I also hold hate on regen happy relic WHMs... but they don't have regen on me before the first flash.
Let your regen happy relic WHMs put regen on before you flash and see how much MP you have after. :)
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Scorn has no enmity built into it. It's just a dot that enables bleed, all it does is give a little bit of enmity through damage but you can easily hold aggro with out Scorn (I've done it several times). It's a skill to use because it's there. It would be nice if SE added an Enmity stat to Scorn, then it will actually become useful.
I never touch Spirit unless I need to use it, it does little to your threat generation because it does not have any enmity built into so the only enmity you'll get from it is from the damage which is minimal since you're taking a 20% hit on your damage anyways from Shield Oath.
CoS hits for 100 potency right off the bat and a further 150 over the next 10 seconds. It might not be high enmity, but it's nowhere near a "little bit" especially when you recognize that it's off GCD. Unless there are more than 3 targets, I never have to use Flash on my PLD because I can just use CoS to provide the necessary threat cushion on secondary targets while I'm establishing a large enough threat cushion that I can start target swapping safely. The only runs where I actually have to use Flash are WP speed runs where there are simply too many enemies in each pull to target swap.
Also, the damage from CoS isn't "minimal". It's ~7.5% of your total DPS, with Spirits Within contributing another ~7.5%.
CoS is far from a "just for fun" or "just because it's there" skill. It's friggin' *amazing*. It hits as harder than your ST attacks while being off the GCD, free, and AoE. That's a little nuts, honestly.
I use it on 3 or more mobs when I pull, I just never viewed it as "essential" to tanking.
I usually run into the middle of a pack, flash, scorn, RoH combo primary target, flash, tab target and I'll use scorn again if I remember too.
I use Flash more than Scorn and will toss a Flash between each RoH combo to hold groups.
I usually never hit Spirits unless there's something I need to silence. Only occasionally will I use it in a rotation on boss, though I usually use Scorn when ever it's up on a boss for the dot effect.
If you dont need to silence the boss, you might as well pop SW whenever its off cooldown for the extra bit of damage.
It's definitely not needed to hold aggro, but that'd be like saying: "Gee...I've got to move these 5 large stones from next to this tree and deposit them over by the shed." Then you look around, see the wheelbarrow you just brought over with you from said shed and say "Screw it, I'll just carry them, I don't need the wheelbarrow to do this."
Bit of a weird analogy, sure, but you get the point.
Our job as a tank is to maximize our performance. We can still pull decent damage numbers while in shield oath, we've got mitigation tools to allow us to not even use shield oath for some content. There's no excuse for not maximizing your potential and making the most out of what you have, even if it's "just a little bit of damage". Kitru summed it up very well.
I am so awesome I don't use off GCD abilities that do great damage and cost no TP. While am at it I don't use defensive tank cooldowns because the healer will probably be just fine healing me.
Flash scales like warrior healing. It's not gonna do anything at 50 while dealing damage scales with level+armor. Enmity damaging moves = more hate then flash. Flash is a encounter starter, or a sleeping mob holder, that's it. (Yes said by a level 44. Bite me)
123 Flash 12 switch to next target 3 Flash Switch back to main 12 switch to 3rd target 3 Flash . If first target nearly dead switch to target 2 .. 12 switch 3 .. switch 12... switch 3 .
Gets harder with 4 mobs .
Notice Im only really using flash to hold agro on all mobs at once but it's not enough to really hold agro
Which is exactly what I do.
Some people like to be d!cks like Rochetm with his comment, but oh well.
I don't dig into the numbers of skills and abilities, for those that do great, I'll use what ever info you have and adjust accordingly, I just don't enjoy all the theory crafting data mining.
My comments about Scorn is I just didn't see it as an integral part of maintaining threat, we tank 49 levels with out it just fine. I use scorn in my rotations regularly in dungeons, but oh well, let people say what they will.