Question - Tank Considerations

[no_one]

I am trying to get some feedback from some seasoned MQ users. I am going to be bringing up a tank for my box group, and I am trying to decide which tank would be better. Some things that may affect the decision are: The tank will be running on KA as I generally play the bard, whether it is SK, PAL, or WAR it will be starting as heroic level 85. My current group makeup is brd, wiz, rog, shm, cleric merc, tank merc. I am also going to be bringing up my cleric who is currently 86.

What tank would you recommend?

 

[Randyleo]

I use an SK for my tank, they lock down agro quickly and are not so gear dependent.

 

[PussyFoot]

Since you'll be using KA all three tanks work rather well. There are some differences to them, but here is my experience in comparison.

Warrior - Hands down the easiest for a cleric/merc to heal. Also the 'best' at handling multiple mobs. If you are personally slow to lock down mobs, the warrior is going to do much better at letting 2 or 3 mobs beat on him than either of the knight classes. That is not to say that they are not good tanks, but a warrior mitigates better and just has a smoother spike curve over all. Also, the easiest to do named with while still getting gear. Once you are fully geared for the expansion this becomes less relevant as the knights begin to 'catch up'.

Paladin - Very powerful self heals, so much so that once his gear catches up to the current content he often won't even need a cleric merc, and can just heal himself while tanking. It's a bit riskier but often when we go back into content like CoTF HAs our paladin will just pull out another DPS merc and we'll rip through the mobs. Has the ability to also splash heal, cure, etc. Very handy for those fights with heavy AEs or needs for cures. I'd also challenge that paladins probably have the BEST single target aggro, so if there is only one mob in camp you can have all your wiz mercs/wizard/etc on full burn and he will have a much easier time holding aggro than the other two (though warrior is close, and sk's are no chumps either.)

SK - Sks are very sturdy tanks but their lifetaps don't seem to have caught up with the self healing of a paladin. They are still quite nice, but not quite where they need to be. The instant terrors are very handy for making sure they get aggro earlier than the paladin (snap aggro), but the true beauty of an sk is his ability to aggro everything with AE terrors. If you have 8 mobs in camp mezzed, odds are the SK is going to have aggro on all of them set before he even finishes killing the first one. I find the sk is harder to keep alive than the other two in current content, but his DPS is higher and his utility as a backup puller/kiter etc well make up for that.

I currently use a paladin, but I have a warrior and sk and sometimes use them as well. (The paladin was the first to 105 though and haven't even bothered with the other two. Still dunno that I'll bother with buying TDS for that account. )

 

[eqgeek]

I'd also challenge that paladins probably have the BEST single target aggro,

I'd imagine self heals also helps keep the mobs angry at him.

I find the sk is harder to keep alive than the other two in current content, but his DPS is higher and his utility as a backup puller/kiter etc well make up for that.

Very true. I'd say that if you're going to PLAY him, he's handy. But if you want to afk him, the Warrior is more reliable tanking named and aggro. I also mentioned to you the utility of summoning the corpses.

 

[no_one]

Thanks for the information. I am going to keep leveling both the pal and the war will just decide as they level which one fits my play style better and gear that one first.

 

[eqgeek]

One thing I mentioned to you that is worth posting for future is that a Warrior is much cheaper to gear. No spells, only discs. With the SK you have spells AND Discs. Pally too I think? Also, Rk II isn't that important for what the warrior is doing so you could focus all the dreadmote camping on other toons. They don't buff others, so you can be good for a pull pretty much as soon as you login. One small issue is that they run out of Endurance if you're not careful.