Raiding redemption

This week has been quite the rollercoaster ride. Tuesday was probably our best raid night yet, killing up to Saurfang and then Festergut and Rotface, all in the span of about two and a half hours. And then putting some shots in on Blood Council before calling it at the usual time. We were all pumped to get the farm stuff done in one night and have the next two for some honest-to-goodness progression. Nothing could stop us now.

And then nobody showed up on Wednesday.

Actually. not entirely true. About twenty regular raiders showed up Wed, and we couldn’t scrape together enough fillers to make a full raid. So, we called it after standing around while trying to work everything out. We broke into 10mans instead and farmed badges/killed some bosses/destressed a little.

Last night I was getting worried that the poor attendance monster would rear his ugly head. On top of a few other absences, Demo couldn’t make it due to some madlibesque family entanglement–though, on the bright side, this did spawn a new guild meme of using “wife’s [familial relation]‘s [familial relation]‘s [asian nationality] [random relation]‘s [event]” as a reason for not being able to make raids. I predict great things for that joke.

So I threw together the raid and Cendra got the dkp in order and we all headed in. The raid was composed of 22 regulars and 3 fillers, and generally wasted bad looking. Not our Tuesday night prime, but you can’t win them all.

We immediately head for the Blood Wing and start going through the trash, wherein I successfully demonstrated my model of Sap Tanking (ie. tanking both the Tacticians while being stunlocked for the duration of the pull).

On the Council itself I gave a (not so) brief rundown of the fight and how it goes for the people who didn’t see it last week or Tuesday. I was tanking Valanar on the stage, Purraj the Druid had Taldaram over to the right, and Slyke the Shadow Priest would ranged tank Keleseth.

Our first pull went, as you’d expect, chaotically. Keleseth was the second Prince and he quickly dispatched poor Slyke who didn’t have enough dark nuclei. One of the raiders, who despite being a nice guy has a major tendency to insist on raid changes–loudly–in vent, suggested vociferously that Slyke couldn’t cut it and we needed a warrior tank on Keleseth. Considering that was the first try of the night, I wasn’t prepared to shift strategy, so that avenue of discussion was cut off and we buckled down to work on the strategy at hand.

The second pull went a lot more smoothly and when it came Slyke’s turn to tank and empowered Prince he did a fantastic job and easily survived his phase. Unfortunately the melee had to muddle it up by getting blown up by an empowered shock vortex.

Third try we had an Empowered Conjured Flame take out a huge chunk of range that was too close together. On that attempt though we got them to ~60%. Progress was obviously being made. I played the optimist for the crowd, told everyone they were doing fantastic (which they were), and re-emphasized positioning to minimize Conjured Flame damage.

Fourth try we had another mishap with the Empowered Shock Vortex, but still got them down to 37%. We were definitely getting there!

Fifth try everything seemed to click. Melee switched fast, hunters were on the ball (literally) getting pets onto the Kinetic Bombs. No one died to ESV, no one died to ECF, and when we were on Valanar with 5% of his health to go I suddenly realized we were about to score the kill. At about 1% the Invocation of Blood jumped to Taldaram though, and Purraj ended up finishing him off, I think.

Anyway, we got the kill and an achievement to boot!

After the Council we went to work on Putricide a bit since we were somewhat familiar with that fight (as opposed to going in blind on the Queen). Our best attempt was something like 65% out of the six attempts we did, so not awesome, but we’ll get there.

I just need people to actually show up, dammit.

There are dramaz on the internet

There has been an absolutely bile-inducing amount of crap directed at Paladin tanks in recent weeks. It’s gotten to the point where it’s nearly impossible to visit the official tanking forums, let alone the general forums, for fear of being swept away by a tide of QQ and the tantrums of the inconsolable whiners that populate that den of scum and villainy.

The topic du jour is once again tankadin hate, which was on the decline for a while after so many got it out of their system following the debut of Ardent Defender back in the days of Ulduar. At right about the time that DKs were smacked down, Paladins were propped up and for the first time in our long tanking careers we became something akin to the Second Coming. Or something like that. So I’m told.

