Tankadin post TBC

[Plankeye]

Well, I want to throw this out there. There is quite a stigma to overcome when talking about paladins doing things other then healing and cleansing in raids/groups. The Burning Crusade is changing that role dramatically for a Paladin. We are getting enhanced abilities and more itemization options to specialize in things outside of heal bots. Me personaly, I am looking forward to being a Main Tank.

Ok, I can hear it now "What? Main tank! Plankeye really went off the deap end. Everyone knows pallies just stand in the back wearing their shiny plate and heal. Keep me buffed and l2p newb." You guys know that is the stigma I am talking about. I hope to get past that going forward and open up new options. Lately I have been snagging warrior tanking items when I have been given the oportunity and already have an assortment of damage return gear. Tanking paladin plate is non existant outside of some medicore blues from Scholomance so I will be stuck with my limited defense (334 atm) at least until TBC roles out. But current paladin tanking mechanics require to be crit to proc Redoubt so having a ton of defense at the moment actually hurts me.

Anyways, several others on the closed beta have already started to figure out that Paladins are going to be one mean tank come TBC. Just check out this tankadin video. I am looking for understanding from non only the raid leaders but also the guild in general in my endeavors to play a role that post TBC, paladins will be actually be extremely well suited for. Of course, if things are in a pinch my two heals will always be there no matter what I spec.

Just thought it would be best to start discussing it now. Start getting the awareness level up for those that don't like change.

 

[ewoksrule]

I have been reading a bit on the pally BC beta forums and it sure is exciting stuff. Apparently pallys shine in the AoE tanking department. Many many ppl are saying that the way a Pally can tank 3 mobs at once is far superior to a warrior. For the 20/25 man stuff it is still up in the air, but for the 5mans where you need to tank whole groups, the right pally is the tank of choice.

I love this new skill that gives us mana when ppl heal us! How fresh is spiritual attunement?!?

I can't wait to group with Sandric and heal that guy like mad while he tanks. I don't think I will spec or gear up to tank at this point. I just love healing too much and want to excel at that. Of course, the cool thing about being a pally in 5-mans is that you can offtank while healing! muahahah

The video is kinda weak actually, that guy could be a little more practiced, but whatever, it really shows off the pallytank.

 

[Gnomegeddon]

I hate to say this, but this is pretty much viable for a 5 man dungeon only, and even then, druids are far superior when it comes to tanking, mitigation and aggro generation, with warriors second. Paladins would be asked to heal in my raids, and if they want tanking gear, they can get it, but only after the warriors get theirs. I just hope you don't collect any tanking gear over warriors at this time. When the Burning Crusade is released, you'll have PLENTY of options for tank gear. Our warriors need it now.

The problem here, for a lot of fights, you need mitigation, defense, etc... these stats aren't too easy to get. Most of the tanking plate you'd be getting would not have much (if any) intellect on them. You'll run out of mana pretty quickly as a tank (this is including the level 66 spiritual attunement (rank 2)). When it comes to 10-25 mans, the bosses are going to be smashing you for a LOT of damage. It's pretty much a catch 22.

You'll probably have a choice between two things:

1) High mana pool so you don't run out of mana, but not enough defense/stamina/armor to be a viable tank for hard-hitting mobs.
2) Low mana pool with lots of defense/stamina/armor, but you'll run out of mana sooner or later and lose aggro along with it.

A way to counteract this could be having a paladin give you Blessing of Wisdom, with a shadow priest in your group to help with regenning mana and a Judgement of Wisdom on the target. Even with all of this stuff, you will most likely run out of mana during endurance fights. Do you want Druids to use an innervate to keep you tanking, or to keep you alive from all the damage you'd be taking?

Paladins are also some of the best healers in the Burning Crusade, if not the very best. I grouped with a 70 blood elf paladin, and we were STORMING through instances. No druid or priest was able to mimic this. We always had to wait for them.

As a warrior, I'm pretty disappointed with our class in beta. Our threat scaling is not as good, and feral druids out-aggro and out-tank every class in game, except on a few select fights (in 5 mans) where you *REALLY* need shield blocks, dodges and parries. Warriors really need a rage buff deep in the protection tree, tanking is going to be a bit harder without it.

If you're thinking of going the way of less defense so you can proc redoubt, I can assure you that as a tank in 10-25 man instances, you'd be hurting the raid. Your mitigation will be so poor, the healers will run out of mana very quickly, just keeping you up (I've seen it happen enough). The fights in 5 mans can be pretty mana intensive, but 10 and 25 mans are a lot worse in that regard. There are 5 mans which have mobs that HIT for up to 5k on a decked out warrior, and those are trash mobs (heroic difficulty). For a paladin to receive all of this damage, the raid would be wiped pretty quickly, and if we manage to have 2 healers that are good at keeping you up, you'll run them out of mana so fast you'll wipe quickly. =/ All of this is not including the fact that these mobs would probably have a high resist chance vs. your aggro-generation abilities (level 70 vs. 73 mobs), making warriors leaps and bounds ahead as a tanker.

