Are warriors good tanks at all? (SL)

[Beelzebull]

Personally I like how the war tank is feeling. During active tanking while keeping shield block up, I can decide if i push more dps or more mitigation. After checking the logs, even the dps spread of abilities seem to make sense to me. Finally we got ride of TD!

[tru]

I feel like you should know these things, but here you go:

Battle Shout, provides direct damage buff to all physical dps classes

Extremely high AOE damage (it isn't uncommon for warrior tanks to outdps actual dps on large pulls)

Rallying Cry, a raid-wide temporary health increase that is highly useful during phases with unavoidable AOE damage

Superior mitigation against physical damage with Shield Block/Critical Block/Last Stand block talent, and Ignore Pain for everything else

Tremendous mobility which is useful for picking up adds, kiting, getting out of bad shit on the ground, etc

Shockwave, a frontal AOE stun that is indispensable in Mythic+ and has a talent that rewards accurate/skilled use of the ability

Shadowlands brings Shattering Throw, Execute and Whirlwind back to Protection warriors

Multiple ways to deal with casters - interrupts, Spell Reflect, stuns, Intimidating Shout

Without snipping though all that.

War no self heal
BrM does better on physical damage especially in a pinch if healers are trying to save the raid. Same situation insert any tank that can heal
Always gonna be a dps war so BS is a moot point.
I'd argue leg sweep is better
Deal with casters?... That's what dk and dh do... War will never touch that level. Even pally can pick up mobs even range a lot better.

Dh better mobility same with BrM...
Shattering throw in pve... Lol
Execute? Have fun being balanced for the majority of the fight around that and when the time comes you may not get to use it.

So... Even on pure physical patchwerk a monk will be better.

So.... Other than wearing plate and not being committed to the holy hand grenade authority there is the appeal of being a badass...

[Gotural]

Ignore Pain is self heal.

Saying it isn't is like saying Disc Priest don't heal too much because they put absorbs, it's factually wrong.

You take 20% of your HP, heal back 10%, you are at 90%
You take 20% of your HP, absorb 10%, you are at 90%

The only difference it makes is when you play alone, without a healer. In these situations a true self heal will be more useful.

Execute's main purpose is to let you snipe low health enemies for VR procs.

[TaurenNinja]

Ignore Pain is self heal.

Saying it isn't is like saying Disc Priest don't heal too much because they put absorbs, it's factually wrong.

You take 20% of your HP, heal back 10%, you are at 90%
You take 20% of your HP, absorb 10%, you are at 90%

The only difference it makes is when you play alone, without a healer. In these situations a true self heal will be more useful.

Execute's main purpose is to let you snipe low health enemies for VR procs.

It's true that it's kind of like healing, and most if not all tools count absorbs as healing too, which is a useful simplification, but it's still distinct from healing in that absorbs function differently and are even *better* than pure healing, because an absorb might prevent you from dying in some situations because you don't take the full damage in the first place. A reactive heal after the damage has been dealt always requires the target to still be alive to receive the healing.

[Miseration]

Are we overlooking indomitable? thats a heal based on rage use. its those legendary bracers rolled into the stam buff 1% hp per 10 rage

[nnelson54]

Oh lord. A skilled warrior tank will still be an awesome tank to have in your raid, and that will still be true even with a handful of less-than-ideal changes. I've tanked a lot of the level 60 content on beta, and guess what? At no point did I feel like 'AHH I AM SO TERRIBLE I SHOULD REROLL!!!!'

I realize that "<insert class here> isn't exactly the way I think it should be, the sky is falling!" is a popular stance around here, but yeah. Warriors will be fine.

Protection Warriors in the Beta are currently in arguably the worst place they have ever been in the history of WoW. You will be able to do anything but the most cutting edge content so in the context of this thread they're no worse off than any other class(though you will have to work harder in a lot of situations), but to pretend they're fine is just being obtuse at best and disingenuous at worst.

