Question regarding leveling with friends + class.

[Xparn1]

Hi, so i wanted to play with two friends of mine and i was going to go for Human Warrior due to that i will be able to tank (in leveling phase go DPS?)

Though then i came across a other thread where someneone stated that Warrior tanks are not that good in general due to the fact that paladins are easier(?) and can bring more to the table with less effort.

My question is, in the leveling phase could i go tank as warrior if i have two with me? One druid healer and one damage dealer probably hunter and should i instead go as a paladin tank as it would be better in the later run?

Also off-topic what does the 80 level boost cost on icecrown?

Thanks in advance!

[Skuddy]

i believe warriors are alright to tank with on icecrown. lord has buffed endgame raids which makes them less useful. instant 80 is 20 coins. however if your goin the instant 80 route you may be better off getting 30 coins and buying a character off the marketplace, as you can find toons that are not only level 80, but have some maxed proffs, flying and gold.

[Xparn1]

i believe warriors are alright to tank with on icecrown. lord has buffed endgame raids which makes them less useful. instant 80 is 20 coins. however if your goin the instant 80 route you may be better off getting 30 coins and buying a character off the marketplace, as you can find toons that are not only level 80, but have some maxed proffs, flying and gold.

I would like to level up with my friends... after all we are beginners =)

But about the warriors, so in a leveling phase should i go with Arms/Fury or tank as i want to play it with my friends as they need it?
Also for the paladin question, you think it's easier to play with paladin tank rather than warrior protection/tank?

[Overloard99]

As leveling phase, go with prot spec. You will have enough damage with shield slam and your revenge will be the main source of damage + you're going to tank few mobs and you won't die easily.

Prot paladin has heals and such stuff like added block which warrior tank has only for a few seconds and bigger cooldown, while paladin can spam it rather quickly. But if you're not careful, you can run out of mana.

[Darkatar]

Also for the paladin question, you think it's easier to play with paladin tank rather than warrior protection/tank?

Well for a 3man leveling/progession team, something to consider about Paladin/prot tank is the fact that they are going to bring buffs for your other 2 friends (sure warrior can shout but that's only HP/AP), and if for some reason your healer friend winds up dead you can rez him after the fight if you survive.

Prot Paladin comes with HOP/Salvation/hand of sac/divine sac/Lay on Hands as well for helping your friends in a pinch

If your healer friend is a druid, you might be the only one in the party capable of dispelling magic/diseases.

Don't forget paladin also brings in an aura of choice for Armor/Resistances/Crusader which can help with fighting or travelling for the whole party.

You also bring in a judgement which can help with keeping party mana up while leveling.

That being said, if you don't enjoy paladin don't go paladin, but imho if you're equally fine with paladin or warrior, you'd be bringing more to the 3man table with a paladin unless the dps goes paladin. Even then, 2 paladin buffs, 2 auras, 2 judgements, and a second set of paladin CDs is not a bad option either.

Alternatively, you could probably get away with going Ret dps paladin with righteous fury on and just tank in dps spec. That'd be enough for almost anything not in a dungeon, and you could always keep a little DEF gear around in case you need to be beefier.

All this being said, since you're on icecrown, the leveling phase won't last long. Choosing for the endgame will probably be the best option. War tanks get shunned because they dont have AMS(dk) or Ardent(pal). They can do anything the other tanks can do, sure, but 95% of the time you'll be asked if you have a DPS spec, so if you like war dps, well, you always need at least 1 dps war in the raid.

[MaXiMuS54]

Warr is good 5 man dungeons due to all the crowd control + damage abilities they get from Protection spec. Warr is bad for raid tanking because these said abilities do nothing to bosses while damage talents aren't good enough to hold threat compared to the Druid/DK/Pally which are all better at. Otherwise when you look at the Prot tree there is basically nothing there to help you absorb/avoid damage aside from a talent for shield block and last stand which increases hp by 30% temporarily. Really the tree as a whole is more so designed for PvP where Prot Warr shines. You could just run as warr until level 55 then switch to death knight as well.

[Overloard99]

Warr is good 5 man dungeons due to all the crowd control + damage abilities they get from Protection spec. Warr is bad for raid tanking because these said abilities do nothing to bosses while damage talents aren't good enough to hold threat compared to the Druid/DK/Pally which are all better at. Otherwise when you look at the Prot tree there is basically nothing there to help you absorb/avoid damage aside from a talent for shield block and last stand which increases hp by 30% temporarily. Really the tree as a whole is more so designed for PvP where Prot Warr shines. You could just run as warr until level 55 then switch to death knight as well.

I'm wondering how are you losing threat as warrior tank? People never take my aggro from bosses unless hunter forgets to use miss direction or we have some very geared dk/fury warrior/ret pala. But then I would use vigilence on them and problem solved. Even in raids like voa25 I cannot tell you how many times I took aggro from DK tank as warrior tank when he was the main tank.

