[Saltycracker]

Needs More Salt: Tanks Side by Side

Re posting this and looking for input. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your tanking class?

I will break down each tank individually in time but I need to understand them first. I have a pretty good idea on Paladin and Warrior tanking and their pro's and con's. DKs and Druids I have very little knowledge about how a 3.1 tank works let alone the in's and outs.

I made a little chart weighing the strengths and weaknesses of the four classes in several catagories:

• Damage Mitigation: The more damage you can avoid taking, the better it is for your healers, and you will stay alive longer. This is typically melee damage. Paladin's typically take the least damage overall with blocks and high armor. Druids and Warriors take similar amounts of incoming damage depending on the uptime of a druid's Savage Defense; Druids have higher armor, so I would assume their damage intake will be lower. DK's are made to be avoidance tanks, so they will get hit harder when attacks land as they typically have less armor than the other classes.

• Total Health: The more health you have, the bigger hits you can take before you die. This stat is most useful for bosses who deal large blows very slowly. After 3.1 DK's and Druids got big HP nerfs but they still have the largest health pools of all the tanks. Paladins are next since their stam coefficient is higher than Warriors.

• Avoidance: How often the boss Misses/Dodges/Parrys when he tries to attack you. Avoidance is typically a secondary category to gear for as it is based on random chance. If you fail to avoid several attacks in a row, this could end up killing you if you cannot mitigate the damage or if the incoming damage is more than your total HP. DK's win this round, followed by Druids with their crazy high dodge rate. Paladin's typically have more avoidance than warriors ceteris paribus as agility gives us more dodge than warriors, although I don't see much plate with agility on it. I need to get some data for the warrior/pally avoidance.

• Cooldowns: If you can use cooldowns to prevent/mitigate a large incoming attack, the less likely you are going to die. The more cooldowns you can use, the better your chances of surviving. Warriors have some of everything including their buffed shield block. DK's have short cooldown but potent abilities, which edges them out against warriors. Druids have a couple tricks. Paladins have one talent, with one glyphed not as good cooldown (Hand of Salvation).

• AOE Tanking: Sometime or another you will need to tank more than one angry at a time. This may be 2, or may be 20. The less GCD's you need to use to keep them under control, and not get eaten by them, the better. Paladins shine in this category as we take less damage from many angrys beating on us while maintaining threat. DKs have very good/best AoE threat, but take more damage due to being avoidance tanks with not as much armor. Druids have swipe spam, and can take less damage with higher armor. Warriors have a lot more going for them in terms of AoE tanking than they used to including Damage Shield, Shockwave(Long CD), TClap, as well as Deep Wounds on crits (Thanks Warriors for the info)

• Threat: The tank needs to be the most threatening person in the raid to an angry. If you cannot keep more threat than the DPS, they will be taking hits instead of you. Paladins have the highest threat due to our threat abilities being magical in nature and not mitigated with boss armor. DKs have some magic damage, Druid/Warriors bleed which is reduced by armor.

• Moblility: A tank needs to be able to intercept incoming new angrys as well as get away from bosses when they become too dangerous to tank. The ranking is very tough as each class excells in a various movement type. Warriors take this one as they can charge angrys and friendly players. Druids have have the ability to close the gap quickly with enemies, but have to go kitty dash to get away from a boss quickly; this leaves them vulnerable. Paladins and DKs have passive run speed talents; DKs can also bring angrys to them instead of intercepting them.

• Raid Assistance/Buffs: Some tanks bring raid buffs and can cast spells to assist your raid in completing your tasks better. Paladins edge out warriors as we have Hands of XYZ, Divine Sacrifice, and BoSanc. Warriors can Intervene, Sunder Armor, Vigilance, and have a few more tricks to help out the raid (Shouts etc). Druids have a buff (MotW, Leader of the Pack), and DKs do very little to provide additional raid support.

Hopefully those categories are sufficient to rate how well your tank performs. I will be updating this table as I research more about the abilities of other classes.

*edited to add more information with more of my assumptions

[loquatious]

I dont really understand what you are basing your numbers on - just sort of a SWAG?

For example Mitigation warrior 3 DK 1 - death knights have more armor than warriors, near parity and once routine cooldown rotation is included as good or superior to Warriors.

