Tanks doesn't do it anymore for me

[Reclzz]

Hey everyone

It's now almost 2 months after Panda has hit and i'm starting to feel a bit ehh..
Let me explain:

I've played Paladin since start TBC (different spec in different expansions) and been loving it, untill now! I've also had other chars along side Paladin fx Warrior in TBC/WotLk and Druid/DK in Cataclysm, however always loved the Paladin.

Now i'm starting to get irritated, this streamlining of tank classes, making them function the same basicly (active mitigation was the style of DKs in Cata) is lame, sure making tanks more equal is great, i'm all for that.. What i'm however not fund off is now getting hit/expertise/haste (pala) to increase up time of our active mitigation and as such rendering avoidance gems/enchants/reforge obsolete until you reach 2550 hit and 5100 expertise.

I've had trouble collecting some tank pieces because dps was mad that i took their gear, and i can only speculate on how it's gonna be in LFR with some pieces i need being flagged as DPS and not Tank (talking only Plate atm, druid is 87 and monk is 35)

I think this is a universal thing, because i've gotten numerous whispers saying they will pay me 1k gold per raid boss to come and tank for them (tank gear is free) but i'm hesitant as i really don't like this new tank gearing style.

I'm thinking of respecing my pala from prot to holy or dusting my disc priest off and heal instead, but really torn, been tanking since TBC and really liked it till i hit 90 and had to gear.

I Would like to hear your thought and hear if i'm the only one that thinks tanks avoidance stats rather than dps stats.


Cheers

[Fetzie]

If you don't like stacking haste then you can always go for mastery instead, is about the same in the long run (although a haste-tank is going to take less spiky damage).

Have a read through my guide and see if it changes your mind Tanking is the most awesome thing in WoW!

[Tengenstein]

In LFR Loot isn't shared like in 5 mans, you don't roll against anyone. When you kill a boss everyone in the raid has a chance to get loot and failing that get a bag of gold, but the chance to get loot is an individual thing, in a freak of RNG all 25 people could get loot or avery one could get gold. and the thing is the gear is spec specific, so if you go in as Ret you'll get Str plate withough dodge/parry on but never any spirit plate.

[sifuedition]

Yeah, good luck getting the gear you really want from LFR. You may have to go ret to get it if you want mastery/haste. That's how I got my haste/mastery chest/gloves from Mogu'shan LFR.

[Valaras]

To be honest, after you have 7.5 hit and exp (not even 15 exp) you can basically reforge to whatever the fuck you want and it will still be good enough, provided that you can use your active mitigation properly. I remember tanking WotE HC more than a month ago in around 479 gear, with my reforging being totally all over the place and I was surviving no problem at all.

[DukeUK]

I agree, i have a Pally tank and was loving it till i hit 90 :/
Now im in a catch 22 situation, i cant tank Panda instances cos my gear isnt good enough, and cant get gear cos i cant do instances??? prices for decent gear on the AH is absolutely nuts!!
My Item level is 447 at the moment and to be honest its crap... 7.49 hit and can only get Expertise of 2.96!!! and thats after reforging.
So pissed off with the messing with gear, ive now gone back doing low level quests and filling in low level dungeon Achievements... Guild members think im nuts.
Blizz need to do something about the gap from hitting 90 with crap gear and getting geared, means a long time of having a crap toon.
There is too many variables too..... plenty of dodge to survive but then cant hold aggro..... OR plenty of damage but cant survive?
I can see alot of people abandoning toons and starting fresh ones.... im tempted (again)

[Fetzie]

447 is plenty of gear for 5man heroics. Threat should be a non-issue regardless of your gear (if you get an über-geared heroic raider in the instance then yes, you will certainly struggle, but then they'll be killing stuff fast enough for it not to be an issue) and the damage intake is more dependent on you playing optimally than anything else. Have you read my Guide?

[DukeUK]

Sorry for the rant... my frustration after tinkering with gear and testing all day seems to be getting to me.

Yes ive read your guide and a few others on here, makes interesting reading. Its always nice to get the view of other tanks... specially tanks using the same class.
After further tinkering ive lost some item level (now 444) but Hit is exactly 7.50 and Expertise is 6.81.
Not what i want, but will have to do for now.

Losing threat is my main problem, i go in and pull mobs but then a second later i am fighting fresh air as all the mobs rush behind me to the DPS.
Usually more than one DPS grabs aggro, so i end up dashing around chasing loose mobs, looking and feeling useless!!
even more so when the PUGs are all saying "cant you keep aggro!"
My DPS is only 13k so when a PUG is doing 40-50k i have no chance.