[crakerjack]

If you're good at the game, any class/spec can be good. If you're not very good at the game, then you won't be good regardless of what you pick. While the ceiling might be higher for other specs, the average player doesn't parse 90% or higher. Most players don't come close to their potential, so the whole "is x, y or z class the best?" is moot because it depends on how good the player is. Warrior tanks can be good and they can also be bad. It comes down to how good the person playing them is.

[Volson]

Protection Warriors in the Beta are currently in arguably the worst place they have ever been in the history of WoW. You will be able to do anything but the most cutting edge content so in the context of this thread they're no worse off than any other class(though you will have to work harder in a lot of situations), but to pretend they're fine is just being obtuse at best and disingenuous at worst.

Based on what exactly? Maybe for the initial nerfs but certainly not right now.

Their skillcap got increased substantially (like most tanks) and nearly everyone being negative about them is purely comparing them to BFA M+ warrior which is so bizarre. For raiding they are actually in a much stronger position than they were in BFA which is massively important. All the tanks are much closer in "being viable" than they have been in a long time. Prot warrior was originally gutted and left to die in the street but has slowly raised in power.

The major downside to them is they are locked into things. You are forced to take Indom+Ravager+Kyrian purely for the rage generation (+bleed removal) and probably thunderlord too. They actually scale pretty well too, so by the 2nd tier of raiding we should be "locked" into Heavy Repercussions.

Passively they also have ridiculously high armour and that's before block even comes into effect. They are pretty much Gods of physical damage intake. Going from unkillable whilst face tanking huge pulls and doing high AoE damage on top of that was never going to last longer than BFA, and the tradeoff of being much better in raids now was absolutely worth it.

[Mirishka]

Protection Warriors in the Beta are currently in arguably the worst place they have ever been in the history of WoW. You will be able to do anything but the most cutting edge content so in the context of this thread they're no worse off than any other class(though you will have to work harder in a lot of situations), but to pretend they're fine is just being obtuse at best and disingenuous at worst.

Why yes, waiter, I'd like fries with my hyperbole.

[Hellobolis]

in my experience warriors are usually on the suckier end of tanks, BFA was an exception that doesn't look like it'll last.

and afaik warriors have never had something ridiculous OP like monk guard or original mark of ursol, which the other tanks seem to have from time to time. (but that's probably just a case of grass is greener)

still me playing warrior has never been an insurmountable problem on any boss i can remember.

[TrickNasty]

Protection Warriors in the Beta are currently in arguably the worst place they have ever been in the history of WoW. You will be able to do anything but the most cutting edge content so in the context of this thread they're no worse off than any other class(though you will have to work harder in a lot of situations), but to pretend they're fine is just being obtuse at best and disingenuous at worst.

Wotlk would like a word with you.

still me playing warrior has never been an insurmountable problem on any boss i can remember.

Sarth 3D, Lich King, Squid face dude prior to Yogg Saron.

[cordrann]

Wotlk would like a word with you.



Sarth 3D, Lich King, Squid face dude prior to Yogg Saron.

I had a tanking roll on all of those fights on a prot warrior. In Wotlk I would argue every tank had strength and weaknesses and there wasn't one dominant tank throughout the expansion. Yeah, warriors had a much harder time on General Vezax than a DK due to the lack of cooldowns, but then look at a fight like Anub'arak heroic where shield tanks were far and away better. Or a fight like Auriaya where warriors were clearly the best choice.

[Acidbaron]

I had a tanking roll on all of those fights on a prot warrior. In Wotlk I would argue every tank had strength and weaknesses and there wasn't one dominant tank throughout the expansion. Yeah, warriors had a much harder time on General Vezax than a DK due to the lack of cooldowns, but then look at a fight like Anub'arak heroic where shield tanks were far and away better. Or a fight like Auriaya where warriors were clearly the best choice.

Perhaps this is something they have to emulate with M+ seasons so that there is no tank to rule them all and to break up the meta more frequently?

