Threat tip of the day: Don’t Hammer of Wrath!

Just a dopey little tip, but one that seems counterintuitive. One of the more fun parts of a fight is when you break past the 20% mark and the button for Hammer of Wrath lights up. If you ever dabble in Ret you know that’s a time you can seriously pull ahead on a boss fight, but for Prot the use of that spell is much more nuanced. Namely, you should probably avoid using HoW altogether.

If you’re running a standard 969 rotation, it was previously suggested to throw HoW in whenever because it was generally a pretty hard-hitting, high-threat attack. These days, thanks to superior gear scaling with our other attacks, this is no longer the case.

According to Theck, the only spell of ours that Hammer of Wrath does more damage than is Holy Shield. And, when fighting an AOE pack or a boss, you probably want the block boost more than an instant execute attack.

The skinny is this: the only time you should be using Hammer of Wrath in end-game is when on the move, or off-tanking, and you need an instant attack. And only to substitute Holy Shield or maybe Consecrate in your 969 rotation, if you’re even dropping Consecrates. Don’t substitute Judgement, as that will do more threat than HoW.

How to spice up tankadin threat in Cataclysm

So it goes without saying that Paladin threat generation as it stands now is, shall we say, fairly straightforward. Unassuming. Non-pretentious. Some might go so far as to describe it as faceroll.

Indeed, some of us might treat the ease of the Paladin rotation the same way we treat that no-good uncle of ours who’s had one too many run-ins with the local constabulary. Around the family dinner table you might joke about what an idiot he is, but you’ll invariably flip out on a neighbor that’s gossiping about him like some clucking hen. No one makes fun of family except for family, right?

Well, let’s pretend this is the familial dinner table. We need to talk about Uncle Faceroll.

One of the biggest problems with Paladin tanking in general is how automated and streamlined it is. The whole process requires minimal input compared to other classes. Oh sure, we have a wide range of buttons to press, but there’s something version wrong when you can bind that whole rotation to two macros. Our second “cooldown” kicks in automatically, our AP debuff is applied automatically, our attack speed debuff is tacked on to an ability we already use. In short, our tanking style requires significantly less input than other classes.

Take warriors (please! har har har) for example. They have a “counterattack” ability, a proc that can change the priority of their rotation, an “on next swing” attack, and have to actively keep up both debuffs. Druids have a dot they have to stack and actively keep up on a boss and an on-next-swing, among other things. DKs have two diseases they need to keep up on a target at all times and a counterattack. Conversely, we have a straight rotation, as immutable and immovable as a glacier.

Here’s what I think should change:

1. Change Holy Vengeance to a separate ability that applies the dot, independent of what Seal you have up. The attack applying the dot will be low threat, and having five stacks will be mandatory to maintaining proper threat on a boss. Because the ability applying a stack will be so low threat, you will be discouraged from allowing clipping your stacks. Seal of Vengeance can still do damage as a proc based on how many stacks you have up.

2. Redoubt is undoubtedly changing in Cataclysm with the shuffle being given to block. Perhaps retool the talent to be a clone of Sword and Board. When you block an attack you have a x% change to proc a free, immediate Shield of Righteousness.

3. Holy Shield is also probably getting an overhaul as well, and with much less consistent blocking probably would be as tps-heavy as it is right now. As such, retool the ability so that when you dodge/parry/miss an attack, you can hit Holy Shield and you’ll immediately respond with a “holy bitch slap with my shield” ala Revenge or Rune Strike. This might be a tad redundant with ShoR already existing, so maybe just make a new counterattack ability for Paladins.

Yes, I’m advocating homogeneity

I know that’s such a dirty word in the community, but honestly it’s the only way I can see to fix this impasse. The 4 kinds of attacks tanks in this game have (generally) are instant, on next swing, counterattack, and a dot application. Certain tanks have abilities that fall under those categories, or maybe dance on the border between them.

All our attacks are instant, with one leaving a puddle of dots on the floor, and one adding a dot to our attacks… automatically.

This is what heterogeneity has gotten us? We’re the “faceroll” tank class, for good or ill, and if that’s our special flavor, I’d rather them make us a little more vanilla.

How do you solve a problem like Paladin AOE threat?

Ominously, Ghostcrawler declared last week in a post:

The threat-related goals still remain:

…

2) Paladin — Nerf the threat capacity of HoR and SoC.

