Paladin vs Warrior tank decision help.

Hey all, currently i started the following team but i'm having some doubts.
Tank: Paladin
Dps: Mage,Mage,Warlock
Heals: Priest
All level 23

I was under the impression that paladin would be the best tank due to aoe threat, however currently i'm struggling and while i know it will get better with Blessing of Salvation it seems warrior may be better?.

Warrior vs Paly dungeon scenarios:
I imagine throughout almost all of dungeons i'll be doing body pulls and laying down consecration but it seems there's really no way to guarantee maintaining threat up until that point.

On the other hand warriors can run around with the team on follow and cast battle/demo shout repeatedly for threat which seems like a much cleaner overall solution and will allow for priest heals/renews.There's also the possibility of stance swapping for Thunderclap/whirlwind and have challenging shout for big fast pulls.

Question:
Am i missing something here / does anyone have some perspective on this?

Tank: Warrior
Dps: Mage,Mage,Warlock
Heals: Paladin

Best of both worlds.

A warrior with retribution aura and fiery shield will output significant AE TPS and be much more durable than any paladin tank.

I've been floating around that idea but i'm not sure how gold Paladin heal would stand up against priest.Blessing of Salvation and retribution would be huge in terms of threat management but would it be necessary to go that far and gimp healing?

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Originally Posted by dazed1992

gimp healing

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Paladins are the strongest single target healer in the game.

Even as a priest 90% of your healing will come from heal, flash heal or greater heal. Using prayer of healing outside of specific circumstances or raids is usually pretty inefficient.

I don't really like a single Paladin healing a Melee-Cleave team with lots of random incoming damage to multiple targets (I have 2 Paladins with 3 Warriors and really like having both from a melee-cleave healing perspective). A single Paladin should be a fine healer of a ranged spell team (with decent positioning the incoming damage should be more predictable and manageable).

At 23 you can already have Consecration, Retribution Aura, Seal of Righteousness, & standard Righteous Fury and should not really be having serious Threat issues.

At 26 you should get Salvation so probably best to just power through at least to 26 and reevaluate.

Pally's just have trouble tanking raids. They are on par with warriors for everything else, the difference being salvation allows you to dps harder, and warriors have snap aggro with taunt.

We're in phase 1 right now, but in phase 2 i believe ZG opens and you may want to farm some of that, which means having a warrior would be essential.

I myself like the suggestion of a pally healer, as the only thing they cant do is aoe heal, but FoL and Shock are finished before the GCD so you can heal a lot of people really fast.

Yea, the more i think about it the more i like the idea of the paladin healer Warrrior tank. I do have a rational/maybe irrational fear that i may need AOE healing and gate myself, but i don't know how realistic that actually is.

Maybe i'm just trying to min max stuff way to far and paly priest is the safest overall with paly war min maxed for aoe.

I seem to tank as a paladin just fine. The amount of mobs you can gather when you learn to bubble pull is almost in the double digits. Plus having a backup healer on large AoE pulls is priceless.

A warrior does not hold threat once casters start aoeing. Demo shout is 30ish threat every 1.5 seconds, consecration is 100 threat per seconds.

Paladin tank can hold aggro against a mage spamming arcane explosion with blessing of salvation and arcane sublety talent, which means if they deal 250 damage every 1.5 seconds they will generate 70 threat per second.

A warlock would need a demo spec with imp to reduce his threat, making him deal 210 damage per second and 118 tps with Hellfire.

When pulling multiple packs you can throw down consecration so that casters get aggro on you, melee will get pulled with retribution aura, warriors are far worse for aoe tanking, the only reason why they were so good was because demo shout was bugged and generated more threat the more mobs you hit, but that has been fixed and they are back to being weak without consumables and engineering shield ( but with engineering shield and Limited invul potion you can pull huge packs and keep aggro on them)

Im running your comp with the paladin tank and I tend to Los pull with eye of killrog.
I maintain salvation on all casters and let consecration tick twice and then start a flamestrike cast + hellfire and follow up with arcane explosion, casters never pull aggro.

