Divine Plea is uanble to keep up without SA and Sanc

Jasari wrote:I think I'll probably modify dotimers to display a nice visible bar for my Divine Plea so I can make sure to keep 100% uptime, especially when I'm able to find someone who can make the glyph. It doesn't seem like it'll be hard to do and most boss fights you'll keep it up without even thinking, but pretty yellow bars are fun anyway.

I have MSBT set up to flash my screen and play an obnoxious sound when Righteous Fury drops off. I used to forget to re-apply it all the time. Now that PallyPower tracks that (and auras too in the latest version), I don't have this problem anymore.

However, one of the things on my to-do list for this evening is to set up a similar warning for DP.

Aleph wrote:In H Ulduar tonight 1/2 SA and Sanct was enough to maintain mana. I didn't need DP at all.

^

I actually forgot all about it since we were in vehicles for a bit, then didn't notice a change with just 1 pt SA and Sanc up.

Yeah DP is godly now.
I did a H-VH run for testing purposes.

Usually on these runs i take stuff-all damage,
so Pre 3.1 to keep my mana up i normally have to use BoSanc, SoW, SA and the occasional DP.
Last night i tried without BoSanc.

Had a disc priest healer also, so mana regen was less than normal.
Still did it comfortably with just SA, SoW and DP, though often the DP timer would expire waiting for the next miniboss to appear at its portal.

DP is gonna make farming BC instances even easier.
The issue i tend to have is OOM on the tougher BC bosses

Did a timed CoS run last night as an experiment using 2/2 SA and Divine Plea but self-buffing Kings rather than Sanct. While that spec will only last until this evening when our guild has our first Ulduar raid, it was interesting and I'm pleased to say that I didn't go oom at any point, despite not having Sanct up at all.

Obviously the drake run is hardly a realistic environment for perma-running Divine Plea (it never expired as I was always chain-pulling and whacking zombies between pulls to keep it up) but as a highly situational thing where you're the only Paladin but could do with a little more HP/threat, it might come in handy.

On an only slightly-related note, does anyone know if the damage reduction buff from Power Word: Shield applies to an entire raid or just the Disc Priest's group? Trying to work out if it's still worth putting Sanct on the raid or not (our 25-man runs typically have three or four Paladins in it). Apologies if this has been asked elsewhere.

According to the tooltip, it applies to the entire raid. If you have 3 pallies, you might want to do bok while the other 2 do bom/bow. Killing the boss a lot faster matters more than the -3% reduction in damage taken.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this before, but vigilance now does not stack with sanc (if it ever did).

I never bother with Sanc unless there are 4 pallies in the raid (almost never). We always have a Disc Priest in 25 man so his 3% DR is there.

As for mana, ofc you were going OOM without any points in SA. It's been well known since the DP talent was first seen and calculations were pumped out.

From personal experience with 1/2 SA in Ulduar... 25 man, DP is mostly an additional source of mana, not needed in any way, when tanking (apart from the odd weak hitting trash). It's extremely useful off-tanking. 10 man, DP is extremely useful to keep mana flowing in all situations.

Well, I just tanked for the first time since 3.1. The run was heroic UP: 1/2 SA with Sanc. I've gotta say that I love the way DP works now. After having to stop and drink all the time if I went too fast in TBC, it's awesome to have a mechanic that *rewards* chain pulling.

theckhd wrote:I have MSBT set up to flash my screen and play an obnoxious sound when Righteous Fury drops off. I used to forget to re-apply it all the time. Now that PallyPower tracks that (and auras too in the latest version), I don't have this problem anymore.

However, one of the things on my to-do list for this evening is to set up a similar warning for DP.

I also use MSBT and would like to know what settings you modified to do this.

The XT-002 "NO NO NO NO NO" sound would be obnoxious enough.

i ran 25naxx last night and didnt have any mana issues with 0/2 SA... i know its just naxx but it shouldnt really matter where you pull... if in some places mobs are few and far between try hitting DP before the pull this way it will refresh during the trash clearing, and if the issue is cant pull fast enough on trash i am guessing the CD will be up by the time your raid gets ready for next pull.

I've been re-learning my mana management (MMM?) in 3.1. I've found I still just use Seal of Wisdom and Blessing of Sanctuary when soloing because things die quickly enough and sometimes I can't chain pull and keep DP up. In raids, I'm usually fine as long as I remember to put DP up before the fight starts. If it's an adds fight I'm more likely to Sanc/SoW and just shor/hotr my way through them.

I'm 1/2 SA and using BoS on myself and have so far just been trying some heroics where I've had mana problems in the past.

One notable fight is Anub in AN. I'd often run myself dry grabbing the adds that hit very weakly and die so quickly that I didn't get to tank them much. The DP change is a godsend for fights like this. All told we did OK, VH and AN. I judged wisdom... which I probably shouldn't with these changes (had some melee die on the runs we did, but I don't know if JoL would have saved them from the flamestrikes/shadowbolts/poisons/pounds that killed them), but have been doing it to be safe.

I've suggested giving Prot Palaidns a way to generate their own resource forever (outside of sanctuary, which is worthless on casters or slow hitting mobs) for the sake of solo and PvP. And I'm happy with the way blizz has delivered.

I'm also using SS now (I have the mana to spare, and can usually pass up one consecrate or HoR GCd to use it) and am happy with the results. My VH run went fine, but that instance in particular feels a bit odd. Depending on how the timing works out, you can pop DP on one pack, and not be able to hit anything to refresh it for the next pack and it still be on CD. I actually was rushing to the next portal (or nearest critter) to get a hit of quickly... one time I was clicking the portal to get a quick hit up. I succeeded, and it bugged the spawned portal lord and he vanished (though the channeled animation effect was still rpesent and he was hitting me) and eventually he came back -But everyone stood there fro about 10 seconds going WTF?

edit: My main complaint with Paladin tanking right now, is that we are so GCD limited. We were essentially GCD limited before, but it causes some trouble with out utility abilities. It seems we're to the point that warriors were at before they got some of their abilities pulled off the GCD. Expect this limitation to be addressed in the next expansion.

If you use your Holy weapon+shield you get a LOT more mana back from DP. It scales amazingly with int. For soloing old content switching to your healing weapons, charging your mana, then casting a holy light (cancel divine plea just before it finishes) then recasting divine plea is pretty good to keep you topped off. You can do this once a min and keep nearly 100% divine plea uptime.

1/2 SA is plenty with BOS and DP. I only run into issues doing heroics where I don't take any damage and dropping consecrate from the rotation fixes that.