What is the easiest Class to effectively Tank with?

[Lodreh]

I have several classes near maxed level as wondering which would be the easiest to get into tanking. Keep in mind I haven't tanked anything since WotLK. I'm looking for ease of rotations, setup of addons and ease of picking up adds and generally preforming well. I'm leaning toward a Paladin since that's what I used to tank with but I'd be willingly to learn anything.

Thank you for your time.

[Temp name]

Spoilers, the following contains OPINIONS.

Paladin's changed a lot since Wrath, so don't base your choice on that.

I'd personally say Death Knight, as I don't have issues with managing the runes, runic power and DS timing, but that may be a small obstacle for others. Monk is, uhm.. Don't do it unless you're fine with tracking 3 buffs, a meter, your energy, your chi, and much more I just didn't have the patience to get into before dropping the class.

Those things aside, I enjoy paladin tanking, it's decently effective, moderately easy to pick up if you can manage your Holy Power, oh, and it's pretty fun.

[Grubjuice]

i find that Monks --though they require some attention to maintaining buff uptimes-- are very easy and effective to tank with particularly because their tanking rotations are so smooth,

like butta'!

Pallies, Warriors and Druid have really choppy and variable ability queues which i find frustrating (in the case of Warriors and Paladins) and tedious (in the case of druids)

if not monks, i would say DKs are really easy to play... but not as fun.

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Monk is, uhm.. Don't do it unless you're fine with tracking 3 buffs, a meter, your energy, your chi, and much more I just didn't have the patience to get into before dropping the class.

on the other hand, if you CAN manage three buffs, energy and chi, a monk tank is essentially uncrushable...
Weak Auras FTW!

[grimsanta]

Not voting because I haven't played them all. I will say that warrior used to be a very difficult class to master, it's become a joke in MoP. Nothing really to keep track of anymore, just keep either barrier or block up depending on the kind of attack, use your cooldowns like any other tank class, and master a very simple rotation. yup.

[Strakha]

I find all the tanking classes fairly easy. I find DK is the most intuitive since death strike is a rotational ability and shield, whereas Warrior for instance you have Shield Slam and Shield Barrier/Block. If Shield Slam activated Shield Block or Barrier then it might be a bit better. But you lose a lot more GCDs as a warrior I find. Plus blood boil spreads diseases and is spammable at times, whereas thunderclap spreads 1 bleed and has a CD so aoe can be a pain in the ass causing mocking banner to be used (3min cd) so it is not situationally available often.

Druid is probably my favorite just run in and thrash and swipe and pop berserk and mangle people to death. So I'll vote druid.

[Lime]

Paladin

It's definitely the easiest tank imo.

[Deleted]

Paladin is easy. There's always something available if dps decide to pull for you and you need to get the enemy's attention. Massive defensive holy power spender.

I enjoy warrior most. Shield slam is magnificent. Revenge is a beautiful thing. Thunderclap, blood and thunder, dragon roar, cleave; shield and magic block rage dumps. I am concerned with revenge being up a lot less in warlords with dodge and parry gone. We'll have to see.

Monk is awesome to play, but stupid to look at. It spoils the class that it's less Bruce lee and more drunk dwarf.

Dk in blood I have't played since wrath. Felt a little floaty, less impact in abilities but pally has that issue a bit too.

Druid I just can't play.

[Vulcanasm]

I have several classes near maxed level as wondering which would be the easiest to get into tanking. Keep in mind I haven't tanked anything since WotLK. I'm looking for ease of rotations, setup of addons and ease of picking up adds and generally preforming well. I'm leaning toward a Paladin since that's what I used to tank with but I'd be willingly to learn anything.

Thank you for your time.

Tried all but Paladin in MOP. Druid's a little choppy and Monk's annoyingly complicated, so my vote (out of Druid, Monk, DK, and Warrior) is either DK or Warrior.

[Deleted]

I find all the tanking classes fairly easy. I find DK is the most intuitive since death strike is a rotational ability and shield, whereas Warrior for instance you have Shield Slam and Shield Barrier/Block. If Shield Slam activated Shield Block or Barrier then it might be a bit better. But you lose a lot more GCDs as prot

Block and barrier are off the gcd, so I don't know where you're losing them.

[Deleted]

I find Druid to be most simple (but not boring), monk to be the most complex and Warrior to be the most fun.

And I main a druid.

[Deleted]

I've played all tank classes, paladin is my answer.

[Triggered Fridgekin]

How do Paladins rank with bad gear since they rely so much on stacking haste? I have one that just dicks around in the 496 isle Ret gear but I feel as though I would be far too squishy to tank an equivalent-level raid boss due to poor avoidance and low haste.

[crakerjack]

Druid, paladin, warrior. Then DK/Monk. The reason I say druid/paladin/warrior, is because they don't require you to upkeep as many abilities as dk/monk do. With a dk or monk, you have to keep up their buffs which reduce dmg or increase their parry since they don't use shields.

