Paladin Hit Rating

[crowdx]

Hi all,
simple question, how much theat do I lose with my current low hit rating? I have not geared at all to hit but I am now wondering should I try to increase it more to hold threat better? I normally start to lose threat to my destro crits at the end of a mob pull and so wondering can I fix this.
All advice welcome :)

[remanz]

I don't think hit rating will help you much here.
70% of your threat comes from abilities that cannot miss. Holy Shield, HotR, SotR, JoL and consecrate. Might be just that your locks are over gearing your paladin too much. If anything, expertise should help you more. But I don't think it is worth gemming for it either.


What is your tanking rotation? is this on single target or multi target ? use AV shield on every CD, and all those abliities listed above. With righteous fury on, no way warlock can pull aggro off your paladin with same level of gears.

[crowdx]

The paladin I am referring to is listed in my signature below. I am pretty sure everyone is near level gear but it just seems like Darkpowerz starts to creep up in threat the whole way through the fight even though he is not normally the highest dps in the group.
Very strange

[wowphreak]

The only thing hit rating is really good for a pali is not missing that taunt even then it'd be better to glpyh for it instead.

Yer warlock shouldnt be even coming close to pulling aggro of yer tank.

yeh forget righteous fury?

Whats yer rotation?

are yeh aoeing or single target burn down?

Get rid of the figurine of the colossus its a level 70 item. I would keep lavanthors talisman for a block set

essence gossamer and/or the black heart would be good and there fairly easy to get.

I would gem for def->stam->str if yer over def min the stam->str


I've been using this macro



/use 13
/use 14
/startattack
/cleartarget [dead]
/castsequence reset=combat Holy Shield, Hammer of the Righteous, Judgement of Light,Shield of Righteousness,Consecration, Hammer of the Righteous, Holy Shield,Shield of Righteousness,Judgement of Light, Hammer of the Righteous, Consecration,Shield of Righteousness
when I pug and there some crack aoe monkeys I start off with conscrate first

There also hand of reckoning it doesnt reset gcd is cheap on mana and does a good chunk of damage beside being a taunt with yer set bonus can be spammed every 6 seconds.

[gitcho]

crowdx brings up a good question - how should you be gemming pallies? My gear is OK now, but I have no idea what to do with yellow slots after I reach the def cap.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bonechewer&n=Team%C3%A2wesome

What should I be gemming for? Is it worthwhile to skip the slot bonus (on a yellow, for example) and go with a blue +30stam gem?

[remanz]

mostly gem for stam. Stam scales with talent. Scales with BOS buff. of cuz gem for stam~

You only care about socket bonus if the bonus is , well, stam~

[crowdx]

This is my cast sequence (I think I got it here :) )
/castsequence reset=combat Holy Shield, Hammer of the Righteous, Consecration, Shield of Righteousness, Judgement of Wisdom
/use 13
/use 14
And yes I do have Righteous Fury on at all times, I also use Kings.

[Zal]

This is my cast sequence (I think I got it here :) )
/castsequence reset=combat Holy Shield, Hammer of the Righteous, Consecration, Shield of Righteousness, Judgement of Wisdom
/use 13
/use 14
And yes I do have Righteous Fury on at all times, I also use Kings.
your using the proper rotation. I didn't check your gear or anything but i'm willing to say (if warlock gear > pally) that its just a gear issue.

[crowdx]

Well as I said above, it just seems in most fights that the warlock creeps up throughout the fight and then a single crit can put things over the edge, by that time most fights are done though. My real concern is if I try to raid with the pally that he will lose threat on raid bosses etc due to a lot more dps being pushed on boss.

[Pallarfo]

I use www.raider101.com to gem and enchant.
Works pretty good for me most of the time.
Here (http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Thunderhorn&n=Pallarfo) is my pala.
He does the job he needs to do great.

[Gadzooks]

You also might want to take a look at the Lock, and see if you can pull back on his threat - my mage was a constant aggro grabber for me when I started out, so I had to come up with alternate rotations that did a good solid dps but did'nt grab aggro as much.

