Warrior vs Druid

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FiremanThul

New Member
I've been leveling my bear tank, but I also have a 20 warrior alt.. for some reason I've been playing my uber lowbie alts here lately..

I'm just wondering what works best for tanking, druids or warriors. Also which ones are more fun to tank with, and which ones are more fun to level with.

I have a level 20 palidan also, so I'll throw him into the mix.

From a DPS standpoint, I have my own idea, but I wanna hear from the experienced tanks.
 
hehe redeemed is invading another forum! but from a hunters position i see warrior as the only way to go for high end stuff. druid rarely tank anything high lvl unless its 5 man. Also pallies r more off tank then warriors. So if u want to have the only way to do things is tank go warrior.
but if u want to be able to dps, tank or heal go pally. they r best at healing but can do almost anything pretty well.
druids r more dps. yes some tank like ill but there r very few slots for a druid tank in 25 mans. im not sure y this is but i know that warriors are almost ALWAYS main tanks in anything big like hard 5 mans or raids.
hope this helps ya
 
galatians said:
druid rarely tank anything high lvl unless its 5 man.
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That may be true in Redeemed, but not true at all for many groups in WoW. Druid tanks are probably the best aggro holding tanks out there, as our threat generation is directly proportional to our dps output. The druid tanking tree and melee dps tree are the same so threat generation is very easy for a druid tank.

Also pallies r more off tank then warriors.
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Whether a paladin, druid or warrior is an off-tank is going to depend more on gear and tanking experience/ability than class.

druids r more dps. yes some tank like ill but there r very few slots for a druid tank in 25 mans. im not sure y this is but i know that warriors are almost ALWAYS main tanks in anything big like hard 5 mans or raids.
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Again, on who is main tank is going to depend on the group and the tanks ability. If a group has tunnel-vision and can only see a warrior as a main tank for "hard" content, then that is all you will see. Warriors also tend to be main tanks because as a protection spec'd warrior, there is nothing much else they can do but tank. But if a player's skill with a druid tank is obviously greater than another player's skill as a warrior tank, but the group defers to the warrior out of that tunnel-vision, then the group as a whole suffers in progression.

So to Thul, I would say you need to ask yourself which class plays to your strengths as a gamer. IMHO, all three classes given similar gear and an excellent "tank-minded" player behind the class, all three can main tank as well as the other. But if you go paladin or druid, you will be faced with prejudices of only warriors being strong tanks and the fact that many times you will be in a group with a prot-spec'd tank and will not be able to always tank.

The only advice I would have if you decide to go druid or paladin, is that these two classes are indeed hybrid classes and you have to learn the skill of what it means to be a hybrid. To me, it means having the ability to change your role in an encounter at an instant. As either of these classes, you need to learn how to be a decent healer as well as a tank.
 
I wonder where Galations is during our raids. We only recently got our first Druid Tank in the last month. As can be seen in our Kara raid teams, we have 1 Druid tank. The rest of our tank crew is split 50/50 between warriors and pallies. As far as end game tanking goes, all three tanks are viable as MT with skill/gear (plenty of videos of pallies/druids tanking high end stuff). Azolas hits the nail on the head that tunnel-vision will limit your options as a raid. All three tanks have individual strengths that raid leaders should take into consideration during each encounter and play off of for maximum success.

The statement that pallies are OTs end game is kinda annoying seeing how I have MT'd all of Karazhan except Nightbane (and only because I haven't tried it yet). I was the 1st tank in on our last Void Reaver kill. I have even tanked two adds in HKM before when the priest tank died (and by the way my main tank target was the warlock so I was keeping threat up while being feared).

I will admit that gearing a warrior to tank end game is a lot easier and quicker then a pally. Druids and Pallies bring in utility and buffs that are very nice. Druids and Pallies can also solo content extremely well.

I love playing my pally as I enjoy the challenge of tanking when it was once forbidden to us. I love out DPSing all but the best geared and played "DPSers" in 5 mans all while tanking. Even though I joke about being a tank in raid and having sold my healing gear to a nice gnome in Ironforge, I love being called to heal when it is needed.

