General Vezax: Mana issues

With 1/2 SA and Blessing of Sanctuary I am going dry on mana. Currently I've just completely removed Consecrate from my rotation to keep mana up. Should I change my spec to include 2/2 SA?

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bonechewer&n=Legionp is my armory. I need PoJ in Ret... what would you move around in prot to get SA?

making sure to use DP at every opportunity? I was having issues with this lately on trash and with adds on Razorscale - I reintroduced it with 3.1 and the new DP glyph to great success.

Divine plea gives 0 mana during the Vezax fight (althought I guess the glyphed 3% dmg reduction still stands ^^)
I've dropped a point from crusade for the 2nd point in SA specifically for this fight. I've cleared the fight as MT with 1/2 SA, hoping 2/2 makes it a little easier this week.
I was noticing the casters having threat issues, but after talking to them i think thats more down to them trying to maximise dps using the black clouds rather than an issue I need to address.
I've not got to Vezax this week as yet, we've been focusing on hardmodes rather than the simple clear this week, but I haven't met any threat issues from dropping the point in crusade progressing through any other hardmodes compared to our other tanks, so I'll probably be keeping it this way for now.

PS. PoJ is what got me the MT spot for Vezax in the first place, I'd be open to suggestions of something else to drop other than crusade, since I know its a decent chunk of threat.

Caster dps will always be high on that fight and you should make a salvation rotation, if you bring more than 2 paladins ready to take them down a notch. Capping your dps hurts you badly and theres nothing that you can really do to increas your TPS behind a certain point. Our mages were pushing out stable 8k+ dps, locks/spriests 7k+. That is just way too high to keep normal threat on. The mages and locks got a agro reducing ability but the spriests dont so they had to get salvation not to overagro.

1/2 SA isn't enoguh and on 25 man, i found AD wasn't doing a thing to help on that fight so i dropped AD to get 2/2 Hammer of Justice and 2/2 SA instead. The first for yoggie bear and the second to get enough mana back. Altho, when we did it on 10 man, 2/2 SA wasn't enough to keep my mana up to speed.

The 10 man version i'd say is actually less forgiving, because the mark of the faceless still hits for 5k each, and heals him for the same amount as in 25 man. Had multiple times when he got back about 5-8% of his life on 10 man, before they moved away (that only took 3s, with 3 near him).

On 25 mans, i'd suggest dropping AD since it will get leapfrogged there. On 10 man theres a small chance it might save you if you have a priest shield on you and you are at exactly 34% health, with 42k+ buffed. Otherwise, it will probably leapfrog you also there. Up to personal preference if you want to respec for just that fight or not.

Think it was 16-18k hits on 10man, without a demo shout up

I don't really know why, but on general (10) on some tries i was always at 75-100% Mana and on other tries i was completly dry after half a minute. Maybe a bug somewhere but i'd really liked to know which of the two cases was the bug. But I had the full mana case more often than the zero-mana case. Still trying to find the combatlog of that night, didn't upload any while wws wasn't working for Ulduar-bosses.

When i did General 10 last night, mana was a big problem even with 2/2 SA when I was on an avoidance streak (and he doesnt hit particularly fast).

One thing to boost your threat is, use the black clouds yourself to get bonus threat (dont go to it deliberately, but after you kited the boss around, you can find a convenient black cloud and sit on it for some seconds.

If you can afford it, drop Consecrate.

I went in with 2/2 SA. I echo the sentiments of the other poster who said you'd have 75%+ for some durations and then go to 0% very quickly. The only explanation is avoidance streaks. I also agree with the other poster to drop consecrate from your rotation when dipping below 25% mana or so.

The shadow crash clouds things seems like a fair idea

I also fully agree with the salv rotation. There is plenty of time while tanking to get salv up on a player.

