Paladin Raid Tanking

[collax]

They all have wing buffet, and that knocks them down the threat table. This makes those three fights utterly ridiculous with no taunt. The pally won't be able to keep all the stacks off on Firemaw, they will stack up, and he will eventually die. That's not even counting the wing buffet.

For Ebonroc, the shadow debuff comes so damned often, that they will need to taunt back and forth... and that's also not counting the wing buffet.

Wing buffet is not an issue if you are the main tank since the offtank will take it by taunting just before.
And you can handle all the stacks off firemaw if you have fire resist cap. (And if you have really bad rng and stacks get too high you can reset with divine shield).

Only Ebonroc is a moderate issue because you indeed have to do multiple swaps but if the pala is generating more threat than the other tank, he should be able to take the boss back. For sure it's easier to have tanks that can taunt here but it's still doable. And anyway Ebonroc is easy and if your raid have enough dps you don't even have to worry about the debuff.
(There is also the solution of putting shadow resist item to resist the debuff and not having to swap but this is overkill)

[Machismo]

Wing buffet is not an issue if you are the main tank since the offtank will take it by taunting just before.
And you can handle all the stacks off firemaw if you have fire resist cap. (And if you have really bad rng and stacks get too high you can reset with divine shield).

Only Ebonroc is a moderate issue because you indeed have to do multiple swaps but if the pala is generating more threat than the other tank, he should be able to take the boss back. For sure it's easier to have tanks that can taunt here but it's still doable. And anyway Ebonroc is easy and if your raid have enough dps you don't even have to worry about the debuff.
(There is also the solution of putting shadow resist item to resist the debuff and not having to swap but this is overkill)

Except.. it is a concern. Because threat goes to hell with wing buffet. With Ebonroc, he also casts the flame debuff... making every one of those fights much more difficult than they need to be.

Every scenario makes is far more difficult, and for no good reason.

I could tank Onyxia with a warlock, but why the fuck would I?

And, if you stack FR gear, then he's going to be even more squishy to the physical attacks.

[Coldfrostzero]

You continued ignoring contrary opinions, points, and evidence. You choice to complain about every point brought up... and the list of negatives about pally tanks is still there.

Let's see that pally in Lawbringer's do it better than the warrior in Might. You forget that there's a shortage of tank gear that's not specifically for warriors. You'll have a pally in blues, trying to tank AQ 40.

Or, show us what his tanking gear will be at every raid level...

- - - Updated - - -



So.... taunting.... got it.

The rest is wishing and hoping for RNG.

Your new argument is that if people just stopped doing damage, then the pally would be fine. But, the ENTIRE justification is that the pally pushes so much threat, that they don't need to stop.

See the disconnect?

The tier 2.5 for Paladins is the tank/ret set. Lawbringers isn't a great set since it is +Healing. T2 is better for Prot since it is +spell damage and you'd have the set hopefully as a prot paladin before going into AQ40. Not sure why you're ignoring an entire tier of gear? There's literally a guide linked from WoWHead by me that has a BIS for every single phase.

Threat isn't RNG. It literally has a number tied to it. Do you know how tanking works? If I create 30,000 threat in 25 seconds, and you're creating 800 every second as DPS, as long as you don't get 33,000 (as melee) you won't overtake the threat. A Paladin would be creating 1,596 threat a GCD (every 1.5 seconds) from GBoK alone. As long as the Paladin maintains a cushion of about ~5k threat they wouldn't lose aggro. This is true even if a Warrior is tanking it. The only difference here is that Warrior can get a taunt off. Creating a threat ceiling faster than anyone can overtake them or it being reduced by Wing Buffet would eliminate the need for taunt. Granted I haven't main tanked any of the drakes yet so I don't actually know if they have the same amount of threat reduction as Onyxia, as I wasn't watching the meter. Tonight my guild gets back into BWL. If we get to Firemaw and kill it, I'll try to watch the meter to get an estimated threat reduction. That would give a better idea of what the ceiling would need to be.

This is theorycrafting btw. Without someone other than dfinan or whatever his name was testing it, we don't really know what Paladins are completely capable of doing. Having a conversation about it, that gets more people involved with testing it out. You're just outright dismissing possibilities.

[Machismo]

The tier 2.5 for Paladins is the tank/ret set. Lawbringers isn't a great set since it is +Healing. T2 is better for Prot since it is +spell damage and you'd have the set hopefully as a prot paladin before going into AQ40. Not sure why you're ignoring an entire tier of gear? There's literally a guide linked from WoWHead by me that has a BIS for every single phase.

