World of Warcraft®

My dk is unholy so not a tank, but pally is prot, druid is hmm have no idea feral :) not focused on tank or dps i guess.

At what level would you say bosses abilities start to make a difference? so far it seems very tank and spank at least up to the low 50's for me as a healer at least.

My dk is unholy so not a tank, but pally is prot, druid is hmm have no idea feral :) not focused on tank or dps i guess.

At what level would you say bosses abilities start to make a difference? so far it seems very tank and spank at least up to the low 50's for me as a healer at least.

It's all tank and spank nowadays.

Given that the new 5-mans are trivially easy for tanks - just AoE spam the crap out of everything and push cooldown buttons when the healer falls asleep, I don't think it especially matters from a performance perspective.

Also, MoP seems to be shaking things up considerably, so any choice made now based on stats or performance would become invalid relatively soon.

It thus boils down to what you want to play:

1. Bear - brutal animal using its claws to terrify and maul opponents
2. Death Knight - unholy enforcer using blood and rune magic
3. Paladin - holy enforcer using the power of the light
4. Warrior - physical powerhouse using strength and brutality

I've played all 4 and enjoy Warriors for 5 mans the most. It's mostly because of gimmicky stuff like spell reflect (which I just love), disarm and charge/intercept/heroic leap/intervene which makes other classes feel slow to me. I always feel playing a warrior gives a constant sense of urgency tanking trash - probably because of inner rage + cleave spam.

Tanking as a warrior is easy at low levels;

>Charge
>Rend
>Thunderclap

Never loose threat, victory rush when you finish a mob and top Dps. (unless rage starve then it's a pain)

Tanking as a Paladin is easy because most of their abilities are aoe, they also have amazing self heals with nothing else to spend holy power on at low levels so if your healers bad you don't have to cry.

Tanking as a druid was bad, until we got swipe at 18 then its aoe city, rage starve still hurts but enrage no longer increases damage taken. (also rage starve is gone come MoP)

I think tanking as a DK was the hardest, that's only because they are more active mitigation. Threat etc was no problem but a good DK doesn't take much if any damage or heals it up almost immediately but a bad one only takes slightly more damage then the other tanks, they can still parry and dodge it's only their block you have to worry about.

When it comes to Cd's, you will learn in time. You don't get many at low levels, and they are nicely spaced out so you can get used to them. The shorter Cd ones (30s-1min) you should pop if you aren't too sure, better safe then sorry and they will be off CD sooner then anything. The large ones are for OH !@#$ moments, you can work out when to use them yourself.

Just logged on to a level 36 warr I levelled & abandoned AGES ago (I think possibly in TBC), I queued as a tank in LFG after slapping together a basic spec.

If you can press thunder clap and don't mind putting up with the lobotomised gibbons that roam LFG at lower levels then I think you'll find tanking very easy.

I've not found it's gotten significantly harder in the 5-man area either. The Cataclysm heroics at launch were more punishing than hard.

you dont set out to tank five mans, they're insignificant. but imo DK's.

Hey guys, just found this thread again to say thanks for all the great advice. Unfortunately my tanking career is on hold for a little while longer due to some IRL events that have come up (nothing too serious, but they'll stop me playing WoW for about a month). When I get back to the game, I'll be sure to pick up a shield (Or 2h, or...furry face) and get tanking.

In my pvp gear but not sure how my gear is for tanking, but the pvp set is rather sexy looking and i gain a lot of hp/armor from it.
Not sure how much tankpoints tell you but it is a fair bit higher in the pvp set.