[Igrado]

Status: This Guide will be considered obsolete upon release of Wrath of the Lich King (2008-11-13).

For any further discussion, please visit the MainTankadin Forums




Last Updated : 2007-12-21

The following posts are particularly intended to better inform Guild Masters, Raid Leaders, Officers, and other interested parties of the basics of Paladin tanking, its strengths, and its weaknesses. This is not intended to teach a Paladin how to tank; rather, it's intent is to inform those who wish to learn more on this matter. It's purpose is to be a starting point for any guild leader who is just beginning to use a Tankadin, or is considering recruiting a Tankadin, and wishes to learn more.

An Officers Guide to the Paladin Tank is contained in its entirety in the following post, followed by some specific examples of the information covered in the guide. The Guide will be as short and to the point as reasonable, with the examples, and possibly future follow-up posts, used to expound further on the topic of Paladin Tanking.

Please share this guide freely with your guildmates and friends, but be sure to provide a link back to the source here. The version located on the MainTankadin forums will be the first copy updated any time changes are made.

[Igrado]

An Officers Guide to the Paladin Tank

Basics:

Paladin threat is generated almost exclusively through Holy Damage. Three Points in Righteous Fury increases all threat from Holy damage by 90%. All of the following tanking abilities are increased by the Paladins spell damage, though coefficients do apply.

* Avenger's Shield (a pulling tool) does 494 to 602 and jumps, hitting up to three targets total. It also will daze those targets.
* Exorcism does 619 to 691 damage to a single undead or demon target at up to 30 yards.
* A target that has Judgment of the Crusader on it will have its Holy damage taken increased by up to 219.
* Seal of Righteousness adds Holy damage to each swing of the Paladin's weapon.
* Judgment of Righteousness does 208 to 228 Holy Damage.
* Holy Shield, when activated, does 155 Holy Damage per block.
* Consecration is a 10-yd AOE doing 512 Holy Damage per target over 8 seconds.
* Retribution Aura does 26 when struck and Blessing of Sanctuary does 46 upon a block.
* Avenging Wrath is available every 3 minutes and increases all damage done by the Tankadin by 30% for 20 seconds.
* Blessing of Sacrifice is available every 30 seconds, and transfers 45-104 damage per hit from the target to the tankadin for 20 seconds.


Tankadin Strengths:

* AOE tanking. Paladins have a strong ability to AOE tank, particularly against melee heavy mob groups. Consecration, Retribution Aura, Holy Shield and Blessing of Sanctuary produce large amounts of threat against an unlimited number of mobs.
* Crush "Immune". Properly geared Tankadins can be uncrushable before even entering Karazhan. In fact, overall they are more dependably uncrushable than Warriors as Improved Holy Shield grants 8 charges over 10 seconds.
* Fast/Burst Threat. Due to the way many of the mechanics work and the fact that Paladins start with a full mana bar, Tankadins can frontload threat very quickly. This allows DPS to open up against the target sooner. Additionally, the daze effect of Avenger's Shield will make sheep easier to place away from the Raid. This mechanic also allows the Paladin extremely strong burst threat for phase changes mid-battle. (credit: HonorsHammer, Cordelia)
* Long-range Taunt. While the Righteous Defense taunt is on a 15-second cooldown, it has a 40 yard range and will also taunt 3 targets off the teammate receiving Righteous Defense. As an alternative, Avenger's Shield can be used at 30 yards, easily giving over 1000 threat on up to 3 targets. (credit: HonorsHammer)
* High Threat. When main tanking a mob or boss, particularly one which does a frequent number of melee strikes, Paladin threat will build very high over the course of the fight. This increased threat ceiling allows for DPS to push themselves more and more without fear of pulling aggro, increasing overall raid DPS. (credit: Cordelia)
* Scalable Threat. Due to the high holy damage multiplier given by Improved Righteous Fury, paladin threat is easily scaled upwards to meet the needs of an encounter by stacking spelldamage and holy spell damage via gear swapping and consumables. (credit: Cordelia)
* Reactive Threat Generation. A MT Paladin can generate close to 75% of his base threat without engaging in active melee. This can be especially helpful against bosses who have reflective melee damage, or parry mechanics. (credit: Cordelia)
* CCers Protection. The many ranged threat abilities Paladins enjoy, along with the long-duration static-placement AOE spell Consecration, allow a Paladin to excell in situations where trash or boss adds are being CC'ed. The Paladin can act as protection of the vulnerable CCers by gaining initial aggro on mobs to be CC'ed from long range and providing insurance against accidental CC break or death of the player responsible for crowd control. (credit: Joanadark)
* Group Composition. While a peripheral benefit, it is still notable that in most cases a tank group will include a Paladin for their auras, regardless of the spec of the Paladin. If a Paladin Tank is employed, they will be bestowing the same auras on the other tanks in the tank group, while freeing up an additional spot in the tank group for including another utility raid member, such as a Shaman for Windfury Totem or a Druid for their Tree of Life healing increase aura, while still having the same number of total tanks. Having a paladin tank also donates an additional blessing to all raid members. (credit: Joanadark)
* Active Judgment. Because a MT or OT Paladin will melee, a judgment can easily be maintained on the target. Judgment of Light can help with healing melee dps in fights with small AE components. Judgment of wisdom can help mana-based dps maintain a higher level of mana, thus helping with long term dps. Improved Judgement of the Crusader will increase the crit chance of anyone attacking that target by 3 percent. (credit: Cordelia)
* Avoidance of tank CC. Using Blessing of Sacrifice, a tankadin can avoid certain types of CC such as gouge, sheep, and breakable fear. (credit: Cordelia)


