Quiz Bowl
Questions from my Email inbox.
Q: With Libram of Repentance and Holy shield up I have 0.2% above the needed 102.4%,(Unbuffed),and I might go higher with the SSO shield. So I thought,"Hey,why not put spell damage and stamina gems instead of the avoidance ones I'm using?",but I'm afraid I would go under the Uncrush cap I've been trying to achieve so much.
Be sure to check my article on using the mod Tankpoints to check your uncrushable calculations.
Don't socket spell damage, socket stamina only. I will now wave my hand like a Jedi, "You do not want to look at Honors gloves."
Basically what you have here is the need to do what my Dad refered to as a 'Sharp Pencil Exercise'. Let's take a look at the avoidance gems you might have. We pop over to the uber useful Tanking Gear Uncrushability Values guide on Maintankadin, and we find the gem you are thinking of taking of out. Let's say it's a http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24032 Subtle Living Ruby. You can see from the post that the gem gives you 0.42% towards uncrushability. If you are only .2% over, you can't replace that yet, or can you.
Anytime you need to be Uncrushable, you are going to be in a Raid, and that means buffs. So what you need to do is figure out how far over your are buffed, however, the only buff I calculated on was Kings, because it's a buff I give myself, and as such I know it will available in the run. Some people also use Mark of the Wild in their calculations. Now you might not have a Druid with you in a 10 man, but you can almost guarentee at least one in your 25 man.
Q: I'd really like to go raiding beyond Gruul and Mag raid, but it seems that I am missing a fitting guild.On my server,we have the good raiding guilds, the PvP guilds whom I am not interested in, and the Casual guilds who won't give me what I seek. What should I do? And should I even bother with WotLK coming closer?
I put Wrath at 4 months out at a minimum. It depends on what you want to do with your Paladin during those 4 months.
The first step is to communicate your desire to move further into the end game to the leadership of your guild. You must find out if their vision for the guild is compatible with your vision for where you want to take your Paladin. Remember, it's their guild and the leadership sets the vision for it.
Let's assume that you come to the conclusion that you want more from the game than your guild does. Privately inform your Guild Leader that you will looking for another guild. Be prepared that he might gkick you on the spot, they then again they might not.
The next step is to make sure your gear is in order. Run Kara like a madman, and buy all the badge gear that's an upgrade for you and make sure your gear is gemmed and enchanted with high quality gems and enchants.
Then try to find a guild that is near your level or slightly above it. You may need to look offserver. You want to establish yourself in a guild, and try to get into their Raiding team. Do as much as you can before we all head off to the frozen north.
Q: When I instance,I seem to run OOM very quickly when using max rank Consecration. I believe my mana pool is very low yet I have no way to extend it..I end up Consecrating lower ranks,and generating less threat. Advice?
Your mana pool is your starting resource. As long as you have enough to Avenger's Shield, Seal, Judge, Holy Shield and Consecrate, you have 'enough'. I haven't done the math, but my gut is a naked level 70 Paladin has enough mana to go through that sequence once.
After that initial sequence, you have to figure out if you are in a mana deficit position or not. What I mean is are you in a situation where incoming damage is going to be enough for Spiritual Attunement to start refilling your mana bar. Arcand, who is much smarter than I am, has done the math.
"A maximum-threat rotation with perfect cooldown management and no Exorcism will cost 154 mana per second, sustainable if you're taking 1540 DPS. " - Arcand
Because of armor, and other variables, each Paladin has to figure out where in the game they take that kind of incoming DPS from the mobs they are tanking. If you find yourself in a mana deficit situation, and I seem to find myself there more and more as I gear up, you have to be a little more picky about skills. The good news is you are by definition, not in a situation where you are likely to die, so you can use a mana pot, instead of needing the potion cooldown for a health pot or Ironshield.
Q: I see many people using this add-on to see the difference between pieces of stats.What is it?
EqCompare and Ratings Buster
Q: Im writing to you regarding threat in Hyjal Trash and the use of TPS meters in a raid setting. I joined a new guild and we entered Hyjal on Saturday evening. Warrior tank(s) up front and 2 prot paladins picking up adds. The trash went fine I suppose, I was focusing on consecrating, holy shield and looking for loose mobs. I would "taunt" the other Paladin when he had too many. Nothing was really out of the ordinary except my mana, I was chugging pots. I have target of target on and I see that I'm getting mobs but not as many as my fellow prot pally who is geared a bit better about 1k more mana and 150 or more spell damage. After a horrible attempt on the 2nd boss some people had to leave and the raid was called. When it came time to tanks and healers I was told that my TPS was really low. Ok, no mobs escaped us. I would say my TPS was fine. What do I do and is it fair to count my TPS against me if no one pulled off of me and no raid members died due to trash?
