Personally, I’ve been tanking with a shield and one-hander from the beginning, but have played around a little with swapping to a two-hander in SM GY.
Actually, we were running with me and a feral druid. Either of us can easily swap to tank (him to bear form, me to defensive stance + shield & one-hander) if things get hairy, but mostly they didn’t.
I’ve been surprised actually at how easy it is to stay alive, even if DPS start pulls, pets pull extra mobs, and enhance shaman swear by Rockbiter… it’s hard to say, “Don’t do these things we didn’t do before.” when there aren’t really any consequences to doing them!
EDIT: I should note, that there aren’t really any consequences other than making the healer and tank work harder; but I doubt DPS are really noticing that.
Looks like healers don’t know about down ranking and tanks don’t know about the AH.
You always prefire downranked heals, there is never a time you don’t do this unless you’re on a farm fight.
Also it doesn’t matter if your shield is 5 levels too low, they give a large finite amount of armor that a weapon dosn’t give. Also holding threat doesn’t matter. Just let the 2h guy die, then threat will transfer to you and taunt exists.
It’s because with a one hander and shield we don’t take or deal near enough damage to generate the rage needed to sunder, shout, sunder, revenge to hold aggro off mages and hunters popping every bit of dps they can muster and then we’re scrambling with a melee taunt to try to gather crap back up. I stance and weapon swap constantly from 2 hander def and bat stance to 1 hand shield defense stance once i know everything is mad at me.
If your tank is waddling in with a 2 hander, never swapping stances or gear than yeah you might have a dud but don’t assume everyone doing it is bad.
This. Rage generation, and therefore threat generation sucks at early levels with a sword and board. If the tank is slightly over-levelled and has decent gear, this shouldn’t be a problem until the level 60 dungeons. Once you’re geared, you can tank all the 60 dungeons as 2h arms very easily lol. It makes the run go a lot faster too. Healer just needs to be aware. My buddy plays a priest and he finds it boring when I use a shield, he requests that I 2h tank because it’s a snoozefest for him otherwise, and dungeons take too long. We used to do this back in Vanilla too, for Stratholme, DM, BRD, etc. With rando healers though, I’d use a shield unless rage was a problem.
If you can keep threat off healer and the DPS can get the pack to zero before the pack gets the tank to zero (aka not be bad), then holding aggro for the DPS doesn’t matter at all.
State your requirements upon joining the group, if you suspect the group will not meet your requirements find another group.
As a healer you have the advantage to find a group that suits you.
Any tank that will lie to you to get you to the instance isn’t worth running with, hit the portal if he pulls with his 2-hander on.
At this point you are already at the instance entrance and (if the massive queue you went through to get here is any indication) there will be other like minded people around to form a group. Hit /1 and profit.
Oh man if you get your jimmies in a twist over a warrior 2h tanking scarlet monastery just you wait until full t2.5 warriors are 2h tanking most of mc/bwl and your mom/dad gamer mc raiders who see this try and replicate
you may wanna go back to retail then, 2H tanking will be seen till high 40’s. I tank it and idk how they are losing 1/2 HP on single hits, maybe if they are lower leveled yes, you’re a druid-put some HoT’s before pulls, take a quick drink-ezpz.
When the tank is a few levels lower than the mobs, it can get dense. If he is on the same level, or above, it isn’t much of a problem. Not to mention that, as a start, dps neither CC or even target the tanks target.
Problem is 2hand tanking it literally means you need to drink after every single pull.
So its a mess in every single way, not just the tank.
It’s better than wearing a shield, like actually better.
More rage, you kill things quicker so you take less damage overall, healer doesn’t need as much mana because things are getting deleted in like 3 globals provided he knows what he’s doing. I do 200+ dps on pulls when I’m tanking with a 2h
However, a bad tank is gonna be a bad tank regardless if he’s got a 2h or a sword and board on.
I’ve been tanking, but all the good tanks before…50ish? Are using 2hs to tank and if you have one that’s wearing a shield right from the jump in a dungeon be afraid, be very afraid.
Only time I’ve needed a shield was the boar in RFK and Herod in SM, but I was also tanking those dungeons when those bosses were red to me
stop it lol, you aren’t going to find a warrior tank with a 1H and shield till at least 45, if you do-then they are prolly not going to be very good and don’t know their own capabilities as a warrior.
Warriors can tank the 60 dungeons with a 2hander, Skarm does it exclusively. You might need to be geared and need buffs, but it’s beyond viable.
Maybe this is an ignorance issue as well. There are a lot of first time WoW players on classic right now. Classic is drawing in people from the literal wood work.
This isn’t true. What I’m trying to explain to tanks, is that you are only able to use a 2hander because you are putting excesive pressure on the healer’s mana. Ergo, you just having someone else take the burden.