Prot Pally or Prot Warrior?

[Chrollo]

So I quit wow about a year ago and want to get back into it now.
I have decided I want to be a tank, but I'm looking for the right class for me.
What's the difference in play styles between the above classes? Which is better atm?
I will also post this in the pally forums.

[Deleted]

It all really depends on your preferred play style choices and what you perceive 'fun' to be.

And lets ignore the phrase 'which is better?'. Better is a relative term. If you mean which currently has better DPS or defensive numbers, then what is better at the time of writing might not be better in one patch or two. Choose a class because you like the kit or the playstyle. Not because its currently FOTM.

Also remember that tanks now have an active mitigation system in place - ie we spend resources to defend ourselves.

How I think the two classes 'feel' to play (personal opinion):

Protection Paladin
Simpler/easier rotation (arguably).
Feels powerful, solid.
Even in crap gear.
Combo building resource system (holy power).
In direct control of own health and self healing.
Lots of defensive cooldowns and panic buttons.
Lots of self healing.
Great AoE.
Lots of ranged attacks.
You 'feel in control' a lot of the time because you have such direct influence on your own HP.
Your shield 'slam' is also your active mitigation - simplifying things.
Throwing your shield is always fun.
Lots of yellow flashes on your screen.
Look like a Power Ranger in most Tier sets.

Protection Warrior
More involving prio/rotation.
Technical.
Lots of action bar buttons.
Often have a lot of macros to make things work as you want.
Rage resource system a bit of an art to use effectively.
Active mitigation system rage/block/barrier a bit more complex and requires thought.
Lots of defensive options and tricks.
Nice raid utility.
AoE not great without talents.
Feels weak in crap gear.
Feel able to defend yourself well but feel reliant on healers to get your HP up.
Very mobile, lots of running around.
Charging into battle never gets old.
Look like a baddass in most Tier sets.

As I said - just my opinion.

[Valech]

I hate to say it, but most raidinggroups will prefer protadins. They are quite powerful at the moment, it´s not hard to play them efficient and they bring a lot of raidheal. Warriors on the other hand, aside from being quite difficult to master, bring some raidutility on their own. But in terms of damage and heal, protadins are the way to go. At the moment.

[Deleted]

I started MoP as a Protection Warrior. I later made the decision to re-roll Protection Paladin for tier 15. That decision was not because I found Paladin to be more fun, it was purely because I felt it would be more beneficial for my guild. I actually find both classes fun to play, I enjoy tanking on my Warrior more because it feels more involved and feels like you're actually tanking.

While playing my Paladin, I rarely feel like I am in trouble. On the contrary, during Megaera heroic progress we had the rest of my raid wipe when the 6th head was down at 7% HP. My paladin was able to survive this, kill the head and the few remaining adds that the DPS had not already managed to kill, I survived the final rampage and was then killed by the double breath of the next set of heads - I'd never have managed that on my warrior. However, during T14 progress on Blade lord, in similar fashion, my second wind did allow me to be the last man standing and finish off the last 5% of the boss through executes.

What you should ask yourself is "What do I plan to do, once I reach level 90?" If you're looking to join a guild that raids casual 10 man, then both will be enjoyable, if you're looking at a more serious heroic progress guild aiming for realm rankings, then you may find that you'll help your guild out by rocking a paladin (assuming there's no major nerfs incoming for 5.4 - which will be the next progress race). If you're looking at 25 man then you'll be safe with either choice.

My advice is try both, see which one you enjoy the most, play it.

[Deleted]

I hate to say it, but most raidinggroups will prefer protadins. They are quite powerful at the moment, it´s not hard to play them efficient and they bring a lot of raidheal. Warriors on the other hand, aside from being quite difficult to master, bring some raidutility on their own. But in terms of damage and heal, protadins are the way to go. At the moment.

I'd have to agree with you. However it shouldn't effect the OP's choice of class.

[Gliff]

Paladins are better ATM. Warriors are more fun IMO.

[Deleted]

How I think the two classes 'feel' to play (personal opinion):

Protection Paladin
Simpler/easier rotation (arguably).
Feels powerful, solid.
Even in crap gear.
Combo building resource system (holy power).
In direct control of own health and self healing.
Lots of defensive cooldowns and panic buttons.
Lots of self healing.
Great AoE.
Lots of ranged attacks.
You 'feel in control' a lot of the time because you have such direct influence on your own HP.
Your shield 'slam' is also your active mitigation - simplifying things.
Throwing your shield is always fun.
Lots of yellow flashes on your screen.
Look like a Power Ranger in most Tier sets.

