3.2 Frequently Argued Questions. AKA: Advanced tanking FAQ.

Tbh i bet http://ptr.wowhead.com/?spell=64412 has something to do with the explosion, it reminds me a lot of KJ.

Worldie wrote:Tbh i bet http://ptr.wowhead.com/?spell=64412 has something to do with the explosion, it reminds me a lot of KJ.

Could also be a way to force a tanking rotation, tank 1 gets phased out, tank 2 takes over, tank 2 gets phased out, tank 3 takes over.

Man, I look forward to them putting him on the PTR so I can see if he's as tear inducing as blue claims. Suppose we shouldn't discuss boss mechanics in the FAQ thread tho.

Expecially since no way Algalon and Yogg Saronn will be on PTR

Zironic wrote:

Along with all these, why is Sartharion considered an "extremely common" case?

Because Sarth and Malygos are the only bosses in the game that can currently kill our MT and for Maly it's pure healer negligence that causes the death(healers get bored, try to raid heal a bit, MT dies).

To me this seems more like you're arguing form a lazy healer standpoint which isn't very compelling. I see your point, especially for early tanks who may be in groups who lack skill, but

I cannot speak from experience when it comes to tanking Sartharion. Honestly, I know my place on that fight, I'm tanking the trash adds. My guild understands that my skill, tools, and experience make me so much better in this role than any of our other tanks. I can't truly comment with much knowledge of this part of the encounter or whether Divinity would help or not. My point is, Sartharion is one boss. He's arguably the hardest for the current level of 25 man raid content, but nevertheless he is one singular encounter. It isn't merely happenstance that this fight favours Death Knights and Druids. Perhaps Divinity might help even this field, but that applies only to this fight. I would much rather spend my 3 'craptastic' points in something I can use EVERY fight, either on me or my Warrior tank.

Zironic wrote:However the case off "healer can't heal for X seconds" is very common. I'm tired of people saying it's a bad talent, it's a good talent and for 25 man progression tanking I think it's a better choice to go 5/5 divinity then 3/3 crusade.(When did you last wipe because your paladin did too little aggro?).

I'm focusing on survivability. As my guild progresses and gains more DPS, and their threat continues to grow, I'm not certain if mine will keep pace. As we progress through Ulduar, nearly everything I'll be focusing on is ways for me to survive an encounter, and my threat WILL lag behind because I won't be gearing for it. Will this threat cap my DPS? I hope not, but the likelihood exists. You may think this is somewhat hypocritical, particularly given the nature of 'survival' and what Divinity offers. In this case I need to make a trade off, and the points I would put in Crusade, Divine Sacrifice and Divine Guardian, I feel, are much better spent for an overall tank than points in Divinity.

This is, of course, just my feeling. You have yours, which, for all I know, might even be more valid. I don't think we'll see data (or read common examples) on which is superior until further in Ulduar. For the moment, lets just continue to disagree so we can get the most information possible =D

Zironic wrote:There's multiple fights in ulduar where additional healing -is- good. Any situation with high raid damage or huge tank damage or movement. Basically whole Ulduar and we don't even know about Yogg Saronn and Algalon yet.

Divinity does not affect your raid, only you, but Divine Sacrifice would be a fantastic tool to mitigate this high raid damage you speak of, which, by the way, hardly means your tank is safe with a 5% stronger set of HoTs on him while you focus on other people. If that were true, then this fight sounds more like a joke than anything progression oriented.

Zironic wrote:The datamined abilities from Algalon seems to imply quite a bit of moving, both an AoE that hits for 40k(probably avoidable or dividable á la meteor) and an AoE that hits for 100k with 8 sec cast(traditional run out of LoS?), also seems he spawns black holes that have to be killed before they explode and deal 15k aoe damage.

