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Tankadins aren't very happy GC!

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Avelyne
#0 - Nov. 12, 2008, 1:57 p.m.
Blizzard Post
As a tankadin, I'm not happy. I do not enjoy where our class has gone and given the continuous stream of Paladin 'fix' threads I can tell that many share my disappointment.

Blizzard...
I'm not happy with having an artificially inflated TPS in 25 man raids from Judgment of Light.
I'm not happy that without it I struggle tremendously to maintain threat.
I'm not happy with looking forward to being relegated to off-tank since Blessing of Sanctuary is 100% required for a proper main tank AND my threat is worthless without subjecting my raid to lower heals and utility from JoL.
I'm not happy with having lower effective health, lower mitigation, and a somewhat wasted equipment slot that simply increases the stat gap.
I'm not happy having no 11 pointer, but I'm definitely not going to be happy having an 11 pointer be designed for Retribution PvP.
I'm not happy having horrid DPS because of Righteous Fury.
I'm not happy having to use Hammer of Judgment and Consecration (AoE abilities) to remain competitive in a 5 man instance in single target fights.
I'm not happy that my single target rotation would only be wasted Holy Shield charges, Judgment of Light (required due to the inflated TPS needed), and Shield of Righteousness.
I'm not happy that my end game threat rotation is the same regardless of the fight, number of targets, or many other factors.
I'm not happy that many of my Paladin tools are wasteful or useless in a tanking scenario.
I'm not happy that our only DPS/TPS cooldown is useless due to the lock down on our oh crap button even though reducing the Paladin's damage while bubbled and/or a 12 second shared cooldown would be fantastically better.
I'm not happy that Righteous Defense is very difficult to use, has stupid limitations, and that we don't have a single target MOB taunt to use in situations where RD would get in the way.
I'm not happy that I have to rely on other classes to do my job of tanking since I do not have many utility abilities like a gap closer, single target taunt, spell interrupt, or a proper pulling tool.
I'm not happy that our talent tree is wonky...
    ...because it contains TWO required Blessing for a raid that no other class can provide (why not make MotW Kings-like?)
    ...because Reckoning is still a waste of talent points at a key point in the tree (with so much potential >.<)
    ...because we really didn't need ANOTHER tool for AoE threat when we lack so many for single targets
    ...because Guarded by the Light is a mana reduction talent for abilities only Protection uses or even has access to (yay, more effective at tanking than a Holy Paladin even though they can't even use these abilities in the first place!)
    ...because Touched by the Light is a healing talent 100% required in any tanking build because of double scaling instead of having all our abilities scale off whichever is highest (AP or SP)
    ...because Judgments of the Just is an extremely deep talent that provides us a single target version of an AoE ability (aren't we supposed to be the kings of AoE?) when the functionality should have been attached to Hammer
    ...because you failed to notice that Holy Shield is the exact same thing as the old Shield Block just isn't required to be casted quite as often (honestly..it could be passive, or we could be given a way to use the wasted charges for additional threat)
    ...because Ardent Defender is still subpar in the mitigation department especially considering our weakness against hard hitting bosses that jump RIGHT over it (especially when Commendation of Kael'Thas from Magister's Terrace has a perfect solution)
    ...because it does nothing to aid us with lack of threat and mitigation against casters, especially when Holy Shield is useless



However...I am happy with a few things.

I'm pretty happy with the new Judgment and Seal system.
I'm pretty happy that, for the most part, the Blessing system is somewhat better.
I'm pretty happy with the Hands system, even though some are pretty underpowered given their cooldowns.
I'm pretty happy with BoSanc's ability to keep me filled on mana in any situation where I may undergear an instance.
I'm pretty happy with Divine Protection.
I'm pretty happy that I picked up an Apple Pie at the store and will so eat it for breakfast.

That last one was to show the masses that even I, who is so wickedly unhappy with the current state of the Paladin, can find simple joys in life worthy of listing.

/rant

Edit: TL;DR I'm not happy with the Paladin tanking issues and the above list gives specific examples why I think the community would agree.
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Ghostcrawler
#129 - Nov. 14, 2008, 10:09 p.m.
Blizzard Post
There are several similar threads on Prot paladin issues so forgive me for only responding to this one. My thanks also go out to other players who have tried to respond here.