Threat isn't RNG. It literally has a number tied to it. Do you know how tanking works? If I create 30,000 threat in 25 seconds, and you're creating 800 every second as DPS, as long as you don't get 33,000 (as melee) you won't overtake the threat. A Paladin would be creating 1,596 threat a GCD (every 1.5 seconds) from GBoK alone. As long as the Paladin maintains a cushion of about ~5k threat they wouldn't lose aggro. This is true even if a Warrior is tanking it. The only difference here is that Warrior can get a taunt off. Creating a threat ceiling faster than anyone can overtake them or it being reduced by Wing Buffet would eliminate the need for taunt. Granted I haven't main tanked any of the drakes yet so I don't actually know if they have the same amount of threat reduction as Onyxia, as I wasn't watching the meter. Tonight my guild gets back into BWL. If we get to Firemaw and kill it, I'll try to watch the meter to get an estimated threat reduction. That would give a better idea of what the ceiling would need to be.

This is theorycrafting btw. Without someone other than dfinan or whatever his name was testing it, we don't really know what Paladins are completely capable of doing. Having a conversation about it, that gets more people involved with testing it out. You're just outright dismissing possibilities.

So... no defensive stats, less strength, less agi, less mitigation... see a pattern?

Meanwhile, 2.5 is months and months away.

Squishy tanks with no taunt, bad itemization, mana issues, and a need for an entire raid to work around their idiosyncracies. That sounds awesome. Good luck on that.

[Coldfrostzero]

So... no defensive stats, less strength, less agi, less mitigation... see a pattern?

Meanwhile, 2.5 is months and months away.

Squishy tanks with no taunt, bad itemization, mana issues, and a need for an entire raid to work around their idiosyncracies. That sounds awesome. Good luck on that.

Warriors have no defensive stats as Fury. A Paladin would have offset items with +def or can simply ignore +spell damage with the GBoK spam in reality and put on any item with +def. As for having full FR gear (which guess what the warrior does in this too!) it usually comes with a lot of Stamina to make up for it. For the 100th time, mana isn't an issue if the fight lasts less than 2 minutes (which is nearly every fight).

What idiosyncrasies? The same ones a Warrior has with threat? You could solo tank any of the drakes as any tank in reality if the raid is watching threat. GBoK spam ignores the need for taunt if the threat is high enough. If not, they will probably end up taking threat back after a few more spamming of GBoK if a Warrior had to taunt just by the shear amount of threat it causes.

Be honest here, you don't really understand threat or tanking right? You play a DPS or a healer?

[Machismo]

Warriors have no defensive stats as Fury. A Paladin would have offset items with +def or can simply ignore +spell damage with the GBoK spam in reality and put on any item with +def. As for having full FR gear (which guess what the warrior does in this too!) it usually comes with a lot of Stamina to make up for it. For the 100th time, mana isn't an issue if the fight lasts less than 2 minutes (which is nearly every fight).

What idiosyncrasies? The same ones a Warrior has with threat? You could solo tank any of the drakes as any tank in reality if the raid is watching threat. GBoK spam ignores the need for taunt if the threat is high enough. If not, they will probably end up taking threat back after a few more spamming of GBoK if a Warrior had to taunt just by the shear amount of threat it causes.

Be honest here, you don't really understand threat or tanking right? You play a DPS or a healer?

That's simply not true at all. Plenty still use gear with defensive stats. Do you think they are just running around in leather? They can get as tanky as they need, because they have access to Might and Wrath. A pally doesn't really have that luxury. I'm looking at a fury/prot warrior right now, and he's wearing several pieces with mitigation.

My warrior can also get tanky, with relative ease.

Also, you are ignoring prot warriors. I can only imagine the utter hell that healers would be going through on Broodlord, when a pally eats an MS.

Bottom line, picks like that make everyone else's lives more complicated and difficult.

[Coldfrostzero]

That's simply not true at all. Plenty still use gear with defensive stats. Do you think they are just running around in leather? They can get as tanky as they need, because they have access to Might and Wrath. A pally doesn't really have that luxury. I'm looking at a fury/prot warrior right now, and he's wearing several pieces with mitigation.

My warrior can also get tanky, with relative easy.

Also, you are ignoring prot warriors. I can only imagine the utter hell that healers would be going through on Broodlord, when a pally eats an MS.

Bottom line, picks like that make everyone else's lives more complicated and difficult.

