Does a Tankadin make a big difference in BT?

Cheers for the feedback so far guys, was pretty much what I was expecting. Indeed QD, if you are GM and RL, you generally will have a lot more leeway to try things as a paladin tank. As an officer and co-raidleader plus the guy who draws up most of our tactics I should have that, but that guild leadership loves warriors and we have 4 active prot wariors and no ferals. That's leaving me in a bit of a dark spot, considering the last two raids we've gone on where I haven't even had an add to tank despite having the highest TPS (warriors leeaching off my aggro with Taunt pisses me off to no end.).

We nailed Kael last night after a few nights of attempts which was immensely satisfying and proceeded to 15 man 6 waves of Rage's trash. Seemed pretty fun for the first time, throw down a Consecrate and win. I don't mind trash tanking for Hyjal, but if that's all I have to look forward to in BT with the current warrior climate I'm skeptical about how long I'll remain a tank.

Thanks anyhow, a few opinions that give food for thought
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My blog, epic indeed.

In your situation the best tank setup you can bring to BT is 2 prot warriors and 1 prot paladin. It's the setup we always use nowadays.
Althought except maybe Supremus and Bloodboil don't expect to be tanking bosses often
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I kind of thought MH was fun for a while as well, but not its just a pain, we do clear it in 1 night tho, but there isn't any drop there that I really need, for either prot (full t6), retri(insane gear) och holy(good enough)
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I have to bring coffee when we do Hyjal, it became zzzzzzzzzzzz
Consecration Consecration Consecration Consecration Consecration Consecration Consecration Consecration Consecration Consecration Consecration Consecration Consecration oh is the boss dead?
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Gearwise that's how I feel with the T5 content. Got everything I need, required for the add bosses/Leo, so on. Same preference in gear too I guess, my Ret gear is really decent for this stage, as is the tank gear... Holy got neglected. I imagine Hyjal will get the same, but while it's fresh it should be enjoyable at least.

Thanks again guys, and I will consider that setup for BT going forward Worldie. Problem is I play for a challenge and to prove things can be done, I get massively irritated when I'm just slapping on a Judgement and AFKing my way through stuff. Guess that goes for all of us though
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My blog, epic indeed.

I don't know your activity in your guild, but i am an officer as well, the guy that do the tactics (and i don't forget to include paladin tanking in it ) and a raid leader in my guild and i have found that the best way to prove yourself is by being very active and reliable. Luckily our warriors are not that active, and we have several good and active druids. But the guild was created after TBC launch and while it was difficult at first, i can main tank now without any problems, questions or healers forgetting that i am a tank (got many whispers from healers saying they would never have believed a paladin can tank, if they didn't saw me)

I main-tanked vashj for our progression kill and i'm main-tanking kael for the progression kill as well, getting hit by the first pyro, using shield for the second, the third being always interrupted (40% the other day, should go down tonight. gonna try to fraps it).

It all comes down to skills, knowledge of the fights and activity (i have top attendance and top dkp in my guild). 99% of the wipes are happening because of one or several players doing mistakes and not because of who is tanking the boss. I haven't experienced t6 content, but i have found no real difference in a fight being tanked by a warrior or a tankadin. If the healers and the tanks are good, doing it without shield wall/last stand/tauren racial bonus is not a problem and i never felt like slowing my guild progression.

Except one warrior in my guild that i /roll with to decide who mt the boss (he's less active than me, but in the guild since the first day and we get along well), all the other warriors we recruit are experiencing new things : "oh, a boss, k you are on that add, you on that one, i take the boss" or "hm a threat fight (vr/leo..), k the druid and me will tank the boss since we can generate way more tps (based on previous attempts of course), put on your dps gear". But of course, for bosses like al'ar where i'm far superior in gathering adds in phase 2 and morogrim where i'm the best at taking care of murlocs, i do what is best for the raid. However, i'm already planning to tank a lot of bosses in t6 .

