WTB Advice - dps is very low for tank

Hi Guys,

I'm a 358 tank working on 11/12 and noticed on worldoflogs that I'm way below the average for DPS on many of the encounters. I know it's not that important since TPS isn't an issue and I'm geared / gemmed mostly for avoidance/block but I'm wondering if maybe my rotation just isn't up to snuff.

Magmaw
I open with Avenger's Shield then spam up crusader strike until 3 HP then shield bash. I do this until the dps goes to the adds then switch to judgement of light and start wog healing myself. That being said I still don't see how I am pulling 6k dps and the top tank is pulling 3x as much 18k dps.

Am I just doing much more survival tactics or am I missing something crucial? Are you guys crushing meters? I guess I'm always focused on easing the job of the healers and surviving. Is there value in pushing and extra 5-10k dps? thoughts?

Thanks,
Jay

With full vengeance, which comes quickly on Magmaw, you should certainly be doing more than 6k dps even with a WoG+Insight cycle. Are you using AS and/or HW/Consecrate on cooldown?

frontallobe wrote:I open with Avenger's Shield then spam up crusader strike until 3 HP then shield bash. I do this until the dps goes to the adds then switch to judgement of light and start wog healing myself.

What are you doing in the GCDs in-between each Crusader Strike? If the answer is "nothing", then you should read up on the stickies in the Basic Training forum (and the Matlab thread in the Advanced Theorycrafting forum) about the basics of the rotation.

Do you have a WoL report?

Here's my WoL from last night on Magmaw -- http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-k ... 073&e=6416

I'm definitely not keeping up Conscecrate. I thought it was so minimal that it wasn't worth the GCD. Wrong it seems! Keep the advice coming. I'm running over to the rotation section in the basics as well to see what I could possibly missing. It seems that I did hit 8k on him but still seems half the top and too low. (ok just went - yep I'm doing the boss rotation as explained here)

Q: What's our single-target rotation?
A: 939 You hit CS every second GCD. That's the 3's slot. The "9s" slot goes:

1. Judge
2. Alternate AS/Holy Wrath
3. Holy Power is at 3, hit ShoR

Thanks again,
Jay

One of the strats for Magmaw is to have a tank pick up the adds, which would account for the high numbers. He would generally be using HotR, Inquisition, consecration, and wrath in order to get high threat on the adds so the DPS can unload on them and kill them quickly.

We don't use a tank on the adds, so I can't give you numbers based on that, but as the main tank on that fight, I did 7,300 DPS on our last kill.

frontallobe wrote:Here's my WoL from last night on Magmaw -- http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-k ... 073&e=6416

(ok just went - yep I'm doing the boss rotation as explained here)

No you're not.

Stuff like this:

Code: Select all

[21:46:53.729] Frontallobe casts Avenger's Shield on Exposed Head of Magmaw
[21:46:55.298] Frontallobe casts Crusader Strike on Exposed Head of Magmaw
[21:46:58.567] Frontallobe casts Crusader Strike on Exposed Head of Magmaw
[21:47:00.068] Frontallobe casts Shield of the Righteous on Exposed Head of Magmaw
[21:47:01.605] Frontallobe casts Judgement on Exposed Head of Magmaw
[21:47:03.140] Frontallobe casts Crusader Strike on Exposed Head of Magmaw
[21:47:06.377] Frontallobe casts Crusader Strike on Exposed Head of Magmaw
[21:47:08.344] Frontallobe casts Avenger's Shield on Exposed Head of Magmaw
[21:47:09.812] Frontallobe casts Crusader Strike on Exposed Head of Magmaw
[21:47:11.449] Frontallobe casts Avenger's Shield on Exposed Head of Magmaw


You should pretty much never, ever have two Crusader Strikes back to back, because it means you're leaving an empty GCD between them. Holy Wrath and Consecration might be pretty poor threat, but they're considerably more threat than doing nothing for a GCD.

You're doing lower DPS than you could be because you're leaving empty cooldowns rather than doing a CS-x-CS-x-CS-finisher rotation.

Ahh thank you so much. I tested throwing wrath and concecrate more consistently last night in heroics and I saw a nice bump on bosses. I also regemmed a bit. Thanks for the advice guys.

JJ

out of curiosity, when your tossing out holy wraths and consecrates like candy, do you other tanks switch to insight to regen mana back? i've found myself oom quite some times, switch to insight, get full, and if i'm in full dps mode, go back to truth but i find myself wondering if the GDC's are worth it.

Also, I was trying to find the place where you guys snagged what I was casting per swing like this

Code: Select all

[21:46:53.729] Frontallobe casts Avenger's Shield on Exposed Head of Magmaw
[21:46:55.298] Frontallobe casts Crusader Strike on Exposed Head of Magmaw
[21:46:58.567] Frontallobe casts Crusader Strike on Exposed Head of Magmaw
[21:47:00.068] Frontallobe casts Shield of the Righteous on Exposed Head of Magmaw
[21:47:01.605] Frontallobe casts Judgement on Exposed Head of Magmaw
[21:47:03.140] Frontallobe casts Crusader Strike on Exposed Head of Magmaw
[21:47:06.377] Frontallobe casts Crusader Strike on Exposed Head of Magmaw
[21:47:08.344] Frontallobe casts Avenger's Shield on Exposed Head of Magmaw
[21:47:09.812] Frontallobe casts Crusader Strike on Exposed Head of Magmaw
[21:47:11.449] Frontallobe casts Avenger's Shield on Exposed Head of Magmaw

Can anyone give me a quick click-walkthrough in WOL on how to pull this up for a given fight?

