Patch Notes

Someone describe what I've missed between 3.x and 4.0

garreth — Sat, 11/13/2010 - 01:23

Due to working 14+ hours a day for the last few months and not being able to log in regularly even before that, I've missed a lot of the awesome stuff leading up to Cataclysm.

Can you guys give me a breakdown of the cool stuff I'm missing out on? Screenshots possibly. I know the final elemental invasion started today and I'm sad that I'm going to miss all this cool stuff.

Patch Notes

The WoW Design Team

garreth — Tue, 06/16/2009 - 11:47

Pulled this off of WoR quoting Ghostcrawler:

The WoW Design Team

Quote from: Ghostcrawler (Source)

There are different types of designers. Some work on quests, encounters, world events or zones. My team works on classes, items, tradeskills, UI, PvP, combat and pretty much most of the crunchy bits of WoW. It's a great team of very talented players and they don't get the recognition they deserve. This is partially because some of them wish to remain anonymous. (Shameless plug: we are hiring an item designer. Check the hiring portion of the site for more details.)

Within our team, nobody owns a particular class. We all work on them together and nobody make a change (at least a serious change) without getting consensus from everyone else. We draw on our own experiences, community feedback, internal testing, data collected from the live game, and correspondence with friends, guildies and other players whose opinions we've grown to respect.

We also interact a lot with the other designers, because they all play the game too and many have a great deal of raiding or PvP experience. They come to our meetings or just drop by with an idea or a piece of feedback. That goes for the rest of the WoW team, and in fact all of Blizzard. We are extremely collaborative and not particularly hierarchical.

Our designers tend to be fairly technical as the industry goes, and some of us know a little programming, but typically we aren't writing actual code though we do write scripts and make data queries if you understand the distinction.

The programmers are a separate but equal department. They do write code and they are extremely talented, sometimes intimidatingly so. We ask them for new features or code changes that would improve the game and they tell us what is feasible, what is risky, and suggest alternative ways to get what we want. They are all gamers too so it's really a back and forth process as we work on an idea together until we come up with something we are happy with.

The process is similar for interacting with artists, or really any other component of the team. The big secret of WoW's success is that Blizzard just manages to hire very, very good people who "get it."

This is a very a insightful look into the team at Blizzard. Think you've got what it takes to hang at Blizzard? Go check out that item designer position :)

Patch Notes

garreth's blog

Tankadin in Wrath - 3.1 - Cookie-Cutter Specs

Fjork — Thu, 03/19/2009 - 14:14

I’ll be attempting to update each article to be Patch 3.1.1 equal. If we have moved on from 3.1.1, and there are further protection changes, they aren’t in here. I will update each as the new changes come out. I’ve removed a lot of information that was not only redundant, but confusing.

I also removed the ‘Gearing Out the Righteous Defender, and Glyphing Out the Righteous Defender book-pages for revision and rewriting. Each is outdated, but also takes like five minutes to load on my T1 connection at work. Look for the pages to be reposted soon!

Cookie Cutter Specs

The All-Tank – This is a 0 / 59 / 12 spec based on the idea that there is no such thing as a ‘flexible’ tank.

It is not your job to Blessing of Protection someone. You are not there to heal. You are NOT there to show-up on Recount. You are there to take a mass of damage and fight to cap Omen.

You are also most likely NOT going to get invited back to raid.

In case you haven’t realized it, this is a BAD build.

The True Paladin – This is a simple 11 / 54 / 6 spec where you a true Paladin, and healing will be part of your routine.

The only true ‘tanking’ loss to this spec is the total loss of the 10 second Hammer of Justice. The five points in Seals of the Pure is comparable to the loss of damage from dropping out of the Retribution tree, but is still a significant loss. There are two large benefits to this spec. One is the Improved Lay on Hands which will allow you to give a free health / mana bomb to anyone in the raid every 16 minutes instead of every 20. The second is Guardian’s Favor, which while widely regarded as a primarily pvp talent, has many uses throughout almost every WotLK fight except KT and a few select others.

This is more off an off-tank / off-healer spec than the others, which will limit your effectiveness in raid-contribution as you can be a more effective off-dps than an off-healer.

