Only warrior can tank?

[Dhrizzle]

I know some Paladins actually tanked raids in Vanilla, but I don't believe any Main Tanked. They were just Off Tanks. It's the same deal on Private Servers, though I believe these days some people have actually worked out how to Main Tank raids as a Paladin (not sure on that though).

Bears could hardly tank a level 50 dungeon, as far as I recall.

Bears were fine for tanking 5-mans at lvl 60. DPS had to wait a bit longer before unleashing but in general mobs would stick to them and the Druid wouldn't die.

[Vestig3]

No it was just really, really hard. As a warrior tank (no raid gear, some token gear from Zul'Aman and Sunwell patches) Shattered Halls normal was harder than pretty much every Heroic (except Shattered Halls heroic of course.)

Ye but i can guess because most guilds used warrior tanks most warriors had the tier 4 gear or tier 5 gear for heroics.

[arel00]

The problem with non warriors tanking raid was, for paladins, totally shitty aggro and lack of defensive cooldowns, while for druids it was the impossibility of being defense-capped, since leather didn't have the stats. Druids could take Patchwerk hateful strikes perfectly due to high armor and high health, but if they tried tanking a boss crushing blows would kill them very, very quickly.
Then there were the 4 horsemen. That was 8 warrior tanks with tier 3, period, else you could miss the taunts when swapping.


Edit: as for TBC all three could play well, but there were preferences. Paladins were good on Hyjal waves, druids were good on Archimonde since iirc he didn't have crushing blows, warriors were good all-rounder. Paladins were also quite good on Illidan tbh, it was quite difficult to miss a Shear with Holy Shield.

[Viikkis]

Warrior is the bis tank but other classes can certainly tank 5 mans and off tank raids.

[Wiedzemir]

Main tank - only warriors.
Druid could be an off-tank sometimes but it was sub-optimal.
Realistically yes, warriors were only real tanks. IMO it was better this way. As tanks we'd sort the gear dropped between ourselves to keep all of the tanks on a relatively similar level, it would not be possible if there'd be a class barrier for gear.

And by the way. If you're planning to tank in Classic, think very carefully. It's a thankless job that involves dealing with a ton of DPS (hunters, I'm looking at you) that seemingly incapable of understanding the concept of threat and in some cases even the 5 second rule. But of course when they die, they blame the tank. Same with healers. There is literally no point to keep everyone at 100% all the time and rarely possible yet there are some who tried and by doing so, again, generated a ton of threat by overhealing, not to mention wasted mana. And of course, when the healer dies, everyone blames the tank.

The last time I tanked raids in BC, no more.

[Deleted]

In my time we actually had Paladin tank in BWL, especially the area around Broodlord (suppression room)... And for druid, we actually had MT druid in AQ20 For the rest raids, we had druid in ZG, and that's about it... For 5 man, people usually insisted on Paladin, because runs go much faster (not sure why it was, possibly due to Exorcism, and Strath/Scholo being a lot of undead oriented..)..

[sam86]

Also, I believe (it's been a LONG time) that neither growl and taunt actually gave you uncontested aggro from the mobs in vanilla, if for any reason DPS pulled threat off you taunting it will not necessarily bring it back to you.

Taunt didn't work on 99.99999% of bosses even in dungeons, I think the first time a tank taunted a boss (by mistake) and it actually worked was mid-late TBC after patch 2.3 or something, and still most ppl didn't even know they can taunt bosses now, Vael the guild breaker was a NIGHTMARE because of no taunt
Trash mobs however can be taunted with diminishing returns

[Teri]

We had 1 druid in guild who wanted to tank sometimes, but never main tank.

On Vaelastrasz progression we had like 9 warriors. At least 6 of them tank on the first kills.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Problem is mostly gearing but also clueless development left paladin with no taunt. Any tank can tank but it will be much harder to gear for druid and paladin.

[Hisholyness]

bears only had maul, swipe, and growl as rotation spells.

Paladins didnt have a taunt.

Fun times

[Vestig3]

The problem with non warriors tanking raid was, for paladins, totally shitty aggro and lack of defensive cooldowns, while for druids it was the impossibility of being defense-capped, since leather didn't have the stats. Druids could take Patchwerk hateful strikes perfectly due to high armor and high health, but if they tried tanking a boss crushing blows would kill them very, very quickly.
Then there were the 4 horsemen. That was 8 warrior tanks with tier 3, period, else you could miss the taunts when swapping.