Your mileage in any of those classes will vary. Don't be dissuaded by the naysayers. You can do what you set your mind out to.
 
ok ive been there i know i that mordos good and fj main tank. i havent seen a pally tank in a while other then to off tank or to hold big groups! i mean sandric u had to stand in the back to hold agro when he came back! and i know that we have only had our first druid tank recently that is y im saying that druids dont do high end stuff because of that! and im not saying be confined to what ive seen. i dont druel over tanks. im just saying what i have observed in the eye and gruuls and same with kara. ive been running kara for a couple weeks and NEVER have seen a druid tank it. im sorry if u think what i say is wrong and it probally is im just saying what i observe.
im probally wrong since i havent seen a druid or pally tank anything in kara and for assuming that they arent the best to be MT in these situations. here is a simple statement IM A DPS I DONT WATCH TANKS EVERY LIVING MINUTE!
also according to my friends in other guilds that r farther then redeemed is raiding their MT r warriors as well. i dont care if im wrong im just saying what i observe in our guild and the realm.
 
I think all three are viable.

A different question to ask: What else can a tank-spec'd class do in raids?

[Specifically, many encounters require multiple tanks, typically on multiple targets (though there are some that several tanks have to fight for agro on the same target, like Broodlord, pre-BC).]

Feral Druids are great for melee DPS, and therefore make great off-tanks insofar that once their target is dead, they can pop into cat and contribute non-trivially to the DPS, far more so than a Prot Warrior or Prot Paladin.

Protection Paladins are great for off-healing (mana-permitting), once their target is dead. And for encounters like Hydross, you almost need one to AoE tank the adds. Improved Holy Shield also makes them well-suited to tank fast-hitting, dual-wielding bosses like Moroes, Romulo and Prince. The ability to front-load agro in "DPS-race" encounters also is nice.

Protection Warriors, as mentioned above, can't do much else other than tank. A DPS Warrior is better suited to off-tank than a Prot Warrior. But they tank really really well, with the stamina of druids and the shield blocking of paladins (to push crushing blows off the combat table), and is much easier to gear up, as said above.

Long story short: All three can main tank, and I've seen them all do well first-hand, at least all the way through Karazhan and Gruul's (in-person). There are tons of videos online of all three as Main Tanks all the way through SSC/TK/MH/BT.

Their non-tanking duties, on the other hand, greatly differ. If a group/raid only needs one tank, I'll take any. If it requires more than one, I'll try to take a mix.

Different strengths. Different weaknesses.

Different flavors, same role.

EDIT: To answer your question, Thul, pick whichever one is more fun to you. All three are fun in their own ways. A druid is not a paladin is not a warrior. They all play very differently. They tank differently.

Do you like variety or focus? Do you like to re-spec often? Do you like the option to heal (Paladin/Druid)? Do you like to wear plate and tank with a shield or DPS with a nasty 2H hammer (Warrior/Paladin)? Do you like to stealth (Druid)? Do you like to cast spells (Druid/Paladin)? Etc etc etc.
 
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My 2 cents as a raid leader. I do not use a MT or an OT, I use tanks. The reason I say this is that anyone I use can tank anything in the run, some more then others.

I have a warrior, a druid and have had a paladin that I am leveling as tanks. I know I am doing it slowly but other things have gotten higher priority.

It is easier to learn the aggro mechanics for paladins and druids then it is for warriors, or so my experience is. It takes less moves for paladins and druids to grab and hold aggro.

Paladins make GREAT multi-mob tanks. They can hold a group like it was a single mob. Druids can hold a couple of mobs, but they are great on singles. 2 hits and it will not leave the druid. A warrior though takes a little more time.

I love the combination of a druid and a paladin as our 2 tanks for Kara. Right now I am breaking in a warrior and a paladin and am interested to see the difference between a warrior and a druid in Kara.

Two people taught me that paladins and druids can make great tanks and I am thankful for that. I hope to see more paladins and druids tanking.
 
Now that you have posted your opinions, I'll post mine.

From a dps standpoint, I've always had more luck with pally or druid MT's.. They seem to generate agro much quicker, and hold agro much better than many warrior tanks. I've seen some amazing warrior tanks, mind you, but it just seems with pally/druid main tanks, I can go all out sooner and more sustained than I can with warrior tanks.

