Title, specially looking into DK and Paladin for their self healing, but open to hear about other tanks.
I’ll sometimes queue with friends and guildies, but want to delve into the solo queue PUG world and would like to not rely a lot on other’s performances (I know it’s a team game, but I’d rather pull my own weight as much as possible).
Also I’d be interested in soloing current content, not hardcore (maybe) but definitely interested in that aspect. But it does have to be a tank as I still wanna have some fun with friends sometimes and that’s the role I like playing with them.
Probably DK gives you the most control over your own survival, but it’s also one of the hardest to play well.
Any tank is very survivable in solo content, and the tradeoff for healing is generally mitigation, so the amount of external healing required tends to actually work out about the same for different specs.
In short, the one you enjoy/are good at is probably your best choice.
BDK is probably the best for pure self sustain, but they’re somewhat difficult to play properly and pretty squishy overall.
If you’re worried about the quality of healers you’ll find while pugging I’d honestly look into Guardian Druid. Pretty strong mitigation all around, and at 3+ targets they’re practically immune to physical damage. And with their built in healing (Frenzied Regeneration; two charges that heal for 33% of max health on a 30 sec CD) plus the ridiculous amount of absorb shield coming in from the Ursoc’s Fury Remembered legendary its not uncommon for me to match my healers in overall healing by the end of a dungeon.
From my own personal experience healing keys, I found that Blood DKs and Guardian Druids tend to keep themselves up the most through healing alone. Though DKs are much more spikey in damage taken then Guardian. I would most definitely prefer healing a Guardian Druid over a DK in terms of having to pick a tank to heal.
From a healer perspective Guardian Druids and Blood DKs are able to self sustain themselves the most. DH tanks are the most survivable because they can just start kiting when things get out of hand giving the group time to cc adds or heal the tank up. Being able to keep mobs at an arms length is literally survivability in its own right.
Paladin tanks are the squishiest, but they’re also the best when it comes to supporting the group because they can throw Word of Glory heals around.
Prot Warriors are so rare I think they’re extinct.
BDKs as many said, but back when I healed in BFA they were my LEAST favorite dungeon tanks to heal because their HP bounced like a yoyo. Kept giving me mini heart attacks watching them drop to 20% then instantly back to full every few seconds.
I’d much rather heal high mitigation tanks that slowly drop in HP even if I have to spend more mana healing them.
Dks are not hard they are unforgiving on mistakes. track their runic power. If low spam heals. Otherwise can set and forget dktanks. Bears are basic and easy to play. Very strong all round. Both are more they control their lives. I play all tanks and healed most, really a skill requirement over class.
Thanks a lot guys, I was about to give up on DK in favor of paladin since while levelling I just couldn’t keep up, death strike heals almost nothing in low levels and as paladin I always was full health after a couple of Flash heals.
But I understand classes are not complete until max level. I might just level on my own and lock my xp at 58 to help my friends and from there unlock and embark into Shadowlands.
my favorite tanks to heal are DH’s. I find that I have to babysit them less, and my dps output is generally higher with them…meaning that I am using more globals on dps than keeping them up.
could be due to talents/powers, but that’s my experience. I like healing DK’s too, but I think DH’s can get out of more sticky situations a lot easier, which is an indirect way of making them “easier to heal”.
food for though! enjoy your DK, i think they’re one of the coolest classes in the game
Like all tanks, it depends on skill, but I do not like healing Brewmaster/DH because you just don’t know what you’re getting. You could get an unkillable monster or you could get a soggy paper plate.
Compare that to something like Druid and you have something more reliable.
I also like tanks that synergize with my healing style or toolkit, ala Guardian Spirit and a Blood Death Knight, but playing BDK is very challenging on the part of the tank, or protection paladin, who doesn’t rely on self healing as much, but it’s a big part of the toolkit.
I am speaking as a healer, so I may not have the best advice for tanking.
I think this is fair, both dk and paladin are balanced around their ability to blast heal themselves. You could argue that this style of tanking is currently under tuned in both cases, though. Dk takes a bit too much damage too frequently and paladins word of glory is a little too infrequent based on how weak sotr is right now.
In both cases, in relatively easy content, they should only need help occasionally and a steady trickle from something like disc/druid is plenty to cover most gaps.
Yea sorry, noticed we’re talking about holy. Holy often feels like a warm, but frustrating blanket. I’m planning to use WoG, get healed from 40-100. WoG just sits there. Sad days.
There’s a lot of confusion around here about Blood DK.
For survivability, we’re overall the 2nd strongest next to Guardian Druid in an M+ scenario.
We have a much higher than average skill floor.
We are not represented higher up in rankings because we do on average 20-25% less damage than Paladins and Demon Hunters.
The second biggest issue is our model, and most healers won’t know how to respond to healing them when they spike. This isn’t hyperbole, I can average anywhere between 2.5k HPS on packs upward of 5.8k HPS on packs because while DS is played properly, that can cause rapid panic in a significant number of healers. Most healers are not mentally prepared when they see a DK at 30% health and they panic regardless of their RP bar, meanwhile for a DK that 30% HP is basically the equivalent of any other tank spec being at around 55-60% health (where a healer traditionally wouldn’t worry about them). I have, quite literally for this reason done dungeons where I’ve had more overhealing from death strike than effective healing.
I think the buff is called shining light, it’s a free world of glory. Happens after every 5 sotr casts. Typically, once I have it, I’m going to use it when the next dip comes (paladin can be a bit spiky, but I think that’s by design because out healing is really bursty). It’s not worth tracking holy power or sotr, both fluctuate too frequently to be useful and sotr has a near 100% uptime.
I’m in more danger with sotr up if I’m not in consecrate then being in consecrate without sotr as silly as that sounds. So during heavy movement, I’m likely to get nailed. If you see your prot paladin moving a lot, watch them carefully. If your tank sucks at standing in consecrate, leave. You’re in for some trouble.
