State of the Main Tank

[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......

[Zanos]

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

You're crazy.

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 -_-)

The Dread Knight give 10-15% mitigation..15 if you're lucky enough to get to DC5 eventually. Oh, and the extra theat is less than the Paladin Defensive Aura.

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.

I'm a firm believer that in multi-group encounters where you would have a designated MT, mitigation > avoidance nearly every time. But hey, there's more than one way to tank a boss, you just have to set up the raid differently.

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.

What, you're joking right? Yes, paladins get abilities that benefit the group, nevermind that they're better than the abilities that their counterparts get that only benefit that class. As a Dread Knight, I'd kill for an AC buff.

You don't really think DRK is a better tank than Paladin, do you? Not right now at least. I'd list reasons why, but I really don't have enough time on my hands, let alone the stamina to type it all. Drain life abilities? Do you mean the one that costs 48 endurance and is only really used against groups in AOE/emergency situations, or the 28 endurance one that is every 15 seconds and heals for far less than the 15sec Paladin heal?

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.

I beg to differ...double damage for two minutes? How invaluable is that against dungeon bosses? You really can't tell me that you're not generating more threat than the rest of the group with Zeal+MC on.

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.

Newsflash: Nobody holds aggro 100% of the time unless your group coordinates accordingly. There's probably a reason you have more rescues than any other Def. Fighter. You may (in theory when all the classes are properly balanced) have the lowest sustained threat generation, but by no means will you have that much trouble in single-group situations. This is assuming you don't think you're supposed to have aggro 100% of the time. Becuase what challenge is a game where the tank just sits there and does nothing except generate threat? That's the whole reason the rescue system was implemented; to make tanking an active role. That sorc? Just pop your universal aggro wipe rescue. Problem solved I bet for the rest of the fight. Or if you don't have time for that yet, pop your AE invuln and then rescue up to three times before it wears off. Or better yet, tell your sorcerer to wait for a few seconds for you to generate threat. God forbid your party doesn't go all out on DPS on T+0:01. Remember the old WOW adage, "Wait for sunders"?

You have so many panic buttons with those five virtue points you get an hour. In fact, you mention a perfect group setup..my dream group setup would probably have to be: Bard, Paladin, Paladin, Paladin, Paladin, x, where x is any non-defensive fighter.

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.

Your group didn't wipe because your rescue was resisted twice. It wiped because someone did something wrong to get to the top of the hatelist, and died. Now if that low hp character gets 2-shotted before you can rescue, that's your fault. Rescue faster. So you say you're subpar aggro wise...okay. You're superior in utility, damage, and defense. You still win.

This post may seem harsh, but OP was nothing short of misleading.

[Niteflyx]

All defensive tanks have that problem with hate, esp in defensive stance. All defensive tanks have the same style rescues. All defensive tanks have to deal with overnuking sorcs.

Where in the Dreadknight's description does it say we have lifetaps coming out of our ass?

[ellestil]

I simply cannot agree with the OP's conclusions. My personal experience as a 32 Paladin doesn't seem to match yours. This tells me that maybe you have a build that's different from mine by a fair degree. As a human Paladin (kojani), every level I gain 5 str, 5 con, 5 dex, 3 vit, 1 int and 1 wis. If you have much more points in Vit, Int, and Wis than me, maybe your finding it harder to hold hate and take damage because your offense and defense stats need improving.

If your stats aren't different from mine, maybe your technique is. I pull with smite, as the mob nears I hit marshalling cry, and then I hit upraid as the mob enters my attack range followed by a quick shield. From there I keep using those abilities until I crit, and then I use the two hate gain chain specials. Once I have that in, I'm gold. If fighting mutliple mobs, I cast our group heal and group ac buff when I crit (the group heal adds alot of hate and is insta cast, group buffs also seem to add some hate). Once I've gotten a +hate chain off, or a +group defense chain off, I then use our hammer chains for the dps and lay it on.

