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?
JUst wait till you can solo deadmines or the Horde equivelent. I started soloing dm at 40. Now I can pull and entire hallway and take them all down useing ret aura and concecration. I made it to 48 last night and hope to get to 50 by the end of the week or weekend. Then its off to WPL for some undead slaying of monumental porportions.
I’m full ret with a few in holy for the int an str. Gonna love the big crit numbers at 70. ‘
You got the idea of the tankadin pretty good. Good way to grind exp and knock out kill quests. As for blessings. I go with the most damage unless I know I’ll need the extra healing. Then if I have the mana I’ll pop BoS and heal then switch back to the BoM. Other wise its bubble/heal. I love that my big heal almost always fills my entire life. Serious life saver.
I have yet to really do any pvp. Seems people dont want to duel me. Only one of my guildies has…on his mage…..4 times. HE lost them all due to my high armor and him not being able to root me long enough for a big fireball/pyroclast hit. He seemed pretty depressed that he couldnt win aat the same level. You may notice people going out of there way to leave pallys alone unless they can kill you super fast, people are lazy and rearly want to spend 5-10 minutes for an honor kill unless its revenge.
Check out the archives:
https://www.gitrsblog.us/world-of-warcraft-posts/wand-of-allistarj-rocks/
As a level 50 Priest wasting a 51 Pally. 🙂
Like I said “vengence”. Dude prolly had some cooldown problems by the time the last fight rolled in. Not saying you don’t deserve kudos. Yet a pally, especially at that level, has some big guns to bring to the dance floor. Lucky crits and slow clicking cost this guy some face. A 4 level difference he desevered to get served. Prolly didn’t think you had the stones to pull it off so he got sloppy.
My statement stands though, people avoid fighting pallys for the fact that a well played one can make you wish for a reset button so you can get on with your life.
A pally freind and teacher got into it with another 70 pally….fight lasted 10 minutes and that was with the other guy pulling some trinkets and pots. The stalemate lasted until the other guy ran away to get out of combat sos he could drink. He used everything he had but could’t win with out breaking some simple duel rules. Why use pots in a simple duel? He for some reason couldnt stomach losing to a well played pally. My freind lost by 2% because he wouldn’t pot or use the chance to drink. Toe to toe without pots or running he would have had an easy win…..after the 10 minutes that is. With an 8.5k mana pool you got all the time in the world.
Yeah, I could totally see that happening. I took on 3 level 32 Panthers in STV last night at level 31. The fight went on 2 minutes or so and I ended with 87% health and about 65% mana. I could have had more mana, but I dropped the bomb on the last one standing.
Tankadin Smankadin my warrior will outlast any level 20 toon there is.
Bring it! Check out my profile today. I went shopping.
By the way, I had a self-heal crit for 852 last night, with only +9 healing/dmg gear. With 1300 HP, that was darn nice.
I said level 20 toon not a 31. I will do that I am reenlisting today so I will be celebrating with a short WoW excursion and then a long Nap I am tired.
Doesn’t know how to bubble?
Bubble = Divine Shield or Divine Protection or Blessing of Protection
Katy,
Thanks for coming.
That is exactly why I mentioned my level. You can’t knock me for not using what I do not have. Divine Shield = Lvl 34. Divine Protection is a waste if you’re not able to attack as Consecrate only does 120dmg at this point. Unless I’m missing something Protection takes you out of the game for 8 seconds.