With war within being out for a little bit and people feeling out their classes, what Tank spec does everyone think is best for m+ from a pug perspective. With my work schedule ill never be in an organized group so
Bear druid feels the bets to me atm, nice damage and decent self sustain/cd’s
Pushing high? Protection Warrior/Bear Druid are strong all rounders.
Pushing mid? Blood DK is pretty good and has strong self sustain.
Others are viable because of the shortage. I’ve tanked a bit on my main and it’s Brewmaster ‘the least numerically popular’ it was fine!
From a pug perspective in M+ and ignoring tuning, a tank that has access to consistent ranged pulling, ranged CC, more than one interrupt that isn’t exclusively tied to a stun, and any other bonus utility/externals to help the group are really good (such as dispels and healing). All tanks have access to a stun which is always super helpful for removing pressure.
Deathknight will always be an amazing pick for utility. Being able to pull ranged mobs instead of relying on an interrupt, or pulling a ranged shooter without needing to LoS is fantastic. Being able to aoe-pull mobs in general is really good for cleave. Self healing on death strike is very reliable. Death grips will also interrupt CC-able mobs from doing uninterruptable channeled casts. Purgatory is still a really good ‘oh shoot’ incase you die, or take a big risk.
Paladin is also pretty good… I think? I don’t know if tuning killed their self/party healing potential, but it can be pretty good to at least throw freedom, protection, and sacrifice onto someone to offer a means of dispel or damage reduction from a powerful dot. Ranged pull that also silences and interrupts the first mob is insanely satisfying. Access to cleanse may be niche in some cases. AoE disorient with Blinding Light is also extremely helpful for multiple casters that can be CC’d. Ardent defender still an alright ‘oh shoot’ incase you die and are proactive about it.
I wish I could speak more on the others. I prefer a swiss army knife approach of being able to cover roles the rest of your group should be handling, only because in pugs you never know what you’ll get as far as player skill goes, and composition can be limiting. The fact you are willing to pick up tanking at all is a huge boon for everyone, as there are no Bad tanks right now.
I’ll always advocate for Paladin and Druid simply due to their utility
Narrator: It did
This was what I was talking about, Not the meta pick, but who performs the best when the players arent the best and you need to interrupt, heal, or be sturdy enough to let your team ignore you and focus on getting everyone else stable again.
Please say Psyche :C I really liked the healing utility of prot paladin to take pressure off a healer who is playing catch-up or solving their puzzle box of dispels, CC and CD’s when M+ affixes are firing off in all directions nonstop
Warrior is super good.
That said, the best tank i played with so far this season was a monk.

That said, the best tank i played with so far this season was a monk.
Thats crazy as they seem to require a lot of healing. Did they do anything special?
Well if they anything like me this expansion I decided to do tanking for the first time and I went monk. Being new at it the path of learning to tank wasn’t pretty. But now at least no one dies anymore unless they being dumb.
The one that joins.
Or has the best gear.
VDH absolutely craters every single other tank spec in terms of damage, and I haven’t found it too difficult to heal at low (5 and below) keys. It’s probably twice the damage of the other tanks. It’s not even close. VDH usually ends up around 700-800k dps in the keys I run.
This likely changes later on toward KSH, but I feel like all the tanks start getting trucked at some point, shrug.

Thats crazy as they seem to require a lot of healing. Did they do anything special?
The pacing of his pulls were spot on. He was fast, but the rest of the group was also good. No one took unevcessary damage, good interupt usage. I was able to dps alot and never really got super mana starved. I dont know anything about monks but his damage mitigation was really good too. This was in NW 10
I would go with druid bear (even though they don’t look as cool as me )
There is warrior and a couple of other specs that try to tank.
I like the monk tank but once the dracthyr can be warriors I’m going to make one and try it.
after messing around in delves, I am just starting to get out into m+. i have only played bear so far.
I picked it to start with because I will also be living the pug life.
bear is probably the best source of mark of the wild. feral and balance aren’t around much and resto is not as prevalent either.
dispels are important right now and you can dispel yourself.
there are a lot of web snares. shifting into cat (safely!) and back to bear frees you up.
moonfire pulls for packs and ranged mobs are pretty sweet
offheals are helpful
not the best in any particular category (damage, defensives, mobility, interrupts, etc) but solid in each category.
Having played all of them but monk, Druid is best for pug. Warrior can be better in a premade, why?
Warrior does not have reliable self healing like a Druid with lunar/regen. Yes, warrior takes much less damage, but once damage goes beyond breaking through ignore pain, you absolutely need a healer to get you back to full, not the case with Druid.
Druid has decurse, very good in this rotation. They can also brez, there is nothing better in a pug than a brez.
They can mitigate a ton of physical up to 85% with iron fur.
The weakness of warrior is the self sustain and utility. The weakness of the Druid is magic damage, and at times it can be scary. I use incarn or save incarn for heavy magic damage pulls to mitigate. Both are good, but I feel Druid is more pug friendly.
Blood death knight. A good one doesn’t require a lot of healing once they get going, they have a ranged battle res, position control with Gorefiends, multi-grips, which also doubles as extra kicks. I absolutely love a good BDK as a healer in pugs, even in DF S3/S4 when DHs were considered busted.