Levelling in tank spec

Community General Discussion
1

I often see advice for people who want to level a tank to level in a dps spec…but why?

For one thing, when you level in a different spec than the one you want to play, you end up in the same situation you would if you boosted i.e. having a bunch of unfamiliar abilities to try and organise on your bars and having to figure out the best way to use them.

But beyond that, I don’t believe it’s actually slower anyway. If you were fighting mobs one by one it would be, but why would you do that? Your tough enough to pull large packs of normal mobs and waste them with aoe abilities in any of the tanking specs, so…do that. And then it’s not slower than levelling as dps…in fact I feel like it’s faster, especially on higher dps tanks like prot paladin, but even on lower dps tanks it feels faster

So why is the advice so often to level as dps?

2

True.
But classes today are designed to be picked up and played pretty quickly anyways.

Same applies to DPS classes though. Leveling is a joke.
If you dont die then the only factor is damage.

3

Some people would suggest to level as a DPS because its “quicker” to kill things and thus quicker to level…

But my experiences levelling as a tank showed that I was top in DPS in dungeons and could manage multiple mobs at the same time unlike a DPS (way back then mind you…), so personally I would say go Tank.

That way you can learn your spec alongside it, and by the time you get max level, it’s second nature.

4

Whether a tank spec is doable to use during leveling depends on the spec.

The only tank spec I have leveled is Protection Paladin, which is a tad slow but safe experience for everyone new to the spec. It takes a big hunch of bad luck to end up in a situation where one is getting overwhelmed and killed by it after using the available life-saving abilities.

5

If you play druid it’s actually more effecient to level in guardian spec than say feral or boomie.

6

My prot pally is the only character I actually enjoyed leveling.

7

Whatever spec you’re more comfortable with, will end up being faster to level. If you’re comfy in a tank spec, that’s gonna beat any dps spec when it comes to leveling speed (+ you have instant dungeon queues, so if you hate questing, you can almost completely skip that part, yay!).

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8

I’ve levelled all the classes that can tank in tank spec.

As far as I remember it is roughly the same time as in dps spec because even though you kill individual monsters slower you almost never die.

And if you intend to play in tank spec at max level you will be much more familiar with your tank spec.

9

Loved leveling my mage and melting down packs of mobs with my beloved arcane explosion.

Affli lock with Demon Skin and voidwalker too.Dot everything and watch them die.

Guardian druid gotta be the most op spec for leveling.Spam regen and swipe 24/7.Never did i die,not a single time.Not even in any of the dungeons.

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10

its slower. Even if you did the mass pull thing (which would make it equivalent, youre right) … caster mobs wouldnt come to you to aoe down and theyre a pain in the posterier to go collect.
It is quicker to world-xp level as a dps.

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11

If - and only if - you’re fine with playing a DPS spec. I hate playing DPS, so whenever I quest and level on a pure DPS character, I get frustrated and annoyed and log off, slowing down the process massively.

With that said, I never had problems with caster mobs as guardian: I kept moonfire on them while I swiped down the melee. If they weren’t dead by the end, I just pulled more melee and kept moonfiring any casters. They eventually die, and I never had to go and collect them. The loot, yeah, but eh, travel form!

12

Go dps for questing, tank for LFD.

You switch speccs with a click of a button nowdays.

Sure if you want to quest slower, you can stay as tank, But most people are in the “Rush rush” gotte be efficiant mentality.

13

I found little difference in time levelling as dps or tank when questing, even disc priest wasn’t bad. Tank is safer and can do bigger pulls, dps more risky and smaller pulls.

Learning to tank only happens when you do instances so I don’t buy the level as tank to learn your craft argument unless you are levelling in dungeons of course.

I’d say level what you like to play as, the difference in time is marginal, it’s not like the good old days of spending months to get to 60.

14

You can easily dungeon spam as tank anyway.

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