Now, I may have played the chicken little several times in the past and yet we still made out pretty well, generally. Despite two or three dire predictions of imminent nerfs, the worst we got was the Sacred Duty retuning. As for threat, well, that’s a horse of a different color.

Is Paladin threat too good? Generally yes, although not for the reasons that GC and others on the tanking forums would describe. For one, in the one case that Ghostcrawler is correct, Seal of Command was poorly designed and executed, and gave us an easily obtained threat boost that really should have been restricted to Ret Pallies.

SoComm has really only been useful since ShoR was perhaps unintentionally moved to being a melee attack in the early days of 3.3. Before then we procced the effect much less, to the point where it was useless for tanking. Post-ShoR change and suddenly the fastest and easiest way to pumped out the AOE teeps (like deeps, but moar threatnin’) was to switch to Seal of Command and go nuts on any clumbs of mobs in your path.

As for Hammer of the Righteous, is it really that overpowered? Really?

I would say no, but perhaps I’m biased. I see little difference between it and the Warrior cleave aside from the fact that ours hits an additional target (but has a cooldown) and automatically pierces armor thanks to the damage being of the Holy school.

Side thought: if HotR was so overpowered (and this is something GC has been hinting that he feels for some time) then why, oh why, does the Paladin t10 2pc bonus increase its damage by 20%?

They tried to tinker with HotR in the past, around the time of the 3.2 ptr, briefly shifting its damage to physical. This made HotR not only hit for less (now being mitigated by armor) but also do less threat thanks to not gaining the Righteous Fury +threat to Holy spells. They played around with changing how much damage the attack did, and then baking in a +threat modfier, but eventually decided to just revert the change and leave it as is. Kicking the ball down the road, I suppose.

I wonder if this change is now on the table again.

In the end what it comes to down is, yes, we are gods of AOE threat, and that must be changed with us being adjusted down. How would I prefer this be done? For starters, make SoComm require a 2H weapon and make it the exclusive domain of Ret Pallies. Otherwise, if the intention is to let Prot keep it, adjust down how much damage the cleave does (though this will disproportionately hurt the Rets).

… Although, I do enjoy the irony of Rets taking a nerf on the chin because of us. Usually it’s the other way around!

Er, but I digress. The other recommendation is: wait and see how our AOE threat is outside of Icecrown. I strongly suspect that our AOE threat is being exaggerated, so to say, but the added damage of the Glyph of Sense Undead, Crusade’s 3% bonus, and the addition of Holy Wrath to our arsenal.

I suppose I could live with Hammer of the Righteous getting pared down, but I’d prefer that be last resort. I love that skill as is. And I’ve finally gotten over that awful CLANG noise it makes.

The only remaining question is this: is the nerf going to come pre-Cataclysm (and if so, why is it not on the PTR yet?) or will they just roll it into 4.0?

Second look at Seal of Command!

So a couple of months ago, when SoComm was first changed to its current Holy Cleavin’ incarnation in 3.2, I recommended against speccing into it. Well, the situation has changed somewhat and so has my position on SoComm.

Now, what changed was Shield of Righteousness (as mentioned earlier this week) had a mechanic tweak which made it parriable/dodgeable. Not only did this make expertise a very worthy threat stat under softcap, but it also had the side effect of making ShoR able to proc SoComm’s cleave proc. This suddenly makes SoComm viable for trash pulls (provided trash doesn’t survive more than 30 seconds) if you’re looking for a threat boost in that arena, or the joy of many yellow numbers.

Does this make SoComm mandatory? No. Does it make it useful and fun? Oh yes.

The cleave effect of Command will now proc from three of our attacks (please correct me, readers, if I missed one/others): ShoR, white melee attacks, and Judgements. However, Judgements will only proc the cleave (and this is also true for the additional proc of Seal of Vengeance) if you are specced into Judgements of the Just. Don’t ask why. Just keep that in mind for later in this post.

But how to pick up SoComm?

Well, you’ve got two options: one being just swap the lone point from Conviction into Seal of Command. The main downside to this is a single-target threat loss, and if you have Seal of Vengeance (which you likely do), you’re looking at a “wasted” glyph slot when SoV isn’t active.

The other way to get SoComm–and hell, the crazier way–is to make a separate spec for trash/heroics.