I'm not against paladins tanking in 5 mans, but anything above that, I don't see it happening except on a few select fights. Most of the raid leaders out there will only bring a paladin for buffs and to heal. This is the same for my Shaman class, unfortunately. I dislike it, but if I want to get in 10-25 mans, people are requiring that I respec resto and heal. They already have other, better DPS classes. Maybe as the game matures, and people begin to realize the usefulness of shaman DPS in a DPS group, I'd get my chance. I don't know if they're going to do the same for Paladins. With paladins healing, things are far easier to get done.

 

[Plankeye]

Gnome, thanks for showing why this is so important to start talking about now as ignorance is a hard thing to overcome.

Redoubt pre TBC procs on crits, post TBC procs on % of melee damage so I will be stocking up on defense gear after TBC to help with damage mitigation. Also, there is a lot more Mana/5 plate gear in TBC that makes up for having a lower mana pool. The pallies that have tanked in TBC say that they have no problem with their mana pool post level 66. With improved Blessing of Wisdom at 60 and beyond along with Seal/Judge of Wisdom and Mana/5 gear, a pallies mana pool is pretty huge. Holy shield, which is one of our primary agro generating abilities is extremely cheap on the mana.

Another thing to think about, with a 25 man raid, your choices in the number of classes is limited. Having 2-3 warriors and 2-3 pallies that all can jump in and tank/off tank is going to be crucial when managing encounters with large sets of mobs. Remember, a feral druid can't heal, can't buff, can't prevent a complete wipe, can't emergency heal and can't protect the squishies while in feral form. A paladin can do all that.

Gnome, that 70 BE Pally was probably specced holy which means Blizzard finally made three distinct trees for the Paladin which is something they have failed to do for 2 years now. So yeah, if a pally wants to spec healing, they can and will be awesome spot healers. If they want to spec protection they are going to be viable tanks and if they go retribution they will be able to put out a decent amount of damage.

TBC is only a couple months away Gnome, better start preparing to see me on the front lines.

 

[ewoksrule]

tanking abilities Pallys get:

Redoubt - chance on hit to increase block percentage.
Shield Spec - More block percentage.
Toughness - Increases armor value
Anticipation - Increases Defense value by 20 at full points
Improved Righteous Fury - Improves a self buff that increases the amount of threat generated by our Holy damage - our bread and butter for tanking.
Spell Warding - Reduces Spell damage taken by 4%
Blessing of Sanctuary - our Mitigation Blessing, albeit not by much. Reduces all incoming damage by 80, and deals out 55 holy damage when you block an attack, thus adding to our threat.
Reckoning - The new reckoning gives us a a 10% chance on any hit to do an extra attack for the next 4 attacks during 8 sec. Extra threat.
Holy Shield - A 10sec cooldown spell that when activated increases block percentage, deals holy damage to the attacker when you block, and also increases threat by 35% when you block in this way. 4 Charges.
Imrpoved DS - 100% attack speed when shielded, (as of latest Beta reports) a Stamina increase. Combined with our new AoE taunt, that is 100% attack speed with complete immunity and guaranteed mob attention for 6 seconds.
Ardent Defender - 50% damage mitigation when health is below 20%
Avenger's Shield - A projectile that hits up to 3 targets with holy damage; basically our pulling spell.

Combined with Seal of Vengeance (which acts like a Warrior's sunder, stacking a Holy DoT)
and Consecration (AoE holy damage that can be chained to be constantly on) as a baseline, these are some *serious* Tanking abilities.

 

[ewoksrule]

have you seen our tanking t4 set Sandric?
http://www.thottbot.com/beta?set=625

 

[Gnomegeddon]

Gnome, thanks for showing why this is so important to start talking about now as ignorance is a hard thing to overcome.

Way to take a pot shot at me, I'm just stating facts.

Redoubt pre TBC procs on crits, post TBC procs on % of melee damage so I will be stocking up on defense gear after TBC

Good, I have no problem with that. If you are tanking your own 5 man dungeons, you will do just fine obtaining defense gear, but vs. a warrior, this is gonna cause quite a bit of drama (unless he's okay with it).

On-demand 100% shield blocks > 10% chance on melee and ranged damage received to get a 30% chance to block.

Also, there is a lot more Mana/5 plate gear in TBC that makes up for having a lower mana pool. The pallies that have tanked in TBC say that they have no problem with their mana pool post level 66

*ALL* of the 5 mans are stupidly short, especially the boss fights. Of course they don't have problems with it. You're going to run out of mana fast. There is a way to prolong it: BoW+JoW+shadow priest mana return. Again, resists. 70 vs. 73. Sunder/heroic/revenge.

Spaming less mana than a paladin uses every 2 seconds (probably a little less) with JoW, BoW and shadow priest mana return up, and having 58 mp/5 base, I'll run out of mana after 3 minutes, and this is with people using mana tide and innervate on me (this is dps, again, less mana used than a paladin tanker).

