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Blademeld's Guide to Paladin Tanking & AoE (standby)
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Post by
blademeld
WTB feedback
Introduction, links and index.
It has come to my attention that many people ask for stats and strategies required as a paladin tank. There are too many different situations to answer simply, but I'll try my best.
Links
I found this on the web, slightly outdated due to 2.3 changes and Stamina gain from
Combat Expertise
, but the changes only make this guide more amazing:
Pre-Kara Uncrushability item guide
.
Index:
Introduction, links and index.
What you need in raids.
(minimum)
What you need in heroic instances.
AoE tanking for beginners.
AoE farming for beginners.
Regular 5-man instances.
Off-spec tanking.
Replies (was becoming too long to handle in the index section)
____
____
Macros, copied from other people :D
At this point in time, I would like state that I plan to continue the guide for:
Prot-ret hybrid DPS play
(Maybe) Copy and paste of the Uncrushable gear guide.
Professions: Pros and Cons
I would like your feedback and anything you want to see on these guides, please and thank you
Post by
blademeld
What you need in raids.
(minimum)
490 defense
Why? Uncritability. Critical hits from mobs are double their normal damage. Defense decreases the chance you'll be hit with a critical strike, you need 475 defense to be uncrittable by a level 70 mob, raid bosses are considered 73 and therefore you need the equal amount of defense for 3 levels, 15.
Why not use resiliance to take off critical hits? In theory this is a viable option, however, defense contributes to dodge, miss, parry and block chances, whereas resiliance does not. This is one reason why you stack defense skill above 490.
Another thing to note is that some mobs have a higher critical strike chance than other mobs, this is usually thrash, but you can be critically hit with 490 defense
10000+ unbuffed HP
This number is only for beginning raiders, as your raid progresses, your HP should go up as well.
Most bosses will hit you for 2~4000 HP in Karazhan, you need to give a breather for your healers, especially if the bosses have a instant ability. After a raid buff you should have ~12000 HP, this will allow you to take 1 normal swing and an instant swing for a combined ~8000 damage, and allow the healer to place you back at max HP while having enough HP to last at least 1 more hit if the boss swing quickly, such as Prince in Kara.
In a 25-man example, Gruul will hit the MT for up to 8000/hit and OT for up to 14000 with his special ability, you should have 14000 raid buffed as the MT or 16000 as the OT wearing +stam gear
Appropriate Spelldamage
What is appropriate? This will vary according to the raid progression of your guild, for anything up to Gruul, a
Continuum Blade
with 40 spelldamage enchant is a minimum.
With consumables and raid buffs, you should be sitting ~250 for Karazhan and ~350 spell damage for Gruul's Layer.
For raids in SSC and BT, you should be looking at 250 spelldamage weapons along with some Tier gear that adds onto the spelldamage.
Spell rotation
Blessings: Blessing of Kings > Blessing of Light (only if there is a paladin healer) > Blessing of Sanctuary > Blessing of Wisdom > Blessing of Might
Always keep up your Righteous Fury
Auras: In resistance fights, change them accordingly, Retribution Aura helps with threat generation if it is a physical fight.
Pulling Boss mobs: Seal of the Crusader --> Holy shield --> Avenging Wrath --> Avenger's shield --> Judgement --> Seal of Vengence (Alliance) / Seal of Righteousness (Horde)
Pulling trash: Seal of Righteousness (AoE'able trash) / Seal of the Crusader (Focus fire requiring trash) --> Holy shield --> Avenger's shield --> Judgement --> Seal of Righteousness
Spamming spells: Your holy shield is #1 priority, 30% to block and a whole lot of threat generation.
Consecration should be up all the time when possible.
Judgement does not trigger global cooldown so it is preferred you spam it with a damaging seal whenever possible.
Make sure you keep up a damaging seal after each Judgement.
If you have a large lead on the threat meter, it is possible for you to maintain aggro with Holy Shield and Consecration while using Seal and Judgement of Wisdom to restore your mana.
