Does anyone who is currently playing have a report on life as a warrior in TBC Classic.
I always liked playing a warrior back in the day; however, I quickly found that protection warriors were passe in the new Classic paradigm.
I found myself with a max-level warrior who wasn’t much fun because no one wanted prot. My issue is that I only really enjoy playing as prot.
So my question is, (now that I am starting again on the other faction), are Prot warriors viable in TBC or are they similarly sidelined compared to the newly viable tanking classes and dps tanks?
Tbc prot warriors are viable. But they are the worst tanks overall.
If you want a raid spot as a tanking warrior your best option is to go fury and tank for the fights that need three tanks for t6 this is well none once geared mother if you want to play it safe, council if you want to play it safe and illidab in fire res gear if your bear/ raid dosent double tank eles.
Wrath warriors are also again viable but will be the weakest overall of the 4 tanks. While almost never need 3 tanks so optimizing your 2 tank spots becomes more worthwhile and three options that are better than warriors in significant ways, pally/dk being the go to options with druid being close to dk but with a slightly diff niche (speed running and pure survival).
Prot warriors are fine. They have enough threat to hold aggro on a raid boss, they are slightly tougher than paladins, and they have shield wall and spell reflect.
However if you aren’t already in a 14/14 raiding guild, breaking in as a tank of any kind is not easy. Most tank spots are held by long-standing, highly reliable guild members and those spots don’t become open very often.
Life as a prot warrior is great! You smack things with a shield, you can adventure and solo a suprising amount of content if you build right, and Arcatraz becomes your favourite dungeon.
I will say holding packs with more than 4 is a bit of a sore spot and farming anything that bypasses your armor such as elementals or insta-dotting casters.
I’m actually just now looking at getting my tank set working and ready. I have been Arms all of TBC and couldn’t imagine doing anything else because I want that 4% dot and can’t come back from it. But Yea Prot tank Warriors are very good especially for the single target encounter.
Tier 6 is the point where prot warriors really fall behind the other two tanks in terms of threat, and behind bears in terms of mitigation. Every serious guild will take a bear over a prot warrior because they fulfill the same role while providing more damage, more threat, more passive mitigation, and they also provide a valuable group buff.
Dad guilds still tend to have a prot warrior because threat isn’t much of an issue for them, but the downside is that you’ll be spending 5 hours clearing content that takes other guilds 2 hours.
The thing is that even dadguilds have had their tank roster locked down for the last ~2 years, so finding a reliable tank spot will be close to impossible, especially if you’re starting from the ground up with virtually no gear.
Additionally, playing a prot warrior won’t be great in the long run either because they’re easily the worst raid tanks in WotLK as well.
P.S. How do you like prot but not furyprot? It literally plays the exact same except the icon for shield slam is replaced with bloodthirst.
Prot warrior is going to make almost no difference in clear times for a dad guild. 90% of clear times is dictated by the prot pally and boss fight threat is a non issue if your dps aren’t parsing at least pink on average.
Warrior was never a good tank. They defaulted the top slot with in classic with no real contest because they were the only ones with proper gear for the job. Now everyone has gear. Paladins/druids also had other issues which were effectively fixed in crusade. The biggest problem with warrior (aoe threat) was left in the dust. It wouldn’t be until wrath that Blizzard FINALLY decided to make warrior tanks decent, but now they’re competing with death knight too.
If you want to roll a warrior tank in crusade, you can still get the job done, but know that you’re playing the worst option by far. HIGHLY recommend you go engineer btw because you NEED bombs. I suggest goblin since the rocket launcher can be nice for pulling and you can make your own bigger ones/super sappers. All you’re really giving up are flame turrets which aren’t useful on a tank anyway. Cooking can also make stormchops.
Life is hard, but it is a honest man’s job at the end of the day. Here are some points:
You have the worst AoE threat than a Paladin
You have worst single target threat than a Druid (Pally can overcome your ST threat at high end)
You take more damage than a druid (mostly because they have high avoidance + armor cap
You probably also take more overall damage than a pally while tanking a boss.
Tanking gear for prot warrior doesn’t scale to increase your damage and threat. You have to rely on PvP gear (Arena + plate off-sets) or DPS Gear.
Gearing is hard, but with gold you can jump into GDKPs. T5 gear allows you to tank BT + Hyjal easily.
Well, nowadays everyone wants a paladin. I have a prot pally alt already geared and doing BT+Hyjal. I press generally 2-3 buttons and I do what my warrior does while having to switch targets and press like 5 buttons.
For heroics, people want more paladins because you don’t need much CC and you can AoE your way through. Warrior can tank up to 4 targets just fine, mark one skull and keep taunting whomever gets away, if things get worse, you have mocking blow and Challenge Shout. Talk to your group, they should collaborate (and people are usually nice to tanks recently).
You should be more open minded and try also playing Fury or even Arms for PvP. Warrior is very versatile and fun to play with.
Prot Warriors are viable, but you will find HARD to find a guild to play as a prot warrior.
Most guilds are already well established and their Prot Warriors are already main tanking for some time. You might find a guild looking for a Prot Warrior.
If you get well geared, you might get into GDKPs to tank. Warrior is easily the best tank for Illidan (I second pally here because I saw they get trucked by parry haste and losing HS charges before the CD was up and Shear came out) and some bosses due to Last Stand and Shield wall (I barely use shield wall tanking bosses now, most of time I find myself using reck for high threat on pull to give DPS freedom to pump.
Progress was the first guild to clear BT + Hyjal in TBCC classic and they used a Prot Warrior.
I guess by your standards they’re not a serious guild.
Fury Prot is a MEME, it is not viable for tanking.
A take from a Prot Warrior, the current state of prot warriors is honestly terrible. Even casual, dad guilds, etc. Don’t want a prot warrior as MT because how badly a prot warrior MT hurts a raid.
Prot warriors hurt the raid two fold, one being requiring too much to work, 5 hunters MDing, and a Shaman with Wfury. On top of that the worst part of being a prot warrior is the fact that Devastate can’t work with IMP Expose armor. You’re actively hurting your raid’s DPS because IMP expose armor makes a ton of difference.
On top of that you could have 5 hunters and a shaman buffing up a prot warrior, or you could just do the same to a druid or paladin and get much better results. IMP Expose armor even buffs the druids damage and threat so buffing the DPS of the raid over all more so.
WoW Classic is all about a good offense makes a good defense and prot warriors are the opposite of offense and are just defensive while feral druids are offensive and defensive.
Can prot warriors make a comeback with armor pierce? Doubt it, druids just get too many stats and offensive capabilities that stacks instead of hinders IMP Expose armor.
On top of it all, while Prot Warriors drop fast late expansion, Fury Warriors sky rocket up late expansions. Giving more meaning to respec Fury.
There’s are a few good reasons why guilds are finding ways to kill Illidan without the use of a prot warrior. The current state of warriors is pretty much go Fury or have 1 arms for bleed, or go home.
Edit: Can a Prot warrior not be an MT? Well not at all a Prot Warrior can MT from start to finish. The real question is what is the state of Prot Warriors and it’s terrible. Why pick a Prot Warrior when a Paladin or Druid can do the samething but better?
WHo are ya’ll kidding… unless you have 4 hunters md’ing on cooldown or your dps are trash warriors are falling off a cliff hard right now. The reign of the druids is beginning. Thank god it will be short lived.