Tankadin weaknesses:

* Silence. Any long lasting silence will shut down a Paladins ability to cast causing threat to slow or even stop. Additionally, if Holy Shield falls off, the Paladin will become susceptible to crushing blows.
* Fear. On multiple occasions Paladins can and have successfully MT'd bosses that fear. Paladins have 2 bubbles that can be used to overcome this and of course the PVP trinket. Fear is an inconvenience, not a game breaker for a prepared Paladin. In addition, tremor totems are a valid way to help handle fear.
* Mana Burn. Mana Burn can seriously hurt the Paladins threat generation capacity, especially initial front-loading, as well as increase the damage they take uniquely among the tanking classes. (credit: Joanadark)
* Mana Dependency. A Paladin without mana is a Paladin without threat and susceptible to crushing blows; however, a Paladin recieves mana back from heals recieved. Due to a change in mid '07 mana is no longer recieved from over-healing. For this reason Paladins often struggle in OT'ing roles when compared to a druid as these roles are often are accompanied by decreased damage taken. An over-geared Paladin could have similar mana problems but should simply downgrade his gear. Additionally, Holy Shield provides a significant part of the Paladins threat but obviously does not proc when the Paladin is not being struck.


Recent Changes:

* Stamina. Previously Paladin tanks had around 1200 fewer hitpoints compared to similarly geared Druids and Warriors. This is no longer the case as the changes to the Combat Expertise talents in patch 2.3 place a properly specced Tankadin at no notable disadvantage in this area. A Paladin tank with a typical tanking spec will gain a 16% boost from Stamina. Druids gain 45% and Warriors, 5%.

[Igrado]

Specific Examples and Explanations
by Cordelia



AOE tanking
While this is commonly thought of as most useful during trash pulls, it is also extremely useful for dual-boss situations. In cases that traditionally require 2 tanks, the Tankadin can very effectively hold high threat on both mobs, as long as the tankadin has enough effective health to survive spike damage.

Examples:
* Attumen & Nightbane
* Karazhan ballroom trash
* Moroes and his adds
* Romulo & Julienne
* Wizard of Oz
* Murlocs on Tidewalker
* Hydross adds
* Mt Hyjal trash



Crush Immunity
Due to 8 charges over 10 seconds, it is almost impossible for a raid boss to use up the charges on Holy Shield.

