Active mitigation work on paladins?

[Deleted]

Just wanted to quickly ask how you guys feel active mitigation ended up working out for prot pallies.

I recently started tanking on my warrior alt and find myself jealous of the fact that i can see quite plainly the benefit of when i play well and when i dont. The paladin feels very "automatic" in comparison, outside of managing cooldowns (which all tanks have to deal with) it feels like there isn't much choice in my play. The lack of things to use holy power on and fact that bastion of glory is basically now eaten by maintaining eternal flame means i rarely consume it on anything but SotR.

Just curious how everyone feels, do paladins have less control over their damage taken than the other tanks? Is it just a more passive style? Do you feel it's dull? Or have I finally after all these years actually found a class i just prefer over the paladin!

[Jackielope]

Keep in mind you've just gotten into warrior tanking and are still getting used to it. It's a new perspective, so something that you're used to might not seem like it's really comparable.

But it is in a few senses. Paladins have plenty of control over their health levels (EF and WoG don't exactly help prevent damage taken), although it is a bit monotonous since you're quite right in that we don't have much to spend HoPo on. But just like warriors' Shield Block and Shield Barrier there are two main abilities: SotR and WoG/EF. SotR is quite comparable to SBlock, but WoG and EF aren't so easily compared to SBar since they don't actually absorb damage like SBar does. Then again, it'd be a bit boring if they were all directly comparable, wouldn't it?

You may well have found a class you like better than paladin. And? It's a subjective matter, not an objective one, so play however you feel best.

[trystero]

Absolutely love it.

You should definitely be able to differentiate skillful AM play on a paladin. My guild claims I'm the easiest tank to heal, and we have some great tanks on the roster. Our AM only feels automatic if you're not paying attention to what you're doing. If you're just spamming SotR, ignoring the potential to mitigate melee swings, then you're not playing at a high level imo.

[Jackielope]

Absolutely love it.

You should definitely be able to differentiate skillful AM play on a paladin. My guild claims I'm the easiest tank to heal, and we have some great tanks on the roster. Our AM only feels automatic if you're not paying attention to what you're doing. If you're just spamming SotR, ignoring the potential to mitigate melee swings, then you're not playing at a high level imo.

Adding onto this, one of the possibilities is using something like Quartz to track enemy swings. Timing SotR to take two hits instead of 1 makes a big difference.

[lakhesis]

I feel like it's absurdly strong?

If it's just used scattershot, it's going to be about the weakest of the AMs. Stick to druids or warriors if you want passive active mitigation.

But if you're actually timing it to overlap with significant abilities, then I think it's probably overpowered. Being able to deliberately line up 6s+ windows of roughly halved physical damage is pretty nuts. It's a school-limited short duration shield wall.

It just makes us exceptionally timing oriented.

[Nobleshield]

I don't care for Active Mitigation in general, it feels too much like "Defensive DPS". Overall though I think it works well on the Paladin, not so much on the Warrior but that might be because I loved my Warrior in Cata when you kept Shield Block up 100%, and the new style feels weird to me still (although Barrier was a great addition).

[Felfurion]

Absolutely love it.

You should definitely be able to differentiate skillful AM play on a paladin. My guild claims I'm the easiest tank to heal, and we have some great tanks on the roster. Our AM only feels automatic if you're not paying attention to what you're doing. If you're just spamming SotR, ignoring the potential to mitigate melee swings, then you're not playing at a high level imo.

This. If you find prot paladin tanking (or any tanking for that matter) dull you're not playing to your full potential.