Stupid to go Tank / Healer in Cata?

[Mehdi]

I have been gearing to tank for the last month and have finally gotten to 40k UB HP ( 5.1k GS ). Alongside I have also began picking up gear to be a offspec healer.

Now that I am beginning to think things through, maybe this isn't the smartest idea. It may hinder me when it comes to leveling. Perhaps instead I should start as a doomkin / tank... and once I hit 85, I can go healer/tank.

What are your thoughts, and what will you be doing? Thanks

[imoom]

i think a 51k gs tank will do fine. and if you decide to go dps, u can switch back at 85, no need to wait until 95.

[xrobar]

im guessing your a druid... might as well just stay how you are in my opinion but i leveled to 80 as a holy pally so im probably a bad person to ask. but you can always have feral tank spec and still do decent cat damage since it just leveling.
5.1k gs?
hit 95? i think you mean 85

[imoom]

on a serious note, yes, i think you will save alot of hours by having a dps specc for leveling, and boomkin wants almost exact same gear as resto after patch

[Mehdi]

im guessing your a druid... might as well just stay how you are in my opinion but i leveled to 80 as a holy pally so im probably a bad person to ask. but you can always have feral tank spec and still do decent cat damage since it just leveling.
5.1k gs?
hit 95? i think you mean 85

It is true that Cat / Tank share very similar gear. Very similar to Boomkin / Healer. The thing is, that the gem/enchant selection is totally different which in itself practically requires a different set anyways.

[Oweena]

to be honest, you can just use your dps gear to tank and use the tanking offset pieces. I'm currently doing that if I ever feel like tanking.

All my gear is gemmed armor pen+enchanted DPS. Still, it gives enough health with tank trinkets to give me 42k hp and thats more than enough for everywhere due to ICC 30% buff. I'm sure I could do most of the HM's besides end wing with this gear with ease

[Deleted]

im guessing your a druid...

Hurr durr dinky winky derp

[Purrfunctory]

May I recommend this hybrid spec or a similar specification. You will have all the must-have Bear tanking talents and many of the best Cat talents so you will have maximum flexibility.

With this type of setup your best bet is probably to gem for Agility to maximize your Cat Form dps while still providing benefit in Bear Form via Armor, Attack Power, Critical Strike and Dodge. Especially considering the large amounts of health everyone will have anyway.

[Ziran]

Leveling as a tank can be extremely helpful actually, I leveled my Undead Warrior as Prot because I couldn't pull as many mobs as Arms or Fury and I got instant dungeon queues, plus some harder quests that require more to help might be soloed if you're smart about your cooldowns and such.

[ungar]

I'm not on the PTR but it seems like most mechanics/spells are changing with cataclysm. if your concern is leveling quickly to 85, dps would probably be better of course, for the short term at least. I see most players trying to rush from 80 to 85 and most will be DPS... then when you get a dungeon quest or need a gear upgrade from a heroic, you'll need a tank or healer. if you think tanks and healers are hard to find on a regular basis, I think it will be much harder to find one when its time to start raiding or heroics.

not only will they not have the gear from quest rewards for their spec, but they probably won't know how to use the new mechanics and spells. It seems like it would be very hard to start heroics and raids when people dont have the gear or skill to tank or heal. you're really only helping your friends, guild and yourself by getting a headstart leveling as a healer/tank.

also because people won't be effective with their class yet, and with the new areas and needing more CC, you may need 2 or more people to even quest... blizzard has said in the past they want it to be a social game, so solo grinding/questing may be changing and becoming harder now.