Not ineffective, but not recommended. It is nice having the upgraded LoH, but you are loosing A LOT in the way of damage for a small amount of healing (comparatively).

The Cookie-Cutter Part 1 – This is preference, but probably going to be one of the two main cookie cutters.

5% extra crit-chance. Very useful and flexible spec, especially when you have very reliable healers. If healing is not an issue, this is going to be my spec of preference as the added damage / TPS will speed up a great deal of fight and there will be a lot more chances of what few heals I throw to crit. If healing becomes an issue, drop some points from Improved Hammer of Justice or Conviction for 5/5 Divinity. Drop more points as needed from Conviction.

If having trouble on Heigan, etc, etc, it’s never a back idea to pickup Pursuit of Justice, but I would recommend getting the Tuskar’s Vitality Enchant instead.

Notice there is only one point in Spiritual Attunement. Watch the figures, no matter what you aren’t going to need two points unless you are massively over-geared trying to run Heroics. You will not be using 2/2 unless you really want to waste a talent point.

A slight variation involves 4/5 Conviction and 1/2 Vindication for extra beat-down.

The Cookie-Cutter Part 2 - This is preference, but probably going to be one of the two main cookie cutters.

The benefits of this spec are slightly more subtle than cookie number one. If you have a very low amount of agility (pickup up the stam / def rating enchants instead of the agility / stats enchants for example) this will be a slightly more preferred spec. Notice you have the two points in Benediction. They are floaters. You can place them where you like.

With the +15% damage to each dot of Seal of Vengeance and each Judgement you have guaranteed, maintainable threat as opposed to the slightly higher burst-damage from cookie one. However, with the loss of added damage and crit to ALL spells and abilities, your overall TPS will most likely be lower, and there will be a lot less chances for crits when you really need to heal.

I could go on for a while on the potential shortcomings of both Cookie one and Cookie two, but in the end it is going to fall on preferred playstyle, gear, and enchants. If you don’t have any extra agility anywhere in you gear / enchants (52.08 Agility = +1% Crit) than most likely 11% isn’t going to make that much difference, but still a lot more crits than you would otherwise have.

1 comment

Tankadin in Wrath 3.1 - Talent Trees

Fjork — Thu, 03/19/2009 - 14:12

Trying to align this version a little better to Saedo’s style as his legibility is much greater than my articles.

I’ll be attempting to update each article to be PTR Tankadin Build 9704 equal. If the PTR has moved on from 9704, and there are further protection changes, they aren’t in here. I will update each as the new changes come out. I’ve removed a lot of information that was not only redundant, but confusing.

Quick note: Divine Plea will now have 100% uptime with 2/2 in Judgements of the Just whenever you stike an opponent.

Talent Trees

Those of you whom have been tanking since 3.0.2 have probably be used to a comfortable 1-10 points to ‘play’ with if you aren’t one of the top min-max’ers. We are going to be a lot more limited post 3.1, but we’ll instead have a few different specs available to us instead of being locked into one spec as we were in BC.

Something to consider as your gear progresses is your Talent build. In BC, and even partially in WotLK so far you were able to create a spec and just sit with it. Reviewing 3.1, that is not exactly the case. When you first ding 80 you will have almost no Agility, even with a handful of enchants. Seals of the Pure will be a requirement in that case instead of Conviction / Crusade. Or perhaps you had a healer-heavy build because your healers were just as under-geared as you were when you began raiding. Every few upgrades it would behoove the average Tankadin to review their spec and ensure they are getting not only the best TPS, but the best Raid contribution (such as Vindication if there are no Ret pallies going to be raiding with you).

· Retribution Tree

o Tier 1

§ Deflection = +5% Parry Skill – Required

§ Benediction = 10% cheaper instant abilities – Optional

o Tier 2

§ Improved Judgements = 2 sec cooldown decrease on Judgements. Optional unless a subscriber to the 96969696 paradigm (google it.)