We also got a nice fat target painted on our backs to go along with AD.

And now as part of the current flow of anti-Paladin sentiment the same old daggers are being drawn, dull as they are. Paladin tanking is so simplistic that only idiots play them. Paladin tanking is easy mode. Paladin tanking requires no skill. So on and so forth.

I mean, it’s obvious that these indictments are derived by the groupthink rage and envy at what is perceived as the top dog tank. Personally, I question how Druids get away unscathed with an even simpler rotation and far greater effective health, but I suppose that neither here not there. I don’t think there’s any merit to channeling dissatisfaction with your class into a hateful broadside against people that are, generally, on the same team. So to speak.

So then these footsoldiers of the aggrieved masses then fan out across the forums and abroad and denigrate us as degenerate facerollers. As evidence they cite how easy it is for us to aoe tank, how our rotation could be (wrongly) mapped to two buttons, and how our automatic second “cooldown” is a crime against nature. They then go roll Paladin alts (because, truly, the world needs more FotMers) and only reinforce their bigotry with the knowledge that a class–whose tanking arsenal was foundationally designed in 2.0 around reflective and area of effect damage–excels at holding more than one mob at a time.

… Holy hell, how did this get past the Sam Spades of the official forums for so long?!

And then of course one of these little pukes comes to this blog and regurgitates the same, tired claptrap that we’re subjected to day in and day out, spices it up with the mellifluousness of a subliterate mouth-breather, and then has the gall to top it off with a winking emoticon, like that somehow turns his bilious dribble into some biting riposte.

Does it bother me, to have to deal with this nonsense from anonymous troll and guildmate alike? Yeah, it does. For once we’re at the top of the heap, legitimately or not, and dammit that cannot stand. Pitchforks in hand, the wailing masses call for our heads, like we personally were the ones that decided that Paladins were due their time in the sun.

Do we need to be balanced against other tanks? Self-evidently, yes. Do we need this garbage hurled at us on a daily basis? No.

I’m sick of it. You seething wretches need to grow the hell up.

t10 buffs try hard, still don’t cross finish line

Zarhym hit the tank forums to give a sneak peak at the updated iLevel 251 tier 10 gloves and chest piece. While the effort they put into making the two pieces more attractive are appreciated, they don’t quite do the job. In terms of an all around survivability set you’ll still want the offset pieces. Let’s look at everything more indepth.

(Sidenote: I’m extrapolating what the armor on the 264 versions of the t10 gloves/chest will look like based on the updated 251 versions. Making an educated guess on my part for the purposes of a cleaner comparison between two 264 items.)

SANCTIFIED LIGHTSWORN CHESTGUARD
~3750 Armor
+162 Strength
+219 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +9 Stamina
Item Level 264
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 69 (1.75% @ L80).
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 85 (1.73% @ L80).

vs.

CATACLYSMIC CHESTGUARD
3817 Armor
+123 Strength
+207 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Blue Socket
Red Socket
Socket Bonus: +12 Stamina
Requires Level 80
Item Level 264
Equip: Increases defense rating by 108 (21.96 @ L80).
Equip: Increases your expertise rating by 82 (10 @ L80).

So, for the chest slot we’re looking at the offset have potentially 18 more stamina, around 70 more armor and exactly how much expertise you’d need to be softcapped on top of your talents. Whereas, the tier chest has itemization wasted on strength but more avoidance–though a severe defense deficit, which, coupled with the Pillars of Might, might be an issue. It seems in this case, the Cataclysmic Chestguard is a better all around piece as well as more EH.

SANCTIFIED LIGHTSWORN HANDGUARDS
~2550 Armor
+92 Strength
+169 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Stamina
Item Level 264
Equip: Increases defense rating by 80 (16.27 @ L80).
Equip: Improves hit rating by 61 (1.86% @ L80).

vs.

GAUNTLETS OF THE KRAKEN
2658 Armor
+120 Strength
+157 Stamina
Red Socket
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +9 Stamina
Item Level 264

Equip: Increases defense rating by 63.
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 48

With gloves the offset piece will net you 18 more stamina potentially, along with around 100 more armor, 28 more strength, and more avoidance. The trade off being the tier gloves have more threat benefit from the hit rating, which you might find to be a precious commodity on ICC gear.

