Rift Justicar Tanking Guide

Rift Justicar Tanking Guide by Radak

Welcome to version 3 of my guide. The reason I started a new one was become the edit timer on the old one ran out so I couldn’t update it for patch 1.3.

First a small note: the name of my own cleric is not Radak but Alovnek (Blightweald-EU) the name of my account was from before I decided to fully play my cleric.

First something about me and the tanking I did so far.
I started tanking somewhere around beta 5 after having only healed. I came to like the way cleric tanks worked and this only increased since they fixed some annoying points like the old way we used to manage our threat.
And as of this latest update I have now main tanked the first 4 bosses in Greenscale blight and 4/4 in RoS.

And to get things started I will first discuss a couple of different tanking builds that you will often find.

Stats and tanking
As a cleric tank there are a lot of stats that are usefull to you and here I will show you what each stat does assuming you have atleast picked up the basis to tanking spec (see below at tanking builds).

Toughness: Reduces bonus crit damage taken from non player sources. 1Toughness gives a 2% crit bonus reduction.
Endurance: Increases you health by 9 per point. We get a 90% endurance buff from MoL and as a result 1 endurance on your gear will give you 17.1 health.
Wisdom: Increases your spellpower by 0.75 per point and also some mana regeneration.
Intelligence: Increases your spellpower by 0.25 per point, your max mana by 10 per point and your spellcrit by 1 per point
Strength: Increases your Attack power by 0.5 per point, your block and parry by 1 per point.
Dexterity: Increases your Attack power by 0.5 per point and your dodge by 1per point.
Focus/Hit: Increase the chance to hit with spells/melee hits by 0.2% per point. (1 focus also increase hit by 1)
Attack Power: Increases the damage of your melee attack.
Spellpower: Increases the damage of your Spells, gives you 0.9parry per point, 0.6dodge per point and 0.3block per point.
Parry: Increases your chance to parry an attack by 0.01618% per point resulting in 0 damage taken.
Dodge: Increases your chance to dodge an attack by 0.02369% per point
Block: Increase your chance to block an attack by 0.04854% per point and also effects the amount you block for (for blocked amount see diminishing retuns).

The caps
Some stats have caps that effect how high the priority of each stats is.

T1 Experts:
Toughness: 50
Focus and Hit: 70

T2 Experts:
Toughness: 100
Focus and Hit: 120

T1 Raids:
Toughness: 150
Focus and Hit: 220

T2 Raids:
Toughness: 200
Focus and Hit: 320

General:
Parry: 20% (1236 parry rating)
Dodge: 20% (845 dodge rating)
Block: No known cap atm
Armor: No known cap atm

The Priority
The stat priority assuming a raid environment (but even in a non raid buffed situation this is the stat order you should gear for)
Toughness (until cap) > Focus (until cap) > Endurance > Strength > block rating > Spellpower > Wisdom > Dexterity > Dodge > Parry > Intelligence

Toughness, focus and block are as a result the stats you should be looking for the most on gear.

For more information regarding stat priority and stat values I advice looking at this thread: http://forums.riftgame.com/showthrea…car-Speadsheet

Magic damage and Resistance
First of mitigation talents stack additive and resistance stacks multiplicative with that reduction so currently cleric tanks can get 28% magic damage mitigation (15% from Shield of Faith, 3% from Thick Skinned and 10% from Thorvin’s Law) and as a result our magic tanking capability’s are lower then that of other tanks.
For comparison a warrior tank can have up to 52% magic damage reduction (57% if the target has mana) and as a result takes 50% less magic damage.

For those wondering why having 52% vs 28% is 50% less damage taken
Lets look at a magic attack that would deal 10000 damage.
A warrior will take 10000 * ( 1 – 0.52 ) = 4800 damage.
A cleric will take 10000 * ( 1 – 0.28 ) = 7200 damage.
( 7200 – 4800 ) / 4800 * 100%= 50.0% more damage taken

Now I didn’t take resistance from raid buffs into consideration so lets add that.
That’s 30 from planar protection and 40 from bard/archon buff for 70 resistance to all schools.
70 resistance = 10.45% less damage taken.
So a warrior now takes 1-(1-0.52)*(1-0.1045)=57.02% less magic damage.
And a cleric now takes 1-(1-0.28)*(1-0.1045)=35.52% less magic damage.

