Paladin Tanking – A Perspective (aka Caoin's Highly Opinionated Guide to Not Sucking as a Paladin Tank) 1. Preface
2. My Takes on Protection Talents
3. My Takes on Retribution Talents
4. Talent Specs
5. Uncrushability and You
6. How to Gear as a Paladin Tank
7. Spelldamage and Threat
8. Paladin Issues and Problems
9. The Pull
10. Useful Macros
11. Tanking Beyond Karazhan and Gruul’s – A Main Tank’s Perspective
12. You CAN Do It! 1. Preface (aka The Disclaimer): The term “guide” is used rather loosely in the following posts, as the information contained therein is really more of a cohesive list of my takes on different gear, specs, gems, enchants, etc. This “guide” is not meant to be the be-all-end-all bible for paladin tanks. It is simply a compilation of my opinions regarding various aspects of paladin tanking posted here to be a help to newer tanks and should be taken as such.
--That being said:
This guide is intended for main tanks only. Thus, I will not be touching on any talents in the Holy tree, or any healing/tanking hybrid or AOE tanking talent specs. If you are looking for information regarding such specs, this is not the guide for you. It will be discussing the talents useful for main tanking in the Protection and Retribution trees ONLY, since far and wide Prot/Ret specs are considered the most effective way to spend talent points for a main tank talent spec.
Regarding the Retribution tree:
I have seen some strange hybrid builds with more points in Retribution than I care to throw in there… and some prefer those types of builds, citing “higher threat”, etc. In my opinion, the Prot tree is already too bloated and contains too many talents that are just, well, better than anything sub par you would have to put points in to get say, Sanctity Aura for example (LOLsealofcommandinatankbuild). Thus, I will not be touching on anything further down the Ret tree than the first two (and a half) tiers. Also, threat is the paladin tanks strong suit, and isn’t something that should need to be improved on to the point where you are leaving out of useful talents in the Prot tree to waste points on things like Seal of Command and Pursuit of Justice just to be able to get Sanctity Aura, as nice as it may be. Like the Holy tree, while Sanc Aura is nice (as is Imp SoR) the points you have to waste in mediocre/useless talents to pick it up make it really not worth it.
2. My Takes on Protection Talents: [Double asterisks (**) denote a talent I feel is necessary to a good tank build.]
Improved Devotion Aura: (
Rank 5) Increases the armor bonus of your Devotion Aura by 40%.
Basically, all this talent does is increase the armor bonus from your Devotion Aura by approximately 335. It’s not completely useless, but there are better ways to spend your points.
Redoubt **:
(Rank 5) Damaging melee and ranged attacks against you have a 10% chance to increase your chance to block by 30%. Lasts 10 sec or 5 blocks.
Redoubt is a proc, and not really reliable whether or not you’re geared well enough. It adds a sizeable amount to your block, but can’t be relied on to cover you for uncrushability as it’s not a static ability and the majority of the time won’t proc when you need it. Serious tanks only put points in Redoubt in order to pick up Shield Specialization and due to the fact that when it DOES proc at a convenient or opportune time (which is rare once you gear up) it’s not too bad. [Note: Redoubt is only listed with a double asterisk because it is necessary in order to pick up Shield Specialization.]
Precision: (Rank 3) [Requires One-Handed Axe, Two-Handed Axe, One-Handed Mace, Two-Handed Mace, Polearms, One-Handed Sword, Two-Handed Sword, Staves, Daggers, Spears] Increases your chance to hit with spells and melee weapons by 3%.
This talent adds 3% on to your +hit rating. Misses mean no threat on that swing from SoR damage, as you must actually melee hit the mob in order to hit it with SoR. Good talent overall, as it makes up for a bit of +hit that you likely won’t have room for on your gear. (FYI: +melee hit also affects your Avenger’s Shield!)
Guardian’s Favor: (Rank 2) Reduces the cooldown of your Blessing of Protection by 120 sec and increases the duration of your Blessing of Freedom by 4 sec.
Yay! Decreased CD for bubble!! Oh wait… yeah, not a great way to spend talent points unless you are PvPing as Prot, and even then not that fantastic, considering most people that are pvping as Prot are in arenas for the Merciless Gladiator’s Gavel, and the fight will likely be over before the CD is up again anyway.
Shield Specialization **: (Rank 3) Increases the amount of damage absorbed by your shield by 30%.
This talent increases the amount of damage blocked by your shield by 30%. It’s the only real reason to put points in Redoubt.
Blessing of Kings **: Places a Blessing on the friendly target, increasing total stats by 10% for 10 min. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time.
10% increase to ALL STATS? Need I say more?
Improved Righteous Fury **: (Rank 3) While Righteous Fury is active, all damage taken is reduced by 6% and increases the amount of threat generated by your Righteous Fury spell by 50%.
