Pally getting wtfown'd in heroics

[elo]

Well naturally armory is not showing my character data so I'll try and post what I remember of it. Name is Elothyn on Blackhand if it starts working for anyone.

Anyhow, so I'm going through the maintankadin guides (also down atm) and trying to get geared up but still fairly frightened at my squishiness. From what I recall last night I've got something about like the following

10,000 HP
494 def
11% dodge
16% parry
16% block
just north of 12,000 armor

and the first 2 mobs in Sethek just tear me apart, seriously little pally giblets all over the place. I've gotten a good percentage of the stuff from the maintankadin site but am just not real confident that it'll turn this tide. For one I think I /may/ be able to make it to 11k hp with all the echants and gems I can get, but anything beyond that I just don't see getting to pre-kara gear. Am I at least close to a turning point with my gear? My perspective is admittedly a bit off because I've never seriously tanked and my pally actually has the opposite problem in normal mode (doesn't get hurt, doesn't need heals, therefore no mana). Am I going to have to be carried through a few kara runs to get the base gear I'll need to do the 'roics? I've got to think there's a way to get ready for kara without going to kara because at somepoint no one had been, amirite?

Thanks for any thoughts, or if someone can point me to their armory page that shows a good pre-raid gear set.

[Anozireth]

With those stats for a pally tank it's going to be very rough. I would say around 11.5-12k hp is baseline for heroics, you can make it in pre-kara gear if you do it right. If every item is a blue or better tanking specific item, you should be ok. If you're going into heroics with half a dozen greens, you're going to get destroyed. Gem and enchant for stamina as much as you can. Assuming armory is up to date, it doesn't look like there's any major problems with your spec. Those shoulders need to go, though there's really only one option (shoulder of the bold), and who wants to run SL that much. Try to get the Aldor revered chest or the one from the fire boss in mechanar, and put +150 hp on it. Righteous gear is generally pretty bad. Also the timewarden's legs with all +12 stam gems from keepers of time revered rep will net you close to 500 hp alone, they're by far the best blue tank legs. Shield could use a stam enchant (or go for the Gladiator's shield too, a little resilience is ok). All in all, with just a few items being replaced and adding a couple enchants, I think you could add another 1000 hp without too much trouble.

Also, Sethekk halls is probably not a good heroic to start with. Some of the two-pulls in there (I think the raven lords?) hit insanely hard if you have to tank both. Sp or botanica, or mech are probably some of the easiest IMO.

You can have a look at my pally tank for inspiration, though his gear is a bit beyond entry level at this point.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bonechewer&n=Anozireth

[elo]

Thanks guys that helps a lot. Fur is totally right on my healing, my resto shammy is just at like 950. Easy to overlook because I blow through normal instances so easy, haven't put any work/enchants into her yet though. Maybe I'll swap my priest (+1600 healing) in while I get the pally geared. Kinda been taking pride in my crew getting their own gear without help though.

Ano, yes your pally is indeed inspiring. You've got kings on currently in the armory but still very nice stats! I'm gathering mats for those bracers now. The way my guild walks through Kara these days I should probably just bite the bullet and spend a few 4 hour sessions with them but just back to the pride thing. I think you've also inspired me to go engineering on my pally, those goggles ROCK! Yeah my shoulders are meh but like you said it's hard to get better at this point.

Thanks again!

[Nixi]

The first heroic I tried was slave pens. The 3 pull of bogstalks wtfpwned me and I didn't even try another heroic for about a week. When I went back into heroics I had around:

11,000 HP
478 def
13% dodge
15% parry
13% block
11 resilience
12,000 Ac

Truth be told my pally gear didn't change at all. I just re-read Fur's threads on heroics and he said, "once you get the heroic healing down" it all became clear: You HAVE to work on your healing. My priest has around +1500 healing now and I simply spam greater heal on my paladin on each and every pull. I don't crowd control in the heroics i'm running now. I can clear Slave Pens and Mech, and i've managed to down 2 bosses in ramps (last boss i got to 20% and decided to craft some FR resist but haven't had a chance to try him again) and I made it to The Tender guy in Bot before the instance bugged out on me and the trash all respawned.

