A Tank comparison for a melee retribution team

[DLoweinc]

I'll state up front that this isn't an OVERALL comparison on tanks, but my perspective based on the team makeup that I am trying out and my constructive criticism.

Many people have been doing the five paladin melee route, or the Ret paladin plus DK route for a few more buffs/debuffs. I decided to try it out and figured I would post up my thoughts and concerns over the team makeup that I chose to go with and why.

Why a protection warrior instead of a protection paladin:
<Things I liked about the prot warrior>

• I already had a protection paladin and wanted to level up another tank
• Sunder armor was a noticable increase in damage
• good tanking cooldowns (last stand, shield wall etc)
• commanding shout was a nice health bonus
• crowd control with fear and stuns along with intervene and intercept along with a usable charge during combat
• ability to break fear

The warrior was great for a few things such as a rage based spell mechanic and he did so much damage that rage was never an issue. The warrior's avoidance was also great and he had some self heals which meant I rarely ever had to "spot heal" him. I played with this team composition until my guys were about level 66 and decided to swap out the protection warrior with a druid tank instead.

<Things I didn't like about the warrior>

• very limited buffs

Honestly, that was the only thing I didn't like. The warrior was great for breaking fear, fearing mobs, cooldowns and dps. I may switch back to the warrior once I test the druid's usefulness at 80.

My reasoning for bringing in a feral druid tank was:
<Things I like about the Druid>

• Improved leader of the pack... getting 4% health back every 6 or 7 seconds from a crit was appealing since I lost some healing by swapping one ret pali to a death knight
• mark of the wild: some spell resist for nature/arcane etc along with the stat increase and armor
• Leader of the pack: the 5% crit was noticable right away
• Easy aoe damage through swipe.
• faerie fire. the armor decrease must help a little but isn't that noticable (at least compared to sunder armor)
• A res on my main character, plus in combat res.
• tranquility... it's useful since these melee teams take aoe damage.
• curse removal
• Feral charge

<Things I don't like about the Druid>

• I'm rage starved.. My spammable macro is swipe + Maul. This may be corrected over time or with gear.
• Lack of tanking cooldowns. I have survival instincts and it helps along with frenzied rejuv, but it doesn't seem nearly as good as a warrior. (this may be an unfair comparison between a level 71 druid and lvl 75 warrior)
• the taunt cooldown is rough at this point in time because my guys pull aggro. this may be because of my low dps or my bad macro. i'm working on this...

At this point in time I am leaning toward the druid. The improved leader of the pack heal and the 5% crit is VERY noticable. The extra buffs are also nice and so far I have enjoyed the use of a a resurrection and in combat res on my tank.

If you have any feedback or thoughts on this, or have a druid tanking macro you use please reply. Any other thoughts etc are welcomed.

[Shodokan]

No DK tank?

Tons of tanking cooldowns
Increased attack speed
ability to heal himself pretty well
best for when you go out pvping...

druids are sexy though.

The best thing about druids IMO is that you can add taunt to your paladin's rotations... 4 taunts = a global worth of 15kish damage or so... so it's not bad for filling gaps when waiting for cooldowns to come up. You can either taunt back the mob or AOE taunt back to you. Paladin tanks are decent for this too.

[Multibocks]

Isn't sunder armor comparable to FF? Anyways rets are mostly magic damage so it's really a moot point.

What I don't like about prot. warrior:
1. No effortless self heal (DK Deathstrike)
2. What's the point of a small health buff when everything is faceroll at this point in expansion?
3. AoE sucks with a melee team. You have to make sure all the mobs you just charged are lined up for Shockwave in addition to getting your melee position set. Then add to the fact you have to tab target around to make sure everything sticks to you. Ugh.

What I like about Prot Warriors:
1. Lots of CDs
2. Shockwave is neat
3. Charge/intercept/Intervene is way awesome

I find warriors the coolest single player experience, because the difference between a badass warrior and a good warrior is very very noticeable. A badass paladin and a merely good paladin? They remember to rebuff after wipes?

Caveat: This will all change come Cata as they way it stands now, no tank will be an easy 6969 macro. So play what you like.

[Multibocks]

No DK tank?

Tons of tanking cooldowns
Increased attack speed
ability to heal himself pretty well
best for when you go out pvping...

/agree
The attack speed would be way more beneficial to rets than sunder, especially when shit dies so fast.

[DLoweinc]

I have a DK tank that's lvl 80, but I haven't swapped him in yet. I'll update this when i try him out.

I do enjoy shockwave for the warrior, it's pretty awesome.

My main motivation for swapping in the druid was the additional healing that improved leader of the pack provided and the crit bonus. I tend to make my teams so they get as many buffs as they can.

There are some benefits of the DK tank that I can see, such as deathstrike, life tap, ghoul sac etc for extra health.

Multibocks: I agree that the difference between a good and great warrior is very easily noticable.

Paladins definitely have a lot of utilty too with divine protection and divine sacrifice plus some wipe protection. Blessing of salvation is a good decrease in damage and scales really well compared to others.

[DLoweinc]

/agree
The attack speed would be way more beneficial to rets than sunder, especially when shit dies so fast.

I thought I'd read on here that the hybrid blood/frost tanking spec didn't do that great at high end?

One thing that I do like about the druid is that it gives some usefulness to leather drops instead of everyone needing plate.

Does 5% crit not matter at the high end? it seems like it would make a difference. the 4% heal every 6-7 seconds is pretty noticable. Although when doing the math on that with a 20k health pool that only comes out to a heal for 800, seems almost insignificant

[DLoweinc]

Isn't sunder armor comparable to FF? Anyways rets are mostly magic damage so it's really a moot point.

Faerie fire is considered a minor armor debuff where sunder armor is considered a major armor debuff.

[Iru]

Re: druid tank. Remember to use FF and Demo Roar. Both have significant TPS value.

[Shodokan]

I thought I'd read on here that the hybrid blood/frost tanking spec didn't do that great at high end?

One thing that I do like about the druid is that it gives some usefulness to leather drops instead of everyone needing plate.

Does 5% crit not matter at the high end? it seems like it would make a difference. the 4% heal every 6-7 seconds is pretty noticable. Although when doing the math on that with a 20k health pool that only comes out to a heal for 800, seems almost insignificant

Attack speed buff > 5% crit.

High end in instances your diving storm heals your tank to full anyway. That with a basic macro set you do great AOE threat and single target you are fine too.

[DLoweinc]

I'm not denying that and in fact I'm looking forward to it, but wouldn't an additional 5% crit help as well?

For the short term I plan on getting all of them to 80 anyways and then I'll have my choice of tank (DK, Paladin, Warrior or Druid).

My guys just dinged lvl 70 last night so I still have a two or three weeks of leveling to hit 80 and see what this is like. I think I'll just have to post an update at that time once I can make a more informed opinion.

Thanks for the reply Shodokan. What you mentioned is the type of thing that I wouldn't find out on my own until later on. I appreciate it.