Lol you didnt “need” tier 3 on 4 horsemen because that was barely impossible with so few tier drops you needed a few realy great geared tank and the others could do with mix of tier 2/2,5 or 3

[Animalhouse]

It wasn't all about the end game in vanilla like it is now.
For a majority of your time, which is spent leveling, dungeon running and rep grinding, any tank was certainly viable.
If your one goal is to mad rush (and i use that term loosely) to 60 and raid than yes, warrior is by far the best tank. But if you played classic this way, you would be missing out on what made it great.

[Vestig3]

Taunt didn't work on 99.99999% of bosses even in dungeons, I think the first time a tank taunted a boss (by mistake) and it actually worked was mid-late TBC after patch 2.3 or something, and still most ppl didn't even know they can taunt bosses now, Vael the guild breaker was a NIGHTMARE because of no taunt
Trash mobs however can be taunted with diminishing returns

omg the threat circus on vaelastrazs Lol, we actualy killed with a rogue tanking it because all tanks where dead

- - - Updated - - -

But if you played classic this way, you would be missing out on what made it great.

Like what?

[McFuu]

Warriors were top because it was easy for them to "outgear" crushing blows.

It's been too long, but I believe the concept was you would have to stack defensive values so they were greater than 100%, so dodge, parry, and block would have to be more than 95% (I believe there was a baked in 5% chance for mobs to miss). If you didn't get these values over 100% the tank would be vulnerable to crits and crushing blows.
It was easier for Warrior to get over this limit because of their Shield. Also Druids relied on stacking dodge from agi and direct sources. Ohh and they can't parry either.

TBC helped fix this, but I never played Alliance during vanilla so I don't know how well Paladins got around this.

[Thage]

As I heard, only warrior could tank in vanilla. Why was that so?
In BC, paladins were great tanks, so what was wrong with pallies in vanilla?
Also, druids?

Paladins lacked an immediate aggro grab in Vanilla; most paladins ended up going Holy and being used as buff-bots, cycling through the raid refreshing Blessings. Many raid groups had one Ret paladin or Arms warrior with Nightfall to keep a +15% spell damage taken debuff up on the boss. Bear druids had a big issue with taking more damage due to some funky armor scaling in Bear form and even worse issues with aggro (as, unlike a paladin with Consecrate, the Bear wasn't all that good for holding group threat). Prot warriors, on the other hand, were designed with a superior kit for tanking, comparatively speaking, and could stance dance into Battle Stance to Thunderclap for area aggro between using Sunder Armor to maintain high single-target aggro.

That being said, both prot paladins and bear druids were perfectly doable in 5-man dungeons, if less appealing than warriors for much the same reasons they were usually discouraged in progression raiding.

[judgementofantonidas]

As I heard, only warrior could tank in vanilla. Why was that so?
In BC, paladins were great tanks, so what was wrong with pallies in vanilla?
Also, druids?

paladins only came into their own half way through BC.

[arel00]

Lol you didnt “need” tier 3 on 4 horsemen because that was barely impossible with so few tier drops you needed a few realy great geared tank and the others could do with mix of tier 2/2,5 or 3

You did if you want to never miss a taunt, since it was a t3 set bonus. Good luck doing the horsemen if you miss a swap on the marks in vanilla.

[Dannyzk]

Didn't read any comment except the last 3 but from what i've seen i can tell you

Warrior are best raid tanks
Druids are best instance tanks, but can also be good as raid tanks but as MT you should use Warrior
Paladins are just for instance and 20man raids except u use him for 4th tank or so and have really ALL buffs that u can get(i can tell u, that's not funny at all)

[Logwyn]

Paladins weren't really even all that great tanks in BC. In general, they were 3rd out of 3 possible tanks.

What are smoking? In BC pally were the go to tank in 5man heroics. It got to the point where people wouldn't do them unless there was a pally tanking them.

Also. Blizzard said "CLASSIC" servers. They didn't say vanilla servers

[therealstegblob]

Bears were fine for tanking 5-mans at lvl 60. DPS had to wait a bit longer before unleashing but in general mobs would stick to them and the Druid wouldn't die.

I guess it varies on the experience one had in Vanilla. I never saw, or heard, of a Bear tank in late-game dungeons and I always recall the general consensus being that bears couldn't tank, but to be fair, there were lots of wild and inaccurate things even the most savvy and nerdy players would believe.