Prot Paladin rotation in Cataclysm?

It's been a while since I posted...been super busy at work.  In addition, my A/C broke down last week.  No to some people that is not that big a deal, but in Texas, no A/C in August is also known as HELL.  This summer has been brutal on A/C units.  Mine has broke down twice, and I know at least four other people that have had theirs broken down as well.  Anywho.......

**Abbv used in this post:

CS=Crusader Strike

J=Judgement

HW=Holy Wrath

SHoR=Shield of the Righteous/Shield of Righteousness (whatever they decide to call it)

AS=Avenger's Shield

WoG=Word of Glory

 

So, from what I read, the Prot Paladin rotation in Cataclysm is still clunky.  I have been following the beta information religiously, and have been trying to model out the possibilities on how the rotation is shaping up.  Theck over at Maintankadin has summed it up the best (imo).  The rotation falls basically as follows:

CS-J-X-CS-HW-X-CS-J-X-CS-X-X ... Repeat

The "X" in the rotations are for ShoR, AS, and any other utility abilities.  Now, the ShoR we only want to use at three HoPo.  So the first "X" after a third CS.  Which shapes up like this:

CS-J-X-CS-HW-X-CS-J-SHoR-CS-X-X

With the talent Guarded by the Light, a Prot Paladin's Word of Glory will hit for 30% more, and any overhealing will be converted into a damage absorption shield.  Kinda nice for a tank, right?  So, to take advantage of that, and to stabilize this rotation more, we are gonna throw a 1 HoPo Word of Glory into the rotation.  

CS-J-AS-CS-HW-X-CS-J-SHoR-CS-WoG-X ...Repeat

With the 1 HoPo Word of Glory put into the rotation, the rotation suddenly balances out and is repeatable.

But what about AS you say?  Remember, with Grand Crusader, the AS in the rotation will move as GC procs.  But disregarding AS's cooldown altogether, we still have the following repeatable rotation:

CS-J-X-CS-HW-X-CS-J-SHoR-CS-WoG-X ...Repeat.

Just put an AS in to any "X" position in the rotation whenever GC procs.

 

Yep, this rotation seems to be shaping up pretty well.

 

What do you guys think?

I almost forgot Holy Wrath

There is an absolutely EPIC thread going on right now dealing with Prot Paladin theory, in which Ghostcrawler has discussed the thought process behind the paladin changes in Cata.  Here is the latest:

process behind the paladin changes in Cata.  Here is the latest (Source):

Here is the current design we have in our local builds. It might not appear in the next beta build, but could be the one after that. There's also a chance we will have changed it again before you get a chance to try it. 

Holy Shield is a 15% block buff with a 20 sec duration. It no longer has stacks and can be overwritten to refresh its duration. It is caused by both Shield of the Righteous and Inquisition. You can Crusader Strike -> Shield of the Righteous over and over if you'd like, but the Shield of the Righteous will hit for much less without 3 stacks (it will hit softer with <3 stacks than it does today, more like TV does in the beta). Likewise, Inquisition will fall off pretty quickly without 3 stacks (with 3 stacks it lasts 12 sec for Prot and 30 sec for Ret), so there is some motivation to go for the longer buff. 

The idea is that you can use Shield of the Righteous for single targets or use Inquisition to buff a larger variety of abilities when AE tanking. Furthermore, if you ever let Holy Shield drop off, you should be able to get it back up pretty quickly at full strength. 

There is a chance we will allow Word of Glory to also proc Holy Shield, but we're very concerned about the right way to play becoming to just spam heals on yourself. We still don't want you to have to keep up both Inquisition and a 3 stack Shield of the Righteous at once, because we think that crosses the line into being too maintenance-y, and once you can do it, you'll feel like you have to do it.

 

So, in the current model, Holy Shield is a buff that is maintained by casting SHoR or Inquisition that lasts 20 seconds. Its stacks were removed, and now it is a flat 15% block as long as it is up. Let's look at how this change will effect our rotations.

 

Crusader Strike is our HoPo generator and has a 4 second cooldown. So, we should be able to hit a 3 HoPo SHoR every 16 seconds (which will reapply the Holy Shield buff). Even if we miss one of our Crusader Strikes, we should still be able to reapply our Holy Shield with a 3 HoPo SHoR just as it is falling off (at the 20 second mark).

 

If, we miss two out of three Crusader Strikes, then we have to make that interesting choice that Ghostcrawler keeps talking about...mitigation vs. threat. We could go for mitigation and and just cast a 1-2 HoPo SHoR (less threat) to make sure our Holy Shield doesn't drop, or we could go without Holy Shield for ~4 seconds, and wait for our 3 stack of HoPo to hit our SHoR for more threat.

