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Maintankadin

What's your cycle?

Ulushnar
Tue Aug 21, 2007 1:09 am

What's your cycle?

Ok, thusfar I've gotten by with my Tankadin basically spamming my abilities as soon as the cooldown's up, paying special mind to avoiding a GCD right before Holy Shield needs to be renewed.

Do any of you use a specific tanking cycle to maximise threat?
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Voldiir
Tue Aug 21, 2007 4:38 am
Well... I don't really do mine to "maximize" threat... but there really is no way to get passed this.... Your cycle, no matter how you swing it, is a 10 second cycle that revolves around the Holy Shield cooldown. There are a lot of people who swear by Imp Judgement because they think the -2 seconds lets them cast it more often... well... it would... but there will always be an overlap in which they either have to wait on using Judgement, or risk a precious second of not having HS up.

Personally, I start with the longest cooldown. Holy Shield. That way, it guarantees that I always have it up the split second the cooldown is over. I follow HS, instantly (since it's not on the GCD) with Judgement and reseal (you'll find that I only have one point in Imp Judgement. 9 seconds is enough to always have it available on the next rotation. 8 seconds is a wasted point IMO). Then I'll use Consecration.

Now... with that rotation, you have plenty of time to use exorsism (if you can) after consecration, switch seals, pop a potion, use any tinkets, pop AW... since you have about 5ish seconds before you need to be spamming your Holy Shield again.

Over the course of an encounter, you should have about the same TPS as anyone else would have, plus RARELY ever having to worry about the GCD dipping into your Holy Shield useage. And, if you are like me, you can spend that wasted 1 point in Imp judgement elsewhere (totaly a personal preference based on the previously stated rotation).
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Igrado
Tue Aug 21, 2007 6:05 am
Unless I've gone retarded, Judgement does not trigger the GCD, but HS does.

the seals do, but you only miss about 1 sealed swing by waiting for the GCD to come around from a HS.

but I'm with you on the Imp judgment being of questionable value
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Karathos
Tue Aug 21, 2007 8:35 am
What I do is primarily situational, and in a large portion based on build (I am working with a non-AS threat build 0/38/23)

As I don't have AS and in many situations I am in it wouldn't work well.... I will often start out with a need to pull snap agro with a judged SoR, the Imp Judgement will allow me to cycle back to JotC/SoR quicker.

I will also start out with an 'early' HS on the countdown ... into a Judged SoR, AW, consecrate, JotC to SoR and then HS/Consecrate/Judge/Reseal as GCD allows.

When I am not in a snap agro situation (i.e. heroics/normal boss situations) I will preload JotC, HS, judge, SoR, AW, Consecrate and then into regular cycle.

AW may get 'preloaded' but I tend not to until making contact. When running with Imp Sanc Aura I tend to generate enough threat for my group.
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Mortehl
Tue Aug 21, 2007 8:58 am
SoR
AS
HS
JoR
SoTC
Consecrate
HS
JoTC
SoR

Repeat from here.

Consecrate
HS
JoR
SoR
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Alixander
Tue Aug 21, 2007 9:52 am
My cycle depends on if I'm the puller or not:

If I am:
Exorcism/Avenger's Shield to pull.
As the mob is running at me I cast Holy Shield.
Once it's within 5 yrds I lead off with a JoW, and immediately use SoR.
Next drop a max rank Consecrate.
From there I alternate Judging SoR with keeping Holy Shield up.

If I am not pulling (say it's a crowded room and we want to pull one non-undead mob), it goes like this:
As the mob is running at me I cast Holy Shield.
Once it's within 5 yrds I lead off with a JoR, and immediately refresh SoR.
Next drop a max rank Consecrate.
Once the Judgement is ready to be recast I cast SoW and judge it, at which point I go back to SoR.
From there I alternate Judging SoR with keeping Holy Shield up.

Addendums: If I'm fighting multiple mobs, I will continue to refresh Consecrate, since the additional damage from multiple mobs will allow me to keep using Consecrate without running OOM. If I am fighting a single undead or demonic boss, due to the increased damage being dealt to me I will use Exorcism. For bosses that aren't undead or demons, the mana cost for Consecrate rarely justifies the low damage it does.

I've found that I can generally generate enough threat with AS to not need to lead off with a JoR. As long as I have SoR up, combined with the Consecration I would do anyway, it's usually enough.
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Lonso
Tue Aug 21, 2007 11:36 am
Whenever possible, I try to use something higher threat than a melee swing with SoR to break crowd control. I use Avenger's Shield when it's up and there aren't other cc'd mobs in range. Most often I use JoR. My mages are used to my high threat and don't hold back. I can't tell which sheep Avenger's Shield hit on the pull so I want to hit with significant holy damage from the start. Even with Imp Judgement I'll sometimes find myself waiting 2 seconds before I can break the next sheep (call it poor planning). Imp Judgement improves my pace on trash.

JoR can act as a taunt when something unexpected or unpredictably timed happens and has a much shorter cooldown than Righteous Defense. This comes in very handy for rogues in Shattered Halls or Shadow Labyrinth, birds in The Eye and bats in SSC. Imp Judgement improves my control of these situations.

Even while tanking a boss, Imp Judgement has benefit. Void Reaver is a perfect example. I don't have aggro 100% of the fight. Once I get knocked below the other tanks on threat I stop casting Holy Shield (waste of mana) so its cool down is no longer of any concern. I get the judgement off many more times than I would without those 2 points which often allows me to pass the second tank and get aggro back when the new top tank gets knocked back.
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Lore
Tue Aug 21, 2007 11:46 am
I find it hard to keep a solid cycle going. Most commonly (after the pull is done and I'm just focusing on tanking) I end up doing something like this:

0.0: Holy Shield
1.5: Consecration
3.0: Judge->SoR
Wait for HS cooldown

The thing is, with Holy Shield on a 10 second cooldown and Consecration/Judgement on 8, there's still a gap. With Judgement it's not a big deal, I just occasionally have to take a swing or two without a seal up. But Consecration usually comes up at the same time as Holy Shield (or slightly before, depending on latency). Sometimes I'll try to wait til Holy Shield has around 2 seconds left before Consecrating again, but I'm not sure that's any more effective than just having those 2 seconds of no Consecrate each time, especially since after 5 or so Consecrates I'm right back where I started.
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