Paladins are the best tanks for 5mans, and while you don’t want them main-tanking in raids, they’re great offtanks / add tanks due to their insane AoE threat.
The mechanics Ironchain was referring to is GBoK is 114 threat per person of a class in the raid.
Additionally you will lose 4 GCD’s due to latency, 2 to refresh seals, and 6 for Holy Shield Rank 1…that leaves you 28 GCD’s at best.
If you have 15+ Warriors in a raid then a Paladin can generate 1k TPS…however its a combinations of ~75 TPS for Sanc + HS, 35 TPS for JoW/SoW triggers, ~150 TPS for auto attack…then GBoK.
With raid comps of 25 in TBC, that won’t be an option…nor will it need to be.
Actually for a Paladin it does. Argent Defender is amazing, and its interactive with EH. The higher your EH the more effective AD is.
I agree though, the goal isn’t to just stack Stamina, or you will be a punching bag.
Paladin block is amazing its true. However the biggest mistake is to stack Block Value and Block rate at the expense of EH.
If your tanking more than 3 mobs HS will come down. Redoubt only has a 50% uptime. If both are down and you don’t have effective EH levels…you will get trucked!
EH in Classic and TBC is king, as a Paladin, unless your solo or pulls are 3 or less. Always keep that in mind.
Paladins need to find balance depending on what your doing.
Trinkets and Librams will depend on what your doing. Another good situational trinket is Battlemasters Audacity for threat.
Once your in BT you will have overkill +def and reaching 102.4% for uncrushable is far easier. Trinkets at the point become situational.
This is where we run into the issue of Horde vs. Alliance.
Many Alliance Rets will complain about SoB…but SoV is even more powerful for tanking.
At 500 +spellpower SoV/JoV is worth just over 500 TPS…without avoidance.
At 500 +spellpower SoR/JoR is worth just under 300 TPS…without avoidance.
Prot Paladins can’t talent SoR/SoR. Additionally if you use the Libram to enhance it your out over 5% block towards your 102.4% threshold when you swap out.
In TBC most tanks didn’t have an issue with threat. However with the meme of optimizing DPS…then TPS could become a concern.
Against pulls of 3 SoV/JoV is even more powerful and SoR/JoR…because a single application of SoV delivers the full spellpower coefficient. Which means it can be ticking away on 3 mobs at once.
When it comes to threat, if Blizzard is true to Vanilla TBC, then human Paladins post 2.3 for SoV, and 2.4 for talents, will have a large threat advantage due to SoV and expertise scaling.
We shall see though. Part of it will depend on what patch we get. If it’s 2.4.3 Paladins will be powerful tanks…especially if Alliance, more so as Human.
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I think they can be a great MT or OT. I played a Prot Pally most of retail. They are IMO the best Tank most xpacs because of their wide range of spells available. In TBC they start off a little slower but by the end they are amazing. To start them off right you just need to put some effort into gearing them proper. While I have a 60 Prot Warrior I played in classic I will be switch back to my comfort zone in TBC. I love the class and can’t wait to be able to lay down my holy carpet of agro again. FYI most of Kara trash is undead so you will shine in there. Specially the Moroes . When you have good enough defensive gear you can solo tank Moroes… this is the fight that really made me love prot Pallys. Not to mention to do a good bear mount run a MT Prot Pally is almost a necessity.
Semantics. Paladins in TBC are generally used to AoE tank trash—that’s what I would consider an off-tank. I don’t refer to them as a main-tank because more than likely, that role will be filled by a warrior/druid.
They certainly can act as main-tank, in most situations. Warrior/druid may be better suited for some fights. It’s really just up to your guild.
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I’m actually curious what the raw TPS breakdown is between Paladin, Warrior, and Druid (without MCP), and how their individual defenses fare. I imagine Druid is the best for raw health soaking magic damage (unless I’m missing something that gives Paladins and Warriors help there), but Warriors are the best in terms of raw avoidance…? Or do Paladins hit that avoidance breakpoint earlier and easier?