Perhaps we'll wait to comment on the Guild Breaker until experienced and geared players are ready to take him on. You could technically say that about all of Ulduar, but this guy isn't exactly intended to be fought the moment you walk into the instance, and his mechanics truly don't have much to do with this FAQ, though I can see where Divinity might come into play. Remember this is a raid, not a 'paladinwith24otherpeople', and I feel like utility counts for a lot.

toothdecaykills wrote:
To me this seems more like you're arguing form a lazy healer standpoint which isn't very compelling. I see your point, especially for early tanks who may be in groups who lack skill, but

I said maly is a fight where out tank died this week, it's not a fight where divinity would help much. None of the other 15 bosses can get close to a tank kill at this point regardless of how much the healers are asleep.

toothdecaykills wrote:I cannot speak from experience when it comes to tanking Sartharion. Honestly, I know my place on that fight, I'm tanking the trash adds. My guild understands that my skill, tools, and experience make me so much better in this role than any of our other tanks. I can't truly comment with much knowledge of this part of the encounter or whether Divinity would help or not. My point is, Sartharion is one boss. He's arguably the hardest for the current level of 25 man raid content, but nevertheless he is one singular encounter. It isn't merely happenstance that this fight favours Death Knights and Druids. Perhaps Divinity might help even this field, but that applies only to this fight. I would much rather spend my 3 'craptastic' points in something I can use EVERY fight, either on me or my Warrior tank.

While I'm not maintanking sarth either(we got a druid for that) I was trying to underline the kind of mechanic where you want something such as divinity.

toothdecaykills wrote:I'm focusing on survivability. As my guild progresses and gains more DPS, and their threat continues to grow, I'm not certain if mine will keep pace. As we progress through Ulduar, nearly everything I'll be focusing on is ways for me to survive an encounter, and my threat WILL lag behind because I won't be gearing for it. Will this threat cap my DPS? I hope not, but the likelihood exists. You may think this is somewhat hypocritical, particularly given the nature of 'survival' and what Divinity offers. In this case I need to make a trade off, and the points I would put in Crusade, Divine Sacrifice and Divine Guardian, I feel, are much better spent for an overall tank than points in Divinity.

This is, of course, just my feeling. You have yours, which, for all I know, might even be more valid. I don't think we'll see data (or read common examples) on which is superior until further in Ulduar. For the moment, lets just continue to disagree so we can get the most information possible =D

the equation is rather easy.
Are you threat capped Yes/No.
No-> Get Divinity
Yes->Get crusade

Considering I have 7-8k TPS I won't be threatcapped for quite some time in Ulduar.

And even if I was threatcapped for whatever reason, I'd still spec Divinity and tell my dps to find their freakin' FD/Vanish/Soulshatter/Invisibility buttons, I'd also ask my 2-3 hunters to get me some misdirects, threat problem solved.

toothdecaykills wrote:Divinity does not affect your raid, only you, but Divine Sacrifice would be a fantastic tool to mitigate this high raid damage you speak of, which, by the way, hardly means your tank is safe with a 5% stronger set of HoTs on him while you focus on other people. If that were true, then this fight sounds more like a joke than anything progression oriented.

He won't be safe, he'll be safer. It gives more survivability in a 25 man raid then anything else you can spend the points on.

toothdecaykills wrote:Perhaps we'll wait to comment on the Guild Breaker until experienced and geared players are ready to take him on. You could technically say that about all of Ulduar, but this guy isn't exactly intended to be fought the moment you walk into the instance, and his mechanics truly don't have much to do with this FAQ, though I can see where Divinity might come into play. Remember this is a raid, not a 'paladinwith24otherpeople', and I feel like utility counts for a lot.

As I said in some other thread, I think that Divine Sacrifice will be a useful talent in 10 mans, however in 25 mans the damage is just too much so it won't do much useful. So sure if you're the tank in a 10 man raid go DS/DG, however if you're the progression tank in a 25 man guild with a holy paladin then divinity all the way.

Zironic wrote:While I'm not maintanking sarth either(we got a druid for that) I was trying to underline the kind of mechanic where you want something such as divinity.

A decent example, but I wonder if Ulduar has these moments. Most of the fights I tested (particularly Mimiron, Hodir, and Iron Council) had huge amounts of damage that was usually part of a mechanic you could expect or was telegraphed to you before it occurred. This isn't avoidable damage and is often times where the healers need to play smart. Spamming won't do, but being ready for these bursts is where its at. You're going to be healed or you're going to die and you'd be hard pressed to show how 5% extra healing routinely saves you. Unfortunately, my argument is starting to sound more like "don't get divinity" when it should be "this is its faults compared to X".

