Cataclysm Final Grades: The State of the Protection Paladin

Tzufit at Tree Heals Go Woosh has asked for people to compile their opinions on the state of their favorite specs now that the dust is settling on Cataclysm. So let's take a look at how the changes in Cataclysm have impacted my play on Dämmerung.

Do you feel that your class is better (in that it is more fun to play, more effective, etc.) now than it was at the end of Wrath? Do you feel that your class is better now than it was at the beginning of Cataclysm?

I feel that playing a protection paladin has been made more complex, and in large part, more effective at single target tanking than they were at the end of Wrath. While they have taken a bit of a step back from their preeminence at the beginning of Cataclysm, due to the weak scaling on Paladin's mastery, and several nerfs to outlying abilities such as Divine Guardian. Does this translate to more fun? I don't believe so. The most engaging portion of playing any class is the buttons you push, and with the added complexity of the protection paladin priority system came a direct injection of clunk. While many found the old 969 rotation to be boring, I find empty GCDs and off kilter CDs to be irritating and boring.

One place where I feel Blizzard really dropped the ball was on Paladin AoE tanking. During BC, paladins were the defacto AoE tank, and throughout Wrath, despite lacking in snap AoE threat, no tank could match a Paladin's sustained AoE output, with Hammer of the Righteous proccing Seal of Truth across multiple mobs, perma consecrate, Holy Wrath with undead everywhere, and Holy Shield procs. In Cataclysm, I get the distinct feeling that Blizzard gave one aspect of our AoE rotation to a different intern, told them to break it, and then shoved it back together without regard for how destroying each of the individual components would cripple the whole. Holy Shield completely lost its damage component. Consecration was put on a 30 second CD, had the mana cost hiked through the ceiling, and did less damage per tick at 85 than it did at level 80. Holy Wrath had its scaling with AoE removed entirely, and now functions as a gimped version of shockwave. Hammer of the Righteous was rebuild entirely, it no longer procs seals on multiple mobs, and somehow, someone at Blizzard thought it would be a good idea to base the AoE off a single roll. What this means is that if HoR misses its primary target, it misses everything. If you've ever had a paladin tank completely miss the pickup on a trash pull, it's probably because of that move, which Zarhym defended as "Flavor". This left Paladins as the only tank without the ability to spread DoTs across multiple mobs, the only tank who's primary AoE has a facing requirement, and the only tank whose AoE can't chain off bosses with large hitboxes. Can't cleave on Rag, or Magmaw, or Conclave, or Al'akir, or Zon'ozz... Nice job breaking it Blizz.

How much have you enjoyed or found uses for your class’ level 81, 83, and 85 abilities? Given the chance, what would you have changed about them?

Inquisition added some interesting complexity to the single target rotation, although it becomes lackluster when you take into account its position as the only AoE HP finisher available.

Holy Radiance was helpful prior to its overhaul giving it a cast time. On some fights, every bit of healing mattered, and being able to shore up the raid a couple K in the feuds on Chimaeron felt helpful.

Guardian of Ancient Kings... While it was kinda cool for ret and holy, it was honestly kind of insulting to Prot paladins. 50% damage reduction, it's great. But we already had Divine Protection giving us 50% DR in Wrath, and during that odd phase where we were using Cata talents and spells at level 80, it left Paladins as the only tank without a 50% damage reduction when they nerfed DP.

Did you switch mains during Cataclysm? If so, why did you make that choice?

I did not, I did however raid significantly on my Warrior with another guild, because they asked me to help them.

What were your class’/spec’s strengths throughout Cataclysm? What were its weaknesses?

Paladins were a solid middle of the road tank in Cata. We weren't as strong against physical damage as Druids were with their increased armor or warrior with their mastery that scaled much better than our own. Nor were we better against magical damage when compared to DKs with the ridiculously OP AMS, or Druids with their 22% passive magic damage reduction. I guess "I Am Third" would best sum up paladin tanks in cataclysm. Whatever the task was, there were better tanks, but we weren't the worst, which actually gave paladins a strong position in persistent groups that couldn't afford to swap tanks around.

The biggest weakness was the aforementioned abomination that our AoE output became. But then again, when your biggest weakness is trash, I can live with that.