Righteous Fury will increase your threat from Holy spells and effects by 90% with this talent maxed out, making it an essential part of any tank build.
Improved Hammer of Justice: (Rank 3) Decreases the cooldown of your Hammer of Justice spell by 15 sec.
Bosses are Immune to HoJ, as is quite a bit of trash. Take that for what it’s worth.
Improved Concentration Aura: (Rank 3) Increases the effect of your Concentration Aura by an additional 15% and reduces the duration of any Silence or Interrupt effect used against an affected group member by 30%. The duration reduction does not stack with any other effects.
If you are doing anything with a cast time while tanking, you don’t belong tanking. If you want to cast while there is tanking going on, go respect Holy, stand in the back, and cast any spell with cast time that you so desire. Anything other than instacast spells cause you to be very much crushable. If your raid wants this talent available, have a Holy pally spec into it. You should be using Devotion Aura (preferable to Retribution Aura in most cases) for tanking.
Spell Warding: (Rank 2) All spell damage taken is reduced by 4%.
This is the only talent we have that reduces incoming spell damage. Yes, it is only 4%, but it’s the best we have, so I’d recommend it.
Blessing of Sanctuary **: (Rank 5) Places a Blessing on the friendly target, reducing damage dealt from all sources by up to 80 for 10 min. In addition, when the target blocks a melee attack the attacker will take 46 Holy damage. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time.
This talent has its uses, but most prefer just to use BoK if they are the only tank unless AOEtanking large groups of mobs. At my level of progression I find myself using it over Kings only if there is more than one paladin in the raid (We try to run with 3, for Wisdom, Kings and Sanctuary.) [Note: In order to get Holy Shield and Improved Holy Shield, you must take this talent, so that makes it somewhat of a necessity for any tank build regardless of how good it is.]
Toughness **: (Rank 5) Increases your armor value from items by 10%.
Increasing armor value from items equipped is always a good thing.
Anticipation **: (Rank 5) Incerases your Defense skill by 20.
Increases defense skill by 20. More tank stats you don’t have to find a place for on your gear.
Stoicism: (Rank 2) Increases your resistance to Stun effects by an additional 10% and reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by an additional 30%.
Yay! Another proc that will never kick in when you need it most! No thanks.
Sacred Duty **: (Rank 2) Increases your total Stamina by 6%, reduces the cooldown of your Divine Shield spell by 60 sec and reduces the attack speed penalty by 100%.
Tanks take this talent for the 6% stamina increase, which is pretty much a necessity for us, having the lowest base HP pool of the three tanking classes.
(Holy Shield)/Improved Holy Shield**: (Rank 2) Improved Holy Shield increases damage caused by your Holy Shield by 20% and increases the number of charges of your Holy Shield by 4.
The bread-and-butter of paladin tanking. Increases block chance by 30% (35.33% if Libram of Repentance is equipped). Points in Improved Holy Shield bring it up to a grand total of 8 charges, four times as many as a warrior’s Shield Block. Not only that, but every time you block it deals Holy damage to the enemy, making it a very nice threat generator as well.
Reckoning: (Rank 5) Gives you a 10% chance after being hit by any damaging attack that the next 4 weapon swings within 8 sec will generate an additional attack.
Starting out tanking (and for AOE/trash tanking later on), this talent is very good… however after you gear up a bit and you start stacking more avoidance it procs less and less, making it less and less useful for a main tank going up against normal to slow speed hitting bosses as you will be avoiding damage entirely far more than you are getting hit.
Ardent Defender: (Rank 2) When you have less than 35% health, all damage taken is reduced by 30%.
The idea of this talent is very good… unfortunately, however, it can be leapfrogged by a couple good sized hits in a row. After the buff it saw recently, leapfrogging is less likely to occur, but still does. I have both breathed a sigh of relief as I watched it kick in and gave my healers an extra second to get my health back up to a reasonable level, and cursed as I saw it fail and that dreaded “Would you like to release to the nearest graveyard?” option pop up. That being said, I am the type of person that prefers to have a safety net below me, regardless as to whether there are a few strings broken or not, and will more than likely always have AD in my spec.
For instance, recently, on a Fathom Lord Karathress fight, AD kept me alive for a good 15 seconds while my healer was disconnected from the game in combination with a HS, a pot and my trinket. While it needs to be mentioned that this is not 100% guaranteed to happen (and in many cases may not) it really bolstered what faith I did have in the talent (which albeit wasn’t much, to be honest), and I would recommend it for the simple fact that when it DOES kick in, it’s very nice to have. (Also... PROTIP: There is no frickin' "g" in ARDENT. Thanks.)
