Wotlk Paladin Tanking Guide part 3: Glyphs (Patch 3.1)

by Flyingfish

Lets start by going 1 and half month back, this is what I wrote as the conclusion in version 1 of this part of my guide "Choosing glyphs for a paladin tank is boring, because there is only a few variations. Lets hope Blizzard will give us some new glyphs in the future." It seems Blizzard saw it and decided to follow my advice, hehe, thx Blizz. All kidding aside, patch 3.1 has brought some new and very interesting glyphs. I will use the same coloring system as I used with talents (see part 2 of my guide), so a glyph name in purple indicates that I think it is very good for tanking, not that the glyph itself is an epic quality item, as all glyphs have common (white) item quality. Remember again, the score is based on my personal experience and opinion only, and only glyphs relavant to tanking are listed below.

Major glyphs

Glyph of Divine Plea
New glyph! With the Guarded by the Light talent, a protection paladin can keep Divine Plea up all the time, so this glyph actually means permanently 3% reduced damage taken. A very good damage mitigation glyph if you ask me.

Glyph of Salvation
New glyph! Another interesting glyph for damage mitigation. 20% reduced damage could be a life saver in many situations. I still remember the first time our guild went to Naxx, we wiped countless times at Maexxna, because I was undergeared and we had 3 paladin healers, thus no HOT to get me through the Web Sprays, we actually had to work out a Hand of Sacrifice rotation to down the disgusting spider. If only I had Glyph of Salvation at that time. Be careful though, only use Hand of Salvation when you are comfortable in front on the threat meter.

Additionally this is a a very good PvP glyph.

Glyph of Shield of Righteousness
New glyph! Reduces the mana cost of Shield of Righteousness, which is pretty useless in my opinion, since a rank 2 Shield of Righteousness costs 6% of base mana (it's only 200 or something). It may be a good choice for PvP protection paladins...

Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous
New glyph! Since the protection paladin already possess the abilities needed to be the best AOE tank, this glyph is not really that great.

Glyph of Seal of Vengeance
As Seal of Vengeance/Corruption is considered the main tanking seal, this glyph is very good to use when tanking. Note it grants 10 expertise skill, not rating!

Glyph of Righteous Defense
A missed Righteous Defense can have very serious consequences, even though it doesn't occur often. This glyph greatly increases the hit chance of RD, thus almost eliminites wipes caused by a missed taunt. But with the introduction of Hand of Reckoning, we now have two taunt spells, making this glyph less useful.

Glyph of Judgement
10% increase to Judgement damage is not much, but then again we should be using our Judgements whenever they have cooled down.

Glyph of Spiritual Attunement
If you constantly find youself OOM, this glyph can help you. But there are so many other ways to solve mana problems, such as Seal/Judgement of Wisdom, Blessing of Sancturay/Wisdom, Divine Plea and so on, I will not recommand this glyph.

Glyph of Avenger's Shield
I will not recommand this glyph either. It is good if you are only tanking one mob at a time, but that is not our niche. Most of the time, a protection paladin should find him/herself shinning in front of a group of monsters.

Glyph of Seal of Righteousness
The cost of Judgement spells are very cheap, it's simply just not worth a major glyph spot.

Glyph of Consecration
I have seen some tanks with this glyph, I guess they don't use the 96969 rotation, because increasing the cooldown of Consecration to 10 seconds will totally mess up the rotation.

Minor glyphs
The three minor glyphs of blessings are still pretty much useless. That leave Glyph of Sense Undead, Glyph of Lay on Hands and Glyph of the Wise, so no changes to minor glyphs in patch 3.1.

Conclusion
Pre-3.1, a paladin tank didn't have many choices when it comes to glyphs, but now we can actually choose glyphs according to the situation.
For damage mitigation: Glyph of Divine Plea and Glyph of Salvation.
For mana preservation: Glyph of Shield of Righteousness and Glyph of Spiritual Attunement.
For threat generation: Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous, Glyph of Seal of Vengeance, Glyph of Judgement and Glyph of Avenger's Shield.

Wotlk Paladin Tanking Guide part 2: Talents (Patch 3.1)

by Flyingfish

Patch 3.1 has brought many changes to the paladin talents, that's why felt it was neccesary to rewrite this part of my guide. The grading system is the same as I used in the first version: I will comment on each talent from the protection tree, plus the relevant talents from the retribution and holy tree. Additionally I will give each talent a score from the following coloring system, from best to worst:

MustHave - Epic talents that every paladin tank should have.
GoodToHave - Talents very good to have and will help your tanking a great deal.
TakeOrLeave - Talents that will help your tanking, but not at all mandatory.
LeaveIt - Useless talents when it comes to tanking.

