I’ve read all of the guides and have a warrior in his 30’s where I tanked under Fury spec, and understand that while leveling up the spec doesn’t matter that much for tanking, but…
Would spec decisions change if you’re purely grouping up and dungeon crawling to 60 and intend to tank? Would it be better to go protection?
Yeah.
Its what i do all the time. Everyone needs a tank and deeps are a plenty.
Just dungeon hop to 60.
If you’re purely dungeon hopping to 60 and have no plans to dps or play solo, prot is great.
But if you intend on playing solo even at all, I would advise against going prot.
Don’t go prot. It’s not worth it at an early level and pre-60.
Meh… i’ve been tanking as arms/fury with little problems. Do NOT go prot if you don’t have group to run instances at all times.
Whether you’re dungeoning or not you should be leveling as arms. Nothing compares to sweeping strikes while leveling. You can 2H tank for a long time which also will help you hold threat, just make sure to have a sword and board macro.
Fury is good pre 30 but once you get 30 you should respec.
I tried it and my threat per second was garbage. Stick with arms/fury til 60, even if you’re strictly tanking.
Dont go prot till you start raiding.
Dungeon grinding as prot is not ideal:
The only way prot spec really benefits you is if you are tanking dungeons 4-5 levels over you. In that case you already will hardly do any damage, and it will maximize your threat on whatever abilities you can land and maximize your mitigation/survivability. So unless you plan on tanking Uldaman or ZF at level 41, just go fury until 40 and switch to arms if you want to PvP, or just stay fury until 60.
I leveled as 2handed fury back when I played. Kept a 1h and shield though.
I would go full Prot if you’re running 5 mans to 60, maybe Arms with some into the Prot tree
It’s personal preference, IMO.
DPS spec will do more damage, obviously, especially if you’re doing content where you don’t need a shield, assuming you have a good healer that can keep you up.
Prot spec trivializes holding aggro once you get Defiance and Improved Sunder, and with Toughness and a shield, your healer can go on follow and take a nap through the instances (or contribute DPS).
So many conflicting opinions, but thank you all for contributing. I like the idea of unkillable, and something about 2 handed tanking as a warrior feels off to me. I know it works, because I’ve grouped with them. However, it never seemed optimal without the right comp to compliment that strategy. They were just taking too much damage and I’d have to jump in an tank an add or two just to relieve the pressure/save the healer.
What about a hybrid build specializing in Arms/Prot? I want to be unkillable, but I also am very aware of how hard gaining threat can be. I know Arms/Fury tanking is meta, especially with a 2 hander sometimes. But I cringe being just like every other warrior. I’d like to join a group and people remember me not just because of my good pulls and agro management, but also because I’m sturdy as hell like a real tank should be. I’m just not sure the difference in mitigation is noticeable until post-60.
This part sounds like it fulfills the type of class fantasy I’m going after when grouping. I don’t want to be #5889 DPS Warrior tanking. Just another faceless warrior following the meta and online guides. I want to be the unstoppable force that can’t be brought down easily. What I want and what is reality can be two different things though, and I realize that. Hence why I look to those with more experience for some feedback.
Horde warriors don’t have that problem, once you get windfury totem you can 2h tank in any spec leveling dungeons pretty much. just last night I ran all the scarlet monasteries just 2h fury tanking