I will comment on a couple of things --

Righteous Defense -- We're not sure yet if we want to change this ability (possibly through glyph) or just add a normal taunt (for free -- not the 11 point talent). Both designs have their advantages.

Health -- While I do think the "huge differences" between warrior and paladin health pools are a wee bit exaggerated, we do have an opportunity to provide paladins with a little more health when we change Divine Protection and Divine Shield. The benefit of Sacred Duty to remove the attack speed penalty will be unnecessary with this change, so we thought we might add additional Stam to this talent instead. (The cooldown could stay the same.)

We're keeping a close eye on tank performance in general as players start to run the Northrend instances.
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Ghostcrawler
#144 - Nov. 15, 2008, 1:21 a.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
Honest question, you address two of the points in the OP but left many others out, like the threat bug with JoL and our lower DPS because of TPS scaling. I'm honestly curious, did you choose not to respond to those because you feel they're not issues or because you didn't have the time to respond?


You're doing it wrong. You're supposed to say: "Did you choose not to respond to those because you hate paladins?" :)

Seriously though, it was the latter. The TPS may be an issue or it may not be. Players sometimes get worried about scaling (which is a totally valid thing to think about), but forget that some relationships won't show up in the current expansion. To use an extreme example, if one class outstrips another class when both have 20,000 attack power, then it's not something we're really worried about.

I will also add that paladin TPS started to eclipse warrior TPS in Black Temple just because the former scaled so well. A lot of the warrior threat at the time was just +threat abilities, while the paladins did more damage to generate more threat. They were really only limited by the lack of gear.

I don't point that out to say it will or won't be a problem. I just point it out to point it out.

We'll look into the JoL issue.
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Ghostcrawler
#240 - Nov. 17, 2008, 9:59 p.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
I think you may have the DPS/TPS issue confused. We're not concerned that our TPS won't scale well; with such high modifiers on damage it's pretty much guaranteed to scale well. What we're concerned with is that because we have such high modifiers to our damage (+1.9 holy on top of what the other tanks get), we might end up doing less actual damage, less DPS, than the other tanks, possibly putting us at a disadvantage (how this disadvantage could come about, I'm not sure...guilds may find at some point that tank DPS is actually something they really need to look at, it affects soloing, PvP, etc).


Thanks for the clarification.

Q u o t e:
I'm not sure if you misremember the situation or simply misspoke, but in fact the situation with warrior and paladin scaling was quite the opposite. Black Temple introduced expertise and high +hit tanking items allowing warriors to scale, while paladins were faced with more of the same expensive spell damage; if anyone's threat plateaued at the BT level it was the paladin's.


No, I didn’t misspeak. Warriors may have had better overall stats in Sunwell, but paladins scaled better. The difference was that paladins couldn’t necessarily get the gear they needed or they would have left warriors behind. You can find several good analyses of this phenomenon.

Q u o t e:
Does this include pvp? Prot warrior and Death knight is drastically more viable in the battlegrounds than a prot pali. (a bear spec feral has it better but I'm not going to say as good as the previous 2)


Yes. PvP for tanking specs is not our highest priority, but it is a priority.

Q u o t e:
We have no fallback taunt, and we can not taunt mobs or bosses. We can only taunt the players. Here is an example that happened to me just a little bit ago. I was tanking Brutallus, and when I hit my RD to take him back from the other tank..at that moment he targeted and cast burn on someone and then went back to targeting the other tank. This blew my RD as it cast it on his burn target not the other tank. So I could do nothing about it as we have no fallback taunt until my cooldown came back.


We think this is one of the strongest reasons to go with a new ability – paladins don’t have a ton of snap aggro abilities at the moment. We're working on something now but it's too early to announce it yet.



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Ghostcrawler
#243 - Nov. 17, 2008, 10:28 p.m.
Blizzard Post
Q u o t e:
I just want to be able to do as well using a paladin or warrior with equal gear. I want the classes to be close enough that my skill determines whether or not I do well. I don't want to sit out a fight because a silence kicked me in the face and I couldn't use shield wall during it, or I take more damage, or I can't taunt the boss when needed because of a stupid mechanic failing me.


Couldn't have said it better myself.