Why are we considered bad tanks?

Hello guys, Krellian here.

Well, as the title's name suggest, i would like to know why are warriors considered 'bad tanks' when it comes to raiding?

I mean, i can see some warriors tanking dungeons beautifully and ive been wondering: if they are good with dungeons, why not are they on raids?
I'm asking this because i want to start on this server and i've always wanted to make one to myself, but if i make one to tank/dps and struggle that much to the point of being ignored, then i wouldnt do it.

So, can you guys help me out here? please.

Ah, i forgot to give some details: i plan to mainly PVE and at the Lordareon realm.

Thanks for all answers beforehand.

Its bad "compared" to other tanks. Also its harder to play. Anyone can play a paladin tank and live to tell, this doesnt apply to warrior, which leads to wipes. Though there are endgame warriors who is able to tank as much as the other tanks.

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Originally Posted by Bastardbottle

Its bad "compared" to other tanks. Also its harder to play. Anyone can play a paladin tank and live to tell, this doesnt apply to warrior, which leads to wipes. Though there are endgame warriors who is able to tank as much as the other tanks.

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So its not a matter of 'bad', but rather 'more difficult'? Because if thats the case i have no problems at all! I mean, if you were to say to me we are bad because we have some spell problems, or bugged somehow then i would understand and avoid, but if its just because ppl are lazy to learn how to properly play it, or because we need better gear to withstand the encounters, then i think its fine for me... right?

PS: on a side note, ive learnt we can do transmog here? thats excellent! So ive been thinking: can warriors (lv 80) do vanilla and TBC alone? (in order to get tranmog gear (i know raids are too hard, but what about dungeons?))

Its both more difficult and bad compared to other tanks as I said, not only more difficult. Warrior doesnt have the advantages that other classes have.

Its literally this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_iO...hannel=Atraira

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Originally Posted by Krellian

So its not a matter of 'bad', but rather 'more difficult'? Because if thats the case i have no problems at all! I mean, if you were to say to me we are bad because we have some spell problems, or bugged somehow then i would understand and avoid, but if its just because ppl are lazy to learn how to properly play it, or because we need better gear to withstand the encounters, then i think its fine for me... right?

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I don't wanna burst your bubble - but warrior isn't "harder to play" than any other tank and it's not a matter of just "people are too lazy to learn it properly" or lack of gear. Warrior is just the worst tank by numbers and tools, which is why they're generally avoided.
Having the worst stamina mod, cds and even stuff like 4p t10 just doesn't make for a solid tank.

Like there's two things warriors excell at: mobility and tanking cc-able adds. Both are great tools in dungeons but utterly useless things in raids except for niche-uses like togc25.

You can make an argument that prot war is worse than other tanks, because they are more likely to die due to spikes of dmg. (Druid has enormous ehp pool, Dk can negate spiky dmg by self healing, palq has cheat death, both pala and dk take reduced dmg below 35%.) Wars are also most relient on healers and suffer from most used tactic to kill lk (no taunt switching for soul-reaper).

Positive thing is that well-played prot war takes least dmg on average (not nearly as good as it seams, since average dmg doesn't kill you, spikes do).

They provide both attach speed and attack power debuffs (no other tank does), they do armor debuff as part of rotation (10% more physical dmg from raid) and hp buff for entire raid. (all this can be provided by dpsers, not by one though)

They can have (depends on talents and glyphs) very good defensives - can use major defensive every 30s. And can provide external defensive also every 30s (although at cost of 10% of targets aggro).


Thats about it.. Yes we are more likely to die and our utility can be replaced by dps, but saying everything is bad is nonsence. Worst thing you have to deal with is community perception.. pretty much everyone thinks that they are way worse than they really are.. getting into groups/guilds is a major headache, they will often prefer way less geared pala/dk. Honestly I would probably save myself the trouble nowdays, but it can be done.

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Originally Posted by jendah

They provide both attach speed and attack power debuffs (no other tank does), they do armor debuff as part of rotation (10% more physical dmg from raid) and hp buff for entire raid. (all this can be provided by dpsers, not by one though)

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Bears, paladins and warriors apply both attack speed and attack power reductions. Dk's apply only the attack speed reduction. Nothing special about warriors when it comes to raid buffs/debuffs, they just help stacking sunders a bit faster.

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Originally Posted by jendah

They can have (depends on talents and glyphs) very good defensives - can use major defensive every 30s. And can provide external defensive also every 30s (although at cost of 10% of targets aggro).

