Paladin Tanking - What am I doing wrong?

[blownirocz]

Hey Folks - First post here so be gentle.

Inherited a Pally from a friend of mine at 75, and have leveled him to 85 now, and am loving playing it.

So leaving aside for a moment that Paladins are not supposed to be as good at tanking as the pure warrior class, I didn't expect there to be such a huge difference. Here's the scenario:

Trying to tank a named in one of the UF zones (Arthicrex), my warrior guild mate survives fine shield tanking with three T5 mercs in group. My fight with the same mob, also shield tanking, also with three T5 mercs in group, results in a fairly quick death.

We're both fairly equal in AA at ~2K, mostly spent towards damage mitigation (combat agility, combat stability, shield block, etc.). He has a little more total HP than me (~37K vs ~38K), but I have about 50 more AC than him (~5500 AC vs 5450 AC). The mob in question is immune to my stun because he's over level 85 (sure wish we had a stun that worked on higher level mobs). He uses his mitigation discs obviously. I use my Armor of Endless Honor (fight would last longer than one minute, unfortunately), Armor of the Inquisitor AA, as well as chain Withstand RK II. I also chain bash for its stun capabilities. In both cases, the mob is slowed.

He lasts the entire fight (about 2 minutes), I die within about 30 seconds. My question...is there something big that I'm not doing, that I should be doing? Is there one big discipline or spell that I'm missing that I should be casting or using? Is there some strategy technique that I'm not employing properly? Or is there really just that big of a difference in tanking ability between the two classes?

Thanks in advance guys!

[Thessiuss]

IMO a lot of our extra tankability lies in some of the clickies we get. On name incomming i usually hit my SoD BP, Dawnseeker's chestplate with Epic + first spire, that's roughly 1 minute of extra heals added when you get hit. When/If my HP is spiking a lot then i toss in Honorific mantle (see next paragraph). Once DSC goes down i hit mysaphar bp (TSS BP, can replace for silver-scribed) which adds some extra aggro + Stun heal procs. After 1st spire fades (and/or honorific mantle) then i hit Armor of Inquisitor and Guardian Circle clicky (Marble Band of the Thex House can be camped for GC1). after Epic wears off then i throw in my Lay of Hands for the extra HoT on top of the one you should almost always keep on you. If you don't have a HoT on you i'd suggest using your own (potions, mercs set to reactive/balanced will generally have a HoT on you) and using either Redeemer's BP (arcstone quest) or Breastplate of Night's Bane (drop in Theater of Blood) on incomming. Chances are if your fight is lasting longer than 5-6 minutes you should bring in some more DPS.

See if you can get your hands on Honorific Mantle (trade in gem disc) since chances are your Armor of Endless Honor is wearing off in those first 30 seconds.

If you see your health hovering around 30-50% hit Hand of Piety and/or Mantle of the Wyrmguard (DoN clicky from vish + yar'lir eye). Also, spamming lvl 84 and lvl 79 group heals adds to aggro and to healing.

There's a lot more to look for/do on top of that, along with extra DPS clickies, spells to use, etc. I tend to watch my own HP and HoTT a lot so i try and keep my clickies close by to pay attention to quick self heals when needed (burst of life, shining light, etc). Try those and if that doesn't seem to balance out your tanking ;tell fenninro.thessiuss hey and i can give you some other pointers. There are a lot more clickies and disc/AA combos to use, what i gave you should last a fairly solid 4-5 minutes. If you don't have all or some of that stuff, use what you do and camp/get what you don't. No matter how insignificant the upgrade it's that much more of an edge you get to tanking.

[Nodden]

A warrior under defensive will outtank you by quite a bit yes.

Some things you can improve on though are:

- Get the new defensive disc(honorific mantle). A disc that lasts more than a couple seconds, yay!
- Keep Steely Stance on you permanently, that's another 5k hp to your pool. Preservation of Tunare too for the additional ac.
- In addition to AotI you can stack on epic and first spire for a very large heal mod.
- Spot heal yourself. You're hopefully doing this already, it's especially useful when you're using mercs as they're a little unreliable.
- Cpt obvious: Get more aa's if you're missing any that help.

