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
  • 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

Crofe said…
I'm iffy on Divinity. I get what you're saying about over heals, but it seems wrong to me that making myself easier to heal wouldn't make things go smoother. But on the other hand if it's just going to more over healing then it's not helping at all.

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...
Honors Code said…
It's not so much the size of the heal but the timing of it that will matter if you are in a life or death situation. I just find those 5 points much better spent elsewhere. I could see using your 3 flavor points in Divinity if you run with a Holy Paladin and don't need Divine Sacrifice/Divine Guardian.
Feist said…
SotP also moves you up to Imp LoH & Aura Mastery. With an AP debuff bitch, those cooldowns can be cornerstones of a survival oriented 'prpgression' build.
Honors Code said…
I ran Aura Mastery/Improved Lay On Hands extensively and found it wasn't a huge increase in survivability. I certainly wouldn't call it a 'progression' build.

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.
Feist said…
AM is mandatory for several hardmodes. If the prot paladin has it, that's one less ret or holy that you need to find a spot in the raid group for. AM/Devo or AM/Resist auras as personal tanking cooldowns is just icing.

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.
Anonymous said…
I maybe completely out in left field but I was wonder about your thoughts on the new seal of command and it ability to chain up to 2 other mobs when you hit with an ability that only hits one. I see this seal as very good one for 5 mans and add pick up. I have been playing around with it but need to do some more online work to see if it chains on Judgements, Sheild of Righteousness and auto attacks being as they are our only single target attacks.
WoWphiles said…
I'm also a Prot pally that has points in Divinity. I felt that more healing on me was better.

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?
Honors Code said…
The options are 3 in Conviction or 1 Conviction and 2 in Pursuit of Justice.
Anonymous said…
i have never understood why taking pursuit of justice is something needed for out build. i have never taken it and not been hindered in a progression guild. i used the points that would have gone to pursuit and put those 2 in seals of pure so i had SoP and crusade for damage/threat
Honors Code said…
PoJ debates can reach near religious fervor, so I'm not going to try to engage in one here.

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.
Divine Justice said…
Just pointing out the obvious, probably, but keep in mind some people use prot for pvp, too. Since I'm not in a progression guild or anything like that, I sacrfice certain things for more fun in pvp, like imp HOJ. :) Prot can be super fun times, especially in WG with like 10 stacks of tenacity :D

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