 

Also, Inquisition is in the Prot mix, but much more limited than the Ret version. For Prot Paladins, Inquisition will last for 4 seconds per HoPo to a max of 12 seconds.  Inquisition will also put up the Holy Shield buff.  So, Ghotscrawler's idea is that we will cast SHoR when tanking single targets, and cast Inquisition on when tanking many targets (since Inquisition would buff the damage of our AOE damage abilities).

 

This is a further refinement to the "different rotations for single and multi tanking" mantra. Instead of just replacing Hammer of the Righteous with Crusader Strike, we will now also replace SHoR with Inquisition.

 

After modeling out our possible rotation, there is something that I think still need work...Crusader Strike is a 4 second cooldown, but the GCD (as we all know) is 1.5 seconds, so we end up losing .5 seconds out of every 5 in order to cast CS as soon as it is available.

 

I also thought that we had too many free GCDs, and as such, we needed some other ability to be a "filler" ability (akin to a warrior's Devastate).

 

But then I remembered Holy Wrath. We are going to want to hit this every cooldown to make sure our physical damage reduction debuff stays up on our target(s).

 

I actually am really starting to like how the rotation is shaping up.

 

What about you guys?

 

 

Star Wars!

I got some very cool news yesterday afternoon. I have been invited to participate in a three day beta event for Star Wars: The Old Republic this coming weekend. Any plans I had for this weekend just got cancelled.

Having played (and LOVED) both of the Knights of the Old Republic games, I cannot begin to explain how excited I am to have the opportunity to help shape this game's development.

The beta is still under a strict NDA at this time, so I will not be able to post any thing else about the game for you guys, but rest assured that I will be playing this pretty much non-stop all weekend and giving all the insightful feedback and commentary you can come to expect from me (LAWL).

May the Force be with you.

A small side note

New look around here.  

...also...

Someone needs to buy me this RITE NAOW!!!!!

http://www.thegamerator.com/index.htm

Guilded again . . . and a little back story.

I first joined Nerd Rage in May of 2009. Ulduar was still pretty new, and they had just downed XT. Many of the people in Nerd Rage were people that I raided with in BC. Some are also real life friends.

So, once I decided that I was ready to commit to a raiding guild, I app'ed to Nerd Rage, and was brought in that very night to roll into Ulduar. I was wearing a mix of blues and Naxx-10 loot at the time, whereas everyone in Nerd Rage was decked out in full sets of Naxx-25 gear. So, like I said, I walked in that Tuesday night, and started out as DPS (my gearset for which was even worse). I DPS'd through the first four bosses, getting a huge upgrade to my shoulders from XT in the process (I still love how those shoulders looked). Then we got to Kologarn, and I was asked to switch to my tank spec and tank the adds from the arm. Largely because of the gear difference, I had to bust my ass to grab and hold aggro on those piles of stone, and I was still losing one every now and again.

This was the night that I realized that consecrate was no longer the mob glue it was back in BC. We didn't get Kologarn down that night, but we would the next week. I would go on to be present for each and every progression boss kill in 25-man all the way through Sindragosa (except Professor Putricide). I was a member of Nerd Rage, and I was proud of wearing that guild tag.

Anyway, I ramble. So when most of my friends left Nerd Rage, I left Nerd Rage as well, but I didn't join the guild that they all went to, because the scheduling didn't match up with my availability.

So, last night I get a whisper from one of my friends saying that she was trying to convince her raid leader to invite me to raids if they have room. I'm game, because otherwise, I'm just twiddling my thumbs until Cataclysm. So, I get the invite, and they are doing Halion 25. I think, "cool, I haven't downed this guy on 25-man yet".

So, after the second pull, I get a whisper from the guild leader asking if I would mind if he sends me a guild invite. I think to myself, "Am I really that good?"

I tell him that as long as he is okay with my being late to raid some nights because of my conflict with their starting time, then sure, send the invite. He says he is cool with it and, long story short, I am now a member of a guild again.

So then we proceed to work on Halion-25. I never got this kill in Nerd Rage, so needless to say, once we got the kill (on the last pull of the night, btw), something popped up on my screen (ignore the date, I pulled this pic from the internet, as I didn't take a screenshot) :

Now, if I could only get Lich King-25 down and work on some ICC hard modes (other than Gunship).

Holy Shield Slam!

