I am a descent paladin i play the 3 specs and none are garbage.
I also play dh on both specs.
As for your tank argument: dh have alot of control but almost no utility besides consume magic and chaos brand, its important to not confuse crowd control and utility dh have great mobility and its a better version of what blood dks are they heal alot and have descent mitigations specially on physical.
Now lets talk about protection: protection is meant to be for starters and all rounder they are a mitigation tank, this means they reduce damage and heal it back based on wog procs, they have a massive damage reduction in consacration with any defensives, their defensives are GENERAL which means it does not matter if its physical or magical damage all damage is mitigated regardless, they have 2 cheat deaths and inmunity + aoe taunt and a 100% uptime on defensives provided you dont overlap and miss play.
Lets talk about their control: they have some descent ones:
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single target long duration stun(hammer of justice)
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instant cast aoe disorient (blinding light), comparable to aoe fear rune/sigil of vengance dh
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their regular kick rebuke
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avengers shield (or shield slice for capitan america fans) its a single target silence and interrupt that resets alot, can be held or spammed depending if the monster is silence inmune or not this shield also bounce and provide a shield ( white bar absorb) based on damage dealt so this ability its a sustain/threat generation/dps/control, granted you need more skill and timing runes on the ground you have to actively switch targets to control multiple casters and it can be reliable but also you might fail to get a reset in time and have to use anything mentioned before it
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devine toll this is a 1 min cd that shots 5 avenger shields (also know as thr omni kick) and well the ammount of damage, shield and control this ability provide its huge, not to mention it will keep shooting auto shields 3 times every 5 seconds and will give you holy power.
-repentance and turn evil: long duration cc with cast times its mainly for affix purposes.
On control side dh have more and its alot easier to pull off but paladin its not garbage its close to dh control level and its the closest so saying pally is bad is saying anything that is not dh its bad, pally just requires more skill/planing to pull off, still dh control is very strong.
Damage: both dh and pally have good damage and pally can use wings very often thanks to their build in cooldown reduction, so the on demand damage push and defensiveness is comparable to dh meta or fel devastation(, short duration meta)
Utility:
This is where the paladin shines far and above all tanks;
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cleanse toxins: a poison and deseace dispell(, most dispels only do 1 thing and only monks and pallys get a double dispell for the price of 1)
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battle rez: a very necessary and very limited tool for any content
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regular rez: if healer dies regular rez saves alot of time and helps also during skip fails or when you clear a pack and healer is dead.
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blessing of protection: a physical damage inmune that will drop threat of the targeted player it will also remove instantly all bleed effects.and make him inmune to that for the duration of it, super strong during BRH as last boss bleed has no duration its one of the 2 ONLY ways to remove the stacking bleed during phase 1.
-, blessing of spellwarding: this does.not drop threat and its a inmune magic ability it works the same as the previous mentioned buff and they share cooldown, regardless Super strong and unique.
- blesing of freedom: a low cooldown root and slow removal that can be used on other players and will still be applied to you giving both speed and the root/slow removal and inmunity to such effects allowing to cheese mechanics and debuffs such 2nd boss on DHT ( removing branches and negating add spawn completely therefore increasing boss damage taken) or the plant debuff on on everbloom.
Blessing of sacrifice: an interesting external that transfer part of the damage to the paladin the catch is it has a low cd, long duration and you can transfer your whole hp pool but the effect will stop if hp becomes too low, as a tank its tricky to use as you need to know if using it will put you in danger but i can be paired with a defensive to off set this use often saves lifes!!
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Auras: like dh you can provide a buff but you have 2 choices; devotion aura a 3% damage reduction, good when survival its a priority specially in high keys.
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retribution aura: a 5% damage and healing increase, useful when you want more damage or have 2 paladins on the team( holy uses better devotion than any other spec)
You can switch between these auras.
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lay on hands: this is a personal and a external that will top anyone on the party to 100% health 7 min cd most of the time i dont think i need to explain how good it is.
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situational off heals: word of glory, shield if righteous and flash of light can be used to help heal the group.
