That would make leveling 58-60 impossible in the prepatch when players can’t go to Outland yet… So I would be very surprised if that was a thing. And I doubt they’ll change xp values after prepatch for launch since prepatch is supposed to be the xpac in full just can’t do the new content yet.
It’s not nerfed by location but they’re low level enough you’re not going to be getting that much exp from them past maybe the first level. And if you think you’re going to be the only prot pally in EPL you’re delusional
Depends on what you’re expecting. As far as I remember, paladins were brought to deal with aoe threat. Feral was primarily an off tank that was doing cat things when not off tanking, but could also main tank with the right gear.
I can not recall ever seeing a paladin mt. They got better in tbc, but they didn’t bring anything uniquely strong to tanking singular bosses.
They brought everything all the other tanks did as far as tanking. They just couldn’t DPS when not tanking like a feral could. But as main tanks they were perfectly good at it, save for the bosses that were designed around Warrior mechanics.
Eh kinda. They’re generally inferior single-target tanks to warriors or druids because of the way their gearing/threat works.
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Unless I’m misremembering, they had a much harder time pushing crushing blows off the table, and they didn’t have the innate tankiness of a feral druid to compensate. Nor did they have the bonkers threat generation of a feral druid.
Could they still mt? Probably, just like you can sort of shoehorn them in with classic by overgearing the encounter. But I don’t remember them beating out the other two tanks in anything but aoe threat, for which they were really good.
Not really. They had an issue pushing hits off the table, but that was only relevant for 1 boss, Illidan Stormrage (because of the shear mechanic).
It’s harder for them to gear to crit/crushing immunity but not impossible at later levels. They’re arguably superior against some fast-attacking bosses because their shield lasts longer, but at a slightly lower percentage.
Their big problem is that in order to do all that, they largely have to gear like a warrior… but since most of their threat is tied to abilities with spell power coefficients instead of weapon damage they end up sacrificing any ability to hold single-target threat against focused damage until higher gear levels.
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That’s basically in line with how I remember tbc playing out. To do decent threat, they had to gear for it, and that was mutually exclusive with not getting crit/crushed, which for a non bear, is a required thing for main tanking.
Hands down the best tank for trash/adds, but very much a “why wouldn’t I take bear/warrior instead”. You’ll see them main tanking, but I doubt it will be meta.
That’s it as far as I know as well. Because they need to stack some spellpower, and in some cases also take warrior tanking gear (no intellect) they are very good with using consecrate to AoE tank but will behind rather quickly when trying to hold raid threat against a single target boss.
(most of my experience on this is from pserver, and if anything the numbers for prot pally are better than they will be on tbc classic.)
Warriors have to gear for threat to do decent threat too. Pallies just use different stats, that’s all.
A lot of bosses in TBC are undead/demons as well, which is a big advantage for pallies because exorcism produces insane threat.
What pallies really lack is sunder armor and demo shout/thunder clap. But a DPS warrior can do those just as well. I’d expect most serious raids to have 1 of each tank and to swap them around as best suits the boss in particular.
Feral all day.
More fun to tank
Can actually DPS
Can go stealth
Equally as important spells and abilities in raids (leader of the pack, innervate, MOTW, Battle Res, cyclone for CC)
Yea… But the stats on the gear they have to use for survivability early on doesn’t have those stats, but it often has +str. Warriors also gain a much larger % of their threat from one item, their weapon, whereas it’s more distributed for a Pally.
Pallies also get the vast majority of their threat from their weapon.
More than any other item? Sure. A majority? Not really, and it definitely has a smaller impact than a warriors weapon. A pally’s threat tools are avenging shield, cons, judgements and holy shield and avenging seal, none of which scale with weapon damage other than the +spell damage on the weapon. So it’s basically just a glorified stat stick. Whereas a prot warrior’s main scaling threat abilities are his auto attacks and Devastate, which scale on weapon damage as well as Ap/crit etc.
your really going to argue that a prot warrior’s white attacks are a staple of this threat?
Without question. It would be insane to argue otherwise.
I have been trying to make the same decision myself. Here are some of the points I have thought about and perhaps they will help you. The in-raid part has been discussed extensively so I will only say this- that choice comes down to if you would rather be top notch at 1 important thing or decent at several important things.
Beyond that I will keep my points outside of the raid:
-They both bring a ton of utility to themselves and small groups, but much of a druid’s utility requires them to leave bear form (even potions). If stuff is going downhill bad enough that you need to toss out heals or whatever then leaving bear form may get you killed. All of a pally’s utility can be used at any time.
-Ferals are much better in pvp than prot. This may be of concern if you play on a pvp server or want to do the world objectives. (arenas and stuff the pally can always respec)
-A feral’s stealth can be useful to get places without a fight, but a pally’s superior aoe will allow them to just aoe everything down.
-A druid’s rez can only be used in combat while a pally’'s can only be used outside of combat.
-Dash, travel form, aquatic form, and instant flight form give a druid much better short area mobilty. Crusader aura gives a pally better long area mobility.
-Most of a feral’s group buffs can be covered by any druid and thus having multiple greatly diminishes their utility (only LotP is exclusive). Having multiple pallies doesn’t diminish anything because they can all just use a different seal/aura/blessing.
-Gearing is essentially the same as they both require very specific gear to work (plus defense leather and fap weapons vs plus spellpower plate and weapons).
-Rage tanking is something people either love or hate. You’ll have to decide that one for yourself.
-A pally in a mishmash of gear can look ridiculous. A pally in a matching set can look awesome. A druid will always look like the same bear.
-The races available to both classes are very specific. You may or may not have a favorite. If you are forced to play a race you dislike it may make the character less enjoyable.
Obviously there are many other things to consider. Keep in mind that TBC isn’t a “raid or die” expansion and these classes are very different just running around in the world. Hope this helps.
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I played a feral druid in TBC - I really liked how they felt.
Feral druid is more of an in-the-middle tank in TBC, does AoE fairly well. Does Single tank fairly well.
Warrior is hands down best single target tank probably. Paladin is hands down better at AoE tanking.
Feral druids have a high DPS and are really good for most heroic content and other dungeons and you can be a #3 tank for your raid group and still do good DPS when you’re not needed where as paladin cant bring much outside of their spec (they can heal, or DPS but comparably to feral druid its not optimal)
Most guilds I assume will probably run War/Paladin and main and OT and druid for a 3rd/situational tank.
I personally had A LOT of fun doing it and I will be making tons of $$$ off of my druid tank at L70 charging to tank heroics when im geared out.
Good luck to you 
Another thing to consider is how common a class is likely to be. Its a safe bet you won’t be able to swing a dead cat without hitting 3 or 4 paladins, but druid tanks have never been very common.
This is a double edged sword. On one hand, If a class is common it usually means its fun to play. If a class is more rare that usually means its an acquired taste- especially if the relatively rare class/spec is strong.
On the other hand the more rare your class is the more easily you can find a raid group. In TBC nearly every spec brings something and will have a raid spot.