I do like the idea of a warrior tank, for the simple reason that I think gnome tanks are evil and cool. What is cooler in this game than a 2 foot tall gnome being beat on by massive bosses?

I dunno, I'll probably stick with my druid simply because he's already 43, I was just curious.
 
I feel moved to comment to this. My druid tanked kara for the longest time, it still does. Yup count them, ten people..not five.

My druid also serves as an offtank and when our reg. MT is not on for gruul. Druids are big sponges, infact when reading the gruul strat online it suggests using a druid to soak up the hurtful strikes :) As a matter of fact I main tanked gruul this past week, super fun.

I can easily out-threat a regular warrior and a Paladin (just not in kara..due to the undead deal).

I think it requires skill, gear..and what not..but any of these tanking classes can serve as a main tank. The more you tell someone they CANT do something, of course they are gona do it :p

I would say your raid might want to consider opening up more druid spots. If you are doing TK you need four tanks in there, your druids can put dps gear on and dps until they need to tank. In SSC because druids are nelves they have +10 nature resis. Your druids can battle rez..every have a fight where "o crap the best healer just got one shotted" early in the fight. Druids also make your melee/hunter classes shoot/stap/slap stuff harder! Love your furry friends..they treat you well !!

and Mike I am way super, you cannot compare anyone to me to get an idea how it works LOL (ok jk..)

BARE LUV!!!!!!!!!!
 
I agree with quite a bit of what I've seen so far in the thread. I've seen Daire tank in Kara & Gruul. I have to admit that when I'm on my mage, I love seeing a bear in front of me because I know once that bear gets 1-2 good hits in, I can unload and never stop spamming my highest damage spells.

I think the biggest thing about tanks is, like previously mentioned, having an open mind. Like Crackotage said, each tank has their own strengths and weaknesses. The druid typically gets the highest armor and HP from abilties, coupled with higher DPS. The Pally can hold the most mobs at once. The warrior has spell reflect and shield bash for silencing.

In the end, you've got to play what sounds fun to you. If you want simple, play a druid. there are ~8 buttons you'll need during tanking. Want a slightly bigger challenge - play a warrior - there are a few more buttons and options. Want a huge amount of versatility and lots of choices to overwhelm how you gear, spec, and spellcast? Play your pally - choices galore.

But understand that if you play Druid/Pally, there are times that you'll be asked to do something outside your typical role. I take my bear into Kara with Clan Nan... and spend less than 10% of the entire time in bear form.
 
As a sometimes raid leader along with Mike above, I have to say that the ability of Druid tanks to grab and hold aggro immediately has spoiled me during our Kara runs (from a fairly well geared hunter perspective). I am able to dps nearly full out from the beginning of the pull. This is just not the case with warrior tanks we have had. I have yet to see a tank in our raid with hit points or mitigation (non-blocking) which rivals the druids as well. What the druid doesn't have of course is the block for crushing, but I am told the druid overall is the easiest class to heal in Kara. Full disclosure - I have a druid with about 24,500 armor, 32% dodge, and about 18k hit points raid buffed, and I am in no way the best we have had running with us in Kara. I just wanted to respond to the comment about druids not being viable MT's.

That said, I still think all 3 are valid and can be top notch tanks in there. It would be shortsighted and hypocritical to say one type but not the other. Take advantage of their strengths, and take the time to learn what they are. As a primarily dps class, I need to know this to understand when it is ok to do what. There is no such thing as best of the 3 overall in there (try pally on maiden for instance, yet pally does fine on others - FYI maiden silences so pally cant do aggro generating spells). Go with what you have and enjoy the run. I prefer having 2 tanks, one of each of the 3 possible to best handle differing situations. Which 2 of 3 doesn't really matter to me, but it can gimp us to have both tanks be the same type.
 
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This comes from a short work I wrote on teddy tanking. This was from the intro, a section I called "a brief note to raid leaders."


