[Ciderhelm]

Source: Worldie There's absolutely no encounter in TBC that requires a prot paladin or a feral druid. There's plenty of encounters where a warrior is superior to all the 2 due to bad design, or eventually done on purpose.

To be clear, what you're saying is:

1. Paladins and Feral Druids can tank anything, but aren't required.
2. Protection Warriors aren't required, but can tank anything.

You did not flatly say Protection Warriors were required in your second sentence, which means both statements are saying essentially the same thing, you're just making one sound more sinister.

Nevermind which is preferable by encounter; there are clearly encounters where each of the three classes is superior. The question of requirement is based off your usage of the word.

[Krashtork]

I have to agree with Cider. I've been benched for bear tanks and protadins before. Some fights favor a certain class of tank, but few, if any, require one of the three tanking classes.

Oh and to be clear:

Against bosses, the difference between the expert and average warrior tank is much smaller.

I find this to be very wrong. It's a matter of perspective really. To YOU it may seem like there isn't much difference, but to any other warrior who knows his stuff, there are countless details that we can see to evaluate another warrior's performance.

I have had my fair share of "padawan" tanks who look up to me and learn from me, and it's easy to see their mishaps and awesome saves. They are fairly average or even above average. But the MT of my current guild is truly a master of what he does, and i can see a night and day difference on the same bosses.

Make no mistake: there is a HUGE gap between average and expert warriors tanks when it comes to bosses. To see it you just need to know what to look for.

[Ciderhelm]

Krash, just bouncing off what you said, I will back up what you said 100%. The difference between an expert Warrior who's genuinely in tune with his class and a newer Warrior who's still learning is enormous. That's part of what is so attractive about Warriors -- you can improve beyond the basics and you can pull of fairly miraculous accomplishments. There's always room to improve.

[Tenraiel]

Nothing much new to add, but I just wanna say that I agree that homogenizing the tanking classes prompts me to expect gruesomely boring encounters or gameplay. I fully understand the need to cater to the more casual players having difficulty finding tanks ... but how will they do that without running away those of us who take pride in the skill we've developed for the unique class we chose to roll.

[Roana]

Source: TomHuxley This isn't about preserving some perceived advantage of one class of one of my toons. It's about retaining diversity in gameplay so that it's fun to play more roles. I really wanted to level a DK for magic-specific fights, but it it will tank equally well as my warrior, what's the point. Continuing down this pat will be a disaster, and I really hope Blizz climbs back up that slippery slope before they fall off.

I see it as advantageous: To be blunt, Blizzard hasn't been able to make the "different but equal" approach work -- not because it couldn't be made to work, but because minmaxing is too ingrained a philosophy in the playerbase even where it isn't necessary. Too many people aren't willing to try Jan'alai without a paladin or Nightbane without a warrior, even though it's perfectly doable either way.

At this point, substantial class differences do not lead to diversity, they become obstacles and exclude certain classes from certain content. To make it work, you would have to change the playerbase, and I don't know how that could be accomplished.

My guess is that Blizzard is tearing down the class differences not because they wouldn't like more diversity, but because players are unwilling to deal with it, and only see it as a tool to minmax raid composition. Recall that minmaxing means you get rid of the weak links of something and emphasize the stronger ones. Except that in this case, the "weak links" are characters played by actual people who would like to see the raid encounters Blizzard spends so much time crafting and not just an obscure talent that doesn't feel hurt if it gets ignored by minmaxers.

What you get out of this change is that players can play the class they want -- and there are still pretty large differences in playstyle -- without having to fear that they are "not wanted" for certain parts of the game.

I like that. I couldn't care less about abstract concerns for game aesthetics. I care a lot more for the actual people behind the characters having actual fun, rather than abstractly admiring the wonderful raid encounter they never get to see until it's on farm status because their raid leader sits them for somebody else.

[Joanadark]

What would be particularly interesting is to see the balance of skill vs simplicity have equivalent balance. Currently there is only a marginal difference between expert and average paladin tanks in AE tanking, while there's a very big difference between expert and average warrior tanks doing the same. Against bosses, the difference between the expert and average warrior tank is much smaller. Wouldn't it be interesting if the emergency manuevers for paladins somehow was the mirror image of this, where expert paladins would rise head and shoulders over the average in succeeding against bosses, independent of gear and healing support?

I found this to be a very interesting comment.

To a certain extent, YES you are right. Any mouth-breather clicker of a prot pally can roll his face on consecrate and successfully AOE tank at a level a warrior player can only accomplish with skill and difficulty.

