way is generally proven to be better. Sure, you can deviate from it, but too much deviation will have worse effects for your character and your groups.

1. Hit Cap, some tanks have 5%,6%, and others, I've got 8%, what's the hit cap for you?

The melee hit cap against a boss or level 83 mob is 8%. Level 82 and lower is 5+(level difference*0.2)%.
Spells work differently, they need 17% against boss and level 83 mobs, no clue against other mobs. I have no clue about other mobs because it's of no importance - the only spells you have that you want never to miss are your taunts, and you can glyph those.

2. To determine how much Hit should I have, I went on some random heroics, and I used Recount to know the % of hits missed, with 8%, I had no misses etc, I only had round 7.4 Glancing on melee hits.
Should I have so much Glancing (or any glancing at all)?

Glancing blows happen. They only apply to your standard melee attacks (white damage), and there is nothing you can do about them.

3. I currently have 30 Expertise (7.50%) , only what my gear gives me, I don't have any enchants nor gems. I had no parried/block at all in the Recount that I repeated multiple times to make my test fully reliable. I have 24 expertise as a 'cap', Expertise doesn't influence Glancing right? Do I have enough/too much Expertise?

Your expertise is on the high side, but not too high. You don't have 24 expertise as a cap. Expertise doesn't influence glancing blows, it affects parries and dodges. Having 30 expertise means that your attacks won't be dodged by monsters, and that only bosses can parry you - and they won't do it that often.

4. Some tanks have told me they have Strength gems, they have a 'cap' of 1900 Strength, I personally believe that's not true isn't it? I've got 1447 Strength should I go form more or just get the strength my gear gives me?

There's no such thing as a strength cap, and any tank gemming strength is either horribly outgearing his content or doing it wrong. Don't gem strength as a tank, it makes you look silly.

5. I'm using Seal of Command for tanking to hold aggro well, Am I doing alright?

If you hold aggro well with it, then you are doing it right. Against single mobs, seal of corruption/vengeance should net you more threat, but against packs I use command as well. (I change seals mid-combat on some fights.)

6. My talent scheme (0/53/18), check and give some suggestion if you can with glyphs and talents.

Looks good. Shifting three points from conviction to crusade should increase your threat output, and I'd shift the other two points from conviction to pursuit of justice, but I like running fast.

7. Here's my character, if you see anything wrong with gems or so please say so: Taoh - Shen'Dralar - EU

That link ain't working.

8. What instances do you think am I ready to tank?

No idea.

EDIT: 9. What is the stat hierarchy? e.g: Def <- Stamina <- FILL IN WITH STATS AND ARROWS

You just about nailed it on the head there. Get your defense to 540, then get a ton of stamina. Don't ignore expertise and hit, but don't fret about them either. Avoidance is nice, but shouldn't be gemmed or enchanted for. When there is an armor enchant available, get it. When there is a stamina enchant available, get it.

EDIT: 10. Should I get gemmed for 60 % avoidance? I've got 57.28% completely unbuffed.

Don't enchant or gem for avoidance. Gem for stamina, with hit, expertise and defense aspects as you desire or need.

Thanks beforehand, Taoh

Not too much of a problem, but you will become a much better tank if you started reading some of the guides available on this site. You'll get a lot more information, explanations about why I gave the advice that I did, and you'll pick up some nice tricks like the 969 rotation. (Yes, I want you to go find out what that is by searching this site - help me out here guys, and don't tell him!)

[Martie]

Actually it's not, it's a retribution spell, so I'll rather use Judgement on Wisdom. But thanks for all of the answers both helped me.

Judgement of light used to cause threat, so much in fact that it caused huge issues for ret paladins. Righteous fury worked to increase it, and in naxx I used it a couple of times. Then they reduced it's potency and removed it's threat.
Holy damage and holy healing both get increased by Righteous Vengeance, what tree it's from is irrelevant.

[CatabriOnEarthen]

Actually it's not, it's a retribution spell, so I'll rather use Judgement on Wisdom. But thanks for all of the answers both helped me.

All paladin spells are holy spells. Doesn't matter what tree they are from. They all cause holy damage.

[Chasey]

@Harmacy,nice lil guide! Very to the point.
Few things, NEVER and I don't care what your thoughts or reasoning....ever gem parry!
0/53/18 is popular for a reason. It includes a great mix of threat and surv. Try it and use it.
JoL does not cause threat, blizz nerfed that in 3.08. But all pallys spells are holy reguardless of tree.
Stam is still king, EH ie...armor is great but you aren't tanking HLK so go w/stam.
No one set of gear/glyphs/enchants is perfect for every fight. Pick up every piece of tanking gear you can, swap it out on a fight by fight basis. You owe that to your healers.
I love this site, but don't stop here and only take what you see here, there is a whole internet full of info, as long as its 3.3.5 it will be useful, and even some of the older stuff helps too.

@Therah, you are in ret gear.