What tank class...

[scenex]

I know, I know. I typed a lot, but I'm just asking for someone to read it and respond honestly. The more responses, the more easy this will be for me.

So, I would like to make a tanking character.. but I can't decide which type! To be they're all great, but also have downfalls to me. Here's the list of tanks and what their downfalls are to me... (I play the Horde on Alleria) Sorry if this offends anyone, it was just my assumptions and opinions. I'm indecisive, if you can't tell.

* Warrior - Was pretty challenging and interesting. Original, and not many left. But, I hear they get boring and annoying, also very difficult and frustrating. Leveled one up to 23, protection spec.
* Paladin - Fun, easy so they say. I kind of don't want to be a blood elf, plus there's quite a few pallies in my server. Leveled one up to 32, retribution spec.
* Druid - Seemed pretty cool. It seemed like it was way too easy, and only two buttons to press. Plus, I didn't want to just wear leather all the time. Leveled one up to 22, feral spec.
* Death Knight - Seemed pretty fun and cool. Have a wide selection of choices for races. Though, there's just so many of them. Overpopulated. Leveled one up to 61, unholy spec.

**Additional Information: My idea of a tank is plate armor and a shield, though I'm willing to try anything. I'm picky, yes I know. I like to be different than everyone else, but I also like to have fun. I like a challenge, but at the same time I don't want to get stressed over it. I just don't want to get level 80 then be disappointed with what I chose. I've been pondering upon this subject for a month now. My favorite class I've played so far, which is my main, is my holy priest for PVE. My alt is a assassination Rogue for PVP. I'm doing my best to keep an open mind, but I just need to hear peoples opinions.

PLEASE HELP! What was your favorite tanking class and why? What do you think the ups and downs of each class is? Also, what do you think I should do?

[Charonites]

Right - here is my two cents.

I play a Death Knight Tank. I have no idea what tanking would be like on other classes, but I can tell you what it is to tank on my Death Knight.

You're going to have to deal with quite a bit of stigma - people have generally bad ideas about Death Knight's, they tend to think that they suck, or they can't tank, or even do anything - but let me tell you, they're wrong. I main tank for my guild in raids, and I do quite well!

Tanking as a Death Knight is certainly interesting - you have to remember to keep Death and Decay up, and Rune Strike everytime it's available - I cannot speak for Frost or Unholy tanks, but I'm a Blood Tank and find that aggro-management is very easy - Heart Strike affects two targets and I find that spamming that (when I'm not in need of a self-heal) I am able to hold aggro even when one of the DPS is attacking the wrong one! (i.e. not my primary target)..

As a Blood Tank, one of the things that appeals to me is the self-heals I get in the form of Death Strike, Rune Tap and Bloodworms. It makes the stress of being a healer alot less. I personally use my self-heals IN PLACE of a Shield.

Take the stat - Block.

It means that you Block the attack with your shield, reducing the damage taken or avoiding the damage altogether. A Blood Death Knight, will take the full damage, but will heal alot of it aswell - essentially reduces incoming damage, or avoiding it altogether, acting as a shield.

As I said - I main tank raids, and healers find me a very easy Tank to heal. Even for a Death Knight, which are notoriously hard to heal - but geared well, specced well and played well - a Death Knight Tank is as good, if not better then any of the other classes - we're good verus Single Targets and AoE.

Downside? - Our major AoE tanking ability is a placement-cast, you must click it, and then click where you want to cast it. For me, that makes it so I can't just click and forget, I have to click my cast. ><

Also you find that you can take alot of damage, due to your inability to block, and it's very easy to get so worked up on holding aggro, that you forget to self-heal and the healer panics. But if you can manage your self-heals and your aggro, it should be a very fun class to play!

And yes, we Death Knight's are popular, and there are alot of us - but how many of us are actually confident tanks that can tank well? Not many. Consider this.

Also consider that in real life tanks do not have shields. So why must a game's? They have plate armour, like a Death Knight does.

