Abilities and How to rotate them in for maximum effectiveness.

Welcome back to the 5th article in this series dedicated to the tanking paladin. Today we’ll cover the rest of your abilities, how to use them as well as a more in-depth theory about rotation.

First, let’s go over some formalities: Seals, Judgments and Blessings. These abilities and combat mechanics define the Paladin class.

• Blessings: Kings, Might, Wisdom, Sanctuary: you’ve had them since early levels and should know by now what each class needs from you.  Obviously if you have more then one paladin you should share the work load. PallyPower is great for that. It allows the raid leader/assist to assign specific buffs to specific paladins. (Holy palys will end up using Wisdom, Ret palys will use Might and Prot palys can use Sanctuary)

1. Warrior: Might is overwritten by Battle shout so use: Kings
2. Hunter:  Kings or Might
3. Warlock: Kings to benefit from 10% to spirit
4. Priest: Usually Kings for DPS, Wisdom for Holy.
5. Shaman: Might for Enhance, Kings for Elemental and Wis for Resto
6. Death Knight: Kings or Might
7. Paladin: — You should be able to figure this one out by now —
8. Druid: Kings for Moonkin and Tree, Might for Kitty,  Kings for Bear
9. Rogue: Might
10. Mage: Kings or Wisdom

• Seals:  Seal of Vengeance/Corruption should be your only option while tanking anything serious. You can always get fancy and seal shift for special occasions, Wisdom to get mana back quick, Justice to stun non-boss type creatures, Light to get Health and untill 3.2 is released you can still use Blood for more DPS, assuming that your healers can keep up.
• Judgments: These are the most situational and really depend on a few things. We covered them in the last article but they are worth going over again. Always coordinate with the other palys in the group so ensure that at the very least, Wisdom and Light are being judged. Justice can be added in for good measure while tanking adds but I have never really used it

Rotation:

Depending what encounter you are about to enter and your function during that encounter, your rotation is subject to change. Let’s cover the standard rotation for a single target first.

Exorcism works really well but will not be worth much after 3.2 since it will have a cast time. So avenger’s shield is still your best pulling move, when you get in range you can then Judge whatever you want since it’s the next longest range ability (10 yds) and as soon as you’re in  melee range you want to really grab and hold aggro you need to get your Shield of Righteousness off as soon as possible. From that point on, just rotate your abilities: Hammer of the Righteous, Holy Shield , and Consecrate. Once that’s done ShoR, Judge  etc.

The basic concept is 96969.  9sec cd, 6sec cd, 9, 6, 9 etc.

By the time you’ve gone through your rotation once, the whole point is to always have an ability to use when your global cool down is up. Even though it may seem like a good idea at first to pop all your 9 sec abilities first to get them to come back faster after your second rotation, you’ll be looking for things to do while your longer ones come off cool down. 9 sec cd = 6 global cool downs while a 6 sec ability only requires 4 so you need to interlace them or your threat will get real skippy while you wait for abilities to become ready again or you will loose out on your potential maximum if they are ready and you’re not using them.

Generating threat should never be an issue for a paladin except early on when he’s under-geared, has no hit rating or expertise and is in a group with much better geared DPS that doesn’t look at their threat meters. It can also become an issue later on in Ulduar when the well-geared DPS can just sit there and prefect their rotation while the Paladin has to take time to move the mob/boss around or avoid bad/deadly things on the ground, but at that point the DPS should know what to do to prevent that.  All in all, on single target, threat is a non-issue if you know your rotation.

Essentially your rotation could look like this:

1. Judgment (9sec)
2. Shield of Righteousness (6sec)
3. Holy Shield (9sec)
4. Hammer of Righteousness(6sec)
5. Consecrate (9sec)

If you do the math and lay it out on paper you’ll see that the 6 sec CDs are up so you have to rotate them in differently on a first come first serve basis from that point on. After 18 seconds (12 Global Cool Downs) you will start all over from square 1.

Rotation: 1; 2; 3; 4; 5;    2, 1,    4, 3, 2,    5, 4; rinse and repeat

This may not seem obvious at first but I assure you there is a pattern if you look closely enough. Of course, you can, and should refresh your Sacred Shield every 30 or 60 seconds; pop Divine plea if it’s gone and taunt the mob that’s beating on your healer. The whole rotation is far from cast in stone and any tank should have enough awareness to see the big picture of the fight. Rotate your camera, zoom in, zoom out, do whatever it takes to keep an eye on your surroundings.

For multi-mob tanking, consider reversing your rotation so that your AoEs go off first, Avenger’s shield to pull them, Consecrate when they pull to you, Hammer of the Righteous when the first few are in range, Holy shield to boost the ones that hit you for the first time, then Judge and Shield of Righteousness whoever you have least threat on and tab target to build stacking Seal DoTs on every mob.