The problems started pretty much as i hit Pandaria, so i stopped doing dungeons and levelled 85-90 by doing quests only ... to save embarrassment more than anything else lol
In doing so i now have another problem, i dont know the instances at all now..... so need to spend some time on another toon going through them, until im confident enough to join a random group.
As you know PUGs have a zero tolerance for anyone who doesn't know everything 100% lol
A tank saying "Does anyone know the way?, im new to this place"
Usually ends up with poof, poof, poof, poof..... all alone lol

Im using
Seal of insight, Blessing of kings, Rightous fury and the upkeep of Sacred shield
Go in using Avengers shield followed by Holy wrath to gain aggro...
Then i start with Hammer of Righteousness and Consecration .... at this point im already losing aggro to a DPS!
So Judgement and Hand of reckoning is used to try and drag them back to me... failing that i then have to start chasing back :/

Exact rotation obviously depends on amount of damage im taking, deciding if to heal/protect myself or to inflict more damage

Although i sympathise with Reclzz the original poster, and totally understand... the only way out of this is to keep going, a guild with understanding friends would help. that way you could run a few dungeons and get the gear quicker (while getting guild achievements at same time).
Watch this space (he says trying to sound confident :P)

[Fetzie]

When I pull some trash in a 5 man, I lay down Hammer of Light while running in, and fire off an AS on the caster, or on a mob at the side of the pack (so that it hits three of them). I judge the one that isn't hit by AS (i.e. the one at the other end of the pack of mobs), then they are in melee range, they get a HotR in the face, a consecrate under their feet and are pretty much glued to me from that point on. Use Blessing of Might unless somebody else can supply it; 5 Mastery is awesome, and inwardly tell the dps to go *bleep* themselves if they complain. You should be able to manage more than 13k dps if you are following the CS-J-X-CS-X-J-CS-X-X framework. Holy Wrath is good for single-target damage, but because it gets split up when multiple enemies are within range it gets more and more useless as the amount of enemies increases.

Are you using the Battle Healer glyph? That can produce a ton of additional threat (250% of the amount healed so long as it isn't overheal).

[DukeUK]

I did have the Battle Healer glyph but removed it in favour of Avenging Wrath Glyph...
Reason for this ...and i know it sounds selfish was because it heals others.. not me!
So for overall use, ie, doing dailys etc i thought Avenging Wrath made more sense overall
Having said that, i never knew it created threat.
CS and HotR share the same cooldown, because of its AoE i must admit i use HotR mostly.... would you say its alot better to use CS even with multiple targets?

[Fetzie]

HotR with more than 2 targets.

As for healing others vs healing yourself:

If you heal the group's minor AoE damage taken, the healer can heal you more Also, the Avenging Wrath heal is only available every 3 minutes, so it amounts to a ~100k heal every 180 seconds. Not exactly brilliant.

[Reclzz]

Hey again

I've been somewhat busy the last couple of weeks with school.
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...ttone/advanced (for anyone wondering, this is my paladin) might be ret gear though

I agree, i have a Pally tank and was loving it till i hit 90 :/
Now im in a catch 22 situation, i cant tank Panda instances cos my gear isnt good enough, and cant get gear cos i cant do instances??? prices for decent gear on the AH is absolutely nuts!!

I know how that feels, I actually went out and bought full Masterwork Spiritguard set for my Warrior, Paladin and Death Knight.
Expensive, I know, but felt that is was the only thing to do, tried going without it in quest gear but got kicked for taking too much dmg and for being in greens for HC.

I've geared my DK, which i dread.. Because everyone is gearings alts now and are totally care with need for the spec they are in as my DK has gotten 4/5th of his dps gear and 1/3rd of the tank gear i need.

But to talk about my paladin i still take more dmg on my paladin than i see other tanks take with rougly the same gear, my final accessment is that i'm doing something wrong. I have no threat issues, i have survival issues. It's gotten better with some extensive reforging but tried a full on avoidance style and that went even worse cause stats are so inflated i didn't have that much more avoidance.

As of now i thinking of leaving my paladin for now and hope for a change in the future and go play my DK instead as frost as i'm nearly done getting gear on him for dps.

Cheers

[DukeUK]

Im the opposite at the moment, im not squishy at all, i can take plenty of damage.. even solo.
But im not doing enough damage... even doing dailys i grab 3-4 mobs and seems to be bashing at em for 10 mins lol my health is fine they just aint dying ahahah
Nobody comes to help cos they think ... ahh hes a pally so hes ok lol
If i could afford gear, i think i would buy my way out of this problem. But when you only have 3k gold and tank gear is going for 17k to 80k per item. its ridiculous
Im grinding Dailys now... my plan is a long term one. Grind dailys to revered/exalted and buy stuff with Valor points.
Its going to be a case of weeks not days this way.|
While im doing this ill go in dungeons OS and learn mechanics of the MOP instances, till my Prot spec is geared

[Fetzie]

my final accessment is that i'm doing something wrong. I have no threat issues, i have survival issues.

That is only really something that practice will fix.

But im not doing enough damage... even doing dailys i grab 3-4 mobs and seems to be bashing at em for 10 mins lol my health is fine they just aint dying ahahah

That is because you don't do damage as a tank when doing dailies. I just respecc to retribution for daily questing.

[jere]

I would say you're pulling too small of groups if you are doing dailies as a tank. I tend to have at least 8-12 things on me. I even pull close to 30 mobs during the mogu series of the shadow pan dailies (granted, you really need to balance your cooldowns to do this regularly). When doing Klaxxi dailies, get Iron Mantid and you can pull much larger groups than normal. The Light's Hammer ability is really OP'ed for doing dailies as well (as long as you are pulling large groups). You should be needing to use your tanking cooldowns regularly while doing dailies. If you don't feel like you need them often, then you can definitely pull more. It's one of the most common mistakes among my guildies that try to do dailies on their alt tanks: they play it so safe that they don't need the cooldowns at all, which means their vengeance is low and their kill time is slow.

However, some people don't like that playstyle much and ret feels much faster on the smaller pulls. I won't claim that prot is faster, but if you want to do dailies as prot, then there ways to speed it up a lot.