As far as end game raids go, Old Paly has already stated that all tanks took damage and tanked fairly equally (this was prior to our boosts btw, so now we are even stronger than we were in beta). So again, from my experience we are definitely not inferior as tanks. If anything, we are stronger because warr's and dk's still need their fixes like we got ours. Once ALL the tank classes get their fixes, THEN you can compare them at end game and see what's what. Until that time, it is only conjecture and premature to make a definitive statement about the tanking classes and how they will do in end game content.

[Vladamier]

For the love of God the dev's are giving your class all the love with the fine tuning and adjustments these past few patches. As of now DRK's have bugs up the yin yang.

Talk about giving someone an inch and having them take a mile.

[shadessls]

Anyone that says a 36 paladin can tank better or equal to a 36 dread knights is in for a rude awakening.

They can hold agro far easier, and take far less damage. I could state this from personal experience alone, there is a reason why when I group with my guild's DK he is always the main tank. (and no it is not because I am imcompetent) If after viewing the skill lists you still disagree I guess I will go into more depth..

Ellestil, my paladin is a dwarf, I play my stats Con=Str>dex. Pre-emptively I must say that my views are based on fighting 5dot+ mobs (CiS/Pantheon mostly). Your play style does appear maximize your hate output, and is exactly how I used to play, until I realized that I was generating more hate by using pure damage save smite/crit hate. Do you have alot of experience fighting hard bosses 5dot+? (not meant to be condescending, I'm really wondering) If so what is your typical group set up?

Zanos your points in general are not well thought out at all... For one Zeal costs 5 points, and lasts 2 minutes. At my level thats 6 minutes per hour of double damage (with none left for emergency). It's not effective at all for an agro holding technique.(Maybe you should look into this more m8 ) You seem to put alot of your opinion on me not being able to rescue fast enough, when the main stated scenario was for the rescue to be resisted, perhaps you should read more carefully.....................?

Niteflyx, You are wrong, defensive fighters are not equal in this regard. I can prove this with simply mentioning seething hate....... (I refute you without having to make sarcastic comment involving ass)

While writing this the idea came upon me that how defensive a tank is, is inversely(?) related to keeping hate. The less damage you take, the less the cleric has to heal, so the less hate the cleric generates.

Yes vlad, asking to be able to hold agro on par with DKs is taking a mile :roll:

edit* zanos please post why pallies are better MT's than DK's (in detail) , if you do not convince me I will reply with why I think DK's are better MT's than pallies (in detail) .

[Kamol_frengrot]

From my experience as a 38 pally (i have not played since the last pally fix) i have never felt inferior to other tank classes. Most pickup groups ive been in have been impressed by the pally class as a tank.

I go full dps in the beginning of every fight with marshalling cry burning all my endurance in the first 5-10 sec, ofcourse a heavy burning sorc might take aggro from time to time, but thats easily fixed with a rescue (if resisted rescued with one of the other 2 ones that can be used in no time.)

Im usually using a 2h weap while tanking. As the dps it adds generates more aggro then spamming the shield aggro skill. I prety much never use the finish aggro skill since the hammer chain dps prety much always is enough to get and hold aggro. If someone who would die in 2 hits gets aggro, throw on the mana using divine aura thingy and you got 5 sec to rescue the mob off him.

The guild group i lvl with 70% of the time uses me as a tank instead off the warrior we got, since i can pull and work better as the main tank.

[ellestil]

My group setups are usually me (Paladin), warrior, cleric, shaman (sometimes a ranger, sometimes a psi), bard, and rogue. On 5 dot mobs, or long fights, I generally use the +hate chain as early as I can. Due to having a decently high dex and Infineum gear with +crit on it, I crit at a fair rate. Once I have the +hate chain on, I then focus on maximizing my damage, I use group heal when needed also (especially if the mob AE's the group). After about 2-3 crit chains of damage (depending on how much I'm getting crits), I use another +hate chain again.