Fear
Bubble and cancel it, Divine shield and Blessing of Protection
does not
eliminate threat, you are just ignored for the duration
/cast Divine Shield
/cancel Divine Shield
Stats
Need I say it? Once you are close to uncrushable, stamina is king. Then spell damage, and lastly block value.
As for reaching towards uncrushable:
Block rating, not block value > Dodge rating > Defense rating > Parry rating
Block rating increases the chance to block and block value increases the damage absorbed by the block.
This is only to help the beginner raid paladins, if I missed anything, feel free to correct me.
Post by
blademeld
What you need in heroic instances.
Close to 485 defense
Once again, uncritability. Critical hits from mobs are double their normal damage. Defense decreases the chance you'll be hit with a critical strike, you need 485 defense to be uncrittable by a level 72 mob, which is the level of the boss mobs in heroics.
Of course, you don't need to be uncrittable in a heroic instance, the instance boss mobs only hit up to 2000, and that means they'll crit for 4000, once in a blue moon, but spike damage is a pain for your healers.
Stamina, dodge, miss, parry and block itemization
Stamina: with talents, 11.6 HP
Defense rating: 0.422 defense skill: 0.051% negation through miss, parry, dodge & 0.004% negation through absorbtion
Dodge rating: 0.053% dodge
Parry rating: 0.042% parry
Block rating: 0.127% block : 0.032% negation through absorbtion
(Since mobs in heroics hit 500~1000 and your shield absorbs 150~200, I'll calculate it as 1/4 damage negation)
approximate you have 10000 HP, at 750 damage from mobs, it takes 13.3 hits, or 14 hits for you to die.
Since the mobs in heroics hit for 500~1000, it takes roughly 65 stam to survive an extra hit.
with the same itemization values:
65 defense rating: 3.575% negation: ~370 damage over 14 hits -- half of the HP you could have gotten from stamina
65 dodge rating: 3.445% negation: ~350 damage over 14 hits
65 parry rating: 2.73% negation: ~290 damage over 14 hits
65 block rating: 2.08% negation: ~230 damage over 14 hits
This shows that for point for point, stam is your best option in a heroic
When you are feared or facing away from the mob, you lose all damage migation, if you multi-tank, make sure all the mobs are in front of you.
Block rating increases the chance to block and block value increases the damage absorbed by the block.
10000+ self-buffed HP
This is situational, in resistance fights you want more stam then ever, but you should have this much minimum in case you get critical hits or special abilities. Since there is only 1 healer in a 5 man and hence the heals you recieve are at half the rate.
Appropriate Spelldamage
It is important that you take into consideration the fact that you are not being raid buffed:
Aim for roughly 160 on your weapon, a bit from your gear for and an Wizard Oil for ~200-250.
Spell rotation: see the spell rotation in the raid preparation post.
Blessing of Sanctuary is better than Blessing of King on occations where the mob hits are less than 500 (before armor reduction) due to the 80 damage reduction and additional threat generation on block.
An addition to this notation will be that you will be using Hammer of Justice quite often, one disincapated mob means that much less damage you are taking
This is only to help the beginner heroic instancing paladins, if I missed anything, feel free to correct me.
Post by
blademeld
AoE tanking for beginners.
Crowd Control
Why? We're paladins, we don't need CC.
Against melee mobs, CC will prove to be a hinderance rather than assistance as it requires more control and possibly less AoE, it also increases the duration of combat by having to kill the CC'ed mob seperately.
However, the case differs greatly when facing casters, we don't get damage migation and negation. CC is your best friend along with spell interruption, this is where you use Hammer of Justice.
When you cannot CC or there is only 1 caster mob in the pull, AoE everything and focus fire the caster to take them out as soon as possible.
Damage migation.
Heroics, follow the itemizations stamina > defense rating > dodge rating > parry rating > block rating
Normal instances, your shield will block all the damage from most trash, this is excluding giants and the like.