However, to say that the same is true when you stick a pally in front of a single target...or multiple cleaving mobs he can't throw a shield at while there is CC going on within consecrate range...is a completely different story.

The difference between a novice and an expert protadin against a single, or merely a couple sensitive targets, is similarly HUGE. Not every paladin knows how to exploit ambient threat mechanics. Not every Paladin knows how to seal-weave. Not every paladin is capable of picking up and holding 2-3 targets without misdirects when he isn't able to consecrate or avenger's shield.

Not every paladin can keep up with skilled warriors on single-target threat.

Yes. I went there. And believe it or not, it's the truth.
Any monkey playing a warrior can hit and expertise cap and put out incredible numbers on single target with a halfway decent rotation.
But here is where the paladins who just roll face on consecrate fall short.

Here also lies a major flaw in the paladin class which still exists today, even after our many improvements. Paladins have still just barely not quite caught up to warriors in things like mitigation and avoidance for the simple fact that pushing 800+ spell damage (plus bucketloads of useless int on our gear) is a HECK of a lot more expensive itemization-wise than the few expertise skill that a warrior accomplishes the exact same threat output with.

Just as it takes a good warrior to keep up with a paladin in aoe tanking with difficulty, so it takes a good paladin to keep up with a skilled warrior on single targets (espeicially hard-hitting ones) with difficulty.

I consider myself skilled at threat-gen for a paladin.
I've pretty much found that I've reached my cap as far as my threat out-put in some of the best t6-level gear out there, short of stupidity like gemming spell power. With great difficulty and a stacked group, I can just-quite-barely not break 1700 TPS on something like Teron. As far as paladins go, thats a pretty respectable number to hit. My Judgement of Righteousness' crit for up to 3k with wings up. A 3k JoR is "Holy Shit"-worthy.
But then go look at a Xav parse, or something by Firstblood's druid, or any of plenty of other high-level skilled warrior and druid tanks.

There is balance. It's just hard to see sometimes because AOE tanking is so novel and flashy and sexy, and because people don't always run with a DPS team skilled enough or geared enough to really take much advantage of single target TPS beyond like 1200-1300 anyway.

[Joanadark]

I'd also note that in the expansion, with a threat rotation far more complex and challenging to master and maximize, the difference between novice and skilled protadins will be far more tangible.
They are also heavily nerfing Consecration through exorbitant mana costs, which may or may not be sustainable with damage-intake mana returns without heavy downranking.


Additionally, there are two types of "AOE tanking".
1. Holding adequate threat on all targets to hold them over ambient threat of the healers while each target is focus-fired down each in turn.
2. Holding aggro on all targets well enough to support mindless Seed-spamming and other AOE in order to kill the group.

Yes, Paladins are capable of doing the later, but ALL tanks are fully capable of accomplishing the former and there is nothing whatsoever wrong with it as a method of eliminating a group of mobs. Certainly it is more efficient at reducing the damage-intake of the tank compared to the second option.
Style #2 is only so attractive because it permits laziness by all involved.

[Jasra]

Let me take another stab at clarifying myself, because it seems that my points are being missed in the details for the most part.

Source: Roana Even historically, there have been plenty of encounters where the boss is the lowest threat, and dealing with the adds has been the primary focus, going all the way back to Majordomo Executus in Molten Core.

I never suggested that one is necessarily more threat than another. Only that I justify pure tanking comparisons in terms of boss/AE because they are mechanically quite different. What I was trying to say is that doing AE threat is something quite different than doing single threat , and likewise for boss survivability vs AE survivability (technically, big slow hits vs fast lighter hits, although there are of course exceptions). Because the tools we're given tend to be biased towards being particularly suitable for one or the other, and because tanking responsibilities typically fall into one of these two categories pretty neatly, AE vs Boss seems to be the most sensible basis for a broad-brush tanking comparison.

Source: Krashtork I find this to be very wrong. It's a matter of perspective really. To YOU it may seem like there isn't much difference, but to any other warrior who knows his stuff, there are countless details that we can see to evaluate another warrior's performance.

For my argument to make any sense, you have to kind of go along with the understanding that I'm talking about relative values and not absolute or its difficult to convey my meaning. I'm not trying to say that skill doesn't make a difference for warriors against bosses, only that *relatively* speaking the difference between an expert and average warrior tank is much larger in the realm of AE tanking than it is in boss tanking. If you can more or less go along with that premise, then the argument about creating a similar challenge for paladins against bosses is more interesting.

