Paladins as tanks

From WoWWiki

An effective tank of any class must accomplish two things:

Hold aggro on monsters the group is fighting
Mitigate damage from those monsters enough to stay alive

Generating Threat and Holding Aggro

In order to hold aggro on a target, a tank must be able to generate more threat than his comrades. A paladin tank accomplishes this mainly by dealing a large amount of Holy damage while under the influence of Righteous Fury.

A protection paladin's bread and butter threat generation tools are Consecrate and Holy Shield, with Hammer of the Righteous and Shield of Righteousness becoming available at later levels. Extra threat can be generated with Retribution Aura if the mitigation from Devotion Aura is not needed.

Paladins have two taunts available: Hand of Reckoning and Righteous Defense.

While paladins generate threat through use of holy spells, gearing for spell power is not to their advantage since 3.0 due to their spells now scaling with Attack Power as well as spell power. Strength is a Prot Paladin's best threat stat.

Advantages in Threat generation

Paladins generate threat by putting out a high amount of constant damage, rather than high threat/low damage abilities like Sunder.

The reactive Holy damage caused by Retribution Aura and Holy Shield is more than enough to overcome the threat caused by basic healing spells.

A Protection Paladin's Taunt (Righteous Defense) is extremely powerful as it can force up to three mobs off of one target, in case of a mis-pull. Once the targets are all taunted, the attacks on the Paladin and reactive damage alone is enough to maintain Aggro permanently.

Disadvantages in Threat generation

Protection Paladins will find it impossible to tank any mob that is immune to spell damage, and difficult to tank mobs that spam Mana Burn.

Damage Mitigation

Paladins achieve damage mitigation against incoming attacks in much the same way that Warriors do. Both classes wear plate armor and can equip a shield. Both classes are capable of dodging, parrying, and blocking.

Generally, the order of important for tankadins gearing up for raid is:

At least 540 defense for level 80, which is the absolute minimum needed to be uncritable by a level 83 boss mob in a raid. [Note: The requisite defense skill to be uncritable in heroics, which have only level 82 bosses, is 535.] Resilience can be added from pvp gear, to reach the necessary 5.6% reduction to crit that renders a tank uncritable. (Though resilience is not recommended as the primary approach for tanks).
When the above is met, start stacking stamina, then defense stats such as dodge, parry,block, and additional defense rating (Defense is still an excellent stat above 540). Hit and Expertise may be helpful to improve threat generation, although notably for Paladins it is more effective point-for-point to get hit (which improves the chance for all of a Paladin's melee and spell attacks to hit), rather than just expertise (which, for a Paladin, only helps auto-attack and Hammer of the Righteous). Strength is also a highly effective stat for Paladins, as the attack power from Strength helps threat generation, while the Block Value received from Strength helps the Paladin's damage mitigation as well.

The old 102.4% total avoidance/blocking needed to be uncrushable is no longer necessary since patch 3.0.2, because you can only be crushed by mobs 4 levels above you. Having full or close to full avoidance/blocking is recommended for high end raiding. If you avoid/block 102.4% currently, you are said to be block capped.

Gear is arguably the most important factor for the success of a tankadin. For those who want to learn more about tankadin gear mechanics, please check the related links at the end of this page.

Basic Paladin Tanking Abilities

Unlike most tanking classes, Paladins find themselves using many abilities, and putting out a large amount of damage.

Holy Shield

The core ability of tankadins that provides both mitigation and threat generation. It increases the chance to block by 30% and deals Holy damage to attackers when attacks are blocked. It has a total of eight charges, which should be sufficient to remain active for most boss fights but can be used up when AoE tanking.

Consecration

The Paladin signature move, capable of generating massive amounts of aggro on unlimited amounts of mobs. The mana cost of this spell is extremely high, but the tank will regenerate most of the mana back with Blessing of Sanctuary alone if tanking many mobs. This move breaks most forms of Crowd Control, so be careful when using it.

Hammer of the Righteous

Its damage is based off of the weapon's DPS and affects up to three targets. This move is the equivalent of a warrior's Cleave or a druid's Swipe.

Shield of Righteousness

Another new ability acquired at level 75, Shield of Righteousness is an extremely high damage and high threat maneuver that hits for thousands of damage. Its damage is based off of the Paladin's block value plus a fixed amount of damage. It is not affected by spell power or attack power.

Avenger's Shield

Paladin tanks can throw their shields, dealing damage to up to three targets who are within 10 yards of each other. It is normally used to pull the mobs at the beginning of a fight can also be used mid-fight as it is (now) instant cast. Avenger's Shield also dazes for 10 seconds.

Judgements

Though there are three different judgements that can be used (Light, Wisdom, or Justice), they all do the same amount of damage. However, each of them cause different debuff on the mobs. Judgement of Light heals the tank and raid members, as well as possibly lowering a healer's threat generation by reducing his need to spam heals. This can be very useful in fights where the whole raid is taking damage. Occasionally, you may also want to use Judgement of Wisdom, which replenishes mana of raid members, much like Vampiric Embrace and Replenishment. This helps damage dealers maintaining their mana throughout some longer boss fights. Currently, Seal of Vengeance/Seal of Corruption is the standard seal that provides the best threat. Furthermore, when combined with Glyph of Seal of Vengeance gives an extra 10 expertise points (not rating!). Other seals can be used for specific situation, such as when Damage over Time effect on the mob is not desired, or when replenishing of mana/health is needed.