Weapon Expertise: (Rank 5) Increases your weapon skill with all weapons by 10.
Post 2.3, it not only increases your Expertise with weapons (approximately .25% per point less chance for your target to dodge or parry)it also increases your stamina by 10% when maxed out, pretty much making it a necessity.
One Handed Weapon Specialization **:
(Rank 5) Increases all damage you deal when a one-handed melee weapon is equipped by 5%.
Sometimes people are not clear on the tooltip for this talent and tend to think that it only increases white damage. Actually, it increases ALL DAMAGE you do while you have a one handed weapon equipped… meaning spell damage AND white damage, by 5%, making it a 5% overall increase in threat. Definitely worth the points.
Avenger’s Shield: (Rank 3) Hurls a holy shield at the enemy, dealing 494 to 602 Holy damage, Dazing them and then jumping to additional nearby enemies. Affects 3 total targets. Lasts 6 sec.
Your only ranged pull (unless you count things like EZ-Throw Dynamite, which you can use, but that will not frontload nearly as much threat). Some people don’t care either way whether they have it or not, and some can’t live without it. In places like Kara where there are a ton of AOE packs (just about that whole place can basically be AOEtanked if you have a couple of really good healers and the gear for it) it can be very useful for snap aggro on a number of targets or on single pulls where you don’t have to worry about grabbing aggro on a group that could smash you into a fine paste if you snagged them all. In SSC (where my guild is currently working on Vashj) I find its use to be selective, as I generally do not want to hit more than one mob in a trash pack at a time (the reason for this being that once a number of mobs get latched on to me it is VERY hard for other tanks to get them off >.<) Also, on fights like Fathom Lord Karathress, for instance, I certainly don’t want to pull him AND all his friends! Personal preference and basic need are really the only things you need to consider regarding this talent, it being only as beneficial to your build as how much you use you get out of it, however I have found it too useful thus far to exclude it from my build.
3. My Takes on Retribution Talents::
Benediction: (Rank 5)Reduces the mana cost of your Judgement and Seal spells by 15%.
Given the lack of +int on tank gear, any mana cost decrease we can get is a good thing.
Improved Blessing of Might: (Rank 5) Increases the attack power bonus of your Blessing of Might by 20%.
Paladin tanks do not need this talent.
Improved Judgment: (Rank 2) Decreases the cooldown of your Judgement spell by 2 sec.
Some tanks take it, some don’t. I find that keeping one point in it makes my spell rotation go just a little more smoothly than when I had 2 points in it. The idea here is that the more you judge, the more threat you are generating, and as we all know, threat is good. We are a tanking class that is based around global cooldowns and cooldowns in general after all… so decreasing one slightly isn’t always a terrible idea.
Improved Seal of the Crusader: (Rank 3) Increases the melee attack power bonus of your Seal of the Crusader and the Holy damage increase of your Judgement of the Crusader by 15%.
This talent has now had the damage bonus rolled into the base spell and instead gives a 3% raid-wide crit buff. Not bad if you have the points for it.
Deflection **: (Rank 5) Increases your Parry chance by 5%.
5% to parry that you don’t have to find a place for on your gear, allowing you to stack more stamina. I don’t think I have ever seen a serious tank without this talent in their spec.
A lot of paladin tanks toy with the idea of dropping talents like Toughness and Anticipation in order to put more points in Ret (or even a few in Holy), but it’s really not recommended for MT’ing. The reason for this is that with our itemization the way that it is it is hard enough to balance avoidance/mitigation stam and spelldamage without being forced to stack more of it on our gear because we didn’t take the talents that provided it.
A good rule of thumb to go by: If you can get a stat boost from talents (i.e. stamina, mitigation, avoidance) then do so, as it will save you from having to find a place for it on your gear. This makes gearing up easier and considerably less expensive gemming and re-gemming/enchanting and re-enchanting to get the proper numbers to be a successful tank.
Pursuit of Justice (Rank 3):
Reduces the chance you'll be hit by spells by 3% and increases movement and mounted movement speed by 15%. This does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects.
3% increase to chance to be missed by spells? This combined with Spell Warding (again, if you have points for both) can come in very handy, as our incoming spelldamage reductions/mitigations are fairly limited.
4. A Couple Specs (Post 2.3 - these may be revised as more testing is done on them):
0/48/13: I'm going with this spec as it stands now. Dropping Imp SotC (bonus has been rolled into the base spell), Kings and the last point I had in Imp Judgement got me the last 2 points in CE and 3 points in PoJ.
Tank Spec 1
0/49/12:
(Revised for 2.3.) Tank Spec 2 5. Uncrushability and You: What It Is, How to Figure It, and Why It’s Important.