Joanadark's comments are interesting and a reasonable counterargument on the face of it, although I've very rarely known a paladin to have threat problems against a single target. Nevertheless, I can accept that there's probably some truth to it, even if we don't see the same degree.

[Worldie]

Source: Ciderhelm To be clear, what you're saying is: 1. Paladins and Feral Druids can tank anything, but aren't required. 2. Protection Warriors aren't required, but can tank anything. You did not flatly say Protection Warriors were required in your second sentence, which means both statements are saying essentially the same thing, you're just making one sound more sinister. Nevermind which is preferable by encounter; there are clearly encounters where each of the three classes is superior. The question of requirement is based off your usage of the word.

What i meant to say is that in current incarnation of bosses, warriors are always preferable bar in 1 encounter (ros p3) where a paladin would outperform and 1 encounter (brutallus) where a druid would outperform.

Every other single encounter "can" be tanked by any class (aside from gimmicks like Illidan), but all favour warriors over the other two. You can clear all the content without a prot warrior. The point that makes me angrier isn't much however the advantage of warriors, since that's anyway small usually and doesn't make a big difference. It's that the few encounters that would "require" a prot paladin, can be easily done by any holy paladin without even respeccing (actually, they got superior threat compared to prot ones), and there's no encounter which actually requires a druid, feral or not feral.

[Senpuu]

Source: Worldie If that means remaining like it's now, where you need 0 prot paladins and 0 feral druids in a raid to be effective, but you absolutely need 1 or 2 prot warriors and if you do without any, you are making the encounter harder. M'uru, Brutallus, Kalecgos are perfect examples of this, without even considering things like RoS p2. There's absolutely no encounter in TBC that requires a prot paladin or a feral druid. There's plenty of encounters where a warrior is superior to all the 2 due to bad design, or eventually done on purpose. No thanks. That's FAR from balance. I'm however perfectly fine with the balancing they are doing in WotLK. No advantages, just different tanking styles, and some speciailities for every class. Niche is good, gimmick tank is horrible.

That's simply not true.

In fact, it's the exact opposite. Kalecgos can be done with 3 of any tank class, doesn't matter which. Brutalus we do weekly with myself and a very capable protadin tanking, but any two tanks can do it regardless of class. Felmyst can be done by any tank class, but p2 adds REQUIRES a paladin. Twins can be done by any two tank classes. M'uru REQUIRES a protadin for the void adds that spawn from Sentinal deaths. A warrior is prefered for the sentinals, but is *not* required. The side adds are feral prefered, but any class can do it. And I'm afraid I am rather ignorant about the KJ encounter just yet, but im pretty sure there are no strict tanking reqs at all.

So, the only tanking class you MUST have to do SWP is paladin.

[Joanadark]

Kalecgos can be done with 3 of any tank class, doesn't matter which.

15-second taunt cooldown.

Brutalus we do weekly with myself and a very capable protadin tanking, but any two tanks can do it regardless of class.

druids are just far better for it.

Felmyst can be done by any tank class, but p2 adds REQUIRES a paladin.

OR 2-3 other tanks. Such as the 1 already MTing Felmyst anyway, plus a feral or two who would be in the raid to buff your melee group and which are good DPS by themselves and not sitting there useless like a prot paladin in for the entire ground phase.

Twins can be done by any two tank classes.

fine.

M'uru REQUIRES a protadin for the void adds that spawn from Sentinal deaths.

M'uru REQUIRES a Holy Paladin monkey wearing some SR rolling his face on consecrate a couple times and then going back to healing. In fact, this is PREFERABLE way of handling void spawns compared to using a protadin.

On the other hand, lack of spell reflect on a non-warrior Sentinal tank would represent a fairly hefty increase in incoming damage in an already difficult fight.



So, if ANY tanking class is a MUST have in SWP, it's a Warrior.

[Senpuu]

Source: Joanadark 15-second taunt cooldown.9

It's entirely doable with 3 paladins if you want to make a case of it. Yes, the 5 second longer taunt cooldown sucks, but no it doesn't change the validity of my statement.

druids are just far better for it.

"Far better" is a rather large overstatement. Any tank class can do it well enough and each has advantages over the other. I actually find the extra "oh sh!t" buttons of a prot war coupled with intervene on stomps (it takes both the off-hand and main-hand hit) to be more reliable than a feral. And protadins have a rather large threat advantage for that fight, so it's not cut and dry who to bring. I actually like our weekly dynamic.

