It is fully possible for a protection warrior to deal decent damage. The issue is that you need really good gear to do so. I've leveled all 3 tank classes to 70, and tanked as each one.

The real problem is that warrior tanks without really good gear suck at doing anything but tanking. Furthermore, warrior tanks in specific have the unique nuance that the better your gear gets, the less rage you get from mobs that you overgear.

What blizzard needs to do is make tanking less of a chore, and give it more damage dealing capability. Then you'd have players willing to tank as well as deal damage.
 

Aye, have to agree with Rawr, even though I have my tank only at lv40. It's really rewarding to be tanking in an instance when all people are concerned are the results of a damage meter and you're lower than the priest of the group... Happened to me more than once, but hey, the healer didn't get aggro! Like anyone cared...

THe moment the healer gets aggro and dies it's the tanks fault, whatever the cause. Talk about the scapegoat.

Copra
 

"For soloing a warrior tank only rivals a non-retribution paladin in inefficiency"

What like Holy/Prot Paladins?

I heard AoE grinding as a prot pally is good soling, and I'm fairly sure Shockadins (Holy) are good for soloing. I might be wrong on this, I'm only level 38, but I'm fairly sure I'm on the right track here.
 

We have around 3-5 people in a 25-man raid that can tank. Two protection warriors, a retribution paladin, a fury warrior and a feral druid. I admit that the OT protection warrior has to twiddle his thumbs (figuratively speaking) in some encounters, but the rest deal decent damage when they're not tanking. However, most of the time there's tanking roles available for them. Many encounters have something that should be offtanked, and some have either tank rotations or or even simultaneous tanking of the same mob. For example, Mother Shahraz' Saber Lash damage is divided evenly among 3 targets.
 

I played a tank for almost 5 years in EQ. A paladin, one of EQs two hybrid tanks. I played every possible scenario. Offtank, maintank or most of the time what in EQ was know as a rampage tank, a tank suited for a special boss mechanic back then.

Playing a tank was the greatest choice there was. Everyone needed a tank to advance in the game. In raids and even in groups, tanks stacked pretty well. The AA system allowed tanks to grow beyond their main role. In my case, my paladin became very good DPS class against undead mobs, he became the most efficient group healer and even achieved decent crowd control, thanks to the gazillions of stun spells. Gear was less a struggle, cause gear in general for all classes was rare.

I did not choose to play a tank in WoW though, mainly cause i wanted to experience something new. Seeing the status of tanks in this game, i'm glad i did the right choice. Tanks do not stack and the need for tanks in this game does not scale at all. You need one tank in a group scenario. Do you need 5 tanks to succeed in a raid? No, but you should, cause a raid should be a upscaled group composition. In WoW it's not. Well done to devalue the role of a tanking class for raids.

The talent system prevents any class to play a decent working hybrid. If you want to succeed anywhere, you need to focus. Tanks even further suffer from the gear requirement for their role. Every class besides tanks can gear themselves on their very own, to get ready for more advanced PvE scenarios. Tanks can not and even if they could, it would take them a lot more time. The only thing that comes kinda close to how versatile EQ hybrid tanks once were, are feral druids and probably soon Death Knights.

So what do we learn from here? First of all again, you can not balance fun to play and working class systems for PvE and PvP at the same time. It's impossible, we already witnessed this in EQ, where the classes dominating PvP where the ones almost being obsolete in PvE and vice versa. Second of all quests or any form of soloing, has to be based on the very certain class role. You should not build quests only focusing on DPS and if you do it nevertheless, built in options for non-dps classes. Healers could get pets, that assists them, so could tanks to bridge their lack of DPS. I play a shaman now and this class almost has all those tools. The elemental pet you get, does work as a very decent tank, allowing you to succeed on its own, even in some group quests. Every healer and every tank should get such an options when it comes to solo content.

The third and pretty much most important lesson to learn from WoW's tanking drama is, that no matter who important a class role might be, if it's not enough fun, or if it brings to many drawbacks (scaling, gear, stacking) players will avoid it.
 