Note that the scores are given based on my personal experience and opinion only.

Protection talents

Tier 1:

Divinity
Increses healing done by you and done to you by 1-5%. A tank stays alive by getting healed, 5% may not sound like a big deal, but these 5% may just be the difference between a wipe and a kill in many situations.

Divine Strength
Now that paladins also receive block value from strength, Divine Strength has become a very good tanking talent, that is probably why it was moved from the holy tree. The extra threat is just a bonus.

Tier 2:

Stoicism
PvP talent, the benefits are almost useless to tanks.

Guardian's Favor
PvP talent, totally useless.

Anticipation
Mandatory tanking talent and the only one worth taking in the whole tier.

Tier 3:

Improved Righteous Fury
Tanking is about two things, threat generation and damage mitigation. This talent provides 6% damage reduction, there is no need to say more.

Toughness
Tanks always want to have more armor, the reduction to movement slowing effects is a bit useless though, due to Hand of Freedom.

Divine Sacrifice
New talent! An active ability that transfers 30% of all damge taken by party/raid members to you for 10 seconds. Very handy ability in situations where the whole raid takes heavy damage, or when the other tanks need a bit help with damage mitigation. I strongly recommand that you use this ability together with Divine Shield, and I strongly recommand that you pop your bubble first.

Tier 4:

Divine Guardian
New talent! Increses the effect of Divine Sacrifice and Sacred Shield. If you took Divine Sacrifice, you should spend 2 points in this talent as well, because the bonuses are very nice, especially the improvement to Sacred Shield.

Improved Hammer of Justice
I have only seen a very few tanks spending points in Imp HoJ, but this talent is very useful in my opinion. This talent combined with the Judgement of the Just talent will bring the cooldown of HoJ down to 20 seconds, which means we have a spell interrupter every 20 seconds.

Improved Devotion Aura
As I mentioned before, tanks always want to have more armor. But it is the bonus healing effect that makes this talent truly incredible. 6% addition to the amount healed may just be the 6% that saves your ass, you will love this talent, your healers will love this talent, even the damage dealers will love this talent.

Tier 5:

Blessing of Sanctuary
Damage mitigation and threat generation in one talent, this is the best blessing a tank can have, unless you are a bit undergeared for the encounter, in which case BoK will benefit you more.

Reckoning
A very popular talent due to the fact that it roughly doubles your damage output for the duration of the proc. When fighting multiple mobs, it procs all the time, which makes Reckoning one of our best grinding tools. But is it good for tanking? The extra threat from the proc is great, but I still consider Reckoning a bad tanking talent, because the proc makes you hit more. The more you hit the more you get parried, the more you get parried the more damage you take. When tanking hard hitting bosses, this talent can be your death.

Tier 6:
(from this point on, the talents are more or less mandatory, most tanks will maximize the rest of the protection tree)

Sacred Duty
Tanks always want to have more stamina, even more than armor! The bonus effects are very nice too, since Divine Protection is our life-saver.

One-Handed Weapon Specialization
Another great tool to help you generate threat.

Tier 7:

Holy Shield
Damage mitigation, the chance to mitigate damage and threat generation in one talent, if you don't take Holy Shield, you are out of your mind. And keep Holy Shield up at all times!

Ardent Defender
This talent is is underestimated by many, sure it wont save you from hard hitting bosses like Brutallus, but it increases your effective health by a great amount. There is an addon to register how many times Ardent Defender saves you from dying (I can't remember the name, sry), I was surprised to see the number, because I myself was one of those who underestimated this talent, I don't anymore.

Spiritual Attunement

New talent! Used to be a passive ability, it's nevertheless still mandatory for tanking.

Tier 8:

Redoubt
Again a super talent, more block value equals more effective health and more threat. The increased chance to block is an useful (useless you already are block-capped) but unreliable bonus.

Combat Expertise
Tanks always want to have more stamina, they also want to have more expertise, because expertise reduces the chance that you will get dodged and more importantly parried. The additional crit chance is nice too.

Tier 9:

Touched by the Light
The damage (thus threat) a paladin deals is based on attack power and spell power, spell power increased by 30% of your stamina is a huge amount, because you will have high stamina as a tank. I don't know why it comes with a healing bonus though, it is useless to tanks since we almost never heal.

