Ardent defender

[Lansow]

Not diying ? It just CAN and not WILL save you everytime you use it, if healers back you up with it not proccing, you pretty much wasted the CD, while a Prot Warrior popping shield wall will in all cases help his survivability, it raise is HP to 30%, so healers have more room to heal him back up, and if they back him up the second after he popped his CD, it's still completly usefull has he now has +30% HP.

Our serve one time, if your healer suck, if your healer don't suck, it's totaly useless. Sure, a skill balanced around other people not knowing how to play is well designed ?

You did not waste the cooldown, you gained a 20% damage reduction for the duration of the ability.

[Belloc]

We got GOAK, other tanks get the EXACTLY same cooldown.

We got DP on 1min CD, other tanks get nearly the same thing, Dancing rune, Block mastery. Only druid gets a second (but better) survival CD on longer cooldown.

What we have, other tanks have the same things, while AD is simply lackluster and don't have his place as a 31 pointer. Even ShotR would have been a FAR BETTER 31 pointer.

I don't want the same thing that other tanks have.

Ardent Defender is a great cooldown, whether you believe it or not.

[purpledrannk]

Immunity from death ? I'd prefer a good old Last Stand that put you directly and up your HP by 30% rather than this shitty cooldown. A boss swing is not 30% of your life, while it is for 15%. This talent is bad designed. Other tanks have more chance to survive when they pop their +X% life cooldown than us popping our 31 pointer, their last for more than 12sec, meaning that i could save you multiple time (because overall you have more health), while our CAN save you ONCE, then nothing.

It's bad designed not because "QQ IT ONLY SAVZE MAI ONCE", but because while comparing it to others tanks, and especially 31 pointers, it's seriously shit.

seeing that we have 45 more life giving cd's, our 41st talent should be BETTER than wog, dp and dg. You can always go back naxx if you miss wotlk. Wrath babies ftw.

[Kewi]

Except that it's no more 35% but only 15%, still sounds good to you eh ?

Hey, 15% is ~20k, which means i can survive that next 35k boss swing... oh wait... ummmm..


Joking aside, it sounds good to me. I live one half second longer, giving healers time to toss me a big heal.

[zealous]

Well, I also have a Paladin, who is currently Protection/Holy, although I was not aware that you needed to have one to post on the Paladin forums. Trying to disprove what other people say is not why I come to the Paladin forums, I merely have a different point of view than them. If everyone always agreed and thought the same then there wouldn't really be anything to discuss.

"Disproving" is something that I said out of politeness. Seems to me like what you are doing mostly borders on trolling. I've read enough of what you posted some time ago in the ret forums.

You are now the second person with a priest main that I've seen using any generalized critical comment he can cook up to refute what many ppl with concerns about paladin design flaws say.

I know I probably shouldn't be wasting time on this discussion as it will go nowhere but your attitude irks me. And no, it's not required to have a paladin to post in class forums but it's just that when a person has no personal concern he feels more freedom to bash on the concerns of others.

On topic - Ardent defender is not that bad of a skill, but in practice 99% of the time it's just a second DP and the additional effect is misleading and annoying considering how many design flaws the class has in general.

[Lansow]

All tanks have the same amount of CDs currently, there is no paladin advantage here.

Same amount of cooldowns, yes, same amount of damage reduction CDs? I don't think so.

[tjanson]

How many times have u actually been healed by that skill? I haven't seen it proc even once for me. May be just my luck but that proves that its field of use is very narrow. If the tank is that close to dying the raid/grp is already in trouble so if you ain't close to a kill in seconds - it's useless. And if you are - chances are the dps will finish off the boss even w/o the tank.

Makes me wonder if you even play a protadin. Seems a trend lately for ppl not familiar with a class to coming trolling to class forums.

P.S. Also about Grand Crusader - it currently is worth using only instead of HW. It's flat better than HW but shouldn't be used except to replace it because that screws up your rotation. It's been tested and proven.

The 100% tps loss is 80th level info. Been following maintankadin theorycrafting for a while now about this.

Ignoring the obvious flamebaiting, I play a protadin and Ardent Defender is amazing. No, it's not as good as it used to be, but it's a cheat death mechanic that only two other classes possess, and the only one of its type that a tank can get. If you haven't seen Ardent Defender proc once as a tank, then obviously what it REALLY proves is that you're using it at the wrong times.

The only complaint anyone could ever have about prot pallies is the lack of an off the GCD interrupt like every other tank class has. All things considered, I think we'll be okay.

[zealous]

Same amount of cooldowns, yes, same amount of damage reduction CDs? I don't think so.