Remember you're trying to hold aggro here:

Holy Shield Rank 4 (280 Mana)
Consecration Rank 6 (660 Mana)
Avenger's Shield Rank 3 (780 Mana)
Seals ~210 mana
Judgement ~440 mana with an 8.8k mana pool

You're going to need to be spamming threat causing abilities to hold aggro. I'll rip the aggro off you if you are not generating enough threat. You need to be keeping up with the abilities of the new, higher DPS classes (even warriors have a lot of trouble with this, at the moment, our threat doesn't seem to scale).

My shaman uses less mana than that while straight up doing elemental DPS (except when I use chain lightning... now that is stupid of me), and I had to be innervated to get my mana pool back. The other shaman even threw up a mana tide! Even then, I used it all up within 2 minutes (my mana pool was barely climbing with this mana tide and innervate, then it dropped very quickly). Granted, no BoW or JoW for that fight, but it would have given me a chance to cast ~10 more attacks. Some fights are known to last a lot longer than that. You -could- be using mana pots, that *might* work.

In 2 minutes, I will be using ~8,910 mana.

With improved Blessing of Wisdom at 60 and beyond along with Seal/Judge of Wisdom and Mana/5 gear, a pallies mana pool is pretty huge. Holy shield, which is one of our primary agro generating abilities is extremely cheap on the mana.

This CAN work, but these players are ALL doing 5 man dungeons. Again, I already covered that.

Another thing to think about, with a 25 man raid, your choices in the number of classes is limited. Having 2-3 warriors and 2-3 pallies that all can jump in and tank/off tank is going to be crucial when managing encounters with large sets of mobs. Remember, a feral druid can't heal, can't buff, can't prevent a complete wipe, can't emergency heal and can't protect the squishies while in feral form. A paladin can do all that.

A druid CAN protect the squishies and prevent a complete wipe. Granted, they can't really heal or buff while tanking (asides from their 5% crit aura, which is AWESOME), but usually people rebuff BEFORE boss fights. Mark of the Wild lasts 30 minutes, Gift of the Wild lasts 1 hour, so that buff point is moot. I'm going to try and get a video up for you, to show you how well Druids do as tankers. The ones I group with, they hold aggro more than anything in game. Yes, more than warriors and paladins COMBINED. Nothing comes close. NOTHING! Here's an example: a paladin or warrior tanking will have a VERY, VERY hard time holding aggro vs. sustained 700 dps. I have seen this so many times it frustrates me.

A Druid I group with managed to hold aggro through extreme bloodlust, windfury, unleashed rage, strength of earth, etc... this warrior in my group was churning out 1400 sustained DPS, and he NEVER pulled aggro on that fight. I sustained over 1200 DPS on mobs while buffed to the hilt and bloodlusted with blessing of might (highest rank), and a druid held aggro through ALL of that. That is crazy. I honestly doubt a paladin could tank that, seeing as my warrior out-aggros them as it is, and I can't compete with a feral druid, EVER. I hate it, but love it at the same time, especially since druids will have upwards of 20,000 HP fully raid buffed.


I've been in a 25 man raid on Magtheridon's Lair. There were no 67 paladins at the time, but they would have been treated the same:

All feral/oomkin druids were required to heal.
All enhance/elemental shaman were required to heal.
All shadow priests were required to heal.

3,000 damage Rain of Fire
2,000-2,500 damage AoE shadow bolt spam

...and that's on the first pull. There are 3 mobs in that pack. All bosses. Do you want a paladin tanking that? Honestly, I'd rather have them healing.


Look, paladins will have a spot as a main-tank and an off-tank in 5 mans, POSSIBLY (perhaps quite unlikely) 10 mans. I just don't see it happening in 25 man raids unless people are short on warriors. I'm not trying to put you down, I'm just saying... don't get your hopes up. I did, and was disappointed.

People are asking me to respec resto to come to 10 mans. >_> I hate that. Especially since, as a shaman, I am a vastly inferior healer to that of a paladin.

Gnome, that 70 BE Pally was probably specced holy which means Blizzard finally made three distinct trees for the Paladin which is something they have failed to do for 2 years now.

Yeah, he was. I was explaining why I love having paladins heal, but I'll add this: druids and priests are not as good healers as paladins are in the burning crusade (at least for 5 mans).

So yeah, if a pally wants to spec healing, they can and will be awesome spot healers.

QFT.

If they want to spec protection they are going to be viable tanks

I still feel druids are superior 5 man tanks. Even above warriors (and I hate that). Paladins WILL be viable 5 man tanks, but druids will be a lot better. Their armor mitigation is stupid (as in HUGE), and the feral druids I'm grouping with have over 16,000 health with just fort and imp buff. Imagine how much it'll be raid buffed. Yeah, druids are gonna rock in that regard, but I still see warriors being the best overall tanks, with druids a close second.

if they go retribution they will be able to put out a decent amount of damage

Retribution paladins don't put out much in the way of DPS. They are better off tanking, and above all, better off healing. The potential of paladin healers is amazing.

