Other Tanks

[Pruke]

Since this is the only tank site that I visit I do not really have a good feeling for the other tanks and how they are fairing so far this xpac. I tank with a warrior and he seems to be doing fine. But what about monks/dk's/druids? I am really not after, who is the best right now. I just kind of wanted to know what the community thinks?

[Worldie]

The usual judgement is take the tank with higher skill level. The difference between tanks' damage taken has never been so balanced.

[oldboyz]

My main is a pal, I’ve a DK tank as 4th alt

I see a lot of difference between the 2, mainly due to skill and xp
My life is quite a yoyo with both but
-with my pal, I’m more proactive with CDs (now I really enjoy our new gameplay) and I feel very confident in low life situation
-with my DK, I’m mostly reactive (I don’t know how much because my lack of indeep mastery of the bloodshield), and do not feel to control my life as well as with my pal

a healeur supported me with both : he prefer my pal (but i think because of the +15ilvl diff)


I’ve started a monk, lv50, can’t tell much yet, I’m pushing all button

[Worldie]

Monks are quite interesting to play, high skill cap since you need to manage your Chi and clear your Stagger often, else you are really just a rogue with 500% threat modifier.

[sahiel]

As mentioned already, it seems like currently all the tanks are as well balanced as they ever have been. Each can shine in certain situations but overall, the players skill and any significant gear difference is going to mean more than which class you are.

On the topic of Monks, has anyone found a good, quality theory crafting site for them? EJ isn't all I'd hope for in regards to Brewmasters and despite much searching for a co-tank neither of us can seem to find much beyond a few blogs with suggestions and a few stat weights. I'm sure in time, there will be a lot more as more and more people play them and get experience, but right now any help on good sites would be great.

[Arkesh]

As mentioned already, it seems like currently all the tanks are as well balanced as they ever have been. Each can shine in certain situations but overall, the players skill and any significant gear difference is going to mean more than which class you are.

On the topic of Monks, has anyone found a good, quality theory crafting site for them? EJ isn't all I'd hope for in regards to Brewmasters and despite much searching for a co-tank neither of us can seem to find much beyond a few blogs with suggestions and a few stat weights. I'm sure in time, there will be a lot more as more and more people play them and get experience, but right now any help on good sites would be great.

I don't know about brewmaster - I'm not going to look at tanking until 90 - but I've found Icy Veins a decent replacement for WW, as it's EJ page is super outdated too. Might not be as in depth as you want, but it's a start.

[superworm]

I have all 5 tank classes, 4 of which are leveled to 90. I have tanked in this expansion as a pal, brewmaster and warrior. I would say that I'm most comfortable with my pal. As a pal, I have reasonable cds, mobility and self-healing. When I play a warrior, I do have better TDR, but the self-healing is really poor, making it sometimes too dependent on healers. If you have good healers, you should be OK. If sometimes your healers are not very focused, then you will probably run into trouble. My brewmaster has lower ilv, and maybe that's why I feel quite squishy on him. I went for hit/expertise capped on my pal and warrior tank, but for the brewmaster my gear is not good enough for that.

People around me keep saying that bears are quite squishy, and DKs are quite good. They say bears have good TDR, but spikes could be quite high. I'm not really sure about that, and maybe with the 5.1 patch, bears no longer suffer from large spikes. DKs used to have higher damage ( I remember a DK tank doing 10k more dps on Garalon than me), although I'm not sure how they fare on bosses like Sha of Fear.

For group utility, paladins basically are more defensively oriented, with multiple skills which can reduce/smooth group damage. Warriors have a good offensive skill: skull banner, as well as a 10% raidwide DR and a raidwide Last Stand ability. Monks also have some group DR abilities. Generally you can get these abilities from any specialization of the respective class, so it does not really matter in most cases.