Shield of righteous:, heal you and the group a % of max base hp
Flash of light when off combat to remove a bleed (thr ones need to be topped off)or help healer top off someone before pulling.
word of glory: this is sus, i mean it uses holy power and is meant for self sustsain after season one nerfs to it because was too strong to even skip adding a healer to the group; thier current state is use it on procs and mainly on yourself you can use on others sometimes but not very often because you want to keep your shield of the righteous up most of the time(demon spike equivalent), can be used but must be done wisely its not a trend to spam off heals but sometimes you can during boses ally focus like xavius feed on the weak.
Dh utility:
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chaos brand: a 5% magic damage increase ( helps ret pallys and other non casters that deal magic damage too!)
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consume magic: an offensive purge to consume enemy buffs, a rare skill that mages and shamans have but very rare also to use.
Utility conclusion: dh has not remotly close utility to what a paladin can do paladin players need to know alot to take advantage of such large kit but that is no reason to call it “garbage” as their power is above and beyond any other tank.
Active mitigation.
Before we go a little reminder:
Active mitigation is a way tanks deal with incoming damage without using cooldowns, during bfa launch they changed the way this work on many tanks including paladins making most of active mitigation be classified in 3 groups, and removing general % reduction from some tanks including paladins( shield of thr righteous used to be. % scaling dam reduction 30/40%)
- dh falls into armour increase via demon spikes and self heal via fire damage, leech, souls consumed vis soul/cleave spirit bomb.
-passive mitigation: parry and dodge, hold on! Their parry its “sus” it works different this tier to thier set and seals interaction with parry so dh parry its good or to word it better its different than other clases its like a 1.5 or 2.0 parry to say the least!
-paladin active mitigation works around 3 things: -
armour increase via shield of the righteous.
- self heal with word of glory procs(shield of the righteous uptime ends up mitigatingnfar more damage than wog heals it can be used for heal but is not a prio on mitigation rotation)
-consacration: damage aoe that increase the paladin survival by ALOT difference between good and bad pallys is their positioning snd consacration movement snd re-casting with a low cooldown its easy to keep repositioning, while the paladin stands on it they gain % GENERAL DAMAGE REDUCTION and increase healing.
-shield of righteous healing: when you use it you heal yourself and the group a base hp%.
-blessed hammer prevents melee damage to an extent spins 3 times each and have 3 charges(check details or logs under prevented or healed damage the ammount its amazing)
-passive mitigation: block dodge and parry, one of the 2 tanks that can block
- self shielding: avenger shield shields the pally based on damage done and this ability is used very often its not nearly as good as a ignore pain or ursoc fury shielding, but this shield its more of a bonus and less as a sustain ability.
Both mitigations are fairly balanced to each other as pally revolves about not taking damage and dh about healing it back this is a playstyle preference and pug perspective as both can carry groups on thier own.
Defensive cooldowns
Dh have a few only but can be cycled if the dh knows the damage type but even tho dh its oriented around physical damage defensive cooldowns.
-fiery brand: depending on talent choice can spread or be a single target defensive it will burn and enemy and make them deal 40% general less damage. If not talented into spreading its a bad defensive for trash but great for boses if talented for spread its a super solid defensive as they decreased the time needed for spread. On the gcd
-metamorphosis: this increases armour in a % and increase the dh max hp it also increase soul generation which yields in turn more dps and more healing and bonus the leech talent value will increase to double during meta state. It will not do much to magic damage and you will need to take it to the face and then heal it back it has a very long cooldown if talented into last resort it will activate meta/cheat death, a “ok/solid/its what we have” defensive not terrible but also has the weakness if not covering magic damage but good in general, bonus note the health increase will heal you if you are not max health. Off the gcd
Fel devastation: “fake meta” during the breath it will channel alot of damage(alot in tank standards) heal you a base value+ a %; it will heal more thanks it bring fire damage, leech being aoe damage, reduce its own cd, generate fury or shield you depending talents.
