Paladins in 5mans

[collax]

WRONG, Feral tanks are the BEST threat tanks because maul's threat formula is multiplicative whereas heroic strike's is additive.

Yes that make them the best single target threat tank. Doesn't change the fact it suck to try to aoe tank with a druid, swipe is only 3 target and does shit threat. And spamming demo roar isnt good either. Meanwhile warrior and paladin can hold multiple mobs far better.

[Armourboy]

To be fair, considering there's even video evidence of a Prot Paladin on a PS getting trucked in tier 2 gear with Thunderfury while trying to tank Strat, Paladins have a lot of issues with tanking.

Then he wasn't doing something right. I used to tank the 5 mans with 31 points in Holy when it was current and I didn't have a full set of tier 2 or Thunderfury.

[Azezeil]

Yes that make them the best single target threat tank. Doesn't change the fact it suck to try to aoe tank with a druid, swipe is only 3 target and does shit threat. And spamming demo roar isnt good either. Meanwhile warrior and paladin can hold multiple mobs far better.

Wait....what? Warriors are the worst AoE tank by far. Like, they have major issues effectively tanking more than 2 mobs at once. Paladins and Druids are much better at tanking 5 mans and need little if any CC.

[JustRob]

they can tank and heal fine in 5 mans.

Their level 20 class quest is notorious for being epic. Having to treck to SFK, BFD, all over the place and do dungeons.

Pallies are probably the best speedrun dungeon tank since they have the best aoe aggro, tho getting gear to do so is not easy.

Paladin tanks are extremely good for 5 mans. Their only downsides are a lack of end game gear suited to them, and not having a taunt.
They don't need either, with how easy 5 mans are.
People can be morons and pull before the tank or some how even pull threat off the tank, but they wont die as nothing hits particularly hard outside of larger group content.

But if you then want to go on and tank raids, you will be holding your group back quite severely. Bear and warrior can just output so much more threat on a single target, to the point that DPS can unload without having to worry.

My plan is to have paladin and druid 60 first, as they are both fun classes that offer a lot of flexibility and are generally desirable for all pve content.
Sadly, have to be alliance for that. What a shame.

Paladin are probably the best Tank for 5man while they are trash in Raid.

Righterous Fury + Salvation = DPS without breaks

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Just to be clear:

Don't listen to what these people are saying.

Paladins are garbage tanks in 5 mans. The only way they keep aggro is Consecration. Even if you're only fighting one trash mob, you'll have to use Consecration.

The result is that a paladin tank will have to drink more often than the healer and most groups will not put up with that shit. Especially since druid tanks are readily available and much better than paladin tanks (since feral druids are both tanks and dps, they don't have to respec)

[collax]

Wait....what? Warriors are the worst AoE tank by far. Like, they have major issues effectively tanking more than 2 mobs at once. Paladins and Druids are much better at tanking 5 mans and need little if any CC.

Warriors can spam battleshout with demoshout for aoe threat and that's basically all they need to do. Just use some specific aoe item on top and they should keep aggro on 10+ mobs decently.

[Azezeil]

Warriors can spam battleshout with demoshout for aoe threat and that's basically all they need to do. Just use some specific aoe item on top and they should keep aggro on 10+ mobs decently.

Battle shout was bugged and patched soon after guilds were exploiting it to tank Nef phase 1. You also had to have everyone in your party removing it before a new one was applied. You’re not going to be holding threat with just spamming demo on secondary targets.

If you’re using engi items to aoe tank 5 mans, you do you man, but typically people run 5 mans to make money not spend it. They do really make up for lack of aoe though.

Don't listen to what these people are saying.

Paladins are garbage tanks in 5 mans. The only way they keep aggro is Consecration. Even if you're only fighting one trash mob, you'll have to use Consecration.