That same attack now hits for the following
A warrior will take 10000 * ( 1 – 0.5702 ) = 4298 damage.
A cleric will take 10000 * ( 1 – 0.3552 ) = 6448 damage.
( 6448 – 4298 ) / 4298 * 100%= 50.0% more damage taken

So as you can see the raid resistance buffs have no effect on the effective difference between a warrior and a cleric. (and even if we fully take Favored of the Valnir into the calculation as full mitigation (this means no overhealing at all which is not the case) we still take 35% more damage)

The counter
To partly counter the effect that we take more magic damage it is possible to stack resistance of the type you are encountering. Currently that is mostly life is Greenscale’s Blight and Death in River of Souls and with Hammerknell you can expect water damage.
There are a couple of places where you can pick up resistance.

1. Dark harbor from the cabalist tree provides 40 earth, water, air and fire resistance.
2. Bard/Archon buff provides 40/39 resistance to everything.
3. Planar protection guild perk that can be used to grant up to 30 resistance.
4. Resistance runes for chest and shoulders they come in a 21 and 27 resistance version for a total of 42-54 resistance.
5. The river of souls world-event gave the option to get a trinket with stats that included 20 death resistance.
6. The Hammerknell world-event gives you the option to obtain a trinket with 20 Water Resistance.
7. The Hammerknell world-event gives you the option to obtain a sigil of the five with 20 Water Resistance which is perfect for making a water resistance sigil.
8. Lesser essences up to 6 in total (if you make a resistance sigil/foci don’t use greaters)
   Ordered from best to worst.
   1. Inscribed Sourcestone Resist essence provides 24 resistance + 17 endurance
   2. Crystal Sourcestone Resist essence provides 26 resistance
   3. Inscribed sourcestone essence provides 16 resistance + other stats
   4. Raid rift essence provides 15 resistance + other stats
   5. Crystal Sourcestone essences provides 12 resistance + other stats
   6. Expert rift essences provides 11 resistance + other stats
   7. Green essences with 1 other stat can provides up to 12 resistance (strength or endurance are the best)
   8. Green essences with more then 1 other stat can provides up to 6 resistance
   9. The collector’s edition weapon rune provides 10 resistance of one kind

Then one last note about resistance, it does not scale linearly but like armor and blocked amount it got a build in diminishing return. (see below)

Diminishing returns
There are currently 3 stats that have a build in diminishing return these are armor, blocked amount and resistance.
The formula for these 3 stats are as followed
Armor:

Damage % reduction = Armor / ( Armor + 6500 ) * 100%

Block:

Blocked % = Block / ( Block + 721 ) * 100%

Resistance:

Damage % reduction = Resistance / ( Resistance + 600 ) * 100%

As you can see they all look pretty similar.
The reason they have a build in diminishing return is because otherwise the stats become better the more you have of it making you want more resutling in it become even better etc.
However if you look at your survivability the diminishing return isn’t as bad as it looks.

For example if you have 5000 armor and go to 6000 armor you go from 43.5% to 48% so a 4.5% increase. Now if you go from 10000 armor to 11000 armor you go from 60.6% to 62.9% only a 2.3% increase.
This will only go lower and lower the more armor you have.
However the amount of damage you actually take scales a lot better (some say it stays the same however this is not true there is still a diminishing return just not as bad).

Lets go back to those examples and say you take a hit that would to 10000 damage at 0 armor.
At 5000 armor you take 5650 damage and at 6000 you take 5200 damage.
That’s (5650-5200)/5650*100=7.96% less damage taken from the original 5650 hit.
Now at 10000 armor you take 3940 damage and at 11000 you take 3710 damage.
That’s (3940-3710)/3940*100=5.84% less damage taken from the original 3940 hit.

As you can see the actually damage you take has a far lower diminishing return but it still exists and they work the same way for blocked amount and resistance.

A easy way to think about this that has been said before is this:
If you go from 0% reduction to 1% reduction you now take 1% less damage.
If you go from 50% reduction to 51% reduction you now actually take 2% less damage.
If you go from 75% reduction to 76% reduction you now actually take 4% less damage.
And if you go from 98% reduction to 99% reduction you now actually take 50% less damage.

If you got any question about this part feel free to ask them in the thread

Tanking Builds
The basis to tanking: 38 Justicar / 7 Shaman

This is the spec that has all the mandatory talents though a few points can be switched around. All talents builds should have at least all these talents picked up (healer’s greed can be switched to Doctrine of Bliss or Hammer of Virtue).
The remaining 21talent points can be changed nearly everywhere to pick up the thing you want. Below are a few of the more common examples.

51 point builds
The following builds will all have 51 points in justicar which will give you DoA which can be very helpful experts with a healer that is a bit weak/undergeared because you can assist party healing by a lot. The also give you a lot of armor because MoL gives 1% additional armor per point spent in the justicar tree.