§ Heart of the Crusader = +3% chance to crit against mobs that have been stuck with your Judgement. If there is going to be a Ret Paladin in the raid, the points will be better spent in Benediction (Tier 1) to get you into Tier 3.

o Tier 3

§ Conviction = +x% Crit Chance on all spells and abilities. Optional. Depending on level of agility/gear, this actually will average out to higher overall TPS (Threat per second) than Seals of the Pure (Holy Tier 1)

§ Pursuit of Justice = +15% movement speed. Optional. Get Tuskarr’s Vitality Enchant. Don’t waste the loss of 2% crit when moving into Tier 4.

o Tier 4

§ Sanctity of Battle = +1-3% Crit chance and +5/10/15% damage by Exorcism. Optional. 1/3 and 3/3 in Crusade if Agility (crit rating) might be possible with only one point in Judgements of the Just but I’m not certain it’s worth it.

§ Crusade = +1/2/3% damage on all targets, +1/2/3% extra damage against undead and demons. Optional. Probably gonna go a head and fill 3/3 in Crusade unless your going after Cookie-cutter two or the True Paladin type builds. With +3% damage and +5% crit, the Conviction / Crusade pair MORE than surpasses having 5 points in Seals of the Pure.

· Protection Tree

o Tier 1

§ *NEW in 3.1*Divinity = Increases healing done by and to you by 1/2/3/4/5%. Optional. Most likely will not be taking this talent unless you have terra-bad healers.

§ Divine Strength = Strength +15%. Required. This greatly increases the Block Value of your shield (Str / 2 = +Block Value), and thus overall mitigation.

o Tier 2

§ Anticipation = +5% Dodge Skill Required Free Avoidance, can’t beat that.

o Tier 3

§ Improved Righteous Fury = All damage taken is reduced by 6%. Required. This is 6% pure mitigation on all damage after being mitigated by armor.

§ *NEW in 3.1*Divine Sacrifice = Causes all party/raid members affected by one of the paladin’s auras to transfer 30% of all damage taken to the paladin (maximum of 150% of the paladin’s max health). Lasts 10 seconds. 2-minute cooldown. Required IF Off-Tanking at all.This spell has a great deal of potential, but I would imagine the Tankadin will Bubble before casting this spell unless he wants to have HUGE heals from a number of healers at once.

o Tier 4

§ Improved Hammer of Justice = Decreased HoJ cooldown. Optional. Paired with the 3.1 upgrade of Judgements of the Just, this can drop HoJ cooldown to ten seconds. That is three second spells interrupt (works on most bosses) every ten seconds.

o Tier 5

§ Blessing of Sanctuary = 3% straight mitigation and free mana when you dodge/parry/block. Required.

§ Reckoning = Waste of talent points. Do not get UNLESS you are expertise capped. The more hits you have, the more chance that the boss will parry, thus speeding up their attack-tables temporarily.

o Tier 6

§ Sacred Duty = Stamina increased by 8%. Required.

§ One-Handed Weapon Specialization = +10 Damage Increase Required.

o Tier 7

§ *NEW in 3.1*Spiritual Attunement = +5/10% of amount healed in Mana. Required. Theorycrafting and testing has determined that it is possible to get away with only 1 point after the Dodge / Parry / Block Ratings are high enough for Blessing of Sanctuary and your 100% up-time Divine Plea to take-over.

§ Holy Shield = +30% Block Skill while active…. and some damage. Required.

§ Ardent Defender = Innate Last Stand…. kinda. Required.

o Tier 8

§ Combat Expertise = +6% Stamina and Expertise Skill by 6. Required.

o Tier 9

§ Touched by the Light = +Spellpower equal to 10% of Stamina. Required.

§ Avenger’s Shield = Extra Attack, and good for pulls. Required.

§ Guarded by the Light = +6% Spell Mitigation and cheaper spells. Required.

o Tier 10

§ Shield of the Templar = +3% Mitigation and extra damage/TPS. Required.

