Reality of paladin tanking challenges (C) {You} 9000+

I sure talk a good fight, but I felt like I set back paladin tanking another two expansions after tonight.

Ran Kara with the guild fully supportive and ready to back me up. Killed Attumen and Moroes with no difficulty of course, but then...

Valets and similar mobs did unspeakable things me. Given I wasn't fully raid buffed at these times, but I still went down fast and frequently. On our maiden attempt, we got her down to 50% before I got killed. Ghost mobs after the opera event similarly destroyed me. Long story short, I took many, many, dirt naps. (The only thing in my defense was that one of our three healers, a holy paladin, seemed to simply stand there doing nothing at such times, but I can hardly make a conspiracy theory out of that.)

I'm a reasonable sort, and when it was suggested we let the druid tank the bosses/heavy hitters, I was willing to oblige.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Tichondrius&n=Neuma

He out-tanked me so badly it wasn't even funny. With no raid drops, he was sitting pretty at something like 18-19k raid buffed with 71% damage reduction. Happily, we killed Maiden, and went on to clear everything up to Curator before heading to bed. The thing was... it was clearly easier for all members of the party to have him tanking. The only tankadin benefit I brought was reduced time to kill some of the trash mobs.

I guess what scares me is that I cannot in good confidence argue for a chance to tank a boss at the moment. He takes less damage in basically every situation, is easier to heal, and does not require nearly as much tlc to keep up as myself. The mobs that threatened to down me if a healer so much as blinked seemed trivial against him. And that was with him wearing tanking gear not completely devoid of greens! (With the exception of my shoulders and shield, I have about the best gear possible.)

I don't mean this as a QQ post, but I think before now it never ocurred to me just how much we have stacked against us, even if we do everything to be prepared. I felt pretty confident going in tonight, 11k unbuffed uncrushable. By the end of the night I was forced to ask myself if there were any compelling reason to have me with said druid present. It was a sickening feeling to know that me not tanking made life easier on the raid as a whole.

I'll be offtanking/healing now, but I have a renewed admiration for all of you who have tanked the good tank without hindering your guild- I don't know how you do it.

I'm going to continue to tank despite these setbacks, but I tell you I more fully appreciate what the paladins before me have done. With fewer tools and less information they were able to be successful. Knowing that inspires me to keep on trucking.

-Kit

Note: Tich is down, not logged in tanking gear.
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if someones slacking get recount mod , check the fights details and call them out. Get eaves drop too, easy to see if you died due to no heals for 15 seconds or just a freak spike or whatever, either way knowledge is power, if you know whats def wrong you halway to fixing it
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You know... I started out in a situation not so different than you. I think most of us did. Druids are insanely good at tanking in sub-par gear. It's just what they do. But there will come a time when that druid is simply taking too much damage to be considered "better."

For a long time, it seemed that I was the only tank in my guild who could not tank Prince. The two druids we had could do it. All the warrs could do it. Then we had me, the token prot pally and I just seemed to be a wasted raid spot.

But you see... paladins are the kings of trivial content. As you get better and better gear, you will find that you tank those things BETTER than the others.

For example... I slapped on my healing gear for Prince while the druid tanked. Even with 3 full healers AND me healing him, he still got bursted down in phase two. Multiple times. That fight is all luck with warrs and druids, but they were the more adequate tanks. Afterall... I'd yet to be able to tank him. But we decided to switch. The druid went cat form and I tanked and I was able to tank him better, get him down farther with 3 healers than the druid could with 3 1/2 (basically).

Now I tank prince with two healers and the prot pallies in my guild (we have two now) have tanking preference on him because we DO do it better.

Paladins are extremely gear dependent. Even more-so as tanks. You may think it's hard now, but there is no in-between. You'll go from thinking "wow I can't tank this guy" to "wow I tank this guy better than everyone else" almost overnight with appropriate upgrades.
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I didn't mean this post to be a "gear check please!" thread, but posting what I am using might give you a better idea of where I am coming from.



(Note: Tich is having issues, so I'm posting it all here.)




Head: Felsteel, Glyph of the Defender. (Faceguard or Stalwart Defender.)

Neck: Strength of the untamed (Optimal)

Shoulder: Pauldrons of Brute Force. Exalted Aldor Enchant. (ANYTHING, fanblade ideally.)

Cloak: Devilshark. +120 Armor. (Optimal)

Chest: Vindicator's Hauberk. +150 HP. (Optimal) Jade Skull in bank.

