Wow, I haven’t done one of these in a long, long time. To be honest, this is just filler to cap off the week. On Monday I’ll have what I hope will be a very informative post on tanking strategies for heroic ToC 10, so that will be something of substance to look forward to. As always, I’d appreciate any additions or corrections to any answers I give in the comments!

breastplate of the white knight gems

Let me list them in order: Solid Majestic Zircon, Solid Majestic Zircon, and Solid Majestic Zircon. Ignore the bonus, you’ll lose too much stamina trying to get it.

vindication, paladin, worth it?

Absolutely! Vindication is hands-down a mitigation talent and a must-have for any serious paladin tank. I’m a big fan of self-reliance, and I don’t trust any raider to keep up a debuff I can do myself.

does vindication work on raid bosses post 3.2.2

Yes.

mark of the relentless or the leviathan’s coil

I would choose the Coil for when you’re dealing with more physical damage (the armor) and the Mark when dealing with more magic heavy fights (more stamina).

shadow strike timer burrower

Every 30 seconds the adds will both pick the farthest player from them and target them for a shadow strike. Interrupt all the burrowers to prevent a one-shot of the target.

0/58/18 paladin spec

When I first saw this query my thought was, “how the hell did this person add up 76 talent points?” Then I realized that they were talking about Cataclysm when we’ll all be level 85. If I had those five extra points now, I would probably put them in Seals of the Pure for a nice threat boost. I think that’d work out to more tps than 3/3 Sanctity of Battle and another 2 points in Conviction. I can’t see anything mitigation-wise that would be a better fit for them.

2% magic reduction meta

Very, very situational. I can count on one hand how many fights that might help in, if at all. Not worth it except as a very narrow gimmick.

245 tank libram of valiance up time

According to the log I did the other day to test Quel’Serrar, 98.3%.

3.2.2 pally tanking with spell power weapon

No, no, a thousand times no. You’d get more threat out of a dps one-hander with a high dps number than a spellpower weapon. Spellpower is dead, get with the times.

anub’arak solo tank adds interrupts

I do this for 10-H and 25-N. It’s totally doable. Having a lot of block value helps significantly.

best prot pally weapon enchant 3.2.2

I’m partial to Blood Draining for the survivability aspect. If you’re hurting for threat, I would recommend Accuracy.

can a paladin interrupt hammer of justice coliseum twin

Yes, assuming the shield is down. Holy Wrath is a better choice for this, though. (Damage and interrupt in one!)

do prot paladins need alot of hit rating 3.2

I am a vocal proponent of hit rating. I strive to always run as melee hit capped (though I don’t gem or enchant for it). There is nothing better than hit to ensure a steady, consistent stream of amazing tps.

fresh 80 tankadin what libram should i get?

Libram of the Sacred Shield! You can easily nab it after 4-5 heroics.

On Saturday night I ran my ToC10 raid. I took the main tank role while one of our Ret pallies donned his prot gear to handle OTing. This is of course the same gentleman that did the “I don’t think, I just do what I’m told” remark last week, so I wasn’t expecting much. It is only ToC10, after all.

And then when he logged on he announced in O chat that he was drunk, which prompted me to joke that he should stay sober enough to do his job. He replied by saying that it didn’t matter, tanking consisted of sitting there and hitting “my hammer” and then “my shield.” Oy. So he was going to have to take the MT role.

Anyways, we’re on Gormok–first fight–and I get my three stacks and I call for a taunt.

“Woops, guess he didn’t like that,” I’m informed. Gormok keeps wailing on me. Oh goody, taunt fail.

1.5 seconds later: “Nope, not that one either.” Stack number four applies.

A few more seconds pass, Hand of Reck comes off cooldown, and finally Gormok turns to face the other tank.

This continues the next time he needs to pull off me. “Do you have any hit rating?” I ask. He wonders aloud when that became a tanking stat. /headdesk

The next time I need him to pull Gormok off me, I just bubbled to remove my stacks, dropped aggro to him, and immediately salv’d so Gormok would stay with him after my bubble fell off.

The point I’m getting at is this: hit matters. It’s not just some ancillary threat stat, it also has really impacts on raid performance. Taunt misses can be the end of an attempt, easily resulting in a healer death if an add is running amok, or a dead tank if a boss switch doesn’t occur in time. Moreover, considering the threat nerf we’re taking next patch, we’re going to have to be a little smarter about how we’re generating hate. With attacks causing less aggro, it’s going to be critical those attacks land more consistently.

