Are Prot Pally's Viable?

[Deleted]

I've just come back to wow, and fancy my chances at a paladin, Are they Viable in the current and upcoming patches?

Are they used much?

EDIT: Also.. Are holy paladin's viable too?

I'd like to hear comparisons and maybe pros and cons, and possibly standings on the best tanks in order. eg. ( 1. DK, 2. Bear dr00d )

Thanks in advance for any replies/help.

[Cypher0]

Everything is just as viable as everything else. There's no more gigantic gaps in viability. Prot paladins are great. So are prot warriors, bear druids, and Blood DKs. Same for healers.

[Deleted]

A friend told me pretty much every other tank is chosen over a prot paladin, is this correct?

[Kheng]

A friend told me pretty much every other tank is chosen over a prot paladin, is this correct?

Only you would know if he's lying to you or not.

[Taiina]

In the competitive world firsts the other tanks are chosen, yes, but they still do a perfectly good job tanking for the less hardcore.

[Splosion]

We're not only viable, we're competing to be the best tanks still, because our mitigation techniques are so amazing. Ardent defender remains one of the strongest cooldowns ingame, and the fact that our 4pc bonus isn't connected to our biggest damage reduction cd helps all the more. divine guardian + glyphed divine protection > 4pc with shield wall for us and the raid. Paladins also have close to, if not the highest health of all tanks currently, because we do not need mastery past a point, as our damage reduction from physical was already leaps and bounds higher than the other tanks.

The only tank class I'd guess is higher than a paladin currently is a bear, simply because of the ridiculously high physical mitigation they have, along with a very high health pool.

[Tutorial]

Yes and No.

DK's and Druids are the best tanks for most of the encounters in DS.
Paladins do just fine, but top notch guilds will take a DK or Druid over you.
Obviously that doesn't really fly if you're awesome at being a protadin.

[midazolam]

Prot paladins are more than capable to tanking adequately. They are not the very best, however. If you are in a guild in the top hundred or so, don't expect a raid spot, but outside of that, I wouldn't say they aren't viable.

Holy Paladins are gods right now though.

[Deleted]

All tanks are viable, and prot pallies are fine. Unless you are going for world-firsts you shouldn't even have to worry.
In my guild I MT along with a prot pally and we do fine, we were 6/7 hc FL before 4.3 hit and none of our progress issues have had anything to do with tanking.

[Deleted]

They suck in DS apart from 1/2 fights

DK + Druids are way better

World firsts or not, they just aren't as good atm

[Docshale]

Just a nooby question from someone who has just started to level Tauren Protection Pala - what exactly makes us less viable than DK or Druid? Why exactly top guilds choose other tanks over protection paladins? If this was discussed, could you please link the thread - I'm in the office and search function doesn't work for me here so thank you for the answer.

[Splosion]

Just a nooby question from someone who has just started to level Tauren Protection Pala - what exactly makes us less viable than DK or Druid? Why exactly top guilds choose other tanks over protection paladins? If this was discussed, could you please link the thread - I'm in the office and search function doesn't work for me here so thank you for the answer.

At a guess? dps.

[Deleted]

They suck in DS apart from 1/2 fights

Don't know what sort of pallies you run with but my pally buddy is perfectly fine, I cannot see these issues people are harping on about here. There is nothing wrong with prot palas that I can see.

[Nelrock]

Don't know what sort of pallies you run with but my pally buddy is perfectly fine, I cannot see these issues people are harping on about here. There is nothing wrong with prot palas that I can see.

I think Splosion hit on it. You do expect "some" dps contribution from the tank...and right now...Prot Pallies are awful low compared to the others.

[Edds]

prot pallys for utility
blood dks for dps

[Deleted]

I think Splosion hit on it. You do expect "some" dps contribution from the tank...and right now...Prot Pallies are awful low compared to the others.

Possibly, but where dps isn't an issue then that point is moot. Depends on whether your dpsers can pump out enough dps on their own. After 3 clears of DS I myself can start slacking a bit as our dps are more used to the fights so my contribution matters less as a tank, although I find it fun trying to tank and maximizing my deeps too.

[Deleted]

Survival wise they're pretty amazing, with strong cd's and constant 30/50% melee reduction (block/block with holy shield)

DPS wise though they're pretty lacking, better to bring a druid if pushing enrages.

[Deleted]

The way I see it, for heroic modes Prot Paladins just don't scale well enough anymore. We were very good last tier, where we could comfortably get block capped which gave us an edge. Now Warriors can get block capped with critical block, and Druids (and DKs I guess, but I can't speak from personal experience there) are just incredibly awesome considering the gear level we're at and the design of the DS fights.

