Like I have said, I have had tanks with and without a sheild. Good tanks and great runs have come out of both versions.
The problem is either a bad tank not using a sheild, which definitely worsens the situation, or a decent tank but not high enough level / not good enough gear to ditch the sheild for that instance.
A 2H or DW is not a one-all solution to tanking… you have to adapt and change your play style a bit when doing so, and rely on the competence of your group members. It is NOT for everybody, despite a majority of people here claiming otherwise.
I mean, it competes in damage with full prot Warriors.
A 31/5/0 or better Arms Warrior is going to absolutely crush a Druid’s swipe damage - all while taking about the same damage and holding the same threat.
I’m gonna stop you right there
The problem is not that he is using a 2H axe. It’s that Princess is a level 51 Elite.
Take every thought you just had and throw it out the window. His threat problems would have been astronomically worse with a shield/sword. With zero hit - he was literally struggling to do more than ~10-20 damage a hit to an Elite 5 levels higher than him.
Mdps suffers horrifically from level differences with regard to hit and damage.
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I mean this gently,
We do it routinely. It’s not even difficult to 2H those fights. IIRC, our guy is 31/5/15
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Played with my first 2h tank last night. Couldn’t hold aggro and took a ton of damage. Not the most efficient dungeon I’ve ever run…
Load of bs.
I’m Prot specced and have 80 bonus defense from gear, and Drakkisath chunks me hard and can kill me easily if my healers aren’t paying attention.
No way is anyone in blues with a 2H tanking Drak and surviving. Unless you have like 4 healers lol.
What level are you talking about?
This level 32 warrior with an ilvl 40 Whirlwind Axe at lvl 30 is OP. It’s much faster and easier than using an inferior 1h/shield.
Tanking with a 2h in the 30s and 40s with WW Axe / Ravager does enough damage to offset damage taken and it’s easy to hold aggro. I also have a 41 priest and haven’t had any issues healing 2h tankers, the best/fastest/cleanest runs I’ve had were healing 2h Ravager tanks.
IF the tank is under level, they DEFINITELY should not be 2H tanking. But IF they are of adequate level, they can get away with it and should watch their health and swap to shield when they’re taking hard hits. Can confirm, I just used this method last night and absolutely blew Uldaman out of the water, tanking a large segment as a 2hander and leading my group in DPS. My resto druid friend who healed me was very complimentary of my mitigation because I would swap to shield when the trogs enrage or when large numbers of mobs are attacking me.
Yes, wasn’t me that was pulling aggro though.
War comes in with sword and board, Corenn: “I’m sick of these tanks who don’t know how to hold aggro! Do you know what Sunder is?!?!?! If you can’t keep aggro from 3 Mages AoE spamming, then I don’t even want to look at you!”
War comes in Fury tank spec, Corenn:
Starting at Inner Maraudon, a 2h tank is just taking way too much damage. Sure it can be done, but I’ll say it again, it’s really annoying.
Every 2H tank must be ready to flex to shield in response to the damage they are taking. If not, that is irresponsible.
Thank you. I am so tired of the same conversation with so many warriors that they have vendored all of their 1h gear… even when I offer to go buy them greens they remind me that they have no weapon skills built up.
The best tanking approach (while leveling) in my opinion is using a 2hander to gather up tons of aggro at the start of a fight, then swapping to shield for mitigation and maintaining your aggro advantage after the initial phase of the fight.
Had one slip into our SM group last night and tried to tank lib with a dagger in MH. Every piece of gear he had was +stam +int, and he was /need rolling on every green because “its better than my current shrug”. He got the boot.
Well, other then the other crap, nothing wrong with a dagger for MH when using a shield due to weapon normalization. Fast weapons just means more rage and threat over all.
More rage, but less threat on instant abilities.
Just an overall toxic player then. Some people are just greedy. I make an active effort to work for upgrades for my party members, and only need on clear, beneficial upgrades.
Uh… you may want to look in on that again… Dagger was hitting for piddly 60-90 whites, sure. But 300 Heroics. Sunder being your top threat skill, and HS being your rage dump, and pumping out more of them faster… shrugs