How best to deal with single target threat generation

I tried tanking normal Black Morass today with three of my guildies. Pretty much got my behind handed to me by them.

Our level 70 hunter pulled the second boss off me, got pummelled to death, boss wiped our PUGed feral druid and then proceeded to wail on me for the next 2 minutes until I died and the healer followed.

There was terrible lag, and my spell rotation wasn't optimal. I was judging wisdom, in retrospect, not so smart. Turns out the hunter's feign death was also resisted and Omen wasn't working.

Naturally I was angry, I've never lost threat leader to a hunter before. I've had hunters pull mobs off me for CC at full steam, they assure me it's an uphill struggle. I've tanked better geared players than our guild's hunter and I haven't had a problem.

So I overreacted and told him my views, that I belived hunters to generally be very good at handling threat. His views consisted of him being blind without a threat metre. I told him it wasn't an excuse, people did it pre-BC. He only got it a few weeks ago and in my experience most successful PUGs do fine without a threat metre.

We have a small guild, only about 6 actual players. So any problems are usually quickly conveyed. So, it got disastrous.

They then started to outline the deficiencies of my spec. Told me my threat generation on a single target was terrible compared to a warrior. Never had a problem though. I told them this wasn't the case, we can tank single targets fine. The way we generate threat just isn't suited as well as some would like. Truthfully, I was railing. They then said protection paladins haven't tanked Illidian, same guy told me Blizzard made us just for multi-mob tanking, claimed he saw it on a forum board. So quarrel ensued.

Honestly, I had enough and quit. In retrospect, not a good thing to do. But all my gear with the exception of one trinket were done in partial or full PUGs. Almost entirely full. So I don't feel so bad.

I would like to avoid such potential situations in the future. What should I do to ensure adequate single target threat ? What are the warning signs ? I know my ego got the better of me. Please reply.


Armory: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Frostwolf&n=Gront

My former guild is called Senseless Debacle.

Your spec and gear are fine for your level.

Hunters, by design, pump out massive damage and threat. I do wonder what their gear level was, however?
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armory | youtube | stuff

Thanks.

The hunter in question:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Frostwolf&n=Nairda

Our recently reactivated prot warrior, no idea why he tagged along. No idea why we need two tanks in a guild of 6 either. :
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Frostwolf&n=Ybies

Our healer, he believes a protection paladin has never tanked Illidian. No idea if that's true. He's tanked ZA as a protection warrior though, gave up and respecced for PVP. Gave up on that server and roped us in on Frostwolf.

I'm always butting heads with him, don't think that's a good thing. Funny thing is the guy can't even explain succintly what uncrushability is. He's kinda' my pseudo mentor, but I find him totally out of touch with tanking. He explains crushing blows and uncrushability in a weird fashion. The prot warrior is a close friend of his. So, I feel very disposable, regardless of the fact I've turned up for almost every occasional guild run while he hasn't.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Frostwolf&n=Chinahealer

In the end, I really shouldn't have reacted rudely.

Paladins have not only tanked Illidan, they have done it for progression kills.

Looks like the hunter is about the same gear level as you.
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armory | youtube | stuff

Okay that's good. I shouldn't have been so aggressive. Perhaps they would have understood my stance.

Personally, I would really like to know what spell rotation is good for single target threat.

I'm pretty much Consc > HS > JoW > SoW. I don't refresh judgements on the target, but I refresh my seal. It's worked very well for me.

NO!

Don't ever use SoW as your tanking Seal. It's Righteousness or Vengeance or gtfo. That would be why your threat sucked.
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Understood, I usually have problems with mana when keeping up a steady rotation. So it's my tendency as such. My bad.

Consecrate -> AS -> SoW -> JoW -> SoR ->>> HS -> JoR -> SoR -> Consc ->>>

If you're judging wisdom, you rarely/NEVER want to use it as a seal.