I'm a warrior in a mixture of Might and Wrath only because I was told I couldn't have certain DPS items over the DPS when I wanted it in my former guild for my Fury tank set. My belt is leather for +5 to Daggers and my bracers are mail. I think I have about +30 or so to defense? You know the minimum is 140 right? A paladin can get closer to cap with offset gear and maintain higher threat (in theory) than a Warrior in DPS gear as Fury Prot [the entire reason I started this thread]. Mitigation is literally the least important thing you want. Higher Strength and Crit are the most important stats for a Fury Prot tank and it just so happens that Might and Wrath usually are the best overall right now. The literal best set of gear you can have until AQ comes out though, is the HWL/GM. Has absolutely 0 mitigation. Bet you didn't know that either though.

Paladins are always tanky since they have a shield on.

Nobody takes a prot warrior to main tank. Nearly every warrior is Fury Prot and they tank Broodlord just fine. A paladin by default would be less squishy since they have plate and a shield on.

[collax]

Except.. it is a concern. Because threat goes to hell with wing buffet. With Ebonroc, he also casts the flame debuff... making every one of those fights much more difficult than they need to be.

Every scenario makes is far more difficult, and for no good reason.

I could tank Onyxia with a warlock, but why the fuck would I?

And, if you stack FR gear, then he's going to be even more squishy to the physical attacks.

Like I said wing buffet isn't a concern since the offtank is supposed to taunt just before so that he get hit by it instead of the mt (and the mt immediatly get the aggro back after).

As for the reason ? Well either for fun (some like to play meme classes) or for faster clear (assuming the gbok spam really allow to do more threat than other tank, idk about that i'm not a pala tank).

I'm not saying that having a paladin tank don't make fight easier, i'm just saying it's technically possible for a paladin to tank about every boss.
Is it worth it ? maybe, maybe not. Guilds will choose if they want to try it or no.

As for a pala with FR gear, I don't know how squishy it is so it indeed might be an issue ? I just know that a bear tank with fire cap as a maintank is the easiest strategy unless rng really fuck you up with stacks that don't fall off sometimes (but pala won't have this issue with divine shield).

[Machismo]

I'm a warrior in a mixture of Might and Wrath only because I was told I couldn't have certain DPS items over the DPS when I wanted it in my former guild for my Fury tank set. My belt is leather for +5 to Daggers and my bracers are mail. I think I have about +30 or so to defense? You know the minimum is 140 right? A paladin can get closer to cap with offset gear and maintain higher threat (in theory) than a Warrior in DPS gear as Fury Prot [the entire reason I started this thread]. Mitigation is literally the least important thing you want. Higher Strength and Crit are the most important stats for a Fury Prot tank and it just so happens that Might and Wrath usually are the best overall right now.

Paladins are always tanky since they have a shield on.

Nobody takes a prot warrior to main tank. Nearly every warrior is Fury Prot and they tank Broodlord just fine. A paladin by default would be less squishy since they have plate and a shield on.

You have access to tankier gear. Period.

Whether or not you choose to wear that gear, is up to you.

[Coldfrostzero]

You have access to tankier gear. Period.

Whether or not you choose to wear that gear, is up to you.

Edited my above response.

You would be gimping your threat. The literal reason you are a Fury Tank.

[Machismo]

Like I said wing buffet isn't a concern since the offtank is supposed to taunt just before so that he get hit by it instead of the mt (and the mt immediatly get the aggro back after).

As for the reason ? Well either for fun (some like to play meme classes) or for faster clear (assuming the gbok spam really allow to do more threat than other tank, idk about that i'm not a pala tank).

I'm not saying that having a paladin tank don't make fight easier, i'm just saying it's technically possible for a paladin to tank about every boss.
Is it worth it ? maybe, maybe not. Guilds will choose if they want to try it or no.

As for a pala with FR gear, I don't know how squishy it is so it indeed might be an issue ? I just know that a bear tank with fire cap as a maintank is the easiest strategy unless rng really fuck you up with stacks that don't fall off sometimes (but pala won't have this issue with divine shield).

Except it is a concern, because it's an aggro dump and a knockback. Those abilities are combined with other debuffs... the ones you keep trying to ignore.

It's technically possible to tank with an enhancement shaman or a shadow priest. That doesn't mean it's a good idea.