Avenger's Shield
This is the ability I use most of the time when pulling mobs, generates a great amount of threat initially. Combined with Exorcism and Judgement, the threat paladin tanks generates in a pull makes all other tanks cry for their mother.

Guarded by the Light
6% less spell damage taken is very nice. But the new bonus effect is very very very nice, it ensures that Divine Plea is up all the time, meaning you don't have to worry about mana anymore. And combined with the new Divine Plea glyph, you get an exstra 3% damage reduction from all sources.

Tier 10:

Shield of the Templar
Another 3% damage reduction, which is always welcome. The silencing effect to Avenger's Shield gives us another spell interrupter besides HoJ and a great advantage when pulling and tanking caster mobs.

Judgement of the Just
One of the first things I learned when I was a warrior tank, was that I have to keep Thunder Clap up. Well, this is our Thunder Clap, and it comes with Judgements, which we will be using anyway. As mentioned before, together with Imp Hoj, the cooldown of HoJ is down to only 20 seconds.

Tier 11:

Hammer of the Righteous
This talent is what keeps us on the throne as the best AOE tanking class! What makes it even better is in addition to the "4 times your main hand damage", it also applies the active seal to all 3 targets.

Retribution talents

Deflection
Inspite of being in the retribution tree, this is a tanking talent, and a very good one.

Benediction
Since all the abilities we use when tanking are instant abilities, this talent is helpful for keeping the mana up, but imo far from worth investing 5 talent points in.

Improved Judgements
A must have for paladin tanks due to the 96969 rotation (see part 5 of my guide), but only 1 point, not 2!

Heart of the Crusader
Very useful talent in encounters with a time limit, or in general to speed up the killing process. But every retribution paladin and many holy paladins have this talent, so it's not a must have for tankadins.

Persuit of Justice
Used to be a very popular talent among prot paladins due to the fact that it used to reduce the chance of you being hit by spells. Sadly not anymore. The speed bonus is still very nice though.

Holy talents

Seals of the Pure
Since you will be using either Seal of Righteousness or Seal of Corruption/Vengeance when tanking, this is a very good talent for additional threat.

Talent build
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sZE0xA0uMGsIufdxo
This is my "basic" build, where I have left out 9 talent points. If you want to interrupt more often, put 2 points in Imp HoJ. If you want to help the raid, Divine Sacrifice, Divine Guardian and Heart of the Crusader are all good choices. If you are not comfortable with your threat generation, you may want to put some points in Seals of the Pure. If you find yourself OOM often, then Benediction is the way to go. The point is, there is no "best build", what is the best solution depends on the situation. And feel free to experiment:)

Patch 3.1 has also brought many new and exciting glyphs, so version 2 of the glyph part is coming up soon, stay tuned :D

High Five list: Top 5 Baby items in WoW

5. Dark Iron Baby Booties
A rare drop from the Relic Coffers in BRD, not equippable, but a very nice novelty item.

4. Baby Shark
This awesome vanity pet can be summoned anywhere, even though its tooltip says "He really requires water". Sadly it didn't made the cut from the PTR to the live patch.

3. Baby Blizzard Bear
Very cute pet from Blizzard's 4'th anniversary, and it is a bind to account item.

2. Baby Crocolisk
The baby crocolisk is the objective of one of the daily fishing quests from Old Man Barlo, and it's the only way to obtain the 4 baby crocolisk vanity pets: Chuck's Bucket, Snarly's Bucket, Muckbreath's Bucket and Toothy's Bucket. As a bonus, when you have this daily fishing quest, the drop chance of Old Crafty in Orgrimmar is greatly increased.

1. Baby Spice
Obtainable from the daily cooking quests in Dalaran. This incredible item can be cast on most targets in the game, including NPCs and many bosses, very useful when some moron (usually a Tauren) is blocking a quest giver, vendor or mailbox by standing on him/it. And try to imagine a Tauren on a half-sized vehicle:) I haven't tested it, but if the Baby spices work on Malygos and Gluth, it will make those fights a lot easier. You can however also wipe the raid by casting it on Ragnaros, The Lurker Below or Thaddius, lol!

This post is dedicated to my new born baby :D

Baby

High Five list: Top 5 mobs in Wow with most pathetic lives

5
Hyakiss the Lurker
Rokad the Ravager
Shadikith the Glider
Those names don't ring a bell? That's because you probably never killed them. They are also known (or unknown) as the animal bosses in Karazhan. With the popularity of Karazhan in TBC, I am sure these are the most skipped bosses in the entire game.
Anything you guys want to say to Blizzard?
Please let us drop badges like the others...

