Need Advice on Tanking - Couple of Questions

Long post, pls bear with me....

I'm a holy-turned-prot pally that is kinda clueless on the mechanics of tanking. I've been prot for about 2 weeks, learning "on the job" as i get thrown into Kara just after respeccing, then moving on to SSC and TK. Been reading as much from the Wow class forums and from here; Very nice reads btw, lots of quality gems without having to sift through the crap of WoW trolls. Gear profile is listed in sig, if it shows 2 piece righteous that's my farming gear. Summary of stats with no modification from any aura or buff:

HP: 12017 (mp: 4878)
Armor: 14941
Defence: 509
Dodge: 18.35%
Parry: 17.59%
Block: 20.11%
Spell damage: 333

My aggro is at about 600-700tps on average for single target while MT. For OT, i do about 400 tps, although it can drop to as low as 240tps, especially when offtanking. My method is to pull with avenger's shield, then max rank consecrate while judging JoW or JoC, then chain casting JoR with rank 2 consecrate. For offtanking i judge JoC, then rank 2 consecrate and avenger's shield whenever it is up.

Question 1: Is SoV a better choice than SoR threat wise, especially when offtanking? I tried out both ways, but did not see any appreciable difference in threat generated and find that the vengeance seals tend to disappear without being refreshed and i have to start afresh quite often.

Question 2: Any tips for gear changes? I'm gunning for either T4 chest/shoulder for 2 piece bonus, and maybe T5 shoulders or pants, even if it pains me to part with my wyrnn leggings. I'm also having a guildy help me build Belt of the Guardian. Weapon-wise, i am wavering between Blade of the Archmage(Present weapon) and Greatsword of Horrid Dreams for its spell hit and slightly more stam.
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Judge a man by the trials of his shield, not the empty reaping of his sword.

As a tank i was tasked with tanking leotheras, reaggroing him after every ww by using avenger's shield. I've searched online but could find no conclusive discussion/guide/theorycraft about the mechanics for avenger's shield. It's important that i do not miss the shield throw becoz the boss can go out of range for my judgements at times.

Question 3: Is avenger's shield based on melee hit or spell hit? What are the mechanics for avenger's shield? Its spell coefficient?

For VR, i'm 1 of 3-4 tanks building aggro on him and I find that when the boss aggros on me I get 3-4 shotted by a string of hits before the healers can react.

Question 4: Any tips for surviving the aggro? I can survive the initial pull and subsequent aggro but sometimes i die so fast it's impossible for healers to react.
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Judge a man by the trials of his shield, not the empty reaping of his sword.

question one - hard to say for me since im a be, but i was under the impression that its mostly a matter of preference, and SoV's dot is nice on mobs that fear, stun, etc so you have damage ticking away at them

question 2 - not sure what your miss chance is but your uncrushability is borderline - do you have the libram of repentence or whatever yet? have you checked to see if you're uncrushable?

question 3 i believe we're pretty sure its melee hit, as it cannot be resisted (as a spell would be) but it can miss (which a spell cannot do). mechanics? it tries to hop from one target to the next, usually critting whatever critter it possibly could reach if at all possible ^_^ spell coefficient iirc is 100%

question 4 - i dont have that much experience in the matter, but i'd recommend keeping holy shield at the ready and be prepared with perhaps a pot or healthstone if you see yourself dropping too quickly

hope that helps some and tides you over til someone of greater knowledge and wisdom replies ^_^
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Question 2: If you mean the libram that adds 2.*% to block rating with holy shield up, yes. Using the Tankpoints mod i am borderline uncrushable (103.1% if i'm not wrong) to figure in more spell damage gear, e.g. neck, ring.

Question 3: So Avenger's shield is based on melee hit? That would suck, since other than 3% from Precision talents I dun have any other +hit gear. Prob have to gun for the aldori shield from gruul i guess.....

Question 4: I find that, especially when offtanking and fighting for aggro (e.g. VR), putting up holy shield at all times is extremely mana intensive at a time when I am already not regenerating enough mana to maintain my aggro generation even with pots usage....
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Judge a man by the trials of his shield, not the empty reaping of his sword.

3. AS is melee hit. you cap your hitrate at 100% by stacking 89 hit rating on top of precision (not going to comment on the viability of this). 9.52% coefficient per jump seems to emphasize that it is NOT used for damage.

4. this has to be healer error. loot reaver hits like an absolute pansy. is there somebody standing ~20yd behind you when you have aggro? ranged dps/healer at short range, like sp, can cause melee to be hit by orbs if they're too close. aside from that, even pounding + melee dps will take at least 10-ish second to kill you.
so, that begs the question, what are the healers doing?
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http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Dragonmaw&n=Buttertoast

When I'm an OT, I like SoV for sustained fights.

Off the top of my head, each tick of a full stack should be about the same damage as a single SoR proc.

So you'll have less initial aggro at the start, while you're building the stack.

But JoV will generally land for more than JoR.


It's mostly personal preference, tho'.
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as Holy: 6447 hp, 8688 mp, 1552 heal, 150 mp5 (in combat), 13.98%

edit: post "deleted" as I never should have posted it in the first place.
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An Officers Guide to the Paladin Tank

now, having that aside, and realizing I've obviously not done this fight, I'd just look at it more basically. HS gives
)1( Block % (uncrushable)
)2( Threat on block

So it obviously doesn't make any sense to waste mana on it if you're not getting smacked. You put it up for one or both of the above reasons. I think if you're dieing and it's not up that that's just not smart. Once you see he's targeted you it should go up, IMO before anything else. What rank you choose to use is up to you and how you expect the fight/mana issue to go, that's not a question that I know enough to answer.

It just doesn't make sense to die b/c HS was not up unless you were OOM. I understand now that this fight is very tricky on the mana, but dieing isn't really a good result either
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An Officers Guide to the Paladin Tank