My guild, and my realm in general, has a tank shortage. This is neither new nor unusual; in my experience, tanks have always been the most in demand on most servers (although that may be colored by the fact that my main is a
healer). So I've decided to level a tank. The problem is, I've decided that a few times now, which means I currently have one of each tanking class languishing in the level 40 range somewhere: a
paladin, a
druid, and a
warrior. And I just can't decide which one to work on, or even if I should bother as opposed to just waiting until
Wrath of the Lich King comes out and I can get an instantly-level-55
Death Knight for a tank.
What do you guys think? What's funnest to level? What makes the best tank for heroics/early raiding? Which one should I drag out of Stranglethorn, kicking and screaming, ultimately into Outland and beyond?
Which class should I level to 70?| Druid | 2658 (24.8%) |
|---|
| Paladin | 3293 (30.7%) |
|---|
| Warrior | 2652 (24.7%) |
|---|
| Wait for Death Knight | 2132 (19.9%) |
|---|
Tags: druid, leveling, paladin, polls, tanking, tanks, warrior
Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Warrior, Polls, Breakfast Topics, Leveling, Alts, Death Knight
Jun 2nd 2008 at 8:00AM 
Reader Comments (Page 5 of 5)
Ashwin Jun 2nd 2008 5:08PM
As a person who has a warrior as a main, I say, save yourself the trouble and level a Paladin. It just saves you so much stress and tension on the waves of trash.
Zali Jun 2nd 2008 12:43PM
You can't possibly be this petty and obnoxious in real life.
Zali Jun 2nd 2008 12:42PM
This comment was for our friend Brian a few posts before this.
qoa Jun 2nd 2008 1:00PM
I had this same problem a few weeks ago. I wanted a tank. All of my friends having tanks as alts but refusing to play them gets old. I had the following:
49 twink Arms Warrior with a good deal of money invested in him.
49 twink Feral Druid
28 Paladin that I have been trying to find an excuse to not delete.
The choice ended up being the druid. They are probably the best solo class of the three imo. With little to no downtime, and easy gear to get at 70. (Earthwarden, Clefthide, Jungle hat). My druid took about 5 days to get from 49 to Outlands. My goal is only to tank heroics and maybe some Kara so this is the perfect choice for me.
Zhalseran Jun 2nd 2008 1:16PM
I've leveled a druid and a Paladin both to level 70 as their respective tank spec, and the druid was by far the easiest to level, although I enjoyed the Paladin much more. Albeit, that Paladin is also my main now =D I'm working on a warrior right now leveling fury, and hes at 66. I was prot for 63-65 and it takes far too long for my tastes, albeit its not really all that hard. Warrior leveling in general is very difficult though.
Personally I voted for druid. They are simply the easiest to level, the easiest to gear, and a close second easiest to tank with. They make a great tank alt because of the general ease, because they are the ultimate OT, and because they are just all around, very flexible, and are capable of tanking just about every encounter in the game just fine.
I love Paladin tanks of course, having one as my main, but they are a TON of work. Gearing up for heroics, let alone raids, takes very specific gear choices, and a very intimate knowledge of both the class and overall tanking mechanics. When I was doing it, I spent as much time on maintankadin.com reading up as I did in instances. Warriors are easier to gear up, but learning to tank on a warrior, I find, is very tricky. The button pushing aspect of playing a warrior is by far the hardest of all the tanks, even for someone who has played both other tanking classes at 70.
PeeWee Jun 2nd 2008 1:27PM
Warrior tanking:
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/cast [modifier:ctrl] Heroic Strike;[modifier:shift] Devastate
/castrandom Revenge,Devastate,Revenge,Shield Slam
/cast Shield Block
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()
...on auto-fire. Hold CTRL to dump rage, hold down Shift to pump in Devastate.
Profit.
Dawookie Jun 2nd 2008 6:18PM
For the record of my previous comment. It appears to have been taken out of context. It was no way saying a pally can not tank just about any boss in the game. as a matter of fact my guild uses one to great effect.
What I meant was that a pally tank excels at 5 man and 10 man level raids. Not that they where limited to them.
PeeWee Jun 2nd 2008 1:24PM
Whatever floats your boat, mate.
DavidC Jun 2nd 2008 1:40PM
Pally Tanks are OP'd for 5 / 10 man runs. Period. Heroic's, once geared, are likewise extremely easy once you get block value up over 500.
Druids are likewise OP'd for most 5/10 man content. Swipe is great for multiple targets.
Prot Warriors are the best at single target threat generation, but only if you gear appropriately. Or more important, down rank your gear for the fights.
I don't have a druid tank, but having a warrior tank and a pally tank, I enjoy the pally tank more cause it's more thinking and less mashing. The warrior tank is spamming keys constantly. The pally tank I am timing my aggro generating abilities.
Why? On bosses, as a warrior you are trying to burn your rage (as a full bar is wasted rage). As a pally, your not trying to burn excess rage off, you just tring to time your CD's to not miss a beat.
What I like about the pally, is that when I am mana starved, I can drop a pot. On the Warrior, when I am rage starved ... well ... I sit down and take a bigger hit. (don't even talk about rage potions being the equiv of mana, it's just not even in the same ball park).
So, to the OP, it's more about play style. I never see a group that says: Ugh, a pally tank :-( ... it's more like: Pally Tank? this will be easy mode!
