Ret Pallie Tanking ??

[Ladiebag]

I am normally a tankadin but since the implementation of Death Knights i have had to become more flexable in my role in the 10 and 25 man instances (I have respecced in the middle of 25 man Naxx to fill in a gap when needed usualy from prot to ret for dps). After reading the "Two-Handed Arms Tank" post something caught my eye. It was the statement on pallies "(You could probably come up with a Ret tanking system). "
I started thinking about how i could make a Ret Tank that would be able to put out decent dps but be able to OT as needed. I have a full set of tanking gear all from Naxx heroic (Except for Engeneered goggles and Jewelcrafting Trinkets) it seems the tanking gear has eneough +Str (which most dps plate doesn't have) to make up for the lack of +AP.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZaxVhbZxf0t0IhfMsxzAo)

With this build i have full 51 point in ret (i stayed away from most ret aura buffs and might buff cause our other pallie has those and since they don't stack are unneeded.)
Not sure if the last 2 points in prot are better spent in Divine Guardian or putting them in Improved Devotion Aura.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZaxVNbuMzZxf0xoIuf0sx)

With this Build i still have fanatacism keeping me from stealing aggro missing some of the higher damaging talents but keeps holy sheild keeping the ability to get full mitigation.

[BoJlk]

I'm Confident in my tanking abilities so this is a challenging idea...where do i sign up!

Always happy to see someone thinking "out of the box"

[kolben]

Question is, does GC/Blizzard mean that a Retribution Paladin (or Arms Warrior) should be able to tank 25-man bosses, Heroics, Normals or what exactly? Also doesn't this go entirely against the grain for the tank archtype in like every MMO and general common sense? Not your idea of course, the proposal from Blizzard. It's got a "we made DKs able to DPS/Tank with a gear change, why not everyone!" flavor to it. Tanks and Melee DPS are becoming more or less synonymous which is weird, well except for squishy rogues.

So back to what you are talking about. It would be interesting to see. Shields make a very large contribution to a Paladin or Warriors armor. I'd be willing to bet a mock-up in Rawr could show that you would have very high avoidance, but would take substantially more damage per hit because of the missing 7K+ armor form not wearing a shield. I think Retribution Paladin in a good set of tanking gear is probably very capable of off tanking or tanking harder hitting trash now, with a 1 hander and shield of course. I just wonder how many people have actually tried it.

[Ladiebag]

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZaxVhbZxf0x0IufMsxzAo)

OK using the gear i have at present i have unbuffed;

Tank Specs: 24.5k health, 542 Defense, 70% (dodge, parry, block, miss)and over 3k Threat per second vs the (skull) boss Training Dummie in Silvermoon with rightous fury up.

DPS Specs: 7.78% Hit, 4.5% Expertise, 2.4k AP and 1.25k DPS vs the
(skull) boss Training Dummie in Silvermoon.

[Ladiebag]

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZaxMhbhZxf0x0IufMsxzAo)

Ok this build allowed me to DPS and OT 25 man Naxx (h) only switching out between two-hander and sword and sheild i didn't have the pest dps in the raid but was steady at 1.6k dps and was able to OT on 4 horseman and Gothik where extra tanks were needed.

[Jayus]

An interesting idea.

I specced ret to level to 80 from 70 as I had decent ret gear from PvP and offspec rolls, of course I ended up tanking most of the time anyway in normal modes on the way there, and a few 80 normal instances before I went back to prot.

I didn't find it very hard at all, of course heroics would be another thing.

[Feanorr]

Does a ret/prot pally can tank in heroic or trash? sure, since BC already, as long as they got a correct tank gear.

But tanking or even OTing any serious boss, I really doubt it; of course if you are overstuffed for the content, yes; but otherwise, I dont think. And if you could, it would mean that the real tank's talents are broken and doesnt worth the sacrifice.

DK are different cause they dont have a real talent tree and our must have tank's talent are at the begining of each tree. Plus a big part of our armor come from frost presence, what every DK have. So we can take the most needed tank's talents and still take a lot of DPS's ones; in fact we MUST do it, cause we need the DPS to agro, since we dont have like other tank's classes many high threat move (the only one is DnD for the moment; Runetrike will be another one next patch).


Anyway, all of this will become obsolete as soon as they introduce the multi-spec ^^