Poorly geared pally easier to heal than well geared warrior? What am I missing....

[Reforminded]

I am the Raid organizer, raid leader, and main tank for my guild. In my raids we are farming everything but heroic-TOC (which we are struggling with, but working towards progress). As the main tank and only plate tank (we run with me and a druid - and then a boomkin who switches to feral when we need a third) I have been very fortunate regarding gear and am one of the top geared tanks on my server (2850 GS on wow heroes). I raid buff to well over 50 hp, I have almost 28000 armor, and I have loads of avoidence. I religiously read tankspot and elitistjerks in order to constantly maximize my performance and effectivness as a tank.

On Columbus day when I was out with my wife, a bunch of my normal raiders put together an inpromtu 10-Man TOGC run. It was our top Druid, Preist, and Pally healer, the Boomkin in offspec as offtank, and a woefully undergeared pally tank that was an old friend of one of the DPS. By woefully undergeared I am in no way trying to insult the player, but there were significant problems with his gearset (wow-heroes 2350ish GS). He raid buffed to 38k health, had only 24000 armor, and had around the base same avoidance that I do (he had more dodge, I have more parry, about equal). They were able to get the first encounter down for the first time, and when I returned the healers were all boasting about how "easy" it was to heal this pally. In fact, the three of them separately told me how much easier it was to heal him than me (talk about a blow to the ego), how much easier it was to keep him alive.

I am puzzled by this, and am hoping some experienced healers/pally tanks can help me figure it out. How can a tank with 12k less health, 4k less armor, and the same avoidance be easier to heal? Mathematically it just doesn't make sense to me. Are there some special pally secrets I don't know about?

I invited him to a 25 run later that night and I was not at all impressed by his survivability, or really anything else for that matter. He struggled to sustain 4k TPS (whereas I can sustain 6-7k and spike at 9), and he is not threat capped (only 97 hit rating whereas with food and a dranae I am over all my threat caps). When switching off on Gormok, I usually died after the switch as all the tank healers were topping him off at the expense of healing me through the impale (i.e, they were using all of their heals on him and letting me "tick" to death). This phenomenon lead the healers to further insist he is easier to heal (and by deduction therefor better as a MT) than I am.

My healers are all very experienced and I generally have a lot of confidence in them and value their opinion, but I just can't figure this one out. Please help me to understand.

[devilsagony]

Besides spell reflection, what other talents does a warrior have for spell damage reduction? I know as a tankadin, i have no less the 9% spell damage reduction with Divine plea active, which helps with survivability greatly. Other than that, I can not think of anything else that would make a pally easier to heal, as you get the +6% heals from Devo Aura as well. Without looking at the pally's spec, i can not be sure, he did not take the talent that enhances the heals to him by 6%, if he did, he would recive 12% total bonus heals with Devo aura up.

[Kazeyonoma]

perception is an evil beast. I had to throw out the numbers in a giant spreadsheet to prove to healers in my guild that an equally geared/skilled warrior in my guild was just as easy to heal as me, despite most of them claiming otherwise. I dug up numbers and such just to prove it and the difference between me and him were <3% damage taken. So it's all just perception. Maybe he'd get hit so hard he'd proc his ardent defender 20% less damage buff then it'd smooth him out for a while. Maybe in the 10 mans the trash/boss fights were hitting so low his constant sbv was trumping incoming damage or at least smoothing it out enough to warrant healers thinking "zomg this is easy".

Maybe he nearly died a few times but Ardent Defender proc'd and saved him and therefore no one noticed he died?

Maybe the healers overcompensated heals thinking he was under geared that as a NET they healed harder but individually it felt easier because some people were trying harder?

Who knows.

