Refine Your Skill And Hit 80 In Record Time

We’ve been hinting at this for weeks now. Gavin and Law have been testing out a new way of leveling from 1 to 80 and it has exceeded our expectations. There comes a time when you just have to admit that you have to really stay on the front end of the curve in order to keep dominating, and this time it wasn’t us.

The new dungeon finder system brings the power of instance leveling to anyone and everyone. And even without the RaF bonuses, it’s faster than leveling solo. Plus, as we mentioned yesterday in the article “How to NOT be a Nub”, you’ll end up being a far better player on your new level 80 toon if you level in instances than if you go the solo route.

Leveling solo can leave you with a lot of bad habits as a DPS; and for tanks and healers it’s even worse.

You will hardly ever see anyone leveling in a healing or tank spec, so you end up with a level 80 toon that you have no idea how to play as a tank or healer – having been DPS the whole time up to 80.  But that has changed and the days of the solo leveler have become obsolete, even if you don’t know it yet.

Oh yeah, you can scoff if you like. When the car was first invented, folks laughed too. But in just a few decades the horse drawn carriage went from being the primary form of transportation to something you do out of nostalgia. the dungeon finder system has made solo leveling something that is just far less efficient and it won’t be long before most players figure that out. You can get on the cutting edge now, or be left in the dust. And WoW changes and moves a whole lot faster than RL.

Besides just being faster, as well as letting you play your desired spec (such as prot or resto) instance leveling also gives you far better gear and a lot more gold as you level up. The rewards from instance quests are far better than those from solo quests. As a matter of fact the xp per quest is about double and you can do quite a few that have blue gear as rewards. Throw in the extra gold from those quests as well as the enhanced loot from mobs and bosses in instances and you’ll be richer and far better geared when you hit 80.

That means you won’t be the dude starting heroics in quest greens doing pathetic DPS or struggling to keep people alive or hold threat. Most of your items will be blue at a minimum and the whole term “quest greens” will be far below you. You will go right from leveling straight into heroics and be able to hold your own while you rack up the 232 level epics and beyond.

Now, if you’re going to do instance leveling, you still need to do it the right way. And it’s not enough just to queue up the random dungeon finder and hit it that way. The ONLY way to use instance leveling is to combine the randoms with the dungeon quests as well. That’s where the real speed comes in. The problem is that those instance quests are scattered out all over the world of Azeroth and you could reasonably spend hours looking them up and chasing them down. But that’s where our test comes in.

Our good friend Dugi has developed the first instance leveling guide. If you’ve used our horde leveling guide before you know how much easier it makes everything. People tell us all the time they miss the guide being there to tell them every little step once they hit 80, that they almost feel lonely without it. Dugi’s dungeon leveling guide uses a version of the mod we used for Gavin’s guide, with a few neat perks of his own.

Dugi’s mod is highly refined with a slick UI. It makes moving between guide segments really easy, it’s quite a step above all of the other guide mods on the market. But once you get past the ease of use, you get to the real meat of Dugis dungeon leveling guide.

The guide will lead you all the way from 1-80 doing only instances and their quests. And trying to do it without a guide like this would be mind-boggling to say the least. Most instances will have quests from several different zones, or even continents, and the quest givers are typically in out of the way places and give you prerequisite quests that are hard to chain without a lot of time spent on Wowhead. Forget that, I have better things to do with my time, like level fast, and Dugi’s guide does all the heavy lifting for you.

And if you do happen to go ahead and do a RaF account and use Heirloom items, you can just move forward into the next dungeon segment if you find yourself doing dungeons several levels below you. So this is the one guide on the market that will work for anyone, at any level – it leaves no one out in the cold to fend for themselves.

So that’s where we’ve been the last few weeks, testing Dugi’s awesome dungeon leveling guide. At first, we were both a little skeptical to say the least. We’ve been leveling toons for years and Gavin broke the world record using our horde leveling guide, and we’ve both fiddled with powerleveling in dungeons. While powerleveling works like a charm, it’s also kind of a pain – not to mention a bit of a bore.

But after just a few dungeons we knew Dugi had hit the nail on the head and made our solo guide virtually obsolete. He’s even got some special bonuses in store for those of you who want to upgrade from Gavin’s Horde guide (which will no longer be available) to the new dungeon leveling system. It takes a lot to impress Gavin, but once you try dungeon leveling with all the dungeon quests built into a guide – there is just no way you’ll ever go back to solo hacking your way to 80.

Maybe the best part is really getting to know your new toon. Playing all the way to 80 as a healer and a tank has been a nice change of pace. Sure, some groups are a little lamer than others, but that’s to be expected. Some solo quests suck more than others too. None of this would be possible, of course, without the random finder. Just last year this would have been silly to even try. Putting together a group for Maraudon? Forget it, it aint happening – but the random dungeon finder can set it up.

I almost forgot another bonus. One of the reasons people don’t mess with the old world dungeons much is because they never did them and don’t know their way around. Dugi went above and beyond on this one. Dugi’s dungeon leveling guide includes a map for every single dungeon in the entire game. Plus, each map has very clear markers for boss locations and quest item mobs and pickups.

The maps alone are worth the price of admission for me. WC is a pain in the fiddle faddle even if you’ve done it several (hundred) times like I have. Throw in all those instance quests all over the world and make it easy for me to pick all those up, now we’ve got a winner.

Now I know what some of you are thinking: “I’m not going to spend money on some guide!”

And I used to be the same way, I know exactly how you feel – at least I used to. But then WoW became a real hobby. I have other hobbies, like golf, that cost me a TON just to get started. Then there are green fees ($50), a new putter ($150), some sweet shoes ($125), but shooting in the 70’s? Priceless.

I can’t directly attribute a better golf score to the shoes, but it certainly seems to help. Most hobbies are like that, you spend a lot of money because whatever it is you are buying increases your enjoyment in some way. I know this dude who plays paintball and he’s always getting some new gun or gear, but I have no idea if it makes him a more [deadly?] paintball player.

A guide for WoW is no different – or is it? The very first money I ever spent on WoW that didn’t go to Blizz went to Dugi. I had long since gotten over being cheap about my hobbies. And I used Dugi’s original guides for quite a while until I met Gavin. And I can say from personal experience that the fastest way from Nub to Pro starts with good information.

Without Dugi’s guides it would have taken me much longer to become Lawbringer. We surpassed some of that original advice, but frankly I never level without a guide of some kind running – which is why we built gavin’s guide in the first place. Gavin and I both wanted an in-game interface that reminded us what to do next. Even Gavin is human and you can’t memorize the entire leveling process – a guide helps even the best levelers stay on the right track.

