Tanking Rotation in Cataclysm

[Torquemada]

We did a lot of that same kind of rotating depending on the fight in my last guild. Except we had one Tankadin who had two prot specs and no ret gear, so it was always either me or the Bear going DPS. Sadly, the bear's DPS spec was as Boomkin, and he was quite awful.

The guild before that we had a bear who played switch hitter just as you mentioned before he quit for the expansion.

[Noradin]

Our rotation still includes HW which only scales with level and 18% of our strength but not with vengeance.

Also the relative amount of abilites not usable when silenced feels more annoying than on live (yes I was in the nexus far to often).
The only thing we can use when silenced is CS/HotR, making ShoR unuasble if silenced or disarmed or dismantled.

Why do we have abilities that use a weapon but are a spell at the same time?

[knaughty]

Why do we have abilities that use a weapon but are a spell at the same time?

Flavour!

That or Hysterical Raisins to do with the fact we are a caster class that had a couple of melee specs tacked on?

[mclem]

A slightly crazy thought while playing with the talent calculator:

At 80, we don't have Guardian of Ancient Kings. This somewhat weakens the usefulness of Shield of the Templar. If you were instead to drop Shield of the Templar and replace it with Grand Crusader, would the cooldown removal of GC be reasonably reliable to allow a normal rotation with only costing two talent points, freeing a third for some other threat talent?

(As an aside: doesn't this interplay effectively means that one of our talents - Shield of the Templar - reduces the effectiveness of another of our talents? After all, removing the CD on a 24 second ability is more powerful than doing it on a 15 second ability. That, at least, strikes me as a good sign that there's a problem in our setup)

I'm guessing that the reduced CD on Avenging Wrath far outweighs it, although I am asking from the point of view of someone who's pretty poor at firing off AW on CD after the initial one. Either way, I suspect there's some big factor I've missed.

[theckhd]

Updated sims are up (rotation/talents anyway). I'm hoping to get glyphs done by this afternoon as well, but I need to get some actual work done too.

One interesting result is that Grand Crusader, while weak, is still better than most of the options in holy/ret.

[Klaudandus]

Ouch, can't believe how bad Hallowed Ground is.

[theckhd]

Well, it modifies an ability that you cast at best once every 36 seconds. The big advantage of that talent is the mana savings, not the damage buff. It remains to be seen whether we can AoE tank effectively without that mana reduction.

[Magnusharkov]

Thanks for all your hard work Theck! Can I request an analysis of how much damage you lose if you swap to seal of insight? Would also be interesting to know how much heal/mana per second this averages out to, and whether any of the mana gains cause threat.

[Farehl]

I just wanted to step in to say thanks to Theck for all the work you've put into this thread (I was linked to it mid page 66 and have read everything since then to the end ). I've been playing the game since release, as a healer raiding through to the end of BC, and as dps to the current date. With some changes in our guild, I've decided to move to the paladin to possibly take up tanking to help fill a need. This thread has proven the most helpful in terms of 4.0 and what I'm too look for. I wish I found it sooner as for most of the past month or so, I've often felt adrift amid a sea of speculation with no solid grounding in anything. Your numbers and analysis have lead to several fantastic discussions in this thread, that have really helped me obtain a better grasp on what is to come in 4.0, and I'm looking forward to it.

oddly enough, this also coincided with GC stating that if things were broken at higher gear levels as people on the forum were predicting, they would change things. They did. Population is important. If people don't play their class b/c they feel underpowered, blizzard loses money.

Either that, or they change their mains. I became an ele.shaman in WotLK because the guild couldn't find one anywhere. Piss poor dps at the start of Naxx 2.0 did a lot to cull the population, but raids still wanted the totems. Blizz has tried to remediate the ele.shaman issue over the life of WotLK, but I find it interesting that now that I've decided to pick up the prot pally mantle for the guild, all I'm hearing about is how OP ele.shaman are all of a sudden. Eh... go figure

[Klaudandus]

Magnus, SoI is really really bad, at least that was I could gather at first glance from the logs I provided to theck. On a naked paladin, it was averaging about 20% less damage when judging SoI vis a vis SoR.

[Magnusharkov]

Yeah, I'm aware it will be a big hit, I'm just trying to work out how big of a hit. In wotlk SoL isn't a viable option on most encounters due to the nature of spam healing and the fact our seals are a decent amount of damage. In cata seal damage is way down while added healing is of greater importance, plus HotR no longer spreads SoV stacks to my knowledge. I'm not saying I definitely think we should tank using insight but I think it's more of a worthwhile option to consider now.

[Klaudandus]

oddly enough, this also coincided with GC stating that if things were broken at higher gear levels as people on the forum were predicting, they would change things. They did. Population is important. If people don't play their class b/c they feel underpowered, blizzard loses money.

Either that, or they change their mains. I became an ele.shaman in WotLK because the guild couldn't find one anywhere. Piss poor dps at the start of Naxx 2.0 did a lot to cull the population, but raids still wanted the totems. Blizz has tried to remediate the ele.shaman issue over the life of WotLK, but I find it interesting that now that I've decided to pick up the prot pally mantle for the guild, all I'm hearing about is how OP ele.shaman are all of a sudden. Eh... go figure

Well, ever since the merge with activision, blizz is more concerned with revenue -- as such, QoL issues are more important than ever. Big changes in population do affect how the game is played and whether the developers do change/nerf/buff something, although there's really no metric for it.

Having one loon write in caps on the forums really doesn't affect how blizz works on something, but if there's a lot of echo on certain issues, then blizz will react to it. Take the CS/HotR example -- eventually, GC and the devs brought it down to 3 secs after a lot of echo on the forums, specially when QoL issues were mentioned. Tanks changing specs, healers changing specs, DPS increasing in number overall or players just leaving the game if utterly frustrated.

Sorry for the slight derail

[Arjuna]

Updated sims are up (rotation/talents anyway). I'm hoping to get glyphs done by this afternoon as well, but I need to get some actual work done too.

One interesting result is that Grand Crusader, while weak, is still better than most of the options in holy/ret.

<snip awesome statistics>

Grand Crusader? Really? I was under the impression it only has 3xCS to proc and then it's useless for another 3xCS?

[Phonic]

Grand Crusader? Really? I was under the impression it only has 3xCS to proc and then it's useless for another 3xCS?

I'm a bit confused as to what you're asking... but I'll take a shot I think you might be thinking of SotR, which takes 3xCS to generate 3HoPo for max strength. Grand Crusader is the talent that allows the Cooldown of your Avenger's Shield to reset, thus allowing you to "use it anytime".

But as mentioned multiple times in this thread, the only time to properly weave it in without messing with the ST rotation is subbing it for a HW. Otherwise, it can be used for add pick up, silence/interrupt utility, or just plain frisbee throwing fun

[Kelaan]

At 80, we don't have Guardian of Ancient Kings. This somewhat weakens the usefulness of Shield of the Templar. If you were instead to drop Shield of the Templar and replace it with Grand Crusader, would the cooldown removal of GC be reasonably reliable to allow a normal rotation with only costing two talent points, freeing a third for some other threat talent?

I like that idea. Respeccing at 85 for more CD reduction sounds good.