OR 2-3 other tanks. Such as the 1 already MTing Felmyst anyway, plus a feral or two who would be in the raid to buff your melee group and which are good DPS by themselves and not sitting there useless like a prot paladin in for the entire ground phase.

Delude yourself all you like. 3 non-pallies tanking p2 is just asking for problems. You really strike me as someone who doesn't understand the logistics of AE tanking from anything but a paladin perspective. I stand by the pally being required comment - or at least as close to it as being the same.

Also, adding 2-3 tanks would be messy and provide at the very best equivalent dps to having ([extra tanks -1] in pure dps + protadin).

M'uru REQUIRES a Holy Paladin monkey wearing some SR rolling his face on consecrate a couple times and then going back to healing. In fact, this is PREFERABLE way of handling void spawns compared to using a protadin.

Let's not mince words: it requires a paladin tanking. If certain guilds prefer a holy paladin on the adds versus a prot paladin, that's as well as may be. It's a paladin who is tanking.

On the other hand, lack of spell reflect on a non-warrior Sentinal tank would represent a fairly hefty increase in incoming damage in an already difficult fight.

Actually, there are guilds that have the protadin tank both the sentinals and the voids with extra healing. I've heard of strats that tank all the side adds with pallies in the center as well for ae damage on M'uru. Warriors generally get the Sentinal tanking job because Blizzard designed a gimmick with it that benefits them. It doesn't make it a requirement however.

So, if ANY tanking class is a MUST have in SWP, it's a Warrior.

I'd say it's point of view, as it seems you just pointed out. I don't see a warrior as being necessary to a single fight in SWP. The warrior's presence helps on certain fights, but it can be got around. I do however see a paladin as necessary to Felmyst p2 and M'uru adds. Argue that all you like, but tanking that many skeletons in p2 is hard to reliably do even with 4 tanks (the high side of your extra tank concession) and M'uru does require a paladin tanking, be it holy or prot. A guild's protadin could very easily spec holy for the fight and retain his raid spot, assuming he cares enough about his character to have collected offspec gear.

However, if you have a problem with the way that warriors are not required but tend to be slightly better at tanking raid bosses, then you're not going to like WotLK, since Blizz has stated they want warriors to be slightly better in terms of boss tanking. But cheer up, paladins are currently looking like a much better raid tank at the moment (I know, I know, warriors are being reviewed and everything is in a state of flux still) and they obviously have their AE tank role going for them still, which is apparently inviolate. Sure would be nice if we were only slightly worse AE tanks than you guys considering you're only slightly worse boss tanks than us guys...

[Jasra]

Source: Senpuu However, if you have a problem with the way that warriors are not required but tend to be slightly better at tanking raid bosses, then you're not going to like WotLK, since Blizz has stated they want warriors to be slightly better in terms of boss tanking.

Note, in all fairness, while it's a reasonable conclusion, they haven't actually said this. Only that warriors are expected to be a somewhat better mitigation tank. Let's not put the cart before the horse. It looks like whatever happens, there's going to be a very high degree of interchangability, even if it wouldn't "pass the blindfolded taste test".

[mero12513]

My question is to Senpuu: are we going to be better boss tanks? Although we all know warriors are in review, there's a key point here:

We will see huge amounts of stamina on gear in Wrath.
Paladins get 10% more stam. Warriors get 5%. (as of current builds, and live actually).
Given that it will, in all likelihood, be the case that warriors and paladins wear the same gear, won't they have a ton more health than us by the end? (given, I'm not a tauren...I wish I were).

I could be wrong, so somebody please clarify if I am.

[Senpuu]

Source: mero12513 My question is to Senpuu: are we going to be better boss tanks? Although we all know warriors are in review, there's a key point here: We will see huge amounts of stamina on gear in Wrath. Paladins get 10% more stam. Warriors get 5%. (as of current builds, and live actually). Given that it will, in all likelihood, be the case that warriors and paladins wear the same gear, won't they have a ton more health than us by the end? (given, I'm not a tauren...I wish I were). I could be wrong, so somebody please clarify if I am.

That is what I'd like to know Mero. Paladins gain 16% stamina from talents, so that's 11% more than warriors. This scaling will definitely be an issue. Paladins are gaining things like a 5min cooldown shield wall; their block value will be similar to ours (too early to say if either will end with an advantage through gear choices) but they will always force a block on a boss where we won't; they still have their low health mitigation advantage from ardent defender; and they're gaining plenty of better tools for single target threat.

