HOWEVER

that is not ALWAYS the case. sometimes there is one particular mob in an instance that has a particularly annoying ability, and many tankadins will request that particular mob type be CCed for the love of everyone’s sanity. it’s also entirely possible, depending on the tankadin’s gear level and the particular instance being tanked, that the paladin isn’t capable of simply tanking the whole room yet. I can tank t5/hyjal content easily and I’m not ashamed to ask for a couple of the stupider mobs in heroic magister’s terrace to be CCed, especially if the healer on that run isn’t an absolute freaking rockstar.

I advocate communication and cooperation between tankadin and hunter, over assumption of what the tankadin is gonna want done. but if he says he doesn’t want CC, let him have his way, if it’s blatantly obvious he’s a scrub and can’t handle what he’s trying to do and won’t listen, find a new paladin.

I’m a Tankadin that started off as a Hunter, who I pretty much stopped leveling at L52, once I discovered the joys of Constant Consecrate, but I still read your blog regularly because of its Hunter Awesomeness.

I thought it’d be good if I explained some things about Avenger’s Shield, because there’s alot of things above that people are misinterpreting about it. It really is the best pulling tool for groups where you need to use CC. Better even then Hunter MD (ducks).

Tankadins don’t like to CC, but sometimes its necessary, on content that we’re just starting in. This means 4-mob plus pulls. Three mobs should definitely be pulled and tanked by the tankdin, if the tank/healer can’t handle that, they shouldn’t be in the instance. But when the content is new to your group, cc can be necessary, and paladin’s AS works wonders with properly co-ordinated CC.

The paradigm shift you’ve got to conquer is that you’re CC’ing to keep 3-4 mobs on the tank at any one time, not one, maybe two.

The main advantage of AS is that it builds a significant amount of threat on up to 3 targets that need to be pulled. But this isn’t its only advantage.

It will not jump to a target currently CC’d. That means Rogues can sap one and the Tankadin can shoot the guy standing next to him and never touch the sapped target. The rogue then stands next to the pally in the consecrate at the end of the pull and the sapped target runs right into the consecrate and onto the tankadin when the sap breaks.

Also, the way in which AS bounces is completely predictable. As such, on a 4 man pull, a tankadin’s AS, if used properly, will never hit the target to be trapped. An Avenger’s shield jumps to the two closest targets to the original mob. It *DOES NOT* jump to the closest target, twice. This is the biggest mis-understanding about using AS. It is not a chain-spell. Think of it more as a delayed cleave. Chain heal will jump from one target to the next, based on where the person at the end of the line is. Avenger’s Shield does not. If there are 4 mobs in a pull, and the fourth needs to be trapped, if it gets hit by an AS, bonk your tankadin on the nose and tell him to go back to maintankadin school.

But by far the best thing about AS is how it works with sheep, banish or shackle. Pulling in MgT, Tankadin knows his healer can keep him alive through the dps from 4 of the mobs, but the fifth will be too much. Now, normally if/when that sheep breaks when the mage isn’t ready for it, that mage is likely to get one shot. However, not with AS. A Tankadin who knows what they’re doing with CC will *ALWAYS* shoot the target to be sheeped/banished/shackled. If there are more then one, he’ll even hit all three, and rely on his judgement and consecration to cement agro on the skull when it gets to him.

The tankadin does this, so that when the cc breaks, after the massive fight in which heals have been going every which way and that the mob has had to be re-cc’d once or twice, the tankadin will still have the highest agro on the target when the cc breaks. This prevents those nasty huge damage mobs from one-shotting our clothies in the back. And, because the tankadin chose a good spot to LoS, he can stay there the entire time and receive heals, so when the CC breaks, the nasty-caster mobs come running right into the middle of his consecration, and the big aoe nukes that everyone is happily throwing away.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that, yes, Tankadins don’t like CC’ing, but the opinion that we can’t is a misinformed stereotype. When used properly, Tankadins work extremely well with cc.

Also, one last thing. If you ever have a trap broken by a consecrate either a) You trapped in the wrong spot or b) the Tankadin is a moron and you need to explain positioning to him. Consecrate is an eight yard radius. It’s always been an 8 yard radius. It don’t look to be changin’ any time soon. So there is no excuse for not keeping an 10yd seperation between any trapping and any consecrate. It’s a mutual thing, I’ve seen both hunters and tankadins screw it up, but there’s no reason, with adequate communication, that it should ever happen.

I love you.

Signed a tankadin

CC is a must for everyone to learn, not just the CC’ers, not just the Tanks; everyone.

Juniper said above “If a paladin demands that you do CC, you’re in a party with a bad paladin.” No, just No!

How/when/why takes a lot of explaining, and is often altered by the group composition. A pally tank might order traps if the healer’s gear is not up to the task. Or if the group lacks a wide composition of classes, in which case your buff options are reduced and therefore you need to be careful about how you do the instance.

eg. I did a run with myself as Pally Tank, x3 Hunters, and a pally healer. I insisted on a few traps every now and then, especially when one pull could easily grab the next set due to runners.

@ Contrary – No I don’t play a Hunter, but I play a 70 paladin, 70 warlock, 60s druid, 40s mage rogue warrior, and have experimented with shaman priest past 25s.

@Lerta – the Tank Frisbee will chain between targets in a semi-reliable way. This means that if you target the foremost target, it will link to the next nearest 2 mobs. This means that you can designate a trap target who will not be damaged by the shield. It will now not break Sap, so you can use a Rogue to shutdown a mob (casters) and then burn through the melee.

2 of my favorite pieces of kick butt weaponary. Both Gunships should live in eternity for when we need some “Danger close” air support.

As a former survival hunter I loves me some pally tanks. Heck even as a BM hunter I loved Pally tanks.

Mage and rogue cc, wonderful. quick and easy sap / sheep (druids / locks / priests ditto in right situation) of that meddling caster and we all get back to the task of burning things down quickly. Im only ever wanting a caster cc’d however, and even the best hunter is going to stop dps for a bit while he sorts out LOS trapping him. And then i need to worry about trapping too close to my aoe, resisted traps, agro after the trap breaks, picking him up before that mob smells the healer he’s been trapped nearby… it jsut never seems worth the hassle. Better the pala tank hurls that shield straight at the caster, then either uses LOS himself to bring him into the mele pack, or simply eats the caster dps until the other mobs are dead (this should be well before healer agro overcomes the initial shield hit). Mobs seem to die really fast when no one is worrying about creating / maintaining / breaking cc and all the agro is squarely latched on to the pala tanking.

Its glorious when it works, and hunters gain major respect when they use their trap to save a squishie from a mob that accidentally gets agroed away from my tanking. Palas and their healers dont even need to outgear the instance to do this, the skull mob can be burned down so quickly it usually only gets a couple of shots in before its dead. I started doing this in heroics with no epic gear and a healer with maybe one or two epics. I might dip no lower then 35% health early on then stay above 60%, the healer would end the fight with around 2/3 mana left. Now in epics, I positively discourage cc as it increases the drinking i need to do between groups.

So yep, if your pala tank is insisting you trap on the pull, either ask to try a group or two without you trapping to ’see how it goes’, with you doing MQoSRDPS instead of trapping the tank might actually take less overall damage. Or at least request the mob to be trapped is at one end of a pack, and the mob the shield is hurled at is standing on the other! Then resign yourself to less group dps, a slower, more fiddly instance run and a higher chance of rogue mobs running amok among your dps and healer!

Note: I can only vouch for this in heroics. If raiding something the pala doesnt outgear, it gets more complicated!