How far can you tank in dps spec & weapons?

[justandulas]

I mean it's not like there is really much else going on when every boss has 1-2 mechanics total. And as fury tank you are also able to be one of the top of dps meters while effectively tanking at the same time, which is really helpful of course. If you have capable healers and decent gear I don't see any reason to tank as prot instead of fury, it just seems better in every way.

Because it's more stressful on the healers, and you are more likely to have aggro pulled without the tools to pull it back so easily. With prot, you effectively have 2 taunts and generate MUCH more threat.

a GOOD prot warrior will outperform a GOOD fury warrior for tanking 100% of the time.

Your job as a tank isn't to "top the meters" it's to take AS LITTLE damage as possible while holding threat. No healer likes a tank who takes a crap ton of damage, even if it's theoretically possible... i mean its possible for a shaman or rogue to tank too but you don't WANT it.

I can't even count the healers who see i'm really prot and fall to their knees in joy at the site of it. If only i had a silver for every time i heard a healer complain about fury warriors... i'd have 3 epic mounts

[Heathy]

I mean, you're really dancing on the rng of just being two shotted. its like a rogue can tank perfectly fine with evasion, but not if the bosses rng rolls through that evasion and you get critted. a warrior has the armor to lower the hits but, with dungeon BiS you can't get def capped, you can maybe get to something like 402 defence, maybe 412 with a boe world drop. I still get critted wearing 395 defence, a fury warrior is gunna be soaking crits constantly. all it'll take is two lucky ones in a row and they ded.

[justandulas]

Healers complaining that they have to heal. Go figure.

yeah, there's a difference in healing a tank and healing someone pretending to be a tank

[Kralljin]

Everything depends on your healer.

If your Healer is decent, you can do it all the way up to and including Strat,Scholo and LBRS / UBRS.
There might be some bosses that require a Shield (Drakki, Baron, Krastinov, etc.) but most of the trash can be done without shield.

It however also requires your remaining group to be remotely competent in those higher instances, no point if the healer has to empty their entire manapool into you while the rest of the party can't do dps even if their lives depend on it.

Also a lot more difficult if no one knows how to interrupt.

[Bigbazz]

I'm tanking in fury spec with dual swords, I don't even use defensive stance or a shield, I managed to do a WC easily like this, it's faster and I don't think that tanking properly makes any difference, I barely tank tbh, I just dps. How far can I go like this? shall I try sfk or bfd like this?

People are doing it in max level dungeons to speed up runs, low level dungeons don't even need a dedicated tank let alone a sword + board tank. If you're playing as Fury you will quickly reach the point where it's not really possible to hold agro against anyone unless you run a 2h or DW, what's more you can't get tactical mastery until level 45-50 meaning you're super limited with stance dancing.

Just keep a sword + shield ready for when you're getting hammered and use a 2h or DW for the rest.

[justandulas]

I mean fair enough, but I'm still of the mindset that the game itself does not offer much in regards of mechanics or things to pay attention to, so as a healer main I would welcome the ''extra challenge'' so that it can go a lot faster and I get to actually get to do things

All fun and games until the level 50+ bosses 1-2 shot the pretend tank and the healer gets blamed. Or when they can’t hold aggro on aoe packs and the healer is pulling their hair out in frustration

Just because it’s feasible doesn’t mean it’s optimal

A VW tank is more preferable for end game content than a fury tank

[Tojara]

Quite a ways, entirely depends on the DPS and healers in your group though. Also depends on your gear level and what level of consumables you're willing to bring.

Warriors behave strangely in vanilla and going protection spec early is probably a burden to your group. Low level dungeons can be tanked by anybody, and realistically you don't start 'needing' a tank until dungeons in the 30+ range. Even then, nearly all trash in Vanilla can be kited, and aside from bosses, tanks aren't really that important. If you gear entirely defensively you get nearly 0 rage and you can't realistically even play the game properly. This forces you to sit on purpose to get extra rage, and if you're doing that, you might as well just use a two hander or dual wield and forgo sitting altogether.

The comments in this thread are all over the place though. With a pure DPS spec meaning arms with fury talents, or fury with arms talents you can pretty much tank any dungeon content in the game. You will however perform better if you hybridize those specs. What this means is doing something like 31/5/15 if you want to stick with arms (this is an all around good build for DPS, tanking, and PvP) or you can do a hybrid build where you go deep fury with loads of points into prot (I forget the talent breakdown but there are loads of flexible points and it's obvious which protection talents are worthwhile).