I think that given those changes and the lack of survivability changes to warrior in WotLK so far that we're seeing, that warriors are certainly not looking terribly good atm in a side-by-side comparison.

Also, keep in mind that ferals will very likely hit the new armor cap again with ease and this time there are no crushing blows. Add to that all the buffs they're getting in terms of bear form restrictions being lifted and their new last stand knock-off that is better than ours and on a shorter cooldown, and I think they're looking to be the no-brainer MT choice atm.

Also, it doesn't look to me that Blizzard is planning on scaling armor value on plate any quicker than they have in the past, so then... I guess they're planning on fixing this soon to be problem through SBV? Which just introduces a whole new set of problems. I really am curious how they're going to bridge the gap between druid and pal/war mitigation, because it's truly going to be bad the way it's set up now.

I'm just eagerly anticipating a more thorough review of the warrior class and hoping that Blizzard does some good balancing. It's too soon to say the sky is falling of course, but I'm getting more and more depressed about my class by the day.

[phaze]

Source: Senpuu Also, keep in mind that ferals will very likely hit the new armor cap again with ease and this time there are no crushing blows.

Have they begun adding high-armor leather gear into the Northrend content? Last I heard, the leather melee gear was all rogue-based gear, in an effort to have the gear shared across classes more readily? If they stay with this approach, then I could see Bears no longer hitting the armor cap, which would leave the Warrior as the best mitigation tank.

Granted, I'm not actively tracking the beta item drops, so I may be way out of date on this point.

Alternatively, they can always adjust the Bear Form armor multiplier again, if they decide they're not happy with the numbers.

I'm just eagerly anticipating a more thorough review of the warrior class and hoping that Blizzard does some good balancing.

Well, the class/raid balancing hasn't really started yet, since the devs have mentioned they're waiting on the beta to progress to lv80 testing. Since they've made several posts about it, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for now.

[jere]

Paladins do have better stamina scaling than warriors no doubt. Warriors also have a lot more base health than we do and a ranged slot that can provide stamina, which a paladin cannot. Not to mention we do spend more itemization on threat stats than warriors do, which helps normalize our stamina levels in order to main competitive against our dps at each tier.

These are all current things. In the WotLK, warriors will most likely get an even greater advantage in base health, so worrying about the stam scaling is probably premature until we can see the base level 80 values and the approximate stam allocations on gear at that level. The gear issue will go away, so that will be interesting. It may be out of balance, but to assume it will be is probably being a bit too pessimistic. Base health and the actual stam allocation on gear will probably be the deciding factor. Assuming it is one way or the other without any evidence yet might be a bit premature.

EDIT:
Also a note on AoE tanking. I know people assume that paladin AoE tanking is faceroll spamming consecration and holy shield, but honestly at the level of tanking we are talking about it is not (assuming you really are talking about holding multiple mobs while dps go all out on AoE damage). If all I did in MH was press consecration and holy shield on every cooldown, my warlocks and mages would die horrible deaths. I am constantly using every GCD, tab targetting + judgeing, spamming seals for global threat, building SoV stacks on individual mobs, watching the threat meter as I tab target through each, just to keep ahead of SoC spam there. It is really hectic.

We definitely have an advantage in AoE threat if we are talking about running alts through instances, keeping aggro off the healers, keeping the occasional whirlwind from gibbing a dps warrior, etc. However, if we are talking about holding actual AoE threat against equally geared DPS'ers going all out, then that is a different story. We do have it easier than warriors and druids, but we by no means have it easy at that content and skill level.

[mero12513]

Absolutely true Jere. The saddest thing of all here is that honestly everything is premature until we see raids, items, and stats at level 80. What would be really cool is if someone with significant credibility could make a list of "Things to keep in mind when balancing tanks" (Satrina, we love you). All the developers could keep it on there desk and make sure they don't forget the important things....

But thanks for keeping us from venturing too far into the clouds...

[TomHuxley]

Source: Roana To be blunt, Blizzard hasn't been able to make the "different but equal" approach work -- not because it couldn't be made to work, but because minmaxing is too ingrained a philosophy in the playerbase even where it isn't necessary. Too many people aren't willing to try Jan'alai without a paladin or Nightbane without a warrior, even though it's perfectly doable either way.

