The maybe-so, feasible, possible new single target rotation for 4.0.1
Before you read this, please note a huge disclaimer: this is not final. This rotation has been posted in the last 30 or so pages of this thread in Maintankadin as a result of Theck’s first jaunts into theorycrafting the 4.0 rules set, but it’s not yet authoritative in that so much can change. If 4.0.1 drops Tuesday like rumored, and we have the 3 second Crusader Strike, and nothing else changes, this is valid.
Ifs aside, this rotation has been dubbed 939–as opposed to the 3X I was bandying about, thus marking the third time this blog has lost a naming crusade (Zeal, Ana’s desire to call it HoPo, and now 3X)–and is ridiculously simplistic. Here’s how it goes:
Pull with AS > CS > J > CS > HW > CS > ShoR > CS > J > CS > AS > CS > Shor > CS > J > CS > HW > CS > ShoR > CS > AS > CS > J > CS > ShoR > etc.
(Be careful not to judge when running in, second cast should be Crusade Strike, lest you throw the whole rotation off.)
Basically, CS every other ability, and in the “9s” slots weave in Judgements, ShoR as Holy Power allows, and alternate Holy Wrath and Avenger’s Shield. There is no room for Consecrate, and Grand Crusader is only a dps gain when used to replace a Holy Wrath cast. If you hit AS when the proc lights up, you will suffer a big dps loss by pushing the whole rotation back.
Edit: Like Meloree suggests in the comments, if ShoR misses you want to hit it again on your next GCD. You don’t lose any Holy Power from a dodged/parried/missed ShoR.
939 is, as currently theorycrafted, currently the maximum threat possible to put out on a single target.
As for AOE, just Hammer of the Righteous on cooldown, and spam Consecrate and Holy Wrath away from CC. Use any other attacks when available. Grand Crusader is still useful for AOE. We don’t have Inquisition until 81, so spend Holy Power on ShoRs.
Again, just to reiterate: not final. I recommend keeping some grains of salt handy, just in case.
I do not think I could have fit more equivocation into this post if I tried. And believe me, I did.
Armory Feed
There are 3 “9s” slots. One for Judgement, one for ShoR, and one for AS/HW. Your post suggests that there are 2.
Also note, that on a ShoR miss/dodge/parry, you simply spam it until it hits, then continue the rotation from there.
@Rhidach
7 October 2010 at 12:48 pm #
Ah, you’re right, I worded that out wrong. Correcting it now, thanks for the heads up.
And good point about if ShoR misses. That ability is really the dps base of our rotation, so it’s the absolute priority in all cases.
Amazing that ShoR is the DPS basis of our rotation when only a month (or so) ago, they had removed ShoR all together. Its also crazy to see the number of iterations that our class has changed throughout this beta, I don’t believe any other class has changed as frequently or as much as Palains (I could be wrong, I don’t spend nearly as much time reading about other classes).
If I were to guess, prior to them implementing Holy Power, I think the Prot changes were going to be fairly simple by reducing our AoE abilities, the Holy changes were probably going to be about providing more AoE healing abilities and less spam of Holy Light, and the biggest changes were going to be with Ret (which needed the most work) by implementing Holy Power. Somewhere someone thought that (maybe?) Holy and Prot would get mad that they weren’t going to get Holy Power as well? Or maybe they just wanted class unity (however, that doesn’t jive with druid specs each having different resources). My point is, while I’m not opposed to Holy Power on all 3 specs, it sounds like they could’ve saved themselves a lot of time and effort by going with the original intended changes. And my guess is that Prot wouldn’t be in this constant state of flux within 1 week of 4.0 dropping and would be more in line with Protection Warriors with mere number tweaks this close to the new patch.
Right now, they have somehow made our single target rotation even more boring then 969. The developers can’t like that, so I agree, more changes are coming. Lets not get used to anything yet.
@Rhidach
7 October 2010 at 1:25 pm #
Yeah they really did drop the ball on this. Julio B linked a really great post by Theck from MTadin (sorry, I keep flogging the guy) on twitter, where Theck concludes:
And he is SO RIGHT. When we had gaps, Grand Crusader made sense even if it wasn’t our hardest hitting ability, because there was room for it. It wasn’t as apparent how out of the loop the proc design was. Now where every GCD is a precious commodity, it’s glaringly obvious how unnecessary Grand Crusader is.
It’s damn shame because we went from something with so much promise: a priority system with a proc, to a monstrosity that has devolved into an even simpler version of what we were moving away from. 939 is a joke, an insult to any Paladin that Ghostcrawler deemed faceroll, because he’s only made us that much more autopilot.
Hopefully being even more boring yet more annoying than 969 cannot possibly have been the developer’s goal.
