New Tankadin Threat Rotations

[Teyrocar]

For BC I created a spreadsheet outlining available threat rotations to Tankadins, and I was eager to update it for Wrath of the Lich King.

With all the new tools at our disposal with new CDs, I thought it would be difficult to establish a solid rotation. However, the changes to Judgements and Holy Shield made it relatively easy.


NOTE: The downloadable spreadsheet is intended to be viewed in MS Office Excel, but it does look half-decent in OpenOffice and on GoogleDocs. As such I've also provided a link on GoogleDocs that everyone should be able to access.

http://rapidshare.com/files/131863338/W ... T.xls.html
or
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key= ... dFMw&hl=en

I will be updating these sheets as new information is released.


SPELL PRIORITY

I personally prioritized our single-target abilities over our AOE abilities, assuming we're tanking a single target. However, when in an AOE situation, all you really have to do is reverse the order I provided and prioritize Consecration. Bottom line is I'm hoping to move away from our dependence on Consecration and focus on using our other abilities instead. Unfortunately, since we don't yet know how well our new threat spells will scale, especially when compared to Consecration, it's hard to establish a conclusive spell priority.


JUDGEMENTS

While I listed Judgement in the rotation, because it has no GCD you have a lot of freedom in placement. If you're using a macro, you will need at least one point in Improved Judgement. I personally will only be using one point in Improved Judgement.


CONCLUSION

The new rotations are amazing. They're MUCH more viable than our old sequences, especially for single-target threat. Additionally, the rotations themselves are simpler and whereas my old spreadsheet contained 4-5 possible sequences, in WotLK I've narrowed it down to basically 2. I'm very excited about all the new changes and look forward to putting these rotations into practice.


Any comments, suggestions or ideas? I'm always open for some theorycrafting.


For Reference:

Paladin Talents According to Blizzard
Current Beta Paladin Talents
Consecration (WoWHead)
Hammer of the Righteous (WoWHead)
Shield of Righteousness (WoWHead)

[KysenMurrin]

Your rotations 2 and 3 seem to be using the wrong numbers for Judgement cooldowns wrt Imp. Judgment (9 secs is longer than untalented...).

[Teyrocar]

I don't see what you're saying, Judgements are 9 seconds with 1 point into Improved Judgements...?

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?spell=53408

10 seconds untalented, 8 seconds fully talented...

[KysenMurrin]

Ack, yeah, brain fart on my part there. Ignore me.

[Teyrocar]

Hey, I'll take a thread-bump.

[Atlas]

You need to take network and human lag into account. Even if you mash your button near the end of the GCD, you're going to lose a few tenths of a second in between skills, especially if you've got a moderate or high latency. This will make a big difference for our abilities that are on a short cooldown like our slam and new 51 pointer. Assuming an exact 1.5 seconds per skill is unreasonable imo.

Also, how are you casting Holy Shield and Judgment at the same time? They both use the GCD if I'm not mistaken.

Finally - why are you using 9 second judgments? Are you certain that's the best way to improve threat, vis-a-vis using 8 second judgments (even if it does simplify your rotation)?

[Teyrocar]

You need to take network and human lag into account. Even if you mash your button near the end of the GCD, you're going to lose a few tenths of a second in between skills, especially if you've got a moderate or high latency. This will make a big difference for our abilities that are on a short cooldown like our slam and new 51 pointer. Assuming an exact 1.5 seconds per skill is unreasonable imo.

Lag will always mess up rotations. However, with the new Holy Shield mechanic there is much more tolerance for it.

Also, how are you casting Holy Shield and Judgment at the same time? They both use the GCD if I'm not mistaken.

Judgement is still not using a GCD in beta.

Finally - why are you using 9 second judgments? Are you certain that's the best way to improve threat, vis-a-vis using 8 second judgments (even if it does simplify your rotation)?

Like I said in the post and in the spreadsheet itself, you don't have to use 9-second Judgements, especially if Judgement still doesn't invoke a GCD. I included an example rotation using 8-second Judgements, it's viable if you're not macro'ing the whole thing (I never use sequence macros personally, I always manually weave it).