[Svpernova09]

Your hit rating is 38. That's *really* low. buy the T9 pants Turalyon's Legguards of Conquest , and the Valor Badge tanking neck : Shard of the Crystal Forest That will give you 87 more hit rating AND nice upgrades.

IMO your gemming is really odd. Your gemming for parry / dodge where I would gem for HP. I've got about 2k more HP on my paladin and I'm only gemmed for meta requirements (parry/stam) and then 2 exp gems, and the rest pure stamina. Don't put too much emphasis on socket bonus. And IMO, for tanks, go big or go home, epic gems or bust. They're expensive, but worth it, I'm still waiting on anther xmute to get my paladin another red gem >.< Also, considering getting the Formula: Enchant Weapon - Accuracy enchant on your MH. Scroll of Enchant Weapon - Blade Ward is probably better, but I find accuracy helps out especially when you're low on hit rating. I'm at 288 hit rating, but I am using Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood since I haven't come across another tanking trinket yet.

Hope this helps.

[crowdx]

I actually had forgotten about the legs which I did initially because of the lesser cost and was able to get two items instead of one at the time, now I have a ton of badges so I will definitely pick up those legs. I am working through my gems to upgrade to epics, just been a bit tight with gold lol.
The reason for some of my gemming was that I read somewhere that pallies get benefit from parry but I suppose the point here would be to max on stamina before considering other gems once I have hit the 545 defense threshold.

[Svpernova09]

I actually had forgotten about the legs which I did initially because of the lesser cost and was able to get two items instead of one at the time, now I have a ton of badges so I will definitely pick up those legs. I am working through my gems to upgrade to epics, just been a bit tight with gold lol.
The reason for some of my gemming was that I read somewhere that pallies get benefit from parry but I suppose the point here would be to max on stamina before considering other gems once I have hit the 545 defense threshold.


There's nothing *wrong* with gemming dodge and parry, but I think you'd fine yourself better off with more HP. Gearing for mitigation VS health is an age old tank debate, there is constant debate about it in the druid world. I'm a long time bear, so that is where all my tank experience has been.

[crowdx]

Well the benefit I can see for a pally with stamina is that it directly translates to spellpower I believe and so would also create more threat.

[Svpernova09]

Well the benefit I can see for a pally with stamina is that it directly translates to spellpower I believe and so would also create more threat.

The other advantage of more T9 is going to give you more residual defense so you won't have to enchant / gem for it. I'm way over on defense and have no chants or gems except for meta gem for shield block, and helm chant from Argent Crusade.

[Whowantstoknow]

This is my cast sequence (I think I got it here :) )
/castsequence reset=combat Holy Shield, Hammer of the Righteous, Consecration, Shield of Righteousness, Judgement of Wisdom
/use 13
/use 14
And yes I do have Righteous Fury on at all times, I also use Kings.

This macro is part of your problem - you will be running into Cooldown clashes as HS will not be ready after you cast JoW.

a full rotation is actully

Holy Shield, Hammer of the Righteous, Consecration, Shield of Righteousness, Judgement of Wisdom, Hammer of the Righteous, Holy Shield, Shield of Righteousness, Consecration, Hammer of the Righteous, Judgement of Wisdom, Shield of Righteousness,

There is no defacto MH enchant but I would go Mongoose as it has around 50% uptime and provides threat, mitigation and avoidance

Other options

Accuracy (Threat)
Blood Draining (EH)
Blade Ward (Avoidance - this is actually a very poor enchant - only use if you are putting together an avoidance set for say Anub adds)
Potency (mitigation, threat)
Superior Potency (threat)
Agility (threat,avoidance, mitigation)

Proper Gemming

Blue - Stam
Red - Agi/Stam (only enough to activate Meta - try to use in a socket bonus that is stam)
Yellow - Def/Stam (def/stam will always be better than pure stam if the socket bonus is 6 stam or better)
Meta - Stam/armor is your best EH meta so is the one most raiders will use but def/block value is superb for heroics and trash or where threat is a problem (block value increase ShoR damage)

There is no "defense cap" - defense will provide benefits beyond 540 defense (535 for heroics) it should be considered a minimum rather than a cap.

