Paladin AoE tanking

[Bluerelic]

I know already im gonna get scrutiny for this, but i gotta voice my opinion about us prot pallies and our aoe tanking. I hear all over the forums about how pallies are great aoe tanks, just drop consecration and go afk, and I really can't take it anymore. Pallies are arguably the best MTs now due to taking the least amounts of burst damage and untouchable TPS, but aoe tanking is not where its at anymore. Consecration scaled terribly from 70-80, its threat is weak and the lack of initial threat makes it near worthless until threat has already been established on mobs. Now, HotR and avenger's shield are nice for multiple mob pick ups, you can't compare their functionality to Death and Decay + Howling Blast or Thunder Clap + Shockwave + Cleave, I'm not saying we can't aoe tank anymore, but warriors and DKs are just plain better at it, now good pallies will still do just fine, they'll manage to gather up the pack of stuff, but this is skill based not a simple class mechanic anymore. The myth that pallies are super aoe tanks has to stop, we are good enough, but by no means are we great at it anymore.

[getefix]

wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong

Prot pally in our raids does 7k TPS on trash mobs.

You are doing something wrong

[Lumidar]

AOE tanking up to 3 mobs, no problem. if there's more than 3mobs then you can lose aggro on the others unless you tab target to hammer of the righteous the ones you're not hitting. we are still better than warriors and druids in this field though

but I do agree Unholy/Frost DKs are alot better AOE tanks than pallies.

[Plaguedog519]

Protadin aoe tanking is definitely more of a skill now than it was in BC. The hardest part I've found about it are fights where you're picking up adds while tanking a bunch of adds already (gothik, noth, sarth +3). Consecration ticks for roughly 700 tps if I recall correctly, which is nice, but the mobs can move fast enough to completely pass through the consecrate without taking a tick. Or they do take one, but the run from where they spawn to where my consecrate is laid takes so long that a single heal outaggros a single tick of consecrate so they forget about me.

As for tanking trash packs, I haven't noticed a problem. You can't just focus on one target and spam your skills anymore. Consecration and Holy Shield work wonders, but you do need to move from target to target hitting them with your stronger skills (hammer, shield of righteousness).

[Sarkan-ZdC]

If you have lots of mobs (Sartha +3 Add Tank) equip a healing weapon. Conc does a lot more damage and it is overall a lot easier.

[Inept]

Being just an add tank on 10/25 3D Sartharion, I sometimes use my spellblade and consecration libram. (Depending on the healers.) I have no issue at all tanking normal trash packs but 3D Sarth becomes difficult because of the randomness of the mobs spawning. (Though easily controllable) I do agree that all classes have great ways to AoE but prot paladins will always hold that niche. 2 Ranged taunts, a large amount of aoe/reactive damage and amazing stats for tanking a large amount of mobs without taking spikey damage. Prot paladins, once geared should have no problem holding aggro with just aoe.

[frankster]

lets do some comparisons

consecration ~= thunderclap.

hammer of hte righteous ~= cleave. hammer of hte righteous is instant but on a cooldown, whereas cleave can be spammed (rage permitting) but has a delay of up to the weapon speed before activation. hammer of the righteous hits 1 more target than cleave.

thunderclap is an initial burst of aggro, but once this is on cd you're screwed for 6s/consecration is several ticks but no initial burst. Sometimes the consecration ticks will aggro mobs that a warrior would not have been able to stop due to thunderclap being on cooldown, on the other hand sometimes thunderclap will pick up mobs that would have run through a consecration.

shockwave ~= avenger's shield. avenger's shield does more threat but on limited targets, and has a slow instead of a stun. shockwave has a shorter cooldown though both of their cooldowns are quite long.

So i guess the way to look at it is that paladins' pick up abilities are avenger's shield and hammer of the righteous, whereas warrior's pick up abilities are shockwave and thunderclap. with consecration and cleave not being too useful (though consecration would seem to be more useful than cleave).

