Unless I made (another) error or typo, these calculations should be correct for patch 2.1. If you don't know what a Crushing Blow or the Attack Table is, you might want to read this guide. Recall that Dodge and Parry are avoidance stats, meaning that they allow you to avoid an attack completely. Block is a mitigation stat (you still recieve damage).

I'm surprised, 2.1 was a relatively smooth patch. No real problems with my UI, no lag, and no server errors, other than the rolling restart that occurred before I got home from work...on my server at least :P. Because of the Spiritual Attunement nerf, my mana does drain quite a bit more, though from what I tested last night, I don't think it's that big of a deal; Will just have to throttle my threat generation/mana better in the future. Though, I can't really say for sure how much the nerf sucks until I test it out in a raid this weekend.

I want this: The Sun Eater, and I am intent on farming Heroic Mechanar every (non raid) evening if needed until it drops. That is a lot of stamina and avoidance on one sword, probably one of the best tanking swords in the game, barring drops from higher raid instances. Since I am already at my 102.4% avoidance/block goal, the sword will push me way over the top, meaning that I can resocket and replace certain items for more stamina/block value.

With the new patch, I am also able to equip my Vambraces of Courage with a Thick Dawnstone socketted into it (used to be warrior only). I still kind of want the Bracers of the Green Fortress crafted, but I am being cheap (and weighing the value of dodge/slightly more stamina against Block Value/socket). Anyways, my current unbuffed tanking gear status after the patch:

• Health: 11287
• Armor (with aura): 15378
• Defense: 509
• Dodge: 15.79
• Parry: 16.7
• Block: 25.44
• Miss: 10.76

103.69% with Holy Shield active and the Holy Shield libram equipped (around 104%+ with BoK). My armor went up by around 1k, and my health by around 300 (HP is still low, I would like it to be at around 12k unbuffed). Avoidance and block went up slightly.

Oh also, several changes as always, didn't seem to make the patch notes: In heroic Mechanar, Nethermancer Sepethrea will reset once she hits the glass floor in the hallway. What most people did, was kite and blast her all the way to Pathaleon's room. The adds are significantly slower than her at full run.

A general guide to our threat scalability in regards to spell damage. Note: A few things are off, the consecration formula for one, and me forgetting about the Precision talent for two...but by a marginal amount (around 5 TPS per tick). I will correct it and remove this message in the future. Possibly. Keep in mind that this is a very rough estimate, I wouldn't assume that these are exact values. Everything here is also calculated for 2.0.10 on the day BEFORE 2.1. I will have to change this later when I have time.

The following talents are assumed:

• Improved Righteous Fury: 1.9 threat multiplier
• Improved Judgement: 8 second Judgement cooldown.
• 5/5 One-Handed Weapon Specialization: 1.1 damage multiplier

These calculations assume that Seal of Righteousness, Judgement of Righteousness, Consecration and Holy Shield are continuously being spammed. I'm not calculating in Reckoning procs, spell/melee crits, or any other miscellaneous things that generate threat, so your actual threat generation is probably a bit higher than what I listed.

Just as a comparison, high end warriors (according to what I have read, I'm not a warrior) can produce TPS at around 1,000 on bosses. High end paladins with JotC up can probably push around 700 to 800 TPS, (estimated guess including all of the crap I left out of this article) possibly more (trying to be conservative).

If anyone can shed light on the TPS generation of the other tanking classes or any corrections to my calculations below please, do comment.

Multipliers and Miscellanea:

• Miss: 0.85 (chance for the attack to hit the mob). For every level a mob has over you, there is an approximate 5% chance that your spell or attack will miss, assuming that you have no +hit gear. So for a level 70 paladin, there is a 15% chance that he will miss against a level 73 mob. (I THINK it's 5% per level for melee attacks as well).
• Improved Righteous Fury: 1.9. Improved Righteous Fury gives your holy damage 90% more threat.
• One-Handed Weapon Specialization: 5/5 in 1H Weapon Spec will increase your 1H damage by 10%. Remember that this bonus applies to Seals and Judgements as well as melee attacks. All values in this table are calculated for pre-2.1 (in the next patch, this talent will increase ALL damage by 5%).
• The examples below each item assume a 92.2 total melee DPS, 1.8 speed weapon, and 200 spell damage.