I'm feeling pretty confident running heroics with my priest and paladin geared as they are. Pally is in all level 70 blues, but I spoiled my priest with full mooncloth and whitemend. Everyone has blue gems.

Of the instances I run I don't one-shot them by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm making fewer mistakes and there are only 2 or 3 pulls in each instance that are really just 'gear checks' (if you're not using CC), the rest of my wipes are from mistakes. I should start CC'ing but it hurts my pallys pride. 8)

[Kel]

Paladin gear wise:
Get enchants on stuff, Heavy Knothide Armour kits would be +200-300 hp (Chest, Hands and maybe Shoulders), work on your Keeper's of Time rep for the head enchant (not sure which is easier to box), how have you managed to only be neutral? The quests get you up to mid way through honoured. +12 Stam on shield, mats aren't terribly expensive.
Go to Botanica for the Spaulders of Righteousness or I think SL for Shoulders of the Bold.
Jadeskull Breastblate (Mech) is possible better than the Righteous one (I was recommended that as an upgrade by a tankadin friend).
There's a ring which you could upgrade your Ring of the Silver Hand with from a group quest in SMV, starts with 'Breaching the Path' and ends with killing some elite giants.

For your resto Shammy:
I won't suggest many specific bits as having never geared up a shaman I don't know all that much about drops for them.
Upgrade any items that are still dmg/heal (unless you particularly need them for stam) and possibly any which have spirit on them (aslong as you don't drop much +heal for it).
The new pvp blues might be worth looking into, I found a couple of bits that were an upgrade for my priest.
Run some LC instrances (Shadow Labs for your paladins shoulders :P) to get revered and buy the LC Prayer Book to replace the green.
If you can do BM try and get the healing bracers that drop from Aeonus.
Get revered with HH for the Ring of Convalesence and +Healing helm enchant.
Get a Silver Spell Thread on your Shamans Pants (either current or the pvp blue ones).
Look at getting some other cheap enchants, e.g. mp5 on chest and bracers, magisters armour kit (+3mp5) for wherever it will go which doesn't have a better enchant available.
Get a new weapon, Essence Focuser off the AH, Lightsworn Hammer from Kargath in SH (whilst working on Rep) or the nice new mace that drops in MgT.

Anyway, just some suggestions for how to improve your gear. Heroics are a definate step up healing wise, particularly if you have no CC.

[elo]

Good stuff guys. Yeah I haven't worried about my shaman gear because I mow through instances so fast it hasn't really drawn my attention but you're totally right. I don't have enchant 1 on them, and was really waiting until I got them better gear etc. The healing hasn't been an issue because I seemed to have crossed this threshold with my pally where she just doesn't need heals, to the extent that my Resto just DPS's all the way through SLabs. I'm working LC rep now for that healing book and to get the Elementals the exalted mace. I've also been stock piling (sold some for flying mounts) the stuff for Aldor/Scryer rep. I haven't even gone all the way through Durnholde yet (just an annoying place to me), but I'm going to get on that as I want to have my own Kara keys. I'm also working Sha'tar rep to get the shield and healing mace for my pally/resto respectively. Good point on the HH rep though (ugh more rep) I've had that so long on my priest I totally forgot about it w.r.t to my resto. I think I'm also going to take the dive and run at least one of my toons into kara this Sunday. My guild runs 3 groups of alts through every week so should be pretty easy to get some gear (maybe I can take a spot in all 3? :) ).

Thanks again!

[Los]

oe good read guys, added to favorites, and anozireth, never change to anything else then prot gear, i need your gear as an example :P

[Anozireth]

oe good read guys, added to favorites, and anozireth, never change to anything else then prot gear, i need your gear as an example :PWell you're in luck since I don't think I've logged on that toon for more than 10 minutes since I started boxing. :D

[zanthor]

10,000 HP
494 def
11% dodge
16% parry
16% block
just north of 12,000 armor

Dodge block and parry are livable for heroics, your HP is way low and your armor seems low as well... though I'm not sure what my armor is on my pally... and my warrior isn't a good comparison since he's T5 ready for T6.

