Spec possibilities in next patch
All the patch news yesterday lead to the inevitable conclusion that some pretty big changes are happening to Paladin tanking when 3.2 drops. Finally we’ll have a second high-mitigation cooldown to help us roll with the new big-hits style of tanking. I am personally ecstatic at the redesign of Ardent Defender and can’t wait for the first time pink angels descend from the heavens to restore me to 30% health because the healers panicked and switched to raid healing during a flame jet, letting Ignis crush me under his iron boot.
I’m getting carried away though! The changes announced yesterday have some weighty implications on how we spec. Specifically these changes are:
- Seal of Vengeance/Corruption will also do 33% of weapon damage when a full five-stack of the dot is up. This would theoretically make Seals of the Pure a better talent for threat generation than it currently is. Could also be paired with Reckoning for additional threat.
- Improved LoH will now provide a 20% damage reduction effect, rather than +50% armor value, making it a more useful cooldown.
Right now the default spec I see for tankadins is something around 0/53/18, which is a high threat output spec, but this might change. Here are two possible specs we might see becoming viable in 3.2:
Lay on Hands Spec (12/53/6)
Yes, I know, the irony is delicious. I’m not super enamored with this spec just yet, though. One of my big concerns with it is having to dump 5 talent points into increasing our Intellect to reach Improved Lay on Hands. Total waste of talent points considering what a non-issue mana is for us. There’s also the question of whether it makes sense to trade the threat and utility of 6% crit, 3-6% extra damage, and a run speed increase for an 11 minute cooldown.
Vindication Spec (0/53/18)
This spec takes two points out of Conviction and puts it in Vindication for the attack power debuff. Right now I think this looks like a better deal. It’s a little less tps but adds survivability thanks to the Demo Shout effect. And you don’t have to waste talent points on ineffectual talents. And you can benefit from the target effect more than once every 11 minutes.
Ultimately all this hullaballoo is just speculation (har har har). I think a lot will change depending on how much tps the new Seal of Vengeance generates and whether it makes Seals of the Pure or Reckoning viable (it probably won’t). I’m finding myself inclined to agree with the speculation Theck laid out in this thread at Maintankadin:
As the trees stand now, people desiring Vindication will have to go at least 10 points into Ret, unlocking Conviction. If Crusade is still considerably better than SotP (and it will be), it’s likely that 1 Conviction + 3 Crusade will out-threat 5/5 SotP, and give you the added utility of Vindication and SotP.
That’s probably where we’ll stand when the dust settles.
Armory Feed
Rhi. a 20% mitigation with a 11 minute cool down seems like a 1 time use for 1 boss. It probably will only reset by the time you make it to another boss. Specing heavily into holy just for a 11 minute cooldown …. i don’t really think it’s worth it.
I would spend points on the basics first, then see whats left over, but i suspect there won’t be much points after getting the core talents …
as for Reckoning, getting your vengeance to stack fast isn’t that useful because it only helps increase threat early in the pull, but after that it doesn’t do much. But with the increase of physical damage especially with the new 5 stack effect, this might not seem a bad idea. But i will probably wait till the mathematicians calculate whether this is more TPS then spending elsewhere e.g. SOTP Holy Tree / Ret Tree for the threat dps abilities.
Whats the cooldown for Ardent Defender ?
Vindication = battle shout ? Sorry haven’t played warrior before :X what effect do you mean.
Ps: if your wondering, i cannot access wowhead cauz of filter :[ Anyway once i get home i’ll post my idea for a build.
Rhi: One ability you missed out.
Blessing of Sanctuary: This blessing now also increases stamina by 10%. This effect is not cumulative with Blessing of Kings.
This is friggin awesome. Because as the only protection Paladin. If i am the only Paladin in raid, i cannot do sanctuary and kings on myself ! it’s only one or the other. Most of the time i stick to sanc for the mana, threat and damage reduction. So nice addition for lone wolf pally tanks :D Another reason i don’t need to bring a 2nd pally !! I kid heh. We still need 2 more paladins to help cast bom and bow.
Exorcism: Now has a 1.5 second cast time, but can once again be used on players. Finally !
Hand of Reckoning: Redesigned. Now does damage only when target does not currently have the caster targeted, but damage done increased to 50% of attack power, occurring after the taunt effect is applied.
So you cannot use reckoning for a dps thing, but i don’t spam it anyway as i keep it in reserve for emergencies. So this update is pretty good imho. A higher threat on the pull is friggin awesome.
Exorcism has become a useful threat rotation tool for tankadins since 3.1, but will cease to be that in 3.2 due to the casting time. For those that don’t know, casting while getting beat on nullifies block, dodge and parry which is very bad for a tank.
We lose out on exorcism for the rotation ….. shit …. one less spell to spam to make things simpler, but it doesn’t mean better because we lose out on a threat abiliti to spam !!! Exor is a friggin good ranged threat spell but now we lost it !!!! and that blows :{ Paladins are the best ranged threat tanks, but now we got hit by this nerf :{
Righteous Fury: No longer has a duration or mana cost, remaining until canceled or death. Also canceled when a Paladin activates a different talent specialization.
