• Snowy

At least for *most* of the fights where you don't have to tank, you can do an acceptable job off-healing while keeping a judgement up, or doing a specific job. (i.e. dispels at Teron)

I'm not inclined to call us a niche tank either, because we're the best tank for trash as well. Guess what? The majority of the time outside of true progression raiding, you're killing trash. Shaving 15-30 minutes off a BT clear with a prot pally and eschewing CC is very valuable to me. It also engages the raid and keeps things moving along, preventing boredom and the like. It's hard to quantify things like that, but there's definitely additional benefits.

 

Denogran

Ya, but on any first kills, your job is to stay in for trash, then bail for a real healer. Wheeeeee. I mean it's fine for when stuff's on farm, but it gets old when you're not in for a lot of first kills because your strength is trash.

I don't mind being strong at trash, I liked Hyjal for that reason - it linked the bosses to the trash. I'd never have been in for the first Kaz'rogal kill otherwise. Maybe make something where you can't substitute in? I dunno, just my guild struggles enough with new bosses, they don't want to drag along an undergeared healer to them as well. It's not that I _can't_ be there for most every boss, it's just that it makes life harder on my guild if I am there for a lot of them.

 

Cathela

Agreed, and I think rather than constraining encounter design be requiring that every encounter call for the same number of tanks, they need to improve the non-tanking abilities of warriors and paladins.

The problem with improving our healing as a solution is that fights that require fewer tanks almost never require more healers -- at best they take the same number of healers, and often fewer. For example, Kalecgos is typically 3 tanks and 8-9 healers, while most guilds do Brutallus with 2 tanks and 7 healers. So, even if prot paladin healing were better, your guild still wouldn't have a reason to keep you in the raid after killing Kalecgos, since they're already benching two real healers at that point anyway.

Ferals are kept in raids as non-tanks because a catform feral is still a useful thing to have around. Our problem is that we have nothing really analogous.



Edit to respond to:

What do you not CC now that you used to? (Or, perhaps a simpler way to phrase the same query: What do you still CC in a BT clear?)

I just realized reading your post that we still CC exactly the same things in BT that we've always CC'd from the beginning, so now I'm curious as to how little CC it's possible to get away with.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

Denogran

We CC the annoying sea witches at the beginning of BT, the 5 pull right before Naj, the mystics in the Akama packs and usually a coupla the demons. The Blood Prophets on the way to Gorefiend and 2 of the dudes in the packs before BB, whose name I don't remember. O, and the 3 packs right before council. Mostly, because they're all annoying casters (except the BB ones which are stupid on the aggro tables).

We used to be slightly more conservative, but to be fair they don't CC much more without me in nowadays than they do with me in. A couple of pulls before Gorefiend, and the pulls before supremus, mother and BB are a lot quicker, but otherwise mostly the same.

 

Anedris

What are the advantages warriors have over paladins?

- They have last stand and shield wall
- They take 4% less physical damage and 6% less magic damage

Single-target TPS should be similar as long as the mob is either undead or demon or duel wields. Two mobs in Sunwell do both (Brutallus and Sacrolash) which should push paladin TPS above an equivalently geared warrior's. Both paladins and warriors wear the same gear, both benefit from defense and parry equally, and both have the same stamina scaling (actually paladins are very marginally ahead in that). Warriors will get expertise instead of our spell damage, but they generate more than twice as many parry-able attacks compared to us anyways, so neither class is particularly more vulnerable to parry-gibs.

On the paladin side:

- We have ardent defender
- We block every hit, even against duel-wielders, and are uncrushable

It seems to me that the differences really aren't that big, and it mostly comes down to old habits (well, we've always used a warrior; or, we've given the warrior first pick at each new drop, so he's better geared). Unless you need a fear break, spell reflect, or there is a specific ability that should be shield walled (Kalecgos' enrage, for example), it seems like the difference comes down to last stand and shield wall against ardent defender (assuming threat is about the same between them and the gap between imp. RF + spell warding and imp. def stance is made up by holy shield). Last stand and shield wall are better, but in most encounters they aren't game breaking. (And against duel-wielders the combination of uncrushability and AD may be superior.)

And of course, balanced against the superiority of those cooldowns is the simple and obvious fact that paladins are unquestionably superior whenever more than one (or more than a dozen) mobs need to be tanked.

As an example of convention reigning over logic, the most efficient way to tank Felmyst would be with a single, well-geared protadin. There's no real reason to have seperate tanks for Felmyst and for the skellies, except that most guilds do not have a well-geared protadin to tank the dragon.

(Have I missed anything major in comparing the two?)

