Zul'Aman

Played around in Zul'Aman for the first time last night. Took down the bear boss w/out too much difficulty. For kicks, we decided to do it without looking at the strategy guides. Overall, seemed like a pretty easy fight, considering we're in high-end tier 4 gear with a little out of SSC and TK.

Tank Comparison (2.3)

I am a member of a tanking team. We have 2 warriors, 1 druid and 1 paladin. Most players in WoW think warriors are the best tank, druids are second and paladins are third. In reality, it depends on the fight and gear of the tank. Below is a chart I'm working on which shows the advantages and disadvantages of each tank. This chart factors in the changes coming in 2.3 (mainly, more health for Paladins).



This is a work in progress and I am looking for feedback. Additions, deletions and alterations are all welcome.

2.3 on PTR

2.3 is now on the PTR. I've copied over (as Derbish), but haven't had a chance to try it out. A lot of big changes to paladins including more health, lower mana costs on some spells, spell hit on Precision. Even Ret paladins are getting a threat reduction. Since I STILL haven't gotten my legs or chest piece out of Kara, the badge rewards will be nice substitutes. Time to farm more badges.

I'm looking forward to the new 10 man, Zul'aman. I enjoy the 10-man instances more then the 25, but we're not going to let it slow down our 25-man progression as we still want to get to tier 6. We took a couple of tries on Leotheras last week and hopefully will get him this week.

Magtheridon on a Stick

We've tried Magtheridon in the past, but we've never been able to transitioning into phase 2 (where he comes out of being banished). We left the fight behind and focused in other directions until last night. Our first attempt stalled at the same point as always, wiping as he came out. On our ninth attempt of the night, he died. Yay us!

My job consisted of tanking adds 2 and 3, then picking up what elementals were still loose and finally tossing heals. I have to say I didn't feel all that useful once the adds were down. Next time, I'll at least keep some seals up.

Tidewalker Down

Tidewalker has died. One step closer to Vashj. The kill went just like the one in the video below, pretty much picture perfect.

I did manage to get my blacksmithing maxed out and make my boots thanks to a lot of help from the guild. I'm now running 428 spell damage on my threat set before buffs with some good armor and mitigation. Health is a little lower then I would like, though.

Where does our threat come from?

Here's a threat table from Klimpen's blog showing where our threat comes from, and how it changes as our spell damage goes up. The biggest % of our threat is coming from consecration, although Seal and Judgment of Righteousness are way up there.

It makes sense that our white damage threat becomes a much smaller portion of our threat as we increase spell damage. I've been running with my Libram of the Eternal Rest (increases the damage of my consecration by up to 47) now that I'm uncrushable without my blocking libram, which should help even more.

Something I hadn't realized before is that we gain threat from SA (Spiritual Attunement). I knew that gaining mana, from a mana pot, eathing food, etc gave a little bit of threat. It turns out that the mana I gain when I'm healed also gives me some threat.

Another interesting thing to note here is our reactive threat (holy shield, Ret Aura, Blessing of Sanctuary and Spiritual Attunement) all start becoming noticeably smaller percentages of our threat generation. This means holding secondary aggro on something (see the Gruul video below) becomes significantly easier as we get more spell damage gear and buffs.

Paladin tanking progression is pretty messed up. We're great main tanks in Kara, but don't perform well for gaining secondary aggro because, at that stage of our progression, we don't have the spell damage to build the aggro and have to rely on our reactive abilities. We have to work hard at being uncrushable, unlike a warrior or druid, which makes them more natural choices for tanking. Paladins then get thrown into off-tank positions and either can't hold secondary aggro because they aren't getting hit, or are taking too much damage because we're still crushable.

In the second half of Kara, we start coming on stronger, and then get hit by High King Maulgar and Gruul, who hit fresh paladins like a steam roller because of our lower health. Throw in Gruul's silencing ability and it's game over. Of course, lets not forget Nightbane w/out fear ward.

It isn't until we get a high spell damage weapon (over 200) and most of our tier 4 that we can really start competing for secondary aggro.

The good news is, we are a lot more useful in TK and SSC. Picking up the adds on Hyrdoss, Al'ar, and Tidwalker are good examples. Void Reaver is our first boss to really prove ourselves. When we reach him, chances are our spell damage is still a little low, but it's starting to get where it needs to be and we can normally hold him for a fair amount of the fight, which will only increase as we get better gear.

I'm looking forward to the other upcoming fights and seeing where we end up. I hear good things about paladins in Mt. Hyjal, but that's still a ways away.

Tidewalker - First look

Had our first real look at Tidewalker last night. Learning the pulls too him took a little longer then I would have liked, but it should go a lot faster next time. We only got two pulls on tidewalker him self before we had to call it. I wasn't able to pick up the adds the way I expected, but it was rather chaotic on the first pull and we didn't have the placement down for the second.

Our real target right now is still Al'ar and then Magtheridon, but we were in there and didn't have the tanks for either of those two fights. We'll get there soon enough, though.

I found this video in which I really like the placement of everyone.



Blacksmithing at 367. These last points are a real pain.