Top 3 Tanks & Why?

[Jimson]

Just curious of what people prefer for progression or even M+'s.

Progression sort of depends on raid tier. In a raid where magic seems to be a mechanic for every boss, warriors are going to fall behind.

M+s, I prefer a warrior since that's what I run. I haven't DPS a M+ in a long time so I can't say who else is tanking them well.

[SirCowdog]

I haven't actually played my Bear in Legion after the opening artifact quest. But I've always found the bear to be the easiest to play. And that's an important question you need to ask yourself when choosing any class.

You can pick the one the logs say is the mathematically "best" choice, but if you can't play it at the same level of mastery as the pros, then what's the point? Pick the tank that feels the most natural to play, and you will soon be able to play at the highest levels.

[Deleted]

Bear>unskilled bear>monk>Pala>warrior/dh/dk>unskilled monk

Bear is the easiest tank by far yet it is the best of them all, monk is good but requires good resource managing, pala is the best "DPS" tank while still offering insane utility and good dmg reductions, rest are just shit. Trust me, i play blood right now and it is still shit after the "survivability buff" (the broken new golden trait, which is not enough at all) and will still be shit after 7.2.5 "buffs".

[Deleted]

So where did I ask for someone to choose a class? Simply asking what people thought the best was but its chill. smh

You asked - didn't provide any own material to the discussion. You clearly just wanted answers.
Sounded pretty much like all the hundreds of "hey guys choose my FOTM class for me" threads that get posted here all the time.

So - since this is a discussion board - let's discuss. Can you give us your thoughts for the top 3 tanks and their pros and cons?
You know - give us something to talk about, instead of just ask us to list "the best tanks" for you.

How about it?

[Killface1]

Tanking balance is probably as good as its ever been tbh from a mitigation AND dps stand point. Bears and monks clearly have an edge over everybody else right this minute, bears because of really solid mitigation, a ton of physical DR, and a huge healthpool, and monks because of their ability to be essentially immune to massive amounts of incoming damage.

With the exception of warriors on krosus, pretty much every tank is strong on every boss, and the edge that bears and monks have is a minor one.

If your guild or you can't tank a particular boss (or with a particular comp) don't look at tank balance as the fault, cause you're not gonna see a massive improvement switching to another tank probably. The exception to that is that bears could currently be played by somebody blindfolded on a pogostick and do a pretty good job, so if you're struggling at one tank you could switch to a bear and do alright.

But even with a DK/DH combo, you should not only be able to kill every boss in NH, but find something those tanks can excel at. The top 95% parses for the low dps tanks are beating the top 75% parses for the high dps tanks, there is lots of tank switching for "best dps tank" on a boss by boss basis in NH, and no one tank is on top for all of them, nor is any one tank on the bottom for all of them. Tank balance is fucking fantastic right now.

[ReD-EyeD]

Even if you're not in a world top whatever percentage, playing a Druid helps you because it gives you bigger margin for error. I pug, and my experience this expansion has been great because I happened to pick a Druid. Picking Druid means I never ever need an external cd and it takes an act of god to kill me. That just makes the game that much less challenging for other raiders. When I apply to a group I get auto invited the way dh wouldn't. And pugs also rely on cheesing- bears are routinely asked to nearly solo tank Gul'Dan to limit the coordination needed. The guild I'm in (I'm a casual and I don't raid with them) started out with a dk and a warrior and both re-rolled to the op classes later. They're like a world 5000 guild or whatever but choosing the right class in the pre expansion game of tank roulette made a huge difference to them too.

And I wanted to kill myself when I was playing bear because of how boring it was. There is a lot of preferences involved here too

[Deleted]

Tank balance is fucking fantastic right now.

You are joking right? i am progressing on Guldan and i CAN'T tank illidan because it just gets rid of my healing so my class is useless. I also can't solotank all scythes because i need a personal or external CD EVERY scythe. Druids do that withouth CDs. But yeah, it's balanced as fuck eksdee.

[ReD-EyeD]

You are joking right? i am progressing on Guldan and i CAN'T tank illidan because it just gets rid of my healing so my class is useless. I also can't solotank all scythes because i need a personal or external CD EVERY scythe. Druids do that withouth CDs. But yeah, it's balanced as fuck eksdee.

Its actually more about broken encounter than tank balance. Blizzard even openly recognized their mistakes in NH.

[Hisholyness]

Is bear really that far ahead?

What nerfs would you guys recommend to bring it in line with other tanks?

[BananaHandsB]

There are too many tanks. They need to remove two of the specs. Impossible to have 6 that are close.

And further intensify the tank vs dps/heals disparity, no thank you. It's already hard enough finding a tank.

[Deleted]

Obviously warrior... I mean what other tank got nerfed in every single patch ??

[ReD-EyeD]

Is bear really that far ahead?

What nerfs would you guys recommend to bring it in line with other tanks?

Bears have 3 things that makes them too good: High hp, high (and very very very easily stacking) armor, million of defensive cooldowns.
I would just increase frenzied regeneration cost a lot higher so they would actually need to choose between it and stacking iron fur. Now they just press whatever button is ready and FR after damage recieved.

[BananaHandsB]

Adding a tank spec doesn't affect that disparity. Basically no one says, "I would never have tanked, but then they added dk/monk/dh so now I'm a tank." You decide to be a tank first then choose the spec to play.

We're talking about removing specs, not adding. Look at the post I was quoting (smh):

There are too many tanks. They need to remove two of the specs.

There are a lot of people who will only play a certain tank class.

[Ealyssa]

DH do have CC, and wonderful mob control in general.

Not in world of warcraft no, you may talk about the wrong game.