A crushing blow is 150% damage taken from a mob that is three levels higher than you, such as a raid boss. Unless you are level 69, nothing in a regular level 70 5 man instance can crush you, nor can anything in a Heroic at 70. Attaining 102.4% mitigation/avoidance pushes crushings off the table at the raid level and is reachable by a properly geared paladin tank constantly spamming Holy Shield.
[NOTE: Crushing blows and critical hits are NOT one and the same. Critical hits are 200% damage, and can only be dealt to you at level 70 if you have below 490 defense in a raid setting vs. a level 73 boss mob. (485 defense in normal 5 mans).]
Uncrushability equation:
Dodge% + Parry% + Block% + 5% Miss + Defense Bonus to Miss (scroll over Defense on your character screen to get this %) + 30% Holy Shield = 102.4%
If you have Libram of Repentance equipped, add another 5.33%.
There has been a bit of a debate on the forums regarding the necessity of uncrushability going into Karazhan. As the Paladin lead for my guild (and an officer), I would not, under any circumstances, EVER recruit a paladin that had not geared to be uncrushable pre-Kara, or at least made a valiant effort to get as close to 102.4% as possible in the time they had spent gearing, i.e. they are uncrushable while raid buffed.
“But WHY?!” some will exclaim. “You don’t really NEED to be uncrushable pre-Kara… you’re OVERGEARING YOURSELF… blah blah…”
Becoming uncrushable pre-Karazhan is not overgearing. Overgearing for Karazhan would be like insisting you need to have T5 on to tank it, which is obviously not the case. There are a number of guides available that have gear lists and tips on now to get a solid HP pool and decent stats to start out tanking in Karazhan without ever setting foot in anything outside a 5 man or heroic… and it’s not just for your sake… its for your healer’s sake, and your raids sake. None of the items listed in any of those guides are from any instance not available to a non-raider, so why NOT put the time into gearing yourself properly if you wish to app to a guild as a tank?
This about it this way: As a tank, your job is to make your raid’s life easier and ensure that the mob or boss in question is infatuated (or angry) enough with you to concentrate on you for the course of a fight so your DPS can do their job. Part of this means gearing up well enough so that your healers don’t have coronaries every time you get hit by something… i.e. having enough mitigation and avoidance to negate or lessen the damage of incoming hits, and enough stamina to soften the spikeyness of the blows you DO take..
Another reason I insist on uncrushability in any paladin tank I recruit is that in attaining that 102.4%, they have shown me how important tanking is to them… that they have put the work and the time into preparing and being the best they can be for the gear available to them to show me that they are dedicated… and quite frankly, that is exactly the type of person I want to bring on raids with me. Hint: I’m not the only guild officer/paladin class lead (and raid leader) that feels this way!!
Paladin tanking is too (comparatively) new right now, and we are still trying to build a good reputation for it and show ourselves to be a good alternative to warriors and druids. Walking into a raid (or even a 5 man!) expecting to be the MT with under 490 defense (485 for 5 mans) and terrible avoidance and mitigation stats does nothing but make you look bad and make paladin tanks as a whole look terrible. Do the work, get geared, and bolster the reputation that those who came before you have worked to build.
That being said, while you do not need to be uncrushable to START tanking Karazhan, numbers-wise, it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you gear for uncrushability and get as close as you can to that 102.4% (you should be at LEAST 102.4% when raid buffed) before you attempt to tank anything Curator or beyond. You will make life much easier on your healers, and trust me… they will thank you for it.
6. Gearing as a Paladin Tank
So you’ve decided that being a tank is how you want to raid. Well, welcome to the world of upgrades that aren’t really upgrades till you get a second upgrade, silly itemization (Yay for spelldamage, boo to sockets, mitigation, and avoidance!! Thanks Blizz!), oft-times vicious competition with casters for decent raid-drop spelldamage tanking weapons (or weeks of grinding arenas for the Gavel… ugh), keeping a calculator by your computer to tally your stats every time you pick up a new item or having to use a macro or mod to do it for you, dealing with warriors who aren’t keen on giving up off-set plate tank gear and trinkets they see as exclusively theirs, respec costs moving points around once you’re geared to find a build that really suits you, and having to work doubly hard at preparing and gearing for raids than any other tank.
Still sound good?
Well, if it does, the order of stats you should be considering when looking for upgrades and initial gearing are:
Defense: This needs to be at 490 or higher if you want to main tank raids to push 200% damage critical hits off the table. Period. Also, contrary to what some may think, defense past 490 is not useless. It adds to your tanking stats for every point above 490.
Mitigation and Avoidance: In order to successfully tank anything past about halfway through Karazhan with minimal stress on your raid healers, you need to attain 102.4% total mitigation and avoidance. This will push 150% damage crushing blows off the table so long as you have Holy Shield up. (See section above for how to calculate the 102.4%).
