PvE Tanks best suited for our (multiboxing) purposes. THEORY and PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE

I wanted to compare and contrast the different tanks available, to determine (mostly for myself, I'm not an expert trying to tell you what to do) and with your help, maybe encourage others on what the best choice for their tanks could be too.

I think the criteria for a tank is as follows:

Independence: Can your tank be setup easily with a priority or two-step system, allowing for as few decisions to be made while tanking as possible? Can you seamlessly transition from single-target DPS to AOE,or increase survivability and use cooldowns to avoid damage? Does your ideal tanking rotation rely heavily on watching cooldowns or not using an ability until it's most effective?
Damage: What kind of deeps does your tank provide?
Flexibility:Can your tank gear be utilized as a DPS / Healing off-spec?

Now, i have all but the Monks at level 85, and I am doing tests now to determine the differences in the classes. I have bought all my tanks ilvl ~384 gear to even the playing field (and because I have no tanking gear, so I need it anyway haha)

My results and ideas so far.

Deathknight - in ilvl ~384 gear, the DK had about 171k HP

Independence: 7/10
The DK seems quite easy to macro, because of it's rune system, you can easily setup this Tank to use all of it's abilities on cooldown and still remain quite effective. Some abilities, like Death and Decay must be targeted, and can remain a pain in the ass to handle if you healer-POV your team.

Damage: 10/10
So far, in my tests, the DK does more damage than any of my other tanks. THIS IS STILL ONGOING and I do not have all my stuff fixed / glyphed / enchanted etc.. but so far, the DK does a LOT more damage than the other tanks. On a dummy, and in a lvl 85 heroic. For reference, my Pally / Warrior and Bear do around 10k DPS on a dummy with no buffs, and the DK did 13-15k DPS with no buffs, either.

Flexibility: 8/10
DK tanks have good 2h weapons, and can easily reforge their dodge / parry for Crit / haste etc. DK tanks rely heavily on mastery, hit, exp, haste and of course STR for our mitigation, which match nicely to what a DPS DK would like on their gear.


Protection Paladin - in ilvl ~384 gear the Paladin had about 155k HP

Independence: 8/10
A Prot pally has excellent skills, and the majority of them can be controlled easily. Consecration has an edge over things like Death and Decay, because of course it does not need to be (though can be glyphed to be) ground targeted.

Damage: 7/10
The prot paladin on the test dummy was doing around 9-10k DPS. This was about the same as the other tanks (except the DK) but of course, will change drastically depending on how many mobs you are fighting. In a lvl 80 heroic, I was doing between 20-24k DPS.

Flexibility: 7/10
Because a prot pally uses different weapons than any of it's off-specs, a prot pally will always have to have a spare weapon for Ret or holy. However, because hit, expertise and STR are all great stats for a prot pally, a ret off-spec is viable.


Guardan Druid - in ilvl ~384 gear the Druid had about 157k HP

Independence: 9/10
The Bear has only a few abilities to worry about as a tank, and they are basically all have cooldowns that can be easily managed with any of the common methods used to one-button win.

Damage: 7/10
So far, in my tests, the Bear was pretty good with DMG, but not as high as the DK. More testing required.

Flexibility: 6/10
Bears need AGI, Cats need AGI. Resto and Boomkins are screwed.



Protection Warrior - in ilvl ~384 gear the Warrior had about 153k HP

Independence: 8/10
The warrior can sam abilities, and has very few things that make automation difficult. Shockwave is a cone and not a true AoE and so can be more difficult to aim if you are not driving with the Tank.

Damage: 7/10
So far, in my tests, the Warrior had good dmg but not as high as the DK. Aparantly you can cheese the DMG by spamming revenge, and get ridiculous DPS, but that must come at the cost of damage mitigation and survivability, but I have not played with that yet... More testing required.

Flexibility: 6/10
Similar to Paladins, you need a good weapon or two to swap for DPS, but most ofthe gear should be fine with some reforge / regemming as required. not optimal, but decent enough.



Brewmaster Monk - I do not have a Monk, need someones perspective on this.

Independence:

Damage:

Flexibility:


NOTES / to do:
1. The DK has a lot more HP than the other tnaks, does anyone know why?

2. The DK can switch weapon enchants to easily increase DPS or survivability depending on if he is going to a 5 man or a raid.

