Tankadin gear updates
by Eliah Hecht 
Mar 20th 2007 at 4:30PM
I've always though the biggest problem with Paladin tanking was gear (well, ever since I realized Paladins can tank, that is). Plate seems to come, for the most part, in three kinds: physical DPS gear, with strength, agility, and crit rating; tanking gear, with +defense, stamina, etc.; and caster gear, with Intellect, mana per 5, spell damage, and so forth. None of these three types is ideal for Paladin tanking -- if you take tank plate, you miss out on spell damage, and if you take caster plate, you miss out on stamina, +defense, and avoidance stats. The devs have heard this concern, and are planning to address it in 2.1.0. Ommra delivers:As previously promised I passed this on to the developers. I took the liberty of summarising the thread; basically saying that what you are after is gear with +Stamina, +Defense and +Spell damage, and that you are not very keen on +Intelligence and MP5 (Youngblood emphasised the need for more HP and damage mitigation instead).
The devs have read this and thought it sounded fair enough. Paladin tanking gear is going to be more geared towards tanking/hp so this concern should be addressed in the next content patch.
So, again, thank you for compiling this and helping me passing your concerns on to the devs.
Looks pretty good to me. Paladins, what do you guys think? Have I got your gear situation totally wrong? This is good news, right?
[via PaladinSucks]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Seper Mar 20th 2007 4:42PM
I say.. 2 bad for pallys. They are a hybrid class. Like any class you give up something important to gain somethign else thats important. I too have noticed that they dont have pally gear.
But now the gear will be tank and plus spell damage? The druids should ask for the same thing. Give us feral gear and healing gear all in one!
Its stupid IMO. I run around outland right now with a full feral set (all AP, strength agility etc etc.) and a full healing set (all massive +healing).
If you do it for pallys you should do it for druids. I cant comment on the other classes as I have not been too high with them yet.
freehugz Mar 21st 2007 12:35AM
gems ftw?
Todd Mar 20th 2007 4:58PM
@Seper
You wouldn't get Druid gear with Feral bonuses and +healing, that would be unbalanced. Paladins aren't getting +healing gear, they're getting +dmg gear for their Retribution talents. If anything, Druids would get +dmg for their Balance talents.
Coristad Mar 20th 2007 5:01PM
@1 That you can say you have a full feral set is an indication that things are okay for you. You've picked up two sets for two different roles. What tankadins have been saying is that there really isn't gear designed for our one role. Wearing warrior gear is like borrowing your dad's suit: sure it's a suit, but you still look funny in it.
Overall, a good move. If the intent was to position paladins as viable MTs (whether or not that's a good thing), then there should be gear to support it, otherwise there's no point and we'll all go back to healing and cleansing. I prefer consistency.
Dahlaine Mar 20th 2007 5:01PM
Sorry #1 but you don't know anything about paladin tanking.
Paladins don't use high damage 1h weapons with alot of strength and agility gear to generate threat. They use low dmg (we're talking 41dps) fast 1h swords with huge amounts of spelldmg on them. Their threat is all based on the holy damage they are putting out, with a little physical dps thrown in for good measure.
So, they need +defense, stam and +spelldmg because that is how they tank, not because they want to be able to fill multiple roles with 1 set of gear.
Verdugo Mar 20th 2007 5:08PM
As a healing paladin, I can assure you that the gear a tanking paladin would use definitely does not match the gear I would use to heal. And just so you know Seper, I carry healing gear, damage gear, AND tanking gear in my bag.
Matt Mar 20th 2007 5:04PM
I don't think #1 realize what goes into Pally Tanking. My guess is you don't play one. Not flaming, just saying. Pally (unlike warriors) require holy spell damage (not plus healing by the way)to build and maintain aggro. That is why the tanking gear for Pallys would be better suited for these stats.
Mccullough Mar 20th 2007 5:06PM
Well first off, pally's tank with holy damage
...lets let that simmer a bit......
if im a pally tank and i have all str stam attack pwr and such gear, im going to be able to take a lot of damage but i will not hold aggro
If i have stam int and +dmg/heal im going to be able to hold aggro like nobodys buisness but im not going to last long. i take hits hard and run priest oom quick.
