Pally tanking for Warriors

Note: This is now out of date now that 4.0.1 has been release - the general vibe of each tank is still the same but the mechanics for Paladin's have changed by a big margin, while warriors have come off relatively unchanged. I'm leaving it here for historical reasons - you have been warned!!!
Also this is a very long post... take your time reading it!

Back when I guest posted for Righteous Defense I made the comment that I didn't really get Paladin tanking - mainly because I was looking out for the tools that come as Warrior tank - the only real tanking experience I had at the time (I've since also done some runs of the Stockades as a bear). The comment lead me to asking if anyone could recommend a Paladin Tanking guide for warriors.

However I ended up switching my offspec back to Protection and I have been tanking with my Paladin in Heroics (and the raid weekly in Naxx/Ulduar) since then (I've only been allocated heals via the Looking for Dungeon tool twice since switching to tank/heals) and so I thought I would have a crack at writing a Paladin tanking for warriors guide myself.

I should point out that I don't really have a preference for one over the other, and I'm not just a 'flavour of the month' sort of player. I switched to Pally tanking for pragmatic reasons - it is easier to gear up and get groups as a healer for raiding when you don't have a lot of time. There are (generally) more healers needed in a raid compared to tanks. But I love tanking and only have the time to focus on character - so I switched over. Oh... and I prefer instant queues to 1 minute queues... so tank wins out - but my emblems have almost all gone to my healing spec (so far).

I'm going to break this down into three main areas:
1. The Vibe (that is a The Castle reference for those not exposed to a classic of the Australian film industry)
2. The Tools - the talents and skills
3. Stats and Gearing

The Vibe

96969 != FCFS

First off - Paladin tanking is not about First Come First Serve (or rather a priority system) as it is for Warrior tanking. There is a rotation. Yes you do need to be flexible particularly when dealing with trash or heroics because you'll need to be able to switch up and deal with ever changing situations. However, maximum threat, minimum damage is all about maintaining the rotation. The only reactionary attack that you really have to worry about is Hammer of Wrath which is the Paladin's form of Execute (yes that is a Warrior thing - but you probably don't use it as it can't be used in Defensive Stance). Hammer of Wrath is normally just substituted into the 96969 rotation (although that is now proving to not be worth it - in terms of Threat Per Second - see Theck's calculations)

I won't go into a full description of the 96969 rotation - there are other that have done a really good job at describing it:

• wowhead paladin forum - the simplest explanation/example I've seen but it mentions Exorcism still... which is no longer instant.
• Youtube Video example
• Maintankadin Advanced FAQ - the why behind it all (and Maintankadin is where it all started).

For those of you who were tanking warriors pre-WotLK then the idea of a rotation is probably not that foreign - when it was all about keeping up shield block. One thing to note - is that even though you have a rotation, once you get into the rhythm of it - the 969 is pretty much a FCFS rotation - it just isn't affected by procs and you don't have any 'on next melee' attacks (i.e. Heroic Strike spam) to worry about queuing up.

Mobility

One thing you will likely miss is the mobility of a Warrior, namely Charge, Intercept and Intervene. All a Paladin has is their own two feet (or hooves in the case of a Draenei). You can spec into Pursuit of Justice to help you move quicker, or enchant your boots with Tuskarr's Vitality but there is no zipping about and when you are wanting to start combat in the middle of that pack of mobs - you can expect to be beaten on a bit before you get there.

The Pull

In actual fact with the dungeons in WotLK the pull for Warriors has pretty much become the charge. Maybe the raptors before King Dred in DTK, but I can't really think of any other specific pulls in the heroics. Unlike warriors using a bow/gun/thrown weapon Paladins do not have a 'free' way to pull. In terms of ranged damage for Paladins there is only three options Avenger's Shield, Exorcism and Hand of Reckoning. Avenger's Shield takes a whack of mana, Exorcism takes time to cast and the last one there is where I would freak out as a Warrior - Hand of Reckoning is a taunt - you don't pull with a taunt. The trick here is that if you are not the current target of the enemy it will also inflict (significant) damage - so it is a special taunt - and Paladins also have a backup taunt (a true taunt, not just a fixate) in the form of Righteous Defense so the risk of using your taunt to pull is lower.