The result is that a paladin tank will have to drink more often than the healer and most groups will not put up with that shit. Especially since druid tanks are readily available and much better than paladin tanks (since feral druids are both tanks and dps, they don't have to respec)

That’s not true. Rank 1 Consecration is all that’s needed. Paladins have a very large amount of passive damage return that makes tanking very easy. Yes they will need to drink, but it’s no more than a healer will need to. They also do tons of damage. They can stay competitive with the damage dealers in the group when 5 mans are relevant for gearing.

[Mackeith]

Battle shout was bugged and patched soon after guilds were exploiting it to tank Nef phase 1. You also had to have everyone in your party removing it before a new one was applied. You’re not going to be holding threat with just spamming demo on secondary targets.

If you’re using engi items to aoe tank 5 mans, you do you man, but typically people run 5 mans to make money not spend it. They do really make up for lack of aoe though.

This may come off as me not believing you, but trust me, it's not. Could you provide a source that battle shout was hotfixed at this time?

[StrawberryZebra]

That’s not true. Rank 1 Consecration is all that’s needed. Paladins have a very large amount of passive damage return that makes tanking very easy. Yes they will need to drink, but it’s no more than a healer will need to. They also do tons of damage. They can stay competitive with the damage dealers in the group when 5 mans are relevant for gearing.

Rank 1 Consecration was strictly worse than Demo Shout, even when talented for Imp. Righteous Fury. We're taking something like 120 threat over it's total duration, or 15 Threat per Second. You'd be lucky to out pace a Renew ticking on you with it, let alone a DPS.

When it came to reflective damage, Paladins only got the modifier on Holy damage. It was great for Retribution aura and Holy Shield, but it didn't affect other sources. It's a very poor argument to make in a Paladins favour though - Warriors and Druids could also benefit from relective damage, and at a higher modifier to boot. If you wanted to go out of your way, you could load up on Thorns, Fire Shield, Ret Aura, Crystal Spire, and throw on a Force Reactive Disk with a Shield Spike on it.

Blessing of Sanctuary, while a Paladin skill, is also castable on other tanks too. When it comes down to it, the gap between other tanks and Paladins isn't anything like as large as you think. They got bonus threat from all sources of damage, as well as from applying buffs, debuffs, gaining rage, and so on. The Paladin only got bonus threat from Holy Damage, nothing else. All those little extra bits Warriors and Druids generate really does add up, and extremely fast too.

All of which ignores the elephant in the room. Mobs need to be hitting you first for reflective damage to work at all. Paladins have no way to make that happen, Warriors and Druids do.

[Azezeil]

This may come off as me not believing you, but trust me, it's not. Could you provide a source that battle shout was hotfixed at this time?

I was wrong, it was actually fixed in TBC pre-patch. It will do ~400 threat evenly spread over all mobs aggroed. Party members still need to remove the buff. Source is something I can’t link here. It’s an unsavory place but the post is credible from 2007.

[Malacrass]

That’s not true. Rank 1 Consecration is all that’s needed. Paladins have a very large amount of passive damage return that makes tanking very easy. Yes they will need to drink, but it’s no more than a healer will need to. They also do tons of damage. They can stay competitive with the damage dealers in the group when 5 mans are relevant for gearing.

It depends on the group.

If you end up with classes without a limited resource (Rogue, Warrior) or those who are very mana-efficient (Warlock, Hunter) then you will definitely slow everyone down. A lot.
And believe me, it will feel shitty when everyone is waiting for you to regen mana. Maybe it won't matter that much if you're paired with another "suboptimal" healer, like a Druid or Paladin without a healing set, but even your average healing Shadow Priest is much more mana efficient than you.

Yes, you can tank instances just fine and I would do it as well if tanks are in very short supply (doing it atm on realms that shall not be named), but it won't be pretty. In general I would also suggest to go for a Damage / Healer playstyle during leveling, acting as a true support in both areas. This is where Paladins really shine. Wiping is hard if you have a backup healer who also has a sick amount of oh-shit buttons at his disposal.