Utimately, the offset pieces were considered before a higher priority because they had better survivability stats. While the tier pieces were improved, that old conclusion still stands. I would recommend getting the Cataclysmic Chestguard and Gauntlets of the Kraken first if you’re looking to improve your effective health, time-to-live, etc. The tier pieces though do hold merit as part of a threat, farm, or avoidance set, but unfortunately those sets tend to take a back seat until the point of comfortable survival has been achieved.

TL;DR: The tier pieces aren’t as bad as they used to be, but they’re still not better than the offsets.

Our AoE tanking to get a nerf?

Recently, Ghostcrawler had this to say in a threat about warrior complaints:

Long-term, the paladin manner of generating AE damage and threat is probably too good, especially given how simple it is. To be honest, we have very mixed feelings on the whole AE tanking game. We brought the druid and warrior more in line with the paladin for fear of recreating the Shattered Halls / Mount Hyjal experience, where other tanks just weren’t competitive. What that has led to of course is the AE tank + AE style of damage for almost every pull. You need the tools to be able to tank legitimate adds fights (imagine lots of incoming mobs), but does that mean every pull needs to devolve into that? We’d like to see less AE overall, so buffing everyone’s AE tools isn’t going to be tops on our agenda. That does however mean that we really can’t afford to have a “best AE tank”, and while things are more fair there than they were in BC, they aren’t fair enough.

I don’t think this means we’re going to get nerfed any time soon. I’ll explain why.

Here’s the problem with decrying the OPness of Paladin AoE: the sample is wrong. You can’t wait us tank the mobs before Marrowgar and assume that that’s the rule rather than the exception.

In that room I get to use Holy Wrath and benefit from additional damage multipliers from Glyph of Sense Undead and Crusade. On top of Seal of Command cleaving like nuts, of course our AoE damage is going to be ridiculous. It’s a fait accompli.

Line us up in a room full of evil monkeys or some mob type other than Undead/Demon and you’re going to see a different picture of Pally tanking.

Also, the fact can’t be ignored that Paladins were initially designed to be the best AoE tank, because generally that’s all we could do in Burning Crusade. Only in Wrath was it decided to bring other tanks up to our level, but not to concurrently re-evaluate Pally AoE prowess against the other tank classes. A classic oversight by Blizz.

My point being, Paladin AoE is only “overpowered” due to the situations we’re being observed tanking in. I posit we’d be much less effective in a dungeon crammed with non-Undead/Demon mobs. Still the best AoEer, sure, but not some godly tank that could hold a sweeping horde against all comers.

And every time Consecrate is assumed to be the end-all, be-all of our AoE arsenal I have to chuckle. This isn’t TBC, CC doesn’t stand for Constant Consecration anymore. We can’t just drop that golden puddle and make all the mobs stick to us like glue. What makes us such amazing AoE tanks are all the tools at our disposal: HotR, Seal of Command, Holy Wrath, Holy Shield, Retribution Aura, and Consecrate.

Now as to the reason behind GC’s aside regarding our tanking style, he’s probably foreshadowing a design decision that’ll come to bear in Cataclysm. They’re probably going to move away from raids at least, and maybe heroics, being complete AoE fests. Maybe with 75% AoE damage reductions across the board like Blessing of Kings suggested.

I wouldn’t worry about a nerf any time soon. Between the piddling warrior buffs (I use the term lightly) and the reluctance to fix DK survivability, GC has demonstrated time and time again they’re happy to leave tanks as is as long as that mythical “replacement” situation doesn’t occur.

AoE tanking is just another ball kicked down the road.

Nice: Armor values of t10 going up

Unexpected tank buff coming–armor value on all t10 gloves/chest pieces is being increased across the board. I wonder if this will blur the lines among what was, before, obviously “armor pieces” (the expertise of the Cataclysmic Chestguard notwithstanding) and “threat pieces”.

