Raids are going from 40man to 25man…
kara is 10man, 1 classic raid group is 4 kara groups and some fights in kara require 2 tanks.
Dungeons are a massive part of tbc, think about just how many 5man groups that will be forming all at the same time looking for tanks, in guild chat, lfg chat and in all the major citys, there is no way there will be enough tanks for each group.
Players rerolling, its not a dirty little secret that a lot of warriors will be rerolling in tbc to play a high dps output class…lock/hunt etc,
You could make the argument that paladins and druids will be great tanks in tbc but will that be enough to satisfy the demand?
Depends. You’ll see enough tanks at the start of TBC. As we get later in and tanks are settled in their raid teams, your daily heroic will probably consist of having to pay for tank service again.
Well that’s the thing, paladins and druids will be excellent tanks, however I just can’t get my head around the amount of 5 man groups there will be going at 1 time.
I guess Only time will tell
I remember during Kara patch there were plenty of tanks especially paladins so we didn’t have major issues finding one for heroics.
It gets tough around BT release I think. Many geared tanks specifically asked for gold to help us out.
It’s better to start progressing early and get over heroics as soon as possible imo. You want to be on top of your game to keep up with the gear and attunements.
I guess in the beginning there will be no tanking shortage but tanks will demand gold again or hr every item they want
The further in tbc there will become shortage again as the starting tanks have their gear and rep
I can only say as a tank myself I will always be helpful being a living punching bag and glad to help others as long as they threat me with respect
Don’t see why there would be an issue with lack of tanks. No more than Classic. You need fewer tanks in TBC than you do in Classic. Most guilds will be downsizing from having 4+ tanks in their raid team to having only 2. If anything there will be a shortage of tank spots.
From my experience of classic there have been an abundance of tanks, and that’s just from 2 classes; in TBC there is another tanking class added.
I doubt there will be a shortage of tanks because Prot Paladin is going to see a huge increase in people playing the class/spec mainly down to the farm potential of the class and being able to boost relatively well. Where as a huge majority had Mage alts for AoE farming/boosting in Classic the same will be true for Prot Paladin in TBC.
But of course the demand for tanks will increase when the tanks available on a server out gear the content so 5 mans will be harder to form as time goes on but this is always going to be the case. I’d assume that tank for hire will become a thing again at that point even so.
There was never a shortage on tanks.
There was a shortage on tanks willing to run content, because they were geared to the teeth and had no incentive to run anything.
Since most of the early gear is from badges we won’t run into the same problem for quite a while.
Eventually they’ll get geared and stop running heroics, but it really depends whether they release T5 on launch or not.
Crushing blows don’t really matter in Heroics. Though it’s true that Warriors and especially Paladins are superior for heroics, for a variety of reasons (mainly the fact they handle large packs of mobs better)
In raids, early tiers have it somewhat rough for druid tanks at first, but eventually (around T5 and onwards), their HP and mitigation scale to the point that they can shrug off even crushing blows with relative ease, even more so than in Vanilla. And, by T6 when the first bosses without crushing blows appear, Druids become the premier MTs. Venturing into SWP without a feral tank is something I hope to not have to do.
Yeah - Feral is actually really strong in TBC with the added bonus of when they aren’t needed to tank they actually do moderate DPS in cat form or at least a lot more than they do currently. Mangle really was a game changer for Feral in general. I always had my friend tank dungeons and raids for me in TBC on his feral and he never had any problems. In PvP he was a pure beast I still remember him shredding through Frost Mages before they could even get an ice block off.
I was talking about heroic dungeons, though, when I mentioned Warriors and Paladins being generally better than Druids - at least at first.
The thing is, Warriors are just more versatile than Druids, tank-wise. They have more “outs” and can control things better than a druid can. Sure, a feral druid brings MotW, but a Prot Warrior brings Battle Shout or Commanding Shout.
Don’t get me wrong though, ultimately these are just minor differences, and I think all three tanks work just as well. In fact, it’s more about your group composition. If you have a caster-heavy comp, paladins tend to be better tanks. In a melee-heavy comp, warriors are preferable. If you have one or more hunters, druids are the better choice generally.
