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Class choice for main tank.
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Post by
anywherenotes
Your best bet tank is the worst tank.
DK's are
not
tanks. Currently, they're an off-tank at best. The amount of DK's that are on par with other tank classes are so few and far between, it's the same as "My friend's brothers, friend, has a sister that has a cousin that is the MT of his guild on KT all the time.
Warrior's do fine at keeping threat in end game. Pally's do fine at keeping threat in end game. Druids aren't bad at all
in the right hands.
Pick w/e you like. Except a DK as a tank. Because they're not.
You know, it's great how there are some people who know more than blizzard about blizzard's game. Blizzard keeps saying they are making all 4 tanks able to MT, and than you get a statement such as DK's are not even tanks.
There was some sarcasm in there, but reality is if it's perceived that DK's are bad tanks, than blizzard will buff them. Blizzard did market the expansion around this new class, they won't let it fail.
Our guild switches tank from boss to boss to keep offtanks from falling asleep and interested in game. I do MT various bosses in naxx25 and naxx10 for our guild. My char is Machina on Dunemaul server.
The issue with DK is you have to know when to use abilities. That does imply you have to know the boss. If there's a boss that does constant damage throughout the fight without any spikes during the encounter, I'd agree DK isn't the best, DK's strength is to time the abilities with boss's enrages - but no other tank has that ability to the same extent.
Post by
138535
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
YesterdaysHero
You know, it's great how there are some people who know more than blizzard about blizzard's game. Blizzard keeps saying they are making all 4 tanks able to MT, and than you get a statement such as DK's are not even tanks.
There was some sarcasm in there, but reality is if it's perceived that DK's are bad tanks, than blizzard will buff them. Blizzard did market the expansion around this new class, they won't let it fail.
Our guild switches tank from boss to boss to keep offtanks from falling asleep and interested in game. I do MT various bosses in naxx25 and naxx10 for our guild. My char is Machina on Dunemaul server.
The issue with DK is you have to know when to use abilities. That does imply you have to know the boss. If there's a boss that does constant damage throughout the fight without any spikes during the encounter, I'd agree DK isn't the best, DK's strength is to time the abilities with boss's enrages - but no other tank has that ability to the same extent.
Comment still stands, regardless of you thinking I know more about Blizzards guild than Blizzard. In their current form, any guild with an ounce of intelligence will take any other available tank class over a DK. Just how it is.
Post by
Sakkura
Sakkura: I can promise you that once shield of righteousness is nerfed Warriors and Paladins will be roughly neck and neck, where skill and gear will make the difference. A good prot warrior can put out 4k TPS now in heroics and 10-man naxx gear.
Oh and I have yet to see our guilds prot paladin put out 8k TPS and his gear and skill are not in question. 6.3k TPS is about his cap, mine is about 4.5k (prot warrior in avoidance style gear).
The only thing I have trouble understanding is why so many paladins feel the need to say 'I am better than warriors at single-target TPS, better AoE and less squishy'... that is basically saying you are overpowered in every possible department.
In my experience they are roughly equal at single target TPS (when taking the Shield of Righteousness bug out of the equation), better AoE tanks by a fair margin (consecrate is still AoE king) and on average just as squishy as warrior. The balance is you don't have the panic buttons we have (namely enraged regeneration, last stand and a slightly better shield wall)
I could imagine things would be more even once the nerf goes live. If your paladins are stuck on such low TPS, it seems to me that there is probably something wrong - spec, gear, skill, whatever. Ours do way more threat than that - heck I can match those ~6k in most cases, and I'm just a poor little warrior. Our paladins usually pull more, and the difference is especially obvious on trash because warriors lose some ground there (since we don't get quite as much rage; paladins don't get as much mana either, but it doesn't matter since they start with a full mana bar).
My experience is that right now, paladins take slightly more damage than warriors overall, but take less potentially lethal spikes. On bosses, that is.
Post by
Lightrain
My experience is that right now, paladins take slightly more damage than warriors overall, but take less potentially lethal spikes. On bosses, that is.
I agree here.
For the record, I do NOT use both ranks of SotR. I still out threat warriors. I do have to work at it, but I have less gear than most warriors as I'm a holy main spec pally, and this is on 25 man vault where I can't use conc that much. HS is easier to keep up than shield block, so we don't have the potential of getting smacked with full damage from patchwerk, who hits really fast.
Post by
65116
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
windstrum
What about a Shaman? Mail armor, shield,
Frost Shock
... what more could you want? :D
My first choice to group with would be a paladin, just for the AoE threat alone (and I'm not even an AoE class). Whenever I'm feeling particularly stupid and I accidentally grab aggro, its always a
Chain Lightning
crit that does it. Paladin tanks mean I cause fewer wipes :)
It's very cliche, but all four classes (Pally, Warrior, DK, Druid) make excellent tanks, but all depend on the player at the helm. There's no real way to work out which one will work the best for you, so my only suggestion is to check out each of their abilities and pick the one that makes the most sense to you, or the one that you can already predict your rotations.
I'll try break down the advantages of each, as best I can:
Paladin
: Wear plate and carry a shield, and "AoE threat for dummies"
Warrior
: Wear plate and carry a shield, incredible single target threat and interrupts
Death Knight
: Wear plate, no shield, generate either AoE or single target threat through talents by pure DPS and with the odd high-threat ability
Druid
: Wear leather, but have massive armor boost through shapeshift. No shield. Do higher-than-average DPS for a tank, have a large pool of health typically
Blizzard have gone to great lengths to even these out, so you'll hear a lot of people say they're all viable and incredibly useful. This is 100% true. Each can do AoE threat, single target threat, and damage mitigation, provided they're tweaked, geared and played correctly.
