Tank Class?

[Kuzarath]

So ally desperately needs tanks and I'm planning to roll one. However, I'm torn between which class to pick.

I'm sure I have some misconceptions about each class' pros and cons (which is the main reason for this post, if you can refute what I think please do).

Paladin seems like the best choice for me. I plan to get to 70 then go back to early dungeons and aoe farm for enchanting mats. However, I've heard paladins are rough to itemize particularly pre-raid, and more than likely off tanking rather than main tanking, and even possibly healing on 1 tank encounters (not a fan of healing, but I'll do it. Though I'd prefer to DPS if I'm not tanking. However, lolret)

Warrior seems to be the best main tank choice (and main tanks are usually what's needed), but they're highly gear dependent particularly pre-Kara so I may be better off running as DPS and hoping for rolls on tank gear during early instance runs. Which I find counter intuitive and likely to lose out on gear that I need to tank to the instance tank.

I like the idea of a druid particularly because of dual spec. I can feral tank, dps in fights that a second tank is unnecessary and switch to healing if we need more heals than DPS. Also probably the easiest class of the 3 to level. But I heard itemization is even tougher for druids, getting worse as you progress through content rather than better.

EDIT: My thoughts in a nutshell.

Pally: great for 5 man's so gearing may not be a huge deal just due to the number of instances I'll run, but probably won't be main tanking Kara/25 man's.

Warrior: Will be pretty terrible until I get the necessary gear, which could take forever.

Druid: I fear I'll become less and less viable in T5/T6 except in particular fights.

[Garun]

Paladins are the best ones for 5 mans as long as you have a spell power 1H weapon as they are the only ones with AoE threat. However, you will never MT any 25 mans except maybe a couple bosses for progression.
Warriors are the only class that can MT every boss in the game viably and the only ones that get the MT title in 25 mans. They are actually the least gear dependent as their abilities have high base threat, but the main problem comes with god awful multi-target threat. Add on the fact that you can't do squat without a decent amount of rage.
Druids are in the middle of Paladins and Warriors and they are viable in all content. They have decent cleave threat with swipe and they are actually optimal MTs on fights without crushing blows or other mechanics that make druids unviable.

[bigbazz]

5mans and raid trash tanking = Paladin
Raid main tank = Warrior
Raid 2nd tank = Druid.

Paladins in raids are often expected to have a good Holy spec for when they are not needed, Ferals can usually join the melee dps group when not needed, as a well geared feral does great single target dps and the buffs are highly desired. Feral is also the best main tank for some bosses in T6 and Sunwell, while Paladin is never an ideal boss tank, your role is always relegated to tanking adds such as weapons on Kael'thas or Murlocs on Morogrim.

Warrior gearing is not hard, tanks are short supply so you never have issues finding a group for dungeons no matter which class you play, but Warrior takes considerably more skill and patience from the player than a Paladin in 5mans. The tradeoff is obviously that if you want to raid the Paladin is always a secondary tank compared to Warrior or Druid in raids, while Paladins are still highly desired for raiding, it's purely for the multi target tanking and raid buffs.

[bestravioli]

I won't make another thread, so will ask here.
Why are prot paladins so much worse than prot warrs at the solo target (boss) tanking? I tank any trash like no problem with 600 shiled block value, but when it comes to tank a boss, I'm getting raped by insane melee hits. When I saw warrior on the same boss, he got no problems, no sudden HP drops, no nothing.

[zerf]

There are many reasons, here's the most important ones:
1) Crushing blows - warrior shield block (75%) makes them immune to crushing blows with almost no gear, while paladins need to heavily invest into block rating to achieve same thing since holy shield is only 30%. Bosses have heavy hits so blocking an attack doesn't really do much to reduce damage, especially when we are talking 8k hits and 500 block value... Investing into block rating means less avoidance. If you are not immune to crushing blows (have less than 102.4% combined dodge+parry+block+miss), boss is gonna land crushing blows (150% damage hits).
2) Debuffs - warriors have demo shout and thunder clap (you can ask dps warr apply them, but often don't even have one)
3) Itemization - paladins have to spend some itemization points on threat - spell power weapon, some offsets. Some of this gear has intellect on it, maybe even mp5. All of these stats don't do anything to reduce incoming damage .. meanwhile warriors invest straight into avoidance and effective health.

[taralej]

Yeah, tell that to my 2.7k warrior dying to NB last night with 6 melee in a row, including 2 crushing.

Or that time Gruul meleed me for 10k, then crushed me for 15k immediately after.

No, paladins don't need to invest that much in avoidance. Because they also have Redoubt. Our guild actually has too much warriors and we constantly have 1-2 Furys and 1 Prot benched.

@OP - you summarized the three classes pretty well by yourself in your very first post. Just make your choice.

[zerf]

Regards to original topic of the thread .. gonna clear up some misconceptions that I see so far:
1) at low gear warrior tanks are way better than paladin tanks for tanking bosses (because of shield block, debuffs, cooldowns and passive defenses).
2) gearing up warriors is easier than paladins - most of early tanking gear/heroic epics are perfect for warrior tanks, but suboptimal for paladins (for example felsteel set, badge items)
3) druid itemization favors them early when compared to other tanks. Clefthoof set is easy to obtain, same as exalted cenarion weapon. Throw in some armor offsets / get defense cap and you are 25man raid ready. On top of that, T4 gear brings you close to armor cap, which is a huge power spike. You are right that after this point, warrs and palas are catching up, but as others mentioned - they are still viable all expansion.

In an optimal 25-man raid setup you have all 3 tank classes, they just have different roles.

[zerf]

Yeah, tell that to my 2.7k warrior dying to NB last night with 6 melee in a row, including 2 crushing.

Or that time Gruul meleed me for 10k, then crushed me for 15k immediately after.

No, paladins don't need to invest that much in avoidance. Because they also have Redoubt. Our guild actually has too much warriors and we constantly have 1-2 Furys and 1 Prot benched.

Anecdotal evidence much? :)

Redoubt is most unreliable talent in wow universe :) Sure, you can get crushed sometimes as warr if you get unlucky (parry haste says hi) or mess up, but it's nowhere close to tankadins. Try using pala tank for gruul, you'll have a fun time :) As if main tanking that as pala wasn't bad enough, offtanking is literally impossible.

[taralej]

"sometimes" :D we called last night's Kara alt run on NB because he kept killing me. I went with my main, 2.7k gs, fully gemmed, enchanted, have tanked SSC and TK, but NB kills me. One of the attempts he just straight walked to me, meleed me once, then crushed me on the second hit before I even realized what was going on, forcing me to burn Last Stand and Healthstone on opener.

Anyway, that's just my sad personal loser experience so I don't want to confuse the OP. Yes, warriors are considered the best MTs on TBC. They can theoretically become immune to crushing blows the easiest, they have attack speed reduction, attack power reduction, an interrupt, and more defensive cooldowns. Paladins get mauled by hard-hitting bosses like they're MDPS, and druids can never get capped for crushing blows because that's just how druids work. It's safe to say that this was one of the reasons why CB were removed from the game in WotLK.

And yeah, we do actually use a pala tank as OT for Gruul. Not that hard with 2 hunters rotating MD and people watching their DTM. I mean, it's not that it matters - he dies anyway past 7 stacks if he gets 2 melees in a row, but at least it helps with kiting, I guess.