I’ve literally seen builds using all 3 trees, but im assuming some are for parsing, some for PvP, raids…
I just want to be a durable, dependable tank in dungeons for now…
Whats the real deal? Affliction is what IM running now, Demo seems good. Destro seems to just be big dam.
Help me out.
Well destro is your dungeon aoe spec since pushback reduce on Hellfire.
Not sure AoE is the answer.
Sure in a coord group, but im talking undergeared PUG dungeons…
I just ran like 3 hrs of SM on my healer and got 2 warlock tanks…I dont want to say they are bad players, because I dont think they are…
but warlock tanks are squishy as hell (at least leveling up), and I’ve yet to have a warlock tank that seems “tanky”… I mean Im sure they are #2 behind shaman for AoE, but shamans seem far tankier than warlocks atm.
I tried researching online…nobody seems to know exactly whats “best”, they just know parse/dps for raids…which isnt the most “tankiest/reliable” build…its just a dps race for them.
I tanked SM Arm and SM Cath on my warlock many times (mainly Cath b/c more exp 37+ and I started around 36 tanking in there) and even I don’t know the answer. I did affliction in the beginning and then tried the destruction spec with the extra crit and replaced master channeler for the 10% crit rune to chest so that I’d have anywhere from like 16-18% dodge chance at all times with the new phase 2 dodge rune as someone was saying a lot of warlock tanks were going the destruction/dodge setup. I will say in SM cath that the red helmet paladin looking humans will do HUGE demand to you and would always ask the group I was in to kill them first (marked skull) as they had a move that would take anywhere from 25%-40% of your HP away it seemed.
I don’t get the whole hellfire comments as I would never do that. Searing pain tab would be enough for threat like 90% of the time. There will always be those situations where a heavy dps got a headstart on some mob and you’d either just taunt it off or let them finish it off depending on the situation.
I feel like a lot of DPS want all tanks to be like shaman or paladin tanks and did huge pulls which not all tanks have the talents/runes/toolkit to handle. You just have to find the sweat spot of mobs you can handle without risking sudden death b/c the healer spaced off for a second or can’t keep up with the dmg you’re taking to yourself. If I remember correctly 4 mobs was a good spot for my tank who had a lot of BFD raid gear while 5+ started to get risky.
I will be curious going back in SM Cath after getting some of the new bonus armor cloth/stam gear available in Gnomer raid with a few more crit to dodge conversation and see how many more mobs I can handle then.
One funny side note, warlocks can tank all the dark riders in the world just fine between our self healing, 30sec CD shadow protection, curse of T. with some decent gear. I did it at 40 so not sure what the cutoff level would be for warlocks lower level so they may want to bring a healer friend before testing it out around the mid 30s at the earliest as the riders are level 40.
Demo locks are super tanky compared to other specs, but not until you get soul link. The healer also has to heal your pet and you but depending on the class that’s sometimes almost automatic or trivial. We have a lock tank and the difference between when he’s demo vs. other specs in gnomer is pretty huge in terms of how much damage he takes.
Leveling I’m not sure it really matters. I two manned all of SM as a resto shaman with a feral druid friend (I tanked and healed myself while he DPSed in cat). We only pulled as much as we had to at a time though, 5 man groups tend to be AoE/cleave groups. Two manning dungeons is kind of fun but probably much slower than the super optimized AoE farmers. You do get a lot more xp per mob though. I briefly soloed some mobs in cathedral at one point also and got something like 1.2k xp per mob with rested.
Faster AoE leveling groups might prefer destruction I guess? A shaman with earth shield + destruction talents would let you have 100% pushback resistance. They can pant swap to SR out of combat to get mana back faster between pulls.
I don’t think spellcleave groups really even need a tank for trash if you have mages kiting, but I never did that leveling to 40 so I’m not sure how successful the average pug is at it. With a priest you can pull big groups with eye of kilrogg and PW:S I think and a frost mage can let you AoE larger groups without anyone actually tanking anything. Then you’d probably only really be tanking the bosses.
Random less optimized groups that actually want you to tank the trash would likely be doing smaller pulls and you’d have to just adjust what you’re doing depending on the group.
Affliction is probably more self-sufficient when leveling if you’re not doing any try-hard big AoE strats. 
Try using the build in this video: https://youtu.be/_kUa0D2aT3g?si=ATY-Pss88dUKzPR6
It’s from Phase 1, but the general setup (Instant Corruption + Everlasting Affliction) is still the best dungeon tanking build. Much stronger than Hellfire, which requires a Paladin to even work semi-reliably.