[tibben]

I've had the most experience with paladin, warrior and druid tanking. Of those I would say paladin is the easiest and is actually quite fun. Paladin has a ton of ways to get threat for both single target and aoe even at range. I like the holy power concept as well. It's a very active tanking class now (there used to be a lot more lulls where you had literally no buttons to press).

Of druid and warrior, I would say warrior is probably easier because they have more oh crap buttons and it's easier to get threat on a target outside melee range. That being said, I enjoyed tanking with all 3 classes and would recommend any of them. I never tanked any raids with my DK, just 5 mans, so I don't have much advice to offer there and never got a monk to max level.

[Deleted]

I talked about this with someone today.
Apparently he was under the impression that a paladin could activate Consecrate and go AFK.
No wonder they are so high in the polls if people actually believe that.

Personally I think a Warrior is the easiest, although I have no experience with a Monk.
That's because they can do anything, they have all the tools any tank could ever need and therefore hardly face situations where they are limited by their class.

I am really wondering why people vote for Paladin.
Can anyone explain what makes a Paladin easier than, let's say, a Warrior?

It's more uniform to me, in terms of rotation, there aren't any decisions to make as you follow a rhythm. You should not need to prioritize.

I have rarely had an issue managing a big pack of adds after getting off a holy wrath and doubled with consecrate it means I don't need to wait for everything to collect together and possibly have the healer aggro before I start with aoe. I can avengers shield the first few and then drop hw and cons once others are on me.

As a comparison, hit thunderclap at the wrong time with dragon roar on cool down and you're left with cleave for 6 seconds which can lead to hectic, messy, stressful situations.

There's a predictability to paladin. A set rotation and a powerful holy power consumer in sotr that acts like shield block and barrier but does not ask the player to decide which is better as it mitigates all damage.

Dealing with trolling players is easier with a paladin and they can even carry on for a very long time if a healer goes down.

It might just be me, but I do find them simple and more forgiving if I fuck up than the other classes.

[Darthmatty]

Paladin, easiest and most boring

[Kraineth]

Going with Monk, keg toss is insane for picking up adds, they also have flexible talents to help mitigate damage in any encounter design. The rotation is also pretty fluid, not having to watch for ability procs to maximize anything. They also have the easiest time holding aoe threat since Spinning crane kick has no CD so picking up that one straggler that ran past is not really an issue.

The speed boost on taunt is also very nice for getting mobs where you want them asap.

[Mojibake]

I've played all tank classes, paladin is my answer.

Pretty much this. Paladins are simple and easy to learn and play efficiently. Monks and druids are able to be picked up fairly easily, but they do require a lot of attention and time to learn before they are effective. DKs are probably the least friendly to start with this expansion because they are just so far below the other tanks that, coupled with inexperience, the play experience will be very frustrating and you'll feel unnecessarily bad.

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Paladin, easiest and most boring

I beg to differ about the boring part! I love playing my paladin, not as much as my dk, but still my second favorite class.

[Ragashii]

Hmm, weird.
Playing both a Warrior and a Paladin I think that the Warrior is much better at picking up things.

The main 'difficulty' of a paladin, to me, is the lack of mobility which makes it hard to pick up adds and stuff.
On my Warrior I am "lolcharging-and-shieldbashing" all over the place all the time.
Because of the lack of a 'real' rotation I always have my resources available, always enough Rage and always a strong ability off cooldown for when things go wrong.

I have also been leveling a Paladin with heirlooms and a Warrior without heirlooms.
Honestly; My Warrior without heirlooms seems much easier

I mained a paladin for a really long time, they've always been an incredibly easy tanking class in my opinion. The reasons I think they are easy are as follows and really haven't changed since they were made viable. Everything that they do fits into active mitigation, if you do something it will generate holy power. The holy power generation is smooth enough so that you are always using some sort of ability. Everything also has a cooldown and generates holy power. You are never asked to pick between damage or survivability as a paladin tank because sotr does both of those things. If you have word of glory it is easy to keep rolling and even heals for a lot if you have the glyph that increases the healing each time you use sotr. Even before paladin tanks were changed they were incredibly easy, you put up holy shield and consecrated. Paladins were pretty much guaranteed to block almost every hit. Even with the addition of holy power there's no real reason to bank it as a prot paladin as using it will provide smoother damage reduction over the course of the fight. You can also use your dps gear and function just fine as opposed to a warrior who suffers for doing so.

Warriors have more mobility yes but they are often asked to choose between damage and survivability instead of both. Your rage generation is also much slower than a prot paladin because you do not benefit from haste at all. Thunderclap alone is horrid at catching mobs and without another ability they usually won't stick to you for long.

[Haywire5714]

The 2 easiest by far are Druid and Paladin ... and Paladin is easier than Druid because Druid doesn't get aoe for a while.

Also:
Paladin
- Great Aoe threat past level 10
- Very good self healing
- Practically unkillable with BoA (you can pull 4+ mobs at a time easily)
- Okay Damage
- Great Utility

Druid
- Active Mitigation is stupid
- Bears are fucking sexy
- Really easy once you get swipe
- Spamable AoE ... best dungeon tanks
- Charge!!!!!
- Good personal cooldowns
- Okay self healing
- Great Damage