I apologize

Zironic wrote:the equation is rather easy.
Are you threat capped Yes/No.
No-> Get Divinity
Yes->Get crusade

Considering I have 7-8k TPS I won't be threatcapped for quite some time in Ulduar.

And even if I was threatcapped for whatever reason, I'd still spec Divinity and tell my dps to find their freakin' FD/Vanish/Soulshatter/Invisibility buttons, I'd also ask my 2-3 hunters to get me some misdirects, threat problem solved.

I fear it might not be that easy. But if it is, I hereby give you leave to say "I told you so".

Zironic wrote:He won't be safe, he'll be safer. It gives more survivability in a 25 man raid then anything else you can spend the points on.

Don't discount the utility an extra SS on another tank or the wonderfully situational DS can provide.

Zironic wrote:As I said in some other thread, I think that Divine Sacrifice will be a useful talent in 10 mans, however in 25 mans the damage is just too much so it won't do much useful. So sure if you're the tank in a 10 man raid go DS/DG, however if you're the progression tank in a 25 man guild with a holy paladin then divinity all the way.

I'm not convinced this is truth. The second phase of Mimiron was pretty hefty in the raid damage, but I still managed to aid my raid through DS as long as a strong healer was ready for it. After the fight, I asked them how they felt about it. Although my Holy Paladin cried himself to sleep because I consistently gave him a heart attack, they all agreed on one thing. It allowed them to focus on their strengths. The strong single target healers were not expected to heal anybody but me while the stronger raid healing classes could handle the lessened incoming damage a lot easier.

It is limited to 150% of my hp, so roughly 61.5k damage. Quick and fast heals could easily overcome this, as well as your own well timed Lay on Hands.

toothdecaykills wrote:
It is limited to 150% of my hp, so roughly 61.5k damage. Quick and fast heals could easily overcome this, as well as your own well timed Lay on Hands.

Or, I dunno, press DP or bubble first?

61.5k damage is 2.5625k per raid member if evenly distributed. Anyhow I'm not really arguing that DS is bad, I'm just saying that Divinity is not bad and in progression content talents like DS and Divinity are more likely to be beneficial then talents like crusade.

toothdecaykills wrote:I fear it might not be that easy. But if it is, I hereby give you leave to say "I told you so".

Somehow tanks managed to hold aggro back in Vanilla and TBC when they scaled way way waaaaay worse then they do now, so I don't think it'll be hard.

toothdecaykills wrote:A decent example, but I wonder if Ulduar has these moments. Most of the fights I tested (particularly Mimiron, Hodir, and Iron Council) had huge amounts of damage that was usually part of a mechanic you could expect or was telegraphed to you before it occurred. This isn't avoidable damage and is often times where the healers need to play smart. Spamming won't do, but being ready for these bursts is where its at. You're going to be healed or you're going to die and you'd be hard pressed to show how 5% extra healing routinely saves you. Unfortunately, my argument is starting to sound more like "don't get divinity" when it should be "this is its faults compared to X".

It's not meant to routinely save you, you'd be really hard pressed to find a significant amount of cases where say imp RF actually saved your life by itself. The question is, how does it compare to the other competing talents?

First 3 points have to be spent on either Divinity, DS, DG and Imp HoJ to get further down the tree, I might go 2/5 Divinity and 1/1 DS here, then you have 18 points left that some people would go and get crusade with, I'd argue that the better choice is to spend the 3 points in crusade on Divinity.

First 3 points have to be spent on either Divinity, DS, DG and Imp HoJ to get further down the tree, I might go 2/5 Divinity and 1/1 DS here, then you have 18 points left that some people would go and get crusade with, I'd argue that the better choice is to spend the 3 points in crusade on Divinity.

I wonder if points in Divinity would offset the damage caused by Seal of Blood. Since you're taking extra damage over the course of a fight, how many points would Divinity require in order to bring you back to a baseline? I'm not even sure it would have a relationship, but I'm not really the type to determine that lol

I can prove Divinity is useless very easily: We're the only tanking class who have it.

But here's some longer logic:

+5% heals per second is basically useless, because heals per second being bigger than damage received per second is useful over and incredibly narrow range than runs from Zero health to Maximum health (maybe 40k?).