Now before I continue, a big caveat: don’t gem for hit, just swap in enough gear to maintain a healthy 6%. And augment that with the Glyph of Righteous Defense. Being hit capped (263 rating, 8%) is nice, but don’t sacrifice survivability for it. 6% is a happy medium and easy to achieve.

With the glut of expertise on gear in the Coliseum, it’s going to be harder and harder to reach that comfortable level of hit. You’re going to want to swap around pieces to compensate.

Running with zero hit rating is not a good idea.

A major concern that is wracking the tanking world right now is the utter dearth of hit rating on 25man raid gear. Prior to the few upgrades I yanked out of the Coliseum this week I was sitting at full hit cap, 263. Now, thanks to said upgrades and swapping in the SoV glyph I find myself already soft capped for expertise (great) but now only at 175 hit (boo).

This problem is only going to get worse as I continue to get gear from Col25. If I were to deck myself completely out in those items, I’d be sitting at 214 expertise. That’s 26 skill, the soft cap.

Once the soft cap of expertise is reached, additional points of expertise come with a tps benefit reduced by half.

As such, I’m contemplating how much longer I’m going to delay before I ditch the SoV glyph… er, again. And, likewise, what I’m going to replace it with.

Because of the loss of hit that will be going hand in hand with this rise in expertise, the Glyph of Righteous Defense is a natural choice. What concerns me most about losing hit isn’t so much the tps loss, but the threat to the healers’ well-being if a taunt misses (which it’ll have a much higher chance to do).

I could swap in the Judgement glyph, but Judgement is such a miniscule part of my tps that the glyph wouldn’t have enough of an effect to be worthwhile. I’m definitely open to suggestions for replacements.

On a house keeping note, I’m going to be on vacation next week. I’m trying to decide how to handle my absence, which I’ll probably either fill by making 5 posts this weekend and spacing them out with “Publish on x day” settings, or maybe with teeny tiny awkward posts on my iPod’s wordpress app (whenever I can find wifi in northern New Hampshire). I’m personally hoping I choose the former and then the patch comes out next week, while my (transparently) pre-written posts are about “How bad expertise sucks” or “If only we had a second cooldown.”

Although I could probably do a mad-libs raid recap… hrm… the possibilities.

does it matter if i don’t get my socket bonuses

Not particularly, assuming that bonus isn’t stamina. Avoidance is nice, but stamina is better. And block rating or hit/expertise aren’t worth gemming to achieve. Refer to my flowchart here for when to go for socket bonuses.

enchant weapon – blood draining does it increase with spell power?

I looked at a WWS from a recent raid to compare the heals that both I and Demogar (warrior tank) received from Blood Reserve, which is the heal the enchant gives. As you can imagine, I’m rocking about 860 spellpower (from stamina, I swear!) and Demo has a pitiful 0. Srsly, what a nub. Anyway, while just skimming through the WWS and writing down some numbers, for a one stack heal I got back around 391-466 hp, he got 405-412; two stacks I got ~894 and Demo ~900; three stacks 1215 verse 1243; four stacks 1665 versus 1650; five 1941 versus 2299.

Short answer is no. Actually, long answer is no too, but I’m pretty sure we get an additional 30% benefit to any crit heals from Blood Reserve. And yes BR does indeed crit. For example I received 1755 hp from a two stack crit. Not too shabby!

hit cap on righteous defense

17%, or 446 rating. Please don’t try to reach this. It’s not worth it.

glyph of seal of vengence vs glyph hammer of righteous

I’m very partial to the latter which is very, very useful for snap aggro in AOE situations. For example, on Kologarn when I pick up the rumbling adds that spawn, the glyphed HotR plus a Consecrate guarantees that I pick up every add before they have a chance to make a break for a healer. The SOV glyph isn’t as good right now because expertise is kind of bleh. But, in 3.2 it’ll be much more useful because we’ll be more dependent on the 5-stack SOV proc for threat. In 3.2 you’ll want that glyph. To actually answer the question, I’d get both.

