I am lucky as I just came back before the major change to all the classes and I had been gone since before wrath so while I am a bit of a noob now there is no adjusting needed, I don't know what it was like before hand. From what people are saying about the play style in Wrath though, I am glad that I missed it.

I hope the nay sayers are wrong about Blizzard quickly dumbing down the 85 content.

I'm playing a healer right now and I am liking it, I am equally interested in tanking, especially now from a healers perspective. I joined a group today where the healer had bailed before the first boss. I knew why after the first pull. Tank couldn't hold aggro and either took way too much damage or didn't have enough health but his bar went down like crazy, what made things worse is we had a DK who was bragging about his mad DPS and Crits who ended up taking more damage then the tank.

I have to say though, maybe I've been lucky but most of groups I've been in I barley have to do more then keep earth shield up on the tank and throw a few chain heals now and then, other then that I'm standing doing nothing, or just DPS'ing.

Sorry I'm rambling, anyway, come Cata I do plan to role a tank and I am having a tough time choosing which one. From what I'm hearing Warriors are the underdogs, I'm not sure who comes out on top Pally or DK. I mean I know in the end they are all great, but I am not sure whoes play style I will like more.

 

-----signature-----

The only way to know which class meshes with your play style more is to try it.

Personally though, I'm really starting to enjoy pally tanking.

I have 3 tanks, a warrior, a pally, and a DK. Let me just start off by saying that DK tanking is yawnsville. At least right now, you pretty much just ignore diseases as a DK tank. DnD + Icy Touch/Death Strike/Blood Boil = Win. Blizzard has taken into account the over-all squishiness of DK tanks through out most of WotlK and made it so that Death Strike not only heals the DK tank without diseases on the target, but also provides a damage shield to the DK if Death Strike does overhealing.

Then you have warriors. Warriors are still fun, but only if you are given at least 1.5 seconds to get up Rend + Thunderclap. It won't be so bad in Cata, but right now, if you can't get Rend up before TC, you're screwed for AE tanking.

Then you have Pally tanks. Pally tanks always lead off with Avenger's Shield, which is awesome for threat, both AE and single target. Then it's Hammer of the Righteous (another AE ability) or Crusader Strike (on single targets), usually followed by Judgment for mana regen, then HotR/CS again followed by Holy Wrath. That right there is usually more than enough AE threat to hold just about anything. By that time you have 2 stacks of Holy Power which, given 1 more HotR/CS, will let you use Word of Glory to either heal yourself or provide a very brief absorb shield, or use Shield of the Righteous for huge single target threat.

Basically what it all comes down to, in my opinion, is what you're tanking. For AE threat Paladins are still king. For single target threat it is kind of a toss-up between warrior and paladin, though warriors usually edge ahead here. Both are still very competitive though, especially if, as a pally tank, you remember to pop Avenging Wrath on bosses.

I really have no input on druid tanks since my druid is only lvl 33. However, from what I've heard, they are pretty much in the same boat as warriors when it comes to AE threat since Swipe now has a 6 second CD, just like Thunderclap.

 

-----signature-----

Hear hear. DM comes to mind. Plus there's just so much agro potential there if it isn't done correctly.





It's funny because it's true. I think most of the old timers can re-adjust, though. It's not like they're taking us through uncharted waters...they're just going back to the way it used to be if what everyone is saying is correct.




This is my biggest fear, at least short term. I really enjoy dungeon crawling and I enjoy tanking. My warrior is my first true "tank" that I've ever played in an MMO (I almost always play a healer with the occasional pet class thrown in). That said, this is my first whored toon and I'm still only level 60, while most of my guild is already at 80. I use the dungeon finder extensively, and pug's are where most of the idiots land it seems.

 

-----signature-----

Thanks for the info, I will check this out.

 

-----signature-----

Yes, Warriors and Pally tanks now have to work a bit more to do the same job they used to do.

But dude, the warrior prot tree CRUSHES! All warriors are switching to tanks now (even though tanks are actually getting more scarce).

 

-----signature-----

Insta queues are fun

Tankspot is a good resource for things if you're willing to dig around a bit. Unfortunately it's starting to go the way of the EJ forums in that there are seemingly endless threads that you have to sift through endless dross and drivel to find useful information. The useful information is there, it just takes some dedication to find it.

Case in point - I tried to find out if the glyph of furious sundering applied to devastate - searched tankspot, didn't find anything after 30 mins of searching. Maybe they've gotten more concise threads or guides updated since I searched (3 or 4 days after 4.0.1 went live) but yah...

Tankspot is mostly useful imo as a bookmark place for some of the guide threads put up by the more well known warrior tank resources that did things like threat generation per ability tables and stuff like that.

 

-----signature-----

If people have access to equally geared, not that it matter too much w/ the new gear inc, plate tanks... which would you choose? I have been playing my warrior since BC and I am not sure if I like the playstyle anymore. Hes been my main but I have an 80 pally and I can get my DK up quickly. The pros I see about the 85 warrior are the crit block late in the game, like 4.3.x, but early end game it seems like the DK/pally might be more powerful and fun to play. Thoughts?

 

-----signature-----

Chad I think it is too early to tell now. There are going to be a lot of changes over the next couple of months, maybe even the next 4 to 6 months where we won't no sure exactly how each tank plays. I guess right now all we can do is make our best guess.

I'm going to give it a little bit of time before I start my tank. When Cata hits my priority will be to get my main to 85. From there to get him ready for raiding. Once I've accomplished that I'll take another look at how the different tanks play before I create my own.

 

-----signature-----