Because otherwise it’s looking likelier and likelier I will be a warrior come next expansion.
LabRat’s last blog ..Do You Like Me Y-N
@Rhidach
7 October 2010 at 1:40 pm #
I plan to go down with the ship, myself, but I agree. I’m really not happy with this new rotation. I really thought we were moving away from the faceroll design.
No matter what happens when the dust settles with our rotation, the first thing I will do when Cataclysm launches is level and gear up my Paladin in order to tank T11 content. I don’t have a lot of alts, but I have been slowly leveling a DK tank as an insurance policy… (at least in its current form, DK tanking is a whole lot of proc(y) goodness, and in general, really fun to play!)
This is about the approach I’m taking… building up a tank collection. Got the warrior about ready for early ICC and will be fine to level in Cata if I decide I just can’t take the state of paladins, and trying to level a DK to 80 as well before it hits. The bear will be my Cata alt project, because I am entirely for being a turquoise bear with an orange mane.
LabRat’s last blog ..Do You Like Me Y-N
@Rhidach
7 October 2010 at 4:06 pm #
I am also leveling a Bear tank, for 10mans in the new lockout system. I like the cut of your jib, my friend.
@Anafielle
7 October 2010 at 1:41 pm #
First of all: I AM ON A CRUSADE AGAINST HOPO, DAMNIT!
Secondly: You didn’t necessarily lose a naming crusade. I think everyone prefers 3X, but the “939″ is meant to rub in how similar (and inferior) it is to 96969 after the devs promised us that 96969 was dead. I hate the term, but I use it nonetheless for that reason. :P
Anyways, how can you lose a naming crusade if you never chimed in on the discussion on MT?
Thanks for posting this. I know theck was a bit miffed that a lot of posters in the official Wow thread were misinterpreting his data, but I think you threw in enough equivocation to suit everyone.
IF nothing changes between now and 4.0, then yes, this is valid.
And it sucks.
Couldn’t say it better myself:
“It’s damn shame because we went from something with so much promise: a priority system with a proc, to a monstrosity that has devolved into an even simpler version of what we were moving away from. 939 is a joke, an insult to any Paladin that Ghostcrawler deemed faceroll, because he’s only made us that much more autopilot.”
Sigh…….. and Cataclysm held so much promise for Paladins.
I remain faithful that this is NOT what the design intent of the rotation is. They are throwing a bandaid on the problem to get 4.0 out onto the Live servers, but this bandaid is not meant to be anywhere near what the rotation should look like.
It’s hard to remain faithful sometimes.
The heartening part (I think) is that they’ve demonstrated a willingness to listen. From here, it’s just a matter of time and rerolled Paladins before they straighten it out. Honestly though, they should have just added a freaking filler and stayed the hell away from HoPo.
I do like the snarky tone of 939. My inner bitch approves.
@Rhidach
8 October 2010 at 8:42 am #
Mine as well. I look forward to seeing Ghostcrawler use the term on day and then putting that side by side with his proclamation that 969 is dead.
@Orthien
7 October 2010 at 2:33 pm #
First off I will be calling it 3X just because it sounds better.
I personally will be a Paladin for life, I may play alts but Orth will always be my main. Saying that I am not a fan of the current rotation and where its heading. I think that it could improve a lot if the Grand Crusader proc was made to interact with HoPo by resetting the AS CD and making it ether grant an additional point or perhaps having it use any HoPo available to boost its damage. I would not mind a rotation where a GrC proc at >2 HoPo was stronger than a 3 HoPo ShoR making it vital to use the proc when it happened and then resetting the 3X rotation after. That would also have to be juggled with the SD proc as a ShoR crit would be greater than a 3 HoPo AS proc (maybe the GrCr proc could not crit?).
Orthien’s last blog ..And the Title to Back it Up
“Grand Crusader is only a dps gain when used to replace a Holy Wrath cast. If you hit AS when the proc lights up, you will suffer a big dps loss by pushing the whole rotation back.”
Makes you wonder if one of their design goals was to make prot as awkward as possible. With 4.01 imminent, I really thought they would be further along. I’m sure they’ll get it sorted at some point but for now it’s looking completely botched.
I was excited to play my protadin up until we got the 3 second CS/HotR. Feels like 96 again. Emphasis on Grand Crusader procs and less on Crusader Strike would be awesome to remedy this, I think?
On a side note, can anyone tell me if the survivability of a paladin tank will be an issue post-4.01? I’ve been hearing the damage has been much more spikey, and my guild is afraid that they may have to funnel tokens and what not to tanks to be able to keep raiding the 2 month period of the WotLK-Cata mash-up.