The most basic spec: 51 Justicar / 10 Shaman / 5 Sentinal
This is one of the most basic tanking builds. It has all the points in justicar which gives you Doctrine of Authority. It has all the mandatory talents in shaman and a few more to pick up Courage of the Bear that will increase your block by a additional 40 if you don’t have a archon in your party/raid. The 5% spellpower in Sentinel gives you a bit more block, parry and dodge and will also slightly increase your damage and healing (and of course threat as a result). You also get Healing Breath which heals for a little bit more then DoB even with the 40% reduction and doesn’t consume a conviction.

Basic with Inquisitor: 51 Justicar / 9 Shaman / 6 Inquisitor
This one is nearly similar to the spec above however it has changed to 5% spellpower in sentinal for 5% spell crit and 50 endurance plus 215 armor from Armor of Treachery. With this change you do lose courage of the bear but if you got someone else with a strength aura this is no problem as they don’t stack (and you can still use courage of the Jaguar to keep 40 dodge). Also notice that because you lose 5% spellpower you will generate slightly less threat however you can switch to armor of Devotion to get 42SP and SC which can help a bit.

Basic with Purifier: 51 Justicar / 8 Shaman / 7 Purifier
In this case 7 points are spend in purifier to pick up 5% wisdom, 6% armor and a additional shield. However the 5% wisdom from purifier gives less avoidance then the 5% spellpower from sentinal or Cabalist. Also a thing to note about the 6% armor is that it’s based on your base armor before MoL and talents, the result is that it only gives about 200-300 armor depending on your gear. The shield absorb 831 damage which isn’t that much but it’s more then a DoB or healing breath from sentinel and can be used before a pull to save a gcd or used when at full health but not taking damage. This is the spec that will give you the highest amount of armor that is possible but with the resent change to Armor of Treachery in the Inquisitor tree this difference is now minimal.

Basic with Cabalist: 51 Justicar / 9 Shaman / 6 Cabalist
This spec also gives the 5% spellpower that the basic spec provides with sentinal. However by spending 6points in cabalist you can pick up Dark Harbor which will increase your elemental (water/fire/earth/air) resistance by 40 and stacks with the resistance provided by a bard or archon. This can be helpful when tanking magic heavy bosses like Cyclorax or Gatekeeper Kaleida and with Hammerknell on our doorstep we can also expect bosses with water damage there. However since it does not provide life and death resistance you won’t benefit from it in GSB or RoS or bosses that deal death damage like Gregori Krezlav in DSM. With this spec you also get Obliterate which can be useful for aoe pulls if you build the Lurking Decay on the last mob of the pack before it.
If there are some bosses in hammerknell with water damage this will be the spec of choice for it.

44 point builds
These build change a few points from justicar to pick up different thing in other trees. However they lose some armor and DoA as a result but keep the new AoE taunt Rebuke. (There are a few variations possible with the 44 points in justicar where you drop different points. However all possible combinations will drop Humility. And the remaining points can mainly be removes from DoB, Hammer of Virtue and Supremacy but you can also remove some from Light Makes Right, Commitment or Healer’s Creed).

Deeper Shaman: 44 Justicar / 22 Shaman / 0 Purifier/Sentinal/Templer
In this spec you take a few more points in Shaman. This will give you a 360 cleave that can be usefull at the pull when mobs are still around you. However it does less damage then Even Justice and does not give a conviction. You also get Jolt which is off the gcd and can be used when you crit the damage isn’t that high because of the 40% reduction but that is countered with the 50% increase in air damage. You also get a second mana cooldown but that’s normally not needed but can be useful. You also get Glory of the chosen which will give you a small heal off the gcd whenever you are crit (remember crit immune does not exist in Rift).
By leaving the last soul empty it’s possible to switch the soul. This gives you the option to use Sentinel for the instant heal, Purifier for the self shield or even Templar for Break Free (you can break out of crystals at Majolic with it and a few other things). And again there are a few variations possible in the shaman tree.

Purge: 44 Justicar / 12 Shaman / 10 inquisitor
The reason this spec is popular is because it gives you 50endurance+215armor from Armor of Treachery and gives you purge which can be very useful on a lot of boss fights in experts (However since patch 1.2 more people now have purge making this less useful). Some examples are Groniks reflect shield, Warden Falidor or the heal in the Geldo council. It will also give you the small heal from shaman that is off the gcd and can be used when you are crit. There are a few variation on this spec possible where you move some points from shaman to justicar.
Another use for this spec is against Cyclorax where you can actually range tank the boss by using the inquisitor abilty’s (remember all life ability’s give conviction and all ability’s get the +300% threat). This will save you a lot of running around from the aoe and the threat is high enough to not lose aggro.

