It’s both, the spec has always had the utility but has often also been made of paper / had gaping holes in its defensive toolkit that don’t suit it to dungeon tanking where there’s no melee attack downtime. The introduction of sentinel and changes to other defensives has gotten rid of those holes and the spec has been gradually rising since then to a point where its overtuned comparative tankiness in mid to later season 1 allowed it to be recognised for its utility in the metagame.
Now it’s received some nerfs to its defensives and other tank specs are comparable, the utility / extra interrupts are what’s pushing it over the edge / making it hard for some players to let go of. You get a lot more comp variety / options when your tank can cover half the interrupts on their own.
Remember groups were pushing keys in SL with a prot pala tank and 4 dps (often only one of them with strong healing). None of that made it meta.
Additionally, prot pala has always been a strong option for pug groups where it can compensate for the dps tendency to not use their own utility. That didn’t make it meta either.
What makes a tank meta is when the top players, playing with the same people on voice comms, all making full and coordinated use of their utility, find it provides the best balance of damage and defensiveness to allow them to time the highest keys. The community sees which tank the top players are playing and figures that must be what they need for their +15s/+20s, and that tank becomes meta.
What I’m saying is that this notion that prot pala is the current meta ‘because utility’ is garbage. Once the top players switch to something else, the community sheep will forget prot’s utility in their eagerness to follow.
Actually in this season it s not about exactly prot pala. U just always need a paladin in ur group. No matter what role - tank - healer - dps - everything fits very good. Ret Paladin is doing amazing things right now in 25s.
So u just take VDH for 5% buff, u take ret pala for 5% buff, u take boomie for 3% buff, u take SP for insane damage and Stamina buff and u take shaman for BL and for strong healing on some hard boss encounters. Thats the meta right now. VDH Rshaman Pala SP Boomie / Monk
The only season that Prot Pala has been trash is whole BFA only 'cause every single serious pusher was playing Prot Warrior, basically BFA is out of discussion since every single tank spec that was not Warrior was a meme.
Season 1 SL: Port Paladin was ok, worst tank was Blood DK.
Season 2 SL: Prot Paladin was good iirc.
Season 3 SL: overshadowed because Blood DK was completely brain dead to play and broken.
Season 4 SL: same as season 3.
Season 1 DF: meta tank.
Season 2 DF: too early to tell.
How can you ask where is the carry potential of a Prot Paladin when you literally have tanks that bring nothing, no buffs, no ST DRs, anything to a M+ group?
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t give a crap if they buff or nerf Prot Paladin but it has the utility to carry a less than average.
Though I agree that you don’t bring a tank to a key because of their utility, that is cope; you bring a tank to a key because it has decent damage and it can tank it reliably.
I think the point being made, as the discussion has continued, is that the playerbase as a whole isn’t evaluating prot paladin based on any of its features or strengths let alone utility. It is instead following what better players are doing and most don’t understand or even use the attributes that lead it to its current position.
Which I do agree with, but I’m also not doing keys where you can miss a kick and live to beat the timer.
I definitely agree that the playerbase is following what top streams and players play and do even if they’ll probably not reach a level that their comp matters a whole lot.
You definitely can time a 20, 19, 18, etc with whichever tank, healer or dps comp.
It’s ridiculous to only join keys that only have Prot Paladin in them.
Though, in my opinion, there’s classes (DK for example) that don’t bring enough utility to compensate their ‘flaws’.
Spot on. When pink tank is meta, community says it’s because we can carry the interrupts. When pink tank isn’t meta and you suggest maybe it could be with so many interrupts, community says don’t play with pepega interrupters and you will be fine without pink tank.
While I am partially in agreement with this, I think it’s fair to say the explosion of comp variety we saw in Dragonflight S1, especially compared to Shadowlands as a whole, was if not caused, then aided by the amount of control prot paladin had. While warrior was meta in the earlier weeks of the season there were far FAR less casters being played.
I mean the fact that they have cleanse is to me one of the biggest pros.
Cleanse for BH diseases, HOI frogs, afflicted affix, ulduman spiders, BH poison one add
It allows me to not pick up talented dispel and instead go extra dmg. It’s like having a resto shaman, you can bring any dps because you don’t have to go BL.
I’m not saying that the other tanks are trash. I’m saying that the chance of failing is substantially lower if you have a class that can do any affix, heal, mitigate dmg and do dmg?
Of course the top players and best coordinated groups can manage without, but when some dungeons/affixes really call for extra utility, paladin is close to the only option. (I have had some monks which enables groups).
You don’t think people switch to paladin because of the need for it rather than what the top people play? Are there any stats on queue time for different tanks?
Some numbers on % prot pala in keys:
25+ 55%
20+ 43%
15+ 39%
10+ 37%
Well, sure. And the top people switch to it because they also perceive a need. The thing is, no matter how sound your arguments are, they will always be compared to what the top players do. You say paladins have great utility. Paladins are very popular, so the masses will agree. If paladins had the same utility but weren’t popular, the masses would openly or tacitly think that either that utility isn’t so important or they have some other problem that you’re missing.
And again (may not have mentioned in this thread), we are not doing any substantial offhealing.
Dk about that. I have had times where a LOH or just a word of glory save the day. As a healer 1 global is sometimes all I need to react and cast a heal.
Same with shams/SP/druids with their dps to heal CDs.
Ok, yes, that’s what I mean. We can certainly do some save-the-day healing, but it’s not going to look impressive on the healing meter or replace the healer, and we generally can’t afford to do much of it. The hybrids you mentioned will heal a lot more.
For sure on Asaad I’m a minor superhero when I can sac + WoG his Chain Lightning target when the add is up, or even spellward.
I always tell the palas to SaC players with the debuff from the adds on the stairs on VP because Affix always finds a way to spawn at the worst time possible. Yes, could have invited 3 dps with dispels to be able to use my own to save lives.