Flux

With the right talents there are three tanking classes; druid, paladin, and warrior. There is a fourth one eventually which we will see in the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion, The Death Knight.

For those of you who don’t tank, what’s the difference? Do you even care what kind of tank you have? Is there a better tank for healers or for damage dealers?

In long single target fights they all create comparable threat. The differences lie with initial aggro, healing, offtanking, multiple targets, and special abilities. Let’s take a look at each of them and what you should keep in mind when you are healing or dps’ing damage.

Druids

• best hitpoints and armor
• average initial aggro and multiple target
• worst avoidance

Druids are the easiest tanks to heal with their large hit point pools and high armor. With the right talents and gear they take damage light and consistently. Healers assigned to the druid often have extra time to take care of others. However over long fights as a healer you may find that the consistent damage may take more total healing than for a Warrior and drain your mana.

Druids don’t front load aggro as quickly as paladins on multiple targets. Generally a druid will pull a single target in a mob with faerie fire or moonfire and then use their special abilities to gain threat one at a time or in groups of three. They need to get a couple hits in before dps lets loose or you will rip aggro. Especially if there more than three targets.

Druids are immune to polymorph, mind control, and can’t be disarmed but that’s about it. Except in certain circumstances they can’t use consumables. They lack the special tanking abilities that warriors have and even to a limited extent that paladins have.

Their role is flexible because their tanking talent spec is virtually the same as their damage spec. Unlike the other tanking classes if they change gear before a single tank fight they contribute damage much like any other dps player. Even in their tanking gear druids do high damage and build rage easily. Because of this they are the best at generating threat even when not being hit often. This means that when two tanks are on the same boss they don’t need to main tank to still build threat. They can also switch to cat form to do more damage if they don’t need to tank anymore. And their huge number of hit points and armor let them soak up damage from creatures that hit hard like High King Maulgar. Because of these reasons druids are often considered the best off tanks.

Paladins

• average hitpoints and armor
• best initial aggro and multiple target
• average avoidance

Paladins are the most difficult of the tanks to heal. They have lower hitpoints and armor than druids and lower avoidance than warriors. They will take more attention than the other tanks. However because paladins build aggro so well on multiple targets you rarely have to worry about your big heals ripping aggro off them and getting an add.

Your best friends when blasting through mobs quickly are paladins. They front load aggro quickly and can maintain an amazing amount of threat on multiple targets. They usually pull using Avenging Shield and Consecrate for instant solid aggro on multiple targets before you can cast or get in position. You rarely have to wait to start doing damage.

Paladins have some special abilities that they can use while tanking including Blessing of Protection. However paladins build threat by casting spells and being hit. They then use Spiritual Attunement to recover mana while being healed. And if that cycle is interrupted then will become ‘mana thirsty’, run out of mana, and lose threat. For example, if a paladin isn’t getting hit they won’t loose health, can’t be healed, can’t recover mana, and they will loose creature aggro. They will also be out of mana and won’t be able to tank anymore.

Because they can build threat so quickly on many targets they are by far the best multiple target tanks in the game. Like druids and warriors they do well as a main tank but because of their need to manage the health/mana/threat cycle they make poor offtanks when two tanks are on the same target.

Warriors

• average hitpoints and armor
• worst initial aggro and multiple target
• best avoidance

Because of their excellent avoidance, average hitpoints, and armor warriors are the second easiest tank to heal. But be careful, they build aggro slower, especially on multiple targets. Casting big early heals may get you aggro. During long fights because of their avoidance and special abilities healers will often find that warriors take less mana and healing than all the other tanks.

Give a warrior time to build up aggro, especially on multiple targets, before you start doing damage. Once they have aggro like all the tanks, they generate comparable amounts of threat.

Where warriors shine is their special abilities while tanking such as Shield Wall, Last Stand, and Spell Reflection. These abilities allow a warrior to survive sudden loses and creature specials.

They are best at single target tanking. They also make good off tanks especially when single target off tanking. Their special abilites allow them to deal with many situations that other tanks can’t. However they build initial aggro slowly.

Overall

Blizzard has intentionally designed the game so that each of the three different tanks have advantages in certain situations. Except for a few bosses it’s possible for each tank to be nearly interchangeable. However knowing how each tank does their job will help make the run go smoother.

In general remember that druids lack specials to get out of trouble and make great off tanks, watch your paladin’s health and they are best with many targets, and warriors need some extra time to build aggro and are best on single targets.

Tank on it!

Tags: druid, paladin, skill, tank, tip, warrior
Author: aos

This entry was posted by aos on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Games, WoW. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.