Deeper Purifier: 44 Justicar / 10 Shaman / 12 Purifier
This spec takes more points in purifier to increase the amount absorbed by the self shield from 831 to 1246. This spec also gets to ability to cure diseases, poisons and curses. This can be very helpful on yourself as it will save your healer a gcd every time. And again you get the 6% armor from Flame Ward that will compensate a bit for the armor loss from the points moved our of justicar (you only lose a 1% increase of base armor compared to 51 points with the exception of the purifier and Inquisitor version).
A nice bonus is that you get a res which will save you from having to switch role (and possible rebuffing) every time you have to res someone.

Deeper Cabalist: 44 Justicar / 12 Shaman / 10 Cabalist
This is a small additional to the 51 build with cabalist. What you get is a bit more damage on your spells (not your melee attacks) and you get a additional aoe damage spell that can be used during those harder aoe pulls by stacking up Lurking Decay on the last mob of the pack before it and using tyranny. But if you don’t have any you can use Sigil of power aswell. Other then that it has the same advantages as the basic with cabalist spec.

38 point builds
These talents builds give up a decent amount of armor, Rebuke and DoA to pick up ability’s deeper into certain trees. With the change to the justicar tree in patch 1.3 I wouldn’t advice a 38 point build anymore as have to give up a decent amount of stuff (In most of these builds a lot of variations are possible so if you want to switch something around feel free to do so)

Deep purifier: 38 Justicar / 7 Shaman / 21 Purifier
This is a build that will give you a lot of Oh **** buttons (It’s also one I used pretty often in raids before patch 1.3). The most important ones are Searing Transfusion that will increase your health by 25% and also heal you for that amount (unaffected by the 40% reduction of MoL), a 1246 Shield of Ancestors, Latent Blaze and a guaranteed critical Reprieve with the use of Flashover.
One thing to note about Latent Blaze is that if you buff it before you use MoL it will not be effected by the 40% reduction and you will get the full benefit from it. This means that applying it before the fight is very useful but during the fight it becomes a bit worse (but still worth it). (This also works with Healing Blessing)
The ability Flashover guarantees your next heal will be a critacal hit and can be used with reprieve to always make it a crit which will increase it’s effect by 50%. But because Flashover only has a 45sec cd it can also be used for DoL during those heavy AoE phases.
You also keep the dispell that the 44 purifier spec also had and you get a shield that can be used on others which can be handy for those trigger happy dpsers or that low health player during aoe.
One ability I haven’t mentioned yet is healing Blessing. This ability heals you for a low amount everytime you are hit up to 6 times. However because it’s effected by MoL it only heals a little over 100 per hit. But since it’s after a hit it will never overheal and with 6 stacks it will heal a bit over 650 total depending on gear which is not bad for 1 gcd as it’s more then DoB of Healing Breath. (and you can apply it before a pull like the shield)

Deep Sentinel: 38 Justicar / 7 Shaman / 21 Sentinel
This goes deep into the Sentinal tree to increase the AoE healing done, pick up Protect the Flock and get Healer’s Covenant.
First something About Protect the Flock. It will proc of Reparation and as a result put it on 5 people nearly every gcd. However it will not proc on yourself as Salvation is single target. But if you use DoL it will proc on yourself but I would not advice using it every 6 sec just to keep it up.
A note about Healers’s Covenant: It is on a 2min cd but only gives 1 min debuff, as a result it’s possible for you and your healer to alternate the ability on you when the debuff runs out. However remember to not use it when you feel like it. Most of the time the healer will know when it’s more useful on you because you might get low and pop it but your healer was a micro second away from that big heal that would top you again. Or he might want to use it on you so he got time to do some party heals but he can’t because you already used it before and got the debuff. So just remember to speak with your healer about it’s usage (unless you got a healer without it of course).
Another advantage of this spec is that you are able to pick up a dispell like the purifier specs. You also get the AoE dispell which is even better then the normal one as you won’t have to target anything. You also get a silence which can be very very handy on large packs with casters that you want to group up to AoE down.
(this is also a spec where a lot of changes can be made in the deep tree for example you can take the 20% crit damage and healing instead of the additional heals on healing breath)

Deep Shaman: 38 Justicar / 28 Shaman / 0 purifier/sentinal
The reason this spec is popular is the ability to get a charge and the 360cleave. This makes picking up large packs of mobs a bit easier. But other then that the spec doesn’t give much more then the 44 version of the shaman build and you lose your Rebuke to get it.
Again the last soul is free of points to make it changeable as with the 44 point build.
With this build taking points out of commitment seems a pretty logical option because the amount of mana you will have with 2 mana cd’s and the mana return on crit will be huge so the mana on block will be unneeded.

