Divine Protection

I wasn't actually there that run, enjoying BBQ at my parents' place. :P You'll see me as Zoe on the 2 runs before, but my DP usage wasn't higher than the other paladin tank.

@Kai: You're really looking at this from a DPS point of view. DPS wants to have maximum uptime on their cooldowns, so not pressing them is a loss (unless saving them for required bursts like Siegecrafter belt duty, or knowing that there'll be a lull in the encounter coming up like Garrison realm teleports). DPS wants to get the highest maximum damage out there.

We tanks don't want to reduce the most incoming damage. We want to survive, and that's not exactly the same thing. If there is currently no chance of dying, then pressing a CD is a complete waste of the CD. The general damage we take in is negated completely by selfheals and smartheals. Reducing that general damage doesn't do anything at all. All pressing DP does is making it unavailable for the next 20ish seconds.

They're Garrosh logs, by the way. I don't know exactly where he used them, but I do know I use them every whirlwind, empowered or not. During those periods, they mitigate a lot of damage. If I were to macro DP to CS, there's a good chance they won't be up for a whirlwind, which means I first have to check if I have DP or not, which is already more work than pressing DP itself, and when I notice I don't have DP, I have to do one of the following:

- Use a stronger cooldown, which will then be gone and unavailable for several minutes!
- Not use anything, and hope I live through, or maybe burn some HoPo on WoG.
- Run away from the boss, which not only is a DPS loss, but if I'm the active tank, it will screw up position, and potentially kill others that ran in the same direction.

None of those 3 options are preferable over not having DP up when I have no use for it.

Kai: You're really looking at this from a DPS point of view. DPS wants to have maximum uptime on their cooldowns, so not pressing them is a loss

no. as I said above, there's so many CDs available that you will ALWAYS have something when you need a CD. It is comparable to dps when it comes to synapse springs. I also think that for almost everyone it's better to macro those as otherwise you'll just miss uptime.

my point is basically that DP has such a short CD that it's more of a baseline ability now then a CD. And I don't get why you guys keep coming back with 'you won't have something available when it counts balbal'. I'm too lazy now, but do you really think you're making use of all tank CDs if I would look through a 25 men log file?

Ok, I'll look at that garrosh wipe again:
3 retri paladins, one prot paladin. hand of sacrifices used: 1.
2 disc priests. pain sups used: 1, between both of them, whole fight.

I am really open for a lot of discussions, but these points 'we all play perfect and make great use of our CDs' and 'we don't have enough CDs available so we have to save them'. yeah. that's not the world you and me live in. :)

You keep referring this Garrosh log, but (and correct me if I'm wrong - I haven't used Warcraft Logs before) turning on player deaths shows that the player you are looking at didn't die and cause the wipe. Is your proposition that if she had macroed DP the healers would have healed her slightly less and therefore saved the wipe?

Looking at the deaths:
http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/fXr ... ype=deaths
and apologies for speaking ill of the dead, I didn't choose this log and I'm not trying to impugn your honour - I'm a long way from facing Garrosh on Heroic personally.

Blazingbrew (I'm assuming is a tank) dies twice, once to Exploding Ironstar and once to Garrosh Melee, both times 1 shot, and looking at the replay option (warcraftlogs is frikken awesome) they when from near full to zero so no amount of bonus healing would have saved them at that point. Then there is a death to Touch of Y'Shaarj and a death to Whirling Corruption (on a DPS) then 2 DPS deaths to Embodied Dispair (both 1 shots) and finally a touch of Y'Shaarj followed by a whirling corruption at which point it's almost certainly been called Wipe anyway. None of these deaths are due to not enough healing, they're down to mechanics. Now looking at the DP uptime for this fight for this tank it does appear to not be up enough, especially during the whirling corruptions, but the other paladins have very good DP uptime during Whirling Corruption (graph) which they couldn't have any confidence of with a macroed solution.

