[Joanadark]

As well, healer/tank is not as good a combination as tank/dps. Fights which require fewer tanks rarely require more healing. It's better to have a tank that can add more dps than a tank which can add more healing. If Karazhan is normally 2 tanks/3 healers/5 dps, in a 1-tank fight going 1 tank/3 healers/6 dps is better than 1 tank/4 healers/5 dps. Finally, paladins are superb healers, and that means there's a lot of pressure to heal. Healers are rare. Tanks are rare as well, but DPS is common. So it's a lot easier to shift a DPS warrior to tank, than it is to shift a healing paladin to tanking. This is what happened to me. I started Karazhan as a tank, but one week one of our Holy paladins was away, so I shifted to Holy to cover. We ended up recruiting another tank before getting a healer, so I had to stay Holy. Additionally, the other healer off-specs are pretty strong. For example, consider a priest, paladin, and warrior. You could go "paladin tanks, priest heals, and warrior is dps". But arguably, going "warrior tanks, paladin heals, and priest is dps" is a stronger combination, even if the two tanks are equal. There is no real synergy in the first combination, but there is strong synergy in the second.

very astute coriel

[Crimsonstorm]

A pally tank applied to our guild, and we are looking for a pally. My question is wether we should accept him as a tank, or make him respec to heal if he wants to get in.

Our guild has Kara/gruul on farm and is starting SSC.

He has:

Unbuffed hp: 10117
Armor (w/devotion auro and no other buffs): 13365

How would this compare tanking-wise to a warrior? What could we expect him to be able to MT (could he do Kara), and what could he OT?

[Joanadark]

We'd need more information than that. An armory link for the paladin would allow us to give more useful insight.

his HP and AC levels are low. They are on par with a paladin doing heroics or starting kara, and unless he has something amazingly special in his other stats, I'd venture to say he wouldnt be up to tanking your unbeaten content.
Kara may be perfectly within his reach though.

I'd need to see any armory link to really say any more.


A tankadin will definately serve you will in a variety of encounters in SSC however, so this may be something you seriously should consider cultivating.

How many other active tanks do you have? what classes?
What is the rest of your raid group make up like?

What is the average gear standard and competition for the kind of things he'd need to catch up?

[Crimsonstorm]

The Armory

I think he's done some heroics and not done kara.

For the rest of our guild: One of our 2 MTs just quit. So at this point I'm basically the only progression MT. (I have 16990 armor 15943 hp unbuffed right now)
Currently for tanks we have 3 warriors and 3 druids. We also have 1 warrior who is an alt of one of our shadow priests, and is actually our 2nd best geared tank. He is considering switching to the warrior as his main. We have another druid who is the alt of one of our healers, who is fairly well geared as well.
Our other two warriors are new and are in the 13khp/13k armor range probably, starting to get Kara gear. Our druids, I'm not really sure. They can MT kara, they cant MTstuff beyond that I would think, but theyre fine for OTing anything.


We're looking to add about 1 more tank, and we have no pally tanks right now. We also are in need of a bit more healers, so if he was to heal he would fill a need there.

[Nicki]

hmm his gear is very poor...

10k uncrushable is reachable pre karazhan (there are guides...WoW-Europe has a nice one by a paladin named Zoe who has uncrushable% on many items pre karazhan), if your determined and have time on your hands you can reach 11.8k uncrushable 12k armor (not sure cant remember armor lets just say i didnt care ^.^ till now..)

He could OT midnight, tank trash but would have problems on bosses having so little avoidance. I remember getting up to curator and even doing romulo pre nerf(i think) with a crushable paladin lol..Sadly hed need all the gear your warriors are going to need and more..im inclined to say not a good idea =(.

[Klimpen]

Source: Joanadark In all honesty, I've never minded or felt hinder by the hp gap. It's small enough that it's flavorful, a distinguishing factor. ...

Reading through this thread, I saw this comment and disagreed.