No AOE stun, no aoe snare and a really weak version of mass grip you shouldn't talent in. VDH are 100% dependent on assist of the group to do any real pack control. The "sigil of disorient" you speak about break on damage, 100% useless to mitigate a pack of mobs. Only realy use is to emergency interupt a pack if they can be feared (which shouldn't be the case in a proper MM+ run).

[Elbob]

You are joking right? i am progressing on Guldan and i CAN'T tank illidan because it just gets rid of my healing so my class is useless. I also can't solotank all scythes because i need a personal or external CD EVERY scythe. Druids do that withouth CDs. But yeah, it's balanced as fuck eksdee.

I believe most the classes are capable of solo taking all the felscythes on M Gul'dan at this point with enough gear(and externals). I know my paladin can, bears and monks as well. This is speculation but warriors with the new traits (20% more magic reduction on SR) and indom should be able to take them with SR, IP and 1 20% reduction. As for DH's and DKs.... well sorry the mechanic wasn't meant to be one tanked. Even blizzard said so.
Edit: druids do not take fel scythes without cds its like 15million pre mit damage, even if adaptive and mark are up it can still one shot.

As for Illidan... well I don't tank Mr Demon within on my pally our bear does cause max hp is such an important factor for the healing immunity. Aside from DK's all the tanks should be able to do this particular mechanic without a ton of trouble as long as your soul gets picked up quickly. Bears/monks are certainly best suited for it though because of how hard the demon hits on top of the no healing for a few seconds. Bears also get to FR to clear the healing absorb after.

[Killface1]

You are joking right? i am progressing on Guldan and i CAN'T tank illidan because it just gets rid of my healing so my class is useless. I also can't solotank all scythes because i need a personal or external CD EVERY scythe. Druids do that withouth CDs. But yeah, it's balanced as fuck eksdee.

So one encounter in NH that a few classes have the ability to cheese and solotank and a few classes either need external rotations or can't do it. Sounds pretty horrendous, I'm sure they've never before had an encounter that some tanks could cheese and solotank and some classes couldn't without externals.

[Deleted]

So one encounter in NH that a few classes have the ability to cheese and solotank and a few classes either need external rotations or can't do it. Sounds pretty horrendous, I'm sure they've never before had an encounter that some tanks could cheese and solotank and some classes couldn't without externals.

It's not about that encounter, is about EVERY encounter. That's just an example but let me summarize:
Lets skip first 3 bosses as they are shit.
Krosus -> Bear has adaptative (10%)+skin (6%)+MoU(40%) permanent reduction.
Alluriel -> 2x Ironfur is enough to solosoak annihilate
Tich -> MoU+barkskin is enough to soak seekers
Etraeus -> Solotanked by bears
Botanist -> You can 100-0 the solarist as a bear, no other class can
Elisande -> Nothing is really dangerous as a tank here.
Guldan -> see above.

It's not about bear shining in one encounter, is about shining in every encounter since legion started, because the baseline of the bear is absurdly broken and blizz can't open their eyes to see that: a tank that has the most passive reduction and HP+4 personal CDs (5 if you have the ring)+is the easiest to use is absurdly broken. Even after the removal of MoU they will still be the best tanks by a huge margin unless they specifically make a boss that does a huge magical strike that scales with HP, thing they will probably never do, so bear will be king on ToS too.

[Tojara]

You are joking right? i am progressing on Guldan and i CAN'T tank illidan because it just gets rid of my healing so my class is useless. I also can't solotank all scythes because i need a personal or external CD EVERY scythe. Druids do that withouth CDs. But yeah, it's balanced as fuck eksdee.

I mean, if you don't have the belt I won't speak. But I can solo soak every single scythe on Mythic Gul'dan as a blood DK without a single external CD. You can solo tank Etraeus as a blood DK quite easily as well. Krosus is a joke for blood DKs as well. You can solo soak annihilates regardless of class by having somebody simply taunt a quarter of a second before you taunt back.

Phase 3 is a different story and bears are far better than we are at that phase, but blood DKs can easily do Mythic Gul'dan without externals.

That's not to say bears aren't the strongest, because they certainly are. The removal of MoU and proposed blood DK changes soon might tip the scales though, along with the changes to BrM. I get that people are mad right now about tank balance, but it's not as bleak as people are saying. I've played blood DK throughout the entire expansion and it still felt workable.

[Deleted]

I mean, if you don't have the belt I won't speak. But I can solo soak every single scythe on Mythic Gul'dan as a blood DK without a single external CD. You can solo tank Etraeus as a blood DK quite easily as well. Krosus is a joke for blood DKs as well. You can solo soak annihilates regardless of class by having somebody simply taunt a quarter of a second before you taunt back..

It's not about you can or can't handle the mechanic, it's about how. Bears do it with just MoU and ironskin mostly. Think about any of that mechanics, can you do it just with death strikes? And even with that, bears still have personals on top of that damage reduction, which is better than yours + your CDs.

[Tojara]

Um, I just press vampiric blood and as long as I'm topped off, I won't die.

Of course I cycle through AMS, and trinkets for every single scythe because it's safer, but it's by no means 'hard'. I don't know what bear druids your're referencing, but iron bark isn't up for every single scythe and MoU alone isn't enough. I'm not arguing that bears aren't strong because they are, just that, DKs are probably better at this particular niche tanking job at this point in time, mainly because our new gold (even in it's nerfed state) is pretty strong. I can go through both phases of Gul'dan Mythic, without worry or externals and I barely need any healing. That's without taking either rune tap or spectral deflection.

So no they can't do that particular mechanic with just MoU, they still have to cycle CDs, as do we.