Protection Warrior

It hasn't been long since I posted a guide on how-to with Paladin Tank, now I'm posting one with Warrior Tank. It's actually a futile attempt on making every warrior dps out there to respec to tank; not gonna happen but at least I can try! Let's begin with a basic understanding of what a Warrior tank does and how.

A Warrior tank is an armor and health juggernaut, a spec focused entirely on taking direct hits at a reduced damage thanks to the focus on the aforementioned high armor and stamina stats. It is in fact more similar to Druid tank than to Paladin tank in spite of both using shields. However Warrior gets the job done better than a Druid and we'll see why in this post.

Talent spec

This is currently the talent spec I'm using.

As with many talent specs there are variations but I will take the time as I always do to explain my choices on some controversial selections.

Deep Wounds 0/3: Some might argue why I forgo this talent when many tanks go three points there. First let's look at the math behind this talent: 48% over 6 seconds, all raid buffs considered allow you to keep the bleed with a 100% uptime, which results in a constant 8% average weapon damage per second, this becomes 10.4% if a Mangle effect is on the target. In a best case scenario, within a time span of 10 seconds you will do 104% average weapon damage, which is basically 1 free auto; except this "free" auto will not give you rage, will not critically strike and you can't clip an Heroic Strike to it. So basically you're spending 3 talents for 1 underpowered white hit every 10 seconds considering all buffs and no bad luck involved. Not worth at all considering Warrior builds aggro with Heroic Strike spam and Shield Slam/Revenge procs.

Improved Disciplines 2/2: Some say a Shield Wall down from five to four min cooldown won't make a difference considering most boss fights don't even reach the 4 min mark. This is totally true and basing our decisions on this thought we should forbid this talent from all specs. Except if you're using Glyph of Shield Wall of course, putting your SW in a very nice 2 min cooldown. I will go in-deep with this in the glyphs section.

Safeguard 2/2: This is so nice, and not just for PvP. Let's think of the situations where Intervene is useful. If you wanted to save someone wouldn't just be easier to Taunt? Therefore the redirection of 1 melee attack is a very meager effect for a 30 sec cooldown skill. So what makes this talent so good? This talent gives a small feel-like of how Paladin tanking fares. As Paladin you can use Hand of Sacrifice on a tank to lessen the damage taken by it, making healer's job easier. It's a little complicated if you're not entirely used to boss mechanics, but if you are this thing is truly amazing: 30% for 6 seconds with a 30 sec cooldown, rounded to a more linear amount it gives 6% constant reduction on the other tank (as long as you use it every time is ready and you are Off Tanking!); truly amazing! Even if you don't use it every 30 sec to make the most of it you can save it for when the boss gains some damage boost. Just don't use it if boss is on you because boss will follow you and keep in mind it reduces threat by 10% on your target, as long as a rogue is using Tricks of the Trade every 30 seconds as well (Because of the 2 set bonus from Rogue T10) threat shouldn't be a problem (Taunt trading helps). Check the macros section to make the Intervene easier to use.

Improved Charge 2/2: Charge adds versatility to Warrior tanking, it's useful to stop a minion dead in its tracks and also gives you a good chunk of rage for a couple of Heroic Strike and Devastation without worrying about going out of Rage. Needless to say it gives you a heads-up when you jump on boss at pull.

Stat Priorities

Like every tank not named Druid, aim for Defense Cap. Once capped focus on your Expertise, then Hit rating and finally Stamina. The numbers go like this (in order of importance):

1. Defense Cap: 535 for dungeons and 540 for raids. Focus on getting that critical strike immunity first.
2. Expertise: Parries and Dodges hurt tanks more than they hurt melee dps. getting Expertise soft capped must be your goal after that Defense cap (6.5% or 26 expertise). If you want to go with some more it's not harmful either.
3. Hit Rating: You need Hit after your Expertise has been dealt with. Get 8% and don't worry anymore about those misses. Remember every time you are not building threat the chance of getting a mdps killed increases.
4. Stamina: Once your numbers elsewhere are set right you can devote yourself to increasing that health pool as much as you want.
5. Armor: The only way to get bonus armor is through the use of Agility gems but this is not advisable. Any bonus armor you get will have to be passively through items with a green bonus armor stat. These items usually leave out some stat like Dodge or Parry to get that higher armor stat, but that's fine for you. You should favor these kind of items over others of similar level.