Deep Cabalist: 38 Justicar / 7 Shaman / 21 Cabalist
This spec gives you a lot of new additions to the deeper cabalist spec and as a result this build has probably the highest possible aoe threat and a few tricks.
The most important thing you get from taking this build is the ability called Mealstrom. This pulls up to 3 mobs within 15 meters of you towards you which makes runaway mobs easier to pick back up again. However the range is pretty big so be careful not to pull the next pack towards you.
It also has a aoe damage aura every min for 20sec that will also help you keep that aoe threat. And there is are even more like Curse of Solitude and the shorter cd Obliterate.
This is also one of the specs that will have no problem ranged tanking certain bosses.

Deep Warden: 38 Justicar / 8 Shaman / 20 Warden
This is a bit of a unconventional build but can be very useful if you got a healer that isn’t that good and will have you from having to take a support along just to keep you alive.
This build will give you a pretty large amount of self healing compared to other builds and your loyalty will also heal for 15% more.
The ability to stack up soothing stream on yourself will soften those big spikes and the healing done will give you enough threat to use a gcd to keep the stack running without losing aggro. You also get the ability called Orbs of the Stream that can be used on yourself as a small defensive cd. And like Latent blaze it can be buffed before MoL which will remove the 40% reduction from it. And in most of the fights there are a few seconds where you can actually reapply it but with the 40% reduction (which is still useful).
This spec also gives you Tidel Surge which increase your next heal by 50% and can be used for Reprieve and Loyalty to make them more powerful.
Also like the purifier and sentinal builds you will have a dispell which saves your healer that gcd.
And last but not least you get a 3sec silence in the form of Drown.

Deep Druid: 38 Justicar / 20 Druid / 8 Shaman
This build like the deep shaman build will generate a larger amount of single target threat. The reason for this is having both Vengeance of the winter storm and Crag Hammer up for more damage every swing (yes they stack). This spec also gives you a ability called Eruption of Life that does a decent amount of damage and some additional damage the next 3 melee hits. This is by far your highest dps and as a result threat spell you have in this build and it generates 1 conviction aswell (yes it does more damage then PoR/Sovereignty). You also get a spell called Bombard that does more damage then SoJ but does not generate a conviction but using it will increase your threat if you don’t need more conviction. This spec also gives you a 10sec sleep (30sec cd) and a 5sec silence (1min cd) which can help to make your pulls easier.
And last you also get a additional shield which unfortunately only absorbs physical damage and a ability called Trickster Spirit that will decrease your damage taken by a small amount (does less damage then SoJ so be careful not to lose aggro).
And like the deep shaman spec this also has a second 1min mana cd and makes it possible to take points out of commitment and move them around. (for example to Hammer of Virtue)

Unconventional builds
Under this part are specs that are special and will mostly be useful for a special task. At this time there will be only 1 spec but I might add more.

The healing Offtank: 38 justicar / 18 Sentinal / 10 Warden
This build drops the shaman tree to pick up more healing. The result is that your tanking capability’s have drops because you lose 10% healing taken and 3% less damage taken and as a result you will be a offtank (Hylas is one of those fights you use an offtank). However by sacrificing this you severely increase your healing cabality’s. For example when not tanking during the hylas encounter there is a large amount of aoe damage going on where this healing can come in handy. You can then which to a 2H weapon (you can switch weapons in combat) and use Mien of Honor. The result is that your AoE healing output is now actually higher than chloromancers or any senticar/shamacar/inquisicar build. The reason is because none these builds are able to pick up DoL, the healing increase talents in Sentinal and the 15% increased healing in Warden.
And you also get Tidal surge which can increase the healing of one of your DoL’s by a additional 50% every 45 sec.
Just remember to switch back to a mace+shield and MoL before you have to pick up mobs again (or before the polymorph on hylas) so you can be healed up from the heal increase of MoL.

Essences
One of the most important pieces of gear is your Planar Focus. And making sure you have the best essences in there can help your tanking a lot. So here I will list what you are looking for in essences and a few possible options.

Greater Essences
Greater essences will help you by giving you a buff that is not done by pure stats but by a proc that gives you something. You normally want 2 of these but you can replace them by lesser essences aswell if for some reason you don’t want to use them.