I'm sure most of you know this but I did not at the time so I tried it. Lay on Hands doesn't return mana to the target.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. We downed him tonight (10 man) after all mana users got the hang of when to use the green clouds (tip: blow them up during the kite phase so healers can sit in it without fear of the tank getting owned). Our resto druid was doing like... 1k HPS so we had him swap to feral (In unenchanted greens / blues... soooo not passing recruitment). Our Resto shaman and Pally 2 healed it, the shaman died at like 30% and the pally solo healed it the rest of the way: scary as hell btw, as I was hovering around 40% HP praying for the RNG gods to save me.

I managed to keep aggro with zero points into conviction/crusade, and only 1/2 SA in as much of an avoidance set as I could muster! I dropped consecrate from my rotation, and at several points dropped HotR as well. I used only Holy shield, and ShoR after judgements. I built up mana to 90% for when I was going to use wings and went back into a full rotation. Sacrifices were used in the latter half of the fight, but it wasn't really a big deal. The warrior keeping sunder up was nipping at my heals a little, but most other DPS were ok. Mages / locks caught up during heroism. We'll see how the 25man version goes tomorrow night.


On an semi-unrelated note, http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45313 is amazing. I rotated the use effect with http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40683 and shield wall. The armor bonus reduced incoming damage from 13k+ after block to around 10k. With over 40K HP it definitely takes some pressure off the healers.

I was quite terrified of the possibility of this fight being more difficult for me than a non-mana tank, but my fears were alleviated after eventually grinding out a ten-man kill on Vezax.

I insisted on having 2/2 SA because I was in the belief that it was the only thing that could gain me mana, but I was wrong.
Blessing of Sanctuary gives mana back in this fight (and I double-checked the combat log to confirm it), so 1/2 SA could have been completely possible, just so long as I stay 18 ret to keep damage values high. Rapture I also confirmed to return mana, so the disc priest assigned to heal me was a boon as well. I hovered at 100% mana for most of the fight, making it simple to keep up with the ranged dps who would milk the shadow crashes for all they were worth.

He is a big hitter, though, so he is one of the bosses that represent a greater challenge to our ability set than others, Ardent Defender barely becomes useful, and most 213 geared tanks taking him on won't be able to break 40k HP, leaving him a three-hit-kill almost all of the time. Learning the fight, however, I would recommend having Pursuit of Justice while you're getting the hang of the kiting. When you perfect it later, you won't need it anymore.

I see a lot of long posts here, so I'm afraid mine won't fit in. But here goes.

Legionp wrote:With 1/2 SA and Blessing of Sanctuary I am going dry on mana. Currently I've just completely removed Consecrate from my rotation to keep mana up. Should I change my spec to include 2/2 SA?

Yes.

Hi guys. I tried 10 Man Vezax and my mana wasn't a problem.

Usually I use this http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?paladin ... rsion=9806 but after a couple of tries I changed it for http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?paladin ... rsion=9806.

We managed to put Vezax at 50% but from what i've noticed, my mana wasn't an issue. When I got too dry, I just stoped using my consecration for 1 or 2 threat rotation cycle.

So far this boss is ok, but when we'll be full end game stuffed, mana might be an issue.

PS: I just had to tell my guys that my threat might be lower than it should be

Can people please post their WWS parses of this fight?

Not that I don't take your word for what does and doesn't return mana, or whether your going OOM or not, I'd just like to see the specifics.

Jasari wrote:Can people please post their WWS parses of this fight?

Not that I don't take your word for what does and doesn't return mana, or whether your going OOM or not, I'd just like to see the specifics.

I've never tanked 25, here's a 10 man.. Sorry, we stopped using WWS (I wish we didn't but oh well). Yes, I should have judged light.

Jasari wrote:Can people please post their WWS parses of this fight?

Not that I don't take your word for what does and doesn't return mana, or whether your going OOM or not, I'd just like to see the specifics.

No problem. I'll do it tonight. Is Ulduar available on WWS now cause you couldn't have any Ulduar fights last week?