Paladin being guild MT?

[Kalinon]

Is it possible that a paladin be a raiding guilds MT through all encounters in the game? My guild doesnt think that they can and even go to say that they are no where near warriors when tanking. What is your opinion?

[Lore]

Paladins can MT anything in the game for progression kills except for phase 2 Reliquary of Souls (which requires spell reflect if you want to kill him in time).

That said, a lot of potential wipes have been turned into kills purely by merit of Shield Wall, and although LoH can do the same it's nowhere near as effective. Long and the short of it is, if you have a Paladin MT you should be fine for the most part, but fights will be a lot less forgiving on random other people sucking.

[kalbear]

This is advanced training?

Paladins can likely tank every single boss in the game, save possibly Reliquary of Souls. They aren't the best tank for all bosses though, and some of those bosses are going to be a lot harder than others.

Some are going to be a lot easier than others.

Why do you need only one MT? Why not have two or three, one of each class, so you can be used for the encounters that you excel at and be backup on the ones you don't?

[Rainge]

The age of the Main Tank is over. There are too many places where having a diverse tanking core is the key to victory.

[Spudge_Boy]

Having one MT is just plain silly.

I have a Prot War and Prot Pally for a reason. They both excel at different fights/bosses.

[Mortehl]

The age of the Main Tank is over. There are too many places where having a diverse tanking core is the key to victory.

This needs to be QFT.

[Lore]

Well, although having a diverse tanking core IS a requirement and I certainly agree with the points stated already, the fact is you generally have one tank who's usually on "the big guy" while the other tanks are off doing other things. Even if he (or she) is just there because he's got the best gear, he's still "the main tank" in that regard. It doesn't mean the other tanks aren't tanking anything or that their job is any easier, it just means when you're assigning who's going to tank what, he's the guy that gets put on whatever's ugliest.

In addition, if you have a solid and reliable tanking core that you can expect to always be around no matter what, it can greatly benefit your progression by not swapping around who's tanking what each week and instead let your tanks focus on being good at whatever aspect of the fight they started in. This means the guy that gets stuck on the boss one week gets stuck on the boss every week while everyone else continues doing whatever else it was they were doing before. I'm sure if you all thought hard enough you could tell who your guild's "Main Tank" is by that definition.

Now, like others said already, that doesn't mean you have one tank who does everything while everyone else just clings on for free epics. However that doesn't really answer the question that was asked - "Can a Paladin be the Main Tank." The answer to that question is yes, a Paladin can easily be the guy that gets put in front of something ugly and told to break the bad guy's equipment with his face before the bad guy breaks his face with his equipment. You just need to have a Warrior OT who can tank Phase 2 RoS when you get there.

[Igrado]

lol @ Lore's sense of eloquency. Usually spot-on, but has a slight edge to it today, which is refreshing.

Oh, and at OP, yes.

[Zhalseran]

Blizzard designs their tank classes to be unique and to shine in specific situations. For Paladins that is generally AoE and undead/demons. However as more and more people are discovering they like these "other" tank classes, they become more and more viable as a "MT". As it stands the Paladin is very capable of MTing as mentioned above. It's not necessarily the best choice, but don't take that to mean its a bad one.

As for the whole "MT" thing itself, I see it like this. Its important to have a tanking core with good depth. That way you are prepared for all situations. An understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of every tank class can be very helpful in progression. However, any guild serious about progression should have a main tank, it just makes your lives simpler and progression faster. One person who knows their job inside out, and depending on loot system, where tanking gear has priority. That one person who is super geared instead of having a slew of mediocre geared tanks cn make the difference on a progression kill

[kalbear]

Blizzard designs their tank classes to be unique and to shine in specific situations.

Heh. Right. Blizzard designed paladins for tanking in places. Right. Sure. Hee.

[Zhalseran]

Trash, mostly =/

[Mortehl]

Bottom line:

We have a warrior, and we have me. On situations where I am stronger, or I just want to tank the bastard, I do. Reverse for the warrior.

Then we have 2 Fruids. Both do their jobs too (For instance, for the last couple weeks we're going to be bothering with SSC, our Fruid Main Tanks Tidewalker while all the warriors herd the south murlocs and I herd the north by myself. Then we deposit them under morogrim and AOE the whole freaking mess while I hold all the murlocs in place.

[Agravaine]

I've been playing MMO's for a long time and I think you are being extremely foolish if you rely overmuch on one solitary individual to be your designated MT, and concentrate all your gear drops in that person, regardless of class.

WoW -- at least through SSC/TK -- really encourages you to diversify and put your most optimal tank forward in any situation. Of course, many fights don't really have any "optimal" tank, so you could theoretically use your "best tank" -- Magtheridon, Lurker.

Personally, I think everyone should be given a shot at tanking everything they can tank (given their gear) -- you might pay for that with a few extra wipes, but you'll pay more when person X doesn't log on, and they are the only one who knows what to do for boss Y.

[Lore]

I don't believe in giving tanks loot priority, at least since TBC; I see too many guilds struggling on fights like Vashj or Kael because they gave all their T4/T5 to the tank and now their DPS can't kill things fast enough, or their healers can't keep people up. Having geared healers and DPS has become just as important as having geared tanks these days, even more so in some situations.

I also don't think completely kitting out one tank at the expense of others is the way to go, although I have passed an item or two to our Warrior MT in the interest of making things easier. IF you have a completely dedicated person to make your MT, throwing them a little extra loot can be a good thing. Our MT has taken two nights off since he respecced Prot after we lost our last MT months ago, and those weren't until we had the entire game on farm status. I haven't felt any concern about passing him items.

Things differ from guild to guild though, it really just comes down to whatever works best with your group of people. For the most part, our group is just happy to raid, and not super interested in loot.

[Lore]

There's some merit to rotating tanks around for specific encounters if attendance is a concern, however we've generally found it sufficient to let the learning nights be on nights when the other tank isn't there anyway. There's not a big difference between tanking something new because you have to and tanking something new just for the hell of it.

That said, we've been rotating tanks for the boring single-tank fights (like Teron) lately just to keep people from getting bored doing the same thing every week. There generally isn't a big difference anyway.