Did you enjoy the addition of the mastery stat? What did you like about it, or, what would you change?

Mastery didn't really change anything. The change to block, converting it from a flat value, generally something like 2.5k, to 30% of the physical hit made block something that became sought after. While other specs got cool tricks like extra lightning bolts and empowered demons, Blizzard followed in the tradition of Guardian of Ancient Kings and our T13 4pc bonus for paladins, and took block away from us, renamed it mastery, and gave it back.

How, if at all, did Cataclysm’s revamp of the talent trees affect your class? Did you feel that these were changes for the better or for worse?

The addition of specializations made Protection the number one tanking spec from level 10 onwards. They gave new tanks the majority of the tools they needed to at least be functional as a tank right off the bat, which was a stark contrast to leveling in Wrath, where all the lowbie tanks in the know were specced ret.

Did your class experience any significant changes or additions to its lore during this expansion? If so, how did you feel about those changes?

Tirion apparently can't be bothered to look from his giant tower to see Scourge 2.0 forming up a block from his house? All sarcasm aside, this was the Shaman/Druid expansion, just like Wrath was the Pally/DK/Mage expansion. I'm ok with that. Taurens got Sunwalkers, which was cool, although my god, there's nothing uglier than a Tauren wearing Paladin tier helmets. I felt like the Horde paladin orders, the Sunwalkers and the Blood Knights could have had their lore fleshed out more with the Azeroth revamp, and as always, the Draenei got heinously neglected. I will say that Eastern Plaguelands was in my opinion the best zone in the revamped world. It showed development, while still maintaining the feel of the previous zone, and the friendly rivalry between Gidwin and Tarenar balanced a fine line between levity and weight.

Is your class easier or harder for a fresh 85 to learn now than it was at the end of Wrath? Is this a good or a bad thing?

There are more buttons, and the rotation is more complex, but at the same time, there weren't any encounters in Cataclysm that taxed the tank in the same way that phase three Yogg and Firefighter pushed me. along with the massive threat boost and taunts and interrupts no longer missing, a lot of the things that all tanks face have been simplified. I would say that the spec has gotten harder, but the role has become easier, so it's kind of a push in that regards.

What aspects of your class’ gameplay do you think the designers really got right in this expansion? What aspects were clear misses?

Once again, the AoE component was a complete failure. The implementation of Holy Power was pretty muddled, and the more the tweaked, the more irritating it was, but I wouldn't write it off as a complete failure. Aside from that, not a whole lot changed.

Overall, do you enjoy the playstyle of your class more now, at the end of Cataclysm, than you did prior to patch 4.0 at the end of Wrath? Why or why not?

I definitely enjoyed Tanking on a paladin in the back half of Wrath more than I did during Cataclysm. However, with that said, prior to patch 3.2, paladin tanks were unambiguously weaker than the other classes, by a margin far wider than anything any of the tank classes have seen in Cataclysm. I have to give credit to the class balance team for bringing the tanks closer to complete parity than ever before. I never felt like my playing a paladin was holding the raid back the way I did when I was tanking OS3D and Ulduar HMs. Which is a huge achievement.

SSDD

So, we're five months late on this particular bandwagon, but so what? It's an engaging fight, and it gives a cool title. With 6/7 heroic being a joke, and heroic rag being a monster, we decided to work on the fights in appropriate order of their difficulty. Which meant that we're back in T11 heroics looking for a challenge because the T12 heroics are too easy now. Good work on the tuning there, Blizz.

Anyways, it took us about a dozen pulls to get Heroic Nefarian down. The majority of them were wipes in phase two to various stuff. The first one was finding out that the cast time for blast nova is a lot quicker on heroic. We had one where someone only jumped nine yards out with explosive cinders. We had one where two DPS got behind on their prototype so when the first one died, they couldn't kill theirs before Nefarian killed them. We had four wipes where the melee DPS on a pillar got targeted with explosive cinders twice in a row, and we didn't have backup interrupters to deal with that because of our raid comp. While dealing with all those issues, we got into phase three a few times. The first time we got into phase three, two healers got MCed, and thought it would be a good idea to wait out the crackle because the raid was topped off. We lost the Nefarian tank to a crackle, melee, breath combo before the healers could catch back up. We had another wipe where the Nefarian tank didn't turn Nefarian at the right time, and my healer got breathed on.