I actually disagree with chrismue. If you look at it, the feral druid does an excellent job of making a hybrid tank and DPS class in one build. The problem with feral druids is that the devs pretty much ignore them when it comes to itemization, and the warrior tanks threw a hissyfit because another class got to do damage and tank with the same spec.

It pretty much comes down to this:

Warrior - Best tank overall, has the most answers for every encounter when it comes to tanking, but is also the one who is pigeon-holed into tank only, and being effective in pvp (as a tank) is non-existent. Has, by far, the best itemization in the game. Essentially, the warrior sacrifices pvp viability and solo viability (until becoming overgeared) for tankability. The other two tanking classes do not.

Druid - Best example of a hybrid. Lacks good itemization, also bad at pvp. Has the unique ability to switch gears mid-fight, since main stats for tanking are actually pretty useful for DPS.

Paladin - Niche tanker. Best at tanking lots of bad guys at a time. Suffers from lousy itemization too. Can AoE grind pretty well, but the tanking specialization makes the other roles a paladin can play kind of bad at them.

--Rawr
 

I really have to holler for them paladins. I started to play one recently and I've found the protection tree of paladin to be amazing for solo grinding. Just by relocating a few points for AoE skills, you do amazing damage against like 6-8 mobs at a time and since you got your bubbles and stuff you practically can't die.

Protection paladin at least is good for grinding and tanking, that's what I can say for sure.
 

I play a holy paladin and I can absolutaly confirm a healadin is excellent at soloing. Killing a single target takes longer then pretty much any other class but we can kill 5+ targets much faster then just about anyone else and do it constantly with little downtime and no dependency on CDs, I reach 1200+ dps when soloing (non-undead/demon, not including AW induced spikes and obviously not every area is suiteable for AoE-grinding) in what is mainly T5/T6 healing kit.

We also have the ability to solo pretty much any 2-3 man group quest in game which puts us at another advantage to DPSers who need to assemble a group first.

Our guilds tankadin can do pretty much the same thing.
 

My apologies to the paladins, I didn't mean to offend. My experience is limited to mid-level paladins soloing single mobs at snail's pace.

Of course you realize that paladins and druids being nearly as good tanks as protection spec warriors AND being much better in soloing etc. only diminishes the number of protection warriors further. So will Deathknights, if they can tank.
 

Yes, Protection paladins are good at AoE grinding - but they are not good for most quests (which don't involve fighting 6 mobs at once). The combination of Reckoning, Holy Shield, Seal of Light/Wisdom and Consecration means that the more mobs around them, the more damage they will do.

I have a 70 protection spec paladin that tanks 5 man instances for my small guild. I also have a 70 Hunter, Warlock, Mage and Rogue as well as a 67 retribution paladin, 62 fury warrior and 54 feral druid. All of those other classes make soloing laughably fast and easy compared to the protection spec paladin. Why, for example, would I bother to do any dailies on the paladin when those other characters do them SO much faster?

I have to agree with Tobold that playing a "tanking" character when you're NOT tanking just isn't fun or efficient, at least if you've played other classes/specs that solo WELL. Yes, soloing can be done with any class/spec with the right gear but that's not the point. We see a huge number of DPS classes and many requests that go "Just need tank and healer for X instance and we're good to go!"

My Protection spec paladin is my "main," but he rarely sees the light of day compared to my other character. I basically consider him to be a sacrifice to the guild at this point.
 

Tobold puts the spotlight on one of the "weak spots" of the old 'trinity' model. The problem is that virtually every instance or raid encounter requires specialized tank(s), specialized DPS, and specialized healer(s). The problem is exposed further when a PvE game appends PvP, especially in a PUG situation where, for example, you end up in a WoW BG with no healers, or no flag runner.

If a MMO came up with an innovative (gasp!) alternative to the decade-old 'trinity' model that allowed any mixture of classes to succeed, it would solve the perennial "LF tank" and "LF healer" problem.

But the 'trinity' works great as a MMO business model, since motivated players will likely level different parts of the 'trinity', or will farm a hybrid to gear for different roles.
That takes time, and time = $$$.
 