Multibox tanking for me is the best part of the game and an important topic. As for tanking theory and practice most of mine comes from level 80 ICC and heroics. I didn't tank much of anything in Cata and with 5.0 I think things have changed dramatically.

Let me jump in and make a critique of the criteria you listed. Independence, damage, flexibility. For me I would replace damage with survivability. And to really boil it down I think simplicity of main rotation and survivability are what weight the most for me.

Hands down in Wrath ICC 10 I would say if I only had a Pally and a Druid for tanking I'd be 100% happy. I'd tank all the trash on the Pally and the bosses on the Druid. And if I had to replace the pally with a warrior that would be okay or the druid with a DK that would be okay too. As an example consider ICC. I would 5 box the starting trash for rep. The ye' old ICC trash rep runs. The pally tank was happy to do this. Block, block, and more block on all those trash packs. The bear, not so happy. I could 5 box it fine on pally but never on bear or DK. But on some of those bosses in a proper raid group the reverse was true. I'd rather have the big cooldown buttons on the bear for when things get hard or go wrong vs any blocking. But that was all pre-5.0 and we could talk about mitigation and huge health pools vs where we are today.

I think part of tanking is how they all fit into your _grove_ for lack of a better word. So in practice...

Pulling: AoE threat opener. I like the DK's DnD. Pally avenger shield, consecrate. Somedays I'm mixed on targeted vs non-targeted DnD/consecrates. Targeted can add utility but needs to be done vs key mashing.

Threat Stability: With DK and Pally I feel pretty good right after pull about having threat. Avenger shield silence gets ranged casters to group. DK can Deathgrip them in. A couple keys into the rotation we probably have a good about of stable threat. For Wars and Bears I don't feel the same at this point. A thunderclap and a thrash+swipe are semi-okay. If it's the Bunks and I'm boxing the DPS sure they'll focus target my (tank) target and I'll be fine but if I'm tanking a pug I'm worried as a warrior or druid at this point. Tab target, a few key mashes of main tank rotation, tab target next next next. With DK and Pally I can do my pull and a simple rotation and just stand there and tank in what seems to be a very stable situation. With War and Bear I seem to always have lose mobs and have the need to tab/target all over the place stacking threat. Single mobs pulls any of the classes seem fine at this stage _in the grove_.

Rotation: At this point I'm mashing my single tank/dps key and the DPS is doing /castsequence on single target. I prefer not to have to switch targets and just tab, mash, mash, mash my way through the mobs. DKs, Pally, and Bear the rotation seems to handle this fine. Wars I still seem to have to do some tabbing depending on group's overall AoE dps output (and omg healer threat).

Heals and Self-Heals: DK and Pally have nice self-heals. Pally gets an extra nod here for the ability to instant heal a target.

Panics: Again, Pally has some nice utility here with targeted heals, bubbles. They all have nice panic buttons. I like the Bear and War for general self-panic buttons but the Pally for overall party panic buttons.

Things have changed now with 5.0. Pre-5.0 hands down I'd pick a pally tank for multiboxing and a pally will likely be my first MoP tank. I'll wait until they are all 90 before I stack rank them but even then I'd probably pick them based on single vs aoe tanking.

Couple other random comments:

DK HP. I think they are still tweaking HP/Mit/Avoid in tanking with 5.0. I believe DKs got a little HP boost because they lacked elsewhere.

I don't see runeforging as anything super special for DKs. 4% parry for physical, 4% spell deflect for caster fights. Whatever DPS you like for DPS. Nice utility but say for a Bear I just go AGI and I'm done for DPS and tanking with one weapon.

I'm unclear if you are saying that as a DK tank you don't use dodge/parry gear and just use your DPS gear?

DK Tank DPS. Agreed. It's high and I think it's high because their rotation naturally does a huge amount of aoe damage.

Hey, great info, thanks!

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For me I would replace damage with survivability

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good point, so how should we rate the survivability? is it what their rotation offers in passive cooldowns, or o shit buttons? I'm willing to add it if i get a clear sense of the differences in their survivability. I'm not sure yet what those differences are. How would you do it? :D

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I'm unclear if you are saying that as a DK tank you don't use dodge/parry gear and just use your DPS gear?