Warrior tank is a little warped and the reason behind this is Shield Block. Shield Block is an amazing defensive skill, giving you twice as much block value for 10 seconds with a 40 seconds cooldown is indeed amazing. The problem relies on that pesky 100% block rating bonus. You see, the limit of avoidance is 102.4% so a bunch of that block rating bonus is wasted, it could have given less block rating and have a reduced cooldown but Blizzard decided not troll instead.

Chill of the Throne

It's a pest, but warrior doesn't care much about the loss of dodge with that high armor and bonus block rating. This debuff hurts Druid the most because it causes the majority of melee attacks from a boss to land on it, which makes Savage Defense more important to proc everytime, anyway this is one of the reasons Druid is the last option of a tank when raiding Icecrown Citadel. Not that Warrior tank is super good but more like Druid tank is bad.

 Gems and enchants

• Meta: Eternal Earthsiege Diamond if not defense capped, otherwise Austere Earthsiege Diamond.
• Red: Guardian's Dreadstone if you need Expertise, or Solid Majestic Zircon.
• Yellow: Vivid Eye of Zul if you need Hit, or Solid Majestic Zircon.
• Blue: Solid Majestic Zircon.  

To know if the socket bonus is worth you must analyze your stat needs. It's not a rule of thumb to put Solid Majestic Zircons everywhere, focus on having the right Defense/Exp/Hit stats and then you can just go with Stamina gems everywhere. A socket bonus with +12 Stamina is hard to ignore so if you want to go for it you are free to do so.

Regarding enchants, treat your choices based on the stat priorities I mentioned before. Lifeward or Blade Ward both work fine on your weapon. +18 Stamina on your shield, +15 Stamina and move speed on your boots rather the +22 Stamina one.

Professions:

Blacksmith Jewelcrafting are always the most flexible choices. If you're feeling lazy you can go with Mining for the 60 passive Stamina bonus and anything not Tailoring/Herbalism/Skinning/Alchemy/Engineering. Professions with Stamina choices are the best.

Glyphs

The only Glyph that is a must-have is Glyph of Blocking, from there there are plenty of glyphs to use, depending on the situation and the raids you frequent (not in order of importance):

• Glyph of Revenge: If you feel your Rage generation is low this is a good option.
• Glyph of Shield Wall: Remember Improved Disciplines? This will allow you to use your best defensive skill at least twice per fight, and in some fights even thrice. Only use this glyph if you went Improved Disciplines 2/2, otherwise it's not very worth.
• Glyph of Last Stand: If you didn't feel compelled to use Improved Disciplines and the Glyph of Shield Wall, this glyph is perfectly viable as well. Just remember having more health is not the same as taking less damage, you're merely converting overheal into effective health since technically you're taking the same damage, but critical heals will not be wasted for the duration of the buff. Keep in mind you better use Enraged Regeneration in unison with Last Stand, but Regeneration has 3 min cooldown.
• Glyph of Heroic Strike: Another Rage generation glyph, the option is there if you want more rage. All buffs considered your Heroic Strike can critically hit more than 30% of the time, consider your weapon speed for a closer calculation of how much rage you would get in a desired time span.
• Glyph of Vigilance: This is best for dungeons where you might not get a Tricks of the Trade or Misdirection effect to help you out. It's also good if you are low geared.
• Glyph of Taunt: This is a fine Glyph, but you have Mocking Blow too and the chances of both failing in succession are way too low. I wouldn't bother with this one but hey the option is there.
• Glyph of Cleave: Cleave will drain your rage pretty fast, this is more of a situational Glyph if you are often tanking more than two minions.
• Glyph of Devastate: This one will make you generate threat faster but it's generally not worth it, unless you switch targets often.

Minor Glyphs

There are plenty of choices, with Glyph of Thunder clap being the most appealing one for a tank. The other two glyphs can be any combination of:

• Glyph of Command Shout.
• Glyph of Bloodrage.
• Glyph of Mocking Blow.