AD is one of the crappiest among the 3 min ones.

[Deleted]

You did not waste the cooldown, you gained a 20% damage reduction for the duration of the ability.

Wait wait wait, this is clearly AWESOME as a 31 pointer !

Oh wait... We got the same thing on a skill with 1min CD that we get around level 10.

Sure, awesome. For a 3min CD.

@purpledrannk lol @ guy that haven't even cleared ICC with his paladin saying that people popped during Wotlk, stop taking your case for a generality, dumbass.

---------- Post added 2010-12-24 at 12:06 AM ----------

Ignoring the obvious flamebaiting, I play a protadin and Ardent Defender is amazing. No, it's not as good as it used to be, but it's a cheat death mechanic that only two other classes possess, and the only one of its type that a tank can get. If you haven't seen Ardent Defender proc once as a tank, then obviously what it REALLY proves is that you're using it at the wrong times.

The only complaint anyone could ever have about prot pallies is the lack of an off the GCD interrupt like every other tank class has. All things considered, I think we'll be okay.

Or meaning that we play with skilled players that know how to play, thus, rendering our 31 pointer as usefull as a skill you gain at level 10 but on a longer CD.

A skill that rely on other people fails is a prety giant design flaw, end of story.

[zealous]

Ignoring the obvious flamebaiting, I play a protadin and Ardent Defender is amazing. No, it's not as good as it used to be, but it's a cheat death mechanic that only two other classes possess, and the only one of its type that a tank can get. If you haven't seen Ardent Defender proc once as a tank, then obviously what it REALLY proves is that you're using it at the wrong times.

The only complaint anyone could ever have about prot pallies is the lack of an off the GCD interrupt like every other tank class has. All things considered, I think we'll be okay.

I have been using it at the right times. Once I understood that "cheat death" situations aren't going to happen too often since I've been lucky enough to have competent guild healers, I started using it simply as a healer mana conservation cd just as DP is. Would you have me keep it off CD in the hopes I 'might' get near death or a healer will screw up?

A recent moment comes to mind about it's usefulness - doing the "Sun of a..." achiev in HoO hc. We went 4 dps to beat the recharge timer with only an ele shammy offhealing. Right before we downed him he brought me to 4% hp, and since I had AD off cd - I used it. It was right at the end of the recharge phase and I ate 2 pulses of his AoE, which might have procced the heal (the incoming 1 sec pulsing aoe damage made it hard to track if a heal went in, seemed to me as if it didn't at all), after which he turned to me and killed me in one swing, before my GCD passed not even giving me the chance to make my "autores" matter by dealing additional damage.

By then my life or death wouldn't have mattered because the dps who were alive and the dots on the boss would have killed him anyhow.

EDIT - I never said we're not ok. We are in a pretty good place atm, except the gcd reliant interrupts and a little blandness. I would love more offensive utility the way dks and warrs do, but not complaining overall.

[tjanson]

Wait wait wait, this is clearly AWESOME as a 31 pointer !

Oh wait... We got the same thing on a skill with 1min CD that we get around level 10.

Sure, awesome. For a 3min CD.

@purpledrannk lol @ guy that haven't even cleared ICC with his paladin saying that people popped during Wotlk, stop taking your case for a generality, dumbass.

I cleared all of ICC with my paladin. Healed it and tanked it. Every encounter. Heroic difficulty. And I'm saying you're wrong about Ardent Defender. See what I did there? And I did it without resorting to namecalling, even.

[Kewi]

I just use AD as a DR CD, kinda stinks (20% 3 min cd) but it's better then nothing... Worth 31 points? Eh...

I use it, I'm sure it helps, it's never 'saved' my life in a raid situation though... great while prot questing though... damn respawn timers...

but a 20k heal is completely useless in dungeons and raids .. So I don't 'save' it for a death experience, I just use it on a pull when it's off CD

[Deleted]

I cleared all of ICC with my paladin. Healed it and tanked it. Every encounter. Heroic difficulty. And I'm saying you're wrong about Ardent Defender. See what I did there? And I did it without resorting to namecalling, even.

Sure, and your point about Ardent Defender is ? That it is awesome as a 20% damage reduction on a 3min CD ?

[zealous]

I just use AD as a DR CD, kinda stinks (20% 3 min cd) but it's better then nothing... Worth 31 points? Eh...

I use it, I'm sure it helps, it's never 'saved' my life in a raid situation though... great while prot questing though... damn respawn timers...

but a 20k heal is completely useless in dungeons and raids .. So I don't 'save' it for a death experience, I just use it on a pull when it's off CD

Pretty much all there is to say about it.