One key thing is, I try to always keep a steady amount of hate building by alternating using endurance abilities with mana abilities. Auto attack doesn't generate alot of hate, so I find that I try and avoid long periods where I'm out of endurance and not using any abilites, only auto attacking.

Now it's true that Paladins don't have the snap aggro generation of a warrior. However, I find that once I've built my aggro up, it doesn't come off easily, and if for some reason it does come off, a quick rescue and some burst dps will lock it on me again. Warriors can grab a mob and gain aggro faster than us, we need about a 5 sec head start. Our advantage is our rescues and many ways to build hate using other means (group heals, dot, deaggro on melee's). Also, if warriors lose aggro, they have fewer chances to grab it back with a rescue like we do, and their rescue doesn't seem to generate as much hate as ours either.

If the warrior is MT, and I try, I can pull aggro from him. The same could be said of him as well. The difference is I don't pull aggro off him at first, it comes after a few seconds have passed. He can pull off me earlier in the fight, but the longer the fight goes on the more I gain in hate. I also notice that on multi-mob pulls, if he is tanking, even though I'm assisting him, eventually an add will turn on me.

So, in my experience, a paladin performs better in hate gain over time than the other tank classes. To bolster our "snap" aggro disadvantage, we need our group to take it easy about 5 secs once the mob enters melee and we burn through our marshalling cry (if we get off a +hate chain early, we are gold). The longer the fight, the more it plays into our favor, since we can continue to layer +hate chains along with use other abilties like healing that isn't linked to endurance but still help gain hate.

[Zanos]

Originally Posted by shadessls

While writing this the idea came upon me that how defensive a tank is, is inversely(?) related to keeping hate. The less damage you take, the less the cleric has to heal, so the less hate the cleric generates.

edit* zanos please post why pallies are better MT's than DK's (in detail) , if you do not convince me I will reply with why I think DK's are better MT's than pallies (in detail) .

Paragraph 1: Correct. Threat as a tank isn't about just generating threat, it's also about reducing the amount of threat other players generate around you. Some refer to this role as a tank not as threat generation, but as creating a "threat gap".

Paragraph 2: You know, maybe I was a bit harsh.

I'll tell you what. Let's both list (at level 36, because that's attainable to me right now, but ideally you want level 50. Nothing matters until the level cap really.) each and every skill the Dread Knight has, and the Paladin has. Just go down the spell book and just list every highest rank you have. Don't forget your stances/auras.

Don't even list any interpretations, we can do that later. Just in that post list them in this format:

Ability Name IV
Cost: X Resource
Refresh: t
Effect: Straight out of the tooltip including any restrictions

After we do this, then we can feel free to interpret all we want. I would really like to put things into context.

Now, you'll have to wait until i get 36, but that isn't too far away. I can hope to get it tonight if I grind out with a good group in-guild.

[Warakus]

Paladin offensive stance is better. 10% dmg 5% accuracy

DK stance is 10% dmg all abilities cost 5% more endurance.
Paladin def stance is better and i would be HAPPY to trade with you.

On top of this like I posted before Paladins have ALL the utility.

Have a healing mob.. get a pladin they can deny life 75% heal mitigation debuff.

Need to get the group up fast.. have the paladin rez

Need single pulls.. get a paladin for Lull.

Need some spot heals.... get a paladin

Dont worry the paladin can snare if its needed

He can also save the healer with a huge heal if hes going down but his rescue heal should do the trick.

Need to add to the group DPS.. get a paladin they got group dmg buffs

Need more hp/ac get a paladin they can buff too

If you cant see how overdone Paladins are then re-roll my friend.

The defining ability on DKs is our crit chain.... thats it .. wrack and ruin. I wont be suprised if they get given to paladins too... thats how we keep aggro and most of the time its in O stance with a 2 hander which if you dont know by now is half the tanking you can do in def with a shield.

Remove Deny Life from Paladins.. it is NOT a paladin type ability... it should be DK