If you can tank without a shield it means one thing. You’re not pulling enough mobs at once. Show me a tank doing deadmines pulling a 3 elite pat, and 6-8 non elite mobs and surviving without a shield when the group is all lvl 17-20.
Sure you can be a dps meatshield for a couple mobs with a 2h, but you ain’t really tanking.
Our warriors leveled in dungeons together. 5 warriors without a healer, and they’d pull entire rooms of elites in SM at a time to AoE them all down.
/shrug
Wrong. It’s around 10% PLUS the block mitigation.
Not to mention the damage you may be missing out on, which can help to reduce mana usage as well.
Of course, it’s situational, preference based, and group composition, confidence, and competence dependent, but flat out saying a Warrior tank has to use a sword & board or is a bad tank is ill-informed.
I suggest finding a link to join the Classic Warrior (Fight Club) discord, if you’d like to actually familiarize yourself with math, logic, and actual facts of how Warrior tanking works.
Level of content doesn’t matter. Dungeon speed can be adjusted to suit lesser skilled players. The point is that the expectation is upon the Healer to make up for the Tank taking more damage than he should.
Since Classic launched, I’ve probably ran various instances up to SM 30 - 40 times, as an estimate.
I never have an issue with a shield-bearer. I always have issues with a 2 Hander. Dungeon gets cleared, sure. But I shouldn’t be expected to have to take up for easily corrected shortcomings.
Only if you’re blocking, and if you’re pulling a lot of mobs, Shield Block isn’t going to be blocking that much damage. The chance to block without it is low enough to be nearly negligible at those levels.
It absolutely does.
Exactly. The better the healer, the more damage the tank can be taking to deal more DPS.
As healers get better, warriors start wearing less mitigation gear and more DPS gear.
If you need a tank to wear full mitigation gear…
Oh, OK… enough said.
That’s your expectation. Typically, in my opinion/experience, any competent players in a PuG are and should be expected to make up for the lack of competence of less competent players in the group.
Having said that, there are many, many ways you can adjust accordingly. If your group is not very good. Then you’re going to have a hard time trying to go quickly, for sure.
Lol entire rooms? Complete bullshiat. Groups sure I can see that working, and it being slow with bandages and eating. Rooms or entire halls, no chance…unless it’s those small rooms of 1 group.
If your solution is to only run with tanks who wear shields, just do that. Attempting to lecture people who have no issue or struggles with a problem you have encountered is silly.
If this is the case, it would stand to reason that there is almost no Tank gear in higher end dungeons and raids. Why would they need it, right? Healers can just take up the slack while they wear DPS gear.
Sorry. I don’t buy it.
Skarmtank says hello. He fury/prot dual wield tanks which is superior.
I am leveling as full feral and heal dungeons as such with int gear and have not noticed a significant difference between tanks who use a 2h vs a shield. I also recall 2h tanking being common in vanilla which I healed as well.
Threat tends to be a far bigger issue in lower level dungeons than tank mitigation or healer mana. I could really care less what weapon set up the tank has as long as he holds aggro. Its not really til later levels that mitigation becomes enough of an issue that shields are required and by that point most tanks will be using them.
But if your wiping in something like SM and blaming it on the tank not having a shield then I find that highly questionable. I would be willing to bet that there are many other factors at play there besides a lack of a shield.
This is more of an academic question, but isn’t it possible to change up equips mid-combat? If you were willing to carry multiple equips in your inventory and set up a few macros, couldn’t you change your equipment to adapt to a situation somewhat? Or am I misunderstanding what’s possible with this game’s mechanics?
Not that I’m a tank build, but since I was planning on a dual-wield focus later on, it was always my intention to carry a good shield and swap it in if I need to. In theory, I was thinking that if I needed to switch from damage-mitigation to full offense or vice-versa, I might be able to do something with macros to make it happen quickly during combat.
Is that a viable approach to explore?
sorry i was such a bad healer when the tank taking so much damage, and i had no time to regen from 5s rule.
maybe if i play better, that wont happened 
Tanks transitioning to dps gear and talents to maximize TPS is the tradition. Mitigation directly decreases rage decreases threat.
If the tank marks a moon, I sheep it. I’ve done it plenty.
I even decurse, and everyone always seems amazed that is something that mages can do…
First, as of yet, I haven’t been in a group that has wiped. Came close, but then that’s when a Healer has to get to work.
Secondly, I’ve yet to see a difference in threat generated by either 2h or shield users, but I’ve seen a HUGE difference in damage taken.
Perhaps this is just my personal experience, and I’m being a bit biased, but I can only go on what I’ve seen with my own eyes.
Yes, this is what most tanks actually do. They swap to shield for interrupts, bosses, or hard-hitting packs.
At least that’s how it is on my server.
Not really, because…
Higher level content, or even higher tier content, e.g. BWL instead of MC, is going to deal more damage, have more mechanics, have stricter gear requirements, etc.
Yes, that’s exactly what they do.
Exactly. Much harder to heal 5 people at once than 1 person taking a lot of damage at once. Not only in terms of HPS, but mana.
See, I could live with this. So long as there were options to experiment within the dungeon. If I were to be proven wrong, so be it. At least the option would be there for everyone to vote upon.