Only warrior can tank?

[Kessiaan]

AoE tanking wasn't a thing (you'd use CC on multi-mob pulls and only fight 1 mob at a time most of the time) and only the warrior had a full kit of tanking abilities. Sunder Armor was the best threat generator bar none, they had a taunt, I think they had an aoe taunt on a long CD, they had hamstring (mobs running away would wipe you if they got far), I think they had shield wall back then too.

Classic had a different design ethos. Each class had a specific, unique role and had unique utility to support that role. So it was natural that there was a 'tank' class. Other classes could sort of tank (Paladins, Druids, even Shamans) but you brought them along for their supporting abilities and in that role they were all fantastic offtanks if spec'd appropriately.

[Raugnaut]

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?

Quite a bit of it was just raw balance. Dire Bear form only gave like 100% extra armor, which wasn't anywhere near what Warriors could get with both plate AND a shield - Note that the armor difference between leather and plate was FAR greater then now.

Warriors also had a LOT more tools. Druids in Dire Bear form barely had any threat generation tools, I think they had Swipe and.. maybe Mangle? Wasn't really bear then, was Resto. So 2 buttons. Warriors had Sunder Armor, and a SHITTON more buttons. In fact, if it was threat generation you had to worry about and NOT damage mitigation, you could spec into Arms and pick up Mortal Strike and a talent that increased its threat, and ST threat wouldn't be a problem (Or was that TBC?).

Paladins had a lot of the same issues - Lack of damage mitigation, lack of threat tools.

[AeneasBK]

To the OP : One of the critical reasons Paladins could suffer as tanks was any mana burn or mana drain mechanics (of which there are some in pretty much every raid, even if only one or two per raid) mana regeneration was a big problem for sustained threat generation.

[Ealyssa]

In BC, paladins were great tanks

No, they weren't.

They were extremly niche and pretty much only interesting on the Hyjal "horde" boss.

And you had to get a slow hiting caster weapon, which nearly forced you to farm PVP to get that pretty mace.

[Sting]

Paladins can tank 5 mans, but no taunt makes it tricky, the group needs to be very good about assisting off the tank. Paladins have to drink a lot as well.
Bears can tank almost as well as warriors, they just need gear that's difficult to come by, back in Vanilla we had a bear tank in BWL/AQ40, sadly she quit before Naxx so we never got to see how it went.

There is no way in hell that would've worked out, and 4 horsemen are the reason why. You probably wouldn't even reach them.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

No, they weren't.

They were extremly niche and pretty much only interesting on the Hyjal "horde" boss.

And you had to get a slow hiting caster weapon, which nearly forced you to farm PVP to get that pretty mace.

Tru fax. I had that mace for tanking Kara on alt raid night. My druid buddy and I split the tanking duties.

[SirReal]

It's true. All of our offtanks were wars too for the most part. We had 6 wars in our MC/BWL raids and on certain fights like Barron or Domo, they would start the fight holding a mob in def stance and then be dps'ing by the end of the fight.

Also vael had how ever many wars line up and execute spam while throttling threat to go in a very specific order while we burned through tanks.

[Rehija]

There is no way in hell that would've worked out,

Sure did, on selected Bosses ofc. Maexxna was a "Bear Boss" if you had one, Offtank on Patchwerk, Addtank on Razuvious and Gluth was also possible but we didnt see that one throu wenn one of our main healers quit and Corv was more or less fored to go back full time healer.

[Oakshana]

What on earth does this mean?

I should have said raid group, not guild.

That said, i meant that Paladins didn't initially have snap aggro like prot warriors. A warrior could taunt, charge in and while you did need to wait a little for aggro to build, they could get aggro back pretty quickly if someone jumped the gun. Paladins though, we didn't have a charge and we didn't have a direct mob taunt. So you needed to be able to run in judge, consecrate and get at least a crusader strike/avengers shield off before people started DPSing. I cannot tell you how many BC Heroics I ran I told people to wait until I had the mob before they went ham on DPS.

A good raid team would know to let you have the chance to get some threat built up. That's all I meant.

[Jazzhands]

There is no way in hell that would've worked out, and 4 horsemen are the reason why. You probably wouldn't even reach them.

So, because 4 horsemen are there, she wouldn't have been able to tank the rest of the place? You know, the 14 other bosses that aren't 4 horsemen. And I'm sure there's no way in hell a guild capable of doing Naxx wouldn't have enough warriors geared and ready to swap for 4 horsemen, or any fight where a bear might not work out?

Long story short a long time guild member got bored with healing and wanted to tank, we said fuck it. We knew Bears weren't warriors, but Bears can still tank like 90% of the bosses in the game, if we had 4-5 wipes due to getting gibbed we'd swap to a warrior and just keep going. The only example that really comes to mind was Sartura, but once it hit farm she was able to tank that.