We recognize that many plate tanks are making their gear choices based on the amount of armor they’re provided, as this is currently the most preferred stat. In order to make the tier-10 plate tanking sets more desirable, we will be adjusting the stats on the gloves and chest pieces in order to inflate the amount of armor they provide in the next minor patch. This will apply to all item levels of the tier-10 death knight, warrior, and paladin tanking gloves and chest pieces.

Similar items crafted or purchased with Emblems of Frost will continue to be very good and will compare favorably to all but the Heroic difficulty boss loot, so you shouldn’t despair if you recently acquired any of those.

I’ll have to see the pieces first before I can pass judgement on this. Interesting change, nonetheless.

Update: To accommodate the armor increase, other stats we be reduced to free up the ipoints:

Different items will lose different defensive stats (parry, dodge, defense, etc.) to compensate for the bonus armor being added.

Highs and lows

Low point

On Saturday I was struck with the desire to bring my lvl 65 hunter (my very first WoW character, rolled the day after the game was released) out and try to finally get him going again. I bought 145 emblems worth of heirloom items, paid for normal flying, and then tried to figure out how to play a hunter again. I lost interest immediately.

High point

Rolled a new warlock instead–yes, this is on top of my other alts: the 42 druid, the 41 shaman, the 48 mage, the 80 DK–I have Alt-ADHD.

Spent the better part of yesterday leveling it with Cendra’s new rogue. Was pretty fun, and I love all the spells it has at such a low level. I’ll probably play it until 40 or so and then get bored.

Low point

Saturday I threw together a somewhat impromptu Undying run. Razuvious was the raid weekly this week, so turns out half the people invited were saved already. Finally decide we’ll just 8 man it, everyone’s pumped for a fun drunk raid, and we go to do Razuvious first. While manning one of the Understudies, my pet frame was turned off and I couldn’t drop mine in time to save Zilga’s from dying. I pick Raz back up, we’re doing good, last 10% of health. Then I lose aggro, Razuvious runs over and instagibs a poor warlock and then before we can all flee to reset, the boss dies. I screwed up Undying on the first boss.

High point

Went and did ToGC-10 instead, finished it with 48 attempts left. Got a few upgrades for the warlock, who I hope will start raiding soon. One for the win column, overall.

Low point

After that tried a late ICC-10 alt run. Never got past Marrowgar because people couldn’t switch to spikes or avoid dying in the fire.

High point

No one got saved to a fail run.

Low point

Didn’t kill Putricide last night in ICC-10 (mains run).

High point

On our best attempt we got him to 26% and there was a marked improvement every attempt that didn’t have some crazy RNG screw up early on (ie, every “real attempt”). We definitely could have killed him with a lot more time.

Also, as you might have guessed, we killed Roface on 10man for the first time. We had a third healer in the group switch to actual heals for the fight and it reduced a lot of the “one healer dead = wipe” issues we had last week. Our first try we wiped at 7%, second at 1%, third a clean kill with no deaths. Was a thing of beauty.

Low point

Went into an AV yesterday to drop a Great Feast and score my Dinner Impossible achievement. Someone asks if there’s a tank and some tool responds he can tank it. Another guy says “Rhidach has 51.1k” (no wasn’t me) and the tool retorts “I’ll out threat him and live longer.” I kept trying to type in /raid a witty riposte (“Oh ho ho, so you think …”) but I failed to realize that you use /bg to talk in the battleground raid channel. I lose my chance to salvage my ego.

High point

I haunted him the whole way to Vann where he pulled and after a few seconds I pulled aggro by out tpsing him. He taunted back, the healers didn’t have enough time to react, and he died. And I lol’d. Oh, how I lol’d.

