Tank Triage: Healing Paladins

This guide is an installment in a four part series designed to educate healers about the different tanking classes.  Rather than attempt to research the tanking classes myself in order to write about them (a ghastly undertaking that I would undoubtedly make a butchery of), I reached out to the tanks themselves and asked them to help.  Each tank was sent a set of identical questions and asked to respond to them.  The questions were designed to give healers uninitiated into the mechanics of a given tanking class an overview of how the class works, what their strengths and weaknesses are, when they are most vulnerable and in need of heals, and how they feel about being healed by Restoration Druids, in particular.  My thought was that knowing more about my healing targets would only make me a better healer, and that it might be a service to the healing community to pass the information along.  I hope that you find it helpful.

While I wrote the questions and compiled the answers, the vast majority of work on these guides was done by the tanks, all very gracious people to whom I owe a debt of gratitude.

Tank Triage:  Healing Warriors
Tank Triage:  Healing Death Knights
Tank Triage:  Healing Druids

Can you give an overview of the tanking style and abilities of your class? How do you get the job done?

Gant, from Tank, Heal, DPS

We are the best AoE tanking class, and can pick up multiple mobs quickly and easily.

Grabbing Aggro
We have Avenger’s Shield  that will hit up to 3 targets with a 30 yard range, slowing movement speed (dazed), and silencing for 3 seconds. Got a mob throwing shadowbolts at your healer? Throw a shield at him, and he runs right to you. We have Exorcism, which is another nice
ability to get some threat on a ranged target.  We have 2 taunts, Hand of Reckoning (on an 8 second CD), the standard taunt one target ability and Righteous Defense  (also on an 8 second CD), which is a unique taunt. The way it works is by taunting up to 3 enemies off
of a *player*, and not taunting the mobs directly.

Keeping Aggro
*We have Shield of Righteousness  for single target threat. This is our highest threat producing ability. We have Consecration  to produce our main AoE threat. Once a few ticks of this have gone off, it’s pretty hard to pull off of us with when AoEing. We have Hammer of the Righteous  which hits up to 3 targets (up to 4 with the glyph), to help us keep even more AoE
threat.

Popping CDs
We have Hammer of Justice  which stuns the target for 6 seconds (generally doesn’t work on bosses). This can be on either a 60, 40, or 20 second CD depending on talent spec. 6 second stun
means 6 seconds we aren’t taking damage from that mob. We have Hand of Protection  on a 5
minute CD (can get as low as 3 with talents) which protects the target from all physical damage for 10 seconds. We have Hand of Sacrifice  on a 2 minute CD which redirects 30% of the damage from the target, to the paladin, up to 100% of the targets health. We have Divine Sacrifice  on a 2 minute CD which redirects 30% of party/raid damage to the paladin (up to 150% of our health). This is only available if specced into on the talent tree. This can be improved upon with the talent Divine Guardian.  We have Divine Protection  on a 3 minute CD which reduced all damage taken by 50% for 12 seconds. We have Lay on Hands  on a 20 minute CD (15 with glyph) which will restore all of our health instantly.

Other Stuff
We have Improved Devotion Aura  which must be specced into, but increases our armor more then the base ability, and also increases healing done to anyone with the aura by 6%. However, this does not stack with the tree form aura of 6% healing. We have Blessing of Sanctuary  which
reduces all damage taken by 3%. However, this does not stack with the discipline priest 3% damage reduction. We have Glyph of Divine Plea , which is a glyph that we can use that reduces all damage we take by 3% as long as Divine Plea is active.

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Fierabras

A paladins play style is very rigorous; highlighted by the 969 rotation which utilizes every global cooldown from pull to kill. 969 refers to alternating 9 second cooldown threat abilities with 6 second cooldown threat abilities. This provides maximum uptime for several specd and itemized abilities while maximizing threat. Much of the challenge of the class involves recognizing problems well before they occur and adjusting the proper GCD to deal with them, maximizing threat and survival.

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Ratshag, from Need More Rage

Not sure I have a style. It’s get in there, generate as much AoE threat as possible, then focus on the kill order.

