Most difficult tank to play as of now

[Inthislzon]

Checked values on my paladin (544), bear (546) & monk (550), too lazy to work out dr against boss level mobs so level 90 ones will do.

Paladin:
15% physical mitigation (prot passive)
59% armor dr (65616 armor)
1 million damage = 349k damage
- along with 46% chance to block 30% of it (5k mastery)
There's other factors too but lets just say that paladins have a pretty bad worse case scenario.

Bear:
12% physical mitigation (bear form)
72% armor dr (117266 armor, 32% = 5k mastery)
1 million damage = 246k damage

Monk:
25% physical mitigation (ox stance)
31% armor dr (20914 armor)
52% damage staggered (7k mastery rating)
1 million damage attack = 248k damage


It's at least comparable (Monk actually takes less against a level 93 opponent since going from 31% -> 29% armor is better than 72 -> 65 or whatever conversion).

If that's "AFK scenario" stagger = 20%, as you don't have shuffle up. If it isn't then average SotR uptime for paladins.

Now, if you were to actually gear for mitigation (say, 17k worth of mastery, for example):

Bear:
12% physical mitigation
75% armor dr (capped)
1 million damage = 220k damage

Monk:
25% physical mitigation
31% armor dr
62% damage staggered
1 million damage = 197k damage

First thing first, stagger != reduction.

In fact with no PB usage mastery does nothing

I'd be in a very precarious situation indeed if guard and pb saves my life - I think I used guard 4 or 5 times in my last full 13/13 clear on my monk.

Just for fun, lets take a monk who doesn't keep shuffle up and keeps mastery low (~5k):
1 mil damage - 25% ox - 30% armor -30% stagger = 367k damage taken per hit, just slightly more than a plate tank. It's not that awful - I mean, it's bad for sure, but somewhat equivalent to a paladin forgetting to put up sacred shield.

-----

Anyway, not sure about hardest to play but guardian is by far the easiest, which aligns with most of the posters here I guess.

atm i'm at 10k mastery for 15% more stagger (accounting for 5% base) so ~5k mastery give 10% more stagger, not 30%.

And again stagger doesn't magically vanish, we take the full hit, part as a hit, part as a dot, but the FULL hit, unless we PB.

[kaiadam]

If that's "AFK scenario" stagger = 20%, as you don't have shuffle up. If it isn't then average SotR uptime for paladins.

What? I was responding to:

but it [shuffle] still doesn't come remotely close to closing the gap to the other tanks if that's all you're doing

By noting that shuffle basically puts us on even footing against other tanks. Why on earth would I worry about afk scenarios? I'm not going to afk while tanking - well, at least not often enough to theorycraft about it. I was merely calculating the average damage taken without any active mitigation up (I agree shuffle isn't really AM when it's active all the time it might as well be passive.)

Paladins have their own crap to deal with incoming damage that puts other tanks to shame, but their passive + armor is simply not as good as a monk's passives + armor (which is more or less equal to a druid's passives + armor), is what I'm implying.

First thing first, stagger != reduction.

In fact with no PB usage mastery does nothing

Ok, I guess Iron Qon will be the exact same fight if impale just did 3 million damage every hit instead of giving you a dot, it's not as if you hand of protection off those stacks much right?

atm i'm at 10k mastery for 15% more stagger (accounting for 5% base) so ~5k mastery give 10% more stagger, not 30%.

The hell are you talking about? You get 20% stagger from ox stance. 5% free from basic mastery, and another 5% from the 5k mastery on your gear -> 20 + 5 + 5 = 30.

And again stagger doesn't magically vanish, we take the full hit, part as a hit, part as a dot, but the FULL hit, unless we PB.

Unless I somehow prove otherwise, I'd appreciate it if you didn't think I was a complete idiot. Given my ability to do simple math, I'd at least assume I have the ability to read.