If you "temporarily" drop under zero health, +5% to next heal doesn't help. If the heal you're receiving puts you over max health, Divinity is also useless.

Avoidance & mitigation talents are always useful, regardless of your health.

Divinity is only useful if your current health is more than <size of boss hit> above zero (so the next hit won't kill you) but also more than <size of big heal> less than max health, so it isn't overheal. The big heals I receive seem to be about 15k. The big hits are also 15k. I have ~ 38k health.

Thus you can come up with a rough approximation: Divinity is useful if my current health is less than 23k, but more than 10-15k. That's a very narrow band. It also adds an almighty 750 health to that 15k heal, which is basically useless.

Re Zirionic's comment saying "Divinity is 160 sellpower, and therefore rocks" - that's also wrong. Once content gets hard, healers start stacking crit and haste, not spellpower. Adding spellpower gives diminishing effectiveness - what matters is how fast you can pump out a heal, not how big it is. And a crit is monumentally more beneficial than a few hundred extra points of base healing due to crit-based procs for everyone (except trees?). Mana return for pallies and Shaman, armour boost from shaman and priests.

If Divinity was "+5% crit on heals received" or "you give +5% haste to someone who casts a heal on you" it would be a merely "poorly thought out" talent of minimal usefulness, rather than actually useless.

I've done 8 tiers of raiding content - everything except classic Naxx, and every boss as a real progression kill except Ouru, Huhu, Twin Emps, C'Thun in Classic and Muru/KJ in Sunwell (both "first week of 3.0" kills). I've done 5 tiers as a tank. I can't think of a single fight where tank death is an issue AND tank is not getting massive overheals. If tank death is an issue, you heal the tank enough that he stops dying. Then you heal the raid enough that they stop dying. Then you use whatever is left over to kill the boss. There aren't any exceptions, given people don't stand in the fire.

Oh, and I will incorporate a lot of the stuff from the last four pages in the first page, just a bit busy with RL right now.

Re DG:

toothdecaykills wrote: The second phase of Mimiron was pretty hefty in the raid damage, but I still managed to aid my raid through DS as long as a strong healer was ready for it. After the fight, I asked them how they felt about it. Although my Holy Paladin cried himself to sleep because I consistently gave him a heart attack, they all agreed on one thing. It allowed them to focus on their strengths. The strong single target healers were not expected to heal anybody but me while the stronger raid healing classes could handle the lessened incoming damage a lot easier.

It is limited to 150% of my hp, so roughly 61.5k damage. Quick and fast heals could easily overcome this, as well as your own well timed Lay on Hands.

Very much this.

The old version of DG was very different to the new version. Old version was "I have an ability to reduce raid-healing requirements by 30% for 12 seconds". Wonderful verging on OP for some things (6 min Malygos with no Vortex healer? No problem! I'll just pop DG during first vortex, and everyone use a pot/health-stone) Even without that, still useful for Maly & Sapph (and sometimes Sarth).

New version isn't the same ability. It's nowhere near as OP, but it is a LOT more usable, as instead of blowing bubble, you just need a MT healer focussed one you... which you should have... coz you're a goddamn tank.

Phase 1 = tank, phase 2 = boss flies off and nukes raid? (common theme). No prob! Holy pally just heals you through P1 and P2.

ZOMGPUNCHINTHEFACE phase? (eg, Iron Council) P1, tank an add. P2 soak 30% of a fusion punch off the tank who is getting Steelbreaker's BootToFace mode.

It isn't game-defining or encounter breaking. It is still decent.

I can prove Divinity is useless very easily: We're the only tanking class who have it.

We're not, druids and dk's have it aswell.

+5% heals per second is basically useless, because heals per second being bigger than damage received per second is useful over and incredibly narrow range than runs from Zero health to Maximum health (maybe 40k?).

You mean the range where we want to get healed, geez

Divinity is only useful if your current health is more than <size of boss hit> above zero (so the next hit won't kill you) but also more than <size of big heal> less than max health, so it isn't overheal. The big heals I receive seem to be about 15k. The big hits are also 15k. I have ~ 38k health.

HL noncrit is 10k(Although almost 50% critrate) and you'll have quite a few HoT's/Earthshield etc, 15k heals is hardly the norm in any tanking scenario.

