[Todar]

Just curious, I have been leveling another warrior on a different server I am too cheap to spend the money at the moment. Anywhoo, I am now 72, an am a tank, well so I do the LFG thing and all I hear is no thanks, were lookin for pallly, DK. Even my guild has gone the route of the DK, Pally, or ever a bear, before a warrior. Now I have raided Ulduar 10. ToC 10-25, and I do know my class, but yet I get passed for a DK or a paladin.
I have no issues with either class, heck I even have a DK and a paladin ( DK is DPS an pally is Heals/Prot). Just curious if anyone else has noticed this. Currently I am DPS, but prefer to tank any day of the week

[Maros_vek]

I keep reading that Warriors are persona non grata in guilds, but don't quite understand it myself. Between our sister guild and my guild, we have 2 MT warrior tanks (myself included) and several bears/pallies/etc. My sister guild warrior and myself have no problems with all TOC bosses and current content. Granted, we both usually are on the single target boss while the pally/bear/dk handle the adds; but we are usually almost as capable on the adds, and usually far better on the single target (Love them interupts!!). As far as I can tell, there is a situation for all tanking classes to excell, and warriors are generally able to substitute as needed and still hold their own. The "nerfs" of the beginning of Northrend days are distant memory as far as I am concerned.

[Reev]

No warriors are not a dying breed. We are doing just fine, and in fact if you listen to ghostcrawler, most of the guilds killing high end bosses are still doing so with warrior tanks. In my guild, we're a little short tanks at the moment, but I'm usually the go-to tank, and I'm a warrior. We also have an amazing druid, and we have some paladins and DKs that fill in occasionally. Outside the guild, we sometimes bring along a couple friends of ours who are a warrior and a paladin.

Warriors are doing great. I honestly don't think I've ever seen warriors as well balanced against current content. I think paladins and druids may be slightly overbalanced for it, but I think warriors are in a really really good place right now. Probably why we don't feature much in the patch notes lately.

[Halgreg]

In terms of new warriors, I wouldn't be surprised. The only warriors nowadays are the die hard old school tank warriors. I fit that description. My warrior I've played diligently up until last month when I recently switched to a DK. I would have enjoyed playing my warrior tank until the end of Wow, but the other top 2 tanks in the guild feel the same way, so in order to balance our tank team diversity, I switched to DK in preparation for Icecrown Citadel's potential problems.

I honestly don't know who would want to start up a new warrior tanking class with the Paladin, DK, and Druid alternatives because within days of playing my new DK main, I immediately saw the gaping holes and band-aids currently in the Warrior system, ranging from the inconsistent rage system (heroic strike forever queued) to strained itemization (shield block itemization for raid gear). Unless you already know how to play a warrior, it's so tough to match performance against the easier to play alternatives.

It's refreshing being able to self-heal while tanking for emergency situations, and not have to constantly have heroic strike queued for comparative threat output with my DK where it's a bit more relaxed so that I can survey the field as a raid leader. I've defended the Warrior class for so long, but honestly, we really should be berating Blizzard to really fix our class to accommodate modern Wow gameplay since the Warrior is still designed (with band-aids) for vanilla Wow gameplay.

[Reev]

I don't know. I'd say Vigilance is the only bandaid that really feels bandaidy to me. I think Heroic Throw, and Warbringer are really very nice additions to tanking on a warrior. I think that many of the older core abilities have been updated properly (not in a bandaid or jerry rigged fashion), such as Thunderclap hitting all targets in defensive stance and all our abilities actually doing reasonable damage.

I would agree that fewer people roll new warriors with which to tank as a main. What feels like a bandaid to you?

[orcstar]

Please not again.

Don't make this a self-fulfilling prophecy. Warriors have their issues, just like paladins, druids and death knights.
Warriors are not inferior tanks.

[Squeegiemama]

This topic gets beat to death more then the welfare epic one. Do we really need to go through this all again.

[Halgreg]

Actually, the question isn't "Are Warriors inferior tanks?" because I certainly don't think they are since I know how I play my warrior and can definitely hold my own or outperform most other tanks.

I think the question is more like are new players likely to play the warrior class knowing that it takes a lot more insight into the class than other easy by comparison tanking classes available.

As for band-aidy stuff, don't get me wrong. I think Warbringer is the skill in the entire game because nothing beats the sheer thrill of being knocked high into the sky and charging mid-air right back to the mob.

Band-aidy means more like how they've been tuning rage for the short term but falls apart in the long term (thereby prompting long, insightful posts here on Tankspot from the admins about it), heroic strike mash-a-thon, how threat is still kind of innately baked into the skills, and kind of dps-y, and the conundrum of shields, and shield block that doesn't seem to affect Paladins as much as Warriors. Shield Block Value as a strange mitigation/threat stat and having to cope with it on your gear for fights that it doesn't matter on (EH style fights) etc.

