Rate my tanking, and why am I always OOM nowerdays?

[Tirion_Azuremyst]

Hey all,

Here's me: http://armory.wow-europe.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Azuremyst&n=Tirion

I've been farming heroics since 3.3 along with everyone else and their dog, and I'm beginning to get to the point where I am just constantly oom. I have to drink after every pull.

I use:

- Retribution Aura
- Righteous Fury
- Blessing of Sanctuary
- (Trash) Seal of Command
- (Boss) Seal of Vengeance

Just before I pull with the Holy Frisbee, I hit:

- Sacred Shield
- Divine Plea
- (Boss) Avenging Wrath

I admit I'm lazy and don't have two seperate "6" and "9" macros, I instead use this:

Code: Select all

#showtooltip
/startattack
/castsequence reset=combat Holy Shield, Hammer of the Righteous, Consecration, Shield of Righteousness, Judgement of Wisdom

I know it's not the most hardcore TPS, and I do get the odd half a second of dead time now and then, but it allows me to concentrate on managing the fights instead of keeping a rotation going. Holy Shield is still up 100% of the time.

I do about 1800-2000dps over an entire heroic run most times, which is more than the actual dps classes usually. I've never really had a problem with holding aggro unless the dps classes start unloading the moment I pull, or the DK uses AotD.

I do try and pull at least a couple of trash packs at a time, but I'm still oom very quickly. Is there anything I can do differently? Where am I going wrong?

[ulushnar]

You need less macro and more of your judgement (and I don't mean the spell).

I just macro my "6" abilities to my 1 key and then have Holy Shield, JoW and Consecrate as separate buttons on 2-4. It lets me stop using mana hogs like Consecrate when they've passed the point of usefulness. That, and pulling more mobs usually gets Ulu through a Heroic with only a couple of mana breaks.

[Tirion_Azuremyst]

lets me stop using mana hogs like Consecrate when they've passed the point of usefulness.

I cling to Consecrate like a tatty old safety blanket

At what point would you say Consecrate was no longer useful? I feel secure in that I'm constantly generating aggro while the hunter in the group is chain volleying behind me

[Snake-Aes]

lets me stop using mana hogs like Consecrate when they've passed the point of usefulness.

I cling to Consecrate like a tatty old safety blanket

At what point would you say Consecrate was no longer useful? I feel secure in that I'm constantly generating aggro while the hunter in the group is chain volleying behind me

I'm in icc-ready gear and doing 400 damage per tick, so 3200 damage over 9 seconds... or 355 dps, or 915 tps.
Hammer of the Righteous does 1900 damage every 6 seconds, or 316 dps, or 813 tps.
Consecration costs 4 times more mana than the hammer, and it doesn't apply SoV/SoComm.

Given we have comfortable threat leads on all but the toughest dps races, there's absolutely no need to consecrate on most fights, save aoes big enough to make Sanctuary supply you easily.

[ulushnar]

Unless your AoE DPS insanely overgears you, you can probably drop Consecrate after the second cast until new mobs enter the fray.

Consecrate is the lure to get them to proc your Ret Aura/Holy Shield, it is not the be-all and end-all of your threat gen. 16 secs into the fight you should have them glued solidly to you, if not, l2tabtarget with HotR.

[bldavis]

i agree with them, break up that monster of a macro and use cons less
hell i dont even use a macro for my 969

i only use it when i have 4+ mobs, or if i need to add some threat on mobs
between glyph of HoR, and my AS, i have no problems hitting up to 3 mobs with enough threat to glue them to me and i use dev aura unless its a fight where a resistance aura would help

just go back to basics, remember how to 969 without a huge macro and you should be fine.

[ulushnar]

Really, resource management is a key skill as a tank. Wether it's Mana, Rage or Runes/RP you'll find yourself with loads when you don't need it (tanking a hard-hitting single target) and much less in situations where more would be nice (trying to keep trash you overgear from killing the clothies).

Mashing a cast sequence macro instead of making intelligent choices about which spells to use based on the situation is just a fast way to waste mana.

And anyway, your rotation macro's missing a '6' ability after the judgement, you're going 96969, 96969, 96969, so you're wasting a global CD.

