Ok, so I'm looking at a tank build for my paladin (got a long way to go, but still planning ahead..)
I'm leaning toward the http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?055031205001305013000530413050030102000000000000000000000000000 build. It gives huge, uninterruptible heals, a solid ST ranged attack, and most of the tanking goodness of a pure prot build (really will miss having holy shield and the damage reduction talent), but I'm thinking the extra heals and 10% chance to half any incoming damage will mitigate those losses.
Also, it'll let me use basically one set of gear and allow me to be either a tank or a healer in an instance as need arises.
Any feedback for me?
i cant check that ( im at school and the blockers block must interesting websites.... im actually waiting for this one to be blocked...wouldnt put it past my school I.T admins ) but i will when i get home
but it sounds like that you have a solid specc
It's more of a hybrid spec than a "tanking" spec. Holy Shield is the cornerstone of the prot tanking aspect especially once the patch comes out. It honestly looks more like a healing spec than anything.
For PvP: it's really solid. Having 4 minute CD on bubbles is insanely nice along with no attack speed penalty.
It's really all dependant on playstyle. With pallies, at least from what I've noticed is that I've really had to commit to one or the other. Be it healing, tanking, or *lol*DPSing.
If I were to go 100% into tanking I'ld go http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?050500000000000000000500513350000152015000523500000000000000000
My planned build for the next 2 levels is http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?055030205201305310500530510300300100000000000000000000000000000
I PvP'd with this a lot and heal in instances and such all the time and never go OOM and you can make yourself nearly unkillable... which is hilarious while 3 guys are wailing on you and your reinforcements arrive (until you get silenced/ counterspelled)
It's all up to you though and what sort of role you want to fill.
Kaid and I ran SL with a Pally tank and the guy hardly took any damage and never lost aggro once except on the Ogre boss which I think is somewhat unavoidable due to the event.
http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#character-talents.xml?r=Alexstrasza&n=Ronick
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?040000000000000000000502513352302102015010520504000000000000000
mmm If I ever get full rightous armor i too am switching to prot.
I have a BE paladin that I just started up and am planning on him being a prot spec'd paladin.
Here is my planned build Tank Spec (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=aVZVhpIxhdgzxoVbx)
I also like this build (just a few changes)
Tank Spec 2 (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=aVZVGzIghdgzxoVbx)
I know ronick..he and i used to team a lot when we were both members of The Senate and all its transitions up to Senate II.
Good guy...don't make fun of hockey around him though...hehehe
I have been struggling with this question....what do I need to do, as a Paladin, to be able too main tank in lvl 70 instance?
On the Talent side I have tried spreading out the points into both holy and prot...also prot and ret. If your main focus is on tanking, the majority of the the points needs to be in the Prot tree. At min, you need 41 points to get Holy Shield. If you try to balance the points into two tree's....lets just say you're okay at both but not able to excel in either healing, tanking or dps. At the moment, I am 0/48/13...but probably will have 45 points into prot　at all times. The other 16 points I will play around with but I want five points into Deflection for the extra 5% parry. I think the chance of taking less dmg is more important then the other talents in Holy but extra Int would be nice. My plan next is:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?000000000000000000005502513352300152015010520500000000000000000
We are a very gear dependent class so even the perfect build will not help us without the proper gear. I want to be in full Righteous Armor right now but thats not going to happen overnight and unless you're able to be a viable part of a five man group it may never happen. The easiest way might be to spec Holy and main heal until you get your complete set or part of the set. I made Felani to be a Tankadin from the beginning so my goal is to stay prot and get the whole set.
So you want to main tank as a pally before you have your Righteous Armor....what are your options? You can try to piece together green champion and sorcerer plate to achieve +def and +spell dmg. Or do what I did and spend lots of mats and gold to make your armor set.
My choice is Felsteel Armor and Khorium Armor. Felsteel Armor has the base stats of Stam and Def with sockets. I would love to put in Glowing Nightseye into the seven blue and red sockets but financially its not possible for me since each gem will cost around 35g uncut and 45 to 50g cut. So I will settle for cheaper Glowing gem with +4 spell dmg / +4 stam. The gem choice is up to you, this is just my choice, if you figure something else out that works, let me know. Khorium Armor is almost the perfect substitute with one stat missing. It has stam, int, mp5 and spell dmg, only thing missing is def. Both are three pcs set with set bonus if your a blacksmith, both have legs as part of the set so you need to choose which set is better given what you are doing. So you will be left to piece together the bracer, shoulder and chest. You can also have enchants and armor kits to add more stats that are missing. Even the honored enchants from aldor or scryer will help since your shoulders will be limited to few other options.
