WoW Stratics IRC Chat

[Artega]

No longer true. Paladins get eight charges on Holy Shield now (I don't really see a compelling reason not to take Improved Holy Shield.)

[Artega]

I believe the recent changes to Ardent Defender are a step in the right direction for partially alleviating the gulf in HP between Warriors and Paladins, though I think the damage reduction range should be further increased. I'd much rather have 20% reduction starting at 49% HP than 30% at 34%.

However, I do think a major problem with Paladin tanking (from my perspective, at least) is a complete lack of "Oh, $@#&" buttons. If you get an unlucky string of crits (which do happen reasonably often tanking pre-70, since there isn't a glut of Defense Rating gear, like at 70) or other such nastiness, the Paladin has only a few, mostly ineffective options: chug a potion (which really won't help too terribly much), blow Lay on Hands (which is on a 60 minute cooldown and drains nearly all of your mana), or pop Divine Shield+Taunt until the next heal lands (which greatly increases the chance the Rogue with you is going to get splattered all over the floor.) Comparatively, Warriors can pop Last Stand (as far as tanking goes, I miss this ability more than all of the other nifty Warrior tricks combined) or Shield Wall, and also pop the aforementioned potion. Granted, we can partially mitigate incoming damage via Judgement of Light (and Seal of Light if we have enough of a threat lead), but it's not nearly enough. I do think that the Paladin needs deep-tree one-shot abilities like Last Stand in order to really be competitive with Warriors.

Additionally, I've heard quite a bit of complaining about Redoubt, and it does seem that it's a little weak for raid-tanking, given its proc-based nature.

[oldmandennis]

They are still playing the game of telling the community that there are three viable end-game tank classes in the process of being tuned and telling the Warriors that they'll always be advantaged over the other two

However for most people several classes are now becoming boring after you've levelled them up. I've taken both a Paladin and a Druid to 70 now and they are so much more fun before you hit 70 when you can do everything than at 70 when not only must you choose between being a second-rate tank who only gets to tank when there's no decent Warriors around or a healbot but also once you raid as one role you accumulate gear to enhance that role and can't effectively role-swap any more.

I would be much less frustrated if they decided what class roles we all should have at end-game and implemented it then stuck to it.

Look through my posts and you can clearly see I'm no fanboi. I feel this post is way too dire.

I have fairly extensive experience with druids and warriors (raiding bear, 67 warrior). I find the druid *much* easier to play in a 5 man. I'm not really looking forward to collecting nethers with my warrior.

For raiding, druid off-tanks also bring important advantages over warriors - excellent threat when not taking damage, huge amounts of armor, vastly superior threat on 2-3 targets, higher overall threat, and much better damage (either in tank gear or in dps gear). We use tanking druids because for many situations they are clearly better then warriors.

For example - when we put Mag down on Wed, we used 2 ferals and 3 warriors. I was in full tank gear (except for a weapon swap). I came in 6th for damage done to Mag, nearly trippleing the damage done by the two left over warriors. Now I did get mangles and was not on cube duty, but I also shifted to help heal a few times, as well as brez and innervate twice.

Now, the single large boss does heavily favor warriors still. I'll admit, they have waffled a bit on if a warrior will be required to tank raid encounters. But if you didn't figure out at Lucifron that warriors were the raid tank, or had it figured out but decided to roll pally *AND* druid anyways based on a few vague comments, I don't know what to say. If you can't find plenty of fun things to do with a druid... I hope Conan comes out soon for you or something.

[Mavfin]

Look through my posts and you can clearly see I'm no fanboi. I feel this post is way too dire.

Agreed. I think you said the rest in your post just fine.

I just have a comment on druid vs warrior tanking. I've tanked a lot of things with my warrior, and know it pretty well, I think.

For contrast, tanking with my druid is both easier and harder, IMO. Easier, because there are less buttons to push. We have the basics, but don't have all the other situational tools a warrior has. So, it's easier....and it's harder. Simpler tools, but less options when things start going wrong. Still fun, just different, I think.

[Skandranon]

Next it's a dreadful way to run WoW. People like WoW because every class is interesting. Because there are no pure classes except dps ones. However for most people several classes are now becoming boring after you've levelled them up. I've taken both a Paladin and a Druid to 70 now and they are so much more fun before you hit 70 when you can do everything than at 70 when not only must you choose between being a second-rate tank who only gets to tank when there's no decent Warriors around or a healbot but also once you raid as one role you accumulate gear to enhance that role and can't effectively role-swap any more.

This is absurd. I've been through most of SSC and TK and anyone describing a bear tank as second-rate needs to get their head checked. We have a raiding bear who we use to tank nearly every fight in there, and that's even with 3 Prot warriors in the raid besides. Druids have clear advantages on nearly every fight in TBC raiding content. And as for paladins, they make excellent tanks for non-boss components of fights (and this isn't Molten Core, there literally IS no fight where you have just one boss and nothing else).

Now stop sounding like you come from the official WoW forums.

[Tal]

Primary tank: done best by Warrior (true if you accept the very debatable contention that Warriors are a pure class)
Primary raid dps: Warlocks and Shadow Priests (so not true)
Primary two-role classes: Priests and Warriors with the pure hybrids considerably worse (not true)
Primary healer: still Paladins (not true)

Let me fix those assertations of fact for you:

Primary tank: Protection specc'd Warrior
Primary raid dps: Warlock, Mage, Rogue, Hunter
Primary two role classes: Priests, Warriors, Druids, Paladins
Primary healer: Priests, Druids, Paladins

As a dps warrior who tanked every encounter in the game up to the Twin Emps in AQ40 I can tell you that if you want a stand out tank you want a protection specc'd warrior. The difference in damage I took in TBC between arms spec and protection was noticable. That being said I've had a druid tank with me for all of TBC and they are perfectly viable boss tanks and certainly can offtank with EASE in a raid environment. I wouldn't necessarily want a protpaladin on a boss but they can offtank in a raid environment with ease as well. The only reason I wouldn't want a protpaladin is they have even fewer oh-shoot buttons than a warrior that doesn't wipe aggro on a boss. They also have less of a health pool to draw from than a protection specc'd warrior and in Blizzard's "Design every encounter to hit harder and faster - no room for error" fashion less of a hp pool means a wipe.

So it is clearly untrue for three out of four roles and since you can't really describe WoW Warrior as a pure punchbag class with no dps option not even true for tanking

My dps, even dual-wielding with King's Defender and The Decapitator is no where near what a druid in cat form (or a bear for that matter) can put out. I probably do more dps than a holy/prot paladin but its not by much. If I'm not tanking in a raid there isn't a whole lot I can bring to a raid aside from Quark's battleshout or the tank's commanding shout.

I've taken both a Paladin and a Druid to 70 now and they are so much more fun before you hit 70 when you can do everything than at 70 when not only must you choose between being a second-rate tank who only gets to tank when there's no decent Warriors around or a healbot but also once you raid as one role you accumulate gear to enhance that role and can't effectively role-swap any more.

Last time I checked each of the druid, paladin, and warrior tier sets have a set that covers each of the spec's.

[TheDragoon]

Last time I checked each of the druid, paladin, and warrior tier sets have a set that covers each of the spec's.

I think you missed the point here. A lot of raids aren't going to be real interested in giving out secondary role gear to people until everyone has their primary set... at which point most people are done with the instance and want to move on. Certainly, loot distribution is a social construction but it is exacerbated by things like the grouping of Druid/Priest/Warrior for tier loots where every class can use multiple sets, so they have a lot more competition to deal with for those sets. I have certainly read plenty of stories about protection paladins (or want-to-be prot pallies) who cannot get their hands on the generic (non-class-specific) tanking plate gear until after the warriors have it, so they are perpetually behind the curve and unable to get a shot at tanking things. Of course there are exceptions, but these things happen and I think that was the point.

[Artega]

Agreed. I think you said the rest in your post just fine.

I just have a comment on druid vs warrior tanking. I've tanked a lot of things with my warrior, and know it pretty well, I think.

For contrast, tanking with my druid is both easier and harder, IMO. Easier, because there are less buttons to push. We have the basics, but don't have all the other situational tools a warrior has. So, it's easier....and it's harder. Simpler tools, but less options when things start going wrong. Still fun, just different, I think.

Same thing with my Pally. Tanking multiple targets is effortless (pull with Avenger's Shield, pop Consecration of either low rank or high rank depending on how much threat you need to build on the secondary targets, put up Holy Shield, and judge Righteousness on any mobs that didn't get hit with Avenger's Shield), but it's also very easy to forget to refresh seals and keep your consecration-holy shield cycle going smoothly. While Warriors can "soak" their GCDs via skills like Cleave and Heroic Strike, Paladins can't; Judgement is free of the GCD, but every other skill they use is on it.

Overall, I don't really have a problem with Paladins being secondary to Warriors for tanking major raid bosses; I don't see anything wrong with that. However, I do think that Paladins should be able to tank those same bosses; while it might be a little easier (and more effective, especially when learning those encounters) to do them with a Warrior, I think that it should be perfectly possible to do them with a Paladin or Druid tank with only slight adjustments. Currently, this isn't so (at least in the case of Paladins.)

[Artega]

I think you missed the point here. A lot of raids aren't going to be real interested in giving out secondary role gear to people until everyone has their primary set... at which point most people are done with the instance and want to move on. Certainly, loot distribution is a social construction but it is exacerbated by things like the grouping of Druid/Priest/Warrior for tier loots where every class can use multiple sets, so they have a lot more competition to deal with for those sets. I have certainly read plenty of stories about protection paladins (or want-to-be prot pallies) who cannot get their hands on the generic (non-class-specific) tanking plate gear until after the warriors have it, so they are perpetually behind the curve and unable to get a shot at tanking things. Of course there are exceptions, but these things happen and I think that was the point.

Precisely.

[oldmandennis]

For contrast, tanking with my druid is both easier and harder, IMO. Easier, because there are less buttons to push. We have the basics, but don't have all the other situational tools a warrior has. So, it's easier....and it's harder. Simpler tools, but less options when things start going wrong.

Yeah, in my opinion the hardest parts about 5 mans are the big multi pulls. Druids do those better, so they make the hardest part easier. Warriors are probably better on most bosses, but most bosses aren't that much trickier then on regular. Of course, I've mostly been sticking to the heroics that are most popular in my guild, so I can't be sure that's true of all heroics.

[Taelas]

These days I can swipe-tank trash in Heroic instances with little trouble (assuming I have a good healer, of course). CC? Who needs CC?

[Concillian]

So it is clearly untrue for three out of four roles and since you can't really describe WoW Warrior as a pure punchbag class with no dps option not even true for tanking

They are still playing the game of telling the community that there are three viable end-game tank classes in the process of being tuned and telling the Warriors that they'll always be advantaged over the other two

It's cheap and dishonest

I don't think you can have both ways.

Right now warriors, if spec-ed for prot, are not of much use if they aren't tanking. They are definitely of less use than a druid or paladin who isn't tanking.

even if you ignore the tanking differences of these three classes warriors will still be main tanking in most raids because they are least useful outside of a tanking role. This is the grand utility of the hybrid classes shining.

Example: If a druid is main tanking, he can't innervate anyone. If a druid is off-tanking there is likely an opportunity to offer an innervate at some point. If ther off-tank is to provide DPS after his target is dead, a druid is much more capable of offering that while in tanking gear than a warrior. Night and day differences... A warrior is like ~6% crit (plus cruelty maybe) and 800 attack power in tanking gear. Where does a druid stand there?

Now how can this be changed while still preserving the hybrid nature of the class? I really do not think it can. Either you substantially revise the classes so that the utility only comes from talent investment (we saw how well that worked with innervate on druids). Or you diversify the "core" class to the point that all classes are as hybrid as the hybrid classes.

Do hybrid classes really want either of those scenarios? I think if either of those happened we'd see even more flying off the handle furious rage than ever.

It is the nature of a hybrid tanking class to be an off-tank. It's how their utility can be... uhh... utilized. Even if you ignore the tanking capability differences between the three classes, you can't ignore the utility differences between the classes. The utility advantages that druids and paladin carry are a blessing and a curse. They offer great benefit, but the simple existence of that utility means they will not often be the primary tank except in "gimmick" situations that specifically cater to their tanking advantages.

To some extent, the nature of the role is that which encourages conflict. How many main tanks are on a 25 man raid? 1? 2? How many primary healers? how many DPS? The fact that there are so few "main tanking positions" means that there will be conflict.

[oldmandennis]

A warrior is like ~6% crit (plus cruelty maybe) and 800 attack power in tanking gear. Where does a druid stand there?

I agree with your post Conc. If a druid or palladin could hold down your traditional one boss tank and spanks as well as a warrior.... why would you have *any* prot warriors aside from gimmics like fear and all elemental bosses?

My numbers with a couple of pieces of gladiator and a couple of T4 are about 22% and 1600, if memory serves. But even if it was 6/800, I would blow away a warrior with my cat abilities. Remember, I am trippleing the DPS of tank warriors in tank gear.

[Taelas]

My numbers with a couple of pieces of gladiator and a couple of T4 are about 22% and 1600, if memory serves. But even if it was 6/800, I would blow away a warrior with my cat abilities. Remember, I am trippleing the DPS of tank warriors in tank gear.

That sounds a little low. With pure tank gear (and nothing but pre-Kara gear except the Revered Violet Ring), I have ~1485 AP and 22.56% crit in cat form.

[Tal]

I think you missed the point here. A lot of raids aren't going to be real interested in giving out secondary role gear to people until everyone has their primary set... at which point most people are done with the instance and want to move on. Certainly, loot distribution is a social construction but it is exacerbated by things like the grouping of Druid/Priest/Warrior for tier loots where every class can use multiple sets, so they have a lot more competition to deal with for those sets. I have certainly read plenty of stories about protection paladins (or want-to-be prot pallies) who cannot get their hands on the generic (non-class-specific) tanking plate gear until after the warriors have it, so they are perpetually behind the curve and unable to get a shot at tanking things. Of course there are exceptions, but these things happen and I think that was the point.

I don't agree with you here - the mechanics of the primary roles of a spec dictate what tank gear they would be interested in. Obviously druid tanks cannot wear plate but for the same reason paladin tanks aren't going to be as interested in non-warrior tank loot as they would be looking at optimizing different stats for the most part than warriors.

Now I will grant you that Blizzard messed up with itemization in Karazhan that emphasizes what they expect each of the classes will be doing primarily, very little dps plate, no defensive plate with intellect and defense, leather with healing on it, etc.

[Mavfin]

I don't agree with you here - the mechanics of the primary roles of a spec dictate what tank gear they would be interested in. Obviously druid tanks cannot wear plate but for the same reason paladin tanks aren't going to be as interested in non-warrior tank loot as they would be looking at optimizing different stats for the most part than warriors.

Now I will grant you that Blizzard messed up with itemization in Karazhan that emphasizes what they expect each of the classes will be doing primarily, very little dps plate, no defensive plate with intellect and defense, leather with healing on it, etc.

*one* piece of dam/heal mail other than T4......(GRR)

[TheDragoon]

I don't agree with you here - the mechanics of the primary roles of a spec dictate what tank gear they would be interested in. Obviously druid tanks cannot wear plate but for the same reason paladin tanks aren't going to be as interested in non-warrior tank loot as they would be looking at optimizing different stats for the most part than warriors.

Not really. Besides the Tier sets, Paladin and Warrior tanking gear is exactly the same. It's not like Paladins run around with +800 spell damage, 400 intellect,and 100 mp5 from tanking gear or something, they tend to use a Spell Damage weapon (if that) and maybe one other piece of gear with spell damage. Otherwise they want all of the +stamina, +avoidance gear they can find... which is, coincidentally, really good for Warriors, too. Tanks need tank stats, regardless of class. Due to sharing the same type of armor (plate) and common game mechanics that deal with damage mitigation and life totals, Warrior and Paladin tank loot is basicaly the same.

[Brista]

This is absurd. I've been [to more raids than you and I know better]

Now stop sounding like you come from the official WoW forums.

Oh, the irony

[Brista]

Look through my posts and you can clearly see I'm no fanboi. I feel this post is way too dire.

I have fairly extensive experience with druids and warriors (raiding bear, 67 warrior)

Where does this habit of giving an auto-biography come from when you have something you wish to assert? Can we please just assume that the quality of our posts reflects our experience, it's pretty obvious when people are talking about things they haven't experienced. Besides most of us have known each others' posts for about 5 years now

I find the druid *much* easier to play in a 5 man. I'm not really looking forward to collecting nethers with my warrior.

I find the opposite (perhaps because I pug more than you). Much easier to get groups with the Warrior, easier to get chosen as the person who will be doing the tanking with the Warrior, the over-nukers have a better feeling for how long to wait before they start to unload and 2 seconds off Taunt cooldown is a life-saver.

For raiding, druid off-tanks also bring important advantages over warriors

Agreed, my frustration is that druids are not capable of being the "star of the show" main tanks that we were capable of being in January. My frustration is compounded when people like Kalgan state that the reason we should not be so empowered is because the pure class should be better. What pure class? There are no pure classes in WoW. What he really means is Druids, as a hybrid class, can't be as good because fanboys of some other hybrid class get emo

excellent threat when not taking damage

I can see that this may be the case but I can't see the situation in which it matters. I've not found threat generation of a Warrior to be lacking when both my Druid and a Warrior co-tank are ping-ponging aggro. What situations require more threat than a Prot Warrior generates while not taking damage?

huge amounts of armor

The only meaningful number is damage taken. How much and how spikey. Everything else is fluff

vastly superior threat on 2-3 targets

With what? The horribly reduced Swipe? Do you really feel that Swipe beats Thunderclap spam by so much?

higher overall threat

Not according to EJ number-crunchers

much better damage (either in tank gear or in dps gear).

Again I would dispute this. Bears in tank gear do not do much better damage than Prot Warriors, at least mine doesn't. If I'm in a 5 man generally the damage meter looks like this
dps 100
dps 90
dps 80
prot warrior or bear druid 50-60
healer 0-10
Admittedly my Prot Warrior is only 63 so it may change but those numbers also correlate to what I've seen then someone else is tanking with a Prot Warrior for us

For example - when we put Mag down on Wed, we used 2 ferals and 3 warriors. I was in full tank gear (except for a weapon swap). I came in 6th for damage done to Mag, nearly trippleing the damage done by the two left over warriors. Now I did get mangles and was not on cube duty, but I also shifted to help heal a few times, as well as brez and innervate twice.

OK 6th is awesome, well done, but it's such as odd fight since most people are focussed on cube-clicking rather than dpsing. It's not really representative

Now, the single large boss does heavily favor warriors still.

As do two large bosses plus the encounters with fear, with undead, with elementals that don't bleed, with stuff that can be interrupted and magical damage. Also compared with paladins Warriors are miles ahead on anything that silences or mana burns

Not only are Warriors the best overall tanks but the situational tanking niches we were promised are all situations where Warriors tank better than one or both of the other two.

I'll admit, they have waffled a bit on if a warrior will be required to tank raid encounters. But if you didn't figure out at Lucifron that warriors were the raid tank, or had it figured out but decided to roll pally *AND* druid anyways based on a few vague comments, I don't know what to say.

It was nothing so planned. I started TBC in a Hunter duo, we couldn't get instances done, I revived my old Druid, tanked to 70, tanked for my guild in Kara, got nerfed, got discouraged and gave up. At that time parity of tanking was not only something we had been promised but had also been implemented in the game

If you can't find plenty of fun things to do with a druid... I hope Conan comes out soon for you or something.

Currently really enjoying my Warrior - what better way to prepare for Conan! :rolleyes:

[Brista]

Not really. Besides the Tier sets, Paladin and Warrior tanking gear is exactly the same. It's not like Paladins run around with +800 spell damage, 400 intellect,and 100 mp5 from tanking gear or something, they tend to use a Spell Damage weapon (if that) and maybe one other piece of gear with spell damage. Otherwise they want all of the +stamina, +avoidance gear they can find... which is, coincidentally, really good for Warriors, too. Tanks need tank stats, regardless of class. Due to sharing the same type of armor (plate) and common game mechanics that deal with damage mitigation and life totals, Warrior and Paladin tank loot is basicaly the same.

Essentially Paladins need every point of defence and every point of Stamina that Warriors do but also need other stats on their gear for threat and mana. In addition to not instead of

In practice what happens are compromises where Paladins either select or have foisted upon them some non-mitigation stats which push them even further behind Warriors than they started out

Druids also need to spend item budget points on attributes that increase threat which cuts into survivability

Not only that but both Druids and Paladins suffer from their sets being badly designed. The Feral Tier 5 set has 78 Intellect, 41 Spirit which are completely useless to a Druid Main Tank and 170[+4] Strength which is only useful for threat generation something Warriors don't need to worry about when dressing to tank