How to pull in 4.0.1?

[econ21]

Thanks to theckhd and others, I have a pretty good understanding of our new rotation. But what should be our opening moves before we get into the rotation? I suspect with wotlk 5-mans - what I will spend a fair among tanking - trash will fall so fast, we won't even get into the rotation.

In BC, I pulled by standing still and firing avenger shield then waiting while the mobs ran into my flames (having CCd some etc).

In WotLK, I pulled by running into mobs, firing off HoRec as soon as in range.

What should I do in 4.01?

Is Exorcism worth considering as the new opener? The plus is that - unlike HoRec - it does damage.

Should I still begin with HoRec? The plus is that it may help me keep the pace I am used to (despite losing pursuit of justice). If I stop to exorcise in "gogogo" 5 mans, I fear the dps will unload fast and cause threat issues. But without a damage component, will the taunt last long enough to keep the mob on me?

What about using judgement? Talented to 40 yards, it might allow me to combine damage and pace. But I fear it could disrupt my rotation (which should be CS>J>CS>AS/HW>CS)

I will use avenger shield, but am no longer glyphing it, so am thinking of making it my second or third opening move to have more chance of the mobs grouping up together. (Rather like my warrior waits to use shockwave after TC so that the mobs are nicely arraigned in the frontal cone). Before glyphing it, I noticed I quite often failed to get a bounce for whatever reason (mobs too dispersed or some other quirk).

A further issue is whether to use a 1HPo SoR - to help establish threat and get the holy shield up. I suspect this may be particularly good for AOE (more mobs to throw themselves on your shield; and a big SoR less important for tanking them).

TL;DR What are people going to use as their opening sequence in:
(a) single target pulls?
(b) AOE pulls?

I am thinking:

(a) For single target:

Wings>Exorcism>J>AS>CS>1HPoSoR>Cons

then go to rotation (CS>J>CS>AS/HW>CS>3HPoSoR)

The rationale here is that the pull uses all our three ranged attacks up front. And gets a weak SoR up for threat and the Holy Shield. Single target pulls tend to be rather more measured affairs, so pausing to exorcise might be ok. If not, HoRec instead of exorcise I guess. For single target pulls, the consecration is really just a filler to allow Judgement to be off CD for when I ease into the rotation.

A simpler alternative might be just Exo>AS then straight into the rotation.

(b) For AOE, as (a) above, but marking skull first, substituting HotR for CS obviously and maybe swopping HoRec for exorcism to "gogogo". The consecration becomes more meaningful here. (I know things will change at 81 when we get inquisition.)

What do people think?

[Awyndel]

Still reading up on things myself. So I cannot give you much of an answer atm.

The thing I did notice is that you put wings up first. I see a lot of ppl do this. This wastes a lot of threat since you don't have all buffs/debuffs running yet, nor a full rotation going atm, and your seal of truth will not be stacked. Wings didn't stack with the damage increase from tricks before either, although I cannot comment on the current state.

[econ21]

That's a good point about Wings. To be honest, I never pop wings in 5 mans or for trash - which is much worse for threat than popping early. For some raid bosses, I do use them and usually wait for 5 stacks before doing so.

My reluctance to pop wings, apart from laziness, was due to forebearance. The one time I recently used them on Festergut, my co-tank later died and I frantically kept pressing the divine shield spell to reset my debuff before realising the futility. With wings no longer causing forebearance, I will try to use them more or less on cooldown. (Memo to self: find out their cooldown!)

[Mcduffie]

I've still been using hand and AS, while running towards the mob. Then, once I get a shield hit on one mob, I switch to another. Wash, rinse, repeat.

[Nikachelle]

I've still been using hand and AS, while running towards the mob. Then, once I get a shield hit on one mob, I switch to another. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I thought hand didn't cause damage anymore?

[Mcduffie]

I've still been using hand and AS, while running towards the mob. Then, once I get a shield hit on one mob, I switch to another. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I thought hand didn't cause damage anymore?

Does it not? I couldn't tell you. But I've been using it, and then usually attacking the mob that I slapped. And thus compensating. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. /shrug

[Rasmfrackn]

Nope, no damage on HoReck anymore. It makes things pretty painful. You can't just use it on the pull to get some bonus damage, you have to rely on our "new" ranged judgement to emulate taunt damage, assuming it's off cooldown, and you're over level 70 or whatever it is to get to a secondary tree.

I think exorcism is a good choice to open a pull, since that's the only time you're going to be able to use it. I can't always hold aggro by opening with AS+J before they reach CS range, even with wings.