4
Scarshield Legionnaire
Scarshield Spellbinder
The Scarshield Legionnaires get killed I dont know how many times every raid night, because they guard the Orb of Command a.k.a. the entrance to BWL. The Scarshield Spellbinders live longer than the Legionnaires, just with less dignity! Because they have a very nice fire resistance buff, raiders litterally USE them for that sole purpose.
Anything you guys want to say to Blizzard?
Thank you for introducing TBC...

3
Ambassador Hellmaw
With the arrival of Wotlk, TBC instances are as good as deserted, but people keep returning to Shadow Labs...alone. The reason is the first boss in SL, Ambassador Hellmaw, a.k.a. weapon skill leveling doll.
Anything you want to say to Blizzard?
Release me!

2
Deathstalker Vincent
Lets just make one thing clear, this guy cannot not be killed, but people just wont give up, they keep trying. When not being punched, he is just lying on the ground. He is not totally useless though, sometimes people come to test how big they can crit on him.
Anything you want to say to Blizzard?
Arrgh!

1
Gamon
Tauren is probably the most loved race in Wow, even Alliance doesn't have anything against Taurens. Gamon is the exception, this poor guy is the punching doll of the entire Horde. If you ever see Gamon alive, kill him fast before someone else does it. People actually got bored of just killing him, legend tells about a brave hero of the Horde, who once kited Gamon to Silithus...
Anything you want to say to Blizzard?
Remove me from the game, just do it...


Honorable mentions
Hogger
Hogger isn't on the list because he's life is not pathetic, it is glorious!


Pindleskin (from Diablo 2)
He is the most killed mob in Diablo2 for the following reasons:

• he has a chance of drop ANY item in the game, including Zod rune and Windforce.
• it takes a few seconds to get to him, and a few more seconds to kill him.

People actually developed a Pindleskin farming bot, which is able to automatically and repeatedly kill him once every 15 seconds.

Wotlk Paladin Tanking Guide part 5: Threat generation

by Flyingfish

Offense wins the crowd
A tank with high threat ensures that the damage dealers seldom get aggro and die, that is why a tank that knows how to generate threat will generally be considered as a good tank. Your ability to generate threat is the most important factor when it comes to your reputation as a tank, understandable, but not completely justified imo. But since this is the general opinion of the people out there, we shall not disappoint them.
A protection paladins threat comes from holy damage modified by Righteous Fury, this leads to the 3 most important rules for paladin tanks:

• Rule number 1: Don't forget Righteous Fury when tanking.
• Rule number 2: DO NOT forget Righteous Fury!
• Rule number 3: NEVER EVER forget Righteous Fury!

After Blessing of Salvation has been removed, your holy damage actually generates 171.7% additional threat when under the influence of RF, so it is a huge deal. Forgetting RF is the most noobish thing a paladin tank can do.
Assuming the 3 rules we talked about before are followed, a paladin tanks threat pretty much comes down to maximizing holy damage, where two numbers play a major role, that is 6 and 9 (no dirty thoughts now :P).

The 96969 rotation
The basic 96969 rotation is about using every global cooldown, and it consists of 5 abilities:

• Holy Shield (8 sec CD)
• Judgement (10/9/8 sec CD)
• Consecration (10/8 sec CD)
• Shield of Righteousness (6 sec CD)
• Hammer of the Righteous (6 sec CD)

Where the first 3 abilities are considered 9 sec CD abilities and the last 2 are considered 6 sec CD abilities. The rotation is done by alternating between 9 sec CD abilities and 6 sec CD abilities. Since the global cooldown lasts 1.5 sec, an example of the 96969 rotation will look like this:
time - ability to use
0.0 - Holy Shield (9)
1.5 - Shield of Righteousness (6)
3.0 - Judgement (9)
4.5 - Hammer of the Righteous (6)
6.0 - Consecration (9)
7.5 - Shield of Righteousness (6)
9.0 - Holy Shield (9)
10.5 - Hammer of the Righteous (6)
12.0 - Judgement (9)
13.5 - Shield of Righteousness (6)
15.0 - Consecration (9)
and so on...
If you haven't used this rotation in the past, but want to use it in the future, I suggest that you place these 5 abilities next to each other to make it clear which 1 of the 5 abilities have cooled down, for example like this:
key 1 - Shield of Righteousness
key 2 - Hammer of the Righteous
key 3 - Holy Shield
key 4 - Judgement
key 5 - Consecration
Then all you have to do is alternating between 1/2 and 3/4/5, like: 3, 1, 4, 2, 5, 1, 3, 2, 4, 1, 5...really easy and relaxing.