§ Judgements of the Just = Slows enemy attack speed and *New in 3.1* reduces the cooldown on Hammer of Justice by 20 seconds. Required/Optional? I’m torn on this talent. If your TPS is suffering, you should probably spec out of JotJ to pickup the extra 2% crit and +10% Exorcism damage from Sanctity of Battle, but if your TPS is fine you should probably stick with the JotJ for Raid-Utility purposes since the dps’ers are going to be so far ahead of you that it would be ridiculous to loose this raid utility for the sake of damage. NOT MAH YOB!

o Tier 11

§ Hammer of the Righteous = Main multi-mob attack. Required.

· Holy Tree

o There’s a third tree? Not anymore.

Current 3.1 Paladin Patch NotesPaladins * Auras will now persist through death and affect a 40 yard radius. * Blessing of Kings

Dragon — Sat, 03/07/2009 - 06:30

Paladins

* Auras will now persist through death and affect a 40 yard radius.
* Blessing of Kings is now trainable at level 20. Removed from talent trees.
* Hand of Sacrifice: The damage transferred by this ability is now capped by the Paladin’s health.
* Forbearance reduced to 2 min duration.
* Sacred Shield: This effect cannot be cast on more than one friendly target at a time.

Talents
Holy
* Aura Mastery: Now makes anyone affected by Concentration Aura to be immune to Interrupt and Silence mechanics and increases the effectiveness of all other auras by 100%. Lasts 10 sec. 2 min cooldown.
* Blessed Hands: No longer reduces cooldowns of Hand spells. Instead, it improves the effectiveness of Hand of Salvation by 50/100% and Hand of Sacrifice by an additional 5/10%.
* Enlightened Judgements: No longer increases the range of Judgement of Justice. Moved to Tier 10.
* Improved Concentration Aura: The resistance to silence and interrupt granted by this talent now becomes active when any Aura is used, not just Concentration Aura.
* Infusion of Light: Now increases the critical chance of your next Holy Light by 10/20% instead of reducing cast time. Moved to Tier 10.
* Judgements of the Pure moved to Tier 9.
* Sacred Cleansing moved to Tier 8.

Protection
* Improved Devotion Aura: The additional healing granted by this talent now becomes active when any Aura is used, not just Devotion Aura.
* Divine Guardian re-designed: Now increases the effectiveness of Divine Sacrifice by an additional 5/10% and increases the duration of Sacred Shield by 50/100% and the amount absorbed by 10/20%.
* Divine Protection: Cooldown reduced to 3 min.
* New Talent: Divine Sacrifice: Causes all party/raid members affected by one of the paladin’s auras to transfer 30% of all damage taken to the paladin (maximum of 150% of the paladin’s max health). Lasts 10 sec. 2 min cooldown.
* New Talent: Divinity: Tier-1 protection talent, increases healing done by and to you by 1/2/3/4/5%.
* Guarded by the Light: Now makes Divine Plea 50/100% less likely to be dispelled.
* Sacred Duty rank 1 now increases Stamina by 4%.

Retribution
* Benediction now affects Hand of Reckoning.
* Fanaticism reduced to 3 ranks for 6/12/18% bonus and 10/20/30% threat reduction.
* Repentance no longer resets the Paladin's melee swing timer.
* Righteous Vengeance reduced to 3 ranks for 10/20/30%. The damage done by this talent no longer receives modifications from effects that increase or decrease damage done by a percentage.
* Sanctified Retribution: The bonus to damage done granted by this talent now becomes active when any Aura is used, not just Retribution Aura.
* Sanctified Seals: Renamed Sanctity of Battle. Now also increases damage done by Exorcism and Crusader Strike by 5/10/15%.

Copied from http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html;jsessionid=79F75E4825D5F994221B315BD98CC288.app23_08?topicId=15443531917&sid=1

Patch Notes Current as of 06MAR2009

4 comments

PTR Ulduar Run

Raid Zone:

10-man Ulduar

Let's get a 10-man going on the PTR Friday night. Sign up below.

5 comments

Season 6

saedo — Fri, 02/06/2009 - 11:58

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=14910422788&sid=1&...

There's still plenty of room for some items to be pretty hard to get without causing most players to be left out of good gear. As I mentioned earlier, with the start of the next season we expect new teams and personal ratings to start much lower than they have before (not 1500). That way, everyone's experience is to climb toward the rating they're successfully playing at. So, knowing that, here's what our current thinking is on rating requirements for season 6.