People who are denying it just want to play devil's advocate imo. Or aren't smart enough to see how little use the "autores" part is.

[Lyese]

What was a pretty informative thread is now turning into a flame war/epeen contest/QQ river. In summary, you can't analyze the individual aspects of each tank. You have to take the whole package. I've already stated no other tank has most of the tools we do, and AD is far from "lackluster." Not to toot my own horn, but I've been tanking since BC launch. We had a 1 hour cd. If I was going to use LoH, I better make sure that it would turn the tide. Since then, we've gotten a lot of other cds, and they all work on the same principal. I've personally seen AD's death effect go off because I save it for right when I know I'm going to take a burst and the healer is either oom, cc'd, or prepping an emergency heal. Most massive damage effects have a cast time, and you SHOULD be skilled enough to know your average damage intake during the fight (then again, I'm used to counting boss swings to weave in AS in between when it had a cast time). If you truly want a passive "get out of fail free card," which, honestly, the old AD was, then maybe you shouldn't be tanking in the first place. (Inb4 Shield Wall had an hour cooldown as well. Yes, it did, but they also had Last Stand on a MUCH smaller cooldown, and I know Bears didn't have any cds back then.)

As far as people posting whose mains are a different class, I welcome them to. In fact, I dare anyone to try and debate with me about Paladin mechanics. I'm not saying I'll go marching into the Oomkin forums and pretend I know what's what, but if I was curious about some aspects, I'd go and ask. If they truly do want to troll (Kelesti hasn't been lately, and although I've seen Abadon a lot while lurking, he sometimes makes good points), then please, bring it on in private messages.

[zealous]

What was a pretty informative thread is now turning into a flame war/epeen contest/QQ river. In summary, you can't analyze the individual aspects of each tank. You have to take the whole package. I've already stated no other tank has most of the tools we do, and AD is far from "lackluster." Not to toot my own horn, but I've been tanking since BC launch. We had a 1 hour cd. If I was going to use LoH, I better make sure that it would turn the tide. Since then, we've gotten a lot of other cds, and they all work on the same principal. I've personally seen AD's death effect go off because I save it for right when I know I'm going to take a burst and the healer is either oom, cc'd, or prepping an emergency heal. Most massive damage effects have a cast time, and you SHOULD be skilled enough to know your average damage intake during the fight (then again, I'm used to counting boss swings to weave in AS in between when it had a cast time). If you truly want a passive "get out of fail free card," which, honestly, the old AD was, then maybe you shouldn't be tanking in the first place. (Inb4 Shield Wall had an hour cooldown as well. Yes, it did, but they also had Last Stand on a MUCH smaller cooldown, and I know Bears didn't have any cds back then.)

As far as people posting whose mains are a different class, I welcome them to. In fact, I dare anyone to try and debate with me about Paladin mechanics. I'm not saying I'll go marching into the Oomkin forums and pretend I know what's what, but if I was curious about some aspects, I'd go and ask. If they truly do want to troll (Kelesti hasn't been lately, and although I've seen Abadon a lot while lurking, he sometimes makes good points), then please, bring it on in private messages.

This isn't a discussion about the class state. I started playing pala in TBC too and I've seen what the class was like then. I remember being utterly useless on trash/bosses that had mana drain mechanics. I remember consecration being the only AoE. But I don't think that the fact that we were even more crappy back then should be grounds to ignore obvious design flaws now. The past is the past, the present is the present.


I personally wasn't talking about paladin class state. I was just saying that AD is an underwhelming skill for a 3 min cd cost. Especially considering DP. Honestly, how many times have u found the heal part useful?

I welcome ppl playing other classes taking part in the discussion too, unless they do it with such smugness as if they designed the damn class. I've read Kelesti's and Abandon's posts in the ret discussion topics and it often made me really annoyed. I may not be 100% objective since they really irk me and I guess my attitude isn't helping and I should stop.

But I believe what I say and I do not troll or flame for the purpose of flaming.

[Lyese]

This isn't a discussion about the class state. I started playing pala in TBC too and I've seen what the class was like then. I remember being utterly useless on trash/bosses that had mana drain mechanics. I remember consecration being the only AoE. But I don't think that the fact that we were even more crappy back then should be grounds to ignore obvious design flaws now. The past is the past, the present is the present.


I personally wasn't talking about paladin class state. I was just saying that AD is an underwhelming skill for a 3 min cd cost. Especially considering DP. Honestly, how many times have u found the heal part useful?

I welcome ppl playing other classes taking part in the discussion too, unless they do it with such smugness as if they designed the damn class. I've read Kelesti's and Abandon's posts in the ret discussion topics and it often made me really annoyed. I may not be 100% objective since they really irk me and I guess my attitude isn't helping and I should stop.

