Heroics with Ret Tank?

[Harem]

How many folks are tearing up heroics with their Pally tank in Ret spec/gear?

I've thought about it but haven't invested in it yet. He is running with 4x ele shaman.


I figured if it was viable it would speed up my runs.

[Maxion]

I'm going to say no, since when you won't be crit immune (no defense) you'll be taking a lot more damage (not to mention the lesser damage reduction and avoidance). Though if you mean with the whole team in ilvl 264 gear or something, then maybe, might need a dedicated healer though.

[OzPhoenix]

Given the damage difference between my Prots and Rets on those few occasions when the Rets have gotten agro on something and been pummeled right quickly for it, I'd reckon this wouldn't work.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Considering you can tank with a shaman with enough gear, why wouldn't you be able to tank with a ret if you outgear the content?

[OzPhoenix]

Considering you can tank with a shaman with enough gear, why wouldn't you be able to tank with a ret if you outgear the content?

A Shaman with which spec?

Anyhow, my guys are mostly in i245's and i264's and the Rets don't stand up too flash even to standard Heroics let alone ICC Heroics let alone Raids.

I mean, they're not one-shot either, but they take WAY more damage than the Prot does on those few occasions when one of them accidently picks up agro.

[Starbuck_Jones]

Stay as a prot spec as it will help with damage reduction and tons of AOE DPS. Start swapping prot gear for ret gear w/o loosing your crit immune. Even a spell caster item or 2 to boost your int pool helps speed things up. Seal of Command and Reckoning are your friends.

This is pretty easy to do if you have ICC gear and you will mow heroics. You dont need 52k hp in a heroic or icc for that matter.

[HPAVC]

How many folks are tearing up heroics with their Pally tank in Ret spec/gear?
I've thought about it but haven't invested in it yet. He is running with 4x ele shaman.
I figured if it was viable it would speed up my runs.

How would going ret speed up your runs?

Very hard to out dps a protection paladin tanking a Leeroy pull of a room of mobs, especially if your speced seal of command trash cleave. Though not all areas are Leeroy-able, the modern prot paladin isn't trivial in its damage output. Like the other poster said ... huge EHP, no crits, monster block, reflective damage. If you end up healing the ret paladin, there just cannot be a speed increase.

I could see at some outstanding gear level (why your farming heroics at that level I have no idea) that its trivial to do heroics no matter what your spec.

I believe Wow.com has the story about the tanking Enhancement Shaman, someone would tanked all the wotlk heroics and some raids. Frankly akin to the naked hunter guy.

[Littleburst]

Considering you can tank with a shaman with enough gear, why wouldn't you be able to tank with a ret if you outgear the content?

QFT.

Allthough i think like said above, a prot pally will probably do more damage. Since he won't need a dedicated healer and pretty much won't die.

I ran several HC's on my 4 ele shaman a boomkin/fury warrior. With the fury warrior wasn't faster then with a tank, but with the Boomkin was insane fun. Starfall anyone?

4 dps + well geared tank is the fastest way to farm instances. If you skip the ICC Hc's 5 casters are probably best.

[OzPhoenix]

Even though it is viable (when you've massively outgeared the instance), the OP was also enquiring on it to "speed up his runs" - this it will definitely not do.

5 x ret versus (1xProt,4xRet) are gonna get beat for time, every time unless they've outgeared it like they're running RFC or Stockades.

[daviddoran]

As said before, once you massively outgear the place, you can "tank" with just about anything. I bet a ret paladin in full PVP gear and righteous fury could tank just fine, provided the boss died quickly. Hell I bet you could bubble/taunt and down a lot of bosses before the bubble wears off.

[Starbuck_Jones]

As I started to out gear heroics, there was a dip when it started to take longer than before. I attribute this to not taking as much damage on the tank as before. One of the ways the tank got back mana was from spiritual attunment. 10% heals to mana. If your not hurt, then no mana heals. Also mobs were dying to fast to get any real amount back from Sanctuary.

To solve this I tried all kinds of things like taking off half my armor etc. But what sped things back up was to swap out 4 tank items with caster gear. Now having a boat load of ICC caster gear in my bank, I got to be a bit picky. Replacing items that gave me the best DPS boosts/swaps. High +sp and +crit. Items w/o spi and mp5 etc. Having an 8k mana pool instead of 5k was all it took. Also glyphing for seal of command so you get back like 8% of your mana every time you use a judgement spell and use judgement of wisdom and all the over gear oom problems went away. Also not using consecration anymore helped as well if you do not have any caster gear to help with the mana pool.

[Maxion]

I just keep divine plea up. And bigger pulls means more mana from blessing of sanc