Paladin damage intake / aggro issues...

[Scias]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...acegaot/simple

The above link is to my armory. First I wanted to point out that alot of the times it seems as though I take alot more damage than I should. This being my first time ever tanking what so ever may have given me a sense of 'paranoea' and wanted to know if it was normal that my healer gets pretty low on mana when healing me? All of this being based off of 5-man Heroics includeing the new Rise of the Zandalari dungeons.

I also seem to be haveing trouble holding aggro against the DPS pulling 14-15k. Is this a fault of my own or is it they're responsibility to watch they're aggro? Any tips in regards to my gear, spec, or glyphs would also be appreciated.

My stats are pretty even at the time: Parry - 12.76, Dodge - 12.08, Block - 43.74%

Any advice or pointers would be appreciated! Thanks.

[rileyrat]

Mind you I am primarily a DPS kinda guy. If it's a mob you are not targeting that you lose, probably the DPS' fault. Make it your mission to teach people how to use the Target's Target function (default is the F key). Example, I'm on my DK (can peak at 16-18k in random heroics). I set you, the tank, as my focus. The group is pulled and you establish a fighting location, this is when I hit the F Key and get at it. As long as you stick to that target, I can go all out and not pull threat.

Hell I use the F key so much that often (read being uber lazy), after the first target in a group pull dies, I'll simply hit TAB, F, F. The TAB selects something in front of me, the first F should bounce my target to the tank and the second F puts me on the mob the tank is targeting.

[klausi]

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sZGMhsRddoRucbG:oksRbqMmc

Reckoning is actually a pretty strong aggro talent and if you ever want to use consecration (as i do) use at least one point for it or you'll run dry very quickly.

Besides that paladin aggro is pretty solid for 5 mans, just watch your inquisition uptime and don't ever miss on your hotr cooldown. Mark the focus target, get a mouseover macro for hand of salvation (on bossfights for deathknight and warrior, all other can reduce aggro on their own) + hand of protection (when stat stupid melee just unloaded all his aoe before you ever touched the mobs on your own) and you're set :)

Enchants:
55 stamina on chest
85 stamina / some agi on panties
50 mastery on gauntles and feet (you already covered runspeed via talent)
reputation enchant for your head

Reforging:
You want the avoidance rating being almost equal not the total % values.

Head: dodge to mastery
Wrist: exp to mastery
Legs: exp to mastery
Finger1: exp to mastery
Weapon: hit to dodge
shield: hit to dodge

edit: fixed link

[Selene]

Gems, never ever gem for Dodge, the first suggestion is the way most people "should" gem, but the 2nd is also viable.
Red = Parry/Mastery or Parry/Stam.
Yellow = Mastery or Mastery/Stam.
Blue = Mastery/Stam or Stam.
Prismatic = Mastery or Mastery/Stam.

Enchants/Reforging: the person above me pretty much covered it, but you want to also work on your Enchanting so you can enchant your rings.

Trinkets work on the Tol Barad rep, you want the Tanking Trinket from there, it is one of the best in the game currently.

[aresius]

Your pretty low on mastery. My pally has slightly better gear (357ilvl) and has 56% block unbuffed (note im not a pure mastery stacker, i have 156K hp unbuffed).
This is largely due to bad/no reforging and poor choice of pieces due to itemization (remember you want dodge/mastery or parry/mastery pieces most). I advise following Klausi's advice on reforging and enchanting.
Try to replace that dps relic and ring.
Get rid of that Heart of thunder trinket. Its pretty much the same as not wearing anything on that slot. Thats a laughable amount of armor and even some dps trinkets are better then that.
Its vital to keep in mind that since mastery is not subject to diminishing returns, you can cover a large part of the hit table by stacking it. This is important to avoid worse case hit sequences (ex:getting hit 5 times in a row without dodging, parrying or blocking) and make them less frequent. Aside from that its just make sure you use cds properly when there will be a high dmg income. A trivial example from Zul aman would be the bear mobs that put a debuff on the tank reducing armor by 20K for 5 seconds. With that debuff your hit as if you were a clothie, as soon as you see it you should pop something.
As for aggro, You can tell if its your problem or dps on boss fights. If a dps pulls or is close to pulling the boss (single target) from you, your threat is bad (unless of course they started shooting the boss w/o MD before you even reached him or something retarded like that).
If this only happens in AOE pulls with many targets, you just need to mark one skull and another X and make sure people follow the kill order.
Spec and glyphing look Ok.

