Optimal threat cycles

Hey guys, recently I've been taking a close look at my threat performance on WWS to see if I can improve my game and I've realised that my standard skill cycle could do with a bit of improving.

To be honest I've never ever really tried to memorize and execute a perfect threat cycle, I always tend to just hit which ever skill comes off cooldown as I see fit, prioritising holy shield above others. However I now feel that I should properly look into what I do as I'm sure there is some room for improvement

Now, assuming you are on a boss that requires high holy shield uptime as well as very high threat (i.e. something like gorefiend) What sort of cycle do you go for? Typically I tend to go for something a bit like this:

0 HS while getting into position
3 Consecrate
4.5 Judge/Reseal
6 Exorcism
...
10 HS
11.5 Consecrate
13 Judge/Reseal
...

Then at the 20 second mark it becomes a mess, holy shield, judgement, consecrate and exorcism all become available at the same time, I tend to prioritise Holy shield first which tends to cause consecrate and judgement to slip down to an inefficient 10 second cycle which really bugs me.
Where possible if I'm sure I'm high on health I try to delay holy shield in favour of consecrate and judgement so that they can get temporarily freed up from the HS cycle but I always feel guilty when I cause crushes doing this.

I know that this is an age old problem but has anyone created a best case scenario skill rotation? I know this is dependant on quite a few factors such as whether improved judgement is talented, whether you are willing to judge then reseal in a few seconds and whether the boss is a demon, however I would like to try and practice some cycles which have a more efficient skill uptime than what I tend to do.

Also does anyone use a mod which shows the swing timer of a boss? I was thinking this could be handy for knowing when you can delay holy shield a little and when is a good time to weave in a hammer of wrath or even an avengers shield.
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That's pretty much it. In fights where 100% HS uptime is necessary, that's your best bet for TPS. You might try putting up your 5 seconds before you consecrate, mob gets to you, then judge. Just means it will be two cycles before it becomes a mess, not just the one.

If you're confident in your gear, and your healer's gear, you can go for the pure TPS rotation, prioritizing consecration, which leaves you with 1.5seconds of no HS every 5 rotations. In the grand scheme of things, if you're not on bleeding-edge progression, on the very edge of your raid's gear-ability, that 1.5 seconds isn't going to hurt to much. On a boss with an average 2.0 weapon speed, they'll only get one swing in, at best, and have a 1 in 5 chance of not getting one on you at all. Even if they do, there's still a 70%ish chance for it to be missed/dodged/parried/blocked.

I've also heard about some guys who swap their consecrate/HS around, depending on whether or not redoubt has proc'd. The idea being, that if redoubt is up, you hit consecrate first that rotation, which will give you 4 rotations of the higher TPS rotation without worry. At the second last round, you start to look for redoubt again. In practice, I'm not sure it'd be worth it, and you'd have to be well on your game to do it.

If he parries you'll get hit, there's no safe time to let it drop unless it's safe to let it drop even if he crushes you. Hence it's dangerous to do on Teron.

I generally prioritize Judgement > HS > Cons ~= Exo > Reseal. Because it's not on the GCD you can hit it whenever it's up, and chances are good that you will get more threat out of recasting faster than you will from a high chance of an SoR hit. This rotation will quite often sync up to HS, Cons and Judgement all coming up at once, in which case I mash HS/Judgement at the same time and Consecrate right after, then reseal. Sometimes if I'm watching my swing timer I will delay judging half a second to get another seal proc. Depending on the fight I will instead hit Consec+Judge, then HS, then reseal as when it's safe to do, this reduces the frequency of Cons/HS cooldowns conflicting and hurting their uptime.

You didn't mention it so: Judge crusader first and keep it up always. It is essential for your threat.
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Gladiator Psiven, 80 Tankadin
Rival Psivenia, 70 Warriorlol
Psivenne, 60 Bare
Longtime addict of Space - Glory Through Conquest

As my guilds main Palie tank, there are others coming up, slowly but surely, this is what I have found.

The only ranged weapon you have is avengers shield, unless it's against undead, such as Kara, where it is VERY useful to pull mobs singly.

Anyway, I am finding that a lot of times my mana pool is getting low, and that is BAD, because once your mana is gone, your threat generation is gone, you will drop off the agro table faster then a penny off the empire state building.

I find that the reason that this is not happening, is that the mobs are not hitting me hard enough to require healing, this is where you need to be A:crushable, and B: Have a really kickass healer.