@thorianar
8 October 2010 at 8:43 am #
I don’t think survivability it will (and I’m saying this after checking talents and abilities, I didn’t had the chance to tank something in the beta yet), but there will be a couple of things we must take care about:
- Divine Protection (bubble wall) got nerfed from 50% dmg reduction to 20%.
- Ardent Defender is not passive anymore, so we have to cast it. We can still cast it anytime to get 20% dmg reduction. If my memory doesn’t fail, you can cast Divine Protection and AD at the same time.
- We get yet another ability to reduce damage, Guardian of the Ancient Kings. I couldn’t check the numbers yet. And yes, you can cast GoAK, DP and AD that the same time.
- In case of things going wrong, we still have Word of Glory for a quick heal without losing Holy Shield.
Julio Biason/Thorianar’s last blog ..Why I’m Giving Up My Grand Crusader
If the GC proc is only useful to overwrite Holy Wrath, I may not even bother with this talent at all by the sounds of it.
The only exception to this might be if a (glyphed) AS happens to hit quite a bit harder than a Holy Wrath on single targets, which I’m having doubts about; especially considering it’s a full two talent points that could be going into EG or GbtL.
At least we can generate HP faster for those now? =/
they gotta do something about the rotation, not to tread on geico’s trademark but its so easy a cave man could do it…making me think about going back to my warrior or druid tanking….i really don’t want to with all the time, money i have invested into the pally, especially since i just built a chopper lol….they need to focus more around grand crusader especially since avenger’s shield is the skill we get by spec’ing into protection….i was looking forward to captain american’ing people in the face a lot more with that proc…hope they fix this.
I know that this has nothing to do with the current topic, but I wanted to post this somewhere I hope it’ll be noticed and draw attention for future posts and discussion.
Ghostcrawler posted tonight, talking about Word of Glory again, and mentioned that they are going to be tweaking it some more. Here’s a quote from his response in the thread:
“We also need to make sure that the AP coefficient for the heal isn’t affected by Vengeance. ”
Looks like our 25k WoGs won’t be happening anymore. Here’s a link to the thread:
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/27026399935/word-of-glory-tps-can-t-be-intended-can-it/
@Rhidach
8 October 2010 at 8:37 am #
Well, crap.
I agree with the OP of that thread (and many other posters) – I don’t want to “tank-heal” every 3rd Holy Power. I want to use WoG in emergencies and to help the healer out (like GC said). Its going to be a little tricky, but there has to be a sweet spot where its not such a huge threat loss when not hitting ShoR so it doesn’t cause you to lose aggro, but it can’t be such a threat equal to ShoR so that ShoR becomes unnecessary. And obviously the amount of the heal cannot be trivial, I thought the AP scaling worked nicely, but maybe not.
One thing I know, we are not even close to being done with our changes. The Paladin 4.0 remodel continues…
“Protection Paladin, 3.0, a tank barely fun to play. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world’s most fun tank ever. Protection Paladin 4.0 will be that tank; better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster” (or so the developers keep telling themselves)
I am still wondering (since I dont have beta) what is wrong with threat. Just saw another post on mmo-champion: “•Righteous Fury now increases threat by 200%, up from 125%.” and it is valid for all tanks.
Is threat mechanic broken in beta or?
@Rhidach
8 October 2010 at 8:37 am #
Well, right now on live tanks do 300% more threat than dps, because they have a negative threat modifier and we have a positive one that works out on the level to 300% more threat. On Beta/PTR for the longest time, tanks were doing considerably less than 300% more threat than the dps, but their damage done was supposed to be higher, so it was supposed to work out. Our damage never really pulled its weight enough to justify our threat gap being so shrunken, so they jacked up our threat boost to make it so in Cataclysm we’re still doing 300% more threat at 80.
The question is when we hit 85 will our damage be improved enough to make that 300% number unnecessary.
I’ve been thinking about this rotation thing. If we’re stuck with HoPo, and Bliz really wants us to use Grand Crusader- why not just make Avengers Shield generate HoPo?
It would allow us to get a SoTR or Inq off immediately so we’d have HS going, then instead of screwing with CS they can just alter the proc chance of GC to make sure we’re hitting SoTR more or less at an good interval.
That’s an option, but it might generate too much Holy Power too quickly (GrC procs, hit AS then CS and get 2 Holy Power within 2 GCDs).
Other options I’ve seen is when GrC procs it refreshes AS and either automatically crits AS or take AS off the GCD.
[...] Avenging Wrath: ??? ??????? ???????????? threat boost. To rotation ???? ????????, ?? single target rotation ?? ????? ???????? ??? 969, ???? ??? [...]
Has anyone noticed that when you’re with Holy Shield and use word of glory, it resets the countdown without using the ShoR?
I know, we lost some dps, but increase the healing.
Juliano’s last blog ..Gunship Battle