is it fun to tank as paladin?

[viR]

so the title says it all, i have ret/holy in my dual spec and im thinking on trying prot instead of ret, i've tanked as warrior before and i liked it but now i want to focus on this character and have gathered some prot gear, so is it fun? boring? and if any prot pala over here tanked as warrior before could tell me if its funnier or not etc, thanks.

[Raptorg]

Try it.

How are we supposed to know what you think is fun or not?

[viR]

I never said I want you to tell me if it will be fun to me or not, I want people opinions. If there is someone who tanked with a warrior before and is now tanking with a paladin he could tell me the differences and then I would dedice, but thanks for your post.

[Deaths]

I never said I want you to tell me if it will be fun to me or not, I want people opinions. If there is someone who tanked with a warrior before and is now tanking with a paladin he could tell me the differences and then I would dedice, but thanks for your post.

I tanked on my Druid and my Warrior at 70. Granted they are completely different now than they were back then so I really cant judge how they are now as tanks. I will say I really enjoy tanking on my paladin. Its fun.

[Shadowpreist]

I currently have an 80 warrior tank and a 78 Prot pally (was ret/holy, changed to prot/holy like u are considering doing). I think it is relatively similar to tanking as a warrior (with much more solid AOE threat tho). I personally enjoy it and I love doing a lot of dmg as a tank. It's really up to personal discretion but I enjoy it.

[Shenshu]

Prot is the main spec of my paladin and I really enjoy it. Before I was a bear tank, and while I had lots of health and nice CDs, it felt kind of bleh to me after doing it for so long.

Prot paladin's threat generation is great, AoE tanking is good, not quite as many "oh shit" buttons as other classes, but you have Divine Protection which is every 2 minutes (1:30 with 4pc T9) and you can get another small damage reduction if you glyph for Hand of Salvation and threat isn't a problem. The built in Guardian Spirit helps in a pinch too. I also like shield tanking for some reason, although I know bears have the same thing practically.

I think it just comes down to what style of tanking you like best. DKs are dual wield or two hander tanks that rely a lot on parry, bears have dodge, bear shield and lots of stam, warriors are very technical tanks with many abilities at their disposal. Since you've tanked as a warrior, you might find a couple similarities between it and paladin, but I think they are very different and if you want to try tanking as a paladin, this will be a new experience for you.

[Amgyn]

i've gone prot pally > prot warrior -> prot pally -> druid -> prot warrior

the least fun i found was paladin... paladin seemed the 'safest' (not sure if thats the right word) to tank with.. and warrior was the most fun... druid meh, better than pally.

with the warrior you have to be awake and alert and keep up with your skills/tabrotation to keep aggro on more than 1 mob... with paladin its boring.. its almost like you have to do no work to keep aggro.

Personally i'm keeping my pally away from prot for now...

having too much fun lining up mobs for shockwave, timing procs, charging, intercepting or intervening to save team mates etc....

[Craz]

It's really easy to tank as a prot paladin. Now do you find easy being fun, or do you like a little more skill in your classes? Like elemental shaman is super easy and boring to me, on the other hand something like feral druid where you have to think is fun to me.

[monalin]

Depends what you're idea of fun is. I've tanked on pally, dk and warrior. I prefer to tank on the pally because I feel more comfortable doing it. Warriors have more of a learning curve but they have more utilities which i'm sure 90% of warriors don't use. Spell reflect, Intercept, Intervene, Charge... The first time I jumped on a warrior I noticed how many more spells they have to use than say a pally or DK.

It's fun to mess around on a warrior but I think I like prot pally too much to ever switch to warrior. Once you set up healbot or something to work with Righteous Defense, Hand of Protection, Hand of Salvation, Hand of Freedom you can really be useful on raids. I've saved many people on Anub in ToC by casting HoP on them before the spike hits them. Or before the warlock/mage starts AoEing wheps in Onixya i can bubble them. It's just nice, not to mention LoH and Ardent Defense... Nothing like being saved from death once every 2 minutes if you're healers are slacking. Doesn't proc all that often, but when it does you just saved the raid from a tank dying. Warrior tank would be toast.

Warriors rotation is a little more fun and its nice to intercept/intervene but at the end of the day i'll go back to pally where it all started.

[Copain]

The Paladin has it's own little area of tanking, it's a bit more simple than a lot of classes, and we are the only mana based tank, meaning we can use all of our skills right off the bat. Paladins have no skills that you spam (Such as Heroic strike) or Reactive skills (Revenge-like abilities). Which is more fun to me, since I don't have to sit there and spam a button or macro all of my skills together.


We do have situations where it can be a bit more annoying to tank though. We lack any sort of AOE taunt (Granted one of our taunts gets three targets) and our only real AOE for agro skill does not go right off, but takes a sec to tick and build threat. But once we have the threat, we can typically hold it well.



The only REAL downside to being a Pally tank is the actual lack of some of the funner/fine tune'd tank spells. The warriors have charges/spell reflects/Vigilance, DK's have pulls and the such, Druids have charge (I really have no idea what Druid tanks have, it's the only tank I never have really raided with >_> <_<); that is not to say we do not have our fair share of boosters or anything though, just not as fun IMO.


Also, I believe of all the tanks we bring the best and most easy buffs. Our auras are an always active passive ability (well, when selected), and our blessings last a long time compared to a warrior's few min shouts. And we have more buffs, including one unique to our spec (BoSanc) compared to the Druid's 1 (2 with thorns) that every Druid spec has.