You should never gem parry
You can consider using Str/Stam for a red slot but agi is recognised to be slightly better all round

[Svpernova09]

Proper Gemming

Blue - Stam
Red - Agi/Stam (only enough to activate Meta - try to use in a socket bonus that is stam)
Yellow - Def/Stam (def/stam will always be better than pure stam if the socket bonus is 6 stam or better)
Meta - Stam/armor is your best EH meta so is the one most raiders will use but def/block value is superb for heroics and trash or where threat is a problem (block value increase ShoR damage)

There is no "defense cap" - defense will provide benefits beyond 540 defense (535 for heroics) it should be considered a minimum rather than a cap.

You should never gem parry
You can consider using Str/Stam for a red slot but agi is recognised to be slightly better all round

According to: http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t37172-protection_paladin_field_manual_wow_3_0_wotlk/p58/#post1336981 which is a subsection of: http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t37172-protection_paladin_field_manual_wow_3_0_wotlk/



Red
(also orange, purple)

Good
Dodge rating (avoidance)
Parry rating (avoidance)
Agility (avoidance, tiny bit of mitigation, some crit)
Strength (threat, some mitigation)
Expertise rating(some threat, some avoidance)

Bad
Attack Power (always worse than strength)
Spell Power (even worse than attack power)
Armor Penetration Rating (only affects white damage threat and damage, which is tiny)

Red gems can have some useful stats for tanks, but there are no crucial red stats as there are for yellow (defense, hit) or blue (stamina). Strength can be handy for threat generation, but it's secondary in importance to hit, and the block value provided by strength is a fairly inefficient way to boost mitigation. For most tanks (as of the early stages of WotLK anyway), red gems are practically never used, and orange/purple gems are only used to activate socket bonuses.The numbers for avoidance are nearly identical for AGI / Parry / Dodge, I think gemming for Parry is fine (I'm on the fence for dodge) I think if pure agi was the way to go you'd see A LOT more paladins stacking AGI over Stam. just like you see so many bears going nuts for AGI. Maybe I'm just too deep in the math to make sense of it.

[thinus]

And always always always have your Seal buffed. The only time my team pulls aggro off the pally is when I didn't notice my Seal faded and my abilities would just block.

EDIT: Seal, not blessing duh

[Whowantstoknow]

According to: http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t37172-protection_paladin_field_manual_wow_3_0_wotlk/p58/#post1336981 which is a subsection of: http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t37172-protection_paladin_field_manual_wow_3_0_wotlk/

The numbers for avoidance are nearly identical for AGI / Parry / Dodge, I think gemming for Parry is fine (I'm on the fence for dodge) I think if pure agi was the way to go you'd see A LOT more paladins stacking AGI over Stam. just like you see so many bears going nuts for AGI. Maybe I'm just too deep in the math to make sense of it.

Other way round - dodge is better than parry up to a certain point (the numbers are close but you wouldnt gem more than 1 or 2 reds to activate your meta anyway)- point for point agi is slightlysuperior it gives less avoidance but more mitigation

[crowdx]

Well I did a lot of the upgrades and changes suggested here and it seems to have improved things. The last thing on my list is to do the weapon enchant but gold is restricting me at present :) . I am working through gem upgrades to epics and dropped in the current ones due to my JC having gems to cut the blues from.
Would you all recommend Macraoon for a macro add on? If I am to do the full rotation i cannot fit it into 255 characters :(

[Whowantstoknow]

I recommend super duper macro it looks like it is no longer in development but it has not broken for me yet

[BobGnarly]

Hi all,
simple question, how much theat do I lose with my current low hit rating? I have not geared at all to hit but I am now wondering should I try to increase it more to hold threat better? I normally start to lose threat to my destro crits at the end of a mob pull and so wondering can I fix this.
All advice welcome :)

I believe that hit is important to tank, if you've got any kind of threat issues. In addition to my shaman creeping up on my threat, I also tank for a group of friends including a hunter than can routinely push ~5k TPS.

Don't overlook the threat gloves enchant, and also take a look at 2pc T9.