Speedrunning dungeons at 60 is another story though, I could see Paladins shine with the correct gear and group.

[RobertMugabe]

As long as you are in a group that knows what they are doing Pally tank will be fine until the end games dungeons.

Not having a taunt or oom is a huge issue.

Pally healer is best bar none

Dont know much about Ret

Aren't most bosses in vanilla immune to taunt anyways?

[SirBeef]

they can tank and heal fine in 5 mans.

Their level 20 class quest is notorious for being epic. Having to treck to SFK, BFD, all over the place and do dungeons.

Pallies are probably the best speedrun dungeon tank since they have the best aoe aggro, tho getting gear to do so is not easy.

Notorious for being a huge pain in the ass more like it.

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Tanking with a paly is a waste, better play as healer or dps supporting with BoK and cleanse, supporting with heals and maybe offtanking any add that hit the healer, its very fun to play that way and i will say its the way paly mean to be played

Tanked up until MC in all dungeons. Had no issues really. Was shocked I was forced into healing for raids because reasons.

[azkhane]

Notorious for being a huge pain in the ass more like it.

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Tanked up until MC in all dungeons. Had no issues really. Was shocked I was forced into healing for raids because reasons.

Reasons: no taunt, no tanking set, not many offset pieces with def skill, no def skill cap = crit and getting crited un raid is death, no resource generation and fights were long AF.

In dungeons paly can be ok, but is a better healer or support, tanking a Dungeon with a paly is like cleaning your ass with $20 bills, you can? Yes. It Will clean your ass? Yes. Its a waste because It can be used better? YES, absolutely

[SirBeef]

Reasons: no taunt, no tanking set, not many offset pieces with def skill, no def skill cap = crit and getting crited un raid is death, no resource generation and fights were long AF.

In dungeons paly can be ok, but is a better healer or support, tanking a Dungeon with a paly is like cleaning your ass with $20 bills, you can? Yes. It Will clean your ass? Yes. Its a waste because It can be used better? YES, absolutely

I know the reasons, it was a dig at the dev team who purposely only made it so Warriors would be the primary tanks, but as I said, I tanked up until I got in a guild to raid. Never had anyone bitch or complain. But then we also did a lot of CC back then. Looking at it from today's knowledge of the game and perspective of gogogo, and must be the most efficient and min/max everything, sure it would be considered a waste. But 14 years ago, many players were not like that and often spent hours in BRD doing all the quests, even taking breaks to eat.

[JustRob]

I know the reasons, it was a dig at the dev team who purposely only made it so Warriors would be the primary tanks, but as I said, I tanked up until I got in a guild to raid. Never had anyone bitch or complain. But then we also did a lot of CC back then. Looking at it from today's knowledge of the game and perspective of gogogo, and must be the most efficient and min/max everything, sure it would be considered a waste. But 14 years ago, many players were not like that and often spent hours in BRD doing all the quests, even taking breaks to eat.

They did? I remember from when I played vanilla I had immense trouble getting a group together for the Jail Break quest. People didn't like going into that dungeon in the first place because it was a maze, and fucking huge. And to do an escort quest inside that dungeon? Hard pass for many people.

Also, whenever we did get a group together, nobody knew the fucking way or how to progress through the dungeon. It was a shitshow.

I hope it'll be better in WoW Classic.

[Highelf]

They did? I remember from when I played vanilla I had immense trouble getting a group together for the Jail Break quest. People didn't like going into that dungeon in the first place because it was a maze, and fucking huge. And to do an escort quest inside that dungeon? Hard pass for many people.

Also, whenever we did get a group together, nobody knew the fucking way or how to progress through the dungeon. It was a shitshow.

I hope it'll be better in WoW Classic.

Yes they did. I did several myself.

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Reasons: no taunt, no tanking set, not many offset pieces with def skill, no def skill cap = crit and getting crited un raid is death, no resource generation and fights were long AF.