I hated recasting this, and also used up mana so i always had to drink. Nice change. So the only thing we need to cast is Sanctuary and vengence which cuts down on mana we need to replenish before we pull the next batch of mobs.
Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Currently, any damage taken by the paladin while at 35% health or below is reduced. Instead, any attack that would reduce the paladin to 35% health or below has its damage reduced. In addition, once every 2 minutes an attack that would have killed the paladin will fail to kill, and instead set the paladin’s health to 10/20/30% of maximum.
I don’t get the difference between ‘damage taken is reduced’ versus the new ‘any attack to reduce us below 35% will be reduced’. Can anyone spot the difference ?
Is this 2 minute thing a passive or something you need to click ? But either case, it means your only allowed to recuperate 30% of health when your below 35 % health only once every 2 minutes, which isn’t such a bad thing. We didn’t lose anything, but we gained a nice free health pot. A tank’s health will always get below 35%
Vindication: Redesigned. Now lowers target attack power, is consistent and does not stack with Demoralizing Shout.
Reduces by how much ?? And what is demoralizing shout ?
Ok and for block.
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.
Hm….
Shield of Righteousness: Now deals 100% of shield block value as damage instead of 130%.
Reduces block damage ? *shake head
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, Lavanthor’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.
Longer duration.
To sum it up it’s a first aid just to shut us up. Bottom line i feel is, block if stacked in high quantity may be ok, but why would you sacrifice getting the usual dodge/parry combo to get block instead ?
So i don’t think there is a good mechanic yet for block for tanks to either go
option 1: dodge/parry tank
to
option 2: block tank
Unless you want to be a 2nd rate tank that will die easy to bosses :X
Anyway just read up the article in sacred duty cauz he mentioned some scenarios im not bothered to post :p
Forgot to add some other stuff. Some of this not really talents/spells for a tank to get, but stuff that we should be aware of.
Judgement of Light: Now heals for 2% of the attacker’s maximum health instead of a variable amount based on the spell power and attack power of the judging paladin.
New judgement of choice. Nice health gain, but is it worth trading judge wisdom for this instead ? Anyone think we will have good enough mana for it ? Or should we get another paladin to maintain judge light :x So if i got 38,000 HP which is of course after buffs, i will get 760 Health per judge light.
Sacred Shield: When a paladin casts Flash of Light on a target with this buff, they also now place a heal-over-time effect on the target, healing that target for 100% of the Flash of Light amount over 12 seconds.
Not really a tank thing, but something to reminds the healer pallys to use. We could probably cast this on ourself and get a priest to flash heal ?
Beacon of Light: The healing amount on the Beacon of Light target is now based on the total healing done (including over-healing) instead of the effective healing done. Radius increased to 60 yards. Multiple Paladins can now have this active on the same target. Buff indicating a player is within range of the Beacon target is no longer displayed.
So a 60 yard radius … nice. Also takes into account over heals so very nice. I am offspec heals so this may be awesome for me to do for my part time when not tanking. Also i can remind the holy pallys to use it, especially for Nax 25 patchwerk. I am thinking this may have some better applications for fights like 4 horsemen. But i could be wrong because the debuff the bosses give have a very big radius …..
Art of War: Now only applies to melee critical hits, but will make your next Flash of Light or Exorcism instant.
A possible way to get exorcism to be instant casted, assuming you spend deeply into ret tree and you crit on boss often…. I know this probably won’t be worth getting but thought i would mention it anyway. Just want to point out the 1.5 second cast for exorcism blows … and the option to make it instant cast again is out of our reach … *sigh
Resilience: No longer reduces the amount of damage done by damage-over-time spells, but instead reduces the amount of all damage done by players by the same proportion. The other effects of resilience (reducing critical chance, critical damage and mana drain effects) have not changed.
For pvp tanks heh.
@ohmygoogle – Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Currently, any damage taken by the paladin while at 35% health or below is reduced. Instead, any attack that would reduce the paladin to 35% health or below has its damage reduced.
What this means is that right now this abillity only kicks in when you are 35%, say at 16k HP – and a shot hits you for 17k – killing you and avoiding the talented reduction altogether. This change will make it so that the shot that would have killed you is instead mitigated. If that shot still manages to push you to zero – then once every 2 min you’ll just go to 30% – hopefully buying your healers that one or two extra seconds they need.
Wow … yes that is a big upgrade. Thanks for the insight :D
@Rhidach: Change the blog’s name to “Ohmymoogle´s Playground” :P
@Ohmymoogle: yup, the prot changes are very interesting, however, I will wait until the dust settles, I don’t want to get too excited about something that may or may not become true, and is more than likely to change before going live
Oh and about the exorcism change.. well, I for one, wont miss it… It’s still gonna be a decent ranged pulling skill, and with the changes to hand of reckoning (extra damage based on Attack Power AFTER the target has been taunted) its gonna be pretty much obsolete
Oh and the Vindication Change doesn´t turn it into Battle shout (Friendly target AP increase), it becomes more like a Demo Shout (target AP decreases), BUT Demo shout is an area effect skill, while vindication will only apply to our current target
since I’m not sure Hammer of the righteous will apply it too or only white dmg