 Skill Priorities

Warrior tank doesn't have a rotation like Paladin, instead works around procs and prios. From start to end this is how it goes:

1. Heroic Throw and Charge immediately during pull (preferably).
2. Thunder clap every 29 seconds (You can skip this if you have a Death Knight dps using Icy Touch on your target)
3. Revenge procs.
4. Shield Slam procs.
5. Devastate when no procs are available.
6. Heroic Strike.

For Area of Effect threat just Thunder clap and Shockwave as much as possible and replace Heroic Strike with Cleave. It will drain your rage pretty fast but as long as you keep minions on you it won't be that bad, they will also give you more rage when they hit you.

Heroic Strike: Why do I put Heroic strike as low priority? Truth be told HS is just there to ditch your rage, the damage bonus is not that high although the threat is a nice bonus. When should you HS? If you have more than 40 rage you should HS spam, until you're at around ~15 then take a small break from it. If you use both Heroic Strike and Revenge Glyphs you can spam it and your threat will skyrocket, however this is hardly necessary considering threat misdirection skills from a Rogue or Hunter plus Vigilance. Speaking of Vigilance the best target is usually a Warlock or a Mage, or a guy that skipped threat reduction talents.

When to use your survival skills

Like I've said before many fail on this one, not knowing when to use cooldowns. Fortunately Warrior has several skills that can be used in succession with little backfire. If you notice a soon to be increase of damage taken you should always Shield Wall first, after the effect ends if the storm hasn't passed you should Last Stand +Enraged Regeneration. Don't save your Shield Block, use it every time it is up.

Macros

I don't use any macros for Warrior because I find it fun to click HS and Cleave when needed. The only macro I would recommend is one for Intervene:

#showtooltip Intervene
/cast [@name] Intervene

Just a simple macro to use Intervene instantly on a defined party or raid member. I recommend putting the other tank's name where name is. Additionally you can bind Heroic Strike to Revenge, but that's boring.

Tips

• You build a lot more rage by having something hitting you, use Charge if nothing is doing so.
• Use Bloodrage and Berserker Rage often.
• Keep Shield Block up at all times, unless nothing is hitting you.
• Heroic Throw a minion you wish to pull in case your Charge is in cooldown or you wish to save Taunt.
• If you are not tanking the boss you can take a few steps back and Intercept on the tank taking boss, this will redirect some damage to you which is good for healers.
• This has nothing to do with Warrior but a lot to do with Tanks: Be aware of other's status, check your healer's mana reserve often and if the other tank is doing well.

That's all I have to say regarding Warrior tanking. I hope it was useful enough to make you a better tank. I hope no Druid tank took offense on my statements.

Marksmanship Hunter Pve

              I was inclined to do a different guide for the next entry but someone asked me to write one for MM so here it is. If someone still hasn't gotten right to it I'll just say it: MM hunter is the highest dps spec a hunter can have. It's not particularly hard to learn either and just as fun as any of the others. So let's get down to business, talents first as usual:

This is the talent spec that offers the highest damage.You can make a few changes depending on your stats and mana issues such as:

Rapid Recuperation X/2: If there is no Judgement of Wisdom effect on the boss you can move points from Improved Barrage to this one; hunter can oom quite fast and having a haste stat over 200 won't help on your mana reserve; switching to Viper Aspect will lower your damage badly. Despite the chances are high you won't oom due to the many buffs in a 25 raid, this option is perfectly viable.

Improved Hunter's Mark X/3: If you are hit capped from gear and you don't need Focused Aim, you can move points from there to Improved Hunter's Mark. It's even better if there are other hunters in the raid as the benefit will multiply.

Trueshot Aura 0/1: If you know there will be a Blood Death Knight or an Enhancement Shaman in your raid, you can remove this and put it elsewhere.

Your Survival and Beast Mastery talents will seldom be different.

Stat priorities:

Below 400 armor penetration aka low gear your focus should be attack power. Once you get past this number it is better to go full armor penetration through gems. Eventually, whether by farming emblems or joining raids, your ArmorPen will scale much better than Attack Power or Agility could ever do. So the stat priorities look like this:

Hit Rating>Armor penetration until hard capped (1399)>Agility>Crit>Attack Power>Haste

Know that a hunter gets hit capped at 8%. With Focused Aim you just have to get 5% from your items, or 4% if you get a Draenei often in your group. Hunter attacks cannot be dodged or parried. Agility is a better option over everything else once you reach the hard ArmorPen cap. Your pet gets your hit rating from gear only and rounds down everytime, just for you to know.