In dungeons paly can be ok, but is a better healer or support, tanking a Dungeon with a paly is like cleaning your ass with $20 bills, you can? Yes. It Will clean your ass? Yes. Its a waste because It can be used better? YES, absolutely

You can still use that $20 just like you could before you used to wipe your bum. Hence, a class that can do multiples things.

[Azezeil]

Rank 1 Consecration was strictly worse than Demo Shout, even when talented for Imp. Righteous Fury. We're taking something like 120 threat over it's total duration, or 15 Threat per Second. You'd be lucky to out pace a Renew ticking on you with it, let alone a DPS.

When it came to reflective damage, Paladins only got the modifier on Holy damage. It was great for Retribution aura and Holy Shield, but it didn't affect other sources. It's a very poor argument to make in a Paladins favour though - Warriors and Druids could also benefit from relective damage, and at a higher modifier to boot. If you wanted to go out of your way, you could load up on Thorns, Fire Shield, Ret Aura, Crystal Spire, and throw on a Force Reactive Disk with a Shield Spike on it.

Blessing of Sanctuary, while a Paladin skill, is also castable on other tanks too. When it comes down to it, the gap between other tanks and Paladins isn't anything like as large as you think. They got bonus threat from all sources of damage, as well as from applying buffs, debuffs, gaining rage, and so on. The Paladin only got bonus threat from Holy Damage, nothing else. All those little extra bits Warriors and Druids generate really does add up, and extremely fast too.

All of which ignores the elephant in the room. Mobs need to be hitting you first for reflective damage to work at all. Paladins have no way to make that happen, Warriors and Druids do.

You're comparison is just not valid. Consecration (Rank 1) is 1 GCD for 15 TP/S over 8 seconds, every second. Demo Shout is 43 threat, but GCD is 1.5, so it's ~29 TP/S. The warrior can do nothing else while spamming demo other than auto attack. I don't think I need to go into detail in why a measly rank 1 Consecration is better. Max rank Consecration does over 90 TP/S, this is as good as Battleshout spamming "aoe tanking" 3 targets, but the Paladin is actually doing damage and contributing to the group. Any more than 3 and Consecration walks all over Battleshout. This isn't even taking into account how insane Holy Shield is for AoE threat.

Look, let me know how many groups you're in that has a Paladin healing, while spec'd for Sanctuary and using Ret Aura, Druid DPS for Thorns, Warlock DPS for Fireshield, and a Warrior tanking. Or enjoy farming and spending consumables in a 5 man dungeon (lol) so you can AoE tank as good as a Paladin as a Warrior. While you're looking for your perfect group comp, I'll be speed running 5 mans with my Holy Paladin friend who goes Prot to tank 5 mans during early server releases.

[SirBeef]

They did? I remember from when I played vanilla I had immense trouble getting a group together for the Jail Break quest. People didn't like going into that dungeon in the first place because it was a maze, and fucking huge. And to do an escort quest inside that dungeon? Hard pass for many people.

Also, whenever we did get a group together, nobody knew the fucking way or how to progress through the dungeon. It was a shitshow.

I hope it'll be better in WoW Classic.

I once had an 8 hour BRD run on. Where every quest was completed. turned in, even had a few people go catch up on the Ony attunement chain so we all could finish it too. We had multiple 30 min breaks so people could go eat, walk the dog and stuff. Shit like that would never happen today, and this wasn't even a group of friends or guildies, just a 5 randoms looking to do BRD quests.

[StrawberryZebra]

You're comparison is just not valid. Consecration (Rank 1) is 1 GCD for 15 TP/S over 8 seconds, every second. Demo Shout is 43 threat, but GCD is 1.5, so it's ~29 TP/S. The warrior can do nothing else while spamming demo other than auto attack. I don't think I need to go into detail in why a measly rank 1 Consecration is better. Max rank Consecration does over 90 TP/S, this is as good as Battleshout spamming "aoe tanking" 3 targets, but the Paladin is actually doing damage and contributing to the group. Any more than 3 and Consecration walks all over Battleshout. This isn't even taking into account how insane Holy Shield is for AoE threat.