Maximizing threat output
The 5 abilities in the basic 96969 rotation are not optimal for threat generation, because paladins are blessed with other high damage "optional" abilities like Exorcism, Avenger's Shield and Holy Wrath. But the problem with these abilities are longer cooldowns, so in order to maximize the holy damage output, we have to fit these long CD abilities into our rotation by replacing basic abilties with optional abilties whenever their CDs allow it. The question here is which ability should be replaced. The answer depends on the situation, what I usually do is replacing Judgement and/or Shield of Righteousness with Avenger's Shield and/or Holy Wrath when AOE tanking. And I usually replace Hammer of the Righteous with Exorcism and Avenger's Shield when tanking single targets or bosses. But whatever you do, do NOT replace Judgement when tanking a boss, I have seen some paladin tanks to that, and it is a very bad idea if you ask me, why? Because Judgement reduces your targets melee attack speed by 20%, and you get a buff from Libram of Obstruction, not to mention JoL can be a huge threat boost. But threat from JoL will be (maybe already is?) removed. So let the retribution paladin judge light, because they have the highest attack power + spell power, if there is no retri pally, judge light yourself. It is very important that no other paladin in the party/raid use the same Judgement as you, because Judgements overwrite each other, including the melee attack speed debuff and Heart of the Crusader. I usually do not replace Consecration either, unless running low on mana, because Consecration is a very reliable threat output, every other ability have a chance to miss, Consecration will always hit except for the first tick. Last but not least, you should be using Seal of Corruption/Vengeance most of the time when tanking, Seal of Righteousness is only superior when tanking fast dying mobs.
Next part of my guide is about damage mitigation, but before that, I think I'll rewrite the parts about talents and glyphs as patch 3.1 brings changes to paladin talents as well as new glyphs.

Wotlk Paladin Tanking Guide part 4: Marking and pulling

by Flyingfish

So the talents have been picked, the glyphs have been bought, what next? Originally I intended to cover itemization first, but then I thought you have to go out and tank before you can get the gear, right? So lets talk about how to play a paladin tank first, it's more fun than numbers anyway.

Marking the targets
Every fight starts with a pull, ideally a non-ninja pull. But prior to the pull, the mobs should always be marked with symbols to ensure everyone knows which target to dps and which to crowd control (CC). To the best of my belief, the preparation of a fight is just as important as the fight itself. When marking targets, you have to make the choice between klling and crowd controlling the most dangerous mobs, this of course requires that you know the mobs. And believe me, people expect the tank to know the mobs, and they expect the tank to mark the targets, so you may as well ask for the leader and take some responsibility. Here are some advice on marking the targets:

• Announce which mark is what, and try to stick with the setup during the whole run.
• When (or just before) the skull dies, mark a new skull.
• Mark the patrols to keep track on them.
• Mark any group of mobs that you skip.
• Use macros to mark targets.
• If you don't know the instance, mobs with mana are generally more dangerous than mobs without.
• If people keep ninja pulling, mark yourself and tell them to stay behind you. (Don't use the green triangle though, because in China, wearing a green hat means that your partner is cheating on you! And this is not a joke, I just thought I'd share this, since the World of Warcraft servers are filled with chinese people (gold farmers or not, they all know about the green hat) :D)

Pulling the mobs
As a tank, we want all the mobs to focus on us right after the pull, that's why we want to pull the mobs ourself most of the time, we want to pull them at range, and we want to build some threat on all of them. Fortunately we have various tools in our disposal to accomplish that. Avenger's Shield (AS) is our main tool for pulling the mobs, especially when pulling groups of mobs. AS instantly generates a great amount of threat on 3 targets aswell as slowing them, I always try to ensure that the targets my AS will hit and the CC targets are identical, to buy more time for sheeping, trapping and so on. Combined with Exorcism and Judgement, you should be comfortable in front on the threat meter of atleast 4 or 5 mobs, by which time the mobs should be in melee range. Here are some general advice on pulling the mobs:

• Never pull by walking into the mobs.
• Cast Holy Shield before you pull, especially before tough fights.
• Get out of line of sight after the pull will force ranged mobs to come to you.
• If you are only meant to tank 1 or 2 targets out of a large group, pull with Exorcism.
• Avenger's Shield will not bounce to CC'ed targets.
• Hammer of the Righteous will not bounce to CC'ed targets either, BUT if Seal of Vengeance/Corruption is on, and your Hammer of the Righteous lands before the targets are CC'ed, they can't no longer be CC'ed.

