What to Tank with

[Razman]

I currently have a 5 shaman set up with RAF. My problem is coming soon where I have to decide the set up Im going to use. Im planning on being pure PvE--Instance running.

So the question is for anyone who has run 70 pve groups nis :

Should I keep 5 shamans
Should I swap in a pally at 59 and RAF it to 59 and continue with 4 shaman and 1 pally.
Should I swap in a 70 warrior, geared for heroics (one of my single box chars)

Now Ive only played a pally to 45 so am clueless to their tanking mechanics. Ive played the warrior exclusively pve as an instance tank so know it pretty well. Know it well enough to think I may need all my concentration for multi mob pulls so a pally may be best?

The 5 shammy set up seems ok as Ive seen vids of 5 shammys completing Mgt Terrace heroic.However Im a bit stuck so any advice be great.

[Ken]

I was playing 4 shamans until I added a tank recently through RAF. My tank is a protection warrior and I like playing him. I had to group some more macros together(CL+LB, the different shocks and some buffs) into 1 macro with modifiers to get buttons free'd up for the tank, but now it works quite nicely. The tank is now level 65 and can keep aggro from my level 70 shamans pretty well. I really like it that I can now fear people.
Another benefit of having a tank is that in PvP people will usually attack the main character of the multibox group, because some multiboxers can't switch well between characters. It always takes a few seconds on my computer to switch the main, so having a tank running up front is just awesome.

I understood that the main benefits of the palladins are:
- better for 5 man instances
- easier to keep aggro with AoE
- useful buffs

The protection warrior benefits seem to be:
- better for heroics/raids
- crowd management (fear, stun, disarm)
- not mana-based

My plans were to only use the tank for PvE and use the 4 shaman team for PvP, but now I will also use the tank for Alterac Valley because he will be handy to tank the alliance at dun baldar and it will be a nice 'diversion' away from my other characters.
Because RAF I didn't actually tank up till level 60-62 or so, but it only takes an instance run or 5 to get the hang of it. I can't tell you what to chose, as you have to know what you want to do in WoW first and decide accordingly.

[Piros]

I understood that the main benefits of the palladins are:
- better for 5 man instances
- easier to keep aggro with AoE
- useful buffs

The protection warrior benefits seem to be:
- better for heroics/raids
- crowd management (fear, stun, disarm)
- not mana-based

The reason Paladin tanks are considered better is the AE tanking. Hit one button and forget about it. Warrior tanks are easier to gear since the way paladin tanks. Paladin tanks need spell dmg, some mana, LOTS of block. All and all its really just a person preference, Warriors are ganna take a bit more mircomanagement to keep agro on some of the larger pulls but paladins will be a bit harder to gear. Im going with the paladin for buffs (water shield + BoW), AE tanking, and paladins lore wise are better then warriors =P

On a side note when I said paladins need spell dmg you only need about 300 to tank kara so you can get most of that with s2 mace + 40 spell dmg.

[Naysayer]

Don't discount the ability to AOE as a protection warrior in WotLK. Plan ahead.

[Piros]

Don't discount the ability to AOE as a protection warrior in WotLK. Plan ahead.

I looked at it and im not impressed. 20 second CD on Shockwave vs the 8 seconds for Consecration. Maybe I have just played a pally too long on my single box, but it just doesnt seem to compare.

With Warth paladins will get a few more tools to help them.

ATM we have :
Consecration
Holy Shield
Avenger's Shield
Ret Aura

We will get:
Hammer of the Righteous

And for single target threat paladins will get:
Shield of Righteousness
Judgements of the Just

And with the changes to seals and judgements we will be less dependent on mana

[Schwarz]

My vote is tank with lightning. 5 Shaman are alot of fun to play. My only concern is that earth ele will be nerfed somehow in Wotlk.

I can attest to the fact that almost any instance can be ran by 5 shaman. Generally I can clear regular level 70 instances in ~20 mins. My daily heroics that I run are Slave Pens and Mana Tombs (each takes ~50 mins) and sometimes the first 2 bosses in Ramparts.

[Naysayer]

Well, this is just a level 71 warrior without a healer just demonstrating early potential and how awesome shockwave is.

http://www.tankspot.com/forums/tanks...ing-video.html

[moji]

After playing all 3 kinds of tanks, I can safely assure you that any tank can be multiboxed.

For solo play, I prefer tanking with a warrior. No mana, very manuverable, high mitigation making gearing up easy, way more control than any other tank, and my favorite tanking ability in game - spell reflect. Tanking with a warrior is challenging, probably the most stressful thing to do in game, and if you thrive on it, it's AWESOME. For boxing though, warrior is the poorest choice. He's just got too many abilities to use to build up aggro. There's the SS>dev>dev>revenge rotation, which I spose you could macro down to one button, but for true multi-mob tanking, you need cleave, TC, heroic strike, cuncussion blow, shield bash, spell reflect, taunt, stance dance macros, intercept/intervene and probably much more I'm forgeting off the top of my head. If you have a group of mages or something, warrior will do better than fine if you can chain cc adds and concentrate on tanking only one target at a time. In the xpac, warriors get a few more tools to do some insane aoe tanking, but they won't get any easier to play.

Paladins are kindof the retarded stepbrother to the warrior who's been dipped in superglue. Solo play, paladins are boring as hell. The only fun I have with mine is seeing how many mobs I can tank at once. Toss the shield, holy shield>consecrate, and you've got add control covered. For single target threat, it's as hard as judging righteousness every cooldown, that's pretty much all there is to it. It's no wonder pallies are the prefered tank for mb, because they can be effective with as little as 3 buttons. And as long as you have salv on the group, you will not lose aggro. I've held aggro with a measly 200 spell damage on ele shaman who put out over 1600 dps on a boss. It's much harder to gear a paladin, you'll always be lacking mana or will be too squishy till you've got a bunch of badge gear, but once you got one settled, it's all gravy.

Bears are the inbetween tank, don't quite have the AOE capability, but don't have an overabundance of buttons. Thier survival is through the roof though and by far the easiest to gear up.

[Naysayer]

but then again, everything changes as soon as they release the 51 point talent content patch, so plan ahead rather than what is now since what is now will only last until the content patch. Will it be today? Next week? Surely no longer than 3 weeks from today. I'd expect it next week to coincide with warhammer.

[Piros]

Well, this is just a level 71 warrior without a healer just demonstrating early potential and how awesome shockwave is.

http://www.tankspot.com/forums/tanks...ing-video.html

tried the video but doesnt seem to be working atm