Better Late Than Never Friday, 1/22

Better Late Than Never Friday is a random monthly feature where I pull a bunch of search terms from Google Analytics that landed folks here and try to answer questions that may not be directly answered at this site, as gleaned from their keywords used.

righteous defense taunt small ooze

The Small Ooze is taunt immune, so unfortunately that won’t work. The only way to get rid of them is to merge one into a Big Ooze.

best libram tankadin

Eternal Tower is, technically, the best for survivability (although the ramp-up time is annoying and can cause issues). It’s a marginal upgrade over Defiance, however, and not worth getting until you run out of better things to spend Emblems of Frost on. Just farm Triumph badges and get the 245 dodge libram. Contrawise, Valiance is the best threat libram right now.

how to use righteous defense

Back in my day to use Righteous Defense you had to target the person being attacked, and if you wanted to directly taunt the attacking mob you’d have to use a /targettarget macro. Thankfully, Righteous Defense was changed a while back. It’ll work the same if you use it on the mob or the mob’s target.

armour penetration for tankadins

Bad stat for us, don’t even think about it! The same reasons that make ArP bad for Ret Pallies bad for us–our threat derives primarily from Holy damage, which pierces armor as is. It’s for this reason I always cursed the tanking gloves off of Ignis that had ArP on them.

does the hp5 on purified onyxia blood talisman work in combat

Yes. But you shouldn’t use it unless you’re soloing old content, or something equally frivolous. hp5 is not a tanking stat.

festergut amp magic

Bad idea, amplify magic will make the various raid damage attacks do even more damage. The only fight amp magic is good for is Saurfang, because every attack in that fight is classified as physical damage.

20 defense vs titanium plating

Neither, go with the BC-era +18 stamina enchant if you have the defense to spare. Otherwise get the +defense enchant.

22 agility titanweave dodge

Agility if you have enough defense, Titanweave otherwise.

3.3 divine sacrifice worth it?

Absolutely! Assuming you get Divine Guardian as well, it’s like a free 20% damage reduction cooldown for us that benefits the raid as well. DS/DG is a mandatory talent for raiding.

blacksmithing vs engineering tankadin

I’m partial to engineering, myself, for the cool toys and the armor glove enchant/agility cloak enchant. However, you’d probably be better off if min/maxing just to go with the straight +60 stamina of blacksmithing.

seal of righteousness vs seal of vengeance

Seal of Vengeance is still our best single-target threat seal. Seal of Righteousness has it’s uses though, particularly on Rotface if you’re kiting the Big Ooze. You can’t melee it, and because SoR’s judgement offers the most damage in that situation, it’s the best choice.

Interrupting the Council, and some achievs fun

After Tuesday’s lagtastic night we had downed the first five bosses of ICC, leaving us Rotface and the Blood Council as Wednesday’s agenda. I admit, I was full trepidation, our Rotface kill last week was a bit messy and I was worried we’d get bogged down in that fight.

The first attempt though alleviated a lot of my worry, we got him to 17% on the first go, and that was with a snafu involving someone’s first time on the fight and them not realizing they got infected. So, messy finish, but hopeful nonetheless. Second attempt we got him down to 12%, mainly due to another ooze issue where a second Big Ooze got made and it ate a few people. Third time, however, was the charm and despite everyone going to hell at 5% we got Rotface down. Very exciting.

I don’t want to say to say the “f” word just yet (er, I mean farm), but we’re definitely getting there.

With Rotface down the time came to go put some attempts in on the Council (my thinking being we’d have more success against them than against Putricide). So happily off to the Blood Wing we trudged and lined up for a trash pull.

The trash before the Blood Council is… interesting. It requires strategy and–believe it or not–crowd control. For the two huge packs before the Blood Council’s stage we ended up shackling one guy and trying to use hunters to take one of the Tacticians out of commission. The Tacticians (basically Rogues) suck. They pop in out of no where, sap a tank, making him drop aggro, and then the mobs run roughshod over everyone. Definitely do what you can to burn down the Tacticians one at a time while the other is controlled.

Once we cleared out the trash we were ready for some potshots on the Council.

The fight itself isn’t too awful, it just requires a lot of juggling, so to speak. There’s the shock waves, the beach ball, the conjured flame, and the dark nuclei all to contend with. The fight is a huge orchestra of different clashing cacophonies, and the point of the fight is to get everyone to herd those dangers into one smooth harmony. Not as hard as it seems, but we spent the rest of the night learning everything that can go wrong (as is our usual habit) which lines us up for a kill next week.