Wrathy inspired me with his epic tales of pulling crazy dps numbers in heroics with his specialized Heroic Anub’arak spec, the crux of which was Seal of Command. I, sick of ret and never using that offspec, followed Wrathy’s lead … though I find now I need to make a few tweaks to it since I’m using it on heroics trash and not Nerubian Burrowers.

The results otherwise were pretty impressive–I easily did most overall damage done in a UK run, and that was with frequent mana issues. Not the best metric, admittedly, but there is definitely potential here.

Putting a few tweaks in the new trash spec I’m going to adopt tonight, I placed a point in Spiritual Attunement, one in Judgements of the Just (so judging will proc the seal), leaving 3 in Reckoning, and skipping Vindication to put 3 overall in Conviction. Considering this is, as I said, a spec for heroics and trash (where survivability is not an issue), I’d rather max threat talents.

As for glyphs, I’m going to go with Holy Wrath, Hammer of the Righteous, and Judgement. Again, for threat maximizing. I won’t be using SoV in this trash spec

So overall, like I said, SoComm is not mandatory. It will not help you generate more threat on a boss or live longer. Rather it is for putting out some obscene numbers in heroics, farm content, or large packs of trash in raids (though there is something to be said for the cleave’s snap aggro potential).

I wish I had a screenshot of a cloud of yellow numbers to illustrate my point. Nonetheless, with all the heroics running we’ll be doing into the foreseeable future, SoComm has the bonus of making slogging through a heroic dungeon fun again.

Back to the future with Mongoose

One of my aspirations in TBC was to have enough threat that I could get away with tanking using a Sun Eater enchanted with Mongoose. Unfortunately, that day didn’t come until 3.0 when my trusted Merciless Gladiator’s Gavel was retired. But the dream lived on!

Last night in heroic ToC-10 (hopefully the last time we run that as current content), I scored the heroic Ardent Guard. Such an awesome weapon. As for enchanting it, I am terribly bored with the thought of Blood Draining on yet another weapon, so I decided to take a different route: finally giving Mongoose some time in the sun.

I’ve done a bit of poking around on weapon enchants, and what really piqued my interest was this threat sim run by Theck which shows Mongoose as being our second best (practical) threat enchant, only trailing Accuracy by a tiny margin. Combined with the armor and dodge granted by the proc, it seems worthy of a trial.

Update: Some actual numbers would be nice, eh?

• It’s been calculated that thanks to the change in how SoV is handled, Mongoose’s proc time has jumped to 52% since 3.2 (why it’s good all of a sudden)
• This means that the enchant is worth ~62 “constant” agility (120 agility x .52 = 62.4)
• That’s a “constant” 124 armor and 1.04% dodge and 1.19% crit
• In reality, when it procs, you get 240 armor and 2% dodge and 2.3% crit

Not too shabby!

I probably won’t get a decent test of it until Icecrown on Tuesday (crossing fingers) so I’ll let you all know how it goes.

5 ways to boost your threat

While threat should be the last worry on a tankadin’s mind, there are still some who struggle with it because they are either undergeared/underperforming or are dealing with hyper-performing dps who are then chafing under a threat cap. Because we as Paladins have the ability to give one of (if not the highest) threat caps, it is our responsibility to be prepared to dish out as much tps as possible.

Here are five tips on how to bring the pain:

1. Use a proper rotation

969 is the best way to optimize threat while maximizing uptime of Judgements of the Just and other debuffs we provide. To summarize briefly, we have three main “9″ attacks, Holy Shield, Judgement, and Consecration; and two main “6″ attacks, Hammer of the Righteous, and Shield of Righteousness. Weave your 6s with your 9s, such as:

0.0 Holy Shield
1.5 ShoR
3.0 Consecration
4.5 HotR
6.0 Judgement
7.5 ShoR
9.0 Holy Shield
10.5 HotR
12.0 Consecration
13.5 ShoR
15.0 Judgement

Et cetera, et cetera.You can weave in Avenger’s Shield or Hammer of Wrath for any 9 as cooldowns allow.

Sidenote: while off-tanking, never use exorcism (aside from an initial pull). The threat you’d gain from the burst (even on an undead target) is less than the threat of the melee swings and SoV proc if you just stuck to auto-attacking.

2. Change your glyphs

According to Theck’s analysis of threat contributions from glyphs, the best threat glyph is Avenger’s Shield. Although, it really isn’t. Against a single target, sure, but you’re sacrificing 100% tps on two other targets for 200% on only one. Ignore this one.