Protection paladins are far superior at tanking 5 man content to warriors. It isnt that warriors cant do it, but it goes so much smoother and easier with a paladin. I find the warrior tanking mechanics very clunky in comparison (and sure, it is bad for the ego to see how much people prefer grabbing a pally to tank their instances.)
 

I wrote an article on this back in the fall of last year, I dont want to recap but here are some issues I found:

" In Everquest1 a warrior tanked, that is all he did. It was nice because when you sought a tank in that game, you got a tank. What you did not get was some sorry excuse for a tank in the guise of a rogue in plate mail."

WoW has it done wrong, plain and simple

http://wifeagro.blogspot.com/2007/09/tanks-for-memories.html

Rest of the article is there
 

When Blizz asked for class feedback on the warrior, I posted the same idea that Tobold mentioned. The idea of a PVP and a PVE spec. Let's face it, the only thing keeping tanks from respeccing daily is the huge fee. Some people in my guild respec once a week or more, that is expensive.

If they allowed us a normal spec for tanking and then one for arenas and bg's it would solve the tanking problem. It would also allow warriors complete access to all of the game's content. It's hard for me to find a group unless I'm a tank.

It would also require a UI revamp or a way to save two sets of action bars.

I usually respec prot for a week every now and then, then back to pvp build. This allows me a nice break and a chance to get badges or rep. However, I'm not in a raiding guild so that may not be an option for some.
 

It should be noted that in EQ2, you CAN change between two specs, for free, by clicking a crafted mirror you keep in your house.

And back in EQ1, warriors did very good dps by changing gear to two-handed vs weapon+shield. The two handed warrior swords were absolutely amazing, and gave them a role in groups when they didn't need to tank.

When I read WoW blogs, again and again I see people complaining about things other games have solved...
 

"You need 1 tank for a 5-man group, and X tanks for this or that raid group"

It's even worse. I like to have a warrrior as main tank, but for the offtank-slots I'd always prefer feral druids, because they simply switch into full DDs whenever no Offtanks are needed.

One thing you forgot: MS-Warriors can tank also. Not as good as Deftanks, but its enough for standard level 70 instances. Perhaps even for heroics, but I'm not sure about this. I always pick my trusty druid tank.

But I see another problem: There is an increasing amount of warriors who is not able to tank. Oh sure, they have all those skills - but they lack the personal skill. If they are new to WoW they perhaps leveled all the way up to the cap as fury or MS. After that they engaged in PvP combat. And some day they get bored, decide to do an instance and suddenly notice that they are only able to play half of their class - the easy half.
The other kind are older players who experienced the old 10 man stratholme, perhaps were DDs in MC - and also never had to tank.
A good part of those people is forever lost for this job, you invite them and then they inform you that they refuse to tank and you should search another tank and take them with you as DDs.
 

Of course you realize that paladins and druids being nearly as good tanks as protection spec warriors AND being much better in soloing etc. only diminishes the number of protection warriors further. So will Deathknights, if they can tank.

But this does contardict your post, since shortage of protection warriors is not the same as shortage of tanks.

Shame on you :)
 

Or by allowing people to have two different specs between which it is easy and free to switch.

You should write a whole other post with this solution as its central topic. Address all the bogus counter-arguments based on mere speculation on human behaviour ("everyone would be the same, blah blah", well, everybody is the same NOW, except you can't experiment, which *discourages* variety).
 

The warrior class in wow is the most overlooked and sadly under functioning one we have.

They are noob targets in pvp, often running ram shack at cloth'ies in hopes of dealing what looks like damage before a dps class gets annoyed with his healers going "can someone get this bozo off me"

PVE roles are slightly more open, but at 70 you'll find your life in the great outdoors to be rather tragic. As you wont be able to rapid farm mobs for loot, you'll be a shopping cart kid, gathering ore and herbs to pay rent. At some point you'll agro multiple mobs, and while dealing with them, a red blip will show and pew pew, your running back in time to see that they're mounted up after taking your harvesting spot.

Fresh off the ding 70 warriors are a waste of time. Hunter pets toss more dps, pally's multi tank and hold agro better, druids have you on armor and utility.