(EDIT - PS: WarcraftLogs, seriously this is frikken awesome, World of Logs you have some catching up to do!)

main reason for warcraftlogs is that it actually tracks garrosh heroic. WoL didn't do that, at least not until some months ago and then I guess most people working on garrosh swapped by now. and the reasoning 'you didn't use your abilities but you didn't die so its fine' doesn't count. I am sure you can kill garrosh hc solo tanking as a prot paladin without ever using SotR. that doesn't mean you played well, it's still terrible. only because it works doesn't mean it's good/correct.

Kai wrote:... and the reasoning 'you didn't use your abilities but you didn't die so its fine' doesn't count. I am sure you can kill garrosh hc solo tanking as a prot paladin without ever using SotR. that doesn't mean you played well, it's still terrible. only because it works doesn't mean it's good/correct.

Well that's not a fair comparison. SotR isn't a cooldown it's active mitigation. Now I know there could be an argument as to whether DP should be considered a CD or AM.

Now if we consider it a CD then it is perfectly OK to finish a fight with CD's in the bag assuming you don't die or haven't reached your allocated place for using the CD. If your allocated time for a CD is as an "Oh $#1t!" button, then not using it in a fight is perfectly acceptable if you don't die as you never reached "Oh $#1t!" phase.

Of course not using your CD at the correct time is indeed bad playing (no one is denying that) but what we are arguing here is:
Is the correct time for DP 1) "on cooldown" or 2) "when regular telegraphed damage is imminent"? I think what most of the other people are saying is that it is (2), and correct me if I'm wrong but you're proposing (1) - mostly because people aren't doing (2) and it's better than not using it?

But even in the AM case, we don't consider macro'ing SotR good practice because the good tank doesn't always want to cast it on CD, so why should we macro DP?

Also macro'ing DP would increase uptime but

that doesn't mean you played well, it's still terrible. only because it works doesn't mean it's good/correct.

Kai wrote:no. as I said above, there's so many CDs available that you will ALWAYS have something when you need a CD. It is comparable to dps when it comes to synapse springs. I also think that for almost everyone it's better to macro those as otherwise you'll just miss uptime.

This is patently false (well, the first half - I macro synapse springs too...). For example, on Siegecrafter we coordinated all of our major cooldowns (unglyphed DP, GAnK, AD, and a handful of externals) in order to be able to survive the 4th-7th applications of the debuff. Similarly for solo-tanking 10H Garrosh. There are plenty of other cases where all or almost all of your cooldowns are prescribed for specific events.

And again, I think a good tank can make far better use of an un-prescribed DP by doing it manually. For example, by using it a second or so after you taunt, or just reacting to heavy damage or movement phases and other healer interruptions (whirling and mind control on Garrosh, e.g.).

Kai: I'm not saying my guild is doing everything perfect. If it would, Garrosh would've been on farm months ago. And I admit that if you never use a CD, then macroing would obviously be an increase, because it could randomly get lucky.

However, what's much more of an increase is learning to time your CDs properly.

Even SotR we don't use on 3 HoPo. However, SotR has the benefit that we can cast it with 5 HoPo and a HoPo generator coming up, meaning we can maximize our uptime, and still have a SotR in the pocket, so it's rarely useful not to maximize uptime (though there are good examples where it is useful, most notably when tankswitching. If you're not tanking, you can stack up to 5 HoPo, SotR, Taunt, CS or J, SotR and be nigh invulnerable for 6 seconds).

Do you really want to macro DP and then being forced to waste a heavy CD on Whirlwind? I surely don't.

theckhd wrote:

Kai wrote:no. as I said above, there's so many CDs available that you will ALWAYS have something when you need a CD. It is comparable to dps when it comes to synapse springs. I also think that for almost everyone it's better to macro those as otherwise you'll just miss uptime.

This is patently false (well, the first half - I macro synapse springs too...). For example, on Siegecrafter we coordinated all of our major cooldowns (unglyphed DP, GAnK, AD, and a handful of externals) in order to be able to survive the 4th-7th applications of the debuff. Similarly for solo-tanking 10H Garrosh. There are plenty of other cases where all or almost all of your cooldowns are prescribed for specific events.