TL;DR I'll start questing 80-85 as a tank (because I dont yet have a healer at 80) so I become proficient at my class and not have to wait days to find a decent tank for heroics. running instances as a tank/healer may even be so easy to find a group that you don't need to quest anyway. if good tanks and healers are as scare as I imagine they will be in december 2010, then your guild will love you if you dont mind helping groups run instances

---------- Post added 2010-10-09 at 05:28 PM ----------

the thing people sometimes overlook when questing as a tank is they overkill on the mitigation/avoidance so they arent even touched, but their dps suffers. when I want to quest as a tank or solo a boss/instance, I find the sweetspot where you can stay alive and dps reasonably well... so I'll use dps trinkets or pvp gear or whatnot... remember you dont need to take no damage in a fight, its not a boss or even an elite, pulling many mobs can hurt, but usually if you have more avoidance/mitigation than traditional dps you should live. you only need to stay alive for the battle, then heal and continue.

[Ormula]

With the damage output of mobs leveling from 80-85, I think being a tank is going to give you a leg up.

[talitu]

i dont think theres going to be a lot of difference tbh tank/healer can always grind dungeons for xp and it will depend on the rep set up for me. if its like BC and you can get to 1 under honoured from normal then ill grind rep/xp in dungeons do quests at 85 for max cash

[bavarcarus]

gem your tank gear with agi and get a neck and rings for dps(once you start leveling that is). There isn't going to be as big of a difference between tank and dps gear with bliz trying to get tanks to build avoidance rather than all stam. It'd be handy to be able to tank randoms and dps in mostly the same gear.

[exochaft]

gem your tank gear with agi and get a neck and rings for dps(once you start leveling that is). There isn't going to be as big of a difference between tank and dps gear with bliz trying to get tanks to build avoidance rather than all stam. It'd be handy to be able to tank randoms and dps in mostly the same gear.

The one thing I did notice when initially leveling from 80 to 85 is that feral tanks have the survivability that you'll want to push through content that's at your level or content that you're slightly undergeared for in terms of solo/questing... being immune to crits is GODLY while questing now, because getting crit is dangerous again. Plus, the bear damage is very nice for quest, even at 85. While you can make the stars align with Tiger's Fury to get through some guys, bear damage is at a nice place (even w/o Vengeance) where I can make quicker work against multiple mobs than taking them one at a time as a kitty. In all honesty, I think most tanks are in the same boat as bears in terms of leveling/questing.

...okay, I digressed from the quote, whoops. Basically, all gear is becoming standardized, as in the same ilvl gear for a certain slot will have the same agi and stam values. It means the majority of the primary stats we need to tank and/or DPS are on the same item. Ferals have it the easiest in this regard, so during the leveling process, we should dominate in terms of the mix of survivability and damage output... especially if the kitty damage gets bumped a little.

[axxey]

One of my guildies leveling feral on ptr said it was very often much easier to just do things in bear and doing comparible damage(which he hoped they'd fix).

Can always respec at 85, well worth picking up thick hide and hybrid talents while leveling.

[ComputerNerd]

Tank or healer may have more difficultly in solo quest content, but they will be hugely in demand for dungeons, and group quests.
It depends largely on which you will be focusing your time on.

[Voytrekk]

You should be fine leveling as a tank come cata. When I leveled my druid from 1-80, I did it with a tank spec. You will spend most of your time in cat form still, but the difference is you will be able to solo group quests much easier, and the mobs will do less damage to you as compared to a dps spec.

[Shihalo]

I haven't leveled a druid, but I leveled my warrior, pally, and dk with tank specs, worked awesome for soloing.

[Pussnboots]

Bear tanks atm in cata ive noticed from healing them. they seem to hold better aggro then a few of the other tank classes. Even though they put a cd on swipe, thrash seems to be incredible. A bear taking minimum dmg, holding aggro on a 5 pack mob, doing 13k dps isnt half bad. But then again it is beta and its subject to change.

[Cerus]

but the difference is you will be able to solo group quests much easier, and the mobs will do less damage to you as compared to a dps spec.

There are no group quests to do while leveling. I've steered clear of TH because it isn't itemized so can't say for sure but every quest in MH, Vash, DH and Uldum are solo quests. MH, Vash, DH and a little bit of Uldum will get you to 85 with little to no dungeon runs.