Would it be plausible for a war cleric in full plate to reliably tank small group content? I know they wouldn't do for serious content, but would this work for 3-4 dot areas reliably? Essentially, I was thinking using big heals in place of hate generating spells that tanks get. I guess my real questions are , if I lose aggro, switch to healers focus and throw out 2-3 big group heasl and instant heals, would that realistically be enough hate to get the mob back on me on a regular basis? Does anything over 100% of a players life still generate the same hate? If I throw a big heal on someone who is already at 100% is the same hate still generated? My thought was, a cleric in full plate with wis/con spamming group heals to hold aggro while DPS does the killing. I've spent a long time trying NOT to get hate but I've not spent a lot of time intentionally building large amounts of it.
is it possible? yes. is it reliable? i'd lean towards no. as your cleric levels up, a dps class's dmg will scale much faster than your ability to spam heals. a wis/con setup will leave your vit crappy, which is a huge stat for extra heals and energy regen. part of the cleric's weakness from what i've experienced is that mana conservation is the goal until you can get enough regen or raid loots. so if you don't mind waiting after each fight to refill your energy bar, i'd say go for it
To an extent, I'd say a cleric, shaman, disciple, or monk could do it, but agree that towards higher levels, dps hate will be much harder to match. If others are agreeable to de-aggro/push hate to you, it will help, but generally when they're looking for a tank, they're not looking for you. On the other hand, where the cleric frequently shines is after a mob wipes everyone else, that's the one who's still standing and I've seen them finish the job more than once--so you get to tank on a last man standing basis either way. I have a cleric with a rescue, all this does is force two attacks at you and builds no hate, but it's better than nothing. Blade Aegis is great to keep adds interested, but as far as keeping a main target's attention, unless a war cleric gets some extra goodies, I think it will be less what you can do and more of others holding back on their damage and such. In my experience, only spam healing really generates aggro and that's when it was needed--if you overheal someone, not sure that would even count. If everyone was at say 50% and the mob runs after a ranger or something like that, I still think you'd have difficulty getting it back.
