Offtanking Gruul

[Futtah]

I wanna start off with introducing myself since im a new poster on the boards - i'm Futtah and i'm a tankadin.
Since im at work im not able to post my armory link but your welcome to check it out.

I'm in a guild which is pretty prejudice towards tankadins, which at times make me frustrated but also so stubborn to continue proving my worth.

Last night my guild was going to Gruul's Lair to do the weekly kill of Gruul.

HKM was no problem for the guild and we started approaching Gruul when my guildleader said that i was offtank on Gruul.
At first i got a bad feeling about it since i've never offtanked a "major" boss with my paladin before, so i got a bit nervous about the task.
I then realized that this was my "big shot" to get some of the action, so i just said "Okay" and prepared for the task.

I'm unbuffed at 13,1k hp so i went all out on buffing my spelldamage and with every possible consumable i reached around 420 spelldmg. (without a flask)

When the fight started i kept my aggro just below the feral druid who MT. After the druid got some distance from me, i popped everything and spammed the best i've learned. Consecration, judgements, AS with angel wings.. everything in my arsenal..
But to my surprise i couldnt keep pace with the druid, he was long gone on the aggrolist and to my embarrassment the prot warrior who was supposed to be third on aggro was gaining on me.. It was only a matter of time before i ran out of mana and the warrior got the second aggrospot.

This was such a sad moment for me, i felt like i failed my guild. I've always seen people talk about how we tankadins are the masters of aggro.. But the fact is we are so dependant on taking hits because of HS that I feel like offtanking is a foolish task for a tankadin.

Look, i might be doing something wrong and maybe i'm just specced and geared awfully..
This is really a sad day for my paladin.

[Mínas]

There are some things that can help you. Try to get an elemental shamy, spriest in your group for mana and spelldam. Don´t walk out of the falling stones (i forgot the name in english) to get healed/mana.
Use Consecration only in combination with your Angel wings to keep mana.
Use Mana potions in CD rdy.
If this won´t work, ask for being the MT, that´s much easier

Greetz
Mínas

[Futtah]

There are some things that can help you. Try to get an elemental shamy, spriest in your group for mana and spelldam. Don´t walk out of the falling stones (i forgot the name in english) to get healed/mana.
Use Consecration only in combination with your Angel wings to keep mana.
Use Mana potions in CD rdy.
If this won´t work, ask for being the MT, that´s much easier

Greetz
Mínas

I can't possibly keep up with the threat if i only use my judgements and wait with consecration.. I barely kept threat with consecration

Yeah MT spot would be easier, if only i would get the chance to

[Mínas]

Maybe you really need Consecration. Try to speak with other Palas in your raid to get SoW an Gruul for a little bit more mana.
There is an interesting video of a prot pala offtanking Gruul:
http://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=-2026501731367988612&q=prot+gruul&total=8&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
Perhaps it can help u more then i can

btw: try to use 2 pieces of tier 3,5 to get the bonus of 15% less mana cost of consecration...but dont loose to much stats!

[Warrender]

Were you making sure your Consecration was hitting Gruul? There is a current bug that makes large bosses like Gruul have much smaller hit boxes for Consecration. It could be you weren't hitting him for all the ticks and that could lead to lost threat. You might also want to try judging Crusader on him to add some more spelldamage. If you have the mana, pop wings and maybe throw your shield at him a few times.

As for mana, drink plenty of pots, use some Dark/Demonic Runes and maybe ask for a Shadow Priest and/or mana tide totem in your group.

[Futtah]

Maybe you really need Consecration. Try to speak with other Palas in your raid to get SoW an Gruul for a little bit more mana.
There is an interesting video of a prot pala offtanking Gruul:
http://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=-2026501731367988612&q=prot+gruul&total=8&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
Perhaps it can help u more then i can

btw: try to use 2 pieces of tier 3,5 to get the bonus of 15% less mana cost of consecration...but dont loose to much stats!

Truly amazing video to see how that tankadins aggro just keep building infront of dps.. I must be doing something wrong, this sucks.. I finally got my chance and i blew it..

