4.2 Talent Spec & Glyph Guide

Rhiannon wrote:Sure, but in your talent breakdown you don't mention that it buffs WoG, just the damaging abilities. Ofc someone could just mouseover the link and see it for themselves.

Oh. Oops. I've added a sentence to reflect that.

econ21 wrote:I'm very reluctant to give up Hallowed Ground and Grand Crusader, as they beef up two of our "signature" abilities and because I think they will be more useful in AOE situations than might be thought from the graph of single target dps. Assessing AS and Consecration from a single target point of view seems rather like measuring the running speed of a sea lion. I'd be interested to see what the graph looks like when considering three targets rather than one. And maybe considering a "with consecration" simulation for Hallowed Ground against a "without consecration" one for without those talents. As I can't see anyone being able to gogogo through a Wotlk 5 man using consecration often without the Hallowed Ground talents. I fear Hallowed Ground may still be weak, but would like to see the numbers.

My current thinking is to forgo the WoG talents to make room for the above and 5 points in ret. I think WoG will come into play more in Cataclysm when mobs hit harder, than when outgearing 5-mans and ICC normal (I don't do heroic raids).

For AoE situations, Grand Crusader (with UNGLYPHED Avenger's Shield) and Hallowed Ground will both be decent DPS increases, and Hallowed Ground's mana reduction may become important for being able to keep casting anything else. If all you'll be doing is Herioc dungeons, then dropping the WoG talents to pick up HG is a reasonable choice. I'll try and emphasize this more in the guide.

That said, keep in mind that WoG is currently our only aoe threat finisher, so you might be casting it more than you think in heroics.

mclem wrote:It's struck me that you only need 2 points in SotT to get AS's CD down to a level (18s) where you ought to be able to mix it in to every other 3-HP chain reliably. Is there any optional talent in the prot tree that proves better TPS than the 2:20 -> 2:00 CD on AW change? The thought has crossed my mind that, given most fight lengths are in the 5/6 minute range, you'd be looking at three wings periods in each fight whether or not you had that third point.

I'm speaking strictly from a levelling point of view, I appreciate that GAnK CD reduction at 85 will be a huge boost.

At 80, it's certainly possible to drop one point out of SotT and still maintain AS. Whether the 20-second reduction of AW's cooldown is a bigger DPS increase than other threat talents is tough to say, if you're pulling 8k dps then that talent point should be roughly 130 DPS (20% of 8k is 1.6k, the talent point increases AW uptime from 25% to 33%, 1600*(0.333-0.25)=133). That puts it behind SD and WotL, but ahead of everything else. However, it also requires that you're diligent about popping wings on cooldown, and as you said, it doesn't take into account discretization (if you get 3 AW casts off in a fight either way, it's gained you 0 dps).

I'm not sure how much I want to dwell on this topic in the guide. It's bordering on what I'd consider an "advanced topic." I might add a note that "At 80, you really only need 2 points in this because GAnK is irrelevant, so feel free to move that point somewhere more useful until 85."

theckhd wrote:That said, keep in mind that WoG is currently our only aoe threat finisher, so you might be casting it more than you think in heroics.

Thanks, Theckhd. I had assumed I would just be whacking the skull with 3HPo SoR as the finisher. Although we talk of AOE in heroics, the typical encounter tends to be more 3-4 mobs - which, with present dps, quickly slides into single target. However, even with 3-4 mobs, I think GrC and HD would look significantly better. (I presently glyph AS but don't think I will from now on.)

I guess you could say heroics are so easy, they don't matter and there is some truth in that. However, new tanks can struggle with threat competing with uber dps and have an awful experience because of it(insults, group kicks etc). And in a few situations - like HoR or the Bran event in HoS - keeping threat on adds can be a challenge. I've found my warrior alt struggles more on those than my pre-4.0 pally, due to the absence of consecration and seal of command. After 4.0, I'll be interested to see how my pally does.

For all those that debate what glyphs to use in their all-round spec (mainly wether to glyph AS or not) keep in mind that glyphs are now learnable and you can just switch them when the need arises.

First off THANK YOU for all the work you do.
You are really a defacto member of our guild Mayhem for all
helped with gleemed from your guides...

1) If I am doing your standard build and using the 9-3-9 rotation....
what do I do if I have only 2 holy power and it's time to use shield of the righteous?
Say Crusader strike missed....maybe my rotation got off balance or I missed clicked.

2) Also, it seems the built in power aura track when Grand Crusader procs but not holy power...anyone know a way to track holy power? add on?

3)Also, my healers are telling me I'm more "squisshy" on multi mob tanking situations... say 4 packs in a 5 man heroic. Is this due to the block change? Are other tankadins having the same issues?

-Regards

Tankforyou wrote:3)Also, my healers are telling me I'm more "squisshy" on multi mob tanking situations... say 4 packs in a 5 man heroic. Is this due to the block change? Are other tankadins having the same issues?

I am actually getting the opposite reaction from my healers. Especially with the ICC dodge nerf removed. Threat on the other hand is about 100x harder to keep.

Tankforyou wrote:First off THANK YOU for all the work you do.
You are really a defacto member of our guild Mayhem for all
helped with gleemed from your guides...

1) If I am doing your standard build and using the 9-3-9 rotation....
what do I do if I have only 2 holy power and it's time to use shield of the righteous?
Say Crusader strike missed....maybe my rotation got off balance or I missed clicked.