Some things I learned:

• When Valanar is empowered and casts his shock wave you have 4.5 seconds not to run away, but you find your own spot away from other melee. When the cast time ends a shock spot appears under you and explodes for a chunk of damage. The trick is to be by yourself so you don’t get hit by other shocks.
• When someone gets chased by an empowered Conjure Flame they need to run for it (this means all ranged need to be at max range from Taldaram) and wave through everyone around them. Every time the Conjured Flame incidentally hurts people around it, it will do less damage when it explodes. So the kiter should take it through ranged, burn as many stacks as possible, and then explode it with them 15 yards away from everyone.
• The ranged tank on Keleseth has a really hard job.

Some things I read today that I wish I knew last night:

• It might make more sense for a melee tank to deal with Keleseth in the 25 man. If he gets into melee on the ranged tank (especially while empowered) that poor ranged will go splat. I think next week I’m going to try to tank him and Demo can take Valanar and Purraj (the druid) can get Taldaram. It’d be a boon for raid dps at the very least.
• If you sic a hunter’s pet on a beachball the pet will stand under it, wait for it to get low, and then hit it enough to send it up in the air. This will trivialize the beachballs.

Pretty complicated seeming fight, but once we get the hang of it, it should be cake. I’m looking forward to trying it next week.

Speaking of months behind!

Probably the more exciting thing last night was the last minute achievement burst I was inspired to do. Before raid I gathered some buddies (Cendra, Ildara, Gulliveig, Gandy) and we jumped over to Gundrak to try to do Less-Rabi. The strategy I outlined was gently get him to 51%, interrupt the next transform, then bloodlust and push to the kill while throwing interrupts like nuts at the 5 second mark.

I pulled and after the first transform he was already at 41% health. I boggled a bit but kept going. Somehow, not sure, we nailed the next interrupt which must have been a millisecond long since it took place at like 10% health. Moorabi dropped before he knew what hit him. So, Less-Rabi done and two more to go: Share the Love and Amber Void.

Since we were already in Gundrak we finished the place up to get to the last boss and then Gandy jumped on his DK to initially tank at first. Once I got impaled I took over and held him for the rest of the fight. After about three rhino phases everyone was impaled and we dropped the boss and grabbed the achiev. That was the last one Cendra and Ildara needed for Glory of the Hero so I dropped a mailbox for Cendra so he could retrieve his Red Proto, which was then the 100th mount he needed for Mountain of Mounts. Crazy achievement day for Cen!

After the raid we then headed over to Oculus so I could grab my last Glory of the Hero achievement, Amber Void. It was a quick run (as Oculus is stupid-simple now) and it wasn’t long before a Proto was also waiting in my mailbox.

Now to help Gul get his Glory achievement.

The deck was stacked against us

Last night was a bit of a clusterfark. Demo was MIA, leaving me to MT and someone to offspec OT, which normally wouldn’t be bad but earlier yesterday I had a wisdom tooth pulled and was numbed to the gills and couldn’t really talk on vent. Combine that with cataclysmic server lag on gunship and a chunk of Saurfang, the dkp addons not working and us having to log bids on paper, and associated other random nonsense and we had a pretty crazy raid night.

The gunship battle in particular was ridiculous. Once we were in the air, right before the first jump, we got struck with crippling server lag. On my screen my GCDs ground to a near half and all the people who jumped were just bouncing up and down between the two ships. I managed to make it over on a wing and a prayer and pulled Muradin with a shield toss. And… he just stayed there.

For some reason he decided he should toss knives at me, and who am I to argue? I just hung out and let him do his thing. When the time came to flee we all ran to the edge and jumped over.

Coordination would have been a tad bit easier if I could talk on vent, so I had to rely on hastily typed raid warnings to tell people when to flee. Eventually we got the Alliance ship down, but only by the skin of our teeth. If gunship wasn’t a joke we would have had a real problem.

Saurfang had a huge lag spike that saw two Blood Beasts get trapped in melee and rack up a lot more blood power than we usually had at that point. He eventually got like five marks off by the end of the fight, more than what we’re used to. Thankfully we downed him without any dying to a mark, so it generally a clean(ish) kill.