Disclaimer: all of this is subject to change!
Other notes/caveats:
- items with no rating listed would have no rating requirement

- it won't be quite as easy to get deadly items via emblems of conquest as hateful items currently are via emblems of valor

- the new Archavon boss (a new boss located in another wing of the Vault of Archavon), will have slightly different drops than the current Archavon (he can drop Furious Gloves/Legs, or any possible random honor item in addition to tier 8 pve set items similar to Archavon's t7 pve set drops, but cannot drop the Furious Chest piece)

- honor/arena costs aren't listed but Hateful costs would be similar to current Savage, Deadly costs similar to current Hateful, and Furious costs would be similar to current Deadly

- you might note that the Furious weapon is still at a high requirement, 2k, the thinking being that most players are encouraged to get their weapon upgrade through pve, although hardcore arena competitors have an outlet to get an equivalent weapon through arenas (if you're hardcore enough for 2k, you can forego raiding for a weapon)

- additional note, "deadly trinket" refers to the current battlemaster's trinkets, "furious trinket" refers to an upgraded medallion of the alliance/horde

Hateful Gloves
Hateful Legs
Hateful Chest
Hateful Helm
Hateful Shoulders
Hateful Ring
Hateful Trinket

Deadly Bracer
Deadly Belt
Deadly Boots
Deadly Neck
Deadly Ring
Deadly Cape
Deadly Trinket

1300+: Deadly Relics/Idols/Librams/Totems
1350+: Deadly Gloves
1400+: Deadly Legs
1450+: Deadly Chest
1500+: Deadly Helm
1550+: Deadly Shoulders

1400+: Furious Bracer (honor)
1450+: Furious Belt (honor)
1500+: Furious Boots (honor)
1550+: Furious Neck (honor)

1600+: Furious Gloves
1650+: Furious Ring (honor)
1700+: Furious Legs
1750+: Furious Chest
1800+: Furious Trinket (honor)
1850+: Furious Helm
1900+: Furious Cape (honor)
1950+: Furious Wands/Relics/etc
2000+: Furious Weapon
2100+: Furious Shoulders
2300+: Furious Tabard (purely cosmetic and awesome looking)

1 comment

"Garreff, the points on the site are broken"

garreth — Tue, 12/16/2008 - 02:04

So, not having a 9-5 has given me a bit of time to learn the sorts of things that I'm passionate about. One of those things is the content management system that runs this site, Drupal (http://drupal.org). Drupal makes it extremely easy to build web applications that just get right up and start doing "stuff".

A certain "stuff" that I've been promising for years now is the ability to view your raid points on the site. Well, here it is: /frpoints For you raid and guild officers, you can upload your FuriousRaid savedvariables file here: /frpoints/upload.

It's ugly as hell right now, but we'll be making it purty as I get better at this. As for multi-raid pages, we may just work out a sync'ing system in-game and keep it on one big page. I dunno, if I feel inspired, I'll make it more granular.

I'm still gkicking anyone that tells me the points on the site are broken.

Patch Notes

Tankadin in Wrath - 3.1 - Tanking Basics

Fjork — Fri, 11/21/2008 - 15:52

Trying to align this version a little better to Saedo’s style as his legibility is much greater than my articles.

Tanking in Wrath of the Lich King

Basics

The most important tanking mechanic is the Defense Rating. A tankadin’s first concern should always be the hallowed “Uncrittability”. This goes for all other tanking classes as well. Reaching uncrittability is extremely easy and inexpensive when reaching level 80. However, as mitigation, avoidance, and health are upgraded you will be relying more and more on trinkets, enchants, and gems to keep your defense rating uncrittable. Do not equip that upgrade if you will loose your 540 Defense! Wait until after the Raid/Heroic/etc so that you can change your gear or upgrade your enchantments.

A level 83 mob’s base attack skill will be 415 vs. our base defense skill of 400. To prevent critical strikes, our defense skill will need a 5.6% increase, or 140 added Defense Skill (540 Defense as opposed to the original 490). All math totaled, we would be needing 688.59 Defense Rating to achieve uncrittability at level 80.