Which brings us to the kill. As some of you may notice, there's some amazing parallels between the circumstances of this kill, and our first normal Nefarian kill. Unlike that fight, where the requirements of the fight simply taxed us to the limit, I have to take full responsibility for the near wipe here. In phase three, the bulk of the responsibility is on the off tank, if you kite correctly, then phase three is infinitely sustainable, but an offtank who fails at the kite will wipe the raid. The pattern of shadowblaze sparks hasn't been nerfed, like it was in normal so, so it very quickly devolves into a 5 second per spark frenzy of near constant movement and CD rotations. If you move too early, you'll use too much terrain in the kite and you'll run out of room before the old fire despawns. If you move to late you'll let the adds refill their energy and make life hell for your healer. This is something that I'm very good at. There's lots of little tricks to doing this well, not the least of which is learning how to leverage the Holy Wrath stun to give your healer some breathing room without leaving the adds in a position where they can be hit by fire. This was were I screwed up.

With Nefarian at about 14% health, we had things going swimmingly. I had reset the adds at every possible opportunity, and with them at 10 energy, I was perfectly positioned to do it again. The healers constantly chatter about weather or not they need to shift responsibilities, and our Holy Paladin asked the Shaman healing me if he needed to push over. The Shaman replied that everything was going fine and the adds were going to reset. I was pretty proud of myself because the shaman healing me was operating with his off spec, so if I was making it easy for him, than I was doing a great job. Then it happened. I accidently hit Holy Wrath instead of judgement. One misclick in an otherwise superb attempt. As soon as I hit it, I knew I had just screwed the raid. The adds were stunned just long enough for the shadowflame spark to land on them right before they would have reset. Their energy refilled, and they came right after me. I immediately called out in vent for additional healing as the last crackle went out. I survived the crackle, but the holy paladin had to prioritize the nefarian tank at that point, and as the stacks on the constructs mounted, the damage because unhealable for my shaman. I died with Nefarian at about 6% health, and things played out much as they did with our normal kill. Frost Rings and Earth Elementals held the adds at bay while the DPS finished the boss off, to my profound relief.

It really illustrates how much pressure is put on certain players within the raid on encounters. One misclick killed me, and damn near killed the raid. If I had pressed it 2 seconds earlier or later, pretty much one GCD, I would have been fine. This is something that's been around for a while. Magtheridon Cube clickers, Vashj Core chuckers, Kael'thas shield tanks, dispellers on Mu'ru, it's part of life as a raider, even on the somewhat less than bleeding edge.

The PvE TO&E

My previous post about why tanks are in such short supply got me thinking about the organization of PvE activities in World of Warcraft. I see a lot of parallels between the way people approach WoW, and my army company. The Army uses a document called a Table of Organization and Equipment to show how many men, trained in what skills, and with what equipment, are needed for a unit of any given tasking. I've used a similar document in my time as a raid leader to map out what the guild needed to field a functioning raid group. X main spec tanks, Y main spec healers, Z melee DPS, so on, and so forth. But looking at the parallels between the TO&E for PvE content, and the TO&E for an infantry company yield's some interesting results.

DPS> The Private: They are the rank and file which make up the bulk of every unit, think of them like pawns in chess, every one in a while they do something spectacular, but most of the time they're just there.

Healers> The Support Element: These are the medics, FiSTers, the Truck Drivers, and the other support elements that make it possible for the combat arms (Read DPS and Tanks) to do their jobs correctly. Their goals are defined by the combat arms' execution of the mission, rather than the mission itself. While tanks and DPS have scripted goals and tasks that need to be completed during an encounter, healers are constantly reacting to the human factor. Healing the same encounter between two different groups can be an entirely different experience. I've run BHs where the tank took less damage than anyone else in the raid, and it threw the healers for a loop.

Tanks> the NCOs: Tanks, as I mentioned earlier, are the leaders in the PvE community. They set the tactical pace of a group, and determine how to attack each pull.

The Raid Leader> The Company Commander: The raid leader is ultimately responsible for the tactical elements of the largest scale PvE to be found in the game. Far more complex than those found in 5 mans, raid content requires careful planning and execution, just as company missions require more planning than squad level operations.

