Paladin Tanking: +Strength vs. + Spell Damage

[mackenziemi]

I have a general paladin tanking question. In filling gem slots which is better +Str or +Spell Damage? I am asking mostly for selecting gems to put in sockets. Also I have seen many Paladin Tanks that ignore the color of the socket and just put +Stam gems in their sockets, is this the best route?

Thanks

[RadicalPi]

Unless you need to gem for Defense or Dodge to hit uncrushable/uncrittable, you're almost always going to want to gem for +stam unless you really want to get a socket bonus.

http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/viewtopic.php?t=4859 - A great guide to Gems and Enchants. :)

[Stabface]

Strength is almost always the wrong choice.
Already been said, but heroics you want 490 defense (nothing crushes), enough spell damage to hold threat 200-300 is normally good, more if you have mad deepus. Then the rest stamina pretty much.

[mackenziemi]

:D Thanks for the info all :D

[NevadaGuy]

For a level 70 toon isn't 485 defense enuff to push crits off the table in normal and heroic intances?

490 once the mob is 3 levels above you.

And yes pack on the +stamina once you have your defense where you want it.

Uncrushable against level 73 bosses is a whole different set of worries.

[noir]

+STA
+STA
+STA
+STA
+STA

At 70, all the threat you need to start with can come from a +120 spell damage weapon with +40 spell damage enchant and +spell damage oil.

As a tankadin, you can never have enough HP. =)

[geoffdavison]

For a level 70 toon isn't 485 defense enuff to push crits off the table in normal and heroic intances?

490 once the mob is 3 levels above you.

And yes pack on the +stamina once you have your defense where you want it.

Uncrushable against level 73 bosses is a whole different set of worries.the 490 is for level 70 boss mobs which are considered to be level 73..

[NevadaGuy]

For a level 70 toon isn't 485 defense enuff to push crits off the table in normal and heroic intances?

490 once the mob is 3 levels above you.

And yes pack on the +stamina once you have your defense where you want it.

Uncrushable against level 73 bosses is a whole different set of worries.the 490 is for level 70 boss mobs which are considered to be level 73..According to the guys over at http://www.failsafedesign.com/maintankadin/viewtopic.php?t=9023 "It requires 485 defense to be uncrittable in heroics"

[homerjunior]

For spell damage get a merc gavel+spellpower on it and bam! your done for spelldamage until high end content(Starting Hyjal)

[Vyndree]

In filling gem slots which is better +Str or +Spell Damage?

Do not, do not, do not EVER consider +str for a TANKING paladin.

Paladins have these important stats for threat generation:
+spell damage
+holy damage (yes, there are a few pieces that exist with +holy damage)

Paladins have these important stats for mitigation:
+block RATING
+armor
+stamina
+block value

Paladins have these important stats for avoidance:
+agility (dodge rating)
+parry

While strength does help by increasing your block, it scales poorly and is one of the weakest form of mitigation. Strength is a warrior stat because it is the warrior's form of threat generation -- it is not a pally's.

Your first priority will be to reach 490 defense. Your second priority will be to reach uncrushability (102.4%) -- this is only important in raids since you will be fighting level 73 mobs -- you may remain crushable in instances/heroics with no problems. Your third priority will be to get enough spelldamage to hold threat off of your dps (typically 300-350 for kara progression geared dps, 400-450 for BT/Hyjal geared). Once these three priorities have been filled, you may then begin to stack more flat stamina such that you can survive the boss's hits, and continue stacking stamina/avoidance as you prefer (I prefer stamina, since I gain mana from heals so too much avoidance is no good when I'm going oom).

I suggest you read up on http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com -- it has some great pally tanking guides.

[Naylix]

Afaik, crushing blows only occur, on mobs of much higher lvl than you (3+) - ie a bosslvl mob who is considered 3 lvls above you, can crush. Source: http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/viewtopic.php?t=331

So to tank fairly well in heroics, uncrittable will do fine. 485 defense will make you uncrittable against lvl 71-72 mobs. 490, and you're "safe" from boss'es also (real raidbosses, not heroic ones)

Next is adding avoidance so you don't get hit that often, or at least mitigate the dmg somewhat. And here, defenserating, dodgerating, parryrating and blockrating/value comes in handy.

Each point of defense, increases your chance to dodge, parry and block by a mob. It also decreases the chance a mob will hit/crit you. The critchance for mobs are all 5% for equal level. 5.6% for bossmobs.

Resilience is a cheap way to reduce the chance to be critted, so for a tankadin, the S2 gavel (mace with spelldmg) is a really good starterweapon for tanking, along with stuff that has stamina, dodge, defense, block and parry.