The current stat conversions for Avoidance are thus:

· Defense – 4.92 Defense Rating per 1 point of Defense Skill.

o 25 Defense Skill (41 Defense Rating)

§ +1% chance to be missed

§ +1% chance to Dodge, Parry, and Block Skills

· Shield Block – 16.29 Block Rating per 1% Block Skill

· Dodge – 39.35 per 1% Dodge Skill

· Parry – 49.18 per 1% Parry Skill

· Agility – 30 Agility per 1% Dodge Skill

As can be seen, Defense Rating will be the cheapest route for overall Avoidance to begin, moving next to Block Rating, then Dodge Rating, and finally Parry rating.

Stacking Shield Block Rating ‘sounds’ like a good idea, but only XX amount of the damage is blocked, while the rest is taken by the Tankadin. Dodge is second best in that the damage is removed altogether. Parry tops the meters because the Tankadin dodges all of the damage, and then gets a ‘free’ swing back. This is also why Parry is the hardest to gear for, and shouldn’t be a primary focus.

The Tankadin’s Armor Value reduces the actual damage taken by X %. This is why Devotion Aura should be maintained through all Raiding.

It should be noted the Dodge Rating and Parry Rating each suffer from a different set of diminishing returns (approx. 1.95% per 2%) so it is sometimes a higher upgrade to get the item with a larger amount of Defense Rating over a large amount of dodge/parry rating since the 1% Dodge/Parry/Block gained through Defense Skill does not suffer from diminishing returns.

Primary Attributes

Strength	2 Melee Attack Power per 1 Str. HotR TPS Upgrade.
	½ Block Value increase per 1 Str. SotR TPS Upgrade.
Strength is plentiful on a great deal of the tanking gear that will be purchased and equipped. This is a stat that a gearing Tankadin should rarely have any focus on. The only time a Str upgrade should be considered over Health, Def Rating, or Avoidance is if Threat generation is a serious issue and [Armsman] is already on your gloves with it’s 2% increased threat. End-raiding Paladins will begin to give consideration to Str more.

Agility	2 Armor Value per 1 Agi
	0.034 Dodge per Agility
	0.019 Crit Rating
So at a glance, Agility isn’t all that it is cracked up to be, but when you consider that you are getting direct mitigation and Avoidance from every point of Agility, and it usually comes in +20 or greater ([37891]), this is a viable stat to consider when you have 540 Defense already. Most tanks will not gear specifically for Agility as the conversions for Shield Block Rating are easier to acquire.

Stamina	10 Health per 1 Stam. (Except for 20, which are 1 HP)
	Modified by Sacred Duty: Stam +8%
	Modified by Combat Expertise: Stam +6%
	Modified: 11.4 Health per 1 Stam
	0.3 Spellpower per 1 Stam.
Obviously Stamina will be a stat each Tankadin will be giving a great DEAL of focus to. Many Gem-Sockets are Red with a semi-decent socket bonus. Most likely you will still be gemming [40008] in a good majority of them, though keep in mind you’ll need one Red/Orange/Purple gem for the meta-requirement on a [41380]. Not to mention that with enough stamina a Tankadin can easily cap 30,000 HP Raid-Buffed. This makes healers VERY happy. Especially when you mitigating even more damage.

Intellect	You will NOT be gearing for these. EVER. Don’t. Just don’t.
Spirit	You will NOT be gearing for these. EVER. Don’t. Just don’t.

The Weapon – Maximizing Threat Per Second

This is a “rough-sketch” example of comparing the stats on two damage weapons. Most specifically the Tankadins will choose weapons with high Stamina, Defense Rating, Avoidance, Strength, and Agility (in that order), however there will be situations where high damage is preferred. (Off-Tanking on Loatheb).

[41383]

The Bonecrusher has a very high dps, which will contribute well to Hammer of the Righteous (dps*4), 140 Attack Power, and 3.5% Expertise (keep that bosses parry/dodge/miss rating down!) Each of these stats will assist in the overall threat-per-second on every single Tankadin ability and spell. A final thought to keep in mind, the slower the weapons usually have higher dps. Just sayin.

