Just wanted to add that I had an awful time with a two handing, rushing “tank” warrior in Stockades a while ago and have decided since to never go in a group like this with a non guildie as the tank if they are going to tank like that. It was horrendous and he even complained that I was making his job hard to hold aggro. Our healer was oom most of the time and the guy didn’t even wait, quite traumatizing!
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Then tell them they should tell you when their HP is low and they need to be healed
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This thread was almost hard to read through.
Obviously everyone is entitled to their opinion and preference, but there are some vastly misguided misconceptions out being posted here. Although, some players might actually play the way they describe, which is just bad luck running into such players.
I have been tanking 2-handed the, probably, 6-7 warriors I have levelled to 60 since 2006. And yes, the majority of those on private servers, but the first one in actual vanilla and the latest one in Classic.
Piece of mind: I think you should ALWAYS have a sword and board ready and some fights simply require you to use it unless you outlevel the dungeon. Verdan the Unliving, Arugal and Archaedas come to mind as they hit truly hard for their level. Arugal purely because you need to interrupt his shadow bolt, unless you’re not half stupid and just los it with the lower walls in his room. Yoinkindoink!
In any case, here are some of the general points I’ve seen in this post and otherwise;
- 2-handed/Dualwield tanks always mass pull and it sucks for healers and non-aoe classes!
That sounds awful. No tank should ever aoe pull if he can avoid it (talking level 1-50 here) because he has NO aoe abilities. 4 mobs is the absolute max due to whirlwind and 2 is preferable for sweeping strikes and cleave.
Thing here is, if you aren’t pulling big enough packs for AoE to be viable ANYWAY. Then it doesn’t matter if you pull 2 or 4 mobs at the time as people wont be hitting more than 2, max 4, mobs at the time. So pull less, take less damage and hit the same amount of targets.
- Those pesky tanks without a shield tank in battle/berserker stance and take crazy amounts of damage!
Which they shouldn’t. 3% crit is absolutely not worth it for taking 10% more damage on top of not having a shield equipped.
Personally, I switch to berserker stance to whirldwind and to battle stance to pop sweeping strikes. The latter which I do right as I pull with a charge. But be in defensive stance as much as humanly possible. Which should be 90%+ of the time you’re tanking. Even with a 2hander. And use revenge! It is cheap and insane threat.
- I have to drink all the time because X tank is using no shield!
During the first… 40 levels, I’d say this doesn’t make a difference. A shield gives you maybe 1200 armor at 35, which might increase your damage reduction by a maximum of 10%.
If I wear a shield I might do 80-100 dps, also because I use sunder armor for the most part for effective threat. But if I play with a 2-hander, I am doing 300-400 dps with sweeping strikes, whirlwind etc, which around level 40-45 is usually 60-80% of the groups total damage. So I might take 10% or even 15% more damage overall, but the mobs are also dying 2-3 times as fast.
- Tanks aren’t paying attention to my mana and they just rush in and die!"
This has nothing to do with the 2-handed tanking discussion. But any player who does that I’d say, just let him die, because people like that wont learn from it any other way. 
I might also not be the best comparison to the average tank you meet ingame as I tend to pop Arthas’ Tears, Armor Pots, use health pots extensively and throw dynamite around like a madman. Because I effing love “tryharding” and utilizing the tools given to me within the game, which obviously helps a lot.
Tanking without a shield depends a lot on your group damage as well. If stuff isn’t dying, the damage obviously ramps up. But if stuff isn’t dying and you’re ALSO playing with a shield, it wont ever die and you’ll go oom anyway. It isn’t always the tanks fault.
If your group is super good it doesn’t matter which stance you’re in, as things will just MELT. My advice to tanks is; “play in accordance with your group and don’t let damage be your main focus, but rather what is best for your group.”
Not everyone plays a “top tier dps class”, not everyone is equally good at the game and not everyone likes it when you just smash stuff or rush, even when it is going well. So be respectful to your fellow players and accept that not everyone has the same playstyle as you. (:
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There’s a clear difference in xp per hour, from 10k-30k.
It’s not about dps meters.
When i saw the reality in time wasted, i preferred cleave warrior groups.
I switched off at 55, but before that traditional groups were just way too slow.
Once you use an xp tracker, it’s hard to ignore facts when you’re literally seeing it’s going to take you 2 hours extra to level up, just because of the group setup.
You could also just enjoy the game. Why is everyone so eager to get to 60, when all they do is moan about there being nothing to do. :b
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I just don’t get this mentality at all. You’re playing a game, it’s just a way to spend your free time… which is always a waste if you’re gaming, unless you enjoy it.