The reality of raiding is, if your Raid Leader says your TPS was low, it means your TPS was low. It may not be true, and it may not be fair, but that's largely irreverent. It doesn't matter what the numbers were or how many mobs got away, the opinion of the Raid Leader is the definitive truth in his raid.
Try to educate your raid leader than Paladin TPS can be a little spiky. We tend to get a nice boost right after we judge. He's probably also used to the other Paladin who has higher spell damage and likely higher TPS.
The issue you had was a lack of incoming damage from the other Tankadin grabbing more mobs than you did with his higher spell damage. Some people may have the idea that since one Tankadin is good in Mount Hyjal, two must be even better, but in my experience, 1 Tankadin per raid is the way to go. In the situation you were in, I would suggest finding a single target like an Abomination or even an Necormancer and tank it, and leave the AoE tanking to the better geared Tankadin.
The issue with TPS is that it isn't like DPS. You can't post a meter at the end and say, yep I did 800 TPS on that run. Grab an Abomination and go to town. You'll have plenty of incoming damage and you can really concentrate on maximizing your TPS on that mob. Just hope the Raid Leader watches Omen during one of your spikes and don't be afraid to 'cheat' the meter a little by popping your wings whenever the raid gets to your target.
Q: My GM inspected my spec and suggested I spec for divine intellect and reckoning. I really prefer to have points in precision, one-hand specialty, and improved crusader. I prefer the solid hit and extra damage then the chance to gain extra swings.
Reckoning, and Improved Crusader are what I would refer to as flavor talents. They each provide a nice benefit and a case could be made for either one. One Hand Speciality and Precision are what I would refer to as fundamental talents. I wouldn't feel comfortable without them in my spec.
Divine Intellect is a poor choice for spending talent points as a Protection Paladin. A larger mana pool is only going to slightly delay how long it will take you to go out of mana. Either you are taking enough damage to refill your bar (mana surplus) or you are not (mana deficit). Extending the bar does not solve the problem.
Q: I have alot of gear. I never get rid of anything that is used for tanking. So I have options. How can I maximize my threat without regemming my 15 stam gems. It took a long time for me to get those 12 stam gems replaced by all epic. I have access to getting my 2set T4 bonus by either combination of legs,hands and helm.
It's going to depend on what non Tier gear you've got in those slots. I would advise making your 2 piece bonus from the hands and helm. The Tier 4 legs are the worst piece in the set and there are two really nice Badge gear options for your leg slot.
Q: With Libram of Repentance and Holy shield up I have 0.2% above the needed 102.4%,(Unbuffed),and I might go higher with the SSO shield. So I thought,"Hey,why not put spell damage and stamina gems instead of the avoidance ones I'm using?",but I'm afraid I would go under the Uncrush cap I've been trying to achieve so much.
Be sure to check my article on using the mod Tankpoints to check your uncrushable calculations.
Don't socket spell damage, socket stamina only. I will now wave my hand like a Jedi, "You do not want to look at Honors gloves."
Basically what you have here is the need to do what my Dad refered to as a 'Sharp Pencil Exercise'. Let's take a look at the avoidance gems you might have. We pop over to the uber useful Tanking Gear Uncrushability Values guide on Maintankadin, and we find the gem you are thinking of taking of out. Let's say it's a http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24032 Subtle Living Ruby. You can see from the post that the gem gives you 0.42% towards uncrushability. If you are only .2% over, you can't replace that yet, or can you.
Anytime you need to be Uncrushable, you are going to be in a Raid, and that means buffs. So what you need to do is figure out how far over your are buffed, however, the only buff I calculated on was Kings, because it's a buff I give myself, and as such I know it will available in the run. Some people also use Mark of the Wild in their calculations. Now you might not have a Druid with you in a 10 man, but you can almost guarentee at least one in your 25 man.
Q: I'd really like to go raiding beyond Gruul and Mag raid, but it seems that I am missing a fitting guild.On my server,we have the good raiding guilds, the PvP guilds whom I am not interested in, and the Casual guilds who won't give me what I seek. What should I do? And should I even bother with WotLK coming closer?
I put Wrath at 4 months out at a minimum. It depends on what you want to do with your Paladin during those 4 months.
The first step is to communicate your desire to move further into the end game to the leadership of your guild. You must find out if their vision for the guild is compatible with your vision for where you want to take your Paladin. Remember, it's their guild and the leadership sets the vision for it.
Let's assume that you come to the conclusion that you want more from the game than your guild does. Privately inform your Guild Leader that you will looking for another guild. Be prepared that he might gkick you on the spot, they then again they might not.
The next step is to make sure your gear is in order. Run Kara like a madman, and buy all the badge gear that's an upgrade for you and make sure your gear is gemmed and enchanted with high quality gems and enchants.
