So, what's the best tank in cata right now? Do they all have their strong points and can perform, or are some really preferred over others?


I ran five 5-man instances last night, 3 palys, 1 druid, 1 warrior tank (Only 30, so no DKs).


Statistically, this would imply that paladins are the most popular tank right now, but then again this is hardly endgame. I have never played a tank, think I want to try it, trying to decide which one I should make.


I really like the IDEA of a gnome warrior, just because i think tiny little dudes tanking huge cartoony mobs is awesome, but I don't want to join a pug and have everything thinking, oh boy, another WARRIOR tank, here we go... /rolleyes.


All 5 of my dungeons went well last night, so all 3 tanks performed just fine. Just wanted to get YOUR thoughts.


Thanks.

 

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In 5 mans, any tank will do the job.

warrior tanking is interesting..i did it from 30-64 so far...rend..tc..and keep taunt hotkeyed to a lot of buttons in case of some tard not assisting.

 

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I'm really digging being a bear tank. The only thing that sucks is we lack any neat pulling tools with silences, etc, they should add a silence to FFF.

 

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DK tanks ae nasty. They can live through tons and still be up on the dps charts. I'm waiting for hte nerf. I'm a pally tank. I have a warrior tank, DK tank and my druid is still a baby. Didn't plan on making her a tank but we'll see. I like pally tanks.


Although I'm going ot make a macro oen of these days to spam at the beginning of a dungeon to let people know my pulling style. I used to hate those "diva" tanks, but I'm afraid I'm becoming one myself. /sigh

 

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I'm struggling with this question myself, between my DK (which I love) and my Pally.


I think I'm going to end up with my Pally, just because if something goes slightly amiss with others in the group, the pally has more options in her toolbox to mitigate / recover from problems. Given that others are saying singular mistakes in heroics are unforgiving, I may be air-dreaming that it actually makes a difference, but psychologically, I'd like to think the pally at least has a chance. I like being able to heal myself or someone else on command (LoH) as well as the buff package the pally brings.


Raids, will probably be my DK.


Need to get there and test.


I'm going to guess, for me, a lot depends on group comp and which instance because I can wield either the pally or the DK about the same.


At this point, I would usually tell others to play the tank which best fits how you play/think because you'll play it better and enjoy it more.


If a gnomish warrior tickles your fancy and seems like fun, go for it!


PS: To really answer your last question: in PuGs in the past, when I've been in a group, I don't really care what class the tank is, as long as they are competent.

 

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So far I'm enjoying my pally tank in regular cata dungeons, but eventually I'll have to move onto the big boy stuff in heroics, so I'm not sure how I'll do there.

I have 2 druids, a high level and lower level one, both which have feral, and their secondary specs are resto and balance. While I can tank okay with a bear, I struggled to hold aggro on multiple mobs in the vanilla dungeons due to lack of aoe attacks (doesn't help that swipe is on a 6 second cooldown and so far it's my only aoe attack on my bear). On the other hand though, druid tanking is easier in the sense that you don't have to worry about using 15 different abilities. Could've sworn that maul used to cost less rage though.

My paladin, on the other hand, thrives on beating multiple mobs, and in fact, if I'm not beating on more than 3 mobs at a time, then it feels "slow" for some reason lol. But there's so many spells to choose from, that sometimes it's hard to know which one to use based on what's going on. And I had a healer who wasn't always paying attention to my health since the mobs were usually dying pretty fast, and ended up having to heal myself a few times (and in one fight, she lost connection right as we pulled a boss, but luckily we out-DPS'd him and I used a healing pot and the spell that uses holy power to heal).

I have a DK, but haven't tried tanking with them yet. I've seen warriors hold aggro very well, and they seemed to do decent damage as well in groups, but that's all I know of them.

So bottom line, yeah, any competent tank will work. Some will have it easier than others depending on the situation.

As already said, any tank works for 5 man, heroics and even raids. Blizzard did a quite good job there, there's no longer a "tank of the month" right now.



I guess they gonna have to nerf prot. paladins too then, since they also do insane damage right now... (and were already doing that in WotLK). Oh, and our warrior tank was doing over 12K DPS during a raid encounter, too.

 

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No you need one regardless.

 

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Well the first thing you have to remember is tanks are for survival only. So don't feel like you HAVE to make a ton of damage. That being said.


DKs as tank are great because of the free aggro. With DnD, Dark Command, Blood Boil, and Death's Grip there are plenty of choices for laying down aggro. Why I like them is they are great against casters, whether it's silencing them or pulling them close to force them to do melee.


Warriors real purpose is to basically weaken the enemy by using sunder to lower AR and shouts to lessen AP on targets.


Druids, like warriors, have a charge. But a druid can heal itself everytime he crits (if specced right) plus has some emergency heals. Like a Warrior the groupo you're in has ot be able to run in (if melee) to start hacking away at the mobs quickly. The best kind of DPS to have with Warriors and druids are ranged.


Pallys are simply self healing rocks.


And that's my break down.

 

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