[jere]

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sZGMhsRddoRucbGksRbqMmc

Reforging:
You want the avoidance rating being almost equal not the total % values.

This is actually not quite correct (at least until 4.2).

What you want is the percents to be balanced like this:

Parry = Dodge + 1% (about)

This will give you more optimal balance on avoidance than trying to balance the ratings (due to agility). For the exact difference in percents, go unbuffed and ungeared and see what your dodge/parry percentages are. The difference there is what is optimal for your character. Mine is really 1.03% for example, but it can vary based on race.

However, dodge/parry balance isn't the issue. So I wouldn't worry about balancing them too much atm. Focus more on getting your mastery better and a better 2nd trinket (the armor one isn't very good). Aim for a dodge/parry/mastery trinket to compliment your stam trinket for better results. Armor isn't really itemized well this expansion and tends to lag behind the other trinkets. Baradin Wardens have a wonderful mastery trinket if you wish to put the time into their reputation.

[Grindleguts]

No he was correct, and agility does not change that. People get confused by DR with the constant mixing of percentages with rating. What you want is keeping the avoidance ratings as similar as possible, if you have 1000 parry rating aim for 1000 dodge rating with reforging.

[jere]

No he wasn't correct. DR also affects dodge that comes from agility (not base agility though), which has nothing to do with ratings. Once 4.2 hits and agility stops giving dodge % (it does not provide rating), then the rating part will be true.

Ignoring agility will give you improper results, especially if you have a warrior, enchance shaman, or DK in your group buffing the +STR/AGI buff.

EDIT: Also, if you look at the derivations of Whitetooth over at EJ (the guy who figured all this out way back when and keeps it all updated), you'll see that DR equations run off of % rather than rating. Luckily you can convert easily between the two, but with Dodge, you have to account for agility, so you either have to convert it to rating manually (minus base) or you need to just use percents as the equation was designed for.

That's not to say only comparing ratings won't get you close, but it will be more off than trying to balance percentages due to avoidance from agility in the DR equation.

[Scias]

Awsome! Thank you very much for the input, when I get home this evening I will surely begin to work on it. I always was under the impression that mastery was a more or less 'nice to stack as much as possible but to stack dodge and parry foremost' stat. I shall begin reforgeing and gemming when I get home. Thank you again!

[jere]

One thing though. Definitely regem some, but don't reforge your dodge/parry into mastery. Just reforge stats like hit/expertise into mastery. You still want a healthy amount of avoidance (there's a balance).

[klausi]

No he wasn't correct. DR also affects dodge that comes from agility (not base agility though), which has nothing to do with ratings. Once 4.2 hits and agility stops giving dodge % (it does not provide rating), then the rating part will be true.

That's why you try keeping both ratings close together, because even if you don't get additional dodge rating your dodge from agility (via battleshout) is also affected by DR as is the additional ~ 150 parry rating from the very same buff.

And with the current ilvl 359 gear itemisation you will end up with an excess of parry rating anyway, you can only try to bring both in line as good as possible.

One thing though. Definitely regem some, but don't reforge your dodge/parry into mastery. Just reforge stats like hit/expertise into mastery. You still want a healthy amount of avoidance (there's a balance).

You want to cover as much of the combat table as possible, aiming for pushing regular hits off the table. That's at least why i reforge avoidance rating into migitation, mastery isn't affected by DR and i can cover at least +1.25% (pre DR!) more via blocking for every 180ish rating. And why else would you advise gemming for migitation instead of avoidance if that wasn't on your mind as well?

