Need help with tanking

54 paladin. I have 10 pts in holy, but the rest are right down the prescribed path for Tankadin.

ok, for a single target, i have righteous fury on (improved) and blessing of sanctuary .. i cast SoC, run to the mob and judge it, and bring up SoR. Sometimes this enables me to get aggro, but usually there's a mage or shaman who gets it.

for multiple mobs, same righteous fury and BoS, i round them up and cast consecration. Then i do Sor and try to cycle through them. If redoubt procs, i immediatly do holy shield. Again, I'm usually left with one mob or none, as the others have been drawn off by mages or shamans.

My question is simply who sucks? Am I doing it wrong, or are the dps guys at fault?

Tell the DPS that you can lock down all those mobs if they give you half a chance. Get the lead if you can, and mark the first kill target for everyone to focus on.

Then make a macro that says something like "/s I've got a good grip on %t - burn it down!"

JoR will do more damage than JoComm unless you stun that first target, I believe. Just open with JoR, Consecration and Holy Shield. It's worth it to burst a bunch of threat at the start of the fight; works much better than trying to play catch-up later.

And if your DPS aren't willing to follow some basic instructions, consider finding a new group. Most of them are happy to do this, but you might have a bunch who simply cannot be taught.
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Scarlet Crusade - 0/49/12 - Uncrushable at 13.4k
Gruul the Dragonkiller attacks. You block.

If you don't have the shield pull (drawing a blank on the name atm), cast Holy Shield and Seal of Righteousness. Run up, judge Righteousness, then recast Righteousness. When your Judge timer is up, cast Seal of Crusader and Judge that. Then go back to Righteous.

The initial Judgment of Righteousness and Holy Shield will grab you some quick agg. Judge Crusader second to start getting a nice lead on threat.

For multiple mobs the same cycle should work. Consecrate when you get them in position, and try to make sure your group is assisting correctly. Just make sure Holy Shield is up by the time they start hitting you. Don't wait till Redoubt fires off to Holy shield. You could also use rank1 Consecrate while you're running to where you want the mobs to be. Them running over the consecrated area will make sure they have a target, rather than someone being able to grab threat by spitting on them.
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Your tactics could use a bit of tweaking, but you're on the right track. Your DPS needs to learn to let you establish aggro before they start, just like they would for a warrior.

On trash mobs, always start off with a Judgement of Righteousness. Its great for initial threat. An immediate consecration is also useful if you're not dealing with sheep in the vicinity.

KEEP HOLY SHIELD UP AT ALL TIMES!!! Not only does it mitigate damage, but it generated great threat!

Against a single mob, things are pretty straightforward. Against a group, use raid targeting to have your DPS focus fire on your target, moving on when that one dies. For this reason, it is very useful to have the tank be the group leader. Put the skull icon on your target, and tell your group to just kill the skull.

Give it a shot and you'll get the hang of it.

-Ty
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ProtPally: The Other Main Tank - http://protpally.blogspot.com/

I can see the logic behind only hitting Holy Shield when Redoubt is also up; it's a very mana-efficient technique. But on the initial pull, give your group the gift of peace of mind: blow 2/3 of your mana bar all at once and get a hard grip on the pull. Avenger's Shield if you have it, max-rank Consecration, max-rank Holy Shield, JoR, SoR. Another max-rank Consecration as soon as it cools down.

Coasting later in the fight is easy. Playing catch-up is hard.
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Scarlet Crusade - 0/49/12 - Uncrushable at 13.4k
Gruul the Dragonkiller attacks. You block.

You may have it already, but a shield spike helps build extra aggro.

You also have the carrot and stick of Blessing of Kings/Blessing of Salvation. Not much of a stick, really... if they don't control their aggro, they don't get 10% buff to everything.

There's not going to be a lot you can do if DPS aren't hitting your target, though.

Thanks all. It seems there are a couple of things I can do. I'll try putting up Holy Shield earlier and more often and also use Consecration more than I have. Also, I am (still) wielding The Hand of Antu'sul, so I give them a Thunderclap now and then; and I do have a mithril shield spike. Oh .. and I will use the raid targeting. I have not been doing that, but it's a great idea.

Look under key bindings - you can link each raid symbol to a hotkey. I have three common ones on Shift-Q, Shift-W and Shift-E...effective and very quick.

Another minor point - don't wait until target A is dead to start building threat on target B. Switch when A is at 15%-ish, drop a JoR on the new target and you'll have a solid hold on it when your DPS switch over...and if by some miracle A breaks off you, big deal, it's got seconds to live anyway. (You can also put the kill symbol on the new target at that point, so the DPS know who their next victim is.)
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Scarlet Crusade - 0/49/12 - Uncrushable at 13.4k
Gruul the Dragonkiller attacks. You block.

Another trick I often do is this;

Picture two mobs - A and B. A is the designated kill target. I fling my shield, it hits both. I throw my Judgement of Righteousness on target B, then continue to swing on A. This way B has a good amount of threat on him while I keep swinging on A.

Another thing is, people tend to get lazy with a Paladin tanking - they get used to the AOE tanking and the high frontload and get too keen. We have the big problem that once something isn't attacking us, our TPS goes down the drain. This is why I often call a "STOP DPS" in TS as soon as I lose one mob - it's really bad when one mob goes one way and another goes the other way. You've only got one taunt...

When SoV is boosted, there's a good chance I'll just SoV everything - which will give DPS'ers the old "2 sunders" flag to know when to DPS.
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Zen Tanking - http://zentanking.blogspot.com