Haste is not a very good stat for a hunter, while most casters and several dual wielders love it, for a hunter is a hassle and not worth gemming/enchanting for it. You should also try to avoid gear with haste unless the upgrade over your former item is very worth it.

Gems and enchants:

Gems are pretty straightforward: Red ArmorPen gems everywhere if your ArmorPen from items is above 400, use Nightmare Tear in a blue socket to get your Relentless Earthsiege Diamond meta gem active. If you need to decide where to put your Prismatic gem try to pick the best socket bonus, usually an item with red+blue sockets so the bonus is higher. Enchants should focus on attack power. If you manage to get ArmorPen hard capped you should gem Agility/Critical Orange gems in yellow sockets.

Professions:

Blacksmith and Jewelcrafting are the best by far, but if you are feeling adventurous you can replace either with a profession that gives attack power as bonus.

Glyphs

Some Glyphs are a must to have while others are a matter of preference or situational:

Glyph of Serpent Sting: Although your Chimera shot resets the sting, the added time on it also increases the shot damage, since it deals a % of the total damage the sting does regardless of the timer left on it, so this glyph directly increases Chimera Shot damage.

Glyph of Steady Shot: You use Steady Shot 4 or 5 times for every Chimera and Aimed Shot you use, it's wise to buff its damage.

Situational/Optional:

Glyph of the Hawk: Not a bad glyph by any means, at high gear your white damage is your highest total; it also helps proc your 2 set bonus from T10. Helpful too if you have some latency issues. I use this one as third option.

Glyph of Kill Shot: Best when the boss has more health pool, or bosses that get more dangerous as they are low health. I personally don't favor this one but hey, up to you.

Glyph of Chimera Shot: By definition, reducing the cooldown from 10 to 9 seconds will increase your Chimera Shot by 10% assuming you use the shot as soon as it is up. This is usually not the case due to latency. If your latency is low you can go with this one.

Glyph of Aimed Shot: This is good if you move a lot as 2 sec less will mean you replace 1 steady shot for an earlier Aimed Shot.

Glyph of Trueshot Aura: If you picked Trueshot Aura you can use this one to further buff your Aimed Shot, needless to say Glyph of Aimed Shot and this one get along. The crit multiplier for a Hunter is very high.

Glyph of Hunter's Mark: If you went with 3/3 Improved Hunter's Mark this one is good too. Much better if your raid setup has usually 2 or more hunters.

Minor glyphs: Up to you.

Shot Priorities:

Your shots have different damage and you should know which ones have higher priority to use if two or more are available at the time. At the start of the fight or before it you will always put Hunter's Mark. In order of importance:

1. Serpent Sting (once per fight)
2. Kill Shot
3. Chimera Shot
4. Aimed Shot
5. Arcane Shot (Low gear)
6. Steady Shot until any other shot is available.

Take out Arcane Shot completely when your ArmorPen rating is above 600. You can still use it as filler in high mobility encounters like Halion or Sindragosa.

Best pets

Wolf is the best pet due to Furious Howl. If you get tired of seeing the same wolf like I do you can tame one that changes color every time you call it, these can be found west of Icecrown where Ymirjar keep their wolves. Another option is a raptor, but the dps is slightly lower.

A couple of tips:

• Improved Steady Shot proc: Use with Chimera Shot. At high armor pen (+1300) use it with Aimed Shot.
• Rapid Fire: Use at the start and as soon as it is off use Readiness and Rapid Fire again. Make sure your Chimera and Aimed shots are in cooldown so you can use them immediatly again.
• Use Call of the Wild when an Heroism/Bloodlust effect is in effect, if not then just use it in conjunction with Rapid Fire.
• Reapply your Serpent Sting when you trigger your T10 2 set bonus only once to keep the bonus damage on it.
• Use Hearty Rhino food if you can afford it.
• Use Silencing shot as often as you can, it triggers no global cooldown!
• Have your pet's Rabid and Furious Howl skills on auto cast.