According to Ghostcrawler, here is the latest Prot Paladin design (Source):

Here is how Prot paladins are working in our current beta build. You might not see these changes in the next beta build, but in the one after that. Things are still in a high degree of flux however.

Shield of the Righteous -- Now consumes Holy Power to cause damage.

Holy Shield -- Now a passive ability that causes your Shield of the Righteous to provide 5% block per stack of Holy Power consumed. In other words, you never click Holy Shield. You just click Shield of the Righteous and buff yourself.

Hammer of the Righteous -- Now generates Holy Power but shares a cooldown with Crusader Strike. Almost all talents that affect one or the other will affect both. The intention is you use Crusader Strike -> Shield of the Righteous for single target and Hammer of the Righteous -> Shield of the Righteous for multitarget.

Avenger's Shield -- No real change, but it still hits pretty hard. Both CS and HotR can proc Grand Crusader to lower the Avenger's Shield cooldown.

Vindication -- can be caused only by Crusader Strike or Hammer of the Righteous.

Holy Wrath -- With the above changes, we think Prot paladins have enough rotational buttons to hit, so we are downplaying Holy Wrath. Holy Wrath is really intended as a Ret filler spell (for when other attacks are on cooldown). Prot could technically use Holy Wrath, but we aren't providing any talent hooks.

Consecration -- Now on a 10 sec duration with a 30 sec cooldown. The Hallowed Ground talent makes it cheaper and hit harder -- it does not affect duration. Use Consecration when you need it, but you can't spam it. This is consistent with the AE changes we are making to all tanks.

With these changes in mind, Prot will be thinking about buttons such as these:

Single Target: Judgement, Crusader Strike, Shield of the Righteous, Avenger's Shield.
Multi-target: Judgement, Consecration, Hammer of the Righteous, Shield of the Righteous, Avenger's Shield, possibly Exorcism.

None of this includes things like Seals, Inquisition, defensive cooldowns, Word of Glory, etc.

What I like:

• I kinda dig the fact that Holy Shield is going away as a button to push, and becoming a buff to block granted by Shield of Righteousness. Hopefully that stays.
• I also like the "use CS on singles and HotR on groups" setup.
• Also interesting, is the intended inclusion of Avenger's Shield into our rotation (it's not just for pulling anymore).
• The removal of Holy Wrath as our de-buff spell, changing back what had become almost a direct clone of Thunderclap

What I don't like:

• Consecration being a 10 sec duration with a 30 sec cooldown. I don't mind the cooldown, but it will have to hit like a truck in order to do it's job if we can only keep it up 33% of the time. I mean, if it is not going to be up 100% of the time for mobs to "bake" in, then it will need to hit a LOT harder than it does now, or else I fore see prot paladins never using it.
• Vindication is only applied by CS or HotR. Each of those is on a cooldown (and share a cooldown with eachother). I still don't like that warriors and druids can put their attack power debuff on all mobs in one GCD. Death Knights can do it in two. Paladins, however, can only put their attack power debuff on one mob at a time. Seeing as how we are the "AOE tanks", doesn't that seem a little bit odd to you? (I understand that AOE tanking is going to be toned down quite a bit in Cata, but still, I feel my point is valid)

Then when someone asked about how hard ShoR was going to hit with three stacks of Holy Power, Ghostcrawler went on to say (Source):

It will be a hard-hitting button, especially with 3 stacks. I'd guess your highest damage ability.

That makes me happy. I, personally, miss our "Holy shield slam" being our hardest hitting ability.

Here is my build....

So, messing around with the Talent Calc from wowhead, I decided to try to build up a raid tanking spec.  

**Yes, I know these trees are not final, and are subject to change**

Based on previous Blizzard comments, I assume that Cataclysm will treat tanks much more like ICC than any of the other raids in Lich King.  Meaning...tanks will face slower, trickle-down deaths, as opposed to burst death.  So with that in mind, here is the build I came up with:

http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#scbbZcrhfRrRRGo

It is a 7/34/0 build.  Some notes:

• 2/2 Guarded by the Light (5th tier Prot tree) to create self shields to help supplement the healers trying to keep us up
• 3/3 Divinity (1st tier Holy tree) to help boost incoming healing as much as possible
• 2/2 Last Word (2nd tier Holy tree) to make most (if not all) of our Word of Glory's crit, which by extention, will increase the size of the shield we create on ourselves through Guarded by the Light

Obviously, this is a max-mitigation spec, and it (or something like it) will be the spec I roll into Cataclysm with.  Once I feel like I am not squishy, then I might change my spec for more threat (like Crusade 1st tier Ret tree).