After the pull, you should get into a threat generating rotation in order to keep the mobs on you, the next part of my guide will therefore deal with threat generation. But always keep in mind that the preparation of a fight is just as important as the fight itself, think of it as the relation between foreplay and sex :D

Wotlk Paladin Tanking Guide part 3: Glyphs

by Flyingfish

A newer version of this part can be found at: Wotlk Paladin Tanking Guide part 2: Talents (Patch 3.1)
Which glyphs to use when tanking?
I feel protection paladin don't have as many choices when it comes to glyphs as for instance protection warriors, meaning a couple of glyphs are decent for us, and the rest are like "meh". The following I will use the same coloring system as I used with talents (see part 2 of my guide), so a glyph name in purple indicates that I think it is very good for tanking, not that the glyph itself is an epic quality item, as all glyphs have common (white) item quality. Remember again, the score is based on my personal experience and opinion only.

Major glyphs
Glyph of Seal of Vengeance
As Seal of Vengeance/Corruption is considered the main tanking seal, this glyph is very good to use when tanking. Note it grants 10 expertise skill, not rating!

Glyph of Righteous Defense
A missed Righteous Defense can have very serious consequences, even though it doesn't occur often. This glyph greatly increases the hit chance of RD, thus almost eliminites wipes caused by a missed taunt. But with the introduction of Hand of Reckoning, we now have two taunt spells, making this glyph less useful.

Glyph of Judgement
10% increase to Judgement damage is not much, but then again we should be using our Judgements whenever they have cooled down.

Glyph of Spiritual Attunement
If you constantly find youself OOM, this glyph can help you. But there are so many other ways to solve mana problems, such as Seal/Judgement of Wisdom, Blessing of Sancturay/Wisdom, Divine Plea and so on, I will not recommand this glyph.

Glyph of Avenger's Shield
I will not recommand this glyph either. It is good if you are only tanking one mob at a time, but that is not our niche. Most of the time, a protection paladin should find him/herself shinning in front of a group of monsters.

Glyph of Seal of Righteousness
The cost of Judgement spells are very cheap, it's simply just not worth a major glyph spot.

Glyph of Consecration
I have seen some tanks with this glyph, I guess they don't use the 96969 rotation, because increasing the cooldown of Consecration to 10 seconds will totally mess up the rotation.

Glyph of Exorcism
Since Exorcism can be cast on all types of enemy targets now, this glyph will give paladins another hard hitting spell interrupting ability with 15 seconds cooldown only, sadly this overpowered combo will be changed in the next patch.

Minor glyphs
Since the buffing should be done out of combat, the three minor glyphs of blessings are pretty much useless. That leave us Glyph of Sense Undead, Glyph of Lay on Hands and Glyph of the Wise, why not use them? They are better than nothing.

Conclusion
Choosing glyphs for a paladin tank is boring, because there is only a few variations. Lets hope Blizzard will give us some new glyphs in the future. I think I'll cover itemization in the next part of this guide, but I'm not sure yet, but stay tuned anyway :)

Love - with a vengeance

Favourite wow video
I've watched many Wow videos, no other video made me want to raid more than "Rite of Passage" by AFGM, and no other video made me want to PvP more than "Incredible Warrior Tricks" by Swifty. But this video is my all time favourite, when we watched it for the first time, the girl sitting next to me couldn't stop crying, because it's just so beautiful, and partly because we used to do quests together in Elwynn Forest (yes, Sweet and I used to play Alliance). I guess there is no better way to comment this video than with her tears.

no stunning special effects...
no inhuman skills...
no funny dances...
no shinny epix...
no world-first kills
just a tragic love story...

I hope you enjoyed it, part 3 of my paladin tanking guide coming soon :)

Wotlk Paladin Tanking Guide part 2: Talents

by Flyingfish

A newer version of this part can be found at: Wotlk Paladin Tanking Guide part 2: Talents (Patch 3.1)

How should I pick my talents?
I will comment on each talent from the protection tree, plus the relevant talents from the retribution and holy tree. Additionally I will give each talent a score from the following coloring system, from best to worst:

MustHave - Epic talents that every paladin tank should have.
GoodToHave - Talents very good to have and will help your tanking a lot.
TakeOrLeave - Talents that will help your tanking, but not at all mandatory.
LeaveIt - Useless talents when it comes to tanking.

