It was quite a weekend with Paladr, as we were determined to hit level 30 to become a true tankadin. That moment has finally arrived, as I’m now able to take on multiple mobs in a fashion I’ve never done before, although, carefully. we remembered reading that the AOE tanking should be done with melee beasts and other mobs that don’t flee. That really can screw things up, in a number of ways, which we will outline below.
Please keep in mind, at the time of this writing, Paladr is only level 31, with most of the stuff following being from his time at level 30 and does not have all the “cool” tools for tanking as a pally. What he does have is awesome so far, and is bringing us a lot of enjoyment.
Things that I have learned from my mistakes already:
- You will run out of mana if mobs keep fleeing and bringing help.
- It is better to hit fast than hard.
- Your aura is crucial.
On with the show! We are going full Protection spec. You can find his profile on the Armory pretty easily, because he is, so far, the only Paladr in the world. What happened at level 30 that made the awesome possbile is Seal/Judgement of Light. To Seal allows you to heal yourself for every melee hit on any mob targeted for 20 seconds. After Judging, the amount healed drops, but stayed attached to that particular mob and refreshes the timer with every hit. To help with the damage, and therefore the healing, Anticipation becomes an available talent at 20 points, and gives a 2% chance on taking melee damage that your next 4 strikes in 8 seconds will produce a second swing. With level 31, that went up to 4% with an additional talent. At level 34, Paladr will be swinging extra swings every 10 hits on him. With 6 mobs hitting, want to take a guess how often that happens? It’s fast!
Here are the steps that we have discovered so far, without going out and about looking for “THE WAY.”
- Use Concentration Aura – Despite the temptation to do more damage with a little damage reflection, there will likely come a time when you get in over your head and need to heal thyself. It would be nice to get a heal off before you die because you stopped hitting to heal.
- Judge Crusader and immediately Consecrate the area when the mobs are whacking on you. That one mob will start taking more damage from the Consecration.
- As soon as the global cooldown is done, Seal Light and Judge it when it’s available and re-seal.
- Always go back to that mob to land one hit to refresh the judgement.
- Spam Consecrate until you are dangerously low on mana, and then decide whether you need to heal or not.
We are still a bit noobish here so it’s undecided whether Blessing of Kings is better than Blessing of Sactuary when getting beaten so much. We don’t think it’s as much of an issue if there is an off-healer around, and would probably go with BoK if that is the case.
When taking on 1-2 mobs, we use a blue hard-hitting 2.8 sword and a blue Mithril-spiked shield. When going balls-out, the switch is made to a fast, blue 1.9 sword and the same shield. We edited the layout of the Scrolling Combat Text addon to better suit things than the included damage numbers. They are separated by damage in/defensive, damage done, and healing… with a nice big message for those special occasions that shouldn’t be missed.
He almost makes us want to yearn for some PvP. We can see how long it would take to bring down a pally, and Paladr doesn’t even know how to bubble yet. If it’s this hard to bring down with 6 hitting, how long would a poor, single warrior take?
This is our noob-take on pally-tanking. What do you see that is flat out wrong or could really improve solo tanking at this point? What is there most to look forward to?
you are right Gitr Divine Protection takes you out of combat until it wears off according to WoWWiki.
Well, that’s pointless. The only reason I see for that is to allow another healer to get a heal off on me. Of course, I’m soloing, so it really is pointless for now.
I did manage to group with a 28 shaman a couple of days ago. Talk about wrecking a high-density area! I tanked everything in sight and let him heal and dps. It was quite a team.
With DP you can still heal and crank out Blessings. You have a few secs to get ahold of the fight. I usually pop concecrate before the bubble so even when im not actively doing anything but healing, damage is still being done. You can still spark up a blessing and seal it as long as it doesn’t do damage, unless I was seing things. I use it to refresh seal of crusader if it near the end of its cycle, then pop out with SOC and start whompin. I think i may even have popped a excosism inside a DP as well. I’ll have to check that tonight.
Oops. Well, I only ever played a paladin to something like level 14, and I recall that DP was still useful — even if it took me out of the fight for a few seconds, that was long enough to heal up and then resume pounding. If you heal up quickly, can you cancel the bubble by (right?) clicking on the buff icon?
And if that didn’t work, there was always Lay On Hands in my back pocket to heal me up enough to take the mob down that last 10%.
I just think the 5 minute cooldown makes it stupid because a priest can bubble every 15 seconds.
The 5 minute cooldown bites, but you can still make quite a comeback with the shield. You’re immune to all damage (and I think all interrupts) while you’re shielded. You can get off a heal or two, or even bandage yourself to keep the mana coming in while your shield holds.
Sure, a priest can bubble every 15 seconds, but you can still interrupt them while they’re bubbled, and if you hit hard enough, it’ll drop in a couple seconds.