Thanks in advance,
Jay

Forgrim wrote:out of curiosity, when your tossing out holy wraths and consecrates like candy, do you other tanks switch to insight to regen mana back? i've found myself oom quite some times, switch to insight, get full, and if i'm in full dps mode, go back to truth but i find myself wondering if the GDC's are worth it.

This is why I always recommend glyphing for the Truth and Insight minors. I find myself consistently:

- Dropping my first Cons while DP is still up at the start of a pull/fight and then
- Switching to Insight when I get down below 10-15% mana til the bar is full and then
- Back to Truth. Rinse and repeat for the remainder of the fight.

Not so important for heroics and the like, but nice on 6+ min raid bosses.

frontallobe wrote:Ahh thank you so much. I tested throwing wrath and concecrate more consistently last night in heroics and I saw a nice bump on bosses. I also regemmed a bit. Thanks for the advice guys.

JJ

Mouseover "Damage Done", and scroll down to "Log Browser". Click "Add Query", and enter "Frontallobe" in the "Source" field. Remove the "Show all events" default query, and hit Run.

What you're ideally looking for is repeating patterns of things like this:

Code: Select all

[20:31:28.726] Lumines casts Crusader Strike on Atramedes
[20:31:30.239] Lumines casts Judgement on Atramedes
[20:31:31.879] Lumines casts Crusader Strike on Atramedes
[20:31:33.408] Lumines casts Avenger's Shield on Atramedes
[20:31:34.965] Lumines casts Crusader Strike on Atramedes
[20:31:36.578] Lumines casts Shield of the Righteous on Atramedes
[20:31:38.185] Lumines casts Crusader Strike on Atramedes
[20:31:39.748] Lumines casts Judgement on Atramedes
[20:31:41.354] Lumines casts Crusader Strike on Atramedes
[20:31:42.913] Lumines casts Holy Wrath
[20:31:44.615] Lumines casts Crusader Strike on Atramedes
[20:31:46.119] Lumines casts Shield of the Righteous on Atramedes
[20:31:48.602] Lumines casts Crusader Strike on Atramedes
[20:31:50.083] Lumines casts Judgement on Atramedes
[20:31:51.763] Lumines casts Crusader Strike on Atramedes
[20:31:53.286] Lumines casts Avenger's Shield on Atramedes
[20:31:54.920] Lumines casts Crusader Strike on Atramedes
[20:31:56.483] Lumines casts Shield of the Righteous on Atramedes


..with deviations for missed ShoRs etc.

For what it's worth, the 75 expertise you've reforged to on your tier legs are a drop in the ocean compared to correctly executing your rotation, so I really wouldn't reforge into any hit or expertise at all.

Thanks so much on both counts!

Jay

Epimer wrote:For what it's worth, the 75 expertise you've reforged to on your tier legs are a drop in the ocean compared to correctly executing your rotation

That reminded me of Dickens, thanks

The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!

Whenever our rotation changes, I will beat on a dummy for hours and just practice getting the flow of the rotation down to the point where I don't need the actively think about it while engaging a boss.

baleogthefierce wrote:
Whenever our rotation changes, I will beat on a dummy for hours and just practice getting the flow of the rotation down to the point where I don't need the actively think about it while engaging a boss.

This is what I tell all my guild's alt tankadins to do. If they haven't spent at least 30 minutes on the rotation there's no way they can do it and control all of the 'what ifs' that can happen in an instance.

So I implemented a bunch of gear changes that added even more mastery took away hit and expertise. I implemented the "good" rotation diligently more than I ever though. So while I expected a dps decrease I had a jump from 5500 - 8500 with the new rotation. Thanks for all the help.

Jay

frontallobe wrote:So I implemented a bunch of gear changes that added even more mastery took away hit and expertise. I implemented the "good" rotation diligently more than I ever though. So while I expected a dps decrease I had a jump from 5500 - 8500 with the new rotation. Thanks for all the help.

Jay

Hi again,

I'm glad to hear you're feeling better about the rotation. I took a look at your logs for this last week's raid, and I have to say it still looks kind of messy. There's a couple of maybe 18 second segments where everything looks in order, but there's loads and loads of situations where you prioritise Judgement or AS over Crusader Strike, or cast something other than Crusader Strike when it's off cooldown.

Could you link me a section from that raid where you feel you were doing things correctly?

7k to 8k on a single target Raid boss is about my normal output also.
And I spam WoG a lot to self heal and make it easier on the healers. My guild has told me that my goal should be survival. As long as I hold threat, they don't care what my DPS is.
Minimum standard for DPS group members is 10k.
They really want to see every DPS member at 12k+.

When I find my Pally Tank mana low (Consecrate 0 points) then I shift to a low mana expense rotation.
Get Divine Plea cast, then judgment, then Shield of Righteous.

I find that I regen mana fast enough even when empty to cast Judgment, CS, AS, CS.
Holy Wrath and Consecrate are more expensive, so you might miss a GCD.
But when empty you can still normally focus on CS, Judgement and AS.
Do that for a few cycles and you will find your mana getting back up to the point where you can get back into your full normal rotation. If you get lucky with a few AS procs, then your rotation won't suffer much at all, even when mana is low.

I also have Hammer of Wrath glyphed for 100% mana cost reduction. So at the end of a boss fight, if my mana is on empty, I will still get that killer under 20% Hammer available.

I have never felt the need to switch seals in mid-fight because of mana issues.