SoR with judgments as often as possible is how you need to be tanking. That explains why you lost aggro so easily.
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armory | youtube | stuff

i think you have nice gear, to be honest. grats on the helm. A+

i have had little tiffs like this with guildies before, too, usually from tanks or ex-tanks specifically. and often times, they're new to the guild. they have the attitude that they're just giving the loltankadin a chance because they're nice guys. or because they have no alternative. i've had warriors swoop in before because "omg! a guild to rescue! look at them having to make due with that taxed paladin!"

but all the people who have run with me from the beginning have stopped questioning me, and instead prefer me. "i love paladin tanks." i overheard an ex-guildie at a bon fire a few months ago talking about his experiences after leaving us for a more progressed guild. "i have to be careful because i'm used to thorn tanking, and i keep pulling aggro off our warrior."

at pre-kara level, your biggest asset is your threat production. granted, it's harder in black morass because you run oom, but if you find yourself going oom, simply tank some of the adds as well as the boss (be careful of the mortal strike from second boss, though).

the way i see it, in black morass you need to keep up on mana more than your healer. you need to engage the next mob asap. the healer can afford to sit down and drink for a moment while you take a hit or two. he should drink a little bit between each pull anyways. bring free, disposable mage water. =P and you, sir, should be using mana pots on the bosses. it's the right thing to do.

also, are you using wizard oil on your weapon? wizard oil is like 7g for 5 charges on my server. that's a little over a gold for each hour of wizard oil usage, and it persists through death. use it always, always.

make your hunter misdirect the boss onto you whenever misdirect is up, and make sure you are popping him with avenger's shield every cooldown. you don't have to worry about being crushed here while you cast AS. the worst that can happen is that you'll take a full hit instead of a blocked hit. and since your block value is only 201, it won't be that drastic of a hit. =P

bring a shadow priest if you can.



as far as losing your cool, i've done it before too. just make sure that you know what you're talking about. take great pains to find out >everything< and then when you enter an argument, you can keep your temper under control because even your level-headed arguments are devastating.

one argument ender to all those warriors and druids is this: "how many of you have a paladin tank? or have ever had a paladin tank? raise your hand. nobody? then you don't know what you're talking about. stfu."

because in the end, they don't. our mechanics for uncrushability and uncrittability are the same, but after that, we have to play the game way differently than they do. way differently.
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jesus said, "i will grant you eternal salvation," but his disciples replied, "give us kings, noob."

Yeah there are some pretty good responses in this thread to help you out a bit with your threat. From your gear it looks like you shouldn't have too much trouble with black morass. You should ask your healers if they are having trouble healing you or not. If they are fine try swapping one or two of your tanking pieces for healing gear. You will get more mana and typically more spell damage (and threat) to boot. Also don't be afraid to pop some consumable buffs before the start of the run. Spell damage food and adept's elixirs add that little bit of spell damage too, and they won't break the bank.

One thing that I didn't see you post in your spell rotation is avenging wrath. It's only got a 3 minute cooldown and its 30% more damage. Before the boss pull throw that up before your avenger's shield and you should get a good headstart on the dps.
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http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Thunderlord&n=Mastus

Generally I judge wisdom at 60% of the mob's health in BM.
Frisbee bosses if you can(last one for sure since it's easy too).

I'll toss in a little tip, when things get heated say "I'm a little angsty/angry/whatever right now so I'm going to log while we all calm down"
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I have ADHD and OCD...I keep forgetting to wash my hands.

also, an easy, easy upgrade to threat for you would be to drop the brd libram and pick up the libram of zeal which costs fifteen marks of honor hold. you could have one in five days, just doing the towers daily.

Thanks guys.

When you're running out of mana, downgrade your gear. Swap for threat instead of mitigation -- it'll bump up your threat per mana and also ensure more incoming heals. But generally "rage management" is one of the more important skills to develop.

For Black Morass I have to downgrade to like half tanking gear half spelldamage gear to not go OOM on regular portals. (I swap into proper tanking gear for bosses, of course). On heroic it's not as bad but you'd still want to do trash in your threat set.
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Sweeney: 70 Paladin, Runetotem

Lots of good advice in this thread.

The best suggestion is to switch out several tanking pieces to threat pieces so that you have more heals incoming.

You also should have time to drink inbetween portals if necessary.

Finally, if you want to maximize your single target threat, JoC + Seal of Vengance is the best rout, assuming you are alliance.