Ok, I am actually beginning to build a posting schedule for this column because it is really the main feature of the blog. I hope you all enjoy the other columns as I share my experiences through them, and I hope you can gain a bit of insight or a tip or two from them as well. That said, I am here to teach young paladins how to tank. So lets press on...
Today we are going to take a little stroll through our talent trees, and top it off with a look at the skills in our toolbox as tanks. Two things define us more then anything else as tanks. Our gear, and our talents. Those are the two things a good raid leader will look at when you apply to a pug or guild, they are the things other tanks will notice while standing around in Dalaran. So we talked about gear a little already. Lets take a quick overview of our talents...
[0/53/6 +12] Base Build
This is the very basic tanking setup. These are considered to be the “Must Have” talents to be called a Tankadin. This build leaves you with 12 points to use at your will. How you spend those 12 points should be determined by what you do.
A five man tank may want to pick up a few more control talents. Improved Hammer and Guardian’s Favor come to mind; as well as Benediction and 2/2 Spiritual Attunement for mana efficiency.
A Raid Main Tank may pick up Divinity for extra healing, and Seals of the Pure for a bit more threat.
An Off tank might want to go deeper into the ret tree and pick up Conviction and Crusade for extra snap aggro when picking up adds.
How these points are spent are totally up to you. Just keep in mind what you don’t have in your guild or group, and try to fill some of those wholes if you can. Personally I pick up Heart of the Crusader, because my guild does not normally have a ret paladin. It also allows me to pick up Pursuit of Justice for fights where run speed is a factor such as Anub’Rekhan. These two talents fill specific gaps in my guilds make-up. You may not need them.
Here are some of the popular Tankadin build (current to patch 3.1)
[5/59/7] - Resembles the TBC original tanking build.
Now on to our Toolbox! I am going to talk about our primary skill rotation first, then about some of the other abilities at our disposal.
The Tankadin works on what we call the 9696 rotation. The rotation has 5 primary skills broken up into two catogories.
The 9’s...
Consecration – An AoE centered on the paladin when cast; does holy damage to all enemies within its area every 2 seconds for 8 second. 8 Second cooldown.
Holy Shield – Increases shield block chance by 30% for 10 seconds or 8 charges. Returns holy damage upon block, 9 Second Cooldown.
Judgement – Comes in three types. Does holy damage based on the active seal, as well as refreshing its effect. 9 Second Cooldown (talented)
--Judgement of Wisdom – Returns mana to the caster when the caster does damage.
--Judgement of Light – Returns health to the caster when the caster does damage
--Judgement of Justice – Is a PvP ability (snares the target) with limited PvE applications.
The 6’s...
Shield of Righteousness – Does large amounts of holy damage on a 6 second cooldown.
Hammer of the Righteous – Does large amounts of holy damage to 3 targets (4 talented) on a 6 second cooldown.
So the 9696 rotation works like this... You pick a starting skill from the “9” group and cast it. Follow it by a skill from the “6” group. Then, you guessed it, pick another “9” followed by another “6.” Once you have the rotation running, it will look something like this (please keep in mind the global cooldown is 1.5 seconds)...
T 0.0 – Holy Shield (9)
T 1.5 – Shield of Righteousness (6)
T 3.0 – Consecration (9)
T 4.5 – Hammer of the Righteous (6)
T 6.0 – Judgement of “X” (9)
T 7.5 – Shield of Righteousness
T 9.0 – Holy Shield
T10.5 – Hammer of the Righteous
T12.0 – Consecration
T13.5 – Shield of Righteousness
T15.0 – Judgement of “X”
T16.5 – Hammer of the Righteous
T18.0 – This now begins to repeat from the beginning.
As you can see, the rotation runs 18 second before repeating. In that time you will use all of your 9 second cooldowns twice and all your 8 second cooldowns three times. This gives you the maximum amount of threat per second no matter what your talent build is, or how well geared you are.
I think that’s all I am going to throw at you for now. I have dropped quite a bit of information on you for one post, and it’s all important stuff. Check your talents. Make sure you at least have the core build. Memorize the skill rotation. Practice it. Your goal is to have no downtime between skills. I will see you here next time for our situational skills, and a few useful macros to go with them.
For the Light,
~Bloodgarde
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