Exorcism

Exorcism is usable on all targets, and always critically hits Demons and Undead. It does Holy Damage and so is a good threat builder, but has a 15 second cooldown. It also has a 30 yard range, allowing paladins of all specs to pull from long range without using one of their taunts immediately.

Auras

For beginner tanks in Heroics and raids, Devotion Aura will be the aura of choice. After the Paladin and all other tanks in the raid group surpass 25,000 armor, the reward for armor bonus diminishes, and Retribution Aura will make a better choice. Retribution Aura deals additional damage to attackers, helping with threat for all tanks in the group, and increasing overall dps. As of patch 3.1, the Improved Devotion Aura talent provides a healing bonus to ALL auras, so the most appropriate aura for the situation may be chosen without worry of losing talented benefits.

Blessings

Blessing of Kings is the primary blessing for most situations. It provides 10% extra stamina, agility (more dodge) and strength (more block and threat). However, when AoE tanking trash mobs, or tanking overgeared contents, Blessing of Sanctuary is better because of its mana regeneration effect. In raid, it would be the best to have both blessings! After that, Blessing of Might improves the threat and Blessing of Wisdom helps mana regeneration.

Taunts

Hand of Reckoning

This new ability added with patch 3.0.8 uses 3% of the paladins base mana and taunts the target while dealing low amount of holy damage. It has an 8 second cooldown. This new ability is akin to the warrior taunt ability. This is also the first ability available to the paladin to directly taunt a monster. Righteous Defense taunts mobs off other friendly players.

Righteous Defense

One of the Paladin's taunts. Unlike other tanks' taunt, Righteous Defense affects up to three mobs who are targeting the friendly target.

Threat Rotation

The so-called "9696 rotation" is the most common spell rotation used by experienced tanks to generation the maximum threat. It requires one point in Improved Judgement and avoiding the use of Glyph of Consecration.

6 seconds cooldown abilities:

Shield of Righteousness
Hammer of the Righteousness

9 seconds cooldown abilities:

Holy Shield
Judgement (of your choice)
Consecration

The rotation requires the use of 6 sec abilities and 9 sec abilities alternately to provide a smooth sequence that keeps the above abilities on cooldown most of the time. (Note that Holy Shield and Consecration actually are 8 seconds cooldown but there is no way to utilitize this one second without messing up the whole rotation.)

Example:

Pulling with Avenger's Shield

9: Judgement
6: Shield of Righteousness
9: Holy Shield
6: Hammer of the Righteous
9: Consecration
6: Shield of Righteouness
9: Judgement
6: Hammer of the Righteous
9: Holy Shield
6: Shield of Righteousness
9: Consecration
6: Hammer of the Righteous

repeat from 1 to 12

The order of the 6 sec abilities can be changed among themselves according to personal prefernce, so are the 9 sec abilities. Consecration can be left out in situation where AoE damage is not desired, or occasionally be replaced with Exocism, Holy Wrath or Avenger's Shield.

Emergencies, Panic Buttons and Special Situations

No matter how good your gear and skill is, you will still face situations that threaten your life from time to time as a tank. Paladins have a passive skill called Ardent Defender which significantly decreases damage taken when the Paladin's health is under 35%, giving them an effective hp boost of 15% (making it as large if not bigger than a druid's). Paladins have several panic buttons. At low health, they can restore all of their own health with Lay on Hands. When anticipating high damage, they can cast Divine Protection to reduce all damage taken by 50%, and even Sacred Shield to absorb a little more.

Paladins can Cleanse some debuffs.

Fears, stuns, other crowd control, and most debuffs can be quickly removed by using Divine Shield and immediately canceling it (made easier through the use of a macro).

Misconceptions and changes in Wrath of the Lich King

Because of major changes between The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, there are some misconceptions around Paladin tanking that need to be addressed.

Mana Supply

Because of Blessing of Sanctuary, combined with Spiritual Attunement and Divine Plea, mana supply should not be a problem for a Paladin tank. If you are running out of mana, check that you are using Blessing of Sanctuary; you may accidentally overwrite it with a greater blessing when grouped with other Paladins.

Spellpower

At level 80, Paladins should not be stacking spellpower for tanking. Spellpower does benefit Paladins by boosting holy damage from many major threat-generating abilities. However, Paladins are intended to get their spellpower through Stamina (with the talent Touched by the Light) and not by stacking it directly as it provides inferior threat compared to the other options. Level 80 gear with spellpower has stats oriented toward healing. Paladins benefit far more from gear with Strength, high Stamina and defense.

External links

Maintankadin Tank + Paladin = Tankadin. A World of Warcraft fan site for paladin tanks. Includes a blog, movies, technical articles, and a forum with a large user community to provide boss strategies, talent builds, and gear advice.
Maintankadin Forums A forum dedicated for discussion about paladin tanking. Contains a lot of useful information such as general paladin tanking guides, strategies, gear information and different talent builds.
Maintankadin Advanced Training Forums List of pertinent calculation results: breakdown of damage and threat for abilities; weapon, libram, seal, and glyph analysis; 969; exorcism and shield substititions; specs; glossary of acronyms; MATLAB code; charts; graphs; combat log output
ElitistJerks The Protection Paladin Field Guide at Elitistjerks