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).