[41384]

The Guardian has a very low dps, which will contribute very little to HotR (dps*4), 0.6% Crit Rating (which won’t even be felt by most tankadins), and 457 spellpower which will assist in every spell and ability of the Tankadin EXCEPT HotR.

However, since the Guardian contributes more Spellpower than the Bonecrusher, the AOE uses are much greater than the Bonecrusher. For 1v1 fights (Heigan, Thaddius, etc, etc) the Bonecrusher will win by a landslide every time. But on AOE fights (Gothik the Harvester, Trash Mobs, Noth the Plaguebringer, etc) the Guardian will almost always hold higher overall TPS, just not on the boss!

This is a good progression for your Tankadin’s Weapon:

· [44736] – Quest: Wanted: Ragemane’s Flipper (level 75. EASY. Get this at 73)

· [Infantry Assault Blade] – Utgarde Keep (H) – This can actually carry you into 25mans.

· [item]Red Sword of Courage[item] – Utgarde Pinnacle (H) – Even the Naxx Swords are somewhat side-grades to this amazing tanking sword.

· [Slayer of the Lifeless] – As foretold by Salzman. VERY nice tanking sword, but you’ll have noticed by now your damage has started to slip a little. That’s okay, your TPS will pick back up.

Tankadin in Wrath - 3.1 - Armaments

Fjork — Fri, 11/21/2008 - 15:50

rying to align this version a little better to Saedo’s style as his legibility is much greater than my articles.

Armaments

1. Hand of Reckoning (HoR)

a. A single-target taunt that damages the mob. This is the Off-Tank’s Taunt of choice for adds, etc. I haven’t been able to confirm yet if this is able to be silenced, but the HoR should be the Taunt of choice over RD because it maxes your threat on the mob (like RD), then damages the target, which is preferred as the DPS/Healers can sometimes take the mob right back after a successful RD. Macro it if you can.

b. Not affected by silence.

c. Not affected by Global Cooldown.

2. Righteous Defense (RD)

a. This ability MAXs your threat up to three mobs attacking a single Raid/Party member. RD should always be followed quickly with a high-threat ability to ensure that the player doesn’t take the aggro immediately back from you. Macro it if you can.

b. Not affected by silence.

c. Not affected by Global Cooldown.

3. Shield of the Righteousness (SotR)

a. This is Shield Bash. More importantly, this is your largest single-punch threat generator for all targets. Shield Bash should be used each time it is on cooldown. Damage is affected by Block Value (Block Value + xxx). Early estimates would be 900-1200 average.

b. Can be silenced.

4. Exorcism (Ex)

a. *NEW in 3.1* In the Ulduar Patch, Exorcism has been stated to be useable on all targets (previously undead and demon only). Since Exorcism scales with Atk Pwr and Spw, this will quickly replace SotR as your bread and butter attack.

b. Can be silenced.

5. Hammer of the Righteous (HotR)

a. The Silence Breaker. This multi-target attack is usable even when silenced, and slams three mobs for four times your dps. Weapon speed doesn’t matter. Therefore, since slower weapons have higher dps, your choice will be a slower weapon over a faster.

b. Not affected by silence.

6. Seal of Vengeance (SoV)

a. DOT#1 – SoV is a very useful overall Seal to use. Also, the dot is placed on every enemy struck in melee including those adds hit by HotR. After five stacks it does more damage than Seal of Righteousness, but only after five stacks. Bear this in mind.

b. Not affected by silence. (Should already have up before fight.)

7. Consecration

a. DOT#2 – Consecration should be up at all times when possible, and when it will not disrupt crowd control measures. Good damage, easy to almost keep on cooldown.

b. Can be silenced.

8. Judgement of Light / Wisdom (JoL / JoW)

a. If you have a Holy Paladin or Ret Paladin in raid with you, they should be using JoL because the healing effects scale with the Atk Pwr and Spw of the caster. Since both will be higher than yours overall, as a Tankadin you will usually be using JoW. Situational however, a smart Tankadin will realize when the Ret Pally dies and judge light, or Judge Light on the add that the Ret Pally won’t be touching.

b. Can be silenced.