Protection Warrior
More involving prio/rotation.
Technical.
Lots of action bar buttons.
Often have a lot of macros to make things work as you want.
Rage resource system a bit of an art to use effectively.
Active mitigation system rage/block/barrier a bit more complex and requires thought.
Lots of defensive options and tricks.
Nice raid utility.
AoE not great without talents.
Feels weak in crap gear.
Feel able to defend yourself well but feel reliant on healers to get your HP up.
Very mobile, lots of running around.
Charging into battle never gets old.
Look like a baddass in most Tier sets.

As I said - just my opinion.

This is pretty accurate i think. I'd add "Warriors need to think more about what to mitigate with and Paladins need to think about WHEN to mitigate"

I would also add that gearing up a paladin with the Haste build is a pain in the ass (LFR gearing mainly) since you need to play retribution to get the pieces with Haste.

If you run normals you obviously wont have this problem, but you're competing with DKs for the same gear basically (DPS DK's / ret palas obviously)

I prefer warriors :P

[tist006]

Im progressing heroic with my prot warrior with a protadin as the other tank. Its really a shame how much better they are on pretty much every fight. They have better healing, utility, DMG, etc and are easier to play IMO. Warriors really only shine against white hits and many of the bosses abilities arent blockable.. horridon puncture or jikun talon strike for example.

[Drugshock]

Im progressing heroic with my prot warrior with a protadin as the other tank. Its really a shame how much better they are on pretty much every fight. They have better healing, utility, DMG, etc and are easier to play IMO. Warriors really only shine against white hits and many of the bosses abilities arent blockable.. horridon puncture or jikun talon strike for example.

You can pop a Shield Barrier and rule Triple Punctures at Horridon and I'm almost 100% sure that we can block Talon Rake on Ji-Kun (with some Shield Barrier you can almost neglet its damage)....

[tist006]

You can pop a Shield Barrier and rule Triple Punctures at Horridon and I'm almost 100% sure that we can block Talon Rake on Ji-Kun (with some Shield Barrier you can almost neglet its damage)....

Yeah I use shield barrier for both, I thought talon rake was unblock able but I'll check again. The problem with using barrier on moves like puncture is you won't have shield block for subsequent melees unless you're sitting at nearly capped rage when using barrier.

[Calamari]

Might not really count for much, but warriors do have one bonus over other tanks which is the magic damage absorbing Shield Barrier (don't thing a monk's Guard can compare with its 30s cd). It arguably makes us the strongest anti-magic tank. Shield Barrier scales very well with stamina (2.75 absorb for each point of stamina raid buffed), and stamina is the closest thing to a defense against magic attacks. Then again it seems there are many magic attacks that monks can stagger these days (Oon's Frill Blast for example, despite being a fire attack), and DKs, monks, druid, paladins can simply react to magic damage by healing it.. is there actually anything warrior tanks are better than the other tanks?

That said.. playing a paladin tank feels like playing a heavily upgraded and polished prot warrior (being able to heal others with Word of Glory, dps/survival/off-healing scaling so well with haste and battle healer glyph.. all stuff I instantly miss when tanking on my warrior. Or being able to survive 1 shot mechanics with Argent Defender and bubble, not sure what warriors got that could compare in terms of utility (aside from alright raid cds).

[Keile]

It all really depends on your preferred play style choices and what you perceive 'fun' to be.

And lets ignore the phrase 'which is better?'. Better is a relative term. If you mean which currently has better DPS or defensive numbers, then what is better at the time of writing might not be better in one patch or two. Choose a class because you like the kit or the playstyle. Not because its currently FOTM.

Also remember that tanks now have an active mitigation system in place - ie we spend resources to defend ourselves.

How I think the two classes 'feel' to play (personal opinion):

Protection Paladin
Simpler/easier rotation (arguably).
Feels powerful, solid.
Even in crap gear.
Combo building resource system (holy power).
In direct control of own health and self healing.
Lots of defensive cooldowns and panic buttons.
Lots of self healing.
Great AoE.
Lots of ranged attacks.
You 'feel in control' a lot of the time because you have such direct influence on your own HP.
Your shield 'slam' is also your active mitigation - simplifying things.
Throwing your shield is always fun.
Lots of yellow flashes on your screen.
Look like a Power Ranger in most Tier sets.

As I said - just my opinion.

Pallies had all of ONE Power Ranger tier, and that was Tier 5. Tier 3/7 (which people try to claim is Power Ranger) is clearly Gundam. Challenge mode gear is a Protoss Zealot (kinda makes sense...zealot by definition is a religious fanatic).

