[shadessls]

I play a 35 paladin

As it stands right now warriors and death knights are better main tanks than paladins.

The warrior defensive stance gives 10% block/mitigation.
Pallies get 15% mit/part ac buff. (it's a joke really, it was actually balanced when it was glitched to be 30%, as is I almost always use the offensive aura just because the added bonus to the group burns down the monster faster so the cleric uses less heals then with the mitigation on -_-)

5%block is far superior to 5% mitigation let alone 10%. The main reason is because when you are in a full group many people have ac buffs, but no one has block buffs. The reason why our stance is sub par is because it gives ac to the whole group, but the thing is no one else should be getting attacked so it is really just fluff.

Death knights have a crap load of abilities that give them insane defensive stats for limited time, as well as the move "seething hatred" which forces the enemy to attack them x(5) times (this is not a rescue).

Just look over the skill lists and it is pretty obvious that paladins are the worst MT of the 3 tank classes. This is because the majority of the paladins abilites benefit the entire group, instead abilities focusing solely on himself. For this reason whenever there is another similar level tank in the group they are always the mt (unless my gear is far superior).

IMO the death knight is the superior tank at this time. His defensive abilities alone outmatch other tanks, and he has drain life abilities.

Also paladin virtue abilities do not help you tank, except in emergencys (do to short durations and high costs) so are not really viable in raid situations where the fight lasts longer than 15 minutes.

As it stand paladins are basicaly the utility tank (also the "buff" tank). Adding a paladin to your group will increase its effectiveness much more than any other tank (shouts,auras,buffs,finisherbuffs). But when it comes to straight up tanking they are not as effective as the other tank classes.

There is one exception to this which is that two paladins tank better than any other two tanks. (rescue juggling)

(The best group right now is Cleric,Paladin, Paladin, Bard, Bard, if similar songs stack then another bard, if not, a rogue)

The only thing I am unhappy with right now is how hard it is to keep agro as a paladin (and by this I mean keeping agro off the cleric). You have a dehate buff for melee, but that does nothing for magic/healing agro. This is partly due to our hate generating spells sucking, you know there is an issue when you hold agro better by using your high damage abilities over hate generating ones.

We have no abilities besides rescues to make an enemy attack us (at least at 35), and with other party members generating hate faster than you (whether you use the broken hate skills or not) you have to use rescues to get them to attack you, god forbid your rescue is resisted (which happens alot when you are fighting hard enemies). God forbid they go after your parties sorc and 2 shot him (god forbid 1 shot him) while you are changing defensive target to rescue.

Suggestions: Take away the global cooldowns after usage of the 3 hate spells (the shield one, smite, and upbraid). With the global cooldown the only one worth using is smite, the other moves you can use that just do damage generate more hate toward you so it's pointless to use the shield one and upbraid. (this might not be enough)
or: Make our dehate buff work for all hate generation, not just melee.(this might not be enough)
or: Increase the hate generation on existing abilities(enough so we can hold agro good)
or: give us a move like seething hate

I just hate it when my group wipes because my rescue was resisted twice, or a low hp character gets 2 shotted before I can rescue. I don't mind being subpar defensively (our other abilities even it out) but I hate being subpar agro wise.


Discuss......