I'm a huge fan of fully enchanted/gemmed, make sure you gem everything you can for +stam, anything else is a waste... see if you can't get to 12k hp unbuffed and you should be a lot easier to keep alive. Also a talent build be helpful... of course can get that off armory, if armory didn't suck so bad :).

[elo]

OK, actual stats off of armory now

Health: 10,007
Armor: 11560
Def: 495
Dodge: 13.92%
Parry: 16.11%
Block: 16.25%

Talent build is here ('http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?0000000000000000000005005133503301022 212510523430000000000000000')

Summary Details Reset
Protection
Redoubt Rank 5
Toughness Rank 5
Blessing of Kings Rank 1
Improved Righteous Fury Rank 3
Shield Specialization Rank 3
Anticipation Rank 5
Improved Hammer of Justice Rank 3
Improved Concentration Aura Rank 3
Blessing of Sanctuary Rank 1
Sacred Duty Rank 2
One-Handed Weapon Specialization Rank 2
Improved Holy Shield Rank 2
Holy Shield Rank 1
Ardent Defender Rank 2
Combat Expertise Rank 5
Avenger's Shield Rank 1
Protection Total: 44
Retribution
Benediction Rank 5
Improved Judgement Rank 2
Improved Seal of the Crusader Rank 3
Deflection Rank 4
Vindication Rank 3
Retribution Total: 17
Total
Total Points Spent: 61
Level Required: 70


Yeah I need to ditch Conc Aura and max out Deflection and Ardent Defender, just bad decisions made along the way.

The really confusing part is just the gap between regular and heroic. On regular slabs I heal against almost all trash with earth shield alone. But either way I'm working the gear up. The things I don't have gemmed/chanted are just because I'm building up mats/etc. and don't really need them until I start trying heroics again. The whole health vs. mitigation thing I struggle with to. From the gems I picked you'll see that I err'd on the side of mitigation, which is why I think the regular instances have become such a joke.

[Stabface]

Hmm, base Paladin tank talents are like this http://wowhead.com/?talent=sZVhtIxhzMMstVbx some points you can shuffle around (6 free still to put wherever you like even), for slightly more mitigation you can put free points into Divine Strength which will give you a small increase to block value. Or imp Devotion if you run that aura, but it's a pretty terrible talent IMO. If you need more threat then 1-H spec maybe, Reckoning isn't recommended as it can get you smashed against stuff that hits really hard (though I currently have it 4/5 since I'm not running heroics)
Beyond that, dodge is the cheapest item budget tank stat, and parry is the worst, but just read the maintankadin site guides they tells you everything :)

I think the key is getting your healing up and get used to Heroic level healing. It's a bit of a change up, I had a bit of a hard time with it on my priest at first not even 5-boxing. When you get the healing figured out Heroics are not actually that tough, once you have a certain level of tank and +heal and healing skill then you'll tear (most of) them up easy.

[Kicksome]

Just remember - you don't need 490 defense to do heroics (490 is uncritable to a level 73). The bosses are usually level 71 or 72. You are better off going with more stamina. Also level 72 mobs don't crush either. The trash is usually what hits the hardest. 4.5K a shot is pretty common - you need a lot of CC in heroics - you just can't tank 2-3 guys with that gear.

[beyond-tec]

TBH:

490 Def
12K HP
30% (Parry+Dodge)
and 1 Mob in CC

and you won't have a problem with healing.

Everything else can end in a combination of very fast hits where your pally got killed before the heal is casted.
Loosing 7K Life at once while AOE Tanking several mobs ain't that unusal.