Blizzard sure didn't make it easy for prot pally's in getting geared.
Helm: Pathaleon the Calculator (Mech)
Shoulder: Laj (Botanica)
Chest: Warlord Kalithresh (SV)
Gloves: Warchief Kargath Bladefist (SH)
Legs: Aeonus (CoT Morass)
i was mostly spec retri and thought i could try respec to prot would make better tank....bad choice i found by changing spec to prot it made me weaker defense and offense...i understand gear is the key...but just my experiment showed me my retri spec was better for the way i play...now i am spec holy and i feel more comfortable with this spec due to originally it was my first choice...but i think gear is still the key and spec are more for style of play and tools that ya have...i may be wrong surely not the first time....but gear makes or breaks the char....im by no means an expert.
For tanking, the set bonus of the khorium set is not very useful (+55 healing). IMHO, Khorium is really a great set for healing... all 4 core stats are covered stam, int, +heal, MP5. I have used the khorium set for ages now.. I doubt I will replace it until I get something from Kara or an Arena piece.
For tanking, I think that the core stats to look for are stam, def (dodge, block, parry), spell & int. Secondary stats to look for are spellcrit, strength (improves block) and agi.
That said, the Righteous set is a must have. It is ok for fighting, but is a fantastic tanking set.
Alternatives would be the felsteel set, green "of the sorcerer" and "of the champion" (I think). Also, the PVP (and arena) pieces are nice, although they do not have any def.
Itemization as a pally tank is a bit trickier than being a Warrior or a Druid.
Since our aggro generation is based off of a stat which isn't synonomous with tanking (+Spell Damage) we are put into a little bit of a pickle. We often have to strike a balance and are forced to sacrifice our damage mitigation (+defense, dodge, parry, and agility --> dodge, a little AC, and parry......... since these things don't frequently show up alongside Int and spell damage). I'm not sure what the optimal +spell damage is although more is better. I'm sitting at about 220 and am holding aggro well so in Kara raids 300-350 should be OK for holding especially since we get to Exorcise mobs (THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELLS YOU!!!!).
Blizz has given us an awesome set to tank with but it is quite a pain to get (Rightous Armor).
I recently respecced to prot and am switching back to Holy any day now as soon as I hit 70, buy a flying mount and train. I may switch back once I get a good tank set but as of right now, it just gimps me since I'm only at 425 defense or so and 11k armor --> you really want at least 12-13kAC and 490 defense along with at least 10k hp. So I guess I'll bite the bullet and stick with spamming Flash of Light (I refuse to give into going deep into Ret... unless we decide we want a Ret-a-din)
Does righteous fury increase the threat from our heals as well as our attack spells?
Looking at the itemization for t4-t6 protection spec gear, it looks as though blizzard intends for paladins to tank through healing and blocking--not attacking (no str, ap, or crit).
Does the threat boosting skill really mean all holy spells then?
Quote from: dharq on May 10, 2007, 10:17:58 AM
Does righteous fury increase the threat from our heals as well as our attack spells?
Looking at the itemization for t4-t6 protection spec gear, it looks as though blizzard intends for paladins to tank through healing and blocking--not attacking (no str, ap, or crit).
Does the threat boosting skill really mean all holy spells then?
i think pallies have an inherent threat reduction to healing spells...might be that the threat you cause through healing wouldn't be as much as through dps. You can always get a buddy pally to try on some elite mob and use ktm
i gotta get in on this conversation and stir things up a bit. :P Pallys cant tank (not including undead fights), unless its an instance that the pallys' gear is rated higher than the instance
Can you get by with a pally tanking in a group, certainly, however it changes the complexion of the fight. I ran heroic ramparts with Ronick and he couldnt hold aggro worth squat at the start (from him i found out holy shield is the best ability a pally can use to gain aggro). We adjusted and completed the instance (except final boss....need fr gear for that). The adjustment was we had to wait 5-10 secs to allow him to build aggro before we engaged. Also during the fight we had to stop dps in order not to pass him on ktm and steal aggro.
