Paladin (and/or Shaman) tank viability

[Dr. Doom]

Inspired by the other thread regarding bear tanks.

I am not playing a Paladin right now, but it has come to my attention that other than the overwhelming majority of retribution guys I meet while levelling, the only other thing I've yet seen are healers.

Are Paladin tanks very underperforming at this task? How do they fare in :

- Levelling 5-mans when gear can be scarce (Deadmines, Wailing Caverns, Scarlet Monastery, Uldaman, etc)
- Level 60 5-mans when gear can probably be crafted to help them (Scholomance, Stratholme, Blackrock Spire, Blackrock depths)
- Maybe you'll find this unnecessary, but how about raids (if completely unviable for 40 mans, how about UBRS 10-man, or 20 mans) ?



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If you would be interested in mentioning shamans, which I've on occasion seen people argue can do moderate tanking, I'd also like your input.

How would you compare paladin (or shaman) tanks to bears?

Just making conversation .

[macbrown]

Paladins just don't really have enough threat generation and sustainability at this point. Survivability is obviously not a problem.

5-mans while leveling is perfectly viable, though. Have had experience with all-pally groups slowly rolling through lower level dungeons like a self-regenerating cannonball.

[Bioness]

Shaman tanks are like having a melee Priest, do they have abilities to support that this was an idea? Yes. Is it a good idea? Hell no.

[gotmilk0112]

Paladins, much like Druids, are only good in 5mans; not really used in raids outside of offtanking / add tanking.

They have superb AoE threat with Consecration, which makes 5mans a breeze to tank. Just throw down a consecrate and you've got infinite AoE threat on everything.

As for Shamans...if you try and "tank" anything past level 20 dungeons as a shaman, you'll be /rofl'd at and kicked from the group. Yeah, like Bioness said, shaman tanking is a half-baked idea from alpha that blizzard never removed until WOTLK. (and completely killed it off in Cata, with the removal of Rockbiter)

Disc was originally meant to be a melee spec, and you can see it with all of the low-level cloth gear that has strength/agi on it. Enhancement was originally meant to be a tank spec, and you can see it with the defense/parry/armor talents in its talent tree. Both are completely unviable in the final game.

[Hammersplat]

Yes. Is it a good idea? Hell no.

but if it's a fun idea why not try if you have friends that are up for it.

One of the most fun times I did LBRS was with 2 hunters and a warlock (voidwalker) no tank and i just healed all the pets. I was on a druid so no res and there were no wipes.

[DrearyYew]

Paladins just don't really have enough threat generation

Actually, that's the strength of a Paladin. They are far better than Druids and Warriors in this regard when it comes to pulls of more than one target. It's their single target threat that is a bit lacking, but if the Paladin knows what they are doing, or are a Holy Tank, this isn't really a problem.

To directly answer the OP, Paladins can tank just fine in anything outside of raid content. Raid content is tricky since we don't have a taunt, leaving us to certain niche situations like Suppression Room or Skeletons on Nefarian. I would strongly recommend tanking as Holy, however, since you can still heal in this spec with healing gear, and Divine Favor -> Holy Shock is a huge threat boost when in tank gear, so in most cases it will function like a taunt. The only thing you would be missing from an actual Prot tank would be Blessing of Sanctuary and Holy Shield, which aren't all that necessary anyways.

[macbrown]

Paladins just don't really have enough threat generation

Actually, that's the strength of a Paladin. They are far better than Druids and Warriors in this regard when it comes to pulls of more than one target. It's their single target threat that is a bit lacking, but if the Paladin knows what they are doing, or are a Holy Tank, this isn't really a problem.

Perhaps I ought to have clarified a bit; it isn't that paladins cant actually generate the threat, it's really their ability to sustain that threat for long periods that becomes a problem. In later expansions/patches, you have some avenues of serious mana regeneration in combat, but during vanilla that's one of the larger handicaps.

This is one of the primary reasons I would say that during lower level dungeons they can tank just fine. Most enemy groups will be dead before your ability to generate enough threat starts petering out.

[stif]

the paladin is viable in 60 content and in 5 man dungeons while leveling but the reason why you see only dps paladins and healers is becouse you can fill in those rolls with ret spec

[Dr. Doom]

If you were to pit a bear tank vs a paladin tank (both of which underperform when compared to a warrior), which one would you say achieves its task better?

[Ana]

Bear. At least he doesn't require innervates to function. Also has taunt.