Yes, I'm well aware of these issues and how to get around them because I frequent Tankspot and I already love playing my warrior from past experience. I am doubtful that new players will have the patience to go through it though. And then, even if they DO somehow figure and tough it it out, they'll have to compete for a raid spot against other die hard stubborn warriors (like myself up until a month ago). It's a really tough journey.

[drae]

I think when new players choose to roll a tank they don't roll warriors as often as other tank classes. So in that sense we are "dying".

I think the reason is every other tank class offers more options. If your gonna have a level 80 why take a warrior vs. any other? Cause tanking doesn't always work out.. and dual spec...

Paladins can heal, dps, tank.
DK's Start at 55. can tank 4 ways (in 3.3) can dps at least 3.
Druids can heal, tank, dps 2 ways.
Warriors can tank, or DPS 2 ways.

There are just not as many options for warriors. There's a general perception that warriors are more difficult to play, and are currently not the FotM.

As far as DPS goes, we used to be the big 2 melee smash! class, now we kinda share that with DK's. So that pool has been split.

So ya I'd say we're dying slowly.

[Aggathon]

Is it bad that the best buff we've gotten in the last 2 patches was nerfing death knights?

[Sanelora]

Man, paladins are overpowered. I hear they are removing forebearance in the next hotfix

[Squeegiemama]

Bad Sanelora Bad!

[Saent]

Unfortunately the min/max online community focuses on BiS for everything from gear to stat food...inclusive of class.

TLDR types of readers walk away, rapidly spout off in trade channel which class is best/worst, and inaccurate perceptions run rampant.

Warriors are doing fine. My warrior will be coming back out for IC progression, having tanked most of ulduar and toc as a DK, and rerunning most of uld again as a pally tank.

I think the overwhelming abundance of warriors due to their exclusive rights on tanking anything meaningful for all of known content for a time is finally balancing out.

I'm also noticing mechanic specific shifts based on the content at hand, amongst all 4 tanking classes within my small 10man strict progression guild.

Faction champs? Our 6kdps fury swaps prot and locks bitches down.

Algalon? Our all-star pally healer grabs a board and deepthroats some big bangs.

Vezaz? Deathstrike time for me! =)

The OP of this type generally frustrate the crap out of me as they perpetuate inaccurate trends to the community. Are the top 1% of world first hardmode crazies dropping their warriors? If yes...you aren't them. If no...you shouldn't either =p

[Saent]

Meh...formatting sucked sorry.

Wtb tankspot mobile portal for blackberry posters!

[Sanelora]

Srs post tiem. They will never kill warrior tanking, purely because if they do, they are removing a bit of HISTORY from the game. Warriors being the only viable raid maintanks in vanilla WoW.

Also, this kind of discussion is not worth it. Even if people turn down warriors dont assume its because of you, it might be because of the group makeup or something like that.

I hear that bears can heal themselves now and that there is no reason to bring a healer as they can heal everyone else while tanking.

[Dhalphir]

all four tanks can do any job you put them to. all of them have strengths over and above the others.

[Todar]

Awesome!! thanks for putting me at ease. I still <3 my warrior, and with all the posts i have read, I will keep on Tanking LOK'TAR OGAR!!

[Sanelora]

Source: Todar LOK'TAR OGAR!!

what it should have said: For Gnomeregan!!!

fixt

BACK ME UP SHORTYPOP

[HarassMe]

I rolled my warrior, with the specific purpose of him being a tank, endgame.

I have recently started playing, after stopping right before WotLK came out. I had a 70 warlock that i was running kara with.

I have to say, this warrior has been more entertaining than any of the other characters i have played. I feel it takes a little bit more understanding of the game mechanics, to play a warrior effectively. I think that is why some people shy away from them.

/lurkpost

[nessin]

Source: Halgreg I honestly don't know who would want to start up a new warrior tanking class with the Paladin, DK, and Druid alternatives because within days of playing my new DK main, I immediately saw the gaping holes and band-aids currently in the Warrior system, ranging from the inconsistent rage system (heroic strike forever queued) to strained itemization (shield block itemization for raid gear). Unless you already know how to play a warrior, it's so tough to match performance against the easier to play alternatives.

I went from a Paladin to a Druid, to a DK, and finally a Warrior, and I like the Warrior best. For all their vaunted utility, Paladins are kind of boring to actually play since they're almost entirely cooldown based for everything but healing. Death Knights, speaking as a Death Knight that has tanked Naxx and as a healer who heals them, are extremely squishy unless they are 100% on the ball with managing their damage reduction cycles (way too much like work). Druids are almost as boring as Paladins, thanks to lack of toolset while tanking, and have all the problems you mention being negatives associated with Warriors (rage, queued rage dump, wonky itemization although in the latest iteration that has been working for them rather than against them)...

Of course, Warriors have their share too, as already pointed out, but its not helpful, or even reasonably accurate in an objective review, to assume the other tanks are consistently better alternatives to warriors for new players.

Although I do wish Warriors got their regeneration much earlier, the lack of a self-heal compared to every other tank is my biggest problem with the class, especially from an "attractive to new players" stance.