[Xparn1]

Damn i have really good answers yet i can't decide. I have never played paladin, only warrior.
I kinda now just want to go druid tank with her as we don't spawn in the same place haha and i don't have the gold to get there.

Either way, is paladin easy to play?

[Darkatar]

If you aren't in the same place, you shouldn't have -too- much trouble asking for a portal to Dalaran (hub to every other town) at your nearest major city. Someone will probably help you out. Hell I'd come pop a portal now if you're alliance.

As far as "is paladin easy to play" You're going to get a resounding YES. But to actually be good at the class requires frequent use of their cooldowns.

Prot paladin can be reduced to 2 macros (google "969 wotlk") but aside from that you'll be a much better tank having specific cooldowns and abilities (consecrate, hammer of righteousness, etc) ready for use outside of the tank macros.

Ret paladin is probably the closest thing you can get to literally face-rollable. Again, to be a -good- ret you need to follow a priority on abilities (google "ret priority wotlk") and use your cooldowns frequently.

Edit: Bear tank isn't a bad option, they hit defense cap through talent points alone, and they'll be asked to tank more often than warrs, but they'll frequently be asked "do you have a cat spec? Boomkin? Resto?" but not as often as warr tanks.

[mier]

If your focus is on leveling then I'd go with prot warr because it deals insane amount of dmg when you pull multiple mobs and spam revenge.
If you want a good tank for the end game content then I'd roll prot pala or feral druide.

[Xparn1]

If you aren't in the same place, you shouldn't have -too- much trouble asking for a portal to Dalaran (hub to every other town) at your nearest major city. Someone will probably help you out. Hell I'd come pop a portal now if you're alliance.

As far as "is paladin easy to play" You're going to get a resounding YES. But to actually be good at the class requires frequent use of their cooldowns.

Prot paladin can be reduced to 2 macros (google "969 wotlk") but aside from that you'll be a much better tank having specific cooldowns and abilities (consecrate, hammer of righteousness, etc) ready for use outside of the tank macros.

Ret paladin is probably the closest thing you can get to literally face-rollable. Again, to be a -good- ret you need to follow a priority on abilities (google "ret priority wotlk") and use your cooldowns frequently.

Edit: Bear tank isn't a bad option, they hit defense cap through talent points alone, and they'll be asked to tank more often than warrs, but they'll frequently be asked "do you have a cat spec? Boomkin? Resto?" but not as often as warr tanks.

Thanks for the reply, so for a beginner which one would be good to use and fun to use? especially as i'm playing with 2 friends one healer druid and one hunter.

[Darkatar]

What I'd recommend is really about what you're looking for, If you just want to grind with the bros to 80 you don't really even need a full-time dedicated tank. You only really need the full tank complement when you're doing raids or attempting dungeons at a lower level than you should.

XP is fast here, So you really won't spend -much- time leveling (40-60hrs)

Any plate class (and feral, even cat-spec druid) is going to be tanky enough to level to 80.

Threat against a hunter is a non-issue (they can MD threat to you and can just drop threat with feign death or use deterrance and be immune for a while)

If you want to tank for a living (after hitting 80) you'll see much more tank action as a Paladin/DK/Bear than a warrior

If you just want to be a tank for your 3man group, you don't even need to go for tank spec (plate armour is enough for leveling) and could just go with DPS gear as well.

If you want to bring the most bonuses to your 3man group, Paladin is definitely the choice, as they're bringing Buffs (+manaregen OR +AP OR +10% stats) Aura of choice (+armor/fire/cold /shadow resistance/crusader) for survivability

Crusader aura +mountspeed for the group is one of the best time-savers in the game, although you won't get crusader until 62

You already have a druid in the group, so you kind of miss out if you're also a druid, as you have almost identical buffs.

If you don't go paladin, you'll have no reliable way to dispel magic/diseases which sucks.

Really, What do you want to do at 80? Warriors and Paladin and Druids are all fun, but if you're going to have more fun tanking than DPSing, you definitely want to avoid warrior, as they're the least likely to tank of all the tank classes (again, they're not bad tanks, they're just shunned almost as bad as wf shamans are. On icecrown, at least)

If you want to bring the most to the 3man group, you probably want to avoid Druid or Warrior. Although as a druid, you can at least get 1 battle rez and a free mana boost to your healer (innervate).

If tanking past 80 isn't important to you, any of the platers are going to be able to tank in DPS gear/spec (War in dps spec, pal with righteous fury +threat) while leveling, especially with a dedicated healer backup.