TBC is only a couple months away Gnome, better start preparing to see me on the front lines.

I'm probably not going to play Gnomegeddon in the burning crusade, unless the warrior threat scaling (among other things) gets fixed.

I have quite a soft-spot for paladin healers, but I am completely opposed to paladins tanking anything above 5 mans. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to change my mind. This doesn't mean they can't collect T4 or tanking gear in my groups, they may even collect the tanking suit; I don't care as long as they heal. However, warriors will ALWAYS have priority on tanking gear. Do you mind going last? Either way, you don't have to compete with warriors for T4, which is a good thing, imho. Unfortunately, I think most raid leaders will make this decission as well. It's far easier to just let a warrior tank, than a paladin, which absolutely requires the support of other classes to keep his mana pool up.

It's the same way for shaman, and I hate it. Our melee DPS is extremely mediocre, unless we have other classes to support us:

1) 5X Sunder Armor on the target from a warrior
2) Battle Shout from a warrior
3) Feral Druid for crit% aura.
4) Another shaman to prevent the DPS warrior from crying, by giving him windfury totem so you can keep up your Grace of Air totem.

At the end of the day, it's far more efficient to just let the non-hybrids (except for bear tanks... grrr) do their stuff. At least for shaman, if you do setup such a group, the DPS unleashed will be absolutely ridiculous. I can't say the same for a paladin.


The way I see it, I'm going to end up as a healer, with little I can do about it, but will collect the enhancement DPS suit.

I understand you really want to tank, Sandric... but just don't get your hopes up. Things in the Burning Crusade look good at first, until you actually go to experience it. This was how I was with my shaman. At first, it was all awesome, then over time, I began to realize our ridiculous limitations. You too will realize this (unless of course, they "buff" you guys, which I don't see happening).

 

[Gnomegeddon]

I'm just going to throw this in: This paladin is tanking Ramparts, a very easy-going dungeon low-level dungeon in the Burning Crusade. Level 60s can jump in and do it easilly (except of course, on heroic difficulty, which is level 70. The mobs HIT me for up to 5k). I have dual-wield tanked the Hellfire Ramparts and the Blood Furance on my shaman. These are 5 mans, which unfortunately don't count.

 

[Plankeye]

By your own confession then, we should not even bother gearing warriors as Druids should be our main tanks?

Look Gnome, there is a huge stigma against Pallies that it is ridiculous at times. Take MC for example. There was a fight that started when Mirakle went for the Mageblade which is an awesome Holy specced Pally weapon as the spell damage and % spell crit play well off a Holy Specced pally with divine favor (mana free crit heals ftw). Then there are the warriors, hunters and rogues that get priority over every other melee weapon over pallies. That leaves two weapons in MC for pallies (Aura Stone and Finkle's). Sorry paladin, we just need you for your buffs, auras, anti raid wiping abilities and healing, you don't actually get anything for standing in the back flash healing raid after raid. You should have rolled a real class. I tell you right now our progress in MC would have been slower without the pallies yet we are always treated as second class raiders behind other classes.

I am telling you Gnome, pally tanking got a huge buff baring Blizzard taking anything away before release of TBC. As a "raid leader" it would be in your best interest to learn how to take advantage of a build like mine which not only offers tanking abilities but DPS when dealing with multiple mobs.

As far as the mana stats, Holy Shield and Consecration are on timers so you can't spam them away and throw away mana. Avenger Shield is an opener as it is ranged, you can't spam it during a fight either. So if you want to pump in holy damage, it comes off of low cost Seal/Judge Righteousness or Crusader depending on your spec. In TBC as I do now, I still spec 7 points down retribution to get Benidiction (lowers judgement mana cost) and Improved Judgement (lowers cool down on judging). And don't forget, Ret Aura, Sanctuary, Damage Return Gear and Shield Spikes are all passively generating threat for me as long as I am getting hit. And we now have two taunts. Blessing of Protection and Righteous Defense.

Oh yeah, as tanking pally you get the added benefit of a Pally with Kings and Sanctuary blessings. So what is not to like about having a multi target DPS tank that can heal and buff when not needed to fit that role?

 

[Avesther]

I think overall, we have been very open to variations so long as the person has shown superiour knowledge to handle such a variation. Mirakle did get the Mageblade, and Quantam has been Shadowing it up in MC and BWL. I certainly don't see a problem with a shaman DPSing or a Pally tanking.

Although, I am a big fan of, when learning an encounter, lets keep the roles simple and routine so as to remove unaccounted for variables. I can see the thornadin build of Sandric working well with Razorgore and kiting the adds. I can see it helping with the whelps of the supression chamber. I can understand that the new Shammies aren't just about healing and totems. My brother is often top of the DPS meters in his guild, he's a shammy.