The Guild Leader> The Flag Officer: The Guild Leader is responsible for the strategic goals of the guild, of which the raid team is a subset. He might be directing the goals of multiple raid leaders while wearing the GM hat.

Guild Officers> The S shops: Every unit has support officers who handle things ranging from supply issues to intelligence assets. Just as they have needs beyond the purview of their mission, each guild has needs it needs to fulfill outside the confines of the raid instance. Recruitment, flasks, repairs, financials, and loot policies are all among the issues that guilds will often designate officers to handle.

The tanks are NCOs at every level. They are the backbone of the game. In five man content, the tank fills the role of the junior NCO, the team leader or squad leader, who is responsible for both tactical planning and leadership for their unit. Likewise, the five man tank is expected to know how to best handle each pull in the instance, where's the best place to tank each boss, and how to optimize things for the DPS and healers in his group.

On the other hand, raid tanks act more like senior staff NCOs. A raid tank is the First Sergeant of WoW. They are responsible for tactical leadership; but not planning, that's the purview of the Raid leader. While it is the Raid Leader's decision where Shannox should be tanked, it's up to the tank to make sure that reality lines up with the raid leader's plan. The tank is where the proverbial rubber meets the road.

The gulf between a good NCO and a bad one is enormous. A good NCO will be someone you remember for the rest of your life, but a bad NCO will get you killed. While the stakes aren't nearly so high for tanks, we should always strive for excellence. Always try to be that tanks that people remember for being the best they could ask for. Never be the tank they had to carry, or worse, the tank that caused the group to fail. When you choose to tank, you need to hold yourself to a higher standard than other roles do. Be perfect. You owe it to your group, and you owe it to yourself.

In Which Dämmer Throws Down with The Beard.

So, I read this article on WoW Insider a few days ago. This article, by Mathew Rossi, attempts to make the case for removing tanking from WoW entirely. While I feel this is the journalistic equivalent burning down a bar for the insurance money, I still find myself drawn to the argument, in a manner that can't be properly satisfied in a manner so transient as WoW Insider's woefully inadequate commenting system. So, I'm back at the blog. Maybe people still read me, maybe not.

The fundamental crux of the issue is, and has always been, the paucity of tanks relative to DPS, and even healers. This became almost mathematically measurable thanks to the dungeon finder tool. Tanks are in demand, and they get instant queues. DPS are in abundance and they have to wait. Those are the facts. There are, however, two things which need to determined with those facts. The first being what is causing this population imbalance, the second being what can be done to correct the problem. For the most part, Mr. Rossi's article focused on the former; because of this, so will I. The later is a tale for another day.

There are fewer tanks required in 25 man raids compared to 5 mans.
This is irrelevant to the concerns of the dungeon finder queue times. The overwhelming majority of raiding is currently being done at the ten man level, where the ratio is actually working against the DPS in that respect, and furthermore, this stratification insulates the dungeon finder from the problems of 25 man raids. A small portion of the level 85 player base raids. A fraction of that small portion runs 25 man raids. The notion that all 85 content acts as a feeder to the few 25 man guilds that still exist is laughable. I'd be willing to bet that the majority of level 85 players in the dungeon finder couldn't tell you which guilds on their server raid 25 man content. There's a reason why there is so much complaining about the imbalances in the dungeon finder versus complaints about problems with leveling content. This is because for the majority of the players in this game, 5 man heroic dungeons are their endgame.

There'd be more tanks if Shamen, Hunters, Warlocks, Mages, or whatever could tank.
Now, here's a fun argument, but ultimately one that's already been proven wrong on multiple levels. People claim that only having 40% of the classes capable of tanking is contributing to the lack of tanks. Blizzard introduced a new class in Wrath of the Lich King, which was capable of tanking on three different specs. It was brutally overpowered, and it didn't make a dent in the imbalance. If this weren't evidence enough that this isn't the cause, in the past few months, we've been blessed with new evidence. Rift. For those who don't know, Rift is a competing MMO that acts as more or less a complete clone of WoW. It has the same group build as WoW, 1 tank, 3 DPS, 1 healer. It has over a million active accounts, which is enough for an acceptable sample size. It also has a dungeon finder tool that acts just as WoW's does. What it has that WoW doesn't is 100% hybrid representation. Fully 75% of their classes can tank, and their Mages can heal. And yet queue times for DPS are very similar to the times found in WoW.