9. Avenger’s Shield (AVS)

a. This spell launches a shield up to 30 yards, striking, stunning, and creating threat on up to three nearby targets. It has a long cooldown, but is always useful when both RD and HoR are on cooldown.

b. Can be silenced.

10. Holy Shield (HS)

a. Formerly the bread and butter threat generator (along with BoS, and Ret Aura) available to the tankadin, instead now the Holy Shield is more of a reactive and defensive tool. With a 10 second duration and an 8 second cooldown you will usually have a moment or two on boss fights to throw HS back up. HS increases your block chance by 30% for the duration and does damage whenever you are struck (up to eight times). This is free 30% Avoidance and should always be on cooldown when possible.

b. Can be silenced.

11. Devotion Aura

a. When upgraded, Devotion Aura is a useful tool not only for overall mitigation, but also for healing received. Devotion Aura should be the aura of choice for all 10/25man bosses unless otherwise specified by your raid leader. The ‘Improved’ effects are present in each of your aura’s however (*NEW in 3.1*) and other aura’s can be used when the extra mitigation is unneeded on a boss or trash fight.

b. Not affected by silence or death (*NEW in 3.1*).

12. Retribution Aura

a. Let the Ret Pallies keep it up, see previous.

b. Not affected by silence or death (*NEW in 3.1*).

13. Divine Protection (DP)

a. Shield Wall. With the changes introduced in 3.0.2, the revised DP does 50% damage reduction from all sources for 12 seconds. Especially useful during Enrages, or during the initial pull while you let the healers drink. Everybody loves good DP.

b. Can be silenced.

14. Lay on Hands (LoH)

a. The ‘Oh CRAP’ button. You pulled the trash while they were looting the boss. Your healer just went OOM and desperately needs mana. LoH is a free mana bomb, and a health-bomb wrapped into one for the person in raid that desperately needs it. Should you get improved LoH, you will have at least one available for almost every boss fight.

b. Can be silenced.

Ability Statistics

Ability	Cooldown	Threat Meter (1-10)	Main Stat
Hand of Reckoning	8 seconds	MAX+	??% SP
Righteous Defense	10 seconds	MAX	N/A
Avenger’s Shield	30 seconds	9	7% SP + 7% AP
Shield of the Righteousness	6 seconds	9	Strength (Block)
Hammer of the Righteous	6 seconds	8	Strength (DPS)
Judgement of Light	10 seconds	4-5man / 7-Raid	10% SP + 10% AP
Holy Shield	8 seconds	5	9% SP + 5.6% AP
Retribution Aura	N/A	2	6.6% SP

Active forum topics

Recent blog posts

Poll

What do you think about no flying for an entire expansion?

YES) It makes me feel more immersed in the game lore.

15%

YES) It encourages more PvP! (Please explain how in comments)

YES) I miss riding my ground mounts.

MAYBE) If you make all of my flying mounts able to be ground too.

MAYBE) if ground mounts are sped up to 200% speed (or higher)

26%

NO) I don't have enough time when I'm on to be riding everywhere

NO) I have spent too much time getting various levels of flying to be wasting it.

11%

NO) It encourages more PVP! (please explain in the comments)

NO) I love flying.

19%

Total votes: 74

Patch Notes

Someone describe what I've missed between 3.x and 4.0

The WoW Design Team

The WoW Design Team

Tankadin in Wrath - 3.1 - Cookie-Cutter Specs

Tankadin in Wrath 3.1 - Talent Trees

Current 3.1 Paladin Patch NotesPaladins * Auras will now persist through death and affect a 40 yard radius. * Blessing of Kings

PTR Ulduar Run

Season 6

"Garreff, the points on the site are broken"

Tankadin in Wrath - 3.1 - Tanking Basics

Tankadin in Wrath - 3.1 - Armaments

Random image

Navigation

Who's new

Latest image

Archives

Recent comments

Active forum topics

Recent blog posts

Poll

Popular content

All time: