Why paladin tanks shouldn't be "viable"

[Pull My Finger]

What's the other option? Redesign the paladin talent tree to make sense, introduce new abilities so they don't go out of mana and itemize new items for them, then nerf consecration so their aoe threat is balls like warriors?

Sorry, I misunderstood your post. There is no other option. The original state of things is nothing that should be tinkered with, for the exact reason you pointed out in the OP.

[azkhane]

Or having a Thunderfury, Before it was nerfed the AOE proc on Thunderfury generated so much threat that it would pull mobs to you that you weren't even attacking.

I remember many nights in BWL while we were kiting that the other kite tanks mobs would run completely across the room to me just because my sword procced

This was even more true during the phase 2 dragons on Nef

nah i got bad luck with bindings, garr binding never droped for me, we got 8 geddon bindings in my guild(before aq), i was mt with priority for garr, my guild splintered in bwl (was a a 2 guilds alliance and we ended going part ways because tensions) i was a member of guild b but have good relations with guild a, the week we splintered both guilds raided mc(separate runs obviously) with 25 members max, i decided to keep with my friends of guild b , garr binding dropped on guild a that week.... months later we were advancing of AQ but we keeped farming mc, i had some personal issues so i was unable to go to raid that day, guess what happened.... yep binding dropped from garr...never got my thunderfury gg

[Halyon]

No you got it right actually but wrong too. Paladins do not have to gear to stop critical blows but they could stop crushing ones, their mitigation and aggro keep abilities like reckoning and shield block relied heavily on critical strikes. They would be a different kind of tank, that's a gkod thing, it would be fulfilling the role they were actually given, they would have to stack Stam, there are no defensive set bonuses so they would need to stack mp5 and a little Def and Stam, this is vanilla, weird stats, clunky mechanics, why are people so genuinely averse to this?

Because it's fucking retarded that classes/specs meant for x purpose cannot do that purpose when they don't have the tools or gear to do it. That's godawful design. I cannot for the life of me understand why people want a literal 'favorite children' game where 'viable' or 'godlike' is the best result of a class, and the rest are unplayable because they're just out of the factory that shittily put together.

And that's before the pvp abuse.

[Kaver]

A lot of people have fond memories of classic dungeons because of the slower pace, setting up pulls and using CC a lot. Much of that happened because the only "viable" tanks (warriors) had extremely poor AoE threat and couldn't hold aggro very well on large pulls.

Paladin tanks have strong aoe threat. When they were reworked to be viable in raids in Burning Crusade much of that classic dungeon gameplay was lost. Does anyone remember Shattered Halls with a paladin tank? It was a very different experience than Shattered Halls with a warrior that's for sure.

There's a danger that we may lose a lot of what made classic classic in buffing poor specs up.

Balancing specs and discussions about the balancing of specs were a big part of the vanilla experience.

[Kyranna]

Because paladins, unlike warriors, can hold threat on a lot of mobs, which erodes the classic gameplay of slow pace, setting up pulls and CC-ing a lot of things.

Wait, this isn't going to happen. Even if they could, they would be vaporized in tiny atoms before they could finish spelling "consecrate".
Pulling, CCing, etc was made out of necessity, because mobs were hitting VERY hard, that's what forced a certain gmeplay. Generally speaking, my static group of the classic era, was able to get through dungeons without having to coordinate much, we just knew what to do and how to play, for example, I didn't call sheep for my mage, he could handle that by himself.

I tanked as a warrior and tanked (dungeons only) as a bear too, because I loved druids, I literally had two hearts in place of my eyes when I was playing my feral druid, best spec ever, even if I had to stare at the bear butt way too much (camera issues with bears). My priest friend said: "it's ok that you like druid more, but I like warrior more", so I played warrior more and left druid in the background.
Druids had Swipe that could hit 3 mobs, so it was a huge advantage back then for easy AoE threat, especially on those packs of small mobs, but tab+sunder got me through everything bigger anyway, which was what mattered.

Why I think it'd be wrong to change classic in any way, shape or form? Because you'd lose those that truly love classic and you'd gain only people that would want to change the game over and over and over, possibly never reaching an agreement over anything.

If I were Blizzard, I'd change two things: one is the debuff limit on mobs, it was capped at 16 and it prevented many classes and specs from being played to their fullest, for example warriors couldn't talent Deep Wounds, warlocks didn't use most dots, but only the curses, shadow priests were basically screwed right away (also for agro issues, poor bastards). That's the only extremely important change I'd not only accept, but actually welcome with open arms.
Then I'd propose a change in duration for paladin's blessings. 5 minutes was just dumb. Make them 30 minutes like every other buff and be done with it. This change would do nothing about gameplay for anyone, but the paladins themselves, which could finally stop doing the buff/drink/rebuff game and do something more compelling, like picking their nose. I wouldn't play a paladin in classic, mind you, but it'd be an acceptable change and hardly anyone would complain, except those that hate paladins and want them to suffer.

[Wiedzemir]

A lot of people have fond memories of classic dungeons because of the slower pace, setting up pulls and using CC a lot. Much of that happened because the only "viable" tanks (warriors) had extremely poor AoE threat and couldn't hold aggro very well on large pulls.

It happened because tanks would die with more mobs attacking them, threat wasn't the only issue.

Also, 5-10 man dungeons worked well with paladin tanks so I have no idea what you're talking about. It would be a mistake to make paladin your main tank in a raid but other than that they were viable. Same with druids, they were viable tanks for 5-10 man dungeons. More so, there were AQ20 and ZG groups with a paladin acting as their main tank.

This nonsense about "warriors were the only viable tanks" should really stop because you people either never played vanilla and passing judgements by projecting random forum trolling or simply clueless.

Paladin tanks have strong aoe threat. When they were reworked to be viable in raids in Burning Crusade much of that classic dungeon gameplay was lost. Does anyone remember Shattered Halls with a paladin tank? It was a very different experience than Shattered Halls with a warrior that's for sure.

Also think that frost mages tanks should be viable. Frost mages have strong aoe threat.

[stomination]

Then why does it matter what flavour is the meat shield in front of you?

Cause meat shield has to live to be meat shield.

[Kilee25]

Why I think it'd be wrong to change classic in any way, shape or form? Because you'd lose those that truly love classic and you'd gain only people that would want to change the game over and over and over, possibly never reaching an agreement over anything.

I understand this position but...

If I were Blizzard, I'd change two things: one is the debuff limit on mobs, it was capped at 16 and it prevented many classes and specs from being played to their fullest...

I mean... you basically just contradicted yourself. There's a lot of people who basically felt the same way after picking the paladin as a class and leveling it for a year to 60, then finding out they wouldn't be allowed to tank in raids. From their perspective, it was like a certain part of their class was suddenly off limits. I think the same logic applies to what you're saying about dots, and I think the same reasoning and heartfelt situation arises. From most paladin tanks' perspectives, the game had betrayed them by not giving them the proper gear to do their role, and not giving them the one talent that they absolutely needed to be allowed to raid tank (a taunt).

Can't you understand that to those players, this felt more like a "bug" than a design choice? I mean, I still remember the epic posts on tank forums back then from the paladin tanks, pleading for just a tiny bit of support for them to do their role.

It's no different to me than classes with dot mechanics not being able to use those abilities.

[epLe]

its just the same today, spells and talents go in and out of rotations. Things get buffed and nerfed.

In classic, not everyone was viable as DPS or tank, but they still got brought to raids and played as support (hybrid).

[RobertMugabe]

ffs prot paladins weren't crap in vanilla (they were viable in all sitautions as lvling, dungeons, pvp... and yes even raids). At least when you wanna call a spec trash, back it up somehow, instead of just following popular belief.

First of all, prot paladins were better and faster at building up threat than warriors. They were better at AOE tanking, they were great as offtanks (for example your MT dies and you instantly get the threat, which can very well save your raid from a wipe!!!)...
And all in all, there are quite a few raidbosses in vanilla which are taunt-immune and in those situations a paladin can be easily the MT. Basically they could MT Ony, Ragnaros and KT(!!!) for example.

Were paladins have really struggled in early vanilla was mana regen, due to their bad itemization. But this wasn't much of an issue in later patches and especially after MC.

That being said, I won't be rolling a paladin on classic... but people should just stop repeating stuff that someone else said.

[Nitros14]

Removing the debuff limit would dramatically increase dps, you'd need to dramatically buff raids.

[Gaidax]

A lot of people have fond memories of classic dungeons because of the slower pace, setting up pulls and using CC a lot. Much of that happened because the only "viable" tanks (warriors) had extremely poor AoE threat and couldn't hold aggro very well on large pulls.

Paladin tanks have strong aoe threat. When they were reworked to be viable in raids in Burning Crusade much of that classic dungeon gameplay was lost. Does anyone remember Shattered Halls with a paladin tank? It was a very different experience than Shattered Halls with a warrior that's for sure.

There's a danger that we may lose a lot of what made classic classic in buffing poor specs up.

I think it's not even that - Prot Paladins have even worse issue here - there are no paladins at Horde side, which would instantly put horde raiding at disadvantage should prot paladin be made an actual viable tanking spec.

IMO, if they already go ahead and do this classic thing - it should be faithful to what vanilla was including all the messed up stuff like pointless specs, then after a long while MAYBE they should try some changes to spice things up and that's a giant maybe.

[Sorcath]

Paladins didn't have taunt, and threat generation. Today =/= Vanilla

For example

Sunder Armor was a stacking debuff that was applied to generate threat. Only Warriors had this, and Paladins closest move would be Consecrate/Righteous Fury combo. While Consecrate DID do damage, it DIDN'T build threat. How Holy Paladins built threat was by turning on Rigtheous Fury, Consecrate and spamming the crap out of self heals.

Cool, so we could just use a Holy Pally as an OT right? Wrong. Tank swaps were still a thing then, and by the time a Warrior had applied and managed his SA, there would be very little chance a Paladin of any spec would be pulling it off him. There was hybrid tax.

I believe that threat worked something like (damage) + (damage * (ModThreat * 0.01)).

[xcoatsyx]

Dunno what you are talking about, I solo tanked BWL as a warrior tank (Naxx gear).

[AeneasBK]

I mean sure if they start at 1.1

But warriors mostly had fine AoE threat generation; it was just a lot of bad warriors would think that, for example, thunderclap was an AoE threat tool.

[Dazu]

ffs prot paladins weren't crap in vanilla (they were viable in all sitautions as lvling, dungeons, pvp... and yes even raids). At least when you wanna call a spec trash, back it up somehow, instead of just following popular belief.

First of all, prot paladins were better and faster at building up threat than warriors. They were better at AOE tanking, they were great as offtanks (for example your MT dies and you instantly get the threat, which can very well save your raid from a wipe!!!)...
And all in all, there are quite a few raidbosses in vanilla which are taunt-immune and in those situations a paladin can be easily the MT. Basically they could MT Ony, Ragnaros and KT(!!!) for example.

Were paladins have really struggled in early vanilla was mana regen, due to their bad itemization. But this wasn't much of an issue in later patches and especially after MC.

That being said, I won't be rolling a paladin on classic... but people should just stop repeating stuff that someone else said.

Paladins were average at best. Yes they could be used but good luck using a paladin MT on any boss which feared, hit hard (crushing blows) or fight that went longer than about 3-4mins because once your mana ran out your threat per second went to crap and any semi decent dps without a constant threat dump would outdo your threat (fury warriors, rogues, mages, locks etc). I played prot in vanilla, we could tank 5mans and raid trash, I probably could have tanked some early raid bosses by the end. But why would a guild give me tanking gear over a warrior with better tools, steady and constant threat gen and more survivability. Loot wasnt super available, so drops were generally mapped to those who could use them best until offspeccing. And a paladin would need alot more items too as our tier except for t2 was pretty useless for tanking (and dps).

Now 2.0 with spiritual attunement pretty much solved these issues atleast. And I think alot are remembering that patch (TBC pre patch) for tanking level.

[Perkunas]

Okay, but why not give a paladin tank the same amount of aoe threat generation as a warrior?

That way paladins get to fufill one of the roles they were meant to, whilst keeping your precious "experience" intact.

You don't get it they would be mana starved. The mechanic that enabled them to tank only came in during BC. Then if they give them that mana mechanic from being healed then they need spell power itemization and a tier set that has defense and spell power with stamina. You just don't understand what this entails so just stop.

[barrsftw]

you played with very bad warrior tanks. secret for warrior aoe tanking was rotating targets like nuts(using sunder armor on adds and sunder + shield slams on main focus and next target) and stance dancing for thunderclap (-20% attack speed with moderate dmg and low threat), and berseker rage for extra rage/avoid fear on pulls with fear + random WW, and using demo and battle shout (yes battleshout and demo generated threat back them)

This further proves that warriors had bad aoe threat.

[Kyranna]

I understand this position but...



I mean... you basically just contradicted yourself. There's a lot of people who basically felt the same way after picking the paladin as a class and leveling it for a year to 60, then finding out they wouldn't be allowed to tank in raids. From their perspective, it was like a certain part of their class was suddenly off limits. I think the same logic applies to what you're saying about dots, and I think the same reasoning and heartfelt situation arises. From most paladin tanks' perspectives, the game had betrayed them by not giving them the proper gear to do their role, and not giving them the one talent that they absolutely needed to be allowed to raid tank (a taunt).

Can't you understand that to those players, this felt more like a "bug" than a design choice? I mean, I still remember the epic posts on tank forums back then from the paladin tanks, pleading for just a tiny bit of support for them to do their role.

It's no different to me than classes with dot mechanics not being able to use those abilities.

Yes and no. I can understand your position, but it wasn't just paladins, it was every hybrid class that was basically forced to heal and at this point you could just open a case for every spec that wasn't top dog, say subtlety rogues just to mention one, that were pretty much useless, or survival hunters or arcane mages. If you start fixing everything, you are playing modern WoW and starting towards that direction means it's like rewriting classes and pretty much the whole gameplay combat wise (let alone gear), which means we won't be playing classic WoW but something else (WoW Classic, revised version?).

The 16 debuff limit was a technical limitation, not a design choice (I'm not judging the design here) and it really created problems, with some debuffs thrown out of the table by freshly applied ones. It limited specs, talent choices and reduced even more the available spell selection for several raid members.

Again, if they want to attract the classic crowd, then they have to stick to the original game, with all its issues and design mistakes. Fixing problems will come by itself, I think they will use the modern client architecture and the modern API, so many things won't be an issue from day 1.

Removing the debuff limit would dramatically increase dps, you'd need to dramatically buff raids.

I doubt it. MC in 2017 or realistically 2018 is extremely easy, you can do it with 2 or 3 groups on emu servers if players are good enough. 40 players being able to stack dots etc. on the boss would speed up things, but I'm not convinced they would willingly introduce a 16 debuffs cap to stay true to the original (they found a way to run the old game on the new hardware/client after all).

[azkhane]

This further proves that warriors had bad aoe threat.

this further means that the only viable way of tanking was only pulling what you can manage, thats why old school tanks insist on you pull it you tank it when a moron dps keep pulling everything without asking u if he can do that. good tanks in classic can manage big pulls, bad tanks cant manage shit. also classic wasnt about aoe tanking the shit out of instance and go go go, of course u want to do it the faster u can, but sometimes u have dangerous/annoying mobs u have to deal with so u have to cc them, and have a priority on focus in case you dont have enough ccs and the mentality of aoe tanking doesnt apply well with classic tanking.