I’ve been MT on a paladin all of SoD and myself and others have started noticing a “growing pain” in relation to the scaling of both mob dmg and gear. While many classes have gotten some fantastic tanking changes others are struggling to preform.
The meta for tanking has always drifted towards dmg > mitigation, however with the increase in dmg characters are taking from the scaled up mobs the lack of mitigation from classes such as paladin are really starting to show themselves. A good example for contrast is Shaman. Runes like way of earth, giving 10% dmg reduction is the equivalent to roughly 2000 armor at lvl 40. If used in conjunction with shield mastery that’s an additional 2500 armor (Shield Armor x 1.5). Just those 2 runes alone gives more mitigation than all the gear and talents a Protection paladin is capable of.
But Paladins you say, they have Aegis and surely that adds additional mitigation. Well you would be correct! However with everything scaled up, in almost full BiS armor, a paladin shield blocks roughly 45 dmg. A 10% chance, at a 30% chance, to negate 45 dmg is insignificant when bosses like thermaplug are hitting for 6-700 a swing. Block value has not scaled with the rest of SoD and is currently useless. A shields only true value atm is its stats and armor value, which classes like Shaman benefit immensely from with fantastic tanking rune options.
I would love for Blizzard to consider scaling Block Value to the dmg of the mobs, currently its useless and is only going to get worse as we progress through future phases. I believe Shaman tanks are in a fantastic place (arguably too good currently) and that classes such as warrior and paladin should recieve similar treatment.
A simple fix for a cough useless cough rune like Aegis could simply be in addition to its regular affects, increasing Block value by 10% of armor.
TLDR: Block values haven’t scaled with the increase in dmg, causing it to be a dead mechanic for tanks that depend on it. Runes like Aegis are, in their current state, useless and need a rework.
I save Aegis for just the last couple boss tanks fights. Fights like minage you can get over 100 blocks which is around 4500 dmg mitigation and less crushing blows.
But is really kinda meh.
Went 0/31/0 this build and holy shield procs through all 4 blocks usually when aegis is equipped vs hardly procs at all with SOM or DS. The holy shield / Sanctuary / shield spike/ whirling blades is a 4x dmg proc seems I didn’t have an issue last fight with mana or threat.
TLDR
dmg from block with HS/Sanc/Spike/Blades all adds up with aegis on and feels ok
An armor buff / Stam multiplier would be nice perhaps
Bosses do not crush at +2.
Paladins do not have enough mitigation to remove crits (or crushes) from the table so you will get crit the exact same amount with or without aeigs
The amount you gain from Aegis is so negligible. Even 4500 hp is equivalent to saving your healers 3 or 4 extra heals over the course of a 3-4 minute fight. Not to mention it’s competing with SoM and DS, which are both role defining to tanks depending on whether they 2h or 1h.
I think its main gig is allowing holy shield to function. Otherwise We don’t have enough gear with defense stats or +blocking for block to even work.
It’s not much , but we don’t really have much mitigation wise.
I agree, Aegis does help with proccing holy shield, but the value of holy shield is marginalized vs how it was in classic by a lack of scaling. Most stats in the game have scaled but block value hasn’t. Bringing holy shield, though iconic, is a bit of a meme.
Som feels good for most those 1v1 fights, threat is great and you don’t take much dmg. DS feels like a waste unless there is multiple objects to hit.
SoM is practically mandatory for tanking due to the fact that crits also proc AoW resets. Not taking SoM is MASSIVE dps and tps loss for sword and board pallies.
And for the ret tanks who dont have access to consecration, DS is their main method of tanking multiple mobs.
My paladin is about to ding 40, and I’m working on my P2 runes, so hoping to get a Gnomer in before reset, and have been considering a Holy Shock build. Others have said deep Ret is good.
I haven’t heard many recommending a deep Prot build, but it sounds interesting too!
There’s no tanks that rely on block for tanking bosses. None.
Block is pretty much a dead stat for tanking bosses EXCEPT FOR warriors and paladins who can hit avoidance cap with a large block rating from active abilities.
On the other hand, block is the main avoidance stat for large AoE pulls and considering paladins have great threat generation in AoE compared to say everything else besides shaman, and only then in SoD, your tears fall on deaf ears.
Paladins have been OP tanks forever and always in Vanilla except they didn’t have a taunt, which they didn’t need anyway when used for their best features and when the real tanking was left to the warriors and druids.
Stop sooking. Paladins were leaps and bounds the best AoE tanks for 20 years.
SOD has been fun playing around with talent builds and runes. I think there’s a couple different ways to tank this phase, and they are all valid for their own reasons.
I have been enjoying this build for MT Gnomer role- I think doing dungeons or OT as a ret build tank is way more dps for sure.
What led me to this build was getting the engineering shield and noticing it was bearly proccing with a 11/8/12 build.
Really wanted to see how effective a full prot would be to block more- and get a little more beefy for those last couple raid bosses.
With avengers shield and divine storm for trash I can grab aoe threat instead of using consecration.
Switch to exorcism for boss fights for single target threat.
I also went for enhanced judgments - The range on a judgment pull is wild and my spells hardly miss.
Aegis is really helpful for the menagerie bosses, and electrocutioner. Edit- Checked last nights and blocked 150 times- 8.1k blocked/7kHolyShield20%\Sanct2.9k9%/spike1.4k4%/Gears1k3%
Aegis is sort of helpful for thermaplug too, and would like to see how martyr does with this latest update.
You cannot get crit and blocked. Raising your block % will simply push normal hits off of the hit table until you get enough mitigation to push crits off of the hit table (need 100% mitigation). We do not have this right now.
