So, 3.2 specs

Lets get this rolling, we do it every significant change anyway ;p
Heck we do it with the minor ones we may as well have a thread on it.

ATM I'm working on the assumption for most single target fights that taunt can afford (hi council) to fail on;

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#smZE0xAM ... dxo:G0pc0m

I think it's been previously discussed that 3/5 reck is about where it's usefulness starts to curve most heavily, and I kept 2/2 SA for utility since it's only 3% dmg from SoV.

Yes, it gives up DS/DG for SotP and it doesn't have vindication/divinity, but in any case it's a place to start.

Discuss?

under the assumption that SotP will be better than crusade in 3.2, I would say how you spec with your 7 extra talent point is up to the make up of your raid group.

here is the base spec (with divine guardian)

I take DG, because our raid has no holy paladins. So I am the one who has to keep sacred shield on myself.

and here is MY spec

I take vindication because it is a dps loss for warlocks, and our 2 warriors are too lazy to do it most of the time (or are not near my target).

also, this is the wrong forum for spec related topics, I would imagine this is going get moved soon.

For maximum survivability in T9 hard modes, I'd suggest the following spec:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sVcbMZV0 ... dxo:GjpcVm
Glyphed Salvation: -20% for 10 seconds / 2 mins
Improved/Glyphed LOH: -20% for 15 seconds / 11 mins
DP: -50% for 12 seconds / 2 mins
AD: lolgodmode / 2 mins

My guild generally raids with quite a few Rets, so Vindication will be covered elsewhere. As it stands they really don't have anything else to spend the talents on and it'd in no way diminish their DPS.

Nadir wrote:For maximum survivability in T9 hard modes, I'd suggest the following spec:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sVcbMZV0 ... dxo:GjpcVm
Glyphed Salvation: -20% for 10 seconds / 2 mins
Improved/Glyphed LOH: -20% for 15 seconds / 11 mins
DP: -50% for 12 seconds / 2 mins
AD: lolgodmode / 2 mins

My guild generally raids with quite a few Rets, so Vindication will be covered elsewhere. As it stands they really don't have anything else to spend the talents on and it'd in no way diminish their DPS.

You'd want Divine Guardian for max survivability. Increasing dmg absorbtion of SS by 20% is not a small thing. Imp. HoJ and a little threat from reckoning are imho not about survivability.

Think I'll try something like this. It's pretty similar to my current build, just sacrifices a point in SA(no big deal other than on general,and even that is doable without 2/2).

Though, if threat still wont be a concern at all, I'll probably go from SotP to Divinity. I'm quite unsure about divinity, but healers seem to want me to tank stuff over like anyone. No idea if divinity makes some of that difference or not

trellian wrote:

Nadir wrote:For maximum survivability in T9 hard modes, I'd suggest the following spec:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sVcbMZV0 ... dxo:GjpcVm
Glyphed Salvation: -20% for 10 seconds / 2 mins
Improved/Glyphed LOH: -20% for 15 seconds / 11 mins
DP: -50% for 12 seconds / 2 mins
AD: lolgodmode / 2 mins

My guild generally raids with quite a few Rets, so Vindication will be covered elsewhere. As it stands they really don't have anything else to spend the talents on and it'd in no way diminish their DPS.

You'd want Divine Guardian for max survivability. Increasing dmg absorbtion of SS by 20% is not a small thing. Imp. HoJ and a little threat from reckoning are imho not about survivability.

Ah, you're right. I guess for max survivability the decision would be between 20% extra absorption on SS or 3% extra healing received from Divinity.

Not quite sure I can see myself subscribing to an imp loh spec unless there's no holy paladins in the raid, but supposing you didn't you could pick up divi and dg sacking points outta a couple less critical talents (imp hoj/reck/etc)

QuantumDelta wrote:Not quite sure I can see myself subscribing to an imp loh spec unless there's no holy paladins in the raid, but supposing you didn't you could pick up divi and dg sacking points outta a couple less critical talents (imp hoj/reck/etc)

Such a spec isn't ideal for normal mode content or threat capped encounters. Blizzard's general idea of hard modes for tanks are fairly frequent attacks/specials that hit for more than our max HP. He who has the most mitigation cooldowns is king. After 3.2, that's probably us.