Now, we expect the crushing blow mechanic to go out the window in Wrath, so we'll lose that edge, but only Blizzard knows what we'll be getting on the way to 80 (seal of last stand? Judgement of demoralizing thunderclap?).

On the subject of being useful when not tanking, I certainly agree that it is more useful to be able to DPS than to heal (raid can always use more DPS, but doesn't need more than a necessary minimum amount of healing).

 

Russta

Without turning this into another dreadful here's-what-I-think-should-happen-in-WotLK segue, I would still like to see the semi-useless daze mechanic of Avenger's Shield removed in favor of a helpful debuff that doesn't require a recast of AS to maintain.


Maybe it's because I played a main tank Warrior for so long that it annoys me but sometimes it feels like I'm being treated like a leper when it comes to tanking. Worshiped for holding an army of mobs in Hyjal yet apparently incapable of tanking the second mob killed in a 1v1 situation because a "Paladin can't put out as much threat as a Warrior". I went toe-to-toe with a Warrior the other day and kept the mob on me just fine. His reply was along the lines of a Warrior can't keep threat if he isn't hit. I didn't even know how to respond to that.

I'm with Snowy in that I think the true main tank should always be a Warrior, I just wish people would modernize their way of thinking when it comes to Paladins tanking.


Finally, a question. Is there some quick and dirty math to working out your rough effective health with Ardent Defender in conjunction with your current HP?

 

Dendrah

I disagree.

The daze makes for time to CC.

Paladins and warrior have their utilities but the most important thing in both classes is the player sitting at the keyboard.
There are ways to work around all benefits/disadvantages each of the classes has.

And if your warrior wants to go the "I make more aggro" way with you, challenge him to a TPS race on 2 felreavers (or anything else that hits hard enough). You'll quickly see who makes the most threat on his Felreaver You could also try this on trash with your DPS doing nothing for a while.

 

thedopefishlives

Not to digress too far off-topic, but I have to disagree here. Perhaps it's because my guild has had nothing but paladin MT's since its creation, but I don't see any reason why the true main tank can't be a paladin. True, if you want to do gimmick fights like RoS you need a warrior tank, but why should that mean that the warrior should always be the head of the MT corps? As you demonstrated to your warrior friend, our single-target TPS is just fine (although I do admit to struggling versus my guild's feral OT, but he's also the best tank I've ever seen), and our survivability is comparable to a warrior. The only thing I can see is that it's more difficult to prepare a paladin for the job of main tank than it is a warrior, and given that crushing blows are supposed to be going away soon, perhaps that too will change.

 

rikimarutenchu

I've always went with 35% of 30%:

0.30*0.35=0.105

+10.5% of your base effective health.

 

Left

Oddly, due to the nature of Holy Shield mechanics and paladin threat, it might be the case that you tanking would bring enough additional DPS via Holy Shield, etc., to offset the loss from the warrior keeping up T-clap. I haven't run the numbers on this, but since paladin threat comes directly from holy damage while warrior threat is a medley of various abilities, not all of them damaging, this might be true. I'm not familiar enough with warrior threat mechanics to figure out what their threat rotation (and subsequent DPS) would be for Brutallus, but perhaps someone else who is could take a stab at it?

 

• Snowy

Very, very little. You can AoE the big trash pack at the top of the ramp near Naj'entus. Might still banish an Illidari Defiler in one of the temple pulls. We've actually pulled all of Shade's room at the same time except for one 4 pack -- that's something like 18 mobs! -- and did it with no CC. :P Sheeping Blood Mages are unnecessary, since you just point them away from the raid and they're pretty harmless. Maybe the only other thing would be a Blood Fury in the pulls in the room to Gurtogg/RoS and I think we could get away with that even.

[e] I'm also our marker/puller so a lot of times I just take the Sebudai approach: Pull and let God sort it out. I might mark one or two things for OT's to pick up, otherwise my shield is flying into the next pack ASAP. The most common phrase you heard out of me in raids for a while was "Screw CC."

 

2ndNin

Warrior also not tanking means no sunders, no sunders means Improved Expose armour is usable, isn't that a raid wide physical dps increase?

 

Tilted

It depends on the physical DPS of your raid. Having a rogue put up Imp. EA means a) he has to spec for it, and b) he loses 5-pt Rupture from his cycle. It's not just a straight boost, but it is an increase in most cases.

 

Prinsesa

I think the remaining gap in MT selection is the current: If it has a Paladin gimmick (AOE/dual-wield/Demon), use a Paladin; else, use a Warrior.

I wish there was enough impetus to turn it around: If it has a Warrior gimmick (Fear/Reflect), use a Warrior; else, use a Paladin.

http://armory.mmo-champion.com.nyud....63815BffMm.png

 

Cathela

Not quite.