Realistically, the best threat glyph is Seal of Vengeance by a wide margin. Even over the expertise soft cap, you’ll get more threat from Glyph of Vengeance than from Glyph of Judgement. Once over the expertise hard cap, you can drop it though. Moreover, Judgement is, of course, the second-best threat glyph. Glyph of HotR is nice, but it’s far too situational–and in a raid like ToC where the only time you’ll get any use out of it is Faction Champions, it’s a waste of a glyph slot.

Glyphs still not worth your time are Consecration (its only use is mana-conservation, which isn’t an issue), Exorcism (see above), and Holy Wrath.

TLDR: One of your glyph slots is going to be Divine Plea; make the other two SoV and Judgement.

3. Spec into (the right) Ret tree talents

There is some confusion right now by folks who were overly excited by the change to SoV which made Seals of the Pure viable (ahem). As such, there’s an awful lot of folks running around with a 5/x/x build right now. That’s all well and good if you’re still plugging away at Ulduar, but if you’re spending any time in ToC, you should be specced into Crusade.

According to the inimitable Theck, the absolute best, possible combinations of threat talents in the game right now include 3/3 Crusade. You’re shooting yourself in the foot if you ignore this gem of a talent.

4. Get hit-capped

For Paladin tanks, hit is simply one of our best threat stats. Thanks to the new BV-ShoR cap, there are steep diminishing returns (followed by a cliff-face cuttoff) to the threat value of BV once you hit a certain value. This also makes Strength take a nasty hit as well, because of the contributions it gives to BV.

(Obligatory relevant Theck link.)

Specifically, before you hit 2400 BV, the ranking of threat stats is Strength, Block Value, and then Hit. Once you pass that, Hit becomes our #2, and once you have about 3000 BV, Hit becomes #1. Of course, Hit itself has a cap (263 rating) and is basically crap after that point, so be wary of that. When evaluating your gear for threat, do it in terms of how much BV you currently have.

Hit is certainly worth capping if possible, as there is great value in the consistent flow of tps such that Hit provides. It’s not hard to do either; with just my T9 legs, the T2.232 helm, the Saronite Swordbreakers, and two other excellent pieces I have 233 hit rating. And my survivability has not suffered a lick.

That said, never gem or enchant for Hit (or threat in general), but do mix and match pieces so you get the most worth out of each stat.

5. Wear threat trinks and gear

Twist! There are some fights (specifically on farm content) where you’re not going to be as concerned with stacking EH. In this case it is perfectly acceptable to swap in some BV pieces or Strength/threat trinks to push the upper limits of your tps potential.

When we’re doing farm content, I tend to swap in a iLevel 226 BV neck and belt, the heroic Sunreaver Defender’s Pauldrons, and equip Darkmoon Card: Greatness (STR) and Lavanthor’s Talisman. That pushes my threat capabilities up a lot, to the point where I can do not just amazing tps, but also the dps of a (bad) fresh 80. Not too shabby.

Please share in the comments any tips you have for boosting your tps, especially in progression content where you don’t have the luxury of using a blue trinket. Let me know if I missed anything obvious.

Better Late Than Never Friday, 10/16

Wow, I haven’t done one of these in a long, long time. To be honest, this is just filler to cap off the week. On Monday I’ll have what I hope will be a very informative post on tanking strategies for heroic ToC 10, so that will be something of substance to look forward to. As always, I’d appreciate any additions or corrections to any answers I give in the comments!

breastplate of the white knight gems

Let me list them in order: Solid Majestic Zircon, Solid Majestic Zircon, and Solid Majestic Zircon. Ignore the bonus, you’ll lose too much stamina trying to get it.

vindication, paladin, worth it?

Absolutely! Vindication is hands-down a mitigation talent and a must-have for any serious paladin tank. I’m a big fan of self-reliance, and I don’t trust any raider to keep up a debuff I can do myself.

does vindication work on raid bosses post 3.2.2

Yes.

mark of the relentless or the leviathan’s coil

I would choose the Coil for when you’re dealing with more physical damage (the armor) and the Mark when dealing with more magic heavy fights (more stamina).

shadow strike timer burrower

Every 30 seconds the adds will both pick the farthest player from them and target them for a shadow strike. Interrupt all the burrowers to prevent a one-shot of the target.