But, hey its only a matter of time before all the other classes get nurfed. And then, if you've been good, warriors might just move from the far back of the bus to maybe somewhere in the middle.

I have a dream....
 

rawr,You are right that talent spec wise druids are good dps/tank hybrids but I think the reason that they don't give druids itemization to match thier talents is if they did druids would eliminate the need for warriors.

I played a druid for a long time And I think druids should be completely reworked to have a DPS(kitty) spec, Tank spec (bear), and healer spec (tree) and moonkin should just be done away with. Then they could tweak bear talents without overpowering kitty etc.
the problem now is you mess with Bear dps to help it in tanking and then kitty becomes overpowered.
 

But I see another problem: There is an increasing amount of warriors who is not able to tank. Oh sure, they have all those skills - but they lack the personal skill. If they are new to WoW they perhaps leveled all the way up to the cap as fury or MS.
This isn't just warriors. Its been addressed many times on this forum. The hurry up and level to get to the real game is killing player competence in all classes. I've run with hunters that don't know how to trap. Rogues that think sap is useless, Healers that can't manage aggro or let people die because they screw around and try to dps and don't watch thier party. This is not just a warrior problem. Its a Wow problem classwide and the Devs created it when they made Azeroth Obsolete for everything but the Auction House. I imagine it will only get worse in WOTLK
 

Posted by Ciderhelm on the warrior forum.

I'm not sure how many more threads I can read on the WoW forums about the state of Protection Warriors. They all follow the same formats:

Protection Warriors have been nerfed too much from their original status;

Protection Warriors are no longer the ideal tanks since Druids and Paladins are better on everything but single target raid bosses;

Protection Warriors have no way to hold multiple mobs except with thunderclap and cleave;

Protection Warriors lose too much rage when they overgear an instance to be viable.
I'd like some improvements to the class. Making suggestions for class improvement is different than complaining about the state of the class.


Protection Warriors Have Been Nerfed
This is the most aggravating claim. It's simply not true. Having played a Warrior since release, there was a time when playing a Protection Warrior was painful... to tank with.

For those newer to the class, here's an outline of what you've missed:

Our original 31 point talent increased block value for 20 seconds. That was our 31 point talent, which means Shield Slam and gear with block value didn't exist. The ability was worthless.

Until the time leading up to Blackwing Lair, people would argue that Mortal Strike builds were the best for raid main tanks... and they'd be right.

Our original raiding and pre-raiding gear had almost even mixes of Agility and Strength, but relatively little Defense and Stamina. The best shoulders in the game for almost one year from release had Spirit on them.

When Shield Slam released, it didn't scale, adding to a series of abilities that didn't. If you wanted better Threat, you stacked Strength and used a fast weapon.

Thunderclap was -- just one year ago -- only usable in Battle Stance. It was only viable in the highest rage-intake environments, which were also the environments that could kill you if you stance switched at an inopportune time.

Prior to Devastate, if you wanted to grind as Protection, you respeced or rerolled. Legitimate arguments could be made that Devastate, a 41-point ability, wasn't always better than Sunder Armor for tanking.
There are a wide range of buffs we've received as well. Expertise is one of the most recent, as is the Revenge damage modifier. Taunt no longer using Spell Hit was one of the best, though it wasn't so pronounced for guilds that didn't spend some time stuck on Four Horsemen.

Protection Warriors are the most consistently buffed class/spec combination since release.


Protection Warriors Only Good For Single Target Raid Bosses
Because Druids and Paladins can do everything else better, right? Feral Druids and Protection Paladins take a certain amount of pride in what they can accomplish and do. They also are more interested in their class, and, like Warriors, often do not have a solid understanding of how other classes work. When they say Warriors are inferior tanks, then give a laundry list of reasons, they usually have some axe to grind.

The definition of 'true' is always elusive in these threads. For example, it's not 'true' AOE Threat if there aren't 8+ mobs in a highly unrealistic situation. It's not 'true' scaling Threat if it's not some arcane mixture of stacking modifiers that could only apply to 2.1 Feral Druids.