A Warrior in equal tanking gear will have ~1200 more health than me. This translates to around 3000 Effective Health. A 10% gain is extremely significant, at any level. While this percentage difference will drop, 3000 Effective Health essentially equates to a half-Teir of progression.

This is, in my opinion, the thing that makes Tankadin's competing with Prot Warriors an uphill battle. We have to find at least 1/2-Teir of gear in Sta, before we're equal. Not to mention, the extra 45% avoidance.

[Nicki]

And how many warriors actually gear to max effective health? but yes i do feel hindered by the HP gap..adding an extra Sta trinket and 1200 HP would put me on 15200 HP, in a sense looking at the tank on the most progressed guild alliance side on my server id have 1200 more hp and a bit less armor and avoidance..but instead of being as good as or even near to im 600HP below at 13.5kHP =)..its a much bigger difference than if i were a warrior...

However saying that i still like and prefer paladin mechanics more thank god for premades on the PTR i didnt want to tank on a warrior after that ..

Though having a semi stronger uncrushabillity tool does make me feel better. A warrior i respect on my realm said something to the extent of 'Shield block is hard to keep up all the time, most bosses hit too fast or have special melee attacks as well' Though the weakness is you can still be crushed between rebuffing but ive seen this with warriors as well..except they have to rebuff every 5 seconds in most cases vs 10 =)..The hp difference is a little unfair well yes but i prefer this play style...

However the problem is no matter how hard i work on my gear a warrior with lesser gear will out gear me =\...

[Joanadark]

As I've said before, paladins will never be as good at being warriors as warriors are.
If that's the basis of your assessment, then yes, paladins will always be "outgeared" by warriors.

What I try to emphasize is that HP is not the be-all, end-all of what makes a solid tank. If that were the case, then every guild there is would be using a druid.

Effective Health is important because it works to "zoom out" on the damage you take, making it less significant in proportion to your survivability.
It's only half of the equation though.

The other half is controling the damage itsself, flattening it, steadying it, smoothing it, spreading it out.
Avoidance plays a significant role in this half by modifying your average Effective Hit Frequency, as do effects like Thunderclap.
Spike Elimination like 490 Defense and Uncrushability, as well as the dependability and permanence of these two factors.

The two sides, "zooming out" on the damage's significance, and "controlling" the damage itsself, overlap in the area of Mitigation from Armor and Block Value.
This is why, once a decent lead of HP has been acheived, it becomes more reliable and useful to focus on expanding your Effective Health through mitigation stats rather than more Stamina.

(by the way, this is the cliff notes version, but I can link a more in-depth discussion of this concept on the wow forums if you're interested or want to see the supporting arguements behidn my assertions)


A lot of people tend to view the paladin as sort of in the middle of the scale between Warriors and Druids.
I think it is more accurate to say that Warriors are in the middle of the scale between Druids and Paladins.
With the Warrior as a reference point, people more easily understand and are comfortable with the strategy behind the Druid end of the scale. Bigger Effective Health pools are a simple concept, and the trade-off is equally obvious; the lack of spike control.

Paladins are less easy to understand or be found acceptable because they are on the opposite side of the Warrior from the Druid. The Paladin is fully on the extreme of "Damage Controllability", yet is the most "zoomed in" on spikes the do take of any of the classes.


A common misconception I see encountered by Paladins just starting raiding is when players they group with project the damage intake they are used to warriors recieving on to the paladin's Effective Health and deciding, perfectly rightly, that the Paladin's survivability could not tolerate it.
A good example is Prince.
Prince in his flurrying phase two rips the shreds the damage controllability measures available to a warrior, resulting in a very high damage in-take. Warrior compensate for this by stacking lots and lots of stamina and mitigation.
Guilds often will look at a tankadin, with his lesser armor and lesser stamina total, and tell them that they "cannot survive tanking prince".

The idea that the Paladin's ability to control and steady the eb and flow of this boss's incoming damage to a much greater extent is a classic example of where their side of the spectrum shines.
But it is an angle that is more subtle, and more complex.

