WoW Insider Guide to Paladin Tanking
by Paul Sherrard 
Mar 27th 2007 at 9:31PM
With the many changes already made to the paladin class in WoW 2.0, and the new paladin tanking itemization that's been promised for 2.10, we felt it was about time that paladin tanking was given a thorough looking over. With great help from master mathematician Ananke, we've been able to put together the first in what's sure to be a long list of WoW Insider Guides.With your protection tree firmly in hand, you can take a look at how Seal of Righteousness compares to taunt, how your Consecration can act as a great aggro builder across multiple mobs, and how you can tank *and* dish out the damage. Complete with graphs and an explanation of each of a paladin's primary tanking skills and spells, we're sure you'll find this guide helpful whether you're a paladin tank, or just grouping with one.
Click on the read link to see how a paladin can stack up to a Warrior, WoW's traditional tanking class, and look at the numbers behind the essential paladin tanking skills.
Filed under: Paladin, Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Tricks
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dark Mar 27th 2007 10:05PM
WoW (no pun intended), terrific job on that guide. I agree...his math skills are epic. I thank you and other pally tanks thank you.
Pzychotix Mar 27th 2007 10:50PM
Ok. I've just started reading this guide, and it included:
"Mobs have a 15% chance to crush, but most Warriors are saying that as soon as they lose shield block they get crush after crush (which supports PPM)."
This supports the idea that PPM means that if something hasn't procced at all for 50 seconds, all attacks for the rest of the 10 seconds have a insanely high chance to proc to average out the PPM.
That is insanely offbase and completely turned me off of this guide, for even giving the idea any merit.
Regardless, I'll continue reading.
uncaringbear Mar 27th 2007 10:56PM
Very interesting read/ Obviously, gearing is critical. I would love to see some armory profiles of tankadins at various levels of game progression. My pally is just about to ding 70, and getting close to the numbers in this guide seems very daunting indeed.
Rich Mar 27th 2007 11:17PM
Was about to post what #2 posted...agreed, turned me right off the guide. PPM just means that the chance is a function of the frequency of the event that procs it (ex. weapon speed if it's a chance on hit proc). It doesn't mean that the proc is guaranteed a set number of times per minute.
Pzychotix Mar 27th 2007 11:34PM
"The difference between a base 15% crush vs. a 15% PPM to crush is massive. That means as soon as you become un-immune you will get crushed with near 100% frequency until the PPM requirements are fulfilled."
Yeah.... no. It's a misconception that procs per minute guarantees that exactly some amount of procs will occur each minute of combat.
Anyways, on to other things.
Crit Immune: It's "generally" crit immune because you can't be 100% crit immune, but instead 99.9999% crit immune, taking a crit every blue moon. As to whether mobs have a crit chance higher than the default, I don't believe they do, and talking about "rogue" types having more crit chance than normal mobs is pure speculation and BS.
Holy Shield: Something seems off about that graph. The threat slope is way higher than what I think it should be. Given that each shield block does only 155 damage, and that you only get a 5% spell coefficient per block, I don't believe your slope. The calculations are awry.
What would've been nice is also including some threat multipliers for paladins and certain skills (i.e. Holy shield having a +35% threat modifier). If we're going to compare paladins to other tanks, it'd be nice to be able to know these types of things. Not all of us have the knowledge of a 70 paladin tank on our hands.
Kazia Mar 27th 2007 11:44PM
Agreeing with number #2.
If a guide is going to proclaim itself to show all the numbers and the theory behind how things work, they should get their facts right. While they do understand how shield block "potentially" makes a warrior crush immune, they clearly show a lack of understanding of the tables involved, especially in combination with other abilities. The fact that there is no links to widely exisiting research done (and that later they proclaim there is none)on the subject shows a tendancy for assumption over fact.
Followed up by their completely erroneous assumptions on how PPM (proc per minute) works and frankly, its going to be extremely hard for me to believe the rest of whats written; so I am not going to waste my time reading it.
Sven Mar 28th 2007 2:05AM
Not that I didn't appreciate the effort and the theorycrafting, but this guide is very similar to an ill-concieved guide I once wrote detailing the possible threat output of a holy build. The problem? I didn't worry about mitigation. Sure, we can put out great amounts of threat, and it's nice to crank out the numbers to find that out, but threat's not our problem. As prot pallies, our problems lie in mitigation (or lack thereof) – why not theorycraft the more unknown aspects of tanking, ie how warriors', druids' and pallies' mitigations differ.
Also, although I appreciate the effort very much, I hate to see misinformation being spread around. Along with #2's gripe, that spec you linked is, in a word, terrible:
-Imp SoR is a useless talent – the damage increase works only from the base skill, and isn't effected by our +damage at all. This leads to, iirc, a full 5-6 damage addition per swing – NOT significant.
-Divine intellect is also somewhat useless, as we can generally keep mana up quite easily, and can even swap into more +damage/healing heavy gear when we're fighting easier mobs so that we take more damage and deal more damage at the same time – this will, assuming good healers, give us more mana back from healing and help us take mobs down faster.
