Strongest Tank

[Deleted]

Can confirm this. I couldn't imagine Sha's Thrashes with anyone but a Brewmaster. Having 80% avoidance for those three hits is laughable. Looking forward to tanking Frost King in council too.

Because avoidance helps so much?

Just completely ignoring avoidance, a paladin have 50% on every thrash with SotR. So that basically reduces those 3 hits into 1.5 hits.
That is completely disregarding any other CDs and/or avoidance.

With 80% avoidance, there is still a 4% chance that you let 2 full hits through. That is one in 25 thrashes you will take significantly more damage.
And one in 125 thrashes you take 3 hits. That is not reliable at all.

While you may take lower damage on average, almost every other tank class got more reliable ways of reducing that damage and taking more smooth damage and is less likely to get one shotted randomly with bad luck.

[judgementofantonidas]

My opinion:

Overall Toolkit:
Warrior
Paladin
Death Knight
Monk
Druid

Overall Survivability:
Death Knight
Warrior
Paladin
Druid
Monk

Monk is my favorite tank just based on playstyle (and absurd DPS for a tank spec), but there's no denying that I feel MUCH, MUCH squishier than my lesser-geared Death Knight. Especially on pulls before you get Shuffle up, you get absolutely wrecked for 2 GCDs (Keg Smash -> BOK).

Thank you for at least admitting to the squishiness of monk tanks. There are still many in denial.

[Akylios]

While you may take lower damage on average, almost every other tank class got more reliable ways of reducing that damage and taking more smooth damage and is less likely to get one shotted randomly with bad luck.

At least on 10m, so long as you actually don't do something really stupid (or you're severely undergeared), I'm pretty sure it's near impossible for any tank to get 1 shot on any encounter. You just have to know how to manage your damage reduction abilities. I haven't done any of the HC modes in ToT though, so I can't really comment on those, but unless last Talon Rake starts hitting for like 600k+ through cooldowns I believe the assessment is still valid.

For some classes it's obviously a much simpler job to keep their damage reduction abilities up, while other tanks actually have to plan a CD rotation ahead of time. (meaning those tanks who don't know exactly what to do will indeed stand a good chance on getting instagibbed on some encounters. you'll always get shit RNG from time to time, you need to be prepared for it)

But I just realized this thread specifically asks about tanks for 25m modes, and since I've never done 25m raiding I guess my post isn't of much use to the OP.

[judgementofantonidas]

Right now it seems like Paladins are tuned much more strongly than other tanks. If you want an 'easy time', pick a Paladin. (as with all tanks though, just picking a certain class won't change the fact that you actually need to know your stuff to play them effectively)

That being said, all tanks are viable, so there's really no reason to drop your monk unless you really want to.


[edit]
While all tanks are viable, if you plan on going 25m heroics, I would advise against picking a druid tank, unless you're looking for a real challenge. The druid dodge mechanic seems to lend itself much better to 10m raids than their 25m counterparts. (general tank dmg is much, much higher on 25m than 10m, so if you get bad rng on dodges on 25m hc, you're going to have a bad time)

lol @ "you want easy play a paladin". maybe if you are a lazy mastery build pally. try haste build then eat your words.

---------- Post added 2013-03-19 at 11:17 AM ----------

Uh, Blood DKs have higher survivability and just as many CD's. Not to mention the best mastery in the game.

My co tank is a dk and hands down out heals my paladin on any fight where we equally share the damage from the boss. Of course since his deathstrike is based on the damage he takes that means he also hands down takes a lot more damage as well. I easily out damage him all fights however.

[Deleted]

lol @ "you want easy play a paladin". maybe if you are a lazy mastery build pally. try haste build then eat your words.

Mastery stacking is actually more skill dependant as you need better precision on timing with your SotR.

That said, paladins have the 'hardest' dps rotation of all tanks so saying that they are easy feels kinda silly.

