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When we last commented on World of Warcraft’s (WoW’s) tanking classes, we pre-empted WoW Insider’s article on the state of “hybrid” tanks versus the traditional Warrior counterpart. The predicament in question is that there’s a great deal of controversy regarding tanks today, because while Warriors have held the role since Day One, Druid and Paladin tanks simply do it more effectively for most five-man content. That is to say, Warrior tanks shine in late endgame, but until then, are easily replaced by Druids and Paladins, who happen to have less difficulty with aggro management. Much of this tends to go back to Warriors being the best single-target generators of aggro, while Druids and Paladins tend to hold aggro better against multiple mobs. This doesn’t intrinsically cause an issue, though the fact that non-tanking Protection Warriors can’t hold their own in the damage-per-second (DPS) game is problematic, while non-Feral/Protection Druids/Paladins still have off-spec roles they can handle with fair success.

While Allison Robert’s article illustrates that Warriors are not the only tanks with problem, there’s a clear element of dissatisfaction among tanks, with Warriors among the forefront. This does nothing to tide the problem of the tanking shortage in-game, resulting from tanking-capable classes speccing for DPS instead of Feral/Protection.

How do we fix it? For one, Blizzard can continue making some encounters ideal for a specific class to tank, but Warriors at least need some degree of utility, even if that means supporting another tank with some kind of complimentary ability. Protection Warriors, for example, are already good at defending against magical abilities, and perhaps this can be innovated upon to offer a form of magical sponge to keep such damage off of other tanks.

Most importantly, however, tanking specs need some sort of utility in PvP, which is the one aspect of the game that doesn’t offer any sort of PvE-appropriate rewards for tanking classes. Tobold mentioned a Protection build with some success in Battlegrounds, and the talent components he went after illustrate a role that tanking classes could theoretically play. Add to this PvP benefits of PvE abilities (taunts as debuffs, for example), and we’re on our way to reforming our tanking predicament.

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