Macros

I use simple macros on all my characters, these ones are just basic ones for any new hunter:

 #showtooltip XXXX
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast Silencing Shot
/cast Kill Command
/cast XXXX
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

This macro will cast Silencing Shot and Kill command if they are available while also using the XXXX skill. If they aren't available you won't hear or see any error message from the game. I have this macro tied to my Serpent Sting, Steady and Chimera Shots.

#showtooltip Call of the Wild
/cast Call of the Wild

This one is self explanatory, Call of the Wild.

#showtooltip Misdirection
/cast [@name] Misdirection

Every hunter regardless of spec should have a Misdirection macro. Replace 'name' with the tank you wish to target or if you want to get someone killed just put a dps' name there.

Last Thoughts

Every full dps class has a spec superior in terms of damage to the others, whether is fun or not for you. Despite all dps thrive to be at the top you can always play Beast Mastery or Survival specs, they are perfectly viable and fun. Just remember as long as you know your class you will do better than those playing the best specs if they don't fully know what they are doing.

Paladin Tank

                     One of the roles I do the most is tanking, therefore I get asked a lot on how to tank with X class or what stats are the best for Y class. Well the sad part is I don't have all the answers, but I can provide almost all of them. I'll start with the premier tanking class in WotLK expansion which is Paladin.

Back in the days of TBC paladin used to be a spell power based tank; yes, a tank with spell power everywhere. With the homogenization of plate tank gear for the introduction of the Death Knight class, paladin had to go through the change of using the same gear as Protection Warriors. The changes end there, Blizzard didn't want to make paladin tanks the same as warriors so the threat generation and class particularities remained the same overall. Paladin tanks generate threat through holy damage, there are plenty of sources of threat generation other classes won't make use of; I'll go step by step on how to gear up your paladin tank and why you shouldn't think of it as a warrior just because both equip a shield.

Another misconception is thinking Protection Paladin is easy to play just because Retribution Paladin spec is easy to. Who hasn't heard this?

"Retri pala is a 4 button spec therefore Prot pala must be just as cheap"

This is a very ignorant assumption many make regarding paladins. You will see by yourself soon enough.

Talents

                 This is the best spec for paladin tank focused on 25 man content. Now we will go through the wats and the whys of this spec.

• 2/2 Judgements of the Just: Whilst some may argue Death Knight's(DK) Frost Fever reduces attack speed making this talent unnecessary, truth is some DK tanks skip the talent to make their fever reduce the attack speed from 14 to 20%. DK dps will go 99% of the time with improved Frost Fever, but there's no guarantee a DK will put fever on your target, for example Saurfang during Gunship event or the Oozes at Rotface encounter. I prefer having that nice 20% whenever I want.
• 0/5 Reckoning: It is indeed true your threat will be higher with points here, but the difference is just not worth dropping points from other threat generation talents into this one.
• 1/2 Spiritual Attunement: You don't need two points here, you get enough mana with all the massive damage a MT takes, also considers the four points in Benediction.
• 4/5 Benediction: You need to get to the third tier some way, skipping Heart of the Crusader and Improved Blessing of Might. The reason you skip these two is because Holy Paladins will pick them 99% of the time. You won't give Might over your precious Sanctuary buff. Another reason to skip the 3% is because it doesn't stacks with Totem of Wrath.
• 1/2 Improved Judgements: You only need 1 point due to the Paladin tank Rotation.
• 2/2 Pursuit of Justice: 15% bonus movement speed is great, and you only sacrifice 2% crit from Conviction that most paladin tanks invest on. Just try it out and you'll see how those high mobility bosses are easier to move around.
• 0/1 Seal of Command: Useful only for mobs, it really is useless for boss encounters. Your Hammer of the Righteous applies stacks of Seal of Vengeance so it's not a total loss of AoE aggro if you skip this.

If you think you're not ready for 25 mans or wish to do 10/5 mans more often you can move points from Benediction to Heart of the Crusader and maybe 1 point from Conviction to Seal of Command for 5 mans.