[Kazeyonoma]

Besides spell reflection, what other talents does a warrior have for spell damage reduction? I know as a tankadin, i have no less the 9% spell damage reduction with Divine plea active, which helps with survivability greatly. Other than that, I can not think of anything else that would make a pally easier to heal, as you get the +6% heals from Devo Aura as well. Without looking at the pally's spec, i can not be sure, he did not take the talent that enhances the heals to him by 6%, if he did, he would recive 12% total bonus heals with Devo aura up.

warriors have the base 10% reduction on incoming spells because of def stance, but improved defensive stance adds an additional 6% spell damage reduction which makes warriors at 84.6% or 15.4% less damage taken from spells.

[klor]

From myunderstanding, warriors just take spikier damage than paladins.. which is why it seems like they are harder to heal than paladins.. but we also dont have that "Ooops" moment that saves us like Kazey said with Ardent Defender procing. Plus now that Ardent Defender doesnt get leap frogged, they take a large portion less damage on huge hits than we will as warriors which allows them to take an even larger hit and still survive.

[Reforminded]

Besides spell reflection, what other talents does a warrior have for spell damage reduction? I know as a tankadin, i have no less the 9% spell damage reduction with Divine plea active, which helps with survivability greatly. Other than that, I can not think of anything else that would make a pally easier to heal, as you get the +6% heals from Devo Aura as well. Without looking at the pally's spec, i can not be sure, he did not take the talent that enhances the heals to him by 6%, if he did, he would recive 12% total bonus heals with Devo aura up.

Thanks all for responding. I was wondering if it was a spell damage issue (in which case my copius health disparity would seemingly have worked to my advantage) but on the northrend beasts spell damage is minimal. The vast majority of the damage comes from impale, impale ticks, and melee. Again, this is why I am so confused.

He is specced into ardent defender...could that have something to do with it? Maybe he would have been getting knocked below 35% so frequently (i.e every hit) that it resulted in basically a static 20% incoming damage reduction?

[Risky]

When switching off on Gormok, I usually died after the switch as all the tank healers were topping him off at the expense of healing me through the impale

My healers are all very experienced...

Get a BoP. You have 2 pallies.

Sarcasm aside, we have one tank from every class, and they're all in 239-258s, and usually it's me (warrior) or feral druid that is requested by the healers.
Don't get me wrong, my nickname was "The Dying" for several months. But ultimately, with tankspot, skill and practice, my healers prefer this warriors "predictability".

Edit: Oh, and check healing received. Be aware of who's the worse mana sponge. It doesn't matter if a paladin lives through a death every minute if he takes 1.5 the amount of healing you do, or loses threat.

[BlazeDale]

Its probably just a misconception like Kaze stated. The pally can drop his stacks of impale with his Bubble which would make him easier.

Just a thought

[Aggathon]

I'd probably chalk it up to AD, but out of curiousity now often do you use your cooldowns?

The more you hit shieldblock, especially at critical times like when taunting gormok or you're going to be taking a good deal of bleed damage using it it mitigate the additional incoming phsyical damage, the less your healers will complain about you. Your gearing/gemming choices seem good. I personally would only stick with the red gem in your BP and then go 30 stam in shoulders and helm, but it's not a huge deal.

I'd also say pick up a tanking weapon, even though yours is probably really good for threat (though I am kinda surprised you don't have mongoose on it if you're going for threat) and you don't technically NEED more stam/defense, it ALWAYS helps. Sorthalis is probably the easiest of the options you have to pick up. Maybe a Shiver or Blood and Glory or even a Quel'Serrar.

Spec/glyphs are solid, I personally prefer focused rage over shield spec, but if you're talking about reducing incomming damage then that is probably the way you want to go.

As far as minimizing damage in general: I'd defintiely say it may come down to playstyle. Pallies are really nice in that they both have more of mitigation from BV due to Holy Shield, and that AD is reactive. Warriors can shieldblock which ends up with us usually taking at least 20% if not far more depending on the boss (compared to AD below 35%) at any HP%, our Last Stand is very nice, but we have to use ours proactively rather than reactively, and unglyphed our shieldwall is more damage reduction, but in order to get it down to the same cooldown it's actually less. Also don't forget about enraged regen and armor pots.

