do you have to go warrior or are pally / druid also viable? I have no interest in raiding just tanking dungeons and group content.
and which spec would be best? I like the idea of doing something different from the basic arms war but im not sure what all is viable , if war is best by a mile i may go with that , just looking for opinions
Never played Pally
But,
Warr and Druid are 100% viable for tanks.
Having played both, Warrs make better MT’s and Ferals make better OT’s.
Warrs you get to block, parry, and dodge where with Druids you only get dodge “though it’s significantly higher then Warrs”
Druids can Innerv, Brez, Heal, melee/spell dps when tanking isn’t needed. Warrs can only tank or melee dps. “This is important to consider as some dungeon mobs have mobs that are physical damage immune such as in Scholo”
Warrs can use consumables in the middle of a fight Druids require shifting out of bear to use consumables which is risky.
Tanking on a Pally is fine, there’s just a couple caveats…
Outside of that, you can tank all of the dungeons in the game just fine. If you’re extra ambitious (and want an easier time of leveling), google “Pretadin” to find a writeup I did on an alternative spec that gives you more flexibility to tank and dps in groups. I never did update it but I played that spec while I did the t0.5 questline and ultimately tanked every single dungeon in the game with the exception of a main tank in UBRS.
Additionally, Pretadin can somewhat mitigate the excessive mana dependence in areas where you can tank with a 2h weapon using SoC. It’s meaningful threat if you’re comfortable target swapping to manage it and way easier on your blue bar than spamming Consecration. As long as your healer knows what’s up, this works just fine all the way up until about Maraudon when packs get larger and hit harder. Do pack around a shield though, just in case.
Anyway, good luck to you!
Warrior and Druid are excellent tanks for different reasons you can raid with them effectively on most bosses.
Paladin is BiS for AoE tanking but its a not good if you have a fight where tanks need to Taunt a boss (bosses that are not taunt immune) because Paladin lacks a taunt. You can 100% work around that problem and tank quite a few bosses, but the problem is that its requires far more effort and precision to get it right. I will point out that Paladin tanking is kinda insane for Dungeons, the threat you can produce if you’re wise about consumes use and wise about mana / seals / blessings use then its BiS for most Dungeon content.
Overall if you intend to Raid tank then play Warrior / Druid and save your self the issues of not having a taunt for the bosses that require that mechanic.
I personally love Paladin tanking in vanilla classic/era the most for dungeons. Warrior and Druid feel clunky to me for dungeons, but Paladin is smooth as butter. The AoE threat is massive and i really enjoy juggling seals and judgements to balance your mana during pulls. Sure, we don’t have a Taunt, but Judging Righteousness causes so much snap threat that i use it as a taunt and it works well for that.
You can be smart about gearing, consumes, and Seal/Judgement of Wisdom, and grealty reduce any mana issues.
Warrior is hands down BiS for tanking.
I leveled a warrior as prot all the way to 60 just forming/joining dungeon groups, which was my intention.
It was fun.
…but you’re going to cry a little if you try any solo questing.
Would also only recommend doing this on a well populated cluster.
pls don’t get discouraged with pally
we are usually pretty patient here and understand drinking is necessary. pally just need to drink a loooot but sometimes so does heals so np but the lack of a taunt is nasty so dps need to be aware.
Pala is god mode for Mage Caster cleaves leveling because the threat they make is nuts (cons)