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!

Festergut and Rotface suck. They are hard bosses and require each and every raider to give 110%. Each player needs to maximize the performance of their role and minimize anything that hurts the overall team effort (especially avoidable damage!).

Here are some dopey little tricks you can use to bring your A game to each fight:

1. Use a slow dps weapon for Festergut

Considering how tight the enrage timer can get, dps from every member of your group matters, and as Paladins we have the luxury and privilege of contributing more than our fair share of tank dps to the pile.

While Festergut may hit hard, he only does during a small window of the fight. Assuming you have the defense to spare, don’t be afraid to use a slow dps weapon (the slower the better) to maximize your damage. The slower your weapon is, the more damage each 5-stack proc from Seal of Vengeance/Corruption will do.

2. When not tanking Festergut, stand behind him

You should be soft-capped for expertise anyway, so to maximize your damage done on this fight, stand behind the boss to avoid causing parries for yourself and the person currently tanking.

3. Make the best use of your Gastric Bloat buff

Let’s combine points one and two. When you hit 9 stacks of Gastric Bloat and get the boss pulled off you, jump behind the boss, cancel Righteous Fury, self-cast Hand of Salvation, pop wings, and go to town.

Doing that in the ten man last night, after my tank switch I ended up pushing little more than 8000 dps. You can see it after that second huge dip in my dps, I slid behind the boss and immediately exploded in damage.

4. Make sure to Judge when kiting the Big Ooze

Judging is an important part of keeping threat on the Big Ooze while kiting. If you’re just shield tossing every 30 seconds you’re going to find the healer aggro riding hard on your heels. So, you definitely need to judge when possible.

The easiest way to manage Judging without getting murdered by being too close to the Ooze is to run ahead of it (as you would normally) until you’re just out of range and the Judgement icon is red on your bar. The millisecond it gets color back, click it/hit the hotkey, unleash your Judge, and then keep moving.

You can also use the range on Judgement to safely gauge your distance from the Big Ooze.

5. Use Seal of Righteousness for Big Ooze kiting

Seal of Righteousness will give you the most threat bang for your buck. Since you won’t be able to get close enough to build a 5 stack, Seal of Vengeance/Corruption is useless. Moreover, Seal of Command is only really good for aoe situations.

Thus, the burden falls on the neglected Seal of Righteousness. Each time you judge with SoR you’ll do more threat than you would judging any other seal.

I got an email from one of my WoW-playing friends recently who’s leveling his brother’s paladin in his spare time. He wanted to level by sticking to the dungeon finder tool and initially asked if it made sense to go prot and just farm LFD. I kind of scoffed at the idea and told him just go ret/holy (since he’s a healer usually, it’d be more comfortable for him). Anyway, he emailed me again earlier this week:

so i bucked your suggestion and went prot, because the dungeon queues are literally instant, which i like for my xp/hour
i was thinking – you should write a “how to” for baby prots. like what talents to fill out first, what heirlooms to get, what stats to prefer, pre-divine plea mana strats

And so I shall!

First, a disclaimer: I leveled my tankadin (yes, as prot) during the early days of TBC. Back then we auto-attacked until level 40 and we liked it! … Uphill, both ways. And there was none of this “mounts at 20″ nonsense, we ran ourselves from end of Desolace to the other… and we liked it!

Sidenote: I originally recommended going straight prot all the way, but after discussing it with my colleague Honors on Twitter, I was persuaded to his point of view that it makes more sense to hang out in the Ret tree initially. The reasons why are below in the relevant sections.

Pre-game

There are no tanking heirlooms per se, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use some dps heirlooms to speed up leveling and make you nigh-unkillable in the first chunk of the game. I would recommend grabbing:

Venerable Dal’Rends Sacred Charge (enchanted with Crusade) — 40 EoH
Polished Breastplate of Valor (enchanted with Major Health) — 40 EoH
Polished Spaulders of Valor — 40 Emblems of Heroism
Swift Hand of Justice — 50 Emblems of Heroism

If you want to go the extra mile, and already have it, grab Discerning Eye of the Beast as well. But, don’t go out of your way for it. It’s not critical, just the bonus mana is nice and that would normally be an empty trink slot.

With those items you’ll be ready to level in style. For the other slots though, when you get items from the AH or for quests, always take the highest armor class item with stamina and strength. Those are your two biggest stats (the “of the Bear” item class) and should be the two you focus on gear-wise. Avoid any intellect, mp5, spirit gear. Even though are attacks are technically spells, mana shouldn’t be a big concern for you. And spellpower is garbage, avoid that at all costs.

