When it comes to 5 man dungeons, as a healer I find druids to be the easiest tanks to keep up. During the occasional brd or strat run I find that I have to spend much much much less time healing dps if the tank is a Druid as compared to a warrior or paladin.
At 60, warriors that dual wield, or use a 2 hander are the bane of my existence. Everyone saw a YouTube video or two with a dual wield warrior tank, so they assume they can do it too. They go into dungeons claiming to be the tank, when really they donāt have anywhere near the gear required to competently dual wield tank. Yet the healers always get blamed when a dual wielding fury warrior claiming to be the tank, dies and wipes the group.
For the record I have healed a handful of groups with DW warrior tanks, that have gone extremely well. However the vast majority of dual wielding or 2hander ātanksā out there are garbage. Leveling from 1 to 52 you can likely get by tanking without a shield. But if youāre tanking end game dungeons, ignore the internet trolls that tell you to dual wield, and get yourself a shield.
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Here is the thing, as healer, its true certain specs of tanks can generate more threat due to other types of weapons, then the classic sword and shieldā¦ but this also comes at a higher cost in damage to said tank, often spikes, meaning i as healer have to use more mana, and also at times choose not to heal dps, since i have to baby sit the tankā¦
Also in theory, its my experience this just takes longer time, since after each mob, i need to drink, due to having to spend more heals on a tank with 2H weapons, they take more damageā¦ while a prot specced warrior can go from fight to fight, slovly buildign rage, and i can use lower rank specced and often regenrate mana to keep a slow and steady momentumā¦
And places like DM, ubrs there is parts i dont recomend anything but sword/shield, that said, all tanks should learn to stance ride to use all their abilities, and not get bogged down in just one stanceā¦
Do 2H tanking have its place, yes, but essentially only when the content can be overun, otherwise, its better to give the tank 2-3 sunders and then just keep rollingā¦
This is my opinion
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Good stuff everybody!
I have me a little 33 warr tank on the low.
Np tanking so far since I tanked in vanilla but the player base mindset has made it harder. Back then it was three sunders, now itās go hard every pull.
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Protection is actually really good for levelling once you hit 40, nothing beats Shield Slam for snap aggro and Defiance is the best threat talent by a wide margin.
Ideally you want a druid, a paladin or a warlock to buff you for AoE threat.
I tanked with a DPS build all the way to 60. No issues.
As a 17/34/0 Warrior build, I easily do every 5 man and UBRS as a tank, and Iām first off tank for my raid group.
First thing I would do is get Tactical Mastery 5/5 and then Anger Management after that. Will cost 11 points.
TM will allow you to swap stances without loosing all your rage, so you can charge in, swap to DStance, and instant Sunder for threat.
Anger Management gives you 1 rage per second. Really nice talent to help build rage in combat so youāre not solely relying on swings and getting hit.
While leveling up I also had 2 points into Improved Charge for the extra rage, but got rid if that once I hit 60.
Tips!
Do NOT Thunderclap on pull. It costs a lot of rage for very little threat. The only time you use it is when tanking multiple mobs who all enrage at once.
Do Battle Shout. If it hits all 5 party members, it builds really nice initial agro. Enough so that the healer wonāt pull threat off when you pull more than one mob.
Other than that, I just tab target Sunders and hold threat easily.
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In early levels, the Druid tank will have a better time tanking than a Warrior. The tank Paladin, however, will always have a bad time regardless of dungeon and level. Past earlier levels, thereās nothing better to tank than a Warrior.
If you have players in your party that are higher level than you and thus generating way too much threat, you will have a bad time keeping aggro. This goes for any levels.
You donāt generate much threat in early levels, so try to queue with players on your exact same level or under, no higher. Warriors have multiple ways to keep aggro and to grab an enemy running towards another party member, back to you. Donāt give up.
Overall, the Prot Warrior is really slow in early levels and is usually recommended that you go Arms until a certain point, generally level 30. In Classic, a shield is not required for tanking, but if you have one it will be easier. You can still tank with a 2h.