 

[ewoksrule]

I actually see a real need for at least
1 Prot pally (for Kings/Sanctuary buffs + tanking)
1 Ret pally (for crusader strike which refreshes all judgments on a mob and for 3% crit to all melee)
along with Holy pallys (for excellent support Healing/Cleansing)

 

[Gnomegeddon]

By your own confession then, we should not even bother gearing warriors as Druids should be our main tanks?

I'm talking about 5 mans. Some druids should not be taking some five-man bosses, btw... warriors are pretty much the only class to be able to take the beating at certain times.

Look Gnome, there is a huge stigma against Pallies that it is ridiculous at times. Take MC for example. There was a fight that started when Mirakle went for the Mageblade which is an awesome Holy specced Pally weapon as the spell damage and % spell crit play well off a Holy Specced pally with divine favor (mana free crit heals ftw).

If anyone disagrees with this, they are wrong. The Azuresong Mageblade IS awesome for Paladins. With my 60 paladin, I went for spell crit and intellect, this weapon was on the top of my list.

Then there are the warriors, hunters and rogues that get priority over every other melee weapon over pallies. That leaves two weapons in MC for pallies (Aura Stone and Finkle's).

Yeah, Paladins don't benefit the raid as DPS. Hunters, Warriors and Rogues DO. That's why they're dead last.

Sorry paladin, we just need you for your buffs, auras, anti raid wiping abilities and healing, you don't actually get anything for standing in the back flash healing raid after raid. You should have rolled a real class.

...welcome to the life of a Shaman on live.

Mageblade is awesome for a Paladin... to deny it to a paladin is silly. However, let the REAL DPS'ers get their DPS gear first (as in melee weapons). It's selfish not to. By saying that, I don't mean paladins shouldn't get mageblades, I am talking about things like the Spinal Reaper, etc... If you think I'm being a hypocrite here, keep in mind I didn't touch a SINGLE PIECE of DPS gear as a tanking warrior, because it was better suited to people who could actually DPS. As a tank, my motto = tanking gear first, DPS gear when no other DPS class needs it (which is hard to tell... because of closed bidding).

I tell you right now our progress in MC would have been slower without the pallies yet we are always treated as second class raiders behind other classes.

I agree, but It would be a LOT slower if we had paladins doing DPS and/or tanking. Paladins are first-class raiders when it comes to healing. They do AWESOME as that job, and Shaman do pretty well as healers too. But DPS? Shaman can do "ok" as DPS, but paladins cannot without eating mass consumables.

I am telling you Gnome, pally tanking got a huge buff baring Blizzard taking anything away before release of TBC. As a "raid leader" it would be in your best interest to learn how to take advantage of a build like mine which not only offers tanking abilities but DPS when dealing with multiple mobs.

Thornadin works on Razorgore. Have fun trying to aggro all the mobs though. We will still have to keep them off you, because you will be most likely killed instantly as the mobs come for you. I'm all for this idea, though... if you can manage to obtain aggro from all the mobs and hold it... you have my blessing for this fight. Don't use damage return gear here... deck out your health/armor.

As far as the mana stats, Holy Shield and Consecration are on timers so you can't spam them away and throw away mana. Avenger Shield is an opener as it is ranged, you can't spam it during a fight either. So if you want to pump in holy damage, it comes off of low cost Seal/Judge Righteousness or Crusader depending on your spec. In TBC as I do now, I still spec 7 points down retribution to get Benidiction (lowers judgement mana cost) and Improved Judgement (lowers cool down on judging). And don't forget, Ret Aura, Sanctuary, Damage Return Gear and Shield Spikes are all passively generating threat for me as long as I am getting hit. And we now have two taunts. Blessing of Protection and Righteous Defense.

Yeah, this works fine in 5 mans, or some boss fights like Razorgore. But remember, you're going to need a lot of health and defense to survive. For the most part, I'm gonna assume you'll need to make sure they never hit you (razorgore fight), negating your damage-return-gear. When these mobs are bashing my face in during Razorgore, you notice how quickly my health drops? This is with 8/8 wrath, lots of armor and crazy defense, PLUS I CANNOT BE CRIT.

Oh yeah, as tanking pally you get the added benefit of a Pally with Kings and Sanctuary blessings. So what is not to like about having a multi target DPS tank that can heal and buff when not needed to fit that role?

5 mans =/

But I <3 Kings and Sanctuary. Those rock.

 

[Gnomegeddon]

I'm gonna compare all the best blue and green tanking gear from 60-70 (not counting current tank gear on live). Paladin loot vs. Warrior loot. This is the stuff you'd be using to tank 10 mans, to gear up for 25 mans.