Excellent at multi-mob tanking. They are ideal for fights where mobs spawn randomly (like fire elementals in OS) because they can keep consecrates going and usually pick them up before they target the healers. They also can use their shield more than a warrior can, through Holy Shield, providing nearly-passive threat generation and mitigation. While they don’t have as many “oh shit” moves as a warrior, they can Lay On Hands themselves to restore their health to 100% – can’t beat that. Weakest aspect of paladins is their lack of mobility (no Charge, Intervene, etc). Also, the fact that they can’t carry guns means they can never have as much raw health as a warrior.

What are your class’s strengths in comparison to other tanking classes in your opinion? Your weaknesses?

Gant, from Tank, Heal, DPS

We are the fastest threat producing class, both AoE and single target.  We only have 1 short CD for self preservation, all other tank classes have atleast 2.

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Fierabras

Baseline Threat: A paladin is a high threat front load tank; with, possibly, top notch snap agro. This tank favors dps allowing them to burn quicker and longer.
Mobility: Both the biggest weakness and the biggest strength of the class; paladins have the worst mobility of any tank but counter with amazingly strong ranged threat. If I were to make an analogy I’d liken it to a black hole: anything that comes within 30yrds of a paladin is inexorably pulled into the center and never escapes.
Baseline Mitigation: at boss level a medium mitigation tank and high mitigation vs aoe/trash packs, low mitigation vs magic attacks. A paladin is particularly weak against predictable burst attacks vs other classes.

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Ratshag, from Need More Rage

I think I pretty much covered that in #4. Don’t know enough about
druids or DKs to make good comparisons.

How would you characterize your own relationship with your healers during game play?

Gant, from Tank, Heal, DPS

Most healers love me, but I don’t think it’s because of the class I play,but because of the way I play.

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Fierabras

For the most part I try to stay out of the healers business, as long as I’m not routinely dying do what you do.

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Ratshag, from Need More Rage

I luffs my healers! They keep me not dead! Seriously, I try to keep an eye on their mana bars, make sure their okay with the pace, and compliment their shoes.

Under what circumstances should healers be paying special attention to your class? When are you most vulnerable? (i.e. if a certain tanking ability fails, during melee/spell damage spikes, etc.)

Gant, from Tank, Heal, DPS

We are most susceptible to spell damage, as we are a shield bearing class, and can’t block spells. Sometimes one of our abilities misses, and that could prove a large problem in threat generation if it is early on in the fight.

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Fierabras

Paladins are fairly even-keel most of the time, but are most vulnerable during magic damage burst.

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Ratshag, from Need More Rage

Pallies I think are a little squishier  [than warriors] – lots of mitigation, but not as much health and they can get ground down faster.

What is your experience with being healed by Restoration Druids? Is it a healing class that you enjoy working with? Why or why not?

Gant, from Tank, Heal, DPS

I love resto druids, it’s nice being able to know that even if the healer gets stunned, or knocked back, or the like, that I am still getting healed. A great example of this is Maexxna , the 3rd boss of the spider wing in Naxxramas.

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Fierabras

As a paladin resto druids have no unusual strengths, your obvious strengths have made you great healers in my book.

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Ratshag, from Need More Rage

It seems to work very well, but I’m not sure I can distinguish what it’s like from trees from other types of healers.

Can you give one strong piece of advice for a healer in your group or raid?

Ratshag, from Need More Rage

Let the tank know if something isn’t working (LoS, threat,whatever). There’s often something they can do different.

How deep is your understanding of how different healing classes work? Do you think it would help your game play if you knew more?

Gant, from Tank, Heal, DPS

I have healed on a paladin, priest, and druid, so I know alot about
healing. There really isn’t much more I can learn about healers, other than
a few things on shaman, so not sure learning more would help me.

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Fierabras

I have a fundamental understanding of each healing class’s strengths and game play.

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Ratshag, from Need More Rage

Next to none. The idea of healing makes my brain feel inside out.

Is there anything you’d like to add?

Fierabras

Only half of the boss is tanked inside the instance, the other half is tanked outside in gear selections and equations. I won’t go into specifics but visiting tanking forums such as Tankspot.com or Maintankadin.failsafedesign.com and brushing up on mitigation and avoidance theory crafting basics can help a ton in learning how to heal your specific tank.

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Ratshag, from Need More Rage

Sorry I took so long getting this done :/