Sounds kind of strange, but it's true, you are not taking enough damage to require enough healing to get mana regen from it. when this happens, I let holy shield drop for a few ticks, so that I take enough damage, so that I work my healer a little harder, BUT I get my mana pool back up to where I feel reasonably certain I will be able to keep threat

Healers for some reason have to get used to healing a palie tank, because we take a lot of damage at a beginning of a fight, and then our damage taken levels out during the fight. In order to keep your healers happy, always use your holy shield first, before pulling the mob, that way you are covered, and your healer isn't straining to keep up with the boss that just jumped your butt for 4K damage.

Also, spell damage is your friend, we went into ZA the other day, and because of my insane Spell damage, almost 600 buffed, I was not only holding agro like nobodies business, I was 5th on the DPS meter, I can also backup heal, if there is a warrior tank needed for whatever boss, such as the maiden in Kara, where her spell interupts will keep your healers busy, and you will drop agro like a stone, I have tanked her, but she can absolutely raise caine with your agro, and when she drops agro, the healers are usually dead meat.

Anyway, spell damage bonus and healing bonus go hand in hand normally, such as the mace from PVP, name escapes me, but it is both healing bonus and damage bonus, so the higher it is, the higher your healing can be as well. As a Full specced tankadin, 0/44/17 my healing crits can be as high as 3500, not too shabby for a Tank..LOL

Anyway, defense, block, parry, Dodge, Spell damage, and then Agility for grins, in that order.

Soon, you will be uncrushable, as well as a pretty decent offhealer if needed, and if you throw a couple of healing items in your bag, full to the brim with Int, and swap them out, no need to respec, because that healing bonus is nearly as great as your damage anyway, take advantage of it, for you, and your guildies.

Hope that helped, and didn't confuse instead.

Use them. You can always respec for no more than 50g.
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Tankadin Mantra #14:
"Stop counting and pull already..."

The problem with 2h tanking is that there are very few with spell damage. Get a pair of maces and dual weild instead.

Dual wielding the King's Defender and Suneater has worked for me since Feb 07.
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Ticklefist Cuddlepunch

Now thats just mean eveyone knows those two are main handers and would need to be paired with an offhand weapon

Heh! Busted.
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Ticklefist Cuddlepunch

So mean Slamdorff, so mean!

Ogmiod, while your info was helpful for the basic training forum, the point Slamdorff was trying to get across with his highly disingenous reply was that the OP was looking for advice somewhat above the complexity of the stuff you were saying. Trying Gorefiend while crushable will lead to a pissed off raid leader, for example.

And stacking block above dodge in black temple will get you killed on most bosses , at least while it's progression content for your raid (ignore sig, logged in reliquary set).

To reply to the OP; what you're doing sounds right, there's only so much messing around you can do with the rotation. The cooldowns will inevitably overlap, eventually, all you can do is try to get a few cycles lead at the start before the overlap occurs, and like you said, when it's safe to do so, prioritise consec over holy shield refresh. Really not that much exciting that can be done with our rotations atm.
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On Teron I wouldn't say (while you are progressing, no idea if sunwell paladins can) never prioritise anything over Holy Shield, while half his crushes fall into the 10k range and are easily survivable, the occasional 15k one really puts a crimp in your lifestyle.

I have MT'd Teron twice (never successfully, I died 3 times, once to crush, once to no heals, and once running in where according to combat log I took 3 8k hits in 0.6s... ), each time I didn't get myself killed I prioritised Holy Shield (and vengence stacks stayed up... but thats likely a coincidence). The other 12+ wipes were due to constructs. Looking at my own deaths getting crushed was the issue, its not like Magtheridon, Bloodboil or similar where getting crushed is simply a bad thing (and the threat / cycle regeneration is more important), its mostly fatal.

Spell damage while progressing is not your friend (at that stage of BT you likely have access to 1 piece of T6, the gloves), getting 600 spell damage unbuffed would likely gimp your avoidance to no end, I hit about 500, closing in on 600, 600+ fully buffed with a spell damage flask. still 11-1300 tps is possible even at that (though the dps get more capped with me doing 1300 tps than the warrior doing 1200? not sure why).

Ogmiod, in Teron and most T6 bosses (or T5 bosses if not wearing badge gear) you shouldn't have mana issues at all, and barring some (like Teron) you can add a controlled damage spike by sitting down. Getting a Shadow Priest or a Shaman in your group will also massively help you if going OOM, but I never really found that to be a major issue except when I overgeared fights. As for being 5th DPS in ZA, assuming a normal run thats not that hard since every pull bar bosses is pretty much an AoE fest for you, whats more worrying is when you are 2nd DPS...
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Armoury Link