[dfinan]

Ill definitely let you know what we find as we go through BWL again this week and we start trying things on the bosses to get through them. I think we are looking at having me tank Vael next time since mana just like rage wont be an issue. Spam GBoK 5-10 times and between shield block, ret aura, nagerling ring, drill boar shield, and sanctuary, everytime I get hit or block i do 200-300 damage and generate significant amounts of threat. I can hit 290 fire resist and still have defense around 400. So it would be interesting to give it a try and see how it works.

I do still agree, that for progression, in vanilla warrior tanks are most efficient and more reliable. I think the point of this thread is that while not the most efficient, Prot Pallies do and can tank stuff and have a place in raids. Now would I take 2-3 in a raid, no, taking one is probably all most raids would need. I say this as they can add versatility, and definitely take a main role helping with clearing trash and tanking on the bosses they can tank. Heck, even on the less tankable bosses I spam 4-6 GBoK to try and keep ahead of the DPS but below the Main Tank in case he drops so the mob agros on me.

[collax]

Except it is a concern, because it's an aggro dump and a knockback. Those abilities are combined with other debuffs... the ones you keep trying to ignore.

It's technically possible to tank with an enhancement shaman or a shadow priest. That doesn't mean it's a good idea.

It's an aggro dump and knockback that only hit the offtank and not the maintank so it's not a problem.

Firemaw debuff isn't a problem if you have fire cap. Only Ebonroc debuff can eventually be an issue which may require some coordination for some swap without taunts.

Yes you can tank with a shaman or priest if you like. But the paladin at least have the theorical advantage of being the most threat generating tank with gbok while not being that squishy (because plate+shield) so some guild might find it useful.

[Machismo]

It's an aggro dump and knockback that only hit the offtank and not the maintank so it's not a problem.

Firemaw debuff isn't a problem if you have fire cap. Only Ebonroc debuff can eventually be an issue which may require some coordination for some swap without taunts.

Yes you can tank with a shaman or priest if you like. But the paladin at least have the theorical advantage of being the most threat generating tank with gbok while not being that squishy (because plate+shield) so some guild might find it useful.

The debuffs still exist. They are not going anywhere. At best, you are going to resist 75%, and that will put you in squishier gear. You will take considerably more physical damage, and still probably not drop the debuffs.

Ebonroc isn't just an "issue" it's a fucking nightmare scenario... all for no reason.

meanwhile, a warrior solves both of those issues with one button.

[collax]

The debuffs still exist. They are not going anywhere. At best, you are going to resist 75%, and that will put you in squishier gear. You will take considerably more physical damage, and still probably not drop the debuffs.

Ebonroc isn't just an "issue" it's a fucking nightmare scenario... all for no reason.

meanwhile, a warrior solves both of those issues with one button.

The stacks drop off if you resist them 2 or 3 times in a row. So unless you have bad rng, you are rarely going to have more than 10stacks (and then you can still divine shield for a sec to reset stacks if this happen). Sure it's squisher gear but not as squishy than a fury tank without a shield.

Ebonroc is just swapping without taunt. It's a little harder but as long as you generate more threat than the other tank you will get the aggro back, just have to time it right.
It will be a good pratice for gluth in naxx where you have to tank swap a boss that you can't taunt.

[Machismo]

The stacks drop off if you resist them 2 or 3 times in a row. So unless you have bad rng, you are rarely going to have more than 10stacks (and then you can still divine shield for a sec to reset stacks if this happen). Sure it's squisher gear but not as squishy than a fury tank without a shield.

Ebonroc is just swapping without taunt. It's a little harder but as long as you generate more threat than the other tank you will get the aggro back, just have to time it right.
It will be a good pratice for gluth in naxx where you have to tank swap a boss that you can't taunt.

I wish you the best of luck in finding a guild to cater to you.

[Alydael]

I get where you're coming from, but what we're discussing isn't the casual level of play that you're discussing, but rather what a Paladin would be capable of in the perfect hands given the new GBoK spam tactic.

I'm not trying to make Prot Paladins a normal thing that everyone does, but rather discuss if it's potentially got a place in a high-end guild, where everyone is playing what's ideal.

It's not interesting to figure out whether or not playing as a Prot Paladin is 'possible', because we all know it is. You could easily clear all of MC and BWL with nothing but Paladins or Druids.

Oh, I was a bit confused because in the other posts you mentioned the "ideal" raid group (in quite a few posts you mentioned it). The "ideal" tank in Classic will always be a war tank. The raids are easy enough that you can clear them with a non ideal tank like a pally or druid. I'm not even sure the pally or druid would even need to be an elite player, someone pretty good could probably do it. "Possible" does not equal "ideal" though.

