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.
Use +hit food – Fish Feasts are well and good for farm content, but Agility is better for survivability, Hit is better for threat. All you really care about is the Stamina anyway.
Threat to gloves. Maybe I’m wrong – but that 2% seems to be worth it. My DPS is pushing the cap regularly – I need every trick I can get.
Swing faster. Leave the slow DPS weapons to the rogues.
If you have a hunter and a rogue – have the hunter MD the rogue as he puts Tricks on you – and then laugh for the rest of the fight.
If you have to sacrifice a ‘9’ for Avenger’s/Hammer/SS – sacrifice Judgement. Your buff/debuff is up for 20 seconds anyway, and HS is threat, mana, and mitigation rolled into one.
Leave SoCommand for the reatdin. On a single target you could, in theory, thread SoC/SoV in on your judgement part of the 9 (every other judgement swap seals) – but you’re making your life complicated at this point. Plus that’s one more point you have to find for the talent.
Use Salv and Protection proactively – especially on that warrior. Rogues and hunters have semi reliable agro dumps – retadins can self Salv and HoP (if wings are down). That fury warrior is kind of boned. HoP him and watch his threat fall. Same for kitty druids – cower is useless.
Did I mention hit food?
Run Ret aura and a shield spike – assuming you have another shield that is 1/2 way decent and you can afford the EH loss.
Holy Wrath against undead.
Let a DPS die. Happens once or twice, they’ll learn.
All great tips! One question: I read that slower weapons mean harder hitting SoV bonus damage procs. I may have misread something, but it seems like slower is better.
By the way, you forgot hit food.
There was a post on Maintankadin I think – talking about the TPS you’d get from using a DPS weapon or the QS and SoCom. I’m not sure.
What I do know is JoL and JoW returns are not mitigated by weapon speed. While there’s no threat from JoL any more – the faster I’m tapping on that mobs head, the more HP I get back. It’s not a ton when Anub is hitting you for 25k, but it’s a start.
The biggest thing is having smart DPS – or DPS/healing that knows you and your style.
For example while zerging Naxx 10, I lose agro all the time to our retadin and feral – because they don’t wait for me to get it.
On ToC Hard Mode – they wait those 2 or 3 seconds to let me get that base. If that 3 sec wait is the difference between a wipe and a kill – you’ve got bigger problems.
In response to Adgamorix’s post here about having smart DPS, I’d like to state that he loses aggro because he fails to realize we’re working against timers here. Noth must die before he teleports, and Gluth must die before he can decimate the raid. End of line. QQ more, Adgamorix. QQ more.
lol, I understand both sides, specially on Hard mode encounters where you NEED to beat a tight timer, but for god´s sake, give us a couple seconds to at least allow the freaking Avenger´s Shield to hit the boss!
That being said, i have been with DPSers more than capable to go over 8k dps, and similar TPS (I’m talking about locks specially, but not limited to rogues and hunters who do not use MD or ToT, and forgot to FD and vanish), and the only thing i can say is, you get to feel the stress of riding their threat and wondering when you will be losing aggro because of a proc, a crit string despide doing things right (See Rhidach post above), so, there IS going to be a Threat ceiling somewhere, and well the DPSers or better, the raid overall HAS to help, how? well, if they have any threat dump, they should use it, It will cost them a little dps over all, but if they pull, they will do zero DPS, and then the remaining forces will have to push harder to get the kill, so… Stay in school and don´t do drugs kids! and… If your tank says “SOULSHATTER! F F S!” please do it, Tanking requires a lot more situational awareness, precision and finesse than you spamming your castsequence shoadowbolt macros, so… let us enjoy the game and dont make us worry so much about you, ok Mr. Warloot?
First, I’d like to say yet another great article. Although my Prot pally is my alt, I’ve been finding myself hitting this site everyday for more and more info on how to tank as best as possible.
I’m sure you’ve done this before, but nowhere I can find, and between here, EJ, Maintankadin, and various other sites, I seem to only be able to piece bits of some information together. I know I for one would really love a post with all the ideal stats to shoot for when selecting gear. Between BV, Dodge to Parry ratio, Unhittable, Defense, Avoidance, Hit, Expertise, and everything else it can be overwhelming at times to determine just which piece of gear to go for. Is there a post I’ve missed, or maybe one you’ve considered for the future that may contain all this information in one singular place?
Hi Fawatam, I think you’re right that information tends to be scattered here and there. To give a quick and dirty answer on how to choose gear, prioritize like this: (1) favor defense until you’re at 541, (2) favor stamina until you have a comfortable level of health, (3) favor block/avoidance stats until you reach unhittable, then (4) favor hit until you’re capped.
Keep in mind, by favor I mean maintain the previous level you’ve reached and just add new gear to preserve the previous step and build towards the next one.
I will definitely do a much more detail post on this subject in the future. Thanks for the idea! Let me know if you have other questions.
Biggest tip: Hit the button for the next ability early and often. Spam the hell out of it, so that it goes off as close to the end of the gcd as possible. It’s not enough to just hit the abilities in order, you need to hit them in time as well.
You’re not a real tank if you don’t have carpal tunnel syndrome, and a new keyboard every 6 months.