Deep protection has it's place and it's really good threat when your gear levels are low. It's a myth however that you need to be deep protection to tank in Vanilla and a simple look at the protection talent tree, let alone how classes work in Vanilla will give you all the reasons why. There are no mitigation talents deep into the protection tree and everything that's useful for raid tanking is actually super accessible and available at the start of the tree. Unlike modern versions of the game where you pick a specialization and are essentially a new class entirely, Vanilla doesn't work like this and a warrior that's deep protection has nearly all of the tools that a warrior who is deep fury or arms has (sans a couple abilities).

I'm sure people can go into more mathematical detail, but there are only several bosses in the game that truly do stupid amounts of damage to where you need to have a shield on 100% of the time. Fury/prot builds scale far better than deep protection (which scales poorly) in regards to threat, and you will do more damage as an individual as well. While the personal DPS is nice, your goal in Vanilla is to do two things. Live and produce threat to the point that your group isn't throttled completely, or at all. Once you have a threat lead you simply swap to a shield or you swap to one when you know a hard hitting ability is about to happen. Remember, that most of the dangerous abilities in Vanilla are elemental in nature (at least early), and whether you have a shield on or not makes zero difference.

The chance to be critically hit isn't that high innately and there are few bosses to where that would even be a concern. If it's a boss that could two tap you in seconds, well, that's why you carry around a massive amount of gear to change your needs based on bosses. This is also a case of how you want to play the game. Is there any real reason to be mitigation focused when fighting Onyxia? No, her only real dangerous damage is her flame breath. Being full mitgation just slows down the encounter, and increases the chance that something bad might happen. On the flipside however, there's no 'rush' to kill the encounter either and you can absolutely kill the boss by having everybody wand or auto attack her to death as well.

Again feel like people are comparing different things. At high level content having pure DPS builds tank obviously isn't optimal. The difference however between somebody having a deep fury build with all the good protection talents is minor, and these people still have the ability to throw a shield on once they establish threat.

[voidillusion]

Recently healed Uldaman with 2 dps warriors and 2 rogues, as many have said the only issue is agro and the spread of dmg. If you're fury but go def stance and with shield it smooths all out

[spdr]

Gear and knowing your class are all that matters. I tanked lbrs as fury with a shadow priest healing. It's not optimal, and I used a shield for most of it but sometimes you gotta work with what you have.

I didnt have issues tanking dungeons while leveling with a 2h until zf and that was because a lot of my gear had been out leveled. After a few drops it was fine. The main thing is keeping your healer happy. If dps keep pulling aggro and taking damage the healer is gonna go oom every fight.

[Kchir]

All fun and games until the level 50+ bosses 1-2 shot the pretend tank and the healer gets blamed.

The only boss that even remotely comes close to doing this is Emperor with Ironfoe procs. Just your average plate wearing warrior will have 4k+ health, 5k when they're 60. I've tanked every dungeon boss as arms (pre-60) and fury with shield (at 60) and the hardest single crit I've received was 900 from Drakkisath. Protection is absolutely better for tanking but if you're going with friends, you can spec dps and add a bit of fun and risk with increased dps (and thus a faster dungeon clear) as reward.

[Ragedaug]

Some asshat streamer getting carried through content by his mouthbreathing fans isn't really indicative of any kind of norm.

So you are saying it's even easier than we thought? Don't even need a tank if I understand you correctly. A bad is being carried by many worse and they have the top content so far on farm.

[mickybrighteyes]

IF you over level/gear the content you can do whatever you like. If your healer isn't oom and your dps are still able to get enough of a ceiling to do their job you can grab a couple daggers and pretend to be a rogue.


This doesn't really change at any point in game unless your group stops being able to keep you alive and you on top of threat.

Now if you don't have a full on healer who is simply some dude who happens to have a heal spell and a mana pool only slightly larger than the average warrior or rogue and less efficiency than a druid chain spamming moonfire... you THEN have the issue of possibly taking too much dmg to handle the event.

[Ragedaug]

Because it's more stressful on the healers, and you are more likely to have aggro pulled without the tools to pull it back so easily. With prot, you effectively have 2 taunts and generate MUCH more threat.

a GOOD prot warrior will outperform a GOOD fury warrior for tanking 100% of the time.