Magic Enemies

This is where I first started hitting my problems as a Paladin - largely due to not understanding some of the mechanics. Paladins have 2 forms of interrupts - Hammer of Justice and Avenger's Shield. As a warrior you would normally use Heroic Throw to pull a caster towards you and then get to business - Avenger's Shield is the equivalent but it also dazes the (three) targets - so depending on the range at which you've cast it the silence may have worn off before they get to you. Additionally, there is no equivalent to Spell Reflection so, in terms of maintaining aggro on a caster that is at range, you are basically limited getting an initial threat lead (suggestions here are to start with a Hand of Reckoning and then use Exorcism) and then taunting it if/when it peels off you. I find I'm often having to taunt back at least one caster in the big group of casters in Forge of Souls as the DPS seem to always pull the one I can't get into melee range. As a warrior I would generally work around this by sticking Vigilance on the AoE happy DPS. One thing to note here is that Blood Elf Paladins have a slight advantage in the form of Arcane Torrent - an AoE silence (although admittedly on a 2 minute cooldown) will help immensely in some of these trickier situations.

Blue and Red

Paladins can become rage starved! It is a bit different because a Paladin starts with mana (in theory) - but they gain back mana in similar ways to warriors - by taking or avoiding damage (they also get it back for being healed, some back for hitting things, and if they are doing it right - just for existing and continuing to hit things). As a paladin starts with a full bar they can actually front load a lot of threat, but they can run out of mana particularly if they aren't taking enough damage in heroics. For some tips/ideas have a look at this post from the wielder of the big spoon!

AoE

Paladins are the kings of AoE presently and historically even more so. Warrior's AoE has been improved since tBC times, however some questions have been raised recently if Paladins are still too far ahead. However, this is not, as is the common misconception, solely because of Consecration, but because of all their tools, and most presently because of Seal of Command cleaving (which became even more potent at some point after patch 3.3 when Shield of Righteousness was moved to the melee attack table). But I'll repeat it again, because this is the point I didn't understand (and I initially tried paladin tanking before Seal of Command became the cleave that it is today) - Consecration by itself will not be enough to hold AoE aggro, and more importantly it does not carry the 'snap aggro' benefits of Thunder Clap. Consecration works best when it is given time, Thunder Clap frontloads its threat (and if you are deep wounds specced and you crit you can also get some residual threat). The snap aggro equivalent largely comes from Hammer of the Righteous and Seal of Command. If you are not using Seal of Command (i.e. the mobs take longer than 30 seconds to kill) then you will need to tab target (and keep doing so to keep up the Seal of Vengeance stacks).

Taunting

As I mentioned above Paladins have two taunts - Hand of Reckoning and Righteous Defense. These are both true taunts (they set your threat equal to the person at the top of the threat list). They don't have the equivalent to Challenging Shout however, which I have missed on rare occasions - but Righteous Defense does taunt 3 targets and has a shorter cooldown. In fact I really like the mechanics of Righteous Defense in that I can just target the player with the aggro (who is lit up like a Christmas tree on Grid) and taunt the mob(s) back to me. It has meant I'm out of practice click targeting and taunting - although some of that is the change to overlapping name plates (which I've just found the options to turn off, I'll have to see if that helps).

Auras

Auras are one of the defining things of a paladin - and should not be neglected - they now last through death like stances do (although they will get switched off with a spec change). Be prepared to change your aura depending on the fight and don't forget to switch it back (usually to Devotion Aura) after the fight.

The Tools

As I got through and list these I'll also add in the short forms so if you see them listed in other places you can know what the hell they are talking about. I'm looking at the main things relevant to tanking here. For a more comprehensive list have a look at Maintankadins Tankadin Glossary for WotLK

Seals

Seal of Righteousness (SoR) - before the Seal of Command change this was the trash tanking seal. It has now be relegated. But if you are still leveling it'll still be useful.
Seal of Command (SoC) - this causes your melee attacks to cleave and hit more targets. The intent was to make it a useful seal of Retribution Paladins, but I personally love it for tanking - and I'm not the only one. Theck did some calculations that show that you are better off using Seal of Vengeance and tab targeting if the mobs live longer than 30 seconds.

Seal of Vengeance/Corruption (SoV/C) - the boss tanking seal - it is a major DPS (and therefore Threat) seal when allowed to ramp up to the full 5 stacks. Note: Corruption is the Horde version, Vengeance is the Alliance version hence why I always refer to it as Vengeance as I play Alliance.