[Cellan]

[shiftie]

shoot me a tell in game and I can give you a few spoiler strats on named tanking.

druzzil.shiftee

[blownirocz]

Wow! You guys are awesome! Thanks so much for the thoughtful responses and tips. I learned a whole lot in just those few posts.

So it sounds like I'm definitely missing some of the important spells/discs. I will remedy that first. Also, I was approaching tanking quite incorrectly, it seems. It totally makes sense that since the Palladin is a hybrid class, I should use his casting ability to my advantage when tanking, and now I have a better idea of how to do so.

Also, I didn't even think about having the mercs on different settings. I had all three set to Reactive thinking that "more is better". Cellan - can you explain a little more about how/why this works?

[vawen]

Aurora can make a whole difference while tanking nameds, that spell is a god send for self healing if the rest of the group isnt getting dmg. If you are around 70% hp try to cast it, if casting is interrupted or fail and your hp drop under 50 then start using the other heals for get the epic, spires and aoti benefits.

If have spot, keep memed one of the reverse DS. Some nameds have the bad habit of get high DS that can make the heal of your group partners and make aurora less useful for your healing needs.

If mob have ae dots dont use the last group heal, try to have memed a lower one to have the splash ready when it is needed.

Purification also rock for the oh shit moments where you need a heal and a cure, heal with burst and while recast is recovering purify yourself.

Sanctification it is also a very good disc if you can time when dots or DD gonna happend, can prevent you getting 25kDD+, last very few and recast is huge but better used that dead.

Other than that I think most of the tricks have been covered already.

[Hulkling]

Steely Stance and Preservation of Tunare before engaging. After that Self-healing will make the difference.

Load up both Burst of Dawnlight and Burst of Marrow. Hit the mob with Glorious Vindication immediately to trigger Twinheal. Either use Protective Confession or Burst to heal yourself when you get low. Use Aurora of Dawnlight for self heals while waiting on Glorious to refresh. Hit mob with Glorious Vindication every time it refreshes. Pop Burst heals if Aurora is not cutting it. Use LoH. Use Hand of Piety.

Do all that while keeping agro, and melee DPS'ing. Good times!

[knytul]

oh wth, and since i dont trust mercs except JENNY! to save my life, get XIV Hot Pots and use them too. they are $$$.

Oh, and depending on how well ur healers are working that day, Deflection timing can mean a world of difference too. Alot of people like to use deflection at the start which is fine, but if ur healers are on point, sometimes i like to save Deflection until im JUST bout to die, then pop it (almost like a Divine intervention) so i dont die, and healers get that extra second to heal me and recover their thoughts. That strategy however all depends in your AND their skills...

[wuvarien]

i find chain stunning works wonders, obviously however you are limited to the zones in which you can do it in

[Cellan]

[Charqule]

[knytul]

Mobs have no dodge mod, therefore benefits them 0

[Brohg]

It works, it just doesn't help them.

Mobs have Dodge. The Improved Dodge focus from Guardian Circle will make them Dodge that much more. All tanks have 100% strikethrough now, though, and everyone else is on the mob's back, so it doesn't help the mob any.

[Hulkling]

[shiftie]

[Thebobo]

Well all real tanks

[Brohg]

My mistake, I thought you'd gotten it when you got the stun immunity AA. I retract my statement then. As a paladin tank, the mob will benefit by taking 0.5% less dps from you per tier of Guardian Circle.

[Fethiel]

Which we all realize with our great DPS on any type of mob is a huge difference.

But speaking of buffs on mobs has anyone noticed that sometimes certain buffs that we have appear to be on the mob. An example is when I cast Preservation of Tunare on myself in the middle of the battle the icon will sometimes appear in place of Charge for Honor on the mob? Then as soon as another debuff or dot is on the mob or I refresh Charge it immediately corrects itself. I have noticed this on multiple computers so I figure it is a server side issue, but was curious if anyone else is seeing it. Also when I box my box does not see this mistake of icons just my Paladin.

Thanks

[Hulkling]

yep I've seen Preservation of Tunare show up in the mob's buff window, and yeah usually happens when I've already agroed a mob and I refresh it. Its wierd, but appears to be just a display glitch from what I can tell.

[Pethdor]

I notice this alot also, I just figured it to be a bug and nothing to worry about

[vawen]

It appear when the proc happends. It does with all the "trigger buffs" like WoT, mana reiterate, etc.