Introduction

Moonglade, Azeroth
Hello all, For those of you that know me, you will probably know I am a restokin druid that has made some average borderline-poor druid pvps/duels that entertain and touch the hearts of no one at all. I have read the typical type of blogs generally posted these days and the majority of these go into events or activities that have occured to them that day. These work as an effective online diary to entertain the reader and allow them learn from their wise or rather stupid decisions. Unfortunately for you, this will not be the case for me, I keep my social life and sitting behind the computer life separate. So if you are wanting to know who I slept with, who I nearly slept with, who I didn't sleep with, who I wish I slept with and what I watched on TV the next morning; then this isn't the blog for you. Although I may often make reference to occurring events to support points I may make, thats about as personal as it will get. For the rest of it you get to enjoy my charming Filipino way of typing and a look at the PvP element of World of Warcraft through my eyes and fingers.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Who should tank better? Warrior, Druid, Paladin? – the stupid and endless debate for noobs

People out-tank other people regardless of class. I know plenty of prot paladins and feral druids that can tank circles around warriors, even in situations that would be biased to favor a warrior.
Which bring me to the point: skill and gear being even, circumstances dictate who is the best choice.

Once again, skill and gear being even:


Warriors work best against powerful single mobs with fairly constant DPS (i.e. not a lot of big bursts). It is also relatively easy for them to become practically un-crushable by bosses. In AoE pulls, especially groups of more than 5, warriors are fairly ineffective, and will have difficulty holding on to all the mobs.



Druids will have higher armor and health, which works great for tanking mobs with high potential burst DPS. The larger HP pool acts as kind of a "cushion" to give healers more time to react to sudden bursts. However, druids cannot block or parry attacks, only dodge or be missed. Hence they are susceptible to being crushed often and probably don't have the defense to be uncritable (because it is an inferior stat for druids, they get about half the benefit from it that warriors and paladins do). Therefore druids can be a poor choice for raid boss tanks, but are excellent offtanks for mobs that cannot make crushing blows, because they are able to soak damage with high HP and armor. In AoE pulls, especially those of more than 3 mobs, Druids are fairly ineffective, and will have difficulty holding on to all the mobs.


Paladins will generally have lower HP and will have much more difficulty becoming uncrushable relative to a warrior. Thier threat gen versus multiple mobs is top notch however, due to Consecration and Holy Shield. This is especially true if the mobs are undead or demons, as paladins can then use Exorcism and Holy Wrath. Due to their relatively small HP pool however, paladins make an inferior choice for tanking a raid boss.

Each class also provides some nice utility as well. Warriors have shouts, however the benefit of them is generally confined to thier group. Druids can give Mark of the Wild to the entire raid, as well as provide thier group with Leader of the Pack buff. Paladin blessings are probably the best individual buffs in the game, and they also provide auras to their group. So in terms of overall utility: Paladin > Druid > Warrior.



Long story short:
Warriors - best raid boss tanks
Druids - best offtanks
Paladins - best AoE tanks


However, each class can perform all of those roles if necessary.

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