Which Prot Warrior playstyle did you enjoy most?

[Lovestar]

Just curious. =)

I'm not trying to argue any one design was the 'best', etc. MoP was a big change-up though and, imo, it changed the feel of the spec more than any other tank's Active Mitigation conversion.

So — which style of Prot Warrior did you prefer most?

[Deleted]

Mixed feelings. It suits certain classes like monks & druids that don't have shields, but feels a bit forced on the old guard of tanks (warriors) that do. To expand on this in any given situation I'd take shield block over shield barrier since when glyphed it actually buffs my threat through shield slam whereas shield barrier does nothing other than mitigate some magic dmg that my healers could've easily healed through anyway. Blizzard seems to think it's the best thing they've thought of in a while though so I might as well get used to it.

Pertaining to your poll though it's more the style of the encounters that's changed over the course of these expansions than anything else. TBC -> tab+sunder / LK -> AoE rend/thunderclap / Cata tab+sunder style again & MoP has been back to aoe pulling.

[badaku]

The playstyle today is really good, but generating threat is just way too easy with vengeance.

[Rorke]

Probably the LK one because there was no blood and thunder or Vengeance. I liked it when Prot Warriors sucked at keeping threat and you had to tab target and attack each mob to hold it. I personally love passive defense where your stats dictate how powerful your tank is. In those times good tanks weren't just keyboard heroes, but had complete knowledge on how stats worked. Warriors scaled incredibly well with gear back then and the sense of progression felt good. This is probably why I loved tanking pugs on my Jedi Guardian in swtor. The Jedi Guardian was basically the soul successor of how Warrior tanks were prior to MoP.

I stopped tanking pugs and random dungeons after Cataclysm because I despise everything about the MoP system. Tanking today isn't about keeping threat which is something I liked, but its about mashing a rigid "rotation" that makes it seem as though you're playing a dps class. The only difference is that tanks have to keep up a "defensive" priority system while at the same time are required to deal a significant amount of damage.

It's no real loss for me though. I never cared about pve enough for it to affect me.

- - - Updated - - -

The playstyle today is really good, but generating threat is just way too easy with vengeance.

That's the design intent. Blizzard doesn't want keeping threat to be an issue for tanks anymore. They've basically stated that the old tanking system is a flaw and they wanted to change the role of how a tank should feel in MMo's. I believe WoW is the only MMo that has this type of tank model.

[Roshar]

MoP by far. Passive mitigation where your actions are not really dictating your survival (outside of massive cooldowns) and instead it's the numbers doing it in the background sucked. Now you're in charge of making sure you don't take too much damage. It's really apparent nowadays which tanks don't maintain their defensive abilities and instead just expect the game to passively do it for them. Before your survival wasn't in your hands but it was your threat that was more in your hands, now it's threat that just happens on its own and it's your survival that's in your hands. And since you're a tank, having your survival be in your hands is a good thing.

[Sevyvia]

WotLK. Today's active mitigation stuff was not why I rolled a tank.

[Lovestar]

WotLK. Today's active mitigation stuff was not why I rolled a tank.

That is how I feel. I totally understand why people like AM, and I even enjoy it on my Brewmaster.

But for me Prot was always about building up a passive wall of steel, then letting your armor/shield do their thing while you focused on keeping track of the battlefield and keeping everything under control and just generally being a badass, as Warriors are.

Now, I feel like I focus all my effort on protecting myself via AM decisions and near-zero on protecting anyone else. It's... not the same.

[Gliff]

MoP without a doubt.

[Ealyssa]

MoP obviously.

I'm sorry AFKers had they free tank taken away, but the tanking is better now than ever. Now tank have "to tank" aka do their job instead of just being in front of the boss.

[Rhokz]

MoP without a doubt.

[Deleted]

Long time ago prot was boring a lot of the time but atm feels alot more engaging and fun minus all this vengeance deal.

[Hotsforyou]

I liked it pre threat fixes in Cata. But the active mitigation i like as well.

[idefiler6]

MoP by a long shot. It was always nice being taken because I am a better player than x-buffedclass-x, but in pugs all they knew was you weren't a DK, or you weren't a Druid, or you weren't a pally. Having the classes on a semi-equal playing field is better. Not to mention, active mitigation was always there until patch 3.0 when all crushes were removed from bosses (unless you were below level cap). We had to keep shield block up to not be destroyed. That hasn't changed, it's the way rage is generated that has changed. WoTLK...yeah, we had better aoe, but it wasn't up to the level of the other 3 tank classes. You didn't need to worry about hit/exp, only to do your rotation properly. Shield block was only a damage buff and had little to do with staying alive anymore. WOTLK was a faceroll for tanks, positioning and taunt swapping was all there was, and it was boring.

[Odina]

Mop for sure! It was wonky and crazy at first but once active mitigation started to settle in and I got comfortable with it it felt so much more rewarding as a tank than just holding threat and being a mana sponge.

[Zka]

Threat wise BC, with some scaling that wasn't available back then.
Ragewise maybe the new model is better, not relying on being hit or swinged at to use abilities gives much smoother gameplay.
Active mitigation model is a good thing. Sure as hell I don't miss the old shieldblock that had to be spammed against crushing opponents no matter what or risk getting gibbed. I also don't miss shieldwall with half raid long cooldown.

[Inseno]

Granted I've only been around since Cata, but I've really enjoyed the Mop tanking style. It really gives you flexibility when tanking. Skill now differentiates good tanks that hold threat from great tanks that can survive insane things. My guild just started working on Heroic Dark Shamans and I've noticed my survival on Harmon(our pet name for him) is just ridiculous. With careful timing of Barriers I can go to 15 stacks and not even worry about it.

[Deleted]

MoP since 5.4 as avoid resets revenge and feels quite a good bit more reactive than before. Altough i'm sad its nearly impossible to loose aggro after a few seconds of tanking. Remembering Karazhan when it was nearly impossible beeing an off warrior without a pala for aggro loose ... it was a lot of fun in my opinion.

[Riggins]

I liked the TBC playstyle, but AM is starting to feel good

[Cyclonus-WOW]

MoP 100%.

Not only was it fun to compete on meters, but they really gave us some amazing fights to learn to do this stuff. Do you remember the first time you did Shado-Pan Monastery? That shit was straight out of a kung-fu movie! I think it took me about 2 minutes to realize tanking had never been this fun. I was actively taking less damage, still able to dish it out, and no longer had to worry about tab target sundering every little monkey in the room, as it should be.

[Deleted]

i loved to tank in late wrath on my DK.