Levels 1-10

Before you do anything, hie thee to a mailbox and grab all your heirloom items (assuming you sprung for them).

Now, unfortunately, there are no talents at this point in your character’s life. You start off with Devotion Aura, Seal of Righteousness, and Holy Light. Just burn through all the quests and when you hit level 10 you should have your first tanking seal (Righteousness), a judgement spell (Judgement of Light), your first cooldown (Divine Protection), and your extra life (Lay on Hands).

Levels 11-20

10-14 — Benediction (5/5)
15-16 — Improved Judgements (2/2)
17-19 — Heart of the Crusader (3/3)
20 — Seal of Command

At level 14 you get Righteous Defense, your aoe taunt (pulls up to three mobs off a friendly target). At 16 you get Hand of Reckoning, a single-target taunt that does damage (don’t be afraid to use this as an attack when pulling). And, most importantly, at 16 you get Righteous Fury, which you’ll need to hold aggro. Once you get this spell you’re ready to hit the LFD tool with a… er… righteous fury. Lastly, you get Consecrate at level 20, which is key for holding large groups of mobs.

At level 15 you get your first two glyph slots, and for those I’d recommend grabbing Glyph of Judgement and Glyph of Lay on Hands for each.

If you’re tanking dungeons at this point you’ll have to learn how to cope with a limited toolset. Manage pulls by grabbing one add with Hand of Reckoning, judging a second, and then dropping Consecrate. Hopefully the dps you run with will be intelligent enough to know to attack what mob you are attacking. If you lose aggro be sure to quickly pick it back up with either taunt. Be sure to keep Righteous Fury on at all times!

Bless yourself with Might until level 20 when you get Kings, then switch to that.

If you find mana hard to manage, and you’re dealing with lots of downtime, don’t be afraid to judge wisdom. And don’t consecrate for only one mob, because the spell sucks up a huge chunk of mana when you cast it. Consecrate sparingly. However, once you hit 20 and grab Seal of Command, couple that by changing your major glyph to Glyph of Seal of Command. Now every time you judge you’ll gain back 8% of your mana!

Levels 21-29

21-25 — Divine Strength (5/5)
26-27 — Pursuit of Justice (2/2)
28-29 — Conviction (2/5)

At this point we’re just bouncing between the Ret and Prot tree, biding our time until level 30. Enjoy Pursuit of Justice now while you can, you won’t be seeing it again until past 60.

Legel 30: Respec!

Now that we’ve hit level 30, it’s time to hop over to a capital city and ditch our current build so we can reboot as full prot. When you respec, grab these:

10-14 — Divine Strength (5/5)
15-19 — Anticipation (5/5)
20-22 — Improved Righteous Fury (3/3)
23-27 — Toughness (5/5)
28-29 — Improved Devotion Aura (2/3)
30 — Blessing of Sanctuary

Now, the huge, huge new spell at 30 is Blessing of Sanctuary. This becomes your primary tanking blessing for the rest of the game. All the good parts of Kings (stam and strength) coupled with mana return on every block, dodge, or parry and damage reduction to boot. You can’t beat it. This spell will generally negate a lot of your mana concerns and adequately replace Seal of Command.

Another major glyph slot opens at 30, and you can put the Glyph of Consecration in there. That’ll give you a little more return for the massive amounts of mana it costs you to drop a consecrate. Change your first major glyph back to Judgement now that Seal of Command isn’t part of your toolbox anymore.

Levels 31-40

31-33 — Reckoning (3/5)
34 — Devotion Aura (3/3) [this is putting the last point in there]
35-37 — One-Handed Weapon Specialization (3/3)
38-39 — Sacred Duty (2/2)
40 — Holy Shield

Just a note on the 3/5 Reckoning: generally, 3 points in Reckoning will be enough to ensure optimal uptime in aoe tanking situations. The last two points have diminishing returns, we can better use them elsewhere.

At 34 you can get Divine Shield and thus the ability to bubble hearth. Use it well.

And at 40 you get Holy Shield, which is awesome for tanking dungeons. That extra 30% block means more mana from Blessing of Sanctuary, less damage taken, and more threat when Holy Shield does damage to a mob. You’ll find aoe tanking becomes a walk in the park at this point.

