Paladin vs Warrior tank decision help.

[Madsage]

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)

[Apatheist]

A warrior does not hold threat once casters start aoeing.

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.

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

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.

[Madsage]

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.

[Apatheist]

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.