Quote :

"ea I can see you're enamored with the idea of being original. Even geared with the best ench gear possible, your dps is capped by your inability to shed threat effectively thats going to ultimately let every other pure dps class thats just as well geared out dps you with less effort. "

is really the crux of the issue. every other dps class will outshine you solely because of the inability to lower threat.


wtt hunter for mage/warlock horde

6/27/2007 6:30:46 PM

tranquil air totem is the only hope lol

6/27/2007 6:57:21 PM

yeah in kara our enh shammy dies the most.

6/27/2007 7:09:13 PM

^Put salvation on him lawl

6/27/2007 7:42:28 PM

Quote :

"yeah in kara our enh shammy dies the most"

Shaman dont die they aggro wipe.

6/27/2007 7:51:32 PM

Go PVP with your shammy then and don't worry about aggro.

6/27/2007 9:37:04 PM

^what do you think I'm doing?

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#character-sheet.xml?r=Mal%27Ganis&n=Blitztod

I just wish I could find a 5v5 team worth a damn.

6/28/2007 12:02:37 AM

you're enhancement ... the severely gimped younger brother to the biggest 5v5 FOTM class/spec currently


once you become worth a damn they'll knock down your door


strong gems

[Edited on June 28, 2007 at 1:10 AM. Reason : .]

6/28/2007 1:09:14 AM

Quote :

"Yea pretty much ignore anything smoothcrim says as 90% of it is worthless. Ret paladins are terrible and prot paladins are a sick joke. Yea you can generate threat and have decent tanking stats but you'll always be at a HP disadvantage to a comparably geared warrior and lack a lot of their utility. You'll be able to grind like a mad man though, so you can be rich."

ok, I'm not in a guild actually killing bosses, I have no idea what I'm talking about. if you get to the point where you can actually put a pally in 4 or 5 pieces of their t4 tank set and a few other good pieces, they make excellent tanks. their damage mitigation far exceeds that of a prot warrior and the ranged taunt is money. ret pally's have shitty dps, but if you gear them enough so that they aren't a hinderance, the judgements they refresh (read every other paladin's in the raid ~4 or 5), and the 3% to crit they give to all dps in the raid far makes up for their lack of individual dps. I will give you that they have a shitty aggro model and really no way to sustain good dps, but their raid buffs are worth it, especially if you don't have a 3rd or 4th holy paladin.

6/28/2007 3:40:38 AM

66....i'm a shadowrogue!

6/28/2007 4:21:22 AM

Pallies can be great tanks outside of a raid setting. The problem is they specialize in tanking multiple or fast hitting mobs. They lack the mitigation, health, and itemization that comes so easily to a warrior. With the proper gear, they can tank in a raid, but no one wants to fuck with it when a Warrior can do the same job with half the effort.

6/28/2007 9:28:17 AM

incorrect. ... hell mitigation between the tanks has never been the issue, except for maybe with druids


fuck prot warriors only mitigate marginally more (more to be sure, but i wouldnt write home about it and i've tanked as both.) damage than non prot warrior tanks.

Prot warriors however has the ability to generate far more aggro than say an arms warrior... that's where pally tanks step in

mitigation is not what they're known for, save crushes on stage 2 prince (which honestly at this point is a joke and really isnt even worth bringing into the conversation). Pally tanks have substantially higher burst aggro ability than even druids. Pally aggro Skyrockets and allows the threat cap for your dps to be that much higher.


think of pally tanks as the farm status tanks and warriors as the learning tanks. You want your tanks taking the least possible damage with the highest margin for error on new content (higher natural hp, better set tanking gear, more oh shit buttons). Pally tanks really shine in aoe encounters, or in times where keeping the tank up is not a problem or a concern, and where going balls to the wall is.



[Edited on June 28, 2007 at 10:35 AM. Reason : s]

6/28/2007 10:33:03 AM

Except not at all. I said you don't know what you're talking about because you're repeating the talking points that you either saw in your gchat or your guild's pally fed you because he's an idiot.