Levels 41-50

41-43 — Ardent Defender (3/3)
44 — Spiritual Attunement (1/2)
45-47 — Combat Expertise (3/3)
48-49 — Redoubt (2/3)
50 — Avenger’s Shield

Two awesome talents at this point. Avenger’s Shield is when pulling gets really easy. No longer do you pull one mob then run in to intercept the rest, now you can hit three mobs at once and build a huge pile of initial threat. And with Spiritual Attunement, you’ll find mana is nearly infinite in dungeons.

You also get a minor glyph slot at 50, which you should put Glyph of Sense Undead into. At this level you’ll probably be spending a lot of time in the Plaguelands and the undead-filled dungeons there in. Coupled with your new Holy Wrath spell, you’ll find aoe tanking undead mobs is where tankadins truly shine.

Contine to Part 2: Levels 51-80. >>

I’ve seen a deluge of folks on the WoW forums complaining about how hard Heroic Halls of Reflection is, how it needs to be nerfed, how it killed their father, etc. My buddy Palehoof apparently had three different tanks quit on him in one H HoR run yesterday. Eep. Personally–and I don’t mean this in a elitist jerkish sort of way–I didn’t find the place that difficult at all.

Honestly, the first gauntlet portion (which I suppose is the part most are having trouble with) is very easy to tank!

Park your party in Falric’s alcove (see image) around the corner in that tight spot. Mobs will instinctively aggro onto your healer and, because they can’t see her, run into the alcove. Then, just pick them up one by one. Keep consecrates down to nab everyone as they flood in. For those pesky casters use Avenger’s Shield to silence and force them to get closer.

The escape portion of the dungeon isn’t much more difficult, just use Holy Wrath liberally and consecrate once you’re got large packs settled in one spot. HotR like your life depends on it.

Anyone here having trouble with this place?

While as easy as it may be to leech for the saps that bring Fish Feasts to the raid (just kidding–valuable raid service!), FF is the not the best option for any post-wipe munchies. Straight attack power and spell power are two of our weakest threat stats, and if you’re aiming to boost your tps, that’s not the way to go. Not to mention that stamina is not a factor thanks to all foods having the same amount. As such, you’re really eating buff food for that secondary stat, but which stat to go for?

First, let’s take a look at what you can use to sate that gnawing pre-attempt hunger:

Dragonfin Filet: Provides 40 strength, which works out to 20 Block Value (26 with Redoubt) and 80 attack power/28 white damage dps, along with 24 spell power.

Blackened Dragonfin: The 40 agility from this food imparts .67% dodge (before diminishing returns), .67% crit chance, and 80 armor. Great triple dip stat food.

Worg Tartare (or Snapper Extreme): Gives 1.22% chance to hit. Excellent choice for closing the gap on the melee hit cap.

Rhinolicious Wyrmsteak: The 40 expertise rating from this food translates to 4.9 expertise skill, or .82% reduced chance to have your attacks dodged or parried.

So, what is the best for threat?

Dragonfin Filet because strength triple dips as a threat stat. It gives you an increase to your dps directly, then more BV (increasing your Shield of Righteousness damage), and finally adds some spell power for icing on the cake. In fact, according to an analysis that Theck ran, Dragonfin Filet is worth 126 tps. That’s 30 tps more than its nearest competitor (Fish Feast).

And, what is the best for survivability?

Blackened Dragonfin for sure. You get avoidance and mitigation, all in one package. It’s the only real choice.

Group makeup

• For the first four bosses you need two tanks, three healers, and five dps. More on this later, but for Anub having two healers and six dps makes the fight a lot easier.
• Blood lust is not required, but it makes encounters a lot smoother. Fights have major dps components to them and if you can’t generate the raid dps needed to surpass them, you won’t be able to kill the bosses.
• You only have ten folks, so try to spread out the classes to maximize buffs and utility.
• A Mortal Strike effect (Aimed Shot, Wound Poison, Mortal Strike, etc.) is necessary for Anub.
• Get a reliable purger/dispeller for Jaraxxus.

Here are the logs from the raid we did last night. I forgot to start recording until after Beasts, so unfortunately you can’t see what we did for that fight, but generally we did about 28k raid dps.

Do you have enough hp? I was at 50k hp buffed last night, and wasn’t particularly worried during any tight spots. I think I had more than enough health to cover every fight. Keep this number in mind when considering certain things, such as how many stacks to hold Gormok for, one-tanking Jaraxxus, etc.