Note that the scores are given based on my personal experience and opinion only.

Protection talents

Tier 1:

Blessing of Kings and Improved Blessing of Kings
The 2nd best tanking blessing, many tanks even consider BoK as the best blessing, because 10% stats is a huge deal!

Divine Strength
Now that paladins also receive block value from strength, Divine Strength has become a very good tanking talent, that is probably why it was moved from the holy tree. The extra threat is just a bonus.

Tier 2:

Stoicism
PvP talent, the benefits are almost useless to tanks.

Guardian's Favor
PvP talent, totally useless.

Anticipation
Mandatory tanking talent and the only one worth taking in the whole tier.

Tier 3:

Improved Righteous Fury
Tanking is about two things, threat generation and damage mitigation. This talent provides 6% damage reduction, there is no need to say more.

Toughness
Tanks always want to have more armor, the reduction to movement slowing effects is a bit useless though, due to Hand of Freedom.

Tier 4:

Divine Guardian
I have seen many tanks spending points in Divine Guardian, but I must admit that I am not a fan of this talent. As a tank, you almost never use your bubble, except in macros for removing debuffs, in which case it is removed immediately. It is handy when you are not tanking though, Divine Guardian can be used as a mini Shield Wall for the whole party/raid.

Improved Hammer of Justice
I have only seen a very few tanks spending points in Imp HoJ, but this talent is very useful in my opinion. HoJ is our only way (unless you are a bloodelf) to interrupt spells, with this talent, we can use HoJ twice as much as before.

Improved Devotion Aura
As I mentioned before, tanks always want to have more armor. But it is the bonus healing effect that makes this talent truly incredible. 6% addition to the amount healed may just be the 6% that saves your ass, you will love this talent, your healers will love this talent, even the damage dealers will love this talent.

Tier 5:

Blessing of Sanctuary
Damage mitigation and threat generation in one talent, this is the best blessing a tank can have, unless you are a bit undergeared for the encounter, in which case BoK will benefit you more.

Reckoning
A very popular talent due to the fact that it roughly doubles your damage output for the duration of the proc. When fighting multiple mobs, it procs all the time, which makes Reckoning one of our best grinding tools. But is it good for tanking? The extra threat from the proc is great, but I still consider Reckoning a bad tanking talent, because the proc makes you hit more. The more you hit the more you get parried, the more you get parried the more damage you take. When tanking hard hitting bosses, this talent can be your death.

Tier 6:
(from this point on, the talents are more or less mandatory, most tanks will maximize the rest of the protection tree)

Sacred Duty
Tanks always want to have more stamina, even more than armor! The bonus effect to bubble is useless for the same reason as in Divine Guardian.

One-Handed Weapon Specialization
Another great tool to help you generate threat.

Tier 7:

Holy Shield
Damage mitigation, the chance to mitigate damage and threat generation in one talent, this is the best talent I have ever seen! Keep Holy Shield up at all times! And yes, I have given Holy Shield the legendary color, because it is that good:)

Ardent Defender
This talent is is underestimated by many, sure it wont save you from hard hitting bosses like Brutallus, but it increases your effective health by a great amount. There is an addon to register how many times Ardent Defender saves you from dying (I can't remember the name, sry), I was surprised to see the number, because I myself was one of those who underestimated this talent, I don't anymore.

Tier 8:

Redoubt
Again a super talent, more block value equals more effective health and more threat. The increased chance to block is a useful (useless you already are block-capped) but unreliable bonus.

Combat Expertise
Tanks always want to have more stamina, they also want to have more expertise, because expertise reduces the chance that you will get dodged and more importantly parried. The additional crit chance is nice too.

Tier 9:

Touched by the Light
The damage (thus threat) a paladin deals is based on attack power and spell power, spell power increased by 30% of your stamina is a huge amount, because as a tank, you will have high stamina. I don't know why it comes with a healing bonus though, it is useless to tanks since we almost never heal.

Avenger's Shield
This is the ability I use most of the time when pulling mobs, generates a great amount of threat initially. Combined with Exorcism and Judgement, the threat paladin tanks generates in a pull makes all other tanks cry for their mother.

Guarded by the Light
6% less spell damage taken is very nice. And so is the mana cost reduction, it helps you handle overgeared encounter where mana can be a problem.

Tier 10:

Shield of the Templar
The amount of threat generated from Holy Shield and Avenger's Shield is not that high, but Shield of Righteousness is your highest damage and threat ability, that is why 30% more damage from those 3 abilities is insanely high. My Shield of Righteousness often crits for 7-8K.