Damage mitigation for paladins and warriors aren't equal or even really comparable on bosses that hit harder then a non heroic mob. Holy Shield can make a paladin crush immune while its up but Ardent Defender does not remotely begin to equal anything useful when a paladins buffed health is always at nearly a 3k deficit to a warrior in comparable gear. When one hit represents, at minimum, 20% of your health you are not an optimal tank for that instance. As for the inverse AOE taunt, yes, because so many bosses and mobs are tauntable in raid instances.

I haven't even bothered covering the lack of anything resembling last stand.

Paladins are good for tanking trash mobs and the occasional demon boss that doesn't hit for shit. Other then that, they're a novelty item like DPS shamans.

6/28/2007 10:56:53 AM

pallys are good for tanking encounters you know the tank wont die in.


and 1 dps would beable to outdps the deficit between the pallys ret dps and the benefit he's providing to the raid, therefore useless until further notice.


novelty item

[Edited on June 28, 2007 at 11:03 AM. Reason : .]

6/28/2007 11:02:12 AM

couldnt have said it better myself. paladins are great 5 man tanks etc. but on single hard hitting bosses, i just dont see paladins having the survivability of a prot tank still /shrug

6/28/2007 11:15:40 AM

Thats because they don't.

A prot paladin will be healing 70% of the time, so why not just spec into what you're doing the majority of?

6/28/2007 11:28:19 AM

Quote :

" A prot paladin will be healing 70% of the time,"

huh ?

Quote :

"i just dont see paladins having the survivability of a prot tank still /shrug"

kinda like saying "i just dont see a-rod hitting home runs as far as mark mcqwire.


well yes ... but so ?

6/28/2007 11:39:59 AM

I never said hybrids/certain offspec builds were necessities, I just said they have a place and often make encounters much easier than say adding another vanilla dps/tank/healer. I'm sure no one would argue against having a shadow priest as a mana battery and constant debuff source for ampin lock damage or a feral druid to buff melee dps while also healing the rogues on ~40+% of their hits. While a ret or prot pally is still at the bottom of the priority list of hybrids to get in, they're still viable, just more gear dependent than most, as ALL offspec builds are.

6/28/2007 12:50:18 PM

^^ just saying, not many times that id want someone with less survivability to be MTing an encounter...

6/28/2007 12:52:22 PM

Quote :

" Tho OP never gave any reason why Paladins can't tank endgame content. He only gave reasons why warriors are better in some situations. Who cares? Not being the BEST at something doesn't mean you can't do it."

thread from a guild mate of mine

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=114253209&sid=1&pageNo=1


min/max raids wont have a warrior tanking learning raids... pallys could do it just have less margin for error


^^ and no they still dont have a place because of the reason i listed above... ret pallies dont have a place period. a rogue will out dps the ret by more than his 3% crit adds ot the raid.


may offspecs do have spots in raids . .. ret pally is not one of them

[Edited on June 28, 2007 at 12:57 PM. Reason : .]

6/28/2007 12:56:13 PM

Again, I don't think you're right.

Druid-

Feral spec is currently THE preferable spec for a druid. They can still cast HoT's, combat res, DPS, and OT. Why the hell would you want a resto spec or battle chicken druid in your raid? Novelty aura's and shitty HoT's that are going to get overrun by steroid holy priests, holy paladins and chain casting shamans? Yay 5% crit aura for oomkin! Maybe after all mages and warlocks get DPS cloth, oomkin can get the gear to out dps the main tank. Tree spec? LEWL.

Paladin -

Already covered.

Shaman-

I can see one Ench and one special elemental in a raid but they'd have to be exceptional players. Resto shamans are just too damned good.

Priests-

Spriets are great DPS AND utility and are more valuable then Holy priests imo. Maybe the one class that can sport two useful specs though one is arguably more useful then the other.



Any raid can support a token offspec for <random buff> that suits their makeup specifically. However, there are definitely not enough raid spots to suit the whims of everyone that wants to DPS as a shaman, battlechicken or pallytank. You have to be an exceptional player and have worked to get the best nonraid and raid gear you have access too.