It’s been so long and I never really dug deep enough.
In TBC all 3 can be MT or OT. It’s more on the player than the toon. Druids always shine to start an xpac because they are way less gear dependent. That health pool is crazy.
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Druids rely on resilience gear, as far as I remember, due to a sheer lack of good +def leather. But maybe I’m wrong.
That said, while they can do it, there’s still the best - and I still think that’s Warrior. I believe they have some of the best raw ST threat and avoidance and the gearing is definitely tailored to them. I wouldn’t mind another class tanking (and we do have some bear Druids already in our guild) but I wouldn’t want to have to hold off threat if that’s actually a consideration.
Though Warriors forced to go full Prot might drop their TPS generation compared to a fully buffed Fury/Prot…
As far as threat goes…I don’t know honestly. I’ve always healed—so I’ve always heard concerns with being crushed/armor/health pool/etc. I would imagine that threat isn’t as big of an issue in TBC seeing as there aren’t world buffs.
Warriors have spell reflect which is good for magic damage. Druid, like you said, fat health pool and armor. Avoidance is where my expertise falls short—couldn’t tell ya…but I would imagine Paladins would want more block than other avoidance.
Maybe a tanky boy could chime in.
Fair enough! Holy Shield is an example of a really good AoE defensive, since it is a flat increase to blocking with no limit on actual blocks - unlike Shield Block, which is far better for ST. I imagine because of that Warriors hit uncrittable (or whatever you want to call it) easier because of that.
Threat as well, I think Warriors are better because of the sheer rage regeneration fueling Shield Slam, Devastate, and Heroic Strike while maintaining the necessary SB uptime. Paladins can definitely benefit from Reckoning and the extra attacks, but the mix between AP and SP for threat probably hurts that somewhat - unless they use specific Seals.
I won’t speak much on that, since again I have no real idea, but I’m pretty sure that Paladins are the weakest of the three in terms of ST because their niche is for AoE. “Weakest” being still good enough, but maybe not for the sweatiest of DPS. The power of Hunters in TBC and the existence of Misdirection makes that largely irrelevant though.
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We had some fury tanks in TBC on our server. Threat over all is less of an issue than in classic from what I remember. Either way you can min max all day but the tools a pally has are crazy if you take full advantage of them. That being said they have the smallest health pools so it will not be a cake walk. They can compete on single target threat specially in kara against undead where they will shine. And depending on which patch they release can really become OP as they get a huge buff around BT. As I said though Warriors will always be a good choice to tank. Great single target mitigation and even in deep prot they can hold threat easily. Druids will be the easiest to pick up IMO if you are new to tanking. They have a huge health pool plus take very consistent damage because they don’t rely on block and the rotation will not be too crazy. Plus they will get a few new “oh Shoot” abilities added that will allow them to be even better. PVP gear will help for sure as you progress but over all druids are by far the least gear dependent of all tanks.
I figure druids will shine in late game/SWP being that I don’t think much of anything does crushing blows in there. I also think we’ll scale well considering agi is both our primary avoidance and threat stat rolled into one. However I’ve never been a feral in TBC so I may be off base.
Yup this stuff. They also have huge mana problems in classic, and cant use all of their abilities without going oom quickly. Thats fixed in TBC.
Its kind of a similar meta, just paladins are brought up to par more. Warriors are still the best overall MTs due to the defensive CDs and effective crush/crit immunity, bears are great MT/OT for things you dont need defensives or crush/crit immunity (arguably better MT for a decent number of things), and paladins are the best aoe offtanks and great dungeon tanks but can MT most (not all) things if needed. Dont do it if you just want to MT a raid though, you should war/druid for that.
In the beginning that happens.
Due to the talent Survival of the Fittest, Druids only need 65 Def instead of 140 Def. Once farming heroics they can achieve that.
Remember Flask, Shoulders, and Helm enchant can also add +def rating.
For a single target boss no.
Block rating and Block value, once you have 102.4% total avoidance and your defense capped, are the last on the priority list.
Paladins have the same avoidance talents as Warriors.