Tanks in general don't really care about total damage reduction, whether it be through clearing a dot or adding avoidance, because it's vastly irrelevant when it comes to whether they live or die. I realize that the rest of the hit is staggered, I also choose to more or less ignore it because the damage is insignificant. Not the actual dot damage, I'm sure stagger is a good chunk of damage taken every fight, but the damage itself is almost pointless. It's why taking 10+ stacks of debuff on primordius and ticking for 300-400k is healable. It's why there's more tank damage in a 3 minute stone guard fight than a 18 minute Sha of Fear or a 10 minute Lei Shen, yet stone guards is far less dangerous to a tank.

[SurrealNight]

If that's "AFK scenario" stagger = 20%, as you don't have shuffle up. If it isn't then average SotR uptime for paladins.

"AFK stagger" = 20% + 5% (Elusive Brawler) + ~Mastery Rating/960. So yes a 5k mastery (unbuffed) BrM does have 30% stagger without shuffle up. Shuffle isn't required to benefit from mastery.

Assuming your not fighting in a groupless vacuum mastery does plenty without using PB. Sure if I took the time to add up the HoT ticks on me at any given time it would cover all but the most epic levels of stagger dot.

Still BrM that don't keep up shuffle do get hit hard that missing 20% shuffle + 20% less avoidance adds up.

[Gliff]

Monk are by far the most reactive tank and therefore take the most attention to play it correctly.

Tanking is easy for the most part.

[Fluorescent0]

To all the people speaking of stagger as BrM active mitigation: it's not. Stagger is similar to block in a way. Active mitigation consists of elusive brew, purifying brew and guard.

[Airwaves]

None. Tanking is such a faceroll job now days a 8 year old could manage it.

[Johnkie]

Dont really see tanking being difficult on any class. threat per second is dead. There is no need to be good to do max threat.
So if u can move from GOO on ground and press defensive stuff when needed. You can tank equally good on any tank. (sure some is slightly better) but not enough to make a difference.

[Punisher069]

To all the people speaking of stagger as BrM active mitigation: it's not. Stagger is similar to block in a way. Active mitigation consists of elusive brew, purifying brew and guard.

Though in regards to Ra-den's move whose name I can't remember but kills tanks unless they use their active mitigation, for monks they need shuffle up to survive. So blizz must think of it as active mitigation.

[Sandrox]

Though in regards to Ra-den's move whose name I can't remember but kills tanks unless they use their active mitigation, for monks they need shuffle up to survive. So blizz must think of it as active mitigation.

Thats only because you cant dodge Fatal Strike, so it wouldnt make any sense to base it off of Elusive Brew. Druids dont have another option.

[kaiadam]

It's pretty obvious that Ra-den was a very badly designed encounter. You can literally skip half of it. One tank killer ability is stupidly imbalanced (fatal strike, lol @ DK - to date I don't think there's a single one who's solo tanked this), while the other (murderous strike) is hilariously overtuned - when we were learning the encounter before coming up with the right strat, between my co tank and I, we got murderous struck about 30-35 times. Of those times, we successfully lived through 2-3 of them. Please don't use abilities from such a craptastic boss as "proof" that Blizzard considers shuffle AM

[Deleted]

I only have experience of healing BrM's, but it seems hard or easy, depending on the players. There is surely a cliff there but this seems to be the difference between shuffle uptime and PB use, or not.

For the others, all but bears have similar complexity in different areas of their class mechanics, bears don't feel finished, I think it may have to do with the amount of passive physical mitigation a shit ton of armour provides, but I never feel as integrated/interested as bear.

These are just class feelings, trying to leave current iterations of boss mechanics out of it (where there is no doubt who has best toolkit).

I agree something was lost when threat became irrelevant, I also preffered a greater differential between tanks hp and that of the raid. I understand why changes were made though, I just don't like them much. Less aura damage and more adds/trash which one or two shot squishies would suite my jaded palate

[Ajjax]

All the tanks across the board as pretty plain anymore and simple imo.

[Orion Antares]

Paladins have their own crap to deal with incoming damage that puts other tanks to shame, but their passive + armor is simply not as good as a monk's passives + armor (which is more or less equal to a druid's passives + armor), is what I'm implying.

