Why take a Tankadin over a Protection Warrior?

[Ariosto]

I'm just trying to figure this one out because I'm fairly new to WoW. By my impressions from reading on this site, it seems that Tankadins clearly out-perform protection warriors in tanking multiple, smaller targets but can sometimes struggle with single target threat (though not always).

It also seems to me that in order for a Tankadin to be uncrushable they have to have Holy Shield up 100% of the time. Any time it's caught on GCD they could get crushed. However, a Warrior is always basically uncrushable. Do I understand that correctly?

So why would I want a Paladin for my main tank over a Warrior? Since Tankadins can tank multiple targets well it makes sense for them to be a trash tank or what-have-you but when it comes to the big bosses it seems that a warrior tank will out-perform every time.

Am I missing something here?

[Amirya]

The chances of you using up all of your HS charges while it's on cooldown is....like not at all.

There are some fights in which a warrior or a druid is better than a paladin, sure.

There are also plenty of fights in which we rock.

Demon bosses, undead bosses?

Prince hates me. He can't crit me, he can't crush me, he takes holy damage from practically everything, and then on top of it, I do exorcism on him every chance I get.

[Zand]

Generally from what I've seen, Prot warriors "can" get crushed a bit more often against fast hitting bosses, while Paladins have a significantly less hard time about that. But really, I haven't seen it to be an issue.

My Guild healers don't say anything to me about any difference between me taking damage, and our Warrior MT...other than "Hey...AD just saved your ass there"

lol

[cougarr]

Tankadin=aoe
Warrior= big bosses

is a simplification that can overlook a lot differences in hard hitting bosses.

For instance:

1) there are fast hitting bosses where a greater charge to cooldown ration allows for pallies to get better mitigation from their block mechanic.

2) there are bosses that require a significant front loaded threat buildup which pallies tend to do better at most levels of the game.

3) The mitigation difference between an equally geared pally and warrior at higher levels of raiding is not significant enough for the most part to choose a class over a proficient player. However, there are some bosses that do significantly favor one over the other.


It is difficult for warriors to become uncrushable without SB up. It pretty much can only be acheived in t6 gear if you want to maintain respectable HP. Pallies have trouble becoming uncrushable WITH HS up in the initial stages of raiding. After pallies get basically decent raid gear, their concern is exactly like the warrior's concern; keeping SB/HS up or risk getting crushed. With respect to this concern please see point 1.

[Torquemada]

The only fight a Pally should never MT unless you incredibly outgear it is RoS Phase 2, as they cannot spell reflect Deaden. They have issues with Azgalor and Mother Shahraz due to vulnerability to Silence effects. Kaz'galor is fun as he drains mana during the fight, but I've tanking him without having to pot with Night's End and my Medallion of Karabor and still kept uncrushability through shifting around my gear.

There are several fights where it's severely advantageous to have a Pally MT, particularly anything that has a dual wielder or a demon/undead boss, as Exorcism is king. Pallys are great for picking up Leotheras after a Whirlwind with Avenger's Shield, especially if you have a Shammy dropping Searing Totem to get his attention every aggro drop.

Pallys are extremely helpful to the raid while tanking adds on several bosses. Tidewalker, Hydross, Al'ar, Dragonhawk, Nightbane, Illhoof, Felmyst, and M'uru off the top of my head. They're also murder on Mount Hyjal trash, and great for picking up demon adds on Anetheron and Azgalor. Holy Shield also prevents Shears on Illidan, and unlike Shield Block has enough charges that he can't burn them all up with the improved talent.

If your guild doesn't have a Prot Pally, these are all great reasons to be one. The most important reason to be one is IF you find it to be an enjoyable class to play. If you don't, play whatever you DO enjoy.

[fuzzygeek]

However, a Warrior is always basically uncrushable. Do I understand that correctly?

Warriors are uncrushable when shield block is up. Improved Shield block has 2 charges.