Lastly, please note I’m writing this with the assumption you know the strategies and tactics of the normal-mode version of this dungeon.

Beasts of Northrend

Phase 1: Gormok

Gormok comes out of the gate and I pick him up first. I hold him to 4 stacks of the debuff, then call for a taunt and Divine Shield+Divine Sacrifice. This drops my stack and gives Demogar (the other tank) a faux Pain Suppression to ease his damage intake. By the time we do the first tank switch, Gormok is under 50% health. From this point on, we switch at 3 stacks.

Healers call out in vent if they have snobolds on them, and ranged pick them off.

At 10% health, dps switches too and kills any snobolds that are up, and then burn down the boss. When Gormok dies I cast Hand of Protection on Demogar to drop his stacks.

Phase 2: Not one, but two Jormungar

This is the phase where you can easily gain or lose a huge chunk of time on the Icehowl’s entrance depending on how you handle the worms. Dreadscale will come out of the gate first, and Demogar picks him up and tanks him along the wall by the gate. I grab Acidmaw, who is rooted, and tank him with my back to the wall. Melee and all dps burn down Acidmaw first.

Acidmaw will do a paralyzing poison spray on all the melee, though Demo is very close by with Dreadscale so we can just run 10-20 yards over to remove out debuffs. We all keep the wall to our backs so the Sweep that the rooted worm does doesn’t knock us far away from Demo.

Eventually both worms will submerge. Acidmaw will pop up above ground near the entrance to the Coliseum, while Dreadscale will pop up rooted near the middle of the room. I Hand of Reckoning Dreadscale to grab his attention and run through the rotation a little to build a decent threat lead. Then I run over with the melee and other dps and help them burn down Acidmaw. We use Bloodlust to kill Acidmaw before he can burrow again.

When Acidmaw dies, Dreadscale soft enrages. While this sounds deadly, it’s really not. I run back over with everyone and put some dps into Dreadscale before he submerges. He’ll pop up again above ground, and Demogar grabs him. We all finish him off, taking care not to cross in front of his hit box. Dreadscale does a very painful cone attack that will kill any non-tank standing in front of him. Once Dreadscale drops, Demo runs over to the gate to pick up Icehowl.

Phase 3: Icehowl

Please note: There is NO RUN SPEED BONUS after a Massive Crash. Reiterate this fact a thousand times to your raiders if need be, because one dope not getting out of the way fast enough will probably spell a wipe. Said dope will get one shot, and then Icehowl will enrage and probably kill a tank–maybe more.

Otherwise this phase is very easy. Healers need to spread out equally around Icehowl so all three don’t get frozen at a time. Tanks should try to be on opposite sides of Icehowl as well.

If you’re off tanking like I usually do for this part of the fight, be sure to make use of abilities with Divine Sacrifice and Hand of Sacrifice to ease out any rough patches (like two healers frozen).

Just avoid the crashes and assuming you didn’t spend too much time on worms you should have no issue beating the enrage.

Jaraxxus

Pain points

• He’ll cast Legion Flames on a random person, who will then drop fires under where they stand for a few seconds. If a melee gets this they need to immediately run away from the boss so they don’t kill the other melee dps.
• Portals and Volcanoes need to be dpsed to close them. If you get more than one Mistress of Pain or more than three Infernals your dps is slacking and you will probably be overrun.
• When Jaraxxus gets a 5 stack of his Nether Power he will eventually zap and likely one-shot a random person if that buff if not purged/dispelled/stolen. It’s a huge dps boost for Mages though, if you have one to steal it.
• Non-tanks will not last long standing next to a rooted, hell-firing Infernal. They need to be fast on their feet in moving if they have one roll right next to them. Likewise, you need to be prepared to high tail it if an Infernal rolls into melee.

One tank! Demo switches to arms spec and I tank Jaraxxus and adds that come up. The only difficult part is picking up all the Infernals, though the easiest way to manage it is Hand of Reck the first one, shield toss the second, then Hand of Reck the third. The extra dps Demo brings is very helpful for getting portals and volcanoes down.

This fight is all about staying on your toes. When portals or volcanoes appear, dps needs to be ready to immediately get over there and burst them down, asap. The raid also needs to be ready to move away if they are standing in, or dropping, something dangerous.

This fight is easily one-shottable as long as everyone is paying attention.