Defense rating: 0.422 defense skill: 0.068% negation through miss, parry, dodge & block
Dodge rating: 0.053% dodge
Parry rating: 0.042% parry
Block rating: 0.127% block
Since AoE depends mostly on passive threat generation, block is a great way to increase threat.
block rating > defense rating > stamina > dodge rating > parry rating
Another thing that cannot be emphisized enough is that you cannot have mobs behind you, avoidance is based on line of sight, and your character cannot look behind and block those attacks.
Spelldamage
What is appropriate? This will vary according to the DPS make up of your party, if you have a high AoE DPS you need higher spell damage. ~200 is a good number in regular instances.
Spell rotation
Blessings: Blessing of Sanctuary > Blessing of Kings > Blessing of Light (only if there is a paladin healer) > Blessing of Wisdom > Blessing of Might
Always keep up your Righteous Fury
Retribution Aura helps with threat generation if it is a physical fight.
With a good healer, you'll usually use Seal of Wisdom throught the entire time
Seal of Wisdom / Seal of Light --> Holy shield --> Avenger's shield --> Judgement --> Seal of Wisdom / Seal of Light
Spamming spells: Your holy shield is #1 priority, 30% to block and a whole lot of threat generation.
Consecration should be up all the time when possible.
This is only to help the beginner paladins, if I missed anything, feel free to correct me.
Post by
blademeld
AoE farming for beginners.
Mass AoE farming myths
On youtube and warcraftmovies, the level 70 AoE farmers always have 20-30 demon hunters and AoE them down,
do not attempt this
as soon as you hit level 70, your item level should average out between 109-112, their item level averages out 126+ including enchants and gems, that's effectively 4-5 level equality difference. The reason that they farm demon hunters is that most of the mobs will start off at ~50% of their HP and the evasion ability does not avoid Consecration damage.
Another myth is that you should farm the standard tanking talents and spell rotation, while this is possible, it should be noted that you do not have a dedicated healer and you will be taking a lot of smaller hits. You also do not have a DPS to help you out, all the damage comes from you and you need to keep up damage and HP to be successful.
Itemization
Follow the itemizations: block rating > defense rating > dodge rating > parry rating
Defense rating: 0.422 defense skill: 0.068% negation through miss, parry, dodge & block
Dodge rating: 0.053% dodge
Parry rating: 0.042% parry
Block rating: 0.127% block
While stamina is a great way to ensure your survival, you should be keeping at a constant level of health, or have an extemely slowed damage taken through the upkeep of blocks and Judgement/Seal of Light.
Your weapon should have a low attack speed so that you can benefit more for Seals and Judgements.
Choosing your targets
For a rough estimate, you should be able to handle up to six mobs with levels equal to the average required level of your items without problems, as you begin to understand concepts, it will be possible for you to handle more than that.
Add one and a half extra mobs per mobs one level lower than the required item level of your gear.
Elites do up to five times the damage of normal mobs, so they should count as three or four mobs.
Mobs such as felguards do two to three times the damage of normal mobs, hence they should count as two.
Avoid:
casters, mobs that do stun or fear, mobs that drain mana/health, mobs that heal.
Another thing that cannot be emphisized enough is that you cannot have mobs behind you, avoidance is based on line of sight, and your character cannot look behind and block those attacks.
Instance farming
Some instances, a mob will follow you from the beginning to the end, such as VC, some instances, mobs will follow you up to only about 60 yards, such as Gnomer. Keep that in mind while gathering mobs. Casters can be ignored in instances 20 or more levels below you, since you will resist all (excluding boss abilities) spells cast against you.
With mobs that heal (i.e. Witch Doctors in ZF) do not AoE them as they will heal each other and it will take longer than taking them out individually.
Damage reflection
What is damage reflection? It's damage done to the attacker each time an attack is made.
The paladin is considered the best AoE farmers due to this ability.
