Not a ton of options in Classic, Warrior, Paladin and Druid.
What would be the strengths and weaknesses of each class leveling up
and what are their strengths/weaknesses at end game?
I play bear. I love it.
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Tons of posts about this already, but here ya go:
Warrior - slow to level, good tanks in 5man, can tank anything, option to be good DPS
Druid - fast to level, great tanks in 5man, can tank 98% of content, option to be good heals
Paladin - slow to level, good tanks in 5man(if skilled), cannot tank raids, make excellent raid healers
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Warrior is the only option if you want to main tank in raids.
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why is that?
Good druid tank gear is really difficult to obtain, and the leather armor class is noticeably worse than plate. They’re generally fine for off-tanking, though. Paladins will go OOM after every pull. Both classes struggle with becoming uncrushable/uncrittable.
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I remember druids being a difficult tank to master and I know that Paladin were traditionally healers/dps I just couldn’t remember why.
As a DPS though at end game, do Paladin do well?
Paladins can really only heal in PvE, from what I understand.
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Warriors will most likely be the Primary/Main Tank, but druids are excellent off tanks with the ability to easily switch to a dps or off-heal roll in Raids.
Likely there will be 1 or 2 spots for Feral Druids in solid raid builds.
lol damn that’s rough
my son talked me into rolling an Alliance (yuk) with him over the weekend and I made a paladin and was wondering where that was going… obviously no where 
Are you raiding 40 mans?
warrior only. end of discussion. crushing blows will make that obvious real quick.
Are you not raiding 40 mans?
Go druid or warrior, wont make a difference
Do you raid hogger with your lowbie buddies to show them paladin tanking is a thing?
go warrior or druid still
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Paladins are arguably better 5man tanks in my opinion because Consecration is an aggro magnet. Even without Righteous Fury on, I pull mobs from Warrior tanks when I use it. Now picture it with 90% more threat.
That said, Paladin tanking is pretty much stuck to 5mans because you don’t have a taunt. They’re excellent 5man tanks, but that’s where it ends.
Their DPS, again, is perfectly fine in 5mans. Ret is bursty because of the nature of Seal of Command (big damage when it procs), but they’re limited by mana which is why they typically blow in raids unless you bring hundreds of gold in consumables to each one you go to.
In short, Prot is great for 5mans, but it ends there. Ret is okay, but requires way more dedication than a pure DPS class to maintain competitive numbers. If you want to look up Esfand, he’s done a lot of Ret on private servers and was actually pretty competitive. I’ve seen him doing ~600 DPS on bosses, which is middle-high in terms of the overall picture. But each raid would cost him tons of gold in required consumables.
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hahaha, nice!
It sounds like I will keep playing my Warrior
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Yeah, the (utterly baffling) lack of a taunt for prot Pallies makes them a no-go in raids. It’s as simple as that. Factor in the abundance of healing gear, and it’s pretty clear where they’re intended to go for PvE.
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Warriors are really fun in PvE and PvP. I would 100% recommend playing a warrior if you specifically want to tank.
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Unfortunately pallys run out of mana well before a boss fight ends, which makes them less viable than a warrior tank. Druids aren’t as preferred as warriors because they don’t have shields, but they can still tank in raids. See staysafe’s MC clear if you want to see how the druid tank did.
Because pally tanks can’t do raids so well a lot of them become heals when they reach max, which limits some of the end game tanks since nobody wants to spend the time to obtain pre raid BIS only to be stuck at a dead end.
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very good response, thanks bro!
Warriors are strongest late game, bears dominate until BWL 60 raid and pallies are really good at those 3 mage farm groups.
Warriors, druids, and paladins can all tank dungeons. Shamans can too, if they’re good and the group works with them on it. However it’s not recommended. That enhancement shaman would do better as DPS.
Raids, it’s warriors and druids only. Typically a warrior will MT and the druids OT but that’s not always the case. We had druid MTs in our raids, MC through AQ40. I can’t speak to Naxx. Conventional wisdom is that warriors are better for physical damage dealing bosses, while druids excel at caster bosses. But they both can handle both.
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Every tank is viable, paladin being the hardest and not an option on tank swap fights, druid being 2nd best and usually not the MT but it is possible, warrior being the best cause talents and gear are actually meant for it. End of discussion i really hate seeing misinformation when it comes to tanks.
If you need further proof just look up a guy named Skarm on the good ole utubes.
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