The only thing that feels like a weak point for paladins, is the lack of group control abilities. For example, warrior/brewmaster/DK all have group stun abilities, and warriors have another group interrupt ability. Avenging shield has been changed to only silencing the first target, and it feels quite uncomfortable when you want to interrupt multiple casts at the same time. DK/brewmaster has some pulling ability which could be very useful in some cases.

For me, I still like my pal best. On encounters like Grand Emperess, I rely on my teamates to stun the adds, and it works fine.

[Darielle]

Bears have the least spike.

[Taeron]

Best tank?

If I judge by what our healers prefer to have on the team, it would be the monk. High self healing, twice the dps and three times the TPS of paladin and better mobility. I'm not too sure about their survivability compared to us.

I used to love my paladin tank, ever since TBC. In MoP, at least from my personal experience, we got the short end of the stick. We do the least damage, we were relegated to use a seal without a damage factor under the pretense that we'll do more passive healing, but we are no better than DK or monk in that department. We have horrible mobility compared to a warrior. We do abysmal AoE threat. We have no real AoE CC.

Going from my guild's perspective, it seems paladin tanks are worst in any given situation. Worst choice for Challenge modes for sure (warrior brings better mobility, DK is overall OP due to AoE CC that prevents 300k hits coming from 6 mobs at once - what can we do?), worst flag carriers in PvP and just a regular tank for raids that bring nothing special to the table.

Like I said, might just be me, but I feel like a 2nd rate tank in MoP.

[Jadhzia]

Of course I'm biaised since my main is a pal, but I also have a warrior and a monk. I'm sometimes a bit frustrated by the lack of mobility of my paladin (I know, running around is good for the heart ) and her average at best aoe threat (my warrior co-tank easily pulls from me when we're aoe-ing down a pack of mobs without specific assignments, but not the dps fortunately).

But she has many, many great utilities, especially when it comes to «taking care of the raid»: raid-wide heals, mitigation of other people's damage, while having similar tools for herself too. It all balances out in the end, with a very smooth gameplay.

Since all tanks' overall performance are rather close, it boils down to what kind of utility you like bringing to your raid / your raid needs.

[Kihra]

If I judge by what our healers prefer to have on the team, it would be the monk. High self healing, twice the dps and three times the TPS of paladin and better mobility. I'm not too sure about their survivability compared to us.

Monks do not do twice the DPS of a paladin. That's just a silly exaggeration.

I used to love my paladin tank, ever since TBC. In MoP, at least from my personal experience, we got the short end of the stick. We do the least damage, we were relegated to use a seal without a damage factor under the pretense that we'll do more passive healing, but we are no better than DK or monk in that department. We have horrible mobility compared to a warrior. We do abysmal AoE threat. We have no real AoE CC.

Logs would disagree with you on least damage. Our mobility is fine, and in fact quite potent for many of the fights in this tier as we're given a choice between short burst speed, a longer sprint, or an always-on higher base movement.

Our AOE threat is fine. Take Holy Prism if snap aggro is an issue for you.

As for AOE CC, we have Blinding Light (glyphed) for a 3 sec AOE stun and of course an excellent single target stun.

Worst choice for Challenge modes for sure

Disagree. Any tank can do fine in Challenge modes. People use the choice of tank class in Challenge Modes as an excuse to cover up for lack of skill. "If only I'd been an OP DK, I could have pulled those 20 trash mobs and lived." Any tank class can get all Golds in Challenge Modes, and they all have the tools to perform excellently.

Like I said, might just be me, but I feel like a 2nd rate tank in MoP.

It's just you.

[Treck]

^

What he said.

[Worldie]

Don't forget Light's Hammer makes up for an excellent raid cooldown as well.

[Pruke]

I will say that on my warrior the frustrating part is not having much rage to work with on the pull.

[Pruke]

I leveled my DK tank up to 90 and have been gearing him up on alt runs and lfr. At ilvl 485 I feel pretty good, though during tank swaps seems healers are not as prepared for the squishyness (if thats a word) of the DK over the other tanks. What I do find wierd, is when I have raided with a monk their DPS and aoe threat noticably higher.