There are two items to note for reflection, these will assist much with your farming:
Shield Spikes
Petrified Lichen Guard
Spell rotation
Blessing of Sanctuary, for damage reflection and damage reduction.
Righteous Fury, even though threat is not an issue, 6% less damage taken is amazing.
Retribution Aura, for damage reflection
Depending on how much damage you take:
Seal of Wisdom / Seal of Light --> Holy shield --> Avenger's shield (optional) --> Judgement --> Seal of Wisdom / Seal of Light
Spamming spells: Your holy shield is #1 priority, 30% to block and a whole lot of damage reflection.
Consecration should be up all the time when possible.
Heal or bubble and heal as needed.
This is only to help the beginner paladins, if I missed anything, feel free to correct me..
Post by
blademeld
Regular 5-man instances.
The point of this part of the guide
From the raid and heroic instance guide, you can get most of the information you need, however, not all instances are level 70, this guide covers that. Do you need to read this part of the guide? Probably not, as it will cover the obvious.
How much stamina?
I can't say one number or give you a formula, especially since the stat difference pre-BC and tBC is very different, however, I can say this:
aim for 125% health of your DPS and healer
Example (18): VC, your DPS will have 400-600 health on average. The tank should have 600-1000
Example (68): Sethekk Halls, your DPS will have 5000-7000 health on average. The tank should have 7000-9000
Keeping aggro
Before you get tBC items with spell damage, it's a bit hard to keep aggro on your target if you have good DPS, this is a good practise for you to get tanking. Actual tanking starts at level 20, when you get Consecration, when you see a party member getting attacked, use Righteous defense, if another member is attacked or you lose aggro before the cool down is up, use Blessing of Protection on the party member getting attacked.
tBC you should be going for weapons that give you spell damage, especially with the recent changes to spelldamage from healing, this should be easy to accomplish:
List of spell damage weapons for tanking paladins before level 70
Gear itemization
Before heroics and raids, it's not too important, but you should always try to wear mail before level 40 and plate after level 40, you can get away with a couple gear being under the armor class, especially during the trasition from mail to plate, but it isn't recommended. Your gear should also have item level near the instance level (i.e. item level 42 for Scarlet Monastary Cathedral, or item level 112 for Steamvaults)
For level 70's these numbers will be larger the lower your character level is
Block rating: 0.127% block
Defense rating: 0.422 defense skill: 0.068% negation
Dodge rating: 0.053% dodge
Parry rating: 0.042% parry
Agility: 0.040% dodge
stamina > block rating > defense rating > dodge rating > parry rating > agility
You shouldn't be focusing too much on spell damage itemization, yes it helps, but it doesn't make or break your day, your weapon carries roughly enough to pass the instance.
It is possible for you to tank with 0 spell damage and using a warrior weapon, it's hard, but doable in normal instances.
Spell rotation
Blessings: Blessing of Sanctuary > Blessing of Kings > Blessing of Light (only if there is a paladin healer) > Blessing of Wisdom > Blessing of Might
This is due to the fact that most mobs in regular instances will hit lightly enough that your Blessing of Sanctuary will absorb most of the damage.
Always keep up your Righteous Fury
Auras: In resistance fights, change them accordingly, Retribution Aura helps with threat generation if it is a physical fight.
Pulling Boss mobs: Seal of the Crusader -->
If you have these Holy shield --> Avenging Wrath --> Avenger's shield -->
Judgement --> Seal of Vengence (Alliance) / Seal of Righteousness (Horde)
Pulling trash: Seal of Righteousness (AoE'able trash) / Seal of the Crusader (Focus fire requiring trash) -->
If you have these Holy shield --> Avenger's shield -->
--> Judgement --> Seal of Righteousness
Spamming spells: Your holy shield is #1 priority if you have it, 30% to block and a whole lot of threat generation.
Consecration should be up all the time when possible.
Judgement does not trigger global cooldown so it is preferred you spam it with a damaging seal whenever possible.
Make sure you keep up a damaging seal after each Judgement.