0/58/18 paladin spec

When I first saw this query my thought was, “how the hell did this person add up 76 talent points?” Then I realized that they were talking about Cataclysm when we’ll all be level 85. If I had those five extra points now, I would probably put them in Seals of the Pure for a nice threat boost. I think that’d work out to more tps than 3/3 Sanctity of Battle and another 2 points in Conviction. I can’t see anything mitigation-wise that would be a better fit for them.

2% magic reduction meta

Very, very situational. I can count on one hand how many fights that might help in, if at all. Not worth it except as a very narrow gimmick.

245 tank libram of valiance up time

According to the log I did the other day to test Quel’Serrar, 98.3%.

3.2.2 pally tanking with spell power weapon

No, no, a thousand times no. You’d get more threat out of a dps one-hander with a high dps number than a spellpower weapon. Spellpower is dead, get with the times.

anub’arak solo tank adds interrupts

I do this for 10-H and 25-N. It’s totally doable. Having a lot of block value helps significantly.

best prot pally weapon enchant 3.2.2

I’m partial to Blood Draining for the survivability aspect. If you’re hurting for threat, I would recommend Accuracy.

can a paladin interrupt hammer of justice coliseum twin

Yes, assuming the shield is down. Holy Wrath is a better choice for this, though. (Damage and interrupt in one!)

do prot paladins need alot of hit rating 3.2

I am a vocal proponent of hit rating. I strive to always run as melee hit capped (though I don’t gem or enchant for it). There is nothing better than hit to ensure a steady, consistent stream of amazing tps.

fresh 80 tankadin what libram should i get?

Libram of the Sacred Shield! You can easily nab it after 4-5 heroics.

Tanks, what you need to know about 3.2.2

So apparently 3.2.2 is dropping today according to mmo-champ. While it might make sense to spend the first night of this raid reset mourning the AD nerf, we tankadins are made of stronger stuff. Grab your boot straps and make the best of this down-tuning. Here’s what you need to know about the changes to our class in this patch.

1. Our threat nerf will work out to around a 5% tps loss

We’re going to lose about 100 spell power from the change to Touched by the Light and receive 10% less bonus threat from Holy damage thanks to the Righteous Fury change. This seems drastic, but smarter folks than I have calculated that out to “only” a 5-6% loss in tps. Not the end of the world. Might not even be noticeable.

To compensate be sure to get more hit so your threat is more consistent. Get expertise soft-capped too. And if you find your threat cratering, considering the Accuracy enchant for your weapon. (Don’t go overboard and gem for strength, though.)

2. Seal of Command is still not for tanking

I know the new aoe aspect looks tempting, but this is really a buff for Ret in trash–it’s not meant for us. You’re going to do more threat with SoV/C up and HotRing stacks on to a swath of mobs than hitting individual guys for a pittance and chaining two extra holy strikes on your single weapon swings. Avoid the temptation to go spec into SoComm.

3. Judgement Helm is awesome and you want it

Srsly. It’s freaking T2 and it has hit. I honestly don’t know which is better.

Oh. Right. The T2 part.

4. No more libram swapping

I don’t think many people did this anyway, but just in case, we can’t libram swap anymore. If you unequip a libram you lose its effect.

5. <35% is going to hurt a lot more

Ardent Defender received an annoying nerf that will make the sub-35% hp zone a little more dangerous for us. The change overall is about a 9% effective health loss, unfortunately. It doesn’t gimp us (the change was actually justifiable in terms of how powerful AD was) but it does mean that we’re not as “invincible” as we once were.

Yawn: A look at updated 3.2.2 patch notes

Well, I’m fresh out of ideas, and frankly the idea of doing two BLTNFs in a row bores me to tears. So, I decided to do a post on everyone’s favorite, excruciatingly mundane topic: patch notes. Contain yourselves, please.

Blizz updated their test realm patch notes, which you can see on mmo-champ and elsewhere. The official site too, I suppose, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Seal of Corruption and Seal of Vengeance: These seals will now only use the debuff stacks generated by the attacking paladin to determine the damage done by the seal and by the judgement.

Nice fix to an annoying bug.

Hammer of the Righteous: The damage from this ability is now considered physical instead of Holy. The threat generated by the ability has been increased such that it will continue to do approximately the same threat it did when it was Holy damage.