Druids on the other hand, hold aggro just like a warrior. not on nature damage. Here is the deal. They should give pally tank gear +holy dmg ONLY. if it is +dmg/heal that would be unfair.
as it is right now i have to go with option #2, I figure if a tank cant hold aggro whats the point, as a pally tank if stuff doesnt hit me im doing horrible dps and cant use any abilities, may as well spec holy or ret. fortunately my best friend plays a priest, he curses my mitigation but loves the CC.
KitKatDruid Mar 20th 2007 5:06PM
I heart tankadins. Glad to see they're getting the gear they need.
SPACEMONKEY Mar 20th 2007 7:43PM
Shad-Ap, Pallies and Druids, pffft
"I wanna tank" "I wanna heal" I wanna dps"
"I want it all in one"
Why dont we just combine all the classes into one an play like that?
Just shad-ap an play the game, you chose the class, so deal with it
Khanmora Mar 20th 2007 5:22PM
@7
You would definitely want +dmg and not +dmg/healing b/c I believe they are weighted differently. In order to max out the dmg you want to leave off the healing.
Right now the problem I've seen is that they try to load up pally gear from quest rewards and the 3.5 dungeon set with stam, int, def, +dmg/heal. This leads to the stats being watered down and a pally tank in that gear having only 10K hp and about half the defense that they would need to do the job.
If they boil it down to Stam, def, dmg (int isn't needed as much with spiritual attunement doing the work to fill the mana bar) then you will be able to weight them more fully and therefore get a greater benefit as a tank.
Baluki Mar 20th 2007 5:34PM
That's fine. But I wonder when they're going to get around to fixing elemental shaman gear. Pre-2.10, I was perfectly happy with lots of +dmg and MP5, but now that our Crit rating directly affects our mana efficiency (thanks to the clearcasting change), they need to adjust our gear to give us more crit and less +dmg/MP5 (or if they want to just add crit to our gear and keep all the other stats as is, that's fine too).
Looking at Tidefury, there's only one piece that has any +crit on it. Cyclone is better, but its 4-piece set bonus is now worthless (unless it's giving mana back, which I doubt).
But judging by the speed at which they fix shaman problems, I'm not going to hold my breath.
Derbeste Mar 20th 2007 5:43PM
I agree what my fellow pallies have said.
Whoever thinks that a tanking set with def, stam, and spell damage would help fulfill multiple rolls has truly never played pally.
Ret pallies use a combo of physical and holy damage. They need attack power, spell damage, Int, str, and agility (in that order). Notice how 2 out of the top 3 are missing in pally tanking sets.
Holy pallies obviously....heal. They need +healing, Int, MP5, and Stamina (again in that order). Notice how NONE of the top 3 are included in pally tank gear.
So as you can see, asking for the specific stat focus of spell damage, stam, and def. is in NO way giving us an edge in multiple rolls.
And btw...since #1 CLEARLY doesn't know, Tankadins use Righteous fury which essentially doubles the threat our holy damage does. So while the spell damage we use is causing threat, It's NOT helping us do damage above and beyond what a prot war would do.
Do you feel better now?
Namisar Mar 20th 2007 8:10PM
I have to disagree with Seper's statement that druids deserve a change if paladins do.
Paladins are the most gear dependant class in the game. Period. Your gear is directly porportional to your capabilities as a paladin. I am not capable of doing substantial physical DPS not because I’m not specced for it but because I don’t have the gear for it.
With tanking, every class focuses on 3 stats that they need for tanking. From highest importance to lowest those are...
1. Stamina
2. Avoidance (Defense and Armor)
3. Damage
Stamina is universal, more health is always good.
Avoidance, druids don't care about parry or block so they stock up more on armor but the end result is the same: i.e. less physical damage.
Damage: You need to do damage to hold threat. As a warrior or a druid that means Strength and Agility, as a Pally that means Spell Damage.
Pallies don't hold aggro by doing attacks that have added threat, we don't have a demo shout and we don't have any physical damage abilities. Heroic Strike and Lacerate make me drool. ANY ability that has “causes a high amount of threat” makes us drool as we have none. We must rely 100% on our holy damage. Our tanking self buff, righteous fury, only increases threat with our holy spells so maximizing your spell damage is the goal.
