02-03-2005, 03:25 PM
mjdoom,Feb 2 2005, 06:11 PM Wrote:Speaking without much experience I would say that it is hard for a paladin to heal while tanking. The casting time of a spell goes up immensly if you are constantly taking hits (like a tank usually is) and in that time you are not doing damage or otherwise generating hate. The one option a pally has is to throw on his invincibility shield and heal but this has two problems: 1) He can only do this infrequently due to cooldown 2) Pallys lose all aggro during the time the shield is up. The mobs realize that they can't hit the pally so they go to the next PC on the list. I got killed as the priest because of this once and the pally went down soon after without my healing to help him out.
Sure, heals will generate hate, but that is only if you can get them off efficiently and I'm not sure that that is always the case.
- mjdoom
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Every tough battle (where I know I will reach deep into the paladin's bag of "oh crap!" spells), I run concentration aura. Along with 5 points in spiritual focus, this means you can't be interrupted by hits during a heal. Sure, I'm giving up some damage reduction (devotion) or some damage (retribution) but being able to predictably get off a heal is worth a lot. As you point out, if you're tanking, popping up the shield on yourself is a surefire way to get the squishies squished.
But paladin heals don't seem to generate much in the way of hate anyway. I've hardly ever noticed me healing pulling aggro off of anyone.
Though if you're the primary tank, chances are you're spamming consecration--you won't have all that much mana to be healing anyway.