Warrior or Death Knight for 5man Tanking?

[sc2071]

Hi,

I've been thinking of continuing on my Warrior or Death Knight, but I'm debating which to continue with. For the longest time I've had a Feral Druid, and quite like tanking with him, but other aspects I'm just not so fond of (DPS/PvP).

My warrior is parked at 33. I haven't played him or the Death Knight since 3.x. I found rage generation could be difficult sometimes when I tried doing a few dungeon PUGs. PvE DPS'ing was fine. PvP seemed a bit of stance dancing, don't know if that lessens when you get more abilities for each stance.

My Death Knight is 61, I've only tried tanking once or twice. In all aspects of the game (tanking, dps, pvp) I found the resource management difficult, especially when tanking as I always didn't have the right rune available when a dps over aggro'd. It was almost like double cooldown penalties with abilities on cooldown plus runes.

As I haven't experienced end game with them, I was hoping to gather some opinions on what people thought of each class. I think primarily, I'm looking for a tank that's relatively easy to tank with. In Wrath, tanking with my druid was easy enough that I just needed to focus on the mobs, and no worry too much about cooldowns or rage generation.

Ease in PvP would be second. I know Warriors are FOTM right now, so I'm not going to play one for that benefit as it will be short lived.

Thanks for the advice!

[muto]

Warrior healing right now is insane, and helps loads with the current healing situation.

[moveth]

Warrior healing right now is insane, and helps loads with the current healing situation.

Not as insane as Death Knight healing. My Death Strikes heal me for upwards of 20k and on top of that whatever my Death Strike hits for I get a shield for x% of the damage I dealt via mastery. My DK peaked at 10k HPS on the Magmaw fight tonight. I would love to see a warrior do that :3

[Marrakech]

Not as insane as Death Knight healing. My Death Strikes heal me for upwards of 20k and on top of that whatever my Death Strike hits for I get a shield for x% of the damage I dealt via mastery. My DK peaked at 10k HPS on the Magmaw fight tonight. I would love to see a warrior do that :3

the difference is that our death strikes take the place of all that block and dodge/parry that warriors have

[Gunslinger]

Warriors hands down. Loads of stuns to keep trash packs in check and minimize damage. Also great mobility.

[wowplayer]

never played a warrior tank but DKs do take more damage but have a lot of stuff to mitigate - but even with all those self healing tools, you have to know when to use it else it will be wasted.

[Deleted]

I´ve currently got both a DK and a Warrior tank at 85, the dk got better gear atm but overall i think they are even when it comes to tanking heroics.

The things i miss when i play on my warrior tank is Deathgrip, the massive on demand self healing that you can get by chaining deathstrikes, ghoul sacrifice with vampyric blood and the ability to avoid debuffs (hc deadmines, first boss in vortex and such) and also i find it smoother to pick up the mobs on a CC pull with the dk due to having almost all my resources ready from the start.

On the other hand when i play my dk i really miss the superior mobility of a warrior, spellreflect (even though dark simulancrum is nice aswell) and the stuns.

Warriors aoe threat is currently abit clunkier and not as smooth as the deathknights due to having to use rend before TC for maximum aoe threat, this isnt a big issue but might be something to take into consideration if your going to be in pugs alot where some dps´ers just go in with all guns blazing =)

tldr version, both are good and fun tank classes, test them out to see wich one fits you best

[twinkleblur]

ill go with the warrior. they have really evoled the warrior and made them maybe a bit too overpowered.

[sc2071]

Thanks for the replies thus far. I guess I'd like to continue with my DK, but I found rune/power management really difficult.

Now, that was in 3.3 at level 61. I've got no idea with 4.0.3 and full talents how runes handle now. Is it a frustrating experience? Are you constantly having to look at your rune/power bar? Or is it easy to settle into a rotation, and know your 'oh shit' abilities are there when you need them?

I mean with my druid, if I needed hit Berserk, Frenzied Regen, or Barkskin... they were always there ready to go, unless of course I already burned those CDs.

[ShadeWyrm]

Thanks for the replies thus far. I guess I\'d like to continue with my DK, but I found rune/power management really difficult.

Now, that was in 3.3 at level 61. I\'ve got no idea with 4.0.3 and full talents how runes handle now. Is it a frustrating experience? Are you constantly having to look at your rune/power bar? Or is it easy to settle into a rotation, and know your \'oh shit\' abilities are there when you need them?

I mean with my druid, if I needed hit Berserk, Frenzied Regen, or Barkskin... they were always there ready to go, unless of course I already burned those CDs.

You\'ll always need to look at your rune bar and RP amount, just as you need to look at a Rage bar for Warrior/Druid. You\'ll find that because your only limited by your resources that you\'ll have long stretches of nothing to do if you hit every button as it comes up.

If you take a more relaxed approach and use some time to monitor your surroundings and assess situations you\'ll notice that you often have abilities up. Remember you only need one rune on cooldown of each type to be considered maximizing your output. Bloods in a really fun spot right now with a good chunk of your cooldowns not requiring runes, or anything else and having very short CDs!

I\'d say try it out, and if you find yourself spamming abilities slow it down a little, there\'s no rush as a DK.