Do you want to know why tanks are a rarity, particularly in 5 man content?
Because it's a difficult position. It's more than what most people sign up for. Consider the blurbs written by Blizzard for their Role Forums.

Damage Dealing: A slash of the sword, a flick of the wand. Stow your weapons and discuss the strategy of damage dealing.

Healing: To aid your companions is to see success. Kneel and meditate on the art of healing.

Tanking: A wall unwavering, a leader unshaken. Gather and confer on the craft of tanking.

While DPSers cut and burn things, and healers help people, what do tanks do? They lead. While a good player can lead from any position in a party, most groups, and especially the groups thrown together anonymously by the LFG tool, the position of leadership falls upon the tank. It takes a special kind of person to take on the burden of leader by default. Most people log onto a game to relax, to enjoy themselves. They don't want to have to take care of other people. It's not fun for most people to have 4 lost souls looking at you to set them up for success. The majority of people don't have it in them to get dropped into a hostile environment with 4 other people they don't know, and look at those people and say "Follow Me."

Further making the tanking position unattractive to the majority is the complexity of it. While the complexity for DPS and healers ramps up heavily as they ascend into normal raid content, and even more so into heroic raids, in five man content, the tank is the star of the show. A tank has to do everything a DPS does, maintain a tight rotation, properly manage offensive CDs, avoid the omnipresent fire on the ground, and interrupt on the spot. While juggling all that, they have to do it while walking backwards, positioning the mobs, monitoring the healer's mana, picking up adds, and managing defensive CDs. While no individual position in 5 man content is particularly hard, anyone who doesn't think that tanking is the most complex is ignoring an important aspect of tanking.

Ultimately, the tank is a neccesity.
They are the glue which allows the player group a limited degree of control over mobs, and allows developers to include encounters with a high degree of complexity, while still retaining the complex class design. Almost every attempt at tankless content in WoW has fallen flat on its face. When looking at the PvE content of tankless MMOs such as EVE online, the differential in complexity becomes blatantly apparent.

How Do You Tank?

Well, Elle, the warlock, turned shaman, turned tank-on-the-side, ran a healer survey that looked into the personal style and opinions of healers across the blogosphere. She then asked for someone to cook up a tanking version. Well, I don't know anything about healing, but I've been tanking since my first level, so I guess I'll kick one off.

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary tank?
I run with Dämmerung, a human protection paladin with a 0/53/18 spec.

What is your usual tanking environment?
I run 10 and 25 man raids, with an emphasis on 10 man progression, along with the occasional 5 man.

What is your favorite encounter to tank, and why?
Firefighter is a personal favorite from a tanking standpoint, although I know my healers hate it, because it presents a comprehensive tanking challenge. Phase one is a phase of personal mitigation through cooldown coordination, phase two is a phase of raid mitigation and maximum personal damage output, phase three is a phase of rapid add pickup and movement, and phase four is a complex kite. Firefighter is essentially two phases of main tanking, and two phases of off tanking, and due to the movement and spawning of the fires and frost bombs the movement of the fight is different each time. If you can solo tank firefighter, then you are capable, from a skill standpoint, of tanking any encounter in the game.

What is your least favorite encounter to tank, and why?
Probably Loatheb, it's fairly mundane, and there have been some attempts where I literally left myself auto attacking so I could go check the fridge about a minute into the fight. Patchwerk is a close second, but at least he has enough incoming damage to make for some interesting kills.

What do you think is the biggest strength of your class, and why?
Paladins are currently a very strong tanking class, and while Druids have better survivability, and Warriors have a more diverse toolkit, Paladins are untouchable when it comes to single target threat. This allows our raid's DPSers to go full bore, without even the need for a feign death or invis, and on the fights where they can get buffs to imbalance things, we can salv them ourselves to maintain the threat lead. Also, the lack of a spammy queue move like heroic strike mean that we're the only tanking class for whom carpal tunnel is not a valid concern.

