Help with Utgarde Keep and general Paladin tanking

[Hachoo]

Still...if you have those stats, it still seems rather weird that you're having so many issues.

My 4 shamans were severely undergeared when I beat UK - ~600 spell damage each, only 8k mana, 8k hp. No resto spec shaman, though from what I hear having 4 DPS can sometimes be BETTER than 3 DPS + healer in a lot of cases. As I said, I really didn't have to heal that much in this instance, even on boss fights I had a pretty wide gap between heals, especially on the last boss who hardly hit me. Trash was pretty easy 2, max 1 set of lesser healing waves per pull generally, even on the 4 pulls.

My dodge is 16% and parry is 14%, not sure how to really translate that to compare it to the block that a paladin uses though. Just seems odd you're having so many probs. Are you maximizing your DPS without any pauses? One thing I did that helped a lot is made a DPS macro that was bound to the same key as my secondary tanking macro... I can pull mobs with my DK and start a death and decay (sort of like consecrate) and then once I'm done with that I mash a single key and my DK goes through a tanking sequence while my shamans spam LB/CL/Purge on castrandom - works very well, the shamans never pull aggro and if I need to heal really quick I just spam a different key for a sec and my DK keeps tanking while my shamans all cast 1 lesser healing wave on the DK which generally heals him all the way to full in 1 cast (even if he is at ~10% hp).

[Bigfish]

Hard to say. Do you have a healing button you actively mash, or do you only press it when you think you need a heal?

[Frosty]

Are you maximizing your DPS without any pauses?

Yep, I have some very elaborate and well planned out macros set up in macaroon.

Hard to say. Do you have a healing button you actively mash, or do you only press it when you think you need a heal?

I have several lines of heals set up along with backup healing and potions.

I think my problem is with a combination of my gear/defense and the talent that Furshpere mentioned.
If I fight 2 mobs, I generally don't have to heal. Add 1 more, and then my health just drops too fast to even begin to heal.
I'm thinking I'm getting hit extra from Reckoning and when I use Hammer of the Righteous..then through in my crappy defense = dead.

[Bigfish]

Well, no idea if this will help, but this is the macro I put on my resto shaman for instance running:

/castsequence [target=focus] Earth Shield, Riptide,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Riptide, Chain Heal,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Riptide,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

It goes on my spam button, so yes, it goes off even when I don't need a heal, but in an instance that isn't often. I also have a

/castsequence [target=focus] Chain Heal, Healing Wave

set up on a seperate button for when I need a stronger heal to go off. Adjust the commas to 12 time the number of times per second you hit the button.

[hibiki]

A good way to figure out if you're uncrittible is to hover over your defense rating in the character sheet and check what percent crit reduction you have. Same level mobs have 5% base chance to crit you, your pally has 3.8%. For each addition level they outlevel you there is an additional 0.2% added. The level 70 needing 490 is against raid bosses(3 level higher).

Also, my healer is a priest and I have a castsequence macro with Prayer of Mending and Renew bound to the same button as my dps' spam button. As soon as my dps start casting, my priest hits my pally with a PoM followed with a Renew and sits there until PoM is ready. I have Flash Heal, Greater Heal, Prayer of Healing, Circle of Healing bound to other buttons in case I actually need healing. Is there a skill that shamans have that's on a fairly short cd so you're not spamming heals on your tank but also allow you to prevent spike damage? My experience with shaman healing is 4x chain lightning. :P

[wowphreak]

One of the things I would change is skip on stoicism and get improved devotion which increase yer heals received by 6% the extra armor is always nice

At this point if yer doing something along the lines of a 9696 rotation there is no way any of yer chars will pull agro therefore its better to use
devotion aura/blessing of sanctuary.

While leveling the gear yeh get for yer dps shammies dosen't have to be mail yeh can use cloth or leather, as long as it has spell damage and int on it.
Just look at the stats.

I would also put chain heal and healing wave on separate buttons

[Frosty]

Well, I got a few upgrades (there were only 4 items with "of the Champion" level 60-74 in the AH :S ), and bumped my defense to 491, re-spec'd and gave it a shot.
I got further than I had before. Now I think I just need to work on my stratagy a little.

Fursphere, my healing macro WAS using Lessor Heals. Ooops! :whistling:

At this point, I'm wondering if my group make-up just can't put out enough DPS though. It takes me for-friggen-ever to kill a single drake.
Going to research each class a little and see what the best use of spells is and double check all my macros. They all seemed to be firing off pretty reliably last night though.

