Rolling Horde

Review of Tankadin Talents

• Posted by Walkere on August 11th, 2007 filed in Paladin

When building a tankadin, you will face some tough choices. As a hybrid class, you first have to decide whether or not you want to maintain multiple rolls - many people opt for a Holy/Protection hybrid that allows for effective tanking and healing. You also need to decide what talents you want out of the other trees. Even for a dedicated Tankadin, the Holy and Retribution trees have some very useful talents. Diving into these trees will prevent you from making the most of the Protection tree.

To help your decisions, here’s an overview of some of the most important talents for a Tankadin to take.

Essential Talents

Improved Righteous Fury

This is without a doubt the defining talent for a tankadin. You cannot tank without it. It reduces the damage you take and greatly increases the amount of threat you can generate. Without this talent, you will be unable to hold aggro against aggressive DPS clsases. Don’t pass it up.

Anticipation

This talent increases your Defense skill by 20. Your number one goal as a tank is to achieve the magic number of 490 Defense. This will prevent mobs from critting you, helping your healers keep you alive. Paladins need to achieve a much higher level of avoidance than warriors for end-game tanking, so every little bit helps. This 20 Defense skill is equivalent to 48 Defense rating. That’s a lot of item value to spend elsewhere. Don’t pass this talent up.

Holy Shield/Improved Holy Shield

Your holy shield is one of your main aggro generators. Paladin tanks excel at holding multiple mobs because they can generate aggro on all of them at the same time. The reflected Holy damage from Holy Shield is the primary way to do this. It also allows you to block a large amount of incoming attacks, decreasing the amount of damage you take. In regular 5-mans, this will greatly reduce the damage of a regular attack. In end-game raids, it will help you achieve uncrushable status. A Holy-Prot hybrid might pass this up, but a dedicated tank cannot afford to.

Blessing of Kings

This is a great raid buff. It will also significantly buff your HP at high levels. On a well geared tank, Kings will add an extra 800-1000 hitpoints. You may skip this if you are dedicated to a single raid and you know another Paladin has it. However, for five mans and heroics you cannot afford to pass up Blessing of Kings.

Avenger’s Shield

This defines the dedicated tank. At the 41 point spot in the Protection tree, it is well worth every point spent. This gives the Paladins their only real ranged attack, allowing them to pull mobs from a distance. It also generates a large amount of threat on three targets at the beginning of the fight. Since Paladins don’t have many other large aggro generators (i.e. a warrior’s Shield Slam), this head start is very useful. You will need to learn how to use the shield properly, as it requires more thought in marking pulls (for example, it makes sap useless in most situations). Once you do, you will love it.

Other Useful Talents

Sacred Duty

This is a strange talent. The decreased cooldown on Divine Shield won’t help you… since you’ll never want to shield yourself as a tank. However, a 6% stamina boost is awesome. The Divine Shield will help in PVP, though, so it does have it’s uses. Dedicated tanks should take this.

Toughness

A 10% armor boost is nice. Hybrid tanks probably won’t be tanking end-game raids or heroics, so they don’t need to eek out as much avoidance and mitigation. If you want to tank in Karazhan or beyond, though, you should beef your mitigation and avoidance as much as possible. Take this easy boost.

Deflection

Like Toughness, this is a must have for dedicated, raid-aspiring tanks. Although it is in the Retribution tree, it is worth spending a few points. I would suggest taking Benediction, as well as improved Judgement, since these contribute to your mana efficiency and aggro generation. The 5% Parry is essential to achieving uncrushable status, which should be a goal for any raiding tanks. Paladins don’t have the luxury of Shield Block, which gives them a free 75% avoidance, so spend a few points in Retribution for this free 5%.

Reckoning

This is an interesting talent. Useful for tanking as well as dealing damage. As long as you have a 2 second or quicker weapon, you can utilize this talent to its fullest and increase your aggro generation. This loses some of its usefulness if you use a slow weapon, since you won’t be able to utilize all of the extra attacks.

Ardent Defender

Very useful in five mans and heroics, where you won’t go splat in one hit. This gives your healer a chance to catch up if they fall behind on your health bar. I’m not sure how useful it is in high end raids, since if you’re below 35% health when you are hit you might just die in one shot. Still, it’s worth taking for a Full Protection Paladin.

Recap

Those are some of the most useful talents for a Tankadin. A Full Protection Paladin would probably want to take them all - they all contribute to your effectiveness as a tank. A hybrid will want to pick and choose. If you are a hybrid, and you only want to take some level 70 five mans, remember that you don’t need the same level of avoidance as a raiding tank. In fact, taking damage helps you… otherwise you run out of mana. As a Protection Paladin, I would much rather tank a heroic or Karazhan. In regular 5-mans, I am constantly stopping to drink because I don’t take enough damage.

Check back within the next few days for some sample builds incorporating these talents.