--Mitigation: Reducing incoming damage.
--Avoidance: Completely avoiding incoming damage. Stamina: Once you have your 490 defense and are at (or very near to) uncrushability, you can focus on increasing your HP pool. Paladin tanks received a stamina buff in Path 2.3, so rejoice! You can now gem for good socket bonuses and throw Solid Stars in everything else. However, NO paladin tank should be equipping a non-tanking trinket to pick up more stamina if they are not uncrushable (at least while raid buffed) just to give the illusion that they have better gear than they actually do. HP is great, sure… but if you’re crushable (or, god forbid crittable) because you insist on having a few hundred more HP, you’re nothing short of terrible. You should not have on a Living Ruby Serpent, a Violet Badge, a Darkmoon Card or anything of the sort until you can legitimately wear it while maintaining decent tanking stats.
Spelldamage: Paladin tanks should have anywhere from 161 spelldamage on up when starting Karazhan. Due to the nature of the instance (mostly undead mobs… Yay for Exorcism!) an exorbitant amount of spelldamage isn’t vital to success. Generally I would recommend a spelldamage weapon such as Crystalforged Sword or Continuum Blade with a +40 SD enchant and perhaps the Righteous Shoulderguards till T4 is available in order to be able to stack mitigation, avoidance, and stamina on the rest of your gear without having to worry about SD overmuch. Post Kara (SSC/TK+) you will have to worry much more about spelldamage, as your DPS will gear up faster than you will, making balancing all the stats you need to avoid becoming a liability even more difficult.
[Note: Some claim it is perfectly fine to go into Karazhan with zero spelldamage. While you may be able to get away with this for a while, you are missing out on very scaleable and efficient threat generation, and doing so is not recommended. There is no such thing as “enough threat”. You can never have too much, nor can you ever be far enough ahead of your DPS that a few lucky crits from a mage that doesn’t know how to watch a threat meter plus an unlucky string of avoidance on your part can’t wipe your raid.] Gear to Start (Pre-Karazhan): (Note: These are only recommendations for gearing for uncrushable… items I have found to be worth getting. This list does not include all items available for a given slot because I am only listing the best items here (the ones with the best stats) that a pre-Kara paladin tank could shoot for. Double asterisk (**) denotes items I would recommend highly.) Head: Faceguard of Determination **
Tankatronic Goggles **
Felsteel Helm Myrmidon's Headdress Neck: Strength of the Untamed **
Shoulders: Spaulders of the Righteous **
Cloak: Devilshark Cape **
Silkk's Cloak of Placation **
Chest: Vindicator's Hauberk Jade-Skull Breastplate Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian **
Chestplate of Stoicism **
Shattrath Protectorate's Breastplate **
Wrist: Bracers of the Green Fortress Sha'tari Wrought Armguards Gloves: Thatia's Self-Correcting Gauntlets **
Felsteel Gloves Waist: Sha'tari Vindicator's Waistguard **
Girdle of the Fearless Legs: Timewarden's Leggings Unwavering Legguards**
Sunguard Legplates **
Inscribed Legplates of the Aldor **
Boots: Flesh Beast's Metal Greaves Sabatons of the Righteous Defender Blue's Greaves of the Righteous Guardian Rings: Elementium Band of the Sentry**
Andormu's Tear **
Band of Impenetrable Defenses**
Dath'Remar's Ring of Defense Ring of the Stalwart Defender **
Trinkets: Figurine of the Colossus **
Adamantine Figurine **
Figurine - Dawnstone Crab **
Dabiri's Enigma Figurine - Empyrean Tortoise Commendation of Kael'thas Libram: Libram of Repentance Weapon: Crystalforged Sword **
Continuum Blade Cudgel of Consecration **
Shield: Crest of the Sha'tar **
Shield of the Wayward Footman **
Aegis of the Sunbird Ogri'la Aegis Sunward Crest **
Dawnforged Defender **
Karazhan/HKM/Gruul/ World Bosses: Head: Justicar Faceguard **
Faceguard of the Endless Watch**
Neck: Barbed Choker of Discipline **
Shoulders: Justicar Shoulderguards **
Cloak: Gilded Thorium Cloak Chest: Panzar'Thar Breastplate **
Justicar Chestguard **
Gloves: Iron Gauntlets of the Maiden **
Topaz-Studded Battlegrips **
Belt: Crimson Girdle of the Indomitable **
Leggs: Wrynn Dynasty Greaves **
Boots: Boots of Elusion Battlescar Boots Ring: Shermanar Great-Ring Trinket: Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch **
Shield:Shield of Impenetrable Darkness **
Aldori Legacy Defender **
Recommended Enchants:
Head:
Glyph of the Defender **
Shoulders:
Greater Inscription of the Knight**
Greater Inscription of Warding**
(The Revered inscriptions are fine till the Exalted ones become available to you).