But I believe what I say and I do not troll or flame for the purpose of flaming.

Design flaw is a subjective term. We are not flawed by design in any way in that we are unable to perform our job. This is the closest WoW has come to having all tanks pretty much represented and tanking all fights. It just annoys me that so many people are quick to dismiss something initially, then go back, pretend they never did, and proclaim it godly, such as with WoG. AD requires a bit more knowledge and skill to use than the other cds, but it is by no means "weaker." Personally, I think this is the best incarnation of the ability. Once again, if you get a feel for when the boss is meleeing you and for, on average, how much, and you pay attention to his various castables and abilities, then AD will become more useful. If you try to use it as a hail mary, then obviously it won't be as effective.

Actually, I'm glad you responded. I'm not trying to sound holier-than-thou, and say that you should bow down to my "obviously superior skillz." I'm not perfect; my own fellow class-mates annoy me more than anyone else in the game, but I'm actually glad to see that there are people that post on these forums that actually are human and not trolls. Yeah, tones are sometimes lost in typing, and it's hard to tell when someone's being serious, trolling, or has/hasn't the foggiest of what they're saying, and with a history like Paladins have had, I understand why it's a sore spot for the community.

[zealous]

Design flaw is a subjective term. We are not flawed by design in any way in that we are unable to perform our job. This is the closest WoW has come to having all tanks pretty much represented and tanking all fights. It just annoys me that so many people are quick to dismiss something initially, then go back, pretend they never did, and proclaim it godly, such as with WoG. AD requires a bit more knowledge and skill to use than the other cds, but it is by no means "weaker." Personally, I think this is the best incarnation of the ability. Once again, if you get a feel for when the boss is meleeing you and for, on average, how much, and you pay attention to his various castables and abilities, then AD will become more useful. If you try to use it as a hail mary, then obviously it won't be as effective.

Actually, I'm glad you responded. I'm not trying to sound holier-than-thou, and say that you should bow down to my "obviously superior skillz." I'm not perfect; my own fellow class-mates annoy me more than anyone else in the game, but I'm actually glad to see that there are people that post on these forums that actually are human and not trolls. Yeah, tones are sometimes lost in typing, and it's hard to tell when someone's being serious, trolling, or has/hasn't the foggiest of what they're saying, and with a history like Paladins have had, I understand why it's a sore spot for the community.

I consider myself to be an above average tank, I'm not perfect and I sometimes do less than great mob positioning if I don't know the fight well, but overall I think I know my way around the tanking business. I have gotten the feel on many things with time like how to control caster mobs even if you can't get to them, how many/which attacks it takes to make a mob stick to you so you can forget about him for a while etc.

So the above blatant bragging aside, I still think AD's heal part is very poorly done. You can anticipate boss damage all you like but you can't anticipate 2 important factors:
1 - incoming heals which might make the skill useless
2 - whether using it beforehand as a simple dr cd is more usefull than to save it for a ephemeral "cheat death" scenario (I personally prefer the 1st rather than the 2nd)

Also high tank damage often makes it near useless in my experience, giving you about a gcd worth more of time before you die even if you do hit the already tiny opportunity window it's useful in.

I've played a paladin for 4 years now and I've seen how the class has changed. We've become much better. But honestly that's only brought us in line with other classes, not made us any better or smth. And we still have many loops and holes that are left unaddressed for a while. I won't even comment on Ret's pitiful state.

My temper sometimes gets the better of me, but I never troll. Or flame out of spite. Such posts insult the one who does them more than the people who read them.

[Deleted]

Last stand is just extra health, From a healing PoV its terrible and doesnt help.

Ardent Defender, 20% reduced damage - great less to heal. If you take a killing blow it stops it and heals, - even better

Its a no brainer which is better. With the way the tanks damage intake is 'slower' than in wrath its pretty easy to time it aswel.
I suppose Vampiric blood is the closest comparison for dk's but its alot shorter cooldown, its better than last stand but not as good as AD imo.

[zealous]

Last stand is just extra health, From a healing PoV its terrible and doesnt help.

Ardent Defender, 20% reduced damage - great less to heal. If you take a killing blow it stops it and heals, - even better

Its a no brainer which is better. With the way the tanks damage intake is 'slower' than in wrath its pretty easy to time it aswel.
I suppose Vampiric blood is the closest comparison for dk's but its alot shorter cooldown, its better than last stand but not as good as AD imo.

DKs are currently overall more healer-mana efficient than any other tank anyway, their mastery is awesome in that aspect too.