If you look at a Patchwerk style fight, you should have well over 90% of possible ShoR and HotRs, or you’re leaving a ton of threat and dps on the table. And if you can’t maximize ability usage on Patchwerk, you can’t do it anywhere. I typically maintain around 97% ability usage, meaning that I lose approximately 0.05 seconds on average, per ability, from the ideal rotation. If you’re waiting for the GCD to be up, you’re too slow already. 90% ability usage translates to approximately 0.15second wait on every GCD.
For almost every paladin tank that’s having threat problems, the solution is in tightening up the rotation. The threat stats provided on progression-type gear at every tier are more than adequate for keeping equivalently geared dps well behind you. You don’t need to stack BV or Strength or Hit or Expertise. Worrying about threat stats is a last recourse. Your first step is to get a parse, divide the fight time (in seconds) by 6, and compare that number to the number of ShoRs and HotRs you attempted. If the two numbers aren’t very very close to each other, your rotation is your issue.
“Swing faster. Leave the slow DPS weapons to the rogues.”
This is wrong, according to Theck’s analysis: http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/forum/index.php?p=496620&rb_v=viewtopic#p496620
Theck: “Slow weapons are good for threat.”
I actually forsake threat (I still have pretty good lead on my raid’s dps) and went for 2nd survival button, Blessing of Salvation.
@Argon – If you look at his numbers, and his talent setup, he is assuming reckoning in his calculations. I’m certainly up for learning new things – but I don’t know if I want to lose the extra EH from using a tanking weapon and losing the extra damage mitigation from DG.
It’s an interesting read though for sure – I might have to try it out if I get a slow enough weapon. It’s not something I’d want to risk on the heavy hitting bosses though.
Ive lurked for a while but after applying your glyph advice I had to write in with a thank you. This will definitely keep our local hunter off my butt during our toc raids. Thanks again.
Matha
Dark Iron
Libram of Valiance – if you don’t need the extra avoidance, and a lot of times now you don’t – you can get a huge threat boost from the 200 strength libram over the 200 dodge one.
Very concise and informative article, thank you. Just one minor quibble: could you introduce abbreviations the first time you use them? I realize most of your readers are well aware of what BV stands for but it took me some searching before I came upon ‘Block Value’.
I apologize Thomas, I have a bad habit of doing that, haha. I’ll be more vigilant in the future of delineating abbreviations at the first appearance.
@ Adgamorix
No, slow weapons really are better for threat. The plot that Argon linked to includes two specs, one with Reckoning and one without. The difference is more noticeable for slower wepaons, but the basic trend of “slow weapon = higher TPS” for a given weapon DPS is there in both sets of data.
I liked your article but so many abbreviations confused me (amongst other assumed knowledge topics – prot is just an offspec I dabble in occasionally). Here is a short rundown that hopefully someone can explain.
What is a “9” attack”?
What is a “6” attack?
Why are they called 9 and 6 attacks?
What is the expertise hard and soft cap affecting glyphs?
3/3 Crusade? Since I’m not in the game what does this talent do again?
BV-ShoR cap?!
What does stacking EH refer to?
Thank you :)
9 and 6 refer to the cooldowns on the abilities.
The expertise soft cap is 26, which is when a boss will stop dodging your attacks.
The hard cap is 56, which is when a boss will stop parrying your attacks.
3/3 Crusade increases your damage done by 3%, and by 6% against Undead, Demon, Humanoid, and Elemental mobs.
BV has a formula where it stops contributing to your Shield of Righteousness (ShoR) attack. It’s around 3000, give or take.
Stacking Effective Health (EH) basically means gemming/enchanting/preferring stamina.
Hope that helps, thanks for reading! :)
I didn’t read Adgamorix’s post as QQ. I read it as saying that in the right group on the right content, it’s not a big deal. If the trash can’t one-shot your clothies and your dps can burn down the trash in a couple of casts, it’s probably more time-efficient for them to jump right in than to wait for the tank to build aggro. Time is a valuable commodity and they don’t sell it on the AH. :)
Even before I switched to prot a week ago, I was trying to practice tanking. I did Arcatraz with two other 80s and a 75+ druid. With me in ret spec and about half tank gear, I could never ever get ahead of them on threat on trash, where we all started at the same time. But it didn’t matter. Most of us could have soloed a lot of Arcatraz anyway. For bosses they would give me a few seconds to get aggro and I could keep it about 80% of the time. We only wiped once and that was because our holy priest accidentally pulled an entire room of trash.
Now I’m prot and went to VH with mostly the same people, me now in slightly better gear. They waited for me to get aggro on all mobs, because they knew it would have been stupid not to, with a noob tank on WotLK content.
@Amberlee: go here for more on 969.
http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/forum/index.php?rb_v=viewtopic&f=6&t=21933#p404160
@Rhidach: thanks for all the info. Other than keeping up Defense, I’ve gearing with a lot of emphasis on threat because so many dps so far outgear me at this point.
Thank you for the info and helpful links! I’ll keep reading up on it!
I re-jiggered my spec and my glyphs based on this article and Theck’s advice….
A 400dps boost.
Ergo – I pulled off the other tank without trying….and am much more effective. Thanks for breaking it down. (And I’m in mostly i219 gear)…
That is awesome, congrats Hertrin(a)! Keep dishing out the tps and putting the other tanks to shame.