Examples:
* Prince Malchezzar
* Illidan


Fast/Burst Threat
Examples:
* Curator evocation phase
* Illhoof increased damage phase
* Prince Malchezzar Phase 2
* Hydross phase change
* Doomwalker phase change
* Leotheras whirlwind aggro dump



Long-range Taunt
Examples:
* Doomwalker
* Olm the Summoner



High Threat
Examples:
* Curator
* Gruul



CCers Protection
One of the least understood mechanics of Paladin tanking, the fundamental concept is that the Tankadin should stack intial threat prior to cc, so that when cc breaks, it is the tankadin who is the target, not the cc'er. Rather than listing encounters, the examples will describe techniques. Used correctly, this can prevent many inadvertent wipes due to CC breaking, and a mob running amok among clothies (who do most of the cc'ing).

Examples:
* Avenger's Shield followed by sheep.
* Avenger's Shield/Exorcism followed by Shackle Undead.
* Avenger's Shield followed pulling the pack of mobs through and ice block trap. This method cannot target a particular mob to be cc'd, and most often will cc the closest mob.
* Initial aggro can be stacked on up to 4 non-undead targets via Avenger's Shield, Judgment of Righteousness, and a small amount of aggro can be stacked on any number of mobs by pulling them through a Consecration.
* Ideally, CC should occur before the mobs enter melee range, and the tankadin should keep consecration up on the actively tanked mob, so that cc'd mobs have to run through the tankadin's consecration to get to the rest of the raid.
* Avenger's shield greatly simplifies CC, as it will daze targets.
* Avenger's shield should not be used on targets that need to be ice trapped by the hunter in a separate place from the immediate path from mob to tankadin.



Group Composition
Obviously, both Devotion Aura and Retribution Aura will benefit a tank group in terms of Mitigation and Threat. Concentration Aura will benefit casters in encounters where interrupts are an issue. The following is a list of classes that are beneficial to group with a tankadin.

Examples:
* Warrior. Via Commanding shout, Demo shout, and Thunderclap, warriors can provide extra health and mitigation to the Tankadin.
* Warlocks. Via Blood Pact, the warlock's imp can provide extra health.
* Shadow Priest. Vampiric Embrace provides mitigation and mana from Spiritual Attunement. Vampiric Touch provides mana directly. Mana is directly translated into Tankadin threat.
* Shaman. Windfury and Wrath of Air totems both increase Paladin threat. Grace of Air can provide mitigation.
* Retribution Paladin. Provides a vast threat increase via Sanctity Aura, and Judgment of the Crusader. Provides mitigation by keeping Judgment of Light from a holy paladin refreshed. Provides an increase in raid DPS via Santified Crusader.



Active Judgment.
Judgment of Wisdom procs not only on melee attacks, but spells, wands, and ranged auto-attack. Judgment of Light procs only off melee attacks.

Examples:
* Judgment of Wisdom. Provides mana regen to the raid on a scale similar to Shadow Priests' vampiric touch. For casters who go OOM, using a fast wand to auto-attack will provide burst mana regen.
* Judgment of Light. Provides 95 healing to melee dps on 50% of attacks. Greatly beneficial to dual-wielders, resulting in healing in excess of 100 hps. Very helpful in encounters where melee dps takes extra damage that needs to be healed by the healers.
* Judgment of Justice. Prevents melee trash from fleeing encounters and drawing adds. Will also decrease movement speed of kited mobs.
* Judgment of the Crusader. Increases holy damage done benefitting threat and retadin dps. Improved Seal of the Crusader (if talented) provides raid-wise dps boost, increasing all crit chances on the recipient target by 3%.



Reactive Threat Generation.
A Paladin has passive and reactive threat generated from Holy Shield, Retribution Aura, Blessing of Sanctuary, Spiritual Attunement, Seal Refreshes. A Paladin has non-melee threat generated from Exorcism, Consecration, Judgment, Avenger's Shield(if applicable), Healing(if applicable). It has been shown that Tankadins can completely disengage certain bosses and still hold very high threat. Disengaging has the advantage of eliminating reflective damage and parry damage.