It is an angle that many are not used to.
Hence doubt in the tankadin.


No, I am not bothered by a paltry 1.1k difference in HP. Especially when I have to stack far less itemization on aggro-generation than a warrior and can focus on more stamina on my gear myself, and still be acheiving easily higher than 1200+ threat per second on bosses such as Prince.

More realistically, I only found myself with half a teir less stamina than warriors who actually DID outgear me by half a teir.
Generally, I find myself only a couple hundred behind an equally matched warrior, and that tends to stem from the gun slot.

All the way through all of the current content, once 16k+ HP is reached, most deaths are going to occur from fluke spikes or healer error, and those fluke spikes....they don't happen to paladins.

[Klimpen]

An interesting post Joanadark, I enjoyed reading it.

I agree with many of your points, Paladins have a much more stable intake of damage. However, during progression fights, it's better, in my opinion, to maximize your Effective Health (Armor, Sta and even Block Value to a lesser extent). It's extremely difficult to have a comfortable amount of Effective Health in new content. Avoidance is awesome when you've got a comfortable amount, but until that point, I would concentrate on increasing Effective Helath over Avoidance gains. Within reason of course, but if you're staying uncrush and have the choice between an equal iValue of Sta/Armor or Avoidance, I'd take the Sta/Armor the majority of the time.

As you said, reliable intake of damage is key. Spike damage could, in an extreme case, be a long period of avoiding attacks (Dodge/Parry/Miss) followed by a slight-burst, which while mitigated (all of the attacks blocked) could kill you if your healers noticed that you wern't taking damage and concentrated on healing the others in the raid, and wern't fast enough in healing you. A specific example, but it could happen.

Lets say you had two sets of gear. Once was an avoidance set, the other an Effective Helath orientated set. Both have an average intake of damage from an unnamed boss of, say, 5k DPS.

The Avoidance set would take more damage per hit, less often but with streaks of good/bad avoidance. The average amount of damage taken within a section of time, could be totally different to another.

The Effective Health set would take less damage per hit, more often, more regularly. The average amount of damage taken within a section of time, would be fairly similar to another, in comparison to an Avoidance tank.

Sure, you could get lucky as an Avoidance tank, and take quite a bit less damage than an Effective Health tank. But you can't rely upon taking average damage. It just adds an element of randomness I'm not comfortable with. Effective Health adds a reliable amount of damage reduction.

All of this being said, I still support an intelligent mix of Sta/Armor and Avoidance. Losing 1% dodge for 5Sta is stupidity. 8Dodge Rating for 12 Sta is a solid decision (Except when you'd lose uncrushability).

[Concordia]

Source: Klimpen Paladins have a much more stable intake of damage.

I think that depends on the circumstances, Klimpen. Warriors have more base mitigation than Paladins (10% vs 6%), as well as more base health. Where Paladins have a chance of pulling ahead against raid bosses is through Crushing Blow avoidance. 10 Holy Shield charges vs 2 Shield Block charges can be significant, and in cases where it is, you're completely right in saying that the Paladin will have a more stable intake of damage. But the unfortunate reality for Paladin tanks is that there aren't many bosses that attack more than 2 times in a 5 second period -- especially with Improved Thunderclap down, meaning Shield Block effectively becomes the equivalent of Holy Shield. One encounter that I can think of where this isn't the case is Morogrim Tidewalker. Tidewalker will attack more than 2 times in a 5 second period, even with a 20% attack speed reduction, and any Warrior tank will eventually get hit with a Crushing Blow. As a result, a Paladin tank will end up being an easier target to heal. Prince Malchezaar would be another good example, but because he dual-wields, a Warrior with a good set of avoidance gear and the proper buffs can stabilize the damage just as effectively. However, any time a Warrior can reliably keep Shield Block active, the greatest advantage of a Paladin tank becomes nullified and the extra mitigation/health of Warriors pulls out.

