with tanks its more binary than comparing DPS/Hybrid DPS though: You either hold aggro and survive or you don’t, its not like the DPS role where a Hybrid DPS can offset lower DPS with utility that boosts the overall raid DPS to be higher.
Due to this, tanks have to, to a certain degree, have certain tools in their kit to let them manage their jobs. For example, in TBC, Tanks still had differing Niche feels (Warriors were inferior to paladins in AOE for example, but still felt “more solid” overall for single target), but the toolbox was shared better with taunts for the tanks. Like for example, you could never bring a tank to a fight that required a tank swap due to lacking a taught if paladins lacked them, and in a fight where adds spawn and the offtank’s job is to round them up, you wouldn’t want to take a tank who couldn’t taunt, no matter what other attributes they may have.
Put on your dress and do your job Healadin.
again we are on the same side here what i was pointing out was that in retail what has happened is that hybrids changed so much that they are filling in pure roles. they are being taken for just their dps just their tanking or just their healing. pallies are main tanking instead of off tanking. healing wise you have has shifting from main healer/ off healer to tank healer/group healer. priests and hybrid able to fill in both of the roles equally. and dps wise everything is a nightmare. like at 385 of the top 10, 5 of them are hybrid classes, and at 445 the top spot is still held by a druid. I dont know why your so dead set on ignoring were this all ended because it started the same way as this. people wanted to improve the hybrids and make them better at handling pure roles.
I was saying the DPS was better back then because they knew how to manage their threat. Read it better next time. DPS is about managing threat not damage meters. If you can’t do that then you’re a terrible DPS.
And heck yeah make shamans better tanks. That would be awesome too I love playing shaman tank as well.
Giving Prot Paladins a taunt won’t get them into raids as a tank because the vast majority of raid bosses are already taunt immune.
Taunt isn’t why Paladins can’t tank raid bosses.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but they had tank swamp mechanics in Vanilla, did they not?
Anyway, I skimmed through the bulk of this thread and the bickering got to me so I jumped to the end 
The bottom line is, paladins can tank dungeons fine if the group is willing to work with them. However, they will always be inferior to other tanks, no matter how hard you folks want to “just believe!” I’m sorry, but it’s true… and a lack of a taunt is a simple, low hanging fruit that would make a meaningful difference in dungeons.
In raids it sounds like they have other issues; however, it would also make a positive difference. Deliberately shooting yourself in the foot and then telling everybody they need to wait for you because you can’t move as fast is downright silly.
So will it fix prot paladins? No. Will it help? Yes. It’s literally that simple.
Honestly, that’s why I would rather have Classic BC or WOTLK than classic +: We already know from experience certain steps that were able to fix Prot paladins and feral druids, so most likely Fixing them in Classic + would just be redoing those two expansions.
Well my view is more that correlation doesn’t equal causation in this case–I agree that design got bad in later expansions, but I Don’t attribute that to the classes all being brought to parity, but the devs becoming lazy. I don’t think homogenization happened because they wanted to make tanks equal (And I don’t think its bad for paladins or ferals to be able to rise to the level of main tanks just like Warriors even), I think the issue popped up due to dev laziness.
When classes are unique its harder for them to design encounters, and the Talent in the wow team began to taper off as the series went on (Blizzard as a whole IMO, not just wow: Diablo 3 was really telling compared to D2, even if reaper of souls brought it back somewhat), so the devs began to just try and streamline things to be easy to make raids with, rather than them thinking about how to make encounters that could be accomplished BOTH with the classes unique AND with equal parity.
I partially agree with you; however, there are also things in those expansions that are less desirable. Classic gives us an opportunity to take a different path.
So I guess the question is, do we learn from the mistakes made over the last 15 years, or do we go ahead and just repeat them all over again?
True. I will say that I would love it if classic were able to go that route and forge a bold new path, with things being polished up to be better than anything before.
I’m just pessimistic, y’know
its hard to have faith in the devs to make a better version of the game with how retails gone in recent years.
" Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it ." George Santayana. we have seen this road we know were it leads
At this risk of sounding like a fanboy, I don’t really think retail is as bad as people make it out to be. It’s just… really popular in certain circles to hate on these days.
There’s a lot of things to dislike about retail right now, to be sure, but there’s also a lot of things to really love, and there’s enough diversity in the game that there’s something for everybody. Retail does a lot of things really, really well, and in that respect those devs are doing great.
Still though, mistakes are made… and that’s ok! It’s part of the learning process and I’d just really love it if people could embrace that, on both sides. On our part, as consumers, we could be a little more patient when things we don’t like and maybe give them some time. On the dev’s part, they could be a little quicker to recognize when something just isn’t working! For the latter, lookin’ at you, RNG loot attribution as a means of progression… stop trying to force it down our throats already, Blizzard!
Anyway, all that aside, I really love the vibe of classic and how it plays, especially for dungeons. A few small tweaks and some more content as the years pass (effectively, classic+), would make me a happy camper. In the short term though, some simple low hanging fruit would go a long way to making the game a little better. Taunt for paladins, a regular rez for druids, and releasing a damn key ring already 
You put BoS on all the melee, casters if the pull aggro, righteous fury, ret aura, put BoP on anyone that pulls aggro. Pally tanking is way more complicated then taunt, three sunders.
Wouldn’t say warrior tanking isn’t complicated. Tanking in general is more complex than dps that much I can tell you.
Yes, and a good amount of those tank swaps were w/ taunt immune bosses. Tanks had to learn how to swap without taunt.
Heal Someone = Taunt
A) no one is claiming it is inevitable. That’s hyperbole on our part and therefore a strawman on yours.
B) I dont know if I can state the causal link more clearly. Perhaps if you were to articulate our case we could see where we part.
I tanked MC last night on my main… never needed to use taunt…
in other words a taunt is not what keeps a pally from being a viable MT…
It is gear… a pally is forced to use warrior gear to tank, which has no INT or spellpower…
those two stats are pretty important to keep agro for a pally…
It is the same thing with many of the “MEME” specs… the spec itself is fine and viable… they just will not scale due to lack of any kind of gear they can use… I.E. tier sets
Its mitigation as well. Paladins in Classic lack an oh s*** button like warriors have (2, shield wall and last stand), and have no answer to warriors having 10% less damage taken via Defensive stance.
Paladins also lack the ability to thunderclap and demoralizing shout the mob, requiring another warrior in the raid to do so-- and while them Demo shouting isn’t a biggie, thunderclapping IS.
Now what does the pally BRING that’s better than the warrior? Umm… he can bless? Yeah! But that’s why you bring the OTHER paladins to the raid; arguably Blessing of sanc can be counted her in the paladin’s favor since its so high up the tree, but its a pretty weak buff, and a raid will most likely just grab a warrior tank, have the prot pally Buff the warrior, and then go “Cleanse bot duty!” instead-- and that’s if your raid feels they need that buff anyways, since, as stated before, its pretty weak.
Pretty much Holy shield is the only non-threat ability that you can count on for the classic paladin as an actual good advantage compared to the warrior. And while I love holy shield, its just not enough to counter the other advantages a warrior has to raid tank with (Oh s*** buttons and mitigation).