I can only wish you the best of luck, having a server that is tankadin friendly (successful tankadins on alliance side as well) and not very active warriors helps (sometimes we even have to hope one is gonna sign-up to tank sanguinar or make a dps warrior respec...)
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We have an incredible amount of active tankadins on our server, and we are popular for many things.

You are correct that attendance is very important, I have 99% attendance in our guild, so if druid or warror tank is away, I will be there to take there place, and have done so a few times, tanking the whole of Mount Hyjal with only a Feral Druid and me as tanks, he takes Kaz'Rogal and Azgalor, I take the rest. However, we have 2 Warrior tanks in T6 gear, one transfered, he usually plays DPS but if the MT is gone, he suits up since a Warrior IS needed on some fights in BT, and respeccing mid-raid is not an option, ergo. I'm back on the sideline. I always have a guaranteed spot in the raid tho, I have good enough Holy and Retri gear to spec anything the raid needs.

I also flawlessly tanked the Flame of Azzinoth the first time i tried it (actually all the tries/kills ive been on), where the druid and warrior tanks before me had failed in phase 2 so many times we could not count.

Be the best at what you do.
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My words was actually referring to his situation, he said that they have very active prot warriors doing good job, so i don't see him given many tanking opportunities except on fights where we have gimmicks favouring us.

He even specified that the GM is somehow anti-tankadin and doesn't like the idea of a paladin tanking bosses, so i expect him not tanking often. Does that sound wrong?
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The social racism of anti-tankadin people is still what kills our class nowadays more than our weaknesses.

We hardly "don't tank" cause of weakness, most of the time we don't tank cause "no lol paladin can't tank let the cow do it"
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It's not my attendance, my gear or my ability to play the role letting my down, I've been pretty much the only alliance-side progress tankadin since TBC came out. My gear is the best I can get my hands on, I'm considered very good at what I do and I'm there for 95% of raids. The problem is indeed the guild situation as Worldie said. We have 3 active warriors - the GM/RL/MT who has the least stamina of all, a long-term member and tank who has the 3rd lowest stamina, a friend of mine who tanked the Kael kill with the most health of all, and then me. I've suggested tank rotations and so on and so forth, but typically the GM tanks everything.

It's not so much an anti-tankadin thing even, it's just a very, very strange logic which I can see coming to hamper us soon enough. I have more stamina in my current gear than our MT, even. Seeing as it's not the gear, the skill or the attendance, I'm guessing it's a stigma that all of T5 content still hasn't had an effect on, which is leading me as much to the respec thing as the design of the encounters
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My blog, epic indeed.

Let's see... we kill our T6 content in 2, sometimes 2 1/2 days with me as the MT in Black Temple...

Naj'entus - me
Supremus - me as MT, druid and warrior OTs
Akama - me on one side, warrior on one side, druid on Defenders
Gorefiend - me or a warrior (we /random for it)
Bloodboil - me and a druid
RoS - warrior/me on p1, warrior p2, me p3 (our dps is almost to where we could just do without Deadens, we'll see)
Shahraz - druid MT, me and warrior OT
Council - me on the rogue, warrior on priest, warrior on Gathios
Illidan - me on Illidan, warriors on flames

At least out of our tanking group, I take less damage, generate (a LOT) more threat, and have the strongest technical skills. So at least for my guild, we use a tankadin heavily for progression and pretty much on any fight where a tankadin CAN do it.

For us, the player > class. We're not min-maxers, we love our offspecs, and since we're farming Illidan, who's going to say we're wrong? At least we know that there will be some Sunwell progression from the tankadin perspective, unless every boss requires Spell Reflect.
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[img]http://www.wowsigs.com/sigs/24300/Earthen Ring/Aetherial.jpg[/img]

No matter what Blizzard fixes about our class or the encounters, they can't fix player apathy due to preconceived and long-held biases.

Only time and players playing the spec well can do that. That's why I'm here. That's why I am playing this spec in the first place.
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