Then try to find a guild that is near your level or slightly above it. You may need to look offserver. You want to establish yourself in a guild, and try to get into their Raiding team. Do as much as you can before we all head off to the frozen north.
Q: When I instance,I seem to run OOM very quickly when using max rank Consecration. I believe my mana pool is very low yet I have no way to extend it..I end up Consecrating lower ranks,and generating less threat. Advice?
Your mana pool is your starting resource. As long as you have enough to Avenger's Shield, Seal, Judge, Holy Shield and Consecrate, you have 'enough'. I haven't done the math, but my gut is a naked level 70 Paladin has enough mana to go through that sequence once.
After that initial sequence, you have to figure out if you are in a mana deficit position or not. What I mean is are you in a situation where incoming damage is going to be enough for Spiritual Attunement to start refilling your mana bar. Arcand, who is much smarter than I am, has done the math.
"A maximum-threat rotation with perfect cooldown management and no Exorcism will cost 154 mana per second, sustainable if you're taking 1540 DPS. " - Arcand
Because of armor, and other variables, each Paladin has to figure out where in the game they take that kind of incoming DPS from the mobs they are tanking. If you find yourself in a mana deficit situation, and I seem to find myself there more and more as I gear up, you have to be a little more picky about skills. The good news is you are by definition, not in a situation where you are likely to die, so you can use a mana pot, instead of needing the potion cooldown for a health pot or Ironshield.
Q: I see many people using this add-on to see the difference between pieces of stats.What is it?
EqCompare and Ratings Buster
Q: Im writing to you regarding threat in Hyjal Trash and the use of TPS meters in a raid setting. I joined a new guild and we entered Hyjal on Saturday evening. Warrior tank(s) up front and 2 prot paladins picking up adds. The trash went fine I suppose, I was focusing on consecrating, holy shield and looking for loose mobs. I would "taunt" the other Paladin when he had too many. Nothing was really out of the ordinary except my mana, I was chugging pots. I have target of target on and I see that I'm getting mobs but not as many as my fellow prot pally who is geared a bit better about 1k more mana and 150 or more spell damage. After a horrible attempt on the 2nd boss some people had to leave and the raid was called. When it came time to tanks and healers I was told that my TPS was really low. Ok, no mobs escaped us. I would say my TPS was fine. What do I do and is it fair to count my TPS against me if no one pulled off of me and no raid members died due to trash?
The reality of raiding is, if your Raid Leader says your TPS was low, it means your TPS was low. It may not be true, and it may not be fair, but that's largely irreverent. It doesn't matter what the numbers were or how many mobs got away, the opinion of the Raid Leader is the definitive truth in his raid.
Try to educate your raid leader than Paladin TPS can be a little spiky. We tend to get a nice boost right after we judge. He's probably also used to the other Paladin who has higher spell damage and likely higher TPS.
The issue you had was a lack of incoming damage from the other Tankadin grabbing more mobs than you did with his higher spell damage. Some people may have the idea that since one Tankadin is good in Mount Hyjal, two must be even better, but in my experience, 1 Tankadin per raid is the way to go. In the situation you were in, I would suggest finding a single target like an Abomination or even an Necormancer and tank it, and leave the AoE tanking to the better geared Tankadin.
The issue with TPS is that it isn't like DPS. You can't post a meter at the end and say, yep I did 800 TPS on that run. Grab an Abomination and go to town. You'll have plenty of incoming damage and you can really concentrate on maximizing your TPS on that mob. Just hope the Raid Leader watches Omen during one of your spikes and don't be afraid to 'cheat' the meter a little by popping your wings whenever the raid gets to your target.
Q: My GM inspected my spec and suggested I spec for divine intellect and reckoning. I really prefer to have points in precision, one-hand specialty, and improved crusader. I prefer the solid hit and extra damage then the chance to gain extra swings.
Reckoning, and Improved Crusader are what I would refer to as flavor talents. They each provide a nice benefit and a case could be made for either one. One Hand Speciality and Precision are what I would refer to as fundamental talents. I wouldn't feel comfortable without them in my spec.
Divine Intellect is a poor choice for spending talent points as a Protection Paladin. A larger mana pool is only going to slightly delay how long it will take you to go out of mana. Either you are taking enough damage to refill your bar (mana surplus) or you are not (mana deficit). Extending the bar does not solve the problem.
Q: I have alot of gear. I never get rid of anything that is used for tanking. So I have options. How can I maximize my threat without regemming my 15 stam gems. It took a long time for me to get those 12 stam gems replaced by all epic. I have access to getting my 2set T4 bonus by either combination of legs,hands and helm.
It's going to depend on what non Tier gear you've got in those slots. I would advise making your 2 piece bonus from the hands and helm. The Tier 4 legs are the worst piece in the set and there are two really nice Badge gear options for your leg slot.
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