No DUH: Crusade vs SotP
I see a good many Tankadins running around with strange builds. I ran a VoA recently with another Tankadin who had not taken Anticipation or Deflection. Hello?
I'm also seeing a number of Tankadin with Seals of the Pure in their build. This is actually a bit more understandable since it buffs our primary seal, Seal of Vengeance (Corruption). But it might not be a great place to spend your talent points. It's another one of those 'it depends' types of answers.
So let's examine Seals of the Pure versus going deeper in Ret.
Well how deep in Ret are you already? In my humble opinoin, you should already be at least 12 points into Ret for Vindication. Vindication reduces the attack power of the Boss attacking you by 548 at Level 80. This is the exact same AP reduction given by Improved Demoralizing Shout, and Improved Demoralizing Roar.
I consider Vindication to be nearly as required as Judgments of the Just. It's a noticable decrease in the amount of damage you take. Just like JotJ, it can be provided by others in your raid, but due to target switching, mistakes ("oops I forgot to Shout") and player deaths ("Leetdpswarrior is dead."), it may not be available. The only way to make sure it'll up on the mob you are tanking is to provide it yourself.
For threat, the real question comes with Seals of the Pure versus Crusade. If you read Crusade carefully, you'll notice it double dips. It increases ALL damage caused by 3%. Then you get ANOTHER 3% bonus damage against Demons, Undead, Humaniods, and Elementals. For ease of writing, we'll refer to those as DUH mobs.
When fighting DUH mobs, Crusade will out threat Seals of the Pure. When fighting non DUH mobs, Seals of the Pure wins. (This was worked out in the 70 plus page Math thread on Maintankadin).
Look at what you are raiding. Heroics have an overwhelming majority of DUH mobs. Naxx is pretty much DUH from stem to stern. But in Ulduar you can't hardly find a DUH mob. Onyxnia's Lair is a DUH free zone. Crusader's Coliseum is all DUH except for Beasts. Most people expect IceCrown citadel to be filled with DUH.
Another talent I see many Tankadins taking is Divinity. I am of the belief that this talent was put in to encourage Holy Paladins to go down the Prot tree for their Bubble Spec (Divine Guardian and Divine Sacrifice). 5/5 Divinity is not a strong Tank talent and generally contributes only to more over heal.
Lastly, you can get by pretty good with just 1 point in Spiritual Attunement unless you are fighting General Vezzax.
So the Cliff Notes version is
I'm also seeing a number of Tankadin with Seals of the Pure in their build. This is actually a bit more understandable since it buffs our primary seal, Seal of Vengeance (Corruption). But it might not be a great place to spend your talent points. It's another one of those 'it depends' types of answers.
So let's examine Seals of the Pure versus going deeper in Ret.
Well how deep in Ret are you already? In my humble opinoin, you should already be at least 12 points into Ret for Vindication. Vindication reduces the attack power of the Boss attacking you by 548 at Level 80. This is the exact same AP reduction given by Improved Demoralizing Shout, and Improved Demoralizing Roar.
I consider Vindication to be nearly as required as Judgments of the Just. It's a noticable decrease in the amount of damage you take. Just like JotJ, it can be provided by others in your raid, but due to target switching, mistakes ("oops I forgot to Shout") and player deaths ("Leetdpswarrior is dead."), it may not be available. The only way to make sure it'll up on the mob you are tanking is to provide it yourself.
For threat, the real question comes with Seals of the Pure versus Crusade. If you read Crusade carefully, you'll notice it double dips. It increases ALL damage caused by 3%. Then you get ANOTHER 3% bonus damage against Demons, Undead, Humaniods, and Elementals. For ease of writing, we'll refer to those as DUH mobs.
When fighting DUH mobs, Crusade will out threat Seals of the Pure. When fighting non DUH mobs, Seals of the Pure wins. (This was worked out in the 70 plus page Math thread on Maintankadin).
Look at what you are raiding. Heroics have an overwhelming majority of DUH mobs. Naxx is pretty much DUH from stem to stern. But in Ulduar you can't hardly find a DUH mob. Onyxnia's Lair is a DUH free zone. Crusader's Coliseum is all DUH except for Beasts. Most people expect IceCrown citadel to be filled with DUH.
Another talent I see many Tankadins taking is Divinity. I am of the belief that this talent was put in to encourage Holy Paladins to go down the Prot tree for their Bubble Spec (Divine Guardian and Divine Sacrifice). 5/5 Divinity is not a strong Tank talent and generally contributes only to more over heal.
Lastly, you can get by pretty good with just 1 point in Spiritual Attunement unless you are fighting General Vezzax.
So the Cliff Notes version is
- Spec 0/53/18
- YES to Vindication
- NO to Seals of the Pure
- NO to Divinity
- YES to Crusade
- YES to Seals of the Pure only if you spend the lion's share of your time in Ulduar
- YES to 1 point only in Spiritual Attunement
Comments
Do you think this would depend on the type of healer you have behind you? I.e. having a druid healer who doesn't throw out the big heals as much vs. a pally healer. Although now that I say that, in a raid situation you probably aren't going to have just HoTs keeping you alive.
I may need to re-evaluate my spec...
LoH is still too long a cooldown even with it fully talented. I prefer the survival and threat of 53/18.
Having said all that, Fiest raids at a whole different level that I do, so perhaps Imp LoH/AM makes more sense in that setting.
Imp. LoH is too long a cooldown when you're chainpulling, sure, but working on hardmodes where an /attempt/ takes 7-10 minutes, + 5 minutes to debrief/rebuff between pulls, and it's generally up whenever you want it to be for anything other than Algalon.
It's by no means the only way to spec, but it's certainly worth considering for some raids.
I don't have points in vindication and perhaps that's definitely something I should adjust. But where else in the Ret tree should I put points? Seal of Command seems worthless, so maybe Conviction?
Basically some people love it, some people are kind of 'meh' about it and some people don't see the need for it.
I'm now in the Pro-PoJ camp. Hodir Hard and Icehowl are probably the two biggest fights that make me appreciate PoJ. I'm sure you can get by pretty well without it. I did for most of the expansion thus far.