The truth is, no serious party will ever say, "we don't want you, you're a Protection Warrior." No serious raid will ever say, "we aren't looking for a Protection Warrior to Main Tank." It's just not going to happen without a fundamental change to the game. I know one of you is thinking about posting, "I know this Gruul guild on my server that refuses to let their Warrior MT" ... yeah, that's probably part of why they're a Gruul guild.

The worst part about this claim is that it gives Warriors an excuse for underperforming. Invariably, Warriors who post this have not learned how to excel at tanking, have not learned how to control multiple mobs, and have found a perfect line to say, "I'm bad, but it's Blizzard's fault."


Protection Warriors Can't Hold Multiple Mobs
I learned to control AOE situations in Upper Blackrock Spire. I used the same skills I learned there for three years, and am still using them. While I appreciate and use Thunderclap and Cleave, I have never needed them to maintain solid control of a situation with 5+ mobs. There are some people on the WoW forums who consider this heresy, because it flies in the face of their I'm-the-victim complex.

I have always refused to run parties and raids with idiots. By that, I mean people who make no effort to work with the group, and will do the minimum amount of work necessary to get the gear. I also have zero respect for the argument that other classes are better because they can handle idiots better -- if you're voluntarily running PUGs with people who can't control their targets, that's your fault.

Here's what Warriors can do to improve:

Pull faster. Healers don't need full mana bars. Casters don't need to be babied through DPS targets. You'll become better, they'll become better. As Maddfez puts it, "Large groups of unmarked mobs that are coming whether you're ready or not do wonders for people's ability to react on the fly." As Kaganda related our old runs, "Your speed runs pushed my Hunter's trapping abilities to the max, but I could chain trap a mob 4-5 times if needed. Everyone who went through those runs came out a better player, or they quit halfway through."

Tab target. Understanding tab targeting will give you substantially more control over complex pulls. Tabbing through targets will cycle mobs in a 90 degree cone in your line of sight, and will cycle through melee-range targets before ranged targets. Slight twitches in your angle allows you to control the situation much better -- often, I'll put myself in a position where I target the first and second DPS target for the first 10 seconds, then alter my position to mix in the rest.

Use Taunt. Taunt locks your target on you for three seconds. After a few seconds on your main target at the beginning of a pull, Taunt your target and switch to another target to lay down a Devastate or Shield Slam, then switch back. Taunt buys you the full cooldown without any risk of losing the target.

Let party members take the right hits. Many caster mobs never need to be tanked or CC'd in 5-mans. Steamvault Sirens are a good example of this -- tanking them is unnecessary, and by virtue of moving into melee range of one, she uses her fear. Since you're only reducing spell damage by 10-16%, you're not exactly a mile ahead of cloth-wearers in these situations. Let the DPS kill the primary caster target first while you focus on aggro on the rest of the pull.

Mark targets yourself. Aside from the added value of being party leader and being able to kick terrible Warlocks and Hunters, the method in which you mark targets is important. It's fine to mark a few targets before a pull in parties, but make sure your party is aware that you are setting new targets during the pull. As the tank in a party, you should grow keenly aware of what targets you have built Threat on and which you haven't. More importantly, setting targets dynamically and acting as the main assist allows you to fluidly control adds, either from patrols or from mispulled groups.

Recover from mispulls. Never, ever give up on a bad pull. Who cares if you got a second group? In conjunction with this, anyone who runs away to avoid repair bills on a mispull is kicked. The best memories you'll have will always be about the times something went wrong and you recovered, never about the times everything went right. You'd be amazed the things you can pull through: one of my best memories is from the Rend event in UBRS, where a player pulled the entire balcony to us during the event by not jumping down fast enough; we survived, without a 40-man raid item among us.

Break CC... and smile about it. If you'll be tanking something in the next 5-10 seconds, get it out of crowd control with a Taunt and Shield Slam. If there are only a few mobs and you want more rage, break crowd control. If you don't need CC at all... don't use it.
Warriors should not be in Heroic Shattered Halls before having learned how to control multiple mobs. Not learning the skill is different from not having the potential. Warriors can handle large groups.