I must redeem myself!

Thanks for the video Minas

[Futtah]

Were you making sure your Consecration was hitting Gruul? There is a current bug that makes large bosses like Gruul have much smaller hit boxes for Consecration. It could be you weren't hitting him for all the ticks and that could lead to lost threat. You might also want to try judging Crusader on him to add some more spelldamage. If you have the mana, pop wings and maybe throw your shield at him a few times.

As for mana, drink plenty of pots, use some Dark/Demonic Runes and maybe ask for a Shadow Priest and/or mana tide totem in your group.

That could be the issue, cause my threat management usually aint this bad. But does Consecration really make such a big difference?

Anyone else with offtank experience?

[Fridmarr]

Well in this case it makes a huge difference, because you aren't able to generate threat from your reactive damage, so consecrate becomes important. Using an addon like EavesDrop will show if your consecrate is hitting him, but really as the OT, you just need to make sure you are under him more. It's a little harder as the MT because if you move under him too far he'll back up. It's also nice when your consecrate is ticking on him during a ground slam because you know none of the other melee DPS are generating much threat at that point.

I generally run JoTC and Mana Oil and pop my wings after the first slam. If you do it on the pull you risk getting aggro. You can eat the cave in for some extra mana at the start, but around growth 7 or so that's probably not a good idea because you want to be topped off for the hurtful strike.

[Warrender]

That could be the issue, cause my threat management usually aint this bad. But does Consecration really make such a big difference?

Yes.

[elson]

That could be the issue, cause my threat management usually aint this bad. But does Consecration really make such a big difference?

Anyone else with offtank experience?

With the type of spell damage you listed and using judgement of the cursader your consecrate should be doing over 300 threat per second by itself so not hitting gruul with this hurts quite a bit. The first time I offtanked him I was having some similar issues but a couple things made the difference.

(1) having a shadowpriest in group. Helps tons but not required.

(2) standing right on top of one of his ankles and using conscrate when I know the MT is keeping him in one spot for a little bit. This also lets me move to a different ankle when there is a cave in and the rest of the mele can follow me to avoid them in later growths.

(3) Take a tic or two of the early cave ins. This helps an amazing amount, most wars I know who offtank this do the same thing to help with rage.

(4) chug, chug, and chug mana pots

I've pulled off our MT before after a growth or two doing this. I generally don't have to watch my threat because he's pretty good at generating it, but if he gets raged starved at any given point there is a chance I'll pass him. Most of the mele are way behind me, and even the ranged have difficulty catching me.

As a note.. we have another prot warrior who is 3rd just in case and does the same thing with the cave ins. I have to work or he can get close to me, so it's a really good strat to take some dmg at the beginning of the fight

[Futtah]

That could be the issue, cause my threat management usually aint this bad. But does Consecration really make such a big difference?

Anyone else with offtank experience?

With the type of spell damage you listed and using judgement of the cursader your consecrate should be doing over 300 threat per second by itself so not hitting gruul with this hurts quite a bit. The first time I offtanked him I was having some similar issues but a couple things made the difference.

(1) having a shadowpriest in group. Helps tons but not required.

(2) standing right on top of one of his ankles and using conscrate when I know the MT is keeping him in one spot for a little bit. This also lets me move to a different ankle when there is a cave in and the rest of the mele can follow me to avoid them in later growths.

(3) Take a tic or two of the early cave ins. This helps an amazing amount, most wars I know who offtank this do the same thing to help with rage.

(4) chug, chug, and chug mana pots

I've pulled off our MT before after a growth or two doing this. I generally don't have to watch my threat because he's pretty good at generating it, but if he gets raged starved at any given point there is a chance I'll pass him. Most of the mele are way behind me, and even the ranged have difficulty catching me.

As a note.. we have another prot warrior who is 3rd just in case and does the same thing with the cave ins. I have to work or he can get close to me, so it's a really good strat to take some dmg at the beginning of the fight

Thanks fella, i really appreciate your input. I'll try that out next time

[Sabindeus]

Consecration is most of your aggro whether you're MTing or OTing Gruul.