Dodge, Parry and misschance are all complete avoidance. These will make you take less frequent hits from meleemobs. Block is partial avoidance, and can be compared somewhat to armormitigation. It reduces the dmg you take. In case of bossmobs, it also prevents crushing blows and/or crits. (by the time you reach uncrushable, you are allready crit-immune)

The more total avoidance you have, the better. But do not forget stamina! Stamina lets you survive streaks of hits, that would otherwise kill you. (sounds simple, I know) So yes, definately gem for stamina, at least in the beginning. Imo.

Regarding spelldmg, it is the bread and butter for your tanking. Seal of Righteousness and Seal of Vengeance scale very will with +dmg, so does consecration and holy frisbee. Judging SoV and SoR scales poorly, but it still adds a nice threatboost if you need it. Once you get a bunch of "pala plate" with both stamina, avoidance, sockets and spelldmg on it, you will never go back.

Str adds very little threat, low amount of dps (your abilities don't rely on +str/ap) and a pathetic amount of blockvalue. It's below +spirit in usefulness for tanking. (yes, I truly mean that)

Agility adds a bit of dodge - but is also a low priority, considering the amounts needed to get decent dodge. If a shaman is in your group, you will almost always want Wrath of Air over Grace of Air, and Stoneskin over Strength of Earth. And mana totem ofc :)

Lots of more reading about tanking as a paladin, head on over to http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com ('http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/') :) - they have a very large source of information about everything a tankadin needs to know.

[Thomas]

Spell damage is pretty important to a prot pally.

Sort of varies on what your doing though.

Like a hyjal prot pally needs a crapload of spell damage to make it easy. Our prot pally had like 600 and we would often give him WoAir.

If your only boxing 5 mans with a team of 5 I would suggest to do whatever feels right to you. If you find yourself getting caught by your slaves I suggest getting more however stam/skill def is important too.

[Codam]

+agility (dodge rating)

Agility is a very uneconomical stat to stack for tankadins. Personally I increase my dodge rating through dodge/stam gems and items with on-equip dodge rating.

quoted from http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/viewtopic.php?t=163 Pre-raid Tanking: Theories, Goals and the Gear to Get There

Granted the topic is covering uncrushability which as others have stated concerns raid bosses, but this is achieved by raising your mitigation/avoidance in order to drop crushing blows off the table. Against a non raid boss mob, this will just result in dropping more normal hits off the table, and that can only be a good thing.


Let's take a look at ratings and what they mean for us.

2.4 Defense Rating = 1 Defense = .04 Miss/Doge/Parry/Block

18.9 Dodge Rating = 1% Dodge

31.5 Parry Rating = 1% Parry

7.9 Block Rating = 1% Block

25 Agility = 1% Dodge

Assuming 1 Rating = 1 Item Point...

Until you reach 102.4%, Block Rating is the cheapest avoidance stat, followed by Defense, Dodge and Parry in that order.

Once you hit 102.4%, 1 Defense Rating gives you 0.05 pure avoidance, whereas 1 Dodge will give you 0.53. Parry is even worse, yielding 0.031 pure avoidance. For comparison 1 Agi = 0.04 avoidance.

At this point, extra Block is useless, so you should focus on Dodge, then Defense. Agility is worse than Defense, but better than Parry for Avoidance.

[Los]

did you guys read the updates on pally tanking in the beta?

we are going to scale with str / ap!

rejoice! \o/

[Sanctume]

It depends on your tanking goals.

For Heroics where you don't need uncrushability:
490 defense (485 actually, but it's a technical thing).

When one is starting out with gearing, Stamina is more important to reach 10k health unbuffed.
But prior to the extra +6% stam talent change, most tankadins put +12 stam gems to reach that 10k.
Nowadays, 10k unbuffed is doable prior to getting raid drops/heroic drops.

Once the 490 def, 10k is reached. Getting the 102.x % avoidance is doable even prior to KZ gear.

For KZ tanking, with the Prince as a goal--lots of avoidance is better since it's a long fight with Phase 2 being more of a threat.
But for phase 1 Prince, lots of spell damage is nice to get some lead threat and have dps start early.
So, it's nice to have 2 tanking weapons: 1 with +spell damage (continuum blade, S2 gavel) for threat, and one for pure avoidance (mongoose, and a warrior-like tanking weapon Sun Eater).

Some like stacking +block "value" for multi-mob trash clearing.
Some prefer dodge > block > parry items.

For most tanking gear upgrades, that +Stam and Armor goes up, the Block, Dodge, and Parry of the itemization just varies for the same item levels.

But yea, Strength stat is currently the lowest of tankadin priority since 25 Strengh = 1 Block Value. Strenth suits a warrior tank more since it adds to block value, block value adds to threat, and strength translate to all damage.

A paladin's threat from physical weapon damage is small compared to +spell damage threat (SoR, JoR, Holy Shield, Consecration, etc).

If paladins scale with str/ap in Wotlk, what's going to happen to the +spell damage tanking set?