So, if you really enjoy WoW, Dugi’s dungeon leveling guide can actually make leveling a lot more fun. You’ll level faster, get better gear and never be stuck wondering where to go and what to do next. You’ll have more fun leveling your toons, which is never something I look forward to all that much unless I’m vegging out, and leveling while brain dead is awesome with a guide.

So when you’re ready to Dominate leveling – there is no better or faster way than instance leveling. And Dugi’s dungeon leveling guide is the only one of its kind. It’s slick, easy to use and will have you going from 1-80 faster than ever before. It’s not easy to impress Gavin when it comes to WoW, but after using Dugi’s guide we are firm believers that there is no other guide out there that even comes close, not even ours.

And to sweeten the pot we’re going to throw in a couple of bonuses of our own. For a limited time we’re going to throw in a copy of Gavin’s Horde leveling guide for those times when you feel like going solo, or if you’re DPS waiting on a dungeon queue. We won’t be selling Gavin’s guide alone any more, so this is your last chance to get it.

But the big bonus is Gavin’s Auction House Mastery guide. That’s right, while you are dominating the leveling scene, you can also learn how to completely pwn the auction house, making more gold in less time than ever before. Hundreds of other players have used Gavin’s Auction House Mastery guide to blow the roof off their earnings – and you can do the same.

Here’s what you are getting when you order Dugi’s Dungeon Leveling Guide right now:

• Dugi’s Dungeon leveling Guide 1-80

• Gavins Horde Leveling Guide ($20 Value)

• Gavin’s Auction House Mastery guide ($30 Value)

That’s three completely Dominating guides for the price of one. No other offer for your favorite hobby even comes close to this kind of value. You’ll have more fun, level faster and make more gold. And it’s all just a click away. Use the link below for the Gavin Garrett bonuses when you order Dugi’s Dungeon Leveling guide right now.

14 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

Products We Love – Razer Naga, The Ultimate WoW Gaming Mouse

Click Here To Order Yours!

We’re a big fan of nifty peripherals here at DYS, just in case you hadn’t noticed, but every now and then even we get blown away.  Every month or two we test a new product in the market to see if it offers something more for our readers.  In order to get a review at this site, the thing really has to add something to the wow experience for the novice and pro alike.  Not making our cut doesn’t mean it’s a bad product, just that it doesn’t meet our Dominating and demanding flavor.

But every now and again we come across something that actually changes the way we play.  The Sennheiser headphones are great, but won’t really make you a terrific player.  The G13 game pad will – I still use both of them every single time I play.  But the Razer Naga blows away everything we’ve ever reviewed by such a huge margin that it’s a little hard to know where to start saying just how good it really is.

First things first, then.  It’s a standard size mouse (even though the button field looks pretty intimidating in the pic above) with 12 extra keys on the thumb side (for righties anyway).  That is the big difference between the Naga and every other mouse on the planet.  It has the standard left, right, scroll, scroll click, four and five buttons as most gaming mice – but adds twelve more keys for your thumb.  One look and we KNEW we had to give it a spin.

How Does It Feel?

In just ten seconds it was apparent it was the most comfortable mouse ever.  It’s like holding hands with your sweetheart.  The texture is just smooth enough to be soft, just matte enough to be completely slip free.  Not only do your index and middle finger glide into the perfect rest position, but there is a little shelf for your ring finger and a cup for your pinky that actually make it more relaxing to have your hand on your mouse than anywhere else.  You hate to let go of the thing to type.  So in the tactile area the Naga gets a 10+ out of 10.

Cursor Response

The drivers are super easy to install both on Mac and PC.  The interface is clean and offers a degree of movement control that is nothing short of outstanding.  It supports Dpi ranges from 100 to 5600 – which is a range from nearly dead turtle to fighter jet speed.  You can also adjust the acceleration factor and frequency response over broad ranges.  But the really slick part is that you can set it to control the X and Y axis Dpi independently.  That is a real WoW factor.  If you use a wide screen setup it is so nice to have the cursor move faster from left to right than up and down.  Cursor response and setup = 10 of 10

Movement and Function

Most mice have a few little slip pads on the bottom and a big bright lazer or whatever.  This beauty has a slip ring around the entire perimeter of the bottom, which makes it glide like butter.  It even has an extra slip ring that completely surrounds the invisible lazer orifice.  One thing is for certain, if your mousing surface isn’t completely clean, you’ll know it in about half a second. (we also prefer the Lazer exact mat for all our mice, but it’s especially nice with the Naga).  I prefer a free-wheeling mouse, but since very few have that option I can’t deduct too much for the incremental scroll.  The four and five buttons are right up at the very front and absolutely WILL give your a hand cramp if you try to use them very often, but we’ll get to why this makes almost no difference later.  And, finally the button clicks are easy enough to make without much force, but firm enough to avoid lots of accidental clicks – pretty much perfect.  Movement and function = 9 of 10

Extra Juice

Now we get to the good stuff.  Those 12 extra buttons are so good it’s not even fair to rate this thing against other mice.  It turns all those other mice into meece.  There’s everything else – and then there’s the Naga.  I pitched my G3 in a drawer for good and didn’t have a qualm in the world about doing so – and I loved that mouse.  Even apart from the extended functionality, the Naga is just a much better overall mouse, but those extra keys are WAY past incredible.  And then I played with them.

I fully intended to try to use as little hyperbole as possible, but that’s completely impossible in this situation.  Compared to every other mouse I’ve ever used – and I go through mice like a tomcat, the Naga would have no peer, leaving even the G3 completely in the dust.  But those extra buttons make it so different that it becomes completely unfair to all the other mice in the world.  If the G3 (a really good mouse) rated a 45 out of 50, the Naga (even without the buttons) would have raised the bar to 60, and that’s no kidding.  Those 12 new buttons put the bar at 100, and we’ll put the Naga right there 95 out of 100, which means there really isn’t any way to compare apples to apples.  everything else just got pwned.

That extra button pad automatically binds to either the: 1 through = keys on your keyboard or the number pad keys, whichever you prefer.  I already had bar one and two in Bartender assigned to those suckers as it is, so with the flip of a switch I can use my one mouse to toggle 24 keys – it’s so slick you have to use it to believe it.  And then comes Vuhdo – yikes.

Plug this thing into Vuhdo and you are one little macro command away from complete and total healing Domination.  And, in reality, it could almost make the choice between Healbot, Grid/Clique and Vuhdo closer to meaningless than ever before.  We’ll discuss that macro in the next article since it’s so slick and useful for so many other situations, but just know that you probably would never use it nearly as much without the Naga.

You’re Wasting Time Here!