[arkanon]

At this point, he is just harassing me. Constantly saying I'm a female (sexist remark?) and trying to derail the thread.

How ironic. I genuinely believed you were a female, i must have confused you with someone else. Disagreeing with someone is not harassment, however, unfounded accusations are not welcomed here, so i would just leave that one alone.

[gaymer77]

I tanked BWL Sunday, Onyxia and MC on Monday on my Warrior. I have played this game for 15 years, I've tanked on every class in various expansions and recently when I was still playing BFA, I was a Monk tank into a Warrior tank into a Bear tank. I tanked Mythic bosses as far as my guild could progress. My monk has 90th and higher percentiles on some Ulduar fights (https://www.warcraftlogs.com/charact...9&difficulty=4) for Heroic and my lowest percentile was 79th. I switched to my Warrior after we downed the first boss in Mythic out of boredom for the Monk rotation.

So please, try to tell me how I don't know how to tank a raid or play a tank optimally it's pretty amusing.

You do realize that tank threat is a joke and has been for several expansions right? Tank threat in vanilla was more of an issue and for a class that can't taunt, that's a huge deal. Can a paladin sunder armor? Can a paladin AOE taunt? Can a paladin single target taunt? What happens if that mage gets lucky with some back to back to back crits? You just going to wipe the raid because the boss goes running towards the mage because you can't taunt it or will you rely on your fury/fury/prot warriors to taunt so the raid doesn't get smashed?

[Coldfrostzero]

You do realize that tank threat is a joke and has been for several expansions right? Tank threat in vanilla was more of an issue and for a class that can't taunt, that's a huge deal. Can a paladin sunder armor? Can a paladin AOE taunt? Can a paladin single target taunt? What happens if that mage gets lucky with some back to back to back crits? You just going to wipe the raid because the boss goes running towards the mage because you can't taunt it or will you rely on your fury/fury/prot warriors to taunt so the raid doesn't get smashed?

I am not talking about threat as far as being a Monk in Uldir. I am talking about how I know how to play the game as you accused me of not even being an actual tank. You don't hit 80-90th+ percentiles playing poorly and not knowing what to do. Do you know how to tank or do it actively in Classic? Or are you like Machismo and literally just talking out your ass because you "see a warrior in town."

Do you know how threat works and how much threat per cast a spell generates on a Warrior? A paladin in 1 cast can generate enormous amounts of threat. If you cast GBoK on a class that has at least 14 people, you're creating over 3 times the amount of threat than the best Warrior threat generating move. That's per cast. Sunder Armor doesn't do an amazing amount of threat, and is only good when complimented with a Heroic Strike follow-up for maximum threat which caps at about ~700 threat in global (since HS is on your next Main Hand swing). That is if they have the rage, as it is very possible to become rage starved with slower swinging bosses or when you get a dodge/parry. The Paladin would still be creating over one and a half times more threat in a single cast on 10 players and isn't limited at the start of a fight to how they generate threat.

Also, in most good guilds, the DPS warriors are also stacking Sunders so the Main Tank doesn't have to. You overestimate how good Sunder Armor is for threat. Again, raids also have more than 1 tank. There isn't a single boss fight I can think of where you need to AOE taunt unless things get so wildly out of hand on Nef or Razorgore which is probably going to be a wipe anyways. To answer your question about DPS warriors taunting on trash and bosses, the answer is absolutely yes. We had a very ugly Firemaw kill last night, nearly every single warrior had to taunt the Wing Buffet so the MT wouldn't lose his threat. If you're a DPS warrior and don't have a sword&board+taunt macro, you're not playing correctly. Also, fun fact you'll ignore, if a Paladin was MTing, a warrior taunted off and took the Wing Buffet while the Paladin resumes GBoK spamming, not only will the Wing Buffet lower their threat putting the Paladin on top again, the Paladin is also maximizing their threat, the same way a Fury Prot Warrior would be spamming Heroic Strike to continue get threat.

Finally, if you create a threat ceiling so unbelievably high quickly, you literally have no risk of "a mage getting super lucky back to back crits that pulls threat" because they couldn't generate that much threat if they wanted to. GBoK cannot be dodge/blocked/parried/miss/resisted/glancing blow. The literal only way GBoK gets worse if people are playing so unbelievably bad that they are dying early to something like Firemaw's stacking debuff and suddenly you have less targets to bless which is probably a wipe anyways as you're healers are going to gas out trying to save people.