Tanking as a non-tank specc

[Deleted]

In the past, it has always been possible for classes like Warriors, Paladins and Death Knights to tank a normal dungeon, even without having a typical tank-specc. This holds especially true while leveling as few people chose to level with a tank-specc.

All you needed was a little defence gear to achieve crit-immunity. With the new Cataclysm design Crit-immunity is now backed into some talents somewhere in the tanking-trees, making it impossible for off-speccs to reach.

Now I'm not sure how big of a risk crit-immunity is for a tank but I think it's a bit of a shame. If the crit-immunity was backed into Defensive stance/Blood stance/Something Prot then it would go a long way for leveling groups.

[The_Butcher]

As a death knight, technically it is still possible, but you'll be missing out on key talents like 10% more armor

[tekoix]

Why would you need a tank to level? 80-85 would probably be much faster just questing, if your talking 1-85 then its the same deal. If you ever leveled a plate dps you would know you can easily tank dungeons without tank gear, just stam gear / gemmed for stam because nothing hit's that hard.

If your running with a 'group' to level then it should be quite easy for at least one person to pick up a true tank spec(dual spec?) in this case, but still not necessary since you can all help out (cc, extra heals, peel off heals etc etc). I've had no issues tanking to 80 as a unholy dk and ret pally, as well as now that my pally is geared I just keep up SS and heal myself using AoQ procs through heroics quite easily with a decent healer. Decent doesn't mean 6kgs either. At the same time, theres no way I'm tanking HoR as ret, seems impossible with most groups you get there.

[pzijderv]

i can't say how it will be in cata ofc, but i think for normals and moreso leveling atm crit immunity is way overrated. a crit from a boss in a heroic will only in very few cases actualy put u in danger. as tekoix said it's enough to have alot of stam.