Oookay… (Cracks knuckles and gets to typing) So I’ve read a few posts here and I see where things are starting to break down. I’ve 2h tanked for almost every instance I’ve run so far in Classic and have had very few issues.
Healers: You don’t have to keep the tank topped up at all times. If they’re not dead, you’re fine. Relax. In a dungeon it really doesn’t ACTUALLY matter. Dungeons are being cleared fast, you’ll be out soon enough and you can find a new group.
Tanks: If you’re using a 2-hander and don’t have a one-hand/shield to macro swap to, you probably should, but otherwise remember to swap to battle stance if you pull too much to pop Retaliation. It’s saved my butt a lot.
I mean, or you could just not run with those groups. Healers have as much pull in a group as a tank does. Leave and find a new group, make them find a new healer. 2h Tanks aren’t going anywhere, in fact pretty soon we’ll be seeing DW warrior tanks. Learn how to deal with it, or don’t and continue to suffer.
You can swap weapons in combat, nothing else. It’s fairly common for Warriors (other classes too, probably) to have a 1h/shield or a 2h macro to quickly swap to their other weapon(s) mid combat.
Here’s a real question for all you 2H supporters for tanks. What if a healer decided to DPS. Let me guess, you would rage quit right? “Stop dps’ing, you’re a healer.” Double standard! If you can’t wear a shield, go back to retail.
Depending on your talent choices, like if you go 5/5 Tactical Mastery, you can keep up to 25 rage on a stance dance; whereas, you’ll want to/need to dump any rage you have if you don’t have TM, or lose out on it.
There are some skill, like Mocking Blow for example that you would swap to Battle Stance to use, or Intercept that requires Berserker Stance.
Swapping to a sword/shield if/when needed is not completely uncommon, likewise, swapping to a two hander to execute a runaway isn’t out of the question.
A good tank stance dances and switches to a 2h for fury generation and back to sword and board for damage mitigation. Doing just sword and board severely limits your tanking. That is a fact. (Disclaimer: This does not include raid).
Tank should not have to mark sheep. If we get a add and it is not picked up withing 2 or 3 swings on someone I got a marco that marks casts and announces in group a mob is sheeped do not touch.
back to topic if the post A good tank has a 1h + Shield and 2h and uses them according to wwhen they are needed.
No. Just no. You clearly have zero understanding of the nuance of warrior tanking. Let’s talk some actual numbers shall we?
A warrior tank pre-40 is limited to mail armor. If they have good armor their mitigation with no shield is ~33%. With a shield this leaps to 41%. There’s variance based on gear, obviously, but these are averages across multiple characters and also hold true for paladins incidentally.
The most important part of the pull is the beginning. If you are rage starved, then you don’t have aggro. Period. Charge. Drop a single whirlwind with a 2h weapon. Now you have rage and aggro.
Weapon switching is instant. You can instantly slap on your shield and a 1h, and then slip into defensive stance as needed. Being a warrior tank is about understanding the correct tool for the job at hand.
Sometimes the right tool is a 2h weapon. I imagine you sitting in defense stance endless waiting for the revenge button to light up, and wondering why your healer is dead.
See, I could actually live with that. As of yet, I haven’t run across it, but it would be nice to see it. I’m all about versatility, so long as the Healer has a say in which way works best for us.
I mean, when you think about it, Healers should be the ones determining what is working best towards the survival of the group.
I mean if it where me I would encourage the healer to dps as long as they are not ooming themselves and keeping the group alive. It would actually be a boon in my opinion
Exactly! Until 40+ a good 2H warrior and healer combo works fine in dungeons. Sadly, instead of learning about or improving their playstyle they’ll just blame the tank. One of the pluses of being a druid. Weapon never matters unless it’s MCP.
So, going by the answers to my question, we’re arguing about 2H tanks vs. shield tanks when in truth there isn’t really much locking you down to one or the other beyond preference. That’s the vibe I’m getting here.
Feels like there’s a little too much rigidity going into some of this discussion. Could be more productive to turn it into a positive pow-wow about viable party composition tactics, I think. But as it happens, my feeling on this is…
…it’s more about whether the individual players have a full understanding of their role and ways to maximize it, which appears to be a more complicated question in WoW Classic than in the standard MMO. Am I wrong?
Sure… if they are leading the group. Sometimes, it’s the healer that’s the bottleneck, and needs to step it up. Like imagine if you weren’t using different ranks of your healing skills for different situations, to properly conserve mana…
Well, take my input with a grain of salt. I’m deliberately gearing for warrior DPS rather than tanking, and I’m well aware that I’m ill-suited for party-based dungeon delves as yet–not least because I still need practice with just basic keyboard control. That was just my impression of the flow of the conversation and what I’ve learned of the game so far.