Now let’s go over your abilities and how to use them appropriately. If you’re new to the Paladin class these sound incredibly similar but I assure you that Holy Shield,  Divine Shield and  Divine Protection are not the same at all. In our last article we saw the “Bread and Butter” of threat generation along with DPS. Now you get the menu, the appetizer, all the trimmings as well as coffee and desert: Eat your heart out!

Before the pull:

Sacred Shield: Use this ability every single time – preferably BEFORE the pull since it will cost you 1 Global Cool Down (GCD) in your rotation. Having every hit reduced by 500 (600 with Divine Guardian Talent) makes this extremely useful and one of the reasons why paladins get Add Duty all the time. You can just sit there and chill with the mobs for a while before you need help or start taxing your healer’s mana pools. Not a bad idea to refresh between pull as well, just in case.

Seal of Vengeance/Corruption: This is your premiere tanking seal. It does less damage on a single target than Seal of the Martyr/Blood, but when you tab-target mobs to hold aggro, those stacks will build up and the DoT component will keep ticking. If you’re keeping more than one mob busy this is the seal for you and you should always change targets during your GCD, since most of your abilities affect more than one target anyway. After 3.2 this becomes your best seal.

Divine Plea: This is the very last ability you use before the pull. Put it on right after you do Sacred shield. It will generate quite a bit of your mana back and an OOM tank usually means a wipe. Since you’ve only got White melee swings that don’t require mana will not benefit from Righteous Fury, it makes them meaningless for threat generation.  Also note that unlike Warriors, paladins generate no threat from Dodge, Parry or Block (DP&B).

With those two abilities up you’re good to go.  Divine Plea is also the reason why paladins have this overwhelming urge to pull … pull now! It’s like a drug, and 45 seconds left on the cool down will feel like an eternity if it expires.

Defensive and Utility abilities include:

Hammer of Justice: This is your Primary Stun/Interrupt, this is the one that will work on Kel’Thuzad’s frost bolts and get you the Less-Rabi achievement. Although the stun component of this ability will not work on bosses the interrupt portion definitely will. You want to keep an eye out on the cast bar of those targets and interrupt whenever possible.

Hand of Salvation: Aggro reduction = 20%. Every tank should have Omen loaded and working all the time. As a tank it’s far more important than DPS meters like Recount because a tank is all about Threat. If you see someone catching up to you in threat you can ask them to use their threat reducing abilities first (Warlocks: SoulShatter, Hunters: Misdirection, Rogues: Tricks of the trade etc.) But when all else fails, this ability will greatly help out. Just remember, since it’s % based, it has more impact later on in the fight than it does early on.

Divine Sacrifice: Warn your healers before you pop this one and use at your own risk.  It may not save a healer caught in a void zone, but it just may allow some silly DPS to live through some of the more lethal AoE.

Righteous Defense: A last ditch effort to save your healer or some other silly DPS that pulled aggro, but can be useful in a bind.  Make sure to hit the mobs with something more sustainable like Hammer of Righteousness or Avenger’s shield for longer lasting threat.

Finally the Paladin also has this fine array of “Oh $H!T” buttons  that can/should be used if things go sideways and can really make the difference:

Oh $H1T buttons:

Lay on Hands: (15 minute CD with Glyph) Will restore you to full health. Every tank should keep an eye out on their health bar and be ready to pop this if they are losing health faster then the healers can bring it up.

Divine Protection: (2 min CD) Is the Paladin’s answer to a Warrior’s  Shield Wall. This ability should be used at the end of boss fights when they enrage Patchwork, Maexna or Razorscale to give the second tank more time to taunt him off when you can’t move to help your healers keep up. It can also be used as a starter on heavy pulls, like Grand Widow Faerelina with only 1 tank, achievement style or Emalon the storm watcher if you’re tanking the adds.

Divine Shield: (5 min CD) Commonly referred to as “The Bubble”, this is your final effort at staying alive. It’s an aggro wipe while it’s up, so people will die if you use this at the wrong time.  Just know that it can canceled by right clicking on it in your buff box. It gives you time for 2-3 Holy Light on yourself, a Healing Pot, and that’s about it.  It can come in quite handy in PvP.

Divine Intervention: (20 min CD) When everything else has failed, when it’s a wipe and you have at least one person still alive that can rez the group, this will kill you but save everyone a run back into the instance.

This covers the majority of what should be on your action bars or at least within easy reach should the situation call for it.  Remember, that as a tank, the life of the raid is (mostly) in your hands and the hands that heal you.  Keeping them happy and alive long enough to loot the bosses should be a priority for you.

This quick run down should give you a reasonable good idea of what you are capable of in a given circumstance. Now get out there and DOMINATE!

Articles in this thread:

Part 1 – The Basics

Part 2 – Combat Ratings

Part 3 – Armor: Mitigation vs. Avoidance

Part 4 – Hit Table and Threat Generation

Part 5  – Abilities and Rotation (You are here)

Part 6 – Professions and Upgrades

Part 7 – Buffs and Starter Gear