-Toughness is absolutely AWESOME for any tank. A 10% armor bonus will be imperitive in many, many fights. It's ignorant not to maximize mitigation if you're planning on tanking 10- and 25-man content.
-Ardent defender, while very much a last-ditch effort talent, has saved my life so many time I can't even remember. A 2500 AD zone is about average for a fully buffed raid-geared pally tank and can certainly allow us to take that one blow that would normally kill us while healers get their big heals off. I've actually sat between 10-20% health for nearly 10 whole seconds during our first moroes kill when we had one healer dealing with 3 garrottes.
-Deflection – I cannot stress the importance of this talent. Need to break that 100% avoidance? DEFLECTION. Need to mitigate 5% more damage? DEFLECTION. It's absolutely necessary for serious pally tanks, imo.
Now, I don't claim to have the perfect spec, but I find mine is quite streamlined: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=aZVhtIxhdgpxoVbx
Imp HoJ is purely for heroics, where stuns are a necessity at times. Everything else about the build should be pretty straightforward.
Again, I applaud the writer for his/her efforts, but the guide seems to lack the right focus and experience.
tommydavis Mar 28th 2007 8:48AM
"how you can tank *and* dish out the damage."
Uh oh...now you've done it. According to most Prot Warriors, this can't be done and is grounds for a nerf on any class that can do both at the same time.
Superbeef Mar 28th 2007 9:38AM
I think you guys need to lighten up *just* a tad.
Regarding the PPM quote, we get what he is trying to say. The longer something doesn't proc. the better the chances it will. Whether its based on the per minute scale (which I agree doesn't exist when taken literally), the point is taken.
Also regarding #7, I'm at work so I can't look at urs or his talent builds, but i do agree with you completely except for one thing: DI. That 10% can add up to a bit of mana, and pally tanking is pretty mana intensive. You say Ardent Defender has saved your life alot, isn't it possible that the extra mana from DI can do the same? Like I said, I can't see the talent build he posted, but i agree with the rest of your points. I'll never argue with ImpHOJ either, stunning saves lives.
I think it's a good starting point for a guide, and I think once the new gear comes out I'd love to see that factor in as well. Also, maybe give our 3 target pull off the over zealous DPSer ability a little love? I know it doesn't generate any threat directly (... actually I don't know that for a fact), but it's worth a mention especially at lower levels where paladins might not have the gear or talents to max out their tanking skills.
FLoppyWesL Mar 28th 2007 1:44PM
#3 can look up my gear on the armory I tank all heroics and can OT Kara and last pull before Gruul without making any healer nervous.
SirCasey Mar 28th 2007 1:01PM
With a pally as my main I really appreciate this posting. Just can't wait to get to 70 and be able to use it... (47 atm)
Doodzin Mar 28th 2007 1:12PM
@#9
"9. I think you guys need to lighten up *just* a tad.
Regarding the PPM quote, we get what he is trying to say. The longer something doesn't proc. the better the chances it will. Whether its based on the per minute scale (which I agree doesn't exist when taken literally), the point is taken."
Wrong! Although it is unlikely to flip a coin 10 times in a row and get heads each time, the chance the 11 time will also be heads is exactly 50%, totally unaffected by previous flips.
Paul Mar 29th 2007 2:48AM
I have a 70 pally tank (Alibi of Anetheron US), and the guide is pretty much right on. I am currently tanking all level 70 instances (have been tanking instances since lvl 68), and have tanked Heroic instances also (Ramparts, Slave Pens, Mechinar). The only real problem I've encountered is that though Seal of the Crusader is useful, it really cuts down on your threat generation initially, seeing as a great deal of threat is generated by judging Righteousness on your target, instead of judging Crusader and then waiting for the cooldown to judge Righteousness. The other issue I have just has to do with gear for pally tanking. This is probably more of a complaint of drop rates, as I've run Steamvaults so many times but have not seen, the Devilshark Cape or the Righteous Breastplate. Same with my frustration of the Righteous Shoulders in Botannica. None the less, it's a blast and I really enjoy tanking, but if you're looking to have any more utility than just tanking an instance without respecing, good luck.
Alex May 9th 2007 9:54AM
Crushing Immune
Lots of people like to say Warriors are Crushing Immune but that is false. There seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence that Crushing has been switched to a Proc Per Minute. Mobs have a 15% chance to crush, but most Warriors are saying that as soon as they lose shield block they get crush after crush (which supports PPM). There are no logs to back this up so it could be that humans like to apply patterns where there are none. Regardless - Warriors can be Crush immune for two attacks every 5 seconds under best conditions. That does not make them crush immune.
http://www.nihilum.eu/image/1479/
look at the combat log.
Kogenta May 9th 2007 9:59AM
"but most Warriors are saying that as soon as they lose shield block they get crush after crush (which supports PPM). There are no logs to back this up"
post above says different.