Can Paladin just get a normal taunt like the other tanks?

[Tasman]

I think this is too much, with this attitude all classes should get a rework. Let's try to be realistic.

Minimum list, which is needed, to make prot paladin properly work. Devs can gradually add some class changes in each new patch. Because it is a complex task, that requires multiple changes and additions.

[Dzonatan]

I think this is too much, with this attitude all classes should get a rework. Let's try to be realistic.

False comparison.
Other classes are nowhere near dysfunctional in their roles as Prot Paladins are.

[Kairion]

I think this is too much, with this attitude all classes should get a rework. Let's try to be realistic.

False comparison.
Other classes are nowhere near dysfunctional in their roles as Prot Paladins are.

Calling Prot paladin dysfunctional is extremely dishonest. He has some more weaknesses than the other tanks and there are a few bosses who are not really tankable by paladin due to the bosses specific mechanic, but at the bottom line, many raidguilds including naxx clearing and progressing ones use tankpaladins just fine.

Paladin is held back mainly by shitty itemisation. Y'all make it sound like paladin is a meme like tank shaman, and thats objectively not true. He can perform the role of the tank to an adequate degree with many class specific upsides.

[Dzonatan]

Calling Prot paladin dysfunctional is extremely dishonest. He has some more weaknesses than the other tanks and there are a few bosses who are not really tankable by paladin due to the bosses specific mechanic, but at the bottom line, many raidguilds including naxx clearing and progressing ones use tankpaladins just fine.

Paladin is held back mainly by shitty itemisation. Y'all make it sound like paladin is a meme like tank shaman, and thats objectively not true. He can perform the role of the tank to an adequate degree with many class specific upsides.

Just because a steak can be cut with a side of the fork doesn't mean the fork is proper tool to do.
Same principle applies to Paladin. Sure you can make it kinda work, but other options work better and a meaningfully subset of player base will ask the ugly question.

"Why bother?"

Anything Prot Paladin can do can be done by Holy Paladin while a proper tanking class hits the field. Once again the ugly question gets dropped.

"Why bother?"

[Tasman]

Calling Prot paladin dysfunctional is extremely dishonest. He has some more weaknesses than the other tanks and there are a few bosses who are not really tankable by paladin due to the bosses specific mechanic, but at the bottom line, many raidguilds including naxx clearing and progressing ones use tankpaladins just fine.

Paladin is held back mainly by shitty itemisation. Y'all make it sound like paladin is a meme like tank shaman, and thats objectively not true. He can perform the role of the tank to an adequate degree with many class specific upsides.

I think it is much easier to make skill/tallent additions and changes, than making a lots of new items, to make spec properly work at all level ranges. If there is lack of some stat in itemisation, it would be easier to achieve through talents. As example talent that allows scaling of one stat by established percentage from other.

[Kairion]

Calling Prot paladin dysfunctional is extremely dishonest. He has some more weaknesses than the other tanks and there are a few bosses who are not really tankable by paladin due to the bosses specific mechanic, but at the bottom line, many raidguilds including naxx clearing and progressing ones use tankpaladins just fine.

Paladin is held back mainly by shitty itemisation. Y'all make it sound like paladin is a meme like tank shaman, and thats objectively not true. He can perform the role of the tank to an adequate degree with many class specific upsides.

Just because a steak can be cut with a side of the fork doesn't mean the fork is proper tool to do.
Same principle applies to Paladin. Sure you can make it kinda work, but other options work better and a meaningfully subset of player base will ask the ugly question.

"Why bother?"

Anything Prot Paladin can do can be done by Holy Paladin while a proper tanking class hits the field. Once again the ugly question gets dropped.

"Why bother?"

Love the comparison with the steak

But paladin is inherently a class that supports others with its buffs. If paladin is equal to the "selfish" tank classes in tanking, you flip the question around and ask "why bother to bring a warrior tank if a paladin can do the same while also buffing his group?"

Paladin functions to a perfectly adequate lvl in lvling content and 60s dungeons. The only place he is falling off is raiding due to the lack of easily obtainable crit immunity combined with the lowest healthpool/passive mitigation of all tanks. That's something that can be remedied with something as simple as giving increased redoubt uptime or a buff to holy shields blockchance with a new capstone talent or some raid lvl prot pally gear.