paladin stamina to health conversion

For a Paladin 1 stamina is 10 hp. With the proper talents, 1 stamina is 11.4 hp.

how often do saronite plated legguards drop

If you’re in my guild, only once.

mongoose at level 80 tankadin

I know some people are very attached to this enchant for tanking (for the avoidance) but I’m just not a fan. It’s worth 120 agility when it procs, which is 2.3% dodge. Thanks to PPM it’s basically like adding .76% dodge to your character sheet, which I guess is nice overall. Based on what I’ve read it’s the best avoidance enchant but my biggest beef with it is the fact it’s proc based. You need avoidance the most when you have low health, and there’s just no guarantee that Mongoose will up to maybe give you that extra oomph to avoid the next hit. You have just as much a chance for it to proc at 100% health as at 5%. I’d recommend getting an enchant that’ll be there when you need it most and actually provides some EH; namely, Blood Draining.

seal of righteousness verses seal of corruption for tanking

SoC/V for sure. Righteousness is good for trash when stuff will die too fast for you to build a five stack and maximize the threat potential for that seal, but on longer living trash or bosses SoC/V is far and away your best choice.

tankadin effulgent skyflare diamond

Thankfully this gem is no longer bugged. Before 3.1 it used to, laughably, increase your resistances by 2% rather than reduce spell damage. Now it’s working as it should be. Does that make it a good gem? Eh, not particularly. You’ll in the end get more mileage out of the Austere meta. This gem seems too situational.

trouble picking up kel’thuzad adds

On 10man the trick is to fall back and watch both halves of the room. When an Icecrown Guardian spawns you have a few seconds to run over and pick it up before it beelines for a healer. Then immediately run over to the opposite end and grab the one that will shortly spawn there. Use Avenger’s Shield, Exorcism, and Reckoning to get their attention. In 25man you’ll probably be on one side with a different tank on the other, so there’s less running. As a fail safe, set the healer with the highest global aggro as your focus so you can watch their health and see if a Guardian snuck over to them.

ulduar demo driving

The trick to driving a demolisher (which I always do in our raids) is use your mouse buttons to drive forward and turn/aim and use keybinds to fire boulders. Time spent keyboard turning and fumbling to target something is time lost dpsing. Demolishers are slow so your biggest priority is cutting movement corners when you can.

why wont titanguard drop

I swear this isn’t me! I feel your pain, my friend. :(

I’ll skip the normal fluffy introduction to this feature, but let it be said: woo, Friday!

archaedas’ lost legplates thoughts

Not a fan at all. No defense means you need some serious defense on other pieces to make up for the gap, and expertise is such a wasted stat for us. Unless you have defense to spare I would avoid these pants.

are tankadins better with swords, axes, or maces?

Depends on your race. Blood Elves, Dwarves, and Draenei get no melee weapon bonuses, but humans get a 3 Expertise bonus to swords and maces. Expertise is of course basically crap (especially +3), so it’s not a game changer.

Correction! Muiran points out in the comments that Dwarves get a mace spec bonus of +5 expertise, as well.

does blood draining work for hunters

I hope not.

for paladin how much spell power do you get for each stamina

With Touched by the Light 3/3 you get .3 spellpower for every 1 point of stamina.

last laugh vs stoneguard

Last Laugh, hands down.

where will i find vrykul

I’m going to assume this is a question about the JCing daily, and not just in general (because they’re nearly everywhere in Northrend). Closest Vrykul to Dalaran is the area with the blight pool/blighted proto drakes in southwest Storm Peaks. Just fly over the Argent base, and you’ll be there in no time.

tankadin need hitrating

Thanks to all our many instant, high-threat attacks, hit isn’t as huge a deal for us as it is for other tanking classes. However, for consistent threat you probably want around 3-4% of it. Don’t ever gem for hit, though, you’ll get it organically from your gear. Also, it’s more than likely you’ll reach hit cap in Ulduar25 gear (I’m sitting at 7.9% right now) and that is not a bad thing. Embrace it!

