Agree with this. This is Vanilla, this isn’t MoP+ where tanks did 100x DPS damage until level 89. You’re a LITERAL meat shield, you do crap damage, and for good reason.
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Yes all the time
there are terrible tanks, terrible dps and terrible healers
the warrior in question wasnt bad because he had a 2hnd he was bad because hes a bad player period. He would have been bad with a shield he would have been bad without one.
Making a vent thread about bad player is one thing, making a vent thread about a bad player and blaming it on the best way to go through content faster is another issue.
Its like complaining about a Lamborghini because someone was choosing to speed while driving one, the car or method of travel is not the issue the driver is.
This I will agree with.
Tanking with a 2 hander can be a viable tactic…but rarely exclusively.
Warriors have the ability to change stances and weapons with macros for a reason.
You may open with a 2 hander then swap in a shield after banking a rage pool
You may start with a shield and swap to a 2 hander for the last 2 mobs or so to bank rage for the next pull without taxing your healer and forcing them to drink after every pull.
Both are viable.
This is where we part ways.
Every instance is different.
Cash is tight atm for most players, so I understand the wish to not respec as a Warrior for instances.
2 handed tanking at times can be a great way to speed up an instance run, but many tanks don’t have a single point in Prot talents, and therefore aren’t using the appropriate spec.
Fury/Prot works, but it doesn’t work in every encounter with a 2 hander…and thats if you even have talents in prot in the first place.
The problem is the group.
Right now its a 4 vs 1 scenario
DPS want to do instances as fast as possible, and want the most threat generated to enable that process.
Tanks don’t want to change specs and have specs that are optimized for pure DPS and not a 2 hander tank blend spec like Fury/Prot.
But all 4 of them are blaming the healer when the content doesn’t support that philosophy, and then blame the healer with it fails.
With more knowledge available concerning 15 year old content, the game is easier.
The one thing however that hasn’t changed is that having a healer and tank communicating and coordinating an instance run to make it work efficiently hasn’t.
When your tank and DPS aren’t listening to the healer, on issues that should be immediately visible to anyone paying attention, that becomes the issue.
As a tank your healer is your partner in crime. Finding an appropriate blend to survival and DPS to make a fast and smooth instance run is key…that hasn’t changed.
When the complete burden falls on the healer due to selfish players not caring about visible issues, then you have a real problem.
Saying L2P doesn’t solve that issue.
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Most tanks are arms spec while leveling for tactical mastery.
Most tanks should open a pull of 4 or less mobs with charge > WW while with a 2h before swapping to 1h + shield.
Most tanks should swap to a 2h when there’s only one enemy left entering execute range; and then execute it.
Tanks can instantly swap their weapons on a whim, and they should be trying to utilize this as much as possible.
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Amen Brother!
/thread
I prefer tanking with a sword and shield and often find that the healers want me to tank with a 2h which is a little annoying. I like to be able to interrupt mobs with shield slam and get revenge procs through shield block.
You guys do you, I have never had an issue holding threat with a shield. If you need to sac ehp because you cant then its whatever
I tank with a 2her and my paladin friend heals. We run our own groups and know how to coordinate during dungeons so it is rarely an issue. That said, any warrior tank should have a weapon swap macro to swap to 1h/shield on the fly. Some situations require more mitigation and you should be ready for that.
This seems like it’s a situational thing… The tank’s gear and level should help dictate this, in my opinion.
A level 40 warrior in mostly plate 2h tanking SM makes some sense. A level 39 warrior in quest greens attempting the same makes less sense.
I suppose if the rest of the group has decent gear, or if they’re high enough level, this would matter less, too. Ultimately, if things are dying fast enough and the tank is taking most of the damage, then all is well (for what it’s worth, I’ve served extensively in all 3 rolls.)
The amount of people just flat out making things up right now, is astounding. Hell a dude was trying to talk like 30% of your total armour at lvl 18 would mean ANYTHING. It doesn’t.
You people are free to gatekeep and stick to a meta (that never existed btw, 2h and dual wield tanks were a thing in Vanilla), but while you’re screaming about how you’re somehow the victim, groups will take another healer, one that isn’t a moron, and they’ll clear content.
We’ll wave to you in our epics while you scream and cry that you’re somehow correct.
Morons.
Unless the dude is wearing leather, he’s geared properly.
30% of your AC at level 18 doesn’t mean alot, your right about that, but at higher levels when pull 5 to 7 elites that changes.
No Shield - 33% AC loss.
No Shield - No Block value, no Block rate
No Toughness - 10% AC loss
No Deflection - 5% pure avoidance loss
No Anticipation - 1.2% pure avoidance loss + .4% block loss
No Shield Specialization - 5% block rate reduction.
No Improve Shield Block - 1 less block per 10s.
Not all of those will apply to non shield tanking, but a tank without a shield can lose over 40% of their tanking profile.
I also agree, they did exist.
But most tanks back then understood there was a time and a place, even during the same pull, when it was necessary to swap back and forth between shield and no shield.
The only time as a Warrior it should be an issue is when your getting the absolute crap kicked out of you on heavy pulls…and on some pulls, in some instances this does happen.
No one is telling you that you can’t 2h tank.
Whats being said is that unless the content is trivial you won’t be doing it all the time unless your healer is very well geared or a fantastic healer willing to do so.
But on occasion you might want to look at how your healing is keeping up or just check in with them.
The correct answer to this debate is sometimes 2hander, sometimes sword plus shield.
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Plenty of people in this thread are telling tanks that they flat out aren’t allowed to 2h/dual wield tank. lol Come on dude.
I’ve been dual wield tanking since 20, and 2h tanked until 20. Only put on a shield for a very small amount of time. Been running with several guild healers and had ZERO issues. The only remote outlier was a Resto Druid that was wearing nearly all agi gear. And he still managed to heal me during a BRD Angerforge/Arena run. I was dual wielding there as well.
If you want to hide behind a fake wall claiming that it’s not do-able unless you’re over-leveled or the healer is fantastic, then you do you. But you’re flat out WRONG.
Please stop trying to gatekeep people. Bad tanks are bad because they don’t know how to tank in Vanilla/TBC, not because they choose to tank without a shield.
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A shield by itself does not perhaps but shield block is insanely strong.
In dungeons? Not really.
For raids, yes.
I played in vanilla ,not the entirety of it, but a lot of it. Never once after like lvl 20 did i see a tank using a 2 hander… If this did happen it wasnt as often as some would want you to think. They just say ya it happened cause it fits there narrative.
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2H tanking is being done if you overgeared the dungeon. Period.
Right now in Classic, most PuGs overgear the dungeon. Doing SM at level 35? Really? Do you know in beta Classic, those streamers… Asmongold were doing SM at level 20, the first level cap. They are doing SM level at level 20 and you are doing it level 35. You can 2H tank at level 35 becoz you overgeared the dungeon. But if you were Asmongold tanking SM at level 20… good luck if you do it with 2H tanking.
Who cares if it happened in vanilla or not? It’s happening now.