6/28/2007 1:05:20 PM

As for pally tank on farm instances. Putting an instance on farm doesn't make the boss hit for any less nor will clearing an instance for several weeks suddenly make your paladin's stats increase by 20-30%.

The margin of error you lose is a lot more then you give credit for.

6/28/2007 1:06:56 PM

and the ability to kill a boss the nth time compared to the first is something you're not giving enough credit.


come on now, things get infinitely less confusing and more fine tuned the more you kill something. the more accustomed you are to an encounter, the smoother things go... the smoother things go the less pressure is put on your healers and the ability to focus on keeping the tank alive gets much easier.



I'll take a pally on gruul pumping 1200 tps sustained over a warrior who'll take less damage and average

750-900 tps


when the tank dieing is not a concern pallies are just better.

when the tank dieing is a concern warriors and to an extent druids are better


20-30% is an exaggeration our MT has about 14.8k unbuffed one of our pallies collects tank gear as a hobby and is incredibly well geared, he's at 12.4k unbuffed and uncrushable

a difference of 16%

[Edited on June 28, 2007 at 1:17 PM. Reason : .]

6/28/2007 1:14:35 PM

you people

I assume you are all experts in the aspects of paladin tanking and protection warrior tanking.

Protection paladins raid in the Eye and where ever VR resides, I forget at the moment.

Sure, Nihilum or w/e will still use prot warriors for the bleeding edge of content because that's what they're used to, but to say Paladins can't tank raids?

Quote :

" I tank 25 man content, up to and including SSC/TK and Mag. Saying I have "no viability" is laughable. Please stop telling me I can't do something I DO do on a weekly basis. "

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-talents.xml?r=Ysera&n=Caoin

The health deficit is more like 1.5-2k. Warriors will always take more crushes because of the cooldowns on their shield ability, provided the boss attacks more than once every 3 seconds, which I think is pretty normal. Paladins also shine at providing the threat necessary to kill a boss faster and allow more margin for error with unlucky pom pyro crits. My shaman friend takes aggro off of prot warriors with WHITE damage.

lawl at ssclark, i was gonna post that thread too.

I like having LoH (or even improved LoH) as my 'o shit' button. If i have to use it more frequently like last stand every 8 minutes then there's something else wrong with the encounter.

[Edited on June 28, 2007 at 1:27 PM. Reason : LoH]

6/28/2007 1:22:30 PM

I don't agree at all. First off, as a healer there's a big difference between even between 14.4k and 12.4k (when normally its 18k+ buffed for the MT and ~15k buffed for the Pallytank) You'd be hard pressed to find any healing crew thats going to gladly want to heal a 15k tank over an 18k one.

While holy shield CAN make a pally tank crit immune, its not up for 100% of the time and two hits between holy shield can easily result in a dead tank. Thats a randomness that nobody wants to contend with. This doesn't take into account that redoubt procs less and less as paladin gear gets better.

As for TPS: Warrior threat is only an issue to raids where the dps is drooling uncontrollably on itself and needs a diaper tied to its ass.

And no, you can know an encounter inside and out and it still wouldn't make a paladin tank worthwhile unless he specifically out geared the raid instance. Which can happen with gruul and to an extent SSC/TK but not BT or Hyjal.

6/28/2007 1:26:38 PM

paladins heal
warriors tank
rogues dps
hunters don't raid
priests heal
druids heal
shamans heal
mages dps
warlocks dps

6/28/2007 1:27:47 PM

And see this is why I hate TWW for any type of discussion.

Yes, you very well can tank any boss in the game just like I can dps any mob in the game with holy shock alone but the overreaching point is You can't tank better in almost any situation then a same skill same gear warrior. I don't care what you've done, what you think you've done, or how good you think you are. The math does not currently add up in the game to support this at all.

6/28/2007 1:29:37 PM

and yea personally ive never said it cant be done i just think a warrior is a much better tank, its just that when it comes to stuff like raiding im not one that likes to try and get super creative. i wanna get in and out of the snorefest as quickly as possible with raid makeup variations made on the dps side for people who want in/out.