Faction Champs

The healers are easily controllable (park rogues or prot warriors on them), so burn down the dps as soon as possible.

In terms of kill priority, based on deadliness (especially to clothies), I would recommend the following:

1. Baelnor Lightbearer (Ret Pally)
2. Shocuul (Warrior)
3. Shaabad (Enh. Shaman)
4. Tyrius Duskblade (DK)
5. Irieth Shadowstep (Rogue)
6. Alyssia Moonstalker (Hunter)
7. Serissa Grimdabbler (Warlock)
8. Noozle Whizzlestick (Mage)
9. Kavina Grovesong (Boomkin)
10. Brienna Nightfell (Spriest)
11. Anthar Forgemender (Holy Priest)
12. Shaamul (Resto Shaman)
13. Melador Valestrider (Resto Druid)
14. Velanaa (Holy Pally)

Stay tank! You can’t taunt the champions, but that doesn’t invalidate going tank spec. You have several tools at your disposal that can be invaluable, such as Avenger’s Shield, 40 second HoJ, Hand of Sacrifice, Divine Sacrifice, etc. Be careful not to use Divine Shield+Divine Sacrifice until all the priests and warriors or dead, or else your bubble will likely get shattered/dispelled and you’ll take damage from the DivSac.

Also, cleansing is very important in this fight. Take some of the burden off the healers so they don’t have to expend GCDs on that.

Use Seal of Justice for some free, occasional stuns. HotR is awesome for this, as it will spread the seal to two other people in a nice cleave.

Also, don’t let the shaman totems stay up. The Windfury can be deadly if the melee champs are still running around, and a Healing Stream Totem makes it nearly impossible to kill anything.

Twin’Valkyrs

Positioning is everything! Tank the Twins in between the back Light/Dark wells in by the gate (where the red X is). Keep them right next to each other so splash damage from one group’s target hits the other.

During a Vortex, obviously, people need to switch to the proper color, or they will die. During a Twin’s Pact do not have your dps change essences, just have them switch target. The time saved not running to a well will more than make up for the damage loss of not switching colors.

Flying orbs can kill people, so your dps and healers need to pay attention to their surroundings. Encourage folks to grab any nearby orbs that will eventually give them the Empowered Light/Dark buff.

This fight is all about awareness of raid damage and dpsing the correct target.

Anub’arak

The big enchilada, Anub will provide the biggest challenge to you in here, and rightfully so. It took us three nights of solid attempts before we hammered out a winning strategy. Here’s what we discovered works for us:

First and foremost, use two healers and six dps for this fight. It makes a world of difference. The fight is infinitely easier when restricted to only one burrow phase, which having six dps will allow.

When the fight starts, Demo pulls Anub to the blue circle with the “!!”. A permafrost is brought down there, and when the first pair of Burrowers emerges (I’ve written about tanking these, and especially how to deal with Shadow Strikes, in this post) I grab them–Reck one, shield toss the other–and drag them to that spot. An add is marked, dps burns it down, then the other one. Demo then moves Anub off the ice and towards the back middle of the room (red arrow).

The second set of Burrowers eventually appears; I grab both and take them to the “!!” ice patch. I hold them and dps does not assist, they focus on Anub.

When Anub burrows we typically have him at 50% or so, but your mileage may vary. Everyone except me runs south as soon as Anub burrows, in case he targets one of them. I find that as long a I hold aggro on a Burrower, I am not targeted for spikes.

Whoever is targeted follows the path of the green arrow and kites the spikes to that ice patch, breaking it. Everyone aside from me should be in the bottom half of the room at this point. A new person is targeted and then run north as the yellow arrow indicates.

After that point Anub will be close to reemerging. The third-targeted person runs kites the spikes to the southwest permafrost patch.

Keep in mind that whoever is being chased SHOULD NOT use any aggro dropping moves (Vanish, Divine Shield, Iceblock, Fade, etc.) as that will make the spikes change targets and shoot across the room to kill someone.

Hand of Protection is great, however, for buying someone some extra time to get to a permafrost. They won’t take any spike damage while BoP’d, and they’ll hold aggro to boot.

When Anub emerges, so two will two Burrowers. Same deal as before, pick up both and drag them to a permafrost patch that will be dropped near Anub. DPS burns down the marked add, then the other, and switches back to Anub. At this point the dps goes hog-wild to get Anub to 30% health and start phase 3.