Examples:
* Prince Melchazzar
* Kael'thas



Avoidance of tank CC
Examples:
* Moroes. A true OT is tanking Moroes on this encounter. A non-cloth wearer should stay 2nd on the aggro list for Moroes. This player should remain close to, or in melee range of Moroes. The tankadin should place Blessing of Sacrifice on the this player shortly before a gouge is expected. Moroes will gouge the tankadin, attack the 2nd on the aggro list, immediately un-gouging the tankadin, and Moroes will retarget the tankadin.


(The "Specific Examples and Explanations" section of this guide was developed by Cordelia. Many thanks for this great effort.)

[Igrado]

Raid Level Boss Guide - Tankadin Evaluation

For more boss-specific overviews, please see Cordelia's Raid Level Boss Guide - Tankadin Evaluation. The Raid Level Boss Guide briefly states how a Paladin is advanted or disadvantaged in comparison to use of a simlarly geared Warrior or Druid. This guide can be a great help as you coordinate your Guild's tanking team for maximum effectiveness, particularly on new encounters.

[Igrado]

final holder

[Ciderhelm]

This is really good. I'm going to be putting together a specific area of the website where this will be useful.

[veneretio]

This is great information. A couple comments/questions:

1. (+) seems better than (-) for the strengths portion.
2. I'd like more development on the Fear portion as to how difficult it is to accomplish and how long it can be sustained.
3. High Threat. About how much more than Warriors can we expect here in terms of TPS? Do they beat Druids too? Are there any situations where their Threat won't be as high due to Resistance or something along that lines?

[Kazeyonoma]

Nice guide, pasted to guild forum since we currently have no prot pallies and will probably use one in future progression.

[Joanadark]

2. I'd like more development on the Fear portion as to how difficult it is to accomplish and how long it can be sustained.

The primary option available to tankadins to negate fear is essentially the "Bubble-cleanse", which consists of using Divine Shield (4-min cooldown talented) and Blessing of Protection (3-min cooldown talented, 5-min untalented. Standard tank specs dont include this talent) to purge off all negative effects from the paladin, and then quickly remove the Immunity Shield by means of a /cancelaura macro.

This is most effective when the fear effect has a reactable cast-time during which you can pop the immunity shield without fear of the boss switching targets unti the spell actually goes off. You would then be able to react with the /cancelaura, rather than a 2-step process of Divine Shield-/cancelaura that would be required for an instant-cast fear.

Nightbane is a good example of this kind of fear-with-a-casting-time that a skilled tankadin shouldnt have too much trouble circumventing.

There are difficulties with this method though, notably Forbearance, the 1-minute debuff after using an immunity shield which prevents use of another one.
A Paladin tank is forced to sacrifice their Trinket slots for fear-immunity (e.g. Mithril Insignia) and fear-canceling (e.g. Insignia of the Alliance) trinkets to alternate with their Immunity Shields.

If done correctly, the boss will never look away from the Paladin.
It is also useful if a second Paladin is in the raid and capable of BoPing the tank if all their options are on cooldown.


It is worth noting that this can be extended to other types of tank-incapacitation effects as well, beyond simply fear, and that a Paladin Tank has the advanatge of being able to Cleanse themself of DoTs, Debuffs, and all Magic, Disease, and Poison effects.
It is also worth noting that Paladin Global Cooldown use is significantly more forgiving than the Warrior and Druid versions, and incorperates 2-3 seconds of dead-time during which such abilities may easily be used during every 10-second skill-use rotation.


Fear-negation only really ever comes into play in 10-man instances, where the presence of a fear ward of a tremor totem making the entire discussion moot cannot be garenteed. Again, the primary example of a fearing 10-man boss, Nightbane, does have a reactable cast time to his fear.

[Joanadark]

3. High Threat. About how much more than Warriors can we expect here in terms of TPS? Do they beat Druids too? Are there any situations where their Threat won't be as high due to Resistance or something along that lines?

SHORT ANSWER:
In a primary-aggro situation where reactive damage can come into play, a Paladin tank can expect to at least equal, if not exceed, an equally geared warrior's TPS.
If the boss is a Demon or Undead (and that means pretty much everything in Karazhan, Magtheridon, Doom Lord Kazzak, all of Hyjal, and most of Black Temple), the Paladin should able to easily acheive 30% faster TPS than a warrior without any particular sacrifice in their gear selection.