It occurred to me writing this that each week it would get successively harder to write this bit, considering that each week I’m inevitably covering some topic that people come here looking for. Eventually I’m going to run out of stuff to not write about! … if that makes any sense. Anyhoo:

41 stamina gem or 27 defence rating

I would go with the +stam gems, just because that’s such an obscene amount of stamina that it’s hard to pass up. Plus, most of your defense needs are met from your gear and you should only have to gem minimally for it to hit the uncrit cap.

completely re-gemming a paladin for threat

Don’t! All your threat should come from three places: (1) your weapon’s dps, (2) your block value, (3) your stamina via Touched by the Light. No need to gem to boost any of them.

how many hits does it take to level from 399 to 400?

I haven’t been able to find an authoritative source on how weapon skill leveling works. In my experience, it seems like fighting a mob that’s many levels higher than your current weapon skill equivalency makes it level faster.

For example, while grinding those lvl 79 Captive Vrykuls, I went from 101 to around 350 with 1 hit per weapon skill, but once I passed 350 it started taking more than one hit per skill point.

Probably because I was approaching the equivalent skill level to that mob’s own level. Basically, because 400 is the last skill point, and you’re usually fighting lvl 80-83 mobs, it’s going to take some time.

tankadin mobs behind you crit defense 540

Once you hit the crit cap it doesn’t matter where a mob hits you–you won’t be crit. If you’re sitting down, however, it’s an automatic crit. The only time when facing a mob matters is with blocking and parrying. You can’t block or parry anything hitting you from behind, but you can dodge the blows.

what are the biggest stamina gems u can get

The +41 stamina gems (Solid Dragon’s Eyes) from Jewelcrafting. Non-professionally, it’s the +24 stamina gems. However, coming soon in patch 3.1 is the Solid Stormjewel (+30 stamina), which can be a reward from the new fishing dailies.

what should my hit rating be as a protection paladin

Probably somewhere between 4-5%. Don’t gem for it, let it come to you.

wie spot der tankadin

Ich verstehe nicht, was dieses bedeutet.

When writing this post I accidentally typed the title out as “Best in Slot” Friday… which is a nice Freudian slip of what I keep intending to write a post about. Anyways, this is the second Better Late Than Never Friday, a periodic piece in which I pull search keywords that brought people here from Google Analytics and answer the questions behind those keywords that they probably didn’t find during their visit.

best in slot paladin protection, best in slot prot paladin, best in slot paladin tankadin, best in slot tankadin, prot paladin best in slot list, prot paladins best in slot gear

I’m working on it!

best stat threat tankadin

A tankadin’s best threat stat is strength, hands down. Not only do you get attack power from it (for all abilities), but you double-dip and grab block value as well for mitigation and Shield of Righteousness! A distant second is hit rating, which affects almost all our attacks. Expertise is not a good threat stat–it just doesn’t affect enough abilities to matter.

crit cap for paladins

I’m assuming this means the cap where you can’t be crit anymore. The answer is 5.6% crit reduction, which is around 540 defense. Always double check on your character sheet, because you could have 540 defense but 5.59% crit reduction!

gem strength tankadin

Don’t gem strength for your Paladin. For my sake. :(

good dodge% for a tankadin

Diminishing returns makes this somewhat of a dodgy issue (har har har) but I did some digging and found this chart. According to it, diminishing returns starts around 200 rating and promptly begins to nose-dive around 350 or so. I’m currently sporting 305 rating/21%, so diminishing returns around starting to make themselves known. Honestly though, dodge is the best avoidance stat, so as long as you’re not sacrificing stamina to pile it on, then keep on piling.

hit rating tankadin

Honestly, hit rating is not that important for tankadins. Most of our attacks would require 8% hit rating to be capped, but that would require a lot of sacrificed health and avoidance to achieve. I’m personally sitting at 5% melee hit rating, and I don’t intend to improve it anymore.

how much hit and expertise does a paladin tank need?

Refer to this post for expertise. For hit, by the numbers, a tankadin needs 9% hit rating to cap out most of our attacks (judgements, ShoR, HotR, Avenger’s Shield, etc.) which is 296 rating. For spells (ie, Righteous Defense and Hand of Reckoning) we need 17% hit, or 446 rating.

But again, a Paladin really doesn’t need more than 4-5% hit rating. And the glyph makes sure than one of our taunts cannot miss.

tankadin titanium plating or defense

To answer the question in a round-about way, my ideal situation is to have Hero’s Surrender with Enchant Shield – Defense for boss fights and Wall of Terror with the Titanium Plating for trash.

righteous dresses

And how!