Broken? It clearly works fine, Prot Warriors were the best and only main tanks in Classic without any competition.
I understand it’s not exactly intuitive and user failproof, but when you put aside all the role triangle theory of “tank points go into tank spec”, you realize that in practice Warrior as a class is already inherently stacked and at a significant advantage compared to other classes in terms of how much punishment they can take.
You’re one of two Mail/Plate classes and the only one on Horde side in the version of the game where your armor stat actually matters, every spec has access to defensive stance, and any mitigation check which would require your prot talents don’t exist until much later in the game.
It’s a simple concept of diminishing returns. Warrior starts the game off tanky enough to survive anything adequately, surviving more beyond that point doesn’t help you, so you look to other avenues to improve your capabilities. Damage.
When the game gets harder and ramps up its scaling, then that extra mitigation from prot shines.
I need to go drive to a client now, but my summary advice to OP is:
Let go of any preconceptions about how classes ‘should’ work. this is vanilla classic with wacky experimental new runes slapped on top, there is no structure here.
Make use of the addon ‘threat plates’ to give yourself real time, colour coded data on the current state of threat in each pack. It is, in my opinion, essential information for any tank to perform well. Yes, you can be an OK tank without it, but you cannot be a great tank without it. Deliberately denying yourself information is not smart.
Just grit your teeth and get to 25, the game changes a lot for warriors once you are higher level with a couple pieces of gear. They really come online and I am not kidding when I say they are the highest performing class right now, they will continue to be the strongest throughout all phases, probably.
tanking requires pre-planning, not just reacting. think about what the consequences of actions like leaving a mob on a dps may be, if it’s low risk then just ignore it and move onto the next group.
communicate with disruptive players and explain your limits, if they ignore it, just let them deal with the consequences themselves. communicate factually and clearly without emotion.
People willing to hybridize their specs really is a lost art with hyper optimization. You either gotta tank, dps, or heal.
When I started this character in SoD thinking about all the new runes and how they can work with our kit, I obviously noticed all the interest in Shaman tanks, I thought to myself “I’ve tanked every dungeon with a shield on Classic Era already I want to try something less obvious, like a DPS Sham-Off Tank build which DWs. Fury-Prot War was awesome”
I didn’t have a clue this would become thee meta way to Shaman tank, I just wanted to DW and be tanky
Once you have gear and the Horned Darkwater Tulwar, threat becomes a lot easier. Also running with a feral druid helps a ton. Just devastate spam on things and you will be fine.
this guy is so stuck on never admitting anything wrong in his argument that he contradicts himself at every turn.
so the game is about big changes… but
the game is also about prot being trash like it always was?
the stretches you must go to feel correct is amazing. all classes deserve wild changes but sword and board warriors should stop crying and just play a different way…
Its lvl 25 content. You cant expect warriors to have their full toolkit yet. Warrior tanks will havw their aoe taunt in the next bracket so you wont be hindered too much.
Ive come to notice that between Pally and Warrior tanks, pallys are even worse at holding threat. Warriors still have a better toolkit to generate more threat with revenge, shield block, etc.
Pallys on the otherhand really dont have anything besides consecration and avengers shield is on a 30 sec cd. Yeah you can spam Judgement but its not mana efficient in longer fights.
It just comes down your dps watching their threat level.
Warbringer basically does this already, it allows you to charge in defensive stance. It also allows you to charge while in combat so you can pair with bloodrage and start with 30 rage easy.
I felt like prot spec for warrior didn’t work too well until I got warbeinger and was lvl 25. In pugs ppl are always attacking some target I’m not so that’s really on them if they pull aggro. I felt like tab target sunder armor using devastate rune and revenge spam was the best aggro generation.
You spec like a DPS Warrior and go to town that way. Right now, nothing really hits hard enough to be scary. If I pull aggro on a mob in BFD, the current raid, I don’t even bother with Evasion because a few hits won’t destroy me and the mob isn’t going to live long anyway.
You basically have to play like an absolute crazy person, pulling as fast as possible, and only stop when your Healer(s) absolutely need you to, otherwise the DPS will make your existence in the run rather superfluous. Tab regularly and use your most Rage efficient skills as often as possible.
It will get better at higher levels and people know that Warriors only get better with levels and gear, so it isn’t a huge concern. Phase 2 is right around the corner.
Shaman and Paladin are sitting pretty, warrior is average and druid/lock are a joke. To be fair, mobs dont hit hard in this phase so no one should care.
Druid is in the worst state as they have to be in bear form, and rage generation is terrible. Druids are powershifting cause they so starved. Swipe is laughable and you cant use engineering to bandaid the problem cause it rips you out of form. Why is this still a thing? Lazy devs.
Warlock only have shadowcleave which is tagged to bad rankings and will continue to every single phase, not even worth putting on your bar. They can bandaid the problem with engineering.
Warrior can just DW or 2 hand tank with engineering. There is literally no reason to use shield in classic. Its not that bad.
just because players fail to understand the efficiency that comes from holding aggro with mitigation doesnt mean 2h tanking and dw tanking is the way to go. tanks are supposed to mitigate… its how the game was designed. just because players broke the game on private servers to meme the content at the fastest speeds doesnt mean the intent of the design wasnt for tanks to mitigate damage well (this also allows healers to take advantage of the 5 second mana rule)
all you are doing is dumping stress onto the healers instead of dealing with it yourself
Really they should reduce shaman and paladin threat. Classic is the only era where you had to manage threat, and it was the most fun for tanking with the most skill expression as a result. Also as above noted you should be tanking with a 2h at early levels on a warrior, there’s no reason to use a shield in leveling dungeons whatsoever. Even in level 60 raids you only use a shield on specific encounters that have hard hitting melee attacks (e.g. broodlord, patchwerk, twin emps).