All there is left to say is get one.  Get one right this minute.  Do not pass go, do not argue, just get it and Dominate.  Ask for it for Thanksgiving, your birthday, Christmas and New Years.  Beg, borrow, cheat, lie, steal or work like a fiend until you can get one.  Get up from your chair right now and go to the store – yes, it’s THAT good.  Once you plug this dude in, you’ll find 50 new ways it can improve your WoW life in about 5 minutes.  I am seriously excited about this thing, as if you couldn’t tell, but it really is the single best gaming peripheral I have ever seen.

If you can’t stand it, and we’ve done our job, you can click on the pic at the top of this article (or below) to go directly to Amazon and get one for yourself.  You don’t have to use our link, of course, but honestly, once you use the Naga you’ll never know how you played with anything else.   Go get one, and bring your Domination to a whole new level of pwn.

Order The Razer Naga Now

13 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

Raid gearing guide for the new 80.

(We’ve had some reports that this article didn’t come up properly so I had to update it)
“So i made it to 80 now what do i do?? I  am lost: HELP!!”

We hear it or read it in chat every day and once again it came up in the replies to Law’s wonderful article on Lore. Now I must admit: if it wasn’t for my fellow guildies at DOMINATE I would still be totally lost apart from all the new reputations to work for and daily quest for professions and the factions, you have all the other dailies for rep and the heroic dailies and all the new instances. And you can’t even get a group to do any of them.

You see in trade: “LFM HTOC” or “LF2M Heals+ DPS for H CoS (Daily)” or what ever and you whisper said person only to receive a whisper back 4 to 5 mins later: “Sorry, full” and you sit there thinking how do these others get their whisper in 1st? Don’t I type quick enough? Then you find out it is down to your gear score “Sorry your gear score is too low” and you don’t want to ask because you already feel as useful as a chocolate tea pot.

Whether you’re new to the game or it’s your 17th 80 these steps are a must for anyone that even remotely wants to raid.  Since patch 3.2 gear has become more and more easily available so we thought we’d publish a quick reference guide to Raid gearing. None of these steps require you to enter a single 10-man raid.

There are 5 things you should focus on:

Reputation with the right Faction for your Head Enchant:

This is one of those things that nobody can do for you, yet will be using for every single spec and every single head slot piece of gear you will ever wear.  Depending on what you choose to do,  you will need to raise your reputation for a different Faction: You need only hit Revered for the best Enchant. Go pick up the tabard of the appropriate faction and wear it in every heroic you do.

Kirin’Tor: Caster DPS

Argent Crusade: Tank

Knights of the Ebon Blade: Melee DPS

Wyrmrest Accord: Healing

Reputation with Sons of Hodir for your Shoulder Enchant:

Again this is another one of those things that nobody can do for you but are worth it since they will be applicable to every piece of gear you ever equip on that character regardless of talent choices.

It used to be that you had to complete the entire quest chain and do the dailies for a whole month to get to Exalted, then Blizzard saw fit to simplify the process and allow you to trade in the (Back then BoP) Relics of Ulduar for some Rep with Sons of Hodir. Next they made the relics BoE so you now could theoreticaly buy your way to exalted .

Recelty Blizzard has introduced yet another way to get faction rep with the only faction in the game that gives lvl 80 Shoulder enchant: Comendation Badge: Sons of Hodir. They can be obtained from doing the REGULAR Daily. This is fantastic since you can complete the quest while doing it on Heroic as well and pick up the Emblems of Conquest that every boss will be happy to drop for you.
(Note: Scribes (Character that level the Inscription trade skill) can do a much upgraded, self-only version to shoulder enchant but that’s another matter all together)

Crusader’s Coluseum: Trial of the Champion: Reg + Heroic

This new instance (since 3.2) is your easiest stop for level 200-219 gear. Regular ToC will drop level 200 gear from every boss. You can clear it on Regular, step out, reset the instance and do it all over again. In fact you should do your best to run through that place as many times as you possibly can and pick up all the drops that you can. If you run it often enough it’s also a great place to gear up your second spec.

Running the Heroic give you Ulduar-level gear from every boss, including weapons and shoulders. By far the easiest place to pick up 219 starter gear.

Doing the Daily Heroic for the Emblems of Triumph:

Every time you turn in the Heroic Daily quest you will be rewarded with gold as well as 2  Emblems of Triumph. These are your all access pass to Tier 9 and level 245 gear. They can be obtained at a rate of 2/day this way. Emblems of Conquest are the fringe benefit that doubles your payout for these runs along with the actual gear that may or may not drop for you. You can also obtain them from the fire bosses in VoA and Onyxia.

Running Heroics for the Emblems of Conquest:

At this point there is nothing stopping you from doing more Heroics and picking up Emblems of Conquest. Emblems of Conquest: Pick up ~250 of them to obtain 2-piece T-8 (Head and Chest), Neck, Waist, Hands, Pants and Ranged. All of the Conquest gear is level 226 and will contribute greatly to your cause (Gearing up)

Knowing where you stand:

With that being said, you should also have tools to tell you where you stand and what you still need to work on. For both of the web sites below: enter your time zone, your realm(server) and your character’s name and look yourself up.

www.WoW-Heroes.com for a very good overall picture of your current situation gear-wise (My personal favorite).

www.WoWHead.com/?Profiles For the same thing (slightly different) from WoWHead.

Do those 5 things and it really won’t talk long to get a 2250 gear score and more. Gear score is what quite a few people will judge you by when you ask to get into a raid. It is not a complete picture however since it doesn’t account for experience or knowledge of the game but it is here for you and you should take full advantage of resources at your disposal.

There are far too many items in each category to list them all: That’s what WoWHead.com is there for you. Hopefully this will give you a sense of direction to get geared up.

Now get out there and DOMINATE.

23 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

Draenei Protection Paladin

32 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

Professions for the Tank: an exercise in futility if you get it wrong

My personal choice for professions is based solely on what they bring to the fight. As a Tank you are expected to be the best you can be and nothing less. As much as I like some of these professions and most of them can be quite useful, they are not all equal for the role we play in a group.

This article will help you determine what professions are best for you as a Paladin Tank:

• Herbalism: a Heal over time every 2 minutes that will sometimes save you … but it’s a HoT and if your healers are on the ball it’s relatively useless.

• Alchemy: Twice as long potions/flasks and a minor effect increase: that’s nice

• Inscription: No farming Sons of Hodir rep for the shoulder enchants, “scroll of Recall” is handy but overall, lacks a little luster for my tastes.

• Skinning: Crit bonus: not exactly our most praised stat as a tank.

• Leatherworking: Utterly USELESS in a raid.