[Matthew Dryden]

I've been playing a protection warrior since I began playing WoW. I have to say that they are the most mobile of any of the tanking classes. This not only makes them extremely useful in a breakdown of mobs, but it also means we can get in and out of any dangerous situation with a little more than a few scratches.

If your looking for a sword and board, there really is no other way.

[Tengenstein]

ANY tank class is easy to play, whether its the pally and dk rotations, or the 2 button spamming of warriors and druids. And all of them will get boring if thats all you do.


I play a Warrior, and it is frustrating that on some fights i'm a fair whack easier to gib (or at least seem to) than pallies and DKs, but then thats warriors, we're spikey, threat and survival wise, you just have to surf the crests and be clever about ability use to get through the dips; you need to learn what casts you can spell reflect, which ones you can't interupt with an interrupt but can be interrupt with a stun, which mobs you can't disarm and which you can and the best time to do it, whether or not use shield block for extra threat, or save it for mitigation.


basically we have all the tools, and thats our edge as tanks, others may have more armour, smoother block mechanics, better avoidance, easier AoE threat, more donoughts, bigger boobs, whatever. if you use the right abilities at the right time the only thing that will screw you over is the RNG and your fellow raiders being stupid.

[Maèl]

As Tengenstein said(I strongly disagree with the two button part, tho), warriors have the best utility of all tanks.
If you want to use a warrior to the fullest you will have to deal with management of short and long survivability cooldowns.
You will have to deal with two on-next-hit abilities.
You will have to know what ability produces the most threat(thos that's kinda true for all tanks, innit) which can be at times confusing due to invisible threat modifiers.
You get the mobility(3 different ways to quickly move to a target).
You get actually quite nice ways to get AoE threat tho this is hard to master due to cooldowns and they produce snap-threat not ticks of threat.
You will have to deal with the fact that you might have to start a pull with zero resources for abilities. Think a paladin who has to get threat on 6 mobs a witless DPS pulled while having 0 mana. That's rage.

It really depends on what you want to tank. If it's 5mans then warriors can shine with their versatility. You basically have a toll for every situation in your toolbox. In fact, the toolbox is so filled with stuff that the sheer sight of it might be at first be a little bit intimidating. A couple of things like Shield Bash(spell interrupt) and Shield Reflect(throw a spell back to the caster) sometimes don't work in boss encounters. When it does it is hugely satifying. Think reflecting every other 15k Phantom Strike back to the Devourer of Souls while interrupting the rest. In fact the shield is a huge source of fun on a warrior.

MTing in raids in most cases means spamming your threat rotation while managing your survival cooldowns. Throw in the odd taunt off of the secondary tank. That will be boring on any class.

[Bleyde]

My view is that you just need to find a class that you enjoy - one will stand out and thats the one to go with....! Every class has its pluses and minuses so in the end they all seem to balance out. All classes boil down to the rotation at the end of the day and can all equally hold the aggro if need be so its purely what feels right to you. For me - its a Prot Warrior, but thats what I wanted and is how I visualised the character (wow - RP?!), for others it will be DKs, Pals or Droods.

As an aside, when I was levelling my Prot Warrior I got a team of three (Me, a Disc Priest and Hunter DPS) and we 3 manned all the instances to level so I was always tanking my way up and got used to various rotations depending on the circumstances - this way I was always avoiding 1,2,2,2,3,3,2,2,1, type sequences - I could mess around with skills and see what worked, what didnt etc.

[scenex]

I don't exactly HAVE to have a 1 hander and a shield, as much as I'd like to. I'm also seeing that Shields tend to be hard to replace. So cross out the weapon part. Reading these posts on advice though, Its seeming that I should either make a Death Knight or a Warrior--Though the post I made on the official blizzard WoW forums is replied to as make a Warrior, and gives me a bunch of more reasons why. Though, my in-game friends say go with a Death Knight. Huh. My problem is, I can't seem to decide myself because I've tried each class, and honestly none of them highly appeal to me. Maybe I didn't play them enough though. I just hope I make a good tank.

