Holy....tanks.

I feel like I can formulate an honest opinion about tanks once more.


I've been playing on my paladin, Sigridus, for a few weeks where I took a dive off the deep end and went from level 21 to 45. Pretty good progress.


Paladins. Where do they stand now? Oddly enough, they stand in a similar place to where they stood before. When it's all said and done, a few tenets still remain true:

1.It's easier as a paladin to sustain aggro (compared to a warrior) in a smoother fashion, but...
2.It's still harder to get aggro back once lost. We still lack abilities that enable an aggro bomb, so to speak. (there IS Holy Wrath, but it is not the same as Revenge on warriors. It is good, better than thunderclap is now, but thunderclap before was better)
3.It's still markedly easier to play a paladin than a warrior.
4. Tanking groups is WAY easier on a paladin.

Now...they took away the 6969 rotation away altogether. There is...a SORT of priority system. Shield of the Righteous has come off the mana cast and was made into a proc of sorts: you have to use certain abilities to generate holy power. At first I thought, well, it's best to generate 3 holy power to get the most bang for your buck. But it turns out that every time you hit the ability, ShoTR will trigger what used to be holy shield. So I guess it's best to just keep that proc up. We'll see.

This time around, when I got consacration, I was bemoaning how much mana it consumes (basically like 1/3 of the mana bar) but you can talent into it and have it just take 1/10 of it, which is much better and puts consacration back into the rotation. Avenger shield is now given to you for a minimal, quite minimal mana rate at level 10. It's basically your pull now, and the cd was lowered to 15 seconds, so it means you hit it as much as possible. Holy Wrath is new, and it's a sort of aggro bomb, but very situational.

Hammer of the Righteous generates holy power and is tied to the GCD, which means you hit it all the time possible, and it costs basically no mana.

...all this geekness.

My main concern is the mana pool vs. aggro, as I have not found an ability, seal or talent that will allow me to replenish mana without sacrificing aggro.

Basically, they have made pally tanks more versatile, less laissez faire, and I can accept that. Tanking on a paladin was markedly lazy when compared to tanking on a warrior. Now, that has changed, for the better I would say. It's still incredibly easier to tank on a paladin, not to mention...paladins feel way less gimped than warriors....Jill keeps bothering me that Im going to want to stay on my paladin...but ...I miss all my situational buttons when I'm away from my warrior! I guess it's why I enjoy my rogue when not tanking so much.

Next week? Druids!