Pallies have a lot of tricks up their sleeves, but if warriors are proactive about how they tank/when they use cooldowns to try and help healers at critical times (or even at any time just to help a little bit, warriors are very spiky damage takers sometimes) then warriors are just a good as paladins imo.

I'd agree also that a lot of it may be perception, or they may be trolling you =P.

Are you guys only using 2 tanks for H-NRB25? I would recommend 3 tanking it, using a 2-2-2 rotation. It makes phase 2 a lot easier too. With 2 tanks on whatever is being kited 1 tank can taunt off the first whenever they get bile then the first tank can go and clear poisons off without worrying about breathing the raid or getting to people in time. Also on acidmaw the second tank can taunt so that whoever removes the acid from the tank doesn't get breathed on. This in general just makes things a lot easier on healers.

[Reforminded]

I'd probably chalk it up to AD, but out of curiousity now often do you use your cooldowns?

The more you hit shieldblock, especially at critical times like when taunting gormok or you're going to be taking a good deal of bleed damage using it it mitigate the additional incoming phsyical damage, the less your healers will complain about you. Your gearing/gemming choices seem good. I personally would only stick with the red gem in your BP and then go 30 stam in shoulders and helm, but it's not a huge deal.

I'd also say pick up a tanking weapon, even though yours is probably really good for threat (though I am kinda surprised you don't have mongoose on it if you're going for threat) and you don't technically NEED more stam/defense, it ALWAYS helps. Sorthalis is probably the easiest of the options you have to pick up. Maybe a Shiver or Blood and Glory or even a Quel'Serrar.

Spec/glyphs are solid, I personally prefer focused rage over shield spec, but if you're talking about reducing incomming damage then that is probably the way you want to go.

As far as minimizing damage in general: I'd defintiely say it may come down to playstyle. Pallies are really nice in that they both have more of mitigation from BV due to Holy Shield, and that AD is reactive. Warriors can shieldblock which ends up with us usually taking at least 20% if not far more depending on the boss (compared to AD below 35%) at any HP%, our Last Stand is very nice, but we have to use ours proactively rather than reactively, and unglyphed our shieldwall is more damage reduction, but in order to get it down to the same cooldown it's actually less. Also don't forget about enraged regen and armor pots.

Pallies have a lot of tricks up their sleeves, but if warriors are proactive about how they tank/when they use cooldowns to try and help healers at critical times (or even at any time just to help a little bit, warriors are very spiky damage takers sometimes) then warriors are just a good as paladins imo.

I'd agree also that a lot of it may be perception, or they may be trolling you =P.

Are you guys only using 2 tanks for H-NRB25? I would recommend 3 tanking it, using a 2-2-2 rotation. It makes phase 2 a lot easier too. With 2 tanks on whatever is being kited 1 tank can taunt off the first whenever they get bile then the first tank can go and clear poisons off without worrying about breathing the raid or getting to people in time. Also on acidmaw the second tank can taunt so that whoever removes the acid from the tank doesn't get breathed on. This in general just makes things a lot easier on healers.

Thanks for the response. I logged out with lionhead I think but on progression fights I use Titanguard (have not seen shiver, sorthalis, the TOC one, or the new ony one drop yet - just bad luck). The gem in the shoulders is a placeholder, and for the other gems, given +9 socket bonus, I always judge the +10 hit or expertise to be more valuable than the additional stam gained from a Solid Majestic Zircon (note that when it is only a +6 socket bonus I spec stam gems). Shield spec was definitely in order to help damage mitigation.

On the pull/taunt, I always cast shield block right before, followed by my heart of iron. I try my best to utilize my bigger CD's on periods where there will either be incredibly spike damage to me or a lot of raid damage so as to minimize my tax on the healers.

Funny you should mention the 3 tank strat, which is exactly what we changed too after 4 or 5 wipes. Worked a little better, but we were still about 25k DPS short of downing gormok in time....but that is another story.