Source: Klimpen It's extremely difficult to have a comfortable amount of Effective Health in new content.

My assumption used to be the same until not long ago. I did a check of maximum effective health possible across all instance tiers (link), and found that there wasn't much of a difference. The greatest gains a tank makes in transitioning from, say, T4 to T5, is in avoidance and not effective health. This is why when looking at a tank with significantly better gear, you might be surprised to find that he/she isn't leaps and bounds ahead of you in effective health.

[Aaesop]

This is getting to be quite the interesting read Although I must say theres alot better facts being brought to the table than whats seen at the wow forums lol

[Klimpen]

Wow. I guess I'm wrong then Concordia.

To respond to the second part of your post first, I honestly hadn't realised how little effective health gain there is between gear teirs. One thing I think could be added to your linked post, is the avoidance/block values at each Tier, just to show the improvement (If you can't be bothered or are too busy or w/e, gimme a PM and I'll get onto it).

Discounting mechanical (lag) or human (missclick) error, Paladins are, in my opinion, better at smoothing damage in smoothing damage than Warriors. The are cases, although rare, where a warrior will take a crushing blow. Through a Parry, Special ability (I'm unsure if they can crush, I know that they can use a Block charge though) or whatever, there are times when a Warrior is not uncrushable.

Though it's yet to be touched upon, I thought I'd go into it, as I've been thinking quite hard about Tanks from a healers perspective. Let's just say, that the Tank has been lucky, and has avoided all attacks for the last 15 seconds (Rare, but possible. Mabye a 1% chance (Generous)). As a healer, I would be hesitant to continue healing the said tank, as to save mana. However, slight burst, say attack->parry->attack->parry->attack in the space of 2 attacks, could kill a tank. This would be much less likely to happen if the healers were concentrating on healing the tank, even though they're OH'ing. But if they've made a decision to save mana, by not healing the tank, it could cause a wipe. The point of this example is that the Tank's main job isn't to reduce how often you get hit, but to reduce how much you get hit for.

Two tanks could take 20k damage over 20 seconds.

Tank A, takes 8 hits for 2.5k damage each.

Tank B, takes 4 hits for 5k damage each.

Tank A, most likely took each attack about the same distance from each other attack (~2s gap). There could be a period where damage is reduced for a breif period, or increased for a breif period, but any increase isn't going to be significant. The amount of damage taken over any period, is likely to be close to the Damage Taken per Second. This is much more reliable than Avoidance Tanking.

Tank B, could've taken each attack equidistant, or close together. That 20k damage could've happened in 10seconds. There could be dry spells, where you don't get hit for a signicant period. Just as likely, there could be periods where you get hit after hit, without avoiding anything. The amount of damage taken over any period could be quite a bit higher, lower or close to the DTPS for the fight. This is less reliable, but ~1/2 the time better, than EH Tanking.

In my opinion, at higher gear levels. Paladins become better EH Tanks than warriors. As we can be relied up to smooth damage to a greater degree, especially in the case of a Parry-Attack scenario.

[Narshe]

Do you think that Tier5-6 paladins should avoid spec in Reckoning? 4x2 1.60 attacks increase the chance of the boss parrying multiple then killing the tank.

[Klimpen]

Source: Narshe Do you think that Tier5-6 paladins should avoid spec in Reckoning? 4x2 1.60 attacks increase the chance of the boss parrying multiple then killing the tank.

Could be interesting to see the added damage taken. I wouldn't have a clue how to do that though.

[Nicki]

Well no because thats like telling warriors not to shield slam or devastate both of which can be parried...paladins have fewer melee based attacks and reckonning is a fair ammount of threat (whitedamage is about 100tps with a 41 dps weapon using evolve's threat spreadsheet).

The issue is speccing out of reckonning and going for weapon expertise 'might' reduce burst damage..murphys law....