Judgement of the Just
One of the first things I learned when I was a warrior tank, was that I have to keep Thunder Clap up. Well, this is our Thunder Clap, and it comes with Judgements, which we will be using anyway.

Tier 11:

Hammer of the Righteous
This talent is what keeps us on the throne of the best AOE tanking class! What makes it even better is in addition to the "3 times your main hand damage", it also applies the active seal to all 3 targets.

Retribution talents

Deflection
Inspite of being in the retribution tree, this is a tanking talent, and a very good one.

Benediction
Since all the abilities we use when tanking are instant abilities, this talent is helpful for keeping the mana up, but imo far from worth investing 5 talent points in.

Improved Judgements
A must have for paladin tanks due to the 96969 rotation (I will come back to that later), but only 1 point, not 2!

Heart of the Crusader
Very useful talent in encounters with a time limit, or in general to speed up the killing process. But every retribution paladin and most holy paladins have this talent, so it's not a must have for tankadins.

Persuit of Justice
Used to be a very popular talent among prot paladins due to the fact that it used to reduce the chance of you being hit by spells. Sadly not anymore. The speed bonus is still very nice though.

Holy talents

Seals of the Pure
Since you will be using either Seal of Righteousness or Seal of Corruption/Vengeance when tanking, this is a very good talent for additional threat.

Talent build
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZaxVA0uMteIRGoxo
This is my "basic" build, where I have left out 7 talent points, I usually put 3 points in Imp HoJ and 3 points in Heart of the Crusader, because I never have problems with threat. If you are not comfortable with your threat generation, you may want to put some points in Seals of the Pure.
A note on Blessing of Kings, most holy paladins nowadays have 18 points in the retribution tree for gaining 8% crit chance on their heals, which makes BoK unaffordable to them. In case you don't have a retribution paladin with BoK in your party/raid either, you will miss this incredible buff, that's why I always have BoK.

Part 3 is about glyphs and maybe enchants, to be continued...

Wotlk Paladin Tanking Guide part 1: Motivation

by Flyingfish

I recently left World of Warcraft due to lack of time. I didn't realize how much I miss my friends from WoW until now, that is why I have created this guide in dedication to them! Remember we all have to leave some day, whether we leave with full epix or greenies only, the only thing we take with us is the memories, remember this and enjoy the game while you are still playing!

Why play a tank?
A tank is the heart and soul of any instance party/raid in World of Warcraft. A good tank is a must for (and in most cases garantees) a smooth run. No server lacks damage dealers, but most realms lack good tanks. It is frustrating to see ppl spamming "LF tank for daily hc, last spot!" in the LFG channel, and it is even more frustrating if you have to spam it yourself, because you have been w8ing for a tank for the last 45 min. Thats why being a good tank makes you a popular player in your guild or even on your realm. You can get a instance group going almost anytime you want, sometimes you even have the privilege to choose between several groups. Plus your raidspot is always garanteed. But the privileges come with responsibilities, you, more than anyone else in the group, have to know the fights. You, more than anyone else, have to be focused ALL THE TIME. You, more than anyone else, have to think and react fast when things don't go as planned. Because more often than not, one mistake from your hand means a wipe of the party/raid, one good action from you on the other hand, will likely save the day. Are you ready to step up and save the day? Keep reading :)

Why play a paladin tank?
There are 4 tanking classes, why protection paladin? With the arrival of Wrath of the Lich King, tankadins are no longer inferior to warriors and druids when it comes to single target tanking in general (fights like Satharion 3D is another story) , some warrior and druid tanks may still think so, but they couldn't be more wrong! So you have a class that is as good as other tanking classes at single target tanking, while still being the best at AOE tanking, can it get better? YES IT CAN, here is a list of reasons to roll a paladin tank:

1. Best at main tanking (tied with other classes), best at AOE tanking by far.
2. One of the most annoying, if not the most annoying class in PvP.
3. Have one of the most annoying, if not the most annoying ability ingame: bubble.
4. Insanely high threat gereration.
5. Super insanely high initial threat generation, meaning your damage dealers can go all out immediately after pull, while other tanks are wishing they were you.
6. Only class being able to stay block-capped at all times.
7. You like looking at hot chicks? How about a female bloodelf in plate :)
8. You like looking at gay ppl? How about a male bloodelf in plate :P

How do I become a good tankadin then?
Keep reading my blog :D Part 2 will deal with the talents, to be continued...