The Light and How to Swing It: Talents and glyphs for tanking Terrace of Endless Spring

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 9 other people, obsessing over his hair, and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense.

Terrace of Endless Spring is a weird conclusion to the joyous majesty of tier 14. We go from one large raid to another large raid, and then the tier caps with chasing a Sha back to his Breakfast Nook of Fear. I suppose, however, you do have to give Blizzard a hand for managing to efficiently cram so many bosses into such a small area. The economy of space in there is very well executed.

Nonetheless, all meta discussion aside, from a tanking perspective, Terrace of the Endless Spring is nothing to write home about compared to the rest of the tier. The fights are okay, but don't really require the same engagement that fights in Mogu'shan Vaults, or even the Heart of Fear, demanded. Regardless, it being the last raid of the tier, the damage is higher and the need to keep yourself on two feet is oh-so-pressing. There are definitely some good tricks in your toolbox that will help keep you vertical and the thus the raid from going pear-shaped. Let's explore them.

Like the other two guides I've done like this, it's important to note that my default loadout for tanking is typically this setup of glyphs and talents. Most tips I give will be what deviates from these defaults.

Protectors of the Endless

Like most of the fights in this raid, the magic damage will be intense enough to warrant keeping Divine Protection unglyphed. Likewise, you'll want to keep Glyph of the Battle Healer up as a default.

Movement speed can be a damage saver in this fight, thanks to the Lightning Storm mechanic. It happens frequently enough that talenting for Long Arm of the Law makes sense, allowing you to zip out of any rings of electricity before you get fried.

Since each Protector heals to full when one of their numbers dies, it's not really worth doing anything that will buff your AoE damage. Be sure to use Glyph of Focused Shield for your Avenger's Shield so you're not "wasting" any damage. Likewise, I'd almost recommend going for Execution Sentence, if you don't care about the AoE healing of Light's Hammer.

Tsulong

For the adds that appear in the day phase, you have a few options to make them less dangerous. Glyph of Holy Wrath will allow you to stun them (especially the swarm of little ones that pop up whenever an Embodied Terror dies), and talenting Burden of Guilt can help you slow the Unstable Sha that slowly move in on Tsulong.

For night phase, you'll want to hold onto Long Arm of the Law for getting to the Sunbeam in a jiffy and dropping your Dread Shadows stacks.

Not really related to glyphs or talents, but don't bother using Lay on Hands on Tsulong during the day phase. He'll receive no healing from it (unlike Valithria Dreamwalker) and you'll just waste the cooldown.

Lei Shi

If any fight in this tier is *the* magic damage fight, it's this one. Indeed, Blizzard recently nerfed the magic resistance trinkets from Wrath and Cataclysm because they were -- even after the massive nerf resistances took in 5.0! -- still useful. That's how crazy the magic damage is on this fight. If you are crazy enough to equip Glyph of Divine Protection, I hope your healers take you out into an alley after raid and work your kidneys a bit as punishment.

Like the previous two fights, keep Long Arm of the Law talented for portions of the fight like Get Away! and for expediting the tank swaps. Because that Spray damage really, really hurts. (It's deadly even in watered-down LFR.)

I haven't mentioned it previously, but you'll really want to use Sacred Shield on this fight for proactive damage mitigation. You really need to shave every possible decimal point of damage off of this fight, because it can get hairy very quickly. As always, the ol' chestnut applies: damage prevented is better than damage healed. Especially when there's a lot of damage.

Sha of Fear

This fight upsets me, as a tank. After all the amazing encounters in tier 14, you would think that the very last boss would be the cherry on the delicious sundae. But, instead of getting something as intense or engaging as the fights at the very beginning of the tier, tanking the ultimate threat of tier 14 involves standing in one very specific spot painted on the floor and not moving, lest the raid explode.

But I digress. You'll want to keep Long Arm of the Law talented, if only to get behind of the Wall of Light before another Breath of Fear goes out. Other than that, as you can imagine, you won't be moving much at all.

Unlike the previous three fights, you'll want to glyph Divine Protection. As a tank, your biggest worry is going to be dealing with Thrash, where the Sha will strike you three times in quick succession. Divine Protection can help mitigate that. In addition, consider timing the use Shield of the Righteous to cover all three.

Likewise, since there will be a pile of melee behind you, Glyph of Battle Healer continues to be a fantastic idea.

Even if the fight is lackluster, the payday from his drops are excellent. Best of luck getting the sword to drop for you!

The Light and How to Swing It shows paladin tanks how to combat the Sha in the strange new land of Pandaria. Try out the new control gearing strategy, learn how to make the most of the new active mitigation system on your tankadin, and check out how to deck out your fresh 90 tank to get ready for any raids!