With Arc as a tank i only have to wait a couple secs, and unless its a super boss with tons of hp, i generally dont have to worry about stealling aggro during the fight. With Khadar, once he has 2 sunders in, I generally never have to worry about taking aggro from him again. That down time in dpsing can make the difference between a successful fight and a wipe. Ronick was in t4 type gear which helped tremendously, but a fair number of fights ended in him dying and maybe another party member dying as we finished off the last mob.
Pallys can tank in a pinch, and if the party knows how to fight with a pally as a tank, then u can be successful. I love having Pallys in a group.....they can heal, offtank, bless, removed curses, and do descent dps. I think every group should have one. As a tank though, id take a warrior or druid first and would take a pally next if he/she and the group new what was going on.
As a comparrison, a warrior in pre Kara gear, can tank in a group on heroic mode and complete the instance. I seriously doubt a pally with similar ranked gear can do the same thing
A pallies ability to hold aggro is limited only by how much mana he's willing to use. Being said, depending on if he goes just straight Seal of Rightousness or Seal of Vengeance (which has awesome long term aggro holding but like sunder, you need to let it stack a few times) depends on when DPS can start. Pally tanking is also best when theres more mobs than you can deal with on a CC level. We can consecrate and as long as everyone in the group knows what focus fire means... the mobs aren't moving.
As with the healing, Rightous Fury's toolip used to say that it only affected damage spells but now says Holy spells spells. Since all of our damage spells are holy spells, the change doesn't affect when we're tanking. Now, I've healed with it on since I have the Improved version and take less damage as a result and haven't found myself pulling aggro aside from PuG groups where healers take serious beatings... This is what makes me happy to wear plate and then I laugh because I often end up tanking more mobs than sayyyyyyyy the tank does.
In a normal situation, Yes pally heals have an inherent decrease in threat. Blizz put this in because all other classes can talent into having massively lower threat.
And Gren... wasn't it not all that long ago when everyone said that "Locks can't DPS"???
maybe my threatmeter is broken, but gren, kitty, and capn are always at the top there :P
unless lynette is in the group..lynn consistently out-dpses gren...
outdps or out threat?
Caps the only one I've ever seen out dps Gren.. (no offense to Lyn, I've just never seen it)
out dps...dont get me wrong...gren and his lockies are PHENOMENOL in DPS...just seen lynn consistently (and very quietly) out dps him in the heroics and such we have run lately...lynn has some great anti-threat tools too, never had an issue with him stealing aggro...
Pallys were supposed to have gotten some form of "taunt" with the last set of talent changes and spells 2.0.3 series, does that even work and what is it? About the only class ive not been able to get "in to" in this game is Pallys. I havent spent a whole lot of time trying to figure the class out in honesty so thats a lot to do with it, but that class for me is a large gray area, I have to deffer to those who have played one to 70.
I quit looking at the dps charts more than a month ago because I felt it was negatively influencing the way I was playing my rogue, so I really don't know where my dps is in relation to others. I can tell you this though...the times that I checked it with all the aforementioned locks and Thingiebob in group, I was behind them all. I am surprised to hear I've moved up, as I haven't been able to upgrade any gear during that time and I am at max enchants already. My guess is Kaid's shadow priest is up near the top now as well. And let's not forget Shadow's druid and Arc in cat form, who both prolly top everyone's dps.
Aggro management is proving to be crucial as we get ourselves deeper into the end game. As a rogue, I try very hard to not steal aggro. Now that I have KTM working properly, I try to monitor that at all times. The trinket from KoT helps immensely, as do timely vanishes. If I do steal aggro, I can usually survive for 10 to 20 seconds against heroic mobs, provided my CDs are up and a healer has mana. If not, I am toast. It also helps to have a solid tank who can maintain aggro, which we have several.
This leads me to the topic at hand - Pally tanks. I don't know the class very well and have not grouped up with one (as a MT) for awhile now, so my experience is limited. However, I tend to agree with Gren on this in that there may not be enough methods for Pallys to maintain aggro in heroics and TBC raid zones, regardless of gear and talents. I think this is unfortunate but understandable, as Prot Warriors must have some ways to differentiate themselves so they are meaningful.
Pally taunt is really backwards.. instead of drawing aggro from a target, it pulls aggro off a friendly target. Thus, if gren pulls aggro, the pally tank would target gren and cast righteous defense. It is only effective against 3 mobs though, and if the person who has aggro continues to build aggro, its effect can be broken in a couple of seconds. It is much more difficult to use than a regular taunt, as you must change targets to use. I find it more effective, especially with casters, to just use blessing of protection.. it sheds aggro for most attackers.