Also your scenario is not correct. Divinity is useful if your current health is more then <size of boss hit>-<incoming healing before hit lands>. You're modeling two conflicting scenarios at the same time. In the first scenario the hit is before the heal thus guaranteeing that the 15k heal is NOT overheal, in the second scenario the heal lands before the hit making it rather irrelevant if you had enough hp to survive the hit to begin with aslong as you do have enough hp afterwards.

Thus the range where divinity is useful is everywhere between 0(non dead) and the point where you get overhealed(somewhere in the range between 25 and 38k based on your hp and the size of heals). This is also known as the range where you really really really want massive heals.

Re Zirionic's comment saying "Divinity is 160 sellpower, and therefore rocks" - that's also wrong. Once content gets hard, healers start stacking crit and haste, not spellpower. Adding spellpower gives diminishing effectiveness - what matters is how fast you can pump out a heal, not how big it is. And a crit is monumentally more beneficial than a few hundred extra points of base healing due to crit-based procs for everyone (except trees?). Mana return for pallies and Shaman, armour boost from shaman and priests.

You're so black and white it's pathetic.

Yes 1 int > 1 crit > 1 haste > 1 spellpower in paladin healer itemization. However this isn't that kind of scenario, this spellpower is basically free. If i as a healer had to choose between 100 spellpower and 20 crit rating, I'd go with the spellpower, perspective is important here.

What do you actually lose if you want to get 5/5 divinity and 1/1 DS? You lose crusade and either Imp HoJ or 2/2 imp DG. In ulduar crusade will be 3% more dps/threat, I consider more incoming healing more valuable then that.

If Divinity was "+5% crit on heals received" or "you give +5% haste to someone who casts a heal on you" it would be a merely "poorly thought out" talent of minimal usefulness, rather than actually useless.

I've done 8 tiers of raiding content - everything except classic Naxx, and every boss as a real progression kill except Ouru, Huhu, Twin Emps, C'Thun in Classic and Muru/KJ in Sunwell (both "first week of 3.0" kills). I've done 5 tiers as a tank. I can't think of a single fight where tank death is an issue AND tank is not getting massive overheals. If tank death is an issue, you heal the tank enough that he stops dying. Then you heal the raid enough that they stop dying. Then you use whatever is left over to kill the boss. There aren't any exceptions, given people don't stand in the fire.

Regardless of the content, you will ALWAYS BE OVERHEALED. If your healer is in white gear, you'll get overhealed,if he's in green gear you'll get overheald, if he's in blue gear, you'll get overhealed, if he's in epics you'll be overhealed.

However, that does not mean his epic gear is useless. Unless you get healed from 0% to 100% in ONE spell, then more spell power is always useful.

Remember, we're not arguing if divinity is better then Imp RF or any other baseline talent, we're arguing if it's better then 20 seconds less on HoJ or causing DS to get consumed faster.

Divinity is NOT useless. It's just not great.

I think the key point Zironic made is that you have to look at Divinity in the context of what it's up against. You have to take 3 points in the first half of the prot tree and the available options are: Divine Sac/Gaurdian, imp Hammer, Reckoning. It's hard to make an argument that any of those talents are very good outside of very specific scenarios.

Jasari wrote:I think the key point Zironic made is that you have to look at Divinity in the context of what it's up against. You have to take 3 points in the first half of the prot tree and the available options are: Divine Sac/Gaurdian, imp Hammer, Reckoning. It's hard to make an argument that any of those talents are very good outside of very specific scenarios.

There's that and the fact I think Knaughty has a poor understanding of healing mechanics.

Knaughty wrote:Oh, and I will incorporate a lot of the stuff from the last four pages in the first page, just a bit busy with RL right now.

Take your time mate, and thanks for the work

When it comes to the glyph of salvation, and although we've already seen multiple threads on the relative "benefits", it could still be helpful to mention it in the glyph section.

Also, the current flask of stoneblood provides 1300 hp on the ptr. Of course everything can change, but given Blizzard's comments on it, I'm confident it will remain. This would mean mixilogy would provide an extra 650 hp, probably enough to throw it up with the other roughly 50 stam professions, even if it truly isn't stam.