[Adamaeldar]

I've tanked a bit as a Protection Pally and I'm leveling a Prot Warrior at the moment (level 60) so I'll throw my two cents in on the differences between those two classes I've seen so far. Hopefully, it will help you decide.

Somebody on here said that the difference between pally tanking and warrior tanking are like the differences between using an automatic transmission (pally) and a manual "stick shift" (warrior) and I agree with that analogy. The warrior is a little harder to get the hang of, but once you know what to do when, you can have a blast. Mobility on my warrior is unparalleled, I can zip around the fight and be exactly where I want to be. Warrior isn't high enough level for me to be able to say that his survivability is markedly worse than my pally's.

The biggest problem I have with the warrior is when somebody else pulls, I may not have the tools I need to get everything back on me. It can be frustrating trying to get enough rage to build threat when you need to get threat back. You need things hitting you to get threat, if they're not hitting you it's that much harder to get threat back, if that makes any sense.

The pally is more fire and forget. RF up? Check. Devo aura? Check. Hit sacred shield and divine plea and head into the fight. 969 your way through the fight. Since you can relegate your rotation to muscle memory (for the most part) you can pay that much more attention to what's going on tactically although you have less options tactically.

To summarize- For me, the pally was great for learning tanking. Not a lot of mental effort to keep the rotation up or procs to watch for so all I had to do was keep an eye on anything heading for a dps or a healer, additional packs that could join the fight, or anything else.

The warrior has been a blast so far. There are situations where I find it more of a pain in the butt than my pally (somebody else sucks all the agro to them from multiple mobs). There are tools to use in those situations, but it's not automatic and requires some thought (charge->t-clap? Or better to use challenging shout? Bloodrage->T-clap?). Lots of other stuff to watch for (sword and board/revenge procs, etc) but as a payback, there's a tool for every situation and you can zip around like ricochet rabbit.

Hopefully this helps you decide between these two classes. I haven't tanked on my DK yet, so I can't offer a lot of feedback there.

[mangaart1st]

Well, I think I add my 2cp here as well. *Insert Wall of Text*

I have both a DW frost DK and 80 prot war both geared and tanking icc10/25.

The first and, imo the most important, issue that hasn't been mentioned. How do you handle negative comments about your abilities, gear, stats and playstyle? Why is this so important? Well heres the thing, there is a growing issue in WoW that is killing off aspiring tanks. Gearing a tank can be quite a test of ones patience.

Right now no matter which you choose you are going to be grinding heroics for triumph badges to get geared. There is a lot of animosity towards tanks that are not sporting 40k hp unbuffed and completely decked out, or in the process of learning their trade and will make mistakes. Make sure before you go down this road your prepared for that or you'll get to 80 and between become the newest tank-scapgoat and random kicks from groups that think GS is a measure of actual skill, you may end up giving up the tank life before you get to the real fun of being a tank.

Now that the disclaimer has been read, as far as which is better I will speak only for the classes I play.

Deathknight: The most versatile *spec wise* of the tanks. 3 different trees, 3 different ways to tank. Blood, Frost, Unholy can all be effective tanks if you able to put in the time and effort to learn their nuiances.

For me Deathknight means a larger contribution to the dps spectrum of tanking. The rune system is an interesting system when tanking as unlike rage or mana, your dont start and just go till your at 0 when it comes to threat gen. I view tanking as a DK like a wave in the ocean, youll build up and peak when the wave is its highest *all your runes are up and you can hammer your biggest stuff for burst threat* but then it drops down *runes are on cooldown/blackout tps starts to drop* then starts building again. This constantly rolling of power and runes takes some getting used to, so I would say DK would be a good middle ranged tank class as far as learning.

As for warrior, my main spec/class since closed beta 2nd phase in vanillia, they have gone through quite a bit. From being THE tank in vanillia, to slowly taking a back seat in the aoe department to pallies and huge hit fights to druids in tbc, and now the same as TBC with added DK's and their superior dps while tanking and cooldowns. I will say that warriors with all our procs, active priority threat rotations are probably the most advanced tank class to learn. That doesnt mean its the hardest to play or learn, but there is quite a bit you'll have to learn situationally which gets a easier the more you tank.

