In general, the tank tier list is the most balanced one throughout Wrath of the Lich King Classic; having one spec or the other in your group is not going to hurt the results as if you had C-tier or D-tier DPS spec. Tanks are in a great spot, and to be fair it all comes down to what spec suits your playstyle better and which is the one you have the most fun with. This is one of the few times in the history of World of Warcraft where you can play any spec you want, and as long as you know what you have to do in your group, you will be competitive. Obviously, some specs have a better performance, or the playstyle is a bit more optimal, but still, this is not game-breaking. This guide will go over the best tanks in WoW WotLK Classic
The Best Tank in WoW WotLK Classic
During Wrath of the Lich King Classic, you can only play four different tank specs:
- Protection Warrior
- Blood Death Knight
- Protection Paladin
- Feral (tank) Druid
Blood Death Knights are the new addition to the tank team and to be honest, they have a good performance, just not as good as the other two DPS specs Death Knights can play, but it is still quite good and fun to play with. As usual, for this tier list, we will be giving each tank a rank between the S-tier and the D-tier, being S the best one and D-tier the one you might want to avoid.
S-tier WotLK Classic Tanks
Protection Paladin
Yup, that’s right, just as you expected. Paladins can’t get enough of being the best healer and the best DPS by the last phase of the game, they just had to be the best tank as well. Ardent defender has to be THE ability that makes this class overpowered throughout Wrath of the Lich King Classic. On top of that, you have excellent group utility such as Hand of Freedom, Divine Sacrifice, and their threat generation abilities such as Hammer of the Righteous, Shield of the Righteousness, and Avenger’s Shield are good for either single target or AoE.
A-tier Tanks
Blood Death Knight
The new kid on the block, everyone wants to be you, and you know it. Blood Death Knights are pretty good as a DPS, and as a Tank, whatever spec you play, you are going to have a great time. Death Grip, Strangulate, Icebound Fortitude, Anti-Magic Shell, Will of the Necropolis, healers will love playing with you; you have everything, self-healing, excellent damage mitigation, and fun gameplay; what else can you ask for?
B-tier
Feral (tank) Druid
No king rules forever; after being a great tank in The Burning Crusade Classic you needed to step down a bit. Get some rest, my dude. To be clear, Feral (tank) Druid is not a bad tank, it is just that other tanks like Protection Paladin and Blood Death Knight do the same as you but better. You still have good abilities that were introduced in Wrath of the Lich King Classic, abilities like Survival Instincts, Barkskin is now usable in any form, and Frenzied Regeneration now restores a percentage of your health every second instead of a flat amount every second.
Protection Warrior
Let’s be fair, Protection Warriors are not good, but they are not bad either. If you main Protection Warrior you are in a weird spot where you can have a good performance if you know what you are doing, but literally every other tank can do what you do with a lot less effort.
While most of your abilities are still the same, there are new ones like Shockwave, which comes in handy when facing groups of ads or while doing dungeons. Tools like Shield Wall or Thunder Clap give you good survivability and AoE threat generation. On the short end of the stick, however, Battle Shout is not a unique ability anymore, but it’s ok, one less thing to worry about.
Wrapping up this tier list, play what you want and what you feel gives you the most fun, yes you may not be playing the optimal or the overpowered spec if you are not playing Protection Paladin or Blood Death Knight, but you can still do pretty good. Remember that during Wrath of the Lich King Classic is when tanks were the most balanced when comparing one spec to another, whoever tells you otherwise is probably because they like to min max everything in their group to have an advantage over the gamers who do not, and that is okay, everyone enjoys the game differently, just try to stick with people that enjoy it the same way as you do.