Paladin:
Gauntlets: Gauntlets of the Righteous
Chest: Caverns of Time Dark Portal Lvl 70 Aeonus Loot 2 Paladin Set Chest
Boots: Starcaller's Plated Stompers
Legs: Kirin'Var Defender's Chausses
Bracers: Thadell's Bracers
Waist: Lightwarden's Girdle
Helm: X-52 Pilot's Helmet


Warrior:
Gauntlets: Gauntlets of the Chosen
Chest: Caverns of Time Dark Portal Lvl 70 Aeonus Loot 2 Warrior Set Chest
Boots: Boots of the Colossus
Legs: Legguards of the Resolute Defender
Bracers: Junior Technician 3rd Grade Bracers
Waist: Girdle of the Lost Vindicator
Helm: Myrmidon's Headdress

Gauntlets of the Righteous: 728 Armor, +22 Stamina, defense rating +19
Gauntlets of the Chosen: 691 Armor (agility counted), +15 Agility, +30 Stamina, defense rating +35
Caverns of Time Dark Portal Lvl 70 Aeonus Loot 2 Paladin Set Chest: 1164 Armor, +30 Stamina, defense rating +20
Caverns of Time Dark Portal Lvl 70 Aeonus Loot 2 Warrior Set Chest: 1206 Armor, +23 Strength, +21 Agility, +33 Stamina, defense rating +19
Starcaller's Plated Stompers: 722 Armor, +21 Stamina, +13 defense rating
Boots of the Colossus: 709 Armor, +22 Strength, +45 Stamina (sockets), defense rating +21 (sockets)
Kirin'Var Defender's Chausses: 895 Armor, +27 Stamina, defense rating +19
Legguards of the Resolute Defender: 942 Armor, +23 Agility, +69 Stamina, defense rating +35, parry rating +30
Thadell's Bracers: 448 Armor, +21 Stamina, defense rating +9
Junior Technician 3rd Grade Bracers: 456 Armor (agility counted), +10 Agility, +42 Stamina, defense rating +11
Lightwarden's Girdle: 622 Armor, +30 Stamina, defense rating +23
Girdle of the Lost Vindicator: 590 Armor, +18 Strength, +39 Stamina, defense rating +18
X-52 Pilot's Helmet: 875 Armor, +16 Strength, +36 Stamina, defense rating +16
Myrmidon's Headdress: 946 Armor, +21 Strength, 43 Stamina, defense rating +45, +Chance to Restore Health on hit (sockets counted)


Paladins: 187 stamina, 16 strength, 0 agility, 4,290 armor, 119 defense rating
Warriors: 301 stamina, 84 strength, 69 agility, 5,540 armor, 184 defense rating

Would you like to check stats for the other items?

For a shield, take your pick:

Shield: Silvermoon Crest Shield
- 3,806 armor, 86 block, 20 intellect, 35 damage/healing, 5 mp/5 + 18 stamina or +12 intellect enchant

or

Shield: Aegis of the Sunbird
- 3711 Armor, 83 Block, +45 Stamina (or +27 stamina and +12 intellect), defense rating +18, +29 shield block value (112 block value on the shield alone) [enchanted]


Which one would you take as a tank? Would you grab the Silvermoon to make up for your mana loss? Or would you grab the Sunbird?

With the sunbird, you have a bit more shield block value, slightly less armor, more defense and a LOT more stamina. If you go for the intellect enchant, your health, which is ALREADY GIMPED, becomes more gimp. If you go for the stamina enchant, you boost your mana pool at the cost of already gimped health. You will be taking vastly more damage than a warrior will in end-game tanking. Your shield blocks will block for pitiful damage, and it's only a 10% chance on melee hit to gain a 30% extra chance to block. You have to spend at least 285 mana to gain another 30% chance to block. You will receive more crushing blows and be crit a lot more than a warrior ever will, unless you take the warrior gear, which in turn will gimp your mana pool, and you'll run out of mana extremely quick. Warriors can basically freely gain a 100% chance to block 2 attacks every 5 seconds.

Now let's get into the rings, neklaces and trinkets...


Oh wait, there aren't any 'paladin tank neklaces' with intellect/defense/stamina. Your mana pool is QQ
Oh wait, there aren't any 'paladin tank rings' with intellect/defense/stamina. Your mana pool is even more QQ.

For rings, you either have to take tanking rings, which will make your mana pool even more gimp, but making your tanking stats slightly better than worse, or you go for mana regen/stamina/intellect rings, which will gimp your defense and tanking even more than it already is. This is the same with necklaces.

Now let's get to the trinkets, since you don't really need intellect in your trinkets.

Trinket: Albemic of Infernal Power
- +32 Resilience
- When struck in combat has a 2% chance of gaining 260 mana.

You'll need this trinket, and if you don't get it, you will help gimp your mana pool even more! This pretty much rocks for AoE tanking, I'll give you that. But while you're grabbing that mana trinket, I'll get more defense and stats. Still this is just a 2% chance. Since you'll be getting hit constantly, it'll probably proc on a boss fight about 10-20 times, giving you up to about 5200 mana free (hey, maybe even more).

Here's another you should get:

Trinket: Dabiri's Enigma

Paladin "tanking" (stamina/defense/intellect) weapons are non-existant as well. Giving warriors yet another victory.