It sounds like what most people are saying is that this is just a perception issue.

[Aggathon]

you should probably hit shield slam first before you use shield block, it will give you an extra 20% BV once shield block is up.

[Risky]

you should probably hit shield slam first before you use shield block, it will give you an extra 20% BV once shield block is up.

Good notes, but keep in mind the that the majority of Gormok's damage is not mitigated by block mechanics (Impale applications, tics, and his aoe). So don't worry about things like Shield Block and glyph of blocking too much- this entire encounter hates block.

[Selyndia]

He is specced into ardent defender...could that have something to do with it? Maybe he would have been getting knocked below 35% so frequently (i.e every hit) that it resulted in basically a static 20% incoming damage reduction?

Ardent Defender doesn't work that way. It only reduces by 20% the amount of damage that is beneath the 35% health, not the entire hit (I believe the DK talent functions the way you are describing though).

[morelore]

Ardent Defender doesn't work that way. It only reduces by 20% the amount of damage that is beneath the 35% health, not the entire hit (I believe the DK talent functions the way you are describing though).

True, but AD (both parts of it) are incredibly valuable on this encounter. Paladins are excellent NRB tanks (icehowls burst is far less dangerous to a pally also). The gear disparity you're talking about is very large, though, and I wouldn't expect the advantage Paladins have to cover for that much. Maybe your healers are just nutty.

[Aggathon]

Good notes, but keep in mind the that the majority of Gormok's damage is not mitigated by block mechanics (Impale applications, tics, and his aoe). So don't worry about things like Shield Block and glyph of blocking too much- this entire encounter hates block.

Yes, however his melee doesn't exactly tickle, especially once he has 4 stacks of the buff. Being able to mitigate 7k dmg an attack while shield block is up still helps healers, but yes you are correct that the bleed mechanic is the bulk of this fight.

It will also give better threat to shield slam first though to get glyph of blocking up before you hit shield block then shield slam again.

[Selyndia]

True, but AD (both parts of it) are incredibly valuable on this encounter. Paladins are excellent NRB tanks (icehowls burst is far less dangerous to a pally also). The gear disparity you're talking about is very large, though, and I wouldn't expect the advantage Paladins have to cover for that much. Maybe your healers are just nutty.

Oh, no doubt at all that Paladins are very strong on NRB Heroic; however, one talent isn't enough to do that kind of a difference in damage intake. It might make the difference between equally or similarly geared tanks, but not when there is such a disparity.

If they can keep this Paladin alive, there is no excuse really why they can't keep the warrior alive. Even Holy Shield isn't a viable reason for "Smoother" damage, because the bulk of the damage from Gormok is the Impale itself not his normal melee and Holy Shield won't help that.

[Durm]

Pallys have AD, Warriors don't. Pallys have more health because of better stamina scaling.

Imo Warriors are far behind pallys in survival...

[Reforminded]

you should probably hit shield slam first before you use shield block, it will give you an extra 20% BV once shield block is up.

I use shield slam as my opening attack (so around 1 second after popping shield block). Won't the mechanic just up the block value after I hit it (regardless of when shield block was popped)?

[Aggathon]

I use shield slam as my opening attack (so around 1 second after popping shield block). Won't the mechanic just up the block value after I hit it (regardless of when shield block was popped)?

Yes, but shield block doubles your BV and you can get 2 slams in and more time with maximum BV up.

[uglybbtoo]

Pallys have AD, Warriors don't. Pallys have more health because of better stamina scaling.

Imo Warriors are far behind pallys in survival...

Please this has been gone over and over ... take this sort of mis information out of tankspot.

You do warriors a dis-service by dispersing this sort of crap ... do you actually play both as alot of us do?

The differences are slight in EH terms and the OP is talking about a lesser geared pally over a higher geared warrior so the EH will favour the warrior and as discussed AD advantage will be very marginal.

Maybe the answer is the healers believe crap like you do.