Your job as a tank isn't to "top the meters" it's to take AS LITTLE damage as possible while holding threat. No healer likes a tank who takes a crap ton of damage, even if it's theoretically possible... i mean its possible for a shaman or rogue to tank too but you don't WANT it.

I can't even count the healers who see i'm really prot and fall to their knees in joy at the site of it. If only i had a silver for every time i heard a healer complain about fury warriors... i'd have 3 epic mounts

I still have several levels to go before I hit max level, but I suspect you are right for Prot trumping Arms/Fury. I do more questing than dungeons, so I'm majoring in Arms spec, with a minor in Fury, but for my part, the dungeon pulls tend to go smoother when I switch to Defensive stance and go sword and board, even though my personal DPS takes a major hit.


As far as holding threat goes, we don't really want to CC, so we punish our healer. Our lock tends to dot everything (often tanking most of it for at least a while), the mage has to jump into melee range (extra threat) to pop off a cone of cold, so I immediately don't have enough rage to tab target and hit everything. Then, even when I'm skullling our focus target everyone still tends to pick their own mob to blow up.

So I normally charge --> TClap --> Def Stance --> get a couple shouts in. That's normally enough to keep the mobs off the healer. More and more I've stopped chasing mobs that are peeling off to DPS. I'll let them deal with them once they pull off me and will tab-target through the rest to try to keep them off the healer and to be able to hold them once the DPS have dealt with their peels.

Thinking about switching to Deep Prot (31 points) once I hit 51, 'cause I have no idea how anyone tanks without Tactical Mastery, and Anger Management is also extremely helpful.

[justandulas]

I still have several levels to go before I hit max level, but I suspect you are right for Prot trumping Arms/Fury. I do more questing than dungeons, so I'm majoring in Arms spec, with a minor in Fury, but for my part, the dungeon pulls tend to go smoother when I switch to Defensive stance and go sword and board, even though my personal DPS takes a major hit.


As far as holding threat goes, we don't really want to CC, so we punish our healer. Our lock tends to dot everything (often tanking most of it for at least a while), the mage has to jump into melee range (extra threat) to pop off a cone of cold, so I immediately don't have enough rage to tab target and hit everything. Then, even when I'm skullling our focus target everyone still tends to pick their own mob to blow up.

So I normally charge --> TClap --> Def Stance --> get a couple shouts in. That's normally enough to keep the mobs off the healer. More and more I've stopped chasing mobs that are peeling off to DPS. I'll let them deal with them once they pull off me and will tab-target through the rest to try to keep them off the healer and to be able to hold them once the DPS have dealt with their peels.

Thinking about switching to Deep Prot (31 points) once I hit 51, 'cause I have no idea how anyone tanks without Tactical Mastery, and Anger Management is also extremely helpful.

there's nothing wrong with fury or arms tanking up until 50ish or so, then it starts to become kinda noticeable.

My favorite prot tanking spec is 17/3/31. 17 into arms for Impale for more dmg and threat, 3 into increased crit %, and 31 into prot for shield slam. Charge, tclap, and demo shout are usually my lead off attacks. I understand those who wanna be niche and dual wield tank cuz it's cool and they saw youtubers doing it, but what they didn't see was the youtubers bringing more healers and the healers lamenting it and cussing about them in every backchannel. A prot warrior will always be easier and more loved by healers than fury tank. The goal for a tank is to soak damage, not dish it out

Best of luck out there man!

[justandulas]

I've healed parts of BRD as a lvl 47 shaman, while I had a lvl 52 tank that was arms specced and wielded a 2h. I can't speak for anything higher than that though

- - - Updated - - -


The goal for a tank is to hold aggro. Everything else can be worked around with the right number of healers. I didn't raid high level on private servers, but from what I've heard your tanks threat is what limits the groups ability to down a boss.

To which a good prot warrior can generate more threat than fury dw, and still be twice as hard to kill.

Granted, I’m talking good players but the ceiling for prot is higher than the other two specs for tanking

Especially without the t3 gear and beyond. Maybe then you can get away with it easier but the ideal spec is mostly prot with a good bit of dps mixed in for threat

[hulkgor]

All the way into 60, including most of those dungeons as well.

Nothing more absurd than asking warriors to tank any dungeon during leveling and getting a "not tank spec, sorry". Just charge in and smash those mobs, you'll do even more damage due to the rage gained by taking damage. Just make sure you mark some skulls so damage dealers can assist and pop some sunders.