Protection Warriors Can't Tank What They Overgear
It's true that rage reduction occurs by virtue of outgearing an instance, and it's true that it should be a priority for improvement on Blizzard's part. However, it's not true that Warriors are suddenly impotent if they outgear an instance. In T6 quality tanking gear I can tank non-Heroic 5-mans for parties with no problems. If I'm helping a friend out, there's no stage of the game where gear hinders me.

What I can't effectively do is tank a non-Heroic 5-man in full tanking gear with other T6 raiders; then again, why would I need to, if I can do the same thing by swapping to DPS gear and providing more utility?

This is a problem of hyperbole. It's still a problem, but it's not quite gamebreaking.
 

PVP/PVE is ruining WOW imo. There is no reason for a prot warrior to be gimped as hard as they are in solo/pvp play other than the fact that if they put out more dps people would be screaming ZOMG they have 15k health and crit for 2k??? nerf em!

I've been playing WOW for 2+ years now and everytime I see pvp hurt pve, it makes me wish there was a viable pve alternative to WOW. The same is true for when pve hurts pvp. Watching a T6 fury/arms warrior destroy waves of people wearing gladiator gear is equally depressing.

Personally, I wouldn't mind it if blizz made gear case specific; pve for pve and pvp for pvp. Hell, they could take it one step further by making servers strictly for raiding/pve'rs (no battlegrounds, no arenas) and I would be happier than I am now.

Wolfgangdoom
 

The game is getting old. The old timers for the most part have turned inot crotchety, grumpy old men who have no patience for the newcomers. That takes people out of the loop for 5 mans. There is no really good reason for people to go back to 5 mans once they are geared anymore. Not like the old days when strat and scholomance had lots of valuable things that made the runs profitable. That takes people away from group. PVP because you can do it on your own schedule. Even though it may take longer You can get your gear without other people. That takes people away from grouping.

Add these things to Bad design of LFG tool. The level to the real game mindset. The fact that because it is getting harder and harder to get groups more and more people are getting to 60 with no instance experience or only having been power run through them and you have the problem of TOXIC Pugs.

Then the final nail on the coffin. A tank who is willing to run the instances for his stuff can get a group 3 times easier than a dps class and 2 times easier than a healing class. They gear up faster and then quit pugging.

And every one of these things is directly related to the design decisions made by the devs. Especially the Mudflation fix to gear in BC. WOTLK is going to initially make it seem better because everyone at level cap will be leveling. But then I predict this will be an even worse problem.

Better get your groups quickly when the expansion comes out.
 

It's an interesting problem. My first lvl 60 was a warrior, but had I really understood what a warrior was for I wouldn't have chosen that class at all. I quickly realized that I really only had one choice with that class and like the article says, solo play as prot spec sucks. I'm actually happy to go full on protection and be a tank, but I can't run with groups all of the time so that option is very limited. I've since leveled a couple of classes beyond that warrior and I am now debating whether to level a pally or druid to 70 or go with the warrior. i am hopeful that warriors will get some love in WOTLK, but depending on that right now is a risk. I'm leaning toward starting up a pally and at least having both at 70 before WOTLK.
 

"They are noob targets in pvp, often running ram shack at cloth'ies in hopes of dealing what looks like damage before a dps class gets annoyed"
I don't know which game you are playing. I'm playing 2vs2 and 3vs3 pvp with my priest and to me warriors look like nearly unstoppable juggernauts of destruction. They were able to two-shot me back then when I was decked in PvE-epics. And regardless of my gear a good equipped warrior deals very good damage, renders me nearly unable to move and makes my heals a bad joke with his mortal strike. Talk with your local gladiator, warriors *are* strong in PvP.

"The old timers for the most part have turned inot crotchety, grumpy old men who have no patience for the newcomers."
I for myself am more than happy to tell a newcomer a trick or two. Problem is: Most of them don't seem to want tips. You tell them how to get their efficiency through the roof and they simply ignore what you say and keep playing like before. I'm dreaming of a newbie who tells me at the beginning of an instance that he is new and could need some advice. Things would be so much easier..
 

well kiseran i've run with one or two of those lately. The big problem is as soon as someone admits they are a noob I lose at least one usually 2 members of the run right there. Excuse? "Sorry I don't want to waste my time".