[jere]

That's why you try keeping both ratings close together, because even if you don't get additional dodge rating your dodge from agility (via battleshout) is also affected by DR as is the additional ~ 150 parry rating from the very same buff.

Actually with raid buffs you get an extra 639 agility on a human paladin (between kings, horn, leg enchant, etc.). That comes out to be 2.0985% dodge from agility. In terms of rating that is about 370 dodge rating offset from what you read on your character sheet, which can be around 3 pieces of gear worth. So if you try to even out your ratings, you will be off a small bit.

Lets say for the sake of argument that you try equalizing your ratings at 1000 rating each. After DR, you would get 5.43% parry from rating and 7.22% dodge from rating+agility. Adding in 5% base parry and 3.97% base dodge (human paladin) you get:

5.43
7.22
5.00
3.97
----
21.62% avoidance after DR for dodge/parry (add 5% in for miss)

However, if you do it by P = D + 1.03 (human paladin) with 11.34% parry and 10.31 dodge (11.34-10.31 = 1.03)
you get

6.34 dodge after DR
6.34 parry after DR
5.00 base parry
3.97 base dodge
------------
21.65% avoidance

*NOTE: 6.34 parry comes from 1185 rating while 6.34 dodge comes from 815 rating + non-base agility contribution (total of 2000 rating like in the previous example). All constants are taken from Whitetooth's thread on EJ and carried out to 4 decimal places.

Like I said before, it's still close when you equalize ratings, but the most accurate method is using delta_base_avoidance separation.

Equalizing ratings will get you close, but will still be slightly off. However, I don't think it is worth it to try to suck out that last 0.03%

You want to cover as much of the combat table as possible, aiming for pushing regular hits off the table. That's at least why i reforge avoidance rating into migitation, mastery isn't affected by DR and i can cover at least +1.25% (pre DR!) more via blocking for every 180ish rating. And why else would you advise gemming for migitation instead of avoidance if that wasn't on your mind as well?

In general this is correct, but remember that the comparison of mastery to avoidance has a cross over point. You need to make sure you have enough avoidance to be on the right side of the crossover point. I don't know the value off hand though. I know they calculated it over at Maintankadin at some point.

[jere]

Here is the thread where they calculated it:
http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.c...635172#p635172

Here is the pertinent point:

Avoidance & Mastery
* 1 mastery rating is better than 1 parry rating for total damage reduction at 952 parry rating, or 10.1896% on the character sheet.
* For dodge, this happens at 9.1601% on the character sheet. A rating equivalence is unreliable due to agility raid buffs.

So you want to watch reforging avoidance into mastery below these points.

[Scias]

So you mean to tell me that anything over 952 parry should be reforged into mastery? In order for me to be on the correct side of the crossover?

Edit: The same goes for Dodge I am guessing?

[jere]

For now yes. It changes in 4.2 though with the holy shield changes probably coming. For dodge, you'll just need to go by the percentages (char sheet percentages). I would aim for unbuffed since you can't control raid buffs all the time and just eat the little bit of unmaximized stats. Once 4.2 hits, it all changes.

One thing to note on balancing dodge and parry against each other. We all tend to get lost in the math and such here. Sometimes the gains you get aren't worth the trouble unless you are going cutting edge. If you do a bunch of reforging and only gain less than 0.05 avoidance, it probably wasn't worth your money unless you are really pushing content and seeing issues. Adding more mastery should have a good effect though as it tends to grow faster (no DR on it). I know lots of people who will reforge the crap out of their gear to get the 0.03% between equal ratings method and the delta base avoidance method, but they are pushing 25 man hard mode progression and going for server firsts and things like that.

[Kriandis]

WOW 101 (If healer dies it is tanks fault. If tank dies it is healers fault. If DPS die, it is their own damn fault