Post by
84594
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Post by
Sakkura
MT.
Not an idiot.
Knows the fight.
Not prone to mistakes.
Has gear.
Has extensive experience in tanking.
There are no other reasons to choose a "MT" outside of that. If you base it on class... you fail at WoW.
Yes there are. If you have a prot warrior and a feral druid in your raid, and both fulfill the above criteria reasonably, you make the prot warrior MT. Similar thing with prot paladin vs. death knight, and the other combinations.
Post by
Bruenor80
MT.
Not an idiot.
Knows the fight.
Not prone to mistakes.
Has gear.
Has extensive experience in tanking.
There are no other reasons to choose a "MT" outside of that. If you base it on class... you fail at WoW.
Yes there are. If you have a prot warrior and a feral druid in your raid, and both fulfill the above criteria reasonably, you make the prot warrior MT. Similar thing with prot paladin vs. death knight, and the other combinations.
Why would you bother with that? if they are similarly geared then there really won't be all the much difference. Tbh it might make more sense to make the warrior OT because they are still better at AoE than a druid, even if only slightly. Druids mitigation and avoidance is on par and TPS untouchable, so the healers won't have anything to complain about. As long as the druid isn't just a mana sponge that is(hate when people don't itemize correctly)
Post by
233683
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Ztrange
If there was one class that was made for main tanking everything you would know. There are several boss fights where you could go with a different class every time and still make it through without a hassle, the exception to this is DK's, but that's because they're still working out the kinks. When they've fixed the problems with spike damage and evened it out a bit they'll be as viable as any other class.
However, not every boss encounter looks the same in WoW, and if you want to optimize there are certain situations that some classes are better for, but these are decreasing with the tanks skills and playstyle growing more and more similar. If Ulduar brings any fast and hard hitting bosses Druids will probably become increasingly popular, with them having over 50k hp raid buffed.
I myself am a bit biased against prot pallies, but I think it's because I've had bad experiences from TBC and not that many of them in general. Is there such a thing as too much AoE threat? Yes. But only if you can't handle it, and any skilled tank knows when that limit is reached and knows how to avoid it.
In end-game gear it won't matter which you pick. While gearing up I'd probably choose a druid or a warrior, but that's because I like fast runs. (I don't know if prot Paladins still have to rest like any other mana user, if you can chain pull like a warrior/druid I'll retract this last statement and go with "Whatever floats your boat" instead.)
Post by
182091
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Sakkura
Why would you bother with that? if they are similarly geared then there really won't be all the much difference. Tbh it might make more sense to make the warrior OT because they are still better at AoE than a druid, even if only slightly. Druids mitigation and avoidance is on par and TPS untouchable, so the healers won't have anything to complain about. As long as the druid isn't just a mana sponge that is(hate when people don't itemize correctly)
The feral druid can do a lot more DPS when not tanking than the warrior can. So your raid DPS is much better if the warrior tanks and the druid DPSes than the other way around.
They are about equally good at the actual MTing, but the feral druid is better when not tanking, and thus better suited for the OT spot (even more so when you take into consideration abilities like combat ress and innervate).
Post by
Sakkura
Um.... Ive MTed Malygos and threat still isnt an issue, We have been killing him since our 2nd kill with 3minutes left on the timer at the end of the fight. Our guild prides its self on its nuking capabilities and threat just isnt an issue at all.....
Its still considerably easier to hold threat on this fight then it was in any bog standard TBC fight which again wasnt very difficult.....
Like I said; threat generation between classes isnt an issue because if you are losing threat on any of the fights in WOTLK hus far then you are failing at tanking regardless of your class....
Not my fault your DPSers suck.
It's not hard to keep aggro, but at Malygos you can't just ignore threat (which you can in most of Naxx).
Post by
Sakkura
However, not every boss encounter looks the same in WoW, and if you want to optimize there are certain situations that some classes are better for, but these are decreasing with the tanks skills and playstyle growing more and more similar. If Ulduar brings any fast and hard hitting bosses Druids will probably become increasingly popular, with them having over 50k hp raid buffed.
Fast hitting bosses favors warriors and paladins, slow hitting bosses favor druids and death knights. This because warriors and paladins have a lot more benefit from their ability to block the faster the enemy attacks.
Not that the difference is huge though.
Post by
122030
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
omglaserzpewpew
I use WWS for almost every raid I do and what I've seen in guild among the 3 main tanks (2 warriors, and a paladin) is the I usually have between 5-15% more physical mitigation than the warriors while they will usually be about 1-4% above me on avoidance. Of course, those numbers depend on the tank and the fight. From data across the whole raid I'll usuay be about 15% above on mitigation and 4% below on avoidance, but once again those are just averages. Threat really isn't an issue anymore, but I can still do more threat than my warrior counter-parts. All of us are roughly equal in gear.
As far as panic buttons, Paladins now a shield wall and we have always been able to go from omg-one-more-hit-and-I'm-dead to full instantly. Paladins can now interrupt spells. We do lack a spell reflect, but I think DKs will probably be tanking spell caster fights now anyways.
All in all, the playing field has been drastically levelled. And if your choice is between a paladin and a warrior, pick the one with more skill and who is compatible with your guild philosophy.
Post by
118713
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Post by
230625
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