Paladins can also reduce their mitigation effectiveness in favor of greatly increased threat-generation by stacking higher Spell Damage.


In a off-tanking position on a non-Demon/Undead boss, such as taking Hatefuls from gruul or being the non-starting tank on Void Reaver, a paladin can equal the TPS of equally geared warrior only with a some difficulty.
A paladin in such situations may be obliged to chain mana potions or use spell damage food or elixers, rather than having the option of mitigation ones available to them.

I lack enough experience with druid tanks to give an informed opinion.

Ill type up the long version in a bit with a more detail explanation.

[Joanadark]

Perhaps the biggest advantage we have is in terms of raid composition.

Paladins can easily handle many mobs or multi-tank without any significant reduction in effectiveness, reducing the number of tanks needed on pretty much any encounter that includes adds.


For example, Bosskillers.com suggests that at least 5+ tanks will be needed for Morogrim Tidewalker. Making two of those tanks Paladins shrinks that number to only 3, focuses the necessary healing much more effectively, and allows the inclusion of the additional 2-3 healers or DPSers that wouldnt have been able to be brought otherwise.

There are many fights where this is the case, and a common misuse of a tankadin is to simply replace on of your "normal" tanks with him and wonder why you're not seeing anything particularly special above what a warrior would have done.

On a side note, I hate bosskillers.com, because its strategies are incredibly exclusive to the warrior angle, to the point of refusing to host perfectly adequate strats which highlight the strengths of tankadins or druid, many of which are significantly easier than their versions.

Its very easy to look at the Hydross fight and say "sorry, this can only be tanked by a warrior, since you need Intercept", until you see me reach into my backpack and pop a single Invisibility potion and flawlessly start the event without that ability.

[Baelor]

Quick note, Joana mentioned Divine Shield's cooldown. It is 5 minutes, down to 4 minutes talented.

[Joanadark]

Quick note, Joana mentioned Divine Shield's cooldown. It is 5 minutes, down to 4 minutes talented.

what did I say?

oh dang...lemme fix that.

yay for writing late at night.

[veneretio]

Source: Joanadark tremor totem making the entire discussion moot cannot be garenteed.

A lot of great advice thank you, but I should note that if you've ever had to rely on Tremor Totem you realize how incredibly ineffective and un-reliable it is.

[Ceravantes]

I run with a prot pally on pretty much every 25 man I have yet been in, and while his tps has always been respectable, even when taking reactive damage, he has been unable to meet or exceed our other tanks in front end, or sustained TPS. I personally out gear him by a fair amount, but my other Tanks are very similarly geared. I was always under the impression that, as said above, front end threat from a paladin was generally better, using this assumption, I generally
have him tank the first killed mob in any group with non cc'able mob's, and while it isn't every time, he does seem to have trouble keeping threat in the first 10-15 second's of the fight, and indefinitely on non tauntable mobs.

I realize the first thing you would think of would be dps going to hard, to fast. However, I have personally, as well as my other warrior (Feral druid has not tried) have taken initial threat, and maintained throughtout the fight with said Paladin picking up a mob killed later in the kill order without any issue.

So, is this an issue of a lack of +dmg, incorrect ability usage, or perhaps just sub par player skill? any idea's or advice I could pass along? I would prefer to not have to replace him as a tank if possible, but I need a reliable tank, who can hold threat.

[Ceravantes]

In response to the problems with Bosskiller's strat's, theya re generally written by people involved is the first handful of kills (many are outdated now due to misc nerf's etc) where, becuase of various abilities and itemization, it is easier to use a warrior to tank. I am not bashing paladin viability or anything like that, just that generally speaking, pushing new content quickly is done better/easier with a warrior tanking, and the guide's are written in that time frame, when the content is still cutting edge.

[Joanadark]

So, is this an issue of a lack of +dmg, incorrect ability usage, or perhaps just sub par player skill?

possibly any or all of these may be true.
do you have an armory link you can share?