[Edited on June 28, 2007 at 1:38 PM. Reason : ]

6/28/2007 1:36:27 PM

Can't tank better =/= can't tank.

If you want to take the paladin/warrior discussion above the TWW level then take it here:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=114253209&sid=1&pageNo=1

Quote :

" While holy shield CAN make a pally tank crit immune, its not up for 100% of the time and two hits between holy shield can easily result in a dead tank."

2 hits in between holy shield? Have you played with holy shield? Its what, an 8 second cool down with 8 charges and lasts 8 seconds...might be 10 seconds, but the point is that the cooldown and the life of the buff is the same. What does a good paladin tank do? Spam the button. A warrior's shield block or whatever has a much higher chance of not being up 100% of the time if the two charges get expended before the duration is up. There will be no 2 hits between an instant cast spammable spell. Paladins don't rely on Redoubt, we just use it to get to improved shields (30% additional damage blocked) and take it over devotion aura.

Are you a healer? Do you recognize the difference in 2k health? The hard hitting raid encounters can't be reactive healing based, THAT will result in a dead tank. Again, your health stats are pretty ~.

But, I don't know by heart the amount of end game knowledge that you obviously do, and its worthless to try and have you see different, so take a look at http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=114253209&sid=1&pageNo=1 .

6/28/2007 1:38:29 PM

Unless the content of that link is a blue response owning someone for being an idiot, its probably pretty fucking worthless.

-Yep, read the first response, not going to bother with the rest.

A good discussion thats been going on for several months now can be found at

http://elitistjerks.com/showthread.php?t=10440&page=42

Though the last two pages are the ret changes.

Yes, as a healer I recognize a 2k health deficit pretty easily (the deficit between geared paladins and geared warriors generally hovers around ~3k in my personal experience, however) as that 2k can be 1-1.5 second buffer to cast a heal.

6/28/2007 1:48:14 PM

a good rule of thumb is if you dont want to heal dont be a class that has the ability to do so.

6/28/2007 2:16:52 PM

^ THE TRUTH.

6/28/2007 3:17:23 PM

SandSanta honestly i think it's because the idea of "viability" on this board is so amazingly varied we're never talking about the same things. half the people on here are "hardcore" min/max raiders who care about being the best at what they do

and half are a little more laid back and do what they enjoy as long as it gets the job done. so we all piss and moan about the same thing, while looking at it from two completely different perspectives and then pissing and moaning again that the other person doesn't understand why we are saying what we're saying.

to some of us viability is the ability to preform a function to the best of it's possibilities. for some it's being able to perform that function above the level required to beat an encounter

honestly the last page is a perfect example... sand continues to say ret pallys aren't viable because they don't have the ability to be the best at what they do ... and then three people say ... well but they can still do it ... and sand says well yah but they suck at it ... and then three people say ... but they can still zone in and do it.


so in summation. no ret pallys are not viable end game because they are not the best at what they do. and they do not bring anything to the table that any other spec designed for dps in this game cannot adequately do. ret pally buffs do not matter because a equally geared well skilled rogue will beat a pally in dps enough that the deficit in damage will be greater than the added damage the pally contributed to the other raid members.

6/28/2007 4:01:44 PM

my feral druid only had to heal when i wanted to lol

6/28/2007 4:08:10 PM

I prefer warrior tanks to pally tanks myself due to much of the information stated above, but I have no idea what I am talking about which must mean that pallies own warriors as far as tanks go.

6/28/2007 4:11:00 PM

Quote :

"Novelty aura's and shitty HoT's that are going to get overrun by steroid holy priests, holy paladins and chain casting shamans?"

are you kidding? 20% more effective healing on your MT by putting them in the group is hardly a novelty especially when you're whining over a 1500-2000hp difference between paladin and war health pools. when priests have their big heal hitting on 4500 and criting for over 8k, that's an extra 900 and 1600 respectively for free. nevermind that hots stack and are very useful through silences (especially when you're doin an extra 20% healing). what I'm saying will be more evident when your main raids aren't 10 mans. maybe I just don't play with shitty people that make offspecs look horrible everyone that goes an offspec in the guild atleast has a full set of gear for their "main" purpose if a role change is necessary. we aren't on the bleeding edge of things, we barely raid 4 nights a week for 4 hours at a time, but we have good players and we get shit dead. in our second week of ssc we almost have Leotheras the Blind down. clearly hybrids aren't holding us back, and I would argue they're helping us move forward. run your raids how you'd like, its all about killin shit for loot to have fun pvp'ing anyway.