As far as difficulty, ferals are probably the more complex choices for tanks/dps as far as basic ability usage goes, since they have to learn essentially 3x sets of abilities from the start (Spells, Catform skills, Bearform skills, I'd put them somewhere around DK difficulty), and they generally need to spec towards tank (bear) talents+glyphs or DPS (cat) talents+glyphs. many cat talents don't benefit bear and many bear talents don't benefit cat. A cat specced feral going bearform is going to lose most of their DPS, a bear specced feral going catform is going to do abysmal DPS. A warrior can just change stance and he's enough of a tank to hold aggro and still do decent damage in dps gear/talent, a ret paladin can just use RF and he'll have enough aggro and his damage output won't change. (They can't do this in raid situations but really should be fine while leveling)

If you're worried about difficulty because you're new, Definitely go Paladin. They have the least things to worry about, and bring the most bonuses to your friends.

Edit: Just realized you mentioned all 3 of you are beginners, If you do want to tank full-time, you could go the full faceroll route, and do 3 paladins (Prot[tank]/Holy[heals]/Ret[dps]) Probably not the best option (paladin population is already bloated) but they're all easy to get started with, you get all the paladin buffs, multiple aura buffs, and you wouldn't need to separate to do your class quests.

[hellforge]

Or just play 3 Ret paladins, you'll level faster

[Xparn1]

What I'd recommend is really about what you're looking for, If you just want to grind with the bros to 80 you don't really even need a full-time dedicated tank. You only really need the full tank complement when you're doing raids or attempting dungeons at a lower level than you should.

XP is fast here, So you really won't spend -much- time leveling (40-60hrs)

Any plate class (and feral, even cat-spec druid) is going to be tanky enough to level to 80.

Threat against a hunter is a non-issue (they can MD threat to you and can just drop threat with feign death or use deterrance and be immune for a while)

If you want to tank for a living (after hitting 80) you'll see much more tank action as a Paladin/DK/Bear than a warrior

If you just want to be a tank for your 3man group, you don't even need to go for tank spec (plate armour is enough for leveling) and could just go with DPS gear as well.

If you want to bring the most bonuses to your 3man group, Paladin is definitely the choice, as they're bringing Buffs (+manaregen OR +AP OR +10% stats) Aura of choice (+armor/fire/cold /shadow resistance/crusader) for survivability

Crusader aura +mountspeed for the group is one of the best time-savers in the game, although you won't get crusader until 62

You already have a druid in the group, so you kind of miss out if you're also a druid, as you have almost identical buffs.

If you don't go paladin, you'll have no reliable way to dispel magic/diseases which sucks.

Really, What do you want to do at 80? Warriors and Paladin and Druids are all fun, but if you're going to have more fun tanking than DPSing, you definitely want to avoid warrior, as they're the least likely to tank of all the tank classes (again, they're not bad tanks, they're just shunned almost as bad as wf shamans are. On icecrown, at least)

If you want to bring the most to the 3man group, you probably want to avoid Druid or Warrior. Although as a druid, you can at least get 1 battle rez and a free mana boost to your healer (innervate).

If tanking past 80 isn't important to you, any of the platers are going to be able to tank in DPS gear/spec (War in dps spec, pal with righteous fury +threat) while leveling, especially with a dedicated healer backup.

As far as difficulty, ferals are probably the more complex choices for tanks/dps as far as basic ability usage goes, since they have to learn essentially 3x sets of abilities from the start (Spells, Catform skills, Bearform skills, I'd put them somewhere around DK difficulty), and they generally need to spec towards tank (bear) talents+glyphs or DPS (cat) talents+glyphs. many cat talents don't benefit bear and many bear talents don't benefit cat. A cat specced feral going bearform is going to lose most of their DPS, a bear specced feral going catform is going to do abysmal DPS. A warrior can just change stance and he's enough of a tank to hold aggro and still do decent damage in dps gear/talent, a ret paladin can just use RF and he'll have enough aggro and his damage output won't change. (They can't do this in raid situations but really should be fine while leveling)

If you're worried about difficulty because you're new, Definitely go Paladin. They have the least things to worry about, and bring the most bonuses to your friends.

Edit: Just realized you mentioned all 3 of you are beginners, If you do want to tank full-time, you could go the full faceroll route, and do 3 paladins (Prot[tank]/Holy[heals]/Ret[dps]) Probably not the best option (paladin population is already bloated) but they're all easy to get started with, you get all the paladin buffs, multiple aura buffs, and you wouldn't need to separate to do your class quests.

Awesome reply! Thanks
I went protection paladin... Though they gave up, they thought it was so boring. Shame.
I'm stuck playing alone now. If anyone wants to play on low levels dungeons feel free to add me my paladin prot name is "Benyaprotector" :)

[hellforge]

Which realm is this?

In Icecrown you level 1-80 in two days, doing dungeons will slow you down A LOT If you're new, better spend that time doing level 80 contenet