In response to the problems with Bosskiller's strat's, theya re generally written by people involved is the first handful of kills (many are outdated now due to misc nerf's etc) where, becuase of various abilities and itemization, it is easier to use a warrior to tank. I am not bashing paladin viability or anything like that, just that generally speaking, pushing new content quickly is done better/easier with a warrior tanking, and the guide's are written in that time frame, when the content is still cutting edge.

the rediculous things some of the strategies call for to avoid taking a paladin tank are in many cases frankly laughable.
What you're saying isn't what is the case.
Bosskillers reccomends taking 2, 3, or 4 more tanks as well as additional healers than should be necessary on several fights, when a single or pair of prot paladins could accomplish the same job, easier, more effectively, and requiring significantly less healing.

People like to put the people writing these guides, and by extention bosskillers, on a pedestal. I've debated with Blunted, main tank of Death and Taxes and author of a few of bosskillers' guides, and quite frankly he has repeatedly shown himself to be deceptive and dishonest to the point of denying reality.
These are the people writing these guides.

I'd be the first to admit a viability advantage.
Whats rediculous is when that advantage lies with US, bosskillers strats go out of their way to avoid making use of it, to the point of increasing the difficulty of accomplishing a kill unnecessarily.

[Ceravantes]

The Armory

I think you are correct that there is a bias in alot of the top end guilds against prot paladin's, I often hear people say "If it isn't broke, don't fix it" While I agree that this is an unjustified bias, The basis behind the original Strat's posted on Bosskillers and sites like it, are that viability for other classes ability to tank cutting edge content is signifigantly lower than a warrior's, If the author's of these guides are unwilling to agree that at this point in itemization a prot paladin is unable to tank some, if not all, of them is incorrect, and like you said hurting more than helping. I personally still tank all new content for my guild, but on things we have been passed, if another class is mroe fit to it I am not so egotistical, or obsessed with being the "MT" that I would not let someone else do it.

I feel that the best choice for tanking new content is generally going to be a warrior, the loss of effective health from stacking spell damage in a few slot's hurts, and Druids are hurt by Crushing blows, and the damage they can do in cat is miles beyond what a prot warrior or paladin can do.

[Joanadark]

at this point in itemization a prot paladin is unable to tank some, if not all, of them

There is no itemization impediment to paladins tanking bosses. Nothing in our gear prevents us tanking.
In terms of effective health, there is a difference indeed. There is a 1.2k ish baseline hp difference, combined with the stam you get from your gun slot (though that must be balanced with the 90 block value we get in that slot).

Now compare that difference to that between you and a bear.

Effective Health was never our pitch.
We have other advantages. Many with the potential to make an encounter significantly easier to defeat if utilized. The role of main tank is hardly the only one in which we can contribute, so I can agree with you about the usefulness of warrior main tanks on progression content while still having a prot paladin contribute to making a much easier encounter than the Bosskillers strategy would be.

the loss of effective health from stacking spell damage in a few slot's hurts

Literally the ONLY thing we sacrifice by using a spell damage weapon over a warrior tanking weapon is a few defense rating or possibly a bit of weapon skill, which we already have more of anyway.

There is no stamina sacrifice through acquiring spell damage. That is a common misunderstanding.

We also make no real sacrifice for the sake of intellect. This is a misconception.




In general, the idea that paladins are limited in any real sense by lower effective health levels is untrue due to the fairly small EH difference between a properly geared prot paladin and a similarly geared prot warrior being negated by our superior spike-reduction, consistent application of our block value mitigation in cases where warriors' isn't, and the very real life-saving factor of Ardent Defender.
We are the antithesis of the druid approach. Warriors are strong by nature of falling somewhere in the middle.

Additionally, our other strengths can make for an easier encounter in other ways beyond simply damage mitigation. An example of this would be our long ranged high-threat snap-aggro moves and taunt which can save the lives of players who would otherwise have died if a warrior was tanking. Numerous bosses in SSC are made easier by this advantage.

