Cryme
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Best 5-man tank for cata?
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So, what's the best tank in cata right now? Do they all have their strong points and can perform, or are some really preferred over others?
I ran five 5-man instances last night, 3 palys, 1 druid, 1 warrior tank (Only 30, so no DKs).
Statistically, this would imply that paladins are the most popular tank right now, but then again this is hardly endgame. I have never played a tank, think I want to try it, trying to decide which one I should make.
I really like the IDEA of a gnome warrior, just because i think tiny little dudes tanking huge cartoony mobs is awesome, but I don't want to join a pug and have everything thinking, oh boy, another WARRIOR tank, here we go... /rolleyes.
All 5 of my dungeons went well last night, so all 3 tanks performed just fine. Just wanted to get YOUR thoughts.
Thanks.
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-Spacelord-
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Best 5-man tank for cata?
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In 5 mans, any tank will do the job.
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KainetheDragoon
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Best 5-man tank for cata?
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warrior tanking is interesting..i did it from 30-64 so far...rend..tc..and keep taunt hotkeyed to a lot of buttons in case of some tard not assisting.
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Renegade.
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Subject:
Best 5-man tank for cata?
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I'm really digging being a bear tank. The only thing that sucks is we lack any neat pulling tools with silences, etc, they should add a silence to FFF.
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PallyDog
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Best 5-man tank for cata?
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DK tanks ae nasty. They can live through tons and still be up on the dps charts. I'm waiting for hte nerf. I'm a pally tank. I have a warrior tank, DK tank and my druid is still a baby. Didn't plan on making her a tank but we'll see. I like pally tanks.
Although I'm going ot make a macro oen of these days to spam at the beginning of a dungeon to let people know my pulling style. I used to hate those "diva" tanks, but I'm afraid I'm becoming one myself. /sigh
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Auenwing
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Subject:
Best 5-man tank for cata?
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I'm struggling with this question myself, between my DK (which I love) and my Pally.
I think I'm going to end up with my Pally, just because if something goes slightly amiss with others in the group, the pally has more options in her toolbox to mitigate / recover from problems. Given that others are saying singular mistakes in heroics are unforgiving, I may be air-dreaming that it actually makes a difference, but psychologically, I'd like to think the pally at least has a chance. I like being able to heal myself or someone else on command (LoH) as well as the buff package the pally brings.
Raids, will probably be my DK.
Need to get there and test. 
I'm going to guess, for me, a lot depends on group comp and which instance because I can wield either the pally or the DK about the same.
At this point, I would usually tell others to play the tank which best fits how you play/think because you'll play it better and enjoy it more.
If a gnomish warrior tickles your fancy and seems like fun, go for it!
PS: To really answer your last question: in PuGs in the past, when I've been in a group, I don't really care what class the tank is, as long as they are competent. 
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Urk_VN
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Subject:
Best 5-man tank for cata?
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So far I'm enjoying my pally tank in regular cata dungeons, but eventually I'll have to move onto the big boy stuff in heroics, so I'm not sure how I'll do there.
I have 2 druids, a high level and lower level one, both which have feral, and their secondary specs are resto and balance. While I can tank okay with a bear, I struggled to hold aggro on multiple mobs in the vanilla dungeons due to lack of aoe attacks (doesn't help that swipe is on a 6 second cooldown and so far it's my only aoe attack on my bear). On the other hand though, druid tanking is easier in the sense that you don't have to worry about using 15 different abilities. Could've sworn that maul used to cost less rage though.
My paladin, on the other hand, thrives on beating multiple mobs, and in fact, if I'm not beating on more than 3 mobs at a time, then it feels "slow" for some reason lol. But there's so many spells to choose from, that sometimes it's hard to know which one to use based on what's going on. And I had a healer who wasn't always paying attention to my health since the mobs were usually dying pretty fast, and ended up having to heal myself a few times (and in one fight, she lost connection right as we pulled a boss, but luckily we out-DPS'd him and I used a healing pot and the spell that uses holy power to heal).
I have a DK, but haven't tried tanking with them yet. I've seen warriors hold aggro very well, and they seemed to do decent damage as well in groups, but that's all I know of them.
So bottom line, yeah, any competent tank will work. Some will have it easier than others depending on the situation.
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The_Korrigan
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Subject:
Best 5-man tank for cata?