All and all, I think the Pally is a pretty enjoyable tank, they lack a few tools that could be handy, but nothing that makes them lose a spot in a group, and their buffs are nice.

[Needonboots]

Fun sides:
Awesome damage (I regularly win 50g bets in DTK and CoS heroics against DPS on who can do the most damage lol)
Chainpulling is a GOOD thing for once
Lots of utility and stuff to cast outside the rotation
Ardent Defender is fun to play with (Sapphiron, Mimiron )
Easy to get groups
AOE!

Boring Sides:
Set rotation, no real procs to watch for
People hate you
Be consigned to always add tanking if that situation can occur

[Nikoll]

I off-spec tank and I find it rather boring. You don't have to try at all to out threat anyone. the 969 rotation is useless when i can hit them in any order i want to be miles ahead of everyone. Prot threat is more faceroll than ret ha ever been.

And A.D. is rather ridiculous tbh. It auto procing is completely overpowered and makes tanking a bit less fun.

[Copain]

And A.D. is rather ridiculous tbh. It auto procing is completely overpowered and makes tanking a bit less fun.

It's always been a passive...? I like how people complain about it in a less powered state just because they see it.

[cappytoi]

At 70 I tanked with my druid, can say it was boring than paladin tanking. I have a prot warrior alt but not raided with him, even though playing style is much fun than paladin or druid and it needs your attention to play it well or not. The good side with paladin tanking is since your rotation doesn't require too much attention you can easily avoid stupid mistakes and be aware too easily, if you screw up at avoidable damage while you are playing a paladin tank you are either watching porn or you are a retard. But offensive skills are a part of tanking but not covering the whole idea of it, you still need to use your potion/health stone, trinkets, cooldowns on the right times and you still need to position/move correctly. Whatever people says paladin aoe tanking is not that easy, you still need to tab the mobs and hit your abilities since only consecration itself can't hold all the aoe threat coming from dps. The most downside of the paladin AoE tanking is the mobility that a warrior has on its abilities and those abilities (TC + SW) is fun imo. On a side not I really hope we got a reactive ability (like revenge, ?rune strike?) with the new expansion to make the offensive rotation a bit more fun or complicated.

[harky]

Depends on the type of player you are. I hated Paladin tanking in TBC, but loved Druid and Warrior tanking. Was simply too much time standing there waiting for cooldowns. Wanted more to do. Come 3.0 Pally tanking now has a full rotation, and Warriors now have their old rotation totally revamped due to S&B. Haaaate the new Warrior tanking. Druid was 'okay' because it's just a simplified version of the old Warrior rotation. Like DK tanking due to having different options to go with. Paladin tanking has a good feel to it though. It always feels like the button you're pushing is important.

There really isn't a good way to say without trying it yourself though. I don't like procs ruling everything I do, so I avoid my Warrior. I don't really like the lack of utility Feral has, so I avoid my Druid. I like my DK for tanking because it's dynamic without being random like Warriors. I like Paladin because it feels like a tanking rotation and doesn't require me to macro half my abilities, or bind my mouse wheel to HS/Maul/RS and spin it for the entire fight. I think if 2h single disease Frost tanking was viable again I'd say DK was my favorite. Blood tanking is okay, Unholy reminds me of TBC Paladins though. Combine an un-fun tanking method with subpar threat and wonder why you're picking up adds instead of tanking the main boss. :-\

[Xylinia]

Easy? Yes.

Fun? No.

And yes i have played Pally tank.

[Xylinia]

i've gone prot pally > prot warrior -> prot pally -> druid -> prot warrior

the least fun i found was paladin... paladin seemed the 'safest' (not sure if thats the right word) to tank with.. and warrior was the most fun... druid meh, better than pally.

with the warrior you have to be awake and alert and keep up with your skills/tabrotation to keep aggro on more than 1 mob... with paladin its boring.. its almost like you have to do no work to keep aggro.

Personally i'm keeping my pally away from prot for now...

having too much fun lining up mobs for shockwave, timing procs, charging, intercepting or intervening to save team mates etc....

Sorry to double post but just have to quote for truth.

[Staunch]

Easy? Yes.

Fun? No.

And yes i have played Pally tank.

It's a matter of playstyle tbh

[diabolikal]

I off-spec tank and I find it rather boring. You don't have to try at all to out threat anyone. the 969 rotation is useless when i can hit them in any order i want to be miles ahead of everyone. Prot threat is more faceroll than ret ha ever been.

And A.D. is rather ridiculous tbh. It auto procing is completely overpowered and makes tanking a bit less fun.

Troll much? Yes you do have to try to out threat other tanks. Snap aggro on a warrior will own a pally threat gen if we're not being hit. Also, ardent defender isn't any different than say, last stand.. Except ours is auto. (any good warrior will know when to pop it.)

Edit: We are great offtanks, but we do make good maintanks too. I have maintanked every boss in 10 and 25 toc. And currently working on MT'ing TOGC25.

[Kyrottas]

Try it.

How are we supposed to know what you think is fun or not?

This, I recently decided leveling a Prot Paladin (Who was @ 62) more productive than leveling a Lock (60)

At first the whole rotation was confusing, but I read up on TankSpot about 96969 rotation and I've had fun ever since, but to be honest it's completely personal. Protadin is fun IMO (Whom is 75 now and I LOVE tanking instances) I expect to at least get on the Tank on my off time.