At this point you need to decide (based on the speed of your dps) if you’re going to kill the next set of adds that come up. Unless you are supertank, you can’t hold four Burrowers at once (especially with two healers) so preventing a second group of Burrowers is key. If you’re lucky, they will emerge just as Anub hits 30%, giving you enough time to kill him before the next set appears. If you’re not confident that you can kill Anub before you have four adds, burn down the two you have then push Anub over to p3.

When in phase 3, tank adds off of a permafrost and allow them to submerge. Also, it gets hectic, so pay extra-close attention to Shadow Strikes!

Bloodlust if you have it, make sure an MS effect is up, and go crazy. This part of the fight goes incredibly fast (especially once you hit execute range) so just try not to get caught unawares by anything nasty.

Once Anub goes down, be sure to thank your healers, who are probably stressed out of their minds at this point.

Ultimately, the five fights of H ToC are great tests of awareness, coordination, skill, and gear. As long as you have a well-rounded, intelligent group of folks you should have no problem. I hope this guide helped a little, and please let me know if you have anything to add or correct in the comments.

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.

Now, my guild hasn’t downed Anub10 heroic yet, unfortunately, but if all the blood, wipes, and tears have imparted anything to me, it’s how to tank the Burrowers like an effin’ pro.

The little (ok, not so little) buggers have a pretty set pattern. Twice per above-ground phase they come up in pairs and b-line for the raid member with the highest global aggro. As the OT in this fight your job is manifold: one, to pick up the Burrowers, two is to position them on ice where dps can kill them, and three is to not die to their various tricks.

Now on top of that delicious sundae of pain may I offer this cherry: you can handle interrupts on both of them as well. No seriously, you can.

Let me back up. On the first point you need to grab the attention of the Burrowers before they dig a hole in the face of some unlucky Resto Druid. To do this make use of our two best ranged attacks–Hand of Reckoning one and Avenger’s Shield the other. This’ll drop enough threat on both that they’ll follow you back to the ice patch that Anub should be tanked by.

Once you have both adds wailing away at you you want to get them dead center on the ice (well, maybe no dead center, but their hitbox needs to be sitting completely on top of the permafrost). Then open up on both until dead.

At this point your guild’s strategy may differ. The way mine does it is I hand of freedom myself and run off to pick up the next two adds and bring them back to the same permafrost patch while the MT and dps wrangle Anub towards the back of the room and off the ice. Now that I have the Burrowers all to my self, the responsibility for dealing with the Shadowy Strikes falls on my spiky, crimson shoulders.

How does one person not only watch but interrupt two Burrowers? Simple! First, glyph Holy Wrath to have a 15 second cooldown. Use that when they start to cast and you’ll easily interrupt them both. How can you tell when either is casting if you’re not currently targeting it? Also simple! Face them away from the raid, and if a Burrower is looking to gank one of your raiders, he’ll turn and look at them. Also they’ll start glowing all shadowy, but either way, it’s a huge warning sign.

I’ve yet to see them attempt a Shadow Strike more than once every 15 seconds, I always had my Holy Wrath up when needed (although Arcane Torrent made a fine off-GCD back up, and yes it does interrupt). Moreover, I’ve never seen a Burrower cast Shadow Strike when Anub was underground.

As for the third responsibility above (that is, staying alive) you have a powerful tool at your disposal: Block. The way the mechanics of the Burrower’s fearsome Expose Weakness attack is currently programmed, they’re debuff’s additional damage is applied to the unblocked remnant. Thus, if you’re block capped and shave say 3000 off of a 4000hp hit, the remaining 1000 damage is multiplied by 225% assuming you have a full nine-stack and you “only” take 2250 damage. This is definitely a fight you want to stack block value in!

Now, if only the rest of the fight was this easy.

This is a rehash of a spectacularly crappy (but very popular) flowchart I did back when Solid Sky Sapphires were the gem di tutti gems. Now +30 stamina may be the order of the day, but our priorities are basically the same: cram as much stamina in your gear as humanly possible. This gem will show you have to do that intelligently, while taking little stam hits for worthwhile avoidance trades.

Like I indicated last time around, there are two caveats:

• This is hyper-simplified and assumes that you’re not heavily depending on gems or socket bonuses (despite the jokey line) for being uncrit.
• I couldn’t find a good way to express this, but if you have two gems slots (or, hell, three) and one of them isn’t blue, unless the socket is +12 stamina, put Solids in both/all.