[Alixander]

In general I dislike Reckoning. It provides an approximately equal bonus in threat generation compared to other similar talents, such as Improved SoR and Improved 1H, but at the cost of only activating when you're hit (and by that I mean hit and said hit does damage), and by increasing (albeit a minor one) the chance that the enemy will parry.

My biggest beef has always been the fact that it's a "I must take damage for this ability to activate" type abilities. To me these are bad because as you continue to increase your gear quality your overall avoidance will probably go up. The more avoidance you have, the less times you are hit for damage, meaning fewer chances that abilities like these will activate. I would rather have something that gives a smaller bonus full time than something that activates pretty much at random.

As for Weapon Expertise, the jury's still out on whether it actually lowers enemy parry chance, but I figure it's worth it just for the increased chance to hit, since the current belief is that Avenger's Shield is based on your physical to hit chance, and it's always really bad when AS misses.

[Nicki]

Baring in mind Holy shield will mean you block all hits, they are infact still counted as hits.

According to morn's tank sim. Redoubt was active 20% of the time but provided no actual block. So with that said reckonning is probably the single best way to increase threat, reaching improved SoR would be next and 1h spec is a must.

If you gear to effective health theory you will be hit more by hit i mean blocking more attacks and thus you will be benefitting more from reckonning. Not being hit isnt always good or gearing more avoidance isnt always good, for warriors it is but for paladins its a threat negative, either way the talent is very nice for grinding as well as the fact that each reckonning swing procs SoR so you gain quite a fair ammount of threat from it =).

You will never not be hit but you will feel reckonning not proccing as much but when it does it is very nice and currently theres not much you can do maybe getting 3/5 imp sor well that wouldnt be that good and id miss out on 300~ armor that could be supplied by a holy paladin but generally is not.

[Concordia]

Replying to Klimpen:

Special Attacks performed by mobs cannot crit or crush, but they can consume Shield Block/Holy Shield charges. The most dangerous combination of attacks for a Warrior then would be something like, Special Attack -> White Attack -> White Attack, immediately following the use of Shield Block.

Parries are another thing that can potentially be fatal, and inevitably a Warrior will get hit with a crushing blow in a situation where a Paladin wouldn't; in the long run, a Warrior will take more crushing blows than a Paladin, but Paladins will experience them as well due to the quirky duration/cooldown of Holy Shield. The difference lies in frequency. As long as a Warrior can reliably keep Shield Block active -- even with the occasional crushing blow, a Warrior will have a steadier stream of incoming damage than a Paladin.

The reason is indirectly related to Shield Block, but a large part of it is differences in base mitigation and base health. It's compounded even more by few bosses being able to penetrate Shield Block every 5 seconds. The fact that any Warrior at level 70 with a decent Prot spec can remove Crushing Blows from the attack table, even while naked, means that he or she can immediately start working on building up his/her effective health, while a Paladin in the same situation will be forced to spend a lot of time reaching and maintaining the minimum of 72.4% combined avoidance/block before being able to do the same.

All of these things combined result in Warriors being able to mitigate damage more effectively than Paladins, even with the every-now-and-then crushing blow. The only exception is when a boss mob can consistently break through a Warrior's Shield Block charges -- both Paladins and Druids become superior tanks in those situations.

Source: Klimpen In my opinion, at higher gear levels. Paladins become better EH Tanks than warriors. As we can be relied up to smooth damage to a greater degree, especially in the case of a Parry-Attack scenario.

I find the exact reverse to be true: As gear improves, Warriors become more efficient while Paladins gain extra survivability (effective health) and additional threat. The key distinction is that Paladins are finally able to do what Warriors could do from the very beginning -- stack Health/Armor, while the Warrior is effectively past that stage; they can begin looking at gear which boosts their avoidance and threat, all while maintaining enough Health to push new content. The extra avoidance means Shield Block becomes more reliable -- more attacks are avoided, fewer charges are consumed, and the Warrior can mitigate damage even better than he/she could previously. Going hand-in-hand with this is gear that improves Weapon Skill, such as [item]The Brutalizer[/item] and [item]Gauntlets of Enforcement[/item], reducing the chance of parries and further stabilizing the Warrior's intake of damage.

