Questions for Paladin Tanks

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
1

I want to know more about Protection Paladins in 1.12.

So, here’s my questions for Prot Paladins:

  1. What is the ideal talent build for tanking, and why?
  2. What is the ideal hybrid build to heal raids, but also tank dungeons?
  3. How do Paladins safely pull mobs?
  4. What are ways Paladins can get snap threat?
  5. When mobs are fleeing, how can Paladins stop them?
  6. What, if anything, do healers need to be aware when healing you?
  7. Which raids - mob packs and bosses specifically - can you tank?

Thanks :+1:

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You really dont want to try tanking as a paladin in classic. They have no taunt, no aoe taunt, and none of the utilities that warriors rely on to be good tanks. Even a druid would be a better choice for tanking simply for the fact that they have a taunt and charge.

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I use 20/21/10. BoS is as far as you really need to go in prot. One handed weapon spec and Holy shield really aren’t worth it imo.

Engineering

Really not one, You could go deep holy for Holy Shock. Groups need to pay more attention to threat when a paladin is tanking.

Hammer of justice or grenades.

You have no defensive CDs.

I’ve seen prot paladins in MC, but they have always been replaced by BWL. There are a few fights Paladins excel at tanking, but there are far more that they can’t even OT. If you want to raid, you better be willing to heal. Keep a tanking set and you might be able to tank on special occasions.

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Being a pally tank is fine, i did it multiple times in vanilla you just need a grouo that can let you build threat for a fee seconds before theybstart nuking.

  1. I usually wait till lvl 30 before i tank, simply because of consencrate, its a level 20 talent, and you’ll need improved fury too. I would opt for imp fury first if you want to start tsnking right out of the gate though. You can also grab some ret talents like parry, but leave seal of command alone, it doesnt proc every hit and you need as much holy damage as possible to generate threat.

  2. Pallies are a beautiful class that can heal with any spec, you can be deep ret or prot and still throw awesome heals at any level as long as you have some int gear. You dont really need to go holy unless you want to play a dedicated healer, which isnt really needed until around lvl 50. Infact i would roll ret or prot till at least 55 because holy isnt the best for leveling - imo.

  3. Pallies dont really have pulling abilities outside of engineering unless you get a trinket such as linkens boomerang (which is sooo sweet) its best to let a ranged player los pull then consencrate and build aggro.

  4. The best way to grab threat is to use anything that does good holy damage, holy damage is the only way you build threat. Your group will have to work with you and let you build threat, and then peel off to a new target if they start to aggro, because you’ll never get it back.

  5. Pallyies only have 1 stun, 2 if you go deep ret, but we do have seal of justice, it stops enemies from fleeing and has a chance tk stun them for a second. I wouldnt worry about stopping fleeing enemies, you’ll usually end up face pulling another group by accident ,let the dps sort them out.

  6. Nothing much if they can heal a warrior they can heal you, your more “tanky” then A druid and can self heal, or throw heals if needed.

  7. With gear you can be a good off tank, but without a hard taunt it will be extremely hard to main tank a raid, not impossible, just a lot more difficult.

My advice for tanking
-Throwing flash heals on the puller helps to draw aggro a lot, cheaper then consencrate for sure

  • use ret aura, basically like holy thorns, definitely needed to hold threat

-watch your mana, being a pally tank you can oom fast, and no mana means no extra threat gen. Leave the extra damage for thr dps, judge if you need to generate threat, nut otherwise its auto attack with seal if righteousness

-dont use concentration every pull, you will go oom fast

-keep BoW up, you need as much mana as you can get

-if the healer grabs aggro, just bubble them, its only 3min Cd and will save you mana trying to peel off the aggro.

-BoK might look nice, but most players dont have enough stats to really make a difference at lower levels, just wait till later to invest in it.

Im sure theres more, but thats all i can think of atm, best to just go slow and learn a rotation… Usually seal - auto attack… Repeat :wink:
Just let your party know that mobs need to hit you to generate threat, and mark taegets too, definitely helps.

Gl

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IMO Holy Shield is a must if you’re tanking more than 1 mob. That’s a pretty common scenario in a dungeon.

