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, it seems like you're basically saying 'aside from all the ways that warriors are better than paladins I don't see why warriors are better than paladins'. Also, another mob that silences is Azgalor, though it's not so crucial and probably wouldn't be ridiculously detrimental to a paladin tanking.

Okay, I'll try and sum up the salient points.

1) there's no fight where a warrior is significantly disadvantaged.
2) A warrior has better control of panic buttons than a paladin does
3) a warrior puts out better threat than a paladin does against most bosses and as gear improves.
4) a warrior takes less damage wearing the same gear a paladin does against all fights, both physical and spell
5) because of itemization and game mechanics a warrior tends to have more avoidance and more mitigation even given the same level of gear due to block value and agility doing double duty as threat/mitigation traits.

These aren't reasons why a paladin can't be a main tank. A paladin clearly can; they've done so in many guilds. They've been progression tanks on many guilds. They do bring things a warrior lacks; most notably a much more reliable uncrushability, frontloaded threat generation and AoE tanking ability. The most important thing about a tank is the skill level of the player. All that said, saying that it only comes down to ardent defender vs. last stand/shield wall is very deliberately ignoring all the other ways that a warrior does better. In particular, it's hard to ignore taking 10% less damage against the same boss on every fight. Especially for progression. It can be dealt with and it isn't insurmountable; it's not a reason that a paladin shouldn't be MT for a guild. But it's certainly a reason why a warrior might make a better class for MT of a guild.

4% melee damage and 6% spell damage? Those aren't insignificant.

And you're quick to dismiss the gimmick fights, but ask yourself this - Outside of Hyjal trash( we're clearly the best trash tanks in the game, to bad they're "Equally interesting yet non-epic-dropping non-bosses"), and RoS (which swings both ways), what fights are having a paladin tank over a warrior tank superior for? Bloodboil due to bubble? Akama sides? I mean it's too bad Akama's so stupidly easy that it doesn't really matter, because otherwise that would be our fight.

Now ask yourself what fights are far easier (or required) for a warrior to tank than a paladin (thinking progression here, and not farming)? Mother, Council, Illidan, Kaz'rogal, Archimonde. Throwing out gimmick fights results in 5/14 fights being removed from Tier 6 content, including both end bosses. So say you're a T5 guild, and you're reading about Black Temple and Mount Hyjal and trying to figure out your tank situation. Why on earth _wouldn't_ you make a warrior your MT?

hello everyone, i dont play a protadin myself, but last night during our felmyst attempts (2.5 hours even though we have 3 kills on him), i noticed our prot pally whose job it is to pick up the skellies was rolling with 0/5 Ardent Defender. that wasn't the only talent choice that jumped out at me when i was checking his spec, but since i don't have a very intricate knowledge of this build, i was hoping you could help me out by linking a SWP prot paladin build. i've looked through several of these pages and haven't found one. as a healer, i would be shocked if Ardent Defender was useless in SWP, especially on felmyst.

any input is appreciated.

Consistency is a good point.

A lot seems to just come down to encounter design. Against a duel-wielder, the additional holy shield charges should make up for the 4% difference in physical mitigation, since the warrior will take some unblocked hits. Against a duel-wielding demon the paladin should out-threat the warrior (and even more so when Sunwell Radiance is factored in).

But as long as there's a Shahraz and an Archimonde in the progression path you need a well-geared non-paladin to tank them, so you may as well gear up your warrior, who then becomes the MT. I'm not really sure which would be better for Illidan - LS and SW are good for the enrages, but the rest of the fight (duel-wielder plus frequent threat clears... plus I can't remember if the elf-form Illidan counts as a demon) the paladin should be superior.

(Our guild doesn't actually have a MT... we have two warriors, a druid, and a paladin with one warrior and the druid being better geared than the other two at the moment due to being around longer. The paladin is my alt who isn't ever going to catch up to the others in gear so this is all just speculation for me.)