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I'm not sure what major defensive you have every 30 seconds. Bloodrage+shieldblock are on a 1 minute cooldown, last stand is 2 or 3 minutes and shield wall (talented+glyphed) is on 2 or 3 minutes. Shield wall, being your strongest cd, is worse than divine protection and way worse than IBF. Your minors (block+tier set rage+frenzied regen+last stand) have no real damage reduction, it's only raw hp + a little bit of damage mitigation from block and a ~15k shield from bloodrage. So on your major cd you're a worse version of a dk/paladin, on your minors you're a druid with roughly 30k less hp.

You also have a harder time breaking up your cooldowns. Bears can get away with using only barkskin and saving enrage+sindy trinket for another time letting you rotate your cooldowns for 3 different damage spikes. Warriors can't really do that, block+bloodrage isn't strong enough and last stand offers no damage reduction making it pretty risky.

Safeguard is super cool though. You can make great use of it in almost every fight and you can always throw some salvations or do another set of md's to compensate for the threat reduction.

Dk- will of necropolis, pala - ardent defender, warr - nothing. Add here lowest armor number + least reliable dmg reducing kit - low block chance and random crit blocks ( bear have constant dmg reduce from ap, pala have 60+ block even if it is lower still more reliable).
I think, back in time, if they just add functionality like "if your HP drops lower than 35% u have garanted crit block/ or even just block" warriors could fine. But we have what we have.
Still everything is doable, and warrior rotation is the most interesting tank stuff that we have in 3.3.5.

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Originally Posted by Sprotess

Bears, paladins and warriors apply both attack speed and attack power reductions. Dk's apply only the attack speed reduction. Nothing special about warriors when it comes to raid buffs/debuffs, they just help stacking sunders a bit faster.

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My bad, memory plays tricks on me after the years. Still war can have both improved attack speed slow and improved attack power reduction, only bear can have this too. Commanding shout is unique to wars too (I don't count locks pet since that's a lot weaker), although usually provided by dps.

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Originally Posted by Sprotess

I'm not sure what major defensive you have every 30 seconds. Bloodrage+shieldblock are on a 1 minute cooldown, last stand is 2 or 3 minutes and shield wall (talented+glyphed) is on 2 or 3 minutes. Shield wall, being your strongest cd, is worse than divine protection and way worse than IBF. Your minors (block+tier set rage+frenzied regen+last stand) have no real damage reduction, it's only raw hp + a little bit of damage mitigation from block and a ~15k shield from bloodrage. So on your major cd you're a worse version of a dk/paladin, on your minors you're a druid with roughly 30k less hp.

You also have a harder time breaking up your cooldowns. Bears can get away with using only barkskin and saving enrage+sindy trinket for another time letting you rotate your cooldowns for 3 different damage spikes. Warriors can't really do that, block+bloodrage isn't strong enough and last stand offers no damage reduction making it pretty risky.

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I am talking about Last Stand and Shield Wall as standalone defensives - both are on 2 min CD when glyphed + talented. And Shield block + enrage + trinket or regen in between. You don't need massive reduction to survive increasing hp pool is almost as effective. (EHP)

Shield block is often underestimated. It increases your block chance to cca 120% and critical block is based on block chance meaning that you critically block (for 4x block value) almost all attacks that hit you during it. It is equal to roughly 25% DR on Lk, more on other bosses, since they do less dmg.

And then we have spell reflect, with its niche uses.

Not going to get into defensive comparison between classes, since I don't remember them good enoungh, and that wasn't my point. My point was that you can have good defensive on 30s rotation while providing defensive on 30s rotation as well. And Soul Reaper has 30s CD by coincidence :-)

Ideal situation for us is to swap with other tank after 1m, that way we can have 100% uptime on defensives, while actively tanking.

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Originally Posted by frozzypix

Dk- will of necropolis, pala - ardent defender, warr - nothing. Add here lowest armor number + least reliable dmg reducing kit - low block chance and random crit blocks ( bear have constant dmg reduce from ap, pala have 60+ block even if it is lower still more reliable).
I think, back in time, if they just add functionality like "if your HP drops lower than 35% u have garanted crit block/ or even just block" warriors could fine. But we have what we have.
Still everything is doable, and warrior rotation is the most interesting tank stuff that we have in 3.3.5.

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Lower armor is nonsence. It depend solely on gearing, we have same armor as palas with same gear and buffs.

They should have never given palas passive cheat death. Retail version now when they need to activate it before is much more balanced.

War was afaik top tank during most of wotlk, just not on final patch, where (unfortuntunately) private servers froze forever.

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Originally Posted by jendah

My bad, memory plays tricks on me after the years. Still war can have both improved attack speed slow and improved attack power reduction, only bear can have this too. Commanding shout is unique to wars too (I don't count locks pet since that's a lot weaker), although usually provided by dps.