Bought ones:
Crystal Vine: For just 1 Ancient Sourcestone and 2500 Planarite you can get this beaty that gives your heals a chance to proc a 750 Heal over 8seconds. This one proc of both Salvation and Reparation. If you want to make sure you are the only one getting the hot make sure to turn of reparation but this might cause some threat issues.
Frozen Deep One Tear: For the same cost as the Crystal Vine you can get this one that gives your heals a chance to proc a 564 shield on the person healed. This one also procs of Salvation and Reparation so the same thing is true as for the Crystal Vine. But remember that this one give slightly less healing but will never overheal if reparation is turned off as you will always take damage in those 15seconds it’s up.
Honorbound Soulstone: Spending 50Inscribed Sourcestones gets you this: Your Strike of Judgment has a chance to heal you for 436. This might look nice but the proc rate is unfortunately to low at only 10%. So I would not advice getting this one.
Glowing Stone Heart: Again the same cost as the Crystal vine. This one gives you a chance to proc a 200 damage shield when you are hit. I don’t know the cd and proc rate but my guess is the crystal Vine and Frozen Deep One Tear will be superior in any circumstance.

Drops:
Hailstone Tideshard: A upgraded version of the deep one tear which absorbs 686 damage and drops from the water raid rift.
Celestial Flameshard: Give a chance on block to increase block rating by 80 and generate a high amount of threat. It is at about a equal level as a lesser but the threat would make it slightly higher. However when dealing with any form of magic damage a lesser is better because of endurance.
Primordial Faeshard: Give a chance when dodging to increase threat and increase armor by 5% for 10sec. However with out low dodge chance you won’t see this proc often until something is changed. Drop from the Life raid rift.
Screaming Stormshard: Give a chance on physical damage to deal 100air damage to 5targets and generates a high amount of threat. Unfortunately we don’t have many attack that deal physical damage (mostly only PoR and white hits) and as a result you won’t see many procs. Drops from the Air Raid rift.
Corrosive Faesource: Give a chance on block to heal for 650 health. Unfortunately it has a icd of a few seconds and most heal over time on heal essences will be better. Drops from the Expert Life rift. (a lower version is also available from all life rifts that heals for 500)
Grasping Faesource: Near Identical to the Crystal vine but heals for 730 instead of 750. Drops from the expert Life rift. (can be used next to the Crystal vine to have 2 hots on yourself. And a lower version is also available from all life rifts that heals for 550.)
Tempest Stormsource: Gives you a chance when hit to increase your endurance by 68 (612 health) for 15seconds. It does not heal you for the increase is health and is limited in use as a result. The uptime is very high though. Drops from the expert Air rift (a lower version is also available from all air rifts that gives 55 endurance)

A couple of new green greater essences seems to have been added as they are required to make the Blazing resistance runes. There might be a tanking one among them so watch out for it.

Lesser Essences
Lesser essences gives you pure stats and in most cases some resistance of the corresponding type. There are a huge amount of different lessers so I won’t be listing them The things you are looking for on a lesser essence are mostly Block, Strength, Endurance and wisdom in that order. A good starting lesser is the Sleeping Giant from the rare planar good verdor in Stillmore for 3Ancient Sourcestones and 800Planarite. It gives 15block, 7strength and 11 endurance. They are not unique so you can start with a set of 4 of these. You can then upgrade these by doing expert and raid rifts to get better ones just remember the stat priority. A small note though most epic lessers are unique equip so you might have to take that wisdom+block+endurance one until you find something better (epic wis,block,endu is better then the sleeping giant).

Runes
Using the correct runes can boost your stats by a large amount. Here I have listed the different one in order of usefulness. So if you don’t have the reputation for one or don’t want to spend 7p50g just look at the one below it. (the order is based on avoidance and effective health and not on threat)

Helmet:
Icewatch Slayer’s Rune: +11 Strength, +8 Endurance
Icewatch Pardoner’s Rune: +11 Wisdom, +9 Endurance
Blazing Potent Rune: +13 Strength
Blazing Sagacious Rune: +13 Wisdom
Radiant Sharp Rune: +18 Focus, +5 SP (use if not focus capped)

Shoulders:
Blazing Tough Rune: +9 Dodge, +9 Endurance
Brilliant Tough Rune: +7 Dodge, +7 Endurance (cheaper alternative)

Chest:
Blazing Resolute Rune: +11 Endurance
Brilliant Resolute Rune: +8 Endurance (cheaper alternative)
Incandescent Indomitable Runeshard: +20 Toughness (use if not toughness capped)
Blazing Indomitable Runeshard: +15 Toughness (cheaper alternative)

Belt:
Mathosian Pugilist’s Rune: +10 Strength, +6 Endurance
Mathosian Celebrant’s Rune: +10 Wisdom, +6 Endurance
Ironbound Runeguard Emblem: +8 Endurance
Runeguard Battlemaster’s Emblem: +5 Strength, +5 Dexterity

