Healing and tanks

[Deleted]

Hey there folks. Ive been playing a holy paladin at lvl 85 now for quite some time, and i was just wondering what other healers think
of the different tanks.
Since im curious to know if its just me that think warrior tanks are horrible to heal? Ive been running quite many LFG tool dungeons, and
almost every time i get a warrior tank they are really annoying to keep up. So i cant have been unlucky every single time, some of them must
have been knowing what they where doing.
And Druids seam to be far the easiest tank to heal.

[Thetallest]

It's going to vary based on your experiences with the players behind the class, not the class itself. I've run the gamut from healing good/bad players of all tanking classes. The good ones know how to mitigate damage and do their job, the bad ones will always be harder to heal regardless.

[blizzardcashshop]

warriors tanks don't dodge much, don't parry much and block a lot which means a steady stream of incoming damage

they're gonna scale with gear, and right now, there isn't enough avoidance on it for warriors

at 348 ilvl, i'm at 40% block, 13% parry and like 8% dodge

this is why i'm rolling with a LOT of stam still because until i can get to 15/15 dodge/parry without sacrificing block or hp

not sure how valuable stam is for other classes but it's still the stat to have for prot warriors, it helps my self healing and in a normal boss fight, i'm doing 1000hps which is huge

for the record a LOT of healers are aoe healing more than tank healing, you're not all competent or even close. paladins can word of glory their ass off, i never see druids tank anymore and DK tanks usually make it one trash pull

[Supafly87]

I agree with the warrior tanks but I have found dks to be the easiest to heal but in saying that I think I have had about 2 druid tanks overall. I also like pally tanks that use their holy power to help heal themselves,( what i do as I am off spec tank)

[Deleted]

for the record a LOT of healers are aoe healing more than tank healing, you're not all competent or even close.

Not quite sure what your gettin at there. Do you mean that many healers simply use wrong heals? (AoE healing)
Allthou the thread was about my personal experiences healing tanks. And offcause i know it depends alot on the player.
And ive done all heroics with all kinds of tanks suscessfully. So im pretty sure im a compent healer, if that is what you where asking?

[shiestykat]

I find Warrior tanks to be the squishiest atm. Not sure why as I don't have a tank but every Warrior I get seems to get smashed very quickly. Pallies are a face roll, DK and Druids seem to hold up extremely well also. Might be just the luck of the draw and I'm getting incompetent Warriors, who knows, I can only state what I've been experiencing so far!

[twopac187]

Warriors are going to take consistent damage, meaning only about 18-23% of attacks will be completely avoided, however a good warrior will have almost 50% block before procs, meaning that almost all remaining damage will be reduced an additional 30%-60% when they do take it. Druids dodge a whole lot more, which means they avoid more attacks than a warrior will, but the damage they do take will be more substantial than a warrior. My personal opinion on deathknights and paladins is that most of the healer praise for them stems from the fact that they self heal A LOT just doing their normal attack rotation, which reduces healer stress a bit. Druids also have a decent amount of self healing. Warriors really don't until the last 20% of the bosses HP, and even then it's a 50% proc on a 4th or 5th priority attack, and it only heals for around 6k, and only if the warrior specs for it.

It really comes down to healer preference. Some healers prefer steady, predictable damage. Some want to see a tank avoid attacks. Honestly in my experience it really comes down to the dps, especially in heroics. Are the dps and healer avoiding avoidable damage? I'd say 80% of the damage that dps and healers take is more or less avoidable. Once you cut most of that out of the healing equation, it makes life much easier on the healer to just focus on tank healing.

[zombiesnakes]

Weird. Of all the tanks I have healed, warriors do extremely well especially because of critical block, but that could be because I only do heroics with guildies.

[Deleted]

The easiest tanks to heal are by far DKs, at least for me. Our second mainank in the guild is a DK and has just gotten the equiplevel to get into heroics and he's already easier to heal than the 347 ilvl paladin and the bear (about 346). Don't know why

[Deleted]

It's pretty simple really. Warriors are the most reactive tank. They have a lot of tools to reduce incoming damage and not much in the way of passive or even active self-healing. On top of that their toolbox is almost as large as a hunters. This basically means they are by far the hardest tank spec to learn on.

This is why you will see pug tanks by pallies, dks, and to a lesser extent druids who seem easy to heal. All of these tanks are not only easier to learn tanking on than a warrior but they already come with a lot of passive damage reduction or reliable and strong self-healing tools. You're much more likely to find long term warriors who only do runs as guildies and rarely pug. These guys will know how to chain their cooldowns correctly, know how to collect monsters and use every tool in their large arsenal to stop or heavily reduce incoming damage. Just to list some of them:

Damage reduction + control:
- Shield Block
- Shield Wall
- Last Stand
- Shockwave
- Concussion Blow
- Heroic Throw (ranged + talented to silence)
- Spell Reflection (this can be kept up almost constantly, glyphed and talented)
- Shield Bash (melee interrupt+silence)
- Charge, Intercept, Intervene (to escape roots)
- Disarm
- Intimidating Shout (glyphed)

Self "heals":
- Enraged Regeneration (can be very useful. Though you have to watch for a proc to use it)
- Victory Rush (situational. Amazing self-healing while levelling. Not reliable or easy to guarantee in a dungeon since you need to get the killing blow)
- Impending Victory talented Victory Rush (heals for 1/4 a normal Victory Rush and very unreliable. Also requires 2 talent points to spec into. Very few warriors will take this, except possibly for raids since targets live a lot longer and the threat lead will be well established). However, there is the possiblity of a bug at the moment allowing better than expected healing...
- Commanding Shout (if no one else provides the stam buff)

These are the only useful survival passives to look out for as a healer:
- strong talent Field Dressing increased healing (Arms tree)
- talent Second Wind for healing while stunned/immobalized (Arms tree)
- weak talent Blood Craze for small self-healing stream from damage taken (Fury tree).

TL;DR. Expect pug warrior tanks to be (a lot) weaker than pug non-warrior tanks. However, long term (guild) warriors are entirely different ballgame. Warriors have the strongest control and overall battlefield toolbox of all the tank specs.