If you have a large lead on the threat meter, it is possible for you to maintain aggro with Holy Shield and Consecration while using Seal and Judgement of Wisdom to restore your mana.
This is only to help the beginner instancing paladins, if I missed anything, feel free to correct me.
Post by
blademeld
Off-spec tanking.
Who, what, where, when, why, how?
Who: anyone with a high armor class, in our case, retribution and holy specialized paladins.
What: anything that the main tank can't handle alone, be that a mini-boss, a special ability of the boss or trash.
Where: anywhere you need a group against 2 or more hard mobs.
When: anytime where the group leader deems the situation impossible for a single tank, anytime an extra mob goes out of control.
Why: any reason really, to make life easier.
How: that's the point of this guide.
How much stamina?
As much stamina as you can stack, you won't be expected to dodge and parry as much as a regular tank:
Off-tanking
, all you are expected to do is to keep alive long enough for the tank to take control over the situation, this also means keeping an eye on your health and heal yourself appropriately.
Off-tanking a raid boss or raid trash
, you're expected to take a huge amount of damage, either special abilites from the boss or small but frequesnt damage from trash, you'll have a healer assigned to you so healing won't be too much off an issue, however, Consecrating and spamming Holy Light with Righteous Fury active generates a signigicant amount of threat.
Tanking
, if you're off-spec tanking a instance as a main tank for the instance, follow the Regular 5-man instance guide above, however, keep in mind that the group expects you to act as a meat shield, that means being able to take the most damge possible before dying rather than being able to control the mobs without CC or letting your healer relax by chain dodging.
Tanking gear
High stamina, and with tBC instances, high spell damage. Even if you're holy or ret, it's a good idea to keep in handy a one handed healing/spell damage weapon and a shield and a set of high armor/stamina armor, especially with the holy paladins.
Generally, holy paladins will not have to worry about changing weapon and shield and retribution paladins will not have to worry about changing armor for tanking.
Intellect is not as important of a stat but a fair amount will prevent you from losing threat due to lack of mana.
Do you need points in protection?
Not really, but it will be hard for retribution paladins to hold aggro at high levels with the 2.3 changes, it may be better if you spend talent points into improved Righteous fury for help with threat generation.
For holy, most holy paladins have points in Blessing of Kings, which is a extremely good spell for tanking, even retribution paladins may benefit spending points to work up to that.
This is only to help the beginner paladins, if I missed anything, feel free to correct me.
Post by
blademeld
Replies
Post by
blademeld
Talents:
Protection
Malleable options:
Divine Guardian
,
Improved Hammer of Justice
,
Improved Devotion Aura
,
Guarded by the Light
,
Judgements of the Just
,
Improved Judgements
,
Heart of the Crusader
,
Pursuit of Justice
.
Post by
blademeld
Tanking, from a healer's perspective.
As some of you know, I am leveling/leveled a holy paladin alt.
I have come to taking a liking to the Holy Light Spell Crit itemization, and noticed several things while leveling and healing through instances.
I don't care if the tank dodges that one attack or two, in fact, the tank taking that damage is more entertaining.
I hate tanks with low hp, if I can heal the tank with 1-2 Holy Lights, it makes me irritated.
I hate taking damage, when more than one person takes significant damage, it knocks me off my game.
I hate tanks who take excessive damage, tanks who wear subpar armor and two hander tanks (excluding druid)
Post by
blademeld
Macros, copied from other people :D
/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Currently combined avoidance (including block) at:",0.8,0.8,1)
/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(GetDodgeChance()+GetBlockChance()+GetParryChance()+5+(GetCombatRating(CR_DEFENSE_SKILL)*150/355 + 20)*0.04,1,0.5,0)
Just copy and paste this into a macro and it will tell you how much avoidance you have.
with a big thanks to chomps/lurker/quanta from my guild, i use most of these macros and i find them great on my paladin.