Legs:
Heroic Dragonslayer’s Rune: +12 Strength, +9 Endurance
Devout Dragonslayer’s Rune: +12 Wisdom, +9 Endurance
Blazing Tough Rune: +9 Dodge, +9 Endurance
Blazing Potent Rune: +13 Strength
Brilliant Tough Rune: +7 Dodge, +7 Endurance (cheaper alternative)
Radiant Sharp Rune: +18 Focus, +5 SP (use if not focus capped)

Boots:
Blazing Resolute Rune: +11 Endurance
Brilliant Resolute Rune: +8 Endurance (cheaper alternative)

Gloves:
Radiant Elusive Rune: +6 Parry

Weapon:
Blazing Strength Rune: +10 strength
Blazing Recondite Rune: +9 SP
Blazing Wisdom Rune: +10 Wisdom
Incandescent Savvy Runeshard: +13 Focus (use if not focus capped)
Blazing Savvy Runeshard: +9 Focus (cheaper alternative)

Shield:
Blazing Deflection Rune: +19 Block, + 9 Endurance
Radiant Thwarting Rune: + 16 Block (cheaper alternative)

Wand:
Blazing Strength Rune: +10 strength
Blazing Recondite Rune: +9 SP
Blazing Wisdom Rune: +10 Wisdom
Incandescent Savvy Runeshard: +13 Focus (use if not focus capped)
Blazing Savvy Runeshard: +9 Focus (cheaper alternative)

Actual tanking
Now one of the first things you have to notice is that when using a lot of AoE heals to assist the healer your mana can go down fast. In this case getting the most out of your Purpose is very important.
So here are a few tips:

• Use it at a time that the need to heal is a lower priority or is unneeded if your healer is on TS having him use a cd works very well. This way you can maximize the efficiency of your Purpose.
• Another thing which should be quit obvious is do not use your Sovereignty or Bolt of Radiance while active as they return no mana (Of course if it is really needed for a taunt use it).
• Then a small warning Doctrine of Autority is a melee attack however it seems to be bugged and is not considerd a melee attack for Purpose and does not return mana so try to avoid using it.
• Also try to use it at precisely the same time as a melee attack is this case it will also return mana from that attack and you should be able to get a total of 7 attacks out of your purpose for a 70% mana return.
• Time it correctly after getting back from a knockback if the mobs/boss has one.
• Do not pop it the moment your at 50% mana or when it comes of cd but look at the above points and time in wisely.

Single target tanking.
In the case of single target tanking it will mostly be boss encounters so I will assume it is one.

The pull
We lack a charge and as a result I will 90% of the time open with Sovereignty while running in immediately followed by Bolt of Radiance. After you should make about contact your the boss and immediately use Precept of Refuge.
From here on it is just a keeping up your Precept of Refuge and your Censure. Try to avoid refreshing Censure early because even though the damage in the tooltip seems to have it only deal slight less damage then a Strike of Judgement it will deal about 20-30 less damage which is of course less threat (and less self healing). If you know there will not be any adds spawning in the fight use your Sovereignty and Bolt of radiance on cd as they deal more damage then a Strike of Judgement.

Cooldowns
Lets take a look at the defensive cd’s and when to use them

• Just Defense: Don’t be afraid to use very often it only has a 1min cd and will be available pretty quickly again. I myself use it every time I see myself drop below 50% hp and it’s off cd.
• Reprieve: This one is a bit harder to time but using it at a moment your healer is incapacitated is the most logical option. Another option I regularly use it for is only to heal the target of my Righteous Mandate which is most of the time the healer but I might switch it mid fight if I see a person taking large amounts of damage for some reason.
• Resplendent Embrace: This one is probably the hardest one to time correctly and with a cd of 2 min it’s available less often then Just Defense so timing it is more important. One of the moment I myself use it is if there is a party wide aoe and everyone needs to be healed up again. Using it at such a time allows your healer to focus on his AoE heals and less on your because those AoE heals will heal you for 50% more. A more obvious one if of course when the boss does a enrage effect that can’t be dispelled but there aren’t that many bosses that have one.

Multi-target tanking
Now one of the biggest problems a cleric tank has is initial AoE threat. So I will explain how I do my aoe pulls. (all these pulls assume a spec without having a silence which makes these a lot easier)
Group with some casters:
Corner pull.
Try to see if there is any way to do a corner pull even if this is a small walk from the trash pack. In case of a corner pull most mobs won’t be coming in at the same time so use a even justice every time a mobs comes around the corner. Sometimes this means you have to wait half a gcd doing nothing because a new mob is still incoming. Only once all mobs have been picked up you will use your precept of refuge and start a normal AoE tanking rotation.
One of the things you have to learn your group is that is you do a corner pull they stand together with you this way even if they get aggro in some way (bard seems to have a habit of this) they still go around the corner where you are waiting with your Even Justice.

