Easiest tank class? (Disability)

Hey guys,

Just returned to the game recently and I’m looking to make a tanking class that’s great for M+ as well as be decent in arenas.

I have issues with the nerves in my left arm so I can’t use a ton of keybinds (probably 5-6) so I’m looking for a relatively easy tanking class that I can excel at. I’m looking to boost my character today so I’m very anxious to get some advice from you all.

Thanks!!

1 Like

Guardian druid

  • Most rotational globals are filled by thrash, mangle, swipe
  • Only two defensive cooldowns, one with long cooldown
  • Bunch of utility spells but in most situations they are not used with high frequency
5 Likes

As a Guardian druid I am deeply hurt…but also have to agree and was going to suggest the same

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It’s ok, I put all my transformation toys on my guardian druid’s action bars and use a different one each time the previous one expires. It keeps me awake watching all the hilarious animations that come out for bear abilities, like using the ogre transformation toy from kovork in arathi highlands.

Guardian Druid Absolutely. 3-4 offense abilities, one active mitigation, one heal, two defensive cds and a taunt. For next level play, you have four cc abilities. You do have other abilities granted to you by which affinity you take, but you don’t really have to use those if you’re doing easy content. You could probably macro some abilities together with ALT modifiers to reduce the number of keybinds even more.

Also on another note, if you ever want to try another class, you could go with frost dk. I have a buddy who’s missing most of his fingers and he only plays Frost DK with as many passive abilities as possible. He’s actually really good, with a 2.3k io score, and is never a liability in any key I bring him to.

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I still feel like there is more on guardian then most tanks. Since it’s the weakest of the tanks right now for M+, I’d still take another direction. Of all the tanks, I hate healing druids the most. This is the case if I’m on my resto druid or disc.

I have a warrior tank and they can perform at a pretty high level with fairly few binds considering.

Dps:
Thunderclap
Shield Slam
Devastate
Revenge

Defensives:
Shield Block
Ignore Pain
Shield Wall
Last Stand
Demo Shout

Remainging Binds:
Kick
Charge
Heroic Leap

Utiltiy/CC:
Rallying Cry
Intimidating Shout
Storm Bolt
Shockwave

Misc:
Taunt
Heroic Throw
Avatar (dps cd, but can be used as a defensive as well)

There are a few other items, but the majority of these could honestly be clicked on with the right setup.

I have a 5 button mouse and put Kick, Stormbolt, and Shockwave on my mouse. This really leaves your main dps ability for your left hand, along with ignore pain and shield block. You could get away with 5-6 keys on your left hand and a few on your right. Then, most of your other abilities can just clicked. As you get more experience, you’ll know when damage is coming to counter with big defensives, or just work with your healer to know when to use them.

Guardian is the right answer. You can even make a one-button rotation macro which you can mash to hold threat;

/castsequence reset=6 Thrash, Mangle, Swipe, Swipe

You’ll also need keys for movement (WASD) and Ironfur for active mitigation.

If you can handle more, then your other priority abilities are Skull Bash (your kick), Growl (your taunt), Moonfire (extra DPS / threat) and Frenzied Regen (self healing). Perhaps consider binding these to extra mouse buttons?

Don’t get me wrong, obviously /castsequence isn’t the optimal way to play druid (for example it ignores all procs), but it’s a “good enough” option if you struggle with dexterity issues. I don’t think any other tank has a basic rotation that lines up neatly like this.

Another good option to consider is one of the sit-back-and-heal specs like Holy Priest or Resto Shaman. Healers tend to have a much lower APM than tanks or DPS and use about 5ish core spells for 90% of their healing. I had a mate with only one hand who played a pretty damn good Resto Shaman; he controlled movement with the stump of his left arm, and used a 6 button (I think?) mouse for all his casts.

3 Likes

Blood DK is also very simple. The entire rotation is only 5 buttons (Marrowrend, Heart Strike, Death Strike, Death and Decay, Blood Boil), and unlike other tanks there is no “active mitigation”, just choosing when to cast Death Strike to heal yourself.

Blood DK also has the advantage that rather than chasing after mobs or LOSing to position them, you can just death grip them to you.

3 Likes

If you havent already, look atr mmo mouses, 12 buttons at your right thumb could help some issues, it did for me.

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Paladin. Always Paladin.

Definitely not prot warrior. I have more things bound on him then any other class or spec ive played this expac, and the talent options that give you less things to push are very sub optimal.

Druid and DK have a lot less things to put on bars.

Op, you may also consider getting a Razer Tartarus. It’s a 20-ish button mouse with an analog stick, so you don’t have to move it. I’ve not used one, but I’ll bet they make left/right models and you could probably change the hotkeys and analog stick to do whatever you want.

Every tank can ‘do more’. The OP question is essentially which one can do the basics to be ‘ok’ with the fewest buttons and that is definitely the guardian druid. Prot warrior has both way more cooldowns and way higher uptime of cooldowns (due to anger management talent) combined with an extremely proc-heavy playstyle. Do you think someone with hand/finger issues wants to be pressing different buttons constantly based on procs or pressing mostly the same one (swipe) for most of their GCDs ?

And to those recommending prot pally they have twice the number of baseline rotational buttons (including SOTR) than guardian druid so again that goes against the OP’s wishes.

2 Likes

There isn’t that much going on for warriors though. My issue with druid is they are the most difficult to heal of any of the tank specs. It’s very unforgiving.

just look at what the top guardians are running as well. In addition to their normal utility pieces like soothe and bres, they are also taking ursol’s vortex, typhoon, and galactic guardian for moonfire.

All of those are essential abilities for guardian. It’s disingenuous to say they have so little going on, when they have just as much. If the OP is looking to get into M+, there is still a lot of requirements for guardian to make it perform well. Warriors have a decent amount of utility, but it really boils down to just a few key abilities they need to focused on.

The key count between the two is essentially the same.

No. Not even close lol. But its not even that. It’s the APM side of it. Warriors are always having an ability to use. Like you’ve normally got 3 lined up to use in a row and not enough time it seems to get them up fast enough.

Guardian is just waiting around for your rage builders to come off of CD

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Technically speaking, Ironfur can be macroed to every offensive ability, giving it 100% uptime very easily.

If we were to talk about minimum buttons to do OK (not amazing) in low keys or m0, the op could have this setup:

Mangle+ IF
Thrash + IF
Swipe + IF
Moonfire (maybe + Taunt)
Taunt
Regen + Health Potion
Bark skin
SI

Yes this doesn’t take cc into account, but if we’re talking about as few buttons as possible that looks pretty good to me. It at least gives our disabled OP something to start with, which he can build upon and get better at eventually. That’s the goal here afaik.

Guardians fill every spare GCD with swipe. They are never waiting for anything. The only tank class that has spare GCDs is Death Knight.

Yes guardians fill spare GCDs with swipe, and that makes up a lot of GCDs, and you’re pressing the same keybind. Your hands are not flying around the keyboard like you would managing prot warrior procs and cooldowns.

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Op: “I have dexterity issues”

Some people in the thread: “This class only has 27 binds and has a lot of its strength built around cd management”

5 Likes

Accurately stated.

1 Like