Cloak:
Enchant Cloak - Dodge (.63% Dodge) **
Enchant Cloak - Greater Agility (.48% Dodge)
Enchant Cloak - Steelweave
Chest-
Enchant Chest - Exceptional Health **
Enchant Chest - Defense
Bracers -
Enchant Bracer - Fortitude **
Enchant Bracer - Spellpower
Gloves -
Enchant Gloves - Threat**
Enchant Gloves - Major Spellpower
Pants:
Nethercleft Leg Armor Clefthide Leg Armor
Boots:
Enchant Boots - Fortitude Enchant Boots - Boar's Speed
Rings:
Enchant Ring - Spellpower
Weapon:
Enchant Weapon - Major Spellpower
Shield:
Enchant Shield - Major Stamina 7. Spelldamage and Threat – Karazhan and Beyond
Spelldamage is how we hold aggro, and it gives us by far the most scaleable threat in the game. Obviously, the more spelldamage you have the more threat you will generate. Add to that the bonus to threat from Holy damage you get by putting max points in Improved Righteous Fury and you can churn out threat like nobody’s business…so long as you are being hit.
The only real “problem” with a paladin’s threat is that it is reactive, which makes it amazing in certain situations and mediocre in others. In other words, in order to gain threat from abilities like Holy Shield we need to be getting hit… and that does not generally work for boss OT’ing. Our tank mechanics make it very difficult for us to serve in any capacity besides that of main tank (or AOEtank, as the case may warrant), which is not a problem if you are geared well enough and in a guild that places you in that position, but can be a major issue for those gearing up behind warriors who not only have been main tanking since pre-TBC but who are also given priority on tank loot over the OT’s (and, really, rightfully so), or for those looking to get into a raiding guild who have not yet experienced the content that would allow them to gear in a way that would make them comparable to a warrior competing for the same MT spot.
Fights like Prince Malchezzar where you are being hit in rapid succession, for instance, is where our reactive threat really shines, since Holy shield has more charges than a warrior’s shield block and is a big part of our reactive threat making our TPS higher and our chances to be crushed a lot lower.
Fights like Gruul, however, where the boss is hitting much more slowly and we are not able to generate enough threat as an Hateful Strike offtank to be much use in anything but a main tank role and where in that position we generate threat a bit more slowly due to being hit less often some paladins may find threat to be a bit of an issue. Couple this with the comparatively low HP pool of a paladin tank at that level of progression, DPS holding back too much due to lack of threat = too many growths = paladin dead due to boss hitting too hard for the healers to keep him up.
[Note: Many paladin tanks at this stage in the game have overcome this minor obstacle and successfully tanked the encounter (myself included), though our threat mechanics make it a bit more difficult than the other tanks’ do to keep ahead of the DPS threat-wise and down him before his growths get out of control. Tanking Gruul successfully as a paladin, especially as a progression kill for one’s guild, is an accomplishment… and in my opinion is a good sign said paladin will be a successful tank in further content.]
A spelldamage weapon with a +40 spelldamage enchant with maybe one piece of paladin tanking gear is generally enough to start tanking Karazhan. Once you find yourself as an MT in SSC, however, you will quickly find that caster DPS drops are far more common than tanking drops and that that 200 spelldamage that got you through Kara just fine simply isn’t enough now that you can no longer use Exorcism. Your raid DPS will always gear faster than you do, and there will always be more of them than there are of you… and that means that your gearing will become even more difficult. You will now need to find even more places to put spelldamage on your gear while still maintaining uncrushability… and this is no easy task. You will occasionally reach a point where an upgrade will not truly be an upgrade until you get ANOTHER upgrade… when equipping one item will negatively affect certain stats and you will have to either spend 30 minutes with a calculator and the unequipped gear you have sitting in your bank (KEEP EVERYTHING FROM KARA AND AFTER!!!) compensating for the loss of stats in one area for a gain in another or possibly another week or two waiting for a second upgrade just to get your stats back to how you like them and really see a benefit.
8. Paladin Issues and Problems
The following is a list of commonly discussed paladin tanking issues and some brief descriptions of each. These are presented not so much as a list of things to keep you from tanking or scare you away from it… more a list of obstacles you must overcome in order to be successful. Also listed are some simple ideas to fix these problems, sometimes without any more bloating of the Protection tree.