I believe that T6 content is where Paladins truly start to shine as tanks, but at the same time I don't think they ever out-pace Warriors in survivability/mitigation. In their current state and with the gear that is available to them, I see Paladins as having slightly inferior mitigation to Warriors, but at the same time having the greatest threat potential of any tanks. And that combination might not be such a bad thing.

[Concordia]

Regarding Reckoning...

The extra threat is nice, but several of the prot builds that I've tried on my Paladin don't have it. I don't consider it an essential talent. I believe the same to be true of Avenger's Shield -- it's awesome for 5 mans (Heroics included!), but has limited utility in raids outside of AoE situations.

As far as threat generation goes, I don't think anything can beat a Sanctity Aura build. 0/40/21 happens to be my favorite.

[Joanadark]

Source: Concordia but Paladins will experience them as well due to the quirky duration/cooldown of Holy Shield.

I've personally done the math on this a good while back.
I reality, the odds of experiencing a crush do to duration/cooldown lag are in the realm of "negligably infinitesimal", and even that chance is reduced by the ~20% of the time Redoubt will span the gap and cover the missing combat table-filler.

Except in cases of poor ability useage or a boss burning through ALL charges of Holy Shield prematurely, a Paladin will not take crushes.

As long as a Warrior can reliably keep Shield Block active -- even with the occasional crushing blow, a Warrior will have a steadier stream of incoming damage than a Paladin.

In order to KEEP Shield Block reliably active, the easiest solution is to add additional avoidance to reduce the frequency of charge-using hits. Parry is additionally useful because it procs the ability to use revenge, which compensates for the reduction in blocks.
Avoidance itemization is more expensive, multiple times more expensive, than the block rating with which paladins make up the Holy Shield-Shield Block gap, making the expenditure pretty much balance out without serious disproportionality.
A warrior is simply avoiding more of the attacks, while a paladin is absorbing and rolling with more of them as blocks.
This actually means that the PALADIN is in fact taking a steadier flow of incoming damage. A more predictable one.

The fact that any Warrior at level 70 with a decent Prot spec can remove Crushing Blows from the attack table, even while naked,

If by naked you mean "with 490 defense".
Otherwise, no, warriors are just as fully crushable as anybody else.

The fact that any Paladin at level 70 with a decent Prot spec can generate massive threat with their base abilities, even while naked, means that he or she can immediately start working on building up his/her effective health, while a Warrior in the same situation will be forced to spend a lot of time reaching and maintaining the minimum requirements of Block Value, strength, and weapon stats before being able to do the same. This counterbalances any difference in itemization for achieving crushing blow elimination.

I fixed your paragraph for you to reflect reality.

...even with the every-now-and-then crushing blow. The only exception is when a boss mob can consistently break through a Warrior's Shield Block charges -- both Paladins and Druids become superior tanks in those situations.

Pretty much every single boss with a special that can be blocked breaks through Shield Block.
I play a warrior. I've tanked the encounters. Shield Block is pretty flimsy without significant avoidance.
There are also plenty of bosses which dual-wield and even quad-wield.

I don't think they ever out-pace Warriors in survivability/mitigation.

perhaps, but neither do Warriors ever really out-pace Paladins in survivabiliy/mitigation.


On multi-tank encounters, the paladin shines.
On Elemental resist fights, the warrior shines.
But on single-target physical damage fights, the two are pretty damned equal.


The reality of the gear progression and mechanics doesnt bear out your generalizations, which unfortunately closely match many of the common perceptions.

The trade off is NOT less mitigation for better threat.
That would be a rediculously unfair tradeoff.

Our survivability is equal. The trade-off is the way in which we accomplish it, which is the opposite of yours.

So yes, paladins will always be slightly worse warriors than warriors manage to be.
But far too many continue mistakenly thinking in those terms.