Tanking Paladins

[Windfoot]

There seem to be a fair number of Paladins out there who want to MT. As someone who has never played a paladin, I have no idea if they should be given this role or not. My guess is not, as they do not seem to have great aggro management, but I'd like to hear from someone who knows about this topic.

[Caspin Mordain]

Having extensively utilized Paladins as offtanks in Molten Core as a Raid Leader, having played one to around level 35, and hearing from friends of Level 60 Paladins since December of last year, he's what I've gathered.

1 ) Paladins have 'no' taunt. They don't have a mocking blow, challenging shout, or any way to immediately grab aggro on a target. The very 'best' thing they have to stop a mob gone awry is 1 one minute cooldown, 4 second stun called Hammer of Justice. It's a great stun, but hardly reliable.

2 ) Seal of Fury is aupposedly their threat generating seal. With every hit, they are supposed to generate more threat on the mob. If it is judged onto the mob via the judgement ability, all holy damage done to the target incurs additional threat. Hypothetically, you'd want to couple that with Seal of Righteousness or Command, but the Seal is so broken in terms of the minimal amount of threat that it generates, that even the weakest of rogues or mages will pull hate off the tank, even if feinting and using any aggro reduction abilities.

3 ) Seal of Command, while a 'great' 2 Handed Weapon ability, severely lacks when applied to a 1 Handed Weapon, and is thusly a poor way to attempt to hold aggro. Let's face it, Sword and Board is never going to be able to do enough damage to keep aggro.


In short, without significant ways to generate threat, the Paladin class really 'cannot' Main Tank anything. Offtanking, yes, Main Tanking, no.

Hopefully, much of this will be changed in the upcoming patch.

[Rheyna]

Prior to 1.9, it is very difficult for paladins to MT adequately, as they lack any skills to create constant enough threat to hold aggro. After the 1.9 patch, it will be quite different. On the test server, I've taken my 60 palli (holy specc, so she was on the healing team) on several instance runs and have seen paladins effectively MT Baron, Balnazzar, and Gandling, as well as lesser bosses in those instances. I've also been in MC on the test server and seen pallis be quite effective split tanks, much moreso than they used to be able to be.

As far as we were able to tell on the test server, prot/ret and some ret/prot speccs will be able to tank. These paladins will not be able to heal very well, not even self-heal. It's hard to know how it will play out in practice, but after 1.9, I'd be willing to give protection specc pallis a shot at tanking the basic end game instances. Not Rag, though.

(Improvements in 1.9 include the replacement of the useless Seal of Fury with the self-buff Righteous Fury, the changes to SoRighteousness so that it proccs on every hit, thereby upping (1h) damage and creating additional threat, and the combination of SoR with Righteous Fury (RF adds threat from all holy damage and the every-hit SoR procc is holy damage). Also 15-minute class-based raid blessings mean that some pallis who used to be on buffing/cleansing duty in MC will be freed up for other tasks.)

[60 holy/ret palli, 45 ret palli, and Malka, who is 29.]

[Kaillen Nevarre]

With decent gear and the SoR/RF combo, I have to agree with Rheyna. I found myself MT'ing a 5 man scholo group the other night that consisted of myself, (switched to 1hmace and Sacred Protector), another pally who served as MH, 2 warlocks and a mage. The sheep and succubus were enough to handle "strays" and adds, while with only a little judicious agro management on the mage's part, I was able to hold quite effectively. (Granted, it didn't hurt that there were a good deal of undead, with consecrate and exorcism, etc, only helping RF hold more).

Believe me, no one was more surprised than I when I found myself tanking (and holding) all of the Risen protectors and Rattlegore while the rest of the party remained at a safe distance lobbing spells!

[Rheyna]

Nice! I've seen pallis be great tanks since the patch, under specialized circumstances. Sounds like you had that experience, too.

[Argonas Selonas]

Does anyone had a killer spec to use to make a Paladin tankable? I am currently going down the retribution build (so mostly ret, some holy). Here is what I have spent talent points on so far:





I like it enough so far, and I am doing what I think is decent damage (which you can kind of see by clicking here). But I find I am not terribly useful in groups. I can't heal well enough to be a primary or even secondary healer, and I can't hold Aggro enough to Tank properly. I was thinking about going for a MAJOR: Protection Talents MINOR: Holy Talents build, taking up a shield and one-handed weapon once again, and re-purchasing gear to build up Strength and Stamina. Thoughts? Suggestions?

[Malka]

My paladins:

Nahyomi: level 60 party support build (31/11/9) with BoK and uber healing skills. She's able to tank undead instances, much to my surprise but she's not a tanking build. She's what I call a utility infielder build -- in most instance runs, she does moderate damage, takes moderate damage and does moderate healing. In healing gear, she can heal any 5-man instance in the game, and has solo-healed Baron runs more than once. She does require two full sets of gear to function at her highest capacities.

Malka: level 42, on her way to a stronger healing build than Nah. I still want BoK for her, for party support, but I think she will be 40/11/0. I don't expect her to be able to tank at all. If I decide this is boring I will switch her to a reckoning build (21/25/5 most likely)

Charys: level 45, on her way to a critidin build of 21/0/30. This build should also be able to tank undead instances and demon bosses, but not others. Maybe OT in Tier 0 instances. Maybe.

If I were building the strongest tanking build I could, I'd be remembering that threat for a paladin comes from doing damage, period. At the same time, a tank needs to be able to take damage, so will be fighting 1h/shield. I don't think you can tank without consecration, so you'd need 11 points in Holy.

I'd try this specc I think.

It's a hard call not to take Holy Shield, but I was trying to maximize damage dealt. It might be true that replacing the 5 points in Reckoning with 5 points in Imp Blessing of Might (from the ret tree) would have a bigger payoff. I'm not sure.

This is a specc that can't heal worth a darn and mana will be low, too. Even the Holy talents were chosen to increase fighting damage, period. You'll be in 1h/shield, so you will use SoR. Even though judgment and SotCr were not improved in this talent specc, you'd still want JotCr at the start of each fight to up the holy damage you do with SoR, JoR, and Consecration.

Everything else is chosen to incrrease threat (by increasing damage) or increase the ability to take damage.

Now, I haven't tried this specc myself, but if I wanted to be the best tank I could be, this would be my first shot.

I'd equip this paladin with a mix of gear, including +crit gear (to increase damage done), +attack power, and +stamina gear, as well as some int (probably from Sacred Protector and jewelry, mostly) to get enough mana to keep JoR and SoR going for the entire fight. My first choice blue high-50s weapon would be Serathil, because of the armor bonus, with either agility (for armor and dodge) or +9 damage on it. If I were really hard up for int, I might put +22 int on that axe, and use jewelry, shield, and trinket slots for other stats. Find a friend who can make it, and put a Cloak of Warding on this palli.

I do not think this is a great leveling specc, however. For leveling, I suggest putting the first 21 points in Holy to get Consecration and Divine Favor, and then climbing the ret tree. (Divine Favor helps you be self-sufficient because it gives you a crit heal that costs zero mana once every two minutes -- big giant win for a soloing or duoing paladin.)

The tanking specc I outlined above is going to be the slowest killer ever. And paladins already kill slowly! When you are tanking in a group you don't care because as a tank, killing the enemy is not your job: holding its aggro is your job. However, leveling solo or with one or two people on outdoor quests is going to be painfully slow with a tanking specced palli.

Your approach of putting points in ret first can also create a fun leveling build, although I'd put the next 6 points in Holy to get to consecration if I were you. Without Divine Favor, you are not going to be able to heal well, but that really doesn't have to matter.

I'd switch to the tanking specc around level 55, I think.