Also feels like paladins AM is one of the hardest, though also most effective, due to the 3 second duration and the relatively long build up time it can be hard to time and use properly. Paladins are also one of the squishiest tanks outside of CDs, basically when you have not CD/SotR up, you are extremely squishy so imo paladins have the least room for error on that department. I am not entirely sure how Monks works to be honest. Though they have by far the easiest tank dps rotation, so I figure they can focus a lot of their time into the actual tanking.

Feels like all tanks have a similar arsenal of bigger cds so that is kinda irrelevant.

[judgementofantonidas]

I would say the strongest tank was the german panther in WWII, but thats just me

actually for WWII it was the King Tiger which if Germany had the resources to produce more would have played a more pivotal role in the war.

[Tamato]

I am a Druid, Paladin, Warrior, and Monk. I don't have a death knight since they forced a tank spec for them way back in the day. (I miss my it,ps,pestilence,dnd,Unholy blight tanking rotation.)

I stack haste on my paladin, Use Sacred Shield with Seal of Insight. Never lose threat, and never die. I have solo'd our current heroics with that in mind. My Druid. I have solo'd some of the bosses in LFR and MV10 from about 20% on my own as a druid.
My warrior i dislike playing now and will most likely go fury just for daily quests, and my monk is the same.

But, if you play them all correctly, or utilize the best features.
Paladin - Survives when everybody else is long since dead.
Druid - Survives thanks to self heals and cooldowns, also does incredible AOE damage.
Monk - when played with decent rotation, can Achieve the HIGHEST avoidance in the game.
Warrior - Highest single target threat of any class, but in my opinion the weakest survivor.

[Kaidye]

Because avoidance helps so much?

Just completely ignoring avoidance, a paladin have 50% on every thrash with SotR. So that basically reduces those 3 hits into 1.5 hits.
That is completely disregarding any other CDs and/or avoidance.

With 80% avoidance, there is still a 4% chance that you let 2 full hits through. That is one in 25 thrashes you will take significantly more damage.
And one in 125 thrashes you take 3 hits. That is not reliable at all.

While you may take lower damage on average, almost every other tank class got more reliable ways of reducing that damage and taking more smooth damage and is less likely to get one shotted randomly with bad luck.

Because the only thing in a monk's toolkit is avoidance based, amirite?

Monks have the most reliable way of reducing physical damage if you want to talk about it. I agree, paladins are the best overall tank because they have the one of the best toolkits/cds. However, if you are going to compare a paladin's mastery (reducing X% of the incoming physical damage for the duration of SotR), you should really be comparing it to the similar monk ability, which is Stagger. Taking only X% of the incoming physical damage upfront and shunting the rest of it into a DoT that is easily purified is incredible; with T15 set bonuses and Fortifying Brew, Monk's have the potential to bump that percentage up to 100% when the 2set procs and their big damage mitigation cooldown is up. With Shuffle up (which should be 100% uptime for any and all monks), the default stagger is 60% damage taken up front and 40% put into the stagger dot. Please tell me how a 50% SotR for a few seconds is better than 60% reduced incoming physical damage (with mastery adding more and the 2pc also increasing that when Elusive Brew falls off). With the 4pc, when monks have a chance for a free Purifying Brew to get rid of the DoT even easier than before, it'll be even better.

So many people don't understand the full monk toolkit because they either haven't bothered, or tried it once and decided that a class that they don't know how to play is 20x worse than the alts they've played for years. Monks are incredibly strong, and are arguably the second best tanks behind paladins right now.

[rated]

The strongest tank is the one played by the most skilled player. <-- This needs to be added to the poll

/endthread

[Deleted]

-snip-

As I said earlier, I have no real clue as how monks work in detail. Only basic understanding from reading what others have said as I have no monk myself.
I was only referring to his comment about dodge op on thrash.

If I would have as much mastery as I have haste now on my paladin, my SotR would reduce 66% damage. So 50% is kind off on the low end, and my gear is not that great.

