Only warrior can tank?

[Deleted]

As I heard, only warrior could tank in vanilla. Why was that so?
In BC, paladins were great tanks, so what was wrong with pallies in vanilla?
Also, druids?

[Legevia]

Well for Horde in Vanilla there were no paladins. Just like for Alliance there were no shamans during vanilla. Never played a druid back then but keep in mind that it was one tree that was used for both feral and bear.

[Alopex]

Been some time since I thought about it, so my memory might be hazy, but Paladins lacked the ability to hold aggro and Druids lacked the tools to not immediately die.

Sure, Druids had a lot of armor in Dire Bear form, but their only defensive cooldown was frenzied regen, which would drain all their rage for sub-par healing.

[blackblade]

Been some time since I thought about it, so my memory might be hazy, but Paladins lacked the ability to hold aggro and Druids lacked the tools to not immediately die.

Sure, Druids had a lot of armor in Dire Bear form, but their only defensive cooldown was frenzied regen, which would drain all their rage for sub-par healing.

Pallies also lacked a taunt. They did decently at holding AOE threat and running flags in WSG though.

[Hengwulf]

As I heard, only warrior could tank in vanilla. Why was that so?
In BC, paladins were great tanks, so what was wrong with pallies in vanilla?
Also, druids?

The idea for tanking in vanilla was pushing critical hits and crushing blows off the hit table. Warriors could do it, paladins couldn't - until they got Shield of the Righteous, at least I believe so.

[Alopex]

Oh, forgot about +defense on times. Leather didn't have it, so druids got crushed in raids

[Thoughtcrime]

None of the other classes had the tools necessary to compete with Warrior in terms of threat generation and mitigation. On top of this, itemisation was shocking for non-warr tanks and the few Paladin tanks that existed long enough to raid ran out of mana.

People brought druids to heal, battle rez and buff GotW.
Paladins were for blessings (Salvation was incredible in Vanilla), and judgement of Wisdom / Light which was amazing support. It wasn't until T3 where they really began to shine as infinite mana healers.

[Molvonos]

Pallys in Vanilla didn't have the mitigation abilities that warriors did, plus blessing of kings was way too useful to have when raiding.

Bears only had dodge and +def on leather was rare and o nly on greens. I think there was only one weapon, a world drop epic (the one the heirloom was based on) they could use too

So they were mana sponges with ping-ponging healthpools during a time when gear was itemized like shit aside from specific rolls and mana conservation was a real thing

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

As I heard, only warrior could tank in vanilla. Why was that so?
In BC, paladins were great tanks, so what was wrong with pallies in vanilla?
Also, druids?

Paladins weren't really even all that great tanks in BC. In general, they were 3rd out of 3 possible tanks.

Vanilla had a lot of specs that just weren't viable in end game.

[thatmikeguy]

Yes, but things changed with patches. I was a Warrior OT for raids as DPS at first, but then I became the MT, we had what was commonly referred to as pocket priests on top of our mitigation, and threat. We had others try, but honestly in pre 1.12 (that was 4 months before BC), a Warlock could tank better than the others.

The perfect 8 hour raid last second kill would look something like.. A Warrior MT, Mage, and a Priest were all that was remaining, but every now and then the MT was dead and the Warlock had threat to replace the MT with mostly the same Mage and Priest.

[Hctaz]

It's been said before already: Druids couldn't actually reach the defense cap in order to stop bosses from hitting them with crits and crushing blows. Definitely an oversight on their part. They did have pretty good AoE threat though I believe. Well... better than warriors who didn't know how to stance dance. Thunder Clap wasn't something you could use in defensive stance so you would have to swap out to battle stance in order to use it. If you didn't, then you didn't really have any source of AoE damage.

I think druids could get enough defense to tank adds possibly? Like if you had a cluster of small adds that needed to be tanked then maybe?

