Hi everyone, I have played DPS, specifically ranged DPS for a long time and I want to give tanking a try, even though it seems very intimidating with knowing what to pull, how much, etc. and with that being said, which tanks work nice for a good player but someone who hasn’t tanked before?
Imo, prot pally is pretty easy to pick up for a beginner. But I’d suggest maybe trying some trial toons out to see which one you like the most.
Have heard that druid bear is most straightforward, tons of HP and not much active mitigation required. Haven’t played one myself though.
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I would strongly suggest guardian.
It’s very easy to pick up, forgiving of mistakes, and is the only tank that feels “tanky” right now.
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Vengeance DH really has a great tool kit. It has a lot of mobility, and can kite very easily.
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Paladin and Druid are the easiest to learn and master, both are 4-5 button face smashers.
Monk, DH and DK are average in difficulty.
Warrior is the most complex.
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They’re all pretty sweet atm, except for warrior. Hopefully they get buffed soon.
DH has the fewest buttons to press. Guardian druid has a pretty mindless rotation with lots of tools to work with. Prot pally is insane when played well. Monks are very good when played well, but they seem to need you to keep alert with your active mitigation.
DH, druid, or pally all will fit your prescription, choose the one you like.
Edit: I know nothing about DKs.
DH is the boomboom tank spec, has by far the least amount of keybinds, pretty straightforward and is currently meta atm
I would like to point out that while you can play a tank that is more forgiving, the rest of your group will not be.
It is M+.
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Although everything that has been said is correct, I would not try guardian if you have not played a druid before especially for or in M+.
Prot warrior teaches you how to tank. Regardless of “the meta” you can succeed as a prot warrior . It teaches you the basics of how to “mitigate” when to mitigate and how to react to dangerous situations . I would recommend learning on either a Druid or a warrior. Both are as complex as you make them. The majority of people who insist warrior is awful by a huge margin… doesn’t play warrior . Give it a shot on either though
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If you’re looking for something idiot proof, Guardian Druid is a very basic, yet incredibly sturdy tank that gives you plenty of room for making mistakes without instantly dying. It’s a bit boring once you get the basics down, but becomes a much more interesting spec (and class as a whole) once you start looking to maximize your DPS and utility through the different affinity talents.
Prot Paladin is also a very solid option, albeit with a bit less room for error than Druids.
Demon Hunter is the best tank. The choice is obvious
Druid Bear. Tankiest passively, least kiting required, simple/understandable tanking mechanics, threat and mitigation don’t share the same resources so you aren’t required to make that kind of decision-making.
I play a Prot Warrior and I would say it is pretty awful right now, not just in terms of effectiveness but also jank (pulling is awkward in terms of GCDs to ramp up both mitigation AND threat, especially on fort week). The new legendary for M+ in 9.0.5 should fix that on-pull problem though.
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So from my experience, I main a BDK and have dabbled a little bit with some of the other tanks:
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Bear: I haven’t played it this xpac but it seems strong enough. Probably the easiest to play and can be very tanky with no downtime in it’s active mitigation windows. It is very simple though, I would likely get bored with it. But being a druid always has it’s advantages.
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DH: Again pretty easy to play. DH has a lot of different ways to stay alive and have good utility specifically for M+ with their sigils. They also have good mobility, so once they run out of defensives they can simply jump away and wait for them to come back up. Currently considered the best M+ tank since they can jump in do a lot of damage to hold aggro and jump out when their defense is down. However, you are VERY squishy when nothing is up making it a little more dangerous if you don’t know your limits.
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Paladin: I haven’t played one at max level but it seems simple enough. You generate holy power w/ blessed hammer, shield throw, etc. and spend it to get more armor/self-healing. From what I’ve seen they can be very tanky at the start of a pull but once they run out of juice they become rather squishy.
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DK: My main is BDK and I can say out of all the tanks it is probably the most fun but also the most difficult to play. It is very easy to die as a BDK if you mismanage your resources. DKs main mitigation is taking damage and then healing it back up with death strike, as such DKs take a lot more damage then other tanks and become a bit more prone to one-shots. But it is a very fun and rewarding playstyle, if you are managing runes/runic power correctly you can face-tank most packs.
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Brewmaster: Actually not super difficult to play. Monks us stagger to smooth their damage intake which works passively it makes it so monks are basically never one shot by anything but they in turn require more healing intake (They are almost the opposite of DKs in this regard). The only thing that really needs to be managed is purifying brew to remove stagger and celestial brew. Plus monks get RoP (which is kinda OP in M+) and great mobility. Monk is probably one of the safest tanks to play but you are very reliant on your healer.
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Prot War: Dunno never played it. Seems ok though with good physical mitigation. Only way to mitigate magic damage is spell reflect which is kind of not ok.
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Eh? You have IP and Demo Shout on top of spell reflect which is a 25 second cooldown. Warriors are excellent against magic damage, it is one of their most redeeming qualities, what are you talking about?
On fights like 2nd boss of Plaguefall for instance, you can reflect every injection which saves a massive amount of damage.
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To learn on? Something that doesn’t require complex resource management, ie a paladin or druid. Paladin has many skills to cover mistakes and I found it ridiculously easy to play after my DK. Plus it helps that Prot Paladin is wildly overtuned at the moment.
He’s asking for a forgiving class, not optimal power
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I’ve played prot and VDH. Prot is one of the hardest tanks to play after entry level, lol.
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That new legendary is huge. I’m saving all the ash .
Guess it’s subjective. I’ve played brew and prot in end game content (raid & some keys in BFA), warrior prot in some mid keys (up to 10) in BFA, and I thought prot pally was easiest, but that could be because I’ve been playing longest.
Again, OP should try out trial toons for a feel of them.