Tank Homogenization

Probably spelt that wrong, but here goes.

(rant)

Is anyone else really annoyed and confused by the new direction pally tanks seem to be taking? I know there are massive buffs in the line and whatnot but seriously, I signed on to be a PALADIN, not a Warrior with heals.

Blizz seem to have taken the route of "sod em, if they want to be like warrior's so much we'll give it to them"

Rather than keeping our class mechanics how they fit with the class lore, they've basically turned us into stupid, hulking warriors who pray a lot.

They could have atleast given us a few little "extra" buffs deep in the prot tree to make up for the libram/SD weapon issue, and kept to trying to balance the trees equally. But strength now replacing spelldamage? Sorry but that is BULLSHIT.

With the starting changes in the beta I was thinking "great, now i'll get more spellpower in my tank gear, better threat! maybe some better emergency healing when off-tanking" WRONG.. now I see a talent that is effectively useless since it would be better translated to another stat, a stat that I didn't want anything to do with as a tank.

Please tell me its not just me thats really depressed about the direction of my beloved class, I don't see any reason to play one other than go healing as I've levelled a warrior already.
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Moonlight - Argent Dawn EU

i also dont like the way blizz have changed pallys, thinking about not getting the expansion or leaving my pally in the dark 70 corner and level my low level rogue /sigh
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i come with my own background music, yes im that cool.

It's simple really.

Warriors have been MTs for 3+ years. Every good idea on how to MT has been given to them. I'm not saying all good tanking ideas are exhausted but so far, Warriors have the market cornered on tanking tools.

So if Warriors are effectively the bar for tanking, everyone else either falls in line or is subpar. Given the choice of being subpar tanks or homogenized tanks, the logical choice is to take a small dosage of homogenization.

For every one change Paladins get to being closer to Warriors, we still have 10 other things that are nothing like them.

I don't really care what stats we use - the new system works, the class still has the same sort of flavour to it, but with the damage buffs and extra abilities it's even more fun to play. If I have to wear strength gear, what does it matter so long as I still enjoy playing this class and can still tank well?
We're not entirely polished yet, but the basics are in place and we're looking pretty good, IMO.

I really don't get the "we wear strength gear, that means we're too similar to warriors now" thing. We got a shield slam and an attack speed debuff, that's pretty much it for homogenisation of the class on our side.
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If we could, for a moment, stop that discussion about true or perceived disadvantages compared to our warrior buddies ?

The topic here was about the style, meaning that we would use strength instead of spell damage. And you know what ? I love that change.

The very first talent point, I was spending when I was leveling my beloved Paladin as my first char 3 years ago, was into strength. I was envisioning a strong (yet intelligent) knight that would be crushing his enemies.

It took a while for me to learn the mechanics and I was always disappointed that our strength is so low. Spelldamage is a stat I will happily let the casters and healers have, strength is fitting much better to a holy warrior.

Extermi

Personally, I have nothing but love for the new changes.
They just make so much more sense, pallies are after all supposed to be "holy warriors" not plate mages.
Just like Extermi, I has misconceptions and misunderstandings about the pally class when I lvled my first alli tankadin shortly after 2.0 patch came out (I really couldn't wait), and started levelling in "... of the bear" gear.
Funny thing is, with the changes, that gear would be perfect leveling gear if I levelled another one.
Playing on PTR, the overall feel of tankadins is 500% better, our combat flows better, we feel more interactive and everything just works really so well it makes me wonder how I've put up with playing a tankadin so far.
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Telleryn - Bloodelf Tankadin - Mark of the Beast - Terenas-EU
Other 70s: Eldryn(Shammy) Dorromar(Warrior) Elderhorn(Druid) Mirinas(Mage) Elderhoof(Hunter)
On the way: Aldryn(s-priest) and Tharyn(DK)

Why doesn't anyone cry that we don't use spirit? We're not mages, why should we use spelldamage? We're knights with spiritual power! We should scale by spirit.
Makes more sense than spelldamage.

Or, well, we can understand that all of this doesn't matter, that strength is far better than spelldamage ever was, because it offers synergies and mitigation...

Well its not just Tank Homogenization that's going on, i feel like all classes/roles are beeing "baked" into one! Spriest had their niche in mana battery, now there are 2 more classes that can do that. And we now see that all healing classes are getting new spells so that most of them can aoe heal. All tanking classes are getting similar abilities, some of them looking better than others p.t.

If blizzard want all the different classes to do about the same stuff, why not just make 4 classes in the game?

Tank, melee dps, range dps and healer.

That would have been to boring right? It's an mmo game and ppl who started playing this game picked a character cause they either wanted to know that class better or because they knew they had a "special" role in raid/party or something. What they do now is simply ruin this imo.

Now, there are good things about this homogenization and bad things. Good things are that now guilds arent dependant about having a specific class/role in the raid since other classes now has these abilities(e.g spriest on brutallus are quite essential) Paladins on felmyst adds are quite essential(doesnt have to be full time prot to do it, but a holy would need to tweak his spec etc) Now the other tanking classes can do it with ease aswell

Paladins are not just 'warriors, but with heals'.

I play both, and I plan on levelling both in the expansion. (I can't decide on whom to level first... but that's neither here nor there.)

STR > SP. I personally have nothing but love for the change. In one smooth move, they gave paladins mitigation, threat, and actual damage from one single stat.
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I agree with the OP. Then again I have been saying this from the start. Instead of making the current Pally tanking mechanics work they just gave us the warrior tanking mechanics. It feels like Blizzard took the cheap way out to me.

To put it this way. Karura is in all badge+Tier 4/ZA gear. I am a pretty good tank and outgear everything my guild does by a considerable amount. I copied to beta and due to changes would not let myself tank Kara in the current gear. To just get back to uncrittable with old gear I had to lose about 1300 HP and would still be crushable. In other words. My pally got worse just from going into the Beta.

I am not trying to QQ here but I do see that as a serious problem. I don't like going from Good to Bad with a single patch or X-pac. Takes away from my motivation to continue. Honestly, the only reason I will continue to play as my pally (unless things change) is because they are my favourite class flavourwise in any RPG both computer and pen and paper.
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"if you can't beat them, join them!"

I like the new changes, adds a new dimension to tanking, something new. If it would be the same tanking mechanics as i TBC, I doubt I would get wotlk, now there is something new and exciting.
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By the Power of Grey Skull!

Retired!