The biggest downside I expierenced is hidden aggro resets on bossfights and one of my casters getting ganked hard.

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Originally Posted by Madsage

A warrior does not hold threat once casters start aoeing.

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This is just not true. There are already videos on this forum of people having no trouble holding threat on their warrior tanks post-hotfix. This comp is also with a priest healer and without the advantage of salvation and retribution aura. He's also not using any TPS consumables that I can see.

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Originally Posted by Hardcore Scape

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntd006kPB-4

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Originally Posted by dazed1992

I do have a rational/maybe irrational fear that i may need AOE healing and gate myself

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Put it this way. There are no encounters a paladin can't heal but there are many a paladin can't tank. Most of them are in raids but there are quite a few dungeon encounters where having a warrior with taunt and viable defensive cooldowns will make everything so much easier. The interaction between limited invuln potions and AE taunt makes clearing some areas ridiculously simple.

Regarding AE healing - it's not an issue. A paladin can literally spam flash of light non stop in decent gear. With around 500 healing in close to preraid BiS and blessing of light flash of light rank 1 heals for about 700hp+ / 1.5s (without blessing of light) and costs 35 mana. Prayer of healing costs over 1,000 mana and heals for about 1600/3.5s party-wide. You can literally cast 29 flash R1 for the same cost as a single prayer and you'll still be full mana because you will regen faster than you're spending mana.

Actually, the only thing I would miss from a priest is an offensive dispel and fear ward. Paladin healing is far superior IMO. If you really need an offensive dispel you can swap to a felhunter and warriors already have tools to break fear.

I saw that video and warrior has to use Demoralizing shout 8 times with Skullflame shield and a shield spike before he can start using aoe spells and even then he loses aggro once mobs are low on hp, a paladin needs 1 consecration and he will never lose aggro in the same circumstances.

It comes down to the fact that you lose time generating threat and that you have to be more alert with your warrior, once a paladin establishes aoe threat you will not pull from him.

With a paladin you could do even bigger pulls, have less downtime and not waste half of your healers mana before starting with dps.

You can't do bigger pulls though. If the warrior almost died several times to the amount of mobs he's pulling the paladin would already be dead. He's already maintaining agro fine. If his healer was a paladin with ret aura and salvation threat would be a non issue.

With a paladin you have to drink after every pull if you're using consecration. Warriors have far less down time than paladins. It's also not true that consecrate is enough to hold threat by itself. It's a combination of holy shield, ret aura and consecration. A warlock can still pull agro with consecration alone. If you lose agro on a mob your threat generation decreases significantly so it's much more difficult to regain agro without a taunt.

Paladins are easier at low levels before you get gear and when the mobs are easier. At 55+ in end game dungeons warriors are just better tanks across the board for both single target and AE TPS. The gap keeps getting wider the better your gear gets.

Both options are viable and each with their own pros/cons. If you have 1+ Mage in your party and thus free Water and will be drinking anyway due to caster DPS then I don't see a downside to Paladin+Priest unless you really want to main a Warrior and/or are doing raid content with Crushing Blows.

Priest+Paladin gives 2 Rezzers, an off healer, more buffs (and thus a slight improvement to overall party survivability), good "oh shit" options, and Priest healing brings extra tools to the table (you can HoT, Shield, & AoE Heal in emergencies).

Paladin healers are by far the best single-target healers in the game and generally the most mana efficient and can be fine for parties as well but you do have less tools so generally Priests are a better recommendation for most boxers (note that I main a Paladin and prefer Paladins over Priests for myself).

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Originally Posted by nodoze

unless you really want to main a Warrior and/or are doing raid content with Crushing Blows.

an off healer

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Raid tanking is only part of the issue. There are several dungeons where having a warrior with cooldowns and taunt makes the encounter significantly easier. Not only the bosses, but trash clearing. For example, being able to jump off the bridge in Scholo and use LIP/AE taunt skip a bunch of trash. You can do things with a warrior that a paladin simply can't survive.