In conclusion: Warriors > Paladins for mitigation and tanking, by a landslide victory.

 

[Gnomegeddon]

Holy Shield:
-285 mana
-10 second cooldown

If you're not spamming this every ten seconds, you're busy receiving crushing blows and critical strikes for quite a bit. Congratulations, your inferior health pool, defense and blocking rates and values will cause you to take massive damage. You will be proccing Ardent Defender constantly, whereas a warrior wouldn't need to be. You'll still probably get killed, just fyi.

Consecration
- 660 mana
- 8 second cooldown

You might not be spamming this, but you WILL need to use fairly often to hold aggro. Again, you need to be generating ENOUGH threat to hold aggro. If you go the way of "Damage Return Gear" in 10-25 mans, you will be dead so fast it'll make your head spin.

You're right on the Avenger's Shield though, but wouldn't you pull with that anyway?

Oh yeah, as tanking pally you get the added benefit of a Pally with Kings and Sanctuary blessings. So what is not to like about having a multi target DPS tank that can heal and buff when not needed to fit that role?

Unfortunately, your status for most fights in game as a tank in 10-25 man raids would be "not needed". I wouldn't be against having a paladin who is specced protection, as long as he or she doesn't refuse to heal end-game.

 

[Avesther]

Gnome, I don't believe Sandric was thinking taking over as a MT for the runs. I think he was trying to make us aware that Pallies as tanks in situations where we might not normally have moved forward being shy a warrior, that we should think about him as a tank ready to step up for that.

I also think that the tanking abilities of Pallies > then the tanking needs for most of MC post BC. I think that both Pallies and Shammans are being reworked so that they will be more usefull in different situations post BC and we should start preparing to deal with it now.

If you had a shamman in our guild (ie..post BC) and came on here and said "Hey, I think I can build my Shammy to do something other then heal and totem, I can get this gear and that gear and I can add all this awesome DPS for our <insert class here>. Can I give it a try?" You'd probably find that we'd be open to you breaking the mold, so to speak. I'm sure you'd be ready to heal in a pinch, and throw out that mana tide totem if needed, and purge that guy or that guy if the fight required it.

I'm positive that Sandric would maintain many sets of gear to swap based on the situation. He is a top healer and cleanser on our raids. He is capable of doing decent dps and tanking when needed. Its not like he is at the bottom of the pally class when it come to effort and commitment. I'm positive that Sandric fully knows the limitations he would face.

 

[Gnomegeddon]

Gnome, I don't believe Sandric was thinking taking over as a MT for the runs. I think he was trying to make us aware that Pallies as tanks in situations where we might not normally have moved forward being shy a warrior, that we should think about him as a tank ready to step up for that.

Me personaly, I am looking forward to being a Main Tank.

TBC is only a couple months away Gnome, better start preparing to see me on the front lines.

I also think that the tanking abilities of Pallies > then the tanking needs for most of MC post BC. I think that both Pallies and Shammans are being reworked so that they will be more usefull in different situations post BC and we should start preparing to deal with it now.

I agree with this, but that is not now.

If you had a shamman in our guild (ie..post BC) and came on here and said "Hey, I think I can build my Shammy to do something other then heal and totem, I can get this gear and that gear and I can add all this awesome DPS for our <insert class here>. Can I give it a try?" You'd probably find that we'd be open to you breaking the mold, so to speak.

Of course. The DPS of a shaman post BC is *incredible* with the right mix of classes in their group, and they also vastly boost the DPS of other melee classes in said group.

I'm sure you'd be ready to heal in a pinch, and throw out that mana tide totem if needed, and purge that guy or that guy if the fight required it.

No, I wouldn't. =P If I was in DPS gear, healing would be the least of my worries. Besides, if I was DPSing, I wouldn't have mana tide, as it's somewhat deep in Restoration. They should give it to us as a base skill. =/

I'm positive that Sandric would maintain many sets of gear to swap based on the situation. He is a top healer and cleanser on our raids. He is capable of doing decent dps and tanking when needed. Its not like he is at the bottom of the pally class when it come to effort and commitment. I'm positive that Sandric fully knows the limitations he would face.

Yeah, I agree, he's a good healer, and it would be a shame to lose him as one of those.

 

[Neirai the Forgiven]

Hey guys

Just a friendly horn-in-and-post-in-the-wrong-place from a Druid MT.

#1: Check out this post. It is my opinions on druids and pallies vs. priests and warriors. There is a large section on the subject of Druid/pally tanking.

#2: Gnome, IMHO you're acting like a frightened warrior facing down a bear druid, scared that you're going to be out-performed by a leatherwearing treehugger. Except that you seem to be more along the lines of a frightened teddy looking at an intimidating holy man in a metal dress. Fact is, Blizz has created different tanking systems for each of these classes on purpose, and also Blizz has created places where those tanks excell. (For example, I read a post that talked about a "roguish boss" that had a form of tranq poison that reduced rage generation by 1/4. You could spend your time spamming cleanse on your MT, or you could just get a pally to tank him.)