[Sting]

So, because 4 horsemen are there, she wouldn't have been able to tank the rest of the place? You know, the 14 other bosses that aren't 4 horsemen. And I'm sure there's no way in hell a guild capable of doing Naxx wouldn't have enough warriors geared and ready to swap for 4 horsemen, or any fight where a bear might not work out?

Long story short a long time guild member got bored with healing and wanted to tank, we said fuck it. We knew Bears weren't warriors, but Bears can still tank like 90% of the bosses in the game, if we had 4-5 wipes due to getting gibbed we'd swap to a warrior and just keep going. The only example that really comes to mind was Sartura, but once it hit farm she was able to tank that.

I don't know who you're talking about specifically but it definitely is sub optimal. In a classic setting where being sub optimal ofen means being garbage, especially in naxx40, I wouldn't give people the leeway to play it.

I was there, it was very hard, and if I recall correctly it still has the lowest completion rate of any raid they ever released.

I'm not sure if anybody here is considering playing a tank other than warrior for their classic characters, but I doubt you'd have a fun time. You can do paladins for dungeons I guess.

[Jazzhands]

I don't know who you're talking about specifically but it definitely is sub optimal. In a classic setting where being sub optimal ofen means being garbage, especially in naxx40, I wouldn't give people the leeway to play it.

I was there, it was very hard, and if I recall correctly it still has the lowest completion rate of any raid they ever released.

I'm not sure if anybody here is considering playing a tank other than warrior for their classic characters, but I doubt you'd have a fun time. You can do paladins for dungeons I guess.

Bear tanks have a fairly good reputation on private servers, but they've never reached Naxx. It's sub optimal, but it worked most of the time, and like I said, it was clear when it wouldn't and we just swapped, pretty easy. Naxx would have been rough for sure, honestly half those fights probably wouldn't have been doable, but we still would have tried! It was more fun for us to let people at least try to play what they wanted as long as they were willing to switch when asked. We wouldn't have beat our head against a wall trying to have a bear tank Patchwerk or anything like that, that's just silly.

[Dreyen]

People saying bears had bad threat... If my memory serves right, bears had much better threat than warriors (and maybe avoidance? Not sure) on top of swipe hitting 3 targets aoe. They had more hp/damage reduction than warriors, but crushing and crits is definitely their downfall survival wise. I'd have to see numbers to really see, but I can guarantee that bear tanks were completly fine for 5man content and bears have tanked ragnaros.

I'm not familiar enough with vanilla raids, but I'm sure a feral druid could offtank easily and switch to dps/innervate/brez when it's mob is dead. If I remember correctly, there are fights where you need X tanks and in the end most of the tanks have nothing to do except the main tank.

Odds are bears aren't as good, but can actually get the job done. Main problem is that some of their bis gear doesn't really improve with raid gear I believe, you never really drop the warden staff or heart of the mountain I believe. Bear tanking required a lot of knowledge of what to use, so odds are the bear tanks that tried tanking probably did crappy and people formed their opinions based on their experience.

[Kuja]

What were pally's seals like? I've forgotten about those completely. I do recall they were annoying as fuck and had to be refreshed continuously.

[Jagd]

No fear breaker either

[Rehija]

I don't know who you're talking about specifically but it definitely is sub optimal.

You are absolutely right in this regard but i think you forget how it often worked out during Classic. A lot of guilds who raided Naxx werent that "pro" to begin with. Ofc. the most of them didnt clear, but a lot went in there and downed a few bosses, took the loot, went back to AQ 40, did one or two more kills there, went back to naxx and so on. The trash loot alone was worth one or two bosskills in AQ if your raid was a little lucky with drop numbers.

[Sting]

Bear tanks have a fairly good reputation on private servers, but they've never reached Naxx. It's sub optimal, but it worked most of the time, and like I said, it was clear when it wouldn't and we just swapped, pretty easy. Naxx would have been rough for sure, honestly half those fights probably wouldn't have been doable, but we still would have tried! It was more fun for us to let people at least try to play what they wanted as long as they were willing to switch when asked. We wouldn't have beat our head against a wall trying to have a bear tank Patchwerk or anything like that, that's just silly.

Fair game, and good luck trying when classic releases naxx.

[Eurhetemec]

Warrior : Raid God

Pala : 5 Man God

In Vanilla? No.

Paladins couldn't even tank 5-mans remotely reliably in Vanilla.

In late TBC, Paladins did become 5-man gods (if geared), which may be what you're thinking of. I speak as a well-geared Paladin in Vanilla. I was no substitute for a Warrior tank in any situation. An off-tank, sure.

[Dreyen]

What were pally's seals like? I've forgotten about those completely. I do recall they were annoying as fuck and had to be refreshed continuously.

Believe you use a seal, its up for 30seconds.

Judgment's effect is based on the seal... I forgot if judgment consumes the seal or not though.

[Logwyn]

No fear breaker either

Bring the pocket dwarf priest!