Paladin Protection Talent
Ardent Defender- “When you have less than 20% health, all damage taken is reduced by 50%”

This talent is one step away from bringing a unique tanking concept to the table. The problem is, in its current form, it does very little for tanking hard-hitting bosses. At the moment, it is luck based, something that doesn’t associate very well with damage spikes.

Let’s take a boss that hits for 3k, and a 10k hp pally.

For Ardent Defender to have any affect, the pally must be between the health values of 1,500 and 2,000 at some point during the fight. (ignoring damage absorbing shields)

If that same boss hits for 4k, the talent is completely useless.


How to fix-
Code the ability so it halves any damage that goes past the 20% mark on the pally (only the part that goes past)
This would effectively make that last 20% always twice as hard to eat through, and would bring a unique aspect to pally tanking (in my opinion anyway).

Taking the former of my previous example, the talent becomes useful on a 35% hp interval, compared to 5%

The latter example is useful on a 40% hp interval, as opposed to its complete uselessness currently in beta

I do not feel this would overpower the pally when compared to warriors, as they do not have Shield Wall, LS, LGG, and require 25% dodge/block/parry from items to reach the no crush zone a warrior has with shield block, assuming they are at +140 defense. (plus their version of defensive stance is weaker, and they get less hp through talents)

The question is, is it possible to code something like this?



… One other question I have is, is the test realm interaction between reckoning and SoC intented?
I was playing around with my 46 pally and his Executioner’s Cleaver on the test, and it appeared like each Command proc would proc a reckoning hit (which can in turn proc SoC), leading to a massive number of swings in a short period of time (I was using up all 4 charges in the 8 second time period, with a 3.8 speed two-hander)

How would that be any different from the following talent:

"Paladin gains 20% of his current max hp."

It doesn't sound to me that its intended to be a tanking mechanism for palys, it sounds as if its simply a survival mechanism that keeps them from dying on the offshot chance they do tank a hard hitting boss for more than 3 seconds.

I can think of several ways. Can you? :D the numbers can be adjusted, just don't keep it the way it is

yes, the problem is it fails to keep them from dying in most situations


I just feel... there's not many advantages pally tanks have at the moment when compared to the other tanking classes ;(

it wouldn't be quite so useful in pvp as just +20% health

No. What I am proposing is mathematically the same as your proposed AD change. Needless to say, your change is too strong, druid bears get a weaker version of the same thing.

Well, it's not the same, because healing isn't halved, so it's better.

If AD always worked, it'd be a +20% hp talent. In which case, might as well make it one. But a +20% hp talent should also cost more talent points.


I also can't think of any bosses from MC to early AQ40 (My raiding experience) that hit for 40% of the tank's life *every* hit. All bosses I've seen with a huge burst damage attack (Shadowflame/MS) do it intersparsed with small hits - so it's simply a matter of healers being on the ball keeping the tank topped off.


That sounds like it'd be very fun to exploit. ^_^
(If it sounds overpowered, it's probably not intended. >_> But then, Reckbombs weren't intended either. X P)

It seems like 5 points for a talent that (hopefully) won't come up if you are tanking with a group healing you is a bit much. It is very deep in the tree and I think needs to be changed from its current form to be usefull. I also think Avengers shield needs the minimum range removed, but maybe have a 41pt talent that is only good for initial pulls is what blizz wants. :(

Or for any boss with blink-type abilities, especially if they aren't tauntable, or any boss with adds that you want to pull somewhere quickly (although hunters and misdirection will certainly help in that regard too).

Ardent Defender is pretty poor, though. That example of a paladin with 10,000 health and a boss hitting for 3k and the talent only be useful in a 500 HP window demonstrates why.

It would be pretty overpowered if it applied to hits bringing you within 20% though, it really would be like a talent for +20% hp.

I hope they scrap it and weapon expertise and re-do the top of the prot tree. The weapon skill nerf and the relative weakness of ardent defender reduces the incentive to spec past holy shield.

Edit: Saw someone suggest that ardent defender be replaced by "improved holy shield", at the least increasing the +block chance given by holy shield (and making it more possible for paladins to be immune to crushing blows at least as long as redoubt has proc'd and holy shield is up). Not a bad idea.

everytime >20% you gain 20% ? :p exploit!

Liar!

Deflection is also luck based but ask any warrior how many times parry has saved their life.

While it does lose utility against slower hard hitting enemies it also gains utility against low hitting fast attack speed enemies. On top of that it also has unique pvp benefits such as halving all damage from execute and hammer of wrath.

I know as a healer, many times its not the burst blow that kills the tank but the attack immediately after. For example, during 4 Horsemen wipes, our tanks often died not of the void zone tick, but the mark/crushing all within the same second. Also mobs have burst attacks that are multiple small attacks. All 3 drakes in BWL, for example, have thrash which is 3 melee attacks in a row. During Twin Emps it was the crushing that followed a unbalanced strike that often burst our tanks.

Very few bosses are like Patchwerk.

The problem is even halved, the blow after the spike will often be a kill (or, alternately, the blow after the spike was enough to skip directly from 21-25% to dead without ever activating Ardent Defender). Situations where it might be useful, ie. swarm of fast-hitting enemies, you would rarely see the tank reduced to 20%- it's massive spiky hitting enemies that cause that situation to begin with.

It just doesn't seem worth 5 talent points. I'd prefer Blessed Life, which is only 3 points for more mitigation over time and is a chance to be saved from being spiked out from anywhere. Even Deflection might be better.

Exactly. It just seems like the Protection Tree didn't actually get any better past 31 pts for helping a paladin tank. It needs some changes.