[Veyne]

I'd like to hear comparisons and maybe pros and cons, and possibly standings on the best tanks in order. eg. ( 1. DK, 2. Bear dr00d )

Thanks in advance for any replies/help.

I'll give it a shot. There is a pretty useful website, raidbots.com, that collects parses from the top WoL entries and gathers them into a single, comparative graph. This is by no means an end-all-be-all representation, but it's a healthy place to start.

According to raidbots.com, Protection Paladins are currently ranked as the second best tank.
http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/#1s0000

Protection Paladins strong suit is, and has been for quite some time, incredibly AoE tanking. Just about everything a Protection Paladin does in their AoE rotation effects pretty much every enemy in range. Hammer of the Righteous is one of the strongest AoE threat generators, if not THE strongest, in the game. This on top of Consecration and Holy Wrath, and using your Holy Power on Inquisition to boost the huge presence of Holy damage in your AoE rotation, makes Protection Paladin AoE pretty ridiculous. They aren't terrible for single target boss DPS, but they're not the best either.

Another strong point of Paladins is that they have a ton of cooldowns. Much more than any other tank in the game. They have several cooldowns to help with survivability, as well as a decent selection of DPS cooldowns. Sometimes, every little bit helps.

Blood Death Knights right now are pretty strong at AoE tanking as well as pure survivability. With enough mastery, Death Strike healing and damage shielding becomes a really, really strong survivability stat. Probably considerable stronger than Protection Paladin or Warrior Mastery, though Mastery is very valuable for all tank specs. Similarly, Feral Druids' bear form mastery is very similar to a Death Knight's. Along with armor buffs to both tank specs (Blood and Feral), they've both become pretty strong when it comes to survivability. Feral AoE is also pretty strong with Thrash, Swipe and Berserk/Mangle.

At the bottom of the barrel right now are Protection Warriors. But being bottom of the barrel isn't a huge deal because a Prot Warrior can tank just as well. Their AoE is a little more convoluted, but it gets the job done with Rend-spreading with Thunder Clap, Shockwave, Cleave and tab-target Devastate.

At the end of the day, all four tank specs are perfectly valuable, though some are stronger than others and some are easier to heal than others.

As for healers:
http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/#1u00000

Right now, Holy Paladins are actually the strongest healers all around. They've traditionally been the strongest single target/tank healers, but with recent changes to Holy Radiance, Holy Paladins are also now the strongest raid healers. Nothing you need to worry about there.

Right now, Holy Paladins are a lot like Holy Priests with a little more throughput. Both specs share a lot of similarities nowadays. However, Holy Power and Light of Dawn just don't feel right compared to Circle of Healing. Holy Paladins make up for that with their strong instant heals as well. As a Holy Priest, you'll have to choose between stronger single target healers and stronger AoE heals depending on your Chakkra state, but Holy Paladins can do it all at will.

Restoration Shaman are strong when the situation allows for it. Restoration Shaman have changed quite a bit with Cataclysm. They are now more focused on keeping Riptide on cooldown for the Tidal Waves buff, making their single target heals cast very fast. They're the "sniper healer." But when they can be used effectively, Chain Heal and Healing Rain make them pretty strong AoE healers. The problem with that is, particularly in 10 man raids, raid members are rarely within range of one another for Chain Heal to be effective.

Restoration Druids are still holding their traditional position fairly strongly. They're mostly about tossing out ridiculous amounts of HoTs to raid members, roll Lifebloom stacks on the tank, and hit Wild Growth and Swiftmend on cooldown. There's not much else to say about them.

Discipline Priests don't seem to be doing as well lately. They're mostly about tossing out damage absorbing bubbles and to cast their superfast, single target Penance. They can also mitigate group damage decently with Divine Aegis procs on Prayer of Healing. They will never have the same pure throughput as any other healer, but they can prevent a strong chunk of damage.

But more on topic to your original question, yes, both Protection and Holy Paladins are very viable right now.

[Splosion]

Possibly, but where dps isn't an issue then that point is moot. Depends on whether your dpsers can pump out enough dps on their own. After 3 clears of DS I myself can start slacking a bit as our dps are more used to the fights so my contribution matters less as a tank, although I find it fun trying to tank and maximizing my deeps too.

Thing is, the two fights where dps does matter, the other two tanks are just plain better. Thing about it, madness offers a huge haste buff. What affects the rune regen speed of a blood dk? Haste. They just got a giant survivability boost over the shield tanks right there, not to mention pre-shields for impale and their scaling with Ysera's buff. As for spine, Fallen crusader on a weapon is really, really ridiculous dps.