No counter to fear – This has been helped quite a bit by the Paladin Stance Dance macros in section 10 below, but can still become an issue. [Solution idea: Horde priests now have Fear Ward, and provided there are enough priests in the raid to keep it up on you, this will not be *quite* so much of an issue, however, moving Spell Warding a bit farther down the Prot tree and making it a clickable ability that works something like a rogues CloS for Fear (perhaps with a slightly longer CD than CloS?) might be an option, and would keep our raid tanking ability in fights with Fear a little less based on class-balance.]
No “OHSH!T” buttons – We have nothing like a Last Stand talent to keep us alive in super sticky situations and periods of high burst damage. Lay on Hands has too long a cooldown to really make it a viable option, however popping a Nightmare Seed and hitting LoH directly after can be an amazing substitute, provided the talent is available. LoH is also dodgy in that many paladin tanks understand the frustration of popping LoH in panic and getting healed to full by your healers a millisecond before. Wasting an hour cooldown talent doesn’t make anyone too happy, especially when it’s the only emergency button a paladin tank has available. [Solution idea: Make Ardent Defender a clickable ability that does exactly what it does now only at any point in the paladins health.]
Mediocre to poor itemization – Paladin tier tank gear is really a big pile of purple spandex spelldamage gear with a few tanking stats thrown on here and there for some color. The gloves are socketless and the leggs only have a single socket. There is too much +int (there really doesn’t need to be any at all), and not enough stamina. And on T5, the set bonuses are not overly stellar for someone in a main tank role. And for the love of god… how about some other color? Or something a little less “Power Ranger” and a little more “Brave Guardian of the Light”? (And no, I don’t mean the T6 blue and gold spandex either!) [Solution idea: Smack the devs upside the head and ask them wth they were thinking? I don’t really know what to do with this one.]
Difficulty/Inability to serve in the capacity of an offtank – Because our threat is reactive and we do not generate much aggro unless we are being hit, we are the worst choice for offtank roles out of the three tanking classes. We CAN fill an OT role, but it requires max rank spell spam and constant chain chugging of mana pots making it somewhat possible but terribly inefficient, not to mention rather expensive.[Solution idea: Don’t really know how to fix this one without it being terribly overpowered. :\ ]
Bosses that silence for long periods of time – Holy spells = threat. Flat out not being able to generate threat on a given boss makes you useless during the course of that encounter. [Solution idea: Create a new talent that breaks silence and makes the paladin immune to it for a short time (perhaps combine it with the Fear breaking version of Spell Warding, above). This would not only help with silencing bosses, but would also help in arenas, where when a paladin is silenced in one school of magic he is silenced in all schools (as he only HAS one school), after which he is then easily dispatched with minimal effort by your average level 1 critter. ]
“So I went and got the gear, gems, and enchants I needed… I’m uncrushable with 490+ defense, I have a decent HP pool, and a good amount of spelldamage… not to mention I have read every possible guide on the forums to ensure I don’t suck right out of the gate… NOW what do I do?!”
Well, quite simply… You tank.
9. The Pull:
1. Activate Seal of Righteousness
2. Activate Holy Shield
3. Activate Avenging Wrath (if available)
4. Cast Avenger’s Shield
5. Run in/position mobs
6. Drop Consecrate
7. Reactivate Holy Shield if necessary
8. Judge Righteousness
9. Start your spell rotation, i.e. repeat steps 6 through 8.
Note: Since I am currently specc’d into Improved SotC, I generally like to Judge with Crusader during my second spell rotation to keep my TPS up.
Also, in certain cases it may not be prudent to pull with Avenger’s Shield, such as the Fathom Lord Karathress fight and most trash in SSC/TK, because you don’t WANT all the mobs beating on you at the same time. In these cases, you will be sharing tank duties with a few other tanks, and them not being able to pull their targets off you to tank them is a BAD thing… shadow-nova’ing Sea Witches in SSC for instance. >.< In these cases, the pull should go as such:
1. Activate Seal of Righteousness
2. Activate Holy Shield
3. Activate Avenging Wrath (if available)
4. Run in
5. Cast Judgment of Righteousness/Reactivate Seal of Righteousness
6. Position mob
7. Drop Consecrate
8. Reactivate Holy Shield if necessary
9. Start your spell rotation, i.e. repeat steps 5, 7, and 8.
10. Useful Macros:
Taunt macro:
#show tooltip
/cast [help,nodead] Righteous Defense, [target=targettarget,nodead] Righteous Defense;
“Save the crit-happy overzealous mage’s arse” aka BoP Macro: (Be careful with this one... I've BoP'd other tanks a few times trying to save a squishie competely on accident... >.<)
#show tooltip
/cast [help,nodead] Blessing of Protection, [target=targettarget,nodead] Blessing of Protection;
Paladin Stance-Dance (2 macros allowing paladins to tank Nightbane with no Tremor Totems – Thanks Blaen!!) [Macro 1:]
/use Insignia of the Horde
/cast Exorcism
/stopcasting
/cast Judgment
[Macro 2:]
/cast Divine Shield
/cancelaura
/cast Exorcism
/stopcasting
/cast Judgement
11. Tanking Beyond Karazhan and Gruul’s – A Main Tank’s Perspective
Being a fairly regular visitor to the World of Warcraft Paladin forums (at least till recently) and one of the more staunch proponents of the paladin tank’s viability, I have dealt with quite a bit of adversity from other tanking classes and other classes in general (most of whom either were stuck in a pre-BC mentality or had simply grouped with a ridiculously poor paladin tank, thus transferring that person’s lack of ability on to the rest of us). However, by far the most common opponents of paladin tanking I see are members of our own class (especially those specc’d Holy), which I really don’t totally understand. As paladins (not this-adins or that-adins, all of which sound asinine, IMO) we are the only class who’s forums I have visited that go after each other with such ferocity and venom not just when a paladin is specc’ing “non-traditionally”, but most especially when they are successful at said role. It seems there are far too few kudos and congratulations in “I just tanked X!!!” threads and far too many insults, flames, and inter-spec hatred a lot of the time, and frankly it’s depressing. That being said, that type of negative attitude can seriously discourage new tanks, so hopefully this guide has encouraged them a bit.
Contrary to what you may hear here on the Paladin forums, even though paladin tanking does need a few more buffs and itemization fixes, tanking at the SSC/TK level and beyond IS possible. (Queue Holy paladins and displaced warriors chiming in with things like “Well that might be true, but you’re not as good as a warrior! You can’t do X, Y or Z!!) While we are not the best choice main tank for every single fight, I have not yet encountered one in the course of my guild’s progression that I can not tank at all, and have discovered many that my presence either actually makes easier or even trivializes. My guild has all three tank classes as MT’s, so unless one is totally unsuited to a fight, we all generally swap out depending on what we are trying to kill at the time.
In other words, yes, paladin tanks still need a few more buffs. No, not having them is not serious enough to stop a paladin from tanking just about anything (s)he wants to provided the person playing the toon knows what they’re doing, has geared properly, and has the support of their guild.
My current tank/kill list is as follows ( (P) = Progression tank):
All of Karazhan (P – some fights), including Nightbane with no Tremor Totem (props to Blaen yet again).
High King Maulgar (Have pulled and held aggro on the Mage when the mage tank died (for the duration of the kill & while MT’ing HKM), likely due to passive threat from SA/heals.)
Gruul
Magtheridon (Guild’s second kill)
Doomwalker (First kill)
Doom Lord Kazzak (First kill)
Void Reaver (P) (Have held him the longest total time of any tank in guild)
Hydross’ adds (Adds tank and also Frost Phase MT.)
Lurker’s adds
Morogrim’s Murlocs
Leotheras the Blind (P) (Ranged pull after Whirlwinds with AS makes this fight exponentially easier.)
Fathom Lord Karathress (P)
High Astromancer Solarian and all her adds
Lady Vashj
Kael'thas Sunstrider (P)
Rage Winterchill (P)
Anetheron (P) R.I.P Ordo Exodus. Good times in a great guild with amazing people. <3 12. You CAN Do It!
In closing, my point in writing this was not to insist that paladin tanks are fine as is. It was not to try and say that we do not need buffs. It was not to show that we are the best tank choice 100% of the time. It is merely to show that regardless of our handicaps, we can still be a perfectly good choice to tank just about any encounter should the need arise, and perfectly viable tanks in a raid setting IF the player has done what he or she needs to in order to overcome the obstacles we face.
Paladin tanking is not easy. It can be difficult to gear for properly, difficult to find a niche as a new tank without having had the time to make a name for yourself as a competent player, difficult to learn how to be most effective and to earn the respect of your fellow players. For a good while, Prot was basically an abandoned talent tree, but for a few points placed there by Holy paladins for one reason or another. No paladins tanked, there was literally no itemization for the spec (whereas now there is mediocre itemization), and warriors ruled the tanking universe. This is not the case anymore. With the advent of TBC, we began to walk the fringe of viability, with certain individuals breaking ground with the spec, testing talents and different builds, and becoming successful in tanking. As time went on, the bar to test us was set higher and higher as we succeeded and progressed… and we went from being told we could not tank Karazhan, to Gruul and High King, to Magtheridon, to SSC/TK, Hyjal and Black Temple… to shattering each of these misconceptions one after the other.
Anyone with their mind set on success can do these things and be successful at them. I hope this guide was a help to those just getting started... and wish all the up-and-comings good luck in their tanking endeavours.
Godspeed and Happy Hunting!
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its more like 40 defense rating not sure on numbers im lazy and just use tankpoints..