[Sanctume]

Get

1. Felsteel Helm and Gloves

2. Do Keepers of Time Faction.
- Get the Sword with 40 Spell Damage.
- Timewarden Legs with 3x 12 Stam gems.

3. You want the libram that adds armor to Devotion Aura. Use Devo aura for Heroics.

4. Shadowmoon Valley Quest - There's a quest chain for a blue ring.

5. Get 12 agi enchant on that cloak--you won't upgrade it for a while. Armor enchant is cheap.

6. Grind your Aldor Rep to exalted for Chest vendor, and the Shoulder Enchants.
You can grind off the demons in Legion Hold in Shadowmoon. I spent 16 hours there over a weekend and got all the sargeras and fel iron I needed to get exalted. Exorcism owns those demons even if you're prot.

7. Blades Edge quest -- item called Natasha's something, neck piece.

[Thedonsquad]

10,000 HP
494 def
11% dodge
16% parry
16% block
just north of 12,000 armor


I understand your frustration very well, there is a disparity for pally tanks trying to get past the line from normal to heroics. First, remember that armor smooths the incoming dammage ranges for melee mobs (as it reduces by a % value, the variance of incomming dammage gets smaller), one of the best armor upgrades pre raid for a pally tank is the S1 sheild (don't buy the badge sheild first, the badge items you should get in order are Libram, Trinket(Optional), Chest, Legs, Cloak, then fill out anything left lacking.)

You should be able to farm the dailys to afford the following items, that will bring you a long way:

- Bracers of the Green Fortress
- Boots of the Protector
- Belt of the Guardian
- Darkmoon Card: Vengeance

This will give a total of: (including the S1 sheild)
+231 Stam
+35 Intel
+26.2 (actual defense)
+33 Block Value (block value will work out to 240 with talent spec below with these items)
+2.2% Block (not including what you get from defense)
+0.5% Dodge (not including what you get from defense)
+48 Spelldmg


At level 70, you only need 472 defense to be uncrittable by a level 73 mob with the 29 resilience on this shield.



I'll assume you have the KoT rep items, so your next goal should be the chest out of H-Mech. (Jade Skull BP). I found the best way to gear out a pally tank for me was targeting the next biggest upgrade and focusing on getting that, then moving to the next peice.

Also healing style is huge, initially you should be dumping huge heals on him during the initial phases of the fights, while undergeared the initial few secs of a fight tend to be the roughest. Earth sheild produces threat for the pally not the healer which can be helpful when the pally hasent created much threat yet, and helps lessen the rough incomming dammage. In general I prefer shaman healers in heroics as they have big bulky heals.

Spec changes i would make: Prot Pally ('http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?0000000000000000000005305133500001025 215510510500030000000000000')

[Kyudo]

I havent started heroics yet, and feel I still need to gear up more, maybe being a little timid, but some bosses on normal still wipe me so I still need more practice. My shammies are all dps sepc too atm and I need to build up more healing gear on the one that will become the healer, but aside from all that I'm proud of what I've put together as a palla tank with 0 badge gear and 0 heroics so far:

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Kilrogg&n=Muraman

Something to aspire too? Lots of crafted stuff btw...

[elo]

Thanks for the detailed tips guys. Things have been coming along pretty well and I've taken the first boss in Heroic SP with my crew alone and the first in Heroic Ramps with a mage buddy stepping in for one of the shammy's (though I think he did more harm than good because I was relying on the sheep which I kept breaking with consecrate). Currently at

Health: 11,167
Armor: 11833
Def: 504
Dodge: 15.66%
Parry: 16.47%
Block: 16.61%

I did get the bracers of the green fortress, changed some gems around and got a few more chants. Also I think my Dibiri's Enigma is new since those stats I posted. Ah and I got the shoulders of the bold while farming rep in Slabs (what a cake instance for me).

My KoT rep sucks because my DPS are behind now and I just can't blow through the mobs fast enough. Had to get some guildies to swap in for a couple of my guys to get my Kara keys (not required but convenient and an ego thing)

Sunday I did get to take my Resto and a couple DPS into Kara though (haven't played since then because of work) and got an extra +200 heals on my Resto and a little more dmg on DPS so I expect my next heroic attempt will be even a bit easier.

