Seriously, Samuel, a Paladin post on your Rogue blog, which is subtitled “Gnome Rogery.” You bet. Although I don’t spend as much time playing on Anabelle as much as I’d like, she is the guild’s best geared and only Lvl 70 Protection Paladin. As such, I thought I’d lay out some of the unique properties of the Tankadin, since sometimes she ends up tanking for the guild.
Every Tanking class has it’s strengths. Here’s a few:
Warriors have some great tank saving abilities, and can gain immunity to Crushing a Critical Blows.
Druids dish out the most damage, are immune to Critical but not Crushing Blows.
Paladins are king of AoE tanking, holding as many mobs as the healers can heal through, and can gain immunity to Crushing and Critical Blows
1.) Paladin Threat Generation:
Paladin Threat comes mainly from holy spell damage (which no mobs in the game have a resistance to). Paladins generate their holy damage from multiple sorces, most of which are fire and forget. Those are: Retribution Aura, Blessing of Sanctuary, Consecration, Holy Shield, and either Seal of Righteousness or Vengeance. Paladins can also generate instant damage by judging seals, using Avenger’s Sheild, or holy wrath / exorcism on undead mobs.
Notice that a majority of the threat generation comes when a mob is hitting us. If someone opens a can of pure DPS on a target before a Tankadin can gain some threat, it can be nearly impossible to get the mob back.
2.) Taunting, A.K.A. saving a squishier player
Warriors and druids can spam taunt to pull a mob off another player. Paladins also have a taunt. It pulls up to 3 mobs off of 1 player. I have it macroed so that I can target the mob and cast it. Here’s the catch; It has a 15 second cooldown, so it can’t be spamed.
3.) Mana, A.K.A. the blue rage bar
Paladins can start every fight with full “rage,” and can frontload some serious threat. Just like the other tanking classes, paladins regenerate rage (well, mana really) by being hit. They just do it in a different way. We regenerate mana by reciving heals. We recieve mana equal to 10% of what we are healed for by other players.
4.) Paladin Pulls
Avenger’s Shield is the main Paladin pulling attack. It has a 40 yard range and will hit up to three targets in range, slowing their movement for a few seconds. It also generates between 1k and 2k threat on the targets it hits, if it doesn’t get resisted. This does happen occasionally, and if a DPS lays into the target, they will pull it. So, it’s always safer to wait until the mob is in the paladin’s consecrate, which they’ll be using to gain threat on the mob they aren’t concentrating on. If everyone is communicating properly, it will be very difficult for any one to pull off the tank.
I’m sure I’ll think of something else later, but those are the basics of paladin tanking and will hopfully provide some insight into how I tank when I’m playing as Anabelle
- Samuel