And again, I think a good tank can make far better use of an un-prescribed DP by doing it manually. For example, by using it a second or so after you taunt, or just reacting to heavy damage or movement phases and other healer interruptions (whirling and mind control on Garrosh, e.g.).

10 men is obviously vastly different from 25 men. we one tank garrosh hc as well and twice the tank goes to 11-13 stacks while we only have a SW, a pain sup and 2 hands of sac. having more CDs there would be great. but in 25 men I can hardly imagine running out of CDs at all.

Thels, sorry if that got across as bashing your guild, tahts not the intention, it was just a random log file and I only looked at one wipe, so that's meaningless info anyway. it was just a random example, my guild screws stuff up 24/7.

and once again, my point is that you basically have a function that compares the additional uptime (and self heal from 2 set) while using DP in worse spots vs a tank manually using it but based on play skill.

obviously if the tank is good at CD management, it's not even close and doing it manually is getting you FAR more out of it. but there is DEFINITELY a point where a tanks CD management skill is low enough that he gets more out of macroing DP. Anyone arguing that this breaking point doesn't exist is just wrong. Now the question is of course where that breaking point is.

I am sure that I am on the side of getting more out of while it's macroed, mostly because I just very rarely tank (1 encounter/week). looking at this weeks kill:
http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/C3M ... eclass=Any

4 min 30, 8 uses, 30% uptime. compared to my (obviously terrible) one use last week, that's a huge upgrade. now if I changed my tank set to using my tank pieces instead of my retri stuff, I would've gotten some nice healing out of that too ... :)
but then dark shamans - tanking the girl in the main area - is also a great fight for macroing as the incoming damage is very flat with her using the frostbolt on cooldown without any spiking tank damage. gets worse on tank swap or spiking encounters.

If you are confident in your CD usage, you should obviously stay far away from macroing. if you feel like you don't get enough out of DP with its short CD for whatever reason, marcoing something that you get 30% uptime out of can not be terrible. 30% uptime is a lot. odds that you are wasting a lot of that are very low.

30% uptime is totally useless, because you're still supposed to endure the 70% outside of that. If you wouldn't macro it, you wouldn't notice the difference.

Also, no burst damage? You took quite a bit of damage from Foul Geyser and Foulness every 30 seconds or so. Seems to me like the ideal time to use DP there.

So instead of macroing it, try pressing it when Foul Geyser is announced, and you will mitigate so much more damage. In fact, if the single use in the week before was pressed at the start of or during a geyser, then I dare say, the usage during the week before was a lot better!

Long time reader, first time poster but i thought id try to contribute for a change..

Firstly i have to agree 100% with Thels, if you had used that DP during a foul geyser the previous week it was arguably better usage.. however a point that you seem to be missing is the power of our tier 2p:

While Divine Protection is active, 75% of the damage taken is converted into a heal over time that activates when Divine Protection fades.

Essentially if you macro it in, your not only relying on getting lucky that you will mitigate some damage but you are also hampering the effectiveness of our 2p. Correct timing of divine protection during immerseus' corrosive blast for example (assuming heroic content)nets lots of vengeance + contributes a lot to your 2p HoT whilst providing 40% damage reduction (assuming unglyphed). Correct timing of it as well, when combined with 5 BoG WoG lets you take it for more than 1 stack, even in HM10M. Essentially making an already easy fight easier. Going back to your example of Shamans, using it on CD through macroing it into your rotation will likely result in it not being up for Foul Geyser. If DP was in fact up, you could essentially soak it, sidestepping the projectiles therefore allowing the oozes to be stacked up. This is incredibly effective as (assuming you have glyphed your HW to stun elementals, which on this fight amongst many others is amazing)you can stun them all, and allow your range dps to polish them up in seconds (personally our guilds ele shammy demolishes them)therefore reducing any extra potential raid damage from adds spawning all over the place due to you running around like a chicken with its head chopped off.

Ulrikk