Honestly, pally tanks are best for holding aggro against multiple (i.e. more than 5) targets. However, damage mitigation is a key issue... against a hard hitting mob, a pally needs stam, str, armor, int, spell. You cannot have it all unless you are over geared for the instance. However, there are even some encounters where a pally tank actually is the best option. The case that comes to mind is Steamvaults, 2nd boss. In heroic, there is a constant stream of the little gnome mobs who heal the boss. A pally can easily hold aggro against all of these, long enough for AOE or Seed of corruption to kill them. It can be done with other tanks, but it is more challenging. That said, I think that pallies are the least viable tanks for heroics, the mobs simply hit too hard. You also seldom fight more than one mob at a time. Sadly, waiting a few seconds to build aggro can be the difference between sucess and wipe :(. I dont like it, especially with the upcoming nerf to Spiritual Attunement that will severely hurt Prot pallies (hurts me too.. /cry).
i know thats off topic voc...but can you elaborate on that nerfage for those of us non-fluid in pally speak?
It's a touchy subject and we'd rather not talk about it :(
***Switching back to Holy once I have money... it's 10x easier to gear for healing than tanking. And solo-questing as prot makes me want to gouge out my eyes.
We need more people like Oedipus in this world.....not the "accidentally had babies with your mom" aspect, but the "will be willing to drive sharp hair spokes through my eyes" types...
When the next patch comes out, there are several significant changes (nerfs) to pallies included. For further details, you need just look on the Paladin and PTR patch forums. It is so bad, MANY pallies are leaving the game becuase of the loss in effectiveness.
-Spiritual attunement will no longer provide mana return if it overheals. This means that if you have lost 6k health, get a 7k heal, where now you get 700 mana, you will get none. If you dont take damage, you cannot get mana back from spiritual attunement. This greatly reduces the effectiveness of the shadow priest/holy pally combo in raids and 5 mans. It also is terrible for prot pallies.
-Illumination mana return will be reduced from 100% to 60%. For any holy pally with this talent (almost all do), any time we crit, the cost of the spell cast is returned. Raid healers would stack tons of spell crit because of this. The tier 4/5 and arena sets only have spell crit to leverage this. For example, suppose you cast four holy light 11 spells and all 4 crit. This would do roughly 30k healing and 0 mana used. Under the new patch, (840x0.4)x4= 1344 mana would be used. This is a huge hit for all holy pallies, but especially brutal for those who have spent 1000's of gold (time/dkp) on spell crit gear.
-The increased healing from improved sanctity aura will be changed to increased damage (2%). This is big blow for ret pallies... I know it made a huge difference to have Avarus in the same group as the tanks in the last Kara run I was in... the additional healing was absolutely amazing. While the +2% damage is useful, especially with a melee DPS group, it is hard when healing efficiency has already been reduced.
All told, it looks like my healing capacity has been reduced by 15% or so. Some well geared raiding pallies are seeing a drop in healing capacity of up to 35%. This is significant. The good news for me is I have collected gear to try to maximize MP5, not spell crit... I havent wasted much money or effort on spellcrit gear. The bad news is healing will be much harder.. we may need to have three dedicated healers for Kara for example.
Voc
I agree with gren maybe not a 100% but he makes valid points. And for the record Ronick is in Dungeon 3 or Righteous Armor which is the only option us tankadins have before Tier4.
I'm hoping blizz helps us prot pally's out in the next patch. According to rumors from PTR and pally forum the Holy Shield is being upgraded to 8 charges instead of 4 and maybe even do something about overlapping the coverage of Holy Shield by shorting the CD. All rumors but i can still hope.
The way i feel about prot pally's right now.....we have come a long way from where we were. We are still an evolving class which has been given upgrades and hope but not the talent or equipment to do the job right. Right now I would settle for a opening taunt and gear options. Give us equipment we can tank with, without the righteous set. Give us green plate options with stam, def and spell dmg or intel. Equipment for the most part is the major problem for prot pally's...pre-Righteous Armor.