Tanking as a warrior is a labor of love. You seriously either love their versatitilty and mobility with Warbringer, Intervene, and all our stuns and interrupts, or you hate that they do take more focus, are by some considered harder to play well, and are not the best at AoE tanking. For me warriors are no harder or easier then other tanks, aside from AoE on large packs (8+ mobs) they simply bring different tools to the same job. Its your ability to master those tools that will determine the best tank for you.

As for Paladins, they bring a ton to the table, are arguably the best at aoe threat gen, and with their mechanics and rotations are probably the friendliest tank to pick up and play. There are a set of skills that all tanks need, and until you have these skills it may be easier to play a class whose threat generation takes the least amount of focus, while you learn the other stuff.

[Selene]

My advice is be whichever you like the most.
I have tried to play a Druid, Fat Bear Butt in my screen turned me off from bear-form so much so that I never even got to cat-form.
I have tried to play a Warrior, Rage was a major turn off.
I have a Paladin that I did get to level 80, have tried to tank with it, but have yet to learn effective rotation and such, so not enjoying it.
My DK is my favorite, for me the transition from DK DPS to DK Tanking was easy, but then again I did have a fairly steep learning curve for tanking, since my big break into tanking was Naxx10 when Naxx and Ulduar were the raids.

As to the DK hate, that is because there are a TON of DKs out there and far too many Idiots that think going Frost Presence will let them Tank regardless of gear...

[Eisen]

I've tanked as both a DK and a warrior. My Wife has tanked as both a pally and a bear. We've got it all covered.

You like plate and shield. That gets you between Warrior and Pally. Wars are a swiss army knife; they have TONS of little goodies, some of which they never even remember they have, that allow them to aadapt to any situation. They're also very mobile.

Pallies on the other hand put out more damage in general, and have a couple really awesome save-your butt moves (Ardent Defender and Lay on Hands). But they have less neat gadget than wars and a good deal of their threat is not conducive to mobile fights. They do however have a very simple rotation compared to warriors.

[Reev]

A warrior tank may be the most complicated of the tanks, but it's still going to be less complicated than raid healing on a holy priest, imo. Once you're used to the rotation, you can put it out of your mind altogether and concentrate on the more important things, like survivability and movement.

[scenex]

Now my only problem is how I can't decide whether I want to take the class that takes lots of focus and skill, or take the one that's a little bit easier and less hectic. Warrior seems awesome, but sometimes I get bored in raids and my mind tends to wander off--and I lose my attention. I'm scared that I might not be focused enough for a warrior. But then again, I do happen to like challenges. Paladins seem pretty cool too, but then again there's so many of them and plus I don't know about the whole tanking system they have. Death Knight is something I would want to try, but its way over-populated and people assume you're a horrible tank. Druid seems alright, but I tried to level it and couldn't get into it. I still feel pretty unsure and indecisive. So far people are saying Warrior, but I'm scared to spend all that time getting to 80, then being unable to tank with it due to my short-attention spans.

[mangaart1st]

I would say if you know you have attention span issues warrior is probably not the best.. but then rly neither is tanking in general. There are a lot of things tanks have to look for and be ready for. Extra adds, mis taunts, position shifts that weren't intended, interrupts, cool down usages on big incoming damage mechanics just to name a few.

I am not trying to put you off from tanking, quite the opposite we need more dedicated tanks to the cause. Just want to make sure your aware what end game tanking eventually leads to. If you only have the aspirations of tanking 5 mans, and the occasional pug then that expected load is much less.

[Reev]

If you're worried about your mind wandering while raiding, tanking might not be right for you in the first place. It's one of those things that really does require a fair amount of concentration no matter which class you're playing. Unlike a healer, whose concentration is on who to heal when and with what spell, tanks are the dynamos that move the fights along, and need to be aware of what it happening in the fights at all times. Distraction when you're supposed to taunt switch with the other tank is a bad thing and can wipe the raid. Distraction when you need to be popping cooldowns is a bad thing and can wipe the raid.