I also recall the same thing as you do of what took place in wrath. It was harder on some and easier on others, although the block stacking felt somewhat broken to me (wasn't a warrior myself back then though)

[Ivanstone]

Protection Warriors in the Beta are currently in arguably the worst place they have ever been in the history of WoW.

Early BFA when Ignore Pain was on the GCD would like a word with you.

I have no idea how bad Warriors are at the moment but Blizz did go out of their way to make Prot less interesting in SL. Disrupting Anger Management (should be baseline) and disrupting mobility at the same time was a dick move. At least Avatar is off the GCD. That's a plus. Ish.

I'm not stopping my Prot Warrior (my main of 15+ years) but I'm still disappointed.

[ShaanuJaanu]

Wotlk would like a word with you.



Sarth 3D, Lich King, Squid face dude prior to Yogg Saron.

Legion warriors were pretty trash by that standard.

Only a handful of ppl tanked KJ on warrior, I think only 1 or 2 attempted pre nerf (after the method kill nerfs ofcourse). Antorus as a whole also shat on warriors.

- - - Updated - - -

[tomten]

Took a break in early legion until two weeks ago.
Played warrior tank since start of wotlk.... But it just feels so trash and dependant on, there's no reactive control, which is why I started playing tanks, being in control.

I have warr, pala, dh and monk ready at lvl 50 but cant for my life choose one...
Seems to come down to pala atm, which I've always had as my second progression tank.

Any thoughts on warr vs pala?

[cordrann]

Took a break in early legion until two weeks ago.
Played warrior tank since start of wotlk.... But it just feels so trash and dependant on, there's no reactive control, which is why I started playing tanks, being in control.

I have warr, pala, dh and monk ready at lvl 50 but cant for my life choose one...
Seems to come down to pala atm, which I've always had as my second progression tank.

Any thoughts on warr vs pala?

If you want reactive gameplay/control seems like DK would be your best option.

[Sting]

Legion warriors were pretty trash by that standard.

Only a handful of ppl tanked KJ on warrior, I think only 1 or 2 attempted pre nerf (after the method kill nerfs ofcourse). Antorus as a whole also shat on warriors.

- - - Updated - - -

Protection had it pretty bad in Legion indeed. If you didnt play at the absolute cutting edge and got there when you could afford 3 tanks, on KJ prot was pretty good to soak the giant blasts, they could be blocked. You also had a ton of failsafe abilities against the knockback. For reference, I still got cut from our roster on that boss though.

The lack of active magic defenses were also a giant issue on Star Auger and Maiden of Vigilance, even when spell reflection got the -30% magic damage the cooldown was too long for consistent usage.

[Zendhal The Black]

Protection had it pretty bad in Legion indeed. If you didnt play at the absolute cutting edge and got there when you could afford 3 tanks, on KJ prot was pretty good to soak the giant blasts, they could be blocked. You also had a ton of failsafe abilities against the knockback. For reference, I still got cut from our roster on that boss though.

The lack of active magic defenses were also a giant issue on Star Auger and Maiden of Vigilance, even when spell reflection got the -30% magic damage the cooldown was too long for consistent usage.

I'd say prot was pretty fine in Legion.

I laughed seeing other tanks HP yoyo on KJ while I mostly took 3 mil damage when I wasn't paing attention

I also solo tanked Star Augur once (Our bear was missing that night) 2 weeks before the magic damage nerfs on that boss (but damn that was pretty high damage

Maiden? lol? you reflected most of the smashes (even more with reflect legendary) and used CDs for the rest. That bass was not a problem

Only boss that pissed the fuck out of me was Odyn with his unblockable spear throws

ALso on HC Argus my record was somewhere around 55-56 stacks, and most hilarious thing on mythic was that I had to turn my arse into him to kill me because if I crit blocked, even at 6 stacks I wouldn't die

[Toppy]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isnt it damn near tradition at this point that the launch of an expansion, Warrior tank is kinda meh?