I don’t plan to do mythic + anytime some but wanting to play a tank that do lfg and lfr. I also plan to do bg pvp in dps spec. I need opinions on what to pick
Druid is the easiest choice.
I would agree that Druid is tank on training wheels. You also have a lot of customization and 3 more specs should you want to play anything else. Prot warrior is extremely fun however.
Definitely druid, the skill floor is pretty low there. Prot warrior is a good choice if you want to deal tons of damage, and they take no damage at all in easier content.
VDH is your best choice. It has the least keybinds, and it doesn’t die. It has one of the best melee dps specs for bgs.
For normal casual content, all tanks are fine. They do play differently so it’s hard to recommend one because what you enjoy will be unique to you.
For me, from a fun perspective
DH/DK/War/Pally>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Bear>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Brew
Bear is insanely boring and Brew is just awful to play because of bloat and the overreliance on your healer. The changes to tanks coming into TWW just compound this issue.
DH has a high skill ceiling and floor. You will literally fall over if played incorrectly. But when played well, they are incredible tanks.
DK is the self surviving tank, probably immortal in +10’s once geared without a healer. They take damage and heal it back up. Their issue is getting one shot in higher content. But they have grip and are generally extremely fun to play.
Warrior is an absolute brick wall against physical damage (which is most damage tanks take). They struggle against bleeds and magic. Success with a warrior comes with understanding your enemies and your own weak spots and being prepared for them.
Warrior is high mobility, does incredible damage, and is a high PPM spec.
Paladin is the utility tank, BoP, bubble, sac, lay, freedom, etc. are all extremely strong. Avengers shield is a blast to use and you can solely lock down mobs by yourself with your own interrupts and shield throws. The issue with paladin is squishyness overall but moreso if you’re not in your consecration. Paladins must be in consecration to be tanky and do more damage. They sorta fixed this by enabling the consecration buff to remain for a few seconds after leaving consecration but nonetheless it’s annoying.
Bear is braindead and unengaging. You spam a few abilities and iron fur over and over. That’s basically it.
Brewmaster has too many buttons that don’t net returns. In Raid it’s whatever because theres 3-5 healers to babysit you but in M+ the issue is you don’t really have the ability to self-survive or recover healing. You just widdle down if your healer is bad and that feels terrible. It is almost unanimous amongst the tank community that the best tanks are those that enable you to control your own life. Brew brakes that fundamentally and that’s why is a smelly trash heap right now.
Paladin is unique in 2 ways:
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It is the only tank that doesn’t care about mob range. All your abilities are ranged except melee swings, which are irrelevant. This is very noticeable in dungeons where mobs frequently move in and out of range.
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Paladin can solo almost all the interrupts in most dungeons, which makes them far and away the best tank for low M+ dungeons where nobody has their interrupt keybound.
Not in 11.1. Pwars now have moments that you can’t press any button thank to the rage nerf. Your dmg is so so after the nerfs. Statistically, BDK is doing more dps than pwar.
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Oh yeah, I forgot.
Prot paladin was dominating everything so they decided to gut warrior. How could I forget…?
Druid is the easiest to learn and pretty tanky. VDH is almost as easy to learn and is basically unkillable because it’s overbuffed right now, but VDH is also super boring to play. Prot Warrior prolly 3rd easiest to learn and has highest damage output. Prot pally is a very high skill cap tank, but fun to play and has tons of utility. DK is stressful to play from what I hear. And brewmaster is in a bad state right now.
Dunno bout that, they have 1 button for constant mitigation and 1 other long cooldown mitigation, they are super easy to play esp with 4 set. Prot pally is by far the highest skill cap. Last season your statement was true, they were very high skillcap. This season they are super easy to play, 1 button mitigation 2-3 buttons damage.
Same for VDH, you spam spikes over and over.
if you think spikes is all there is to VDH i don’t know what to tell you. The fact that you think Paladin is a high skill cap says a lot.
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Literally have 2 mitigation buttons, spikes and darkness. with 4 set you have near perma meta. 95% of your defensive is passive. Prot paladins have to rotate 11 button press abilities (6 with cooldowns) for mitigation and one mitigation ability you have to save for interrupts, if you mess up 1 or 2 you’re screwed because they are squishy as hell. And even with proper use of all the abilities, they have to kite and stutter packs, something VDH really doesn’t need to do, until maybe 16/17s.
Sure gotta use soul fragments for VDH, but doesn’t take that much skillcap to get the hang of that.
Spikes is essentially shield of the righteous, which paladin has absolutely zero issue keeping up.
The “passive” mitigation you’re referring to (painbringer and frailty) is no different than consecration. You gain the benefits from doing your rotation.
Darkness is a situational ability that’s usually used more for the group than for the DH themselves.
VDH has meta form as its big defensive CD. so, every 2 minutes for meta and Demonic for 8s every 30-40s (spec dependent).
The 2-piece giving meta is almost negligible and cannot be payed around because it’s completely random.
VDH is strong, sure, but stop acting like you just smash your face on the keyboard.
Ultimately, neither have the ceiling of BDK, which is probably the most difficult tank to play at a high level.
Consecration is way different than your dps rotational mitigation, you have to reapply constantly when moving, not hard to do in itself, but it’s another complication. Also, while SoTR isn’t hard to maintain during a fight when you know what you’re doing, it isn’t insta applied pre-fight, you have to hit a mob with it in melee range, and takes 3 holy power so they have to build to it, making it so pallys have to pop a defensive cooldown before pulling big packs or else they get one shot. Since it costs 3 holy power and falls off quickly, keeping SoTR up means constant builders. Having to apply defensives pre-pull complicates the class a ton, because you’re constantly pulling packs, so they have to know which defensives to use for each pack and when, in higher keys there is zero room for pallys to mess up defensive cooldown timing.
Spikes you just press. I’m not saying VDH is faceroll, but just disputing your statement where you said prot pally wasn’t a high skill cap tank. And yes, BDK is probably harder than prot pally.
Consecration’s CD is incredibly low and lasts for something like 4s when you step out of it (ironically the CD of consecration). Stop acting like it’s hard to maintain it. The only way you won’t is if you’re not pushing the ability.
Paladin can build HP outside of melee. It’s not hard to get SoTR running.
You’re right. You have to use some of you’re powerful defensives CDs that are on a low CD on pull. CDs that don’t require you to hit the mobs to gain the defensive benefits.
VDH has nothing going into a pull. You have to consume souls to get pain-bringer rolling and frailty needs to be built up as it’s a debuff, both of which only last 6s. If you have no FD or Meta (CDs) going into a pull you better have an external from a healer, because spikes isn’t going to keep you alive. It’s why so many VDH are running LR. We will literally fall over if we pull wrong.
And I stand by my statement. VDH’s skill ceiling is higher than Prot Paladin.
I think you misread me there. I didn’t say it was hard. It’s just an annoyance, esp on fights like the 2 big guys before last boss in floodgate that hit like trucks and constantly spam swirlies you have to get out of. It’s annoying endless consecration spam.
That’s fair. However, all the tanks have their things that are “annoying.” Try dealing with aggro issues as a VDH because half of out kit doesn’t generate aggro outside of combat.
Same can be said for all tanks if you’d really dive into it. If you’re going to make the most of the tank class, all will be next to equally complex to master. Not to say that they have differenr skill floor though, so if all you’re doing is 12s then some will be easier than others.
This is why I use DK as tank in Delves.