Originally Posted by
Raugnaut
The main reason why paladins are top tanks atm is because thier active mitigation is superior to all other tanks for taking 1 major hit and reducing it to nothing. DK's are unable to do that simply because we have to take the damage first before our active mitigation works to full. Finally, Paladins have A) passive healing going out to the raid through the fight (20% of a paladins dps= paladins hps to raid), B) a damage absorption shield that scales with vengeance (100k sacred shield absorptions, yes please), C) very good self healing (Heal self from 1%-100% in one GCD anyone?), and D) far superior CDs compared to the DK (ability to nullify certain mechanic's of a fight that normally requires 2 tanks to deal with, ability that reduces DoT effects by 70%, 20% uptime, and reduces all damage by 10% to boot, 20% raid-wide damage reduction, AND the ability to cheat death without any outside help every 2 mins, which also doubles as a 20% damage reduction CD. Oh, yea, 40% magical damage reduction for 12 seconds every minute- sure, AMS is better for spike damage, and is up more often, but that 40% magical damage reduction with twice as much duration is much more helpful on a fair number of fights this tier)
So yea. Superior active mitigation compared to all other tanks for this tier, superior raid CDs compared to all other tanks, and superior passive raid healing compared to all other tanks. The only thing that paladins LACK is a last stand CD.