But wait there is one more stat that Pallies need that we're missing! Pallies have blue rage bars! We need intellect, but we're not getting it! Many tankadins make a sacrifice of intellect in favor of spell damage to hold better aggro. So pallies need 4 stats to tank while druids and warriors need 3. Here comes the problem:
Plate gear comes in 4 flavors currently:
1. Melee DPS plate (worthless to a tankadin)
2. Warrior tanking plate (has strength and agility which is worthless for pallies)
3. Pally Healing Plate (obviously not going to help anybody tank)
4. Pally DPS Plate (has intellect! Has some stamina! Has spell damage! No avoidance and has worthless strength)
There is very little pally tanking plate, in fact as far as I know there is barely anything before Righteous Armor (Dungeon Set 3).
Paladins constantly find themselves wearing warrior tanking gear. If all that strength on my jade-skull breastplate magically turned into spell damage, I would bubble+hearth my way to heaven.
Because of the difficulties in gear, paladins find themselves making talents fill the holes.
For example:
http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Burning+Legion&n=Namisar
That is my personal Armory page, you'll notice I am 41/20/0. Why? Because that spec works better, I have chosen to concentrate on intellect, stamina, and avoidance with a minor emphasis on spell damage. Thanks to the +spell damage I receive from Holy Guidance through my existing intellect, I can kill two birds with 1 stone by speccing full holy and minoring in prot. This spec allows me to have the 3 stats; I don’t have to worry about spell damage so much.
Doesn’t it seem a little backward that I would have more success with full holy than full prot?! I leveled from 60 – 70 as full prot, when I got to 70 I respecced to holy for preparation of my guilds entry to Karazhan and the inevitability of crawling back into the healbot position.
Clearly blizzard realizes this, hence the change. I’m am very happy to hear this news.
Blackbrute Mar 20th 2007 8:03PM
@SPACEMONKEY
I sooooooooo agree with that ! :)
twh Mar 20th 2007 9:17PM
What the narrow minded tools don't realize is, that by providing more tanks, it lightens the load and allows the warriors to DPS.
Pallies tank and warriors DPS.
Everyone's happy.
bluebottleblues Mar 21st 2007 7:54AM
I have never seen a good Palladin tank.
However I am looking forwards to my opinion that Palladins cannot tank to be disproved.
Mccullough Mar 21st 2007 8:59AM
@#17
First off man, im not flaming you. I am currently only lvl 67 but i have been prot since 2.0 and ive tanked every instance up to now, i havent done CoT yet but i will this weekend. I have never had a complaint, i usually get compliments and statements like "wow nice tanking"
Now before going further understand that the pally is an easy class to play but a hard class to play good. It takes a great deal of multi tasking.
Last weekend we were in mana tombs, we got to the part with all the void walkers, mage sheeps a v/w pulling them and a pat (i know) i use righteous defense on the mage, pull 3. jump back and throw my shield at the rest of them. now i have aggro. i start building up my threat with holy dmg when i realize i am almost dead and i have about 5 of those v/w's on me and my priest just went oom! i bubble loosing aggro throw the priest BoP and a good heal, heal myself up. luckilly the rest of the group is still doing good, they killed 2 of them in this time. i start casting avengers shield, when the bubble drops my shield lets fly, i gain back aggro, the end.
groucho Mar 23rd 2007 11:07AM
You wanna make pallies better tanks? OK, then give warriors some un-warrior-like talents. Some priest-like healing maybe? some mage-like AoE? some rogue-like DPS? Before you know it, every class can do everything, everybody is a hybrid, and that my friends is a slippery road because then what’s the point of having to weigh alternatives and chose carefully before you roll?
I say, to each his own. Pallies, or any other class for that matter, cannot, should not, have the best of all worlds (and incidentally, to the detriment of warriors). Blizz should decide what each class is mainly for, stick with it, improve it, balance it, do whatever they want, but stick with it.
When I first started this game I was pretty sure that if you needed a tank you called a warrior. Period. Now, I am not so sure what warriors are good for.
And no, #15, not every warrior will be happy to DPS and let Pallies tank. Some people rolled warriors because they wanted to be tanks: just that and the best at it.
stapleboy Mar 21st 2007 12:05PM
I'm glad this aspect of paladins is being addressed, but I can't say I follow Blizzard's thinking.
Druids enjoy tanking -> Nerf bear armor (from 450% to 400%) and DPS (+20% damage talent no longer affects bearform skills). Nerf DPS more (41 point talent Mangle does less damage than trainable Maul).
Paladins enjoy tanking -> Put a bubble nerf in the PTR notes, then remove it. Improve tankadin itemization.
I can understand minor adjustments, but feral druids just got hosed and now paladins are being helped. Strange.