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I am a druid atm but I'm not sure whether I want to roll druid, I want to be able to do big pulls and keep up aggro on all of them. Can someone please tell me the best AoE tank in terms of spells and aggro?.

All tanks have decent aoe.
Druids included.

Druids don't get it until lvl 81 though.

I'd say druids are actually the best for aoe but like Namari says it requires 81 and getting thrash first.

09/05/2012 15:58Posted by Sulks

I'd say druids are actually the best for aoe

Then warriors
Then DKs
Then Pallies

09/05/2012 16:06Posted by Bakerboi

I'd say druids are actually the best for aoe

Then warriors
Then DKs
Then Pallies

Dk:s lower than warriors? Hell no. I havent played much pally or druid, but dk deffinately has better aoe than warrior. Lets see.

Warrior:

- Thunderclap (+ rend)
-shockwave
- heroic leap
-cleave

Dk:

- D&D
- blood boil
- diseases
- army of the dead (i count this in since it helps alot for big packs)
- Heart strike

Not sure if i wrote all the thingys, but dk deffinately has better aoe than a warrior.

Ergar. Try Spine heroic blood tanking as DK and warrior. What you'd pick ? We decided that warrior was both more mobile as well something about that vigilence and chain-taunt had bonises too, while DK took next to 0 damage of amalgamation... or few, dduring 9 stacks on roll (which we used to get on early kills).

While death knights look very massive with DnD, BB, pest, then their snap threat outside DnD is painful. While DK's are super on i.e. madness, where DnD is easy to pick up bloods, then on spine where the blood flow is constant, the dk we had got mental break and begged kneeling back her Amalgamation.

You are talking bout a single fight here and you are talking mostly about warriors mobility, not aoe capabilities. Yes i do agree that warriors beat dk:s any day on bloods at spine with shockwave and hl. But still, dk:s have more aoe threat/damage than a warrior, you cant arque with that. Also the fact that dk has an "droppable aoe" (d&d) wich is pretty useful at many fights, and warriors dont.

i play all tanks and i say all are very good druids are prob the best aswell but yh wait till 85 easy to hold aggro on them for big pulls.

Also the fact that dk has an "droppable aoe" (d&d) wich is pretty useful at many fights, and warriors dont.

Yes, we have... but outside of DnD, warriors are much better for aoe tanking. If there is one group to pick, than obviously DnD ll rule. If there is more - like inc adds or you have to aoe more often than once every 30sec, we are the worst class, because our snap aggro is so bad without DnD.

To the post above, we may actually become more competitive in terms of AoE tanking when we can spec into Gorefiends grasp.

It makes me laugh that Paladin's once considered THE AoE tanks, are now probably the worst :(

but yeah to answer OP druids are great AoE tanks, on 3 or less mobs with Beserk it's actually physically impossible to pull off a druid tank :p unless you're another, better geared druid.

In what way? DKs are absolutely abysmal if the adds are spread out.

We have DK and a taunt. Warriors can charge, then intercept a second one, then intervene one (assuming the DPS manages to grab it in place) and then taunt and then use their throw.

I think paladins/druids are probably best for groups that are together, though. At least in terms of "hitting things". Diseases aren't that great (only really used on bosses), blood boil is okay but on a 10 second cooldown and D&D is on a 30 second CD. Unless you're taking the glyph for it (which you really never should), it's still stuck on a 30 second CD>

Druids have swipe and trash, which are able to put out constant (trash) and six second swings at every enemy. Well, it's more like every 5 seconds. And the same is with the paladin's strike in the prot tree but 5 seconds. Plus they have consecration, which while slightly shorter than D&D, is still good. Plus AS does a decentish job with caster mobs to pull them.

Druids have best AoE threat after level 81. You just press two buttons on a 3 and 6 sec cd and you have all the aggro you want + bears are very good at surviving.

Warriors also have good AoE but you have to apply rend first, then thunder clap for instant threat so it's one gcd until you can get aggro on all the mobs. But that's where shockwave comes in handy :).

DKs have good AoE too through death and decay, blood boil...I can't say I've really noticed much aggro increase from spreading diseases.

That's the order I'd put them in. About pallys I don't know anything.

Pallies are the worst simply because if HotR gets dodged/parried/misses on the main target then it doesn't go off at all and you're stuck with 3 seconds where you literally can do nothing for aoe threat. 1 or 2 ticks of consecrate hitting for 500-600 or holy wrath hitting for 300 won't hold threat on anything.

I'm not entirely sure if swipe/thrash can be dodged/parried but even if they can they atleast have the other to fall back on.

You are talking bout a single fight here and you are talking mostly about warriors mobility, not aoe capabilities. Yes i do agree that warriors beat dk:s any day on bloods at spine with shockwave and hl. But still, dk:s have more aoe threat/damage than a warrior, you cant arque with that. Also the fact that dk has an "droppable aoe" (d&d) wich is pretty useful at many fights, and warriors dont.

Yes, I agree that DnD by itself is massive. And as you saw from my example. There are fights, where warriors aoe tanking is superiour, and example, where DK's will show how powerful DnD is. But what i refuse to say that at the entrance of raid you can say . DK is better aoe tank or warrior is better aoe tank. Since they both have their niche. And sakkii says the same thing.

DND snap threat=good, but DND has 30 sec CD and 15 sec duration and death knight would get mental breakdown if there's constant flow of adds. If there's 'wave' and be done least for next 30 seconds DK's maintain that perfectly fine. DND threat modification is that high for a reason, and that's because death knights are only tanks out there without direct aoe taunt.

Bloodboil has 10 y range, and if those adds in any fight are even remotely spread that BB is next to useless. Diseases by them-self will not out threat the paladin healing in corner.

And no I do not mean death knights are bad tanks in any way, not at this moment. Just for them good aoe threat and tanking is needed 2 simple things :
1- mobs to be on smaller area
2- spawn in waves.

Fill that two conditions and no add runs rampant. :)

If done properly Warriors are the best imo

Blood and Thunder+ shock wave + sweeping strike+ cleave

but its not as simple as it sounds, as in my experice its very rigid and positional dependent snd genraly not as smooth.

Dk's are my fav they're dead easy , lots of talents to imprve their already stong aoe, more than warriors. although in the end theyre similar DK's require alot less effort for AOE by far.

13/05/2012 22:29Posted by Vexus

Blood and Thunder+ shock wave + sweeping strike+ cleave

Isn't Sweeping Strikes for Arms warriors only?

13/05/2012 22:55Posted by Kuplis

Blood and Thunder+ shock wave + sweeping strike+ cleave

Isn't Sweeping Strikes for Arms warriors only?

Yup.

Warrior AoE has been this way since WotLK, with Blood & Thunder giving a big boost to sustained aggro. Snap is excellent compared to other classes as a swift thunderclap + shockwave = a lot of front-loaded threat. However, it's instant.

Thus, "best AoE" is situational. I find in 5-mans all the tanks are just fine at going between packs, with Druids and Warriors possibly being the 'best' as you can charge in and AoE very fast before anyone touches a mob. For boss fights, it almost never matters - other factors such as manoeuvrability or survivability come in to play way before threat or dps ever does.

Warrior:

- Thunderclap (+ rend)
-shockwave
- heroic leap
-cleave

I'd also add (improved) revenge and inner rage + beserker rage for extreme AoE capabilities. Not to mention the ease at which we can tab devastate around which is a very nice way (imho) to keep aggro.

One thing I have NOT suffered from in this expansion is AoE capabilities. I sometimes might wish I had D&D in cases where lots of mobs spawn from a specific space, but actually I wouldn't give up any of my existing options for that privilege.

I'm assuming your talking about rolling a new toon, and so are asking about low lvl tanking abilities. All the advise above will be obsolete by the time mop hits.

At low lvls, warrior have the best aoe threat if played right. However, I see a lot of low lvl warriors not using rend, or not speccing into blood and thunder, or getting rage starved due to dps ninja pulling. If you can pull fast enough to beat the hunters, and get a rend, cleave, plus tc in, go warrior.

Ranked in terms of best aoe, I'd say:
1) warrior (played right)
2) paladin (you can't play them wrong, easiest tank at low lvls)
3) warrior (played wrong)
4) druid

I haven't played all tank classes at 85 yet, buti would say Druids and warriors are the best. DKs do okay, but my experiences from lvls 80-84 is that the aoe threat tends to build rather slowly, diseases and d&d are over time effects, which can be rather annoying if something unexpected happens, especially if your runes are down.