Attacks

Judgement of Light (JoL)/Wisdom (JoW)/Justice (JoJ) - one of the main attacks. If you are judging Wisdom this make your white hits comparable to generating rage (although the return is a static value rather than based on the damage done). Additionally, if talented your judgements can also apply the same debuff as Thunder Clap.
Hammer of the Righteous (HotR) - the protection 51 point talent - this is the equivalent to a (glyphed) Cleave hitting 3 targets except it isn't next melee. It can also be glyphed to hit 4 targets.

Shield of Righteousness (ShoR)- this is the equivalent to Shield Slam, but without the ability to dispel a magic effect.
Consecration (Conc) - this is a bit like Thunder Clap except it is essentially a DoT doing the damage to those mobs in the area it affects over time. As I wrote above it doesn't contain the snap aggro of Thunder Clap. Also it is quite a big mana user.

Avenger's Shield (AS) - this is the equivalent to Heroic Throw - except it hits and dazes three targets and requires talents to actually do the silence. It is also a big mana user, so for pulling you may be better off using Hand of Reckoning or Exorcism.
Exorcism (Exo) - has seen a lot of changes recently - but it is now has a cast time, effectively removing it from any tanking rotation. It still has some uses as it is one of the few ranged attacks and it a guaranteed crit against undead and demons.

Hammer of Wrath (HoW) - this is the equivalent to Execute but can actually be used while tanking. Useful for a boss on the run or replacing Consecration within the 96969 rotation.
Hammer of Justice (HoJ) - this is the paladin's Concussion Blow combined with Shield Bash in one - meaning it will stun and interrupt if the target is not stunnable.

Holy Wrath (HW) - this is a bit like Shockwave for undead... it is great for controlling big packs of undead, great for some snap aggro and can be substituted into the 96969 rotation when needed (not on every rotation).
Holy Shield (HS) - this is the equivalent to Shield Block and Damage Shield combined - except it has a shorter cooldown (and less block chance percentage) and can therefore have 100% uptime - much like the old Shield Block. (I've included this in attacks because it is part of the 96969 rotation)

Avenging Wrath (AW) - damage increase to help with threat and general tank DPS. Be careful using this however because it locks you out of your safety buttons (Divine X/ Lay on Hands) for 30 seconds.
Vindication - this talent gives Paladins an easy to apply Demoralizing Shout simply by whacking things.

Defenses

Righteous Fury (RF) - this is a Paladin's defensive stance - threat increase and damage reduction (via Improved Righteous Fury).
Devotion Aura (Dev) - more armor and when talented increased healing received. This is usually the aura you run as a tank (because it is talented - but some Holy Paladin specs also pick this up), but some fights may require you to change to another aura.

Ardent Defender (AD) - an amazing save-your-butt talent. In has a built in Last Stand as well as reducing all damage taken when below 35% health. The downside is you can't control when to use its effect.
Blessing of Sanctuary (BoS/BoSanc) - your must have blessing as a tank - adds stamina and strength as well as damage reduction and mana returned for being hit, blocking or dodging.

Sacred Shield (SS) - provide some extra damage reduction for yourself (or someone else). I must admit I under use this - often it is the domain of the Holy Paladin healer though.
Lay on Hands (LoH) - one of the oh snap buttons of a paladin or a saving grace for others - this restores a target to full health. Often this will allow you to last that final 1% when all the healers are down. Note it now causes Forbearance locking you out of your Divine Shield, Divine Protection and Hand of Protection for 2 minutes.

The Divine

Divine Plea (DP) - I like to think of this as a Paladin's Bloodrage - start the fight with it. The difference is that glyphed it can reduce damage and also it can have a 100% up time if you are doing things right, rather than just being an initial source of mana like blood rage is.
Divine Shield (DS/Bubble) - the Paladin's infamous bubble - this will make you invulnerable and clean you of nasty stuff - but it will drop all aggro - so be careful when you use it. It can provide some of the usefulness of Beserker Rage in getting you out of sticky situations.
Divine Protection (also DP) - the Paladin's Shield Wall or affectionately know as Bubble Wall.

Divine Sacrifice (DSac)- an optional talent that redirects raid wide damage to you - be careful when you use it because it could mean your death. This is potentially safer for the Holy Paladin to use in conjunction with Divine Shield.
Divine Guardian - a talented addition to Divine Sacrifice that reduces the damage taken to all raid members. This is where Divine Sacrifice can be useful - basically turning on Divine Sacrifice and cancelling it straight away will apply Divine Guardian and stop you taking the redirected damage. See Rhidach's post on it over at Righteous Defense.