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No, but everything I read about the DK tank makes me want to mitigate damage, and not avoid, to not get bursty damage, and make life more predictable. especially for teams that you control yourself, or mix with 4 DPS that can heal you at regular intervals. So in that case, you max mastery and hit, then exp and stack STAM before you go nuts with dodge and parry. They will be on your gear, and a big part to be sure, but it wont be lik before when a tank had stamina and all dodge and parry and couldn't fight worth a damn in PvP specs.

-Dan

where's the rating for a fury warrior tank? they're all the rage now (boom, pun!)

haha Owl, you will have to add that one, nobody else has the balls! lol

It's pretty much just a matter of preference now. With the changes to blood boil, thrash, thunderclap, etc all the tanks are fairly easy to macro and have comparable mitigation.

If you're going purely for a 5man comp, Warriors are far ahead of the others. Their mobility, ability to AoE snare and AoE stun are amazing. Shockwave alone is a massive mitigation tool and AoE interrupt on a 20 second cooldown. No other tank has anything comparable (unless you're fighting undead with a Paladin).

Ya. I think all are viable just matter of preference.

I tried DK, Paladain and Warrior tanks. I don't have any level 90s yet. But it seems like Blood DK has the biggest "my slaves are dead, and let me solo the boss for the last 5% hp" potential. Though it was not as strong as in Cata. DK is my preferred choice just because of this.

OK, well I have tested out all the tanks I have (not Monk) and here is my conclusion.

The paladin seems to be the best tank. period. The DKs are fantastic, and like Remanz said, they can solo a boss if your team dies... in fact my team died on the rabbit boss when he was 75%HP, and my DK just killed it (after a few centuries). However, the DK seems to take burstier and less reliable damage, even with a mitigation gearing. One of the problems, is that Blood shield is hard to time as a boxer, with all of the other things going on, it's difficult to make use of the best ability to a DK, Death Strike. You should use this AFTER you take a bunch of damage, healing you and shielding you for a ton back. This is a great mechanic, but it's easier said than done when you are busy tanking the boss, and DPS / healing / cleansing etc. In the FCFS rotation, death strike will go off, but there is no guarantee that you can get a good hit from it.

A Paladins abilities are all no brainers. It's better to use Shield ability right before taking damage, as it reduces damage taken, but it has a good uptime anyway.

DKs and paladins do similar DPS in a dungeon so far, too. I still have my Ret paladins doing about the same damage, at lvl 87 it's about 20k on the tank and 19-22 on the rets. Getting better :)


Anyway, these are my feelings so far. Anyone with a Monk 85+?

Paladin tanks are hilariously easy this round. I literally put all my abilities on 1-7, and just mash #2 which sends 1-7 to my melee target group.
Shield of Righteousness is not on the global cooldown, and it can only be used with 3 holy power(biggest reason the just mash shit works).

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Originally Posted by Mokoi

OK, well I have tested out all the tanks I have (not Monk) and here is my conclusion.

The paladin seems to be the best tank. period. The DKs are fantastic, and like Remanz said, they can solo a boss if your team dies... in fact my team died on the rabbit boss when he was 75%HP, and my DK just killed it (after a few centuries). However, the DK seems to take burstier and less reliable damage, even with a mitigation gearing. One of the problems, is that Blood shield is hard to time as a boxer, with all of the other things going on, it's difficult to make use of the best ability to a DK, Death Strike. You should use this AFTER you take a bunch of damage, healing you and shielding you for a ton back. This is a great mechanic, but it's easier said than done when you are busy tanking the boss, and DPS / healing / cleansing etc. In the FCFS rotation, death strike will go off, but there is no guarantee that you can get a good hit from it.

A Paladins abilities are all no brainers. It's better to use Shield ability right before taking damage, as it reduces damage taken, but it has a good uptime anyway.

DKs and paladins do similar DPS in a dungeon so far, too. I still have my Ret paladins doing about the same damage, at lvl 87 it's about 20k on the tank and 19-22 on the rets. Getting better :)


Anyway, these are my feelings so far. Anyone with a Monk 85+?

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I changed my perceptions a bit after repeatedly getting pwned by the brewfest dwaf boss, lol. He just hits too hard. DK, while regain hp fast, cannot deal with spike damage. I was dying left and right. So a good metric for tank for me is , whichever tank can handle him at ilvl 410ish IS THE BEST tank.