To be blunt, it IS working right this very second. There are tankadins and bears in SWP as we speak. Kara farms are faster with over geared tankadins and that includes nightbane. Teams with two prot warriors are getting bear mounts in ZA. Bears and tankadins are preffered for 5-man content, but people don't turn down prot warriors (in my experience, at least).

Where is this mythical shortage of tanking diversity? Is it just because warriors are perceived as "the" tanks? That's not likely to go away even if all the classes are homogenized, because they were the original tanks, at least some will be the best geared and skilled tanks in WotLK, and people change their opinions very slowly.

As I see it, there are only 2 objections being raised (not just by you) niether of which seem true to me:

1) There aren't enough tanks and this will fix it in WotLK

False. It's true that there are often tank shortage in PUGs. But the very classes that are currently getting buffed are already the preferred 5-man tanks, so how will that make more tanks? Introducing DKs may help, but erasing the differences between tanks will not.

2) I am not progressing as I'd like, it must be because everyone hates my class and loves another tank class

False. Most players do not get to progress as far as they'd like. The majority of prot warriors don't get into SWP, just like the majority of tankadins and bears. The hardest part of the game is not pressing the buttons in the right order, it's finding 25-30 people you can get along with and who have the right class balance and availability to do end-game raiding with you.

I'm sorry, but this just strikes me as a way of blaming a lack of progression on something besides your own availability, cooperations with others, skill at the game, etc.

Except that in this case, the "weak links" are characters played by actual people who would like to see the raid encounters Blizzard spends so much time crafting and not just an obscure talent that doesn't feel hurt if it gets ignored by minmaxers.

But you can roll any character you want, and spec any class you want. If you want to see content roll/spec into the role that will most help your guild progress, or find a guild who needs your current class/spec. This just sounds like entitlement to me: "I really want to see instance X, and if I'm not there is must be because Blizz needs to OP my class".

I care a lot more for the actual people behind the characters having actual fun, rather than abstractly admiring the wonderful raid encounter they never get to see until it's on farm status because their raid leader sits them for somebody else.

And there it is. But this will always happen. Even if there was just one "tank" class people will still get benched during progression, because someone will be better geared, or someone will have more skill, or was simply there first, or kissed up tot he guild master. It's just the nature of the game; not everyone can do the hardest stuff, or else it wouldn't be hard.

All homogenizing classes will do is make encoutners more repetative (because there are no significant class differences to exploit). Ironically, it may lead to less play time for you as MT. If all classes can tank all content equall well, then if you aren't MT you just aren't going to get a shot. As it is we got a tankadin and a bear because they are better at some content. What incentive now will there be to use them when our two prot warriors can do everything equally well?

[Worldie]

Source: Senpuu So, the only tanking class you MUST have to do SWP is paladin.

I can tell you Senpuu, we often run with 0 prot warriors in raid. Eventually 0 warriors at all.

I'm our main tank, and i consider myself good at theorycrafting and game-mechanic understanding.

I can tell you for sure that (like Joana said), there are multiple times, on any boss, when i say myself "if i just was a warrior this would be easier". I've tanked Brutallus, Twins, Kalecgos, and i'm likely going to be tanking Side+Entropius on M'uru when we get the last 20% down for twins.

However, i can count on the "loyalty" of our DPS war who provides me what i lack. Expecially for Brutallus, Felmyst and Twins, i "happily" step down for our Warrior and Druids, since they are just better than me, even if my gear is better than theirs.




Regarding the facerolling with consecration, i must say that Joana is perfectly correct.



What i tend to REALLY like in the incoming WotLK is that for Warriors and Paladins, they are putting the emphasis on overlapping Cooldowns, meaning that to properly tank, you'll not be able to just spam a macro, being you a paladin or a warrior.
I simply can't wait for that, since also the class gimmick failures (like, item budged screwed for paladins) are going to be fixed, and for most guilds there will finally be the "most skilled tank" to tank.
I don't care much for guilds with proper prot warriors, those ones got all my respect.

What i never liked are the bunch of guilds (and i can tell you, there's a lot, even doing Sunwell) that keep saying to druids and paladins "no you can't tank", just because their other tanks have a brown HP bar, even if those have horrible gear and terrible tanking skill.
I had to personally "beg" the officer of a friend's guild, to let a fellow paladin tanking Gorefiend. For some reason, he kept preferring a T4 geared warrior to this T6 geared prot paladin. Luckily at last i convinced him, and they killed him with ease. I don't think that situations like that make sense, do they?