The Hands

Hand of Sacrifice (HoSac) - transfers the targets damage onto you. There are parallels to Vigilance here but you are taking the extra damage, so use it with caution - can be quite useful in an off tank situation where you aren't taking damage but the main tank is to share the damage.
Hand of Salvation (HoSalv) - reduces threat on the target. Can be useful to deal with DPSers approaching your threat, or your own threat if you are off tanking and approaching the main tanks threat.

Hand of Protection (HoP) - share the bubbles around with this one. Useful way to save your healer/DPS when bad things happen.
Hand of Freedom (HoF) - situationally useful to clean snares off you or group members - i.e. used to be like Warbringer before the removal of snares got removed.

Taunts

Hand of Reckoning (HoR) - this is your stock standard Taunt with the added benefit of doing damage to targets if they aren't currently targeting you.
Righteous Defense (RD) - another true taunt but can be used on your raid/party members and taunts three enemies (attacking your party member) back onto you. This is as close as you will get to Challenging Shout - but with a much nicer cooldown. This is my favourite taunt hands down. It is (now) also a smart taunt so if you use it on mob it'll work out their target and perform the taunt as per normal.

Miscellaneous

Sense Undead - mainly noted here in conjunction with the glyph this is a passive damage increase against undead - one of the things I keep forgetting to switch over to when entering an instance.
Cleanse - like it, love it, use it - be prepared to use it to cleanse yourself if your cleanser isn't capable or incompetent.

Heals - in emergency situations, soloing or when your healer is dead - you may need to heal yourself.

Stats and Gearing

Gearing

Gearwise there isn't a lot of difference between Paladin and Warrior tanks (except in my case my Paladin seems to be luckier with drops). There are two main differences:
1. Paladins care slightly more about becoming unhittable - this is because it is actually attainable with 100% uptime of Holy Shield. Generally, it is something that is nice to have rather than a must for Paladins.
2. Weapon speed - warriors benefit most of a fast weapon for better (smoother) rage generation, and more Heroic Strikes. However Paladins do not have the same restrictions, and will see better threat generation from a slower weapon.

Stats

Stamina/Health - looking at the comparative talents Warriors end up with a 6% boost to stamina with Vitality, Paladins with Sacred Duty and Combat Expertise will end up with a 14.5% boost to stamina. However the other factor is that Warriors can equip a stat stick such as the Armor Plated Combat Shotgun that provides a boost to stamina to which there isn't an equivalent in a Libram. Also in terms of health pools, Warriors have a higher base health. Therefore, generally, an equally geared warrior will have slightly more health than a paladin. However it is also important to note that the base health does not scale with buffs, unlike stamina, so in a raid buffed environment the difference is minimal.

I did a quick calculation based upon my paladin's tanking gear - if all other things were equal, and the only difference was being a warrior (with an Armor Plated Shotgun and an epic stamina gem) versus a Paladin, before buffs the Warrior was ahead by 1160 health. Add in Improved Power Word: Fortitude, Improved Mark of the Wild and Greater Blessing of Kings and the difference is only 1005 health. This is taking into account the latest Paladin health nerf - before the change if they both had Toughness from mining then the Paladin would be ahead by 21 health fully buffed. Paladin's health scales better than that of a Warrior - so with even better gear than my Paladin the difference is going to decrease (but also note there are better stat sticks available to Warriors too).

The only other thing of note here is that is a greater race choice for Warriors - in particular they can be Taurens (coming soon to a Paladin near you). But as someone wrote in a comment on a thread I was reading when checking the calculations - if all you care about is health - roll a bear!