A Brief Note for Raid Leaders
Let’s cut to the chase. You don’t want to spend your entire afternoon reading this thing, neither would I. You want to know what it means to you and to your raid group. So first things first: Blizzard has designed Teddy Tanks to be effective tanks. Period. However, in The Burning Crusade more than ever before, Druids and Warriors do not have the same skill sets and functionality. Yes, their functions overlap, but they do not share each and every function. In TBC, you will run into encounters where a Warrior will have an easy time and a Druid will not, and visa versa.
Here is the bottom line: You want to use a Warrior when
• The boss enrages or goes berserk at a set time during the fight (say, 20% health.)
• The boss has healing or damage spells that can be interrupted – shield bash works much better than feral charge because it doesn’t have a minimum range.
• The boss has damage spells that can be reflected.
• The boss has predictable spikes of damage – say, a mortal strike every 15 seconds.

You want to use a Druid when
• The boss has aggro wiping abilities – Lacerate is a DoT that causes threat whenever it proccs.
• The boss likes to leave melee range – particularly if he likes to charge around and wipe his aggro.
• The boss is predominantly physical damage.
• The boss’s damage is primarily steady – from poisons, for example.



This lacks a Pally section, but here's my two cents:
---the boss stuns alot -- half of pally aggro is reflective. Druids and Warriors don't get reflective aggro. That means that only a pally can produce aggro when they are stunned.
---the boss has a high natural crit rate. Pallies have a high random block chance... The Warrior ability to command blocks isn't quite as useful if there is no rhyme or reason to the boss's critting.
---the boss in undead or demon. I mean, really... exorcism and holy wrath really do give you a lot of aggro.
 
Neirai the Forgiven said:
This lacks a Pally section, but here's my two cents:
---the boss stuns alot -- half of pally aggro is reflective. Druids and Warriors don't get reflective aggro. That means that only a pally can produce aggro when they are stunned.
---the boss has a high natural crit rate. Pallies have a high random block chance... The Warrior ability to command blocks isn't quite as useful if there is no rhyme or reason to the boss's critting.
---the boss in undead or demon. I mean, really... exorcism and holy wrath really do give you a lot of aggro.
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I would add to the paladin list of when you want a paladin tanking:

--the boss spawns adds near him/herself and the adds need to be tanked as well.
 
John, thanks for the nice summary! I love it! :)

Here's how I would have added to and revised it:

You want to use a Warrior when
  • The boss enrages or goes berserk at a set time during the fight (say, 20% health) – Last Stand/Shield Wall FTW
  • The boss has healing or damage spells that can be interrupted – shield bash works much better than feral charge (no minimum range) or Hammer of Justice (long cooldown) which many bosses are immune to anyway
  • The boss has damage spells that can be reflected – duh
  • The boss has predictable spikes of damage – say, a mortal strike every 15 seconds
  • The boss uses FEAR at predictable intervals
You want to use a Druid when
  • The boss can disarm you
  • The boss can polymorph you
  • The boss has aggro wiping abilities – Lacerate is a DoT that causes threat whenever it proccs
  • The boss likes to leave melee range – particularly if he likes to charge around and wipe his aggro
  • The boss is predominantly physical damage
  • The boss’s damage is primarily steady – from poisons, for example
You want to use a Paladin when
  • The boss in undead or demon – Exorcism/Holy Wrath FTW
  • The boss has lots of adds – duh
  • It's a DPS race and you need to front-load agro ASAP – 3-7k threat in the first 1-2 seconds is not uncommon
  • The boss stuns alot – Paladins have "reflective" aggro abilities; Druids/Warriors don't, so only a Paladin can produce aggro while stunned IF he is still targetted
  • The boss hits faster than twice per 5 seconds – Improved Holy Shield FTW
  • You need a magic/poison/disease cleanser – especially for yourself
I basically added a fear bullet for warriors and took out the paladin crit info (not entirely true, but I think you meant the fast attack speed that uses up a warrior's Shield Block too fast) I also added the adds, fast attack speeds and front-loaded threat.

Another thing to note though, is that some mobs stop targeting you while you're stunned, like any other form of CC, so your only recourse is the Bubble, cancel Bubble and AoE/range taunt...once every 5 min :(.

For most "normal" bosses, every tank should be un-critable (490+ Def for warriors/paladins; 415+ Def for druids, talented). Crushing blows are mitigated via high armor for druids, and avoided via shield mechanics for warriors/paladins.

