So throughout classic vanilla I was able to tank effortlessly up to brd using an Arms spec. towards the end (scholo & strat) I Was able to stumble my way through (threat issues) given I had a good healer. But to do well I had to go prot.
If I want to level my war in TBC while Tanking dungeons can I spec arms or fury again with a couple points in Prot? Or does the difficulty stay more or less the same as the classic dungeon end game?
You’ll be able to tank without going into protection. Not much changes from that perspective until heroic dungeons.
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Leveling through dungeons isn’t super viable 60-70.
Obviously it’s doable but a lot slower than questing for sure. Grab a healer buddy and duo those zones!
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It gets harder, and a mixed build would be recommended at least. But you could just do what I’m going to do, and level as protection. Protection is massively better after classic. Defiance is only 3 points and has weapon skill on it. Devastate, the new strike, applies sunder on top of bonus damage for each stack. Many warriors will no doubt go full prot, but without a shield. They’ll just DW with 1h spec, cruelty, and spam devastate. But if you decide to keep the shield, you have shield bash for casters, and hard hitting slams after sunder is up to 5.
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Not quite maybe. It’s actually quite viable.
It might be slower, but you have to reach Revered (at the beginning of TBC) to enter the Heroics.
If we get the 2.4 patch, well then its only Honored and at that point…
This is correct then.
In classic, warriors typically swap over to prot at 58 because that’s when they enough talent points for deep prot to work. In TBC, players will already have a defined spec’s worth of talent points. On top of that, each tree is much more specialized than anything seen in classic. The gap between a fury or arms warrior wearing a shield and a prot warrior is greatly emphasized in TBC. On the bright side though, prot is much more powerful build in TBC compared to itself in classic.
If you’re going to tank in TBC content, it’s worth going prot and grabbing prot upgrades from quests.
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You’ll be fine. I was literally main tanking for my guild in TBC as Arms, with just a small dip in prot. We had several server first as well, it wasn’t me tanking farm status content. It was progression.
Arms tanking works fine even though Wrath. Never played after Wrath tho other than BFA.
You can’t really say that, because overall, tanking got easier period. More classes got abilities to control their threat, threat generation was buffed, etc. Never had an issue simply tanking as Arms. Which was great because I’d go from raiding into Arena without pausing to respec or anything.
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That’s true, but the trees are significantly more specialized in TBC. Some of that is retuning, but it’s mostly the extra tiers being added to each tree. There’s much more benefit for tanks to go deep prot in TBC compared to classic.
Devastate and a small bit of stam/str are the main offerings. You can live without them. Deep arms has some things that are quite attractive as well.
In TBC, Deep prot served its purpose, but fury and arms tanks are still quite capable.
Protection is a lot more refined & fun to play in TBC, including for soloing/questing. Protection in Vanilla/Classic is so lame/lacking that even as someone who enjoys using 1HND/Shield 100%, I still play as a cherry-picked Fury spec thus far.
So does that mean I could technically DPS or Tank dungeons with the right spec? My fear is just getting pigeon-holed into a tanking spec and slowing down my leveling speed while solo questing
There’s a lot more than just a bit of stam/str. All of those shield talents matter with the general size of pulls in TBC dungeons. There’s a reason why TBC paladins are dungeon gods.
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Shield mastery? Pretty meh.
Paladin were amazing dungeon tanks not foe their mitigation, but for their ability to aoe threat better than anything else hands down.
I’m not trying to sell Prot short mind you, it’s in way better shape in TBC than in Vanilla. It’s actually a good spec in TBC. Just that Arms and Fury tanks are still perfectly fine. Prot isn’t mandatory, and wasn’t until Blizzard literally redesigned the class to the point where Arms and Fury were simply incapable of tanking at all. I don’t know which expansion they did that in, but it was some time after Wrath. That’s the current state in BFA and let me tell you, that was a helluva shock for me going back to find out that the char I used to push progression content on was now a wet tissue paper.
Shattered Halls, Arcatraz, and the SSC one that I can’t recall the name of were rough if you didn’t have a decent group. Heroics definitely require a proper tank, healer and CC.
That being said, I’ve only found it worth running dungeons while leveling if I had quests.
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They’re amazing because their shield based mitigation was also their threat gen. They got the best of both worlds.
and the level 68+ dungeons. Damage really ramps up substantially.
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Man, I’m thinking back and recalling what it was like to PuG these dungeons back then:
- The mage would sheep moon, and inevitably, someone would break the CC with AoE
- AoE would happen before the tank established more than body pull. Some how it was always the tank’s or the healer’s fault
- “Let’s skip that pat” or “Let’s skip that pack” always seemed to come back to bite us… Item 1 or 2 would happen, we’d wipe, and we’d run back. Someone would always pull the skipped mobs and would have to run back again. Or someone or some mob would manage to pull that skipped pack (proximity, fear, knock back, etc)
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Can confirm DW Dev spam is legit. I remember topping the meter as MT in my DPS gear on Shade of Aran. Good times.
Start collecting tanking gear from Naxx and AQ.
As you level in BC, pick the tank gear options if there is a clear choice.
You will be able to tank a BC leveling dungeon just fine as long as you know what you’re doing.
When you get a bit closer to 70, the non heroics can start to hurt, but its not impossible.
At 70, respec into Prot. Tank heroics. Recruit clothies. Take all the plate and mail gear.
Respec to Fury when you start raiding. Maybe Arms if you do 25 mans and have a lot of hunters in group.
Easy peasy.
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Early on, I don’t think that spec will matter too much, so long as you have somewhat reasonable gear. Leveling arms or fury with a handful of prot points should be sufficient.
I do recall experimenting with my guild back in the day. I was a holy paladin, and played enough to collect multiple sets of gear. We wondered - how would a holy pally in tank gear do in Heroic Hellfire Ramparts? If memory serves, most of my tank gear was a mix from the heroic dungeons, Karazhan and maybe some T5 equivalent or badge gear. I was under the def cap, but I don’t recall how far off I was, and I do recall having a decent health pool. Well, I suited up, got a bunch of geared guildies and we went in. We didn’t even make it to the first boss… things hit too hard. Had I been prot spec’d, the dungeon would have been much smoother.