Sorry, I really meant to say in relation to other classes.

Talking about relative survivability to the encounters doesn't really matter since 3.0 is going to nerf the melee output of bosses as well as their total HP.


Though, it's worth mentioning that your note about Anticipation may or may not hold true in terms of effect; the inclusion of diminishing returns from avoidance rating, as well as some of the non-tiered pieces of gear getting their avoidance reduced may result in an overall net loss of avoidance.

I'm not sure about that, though, I haven't re-copied my Paladin over to the PTR in awhile and I've gotten a significant number of gear upgrades since then. I have a suspicion that if you're wearing a lot of non-tiered pieces currently, you'll have lower avoidance when the patch hits than you do currently.

The gear changes are not going to be nearly as significant for us as they are for end game Warriors. Across our 8-pieces of T6 armor, for example, we're losing something insignificant like 0.54% Dodge and 0.07% Block/Parry/Miss. Warriors' T6 set, on the other hand, is losing:

4.83% Dodge
3.69% Block
1.96% Parry
0.27% Miss

That's not including diminishing returns, which I haven't really attempted to fully understand as of yet. If I had to guess, it will probably make the Anticipation change a wash for us. Though I can pretty definitively say that our avoidance is going to be extremely comparable to a Warrior's now, which I think is going to make us a very appealing alternative for Brutallus, Twins, and M'uru sides.

It's a good thing warriors are getting a threat boost then, because my guild already prefers a prot paladin for those spots( well, we don't have enough prot pallies to actually do M'uru with one on the sides ) due to our superior threat generation.

I'm really not worried about the rest of TBC. Most guilds have their tanking situation pretty well in hand I would guess, and that won't change drastically in the two weeks before the expansion. I'm really hoping that for the expansion Blizzard can manage to get rid of the "paladins-can't-tank" mindset that I still see in SW guilds on my server to this day though, that would be most excellent.

I think there are still a few things that need to be fixed before we hit that mark though. Tanks getting feared and silenced and bosses that require spell reflect and silencing need to be removed. The mitigation differences would be nice, but I don't think that guilds are hesitant to have paladins MT right now because of that. Like GC said, how well one tanks matters a long sight more than 5% of damage difference. But when you have worse single target threat (something that's being addressed it sounds like), and a whole bunch of gimmick fights that are really hard to do as a paladin tank (see: Archi, RoS, Illi, Mother, Council[paladin], etc), then there's a compelling reason to not make your MT the one that's just as good for most of the fights, but sucks ass on some really tough ones...

I think Seal of Wis and Judge of wis is fine to use for keeping mana up while second-threating a npc/boss. ShoR does most of the threat,anyway, and SoV alone does 10% of the threat reportedly. So you could use the judgement of wis, ShoR, HOr for threat and regen from Seal of wis and the judgement.
Dmging yourself like with Seal of martyer is the worse option, an option but it maximizes your dmg-in.


Ok, here is the math for it in a basic way:

I'll assume this is true as reported in comments of the spell on on wotlk.wowheah.com, Seal of Wisdom - Spell - World of Warcraft

"This Seal has changed, according to the current beta build it gives 4% of the paladins maximum mana (it has a 4 sec internal cooldown)

The judgment is giving 2% on each swing."

So assume SoWis gives 4% every 4s.
Judgement of Wis gives 2% every swing.
Assume 2 speed weapon for kicks.
Total mana regen=4%/4 + 2%/2=1+1
Total mana regen=2% /s

HoR requires 6% mana, 6s cd. Mana requirement per s= 6/6=1% /s
ShoR requires 6% mana, 6s cd. Mana requirement per s= 6/6=1% /s
Judgment requires 5% mana, 8/10s cd depending if paladin has imp judgement ret talent.
Mana requirement per s= 5/10=0.5% /s

Total mana consumption=2.5% /s


Total mana consumption=2.5% /s> 2% /s= Total mana regen
So a paladin is only losing 0.5% mana per second..

Wow, that is pretty good.
Ok, add some healing in there on you every so often for soem dmg-in and maybe consecration every so often and you have top mana.
The only tps you are losing as second threating-not tankign it is seal of vengeance, holy shield, ret aura and maxing out the consecration but single target tanking won't need consecration really to outaggro dps or be at tank aggro level anymore because of the new spells.