In the best possible case (no leapfrog at all), the last 35% of your gets multiplied by 1/(1-.0.30) and the remaining 65% counts as normal, so the AD multiplier is:

0.35/0.70 + 0.65 = 1.15,

so a +15% bonus to your base health. Worst possible case is of course AD never activating at all (getting one-shotted from 36%) so the usual effective bonus is somewhere between 0 and 15%.

Interesting stuff. The Blood Mages, the Defilers, and the Blood Furies are the ones that scare me. Looks like we'll have some fun new stuff to try next time we do BT.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

• Snowy

The Blood Mages really are harmless if you just tank them facing away from the raid. For Blood Furies, you can easily burn one down (it's the first target for us) before its whirlwind is even an issue. I think 2 tanks could easily tie up the other one, while I tank the rest of the trash mobs.

 

Denogran

T-Clap isn't a dps boost, it's a necessary survival debuff. Applying thunderclap reduces the amount of burst damage the tanks take significantly.

 

Cathela

That's what I was thinking about the Furies; we've been killing the dogs first in those packs for reasons I'm not entirely sure I remember. I hadn't realized the Blood Mage attack was directional; it always seemed like a targeted AoE of some kind.

Right, but what he's saying is that a dps warrior could keep Tclap up at a cost in his personal dps, which (in theory at least) might be made up for by higher dps from the prot paladin. Seems plausible to me, although regardless of how the math comes out it's not going to be a noticeable difference either way.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

kalbear

There's a bit more than 'warriors take slightly less damage' in their advantages to Paladins tanking. Warriors deal better with fears, silences, and anything that casts spells. Silence is especially a bad mechanic for a paladin given the reliance on remaining uncrushable. Anything with mana drains can be problematic too. And that doesn't get into the issues with paladin threat vs. warrior threat as gear improves, how a warrior can gear simultaneously for mitigation and threat and the bad mechanics of itemization a paladin has, etc. That doesn't mean it can't be worked around or otherwise dealt with, but it does mean that if you have a choice between two equally skilled, equally geared tanks, if the encounter has something of the above you'd take the warrior.

This shows up especially idiotically in Hyjal, where 3 of the 5 bosses are not fun at all for a paladin yet all of the trash virtually requires it. Between mana drains, silences and fears, the last three bosses outright suck for paladins.

I would like to think that the days of 'one MT for a guild' are kind of done though. There are enough encounters out there that either have no preference or have multiple tanking requirements or specific tanking requirements that I think any guild that focuses solely on one really awesome tank would be hurting themselves.

 

Denogran

Ahh, right that makes sense, my misunderstanding.

I think on Brutallus though, unless you're one of those progressive guilds with a paladin or druid main tank, you're likely by the time you get to Brut to have at least one really well geared prot warrior who's your main tank. That's the model for all the late BT/early SW guilds on my server at least. So then the discussion isn't whether you have a prot warrior tanking, but rather whether your second tank is a paladin, druid or warrior. Obviously, if the gear gap is significant, you go with the best geared. But otherwise, all things being equal, I think you have to take the druid as your second OT. Low spike damage, "free" b-rez, good threat.

 

◊ Oggie

Just like to chime in with the strong agreement that you are probably CCing too much. Generally the guys who bloodlust in the akama packs, sometimes the blood mages, and maybe the hunter-type mobs that are demons (simply because the rapid shots are not aggro based and can be obnoxious). Throw yourself into a SP group, chain pull everything, throw CC out the window.

A few notes:
Do make sure you make the blood mages face away from the raid.
On the IC packs, bribe a shadowpriest to chain dispell magic on you, and a druid to keep abolish poison up. There is a magic stun and a poison stun, and both are obnoxious, and potentially lethal (due to the stun shutoff of avoidance).
For the demon packs before/around akama, throw on the 2 min pvp trinket to get rid of the aoe gouge (this can be lethal, as it allows mob detargets).

It's really surprising how much you can take damage without being in danger, and does speed up BT clears (a lot). Give it a shot and see how quickly it goes.

 

Anedris

Silence does suck, but there aren't very many mobs who do it. Maiden and Shahraz is about it, unless I'm missing something (and those Illidari Centurions, but I tank them anyways, just let the raid kill the boneslicers and defilers first). Fear and spell reflect are the warrior gimmicks just like a dozen or more mobs is ours and "hits really really hard and doesn't crush" is a druid's.

And while expertise does provide some mitigation (prevention of parry gibs), they need it far more than we do. Assuming you spec out of reckoning (grr bloated prot tree) a paladin generates one parryable attack per 1.6-1.8 seconds, whereas a warrior in full TPS mode is going to produce at least twice that. Block val