What do you think is the biggest weakness of your class, and why?
Lack of an interrupt. I know that druids are in the same boat as us, but lacking anything that can interrupt on a semi regular basis is incredibly frustrating. Having to tote my personal pet enhance shaman around to any fights that require an interrupt when another tanking class could do it on their own is kinda embarrassing. I'm not saying that we should get the absurd amount of interrupts that the warriors from the Swiss Army get, but something that's off the GCD with like a 12-14 second cooldown would be a huge quality of life bonus.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel is the best tanking assignment for you?
Whatever's the toughest assignment for the encounter, with three caveats. Snap AoE aggro on more than 4 mobs is difficult for paladins, so whelp tanking on Sarth or Ony tends to end up being very... interesting. Two, is the aforementioned lack of an interrupt, so put me on Steelbreaker, not Stormcaller Brundir. And Three, that the other Prot Pally in my guild, who's better than me, isn't already doing the tough work. Other than that, I'll dig up adds, I'll kite snaplashers, kite worms, haul constructs, and any other role that might be less glamorous than letting Ignis punch me in the face, but is much more difficult.

What tanking class do you enjoy tanking with the most?
I feel that the amazing toolbox that a warrior has lends themselves well to complimenting a paladin. Being able to hit interrupts, fly across the battlefield, and control mobs efficiently makes them solid at cleaning up anything that escapes. Another paladin would be a close second due to the raid utility that they bring, bringing two different external cooldowns plus LoH.

What tanking class do you enjoy tanking with the least?
Well, I guess I would have to say a druid, because it seems like they don't exist on my server. Plus they don't bring a consistent interrupt, nor can many of their external cooldowns (rebirth, innervate, etc.), be used while actually tanking. Their survivability is enviable, but their utility is not.

What is your worst habit as a tank?
I tank on my laptop, with my touchpad... it's my secret shame.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while tanking?
People who aren't tanks pulling things. I pull when I'm ready, and if it's something that requires an oddball pull from a hunter or imp, I'll ask for it. Otherwise, you're just making my life harder.

Do you feel your class/spec is balanced with respect to the other tanking classes?
I feel that while the classes are missing some of the tools, for the most part, aside from DKs, all the tanking classes are currently in a good place. Death Knights got dismantled in patch 3.2, and need some serious work to fix. Some of those things are being addressed in patch 3.3, others, such as the lack of an AP debuff, still leave DKs kinda out in the cold.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a tank?
I use Recount to figure out why I died, and if there was something I could have done to prevent it. TankadinTPS to check my threat output. But really what I've found to be the best tool for self improvement as a tank is my own Catholic guilt. I make a point of knowing exactly how I want an encounter to go down. I make a note of every little error I make, be it something drastic, like accidentally diving into the chasm Kologarn stands in, or minor, like like accidentally facing a parry hasting mob into the melee for a second. Those errors eat at me, and drive me to never repeat them. And while it probably isn't that healthy, it has gotten me from on a trial account during Hallow's End 2008, to riding a Rusted Proto Drake with the Starcaller title before Hallow's End 2009, so I can't complain too much.

What do you think is the biggest misconception that people have with your tanking class?
Paladins are no longer the "Hyjal Trash Tank". Death Knights and Druids are actually surpassing our sustained AoE threat output, and Warriors are now much better on the actual pickup than we are. The days of "Stand in my consecrate and ye shall live!" are over. We've given that up for the ability to be legitimate main tanks, versatile enough to fulfill most any role required.

What do you think is the toughest thing for new players of your class to learn about tanking?
That there's more to being a paladin tank than simply tanking. You can learn and master the 969 rotation, you can have your positioning down perfectly, but because you are a paladin, there is yet more you can do. You should be able to: Throw Hand of Salvation on an overzealous DPSer, Hand of Freedom a player snared in the path of the bad stuff on the floor, LoH an OoM healer or freshly rezed player, Hand of Protection a healer who drew the ire of the whelps, and find the right spot in an encounter for the clutch divine sacrifice to make life easier for your raid and your healers. You need to be able to do all that, and STILL do everything all the other tanks are asked to do... except interrupt.