With +Def capped they will be 10.6 to base miss, 10.6 to Block, 15.6 to Parry, and 5% Dodge + agility levels for Dodge, with talents factored in.
Fasc covered some of the tank parameters…However Argent Defender affects ALL damage when it’s active.
As to threat Paladins are solid threat. Gear swaps and Horde vs. Alliance also adjusts those values.
BEs don’t have access to SoV nor any threat racials other than a ranged pull that isn’t AS.
Alliance Paladins will generate more holy DPS and more TPS as a result.
Paladins function on SP for threat generation outside of basic values.
A Tier 6 Paladin, as an example, has +271 from set and about +300 from a weapon (once its enchanted), and then 199 from JotC. Anything beyond that is based on the standard TPS vs. tankability choices that all tanks make.
The key to Paladins is which patch we get. SoV was hot fixed twice that I know of to fix PPM applications and the Spellpower bug which prevented SoV ramping after ~210 spellpower.
Patches 2.2 and 2.3 boosted SoV with a DD component.
Patch 2.3 introduced Expertise and alot of badge gear.
Patch 2.4 (I think) added 10% more STA to combat Expertise for a total of 16%.
By 2.4 Paladins were fully patched for MT, OT, or AoE duties.
Oh I forgot to mention Holy Shield does have charges.
With talents its 8 charges with a 10s CD.
It can be taken down, but it takes at least 3 mobs to do it when factoring avoidance.
Redoubt has a 50% uptime…due to its 10% to trigger on hit for 5 total his for 30% increased block. So it won’t always be up if HS gets yanked in true AE.
Doesn’t it still suffer from the ability to be skipped in TBC? I know it was fixed in Wrath where if the damage occurred when you were above the threshold and took you below, you’d eat the hit with Ardent Defender up, but in TBC I thought you could get gibbed if you didn’t survive a hit that took you low.
Also:
Thank you! I really should have just gone with “Fasc” since that’s the name I used in late-TBC onward.
Yes.
That’s why its EH interactive. The more AC you have the less likely it is to be skipped and the same with total HPs.
When it does trigger at 35% or less health it reduces ALL damage by 30%.
In 5 mans its amazing, against single target bosses it’s still a strong talent.
Your Welcome…not like you had a choice though…I refuse to type that many vowels in a row!~
Most end game Paladins drop ardent defender to pick up sanc aura for raiding.
From my sketchy memory.
warriors deal with damage the best, have more CD’s and have spell reflect which is mandatory on some bosses…
Druids have the highest ST TPS, mediocre aoe and are solid for constant spell damage.
Paladins are the kings of aoe threat,have solid mitigation and all around good.
I never did, although I mostly tanked on Alliance and I did tank bosses.
To pick up Sanc Aura, a 21 point talent, you lose Avengers Shield.
Also you have to drop 2 points from either Toughness, Anticipation, or 1 handed Weapon Specialization.
All of which affect either tanking capability or threat gen. Prot doesn’t really have filler talents in TBC.
If your Alliance, with patched SoV, the extra threat from Sanc Aura shouldn’t be needed single target…and you also lose the extra 861 AC from Dev Aura.
If you exclusively AE in raids, and tank for 5 mans I can see it working if your an engineer or a BE for a replacement pull ability.
As a Human Alliance Paladin I didn’t need more threat than a single additional swap wouldn’t provide.
I did some tanking on my BE Paladin, he was mostly Ret, but I never felt the need to sacrifice the pull ability or EH to generate more AE threat.
With Seal of Vengeance not proccing every hit, it’s application could be resisted entirely, and no expertise until late TBC made it’s uptime absolute garbage in practice. It was common to see the stack fall entirely without even Seal twisting.
It was generally considered a steaming pile of garbage outside of some niche uses like Hydross or Leotheras because of the raid threat drops.
Given how many changes we got in Classic, I wouldn’t be surprised if SoV got a 100% chance on hit, completely changing it’s dynamic. Also starting the expac with Expertise will greatly increase it’s value.