I picked paladin precisely because i did not want the cookiecutter easy tank warrior. And i have to ask the question, why are people picking paladin and then get frustrated finding out that its not a warrior? Many of the changes proposed would just serve to make paladin another warrior with upside. Not acknowledging the upsides paladin tanks in their current form do provide to their raids.

[Regaldandin]

Man you guys have lost the plot and have no idea what makes vanilla fun.

"lets just take away every weakness a class has cuz i play that class"

Please seriously don't be offended by this. but Go Back To Retail and never come back

[Getplucked]

^ Low effort bait.

[Dzonatan]

Love the comparison with the steak

Thanks. I was hungry when I was typing that.

But paladin is inherently a class that supports others with its buffs. If paladin is equal to the "selfish" tank classes in tanking, you flip the question around and ask "why bother to bring a warrior tank if a paladin can do the same while also buffing his group?"

The changes I proposed would hardly make Paladin equal to Warrior.
I ask for on proper taunt when Druid has 2 and Warrior has 3.
I ask for streamlined resource tool when Warrior doesn't need any.
I ask for CS to be good while Warrior has Revenge, Bloodthirst.
I ask for 1 Defensive cooldown when Warrior has 3 (LS, SW and BWL trinket)
I ask for 1 DPS cooldown when Warrior has 2 (Reck, DW)

The idea that Paladin having 1/3 of what Warrior has would invalidate him is funny to me.

Paladin functions to a perfectly adequate lvl in lvling content and 60s dungeons. The only place he is falling off is raiding due to the lack of easily obtainable crit immunity combined with the lowest healthpool/passive mitigation of all tanks. That's something that can be remedied with something as simple as giving increased redoubt uptime or a buff to holy shields blockchance with a new capstone talent or some raid lvl prot pally gear.

I can get behind that.

I picked paladin precisely because i did not want the cookiecutter easy tank warrior. And i have to ask the question, why are people picking paladin and then get frustrated finding out that its not a warrior? Many of the changes proposed would just serve to make paladin another warrior with upside. Not acknowledging the upsides paladin tanks in their current form do provide to their raids.

I am not frustrated that paladin is not equal to a warrior, I'm frustrated that paladin is not equal to a good tank.

[Aeternusdoleo]

Calling Prot paladin dysfunctional is extremely dishonest. He has some more weaknesses than the other tanks and there are a few bosses who are not really tankable by paladin due to the bosses specific mechanic, but at the bottom line, many raidguilds including naxx clearing and progressing ones use tankpaladins just fine.

Paladin is held back mainly by shitty itemisation. Y'all make it sound like paladin is a meme like tank shaman, and thats objectively not true. He can perform the role of the tank to an adequate degree with many class specific upsides.

Just because a steak can be cut with a side of the fork doesn't mean the fork is proper tool to do.
Same principle applies to Paladin. Sure you can make it kinda work, but other options work better and a meaningfully subset of player base will ask the ugly question.

"Why bother?"

Anything Prot Paladin can do can be done by Holy Paladin while a proper tanking class hits the field. Once again the ugly question gets dropped.

"Why bother?"

Because if you only go for the top meta builds, it wouldn't be much fun, that's why. You'd only have 3 or 4 build per role that everyone gets locked in to.

Paladin has disadvantages while tanking. I found that out yesterday during a Crescent Grove run - mana burn heavy enemies (Raging Infernals) did not make for fun times. But the party adapted and we found another way to take those on. Paladins also struggle against enemies that Silence.

But the Paladin tank has advantages in that you can self heal, and with SoW and a fast weapon you're like an energizer bunny mana wise, and the holy damage a Pally deals both bypasses a lot of defenses and generates that extra threat that you need to keep up with your DDs. Pallies can also self-purify most debuffs and in very specific cases, pop their bubble to survive something that any other class would get KO'd by. Risky as a tank since you lose aggro that way, but, it's a tool in the toolbox. And you have the emergency full heal with Lay On Hands.

I'll admit that the current taunt is a bit difficult to use, requiring you to switch off SoW, go SoJ and Judge the target. Expensive manawise if you get a boss that keeps switching targets (also found one of those in Crescent Grove - I thought Thermaplugg was bad with that, oh my). But all in all, I don't think it's that bad. Mana management seems key to effective Paladin tanking is my current impression (at lvl 40, not at endgame yet).

