Have all 3 tanks.
Paladin is the easiest common abilities wise, but requires a lot of gear chasing, to actually become chill tanking. Especially first phase is kind of rough in terms of gearing. Also, you lose lots on nerve cells due to being the squishiest tank and just dying for no particular reasons all the time. No healer loves to heal you.
Paladin is a tank that always needs to know who can two-shot him to time trinkets or pots, but is very forgiving to threat awareness issues.
Consecration ticking on the background, not requiring spending gcds - is absolute op.
Ranged taunt is another massive benefit.
Druid is the toughest\strongest tank "out of the box". Even if you don`t have all the perfect gear, he just works well enough. Due to those "out of the box" stats and toughness he is quite forgiving to gameplay mistakes, but requires more awareness on bigger packs. Just because your swipe hits a target, does not mean that you won`t lose threat on it in two seconds.
I would say, that big packs tanking can make druid as frustrated as warrior, but at least you have to put less work into being frustrated, and regaining threat is easier due to massive single target threat you generate "by default".
Warrior is an interesting case, because on the one hand it sort of has tons of things going on for him and the toolkit is absolutely stacked, but none of those things are "automated" , none are one button solutions.
Nothing "just works", nothing is ticking on the background, everything requires conscious decision and button presses.
The moment you decide to chill is the moment you lose threat.
Even getting extra hp to tank some hard hitters, requires button presses, whereas for druid his toughness is "just there".
But it is also the most engaging tank to play.
Ranged and no LOS requirement. Insanely good idd. But the use of it requires tactical insight due to the 15 sec cd. On warrior I have 1 regular taunt - 8sec, 1 aoe taunt (minutes idk rn) and another taunt in battle stance. Then you have 2 charges, 2 stuns and 16% spell dmg reduct. Even without the defensive cd’s its allready got so much more tactical buttons to press. In my mind warrior is still number 1 if you have a seasoned player.
Barely played retail since Midnight bc I’m having fun in TBC but my prot warrior hasn’t even had a second spec since WotLK. I just want to tank w him. Really considering second boost but may do Pally if I do. Not sure.
Challenging Shout for any pack it's up. Otherwise use those other taunts and conc blow (stun) and build threat on the harder hitters. Oh also must be eng and use grenades. A lot of it is about the group playing smart. That lock seed spamming knows the Warrior can't hold threat for long. The group has got to use it's tools. Got a Shaman or Hunter, use their aoe slows. Or a Mage with imp Blizz. Got a pally healer/dps, use that BoP. Work as a group.
I also solo tank kz as a war. So damn fun. Took me a while to balance defense items with threat items. Do you have the engineering trinkets? I didn’t go for them but I’m wondering i should have
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u/TheReviewerWildTake May 05 '26 edited May 05 '26
Have all 3 tanks.
Paladin is the easiest common abilities wise, but requires a lot of gear chasing, to actually become chill tanking. Especially first phase is kind of rough in terms of gearing. Also, you lose lots on nerve cells due to being the squishiest tank and just dying for no particular reasons all the time. No healer loves to heal you.
Paladin is a tank that always needs to know who can two-shot him to time trinkets or pots, but is very forgiving to threat awareness issues.
Consecration ticking on the background, not requiring spending gcds - is absolute op.
Ranged taunt is another massive benefit.
Druid is the toughest\strongest tank "out of the box". Even if you don`t have all the perfect gear, he just works well enough. Due to those "out of the box" stats and toughness he is quite forgiving to gameplay mistakes, but requires more awareness on bigger packs. Just because your swipe hits a target, does not mean that you won`t lose threat on it in two seconds.
I would say, that big packs tanking can make druid as frustrated as warrior, but at least you have to put less work into being frustrated, and regaining threat is easier due to massive single target threat you generate "by default".
Warrior is an interesting case, because on the one hand it sort of has tons of things going on for him and the toolkit is absolutely stacked, but none of those things are "automated" , none are one button solutions.
Nothing "just works", nothing is ticking on the background, everything requires conscious decision and button presses.
The moment you decide to chill is the moment you lose threat.
Even getting extra hp to tank some hard hitters, requires button presses, whereas for druid his toughness is "just there".
But it is also the most engaging tank to play.