Demand for Tanks on Classic

[Hammerfest]

Please stop spreading false information, that just isn't true.

I suggest you stop spreading false information.

[Deleted]

DPS warriors on MC would play arms, and the dps was good, but their threat management was crap. They pretty much were only useful to speed up trash clearing times.

Threat was an even bigger problem on BWL. Fury still was close to the rest of the dps, and arms had the still problem. Barring ofc the second boss which was a glorified execute phase.

AQ gave more uses for warriors overall, interrupts were more important, as it was offtanking. Most of the dps of the warrior relied on his weapon, and they weren't easy drops. Casters had a more reliable dps since their dps upgrades where more spread out on regular gear pieces.

How viable they will be depends on the patches and gear avaible.

As tanks, yes for groups nay for raids, except if you are willing to make the huge commitment it will require.

[kamuimac]

Everyone wants to play a warrior. Noone wants to tank.

(Broad and slightly inaccurate generalization though)

but its true - and main culprit is 50 gold needed to respec each time.

but hey vanila was amaaaazin

[cparle87]

Tanks were much more needed in dungeons compared to raids, since the % of the group made up of tanks were higher in dungeons than raids.

It's similar today, when you need 2 tanks out of 20 people, 10% tanks, to do a raid, whereas you need 1 tank of 5 people, 20%, to do a dungeon.

Except Four Horsemen as people have said, where you have 8 warrior tanks out of 40, so you get 20% again.

[Jazzhands]

so have fun playing with subpar specs who cant hold agroo and are squishy like dps

while most players who have a clue will play with real tanks only aka warriors

So, remind me how "viable" non Warrior tanks were in Vanilla? ie: Bear Druids & Prot Paladins.
Speaking as someone who did it: Less viable than Warriors. More viable than people thought. (Celestalon)
By today's forum standards, obviously 100% nonviable and useless, so it does sort of depend on what you're asking.
I remember a video of a bear (Hugehoss) tanking Garr + all of his adds. Was quite the inspiration! (Celestalon)

Literally on the front page right now, and I've personally healed many bears and paladins, I'm sorry you have such a narrow view of how this game works and what's needed to kill bosses.

Dungeon tanks are always in high demand, as it's one tank for 4 people so they get scooped up fast, Bears/Paladins do fine if they know what they're doing. Have fun sitting LFG for 30 minutes looking for a warrior tank while my run with a paladin finished in that time because he can AoE tank like a baws =)

One of the largest issues back then was lack of proper knowledge on how to gear/play a bear/paladin tank. That won't be an issue this time around.

[Storfan]

but its true - and main culprit is 50 gold needed to respec each time.

but hey vanila was amaaaazin

I dont mind tanking, infact I love it and I will play warrior in Classic.

[Marc7]

I suggest you stop spreading false information.

There were like 5 DPS warriors in world first Patchwerk kill. Sure they got more popular by Naxx, but warriors were always good DPS. It's not like with shadow priests, where they became viable enough that you could have one in the raid later in vanilla. I don't remember our guild ever specifically recruiting fury warriors, but we sure had them in all our raids.

[xcoatsyx]

I doubt there will be a huge queue to become sunder bitches.

There will be a lot of DPS warriors I imagine.

Warriors are also grim to level so take that in to account.

[Marc7]

I doubt there will be a huge queue to become sunder bitches.

There will be a lot of DPS warriors I imagine.

Warriors are also grim to level so take that in to account.

Vanilla prot plays actually pretty nicely, all things considered. Stacking sunder isn't all you do, especially considering it doesn't take that long. At max level and with good gear you actually also do pretty good damage while soloing, so you don't NEED to respec as much as the healers do.

[God Save The King]

Except Four Horsemen as people have said, where you have 8 warrior tanks out of 40, so you get 20% again.

Note how I said "today". I don't recall an 8 tank fight in recent years.

[dd614]

Keep in mind the average 40 man Molten Core or BWL raid had 20 good players, 10 ok players who pressed buttons and 10 AFK players. A fury warrior who knows his proper rotation and does things right will be better than 90% of the classic raiders. Peoples' understanding of the game is just better nowadays. The average world quest boss has more abilities than some classic raid bosses.

[Swalload]

Can anyone tell me if there will be a huge demand for Tanks?