And yes....for all those children out there, who still believe in Santa Claus and Tankadins...Gren is the Grinch ]:D.
the people on top of the dps meter dont really matter, as long as everyone is a few % within each other that means everyone is doing their job. Now if you have say gren being 20% ahead of a rogue or something, then obviously its not gren being super awesome but the rogue just not doing what they should be. I think back before hunters got seriously nerfed when I managed to make it to the top of the meter on my hunter i never managed to get more then 7% or so ahead of any of the other dps. Of course 7% can be a lot or a little depending on how long the fight is but someone will always be on the bottom and someone always on the top so the ppl in the bottom shouldn't get upset or whatever.
Personally, I try to balance my DPS and my crowd controls (stuns, blinds, kicks, etc.) to ease healing for the healers and make it easier on the tanks to take out the mob. Sometimes I'll go ballistic for the hell of it and do mass DPS, usually stealing aggro from the tank, just for the hell of it.
As far as damage dealing, any warlock that uses tons of DOTs is going to out DPS a rogue unless that rogue has better gear and strong weapons. For example, Gren and cap both have better gear than myself giving them more +spell dmg than I have doing + any dmg. So they'll always out DPS me until I get some better gear and weapons. I'm working on it though.
Quote from: Thingiebob on May 11, 2007, 02:10:04 PM
Personally, I try to balance my DPS and my crowd controls (stuns, blinds, kicks, etc.) to ease healing for the healers and make it easier on the tanks to take out the mob. Sometimes I'll go ballistic for the hell of it and do mass DPS, usually stealing aggro from the tank, just for the hell of it.
As far as damage dealing, any warlock that uses tons of DOTs is going to out DPS a rogue unless that rogue has better gear and strong weapons. For example, Gren and cap both have better gear than myself giving them more +spell dmg than I have doing + any dmg. So they'll always out DPS me until I get some better gear and weapons. I'm working on it though.
My response, exactly. I ran the Shattered Halls yesterday with a total wackjob of a warrior who couldn't hold aggro at all. Our pally (Ghis) wasn't specced for tanking yet (he's back to prot now), but he ended up holding 2-3 mobs at a time. I had to blind one once we engaged, and had to keep TWO caster mobs at a time from getting spells off. I got hit pretty hard in the damage department there, but it was worth it.
We had to see the Illumination nerf coming from a mile away tho. When Blizz made us arguably the strongest (single target) healers in the game, and wear plate and shields, along with awesome PvP utility as Holy spec (Priests, Shammies, and Druids when specced for healing seem to hate PvP)... the bomb had to come sooner or later.
And yea, prot pallies are just starting to be viable and coming into their own. Sooner or later they'll find the niche... until then, they can sit back and own rogues and fury warrs in PvP.
I've tallied it... and I've spent 200g on respecs in 2 weeks... :(
I just started leveling a paladin for tanking. I've been trying to read up on the viability of it. I've been reading this thread http://elitistjerks.com/showthread.php?t=10440 (http://elitistjerks.com/showthread.php?t=10440) which talks about
paladin tanking. Its stated so far that 5man and heroics are easily possible. And then there's pali's that are MTing in kara to now. MTing in the 25man is not quite possible yet, but off-tanking mobs there is possible.
The gist of it is, a pali tank needs 10k health unbuffed, 12k armor, and 490 defense. 490 defense is so that the person is uncrushable, so it avoids the really big hits that get pali's killed in 1 or 2 hits.
I found some videos of a paladin tanking. I think my jaw dropped a few times :D
1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9-gg3zKMS0 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9-gg3zKMS0) - Pali tanking all the mobs in Black Morass in a single pull.
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ6tCDY9oVU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ6tCDY9oVU) - Tanking Curator in Karazhan.
3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s7vJpiyLZk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s7vJpiyLZk) -Tanking both Romulo, and Julianne at the same time...Yeah...Wow...
There's a few more tanking video's there at http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=Atraira&p=r
The player's name is Invisusira and there profile can be found at: http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#character-sheet.xml?r=Smolderthorn&n=Invisusira (http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#character-sheet.xml?r=Smolderthorn&n=Invisusira)
O_O Wow the Khara double tanking is just ... well wow. I'm speccing prot! :P
A pally I was with in the Shattered Halls tanked the hallway of death in one pull... yesterday, he also healed the Shadow Lab for us without respeccing.
http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Alexstrasza&n=Etarnol
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t17089-paladin_protection_you/ (http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t17089-paladin_protection_you/)
This is a new thread at EJ that has been created with currently understood information about paladin tanking. Alot of good info in one place.
Aye, that is it. Thanks for the info :pumpk4: