So now that we've all been paladining around in Outland for a few months and have had a chance to explore the new skill trees up to lvl 70, what have we learned?

It seems to me like all three trees are now viable for the individual player, but what is the end-game role of each tree? Is a protection paladin really a viable main tank for a 5 or 10 man instance? Can a healadin be a primary healer? Or are we still stuck in hybrid secondary roles? I cant answer those questions from experience, but as a ret pally, I face this a lot. I can't quite main tank a 5-man instance unless its a real good crew. As an off-tank, I dps the crap out of my target, but I can be a drain on the healers who should be focusing on the main. Ret was a great tree to get me to where I am, questing and soloing, but for utility's sake, is it time to respec?

I'm not suggesting that I, or anyone, should respec for the needs of the guild, but I am saying that I am willing because I'd rather be a team player - thats just how I get my personal satisfaction out of the game.

I will go onto the WoW forums and see what the various opinions are, but I wanted to hear it from our side first.

Looks like a job for...

Jamidin!

Jam is a tank and he is awesome. And we need tanks! Tanks! Tanks!

Er... and my pally is only 25 so I have no other comments at this time. :)

So now that we've all been paladining around in Outland for a few months and have had a chance to explore the new skill trees up to lvl 70, what have we learned?

It seems to me like all three trees are now viable for the individual player, but what is the end-game role of each tree? Is a protection paladin really a viable main tank for a 5 or 10 man instance? Can a healadin be a primary healer? Or are we still stuck in hybrid secondary roles? I cant answer those questions from experience, but as a ret pally, I face this a lot. I can't quite main tank a 5-man instance unless its a real good crew. As an off-tank, I dps the crap out of my target, but I can be a drain on the healers who should be focusing on the main. Ret was a great tree to get me to where I am, questing and soloing, but for utility's sake, is it time to respec?

I'm not suggesting that I, or anyone, should respec for the needs of the guild, but I am saying that I am willing because I'd rather be a team player - thats just how I get my personal satisfaction out of the game.

I will go onto the WoW forums and see what the various opinions are, but I wanted to hear it from our side first.

I don't have a paladin character (I tried, got one to 10 and promptly deleted. Old hatreds die hard. :) ). I have spent quite a bit of time with a few of each build type and here are my thoughts:

1. Prot Spec Paladins (Jamadin) - Completely capable of main tanking all of the existing 5, 10, and 20 man content. I know of one guild that is doing Gruul's lair using a paladin as a main tank.

2. Healdins - The top 5 raid guilds use Healadins, Shamans, and Druids as their primary healers. I've done instances with my Horde warrior with a Healadin as the only healer and I've never had an issue with them. To answer your questions, yes, Paladins spec'd for healing can fill the healer role completely.

3. Retribution Tanks - You have to view yourself more as a fury warrior/rogue than an off-tank. You're primary job is to bring the dps and Ret paladins can do this very well. A properly equipped ret paladin can off-tank many encounters.

Paladins have really come into their own in TBC. All three types can handle their respective roles with complete competency.

I know of one guild that is doing Gruul's lair using a paladin as a main tank.



That's on the dead kitten server, right?

2. Healdins - The top 5 raid guilds use Healadins, Shamans, and Druids as their primary healers.

Care to share some of those kittens, Rin?

I hit for 400-600 per swing, crit for double that fairly often. Using a damage meter I average about 270-300dps against end game foes over an extended period of time. For a pally, that IS a crapload of dps, but I dont know how that stacks up to other dps classes. My problem is that I find myself being called on to tank quite often and I'm not very good at it with my current build.

Isn't the Pally healing getting nerfed today in the patch? I heard people talking about it but I can't find any patch notes yet.

The patch isn't today.

The patch is going live on the test realm and will be up for us in a month or so.

Isn't the Pally healing getting nerfed today in the patch? I heard people talking about it but I can't find any patch notes yet.

It does look like there are a couple of nerfs in the pally healing department: no more free heals if the heal crits (now they still cost half mana), and the healadin / shadow priest / spiritual attunement thing has been nerfed to only work if the paladin isn't at full health, so healadins relying on mana from shadow priest heals will need an alternate source. There are probably a few more healing nerfs in there, but I don't know paladins well enough to decipher them.

As Fox said though, the patch isn't today. Patch notes are linked in another thread: look for Patch 2.1 as a topic.

Isn't the Pally healing getting nerfed today in the patch? I heard people talking about it but I can't find any patch notes yet.

I think you're referring to this patch note entry (on PTR)

"Illumination": This talent now only gives 50% of the mana cost of the critical heal. It also now returns the correct amount of mana when used with ranks 4 and 5 of "Holy Shock".

I read a bit about the change and most people are focusing on how this will screw Healadins in heroics. If that truly is the case, I'm sure Blizzard will tweak them up a bit.

Hey Bren!

I agree that Paladins are far more versatile these days. Any of the three trees are viable depending on what you want to do.

I originally leveled as 1 - 60 as a Ret spec paladin, but ever since 2.0 I have been Prot spec. I love it is about all I can say. I think the absolute most important aspect to tanking is that you have to WANT to tank. If you would prefer to heal or prefer to do DPS, then that is what you should be doing. If you like to tank though and want to learn more I'd be happy to help you.

You are correct that, honestly, I don't see you being able to tank with your current spec. Retribution is awesome, but even setting aside the damage mitigations in the Prot tree, the most important thing is the ability to generate significantly more aggro. Generating and holding aggro is the key to any tanking, and with Paladins, it's a little bit different :) it has taken me quite some time to get it under control but I can easily tank any 5 man instance at this point, we're about to start on Heroic mode instances, and Karazhan is coming up. I'm confident in doing those. Feel free to look over my current spec and gear on the Armory.

Gear takes some getting used to with a Paladin tank. First off, the gear you want starts off very similar to warrior tank gear. You want high armor / stamina / defense. Once you get that going, you break it down a bit more in that you also want as much Intellect as you can get while not sacrificing the above, and you REALLY want as much block as possible. One of the bread and butter absolute key Paladin tank abilities is Holy Shield which generates a ton of threat while blocking attacks. The higher your block ability is, the more likely you will successfully block attacks while using Holy Shield and therefore not only do you get damage mitigation but also high threat.

In the end, you want as much armor as you can get (I'm about 13k with my own buffs, 14k with druid buffs), between 490 and 500 defense (490 defense = max uncrittable you can get), and then as high dodge/parry/block as possible. Dodge and Parry are more desirable since they are 100% mitigation, but block is equally important in our case because of the threat generation.

Lastly, you want to get as much spell power bonuses as you can. Spell power will boost your holy damage output which, in turn, boosts aggro and threat for holding mobs. On the Armory, the sword you see on me is NOT my actual tanking sword, I only carry that one around in cities because it looks damn cool :) For my main tanking I use http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=29185 with a +30 Int enchant on the blade. I also have +12 spell damage enchanges on both my rings and using those, combined with consecration, shield throw, etc. result in just fine aggro generation.

Hope all this helps! Useless I know to a Healadin or Retadin but for Prot I'm more than happy to help in and out of game.

So I've respecced. My intent was to go prot, but not FULL prot. I want to tank and I want to tank well, but I wanted to maintain some of that versatility that pallies are great for. I'm 1/41/19 (i know the 1 point is weird, but it didn't have anywhere else to go). I'm practicing on trash around Area 52 to get tanking techniques down, but where I'm really lacking is gear (of course). It seems like a good place to start is gaining rep with the timekeepers and going for the quest rewards in Shadowmoon, but for now I'm going to be weak with the mishmash of gear that I've got.

I think I understand the concepts of tankdining in a group, but I could use some advice on soloing techniques. Since we worry primarily about threat generation vs. dps, how do you turn that around in solo when threat is irrelevant? Ret pally soloing is easy, but as a tankadin its no longer effective to pick up a 2hr and wail away, giving up the mitigation of your shield, cause I no longer have the skills for it.

I assume it's much like the shaman. Keep a decent weapon and some 'dps gear' around for solo. Other then that you just keep your mana pool up where it's comfortable to solo.

I don't have a higher end paladin so I really don't know. I imagine it's the same scenario though. Takes you much longer to kill a mob but you will probably never die.

I assume it's much like the shaman. Keep a decent weapon and some 'dps gear' around for solo. Other then that you just keep your mana pool up where it's comfortable to solo.

I don't have a higher end paladin so I really don't know. I imagine it's the same scenario though. Takes you much longer to kill a mob but you will probably never die.

Torrin's got it. My warrior is prot spec'd (44 pts in it). I have a set of gear strictly for DPS and soloing. While I'll never pull the DPS numbers of a arms or fury warrior, I can do enough damage in DPS to complete all of the solo quests in TBC.

You can take the other route though and "tank" mobs to death. What you lack in burst dps or white damage you'll make up for in durability. Instead of taking the "out damage" your opponent you "out last" them. That's about the slowest, but safest, way to do it.

I am given to understand that a prot-spec paladin doesn't die, like, ever on solo stuff.

Or, at least, such is my assumption from watching Jamisia select a target, making the Light or the Wisdom happen, *get up and leave the room*, and come back ten minutes later to a dead mob and a paladin with 90% health and 70% mana.

Paladins: the best class to play if you plan to eat your dinner at the same time as killin stuff.