Crusader strike still generates holy power when it misses. If you misclicked or somehow didn't cast it, you're probably better off waiting another 3 seconds for 3 Holy Power. Fill the gaps with whatever you can (Consecrate, extra AS procs from Grand Crusader, whatever).

Tankforyou wrote:2) Also, it seems the built in power aura track when Grand Crusader procs but not holy power...anyone know a way to track holy power? add on?

Most unit frames will track this, as can the Power Auras addon.

Tankforyou wrote:3)Also, my healers are telling me I'm more "squisshy" on multi mob tanking situations... say 4 packs in a 5 man heroic. Is this due to the block change? Are other tankadins having the same issues?

Possibly. Before you might be blocking 2k of a 3-4k hit (in heroics). Now you'll be blocking only 1-1.2k of that, so you should take a little more damage. On the other hand, if you've reforged a lot of your avoidance into mastery, you should be blocking more of the incoming attacks.

I didn't get to raid last night since many of our core had problems patching, so I did some test dummying and a couple of heroics. On the dummy I'm running bone dry on mana even without using consecration. This lead me to put in Ascetic Crusader. That definitely helped.

On heroics, I couldn't tell much since things were still dying pretty quick. I pretty much used HOTR rather than CS for everything. So thinking about actually getting hallowed ground since increased range on judgement is nice, but not really necessary. I still find if I start with AS and Judge while running to the mob to HotR, it kinda screws up the 939.

I tested out the rotation on some of the 83 elites outside of Icecrown and only dropped low on mana if I used more than one consecrate (I have one point in Hallowed Ground). My combined dodge/block is about 79% after reforging, so 3/4 of incoming mob attacks are generating mana through Sanctuary. I imagine that running a current heroic with multiple mobs attacking you will generate more than enough mana and hitting a dummy will leave you a short.

I have tried some raiding this evening with the new spec. I found that threat seemed to be a problem. Anyone else having this problem?

Harrimad

One or 2 classes can dish out an amazing ammount of TPS atm. But other than that i found our threat to be more than fine.
Esp since i couldnt see my holypower and failed with that most of the time.
MD didnt work for us really, and tricks were "changed" a bit aswell, but you can start with them, and after that it was pretty fine.
Druids had nice tps tho
WoG was pretty useless as expected imo.

Trash or multitargets, is NOT as "faceroll" as it was before.
Blizzards intent is that your aoeabilities should keep the adds on you instead of the healers, but the dpsers SHOULD be dpsing YOUR target, if they target something your not, you are not suppose to be able to keep threat.
So you shouldnt feel to bad if everything isnt sticking on you as glue. Single target tho, should be fine in the majority of the cases, while a few classes might need to watch omen a bit more.

Got to test out glyph of salv in raid today. Was OTing sindy at 98% threat didn't want to overtake MT so poped salv on myself (didn't have time to swap it out) and i had no threat (IG threat % went away) till till Salv wore off back and was at 88/90ish% threat. (would have to double cheack using omen to confirm but im fairly certain it works this way). It could be a nice way to do a pull by poping it on a high threat dps just before so you can get a good solid threat lead.

Id have to disagree with having the DP glyph, atleast in any encounter in wrath.
At its current "bugged" state, its great, and theres not really anything else to choose.
But when it goes to its "intended" state, its a downgrade using it.
NO fight has more thretening magicdamage than meeledamage atm, and the glyph reduces a non lethal part of the encounter, while without the glyph, you reduce the magical part by 20%, then the meelehits with 20% aswell, and thats multiple meelehits instead of only working for a single magic attack.
Take the more "threatening" fights in wrath atm.
Halion, Breaths doesnt do much dmg compared to his normal hits, thus reducing whats not lethal to begin with, down to hardly noticable, is a waste compared to reducing a breath and his hits after that by 20%, Besides you shouldnt be using DP for a breath, you should be using it in a rotation for when a fireadd comes, or during a spinn phase.
(tanking Halion + infernal does make you take a large portion of magical dmg at once, but its multiple smaller hits with halions meelehits beeing close or above 50% of your health, the magical part never comes that high)
LK HC, DP glyphed will reduce dmg taken from SR, but not his meelehits after that 9/10 times is what kills you, If your soaking, then its a great glyph, but you might want it unglyphed for an earlier part of the encounter.
Sindrigosa, same as halion really, while the frostbreaths needs to have a CD if you have many mystic buffet stacks, it wont do anything against her meelehits that are quite big. And id much rather reduce the dmg on both by a smaller ammount, than only reducing a once/30sec attack.

Otherwise i think they have succeded with the glyphs, we got some glyph we always want, rest is more "situational" but never really "required" makes you able to choose a bit depending on encounter or such.
Makes every paladin a bit more unique, since everyone runs with slightly different glyphs etc.

Unless the magical part is the "killer" skill, then the intended DP glyph (40% magic reduction, 0% physical reduction) is a downgrade indeed, but in it's current state is a no-brainer glyph to use.

For some reason all the wowtal.com links doesn't work for me, it just brings out 3 disc trees >.>

Has anyone tested the Glyph of Divine Protection?
I dueled another paladin to test its magic and physical damage reduction and it worked as intended.
It's only the tooltip and the blue post that are wrong. The tooltip says 0% and the blue post explains the glyph as being win/win.

For me, the night of 13Oct, the glyph made Divine Protection reduce incoming magical damage by 40% and did nothing to white damage.
So, I took the glyph back out.