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20% attack speed reduction is covered by:

1) Any Death Knight - Frost Fever with 3/3 Improved Icy Touch
2) Protection Paladins - Judgements of the Just
3) Feral Druids - Infected Wounds
4) Protection Warriors - Thunderclap with 3/3 Improved Thunderclap

574/575 attack power reduction is covered by:

1) Feral Druids - Demoralizing Roar with 5/5 Feral Aggression
2) Protection Paladins - 2/2 Vindication
3) Retribution Paladins - 2/2 Vindication
4) Fury Warriors - Demoralizing Shout with 5/5 Improved Demoralizing Shout
5) Protection Warriors - Demoralizing Shout with 5/5 Improved Demoralizing Shout
6) Affliction Warlocks - Curse of Weakness with 2/2 Improved Curse of Weakness

So all 3 druids,paladins and warriors have both debuffs improved. Still nothing special about warriors.

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Originally Posted by frozzypix

Dk- will of necropolis, pala - ardent defender, warr - nothing. Add here lowest armor number + least reliable dmg reducing kit

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Least reliable damage reductions in-game - yes. Least amount of armor - no. If you're playing 4/5 with bs pants and armor off parts you're looking at somewhere in the 42-43k range. Warriors have way more armor than dks and bears.

I myself play Warrior tank and I reached 6k gs pretty easily just by doing pugs. I managed to tank 25 heroic all the way up to sindragosa (Didn't do her because all pugs just end up there due to wipes or people trolling).

If you really want to do the end content just join some good guild who will accept you. Some guilds are elite min/maxers who will deny you. Just get away from them. I myself can't join guilds as I got no time to play the game anymore as I used to.

This is only theretical suggestion. Practically it is ez to get 6k with any class/build/gear, problem appears while u reach 6.2, and there are hard bossess left, like ldw/sindi/lk hc. U just don't get invites, and guilds, that farming lod just replace u with any other tank.
I geared some stuff with earning dkp as demo warlock and spend it with pwar in alt run. Still it took a lot of time and was not so ez (too much arguing and toxity even from guildmembers).

Warriors are not really hard to play like so many misinformed people might say. In fact, blood DK and prot Paladin have a higher skill cap in my opinion – blood DK tankiness depends on active mitigation, while a good prot pal will make good use of all his raid cds and emergency buttons. A warrior will kind of just stand there and take dmg, there isn’t really much minmaxing here to do considering your op charging abilities are barely useful on end game fights.

A good tank will always use his cooldowns well and is expected to in a good guild. Warrior is not unique in this regard. It is, however, unique in the sense that the cds it gets are much weaker and there is no safety net of ardent defender/wotn/bear hp to give extra breathing space in an xpac where end game bosses hit tanks for 70% of their max health.

You do not have any utility that cannot be brought by someone else. Sunder and commanding shout can and will be done by furies.

Your single target threat is also the worst out of all tanks. If you intend to spec for improved demo shout, you will further neuter your threat by dropping deep wounds.

The key advantages of the spec are in reaching unhitability, AoE stuns, burst AoE threat, disarms, quick movement, interrupts. One shouldn’t underestimate the power of shield block vs multiple fast striking adds where a DK would have to take every hit and a feral would also have his savage defense eaten up quite fast. However, you can see that none of this is relevant in most WotLK bosses.

You can 100% do all the available content as a prot warrior. Should you, though? If your guild is progressing and/or on 0%, I think not. You’re just being a burden to the raid — if you get invited in the first place — where a Paladin would just be a more competent and safer pick.

Finally, stop perpetuating this myth that prot warriors are harder to play than other classes and that a good prot warrior is somehow going to play his class better than another class. It gives new players a bad impression and they will regret their decision should they advance to heroic content in their progression. A good tank is a good tank regardless of class so don’t handicap yourself by picking an objectively inferior class for end game content.

Warriors are not the top tanks in 3.3.5a. The real issue is people blowing a few points of fact out of proportion to make bold and often contradictory claims about what prot warriors are and aren't, and shuffle the blame for failure onto the tank because it's easy. This LoL-style mentality of "it's everyone else's fault but mine" causes them to fixate on minor differences and make hilarious comments about "straining the healers" and justify taking unskilled or undergeared tanks because of the inherent "superiority" of their class choice.

They've basically manufactured a stigma around the spec after a decade of intellectual inbreeding that simply didn't exist in retail and, had it been brought up at the time, would have them laughed out of any decent progression group.

It comes down to a few minor differences in the "nice to have" category that are in no way necessary or of any significance in clearing all the content available in this patch.

Any player or guild that would deny you over that frankly isn't **** and shouldn't be taken seriously.