If you are including Shuffle as a passive then you should be including Sacred Shield as a passive for paladins. The two take about the same level of attention to keep rolling.

[AutomaticBadger]

Why is it I keep reading about how easy a gaurdian is?

[Gliff]

If you are including Shuffle as a passive then you should be including Sacred Shield as a passive for paladins. The two take about the same level of attention to keep rolling.

How so? One you have to press once every 30 seconds. The other you have to sacrifice DPS and use resources to keep up.

- - - Updated - - -

Why is it I keep reading about how easy a gaurdian is?

They are #2 behind monks for me.

[Tarazet]

Why is it I keep reading about how easy a gaurdian is?

If we're talking just about the mechanics of tanking an encounter, the Guardian feels extremely well-sorted and natural. It's the same reason why people say Hunters and Frost Mages are easy; they're pleasant to play, GCD-locked and everything flows smoothly. You aren't pounding on keys for several seconds at a time because you are waiting on a cooldown or energy regen. Between the almost static four-button damage rotation and periodically using your off-GCD rage abilities, it's quite simple to get into a rhythm with it even if you don't have a lot of experience playing the spec. Tanking itself has its own difficulties, but the Guardian's toolkit is the most user friendly.

[Fluorescent0]

How so? One you have to press once every 30 seconds. The other you have to sacrifice DPS and use resources to keep up.

Resources? Yes, but there's not much else outside of Guard and Purifying you can use them on. DPS? Nope, Blackout Kick is part of the highest DPS rotation a BrM has actually.

[kaiadam]

Dunno why we're drilling into and looking at sacred shield vs shuffle or whatnot. My main purpose in providing those numbers was to show that shuffle does indeed put monks on an even playing field vs bears and other tanks despite their low armor regarding taking comparably equivalent hits. If you really want to average in SoTR, block, and sacred shield, go right ahead, but from my perspective, that result is both uninteresting and serves no useful comparative purposes whatsoever.

[Inthislzon]

Dunno why we're drilling into and looking at sacred shield vs shuffle or whatnot. My main purpose in providing those numbers was to show that shuffle does indeed put monks on an even playing field vs bears and other tanks despite their low armor regarding taking comparably equivalent hits. If you really want to average in SoTR, block, and sacred shield, go right ahead, but from my perspective, that result is both uninteresting and serves no useful comparative purposes whatsoever.

Indeed, a brewmaster has to work to keep up with an AFK whateverothertank. And then we can start talking about tank balance, but that already makes BrM the hardest one to play at the most basic level.

Not to mention that we need to choose between PB and guard, nothing drops you as fast as overpurifying. And nothing drains your healers as fast as underpurifying. Sure, you can offset it by getting more haste, but that's at the expense of either elusive uptime (crit) or stagger amount (mastery).

Also BrM rotation is the most APM intensive by far.

On a typical minute tanking whatever boss the number of different buttons that affect survival (excluding CDs) for each tank is:

Paladin -> 6 CS/Jud/SotR/AS/SS/Holy Prism
Monk -> 8 Jab/TP/Keg Smash/Elusive/Blackout/Guard/Purifying/Expel Harm/Chi Wave
DK -> 4 Blood Boil/DS/HS/RS (Maybe 5 if you want to count outbreak, but that's once a fight, as you refresh with BB)
Warrior -> 4 Shield Slam/Revenge/Shield Barrier/Shield Block
Druid -> 5 Mangle/trash/maul/frenzied regen/savage defense

To clarify again, as i'm sure someone won't read it the first time, i am only counting buttons that have an impact on survival and are used at least twice every minute

[Deleted]

You should clarify, because wat. 4 Shield Slam/Revenge/Shield Barrier/Shield Block on a minute? Try putting a x3 there, and the skills if you forgot and are included in your very well bolded phrase.

If you are going with APM: off GCDs skills, GCDs shortened.

Having to keep shuffle up, working, hard... sigh. May the % playing BrM keep rising, and the nerf hammer fall hard and fast when they reach Blizzard's quota. Among normal raiders, because sure as fuck they have very well reached it among Hm raiders.