As for it being inefficient to use wings on a pull... my concern is much more about opening with as much threat as possible. I can sorta mostly sustain TPS once vengeance is up; it's in the first 10 seconds that I'm going to have threat issues since we now seem, for some crazy reason, to be "balanced" around doing 2/3rds of what we did without vengeance to stay ahead of the dps WITH vengeance.

[econ21]

I did heroic Old Kingdom on my pally and think the opening moves I spelt out work quite well.

I was with a good group, but even so stopping to fire exorcism did not leave me feeling pressured. (Then again, OK is one of the few instances where you really don't want to just blindly barrel through.)

By exorcising, judging and firing off AS, I was able to get quite a lot of threat on the skull. Followed by a consecration and a HotR, and I did not feel AOE threat was an issue at all.

It seemed fairly easy to settle into the rotation, although to be honest, I don't think rotations really work in wotlk heroics - things dont live long enough. I did find the HolyPower display utterly useless - too far away for me to look at even once in the instance. But ratcheting up three HotR before unloading a SoR was pretty easy to execte without the display.

By contrast, my prot warrior had a pretty awful time tanking Azjol Nerub - constantly having threat ripped off her by mages. She lacked both the initial threat on the skull of my pally, and the AOE ability. I will have to work more on her, but right now palatanking is feeling fun again.

PS: Never used wings again - bad econ!

[econ21]

Excuse the double post - second night of tanking reinforces my earlier observations. The only thing niggling me is avenger shield. It is the main source of my dps right now in 5mans (26% last night in UK) and, especially with GrC, fantastic for keeping AOE aggro in 5 mans. However, if I fire it off after Exorcism and Judgement, it still - as often as not - only hits one target. The mobs are too dispersed. Consequently, I tended to wait until I could see the whites of their eyes to guarantee a triple hit. But that wastes GCDs. I think it might be better to consecrate before using avenger shield, i.e. go Exo>J>Cons>AS. Doing BC style static pulls rather than charging into mobs Wotlk style is generally less of an issue than I feared. (AS again is very nice for pulling in casters). I guess PUGs are more patient now that we are all newbies again.

[xcitu]

About Hand of Reckoning pull;
I noticed that the debuff the mob gets haven't been mentioned. When taunting with hand, the mob or boss is forced to attack you for 3 seconds. I think this will give you some space to build threat. Maybe AS, CS, hand taunt then normal rotation(thinking of singletarget now).
Hope my tip helps, just thought I should mention it.

[Olen]

Maybe AS, CS, hand taunt then normal rotation(thinking of singletarget now).

You can't apply the Taunt debuff to a target you are high threat on. The HoReck will only work if you pull with it. Unless you plan on a dps already having pulled off you that early.

My usual pull in 5mans is AS, Hammer, HW, Hammer for multi-mob groups. Key is closing the distance quickly, if you can't get them all in range of Hammer and HWrath then toss in a Judgement and push it all back one global.

[theckhd]

Maybe AS, CS, hand taunt then normal rotation(thinking of singletarget now).

You can't apply the Taunt debuff to a target you are high threat on. The HoReck will only work if you pull with it. Unless you plan on a dps already having pulled off you that early.

Unless they explicitly changed something in 4.0.1, that's not true. HoReck should still apply the 3-second fixate unless the boss is immune to taunts.

[Olen]

Yeah I take that back. /foot in mouth

One thing lost in casting Reck preemptively is the threat you could gain from it if you wait until the moment DPS pulls off you.

[Awyndel]

Well, personally I can't get exorcism+av+judge working without delaying my CS too much. Too clunky imo, and my raid doesn't seem to like the delay of cast time pulls.

And if I av+judge I have to replace a 9 with consecration. Is that really worth it threat wise, as oposed to waiting 1 second and starting with CS?

[thlight]

Out of the several 5 mans I've run over the past few nights, I have been mainly pulling with Hand, then AS if it's up. CS if target is in range, if not I'll toss down a consecrate as they reach me and hit holy wrath as well. From there I jump into my melee, CS, HotR, Judgement and by then AS has procced the "insta cast" whatever the heck it is.... I don't pay attn... just hit buttons and stuff . Few times, a 5k dps+ has pulled the mobs off of me right off the pull (non assisting PRICKS!!!) but Holy Wrath grabs the mobs back pretty quick and AS probably procs 2-3 times per fight.

I always forget about Holy Power shield smash crap..... I need a new unit frame setup so I can have myself under my feet along with my target!

On avg I was generating around 160k TPS according to Omen. But other than that big DPS guy, out of 4 or 5 groups in the past few days I've been top DPS or 2nd on DPS according to recount.