Mitigation/Avoidance - base line parry, dodge and armor contribution are equivalent across the board (and even have the same names). For straight damage reduction Warriors have it a bit simpler with it being baked into Defensive Stance at 10%. The equivalent damage reduction for the Paladin is a combination of Improved Righteous Fury which gives a straight 6% reduction, Shield of the Templar giving a 3% reduction. Additionally a Paladin can guarantee they'll have Blessing of Sanctuary up (which a warrior can have in a party/raid) will provide another 3% and with the Glyph of Divine Plea another 3% while Divine Plea is active (which should theoretically be 100% of the time with Guarded by the Light). Note that these values are added individually so you do not end up with 15% reduction but approximately 14.2%. The damage reduction can be thought of like this:

damage = damage_unmitigated*(1-DR_armor)*(1-DR_RF)*(1-DR_BoSanc)*(1-DR_SotT)*(1-DR_DP)
damage = damage_unmitigated*(1-DR_armor)*(1-0.06)*(1-0.03)*(1-0.03)*(1-0.03)

The damage reduction from armor is calculated in the same way, however with Improved Devotion Aura identically geared Paladins will have that bit of extra armor (1102.5) over a Warrior (who isn't in a party/raid with a protection Paladin).

In terms of spell damage Paladins and Warriors are equivalent at a 6% reduction with Improved Defensive Stance for Warriors and Guarded by the Light for Paladins. However, if specced into it (it is often only recommended for specific fights) Improved Spell Reflection provides Warriors with an decreased chance to be hit. In terms of magical damage Paladins can use the appropriate aura to reduce the damage taken from types of damage. Again this can be provided by other Paladins in the party for the Warrior.

Finally in terms of avoidance the greater choice of races available to Warriors gives them a greater base line avoidance if they are a night elf. There is also an increased chance to be missed by spells by some racials as well but they are also available to the non-human Paladins with the exception of the Blood Elf's Magical Resistance (see the table on Source of Resistance).

Expertise - for both Warriors and Paladins this is the greatest threat producing stat (since Shield of Righteousness was moved onto the melee attack table). The only difference here is that hitting the soft-cap (dodge) of 26 expertise is easier for Paladins if they use the Glyph of Seal of Vengeance effectively making the soft-cap 16 (on fights where they use Seal of Vengeance/Corruption).

Hit - for Warriors and Paladins hit is second ranked behind expertise for threat (explained more in a moment). For Warriors it is additionally useful for rage generation as well, and can be helpful for generating mana for Paladins through Judgements of Wisdom.

Strength - the third highest ranked stat for threat generation for both classes giving more attack power, and more block value. For Paladins this has a further benefit due to Touched by the Light which increases spellpower by 60% of your strength (at 3/3). Spellpower is part of the coefficient for calculating damage (and hence threat) for a number of a Paladin's attacks such as Consecration and the various Seals.

Agility - like Warriors agility grants 2 armor for Paladins, however the value of agility is higher for Paladins because it correlates to dodge and critical strike rating more favorably. The maths has been done to show that Paladins gain more from gemming agility over gemming for dodge.

Critical Strike Rating - critical strike rating (or percentage) potentially holds more value for Warriors than for Paladins, simply because it influences rage generation. Additionally with a deep wounds build crit rating is measurably more important for generating AoE threat for which the Paladin already has a good arsenal. That said neither would likely gear specifically for crit rating, and as mentioned above Paladins will see a higher crit rating due to agility.

Stats and Threat

Theck has done some wonderful number crunching over the value of the stats from a threat per second perspective - so I'm just going to quote him as written. The end result is probably pretty similar for warriors. For more information read the full details.

The [Shield of Righteousness] change [moving it to the melee attack table], while seemingly minor, made a huge difference in stat weighting.
Expertise is now our best threat stat below the soft-cap of 26 (above that it's fairly weak).
Hit is better than STR, point for point, after you reach around 2000 unbuffed character-sheet strength. But it will remain close, and they synergize such that adding one makes the other better.
STR is our third best threat stat, but it becomes our best after we soft-cap expertise. Adding more expertise or hit will make STR even better.
BV, while nice, isn't really something we should stack for threat. STR is better point per point, and doesn't push you into the DR range of ShoR as quickly. Obviously take what you can get as far as gear goes, but if you get to choose between 10 STR or 31 BV, always take the 10 STR.
General gearing strategy for threat:
Stack Expertise to 26 (soft-cap)
Stack hit rating to 8%
Stack STR

Final Word

I want this to be a good resource for those Warriors looking to try our Paladin tanking - so please give me any and all feedback and I'll work that back into this post. Also I've written this from a Warrior coming to a Paladin perspective - but it should help the other way too. However I have assumed you know some of the Warrior things and terminology. If requested I can change this to explain some of the warrior concepts too (but I won't go through point for point like I have for Paladins).
Edit: A quick thanks to Honorshammer for picking up a few mistakes I made!