"Paladins won't be great tanks"

[Levantine]

BV, not BR

[Tradyk]

Ma bad.

[Falkman]

Except there's also block chance to take into account, Falkman -- and Defensive stance.

The change currently means warriors will have one guaranteed block every 10 seconds. It doesn't mean they will only block once in that time.

Obviously, but we will under all circumstances, if wearing the same gear (which all points to happening), have a +30% block chance over warriors, and that should put us above them in damage mitigated from blocks at least.
As you say warriors have a bit more passive mitigation, but I think it will even out more than it is currently.

And warriors will also need to gear more towards Block Rating now, whereas we won't need to at all really and we can focus on dodge/parry/threat and can for the most part disregard block rating entirely. This allows us much greater variety in what we use to tank, much like the current advantage warriors have over us in BC.

Yes, it will be awesome to have more flexibility in what to gear.
About weapons and stuff, lots of people keep mentioning that we can continue to use caster weapons without problems, but I'm not so sure about that.
Having had a look over at mmo-champion at some of the loot released, it seems so far the only caster weapons found are daggers and staves, and seeing that all casters can use these weapons, I'm inclined to think that maybe there won't be anymore maces or swords with spelldamage on.

[Norrath]

Obviously, but we will under all circumstances, if wearing the same gear (which all points to happening), have a +30% block chance over warriors, and that should put us above them in damage mitigated from blocks at least.
As you say warriors have a bit more passive mitigation, but I think it will even out more than it is currently.

Yes, but it is likely that a lot of that additional block chance will end up being meaningless, at least at higher gear levels. You can't have more than 102.4% total, after all.

[Falkman]

No of course, but as it is today it is very hard to reach that level of avoidance before T6 content, and I assume that it will be the same way in WotLK and its end tiers.

[Falkman]

Also worth noting is the way Shield block might work.
Take a look at it's tooltip: "Increases your chance to block and the amount blocked by 100% for 5 sec, but will only block 1 attack"

As I see it it can work in two ways, either it fills out the "missing" uncrushability part and only blocks attacks that are not dodged or parried, or it does exactly what it says, and makes your chance to block the next attack 100%, meaning that that attack WILL be blocked, NOT dodged or parried. If that is the case, then Shield block might even be a bad skill. I do not think that is the way it will work, but with the wording as it is it's not impossible.

[Eaglestrike]

To be technical, we only have a +25% chance to block over warriors, as they get +5% block from talents. Even still, I have to use some items with BR to keep uncrushable in my gear that's fine to tank early BT (ZA boots, I sometimes use the ZA shoulders, TK ring, ZA ring all have BR) and it still gives us a lot more variety in choosing threat stats and mitigation when gearing, which is IMO a big reason for the warrior vs paladin issue currently.

[Norrath]

Also worth noting is the way Shield block might work.
Take a look at it's tooltip: "Increases your chance to block and the amount blocked by 100% for 5 sec, but will only block 1 attack"

As I see it it can work in two ways, either it fills out the "missing" uncrushability part and only blocks attacks that are not dodged or parried, or it does exactly what it says, and makes your chance to block the next attack 100%, meaning that that attack WILL be blocked, NOT dodged or parried. If that is the case, then Shield block might even be a bad skill. I do not think that is the way it will work, but with the wording as it is it's not impossible.

Not impossible, but extremely improbable. It won't work that way.

[knaughty]

Parry-haste doesn't gib paladins in TBC for two reasons:

(1) We don't swing as much, so we generate less parries.
(2) More Importantly: We still block the hasted attacks so they don't crush.

This is moot in Wrath:

(1) We'll stack expertise, same as warriors, and we won't get parried.
(2) We still swing less
(3) Nothing crushes.

Parry-gib-splutch doesn't happen to appropriately geared warrior tanks. It certainly won't happen to us with our ridiculous number of block charges.

Regarding mitigation and "are we good tanks".

Ardent Defender is better than Last Stand for everything in-game other than Kael'Thas pyroblasts (ie: gimmicks). It's an always on, passive Last Stand. Admittedly, it's somewhat smaller, but "always on / passive" means it will save you FAR more often.

Shield Wall is hugely better than LoH. Especially since the Holy Pally can LoH the warrior.... There's no comparison.

Bubble / Wings: Warrior has no equivalent. These can be very powerful. I certainly wouldn't trade them for Shield Wall - I'll just have the warrior tank things that need Shield Wall (last 5% of Kalec - I've done it, but it's sketchy) and I'll be a better tank for anything that requires burst threat (Kaz, RoS P3) or clearing debuffs. Bubble / BoP / Wings at Gurtogg are enormously good - give you almost complete control of tank rotation.

On mitigation: By the time you hit Illidan, Paladins have better mitigation than Warriors for anything that hits for less than 10k a swing. The block changes will drastically increase the disparity. Yes, I (had) WWS parses to prove it. They've expired, because we haven't had a warrior tank Illidan in my guild in months.

We were already by far the best 5/10 man tanks. Come expansion, O.M.G.... we're so far in front for 10-man tanking it isn't funny.

[Noradin]

They've expired, because we haven't had a warrior tank Illidan in my guild in months.

We never had a warrior who even wanted to tank him.
Since our guild has two protection paladins they never had to either.

[Wyleai]

Warriors will not be able to make themselves uncrushable using shield block. So it's probably a good thing that the devs have said they're removing crushing blows from the game.

Just highlighting this for those who might skip over it and don't know yet.

What does this mean really? That as soon as I ding 80 and am uncrittable, I can walk around thinking I'm a maintank and demanding my respect or that the PUG / Guild replace the current tank with me?

Or perhaps on a more positive slant, that the gear grind won't be there so much, and we'll separate the wheat from the chaff based more on the human factor?

[Obrimos]

Warriors will not be able to make themselves uncrushable using shield block. So it's probably a good thing that the devs have said they're removing crushing blows from the game.

Just highlighting this for those who might skip over it and don't know yet.

What does this mean really?

It means that Bosses won't Crush, just hit really hard.

Tanks are gonna be tanks in the litteral sense; stocked on Stamina, Block, and Armor before most else, I'm betting.

[Wyleai]

I know what it means numbers wise... Its the human dynamic that matters.

What's it going to do to the process of building up a tank...

[Worldie]

You might pretend to tank kara in greenies like many warriors pretend to do nowadays.

Then you'll fail at it because of crap avoidance, obviously.

[guillex]

Parry-haste doesn't gib paladins in TBC for two reasons:

(1) We don't swing as much, so we generate less parries.
(2) More Importantly: We still block the hasted attacks so they don't crush.

You're missing the third:

(3) Most Warrior threat generating abilities come from weapon-based attacks, whereas ours come from our SD modified judgments/consecration/etc.