[Epimer]

Drop the macros, they're not doing you any favours. It's only 5 buttons, I'm sure you can cope with that

For dungeons like The Nexus or Utgarde Keep/Pinnacle, where you can seamlessly pull one trash pack after another, don't ever give Divine Plea a chance to fall off. In those places I'm moving towards the next trash pack while the previous one is just about dead. You don't need Avenger's Shield to establish aggro on every pull; get them moving towards you and your first HotR is going to hit 3 mobs pretty hard, followed by your SoComm cleaves on every melee and subsequent ability use (more or less).

Consecration: it's not necessary. I don't even use it to establish aggro these days. I'll use it if I've got more mana coming in than going out (big pulls with plenty of BoSanc mana returns) for free dps but that's it. You shouldn't *need* it to hold aggro in heroics - either the DPS is low enough that they're not going to pull off you anyway or the DPS is high enough that mobs are going to be dead within the duration of Consecration and it's a waste of mana. If you can't hold aggro against AoE DPS without Consecration, you need to start tabbing around more. In TBC we could get away without tab-targetting to spread aggro but these days you can't just tunnel vision into attacking one or two targets and expect to keep them all glued to you.

Some people will tell you to just pull more, pull multiple packs etc. I'm not a fan of that approach, and prefer to just smoothly pull one pack then another rather than 18 mobs at once. I don't think either approach is right or wrong, but I mention it to point out that it's not necessary to pull 3 packs at once to prevent you going oom. Manage your mana - it's a resource and you can't just use every ability every cooldown and expect to come out with a full blue bar.

[Alixander]

Some people will tell you to just pull more, pull multiple packs etc.

To add to this point, sometimes you can't pull more. For example, Violet Hold, Culling of Stratholme and Halls of Reflection are all fights consisting of waves. You can't pull any more because they either don't exist yet or they aren't attackable. In this situation, having your auto-macro and not being able to avoid casting Consecrate is a massive drain on your resources in a situation where you may not be able to afford it.

I'll echo what has been said multiple times already: Drop the macro and start learning to do your dancing over the five buttons of you 969 rotation with your keybinds.

[Epimer]

For example, Violet Hold, Culling of Stratholme and Halls of Reflection are all fights consisting of waves. You can't pull any more because they either don't exist yet or they aren't attackable.

A few tips for these places while they're being mentioned anyway. CoS you can sort of cheese it by smacking zombies as you run between packs, keeping you in combat and keeping Divine Plea refreshed. In HoR if you line-of-sight each wave into an alcove then your BoSanc returns should be enough to let you do whatever the hell you want. VH, though, requires some careful mana management. Knowing that I can't keep DP rolling the whole time, I'll save it for the portals which spawn only one mob, because BoSanc and SA returns are going to be minimal. I'll drink after each boss pull, and will go oom pretty much as Cyanigosa hits the floor (I like pretending to be an arcane mage). I'll only use Consecration on the 3-4 mob pulls where BoSanc mana returns allow it, and even then only once.

[Dasphunk]

You can always pull more trash mobs. I usually pull three or four packs of mobs and that's enough to keep me at full on mana using SoC. Just make sure your dps and healer know so they are not constantly pulling aggro when kiting the mobs to pick up more. When doing bosses and your still having trouble with mana... use SoW. It's not as much threat or dps but you will always be at full mana using a full 6969 rotation. I never have problems with threat using SoW but it may be different with you.

[Koln]

For heroics I just use seal of wisdom.

Edit: Dasphunk beat me to it.

[kysu]

Chain pull, dont let DP fall off.

In heroics i rarely use holy shield or Consecrate. Macro's ftl Id rather have you say i click then that.

[Epimer]

When doing bosses and your still having trouble with mana... use SoW. It's not as much threat or dps but you will always be at full mana using a full 6969 rotation.

I've bolded why I think this is bad advice. Warriors, Druids and DKs make sure they're never capping out their resource, because it should be turned into TPS/DPS. We are no different - if you can finish a boss fight without going oom, while contributing a not insignificant amount of damage, you should probably do so.

[Tirion_Azuremyst]

Thanks for all the advice, I'll lose the macro this evening and see how I do with less consecrate spammage