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During the early days of World of Warcraft (WoW), healers were hard to come by. Back then, Priests were the only class assumed capable of main-healing an instance, but even thereafter, finding a competent healer at all was difficult. Nowadays, with Holy Paladins considered the best single-target healers in the game, Restoration Shamans making a name for themselves, and Restoration Druids considered very competent at healing in addition to the classical Priest, finding a healer is no longer a rare feat for groups. Instead, we have the curious difficulty of finding a tank, even though there are three classes capable of fulfilling this role.

It’s bad enough that Warriors prefer to spec Arms, and that few Feral Druids ever consider a tank build, but now we have the few Paladins not speccing in Holy also speccing Retribution. While some claim that Paladins are not only competent healers and tanks, but can DPS too, fewer Paladins are available to fulfill necessary tanking roles, and Blizzard’s recent decision to give Retribution Paladins passive threat reduction is designed to give these Paladins the capability of joining raid groups.

This decision is one I find rather curious, because the idea of a plate-wearing class with threat reduction talents seems counter to what a heavily armoured class should be: a tank. The ability that Paladins have to heal is one thing, because they’re single-target healers that simply have a survival advantage compared to the other healing classes, but a DPS class? Nevermind that their damage output is still less than other classes’ respective DPS specs considering even-level gear and same-skill-level players, but now Blizzard made a decision that will hurt the availability of tanks even more. If anything, Blizzard should be pushing Paladins to spec Protection, and away from Retribution as a non-grinding spec, or at least add additional utility to the Retribution tree such that the spec allows a given Paladin to do something useful other than pure DPS, thus negating the need for threat reduction in the first place.

Perhaps this is a preemptive effort to pave the way for Death Knights, another tanking class. Still, the Death Knight is only going to create a DPS-capable tank with the likely talent trees to focus in either area. Where the Paladin is unique is in his ability to heal, while Warriors and Death Knights are tanks or damage dealers. (Druids are in their own boat in that they forgo healing to stay in tank/DPS form.)

It’s certainly nice to see that Paladins have options, but in this case, the additional option is a bit odd considering the current state of tank availability in the game.

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