Thing is it will make you go meta for the duration and a few seconds after the channel and as stated meta give the dh good benefits, devastation its a 45 second CD that can be reduced when you cycle spells. On the gcd
Paladin defensive cooldowns
-devine shield: most powerfull defensive in the game a 3.5 min cooldown that can be used under ANY circunstance being cc or not making you 100% inmune to all damage debuffs and crowd control and removing all debuffs and crowd control effects but also taunting all enemies upon activation and when pally walks to new targets during the 8 second duration, spell cooldown reduced by spells. On the gcd
-guardian of the ancient kings: 50% general damage reduction 5 minute cd lowered by spells activates on cheat death, strong cd long cd useful regardless situation. Off the gcd
- ardent defender: 20% general damage reduction with a cheat death mechanic low cooldown can be lowered by spell casting, this is used often for the damage reduction the cheat death its a bonus. Off the gcd
-eye of tyr: an aoe attack that debuff enemies making them deal less general damage to you on a % it has a 45 second cooldown easly cycleble between pulls and boss mechanics, needs to be used when enemies near you since its a debuff like firebrand can be comboed to any mitigation without causing an override (mitigation only applies the highest value so stacking defensives its a waste since only the strongest % spell will apply the damage reduction, except this is a debuff which is why this and brand can be comboed with other defensives). On the gcd
-sentinel/avenging wrath: wings for the people, increase healing,increase damage, increase max hp, gives damage reduction with short cooldown 2 minutes and its reduced by spell casting so roguthly 1 min cd, has high uptime and long duration, duration can be extended makes your execute usable on any target and makes your holy power generation increase, (just like meta fury soul generation increase). Off the gcd
Both tanks are more similar defensively than you think with their own difference of course, one focused on healing and the other on preventing damage with self healing to an certian extent.
One has very small pool of defensives and large CC options, the other have good CC options with large utility and large defensive cooldown options.
One excels at physical mitigation, the other mitigates everything.
Both have great aoe damage.
Gameplay: fury vs holy power, both are good resources you do not starve unlike runic power but paladin requires more class knowlege as it have different options on to who/how/why spend on those options(heal or mitigate), dh on other side its simple you heal with cleave or heal with bomb, either choice will heal so its a straight forward gameplay.
-pull planing: dh cc laydown its straightforward and effective requires less planing or knowlege to be efficient and its very strong.
Paladin requires to know how to switch for kicks, know when to hold silence refresh cast and to know which monster “camp spam silence” their cc its not as limited as other tanks but its definitely not lacking at all.
-pull planing (defensives) : both are topnotch and if played properly have infinite cycle defensives and damage, anyone who disagrees haven’t played the classes properly or enough(sounds rash but with their low cds and high uptimes its just how both classes work).
On a side note dh magic damage taken its concerning sometimes(gear and trinket selection make up for it) paladin outside of cds can be deadly if missplayed(tho he has enough to always have 1 up, trinket selection can help too like dh)
-haste and main stat scaling: great on both low cd on all generators and since their defensives are reduced on spell casting both scale greatly with secondary and main stats, paladin gets a bit edge here on his mastery but that edge is nearly the same. They both great lets say they on even grounds.
- overall selfsustain/need of healer help/babysit,/need of externals frequently: on both yes/no/maybe/never, reason is depends on healer spec and if group is making mistakes, paladin generosity on wog’ing others, affixes, situation, dungeon, pull size, but here dh has a slight edge as their core mitigation is based on healing so they can work around not getting healed depending on situation, paladin can self heal and prevent alot of damage but when all is said and done paladin even played at good skill levels needs more of the healer than dh this is not an opinion its a fact, that does not mean pally cant solo pulls/boses or cant self sustain alot it just requires again knowledge of what happening and how to respond to said situation.
Ending
Dude this just my prot vdh side to side take, both specs are evenly matched both have their strong points and both have weak points, both can solo carry because self sustain and monster control boss solo kicks(sigil of silence can kick boses if used timedly and correctly), both have aoe natural power, cheat deaths, and on affix side pally can deal with every and all afixes while dh just cant do afflicted but besides that both can do all affix, both have strong mobility but dh wins over all tanks.
pally its the hardest tank to play because the expectation of what you are “supposed to do” its super high and it has many more keybinds than any tank but their potential and capacity its greater than any tank.
Demon hunter have a straightforward easy to play style that rewards their group with satisfying control and can carry lazy dps and bad healers without effort.
Both are great your class misconception might be because you havent done your dungeon/class homework and this is on tanks.
Ret vs havoc i can save you the read and tell you ret its better but if you want i can give you the side to side; even tho havoc its not bad just not better.
Hope this helped you or any reader (: