Using Divine Protection while tanking

Yesterday I was questing with my level 50 Paladin in Un'Goro when a
guild member asked me if I want to complete a party for a Zul'Farrak
run. I still had some quests open and agreed.

We had:
- 43 Druid (all points into Balance), my guild mate
- 47 Paladin (Holy/Ret)
- 46 + 47 Hunter
- 50 Paladin (Prot)

It was decided that I should tank and the druid offered to heal. The
other Paladin was fighting some mobs in Tanaris and we gave up summoning
him after 30 minutes because he was constantly in fight and didn't
accept the summon. He then said we should start already, he would join
us later. With me as leader I would have kicked him, it's just rude to
let people wait so long.

We started fine, the hunters were multishooting a lot and their pets had
growl on but I expected that and it wasn't a real problem. One wipe at
the first crossing with the fountain, when our druid body pulled all 4
casters and two patrols at once while I was out of mana (oh look, loot!).

After that we made our way directly to Antu'sul and started clearing the
trash there. I pulled the mobs on the left, the other paladin pulled
those on the right and our druid pulled the boss! Taking about
coordination! I had no plan what was going on and couldn't move as I was
rooted all the time. Just spammed Consecration and hoped for the best.
We survived, boss dead (of cause looting while the fight was still going
on) and only the druid died. That was the first time where I had to
bubble and bandage during the fight (yes, you loose all aggro but get it
back when the bubble wears off).

Another dead player because of the bugs when the hunter made a nice
multishot and pulled 6 of those buggers while the rest were still
drinking. After that I handled the pulls and it was much better.

At the witch doctor our druid suddenly said he had to go and off he was.
Cool, that's my guild members as I know them. Anyway, we opened a few of
the graves (hunter 1 opened one, hunter 2 opened one and the ret pala
opened one - at the same time). We still managed it and I suggested only
opening the first graves as I thought that would be enough - a little
mistake I had to admit now. Our Ret Pala offered to heal and I pulled
the boss. Lots of mobs there, I can tell you. We didn't remove the
totems and I really don't know how many mobs I tanked and how many were
running around - it was really crowded but we managed it without loosing
a player. I totally forgot that many of those mobs were undead, at that
moment I was just wondering who was fearing the mobs (and why).

We made it to the stairs and had a really big pull at the end when my
fellow Paladin wanted to speed things up. We fought the last wave and
both bosses at the same time at the bottom of the stairs. Again I had to
bubble here and heal myself midfight a few times but we survived. I also
noticed that dedicated healing didn't seems to be his piece of cake, as
he was happily offtanking and using Consecration a lot.

Up the middle to Ruuzlu and Ukorz, again with our healer pulling. As he
really seems to be willing to tank mobs I let him have fun with Ruuzlu
and just tanked Ukorz while healing myself. Was fun seeing him running
around in circles like crazy while jumping a lot .

Velratha was left (we couldn't call Gahz'rilla) and our Paladin pulled
the 6 mob group to the left and a patrol at the same time (but not the
basilisk one). Using Consecration like crazy and mid fight I had to
bubble again - everyone out of mana. We survied it and killed Velratha
with me finishing the last kill with an incredible bad pull again -
getting here and the basilisks patrol at the same time.

That was one of the craziest runs I ever had in Zul'Farak and I have
been to that place with various chars a lot. Our group setup was very
lucky, with two hunters who could use FD (and pets as offtanks) and a
healer that could take a punch. We were constantly fighting really big
groups and were incredible lucky to have only one wipe. There was more
than one situation where I thought I would do a corpse run.

Using Divine Protection wasn't really bad, no one died because of it but
I guess with a cloth healer it would have been a different outcome. I
had serious issue with my mana usage even when using Seal of Wisdom and
Blessing of Wisdom - that's something I have to improve. Do I need more
Int or should I go for Spirit?

Dirk

On Mar 17, 2:48 pm, Dirk <newsp... RemoveThis @cubeworld.net> wrote:
> Using Divine Protection wasn't really bad, no one died because of it but
> I guess with a cloth healer it would have been a different outcome. I
> had serious issue with my mana usage even when using Seal of Wisdom and
> Blessing of Wisdom - that's something I have to improve. Do I need more
> Int or should I go for Spirit?

I wouldn't recommend using Divine Protection in Outland instances.
Since the mobs hit much harder than in Azeroth, cloth wearers will die
very quickly and others can't take too many hits either.

Paladin tanks gain mana from getting healed. This means that you have
to be taking enough damage. If your group is crazy and there are a lot
of aggroed mobs everywhere, it can be hard to make them all hit you,
since Righteous Defense has a long cooldown. The only thing you can do
to save mana is to downrank Consecration. This works best if you have
some spell damage gear, because then you'll lose less DPS compared to
the amount of mana saved. You can also ask the people to come to the
Consecration range, because the mobs will follow them and this will
hopefully help you to gain aggro.

Spirit is useless. You have to be at least 5 secs without casting any
spells before you gain any mana in combat. This rarely happens. You
probably want some Int gear, but not too much, because you can never
stack enough +intellect in your tanking gear, because other stats are
far more important.

I think the real solution is to find less crazy groups. It is very
hard to handle situations like this.