Kromzul Jun 2nd 2008 2:37PM
At present, warriors are the most difficult class to tank with, with the poorest AoE threat generation and a somewhat peculiar threat scaling model (i.e. not as much return from attack power as druids, and not as much return from spell damage as paladins).
However, I think it's quite fair to say that both druids and warriors will be getting some revision to their AoE threat capabilities, given how comparatively powerful paladins are in that department. Paladin tanks can hold aggro against full-on AoE damage, while warriors and druids can often barely hold aggro off of healers even under optimal circumstances. I can't imagine that Blizzard considers this to be an agreeable state of affairs. There's even some evidence that they'll be changing some long-standing aspects of NPC damage, like crushing blows.
So with inevitable changes to game mechanics on the horizon, I'd say it's pretty tough to make a decision on what's the best tanking class to start at this point in time.
Based on existing mechanics, I think druids are a great choice. The hybrid aspect is really starting to come into its own, offering a lot of flexibility between doing damage and tanking even in the same gearset. In fact, the real issue they face is that their itemization is so haphazard, either resulting in difficulty of getting appropriate tanking items, or in poor allocation of stats on those tanking items.
ackthbbft Jun 2nd 2008 2:26PM
Survivadin (sometimes called "porcupine") build is incredibly fun and powerful. The more stuff you got beating on you, the more effective you are. Sure, once you get into raid-level bosses, a Protection Warrior will be better, but until then nothing beats Protection Pallies, in my experience. Leveling as a Survivadin is easier than a Protection Warrior, as well, since you can pull 10 mobs at a time and still come out near max health and mana. AOE tanking FTW!!
Start out as Retribution, then at 35 switch to Protection and enjoy!
Sundae Jun 2nd 2008 2:40PM
Paladin for early raiding and levelling.
Warrior if you're tough.
Urthona Jun 2nd 2008 2:41PM
Heraclea makes an excellent point.
I love my tankadin. Everytime I tank it's like throwing a party and everyone's invited.
zhong_chu Jun 2nd 2008 3:56PM
My main is a Feral Tank and I would like to talk about some of the cons of feral tanking.
Scaling: Once feral tanks reach the armor cap, uncritable. The only scaling left is stam and agil. It gets a bit borning when all you can scale is two stats. Pallies and Wars can still incrase amor, def, stam, parry, block and dodge.
The scaling for druids gets dull very fast when all you try to pump is agility or stam.
Rolls and Gear
***A FERAL druids is stuck between a pimp and a hard place***
Feral druids don’t have the advantage of not worrying about crushing blows. This devastating mechanics is the one reason why druids are never considered for MTing. Because druids can’t tank all THINGS in wow, we are normally viewed as lesser tanks and usually have to convince more pugs/guilds/raids that we are solid tanks. Prot wars and Pallies typically don’t have this problem. As stated above, prot wars and pallies can tank pretty much anything in this game.
Gear issues: There are very little pure feral items in end game raiding. Other than Tier gear (which other class/toon want) feral’s have to consistently defend their reasoning for selecting certain loot that drops. When tank gear drops you will get the few who state “that’s pure tank gear” and when rogue DPS gear drops, you will get the rogues that say “it has no armor or strength on it, its rogue gear”. And feral druids don’t want to look like selfish loot whores, so feral’s have to be cautious about the loot they ask for, unlike prot tanks or rogues.
Most guilds/raids don’t have a clear understanding about druid gear. And some rogue dps gear is really good for tankin, and visa versa, some tank gear is good for dps (neck pieces with stam and +hit). So many druids will fall into the middle by either being considered second for tank or dps gear, behind the pure specs.
I work with a guild that works with my feral spec and gear, but I know other feral druids that are always passed up by prot wars or dps rogues and usually get the hand me downs. This is why so many of my early feral friends have made the switch to resto, because of such great itemizations and gear available to them, without the need to reason why they should win such loot.
That’s just some food for though, for the OP.
Lionhearte Jun 2nd 2008 6:48PM
Druid. Not only are they extremely fun to play during the low levels and even higher levels, but at 70, you can pretty much tank AND dps, therefore you do not have to respec if you got a warrior, and there is no such thing as a dps pally.
twh Jun 2nd 2008 6:29PM
Paladins that MT BT/MH have balls that druids and warriors wish they had.
/flex
Turall Jun 2nd 2008 10:59PM
I guess it depends on what particular tanking needs your guild has. If you need a progression tank, level a warrior, no question.
My main is a prot Paladin in SSC. I MT it, and I love it, but the class does have limitations. for that reason I'm putting together tanking gear for my warrior.
as for the whole Death Knight thing. Death Knights aren't going to be the be-all-end-all of tanks. And the class mechanics might not get along well with all gamers (Blizz themselves have said this). What if you wait for Wrath, roll a DK, and decide you hate it? Now you have to roll a new level 1 warrior/pally/druid, while your friends are invading Northrend.
IMO, pick a warrior or Paladin, and when wrath hits, roll a DK and make your choice as to what style of tanking you prefer.
Personally...I'm going to have three plate-wearing tanks in Northrend.
wolfeye Jun 5th 2008 2:38PM
For all those that voted druid and paladin I only have to tell you this: Let's see you great paladins and druids tanking Illidan!! Two words : Crushing blow !! (results you just lvl-ed a dumb char 4 tanking !)
Jessierockeron Jun 9th 2008 6:18AM
If you want the ease of tanking plenty of mobs, choose roll paladin.
If you want to avoid getting hit, roll a warrior.
If you want high health and armour (yes, I spell armour with a U) roll a druid.