EDIT: Since my main is a mage, I've been fortunate to be in different groups that have had all three as tanks, and, when played well, all three put out amazing threat while reducing healer strain through mitigation. It ultimately comes down to the person behind the keyboard, as Randy's avatar/picture cleverly denotes. :)
 
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It ultimately comes down to the person behind the keyboard, as Randy's avatar/picture cleverly denotes.
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the best part is the fact that I spelled it wrong. But you're right. playstyle can make or break any class. :)
 
Crackotage said:
You want to use a Druid when
  • The boss likes to leave melee range – particularly if he likes to charge around and wipe his aggro
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Great summary, though I think this particular case a warrior can do about as well since he can intercept almost as frequently as a feral tank can charge.
 
Crackotage said:
  • The boss stuns alot – half of Paladin aggro is reflective; Druids/Warriors don't have reflective aggro, so only a Paladin can produce aggro while stunned
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That is misleading. On a single target encounter it is more like 25% of Paladin aggro is reflective. On multiple targets where you are relying on consecration and reflective damage to hold agro then reflective damage is a larger percent of threat.

Take Moroes. Most tankadins keep their threat not while stunned but before the stun where Moroes duel wield and fast attack speed build up heaps of threat that last during his stuns. As soon as he stuns, he will go to the next target taking out any potential for reflective damage. Maiden is another example where the silence ability and 10 second cool down of Holy Shield means you will not have it up all the time. You have to rely on melee abilities and spell damage to keep agro.

As tankadins gear up, reflective damage really starts to take a back seat to other abilities. Take a blue/green geared tankadin. They might not have pushed crush off the table so they are still going to be hit enough by the mob to make retribution aura, holy shield and sanctuary proc. But as the tankadin becomes uncrushable, reflective damage becomes less viable as block is the first to start diminishing on the attack table after crush. Less block chance means less reflective damage from holy shield and sanctuary along with retribution aura. That is when a tankadin has to invest heavily in spell damage.

I would also like to submit tankadins for fear breaking mechanics like Nightbane. A tankadin with guardians favor and the pvp trinket can break fear 8-9 times during Nightbane. Plus nightbane is undead giving tankadins excellent threat generation.
 
But as the tankadin becomes uncrushable, reflective damage becomes less viable as block is the first to start diminishing on the attack table after crush. Less block chance means less reflective damage from holy shield and sanctuary along with retribution aura.
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I would say this part is a bit misleading. Holy shield, and thus blocking, is the central threat mechanic for paladins. The 102.4% of dodge, parry and block total needed to be uncrushable will always be comprised of a huge chunk of an active holy shield (and that assumes all 8 charges are not consumed before the cooldown is up). You would really have to stack a ton of dodge and parry to effectively push block so far off the table that holy shield + sanctuary is not going to be the main threat mechanic.
 
I am telling you, reflective damage takes a back seat to melee abilities and spell damage modifiers to seals and judgements once you get geared.

Take for instance our Void Reaver kill this week. I managed to keep his attention about 50% of the fight between the other tanks. So doing some theory crafting on the data, I had 16,310 holy damage from Holy Shield. Multiply by 1.35 for Holy Shield threat modifier gives it 22,000 holy damage. If Void didn't agro dump frequently and I had his attention 100% of the fight instead of 50% we can guestimate and double that number to 44,000 holy damage. That is only 5k more holy damage then spamming consecrate. So totaling all my holy damage * 1.9 for Improved Righteous Fury gives you 283,803 holy damage + 29,655 from thorns and melee attack for a total of 313,458 damage points applied to threat. 44,000 * 1.9 = 83,600. 83,600 / 313,458 = 27%.

Bottom line is reflective damage is not 50% of a tankadin's threat. I would agree that block + holy shield ends up being about 50% of the attack table for a geared tankadin but that does not correlate to 50% threat. Reflective damage is a contributor and not central to tankadin threat. Spell damage is by far more important once you get uncrushable.
 
Edited to add disarm/polymorph. And clarify the grammar on the reflective damage.

I have to agree with the sentiment above, as I noted, stuns are typically CC effects, which means they stop attacking the tank most times anyway.
 
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