Death knights rank under warriors for Cooldowns? Hell no

I would quibble about most of your rankings honestly and if the details are wrong then the result will be misleading

[hbombs]

looks like paladins win damnit!

edit: as I suspected the OP is a pally

[Dubzil]

^-- yeh, when did warriors get 4 cooldowns? DK cooldowns have been better than warriors since they came out. Shield wall, Last stand, ???, ??? shield block i wouldn't really consider a cooldown, more of an ability, with a 4piece T8 it is a mini shield wall to magic, but before you have that its hardly considered a cooldown.

[phaze]

Source: Dubzil ^-- yeh, when did warriors get 4 cooldowns? DK cooldowns have been better than warriors since they came out. Shield wall, Last stand, ???, ??? shield block i wouldn't really consider a cooldown, more of an ability, with a 4piece T8 it is a mini shield wall to magic, but before you have that its hardly considered a cooldown.

It's a ranking, not a count. The OP feels that Warriors come out on top for tanking cooldowns.

To the OP: taking a simplistic view of each class and their abilities isn't very useful information for direct comparison between each stat. You can't 'average' them together that way.

[Dubzil]

Source: phaze It's a ranking, not a count. The OP feels that Warriors come out on top for tanking cooldowns. To the OP: taking a simplistic view of each class and their abilities isn't very useful information for direct comparison between each stat. You can't 'average' them together that way.

ooh, okay then, that graph is just a lil confusing as well as a little rediculous. Avoidance pally vs warrior.. they have the exact same thing from tallents, and can wear the same gear, they are even for avoidance.

[Saltycracker]

Yea sorry, the 1,2,3,4 is just a relative ranking of the four classes. 4 is the best, 1 is the worst.

Warriors iirc have Shield Wall, Last Stand, Frenzied Regen?

I suppose DK cooldowns are more potent than Warriors....

[hbombs]

Our enraged regeneration is just about always used with last stand at the same time. Since its based off max health it will tick for a while lot more when used after last stand is popped.

[grido]

Source: Saltycracker Needs More Salt: Tanks Side by Side AOE Tanking: Sometime or another you will need to tank more than one angry at a time. This may be 2, or may be 20. The less GCD's you need to use to keep them under control, and not get eaten by them, the better. Paladins shine in this catagory as we take less damage from many angrys beating on us. DKs have very good AoE threat, but take more damage due to being avoidance tanks. Druids have swipe spam, and can take less damage. Warriors dont really have anything outside TClap and cleave.

Warriors also have shockwave and damage shield, which helps for AOE tanking also if any of them crit they can bleed if you are speced into deep wounds. Which I thought would at least put us above the druid on AOE tanking?

[Theotherone]

What's the underlying data to support the rankings? How was it developed? Where was it obtained? What variables were taken into account e.g. use of cooldowns, the spec, was the gear the same, were the trinkets equal; are we talking magic or melee damage? Etc. At its heart WoW is based on numbers and the numbers tell the story, without the underlying data it's hard for the math geeks (no offense) to review your work and let the rest of the community decide its value.

[Saltycracker]

Source: grido Warriors also have shockwave and damage shield, which helps for AOE tanking also if any of them crit they can bleed if you are speced into deep wounds. Which I thought would at least put us above the druid on AOE tanking?

Yea, but Shockwave is on such a long cooldown, and Shield block isn't spammable. Druids just have to spam swipe for the most part.

[Saltycracker]

Source: Theotherone What's the underlying data to support the rankings? How was it developed? Where was it obtained? What variables were taken into account e.g. use of cooldowns, the spec, was the gear the same, were the trinkets equal; are we talking magic or melee damage? Etc. At its heart WoW is based on numbers and the numbers tell the story, without the underlying data it's hard for the math geeks (no offense) to review your work and let the rest of the community decide its value.

These numbers are not absolute, but just relative the other tanking classes. For the most part I am using tanking Ulduar bosses as my reference. There are way too many variables with spec/damage type/gear to craft a model that uses hard math, although I am a fan.

For the most part, I am just trying to weigh the strengths and weakness of each class relative to each other. If you see an error or a problem, I would love to discuss it.

[CKaz]

Source: Saltycracker Yea, but Shockwave is on such a long cooldown, and Shield block isn't spammable. Druids just have to spam swipe for the most part.

Salt no offense, but this is something that you should probably step away from, short of a EJ-like math-intensive 4tankplaying intervention.
Grido said damage shield, which is something you talent, not activate.

Damage Shield - Spell - World of Warcraft

And as Grido mention most of us have, including myself

Deep Wounds - Spell - World of Warcraft

Noting that Damage Shield, Shockwave, and Thunder Clap can all Crit and produce Deep Wounds.

However more to the point this breakdown/setup/assignment/averaging is just... bad.

[Muffin Man]

As mentioned, damage shield is passive, whether or not shield block is up. I'm pretty sure Warrior AoE is better than druid AoE even after the swipe changes.

I'm also pretty sure that DK AoE is better than Pally AoE since DnD is basically equivalent to Consecration and after that DK's have other unlimited target aoe abilities while Pally AoE abilities after that have a target cap (Hammer, Avenger Shield, Holy Shield).

As far as cooldowns, DK's are the best hands down. Warrior and Druid cd's are similar, they have a health increase, and damage decrease and a life regen. With an edge to Warriors (I know Druids scoff at barkskin while Warriors swear by Shield Wall), especially if you count shield block (although no Warrior does).

From the numbers I've seen DK's mitigate more damage than warriors (I'm talking wws parses of Dmg In). Warriors get a 10% d-stance reduction, but DK armor via frost presence was designed to equalize that difference. Then Blade Barrior got changed to give them 5% damage reduction and afaik their frost presence bonus was unchanged (well the magic damage part got nerfed?).

As far as raid buffing, you left out Warrior shouts and pallies bopping people (yes, I've seen tanks do it). But I'd still put Pally, Warrior at #1 and #2 with the following huge caveat.

Druids seem split on whether or not BRez is something they can safety do during a fight or not. Ulduar fights are quite friendly to bear tanks brezzing people though, basically all of them except FL have gaps where you can brez (Ignis, Freya, Auriaya only for the OT though). So depending on how you count brez, Druids probably should pass Warriors for raid buffage.

DK's basically replace 1/2 an Enh Shaman... at best.

[Saltycracker]

Source: CKaz Stuff

Thanks, I thought only your offensive ablilities could cause Deep Wounds. Tclap sounds a little weird inflicting a bleed but w.e

I know this method looks like crap, but I am just trying to rank tanks according to what they do well and what they don't just for my own sanity as a quasi raid leader e.g. what classes work best for tanking certain situations.

[Kininye]

1. Do runs with the tank.
2. Make a judgement call.
3. BOOM! They're ranked.

Yes, some of them have some advantages in some areas and disadvantages, but they're mostly minimal.

Being good as a tank is defined by mentality, not mechanics.

[Reichsadler]

Source: Saltycracker These numbers are not absolute, but just relative the other tanking classes. For the most part I am using tanking Ulduar bosses as my reference. There are way too many variables with spec/damage type/gear to craft a model that uses hard math, although I am a fan. For the most part, I am just trying to weigh the strengths and weakness of each class relative to each other. If you see an error or a problem, I would love to discuss it.

Hey Salty,

As you have it currently laid out I think it could be considered somewhat conjecture. I think it would help with your comparison if you where to include how you derived the rankings for each category. Since you state that you may have limited understanding of the other classes, if you list how you are coming to your conclusions, other people with a better understanding of other classes or different experience could weigh-in to offer additional data that you might not have considered when you arrived at your findings.

[Bluepepper]

I think that the ranking chart is a great idea, but the ranks have to be backed up by some empirical evidence. Also, just a suggestion, what about adding mobility (i.e., ease of engagement, Deathgrip, charge, intercept, etc.)? I agree with Kininye on the fact that although the ranking system is great in helping tanks identify some strengths and weaknesses the single biggest factor in determining a tank's actual ranking versus theoretical ranking is their skill level. Skill Level can't negate the weaknesses, but can help offset them.

I'd really like to see this developed further, it's a start and it looks promising.

[Wapner]

This honestly appears to be nothing but a highly opinionated comparison post trying to prove that one tanking class is the "worst" and another is the "best" (aren't these against the forum rules?). If you backed it up with some information about how you obtained these numbers, and maybe your personal experience on each tanking class, people might take this information with a little more than a grain of salt.

[Stengel]

I agree that this needs more math and information to be convincing.