Non-corner pull
If a corner pull is not possible things get a bit more tricky. For example lets look at a group with 2 ranged and 2 melee mobs which is a pretty common pull. In this case the way the group stand effect the way I do the pull. Most of the time they will be standing all 4 next to each other which will be my pull setup.
So lets see. “R” will the the ranged mobs and “M” will be the melee mobs.

The most important thing in all pulls is that you need to be hit/focus capped because missing the mob you will meet in the run in will mostly result in failing to pick it up correctly. (But even if you miss with the way I do the pulls you will always have your taunt available to pick it up)

So the easiest pull is a M R R M pull.
Just use Sovereignty on the left mob while running in toward the right mob. Pick up this mob using precept of Refuge and continue walking toward the 2 ranged mobs while using healing breath to heal the damage the melee mob did on contact. This part is pretty important as it generates healing threat on all 4 adds (if you have a purifier healer ask him to not pre bubble you as you will lose this threat). Once you arrive at the 2 ranged mobs (stun of Sovereignty will have worn out now) walk through them and turn around and use a even justice. At this point you should have threat on all 4 targets and you can use a the normal AoE tank rotation. However if your mages couldn’t wait to start there aoe attacks until you arrived don’t be afraid to use your AoE taunt to get aggro back. (You can change left and right depending on what is easier with the surrounding area)

A little bit harder is a R M R M or M R M R pull
In this case use your Sovereignty on the center melee mob and run straight in. When the outer melee mob reaches you use your Precept of Refuge on him while still running. Depending in the distance when your gcd is free again use your Healing Breath if your still at range from the ranged adds or a Even Justice if you are close. Again walk through them and quickly turn at which point you can start the normal AoE tank rotation.

The hardest pull is the R M M R pull.
Having the 2 ranged stand that far apart makes it very hard to keep aggro on both and the only good way to deal with this is having someone in your group with a silence.
In case you have a silence in your group handel it as followed: Mark one of the ranged that needs to be silenced after the pull. Start the pull with a sovereignty on that ranged mob while running toward the second ranged mob. When you meet the 2 melee mobs use your even justice to get threat on both followed by a healing breath again. Now a small difference here is that you will want to turn around and walk backwards toward the second ranged mob. The marked ranged mob should now be out of it’s stun and run toward you because of the silence. Keep using even justice until you arrive at the second ranged mob and use your precept of Refuge on it. After that you can start the normal AoE threat rotation.
If you do not have a silence it is a little bit different Do the pull exactly the same as with a silence however the ranged mob will not walk toward you in this case. The only way to keep aggro on this ranged mob is to use your Bolt of Radiance and Sovereignty on it every time it is off cd. Using some extra self heals will also help to keep threat on it. However in this pull there is some serious chance of losing aggro so really check of there is really no corner pull possible which will make a a lot easier. (trash doesn’t reset very fast so you can actually pull and run toward where a corner is available)

Standard AoE rotation
The standard aoe rotation isn’t really hard but I see one thing a lot of people forget to do.
After everything is togather you can basicly spam Even Justice while keeping Precept of Refuge up. If the dps isn’t very high this is perfectly fine. However if you got some very high aoe dps players with you a small extra stap really needs to be added that for some people is very obvious and by some people is 100% forgotten. This extra step is called using your “Tab” button. Just use it after every Precept of Refuge and your aoe threat will be a lot better spread out.
Another thing that can sometimes increase aoe threat is healing. This is only the case if the party takes damage during a aoe pack. Using Doctrine of Autority will cause a serious amount of healing threat if people have taken damage. The same if true for Dotrine of Loyalty however this one does less healing and no damage. But remember the threat from overhealing is very very low so only use it if people have actually taken damage.

Cooldowns
Just Defense: This is a good cooldown to use right after you picked up the entire pack. If your healer knows you will be using this right after the pull it will give your healer a chance to wait with healing reducing the chance of losing initial aggro (which actually shouldn’t happen if you do the pull correctly).
Reprieve: Just use this after you see your health drop low it actually isn’t bad to use pretty quickly after the pull when you have low health as it will give you a large amount of threat when you do.
Resplendent Embrace: Just as with single target probably the hardest to time right. But using it a bit after the pull works best. The biggest problem is that you use a gcd not building any threat which can end badly if used to early into the fight. But later in the fight damage income should have stabilized and it isn’t necessary anymore.