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[Column] World of Warcraft: The Best Tank Classes in WoW
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
This week in the WoW Factor we look at upcoming honor changes to World of Warcraft Battlegrounds and I attempt to rank the tanking classes by how fun they are to play. I bet you’ll disagree with my first pick!
Read more of Reza Lackey's WoW Factor: Ranking the Tanks.
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Early Cataclysm blood dk being able to spam the blood rune heal and do decent dps as well was the most fun I ever had as a tank in WoW. The rest of the time I was an arms War. or a holy Pally.
21 year MMO veteran
PvP Raid Leader
Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
I loved Frost DK (DW) tanking up until they took it away and made Blood the only DK tanking spec.
Having gone through all of the tank classes, I still prefer playing a pally tank, though to caveat I also have an active warrior tank and a shaman that tanks scenarios with rockbiter.
"the Death Knight is a very fun class to play and you often feel pretty bad ass especially being able to wield two, two-handed weapons!"
When did DK dual wield 2handed weapons?
Edit: reading fail, they never have done 2 2-handed weapons.
I used to tank and dps as frost DW, but they did that with two 1H weapons. They never had the equivalent to the Warrior's Titan Grip, which the author may be confusing.,
Originally they could tank in frost (spec and presence) with 1 2H or 2 1H, but never 2 2H.
in fact, Frost Presence was the ONLY tanking presence, though they could tank in any of the 3 specs.
Ummmmm, shaaa, it was! Unless you're joking about joking about it. Or saying it wasn't a "real" tank spec.
I'd love to say that I love all my tanks equally, but I do play favorites from time to time. My Pally is my mainstay. From a survivability perspective, it's great. If you wanted to like tank a raid and eat a sandwich, you can totally play this class one-handed.
Just dinged 90 on my Warrior, and I had a lot of fun with him, but unless you're constantly pulling mobs, survivability is questionable at times. I always tried to keep smaller mobs around so I can pick them off when I was losing health and they trip Victory Rush.
DK is fun, survivability is alright. I like playing the class, but you usually get some sighs whenever you enter a raid with one.
Just playing my Druid right now and loving it! Wish I'd played it sooner. I just tanked and healed a dungeon yesterday with it. Not sure that I'll be able to do that at higher levels, but it was definitely fun, lol.
MOST fun, though has to be my Monk. It's just a more complex setup than most. So it's probably the most difficult class to play, but has a great balance between damage and survivability.
So, as per usual, Pally is easy mode (or can be) and Monk is most fun overall.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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When DK's were released Frost was their tanking tree.
Guess you just started.
How is that a reading fail? that's a direct quote from the article.....
I agree that druids are.. basic in their skill rotation but i always get a nice fuzzy feeling from just lumbering in to battle swiping left and right like some four-legged engine of destruction. Have mained a druid since Wrath and it is the only class i have two of as one is feral/feral and the other is balance/restoration.
Playing a druid tank also have the added bonus of never knowing what the next patch will bring as druids are the class that have seen the most sweeping changes from patch to patch.
This have been a good conversation
no only the presence was for tanking as far as i can remember every tank was unholy.. anyone else miss the blood dps specc?
I had fun once, it was terrible.
Actually, in WotLK, Frost was a tank spec, and great for AoE tanking.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
Frost was the tanking spec back when they released. No one ever tanked unholy unless you had some clueless fucks.
Fine, we'll compromise. I'll get my way & you'll find a way to be okay with that.
That's the problem with reading comments instead of talking in person. He said Frost was never a tanking spec. Many of us read that as him meaning Death Knights never (since creation of the class) used Frost to tank. That's irregardless of the article or when it was changed, and was incorrect.
For everything else, yeah what you said.. especially for DPS and the presences... For tanking, Frost was the only threat presence at the time, and blood presence was actually used as a solo leveling spec much of the time.
EDIT: and when they made Blood THE tanking class they just swapped Blood Presence with Frost Presence so Blood Presence also became the tanking presence..
I hope Reza writes an article on best DPS classes.
I used to play a fire mage, but WoW stopped being fun for me when Blizzard did away with the talent trees.
It's not fun when you intended to be a glass cannon, but then get demoted to either AoE or crowd control.
Which didn't come until MoP. This whole side discussion erupted because folks didn't read -- WotLK.
In Cata, presences were used from anything like dumping runic power to gaining it (Blood was severely runic starved; Frost had to use Unholy presence to dump the stupidly crazy amounts of runic power that spec generated). Now, presences are role specific (similar to EQ2's stances in execution).
In WotLK, Blood was the MT tanking sub-class and stance. Frost was the AoE tanking sub-class, perfect for off-tanking when AoE mattered. Unholy performed more like Frost today. In Cata, the presences defined the roles more. Blood sometimes had to give up mitigation to gain more runic power. Frost was defined as a DPS 1-H dual welding spec (woe anyone using a 2-H then, which was nice because Frost would've needed on any weapon, especially 2-Hs otherwise to the detriment of too many melee specs). Unholy became more the anti-caster spec.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
i really loved what blizzard was doing with the death knight in early wrath frost dk tank was the most fun i ever had tanking and the choice and flexibility of tanking or dpsing in any tree was great
wish they would try stuff like that more
Rune weapon?
But I agree, Warrior is my favorite, with monk right behind. I don't like DK at all though, so my bottom 3 are druid, pally, dk. I miss Warrior's super tanking ability though. It seems like we are truly just a meat shield now. It used to be we could dodge and parry almost everything and block whatever wasn't. Now it's more about blocking and just taking hits to the face lol.
Rune weapon shouldn't count since you're not wielding it.It simply flies around smacking things.