Messing up the 9696

[Voltaik]

The 9696 rotation for maximum threat (and damage) requires the use of all our global cooldowns. This means that reactive abilities that are on the GCD, like all the Hands for instance, must take the place of otherwise threat producing moves. My questions to those of you who have done significant tanking at 80 are, how do you "get back on" your rotation after using one of these or other skills? Which of the rotational abilities are best to drop if you have that choice, to make room for other skills? How difficult (or even desirable) is it to keep the 9696 going, in practice?

[daemonym]

i've had this same issue myself, but i can't think of a way to get back on it either. even with the simplified version at lvl 70 i'm still near constantly getting thrown off by something. i have to cleanse myself, used HoJ...this better get off the gcd (>_<) hands, refreshing seals...and the occasional RF...lay on hands, bubble cancel macro, etc etc etc.

all i can usually do to get it going semi smoothly is wait for an opportunity to pause and not use any skills for 2 seconds so that two of the cooldowns are up at the same time so i can have some kind of rotation rather than prioritize all my skills as they appear.

[Whait]

the 69 rotation is good until you have to get silenced/move/cast a hand/cleanse or just wait for the boss to do somthing,like daemonym stated. but if threat isnt an issue in the xpac then i hardly doubt that "the perfect" threat rotation will be "needed" but its good to build on

[Kethion]

Depending on what it is you are dropping from the rotation, you can continue on being 1 GCD behind, or skip it until the next pass. I believe the general consensus is that judgement is the easiest to skip over (as long as there is time left on your thunderjudge or if someone else is applying the AS reduction). Regardless of what you do, the most important thing is to not get crazy and start using two 9s or 6s in sequence, because that will generally mess it up further.

[Worldie]

The best skill you can drop to "fix" a 969 is Judgement, followed by HotR.

[Lightbeard]

Don't stress too much about a rotation we have plenty of threat atm to mess up a bit

[Jasari]

The 9696 rotation isn't meant to explain how you're supposed to tank. It's simply the optimal way to generate threat. It's assumed that you'll need to use other spells over the course of a fight, or you'll need to move and things of that nature. The goal is to use every single GCD available. Which means, if you have to move and might get out of range for a ShoR or HotR, you might want to take the as a chance to toss a hand of salvation on someone, or to reseal, or cleanse. As long as you're in range to use your threat abilities, just remember to always use a 9 sec CD followed by a 6 sec CD in order to insure that your GCDs are easy to burn.

It's important to remember that this is a fundamentally different approach to tanking than we had in BC where it was basically "mash 3 buttons" ... wait 8 seconds ... "mash 3 buttons" ... repeat.

[Lore]

I just delay the rotation while I'm casting whatever else, then pick up where I left off. So, if I was about to hit HotR but I cleansed myself or whatever instead, I hit HotR again.

Seriously considering using two macros in Wrath though, gotta see how good I can get at keeping the rotation once I've had more experience with having ShoR in it.

[Widdox]

I would just know which abilities have the highest damage and when it comes time to "start" back up just hit your highest dmg ability that is up and restart the rotation.

[Fridmarr]

I would just know which abilities have the highest damage and when it comes time to "start" back up just hit your highest dmg ability that is up and restart the rotation.

ShoR then it'll be between HotR and Consecrate most likely. I can't remember in beta which is bigger out of those last two. I'd guess Consecrate, but HotR can crit and the mechanics for increasing it are different so it may vary at different gear levels. Judgements are pretty weak and Holy Shield is a bit different and has some overlap anyhow.

[Panzerdin]

Whilst I don't have any practical experience of this, I would guess that Consecrate should follow ShoR, in order to maintain 9/6/9/6 rotation, rather than using two 6s in a row. Feel free to contradict me if you know better.

[Obrimos]

I would just know which abilities have the highest damage and when it comes time to "start" back up just hit your highest dmg ability that is up and restart the rotation.

ShoR then it'll be between HotR and Consecrate most likely. I can't remember in beta which is bigger out of those last two. I'd guess Consecrate, but HotR can crit and the mechanics for increasing it are different so it may vary at different gear levels. Judgements are pretty weak and Holy Shield is a bit different and has some overlap anyhow.

Wouldn't it have to be Shor, Cons, HotR to keep 696?

I'm going to Cons, HotR, Judge, ShoR, then HS myself. Unless it's a big bad boss, then HS and Cons switch places.

[Kuripari]

The best skill you can drop to "fix" a 969 is Judgement, followed by HotR.

Just curious why those two in particular? Rather, I get Judgement, especially with the recent nerf, it's purpose is to put up thunderjudge which is on a 30 sec anyways.

But studying my recount breakdown after a fight, and a night of raiding, I see that HotR to be a pretty large portion of my damage ~25-30% I think. And the new buff makes me think it will become even more prominent. So is it, more or less the 6 sec one we can drop?

I was thinking I'd make sure to keep my 6 sec rotation up, hammer, and shield when I get it, and work things in around the pieces in the 9 second rotation. Unless I'm in a heavy AoE scenario or something. Is there some key point that I'm missing?

[Fridmarr]

I would just know which abilities have the highest damage and when it comes time to "start" back up just hit your highest dmg ability that is up and restart the rotation.

ShoR then it'll be between HotR and Consecrate most likely. I can't remember in beta which is bigger out of those last two. I'd guess Consecrate, but HotR can crit and the mechanics for increasing it are different so it may vary at different gear levels. Judgements are pretty weak and Holy Shield is a bit different and has some overlap anyhow.

Wouldn't it have to be Shor, Cons, HotR to keep 696?

I'm going to Cons, HotR, Judge, ShoR, then HS myself. Unless it's a big bad boss, then HS and Cons switch places.

Heh, it took me a bit to figure out what you were saying. I wasn't suggesting that you ShoR then HotR, I was just saying how they came out in terms of TPS so you'd know which skill to go to depending on cooldowns. In other words, if ShoR is on CD, then you have to choose between HotR and Cons. You'd only use judgement if everything was on CD when you went to resume your rotation.

[Fridmarr]

The best skill you can drop to "fix" a 969 is Judgement, followed by HotR.

Just curious why those two in particular? Rather, I get Judgement, especially with the recent nerf, it's purpose is to put up thunderjudge which is on a 30 sec anyways.

But studying my recount breakdown after a fight, and a night of raiding, I see that HotR to be a pretty large portion of my damage ~25-30% I think. And the new buff makes me think it will become even more prominent. So is it, more or less the 6 sec one we can drop?

I was thinking I'd make sure to keep my 6 sec rotation up, hammer, and shield when I get it, and work things in around the pieces in the 9 second rotation. Unless I'm in a heavy AoE scenario or something. Is there some key point that I'm missing?

HotR wasn't buffed, the tooltip was just updated to state what it had been doing the whole time. I'm not sure if consecrate will always be better than HotR because they use different mechanics, but from what I remember in beta for me it was.