• Engineering: Handy and fun to tinker with, expensive to level, it had its uses when Palys didn’t have any ranged abilities, but now is not nearly as efficient as other professions.

• Enchanting: Extremely profitable if you’re using the AH Mastery Guide but useless to a Tank… better suited to Tailors/Cloth wearers)

• Tailoring: Even more useless then leather working, unless you absolutely MUST ride your flying carpet into battle!

• Blacksmithing: Expensive to level, but adds 2 Prismatic sockets to your gear: extremely convenient and very useful.

• Mining: 60 Stam bonus when maxed along with the  ability to make Titansteel, and gather Ore.

• Jewel crafting: Finally the BEST (and arguably the most expensive) profession for a tank:  Jewelers’ gems baby … that’s what it’s all about. Especially at early levels this single ability can make the difference between sitting out a raid at 535 Def rating and picking up all the gear that drops in a single run just because nobody needs it. This will allow you to customize your character more then any other profession in the game, it gives you versatility and is an absolute MUST when upgrading gear since you may have to re-socket  2-3 pieces just to be able to wear the new whatever you just won.

For my money Mining and JC are the best. Some will argue Blacksmithing for the two extra sockets that will hold prismatic gems. All I have to say about that is: if you’re going to fill those up with Stamina (like you should) then Mining is a direct equivalent with the 60 Stam Mining bonus (2x 30Stam gems), it’s far cheaper to level, you’ll actually MAKE money with it and it will subsidize your other expensive profession: Jewel crafting!
For other classes that would like to add versatility or fill the need for a very specific stat (Druids & Armor Pen) then Blacksmithing and JC are the better (and most expensive) way to go.

Gems you want:

• Blue:  Stamina, Stamina and MORE STAMINA!
• Red:  Strength > Expertise > Attack Power
• Yellow: Defense Rating > Hit Rating > Crit.
• Orange, Green, Purple: Pick any of the stats above and get the corresponding mixed one.

Now let’s go over what enchants/Gems you want to have on your gear.

Head

• Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector: 37 Stam; 20 Def – Argent Crusade: Revered
• Arcanum of the Defender: 16 Def; 17 Dodge – Keepers of Time: revered

You’ll want to get to Revered with Argent Crusade as soon as possible since you’ll be putting that on every helm you will ever wear during your career as a tank.

Meta Socket

• Austere Earthsiege Diamond 32 Stam; +2% Armor from gear
• Eternal Earthsiege Diamond 21 Def; +5% Block Value
  

In the beginning you might want to consider the Eternal for the Def bonus but could easily migrate to the Austere as your gear gets better (2% of 25,000+ is nothing to sneeze at)

Shoulder

• Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle: 20 Dodge; 15 Def – Sons of Hodir: Exalted
• Lesser Inscription of the Pinnacle: 15 Dodge; 10 Def – Sons of Hodir: Revered
• Master’s Inscription of the Pinnacle: 52 Dodge; 15 Def – Inscription (400)

Sons of Hodir are the only faction that sell Shoulder Enchants. You will have to grind that rep eventually, so might as well get the (super) long quest chain going while you’re making your way to 80. This is a must since you’ll need that rep for every shoulder enchant regardless of what you choose to do with your Paladin Character.

Cloak

• Enchant Cloak: Titanweave 16 Def
• Enchant Cloak: Major Agility 22 Agi
• Enchant Cloak: Mighty Armor 225 Armor
• Enchant Cloak: Superior Agility 16 Agi
• Enchant Cloak: Steelweave 12 Def

Agility is far from being the best stat for Tanking but it goes a long way when it comes to avoidance. In this particular scenario when you start having choices you can keep the Titanweave enchant and start changing out some of your Gems instead.

Chest

• Enchant Chest: Super Health275 Health (roughly equivalent to 21 Stamina for Paladins)
• Enchant Chest: Powerful Stats +10 to All stats
• Enchant Chest: Greater Defense 22 Def
• Enchant Chest: Super Stats +8 to All Stats
• Heavy Borean Armor Kit 18 Stam
  

Greater Def has most itemization and will definitely help with reaching the Def cap initially but you might want to consider Powerful Stats as your end-game raiding chest enchant since Paladins are one of the few classes that actually benefit from most of the 5 stats (Str, Agi, Stam, Int, and less from Spirit)

Wrists

• Enchant Brace: Major Stamina 40 Stamina
• Enchant Bracer: Major Defense 12 Def
• Fur Lining: Stamina 90 Stam (Leatherworking 400)

Here again Defense until you reach the Cap and then switch to Stam. You can never have too much Stam: Ask any healer.

Hands

• Enchant Gloves: Armsman 10 Parry; +2% Threat
• Enchant Gloves: Major Agility 20 Agi
• Enchant Gloves: Precision 20 Hit
• Enchant Gloves: Expertise 20 Expertise
• Enchant Gloves: Major Strength 15 Str
• Reticulated Armor Webbing 885 Armor (Engineering 400)
• Hand Mounted Pyro Rocket 1654-2020 Fire Damage on a 45 sec CD (Engineering 400)

Armsman is your best bet initially from a Defensive stand point, although you may want to consider the Strength (even if it is a Burning Crusade Enchant) for more DPS  down the line.

Waist

• Eternal Belt Buckle Adds a Prismatic Socket to your Belt

A must have for EVERY belt you ever buy. Being a Jewel Crafter this gives you Options.

Legs

• Frosthide Leg Armor 55 Stam; 22 Agi
• Jormungar Leg Armor 45 Stam; 15 Agi

The Jormungar Leg armor is far cheaper than the Frosthide, so if you plan to upgrade soon you may want to hold back if money is an issue.

Feet

• Enchant Boots: Greater Fortitude 22 Stam
• Enchant Boots: Tuskarr’s Vitality 15 Stam +8% Run speed Increase

Greater Fortitude if you have PoJ, Tuskarr’s if you don’t.

Weapon

• Enchant Weapon: Mongoose the Agility on proc is worth quite a bit of Avoidance.
• Enchant Weapon: Blood Draining The BEST enchant you can get (worth ~200 Stam)
• Enchant Weapon: Blade Ward Possibly the 2nd Best enchant
• Enchant Weapon: Accuracy 25 Hit; 25 Crit
• Enchant Weapon: Potency +20 Str
• Enchant WEapon: Titanguard +50 Stam
• Titanium Weapons Chain 28 hit; -50% disarm duration

As expensive as you think Blood Draining might be, an instant heal worth 2000 health that only procs when you need it (fall below 35% health) is about as good as it gets. It’s the equivalent of 200 Stamina … no other enchant even comes close.