[Edited on June 28, 2007 at 4:33 PM. Reason : d]

6/28/2007 4:25:45 PM

this shit right here is why I went back to my lock. There isn't a single goddamn question as to my role.

6/28/2007 4:34:18 PM

my new guild has too many ferals and restos for me to get into raids, so i'm tryin to gear up as a moonkin since we have none of those. man, moonkin is a tough sell for gettin into a raid. i'm honestly not sure why. i do about middle of the road dps with decent gear, my aura (albeit kinda puny) helps the casters in my group, my improved fairie fire helps the melee dps (quite a bit actually...like 6% difference in hit%, even though imp ff only does 3% supposedly), and insect swarm should help the tank a little with the 2% chance to miss while the debuff is up. not to mention i can pop out and help heal. i'm not really gettin the negative...its just that stigma, like feral druids had pre-bc.

6/28/2007 5:35:55 PM

feral really did suck pre-tbc
i mean it was OK but it was entirely too gear dependent

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#character-sheet.xml?r=Medivh&n=Hysteria

[Edited on June 28, 2007 at 6:14 PM. Reason : in mah tankin gear]

6/28/2007 6:13:39 PM

nah feral blew dick before the xpac .... that coupled with how incredibly strong resto was/is made it silly.


before the talent changes

[Edited on June 28, 2007 at 9:11 PM. Reason : .]

6/28/2007 9:06:00 PM

I remember when lolferal droods seriously mad eme laugh out loud in bg, now I treat them almost like I do rogues and fury warriors

6/28/2007 9:49:28 PM

imho, a really good group to have on a raid is your 3 best spell casters joined with a moonkin druid and an elemental shammy specced for totem of wrath. moonkin aura (+5% spell crit) + totem of wrath (+3% spell crit and spell hit) + wrath of air totem (+101 spell damage) = pew pew

6/28/2007 10:41:44 PM

thats what i suggested to the raid leader. we have an ele shammy that they put in with the top 4 caster dpsers, so i said he should put me there with the shammy and the top 3 casters. coincidentally, that shammy's name is PewPew

6/28/2007 11:10:25 PM

a better group would be 2 casters shadow priest ele shaman bm hunter.

those two casters would rape dps constantly.

6/28/2007 11:23:44 PM

paLOLdins

6/29/2007 1:23:46 AM

Herb/Mining leveling is pretty fun. Made 50g last night going from 0-130 in both.

6/29/2007 9:06:33 AM

Quote :

"imho, a really good group to have on a raid is your 3 best spell casters joined with a moonkin druid and an elemental shammy specced for totem of wrath. moonkin aura (+5% spell crit) + totem of wrath (+3% spell crit and spell hit) + wrath of air totem (+101 spell damage) = pew pew"

More like = aggro city

There's nothing like hitting the threat cap 8 seconds into a fight.

6/29/2007 10:52:43 AM

well, our tanks don't suck, and our casters are pretty good at controlling their aggro. If theres ever a problem with aggro i switch out wrath of air for tranquil air totem (-20% aggro).

6/29/2007 10:54:14 AM

Yeap, ssclark I agree with you.

Smoothcrim:

Quote :

"20% more effective healing on your MT by putting"

The effectiveness of this was covered by people more intelligent then you. I don't feel like arguing it with you because you just don't understand anything I tell you.

[Edited on June 29, 2007 at 11:41 AM. Reason : Start by reading how the talent works, for starters.]

6/29/2007 11:28:52 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RppEICxBvSo

6/29/2007 12:48:59 PM