[Getplucked]

But the Paladin tank has advantages in that you can self heal

not while tanking lol

and with SoW and a fast weapon you're like an energizer bunny mana wise

You mean like how warrior gets tons of free rage from taking damage? Being able to have resources to generate threat is not an advantage.

and the holy damage a Pally deals both bypasses a lot of defenses and generates that extra threat that you need to keep up with your DDs.

And yet, warriors still have higher TPS than paladins

pop their bubble to survive something that any other class would get KO'd by.

Again, not while tanking because the mobs will turn around and kill the DPS/healer.

And you have the emergency full heal with Lay On Hands.

On an hour cooldown, so you can use it once per dungeon. And it drains all your mana so you better have a mana potion or judgement of wisdom on the target or you're fucked.

Compare this with Warrior, who gets a massive -75% damage reduction with half the cooldown. On top of a +30% max health buff on a 10 minute cooldown.

Paladin's issue is that it's just straight-up worse than the other tanks. If it didn't have Consecrate, there'd be no reason to use one. Consistent AoE threat is pretty much the one real advantage Paladin has, everywhere else, it is worse than Warrior or Druid for tanking.

[Aeternusdoleo]

But the Paladin tank has advantages in that you can self heal

not while tanking lol

Why not? I put points in Spiritual Focus, tack on Concentration and I get to 100% chance to not lose casting time while being hit. You can heal (and take healing aggro) while tanking that way. That's not something any other class can do. Sure, you'll eat some mana doing it. But it gives good aggro and saves your healer for later in big fights.

and with SoW and a fast weapon you're like an energizer bunny mana wise

You mean like how warrior gets tons of free rage from taking damage? Being able to have resources to generate threat is not an advantage.

and the holy damage a Pally deals both bypasses a lot of defenses and generates that extra threat that you need to keep up with your DDs.

And yet, warriors still have higher TPS than paladins

I don't doubt it. But that doesn't make the pally tank unviable. Especially for mechanics that require you to heal/purify yourself when a boss renders your healer disabled.

pop their bubble to survive something that any other class would get KO'd by.

Again, not while tanking because the mobs will turn around and kill the DPS/healer.

Yes, this is more for mechanics where the boss does some kind of high damage scripted event that locks it in place. IE when aggro isn't a problem briefly. Pally tank can just stick right at him, safely protected. Or you can do this while doing an initial body pull, before any other party member has any aggro at all. It's a tool that is potent, but you need to know when to use it and when not to.

And you have the emergency full heal with Lay On Hands.

On an hour cooldown, so you can use it once per dungeon. And it drains all your mana so you better have a mana potion or judgement of wisdom on the target or you're fucked.

Compare this with Warrior, who gets a massive -75% damage reduction with half the cooldown. On top of a +30% max health buff on a 10 minute cooldown.

It also restores some mana. Not a lot, but enough to give you a few options. It is something to do when your mana and health run low and your healer is tapped out or otherwise unavailable. Basically a "get out of jail free" card once an hour.

Paladin's issue is that it's just straight-up worse than the other tanks. If it didn't have Consecrate, there'd be no reason to use one. Consistent AoE threat is pretty much the one real advantage Paladin has, everywhere else, it is worse than Warrior or Druid for tanking.

Ohh... that just made me think of an alternative taunt method. A new ability. "For xx seconds, any holy damage you deal taunts the enemy into attacking you". Short duration, moderately long cooldown, moderate mana cost. Deep in the Prot tree. That'd turn Concecrate into an AOE taunt and all the other Holy damage skills into auto taunts for a brief duration.

[Integer667]

adding a taunt will just help paladins in low-level dungeons so i don't see why some people are up in arms against it, if added paladins still are under druids/warriors in terms of tanking capability, especially end-game where there is no gear to make a paladin tank to be practical

[Getplucked]

Why not?

Because you can't block/dodge/parry while you're casting. You're just going to be eating that much more damage while you cast that 2.5 second heal on yourself.
Also, in order to get that talent to be pushback immune, you'd have to drop 10 points from the Ret tree, giving up Vengeance which is a huge threat boost. You're gimping your threat per second just to output some weak heals on yourself while eating more damage.

Really should play the class before taking part in discussions on class balance.

I don't doubt it. But that doesn't make the pally tank unviable.

Nobody is saying Paladin is "unviable". Just worse than the other tanks for no good reason.