Being with friends or friendly people, having a nice run; it’s all part of that enjoyment. Rush rush you naab l2p blablabla kills that enjoyment and therefore wastes your time. Gaining xp is a means to an end. It’s just a [random] mechanic to keep you engaged in leveling. The leveling itself, playing the game, that’s where the fun is. Fun is what’s important. Stressing out and going over dead bodies (metaphorically) just to reach your goal feels so shallow. Are people this addicted to endorfine that they need it every so many hours of they go insane? Never play a game with microtransactions then, you’ll go bankrupt.
Hey, maybe put your xp tracker off and feel the difference.
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Please stop.
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No it’s not. It’s just pushing more responsability to the healer, nothing more.
You’re basically going for more dmg yourself to stretch healers mana more.
Can it be done? Sure. Is it fun? For tank for sure. Not so much for a healer.
Solution? Befriend some bears. Bears are awesome.
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It’s because dps are to impatient. In vanilla it’s the dps job to watch their aggro and give the tank time build threat. But no one bothers doing that everyone is nuke happy so rather than explain to every stupid dps it’s easier to just join them and out dps them to build threat.
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That’s golden. I shouldn’t have laughted. Sorry.
Never tanked with a shield while levelling (had one in my bags for emergencies, like). DPS would always overpull and the healer would end up with less mana than had I just DW/2h. I’m sure a prot spec would’ve helped but I’m not questing in prot.
Tanking as a paladin is such a breeze though, I can finally just look for stamina/defence on my gear. Consecration, ret aura and salvation and I almost never lose aggro. Questing? Lol, I can pull 3 mobs at a time.
as long as there’s a mage that only knows how to blizzard, arcane explosion and cone of cold, every warrior is forced to charge in use sweeping strikes and whirlwind and then swap to def stance slap on a sword n board and use a grenade/sapper to out TPS the utterly stupid mages infecting classic WoW right now, and yes before the sword/board go on and def stance is entered you will take at least a full healthbar worth of dmg
Im not wrong though. Look at the tanks from guilds that cleared mc on first week. Are they using shield in mc? Did they use shield while dungeon grinding?
The problem is some people think this is vanilla wow it is not .
It is 1.12 patch the tourist version of vanilla wow.
There is No need for prot warrior to tank any dung pre 60 and if geared well DW tanking is better for 5man because of the threat.
I am sorry that blizzard decided to go with final patch for classic but game is what it is and it is too ezy and defo not vanilla wow 1.1-1.08 patch .
In 1.12 patch everything is nerfed and classes are overtuned .
“If geared well” is the appropriate comment. Not many are well geared at level 20ish 
Does it matter if it’s vanilla or not vanilla? As long as people are playing and enjoying it, it’s irrelevant.
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Unless you are running with a paladin in which case that is absolute nonsense.
General rule: Generalised rules suck.
Paladin tank is joke
My bad explaining it If geared well was meant for lvl 60 dungeons.
Pre lvl 60 you dont need warrior with shield to tank anything arms 2h fury whatever is ok .at lvl 60 you can have dw tank in dungeons as long the 5 man grp knows whatt to do and have good gear .
But you can bilive whatever you want its a free world go w8 for 5 sunders and do 1 dung in 3 hours ;p
9/10 tanks are absolute garbage.
They are not even tank specced.
They rush into every pull without any situational awareness, i shouldnt have to /yell “mana” every time i need to as a healer, but it’s too late anyway, the tank (if i’m lucky) will say “r?” Then proceed to (immediatley) pull without anyone responding to whether they are ready or not anyway (logic?) they rush from pull to pull without any care for anyone else in the group like it’s retail and an absolute cakewalk.
I always tell people the biggest reason for wipes in dungeons is because everyone is trying to rush it, if you go a bit slower and play more safe then you would save countless corpse runs.
Do they listen? No.
Garbage.
I have been levelling via dungeons since level 20, and i can say the only good tanks that i have played with have been tank spec warriors (which is rare) and druids. Druids are great to heal and maintain agro.
I have been wiping all the time in Dire Maul, a druid came along, he was calm, made sure everyone was ready, allowed people to regain mana, and checked it consistently and never rush pulled when i was low. We never wiped, it was a complete smooth run.
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Erm… no?
I’m a paladin tank. Usually end up in top 3 in terms of total damage, and get compliments from healers that it I’m easy to heal.
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