I don't think hit rating will help you much here.
70% of your threat comes from abilities that cannot miss. Holy Shield, HotR, SotR, JoL and consecrate. Might be just that your locks are over gearing your paladin too much. If anything, expertise should help you more. But I don't think it is worth gemming for it either.

I'm pretty sure this isn't true. I know for a fact that judgement, AS and consecrate can miss because I've seen them do so before. I believe that HotR was just changed to physical damage a while back which leads me to believe it can miss as well. Do you have a source for this claim?

Also, don't overlook the threat generated from white swings, especially when you consider reckoning and the application/refresh of SoV.



The numbers for avoidance are nearly identical for AGI / Parry / Dodge, I think gemming for Parry is fine (I'm on the fence for dodge) I think if pure agi was the way to go you'd see A LOT more paladins stacking AGI over Stam. just like you see so many bears going nuts for AGI. Maybe I'm just too deep in the math to make sense of it.

Parry/Dodge are great stats and should definitely be part of your gearing decisions (including gemming). The whole mitigation mechanism is pretty convoluted right now. I hope they work it out a little in the next expac, if for no other reason than to stop people from saying/believing things like "You should never gem parry".

The main source of this confusion comes from the fact that parry and dodge (and "miss" rate from the defense stat) are subject to dimishing returns. That means that each subsequent point of these stats will yield less actual chance to dodge/parry/miss than previous counts.

To pile on top, miss diminishes faster than parry which diminishes faster than dodge. It's definitely worth looking at the advantages of gearing defense past 689 rating, even with DR, but dodge and parry are usually compared just because of the gemming possibilities.

Since parry diminishes faster than dodge, it makes sense that, all else being equal, if you have to choose between these two stats you'd choose dodge (considering mitigation only). The problem is, all else is never equal. You have to consider how much you currently have. If I already have a ton of dodge rating, it could be that parry is the correct choice because the high amount of dodge rating has pushed the dodge DR over the parry DR, even though the parry DR diminishes faster.

So how do we know what to do? Well, honestly, the best thing to do is get something like the RatingBuster mod. It factors in the different DR rates into its comparisons, so you can compare the tooltip parry and dodge mitigation values. The other thing you can do is realize that there is ratio of dodge to parry that is ideal. This ratio is:

(character_sheet_dodge-10%)/(character_sheet_parry-10%) [this equation courtesy of the following thread]

This ratio should ideally be 1.88. If the ratio is higher than this for your character and you are faced with a "parry or dodge" decision, go for parry. If the ratio < 1.88, go for dodge. I actually created an in-game macro to display this ratio for me so I can always see where I stand.

This is all explained in great detail here:

http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f63/40003-diminishing-returns-avoidance.html

If you are interested in improving your tank, or just like to nerd out on mechanics like me, I highly recommend you read this thread, and even the linked threads where they explain the math behind it all.

So why not just always gem stamina? Hey, I understand, I'm a stamina whore too. However, there are two reasons:



While I'm big on stamina as a tank (IOW, I subscribe to the EH model), there does need to be some mitigation. If for no other reason than you are forced to. You're going to have to make gear decisions where one piece has dodge and the other parry. Which do you choose? Well, now you know.
+sta gems are sometimes a suboptimal choice, at least in my opinion. Consider a red socket with a +8 sta socket bonus. I can either put a Solid Majestic Zircon for a net +30sta (no socket bonus), or I could put either Regal Dreadstone or Defender's Dreadstone for +23 sta and +10 dodge/parry. I definitely consider +10dodge or parry > +7 sta. So now I have to choose between dodge or parry.

Having said all of this, I have to say that there are exceptions to everything. Perhaps if I have an insanely well geared character, my dodge/parry DR are already so high that +7 sta IS > +10 dodge/parry.

For this reason and many others, I cannot strongly enough recommend using something like RAWR to make gearing decisions. These tools not only factor all of this stuff into the decision, but they also consider your current character stats. IOW, rather than making independent, arbitrary decisions, they have all of the information about your character and can make the correct choice for that situation. If you are serious enough about your character to be asking these questions, you're serious enough to download the program and use it. Besides, it's fun! :)