One of the things I would change is skip on stoicism and get improved devotion which increase yer heals received by 6% the extra armor is always nice

At this point if yer doing something along the lines of a 9696 rotation there is no way any of yer chars will pull agro therefore its better to use
devotion aura/blessing of sanctuary.

While leveling the gear yeh get for yer dps shammies dosen't have to be mail yeh can use cloth or leather, as long as it has spell damage and int on it.
Just look at the stats.

I would also put chain heal and healing wave on separate buttons

May give the devotion aura a try, thanks for the suggesiton. I've had 0 problems holding aggro (until I die).

[Hachoo]

So whats the biggest issue you have with the drakes? I had a huge issue with the drakes when I was running 5 shamans but once I put a DK in they were cake. I think I healed my DK once on each drake fight, and my stats are definitely worse than yours after your upgrades.

I have 4 shamans so the DPS is pretty good though i have very low +spellpower so I'm not sure what the issue is...

Are you turning the drakes away from the rest of your party and keeping them far enough away that the rest of your party doesn't get hit? I'm assuming so since you say you only have issues with your pally dying fast not the rest of your party.

I just can't figure out what the issue is...the drakes don't hit altogether that hard on 13k+ armor.

[Frosty]

So whats the biggest issue you have with the drakes? I had a huge issue with the drakes when I was running 5 shamans but once I put a DK in they were cake. I think I healed my DK once on each drake fight, and my stats are definitely worse than yours after your upgrades.

I have 4 shamans so the DPS is pretty good though i have very low +spellpower so I'm not sure what the issue is...

Are you turning the drakes away from the rest of your party and keeping them far enough away that the rest of your party doesn't get hit? I'm assuming so since you say you only have issues with your pally dying fast not the rest of your party.

I just can't figure out what the issue is...the drakes don't hit altogether that hard on 13k+ armor.

I was able to handle a drake and one mob that comes with it ok last night.
I park my toons away from where I’m pulling the mob, but where I can get my back to a wall so the knockback doesn’t put me or the drake out of their range.

I really think I’m having some sort of DPS issue though.. It seems to take me at least 30 seconds or more to kill a drake… I thought maybe it was just the new instances, but I haven’t really done any instances for quite a while since I’ve been focusing on leveling for the new content.

I haven’t tried it..but I’m assuming I can have my toons duel each other and test out my castsequences.. I’m going to check them all tonight.

Or it might be that I just need to re-think my entire play-style.

[Bigfish]

You could use the level 70 practice dummies in the capital cities. They're great for testing castsequence and dps.

Edit: As far as I can tell, 30 seconds to kill a drake is about right. The things have 72k~ HP, and at 30 seconds, your group would be putting out 2400 DPS, which is a bit low, but only at about 80% of what my marginally well geared group does. Bottom line, I don't think there is any single contruibuting factor you can "fix" that will make your group run better. Gear wise, your paladin is good. I would suggest getting the full frostweave sets for your clothies (barring idivididual pieces that may be better) and potentially the crafted mail spell damage set (assuming it exists. Haven't looked in to that).

Are you using all your avilable DoTs and Debuffs? Those can make a big difference.

On the shadow priest: they always have low DPS compared to other DPS classes, which will pull down your group DPS, but the returned health is worth it, and I don't think you'll improve your group by switching specs on your shaman and priest, since you'll probably run in to the same problem of low dps on the Shaman. Also, watch those mind flays. Too often my priest stands there like an idiot because he hits mind flay in his castsequence and he's out of range.

You could consider having your resto shaman spam Lightning Bolt with the other DPS, just set his macros to have priority for healing. This typically doesn't work for bosses as you go OOM faster, but will pull your group DPS up a bit on trash.

Consider using an infernal or doomguard on your Lock. Infernals now have a short life span, and doomguards have 15 minute lifespan, both with a longer cool down, but both are superior DPS to even the felguard. Also, they no longer go rogue after a period of time, they just despawn, and the doom guard doesn't actually kill a party member now, he just takes a chunk of their life. Worth looking in to if the dragon stables are giving you trouble.

Binding "/castsequence Fire Elemental Totem, Heroism" is also a good short term group wide DPS boost.

I'd really suggest speccing in to Icy Veins instead of Focus Magic. In the long run in a susatined DPS situation, if your target can keep their crits going, yes, fcosu magic works out to more damage. The fact that your lock has a relatively limited crit chance, and your shadow priest shouldn't be a big crit machine period, the 20% increased damage for 20 seconds every other fight will probably work out better for you in dropping trash and 5-man bosses.

Geez, that worked out to be longer than I expected. Anyway, if you want to post your castsequences, I'll take a look at those and tell you what I think.