Melee "white" damage:
No multiplier other than the 10% from the talent. Threat ratio is 1:1.
X = whatever your your melee DPS is (the tool tip on your character info screen will show this)
0.85 * 1.1 * X = TP

Example: 0.85 * 1.1 * 92.2 = 86.207 DPS/TPS

Seal of Righteousness:
Formula from WoWWiki: 22 + (2 *(WeaponSpeed*10)-30) + (WeaponSpeed * 0.092 * SpellDamage) = X DPS
0.85 * 1.1 * 1.9 * X = TPS

Example: 22 + (2 *(1.8*10)-30) + (1.8*0.092*200) = 61.12
0.85 * 1.1 * 1.9 * 61.12 = 108.57968 TPS

Judgement of Righteousness:
73% spell coefficient, 218 average unmodified damage
0.85 * 1.1 * 1.9 * (0.73 * SpellDamage + 218) = X Threat per JoR
X/8 = TPS

Example: (0.85 * 1.1 * 1.9 * (0.73 * 200+ 218) )/8 = 80.83075 TPS

Consecration
592 over 8 sec, 76.0% Coefficient
1.9 * (592 + 0.76 * SpellDamage)/8 = TPS (per tick)

Example: 1.9 * (592 + 0.76 * 200)/8 = 176.7 TPS

Holy Shield
155 Base Damage, 5% Coefficient (per block), 35% additional threat from HS damage.
1.9 * 1.35 * (155 + 0.05 * SpellDamage) = X Threat per block
TPS for Y number of blocks per application: (Y*X)/10 = TPS

Example: 1.9 * 1.35 * (155 + 0.05 * 200) = 423.225 Threat per block
Going to say that I block around 2 times per application on average.
(2*423.225)/10 = 84.645 TPS for 2 blocks per application

 

Pretty Pictures:
Chart 1 Chart 2Chart 1 shows TPS per ability and Chart 2 shows overall TPS. All spells are linear, which is to be expected since our threat scales directly with DPS. Consecration has a much higher base TPS (almost 3x SoR and JoR), but as SoR has the steepest gain. So as you stack on more spell damage, SoR becomes more valuable. It's still not as much TPS as consecration though, unless you stack on ludicrously high amounts of spell damage).

Keiya has an approximately 59% to 60% chance to block with holy shield activated. With a 2.0 mob attack speed that's 5 attacks in 10 seconds, and 3 blocks per application. I calculated in 2 to be conservative. Though HS doesn't have a very high coefficient, the more it procs the more your TPS will increase, by quite a bit.

There's no threat cap for paladins technically. In theory you could tank with 2,000 spell damage, which would certaintly increase your TPS but probably make you one-shottable :P

Not exactly a paladin or tanking related post, but I found this interesting: Someone on my realm forums started a, "cool places only accessible via flying mount" thread. I can't believe that I've missed this one: Fly to 51,14 in Nagrand (the "G" in "Laughing Skull Ruins" for those who do not have a mod that gives out coordinates). Nestled in the hills is Challe's Home for Little Tykes. Well, you have to see for yourself, just...lol. So we know that Humans, Orcs, Draenei, elves, Tauren, and Trolls have children, but what about the Dwarves and Gnomes?

The instacast bug is being fixed in the next patch. Explanation: Whenever you do not have a sword or shield in your hands, you cannot parry or block. Unfortunately this rule applies to the short casting animation that occurs during consecration, cleanse, etc. So if you are getting crushed by normal attacks with 102.4% avoidance, this could be a reason why. Also, taunt will correctly work through crowd control. Can't tell you how many times I have taunted a sheep, only to have it break free and gank a clothy while my spells were on cooldown

Rumor is that 2.1 will go live this week. But, hasn't that been said every week for the past month?

Meh, been busy/lazy/website apathetic lately, thus the lack of postings.

• I have been healing a little more lately, so I am (err was) thinking about doing a temporary respec to put a bare minimum amount of points into Holy. I would essentially be sacrificing 5% parry (and one of the prot talents likely) to gain 10% int and the healing bonus.
• Not convinced that would be a worthwhile return. I don't have the gear to make up for the 5% avoidance drop anyways (Crushing Blows bad).
• Been reading some interesting articles and musings on avoidance vs block. Tanks with really high levels of avoidance seem to succumb to spike damage whereas tanks with really high levels of block seem to succumb to the priests going OOM
• Even though the healing is smoother with higher mitigation (over avoidance), the tank is still receiving more overall damage. It seems to me that finding a balance between the two would be more appropriate (and possibly adjusting the avoidance/mitigation balance on a per fight basis).
• "The big announcement" from Blizzard is tonight. Starcraft 2 anyone?