Paladin vs Warrior tank decision help.

[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.

[nodoze]

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).

[Apatheist]

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

an off healer

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.

[daviddoran]

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

[Kraxx]

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

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....

[nodoze]

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).

[Apatheist]

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

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.

benefits off the top of my head.

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.

[nodoze]

... 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.

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.