having 2 prot pallies in the guild

[blitzme99]

I was the paladin tank for a long time in our current guild.

we basically only ran with one.

We recently recruited a very well geared prot pally with a decent amount of skill.

We have run with 2 prot pallies so far in Bt, allowing one of our other prot warriors to DPS.

So right now our current set up is as follows for tanks:

1 warrior - main tank
2 DPS/prot warriors (theses guys use a devastate spam build that allows them to do decent dps and tank without respeccing)
2 prot pallies - We drop back and heal and decurse during boss fights.

I understand that while this covers all of our tanking needs and allows us to have some extra dps and heals during bosses, what is the consensus on having 2 prot pallies in the raid?

[PsiVen]

Um, sounds like you have 3 too many Prot specs.

Seriously though, that might work for farm content but BT progression will suck horribly with 2 prot paladins healing and 2 prot warriors DPSing. Respec everyone who isn't tanking on the new encounters. Respecs are NOT that expensive.

2 Prot pallies is only decent if you have all 3 warriors respec DPS. What would you even use 2 hybrid spec warriors with 3 full prot specs in the raid?

[Dorvan]

Prot Pallies are generally the lest useful tanks to double up on to be honest. They don't stack well for AoE tanking (they can both consecrate, but only one is building threat from Ret Aura/Holy Shield/BoSanc at a time), and taunt coordination between them is messy/impossible on trash.

That said, there's no reason it can't work, and I've done it on a few occasions, its simply my feeling that the ideal number of Prot Pallies in a 25 man raid is one: no more, no less. Also, that having 2 prot pallies in a raiding guild is best when the dynamic is more "one main raider/one backup raider" rather than 2 prot pallies in all the time.

[Steve]

More than 2 prot spec'd players in a 25 man raid is almost always suboptimal.

Since paladins are inferior raid boss tanks to warriors by some amount (whether negligible or not negligible), the typical raid setup will include a prot warrior MT.

Which really only leaves room for 1 prot spec paladin.

There will be some encounters where this is beneficial, and others where it won't be. In BT, it won't matter because of the nature of the enciounter tuning. In Sunwell, it will matter a great deal more.

Though Sunwell in general is tuned in such a way as to give rise to all sorts of group composition issues.

History will show it to be the Naxx of TBC -- and I mean that in the bad way. Both zones were tuned well beyond Blizzard's ability to balance classes.

[Snake-Aes]

2 prot pallies don't synergize very well, but it's far from "too bad".

Like, it sucks in hyjal: One of you two won't be tanking more than what you taunt. Otherwise it's not a big deal.

All bosses can be done with 2 paladins just like they can be done with 2 warriors, or 2 druids, or a warrior and a paladin, or a warrior and a druid, or.. whatever.

[ZombieRitual]

Having two warriors "dps" as prot is completely ridiculous. Have them respecc arms or fury so they can up their dps and just have them throw on tank gear should they ever need to OT and kill their targets last. Problem solved, raid dps upped.

[Arsyn]

Another problem is when you need to seperate mobs. As you cannot taunt a single target, it becomes trickier. Saw this in ZA the other day when we had to seperate bears, but one pally got aggro on both then the other had to build aggro on the second mob to peel it off.

We have two prot pallies in the RG but they don't often go together on a raid. Especially with a severe shortage of Holy Paladins suitable for BT on the server and not allied with an RG already.

[Hoops]

We have 3 tankadins in our guild. I remember when we took 2 to Hyjal. That wasnt a pretty sight and it made things a lot more confusing.

[Talwen]

My old raid group actually had three prot pallies who were pretty regular for raids (and often no bears or warrios). It was perfectly fine on some fights, but by and large pretty disastrous--the inability to single-target taunt, for example, made separating the weapons on phase 2 of Kael quite problematic. And in Hyjal one of us would tank trash waves, while the other two pretended to be warriors, removing abominations from the first tank by judging righteousness. I wouldn't recommend it at all.

[Holyfuri]

I pretty much agree with everything said earlier. In any pug raids I usually frown when I see another prot pally. Not because of competition or epeen, but because it just is harder to work together, mainly because of threat mechanics and our taunt mechanic.

I ran ZA with another prot pally once. It worked, but it was about ten times more frustrating and demanding than it needed to be.

You are really hurting your dps with that many prot specced people in the raid. You have two options.

1. Have your extra prot players respec to dps or healing.

2. Run a tank bench rotation. We have two prot warriors, myself, and two feral druids. The druid and warriors usually alternate sitting out on raids, and if some can't make a raid night we still end up with enough tanks. If we had another prot pally I would be in the alternating boat as well. Either method works to balance the raid and prevent tank burnout.

[aureon]

atm my guild's tanking corpse is seriusly overbloated (4warr, 3druid, 2pala), we survive only coz of ppl on vacations, and anyway ferals are relegated on DPS, and we're still benching quite much.
just rotate.

[Amirya]

My tank corps is crazy insane.

3 prot paladins
2 prot warriors
2 feral druids

This only works because:
1 paladin doesn't run with us because he refuses to follow the rules I set (he runs with pugs and his "other" guild)
1 paladin is new, and we'll see how long he lasts
1 paladin (me) has a mage and a hunter to pull out as well

1 prot warrior is new to 70, and is still crushable
1 prot warrior only shows up about every 6 days

1 feral druid hasn't shown up in awhile, but he's also in suboptimal gear
1 feral druid is perfectly happy to go kitty or slap on his healing gear

[Richter]

We usually run with 2 prot pally and 2 druids, one warrior alt when needed.

Its not so much that the guild thinks of prot pallys beeing superior tanks just that the two former prot warrior pretty much left when they got their next tier upgrade.

It works out pretty well, one usually bosstanks while the other get in their offgear to heal or DPS, progressed through BT and hyjal that way quite smoothly. Also, most guildis now think 2 prot pally are absolutely essential for hyjal.

[Magnusharkov]

1 prot warrior is new to 70, and is still crushable

How the hell can a prot warrior be crushable? I havent done the maths in a while but pretty much as long as you have a shield in your hand and can click shield block you are more or less uncrushable while naked.

[Markoh]

Ya my guilds tank core is pretty heavy too

3 prot warriors
2 feral druids (recruiting one more atm too)
2 prot pallies

The other pally and myself have full sunwell healing gear and switch alot, also one of the druids has full sunwell lvl healing set also. We cope with it by just switching people alot and have ppl respec when needed.

Having a heavy tanking core can actually be a really ideal situation, because you have the depth for absences and different make ups. The only thing is if you have alot of tanks they need to be ok with sitting for stuff.