Shield

• Enchant Shield: Defense 20 Def
• Enchant Shield:  Major Stamina 18 Stam
• Titanium Plating 81 Block Value

As with other pieces of gear, initially you’ll want the Def to reach the Cap but should switch to Stam or Block Value down the line. (81 Block value is far from negligible).

This should cover most of our bases when it comes to upgrading our gear and will show you most of your options. Knowing is half the battle, now you KNOW: 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

Part 6 – Professions and Upgrades (you are here)

Part 7 – Buffs and Starter Gear

21 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

Well 3.2 is here folks if you hadn’t noticed. Your add-ons don’t work, you’ve got the default WoW UI (good grief how do people play on that?!?), some of you have no more talents, most of you need to re-spec, and all of you want/need to get new epic gems!

It’s been rather chaotic here too, what with discovering the new Dailies, grinding the Daily Heroic for Emblems of Triumph, exploring the new Raid, as well as doing heroics till our eyes bleed for the Conquest emblems.

That’s all nice and dandy but How did it mess up our play style this time? Well here’s a break down of the major changes and how it affected the Protection Paladin.

• Shield of Righteous got nerfed … rather significantly.

The biggest change is to Block Value: It got a SIGNIFICANT bump and the inevitable Hard Cap (2400). My block Value went from 1450 to 2100, yet my avg dmg from Shield of Righteousness went from 3.5-6K (7-12K Crit) all the way down to 2-4K (4-8K crit).  As a result: I’ve since swapped out pieces and Shield Block now sits at just below 1900.

This single changes has moved my Shield of righteousness from the top spot on my DPS charts to on-par or below Hammer of Righteousness.

• Blizzard saw fit to modify some of our key abilities in subtle but significant ways as well: Hammer of Right is now considered a Melee attack along with Judgments. (Expertise and Armor Pen anyone ?) I feel myself becoming more and more feral… miaou/Grrr

• Seal of Corruption/Vengeance got a really big boost, combined with the DoT it’s the on of our biggest DPS ability and account for as much damage as Shield of Righteousness and Hammer of R. (10% Judgment glyph is no longer an option.) The combined seal effect and DoT component now.

• Blessing of Sanctuary is now fantastic for 5-mans but unchanged for raids where there are 2 or more Paladins.

• Judgment of Light now returns a fixed 2% of max health for every physical hit as opposed to a value based on spells power. Since Tanks have the most health of any raid member this is now our seal of choice. I find myself regularly 3rd in heals on 10-mans. Remember here that two of our abilities are now considered “Physical”. This tiny change combined with the other changes stated above is HUGE !

• Jewel Crafting got a Big upgrade: Epic gems and JCers got “nerfed” by having their Jewelers gems not be prismatic anymore. On the up side of that shenanegan we also have the ability to make a new BoE  Prismatic Gem that gives +10 to all stats and fits any socket. Especially useful to Paladins who can make good use of Strength, Agility, Stamina and Intellect (Spirit: not so much) it also counts as one of every color gem without hindering your 3-max Jeweler’s gem count.

In essence all Epic gems are a 25% upgrade from the blue ones

• 16 Str *1.25 = 20 Str
• 19 AP *1.25 = 24 AP
• 41 Stam *1.25 = 51 Stam
• etc…

As far as changes go in the big scheme of things, it’s been a really good patch for Paladins. Try it out for yourselves and you should at least notice an increase in DPS.  You’ll notice a further increase in DPS by buying up all the badge gear you can get your hands on. You’ll need 248 Emblems of Conquest for every spec you want to deck out (including: 2-piece T8 Head and Chest, Neck, Gloves, Belt, Legs and libram.

On the upside, doing heroics has never been easier. I’ve even managed to pick up a few achievements without even trying for them. Now get out there and Dominate !

15 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

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

21 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

Everything you need to know to FaceRoll your way to 10K threat

So far we’ve covered: The Basics, Combat Ratings and Gearing Philosophy. Today we’ll go over the hit tables and  how to generate threat … and keep it!

But before we go into threat, it may be a good idea to cover just how  Blizzard deals with the Hit Tables. When you read somewhere that you have an 18.54% chance to crit or that you have a 8% chance to miss how does that get factored in ?

Most people are under the impression that every one of those “rolls” is separate and sequential but that is false! In fact there is only one roll for every ability/spell/action that you do, it just gets divided up into %s. Say you have 5% chance to miss (not Hit capped), 5% chance to get Dodged, 5% chance to get parried, 5% chance to get Blocked and 15% chance to crit: the Roll would look something like this

• 01 -05 : Miss

• 06 – 10 : Parry

• 11 – 15 : Dodge

• 16 – 20 : Block

• 21 – 85 : Hit

• 86 – 100 : Crit

One /roll is done on your behalf (or the mob’s behalf) and the result is plugged into this matrix. In reality it’s much more like a /roll 10,000 to factor in the fractions 14.54% chance to crit but you are getting the picture, and the same thing goes on for the mobs.

If you  have a 5% chance to be missed,  20.25% chance to Parry, 22.50% chance to Dodge, 27.9% chance to Block (because you read the previous article and built a block set before the patch)  and have 540 Defense Rating, the mob’s hit table for attacking you might look something like this

• 0.01 – 5.0 : Miss

• 5.01 – 25.25 : Parry

• 25.26 – 47.75 : Dodge

• 47.76 – 75.65 : Block

• 75.66 – 100.00 : Hit  (0% crit)

Now these base values are obviously modified by talent Procs and abilities: If Holy Shield is active then your chance of getting hit for the full amount go down by 30% and you block goes up by 30%. If Redoubt procs at the same time (10% chance) then your chance to block goes up by another 30% and so on and so forth.

The important thing to note here is that every one of those 3 stats has a direct impact on your chance to get hit.  The more Dodge, Parry and Block you can get the less you’ll be getting hit. Obviously you can’t go below 0% chance to get hit, but you should be starting to get the picture.

Generating Threat

Now, let talk about Threat baby, let’s talk about you (the Mob) and Me (Paladin), let’s talk about all the things we love (Loot), Let’s talk about Threat!  (Ok,  that was a really bad Salt’n Pepa spoof, so let’s get on with the show)!

A paladin’s primary Threat generating ability is Righteous Fury(RF) and all Holy damage. All of the paladin’s abilities are Holy damage, except the “white” melee swings. As a matter of fact, a paladin can turn off RF after he’s done with his adds and just DPS the boss without pulling threat on the boss if the Main Tank(MT) has sufficient aggro. Without Righteous Fury the Prot Paladin is just another (weak) DPS in the raid.