Shaman tank works too. It just deoends in how much you want to tax the healer. Personally the less a healer has to drink the better job im doing.
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A good warrior is fine, but druids are great when im aoeing on my mage.
A warrior is literally only as good as the DPS allows. Druids are merely better at covering for sloppy aoe happy zoomers.
If DPS actually follows marked kill order, assist rather than nuke whatever they please whenever they feel like it, then runs go smoothly with less downtime between pulls. BuT mA mEtErS!
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First time youāre not gonna be raged-starved while tanking will be DW fury tanking in MC
Warrior tanking sucks at low levels and gets better after the 30s and 40s when you have enough talents.
I played prot for a while at 60 and it felt better than the pure fury DPS spec has, but fury isnāt awful. Arms is probably better just to cleave capabilities. Itās also about learning the dungeon and which mobs to care about. When I do live strat I tell DPS to kill the casters because theyāre squishy and dont hurt while I build threat on melee ones.
As far as 2H tanking goes donāt listen to the mooks who says you canāt do it (especially lower levels), but also donāt think of it as the only way to play. When I dinged into my 30s and had sweeping strikes a charge into SS into a whirlwind gave me all the threat I needed. I would stay 2H if damage was light and go sword/board if damage was heavy. Just bind weapon macros so you can adapt to the situation because mindless 2H play can lead to sad times.
I have done it less at 60, but the fury tank spec is good and if you get overgeared you can absolutely DW threat tank. If youāre going for min/maxing you can also chug armor pots to make up for the loss of the shield armor.
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One reason for this could be lack of initializing AoE threat on targets. Marking kill order can possibly help to prevent this from happening, e.g.
/party Kill order is:
/party {skull}: highest kill priority
/party {cross}: second kill priority
/party {moon}: sheep target/lowest kill priority
Have a look at Eliteās Warrior Tanking Guide for some useful macros and other Classic Warrior tanking tips. You may find it useful.
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A common mistake I see warriors make is over prioritizing sunder over revenge. Revenge is an awesome threat ability for tanking large groups of enemies. At low level, if thereās a non-elite attacking a DPS donāt worry about it. The elites are really your priority.
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This is another good tip about revenge. Shield block and revenge often. As a fury tank a lot of what I do is sunder spam, but Iām also spamming shield block and revenge.
Find a good time to berserker rage as well for extra rage. You can do it right before the charge or after a mob has died or you popped shield block. Macro it to stance swapping so you can go back to D stance quickly.
And finally rage pooling is a thing. If the mob is close to death donāt dump rage into it, pool it. Keep tabs on bloodrage so you can pop it after combat and build extra rage for next pull and donāt stance swap.
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If you have initialized threat, you can likely hold it with only battle shout + white hits.
WIth regards to threat values, Mageyās WIKI has a table ( https://github.com/magey/classic-warrior/wiki/Threat-Mechanics#threat-values) that illustrates your point about Sunder Armor vs Revenge:
| Spell |
Rank |
Threat |
| Sunder Armor |
1 |
46 |
| Revenge |
1 |
82 |
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Thank you. Thank. You. Run like those mobs from anyone giving you this āadviceā.
Deadmines is gonna test your mettle as a tank, tho itās an excellent test. Many a tank has thought āIām holding aggro just fine!ā.
As I recently said to a friend, āokay weāll test that. Weāll do Deadmines & see if thatās trueā. Think of Deadmines as a tool to gague how well youāre actually holding aggro because this is a very normal experience, OP.
Also this. There are some OG players around. The very second they start talking about āneeding DPSā to Tank I stop listening. Does it not occur to people thereās a reason a Tank is called a Tank & DPS is called DPS? Itās like people forgot weāre playing our class here. Clearly thereās a ton of confusion on what a Tankās actual ājobā is. 
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Not doing that and using heroic strike probably causes more problems than anything for newer tanks.
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I quit tanking a month ago because very few people understand these old agro mechanics.
In the pugs Iāve been in since as heals, Tanks still very much seem overworked. Takes 150% effort just to keep everyone elseās ignorance from wiping the party.
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