Fast hitting bosses, or encounters with adds (e.g., Tidewalker) may eat shield block and leave the tank crushable until the CD comes back up.

[Solitatis]

They can both do the job just as well. Only thing that I find any peoblem tanking is Archi because of the fearwards needed. Hence our warrior tanks that one. On all other bosses we just take turns or who ever wants to tank it tanks it. As for the threat, on most bosses mine is actually higher than the warriors, due to the fact then when warriors midigate they loost threat. This is also true with prot pally's but not to same extend. Currently I have tanked everything from heroics to Illidan. As for the post above the sell reflect is also something that makes us very vaurable in cirtan fights, requiring different tactics than normally used.

[moduspwnens]

I'm gonna just... hang out in another thread. :)

EDIT: I will say, though, to keep in mind that you're on a Prot Paladin forum. Not to say these responses aren't valuable, but you might get a less biased answer at the Tankspot forums.

[Worldie]

For most bosses, you choose the prot paladin over the prot warrior if he's better geared/skilled than the warrior.

Aside for some exceptions (RoS p3, Prince, Leotheras, ...) most of the time if the skill and gear are on par, you'd prefer the warrior simply because all the fights are designed with a warrior tank idea in mind.

[Argali]

http://www.failsafedesign.com/maintanka ... php?t=3619 good read.

[Tyaera]

Or, if its farm content, have the paladin tank, and the warrior throw on a DPS suit.

on farm content, you generally don't benefit from the paladin off-healing, whereas you do benefit from the warrior doing leet DPS as it speeds the kill up a little.

[Mex]

It depends a lot on what you ultimately want to do with the character (tank heroics / 10 mans, raid, PvP, etc etc) but my personal opinion would be to go for the paladin, simply because I love hybrids. If you don't like tanking, you can give ret dps or healing a go, while prot warriors only have a DPS option (well 2, and yes they're quite different, but the role is the same). You have 2 viable and very different PvP specs, while warriors only have one, etc.

If you absolutely 100% MUST be the main tank of a progression raiding guild then you'll have an easier time doing it as a warrior. Whether this is due to people's preconceptions regarding tanks or actual class advantages is debatable, but I don't think anyone can really argue that there aren't more warrior MTs than paladin MTs. Go with what you enjoy playing (and levelling!) the most imo.

Oh, and prot DPS can actually be very very good. There's a prot warrior in my guild who's broken 1600 on both Aran and Gorefiend (not while tanking, obviously, but in DPS gear). A prot warrior with 2 slow weapons and mix-n-match offspec gear can still do some powerful DPS with devastate spam.

[caboom]

Or, if its farm content, have the paladin tank, and the warrior throw on a DPS suit.

on farm content, you generally don't benefit from the paladin off-healing, whereas you do benefit from the warrior doing leet DPS as it speeds the kill up a little.

... and generally paladins performing better when overgeared, having the power to overcome mana starvation trough pots way more efficiently and replacing his mittigation items with pure spell dmg(read threat ones)

Usually a warrior on same gear as a paladin takes an average 10 times or so more crushes than a paladin would just because of the difference of holy shield charges and shield block charges, there are ppl here that took almost no crushes in some boss fights.

[Barathorn]

You choose the person who is the best Tank for the job, dependant on situation and gear requirements. If the content is on farm, you let the other members of your tank corps have a go. For progression you always choose the best tank for the job, skillwise, gearwise and situationwise.

This topic has been covered like 20 billionty zillionty times now. Its flogging a dead horse to be honest, can we not make a sticky and just refer all further posts to that sticky?

You choose the best person for the job period, no matter what type of tank they are.

Barathorn

[Enkal]

For most fights (all imho ofcourse): skill > gear >> class

There are gimmick fights where one class has the advantage and there are about equal amount of those fights per tank class.

Like others have said in this thread, play the class you find fun to play. It WILL make you a better player in the end in my opinion.