Yes, this is more for mechanics where the boss does some kind of high damage scripted event that locks it in place.

Such as............?

It also restores some mana. Not a lot, but enough to give you a few options. It is something to do when your mana and health run low and your healer is tapped out or otherwise unavailable. Basically a "get out of jail free" card once an hour.

Still worse than shield wall with double the cooldown. A single self heal is not "get out of jail" lmao

[Redmagejoe]

Everyone arguing against Paladin Taunt in this thread and ignoring Getplucked's very valid points needs to understand something: No one cares what you personally think of "how cool" these terribly designed and cumbersome mechanics are. There is such a thing as objectively good design, not just in interfaces and tools, but in video games. And in the current context of Vanilla/Turtle WoW, the lack of a baseline taunt and the existence of Turtle's version of a taunt is objectively bad design.

That simple. Baseline taunt will get put in, because for better or for worse, you can count on the Turtle devs to understand good game design, even if there are missteps. Their conversations about class balance reveals this much at least.

[Getplucked]

I think that using judgement to taunt is a cool and "vanilla"-like idea, but in practice it's just clunky and obnoxious to use.

Kind of like how giving Paladin the Crusader Strike / Holy Strike abilities that it had back in vanilla alpha/beta was a cool concept, but in execution, has just caused degenerate gameplay (spamming CS for windfury procs) and balance issues (Holy Strike ignoring armor because of being magic damage)

[Kairion]

Everyone arguing against Paladin Taunt in this thread and ignoring Getplucked's very valid points needs to understand something: No one cares what you personally think of "how cool" these terribly designed and cumbersome mechanics are. There is such a thing as objectively good design, not just in interfaces and tools, but in video games. And in the current context of Vanilla/Turtle WoW, the lack of a baseline taunt and the existence of Turtle's version of a taunt is objectively bad design.

That simple. Baseline taunt will get put in, because for better or for worse, you can count on the Turtle devs to understand good game design, even if there are missteps. Their conversations about class balance reveals this much at least.

Taunt without an opportunity cost was never good game design to begin with, but that's a discussion for another day.

But giving paladin a baseline taunt without drawbacks ignores a few things about the class that fundamentally distinguishes paladins from other classes with access to tank. If your taunt is baseline you get access to it on the only healer in the entire game who doesn't mind catching threat. Druids have to go into bearform to not die when taunting and warriors simply can not heal. A decent taunt especially in conjunction with on demand immunity from bubble is a major aspect for the non tanking specs of the class.

Paladins taunt is worse than the Druid / Warrior one in the sense that you have it often on CD from using judgement. But it still has its invaluable upsides. Getting knocked up & threatwiped? Paladin taunts increased range allows you to cast taunt while still in the air, preventing the mob from running off. A warrior in the same situation will have to wait till he is back to the ground, and then run after the mob. A great asset for instance in construct quarter trash. At the same time, for every instance where the game hard requires taunts (planned tank swaps for instance) it does its job to an adequate degree. The argument that paladin needs the same taunt as warrior comes from people who do simply not want to adjust to the different playstile of a different class.
And for anyone who argues taunt needs to be used retroactively for DPS ripping threat, no it doesn't. you bring a 30% threatreduction for DPS with blessing of salvation to any situation you are going to, as well as a pseudo taunt in blessing of protection and DPS ripping threat is ALWAYS their fault and not something a tank has to be able to correct.

Paladin taunt is more cumbersome than it has to be simply because it purges the useful judgement you had on your target before taunting. But otherwise it does what it's meant to do, facilitate tankswaps and solve threatwipes

[Dzonatan]

Because if you only go for the top meta builds, it wouldn't be much fun, that's why. You'd only have 3 or 4 build per role that everyone gets locked in to.

Yes, and that's happens for a reason.
A reason that server devs recognize and decided it warrants class changes.
Fun is subjective.

Paladin has disadvantages while tanking. I found that out yesterday during a Crescent Grove run - mana burn heavy enemies (Raging Infernals) did not make for fun times. But the party adapted and we found another way to take those on. Paladins also struggle against enemies that Silence.

Curious how. Mana drains? CC?