Don't know what the solution is but its a no win situation for those of us that like to group. No one wants to run with a newb. And every day there are more newbs and less old timers. And the fact that nothing in the old leveling areas forces people to learn how to play thier characters in groups is just making it worse
 

sam: It isn't true. Druids still lack the versatility of tanking tools that warriors have. That's the reason why I pretty much retired my druid as a tank in favor of my warrior. In particular:

#1. Warriors have a means to get over 100% avoidance. Druids lack this. Certain battles exploit this fact (Illidan's Shear).

#2. Warriors have a means to break fear every 30 seconds. Druids lack this. Certain battles exploit this (Any sort of dragonish encounter/periodic fear)

#3. Warriors have a means to drink potions. Druids lack this.

#4. Warriors have a means to temporarily raise their health (Last Stand) in a dangerous situation. Druids lack this.

#5. Warriors have a means to disarm an opponent, which can make a big difference in damage output (Hex Lord Malacrass comes to mind). Druids lack this.

#6. Warriors have a means to temporarily reduce all damage taken by 75%, on a long cooldown. Druids lack this.

#7. Warriors have a means to reflect hostile magic. Certain battles exploit this. Druids lack this.

Even with good itemization, these are all structured, active class abilities that warriors have over druids in tanking scope. It means that a warrior can tank a wider variety of encounters much more easily than a druid can. It means that the designers can make a boss who has a key component of needing to be disarmed every minute, or massive damage ensues. It makes it possible to have a boss like Kael'thas who fires sequential Pyroblasts, where reflecting one would be a lot easier and less spikey in damage taken than needing to eat all three.

Druids have three things more than warriors: More armor, more health, more dodge. None of these are 'active' abilities, which means that it is more difficult to design around.

The druid makes up for the lack of tanking versatility with other versatility, like being able to swap weapons and deal reasonable damage.

Giving druids better itemization wouldn't change much at all. It is foolish to think that it would, unless it is for things like trash mobs that have no noteworthy abilities. If that is the case... nobody would care.

--Rawr
 

Since when do druids have poor itemization? I've gotten 2 feral druids to 70 and it's pretty good and they keep improving it. A druid can put together superb tanking and DPS gear from crafting, quests, and regular instances. Enough to be more than ready for Kara. And then the tier sets and badge rewards are great too.

It is a shame that warrior tanks suck at anything else but as a druid tank I can happily DPS and solo quest.
 

Brent: Feral itemization is lacking compared to others. Here what I mean:

In Karazhan, there are two items specifically geared for feral druids. One of them is reasonably statted for tanking (Zierhut's Treads). The other is for DPS (Terestian's Stranglestaff). The armor cape and ring from the rep rewards are reasonable.

In T4 instances, aside from the T4 set itself, there is extremely lacking equipment. Belt and wrist slots are better served with blue quest rewards than any epic gear. Leg slot without 25-man is stuck with the clefthoof armor. The only upgrade to Earthwarden for a tanking weapon is a trash drop (Wildfury Greatstaff) from from SSC. There is nothing after that, even in BT/Hyjal/Sunwell.

Before 2.3, there was no better tanking bracer than Umberhowl's Collar (possibly the season 2 feral wristguards from PvP... yes, force the druids who want to pvp to pve). Neither was there a better tanking belt than the S2 honor belt, unless you somehow had access to hearts of darkness.

Even in ZA, there's only one item that's really geared toward feral druids (Malacrass Staff), but it is for DPS rather than tanking. The current best source of tanking feral gear outside of tier pieces is badge gear.

That's the other main reason I retired my feral druid for my warrior. I can get full sets of epic tanking gear from Kara, Gruul's + Magtheridon, ZA + Badges, SSC + TK, Hyjal + BT, and Sunwell. I can get full sets of tanking gear for my druid from badges and pvp.