Frankly speaking, I think that it is a healthy idea to have both a druid MT and a warrior MT. And in BC, I think it will be a good idea to have a Main Pally Tank as well.

#3: Gear is not an issue. You point out that pallies will need to wear warrior gear. Why, pray tell? Pallies don't create aggro like Warriors and Druids do... nor do they mitigate damage the way warriors do. You state that pally gear doesn't have enough +defense. Strange... druid tanks typically don't have any +def to speak of (my grand total Def is 327). I think you're trying to shove pallies in either a druid-shaped or warrior-shaped box. In truth, paladins stretch their gear a long long way, and even with Tier 2, I've seen pallies pull of things that before seemed impossible.

#4: Skill > role. If Sandric is a top healer and cleanser, that probably means he is basically a great pally. Changing from a healer to a tank will probably mean that he will be a great tank as well. The idea that a great resto druid will only be great as a healer is basically a myth.


Conclusion: It is way too early to make any concrete statements about the usefullness of pally tanks. But I know that blindly making statements about such things is really short-sighted. This is the kind of assumption that makes me mental, when people don't realize that a teddy druid is just as good as a warrior on average.

I for one am looking forward to pally tanks. I can think of a ton of situations (Sartura and the Twin Emps, for two) where a pally tank would excell.



>>>>>>>>>>>>>
P.S I think I'm posting in the wrong forum again. Ahh well, feel free to come over and raid our class discussion forums.

 

[Neirai the Forgiven]

Ah hey, sorry for this again

I figured I'd post this too:

Sources of Pally aggro:

All holy damage seals. I believe that the list is Seal of Righteousness, Seal of Vengence, Seal of Blood, Seal of Command, but I'm not sure if that's all of them.
Blessing of Sanctuary feedback.
Holy Shield feedback.
Avenger's Shield (on three targets).
Exorcism & Holy Wrath -- but only against undead or demons.
Holy Shock... if you have it.
Consecration... if you need it.
Retribution Aura: Contrary to popular belief, the aggro caused by the little bursts of recursive damage do not cause extra threat to everyone around the pally. Instead, all this aggro goes to the pally who is weilding the aura.

Remember that all Pally threat is equal to about 200% of the damage. That is a lot. Also, this list is quite a bit bigger than that of a warrior.


Sources of Pally damage mitigation:

<<Shield-wielding>>
Redoubt:
Free cost, 10% of physical attacks give you a +30% block chance. Can procc any time. Lasts 10 seconds or 5 blocks.
Holy Shield:
285 Mana at level 70, Gives 10 seconds or 4 blocks of +30% block chance. 10 second cooldown, so this can be running basically all the time. Stacks with redoubt, so if both are running, you are basically blocking everything.

If you have Shield specialization, you'll have +30% damage mitigation from your shield.

<<Other mitigation>>
Blessing of Sanctuary: Yeah, I know 80 points of mitigation isn't much against a heavy hitting boss, but it is a lot against a weak hitting boss, and at least it is something.

Ardent Defender: now, 50% damage reduction IS much. Most warriors and druids I know are jealous. And 50% damage reduction plus 80 points of mitigation is a huge thing.

Divine Shield: and of course, 100% damage reduction is amazing. And with Imp Divine Shield, you lose all the negatives, including the aggro loss. Wow.



Once again, remember that Bear Druids don't get ANY of these things. And we do okay.

 

[Bowser]

I agree that pallies make great tanks, especially when BC opens up.

I've tanked regularly in 5 man and 10 man raids and have held aggro considerably well in those instances. Rarely will I lose aggro as long as I start the fight with full mana and make the first hits. I've never tanked in a 20 or larger instance, but I believe that with the right gear, player, and raid group it's absolutely possible.

Especially with Sandric.

 

[Avesther]

Over the last couple of days in MC, I think Gnome made a great case that he is definitely a great tank, one of a few of such skill to ever have played the game.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about: During Garr, he tanked 4 adds for the whole fight. And then during Golemagg, he tanked Golemagg and the two ragers for the whole fight. I don't necessarily attribute this to warriors making better tanks, rather it was his personal skill and knowledge of how a warrior works, the talents and the gear.

I think we have also shown that as a team, we are open to doing things differently then the norm. It shows that the team is willing to trust the decision of a raid leader, and that the raid leader is willing to trust somebody who has taken the time to learn the skills required to do something different.

I guess the question goes to Gnome, are you ready to be as willing to let others, like Sandric who has done the homework on their class, to explore different avenues?

When I look back at memories in MC, I hardly remember the mundane of MC, I remember things like FJ walking into Lucifron on us while dealing with a core hound pack and pulling it off. I remember Goblit doing the same thing with Gehannas when placing her imp. I doubt that any can specifically recall our 4th Domo kill, but I do believe people will remember Gnome tanking Golemagg and his two adds for months to come.