Avenger's Shield vs. Sanctity Aura

And before anyone says anything, I do not believe this should be in the spec thread.

Anyhow. Would losing the front-load threat of AS be worth picking up the 10% holy damage (10% more threat) causing Sanctity Aura?

Personally, I'm torn atm, perhaps due to my inexperience as a tankadin, which is why I decided to put it in advanced training.

Soooooo. Avenger's Shield OR Sanctity Aura?
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I think you're even on my server...

At any rate, I find the issue not to be one over the other, but rather is there enough points you can dump in protection to get there?

Of course, that's just me.

I say avenger's shield, because putting only 40 points in prot gimps your threat (by not picking up Reckoning) or your mitigation (no Ardent Defender). Also with the changes in 2.3 it will be pretty much impossible to keep only 40 points in prot to keep SA, and then you may be reliant on SA for threat, and might have to readjust.

Just my 2 cents.
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I tossed out AS a while ago, it just doesn't fit in for raiding. Some say that initial agro is everything, but improved crusader + sanc aura + 3 % bonus on humanoids REALLY generates sick agro.

Don't get me wrong, I love awengers shield, but sanc aura gives a 10% bonus alone on the holy DAMAGE done. Take into consideration the coefficients, it does greater difference than 100-150 spelldamage would. Aaand it scales with what spelldamage you have, so if you have 500 spelldamage, with aura you efficiently have 800-1000. ( I have not calculated on these numbers obviously )

It does so big difference for me that I never looked back, easy trade.
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AS, no doubt about it. Giving up our one and only ranged attack, as well as other actual prot skills, to go deeper into the ret tree for arguably more threat has never really made sense to me.
Not to mention that in 2.3, Sanctity tanking spec will be pretty much out the window.
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I think what that means is that most people will be dumping so many points into prot tree for the "essential" tanking talents, that it won't be possible to reach sanctity aura in the ret tree.

Well, it will be, but You're going to have no "tricks" up your sleeve, no reckoning and no Ardent Defender, as well as missing out on 3% spell hit and hit. I guess you can do it with a spec such as this, but I personally wouldn't, AS is great for heroics, great for pulling trash and can help on some bosses (like Leotheras, Hydross, Al'ar, and more). It's also helpful to pull down Aether Rays from the sky (trivial I know). Anyways, I don't think that it's worth dropping AS as well as other useful talents for 10% more threat, as threat isn't an issue for Paladins in most cases.

Edit: I'd also like to add that I use AS for pretty much every trash pull that I'm tanking, Your healers will end up dying quite a bit less on trash because of it.
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pre2.2, AS can be replaced with Sanc Aura without any major loss to our tanking ability (0/40/21 is raid viable and has great sustained threat) in a raid environment.

2.3, AS can be replaced with Sanc Aura at a substantial loss of your tanking ability fore the same threat generation as before.

FWIW: Reckoning isn't as great in a raid environment as it currently is, but it could be a lot worse.
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In 2.3, I don't think a Sanc aura tank spec will be as practical anymore, because you will have to pick up the extra 10% stamina which is dumped at the bottom of the tree.

To get holy shield you need minimum 30 points in prot. Point 31 is HS, 32/33 are Imp HS 34/35/36/37/38 are AD, 39/40/41/42/43 is WE.

The only way to cut this down to 40 points is to either drop Imp HS, which is a big no, or drop 3 points in AD, which makes it pretty pointless having 2/5, and is a big talent to miss out anyway, especially with bigger health pools coming in (22k max hp = 7.7k is the AD cutoff point). You can easily make a sanc aura spec but I think now it would gimp you too much, which is a shame because a lot of people use it to great effect.

As of here and now, pick either, different styles really. Frizbee = utility, sanc aura = 10% extra threat (10% extra dmg is 10% extra threat, but that doesn't count white damage so probably say 9.5% extra threat)
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currently I have sanc aura without loosing neither rekoning nor 2h specialization. Aredent defender had to go tho together with spell warding, both of which I easily can sacrifice since both are within "maybe"-rated skills :

AD : allows healers to screw up a little. I don't care for that, I want my healers to do their job.
Spell ward : close to useless compared to dealing that much more threat.
Rekoning & 1h spec : hard to drop because it really lowers threat by quite a bit.


in 2.3 I admit things get nasty tho
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I used sanctity aura spec until 2.3 patch notes come. Atm if you go for Sanctity you lose either Ardent Defender or Combat Expertise, and i don't really plan to lose them.
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