If someone were to evaluate your tanking ability via tools like fraps, recount, and World of Logs, what tendencies would they notice?
I'm extremely strong in terms of survivability and sustained threat. However, I tend to be very minimalist in my movements, which is nice for fights like Thorim where you're supposed to keep him still, but has occasionally gotten me yelled at by the melee DPSers who find Grobbulus' slime pools to be creeping a little close. This also leads to me being a little weak on the initial pickup, because I have a tendency to pick where I want to tank the mob, and get the mob there. Sometimes that becomes frustrating when I taunt a mob, and watch a Warlock conflag it before it gets within 10 yards of me. I do however multitask very well, and can use the full range of paladin abilities in my tanking style.

Stamina or Avoidance, and why?
If forced to choose, I'll take stamina, due to the encounter design in wrath, pretty much everything that threatens a tank is unavoidable. However, that's not to say that avoidance is useless, I'll take everything blizzard gives me.

Which tanking class do you understand the least?
Due to their scarcity, I have much less experience with bears than any other class.

What addons or macros do you currently use to aid you in tanking?
I use Icehud and Parrot to give me a good idea of what's going on with me and the mob I'm tanking, without having to look away from the floor from which all bad things arise. I use omen, not so much to track my own threat, but to track the other raiders so I know if someone might need a salve. I use pitbull to allow my shift click out the various hand and cleanse spells if need be. Recount for post fight analysis, and CLSaver because I always forget to start logging. I also use tanktotals for raid warnings when I use cooldowns. DBM is also a godsend. And to control this unwieldy mess of programs, along with my non raiding addons, I use Addon Control Panel.

Do you strive for a balance in tanking stats, or do you stack some higher than others, and why?
I tend to stack stamina, every gem I use has a stamina component to it, however, I strive to maximize my itemization, I'll hit my socket bonuses, unless it's something incredibly stupid, like spell pen. I throw Agil/Stam in red sockets, Def/Stam in Yellow sockets, and straight stam in blue sockets. When choosing enchants, I tend to stay away from the oddball proc enchants like Bladeward and Blood Draining, and select the enchants that give me the best itemization, like Accuracy.

And now comes the romp. I'm gonna pick a few of the tanking bloggers that I read with regularity and hopefully they'll pick this thing up too.

• I'll start with Elle, as she was the one who came up with the idea.
• Next up will be Honors, of Honor's Code.
• And we have to have a warrior, so Tarsus, from Tanking For Dummies is a great choice to represent the original tank.
• Ridach, at Righteous Defense was one of the first wow bloggers I started reading.
• Because we need a Death Knight, I'd like the very analytical Gravity of Pwnwear to give it a shot.
• And because we have entirely too few druids, and alliance tanks, the eponymous Big Bear Butt.
  

More LoH stupidity.

This just in on the PTR...

Lay on Hands: This ability now places Forbearance on the target
and cannot be used on a target with Forbearance.

*Sigh* I don't understand the thought process here. Honestly. Lay on Hands isn't even usable in Arenas, so this isn't a PvP nerf. It was a decent tool in the holy paladin's arsenal, however, it was of minimal use at best for protection specs. Now, however, it's a real problem for Holy Paladins healing Protection Paladins. Forebearance is a poorly thought out mechanic, and is useful a fix here as a gauze bandage soaked in anthrax.

Now, because someone else cast something on me, I can't use my shield wall. Holy Paladins, who had legitimate uses for a talented LoH to improve tank survivability on physical damage encounters are now barred from using it as such due to locking a paladin out of his tanking cooldowns. You don't see warriors unable to use Shield Wall for two minutes because someone put Pain Supression on them.

The obvious solution for this is to remove the forbearance requirement from Divine Protection. However, giving paladins a chainable damage reduction would imbalance PvP according to devs. If only they could tie the DR to some sort of tanking stat that no ret or holy paladin would carry, kinda like they did with Ardent Defender and Icebound Fortitude...

Listen up crabman, because I'm going to solve all your problems right here. Here's your new design for Divine Protection in 3.3.

Divine Protection: prevents damage scaling with defense rating to a maximum of 50% at 689 defense rating.

That's all you need. No more need to worry about it's strength in PvP, or how it can be chained with Avenging Wrath. Tanks can use their threat boost without worrying about their survivability, while Rets can use divine protection all they want and gain nothing for it. Holy Paladins can cast lay on hands on whoever they want without fear of gimping their own cooldowns.

Honestly, we're the only tanking class with a debuff associated with our primary cooldown. Who's bright idea was that?