Generic Tanking stats

               There are some numbers you wish to reach regardless of the tank you play, here are some numbers to help you out just in case (in order of importance):

1. Defense Rating (DR): NPCs two levels higher than you (like the ones you find in 5 mans) have a 5.4% critical strike chance with melee attacks; a 535 defense rating will make you uncrittable for these encounters. NPCs three levels higher than you (like the ones you fight in raids) have a 5.6% crit chance, stomp them with 540 defense rating.
2. Hit rating (HR): If you are playing draenei or have one in your group get 7%, otherwise 8%. For 5 mans 7% is enough.
3. Expertise Rating (EPR): Maybe as important as hit, you need 6.5% (26) to hit through your foe's dodge. (82 EPR if you have glyph of Seal of Vengeance).

What stats should my Paladin focus on?

               I sometimes get asked why I don't insert Stamina gems everywhere if Defense rating gets capped and further DR is useless. Well, the answer is further DR for a paladin tank is not useless. This is where people mix up tank stats and think just because something is very good for a class it automatically makes it good for all the others. Yes indeed Stamina scales very well with buffs and the health buff you get inside Icecrown Citadel, but it also makes you a paper-tank. It doesn't matter how much spell damage high-end raids do, that damage will never surpass the damage dealt by physical attacks (or Auto attacks) on the MT. Your focus as a tank regardless of class is to soak damage, to take the least possible damage so heals are not pressured, while generating enough threat (losing aggro 1 second will mean a dead dps, then comes the QQ). We will focus on threat later but for now you must realize paladin tank is very different to the other tanking classes in the sense DR is not a waste of stat (and I don't mind explaining why).

 102.4% is the maximum avoidance to reach in order to avoid all damage taken from melee hits. Whilst other tanking classes can't add up their defensive stats to reach this number, Paladin is the only class capable of getting there thanks to the amazing 30% continuous bonus block chance in Holy Shield. So what happens when you add your chance to avoid+dodge+parry+block=102.4%? Bosses never land their hits fully on you and if they ever do you will block some of it. This is why you don't go 30 Stamina gems everywhere as Paladin.

The gem slots go like this:

• Meta: Effulgent Skyflare Diamond.
• Red: Sovereign Dreadstone prefer, or Guardian's Dreadstone if you're below the EPR cap.
• Blue: Solid Majestic Zircon always.
• Yellow: Enduring Eye of Zul.

The focus is stamina but not gemming full of it gives you a little too from socket bonus, while still going for that 102.4% avoidance. Balancing your tank stats is almost an art.

Armor and Chill of the Throne

               Armor is the best stat for a tank below 30 thousand, after that it loses some importance due to Diminishing returns. Other tank classes might take more armor than paladin but don't underestimate it either. Most items with bonus armor (with the armor amount green colored) forgo parry or dodge chance, those items are usually better for Warrior or DK. Chill of the Throne changes everything; remember when I said you should get 102.4% avoidance with Paladin? Let's say you reached that number and then went to Icecrown Citadel and got that nasty debuff making you lose 20%. Let me tell you there's no point trying to get back your max avoidance, even if you only raid Icecrown Citadel. This is where armor becomes useful, for that 20% chance of receiving a direct hit. Whether you decide to focus on using armor items (like the ones I previously mentioned with green armor amounts) or not, just try not to have more than 102.4% avoidance when you're out of Ic. Citadel. For Heroic raiding you should get high amounts of armor tho because the damage taken will be more consistent and it'll make heals better predict how to heal you, allowing them to put some more focus on boss tactics.

Glyphs

• Major: Divine Plea, Seal of Vengeance, Salvation.
• Minor: Sense Undead, Lay on hands, anything.

               You might wonder why I use Salvation instead of Righteous Defense or some other glyph you're in love with; the reason is after boss falls below 80% health the chance of a dps taking aggro from you is very little, you can safely use Hand of Salvation on yourself without the danger of getting someone killed. Remember what I said earlier, tanks are meant to soak damage while keeping aggro on themselves. 20% damage reduction is nothing to laugh about specially when used right, also your healers will love you (if you're into that kind of thing).