The REAL limiting factors are:
-lack of cooldown abilities like shield wall and last stand to recover from disasters. This is something blizzard has acknowledged working on and word is should be addressed in the patch following Zul'Aman.
-gimmick encounters where Silence and Mana-burn mechanics are in play, as well as where spell reflect is required to merely survive.
-Inability to break fears under high-pressure circumstances like Archimonde (other examples of fear such as Nightbane can be worked around without too much trouble) without reliance on fear ward or double tremor totems.
-Less damage mitigation against elemental magic, though in the first place that is something warriors are directly suited for as we are directly suited for fast-paced physical damage mitigation, representing a healthy difference not a crippling factor, and in the second place a large number of anti-spell casting tanking is more commonly done by warlocks than by any of the tanking classes.




It is important to distinguish between how you define the tanking value of each class.

If you argue that Paladins have the disadvantage of taking a larger amount of damage in a given encounter, I might agree with you.
However, in that same encounter, the paladin may have the simultaneous advantage of being easier to heal and keep alive, due to their superior control over damage inflow.

And it would be possible to continue arguing that the paladin has the disadvantage of requiring greater discipline from the healers (although steady damage intake tends to mean the truth is the reverse), and I might agree with you again.
However, there would be the consideration of the Paladin's higher threat-potential in terms of initial lead as well as sustained, as well as ability to control the boss, leading to a faster kill due to fewer casualties as well as freeing threat-capped DPS to push harder.



The point is that these things are relative.

While it is true that paladins will never be as good at being warriors as warriors are, using a comparison purely based on your own strengths will give you a conclusion that is both incomplete and potentially self-limiting.


People have used warriors to tank for a long time. They are used to them. Raiders and Raid Leaders know what works with a prot warrior.

A progression raid can figure out that their prot warrior can successfully begin the Hydross encounter by making use of Charge or Intervene.
It is an easy, and sadly all too common, trap to fall into to conclude that this strategy is then necessarily the easiest or the best way, and that it's reliance on the abilities of the tank they happened to use implies that only such a tank will work for the encounter.

I've heard a great many stories of guilds getting a disorienting wake-up call when, say, a prot paladin comes by and tanks hydross by simply popping an invisibility potion and walking up to him, no warrior abilities required.


A common one I hear is that people use a warrior tank on Prince, and see him getting hit incredibly hard, and then unthinkingly project their experience of the warrior's damage in-flow onto the paladin's health pool and concluding that the encounter is beyond him, when, in fact, against that boss he is superior in damage mitigation to the warrior in every respect.

Effective Health is a great thing, a guideline, a standard of measure, but it is hardly everything. Else we'd all be running around as feral druidic grizzlys.

As I pointed out in the very first of my now many posts on the paladin forums, some of our apparent weaknesses merely conceal our greatest strengths.







When BC first came out, no one would believe we could tank Prince.
So we did.
And then it was we would never manage to tank Gruul.
So we did that too, both pre and post-nerf.
Then people reached SSC and TK.
And we showed how these two instances are a prot paladin's playground.

Now there are guilds who refuse to run Hyjal without their prot paladin, and in both Hyjal and Black Temple a paladin has progression main tanked every single boss the game mechanics physically permit us to, up to and including Illidan himself.







Misunderstanding the prot paladin is quite forgivable.
In many ways we are still learning to understand ourselves.

[Joanadark]

The Armory


I see no reason in either his spec or his gear to justify a defficiency, but a little bit more spell damage would certain be helpful.

Make sure he's using wizard oil.

Another minor note is he would be better served moving the three points he has in Precision into Weapon Expertise, though that is a fairly minor thing.


It is possible his threat-rotation isnt the best, but I think he just happens to be in the gear transition where he's hit good EH levels, but has devoted all his attention to that and uncrushability (as evidenced by his gem choices) at the expense of threat.
Now he has reached the point he is at, you can expect his threat to start scaling upward quickly with upgrades.

He should be doing better however. GCD management problems would be my guess.



Something else would be the inability to use Consecrate due to CC'd mobs being nearby. That may be the case on a multi-pull, and would put him at a lower TPS rate, such as you were describing.
Inability to use consecrate would be like you not being able to Sheild Slam. Your TPS would suffer.