AFAIK, Demo Shout was about 55 Threat per mob while in Defencive Stance and about 64 with Defiance. For a total of upto 43 Threat per second. Battle Shout on the other hand was 70 threat per person. In a 5 man group that's 350 threat, or 523 with the modifers in place and assuming that everyone gets hit. Max rank Consecration was ~730 threat over it's duration.

Warriors could use Heroic/Cleave, while spamming their shouts which were significant parts of their overall threat. They were also gaining extra threat passively from their rage gains and from oGCD skills like Bloodrage and Shield Bash. Their AoE threat package wasn't as bad as people make it out to be.

Also, for what it's worth, a Paladin could do little else but stand around auto attacking in their consecrate either. You'd judge/reseal and hit Holy Shield at some point between consecrations, but that was it. It's not really much different to a Warrior hitting Cleave and Shield Block - Only the Warrior is going to be tab targeting those cleaves to spread the damage over as many targets as possible.

The real edge Paladins had over other tanks was that they could scale their AoE threat with spell damage. Something that was, at the time, completely unavailable to other tanks. Even with their Threat gear, they had nothing to bump up their AoE beyond it's base values. Paladins could potentially ramp it up as high as they needed to as long as survivability wasn't an issue.

Look, let me know how many groups you're in that has a Paladin healing, while spec'd for Sanctuary and using Ret Aura, Druid DPS for Thorns, Warlock DPS for Fireshield, and a Warrior tanking. Or enjoy farming and spending consumables in a 5 man dungeon (lol) so you can AoE tank as good as a Paladin as a Warrior. While you're looking for your perfect group comp, I'll be speed running 5 mans with my Holy Paladin friend who goes Prot to tank 5 mans during early server releases.

I was saying that reflective damage is available for other tanks too - And that they gain far more threat per damage from it than a Paladin. It might not be enough to catapult them into a commanding threat lead, but pretending that it's something exclusive to Paladins is disengenuous. Especially when Druid tanks already bring their own Thorns buff to begin with. It's not at all outside the realms of possiability that even a 5 man group will have a Druid, or a Warlock or a Paladin. A raid group is pretty much gaurenteed to have all of them.

Congrats on missing the point though.

Just to put some numbers to that claim, max rank Retribution Aura is 20 damage per hit. With the Defencive Stance and Defiance modifiers (Or Bear form and Feral Instinct for Druids), that comes out at 30 threat per hit. Retribution Aura for a Paladin with Imp Righteous Fury is 38 per hit. Now consider Thorns. With Defencive Stance and Defiance is around 27 threat per hit for Warriors and Druids, but 18 for a Paladin. Fire Shield is 19 threat per hit for Warriors and Druids, but 13 for Paladins.

That threat gap only exists when you're looking at just Retribution Aura vs a Warrior with nothing. The second you add in other sources it get's significantly smaller, to the point where with all three Paladins will be generating less threat from their reflective damage, not more. Even Ret Aura and Thorns pushes Warriors and Druids ahead. When you examine all three under the same conditions the difference is nothing like as drastic as you may think.

[Thage]

How are Paladins in 5 mans? Are they good at tanking/healing/dpsing?

Do they have fun class quests?

Going Human.

Thanks.

Paladins can heal just fine. Tanking requires strict kill orders since you don't have a taunt in Vanilla, but are fantastic at holding AoE aggro with Consecrate. DPSing is iffy until you get Verigan's Fist, but if you can find someone to put Crusader on Verigan's Fist and spec Holy, you'll be a DPS wrecking ball and extremely self-sufficient with the heal procs until your mid-late 40s, possibly up to level 50 depending on your luck with drops.