Paladins were just... weird. They still relied on spell power for their spells to deal additional damage and they lacked a taunt as well as the items really required for tanking. There were DPS specs that could still DPS without set items. There were no tanking options available to any tanks who didn't have sets. If pallys or druids had dedicated tanking sets then they might have been able to put in some work

[Devilyaki]

Others could sort of tank but it took a lot to get them there. There was the odd time were people used something else but that was more just a challenge, like having a rogue tank lol. It’s has a lot to do with gear as well, warriors got tank gear tier was only really for tank. I do remember tanking as a feral in a five man when the pally couldn’t hold threat.

[Chuckadoodle]

Another issue for Bears was that growl wasn't positively effected by hit rating until patch 2.3.

[Oakshana]

The two other classes that "could" tank (Paladins & Druids), were not at all fleshed out enough to hold aggro, take and mitigate damage and lacked the basic abilities Warriors had, such as Sunder Armor.

I'm sorry to say that a lot of this stemmed from the input and involvement of none other than Jeffrey Kaplan and Alex Afrasiabi.

Yeah. You read that right.

Yes... they are staunch defenders of "bring the player, not the class" NOW... but there was a time when they both came from the mindset that only warriors should tank and if you werent a pure dps class (IE: Rogues, Mages, Warlocks) and a hybrid, then your end game role should only be to heal. They were both leaders in a very major Everquest guild named Fires of Heaven (probably the Method of the day) and they held extremely sharp views on what classes should do what. When they got hired by Blizzard they made certain their input was heard.

I am sure they are super nice guys now... but 15 years ago, they were both opinionated and arrogant assholes, and largely responsible for how restrictive the game was.

[lectos]

Druids were used for off-tanks if they had the gear, which was rare. I rarely tanked a raid, even though I had the gear. Healers were harder to get so we were better off backup healing or MT healing. Crits and crushing blows were not negated by a bear at all at the time. It was very rare and situational when you could accel. I did Onyxia to prove that I could but that took communication to keep threat under control when she landed. One trigger happy hunter and we died.

Warriors had sunder stacking, better gear choices, better dodge, and block. Shield spike and sunder were all you needed if everyone behaved. If not, aggro peeled and killed a healer. It was just easier.

- - - Updated - - -

I am sure they are super nice guys now... but 15 years ago, they were both opinionated and arrogant assholes, and largely responsible for how restrictive the game was.

They are still the same. They just like their jobs and are old enough to not be public with it They had a lot more freedom then.

[WorgDruid]

Paladin, Shaman and Druid all had tanking properties in Vanilla (extra threat abilities, bonus armor, etc) and could tank most 5 man content. However when you got up to the higher lvl 5/10 man dungeons at level cap and the raids they all became lacking in that the did not have a taunt as we know it today for swapping aggro (warrior only ability) and also could not obtain a higher enough defence rating to prevent crits and crushing blows.

[Deleted]

Warrior : Raid God

Pala : 5 Man God

[Vestig3]

As I heard, only warrior could tank in vanilla. Why was that so?
In BC, paladins were great tanks, so what was wrong with pallies in vanilla?
Also, druids?

There was 1 place paladins where great in TBC and that was for the waves in Hyjal besides that you didnt need a paladin tank + they had no taunt in vanilla, as for druids we only started using a druid on Brutalis

[The Prince]

The two other classes that "could" tank (Paladins & Druids), were not at all fleshed out enough to hold aggro, take and mitigate damage and lacked the basic abilities Warriors had, such as Sunder Armor.

I'm sorry to say that a lot of this stemmed from the input and involvement of none other than Jeffrey Kaplan and Alex Afrasiabi.

Wasn´t Kalgan also one the chief culprits of the whole "hybrid = heal or die" philosophy?

[Deleted]

There was 1 place paladins where great in TBC and that was for the waves in Hyjal besides that you didnt need a paladin tank + they had no taunt in vanilla, as for druids we only started using a druid on Brutalis

Remember that Shattered Halls was impossible w/o pala tank.