Wrist: Bracers of the Green Fortress. +7 Stam. (Optimal)

Hand: Felsteel Gloves. +8 Stam (Optimal.)

Waist: Vindicator Waistguard. (Optimal.)

Legs: Timewarden's leggings. +30 Stam/+10 Agi. (Optimal)

Feet: Eaglecrest Warboots. +8 Stam. (Optimal). Flesh Beast in bank.

Ring1: Band of impentrable defenses

Ring2: Violet Signet. (Swappable with Seal of the Exorcist while still remaining uncrushable.)

Trinket1: Figurine of the Colossus

Trinket2: Adamantine Figurine.

Weapon: Crystalforged Sword. +40 Spellpower. (Optimal.)

Shield: Platinum Shield of the Valorous. +18 Stam. (Working on rep for Crest of Sha'tar)

Libram: Blessed book of nag... no seriously, I have repentance.

+9 Stamina in every single slot.

Health: 11087
Mana: 4098
Armor: 12886
Defense: 522
Holy Damage: 161 (Wizard oil on hand.)
Avoidance: 34.52% (Dodge+Parry.)
Block: 20.38%

About the only other thing I could have going for me is that I only need a 2, 4, and 5 of furies to finish my Deck. Might be able to switch out one of my trinkets, depends on in if Andormu will get me to Uncrushable.

I really feel like I'm hitting the wall as far as gearing goes (except for the shoulder.) It seems I might just have to hope and pray the druid downs the bosses so I can get some upgrades.
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to be honest i think you gear needs a bit of work .. too much defence, need about 60/80 more spell power nice stamina more armour would be usefujll thoughmore block always good rightious shoulders wouldn't hurt you with spell power echant on

ohh and your at 101.78 un crushable dunno what pots and buffs you have but you need an extra point from somewhere to garentee uncrushabe on bosses

it's also possible you were let down by your healers I've tanked everything up to curator wearing worse tham what you've got with out any hickups

oddlys enough me pushing my threat higher made it easier for me and my guild not the uncrushable status

best of luck to you in the future

also I recomend reasing all the strats thourily for the bosses .. know exactly what you should be doing

I don't mean to come across as elitist here, but my background on Karazhan: I, in greens, tanked the server-first clear through Prince (skipping Netherspite and Nightbane). We killed Prince our 2nd week, on Feb 3rd. We used 2 healers (and 2 shadows pumping their mana). This much can be said:
- Prince was nerfed since then (well, the enrage bug fixed) and Maiden+Illhoof buffed
- Any healers who's been 70 more than 2 weeks should have better gear than ours did
- You have better gear than I did

What I'm trying to say is: It's not your gear holding you back, and it's most likely not anything else you're doing either. It could be that your healers aren't potting or suffer from a fear of going OOM on trash, or your DPS are slacking and making the healers work too hard, or other problems -- when you say you weren't raid buffed to tank Valets, what do you mean? The priest(s) didn't give you Fort? Are the healers changing significant behaviors because they don't "think" you can tank? Druids probably are better off tanking the Valet type mobs, but your threat output should be decimating a druid with that much stacked armor/stamina on bosses. And if your threat output doesn't matter, we return to the issue of DPS slacking.

Basically, a druid with worse gear will appear to do a better job tanking if and only if the rest of the raid is not playing to their potential. "Easy mode" if you will, has a rather short raid lifespan.
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Roll a warrior, eh? What a good idea...

(As a 70 resto shaman healing in kara)
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Khadgar&n=aveluuna

I can tell you this, there is no reason at all for a healer not to just spam heal you during trash, the fights are simply too short to OOM any half decently geared healer.
Hell, when I didn't have *any* purples from kara or anywhere else I still out healed better geared healers on trash simply because I actually bothered. You'd be suprised how many healers don't think they need to pay much attention on trash.

Only reason to die on maiden in my view is if the healers aren't healing, or you're lacking HoTs etc to help through repentance. It's a short fight, I've done it in as little as 2 minutes(even at up to 5 minutes a pot soothes things over nicely). Sometimes a problem with healers also having to decurse interfers with heals, but if they healed another tank it shouldn't be the cause.

Definitaly follow up on the above posts, it's far far too easy to blame the tank when the dps and healers don't put enough effort in. And yeah some people only really try when their 'preferred' tank is tanking.

Your healers are lazy and react poorly.
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