WOTLK - Tanking Question

[Rasesh]

As we all know tanking is one of the easiest roles in WOTLK at-least.

Having said that, I wanted some input from top end/high end tank players on Lordaeron especially on the following question:

Which tank spec in your personal knowledgeable and experienced opinion is the highest skill ceiling tank spec in WOTLK PVE? And the reasoning behind it?

Thank you so much!

[Disktrasa]

Warrior no doubt.

[Thorbjorn]

I'd also say warrior. To be a decent tank you need to know how to manage your CDs and when while other tanks such as DK or paladin survive through sheer amount of passive tanking talents that they have, requiring little or no other input.

[Zerrubabel]

Everything about this thread makes me cringe. Ok not everything, Thorbjorn is correct when he says it's about managing your CDs. Warrior isn't really even a viable tank in wotlk PvE. I think you are asking the wrong question, you should be asking what encounters require the highest skill ceiling to complete. As you say, the role of tank is generally an easy one, but some encounters are much more demanding than others. And if you are talking high end tanking, then not even "sheer amount of passive tanking talents" will save you from the skill ceiling. It's laughable that warrior even gets a mention as they are non existent in high end tanking, which is the knowledge base you are asking to answer your question to begin with.

I cannot speak for earlier wotlk content, but imo by far the highest skill ceiling goes specifically to prot pala in phase 1 of the LOD fight.

[Kovachut]

I cannot speak for earlier wotlk content, but imo by far the highest skill ceiling goes specifically to prot pala in phase 1 of the LOD fight.

As a person, who plays on FM, I can say that prot warriors are still ****. Sorry not sorry. That said, I must clarify that they shine in one particular encounter - Anub hc. That's because, once they accumulate enough block gear, they can fully ignore the damage of the adds. This allows melees to focus-target the boss and ignore the burrowers (however, the bugs during the kiting phase still need to be killed).

[Allylilith]

As a person, who plays on FM, I can say that prot warriors are still ****. Sorry not sorry. That said, I must clarify that they shine in one particular encounter - Anub hc. That's because, once they accumulate enough block gear, they can fully ignore the damage of the adds. This allows melees to focus-target the boss and ignore the burrowers (however, the bugs during the kiting phase still need to be killed).

you can clear all content with warrior tank and not only do they shine on anub hc, but also on halion hc as add tank. However on any other endgame encounter than those having a prot warrior instead of another tank is just an extra burden without any real payback. might aswell have an unholy tank or some bull**** if you're running prot warrior for any fight outside of halion and anub

[Kovachut]

you can clear all content with warrior tank and not only do they shine on anub hc, but also on halion hc as add tank. However on any other endgame encounter than those having a prot warrior instead of another tank is just an extra burden without any real payback. might aswell have an unholy tank or some bull**** if you're running prot warrior for any fight outside of halion and anub

I admit, I didn't know that browns were also useful on Halion hc. Thanks for informing me about that, but I was already aware that they could be used in other instances:

AGAIN, u CAN tank with Warriors and do it successfully, noone is saying otherwise, hell there are people doing that constantly, BUT, Having a DK Main Tank with a Paladin offtank is the best choice for Lich King tanking, or any other hard hitting boss, and there is nothing u can say to prove that wrong.

People arguing that warrior is "bad" are not saying that warrior is completely useless and that u cant tank LK or any other boss with it.
Ofc u can.
Is it the best choice? Ofc not

My issue with warr tanks is that I RARELY see individuals, who know their ****. Most of the time I meet players, who get spanked by the boss, and we can't progress further because of that. This is very common in pug raids, which, admittedly, should be avoided under normal circumstances.

[opexo]

... Warrior isn't really even a viable tank in wotlk PvE. .......................................
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>>>I cannot speak for earlier wotlk content, but<<< imo by far the highest skill ceiling goes specifically to prot pala in phase 1 of the LOD fight.

...isn't a viable tank in wotlk pve?? WHAT???
Until ICC warrior rocks everywhere. And yea, he may be significantly hindered in ICC because of the debuff but this doesn't mean that he can't do some good job there too, the problem is that everybody is zombie-mindlessly jumping on that bandwagon that "hey prot-warr sucks in icc and fury is top so why bother" ...
If some think about it actually if there wasnt the icc debuff some other tanks would have been benched not for a raid tier, but the entire expansion. So they should actually be thankful that icc have that debuff to stop the warr dominating there too.
Clearly you haven't played on retail and especially everything before icc, and not just the non-hc non-hardmode encounters.

And what Kovachut said is true and contributes to the bad situation too, because fools who are ignorant to try play it properly are adding up to the scene with bad performance, so ppl say again 'hey look, see, the prot war sucking live'.

So yea, sorry to jump on your eyebrows but some ppl should wake up and not just repeat and babble like old lady everything what they hear the masses say. Prot warr can not only be good, but it is actually quite fun too.

[Kovachut]

Honestly, I would prefer if I people don't treat me as someone defending brown tanks. In reality, I have absolutely no respect towards this spec with the sole exception of Anub hc and MAYBE some exceptional raiders. In all other cases, I'd prefer blood dk/prot pala as MTs and prot pala/feral bear as OT, and I'm not even sorry for thinking like that.

I've met some delusional die-hard warr tanks in the past. I was fine with them, because the majority of them at least acknowledged their weaknesses and respected the more superior tank classes. However, the boiling point was when one day a prot warr said that paladin tanks were weaker than prot warriors and would get erased by the boss only for that same brown tank to die multiple and multiple times in the same encounter {I took a screenshot of that reply}. After that comment, I stopped having any respect to brown tanks with the exceptions I stated above. Sorry not sorry.

[pehoto]

All the people saying war is viable in Wotlk... lol. A pala with Consecration and RF and no other spells will do better.

Dont get me wrong, try some different then the herd, but have in mind that you will indeed need to use your stuff smart, you will put extra pressure on healers most of the time and more or less you will feel inferior to people when they look for tank.

Also I ve been tanking as war for few years back, just recently tried paladin. It's a joke, you completely dont think about aggro, i am managing as 5.5 to hold off 6.5 ppl AOEing. Try that as a war on a bunch of max deck-ed locks spamming seed. Not to mention the passive total dmg reduction a paladin has.

That being said personal favourite for me is still Bear. (cant comment on DK, never rolled one)

[opexo]

you'te thinking from the point of view of today where everyone loggs in straight into the ICC content, getting deep into it in like 2w after hitting 80.
This is bull****. Nobody is denying the all strengths of ppala, bear, dk tank etc, and as i said above they really shine in ICC more than prot-warr, but, you must beat very hard and deep in your heads the fact that WotLK is MUCH more than just ICC. Also, that neither Warmane WotLK nor any other WorLK private sever in the world is like the retail WotLK. And it's the latter that counts!
Nobody gives a damn for generalist opinion about an expansion swirled around the internet, based on someone's experience on a private server, whichever it is.
And the argument about TotGC is absolutely the perfect example, because on retail it could be done with any tank combination, while here everyone is just drooling with avoidance prot warr, coming to show how really bend all the situation is.
So yea, please, you are absolutely free to say all the crap about prot warrs above, and bprobably be right, but just and only when referring to a private-server-WotLK, not retail WotLL, where i come from and i have seen all with my own eyes and so is why some statements here look really stupid to me, thus, kind of triggered.