Pally getting wtfown'd in heroics

[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]

[quote='elo',index.php?page=Thread&postID=48399#pos t48399]
10,000 HP
494 def
11% dodge
16% parry
16% block
just north of 12,000 armor

[/quote]
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: [color=#ffd800][url='http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?0000000000000000000005305133500001025 215510510500030000000000000']Prot Pally[/url] [/color]

[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-sh...rogg&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-s...uramar&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-s...us&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.