But the Paladin tank has advantages in that you can self heal, and with SoW and a fast weapon you're like an energizer bunny mana wise, and the holy damage a Pally deals both bypasses a lot of defenses and generates that extra threat that you need to keep up with your DDs. Pallies can also self-purify most debuffs and in very specific cases, pop their bubble to survive something that any other class would get KO'd by. Risky as a tank since you lose aggro that way, but, it's a tool in the toolbox. And you have the emergency full heal with Lay On Hands.

You cant mitigate damage when you cast a heal and you suffer extreme pushback with 2+ mobs unless you use Spiritual Focus + Concentration Aura. Even then you sacrifice threat so what that stunt achieved? you lose aggro and some poor clothie takes damage which is probably bigger than whatever your heal did. GG. And your do jack shit in downtime because everyone needs to sit down and eat/drink anyway.

If you need to rely on tank DPS to make through a fight then something is very very wrong with your DPS party members. It's a wrong solution to a good problem.

Popping bubble and quickly removing it requires a purpose built macro which is already iffy by itself.
Even then it's very likely mobs will instantly switch to a poor lock and then run all over the place.
It's a bad tool in the tank toolbox and it's only sensible and reliable use is for Ret and Holy to drop aggro.

Lay on Hands is only good if you have JoW set up in advance and hope for enough procs to resume your rotation. It's prohibitively long CD also makes it iffy to use. There's a reason why the mana drain part got removed later on in the game's lifespan.

I'll admit that the current taunt is a bit difficult to use, requiring you to switch off SoW, go SoJ and Judge the target. Expensive manawise if you get a boss that keeps switching targets (also found one of those in Crescent Grove - I thought Thermaplugg was bad with that, oh my). But all in all, I don't think it's that bad. Mana management seems key to effective Paladin tanking is my current impression (at lvl 40, not at endgame yet).

It's bad enough to warrant a complain.
Don't confuse your complacency with bad design with acceptance.

[Getplucked]

Taunt without an opportunity cost was never good game design to begin with

Because it's supposed to be a quick and mostly-reliable "save the DPS from dying" tool.

But giving paladin a baseline taunt without drawbacks ignores a few things about the class that fundamentally distinguishes paladins from other classes with access to tank. If your taunt is baseline you get access to it on the only healer in the entire game who doesn't mind catching threat.

Uh...paladin healers don't wear plate lmao
A majority of your BIS gear is leather/cloth until you get to T3 gear. And even then, the offpieces are usually competitive/better than T3.

Even if we do assume that a paladin healer is wearing full plate and a shield......what is the benefit of having a healer taunt? Seriously, what is the use case? I can't think of any good reason why you'd want a healer to taunt something.

Healing plate does not have high amounts of defenses/stamina like tanking plate does, so even if you do "catch threat", you're still going to get wrecked pretty quickly.

Paladin taunts increased range

It's 10 yards vs 5 yards of normal taunt. Still practically melee range.

Also warriors can intervene and druids can feral charge, Paladin has no gap closer. It's what makes Druids such a good tank for Ragnaros: If you get knocked you can just instantly feral charge back down and taunt.

The argument that paladin needs the same taunt as warrior comes from people who do simply not want to adjust to the different playstile of a different class.

"uhhh you just don't want to adjust! skill issue!"
Not an argument.

And for anyone who argues taunt needs to be used retroactively for DPS ripping threat, no it doesn't. you bring a 30% threatreduction for DPS with blessing of salvation to any situation you are going to, as well as a pseudo taunt in blessing of protection and DPS ripping threat is ALWAYS their fault and not something a tank has to be able to correct.

"lol just don't lose threat lol"
Easier said than done. I'd suggest actually playing the class before commenting on class balance. Even with salvation, sometimes DPS gets too many crits in a row and pulls anyway. Or the DPS is much more geared than me. There's only so much that -30% threat can do.

The entire reason taunt exists is to pull threat off of someone else. If it's not meant to be used retroactively, then what is it supposed to be used for? The only other use case is tank swap mechanics in raids. I'd like to believe you are not arguing that an ability you get at level 10 is only intended for use in raids.

Paladin taunt is more cumbersome than it has to be simply because it purges the useful judgement you had on your target before taunting.

And it's on the GCD. And it shares cooldown with one of your threat abilities. And it requires 3 points in a talent so you don't get it until level 27, compared to other tanks getting their taunts at level 10 and being baseline abilities.

And the other tanks have multiple taunts, whereas Paladin only has one.

We're objectively worse than the other classes for no good reason.