I'm actually considering leveling another warrior for the fun i had in dungeons. Sheer fun.

[Binaris]

I'd love to see some numbers on that, since I'm genuinly curious. If I'm to believe the people I know from private servers, then a fury warrior tank is needed to hold aggro when people are dcked out in T3 or whenever the transition happens. But if you can give me some other info with sources, I'd be more than willing to change my PoV

Or perhaps private servers worked differently than Classic, which wouldn't surprise me either. Who knows.. *shrugs*

There are no numbers on that bc he is wrong. Skarms video does a great job explaining and showcasing it. You still stay into defensive stance. The amount of rage you generate is insane so you are spamming revenge, sunders, heroic strikes, bloodthirst while constantly enraged. You dont miss out on much for defensive talents at 60 and can always throw on a shield if things get hairy.

[justandulas]

I'd love to see some numbers on that, since I'm genuinly curious. If I'm to believe the people I know from private servers, then a fury warrior tank is needed to hold aggro when people are dcked out in T3 or whenever the transition happens. But if you can give me some other info with sources, I'd be more than willing to change my PoV

Or perhaps private servers worked differently than Classic, which wouldn't surprise me either. Who knows.. *shrugs*

private servers are not correct in any way shape or form. Almost every bit of the math and numbers are wrong, even on the best of them like Nostalrius.

Prot warriors are never NOT viable, and are the only serious warrior tanking spec all the way through naxx.

Try doing naxx with a dual wield warrior, or 4 horseman with dps warriors with shields. It won't happen.

Not only does prot take significantly less damage, but they generate much more threat due to talents like (15% more threat) and shield slam which is a HUGE aggro move.

EDIT: Get details and use the tiny threat addon/mod for it and test it out yourself. the numbers don't lie.

[Ragedaug]

there's nothing wrong with fury or arms tanking up until 50ish or so, then it starts to become kinda noticeable.

My favorite prot tanking spec is 17/3/31. 17 into arms for Impale for more dmg and threat, 3 into increased crit %, and 31 into prot for shield slam. Charge, tclap, and demo shout are usually my lead off attacks. I understand those who wanna be niche and dual wield tank cuz it's cool and they saw youtubers doing it, but what they didn't see was the youtubers bringing more healers and the healers lamenting it and cussing about them in every backchannel. A prot warrior will always be easier and more loved by healers than fury tank. The goal for a tank is to soak damage, not dish it out

Best of luck out there man!

Can you link me that in a talent Calculator? I'm curious how you spent your lower tier Prot talents. Also, are you taking 5/5 Tactical Mastery & using Anger Management?

Thanks for the info.

[justandulas]

Can you link me that in a talent Calculator? I'm curious how you spent your lower tier Prot talents. Also, are you taking 5/5 Tactical Mastery & using Anger Management?

Thanks for the info.

https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-c...50110500001051

4/5 tactical mastery, and sadly no to anger management (but it is an amazing talent).

The idea behind this spec is basically go into prot for shield slam, but go deep enough into arms for Impale for higher crits and higher threat.

It seems to be the perfect mix between damage mitigation, and threat generation. You generate a hilarious amount of threat, especially on bosses where no one will pull once your going.

- - - Updated - - -

That part I doubt many people disagree with to a certain extend


To be fair, a hybrid fury/prot spec could also have such a talent. Besides, a fury spec would probably have the enrage talent, which would give you a constant +25% damage. That could add a fair bit to the threat.


If I look at how it goes in dungeons while leveling, then I'd say an arms/fury warrior holds better aggro. I take healer aggro from my tanks when they're prot and they hold aggro fine when they go ham in a DPS spec.
But to be fair, that could also depend on the tank and his gear. And lower levels might be skewed.

All in all, I don't know what to think. I see your points, but I can also see many opposit ideas that qwould work just as well, if not better threatwise.

Dungeons are just ugly for warriors and at lower level to begin with. at level 60, you do want to be some kinda prot/arms hybrid for threat generation such as the build i linked to ragedaug (but there are plenty of others too).

At pre 40 it doesn't really matter and tbh, being deep prot may handicap you early on to some extent. It isn't until the 50+ that prot starts to really shine hard over the others for it's intended role.

That said, nothing wrong with a little hybrid for more threat if you struggle with threat. You certainly wouldn't wanna go crazy deep prot like 40 points ya know? the idea is that you just want shield slam the 31 pt talent, and after that.. well, i'd recommend the other trees for more threat.