I so wish we could have had a TBC Classic.
They were totally under the radar back then until the AOE phenom took over and they were the kings.
They would have been top dogs in WotLK too of it wasn’t for those darn DKs.
Yep, this happened all the time in the past. Tanks are scarce and 5-mans aren’t hard.
If you’re an underleveled or off-spec healer then go ahead and find a tank with a shield. Plenty of other people are comfortable healing DPS-tanks.
I swear man people want to complain about everything. Don’t like how someone plays? Don’t group with them.
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I had a level 37 shadow priest heal SM Cath, melee cleave runs for us a couple days ago, without any issue. And not having to drink between pulls…
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Yet vanilla had hunters soloing low level dungeons a couple levels lower than them, shamans tanking low lvl dungeons, people replacing tanks with hunter pets in low lvl dungeons.
Anything that’s not a clothie has more than enough mitigation to ‘tank’ the damage from any dungeon up until at least the early 30s with a healer and dps backing them up (even if they can’t really hold threat and it’s not optimal in anyway).
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Oops, get better at pulling.
Oops, get a better healer.
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Nah, people responded this way back in the day too, though not as frequently. It tended to have more to do with uptight personalities than anything.
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This is sort of the key point here, I think. There are a lot of people who seem to be looking for something or someone else to blame for their own mistakes.
I’m glad I haven’t really experienced this in actual dungeon runs.
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My motto as a tank has always been don’t piss off the healer. DPS is expendable and exchangable and easy to find. Most healers would rather you use a shield, so I do that.
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That hasn’t been true in my runs. I typically run the same instance multiple times with groups, and often have a discussion with the healer beforehand.
Some healers do prefer me to use a shield and sword. Anecdotally, the majority of these healers have under performed their roles, from my perspective.
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There are two types of Warriors.
A Prot Warrior which is a Tank that is built to absorb damage.
An Arms(2H) or Fury(DW 1H) Warrior which is a DPS.
The latter will typically attempt to hold agro via damage, and hopefully doesn’t take damage to the point that they can’t be healed. This usually necessitates rolling instances after the warrior has levelled past them to act as the lost damage mitigation.
If you’re in WC in your 20’s or SM in your 40’s, its all about the jazzy jazz damage to speed things up as you speedbump the instance. Its certainly a fast way to level, but you should never call yourself a Tank, and you always take more damage than you think you are. You’re simply DPS that is killing stuff before it kills you. And hey… if that’s your thing… more power to you.
Glad we cleared up that mess.
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Indeed… call them what they are… DPS Warriors.
If the healer is fine with you DPS tanking, then that works, too. I’m just saying if a healer wanted me to use a shield, I would.
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Not sure what version of original WoW you played, but back during 2005-2006/7, good tanks used shields. You don’t 2H tank things regardless of stance, as stated above, a little common sense goes a long way.
Tanks that go 2H for tanking drain healer resources way to fast, and that takes away from the overall ability for the group to recover in the event of adds, a bad pull, etc.
Sure, you can play the way you want, but be prepared to get asked to switch to a shield and when you politely refuse, don’t be surprised of you are politely kicked or the healer politely exits stage left to find a better group with a proper tank.
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And don’t be surprised when the group with the 2h tank clears the instance faster and more easily.
Everyone wins.
But not more easily. I’ve healed runs with controlled pulls and marks, and more AOE zergfest type runs. The latter runs ARE faster, but they are not easier (speaking as the healer). They are also more prone to wipes, and it only takes one wipe to completely negate to time improvement.
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Indeed.
Multiple groups, healers, dps, tanks, leveling faster, having more enjoyable runs…
vs. what? Healers prioritizing healing life-taping locks over the tank, and only using highest rank healing, then blaming tanks in other groups using two-handers for their mana issues.
In any case, it’s great that you have your own preference. Pretending that that is the way and only way things are or should be, due to common sense is not so great; it’s not a sense that is common among us all.
We all have our own experiences though, and those will obviously give us our own biases. By a large margin, DPS and Healers who regularly whisper me and ask if I’d like to tank instances for them are asking for a melee cleave group, and not a slower, mana conservative, CC’ing, target marking, experience.
I’m not asking you to prefer a tank that uses a two-hander, but if you support blanket statements that a warrior, while leveling must use a sword and shield, particularly in low-mid level instances, otherwise they are not performing their role optimally, then that is spreading misinformation, and deserves being pointed out as such.
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If you had ever healed, which you clearly have not, then you would know that downranking spells for mana efficiency works only when you are stacking +healing.
There’s not a lot of +healing gear at low levels, so downranking in dungeons below level 50 is almost pointless. It’s only when you start having access to a lot of +healing that downranking makes sense.
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I can tank without problems using 2H weapons.
Blue Great-axe, green gear stamina&str on every slow and Armor Scrolls.
I dont need a shield and i can put lots of several DPS i barely lose “hate” compared with the tanks use “shields” and lose the hate as soon a dps attack…
Instead of hypotheticals, I would rather see proof of a 2H warrior tanking LBRS, Strath dead + live sides, or even full clear of BRD without taxing the healer and spending more down time drinking to recover, while using pre-raid gear.
Don’t get me wrong, I stated I am all for “fun” but when you are tanking higher lvl dungeons, it’s not practical, so either have a bear tank it and let the warrior 2H away all they want, or have them put on a shield if they are determined to tank.
Warriors lose their shield slam interrupts, among other defenses and armor mitigation when they don’t use a shield. I have been in a few groups where there was a warrior who attempted 2H, and I had to go bear form and pick up most of the lost agro, because they don’t have sunder to apply, etc.
To each their own, I just don’t see any good guilds/groups ever subscribing to any form of 2H tanking.
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