I'll definitely be making those talent changes as well, actually need to respec all of my toons because of bad decisions made leveling up.

Good tip on the Devo aura, been using Ret naturally for the aggro but with my +spell dmg weapon aggro doesn't seem to be an issue at present.

Looks like I can get that Aldor chest piece at Revered, Vindicator's Halburk, is that the one you're talking about? I've got over 200 Marks of Sargeras in the bank and I'm Honored now so I could probably just go do that as soon as I log on.

Thanks!

[aetherg]

Make sure to keep up earth shield and 3x healing stream totems; makes a huge difference. My '=' key is bound to a slightly downranked Healing Wave on my resto shammy, and lightning bolt on my ele shammies. It's mostly what I use in heroics. If I'm dodging/parrying a lot, I'll hit my '-' key, which is lightning bolt on all of them. If I'm getting hit a lot, I'll use the '9' key, which is lesser healing wave on all of them.

It's all about keeping an eye on the situation and anticipating when the damage will come. The very beginning of a pull is usually hardest. I just continually hit the '=' key, even if it means wasting a heal or two, until things have stabilized. If things get rough, just spam 4xLHW until you catch up again. Don't be afraid to drink a health potion; they're cheap. Also, make good use of your HoJ. It's amazing how much of a difference it makes taking one enemy out of the equation for a few seconds. This is especially useful on the the bogstrok pulls in SP; stun one, and kill it before the stun wears off. It turns a 4-pull into a 3-pull or a 3-pull into a very manageable 2-pull.

This is my pally's armory: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Suramar&n=Aeara
12527 hp, 14981 armor, 474 def, 71 resilience, 13% dodge 13% parry 15% block

I first started doing heroics with MUCH worse gear than that (10.5K HP, 10K armor). Even with better gear, I regularly get taken down to 2-3K hp in the first two seconds on many heroic pulls. But that's rarely cause for worry, because I know I always have a nice fat healing wave 0.1 seconds away from landing.

[Thedonsquad]

Thanks for the detailed tips guys. Things have been coming along pretty well and I've taken the first boss in Heroic SP with my crew alone and the first in Heroic Ramps with a mage buddy stepping in for one of the shammy's (though I think he did more harm than good because I was relying on the sheep which I kept breaking with consecrate). Currently at

Health: 11,167
Armor: 11833
Def: 504
Dodge: 15.66%
Parry: 16.47%
Block: 16.61%

I did get the bracers of the green fortress, changed some gems around and got a few more chants. Also I think my Dibiri's Enigma is new since those stats I posted. Ah and I got the shoulders of the bold while farming rep in Slabs (what a cake instance for me).

My KoT rep sucks because my DPS are behind now and I just can't blow through the mobs fast enough. Had to get some guildies to swap in for a couple of my guys to get my Kara keys (not required but convenient and an ego thing)

Sunday I did get to take my Resto and a couple DPS into Kara though (haven't played since then because of work) and got an extra +200 heals on my Resto and a little more dmg on DPS so I expect my next heroic attempt will be even a bit easier.

I'll definitely be making those talent changes as well, actually need to respec all of my toons because of bad decisions made leveling up.

Good tip on the Devo aura, been using Ret naturally for the aggro but with my +spell dmg weapon aggro doesn't seem to be an issue at present.

Looks like I can get that Aldor chest piece at Revered, Vindicator's Halburk, is that the one you're talking about? I've got over 200 Marks of Sargeras in the bank and I'm Honored now so I could probably just go do that as soon as I log on.