Stagger is extremely useful on some fights where the damage is very bursty and then low, but if the damage is substained for a medium period of time, then that dot will start to come back to you and hurt you aswell. But yeah, it is extremely useful in some situations.

[Gliff]

Monks are by far the best if they are played correctly. The other tank in my guild is legit and he really shines on almost all fights.

Monks=Paladins>Warriors>>Deathknights>>Druids

[JGWentworth]

I think you would find that most of the guilds pushing heroic content have 1 paladin. I just looked 7 of the top 10 right now are using a paladin tank.

[judgementofantonidas]

The strongest tank is the one played by the most skilled player. <-- This needs to be added to the poll

/endthread

not even close to true and it has been shown in this thread and previous threads.

some classes are better simply BECAUSE they do not take an E-athlete to make them work.

/notendthread

[Forgettable]

DK's mastery is also useless when it comes to magic damage, paladin's isn't.

When people say this, I just stare and think... "What?"

Alright, so the mastery itself doesn't absorb magic damage. But has the boss suddenly stopped melee swinging? I don't think think so. It's far from useless, as you can still stack the shield up for future melee damage if the boss is currently doing strictly magic damage. Also, every single one of of a Blood DKs cooldowns (save for Dancing Rune Weapon) can be used against magic damage. Death Strike healing, Bones Shield, Vampiric Blood, Rune Tap, Icebound Fortitude, Death Pact, Anitmagic Zone OR Lichborne, Empower Rune Weapon.

That's like saying "Paladins are bad against magic damage because their chance to block with their shield doesn't work against magic attacks."

[Dalinos]

I keep seeing people say "Druids are the worst tank, druids are the squishiest tank, DK's/Palas/Warrs are much better than druids" etc etc etc.

My question is, WHY? I've been playing a druid tank since TBC (was Resto in Vanilla) and I -never- had problems tanking!

We have (in my eyes) the most diverse toolkit - we can avoid damage completely (through Savage Defense, 70% dodge when it's up). We can heal up damage (I do ~10 million healing on myself during an average bossfight, with only 2% overhealing) when we take it, and we can reduce the bosses dmg through Toot & Claw.

We've got the highest Armour in the game (my fellow Plate tanks are running with about 15% less dmg reduction from Armour compared to me) and we have a very good HP pool. Our cooldowns are also extremely good - Might of Ursoc (glyphed) is +50% max health, and Renewal is a 2min CD that insta-heals 30% of our total life. Add our Survival Instincts and Barkskin to that, as DMG reducers, and you got a really powerful tank. Not even gonna mention our raid utility through Stampeding Roar, Combat Res, HOTW + Tranq and others.

And Im not even gonna get into our insane DPS, I push ~90k DPS average on any single target fight.

Then again, I haven't raided 25man seriously since WOTLK, but my question still stands. Why are druids considered SO low when in my eyes they are the most balanced tank? Informed and objective answers only, please. Oh and an Armory link for credentials

Armory link for my own credentials - http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Dalinos/simple

[Akylios]

lol @ "you want easy play a paladin". maybe if you are a lazy mastery build pally. try haste build then eat your words.

You misunderstand. I was not saying Paladins are any easier to master than other tanks. It doesn't matter which class you choose, if you don't know how to play it effectively, you're going to have a bad time. I guess I'm just saying that if you've learned how to play a Paladin to a decent level, you're likely to have a much less stressful experience than say a druid or a monk. I also think that some encounters require much more micromanagement to survive on as some tanks than they do as a paladin, simply because of the paladin's strong ability pool right now. That's pretty much how I would go about rating the different tanks, at least from a survivability standpoint. On top of that, paladins have very good single target dps to add to their survivability.

But no, I wasn't implying any tank is easier to master than another. At the end of the day, how good the player is is much more important than how good the class is. You can't just take a shit player and expect him to do well as a Paladin. You can't do that with any class.

[judgementofantonidas]

You misunderstand. I was not saying Paladins are any easier to master than other tanks. It doesn't matter which class you choose, if you don't know how to play it effectively, you're going to have a bad time. I guess I'm just saying that if you've learned how to play a Paladin to a decent level, you're likely to have a much less stressful experience than say a druid or a monk. I also think that some encounters require much more micromanagement to survive on as some tanks than they do as a paladin, simply because of the paladin's strong ability pool right now. That's pretty much how I would go about rating the different tanks, at least from a survivability standpoint. On top of that, paladins have very good single target dps to add to their survivability.

But no, I wasn't implying any tank is easier to master than another. At the end of the day, how good the player is is much more important than how good the class is. You can't just take a shit player and expect him to do well as a Paladin. You can't do that with any class.

I have seen some VERY averge players get by on DK tanks. They are one of the simplest to manage. You keep your diseases up, death strike, death strike a little more and profit. I have a tank of each class and they are by far the least challenging.

I have also seen some VERY bad players get by on Pally tanks. For instance we have a paladin on our server who is all parry and stam gems. His healers keep him up, they profit.

[Akylios]

Then again, I haven't raided 25man seriously since WOTLK, but my question still stands. Why are druids considered SO low when in my eyes they are the most balanced tank? Informed and objective answers only, please. Oh and an Armory link for credentials

That's the thing. I'm a 10m raider as well so I never understood why everyone ranked druids so low. Then after reading these forums for a bit, it struck me that a lot of top raiders have abandoned their druids for hardcore 25m progression. The main reason being that tank dmg on 25m is so high that if a druid gets bad RNG on their dodges, they are going to have a very, very bad time. On 10m this is much less of an issue, simply because we don't take close to as much dmg when our dodges fail.

I'll defend the viability of druid tanks in 10m raids all day long... but it's a bit hard to ignore the sheer amount of 25m raiders who dislike them. I just hope Blizzard finds a way to fix this before 5.4, as I think druids are very fun to play and I hate seeing 25m raiders feeling the need to stop playing them.

[Nairobi]

DK's having higher survivability is incredibly arguable. Especially when you throw add tanking into the mix, and things like Durumu's "Hard Stare". SoTR > Death Strike/Blood shield for mechanics like that, which you know, almost every boss has lately. Lets not forget the part that a 3pt WoG with 5 Bastion of glory stacks heals for more than death strike ever will and is off the GCD...

DK's mastery is also useless when it comes to magic damage, paladin's isn't.

Paladin's also have more versatile CDs, and one of theirs isn't a boost to avoidance which is not exactly the best thing (DRW is incredibly meh for a defensive).

I'm just a bit confused here...ShotR does not reduce any damage from Magic attacks, not does the Block chance granted via mastery. Are you saying that our mastery is good versus magic solely because of BOG-WOG?

I agree that a 40-60sec 40% magic dmg reduction CD is great against magic (if we don't glyph it for 20/20% dmg redux), as is Hand of Purity (if taken) for DOT magic effects, but certainly you can't say that we're strong against magic because of our mastery.

OT: Paladin > rest, but Warrior is a good option (if you don't have a DPS war) purely for skill banner, rally cry, demo banner, demo shout, etc.

[judgementofantonidas]

I'm just a bit confused here...ShotR does not reduce any damage from Magic attacks, not does the Block chance granted via mastery. Are you saying that our mastery is good versus magic solely because of BOG-WOG?

I agree that a 40-60sec 40% magic dmg reduction CD is great against magic (if we don't glyph it for 20/20% dmg redux), as is Hand of Purity (if taken) for DOT magic effects, but certainly you can't say that we're strong against magic because of our mastery.

OT: Paladin > rest, but Warrior is a good option (if you don't have a DPS war) purely for skill banner, rally cry, demo banner, demo shout, etc.

I think they are confusing our abilities given through mastery with our mitigation through sacred shield and how we can tweak it through haste and improved healing through sanctity of battle.