Rotation

                Protection Paladin doesn't have any procs like the other tank classes, it rather goes with a rotation that is carved in stone as the best rotation available for paladin: It's called 696 because it uses two spells with 6 second cooldown and will give the maximum amount of threat possible. The rotation goes as this in this order:

     Shield of the R(6)>Judgement (9)>Hammer of the R(6)>Consecration (8)>Shield of the R(6)>Holy Shield (8)>Hammer of the R(6)>Spells as they come up.

(where the (X) are the cooldowns of the abilities)

You open with Shield of the Righteous to build stacks of Dodge rating from your lvl264 Libram, afterwards a long cooldown skill (with 8 or 9 seconds) then Hammer of the Righteous, then another spell with high cooldown, and so on. It becomes something like this:

SotR>longer cd skill>HotR>longer cd skill>SotR>....

Don't use Holy Shield when you still have it up because although it has 8 sec cooldown the block lasts 10 sec. It's a little hard to get at first but once you get used to it you can just press the buttons without even watching at your bars and focus entirely on the boss fight. The rotation is flexible enough to include other abilities in it like Sacred Shield and Avenger's Shield, just continue using the same order you were using before including the foreign skill and the rotation will go back to normal after 9 seconds.

This is the reason behind the 1/2 Improved Judgements, to have our Judgement on 9 sec cooldown; this rotation can't be used properly if you have 0 or 2 points there so you can always tell the newbie paladins when they put 2 points there (or none); go ahead and inspect full heroic paladins in Dalaran and get surprised when they don't use 696, it's shameful but it clearly shows they aren't using their class to the fullest. Wonder why some tanks lose aggro so easily? Now you got an idea why. It also proves my point regarding Pve raiding: One thing is knowing the encounters and get the job done (even if barely) and another completely different thing (and harder to do) is to learn your class and get the most out of your gear.

If you want to practice it buff yourself Blessing of wisdom, Seal of wisdom, use Judgement of Wisdom and go to a dummy, you can practice for extended periods of time this way.

When to use your defensive spells

                 I often see tanks failing on this, using their defensive abilities when they shouldn't and then dying because they had their stuff in cooldown. You can be aware of this anytime a tank takes too much damage in a short period of time. When you question them about dying too fast they always say I did use them!- Yea I'm sure you did when boss wasn't even hitting you. Knowing the encounter is crucial to press the right skill: Divine Sacrifice when a high amount of AoE is about to happen, or Divine Protection when the boss gains some very dangerous damage buff. In addition you have Hand of Salvation as a cool bonus. The only skill you're not using on yourself is Lay on Hands, save this one to heal the other tank if heals are struggling.

Another situation that presents itself often is when a heal gets disabled (for example a Sindragosa Ice Tomb or Blood Queen's Swarming Shadows) and can't heal for a few seconds. Before you pressure the other heal to blow up cooldowns to heal you use one of your defensive spells to give time to the disabled healer to get back on track. The same applies if a healer dies, don't wait until you're low health. Being aware of what happens to others is a key element and will work you wonders. This is also why 696 is so good, once you're used to it you can oversee everything happening during the fight.

A few of tips

• Always have your Righteous Fury on.
• Always remind the Retri pala in your raid to turn Fury off.
• Use Seal of Vengeance if you're Main tank, or Seal of Light if you're Off tank. (Switch fast to Seal of Vengeance if you must taunt boss)
• Use Holy Shield a few seconds before pulling to have some block from the start.
• Devotion aura unless it is absolutely necessary to use another one.
• Use Judgement of Wisdom if you have a Holy Paladin in your raid.
• Have your Divine Plea up from the start.
• Use Blessing of Sanctuary on yourself always.
• Use Avenging Wrath at the start to build a decent amount of threat.
• Keep Sacred Shield on yourself at all times, or put it on the Main tank if you are Off tank.
• Use Hand of Sacrifice on the other tank if necessary to help the healers.

The end

                Tanking is fun, you don't contest as much for gear and you can always get into groups faster. Just remember, if you're doing everything right and a dps pulls aggro it will always be their own fault, so don't let those filthy dps badmouth you. If you think Prot Paladin is too complicated and not your cup d' tea there's always the three-button alternative nobody fails at: Feral tank druid. Thanks for reading.