Cleanse macro, cleanses the selected target if its friendly, cleanses the targets target if its not
/cast Cleanse; Cleanse; Cleanse; Cleanse; Cleanse;
very usefull as tank, coz if the mob/boss puts a poison/magic on you clean it from yourself with one push on a button.
all in one flash of light macro, resses target if dead, heals target if friendly, heals targets target if not friendly, otherwise heal self
/cast Redemption; Flash of Light; Flash of Light; Flash of Light; Flash of Light; Flash of Light;
all in one holy light macro, resses target if dead, heals target if friendly, heals targets target if not friendly, otherwise heal self
/cast Redemption; Holy Light; Holy Light; Holy Light; Holy Light; Holy Light; Doesn't work if the target released
all in one Purify macro
/cast Redemption; Purify; Purify; Purify; Purify; Purify;
All in one BOF macro
/cast Blessing of Freedom; Blessing of Freedom; Blessing of Freedom; Blessing of Freedom; Blessing of Freedom;
All in one BOP macro
/cast Blessing of Protection; Blessing of Protection; Blessing of Protection; Blessing of Protection; Blessing of Protection;
very usefull one, you can use it for if the mob/boss goes for that nub mage who overaggroed, to cast blessing of protection on the mage without having to deselect the boss and with a single click. Just one quick word of warning: if the boss switches a lot or the target uses an aggro dump (vanish, feint, feign death, ..) you might end up bop yourself.
By adding "#show tooltip (spellname)" you can show the cooldown and the tooltip of the spell on the macro.
Post by
blademeld
.
Post by
blademeld
Pet guide.
Who doesn't need a pet? I mean paladins should at least get a eagle or something.
Combat pets.
The beast master in Scarlet Monastary Library drops a nice hound that has 3 charges.
Non-combat pets.
White kitten.
My non-combat pet
Tranquil Mechanical Yeti
Sweet!
Post by
100618
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Malgayne
While I don't necessarily follow all of this advice when I tank with my paladin, this is a really good guide and deserves a sticky. The only major caveat I would point out is that it's almost impossible for a pre-Karazhan paladin to reach uncrushable status, and with sufficient stamina it isn't completely necessary--at least for the early bosses. Check out my
Paladin
--I'm still short of uncrushable, but I've tanked everything up to Curator without TOO much trouble.
Post by
103712
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
104129
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
94757
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Wildhorn
The reason that BoK > BoSanc in raids or heroics is that it makes life easier for the healers.
80 damage reduction in a raid boss fight is laughable, you're going to be overrhealed for 1000-5000 anyways, but a 1000-2000 extra HP from BoK is never going to be laughable.
In short, you shouldn't be going for BoSanc over BoK unless you're severly lacking in threat.
Sorry but i disagree.
1) BoK wont add 1k-2k hp. (unless somehow u managed to get 1000-2000 stamina). With 700 stamina, this will give you 70 stam (700 hp)
2) BoSa reduce every hit by 80 damage, which add up on the long run.
So unless you have the tendancy to die because you lacked 700 hp, BoSa will benefit you more on the long run.
Post by
Malgayne
It's worth noting that Blessing of Sanctuary actually mitigates your damage
before armor
. This means that if you have 50% damage reduction, and you get hit for 1k, you DON'T reduce the damage by half (500 damage) and then shave 80 damage off of the result (420 damage total).
Instead, Blessing of Sanctuary works
first
, meaning that you take 1k damage, minus 80 for BoSanc (920 damage), THEN reduced by 50% (470 damage total).
With this in mind, Blessing of Sanctuary typically only mitigates about 40 points, and becomes less efficient as your armor increases. Personally I keep two different sets of tanking gear--one for trash and one for bosses. For trash I will use some spell damage gear, and tank with retribution aura and Blessing of Sanctuary, not for the mitigation but for the extra threat. On bosses, when the hp/mitigation is more important, I'll switch to the pure +def/stamina gear, and tank with devotion aura and Blessing of Kings.
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