--Rawr
 

Interestingly enough, my guild doesn't handle it this way at all. We have 4 solid players (two prot warriors, a feral druid and a prot paladin) who all take a MT role, depending on the fight. We tend not to switch out the primary MT on a per-boss basis, although we do a little bit of that.

Plus there are also a number of fights in TBC which require shared tanking duties. If you asked anybody in my guild who was MT, you'd probably get a number of different answers.

Sadly, though, things aren't perfect for us, either. We don't have a tank shortage - in addition to the four main tanks, we have another prot warrior and two other feral druids who can swap in at need. But we're barely managing to keep the minimum number of healers - if one person is out, we're scrambling with alts and friends to try to make up the balance.
 

deathknights r tankzorz
 

I'm gonna laugh when everyone finds out the same percentage of people playing deathknights would rather go dps than tank.

You could add 10 tanking classes to the game and it wouldn't help.
 

I have to disagreed to everyone who thinks that multiple specs or a free/reduced prices for spec changes should be allowed. It would help out, kinda, but over all it would be just as useful as if some just bought a 70 tank who never has played one before. One needs practice to be a good tank/healer, the right gear and spec are only part of the equation. If this option was allowed you we see a major drop in quality of tanks/healers. I want someone who knows the class, not a week-end warrior.

I'm currently playing a prot Pally and I have noticed no problems in slow lvl'ing. Any mob can be taken out in less than 20 second, with each additional mob engaged at the same time will take 5 seconds less. And this is will regular gear, nothing fancy here, at 36 I'm still using the pally quest weapon as primary dps. But maybe I used to running nothing but healers and tanks. Perhaps if I rolled a mage I would see that I can take out mobs in 10 seconds or less.

Point being I see no problem in lvl'ing as non DPS specs. I've hit 70 as a priest without a single point in Shadow, and it felt I was lvl'ing quicker than my Hunter. Once again, maybe I'm just in the dark on how fast you can go, but I don't think there is a problem with solo'ing, I think others got spoiled on Rogues and Warlocks.

And yes, Sam, I agreed. I'm even willing to bet there will be less DK tanks than the other classes. Sure it will be dabbled with, but most are going be doing PvP.
 

Having played a druid, mage,hunter and priest. And never having had a problem soloing any of them. I can't imagine a priest leveling faster than a hunter.

Hunters are literally easymode leveling. I could do group quests alone as a hunter. ANd that was the only time things were difficult.

If you really know how to play a hunter and get the right kind of gear and spec it truly is the easiest solo class. Now grouping as a hunter is more of a challenge to do right but that's a different post.
 

I wanted to add another problem with finding tanks and healers.

As you level solo the ideal numbers of tanks to healers to dps is 0:0:1.

Then in 5 mans the ideal ratio 1:1:3. 5 mans are where people should learn the basics of agro management, DPS, positioning, voice coms, co-operation and specialization. If we consider 1:1:3 an ideal 25 man raids are clearly broken.

25 man raid rarely--if ever--have 20% (5) tanks usually 3-4. So its theoretically possible to want to be prot tank and not get a raid slot. Add to that is numbers of healers is overly large--running 7 to 8 healers isn't uncommon. I don't think I know of any raiding group that runs 5 tanks, 5 healers, and 15 DPS.

This imbalance from the 5 man ideal causes numbers of both healers and tanks to shrink. Warriors wont be willing to prot up for 5 mans if they don't get some 25 man action and healers would get frustrated with not getting 5 man action (or as much as they should). Add the chronic tank shortage to a less fun solo healing build and you have a formula for disaster.

If you head over to www.leftoversraiding.org can see the rosters for 100s of raids ranging from KZ to Sunwell if you don't have a feel for 25 man slotting.

PS most of the time I find the most challenging tanking actually in heroics. Raids can be so punishing that if all the parts aren't working nearly perfectly, the raid wipes regardless of tank skill. And every pull is planned to a far higher level and everything accounted for.

Heroics usually have the tank multi-tanking 3-4 mobs. That makes a warrior's life very interesting.