Slacking

Oof, I didn't post for almost a week. I don't know if anybody reads the blog anymore since I moved to blogger, but maybe they don't now.

The problem has been that RL has gotten unusually busy with preparations for the holidays and things. Plus, there's been so much to do online that I try to jump on when I have a few free minutes instead of trying to keep up the blog. And then there's the problem that jumping on all the time has led to some concerns about how much time the game can consume.

So last week (Tues) started with a night off somewhat unexpectedly. Then we got rolling again pretty well on Wednesday. I considered trying to get into a Heroic Thurs or Fri but got on late and everybody was formed up running heroics or Naxx or something. Sat, I did get into a heroic when Dethno graciously respecced dps so I could tank Heroic Azjol-Nerub.

Sadly, that run didn't really go that well and left me feeling like a bit of a slacker as a tank. I'm still trailing a bit as far as gearing up and instance knowledge and I felt that fairly acutely when we had trouble Sat night (especially with the better geared tank respecced to dps next to me). Fortunately, things started to turn at least a little bit. I picked up a good belt from the Heroic and we had a nice run Sunday including getting my T7 legs and even better, our first defeat of Sapphiron in Naxx.

I also made the epic tanking ring this week, so overall the gear is coming together. It's still clear that Dethno and Ragon are probably going to be the best geared tanks when we get to 25s, which has made me wonder whether I should be planning to go to those as dps, a third tank or poor healer. I'm starting to pay attention to dps gear some, but I've also been thinking about evaluating the OT things my spec brings:

The first 2, I'm pretty sure end up being about 10% extra effective mitigation to the MT (plus a little extra rage for low dmg bosses):
Devotion aura with +6% healing and +1291 armor (via Imp Devo in prot tree)
Blessing of Sanctuary: -3% damage and every block/parry/dodge gives 10 rage

These 2 talents seem helpful, but I haven't verified how useful they are:
Judgments of the Just: Active judgments reduce mob attack speed by 20%
Divine Guardian: 30% of damage taken by party/raid members within 30 yrds directed to the Paladin when Divine Shield is up (4m cooldown).

I've been meaning to check with recap if possible, but I worry that JotJ doesn't leave a visible debuff on mobs we fight, so I worry that it might not work on bosses. It's a Req 45 talent, so it really ought to work on everything, but I'd feel better if it were confirmed.

...wanders off mid-blog to Maintankadin.com...
Ok, JotJ rocks. I was worried might not stack with Demo Shout or something, but it does and it's a big mitigating factor. OTOH, I learned that the +heal part of Imp Devo doesn't stack withe Tree healing buff. So that's only effectively useful on the nights Darsonsind isn't in the raid. Interesting.

But when I'm a pure OT, I should probably start working on getting better use out of my under-used 'Hands' spells. I'm used to thinking about Hand of Protection and Hand of Freedom, but their use doesn't come up so often (hmm, I wonder if I could HoP on Dethon during Gluth -- can he still shockwave/thunderclap when under HoP?). I think I can improve by using Hand of Salvation and possible Hand of Sacrifice more often.

Hand of Salvation is -20% threat cast on a high dps. The few times I've thought to use it, there have been range issues. But I can find more opportunities for it, epecially when OT.

I'm wondering about using Hand of Sacrifice more often as extra mitigation for the MT. I could eat 30% of the MT damage for 12s (every 2m). Maybe if I was using this and the Div Guardian, it'd be worth setting a beacon on me to spread the healing automatically?

Mostly, I've been focusing on doing a little dps, occasional heals, but with practice maybe I can mix in some more specials, too. I wonder what will be the most utility in 25s -- fill in the gaps prot, or full ret in weaker gear. I guess we have a few weeks to work it out either way.