I personally don’t do this since it’s not a bad idea to have someone take up the boss if the MT goes down. Taking the time to turn RF on may be the difference in completing the fight without any other casualties and wiping.  Every paladin tank has at some point wiped the group before realizing that RF wasn’t up – it’s n00b thing to do …  slap yourself and don’t do it again

Paladin: your only means of generating threat is damage done.

You should also bear in mind that you only have 3 ways to get mana back without having to resort to the 4 stacks of mana pot you have in your bags at all times. On a side note here: if bag space is at a premium, use Mana Inector Kits to make Runic Mana Injectors:

• You get mana back by Dodging, Blocking and Parrying.
• You get mana back from getting healed ,thanks to Spiritual Attunement.
• You can get mana back from Judgment of Wisdom if it’s being used.

Key threat generating abilities to include in our rotation:

These are you biggest assets while generating threat, everything else is fluff when it comes to Threat. That’s not to say that other abilities don’t have their uses in certain situations but when it comes to threat these are your bread and butter.

Avenger’s Shield: (30 Sec CD) One of your premiere pulling moves that hits and silences up to 3 targets. It does cost quite a bit of mana however and if you’re getting low you can skip it. It does have a silence and a stun component to it which makes it great for pulling caster-types but you’ll want to get in there pretty quickly afterward since the stun component won’t let them get very far. Remember to time yourself – even if it comes up again you should save it for the next pull since it has the longest CD of any of your abilities.

Judgment of Light / Wisdom: (8 sec CD with Talents)  By now I hope you’ve figured out how to use these, and if you’re running with another paladin you should each be using different judgments, since they stack. As a rule of thumb, Holy Pallys will judge Wisdom and Ret Pallys will judge Light. Just be aware and verify if you’re not sure: ” Hey _____ , you’re judging Light right?”

Shield of Righteousness: (6 sec CD)  This ability will represent 25% of your DPS and is your biggest asset. It can also be used to boost threat on a lone mob that you are trying to taunt off the healers or to solidify your threat in anticipation of  a DPS’ AoE burst.  It should always be used in your rotation and usually right after your Judgment if you are using the Libram of Obstruction (Purchased for a modest 15 Emblems of Heroism) . It’s the ability that hits the hardest (3-7K hits and 6-14K crits : ) and builds burst aggro. It’s the one ability you want to get off on “Skull” before you start building threat on the rest of the mobs. You should also remember that this ability scales directly with Block Value.

Hammer of Righteous:  (6 sec CD) This is another reason why Paladins are the premiere multi-mob tanking class. This is one of your abilities that will benefit the most from a better weapon and more Strength/AP

Holy Shield: (Lasts 10 sec with 8sec CD) This is a very situational ability but I include it in my rotation all the time to guarantee a 100% up time. If I was the OT and went back to hitting the boss after my adds are dead I would skip this to conserve mana.  On multi-mob pulls however, it’s essential to keeping aggro while your casters are going all out with AoE.

Consecrate: (8sec CD) Every inch of the ground that paladins are standing on should be Consecrated. This is yet another essential ability for multi-mob tanking.  It’s more free DPS … and DPS = Threat for Paladins.

Exorcism: (15 sec CD) A little free damage thrown in for good measure but this ability is receiving a significant change in patch 3.2 to where it will have a 1.5 sec cast time. Cast time makes this very undesirable since you can’t DP&B during that time and getting hit will increase your total cast time by 1sec (.5sec*2) 2.5 sec represents almost 2 entire GCDs, and your time could be better spent elsewhere. So, until 3.2 goes live include it whenever it’s up but be aware of the upcoming change.

Finally you have these two which are more situational in use:

Hammer of Wrath: (6 sec CD)This ability only becomes available once the target is below 20% health, and is a welcome addition to your rotation, again – a free, instant cast, single target DPS ability.

Hand of Reckoning: (8 sec CD) Currently only useful as a taunt, it generates initial aggro but if you don’t do some actual damage on the target before the taunt wears off you’ll lose it and it’ll go right back to smacking the healers. After 3.2 however, this ability will generate real DPS-based threat as well to any target that is not attacking you.

Our next article will feature a Rotation theory, go more in depth in the abilities you should be familiar with as well as list everything you should have on your task bars.

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 (You are here)

Part 5  – Abilities and Rotation

Part 6 – Professions and Upgrades

Part 7 – Buffs and Starter Gear

18 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

Armor: Mitigation vs. Avoidance

In our first article we covered the Basics, in our second article we covered Combat Ratings and Values. Now it’s time to cover one of the greatest questions every tank has ever asked themselves since WoW is WoW … what gear should I get?

Before we go into that I’d like to go over the final combat stat, the one that is so ever-present even I forgot it.

Armor: Every piece of gear has it, everyone has been using it since level 1, it applies to clothies and tin cans (Plate Armor wearers) alike, yet few people actually know how it works. No more I say!

Armor reduces all incoming physical damage. It’s a passive ability that is always on whether you are incapacitated (stunned, feared etc) or not. The exact number of this reduction can be seen by mousing over the stat in your character page and the value is referred to as Damage Reduction (DR for short). There is a misconception out there that Armor is subject to diminishing returns (Not to be confused with Damage Reduction). Although it is true that beyond a certain point it takes more armor to gain more DR, the DR you gain is worth more:

Say your DR is 50% and you take 10,000 physical damage you will loose 5,000 life
Increase your DR by 1% to 51% and you will only loose 4,900 health … that’s 2% less health lost for 1% more DR

If your DR is 60% on the same 10K hit you’ll only lose 4000 health
Increase it to 61%and you’ll get smacked for 3,900 health that’s a 2.5% Damage Reduction increase.

On a side note when it comes to armor, your shield is your friend, it easily represents 25-30% or more of your armor. Also you should not select a piece of gear because of this stat, but knowing its effects will help you get a better picture of what’s actually going on in a fight. It also explains why a cloth wearer will take 10,000 dmg when the same hit will only cause 4,000 (or less) dmg to your favorite Tin Can.

Now that’s out of the way let’s take a look at the biggest issue there is for tanks, the one that sparks the most debate and the one is the most confusing:

Avoidance vs. Mitigation

We have the answer folks: Here it is … are you ready …

As far as I’m concerned as long as you haven’t hit the Def cap you should grab anything you can get your grubby little mitts on; you can start being picky once you have options.  The basic concept behind this argument is simple:

Avoidance is Mostly Dodge and Parry which lets you avoid the damage altogether but is more expensive to itemize.
Mitigation is reducing the damage you DO receive through Block Value and Block Rating which is far less expensive to itemize; and Armor value, which is passive (see above).