Might not really count for much, but warriors do have one bonus over other tanks which is the magic damage absorbing Shield Barrier (don't thing a monk's Guard can compare with its 30s cd). It arguably makes us the strongest anti-magic tank. Shield Barrier scales very well with stamina (2.75 absorb for each point of stamina raid buffed), and stamina is the closest thing to a defense against magic attacks. Then again it seems there are many magic attacks that monks can stagger these days (Oon's Frill Blast for example, despite being a fire attack), and DKs, monks, druid, paladins can simply react to magic damage by healing it.. is there actually anything warrior tanks are better than the other tanks?
.

DK's have Anti Magic Shell. If the fight requires, they can spec for Anti Magic Barrier. DK's by and large have the best magical mitigation.

[Gliff]

Dks have very little magic reduction outside of Shell and Barrier. Unless it is one big hit every minute, they are not as good as Warriors.

[Deleted]

If you want more invites in raids and an easier way to tank, then choose paladin. Otherwise, go with a dk or monk.

[Gliff]

If you want more invites in raids and an easier way to tank, then choose paladin. Otherwise, go with a dk or monk.

DK are the easiest, and the worst tank. They are not reactive at all. Boring.

[Keile]

DK are the easiest, and the worst tank. They are not reactive at all. Boring.

In what way is a DK not reactive, when Death Strike heals based on incoming damage? Any DK worth their salt knows when to hold off a DS for a large incoming attack to maximize both it's healing potential AND it's absorption shield.

Actually DK's are DESIGNED around being reactive, whereas Warriors and Paladins are about being proactive (using things like Shield Block/Barrier/SoR BEFORE you expect incoming damage. Though Impending Victory/Word of Glory are nifty for being reactionary, they are nowhere near as potent as a solid Death Strike. WoG may heal more than a DS, but it lacks the bonus of adding the absorb AND you sacrifice the physical damage reduction of SoR to use it.)

They also have a trickier resource system to manage than Rage/Mana (well technically two, but Runic Power is primarily just used for Rune Strike dumps, it's the runes themselves that take some managing). You need to pace yourself properly, or you may actually end up rune starved. I never OOM or Rage Starve on my prots (tanks...I has them...lots of them XD), seriously those guys can just keep going...and going..and going...

DK is nowhere near the easiest tank. It's the easy to say, pick up and use, but not to master. I would say Paladin is the easiest overall both in learning curve and mastering. Monks are the tanks to play that least feel like a tank...I just feel like a DPS that is hard to kill, since nothing but Guard really feels like a tank ability. Then again I love my Brewmaster!

Been a while since I played a Druid as a tank, so I wont consider them here.

[Chingylol]

Paladin > Warrior

BUT

Warriors are more fun to play in both PVP and PVE. Even though we suck in PVP, my warrior is more fun then my WW monk that has way better gear.

[Keile]

Paladin > Warrior

BUT

Warriors are more fun to play in both PVP and PVE. Even though we suck in PVP, my warrior is more fun then my WW monk that has way better gear.

Ill second that motion. Warriors are hands down more "fun" to play then a pally. Their mobility is great, and there is just something satisfying about Shield Slam that Shield of the Righteous doesn't have.....

[Deleted]

Ill second that motion. Warriors are hands down more "fun" to play then a pally. Their mobility is great, and there is just something satisfying about Shield Slam that Shield of the Righteous doesn't have.....

After they took Shield of the Righteous of the gc it never felt the same.

[Blizzhoof]

DKs are by far the easiest tank to play. Heck, you don't even make a choice on what AM to use. It's just DS. Plus Purgatory passively saves your life every 3 min if you do make a mistake, other tanks require a battle rez if they make that kind of a mistake. Anyways, that's off-topic.

@OP
I would agree and say to play whatever toolkit you like better. One of the things that Mewt didn't mention is Paladin raid utility. Paladins have the best utility of any tank. Hand of Purity, Sacrifice, Freedom, and Protection as well as being able to cast Word of Glory or Lay on Hands on other members of the raid. Some weaknesses and frustrations you'll encounter while playing a Paladin are their awful AoE snap threat, lack of mobility, inability to deal with magic damage outside of Divine Protection, and an overabundance of buttons. If played well, a Paladin will have significantly more keybound abilities than any other tank.

Warrior's flavor really is their mobility. Being able to Charge and Heroic Leap help out in a lot of fights and are just fun in general. Shield Barrier is also a great and useful spell. Mocking banner is pretty sweet too.