The migitagion differences aren't that big though at the start of the content. Paladins have lower avoidance on the set items, but the higher dodge they get from their base agility just about equals the difference, of course the base dodge doesn't go up with gear so that will be a concern in the long run. The rest of the mitigation difference is then largely made up by shield block. shield block which mitigates tons and tons and tons of damage if used on every cool down, however warriors claim that it's not a spammable ability and that it will only be used on o-shit moments and as such can't be modeled for mitigation. I suppose I can agree with that (to a certain extent, I don't buy it that last stand and shield wall aren't enough by themselves to not want to spam shield block) for the sake of the argument. That just means that we're playing semantics here and that paladins and warriors mitigate similar ish melee damage but that they lack active, noticeable 'oh shit' buttons, like shield block.

Which is why I'm quite unhappy with the entire fixation of the community in an argument with GS over semantics really.

Update from GC on the beta forums:

"Okay, here is one change you don't have.

Shield of the Templar now also reduces all damage taken by 1/2/3%."

WotLK Beta (US-English) Forums -> GC: Tanking Testing Assumptions

That latest update certainly throws paladins the bone they've been wanting for a while. It certainly helps to compensate for the slight HP loss that we all knew had to happen eventually. There's one other bit of worry that I've read about, though, and it's the fact that in full Naxx raid gear and all buffed up, prot paladins are coming in a bit behind warriors on the health plateau. Is that even true? I haven't seen any hard facts to back it up.

Either way, this change is VERY welcome, I think, in everyone's books. Hopefully it'll make it into the next build.

Really? So basically we'll be at equal health as we go into Naxx? I remember that the base HP gap was much smaller in the latest beta builds, but I didn't realize it was that close.

That's only if you assume the warrior doesn't put anything that gives hp in his/her ranged slot.

Even so the damage a warrior takes is more spiky (unless the paladin can't block like maexxena for example) so they actually need to have a higher hp pool than paladins. I wouldn't really be worried about the HP differences, as long as they aren't all that big, and as long asn't more bosses follow the brutalus or maexxena model.

That seems odd, the math doesn't seem to support that unless naxx gear is giving like 3000+ stamina (which I guess is possible. Can someone confirm?).

Base warrior HP = 8121
Base paladin HP = 6934
Base HP difference = 1187
Warrior Stam_to_Health modifier: 11.66
Paladin Stam_to_Health modifier: 12.3596

Stamina from ranged slot: 78 gemmed with epic stam gem
Base Stam for Human Warrior: 159
Base Stam for Human Paladin: 143

Warrior HP = 8121 + 11.66(159 + 78 + s) - 180
Paladin HP = 6934 +12.3596*(143 + s) - 180

Warrior HP - Paladin HP = 1187 + 11.66(159 + 78 + s) - 12.3596(143 + s)

Setting equal to 0 and solving for "s":

1187 + 11.66(159 + 78) - 12.3596(143) = (12.3596-11.66)*s
2182.9972 = 0.6996*s

s = 3120.35

So the crossover is at 3120 stamina from gear and static stamina buffs before you account for BoK and talents

Basically your character sheet stamina would read:

(3120 + 143)*1.23596 = 4032 character sheet stamina

Your health pool fully raid buffed at the crossover point would be:

6934 + 10*4032 - 180 + 2255 + 650 = 49979 HP, fully raid buffed

NOTE: 2255 is untalented Commanding Shout and 650 is a health flask.

I don't know what tier gives us 49-50k HP. I thought I remember Naxx geared tanks in the 30-35k HP range, but I could be wrong.

Nope, you don't do it that way. The 3120 value comes before kings and talents (it is not counting them twice), so your equation is wrong. Notice to get the 3120, I divide the health deficit by (12.3596 - 11.66). Both the 12.3596 and the 11.66 have kings in them, so I am dividing out the kings buff (taking it out of the result). When I do the (143+3120)*12.3596, I am multiplying it back in. Taking it out followed by putting it back in is not counting it twice.

Your equation would need to be:

6934 +10*1.06*1.06*1.1(143 + 3120) - 180 + 2255 + 650 = 49988