In conclusion it seems warriors are better able to pick up >3 mobs, although I suspect that paladins are better at holding onto the mobs against aoe unless mobs die in about the same amount of time as a thunderclap/shockwave/thunderclap combo

[Inept]

I think both classes are fully able to tank a small amount of trash with seemingly no difference between threat generation. When your talking about a mobile fights that requires add tanking, consecrations duration totally outweighs thunderclap as do our taunts and our large amount of reactive damage done to every mob that attacks us. Throw being block capped into the equation and paladins are superior. Can a warrior do it? Yes, but not as easy as a prot paladin.

[Bluerelic]

I'm not arguing that pallies are capable aoe tanks, or that tanking multiple mobs is difficult once they attack you and the effectiveness of holy shield and consecration set in, but everyone assumes aoe packs just appear all clumped together standing next to a paladin and hes the most important target. When healer agro is more threat than a single tic of consecration, its worthless for fights like 3d sarth unless used in conjunction with some other ability, once you establish agro its good at pushing a little extra threat, but on aoe packs and picking up random adds this threat is worthless, when i hit a flame on 3d with ShoR or HotR it dies before something out agros me, this is not aoe tanking, this is burst threat on a single mob. The most targets we are capable of AoEing is ~7-8, more if the mobs come in waves and your cds are available to hit them with something to make them stick, but this is use of multiple tools and hoping that the bounce effect on both of your abilities works right. Aoe threat is not about high TPS when your initial threat is terrible, because giant packs of adds die before our main source of threat sets in, if a warrior pops shockwave and thunderclap, and continues to do so on cd, the adds stick immediately and the mobs die before dps overtakes the warriors threat. DKs same thing DnD + howling blast or pestilence/blood boil if not frost, and the adds stick immediately, it requires multiple cleave-like moves for pallies to pick up more than a couple of adds and make them stick, there is a limit to how many they can get. There is a cap where pally aoe ability will stop, where we just cant pick up that many mobs and you'll start using DKs and warriors for it.

[Lumidar]

imo they should make Glyph of Consecration slow the mobs down when they're in it so they take more ticks.

[Matson]

imo they should make Glyph of Consecration slow the mobs down when they're in it so they take more ticks.

would be a frost trap.. ^^ too powerful in pvp

[Dubious]

remove the frost trap then...

[Inept]

The only class that has every gave me an issue in 10/25 3D sarth would be druids. Since they are constantly rolling hots on everyone, they will immediately pull healing aggro when adds spawns. Especially is the sarth tank healer is a druid standing next to the portal. Usually though, once an add takes 1 tick from my consecrate, I immediately pull aggro. I don't see paladins having aggro issues.

[PapaNasty]

consecration ~= thunderclap.

hammer of hte righteous ~= cleave

shockwave ~= avenger's shield. avenger's shield does more threat but on limited targets, and has a slow instead of a stun. shockwave has a shorter cooldown though both of their cooldowns are quite long.

I think you need to compare apples with apples soto speak

Shockwave vs Holy Wrath

Avengers Shield vs throw (Do warriors have a ranged attack ability? I don't know), or perhaps could compare vs the unlimited taunts they get via vigilance


Until Holy Wrath also works on non undead mobs, we're lacking a little on the aoe tanking side of things vs warriors. Our aoe tanking mitigation is however the best of any class due to how our mechanics work, however having holy wrath as an "oh shit" button or as a tool for quick aoe pickup wouldd definitely be nice. Perhaps a talent in deep prot to make it targetable on non undead aswell?

[rewind]

Maybe against anyone but Players, as the PvP ramifications come in there too, as they have already removed the silence from SotR from what they said originally (OP I know), but they are obviously very aware of the deep prot utility buffs and how they can dramatically change PvP. Think of using this enhanced Holy Wrath running into a big mob in the BG, like AV...freezing everyone in pla...oh, like a mage. Well, ours would be even more powerful since it is a stun too. It'll never happen.

I love it as an oh sh* button as well, and even use it when I spec holy...dmg prevented is as good as/better than healing done. But with moving out of Naxx and away from all those beautiful undead, we'll have this one less beautiful spell to use...boohoo-qq