As a general rule it is better to completely avoid a hit rather than try to reduce the damage from it, that is true. You do, however, have to take into account the circumstances, that is to say: who is hitting you ? Patchwerk or the multi-mob trash pulls? In this the Paladin has an edge since he can keep agro on multiple mobs better then any other class in the game. Paladins usually end up on Add duty for that specific reason

My basic theory (Bear in mind I’m still experimenting) goes something like this: for multi mob trash pulls and/or picking up mobs during a Raid Boss encounters, Block is preferable since they don’t hit all that hard. Blocking 1600-2000 pts of damage out of a 4K hit is a 50% reduction is damage taken. Whereas avoiding 100% of the same hit 25% of the time would only be worth a ~25% reduction in damage taken.

When it comes to monsters that hit like a Mack truck on crack (Patchwerk’s Hateful strikes for example) avoiding those is by far preferable to blocking them – for now.  So, as of Patch 3.1.3 with Block value being what it is today: block the little hits and avoiding the big ones is the agreed upon philosophy almost everywhere.  The debate really picks up in speculation AFTER 3.2 goes Live. Here’s why:

In the previous article I made an obscure reference to Block Value being increased on gear on the next patch … here it is in detail (Quoted from WoWHead.com’s PTR patch notes)

• Block Value: The amount of bonus block value on all items has been doubled. This does not affect the base block value on shields or block value derived from strength.

• On-Use Block Value Items: All items and set bonuses that trigger temporary increases to block value have been modified. Instead of increasing their block value amount by 100% like other items, they have all had their effect durations doubled. This applies to Glyph of Deflection, Gnomeregan Autoblocker, Coren’s Lucky Coin, Levanthor’s Talisman, Libram of Obstruction, Tome of the Lightbringer, Libram of the Sacred Shield, the tier 8 paladin Shield of Righteousness bonus, the tier 5 paladin Holy Shield bonus, and the tier 5 warrior Shield Block bonus.

Paladins, however also get hit with this:
• Shield of Righteousness: Now deals 100% of shield block value as damage instead of 130%.

This simply means a +100% block Value (not Rating) on all items (except shields) and -30% on a single ability.  That still translates to a massive increase across the board and a slightly less massive increase (~+70% ) in that one ability (Shield of Righteousness).

This shakes things up a bit since you would be theoretically be able to reduce the damage taken on big hits to the point where healers can keep up. On a side note here; your healers love steady damage like Auras and stuff . Spiky damage gives them heart palpitations (the bad “heart attack” kind … not the “I Love you” kind).

This is purely speculation but the idea is that if you can survive 2 Hateful strikes back-to-back (thanks to Mitigation) ANY healer worth his salt in a Raid can keep up. At that point mitigation through blocking actually becomes as-good-as, if not better than, the spiky avoidance. If you stack Avoidance you’re “gambling” that you’ll be able to avoid the hits – but you may not have enough Mitigation to survive 2 back-to-back Hateful strikes.

If that didn’t convince you that Block value is becoming OP, remember what we said about Dodge and Parry in the previous article – they are both subject to diminishing returns (Soft capped at 25% each), where as Block Rating and Block Value stacks to infinity.

I know it can get confusing if you’re new to tanking or to the paladin class in general but the bottom line is this: If you haven’t started building a second set yet (a Dodge set and  a Block set), you should. Paladins should especially heed this since they end up tanking Adds half the time and Bosses the other half.

One final word on this issue: the ONLY Judges here are your Healers! They are the ones that keep you alive and if you really want to know which is better ask them if you become “easier to heal” after switching a few pieces of gear around. Even if you take more damage overall with mitigation,  if it’s more evenly spread out and easier to heal through, you might consider updating your wardrobe.

Every Tank should really listen to their Healers … after all your life is in THEIR HANDS ultimately – not your own (Isn’t that Ironic )

Avoidance vs. Mitigation; the debate continues … now get out there and Dominate (the game .. .not the debate)

(This article will be updated with values from field experience after 3.2 is released)

Articles in this thread:

Part 1 – The Basics

Part 2 – Combat Ratings

Part 3 – Armor: Mitigation vs. Avoidance (You are Here)

Part 4 – Hit Table and Threat Generation

Part 5  – Abilities and Rotation

Part 6 – Professions and Upgrades

Part 7 – Buffs and Starter Gear

7 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

Combat Rating Statistics For Paladin Tanks – Part 2 – The Numbers

Last time we covered the basics and the Talent build. Now let’s go over the Combat Ratings and what they mean to you as a Paladin Tank and help you make sense of it all. I am just going to plow through all this because there’s quite a bit so bear with me or book mark this page for future reference since it covers almost every stat you’d like to know about.

Any tank worth his weight in a raid knows that you have to get Defense capped, be un-critable and have 540 Defense, wait … don’t those all mean the same thing?.  Indeed they do:

Here’s how this works Every character has a base 400 defense skill at level 80 (5 def skill /level … like every other weapons skill in the game). Every enemy in the game has a 5% chance to land a critical hit on a player of equal level to them. This increases by 0.2% for every level of difference. Simply put a level 82 Heroics boss (max level for enemies in 5-man heroic dungeons) will have a 5.4% chance to get a critical hit on a player. Raid bosses are level 83, therefore they have a 5.6% chance to crit you.

Why so much importance on this one stat? Simple because it can make the difference between a one shot and a whole night of wipes that are all your fault! Raid bosses aren’t exactly sissies some can hit quite hard: 27-32,000 (Mitigated by Armor) points of damage on a fully decked out Plate-wearing tank is the standard for Patchwerk’s Hateful Strikes. You need 2 tanks (3 on 25-man) to take him, if he lands a single critical strike on any of the tanks they will die … period. Then with no one to absorb this, he’ll move down the list of threat until he’s wiped your entire group. So, being uncritable is ESSENTIAL to tanking.

4.92  Defense Rating = 1 Defense Skill

25 Defense Skill = -1% to get Crit

Therefore 25*5.6 = 140 Defense SKILL (above the 400 Base for being 80 = 540) to become completely uncritable. 140*4.92 = 689 Defense RATING.

Heroic bosses Only require 535 Defense Skill => 664 Defense Rating to be def capped .

Since “Tank Gear” items come with Defense Rating on them, when you see  Flamewatch Armguards that have a 43 Defense Rating you should know that it translates to 8.74 Defense Skill.

The reason it’s called a “Defense Cap” is because that’s the point of diminishing returns (See below)

25 Defense Rating also give you +1% chance to be missed AND +1% chance to Dodge, Parry and Block (each). Simply put for every 123Defense RATING (=25 Defense SKILL) beyond your “cap” you won’t gain any more crit reduction (can’t go below “0″) but you’ll still benefit <=1% avoidance (Hit, Dodge,  Parry. ( Keep reading for Block)

Dodge Rating: 39.53 Dodge Rating = +1% chance to Dodge an enemy attack. This stat is affected by Diminishing returns. It is a rather complex and complicated formula that will not be covered by this guide. Suffice it to say that the above ratio changes boyond 25% and it take quite a bit more to get to 26%.