In its current form it's a pvp talent, bottom line. With a heavy prot/holy build you could stand there and heal away, and when you get low on life and be highly resistant to execute spam for that extra second or two to heal up. In this sense, it could be very useful. Just wait for reckoning to proc, then go melee some people. Maybe with an odd build like this one.

Same basic deal with Avenger's shield. I mean, it does give a paladin the ability to pull without having a gun, and to generate some initial threat. Does it have any PvE uses outside of this?

The prot tree as a whole isn't very finished if they want paladins to be raid-capable PvE tanks. And I still don't think there are going to be many paladins who are going to heavily spec and gear for a tanking playstyle unless they can actually be tanking the big raid bosses and not just trash mobs.

Why should the Prot tree be a necessity for paladins who want to be "raid-capable PvE tanks"?


Do we expect all tanking warriors to be full Prot? Do we want paladins to get asked, "Are you Prot? No? No tanking for joo!"

That's not exactly what I meant, but the short answer would be, "yes," because I would like the protection tree to actually matter. At the moment I am highly skeptical that paladins will be tanking much of anything on raids. Not to derail the thead here, but we are talking about prot talents, and here is the dilemma, as I see it, with hybrid tanks as opposed to hybrid healers or hybrid DPS -

Hybrid healers or DPS don't have to do something 100% as well as a trinity class because they can bring other things to the table, and their abilities are part of a larger unit. For instance, a shadow priest can bring good DPS and make up for the difference by providing extra damage for other casters and improved mana regen for a few. A paladin may not heal as well as a priest, but they can still heal pretty well, and also contribute buffs that makes everyone more powerful. In both cases, as DPS and healing, they are part of a larger raid unit (currently maybe 15 healers and 15-20 DPS).

You can't be a hybrid tank on a challenging mob. Tanking something 80% as well as a warrior means Patchwerk just one-shot you. The tanking mechanic is completely different than the healing or DPS mechanic because the entire raid's survivability is often placed in the gear/skill/spec of 1 person, or maybe a few people. There is no room for an "okay" tank.

So what about trash mobs and adds? There are some encounters where having some more tanks would be nice, and not every fight is Patchwerk, clearly. Let's use Faerlina as an example. A bunch of adds that don't have to be tanked the whole fight, so you could toss a couple paladins out there to tank them, then move to healing duty once they are dead. Okay, seems fair, right? Well, are you needing prot-specced paladins to tank these mobs? Probably not. So if you can get by on tanking mobs like that without speccing prot and gearing prot, what's the point in doing either? Why spend DKP on tanking gear when its not needed?

So flip that around. Say it is needed to tank adds, or at least a huge help, and say these fights are very common. Now you are in the same bind - you still don't have the capacity to tank the real raid boss, but you are being asked to give up a significant amount of DPS and Healing ability, in addition to gear, in order to be able to tank trash mobs and boss adds. I can't imagine many people making that choice. Neither scenario makes prot a valid option.

This is a problem with having tank hybrids that Blizzard isn't fixing or perhaps just can't fix. You can have healing and DPS hybrids that synergize with others to create a stronger whole. So far there is no tanking hybrid that has that syngery; there is one best tank for an encounter, and you should always use it because the whole raid is dependent upon it. There is no "while tanking, all allies receive 10% damage" bonus incentive to paladins (or even druids). Instead paladins will remain good at tanking a few selective things (like AE tanking) which is really no different than vanilla wow.

So, short version: the ability to off-tank adds and trash mobs in a pinch is a nice bonus to the class (mainly by having a taunt), but the prot tree itself is pretty pointless in its current form because it gimps your ability to perform in other areas for a very marginal payoff.

You haven't really said why you think the Protection tree doesn't matter though.

It gives you +10% armor (Toughness at T2), 6% damage reduction (Improved RF at T3), +4% extra magical damage reduction (Spell Warding at T5), and +6% stamina (Sacred Duty at T6) with 27 points. Those are enough to put you above the level of mitigation available to Warriors without any talents (10% damage reduction via Defensive Stance).

Warriors spec'd Protection get +10% armor, 10% physical damage reduction, +6% extra magical damage reduction, and +5% stamina, which will equal to about 5% extra damage mitigation over the Paladin above (at 40 points compared to 27, btw).

So, for single mob tanking, it's Prot Warriors > Prot Paladins > Other Warriors > Other Paladins as far as mitigation is concerned given equal gear. Isn't that how it should be?

Edit: Oh, and on topic,

Ardent Defender really is better in practice than in theory. I didn't like it when it was announced, but after using it for a week or so in Beta, I can't imagine not getting it if I decided to spec heavily into Protection. For the same reason I get Last Stand on my alt Warrior. Because even though healers are never supposed to let you get that low, shit still happens.

I wouldn't mind having it for 3 points instead of 5 though. Maybe some type of Improved Holy Shield on the same tier.

That depends entirely on the design of the encounter, doesn't it? Not every boss is a gear check for your guild's MT.
(I also doubt the mitigation difference is 20%. Heck, we have a video out there of a paladin tanking Patchwerk, for crying out loud)


And what about challenging content? The raid game isn't everything that WoW has to offer. The cutting edge raid content isn't the only place where paladin tanks can possibly be used. If some min-maxing guild decides that paladin tanks are "X%" less effective in mitigation than an equivalent warrior and thus will never use them in raids, does that make the paladin's tanking abilities useless?

Yes


(The abilities will be useless because if you arent tanking for the raid, the majority of your points should be in holy unless you are one of the assigned crusader strike pallys.)