Also, many people don't realize how powerful piercing howl is. You can kite any number of enemies indefinitely with an AE daze that only costs 10 rage and generates threat. Since you only need at most 19 points in protection to tank any content in the game, you can build all kinds of utility into a warrior tank.

The off healer point is the only reason I've recommend a paladin tank in the past. If you intend to take your team into raids or do a lot of world PvP being able to hybrid prot/holy spec and just swap your tank to healing gear is useful.

Or, you could go Horde and the decision is made up for you :cool:. I'm trying to debate Warrior vs Druid vs Shaman tanking.

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Originally Posted by daviddoran

Or, you could go Horde and the decision is made up for you :cool:. I'm trying to debate Warrior vs Druid vs Shaman tanking.

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Horde on a pvp server means that you have to search a long time for enemies - that is the main reason why I'm playing alliance ;-)
Endless enemies incoming....

The optimal discussion isn't just Warrior Tank vs Paladin Tank... If you go Warrior Tank your threat is best with a Paladin Healer but you do lose some things by losing a Priest... Going Paladin tank means you can go with a Priest healer and gives the party lots of utility:

Tank bubble pulls.
Tank bubbles Priest or other party members to save them;
Tank sacrifice self to prevent wipe (did that in my melee team yesterday).
Tank being able to cleanse the primary healer;
Tank being able to heal the primary healer;
Tank being able to off heal to finish a fight if main healer goes down;
Tank being able to double healing output in some scenarios;
Tank cleanse self;
Tank being able to cast non-pushback heals on self;
Tank being able to Lay on Hands on anyone then pop mana potion;
Tank being able to rez the Priest/party;
Priest bubble Tank (and not hurt Threat much) to help smooth things out;
Priest HoT Tank to help smooth things out;
Priest bubble Eye of Killrog for easier pulls;
Fear Ward on Tank;
Fear Ward on Healer (&/or other party members);
+25% armor on Tank/Party from Priest heals;
Extra Stamina across the party;
Extra Spirit across the party;
AoE healing options;
Healer being able to contribute to DPS from range when not healing;
2 Healers if you take your party into PVP;

And those are just the benefits off the top of my head and they add up to a lot increasing the Quality of Life for a MultiBoxer (especially a newer one).

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Originally Posted by daviddoran

Or, you could go Horde and the decision is made up for you :cool:. I'm trying to debate Warrior vs Druid vs Shaman tanking.

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My opinion on that would be pretty similar to the warrior/paladin question. You can tank on a shaman if you build and gear towards it and understand its limitations but a druid will do better in every aspect of tanking.

However, if your reason for wanting a shaman tank (which was my only reason for considering playing paladin as a tank) is so you can respec at 60 and have 5 shamans for PvP/raids that's a separate consideration. I would never pick a shaman/paladin to tank over a warrior or druid solely for their tanking capability because it's demonstrably inferior.

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Originally Posted by nodoze

benefits off the top of my head.

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I'm not saying paladins don't have utility. I'm just saying that if your goal is soloing dungeons efficiently and you just want to know which is the "best" tank/healer composition for a caster team (which was the original question) then the answer is warrior/paladin IMO.

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Originally Posted by Apatheist

... I'm not saying paladins don't have utility. I'm just saying that if your goal is soloing dungeons efficiently and you just want to know which is the best "best" tank/healer composition for a caster team (which was the original question) then the answer is warrior/paladin IMO.

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Paladin+Priest is the wiser Tank+Healer combo over Warrior+Paladin for most multi-boxers running caster teams that are focused on running Dungeons. IMO.

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Originally Posted by nodoze

Paladin+Priest is the wiser Tank+Healer combo over Warrior+Paladin for most multi-boxers running caster teams that are focused on running Dungeons. IMO.

