Pal-a-din > Puh-la-din
So, last night Zydari, my Draenei Paladin, dinged 17. I've been reading up a lot on Paladin strategies, particularly with the focus on tanking. My only other tanking attempts are with my Warrior Daroul (level 26) who's only real experience was one Stockades run (which I posted on back in...October I think), and Didgeridoo my Tauren Shaman who tanked Ragefire Chasm at level 18 (back when Rockbiter and Earthshock still had +threat).
Needless to say I've done a lot more tanking with toon than with either of the afore-mentioned ones. This guys is exclusively leveling with my wife's Shaman, Zydaria, so is basically tanking full time. Prior to level 14 I'd keep Devotion Aura and Blessing of Might up, judge Crusader, Seal of Righteousness and hope that we'd kill it before my wifes DPS pulled the mob onto her (she's a bit trigger happy). Level 14 gave me Righteous Defense, the three-mob Paladin taunt. It's wonderful, much better that the Bear/Warrior Taunt IMHO. It is different to use though, as you target a friendly player and force mobs attacking them to instead attack me, rather than directly targeting the mob. Could be tricky, but the following macro works wonders:
/cast [target=targettarget,help] Righteous Defense, [target=none] Righteous Defense
I simply hit the macro whenever I don't have aggro. If it's because my wife pulled aggro I just get them back on me. If it's because my wife picked up an add, I get the glowy hand (because the target of my target is me, it passes onto the second condition) and click her party frame.
Level 16 gave me two new skills that have helped my tanking. Righteous Fury increase all threat from my Holy damage by 60%. As a significant amount of what I try to do is Holy damage, this is quite the buff. Additionally I picked up Retribution Aura, which deals 5 Holy damage to anyone who attacks someone in my party. Now, I'm not quite sold on this ability. If I have aggro, it's great. They're getting 5 Holy damage (for 8 threat) every time they deal damage, may not look like much, but it adds up fast. Where I'm confused is how the threat is applied if the damage stems from a mob hitting someone else in the party. My thinking, and what I've read a few places, is that it is my aura that is dealing the damage, thus I'm getting the hate regardless of who the mob is hitting. But, a high level paladin in my guild doesn't think that is the case. More investigation is needed, but for now this is my default tanking aura.
Next level (18) I'll be getting Blessing of Freedom (situational), a new rank of Seal of Righteousness (yeah!), and Spiritual Attunement. That last spell is what I'm most excited about, 8% mana from any healing from an outside source may not seem like much, but I'm always grouped with a healer. Any healing she does on me simply increased the amount of damage I can deal. I'm sure it will be more useful as time goes on and the return gets into the double digits, but I will certainly have a reason to not be healing myself :P
Level 20 will give me Consecration, which should cement my ability to tank multiple mobs. That, coupled with Retribution Aura, should be loads of fun. Get my wife to drop some AoE fire totems and we should be able to do a lot of damage, real fast.
Looking down the levels I imagine that I'll continue to use the JotC/SoR combination (with JoR when ever its up). Seems like the best way to maintain threat and deal damage. Obviously other Seals/Judgments will have situational use, but that should remain my default. Looks like at 64 Seal of Vengeance will replace Seal of Righteousness as my default. I'm just tickled at the prospect, though level 64 is barley on the horizon.
My current spec (0/8/0), at 20 (0/11/0), 30 (0/21/0), 40 (0/31/0), 50 (0/41/0), 60 (0/41/10), and 70 (0/44/17).
3 comments:
heh I too created a paladin (blood elf). I think my spec will most likly look like
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?555030000000000000000532513302032152510000000000000000000000000
or whenever I do hit 70 18/43/0
I think im gonna try to go holy til bout level 25ish then go full protection after that. At level 14 right now I hope to run RFC and get a nice one handed sword so I can work on my shield and sword skills.
Thanks for the macro too! I know it will definitly come in handy once I do start moving up to tank position rather then healing.
Good luck playin Paladin class, seems like a very detailed and very hybrid-type class =)
A slightly better version of the macro is:
/cast [help] Righteous Defense; [target=targettarget] Righteous Defense
This one allows you to cast it normally on people (which I don't think yours will do correctly), but use it like a taunt on mobs.
Also, make sure that you are running with target-of-target enabled. It's so much easier to see when to use Righteous Defence properly.
Finally, Ret Aura gives threat to person getting hit. So it's pretty good if you are soloing or tanking, not so good if a clothie is getting hit.
"/cast [help] Righteous Defense; [target=targettarget] Righteous Defense"
Good point on keeping [help] in the front, and I'll soon add that to my macro (if it's not there). I would advise keeping [target=none] at the end though, so that when tanking you can click on a party frame without losing your current target.
"Finally, Ret Aura gives threat to person getting hit. So it's pretty good if you are soloing or tanking, not so good if a clothie is getting hit."
See, I've read it both ways. I suppose what I should do is have my wife body pull a mob without dealing any damage. Then when the aura deals damage, they'll either 1) attack me, indicating that the threat goes to me or 2) keep attacking her, indicating that the threat goes to me.
Post a Comment