Thanks!
The Jade-Skull Breastplate is the best blue chest for avoidance, thats what i was refering to, it drops in Mechanaar. You might need help killing the boss though because it's just kinda painful to kill her (shes the one with a bunch of fire elemental minions). (searing totem and fire resist toem helps here) It's a heavily movment based fight, so unless you are really good you're gunna need help. The aldor rep BP is good, so if you are close to it, grab that in the mean time. You really should focus on your KoT rep, run some speed normal runs of it and you shouldn't have too much trouble getting to revered, grab the helm enchant, pants, and weapon. The pants are the best you will be able to find untill epic heroic drop, badges, or kara gear.

Spelldmg hardly affect retibution aura at all, and for melee mobs it's perfectly fine to go to devo aura if you need the extra mitigation. You will find that you shouldn't have too much problem with threat, but if you do make a macro for:

#showtooltip Blessing of Protection
/cancelaura Blessing of Protection
/cast [target=targettarget, help, nodead] Blessing of Protection

This will allow you to BoP the target of your enemy, and if you accidentally BoP yourself, just spam the same button and it will cancel the buff so you can take agro back. You might want to make a macro for both bubbles, the beauty of it is that if you have some killer debuff on you (such as a stacked bleed, thats causing too much trouble for the healer) you can spam the bubble and it will clear all debufs but not stay on you for full duration, most of the time the mob comes straight back to you once the immunity is canceled, but if not you just follow up with the pally taunt macro:

#showtooltip Righteous Defense
/cast [target=targettarget] Righteous Defense

My prot pallys stats: (with only kings on) http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Tichondrius&n=Combatant

13947 HP - 6738 MP
15453 Armor (59.41% melee dmg reduction)
500 Defense (6% Miss)
22.68% Dodge
16% Parry
17.98% Block
493 Spelldmg (will be 533 when i get my gavel enchanted)
---------------------------------
Avoidance is at a little over 109% with holy sheild active (complete (miss/dodge/parry) avoidance of melee attacks is at 44.68%)
This is all in what is really my threat set, i trade a few other items to be at 15k HP self buffed for raiding. Edit: also thats not my primary sheild, but for non-raids I tank in it. My gear is not socketed for pure stamina as when I started going for pure avoidance I traded about 700hp for 3% dodge... entirely worth it inho.

[elo]

Heh, yeah I tried the fire b*t*^ a couple of times and just blah. I'm thinking though of gathering some melee gear for those odd mobs that are completely immune to my lightning bolts. Coupled with that I'm thinking of a strat where I just tag her with my pally then run around with the shaman auto attacking and shocking. I really think this could be the silver bullet for her. Will post when I finally get away from work long enough to try.

[d0z3rr]

10,000 days in the fire is long enough, you're going home.

[elo]

10,000 days in the fire is long enough, you're going home.

Yay another TOOL fan!

[Sanctume]

How much are Green Fortress Bracers nowadays?
I haven't seen much comparable tanking bracers that are BoE.

There are a couple of good tanking boots that are BoE as well.

Not much in the best category though.

[elo]

I've seen them on the AH for 800, that's Blackhand Alliance pricing. I bought the mats and tipped a buddy to make them. Heh, come to think of it I sent off for Belt of the Guardian on Thursday night, that cost 800g in mats alone, haven't had a chance to log back on yet though. From a brief search it seemed to me like the belt was better than anything you could get out of kara, which is why I went ahead with it.

Really if you can hook up with a BS then I think you can have the bracers made for ~ 400g. I already had all the Adamantite and Primal Nether so it was pretty dang cheap for me.

[Steph]

Besides all the 'toughening up' advice, it also depends on how you deal with the pairs of guards in Sethekk halls. Of course you need to be sure that your holy shield is up, that is a given, but there is something else you need to realize: They can not be CC'ed, but they can and should be stunned. Especially once you get to the tougher versions deeper in the dungeon.

Your pally stun works on the guards, be ready to stun one of them, preferably not the kill target, as soon as your healing needs to catch up with damage taken. Ask your group to up their healing and and use their stuns on these mobs.

My tankadin is quite ahead of you in stats, but I still do it that way for safety =]
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Aggramar&n=Stephanius ('http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Aggramar&n=Stephanius')