On reflection, I would expect just about every boss tanking role Blizzard creates to be doable with a warrior, since warriors are marketed as the tanking class. So I suspect our situation won't change - able to tank 90% of boss encounters (better at some of those as compared to the other classes, worse at some of those as compared to the other classes), but always second fiddle because the warrior can tank 100% of boss encounters.

Illidan is easy enough to tank except for Shear, which ignores miss. So while a warrior shrugs and hits their Shield Block, a paladin needs to overgear the encounter enough to where they can throw in some straight up avoidance gear. Which then makes it not that easy to tank (it's been done, just not ideal). So to finish BT, you need a strong warrior tank.

I don't mind letting a warrior be able to tank every single boss in the game. I do mind being critical to one boss, then having to sit out the next boss. Make every boss require 3 tanks, and have them rotate or share main tank spot. Or have us provide some awesome buff to healers such that even when we're in a gimped healing role, we're still desired.

Not having Ardent Defender for Felmyst skelly tanking is a colossal oversight.

The leap frogging is a pretty huge drawback of the talent however as total hp increases it diminishes

The prot paladin in my guild points me here where many of the posters agree that it is not useful. What would you say to them?

The concept of leapfrogging applies to bosses that hit extremely hard. Say AD kicks in when you have 7k hp. If you are sitting at 7.5k health and a boss hits you for 8k, you're dead.

For small hits, AD is amazing, especially on Felmyst. Maybe your healers are running on a breath phase and your health dips under 8k. All of a sudden those modest skelly hits are being reduced by another 30%, buying your healers extra time.

Why is Illidan a better fight for a warrior?

Demon: our threat is better
Fast hitting: our threat is better
Threat Resets: shield, judge, lets go
Crushes: We don't get crushed
Shear: We can pretty much just pop up holy shield and lol at this, warriors need to make sure shield block is up for it (or in truth it can be healed through).

As for overgearing it to hit 111.x% mitigation, oh noes, my block gear set is 115%ish, my MT is 104%, and thats because I sacrificed avoidance for health, I can up it easily to the 108% region and easily push over shear proof if I want to. Its not an issue of over gearing, so much as we have to be geared for it, a warrior pops shield block and relies on their health for the rest, we actually gear correctly for the fight. To be honest a lot of paladin tanking is done badly, its done by people wearing a ramshackle set of gear that is not really designed for the role they are taking, I see too many Paldins now (2.4) wearing T5 as their main tanking set, or avoiding the 2piece T4 if you need threat. Gear choice for a paladin is harder, but it doesn't mean we can't do it.

Illidan was progression tanked by a paladin for various guilds, without 2.4.

Threat wise, at least in T5 / early T6 my paladin still beats every warrior I have met, now Lore and that say I will have problems later on, and willing to accept that, but for now I have no issues, ok thats not data its anecdote, but I ahve seen too many paladin not using the tools they are given, letting consecration drop or buffing devotion rather than righteous in a group with another paladin that could do it with no or a minor loss.

There are fights we suffer in, guess what, they have all been tanked, why use a warrior if it makes the fight slightly easier, but wastes a tank slot on every other thing in the game? SSC, take a paladin and a bunch of bears, paladin solo tanks till bosses, bears come in as extra tanks, TK, same thing, Maggie / Gruul our threat generation is better, shorter fight = win. MH, sub out the warrior, bears and paladin can do it. Warriors are not essential, somethings they make easier some they penalise your raid (improved expose armour for example). Not going to say don't take a warrior, but a paladin can do it, in several guilds I know Archi was progression tanked by a paladin.

In terms of ardent defender, it is win, provided you don't get it skipped, the 0/40/21 build is a threat build designed to let you push harder, faster, on bosses like Brutallus (where AD is likely to get skipped anyway), its something like an equivalent threat increase to 200 spell damage I have been told. Again gear / build is vital to working as a paladin, we don't have the same utility a warrior does when badly geared for the instance.

Least thats my opinion, only tanked Illidan once, but I don't see this all as being so problematic as people make out unless they are defending warriors.