This will hopefully help us with our one source of snap aggro on multiple targets. I for sure wasn’t relishing the prospect of having diminished threat in the snap category, so this is a nice mitigation to an annoying nerf.

Relics: All buffs provided by relics (idols, librams, totems and sigils) now share an exclusive category such that gaining a buff from one of these items will remove all other buffs gained from items in this category.

This really doesn’t affect us. I think only the most intense of the min-maxers were actually bothering to libram swap. The swing timer reset was too much of a hassle, and the threat bonus was marginal, all things considered. I wonder if this change means other classes were relic swapping as well, or if Blizzard’s trying to be ahead of the curve.

Speaking of librams, I’ve been seriously considering picking up the Libram of Valiance for my threat set. And, by threat set, I mean in heroics I tend to swap out my stam trinks and Libram of Defiance for Lavanthor’s Talisman, the STR Darkmoon Card: Greatness, and Libram of Obstruction.

Supposedly, according to numbers I’ve seen elsewhere, the 200 STR of LoV has a 90% uptime, so is worth a constant 180 STR, which then threat wise works out to an equivalent of 540 BV. Not straight conversion, mind you. Threat conversion. So, even with the change to Libram of the Sacred Shield in 3.2.2 to ~450 BV, the LoV will still work out to be better.

And that’s before the mind-shattering additional spell power you get from strength. Just try to wrap your head around that! … Uh, yeah.

All around we’re looking at a 5-6% threat nerf. Not great, but could be worse.

How I specced in 3.2

This post is long overdue, but I wanted to take some time to explain my current spec and specifically some choices I did or did not make.

Here is the spec in all its glory: 0/53/18.

Crusade > SotP

One of the bigger choices I made when talenting was speccing into Ret for Crusade rather than Seals of the Pure. Why did I do this? Well, primarily because the Crusade talent may seem like less threat on paper this is only when considering it at the 3% level. When facing Undead/Humanoid/Elemental/Demon mobs, the damage bonus jumps to 6% and that is when Crusade really begins to shine.

I wrote extensively about the two talents when SotP was first changed for the better.

Now, Northrend is still crawling with Scourge (Undead) and Humanoids, and because the Coliseum is, excepting Icehowl and the two Jormungar, packed to the brim with UHED bosses, it makes sense to choose Crusade over SotP. You’re going to get more mileage out of the former talent.

2/2 Imp Judgements

Like Randall in Clerks 2, I’m taking back 2/2 Imp Judgements. If anyone calls you on dropping a second point in this talent, all you need to know is this: any tank worth their salt has the discipline to maintain 969 even if a cooldown is up one second earlier. If you’re using Judgement when it isn’t Judgement’s turn, you’re not doing a proper rotation. Additionally, an 8 second Judgement is much more convenient for trash when a steady rotation is impossible, so it makes sense not to artificially restrict yourself to a 9 second Judgement.

Where else would that point go? Benediction? Meh. 1/1 Improved Blessing of Might? Nah. Topping off Imp Judgements is the logical choice.

Talents you still want to avoid

Stoicism, Guardian’s Favor, and Improved Hammer of Justice are really more pvp-flavored and have no place in a strictly pve spec. There are some merits to the latter talent, but I’d rather focus on my own job in a raid than a rogue’s.

Divinity is still bad. 5% heals sounds great, but the ROI is not worth the 5 talents points.

Likewise, Reckoning has some synergy with SotP, but in lieu of an SotP spec, it’s not worth getting. The tps return per talent point isn’t worth depriving yourself a mitigation talent like Divine Guardian.

In which I backtrack

Now, one caveat: we all have the two-point “fluff” bridge to carry us past the lower-tree talents to Blessing of Sanctuary and beyond. I spent my two bridge points on Divine Guardian. If you raid with nothing but Holy Paladins out the wazoo, DG is not an ideal talent, assuming they have it as well and they’re slapping an improved Sacred Shield on you and the other tanks.

I am unfortunately not so lucky, the Holy Pallies in my guild being addicted to Ret tree crit still. Alas, DG is for me. If you are so lucky, however, it is not a terrible idea to spend those bridge points on Improved Hammer of Justice for a 40 second cooldown, or Reckoning for a 60 tps gain. You do after all have to spend those points somewhere in that early portion of the Prot tree.

Now I turn the floor to you all. How are you speccing this patch?