Seeing as people want raid spots and preemptively factor this in when starting for the first time will it be possible that there are too many warriors seeing as it will most likely be the most played class in the game for sure?

I'm heavily leaning towards Warrior for the demand for Tanks and the fact they are great at DPS and PvP also but I don't want to roll warrior if they will be in abundance

Any info on people's recent experience on classic servers would be nice to know thanks

Well if you want to tank you have to roll warrior. Will they be in abundance? Well yeah, cuz there's no other options. Will people mind? Not at all, no one will be looking for something other than warrior tank.
The demand? It's far more fucked up than in retail, 2 tanks in 40 man but for 5 mans it's the same so the discrepancy between dungeons and raid is twice as big, problems the healer never really run into. But if you want to tank and do 5man content, warrior is the way to go. You'll also be able to raid but probably will have to fight for a spot or accept to dps in raids and tank 5man.

[babyback]

During vanilla you didn’t have to be prot to tank. Especially not the dungeons. As long as you have a shield and a 1h any warrior is fit to tank. The same goes for healers.

[mikepic]

Any tank, even paladin, can do 5/10/15 mans. The sooner people accept this the faster you'll have your group.

Bears can tank early raids but post BWL it gets hairy, paladins shouldn't even attempt raids unless you're super geared and want to chug mana pots/beg for innervate. Raid tanks won't be rare though, usually it's just dungeon content.

Haha! I get it!

[xcoatsyx]

Vanilla prot plays actually pretty nicely, all things considered. Stacking sunder isn't all you do, especially considering it doesn't take that long. At max level and with good gear you actually also do pretty good damage while soloing, so you don't NEED to respec as much as the healers do.

Yeah I know, I was only joking. Protection warrior was really good, but I don't think many people will want to tank (not at least after initial interest). You get a lot of shit if things go wrong as the tank and people don't like that.

[NihilSustinet]

DPS Warriors weren't a think during most of Vanilla. I didn't see a Fury Warrior in a raid until Naxx.

This depends on which patch they use. if they use 1.12 (hopefully they wont) youll see a lot of dps warriors. if they start on an earlier balance patch, not so much.

[niil945]

There were like 5 DPS warriors in world first Patchwerk kill. Sure they got more popular by Naxx, but warriors were always good DPS. It's not like with shadow priests, where they became viable enough that you could have one in the raid later in vanilla. I don't remember our guild ever specifically recruiting fury warriors, but we sure had them in all our raids.

That's not true. Warrior was the second character I leveled while waiting for other people to hit max level. DPS warriors were rare, particularly as Horde on a pvp realm (Ner'Zhul.) They were tanks first and foremost because it's about all they were actually good at. And I know this because I played it as fury almost exclusively. I couldn't get groups for anything unless it was with friends and even then I felt like I was getting carried. That's ultimately why I shelved my warrior. It wasn't until later balancing and added itemization made them competitive, mostly the latter. Then when the easymode PvP gearing happened towards the end of classic warriors were everywhere. But that's not true of the bulk of content up through and including BWL. In fact, I went and leveled a paladin on Alliance once we learned we were getting them to test it out and I very clearly remember we had one douchey warrior who demanded every single buff he could get, regardless of whether it was good for the raid or not. I remember it because he screamed at me on voice to give him might and I muted him and spent the next 10 minutes laughing in tells about it with half the raid. Without excessive handholding via buff catering (windfury, might, etc.) and itemization from like the last quarter of classic warriors weren't competitive. But then again, neither were half the classes that are hybrids. Ret was terrible for exactly the same reasons, but they became gods at the end of classic due to itemization and then the 2.0 pre-patch.

[xcoatsyx]

Can you level as protection in vanilla, or are you going to have a bad time? I didn't swap to warrior until TBC.

[Aggrophobic]

Everyone wants to play a warrior. Noone wants to tank.

(Broad and slightly inaccurate generalization though)

I'm willing to bet that 90% or more that rolls a warrior will never make it to max level.

[niil945]

Can you level as protection in vanilla, or are you going to have a bad time? I didn't swap to warrior until TBC.

I tried it early on and it was pretty bad, I swapped to Fury and it wasn't as bad due to the blood thirst heals. It wasn't much but it was something. Of all the characters I leveled in classic particularly early on before major balance changes I spent more time eating than on any other character.