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Fair enough. At the end of the day, classic dungeons are easy and just about any 5 characters are capable of completing them so I guess it's largely a matter of preference and what else you want to do with those characters outside of leveling and farming preraid gear.

Which, when you think about it, is probably where the real choices should happen. Leveling and preraid farming are a relatively small portion of your overall time investment in a character.

I think that people are kind of arguing two points here.

Warriors are the better tanks at this point of WoW. However, the issue is, how much "tank" do you actually need for leveling purposes? In which case the ease of use and simplicity and effectiveness of the Paladin comes into play. Paladin is good enough for all 5 man classic content, and in a lot of ways superior due to not needing that superior raw "tank" for the content we're talking about. They have better aoe threat generation for one.

We can present a few debateable edge case scenarios about what a warrior can and a paladin can't do, but the greatest portion of your time leveling up, the paladin being fire and forget threat magnet, is going to make the process less of a headache for most people. If your goal is to have an actual end game tank at 60 you're going to raid with, then level a warrior. If you just want the easiest path to 60, I'd suggest using a paladin to tank.

I have been testing warrior and a paladin today and concluded that if you want to run high level dungeons to gear up your team a warrior is preferable because of superior mitigation, improved demo shout reduces mob damage by 30% and defensive stance by an additional 10%.

Paladins can block more attacks but against mobs that hit for 400 or more damage they risk dying if they pull too many mobs, and even though warriors take a lot longer to establish threat by spamming demo shout or cleaving/sundering your healer will use roughly the same amount of mana per fight because of 30% damage taken difference on hard hitting mobs.

So I agree with Apatheist, Paladins are superior in lower level dungeons, but at 55 plus dungeons warrior overtake them

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Originally Posted by Apatheist

Fair enough. At the end of the day, classic dungeons are easy and just about any 5 characters are capable of completing them so I guess it's largely a matter of preference and what else you want to do with those characters outside of leveling and farming preraid gear.

Which, when you think about it, is probably where the real choices should happen. Leveling and preraid farming are a relatively small portion of your overall time investment in a character.

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this is how i feel about it. I dont think levels 20-50 should be considered for your tanking choice unless you're quitting the game when you hit 60. After getting pre-raid bis on a pally or a warrior, what is there to do from there? If you're just going too farm 5mans than a pally is the best choice. Anything beyond that pve-wise there isnt an option, it's warrior by a landslide. But then you have to consider how many raid bosses will you be tanking, and I dunno about everyone else, but i'll likely be switching my tank to dps along with the rest of my team for raids. When ZG comes out in phase 2 than everything changes. We may be able to box a lot of that raid, along with AQ 20. Which settles it for me. Pally for farming 5mans, and warrior for everything tougher.

I think everyone is pretty much on the same page. My focus is usually helping new boxers or boxers new to WoW which is why I generally recommend the Paladin+Priest+2Warlock+Mage team (or 2Mage+Warlock) composition as I think it is the most forgivable with the best overall utility and combination of built in tools and survivable toons (even an off Tank)... That is obviously sans other goals that take precedence (like wanting to main a Rogue, Warrior, etc)...

Many of us are running a theoretically superior team to the above team with higher DPS potential (like 4Warriors+Healer) but are finding it a lot harder than the above ranged team. Personally I am finding my all melee team pretty challenging to level which can be frustrating seeing others go faster but I kinda like it regardless. The point is I wouldn't necessarily recommend it (especially to new players or new multiboxers).

In the end it as Apathist said it ultimately does come down to "what else you want to do with those characters" at cap and since I wanted at least 2 Paladins & 1-2 Warriors at cap I pretty much need to do something like the team I am doing (unless I want to level 2 teams)...

Thanks everyone for the great discussion and especially thanks to Apatheist for all the solid input and for giving me the idea for the team I am running (even though it is painful at times :) ).