Parry Rating: 49.18 Parry Rating = +1% chance to Parry an enemy attack. Just like Dodge this is subject to Diminishing returns but you can see that it’s not as valuable as Defense rating for adding avoidance. Parrying an attack means that your next weapon swing (white strike) will happen faster. Obviously this has more impact on slower (2-Handed) weapons but since regular melee attacks count for  a smaller portion of your DPS (and Threat), it’s not as valuable as other stats.

Block Value: This is simply the amount of damage blocked by your shield when you successfully block an attack 1 Block Value = 1 Point of damage blocked

Block Rating: 16.29 Block Rating = +1% chance to block. It is important to note that this stat DOES NOT suffer from diminishing returns. Where block Value was the amount blocked, Block Rating is the % chance of actually blocking.

Now bear in mind that depending on the circumstances, it is generally better to avoid damage altogether (Avoidance) then have it reduced (Mitigation), but there will be an entire chapter dedicated to this discussion later on  in the series. Suffice it to say for this chapter that Block is by far the cheapest stat to attain (per point).

On a side note to this Block Value is reportedly getting a massive increase in the next patch (3.2) but we’ll get into more detail when we cover gearing strategies and  Avoidance vs. Mitigation in our next article

Hit Rating: 32.79 Hit Rating = +1% chance to Hit with Melee and ranged attacks. All DPS should be familiar with this particular stat. For Paladins (and all Melee) the hit cap is 8% (5% base +1%/level difference). 5+3 = 8%. Therefore (8*32.79) you need 263 Hit Rating to be Hit Capped, and although it is important to some degree it is far less important then Defense Rating.

26.23 Hit Rating = +1% chance to Hit with Spells … but for Paladins this only applies to Righteous Defense, so we won’t be spending any more time on Spell hit Rating. Just know that Casting and Melee are different and that for all intents and purposes the Protection (and Retribution) Paladin is considered a Melee class

Armor Penetration: 12.31 Armor Pen = +1% of your target’s armor is ignored. Armor Penetration basically ignores that amount of your enemy’s armor when calculating damage. Also it is one of the few stats that do not suffer from diminishing returns … the more you stack it the more you get … Because it’s %-based it has a greater impact on Melee mobs then it does on Casters (usually wearing cloth) but still counts.

Expertise: 8.2 Expertise Rating = +1 Expertise Skill (Just like Defense this can become a little confusing …) 1 point of Expertise Skill reduces the chance that your attacks will be Dodged or Parried by 0.25% each. This means that every point of expertise skill reduces the chance that your attacks will be avoided by .5%. Expertise will affect normal “White” swings and Hammer of the Righteous . Expertise will NOT affect any of the following spells: Judgments, Avenger’s Shield, Righteous Defense, Shield of Righteousness. Since these attacks cannot be Dodged or Parried (you can still miss however)

Note here that Expertise, Dodge, Parry and Armor Penetration are some of the key stats that Blizzard is using to regulate difficulty in End-Game content. This particular stat (Expertise) is more important for Melee DPS and the soft cap would only apply if you’re hitting a boss from behind. Being a tank however would make that virtually impossible. So for the Paladin tank stacking Expertise along with Hit rating is probably the best alternative since there isn’t all that much coice when it comes to gear. You can try to get a set of gear that is more focused on this stat but I would not Gem specifically for it unless I’m trying to activate a socket bonus … and even then there are other options out there (Stamina/Strength) … that we will cover in another article.

Crit Rating: 45.91 Crit Rating = +1% chance to Critically Hit. A critical hit deals double damage and although they are fun to see and look nice they are probably not as effective as Hit Rating for overall damage output and threat generation.

Haste Rating: 32.79 Haste Rating = 1% Haste. Increases auto attack speed and reduces cast time and global cool down by 1% … 1% of 150 ms … Large amounts may help a little but they are not worth gearing or gemming into especially since all of your spells/abilities are instant (Excorcism is getting a 1.5 sec cast time in Patch 3.2).

Well we covered the advanced stuff now let’s review the basics,

Strength: 1 Strength = 2 Attack Power = .14 DPS weapon damage (white swings). 2 Strength = 1 Block Value (1.3 with Talents) … and Divine Strength. Basically Strength is GOOD !

Agility: 52.08 Agility = +1% chance to Dodge and +1% chance to crit with Melee. 1Agility = 2 Armor. Not a bad stat for a tank when you look at it … Avoidance, mitigation and threat all in one, but still not nearly as efficient (Itemized) as strength.

Stamina: 1 Stamina = 10 Health. 10 Stamina = +3 Spell Power thanks to Touched by the Light talent. If you factor in Sacred Duty, Combat Expertise and Blessing of Kings that adds up to ~26% increase: 10 Stamina = 12.6 Health. You can NEVER have enough Health, it is probably the single most important stat you can get after Defense Rating. Even if you don’t hit hard or miss often, it helps you out by keeping you alive … as long as you’re alive you still stand a good chance of beating any enemy (vs instant wipe if you die…) It is the stat you should be gemming for and the higher-end gear will always have more of it. It is also cheaper as far as itemization goes: 24 Stam = 19 SP = 32 AP

Intellect:  1 Intellect = +15 Total Mana. Also 166.7 Intellect = +1% chance to Crit with Spells. The only spell that can crit is Exorcism. Every other ability uses Melee crit chance and is unaffected by Intellect… (Think Agility : )

Spirit: Increases Mana regen but is useless for a Prot paladin and negligible at best for a all paladin specs. (Although MP5 is getting a massive upgrade in Patch 3.2 it’s real effects for Prot paladin will not change)

Now that we’ve crammed all this data in your skulls and your brain cells are overheating just trying to remember it all, we’ll give you a few days to cool off before we move on to the next article in the series: The Great Debate – Avoidance vs. Mitigation.

Hopefully this gave you a better understanding of the details and the mechanics of combat so that you can get a more complete overall picture of what each of these mean to you. We’ll cover how to use them and their implications as we move along in the series. Now that we’ve laid the groundwork, get out there and DOMINATE.

Articles in this thread:

Part 1 – The Basics

Part 2 – Combat Ratings (You are Here)

Part 3 – Armor: Mitigation vs. Avoidance

Part 4 – Hit Table and Threat Generation

Part 5  – Abilities and Rotation

Part 6 – Professions and Upgrades

Part 7 – Buffs and Starter Gear

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