How many situations do you guys really find yourselves in where the heal lands, but it's 1-5% too little? If you're getting healed between hits for anything meaningful at all, Divinity is probably not going to make a difference. If you're not getting healed between hits, Divinity is definitely not going to make a difference. I can't really imagine specing into it for any reason as a tank. It might prevent one wipe in a million, but so does specing into Conviction. I'll take my chances.

Tomyris wrote:How many situations do you guys really find yourselves in where the heal lands, but it's 1-5% too little? If you're getting healed between hits for anything meaningful at all, Divinity is probably not going to make a difference. If you're not getting healed between hits, Divinity is definitely not going to make a difference. I can't really imagine specing into it for any reason as a tank. It might prevent one wipe in a million, but so does specing into Conviction. I'll take my chances.

Divinity will become more powerfull with the new AD though. I still agree that it's not really useful for a tank.

It's still pretty premature to try to decide on spec ideas. The PTR isn't even live yet and I'm sure there will be a number of changes in the first week or two of that.

I think it's really all going to come down to SotP vs Conviction/Crusade.

Jasari wrote:I think it's really all going to come down to SotP vs Conviction/Crusade.

I'd definitely add Reckoning in there as well. With the new SoV and a slow weapon, Reckoning could be coming back from years of fitful slumber. Premature, however, as you say.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sVhbMZV0 ... dxo:pG0cmV

Is my guess, 20% damage reduction from LOH as an ohsh!t button? Yes please.

Jasari wrote:It's still pretty premature to try to decide on spec ideas. The PTR isn't even live yet and I'm sure there will be a number of changes in the first week or two of that.

I think it's really all going to come down to SotP vs Conviction/Crusade.

All of this is pretty premature, because people are making some really big assumptions that make very little sense.

• For one thing, I don't see why everyone thinks that SotP will be better than Crusade - it would have to nearly double in effectiveness for this to happen, and the weapon damage addition will almost certainly not double our SoV damage.
• LoH hasn't gotten significantly better, it's about the same as it was before. And it's still a stupidly long cooldown.
• Reckoning may get better, but it was very far behind to begin with. I'm as curious to see how much better it gets as anyone else is, but predictions that it will suddenly be good are likely to be met with disappointment when the numbers are crunched. Also, the only slow tanking weapon is Broken Promise.
• As the trees stand now, people desiring Vindication will have to go at least 10 points into Ret, unlocking Conviction. If Crusade is still considerably better than SotP (and it will be), it's likely that 1 Conviction + 3 Crusade will out-threat 5/5 SotP, and give you the added utility of Vindication and SotP. I'm still hoping for Vindication and Imp. BoMight to swap places on the tree so we have to spend less "filler" points to get to Conv/PoJ, letting us get Vindication, 3-5 points in Conviction, and 3 points in Crusade in the standard build.

I'll try and get some preliminary numbers figured out soon so people can start making informed suggestions. But my preliminary WAG will be that the standard 0/53/18 spec that I use will still be top threat, possibly shifting 2 points from Conviction into Vindication for utility.

Whether the judgements are premature or not (I never go deep enough into ret to pick up crusade so I didn't really factor it into my spec, t'was a suggestion to start the ball rolling ), we normally end up with about 3-5 spec related threads during the course of PTRs, basically if you start one early enough and keep it on page one we wont have the mess that we usually do and all the math can go in one thread ;\

I didn't post anything more substantial because I too, am waiting for the PTR to come up.


Edit
Btw, why champion Crusade?
It only really works on 1 and two-thirds boss fights in current content -.-