If anything, I'd think the more complicated tank might be better for someone who is distracted easily because it forces their concentration much more on the task at hand, which is very important for a tank.

[Eisen]

I would say if you know you have attention span issues warrior is probably not the best.. but then rly neither is tanking in general.

THIS.

No offense, but being aware of your surroundings is the MOST important thing for a tank. You can be sloppy on your rotation, you can use your cooldowns poorly, you can have not-the-best gear and still keep a raid alive...you stop paying attention and people WILL die.

[scenex]

Nvm, screw it. Yay for discouragement. I won't make a tank. Thanks anyways.

[Eisen]

Nvm, screw it. Yay for discouragement. I won't make a tank. Thanks anyways.

It's not that we're trying to be discouraging...

OK, maybe we are, a little.

But it's just that being a tank takes a certain mindset. Watch Ciderhelm's positioning videos. It's like raising 3 year olds. You have to have eyes in the back of your head. Uhoh that Pally's hititng the wrong target, need to focus on it a bit to push threat down. Stupid lock got tailswiped into whelps, better go pick that...oh crud where did that add come from cmon thunderclap hurry up why is the healer getting hit? Where are my heals? OK getting low should I pop a CD or..oh goodie someone aggroed the other pat...

If you feel you're going to space out during the raid that could be a problem. Franktly from your posts I wonder if you want to play a tank, or if you feel you should play one.

[Hammerfists]

Playing a tank is less about rotation and more about spacial awareness and understanding the damage output of said boss/mob. You need to know when to move something what should be killed first and when its a good time to blow a cooldown. Its not like DPS on the other side of a boss (ok maybe Naxx was like that). Like Eisen said you first have to learn how to "tank" before you can say this is my tank toon. Watch those vids and see if tanking is still something that you would like to do.

[Squirrelnut]

My breakdown:

• DPS
  • fun to kill stuff, little brain required other then push buttons in the right order and don't stand in fire
• Tank
  • Paladin (overall #1 tank - FoTM)
    • #1 AoE threat
    • Good single target threat
    • Great DPS output
    • Excellent survivability
    • Good Cooldowns
    • Easy to be decent
  • Druid (overall #2 tank)
    • Good AoE threat
    • Good single target threat
    • Good DPS output and can switch to kitty when OT
    • Great survivability being a big hunk of meat
    • Good Cooldowns
    • Limited rotation making it easy / boring
  • Warrior (overall #3 tank)
    • Poor AoE threat, requires far more effort and potentially glyphs to even gain a semblance of equality with the other tanks. Good ones make it look easy but it takes a lot more practice & effort.
    • Good single target threat
    • Poor DPS output in comparison with other tanks
    • Mediocre survivability
    • Talent points and glyphs required for cooldowns to equal other tanks default
    • Great mobility
    • Difficult to be good, large ability prioritization variation and spamming of heroic strike to put out good threat.
    • Great versatility for those who take the time to perfect the class
  • DK (overall #4 tank)
    • Good AoE threat
    • Mediocre single target threat
    • Good DPS output
    • Mediocre survivability at best, requires good cooldown usage
    • Poorly represented by all the terribles that rolled DK when they were blatantly OP
    • Opportunity to be a good tank but 95% of DK's fail miserably at it

As others have told you the key is to pick the play style you like most. Personally I choose Prot Warrior and would never change because although Bliz refuses to bring our mechanics in line with the other tanks we are 'capable' of performing well if you are willing to put extra time & effort into it beyond what other tanks need do for similar output. I take pride in doing everything I possibly can and am willing to work harder then other tanks (though I would like to see buffs )

If I were to recommend a tanking class I would say go with Pally or Druid, they are both extremely effective and fairly easy to play. I highly doubt Prot Warriors or DK's will get any buffs in the near future since Bliz utilizes statistic representation numbers when making mechanic decisions. As such, they are ok with leaving these two classes slightly under-par because it is 'possible' to tank all content with any class and they don't want any more people to roll those two classes because there are already a bunch of them.

GL