By this point it was about an hour later than it usually is when Saurfang drops thanks to dkp issues and server lag, obviously we weren’t going very far last night. Recognizing this, I still wanted to at least get Festergut down, so we headed over to his room.

That fight went pretty well overall, we had some initial issues where some tiny little thing would go wrong and put us behind the enrage timer. On one attempt a DK taunted by accident and died, and waited for a spore to accept his battle rez. We eventually wiped by 2%!

Another attempt one of the hunters had a critical error and WoW crashed for him. We wiped on that attempt by .6%.

Finally on the last attempt the stars aligned and we killed Festergut with 19 seconds to spare. Yours truly even managed to break 10k dps after the boss was pulled off of me and I dropped behind him, popped wings, and dps’d my little heart out. In the spirit of Jong I even ripped my shirt off for the dps boost.

I know pally tank dps is generally OP right now, but I’m very happy with that number nonetheless.

Tonight we’re going after Rotface and the Blood Council and then taking if from there when it comes to wing bosses.

Tankadin leveling 51-80: coming of age

Where we left off last week: just dinged level 50, rocking a 0/41/0 spec, enjoying our brand new Avenger’s Shield spell, and obtaining a new minor glyph slot. Today I’m going to show you have to jump those last thirty levels and hit level 80 specced and glyphed and ready for raiding.

Levels 51-60

51 — Redoubt (3/3) [putting last point in there]
52-54 — Touched by the Light (3/3)
55-57 — Shield of the Templar (3/3)
58-59 — Judgements of the Just (2/2)
60 — Hammer of the Righteous (1/1)

Nothing much exciting happens in this bracket, other than at 57 or 58 you can head over to Outlands. At 60 you get the Hammer of the Righteous spell which is amazing for heroics. Go ahead and drop your Consecration glyph for the HotR glyph. It’ll make dungeons that much easier!

Note that we’re skipping the Guarded by the Light talent for now, since we won’t have Divine Plea for another 10 levels.

Levels 61-70

61-65 — Deflection (5/5)
66-67 — Improved Judgements (2/2)
68-69 — Heart of the Crusader (2/3)
70 — Guarded by the Light (1/2)

We have everything we need from the Prot tree, so we can dip over to Ret and start picking out some new toys over there. Divine Plea is coming at 71 though, so the talent point you get from 70 should be spent getting ready for that.

If you’re Alliance, at level 64 you get Seal of Vengeance, which will replace Seal of Righteousness as your primary tanking seal for basically the rest of the game. If Horde, you have to wait until 66 for Seal of Corruption, our version of SoV. Crusader Aura at 64 is pretty nifty, as well.

At 70 we get a new minor glyph slot. There are really no good choices for this, you might as well dump the Glyph of Blessing of Kings in there. Alternatively, whatever Blessing you use the most.

Levels 71-80

71 — Guarded by the Light (2/2)
72 — Heart of the Crusader (3/3)
73 — Seal of Command (1/1)
74-75 — Pursuit of Justice (2/2)
76-77 — Conviction (2/5)
78-80 — Crusade (3/3)

Big milestones this bracket. At 71 your mana problems disappear forever thanks to Divine Plea (and Guarded by the Light giving it generally constant uptime). At 73 you get our old friend Seal of Command back, which will return to being your primary aoe seal (with SoV/C still better for bosses and single targets). At 75 you start moving 15% faster, which is always awesome for leveling. Moreover, at 75 we get Shield of Righteousness, out highest damage single target attack.

Now that you’ve hit 80, you should have a spec that looks like this. Well, that’s good for leveling, but now that you can run heroics and raids, it’s time to respec.

Pick up the cookie cutter 0/53/18 spec and recalibrate your glyphs to: Divine Plea, Seal of Vengeance, and Judgement. If you’re sticking to heroics, you might find Hammer of the Righteous is a better fit for that last glyph slot instead of Judgement.

I hope this guide was of benefit to you levelers out there. For more information once you hit 80, check the Guides tab above and don’t be afraid to kick me an email (rhidach at gmail dot com) if you have questions about what you’re next step is.

Happy tanking!