Oh and Judgement of Justice stops enemies from fleeing. That’s not totally reliable but it works.

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  1. 20/31/0 if you’re not main tanking a raid. 11/31/9 if you’re main tanking.

  2. 20/31/0. Divine Intellect and my choice is Spiritual Focus to get to Consecration. After this it’s a matter of hitting the necessary healing talents to make Flash of Light the go to heal when soloing.

  3. Engineering bombs. The pull will ALWAYS be a bomb.

  4. DPS that aren’t stupid will use their threat reducer. Those that don’t have one get Blessing of Protection. As for abilities from the Paladin, max rank Judgment of Righteousness gives a decent one. You should always have Holy Shield up, which gives additional threat.

  5. Judgment of Justice.

  6. Don’t use PW:Shield. Paladins need to be hit for Ret Aura damage and threat.

  7. I know on a private server that a Paladin has tanked Naxx.

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Skjaldbjorn, Sindemina, Nermal tyvm for the in-depth answers. My goal is have a prot pally in the core raid team, ideally in a position where they can swap out gear sets to heal when needed. And of course, all of the benefits that come from speedrunning dungeons.

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As long as you plunk 20 into Holy you will heal nicely. Some will say 21 for Divine Favor, but then you can’t get Holy Shield for tanking.

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How much of a setback is not having Divine Favor for healing? And not having Holy Shield for tanking?

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This is what I plan to use 11/31/9 for tanking 5 man dungeons:

  • more int and seals cost less
  • armor, defense and parry
  • Improved SoR damage
  • Improved RF, Consecration, BoS & Holy Shield to help with agro
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Divine Favor is a free heal. Holy Shield is consistent, chronic threat.

12

Everyone fixates on the taunting. Some encounters are immune to taunt.

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Tanking 5 mans is no problem, but you can not tank raids.

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I think you will have much better success doing it the other way around. Be a healer that can tank when needed.

Divine favor isn’t that big of a deal. Illumination is the most important talent for healing. Holy shield is also overrated. Unlike warrior shield block, it won’t give you enough block to become crush immune. It is also mana intensive.

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The problem is that there are fights that require tank swapping, and paladins can not participate. Kind of pointless bringing a tank that can’t even tank every fight.

Paladins are already efficient healers, a free heal every 2 minutes isn’t that impressive. And Holy Shield will eat through your mana even faster than prot paladins already do.

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Yeah I agree - so for prioritizing healing over tanking, would you go 30/21/0, getting 5/5 Holy Power but still stopping at BoSanc in prot tree?

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1.Haven’t looked into it yet as I’m rolling horde but deep prot to Holy shield then enough into holy for consecrate.Left over into ret.
2. You’d scrap the ret points and go deeper into holy.
3.Engineering toys,exorcism where applicable or face pull. Getting a decent amount of block means you should be able to survive.
4.Engineering toys and judgement.BoP is a one trick pony I prefer not to list but guess I have too.
5.HoJ is about it really,
6.Steady heals in all circumstances, with Holy shield you ahev a decent amount of “passive” block so damage intake should be steady with chunking happening in raids if you’re tanking bosses.
7. Any “add” bosses that you can ignore for awhile is ideal for a prot pally.Faerlina’s adds,domo’s,satura’s,fankriss adds. I’d sadly never put a prot pally into a MT position or actually boss tanking simply because their threat generation is severely hampered till TBC.

I love prot pally’s but without the addition of talents and gear they’re going to be healing 80-90% of the time.

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Depends on your mana efficiency. If you are going oom, I’d probably pick up Holy Power. If you aren’t having mana issues, I would go pick up benediction and deflection.

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Bo Sanct only really works on block tanks is is pretty much pointless for everyone else. Holy shield is where most of your survivability and threat is going to come from. 20/31/0 might work better if tanking lots of trash is the goal for the night.

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If you’re going oom, bring another pally and get them to judge wisdom on a target, ir might be small but chance on hit for extra mana is nice. When i dps’d i would judge wisdom so others would be more mana efficient, i knew that i wasn’t top dps. Pallies that play utility are way more welcomed in groups theb ones who try and top damage, least in my experiences