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As already said, any tank works for 5 man, heroics and even raids. Blizzard did a quite good job there, there's no longer a "tank of the month" right now.
PallyDog posted:
DK tanks ae nasty. They can live through tons and still be up on the dps charts. I'm waiting for hte nerf.
I guess they gonna have to nerf prot. paladins too then, since they also do insane damage right now... (and were already doing that in WotLK). Oh, and our warrior tank was doing over 12K DPS during a raid encounter, too.
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IndridCole
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Best 5-man tank for cata?
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PallyDog posted:
DK tanks ae nasty. They can live through tons and still be up on the dps charts. I'm waiting for hte nerf. I'm a pally tank. I have a warrior tank, DK tank and my druid is still a baby. Didn't plan on making her a tank but we'll see. I like pally tanks.
Although I'm going ot make a macro oen of these days to spam at the beginning of a dungeon to let people know my pulling style. I used to hate those "diva" tanks, but I'm afraid I'm becoming one myself. /sigh
No you need one regardless.
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IndridCole
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Best 5-man tank for cata?
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Well the first thing you have to remember is tanks are for survival only. So don't feel like you HAVE to make a ton of damage. That being said.
DKs as tank are great because of the free aggro. With DnD, Dark Command, Blood Boil, and Death's Grip there are plenty of choices for laying down aggro. Why I like them is they are great against casters, whether it's silencing them or pulling them close to force them to do melee.
Warriors real purpose is to basically weaken the enemy by using sunder to lower AR and shouts to lessen AP on targets.
Druids, like warriors, have a charge. But a druid can heal itself everytime he crits (if specced right) plus has some emergency heals. Like a Warrior the groupo you're in has ot be able to run in (if melee) to start hacking away at the mobs quickly. The best kind of DPS to have with Warriors and druids are ranged.
Pallys are simply self healing rocks.
And that's my break down.
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NonOffensiveName
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Subject:
Best 5-man tank for cata?
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IndridCole posted:
Well the first thing you have to remember is tanks are for survival only. So don't feel like you HAVE to make a ton of damage. That being said.
DKs as tank are great because of the free aggro. With DnD, Dark Command, Blood Boil, and Death's Grip there are plenty of choices for laying down aggro. Why I like them is they are great against casters, whether it's silencing them or pulling them close to force them to do melee.
Warriors real purpose is to basically weaken the enemy by using sunder to lower AR and shouts to lessen AP on targets.
Druids, like warriors, have a charge. But a druid can heal itself everytime he crits (if specced right) plus has some emergency heals. Like a Warrior the groupo you're in has ot be able to run in (if melee) to start hacking away at the mobs quickly. The best kind of DPS to have with Warriors and druids are ranged.
Pallys are simply self healing rocks.
And that's my break down.
I agree mostly with this...although Ive only tanked regular dungeons with my druid so far it doesnt seem that bad and I havent had any aggro control issues either(I used to have alittle problem with that on the druid) but I dunno if Ive just gotten better as a tank or if druids are just putting out that much more threat. Will see when I start tanking heroics. My friends have been letting me go kitty in heroics with them and Ive not done too bad dps wise getting up to 9.5k dps as kitty on some bosses.
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Trigeminal
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Best 5-man tank for cata?
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I do as much in not more damage on my prot warrior than he does when he is arms. Tanking is odd that way in cata. My favorite 5-man tanks are pallies and DKs.
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Foojo
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Best 5-man tank for cata?
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From my low level perspective, tanking with Paladin is so much easier with bad groups. Last night with my Warrior, I working my butt off trying to keep aggro because apparently everyone was targeting a different mob.
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Cryme
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Subject:
Best 5-man tank for cata?
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Pally tanks seem to be getting a lot of love from players both in the game and here.
What would you guys say is the main difference, as far as tanking ability, between paladins and warriors?
AE thread generation? Damage mitigation? DPS? Is it just the ability to self heal that tips the scales to paladins for so many?
Thanks for the input so far. I'm really bouncing between these 2 and less so the DK. The DK, in my mind is a whole other animal and something I will try anyway simply because I've never played one.
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Ansithe
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Best 5-man tank for cata?
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Cryme posted:
Pally tanks seem to be getting a lot of love from players both in the game and here.
What would you guys say is the main difference, as far as tanking ability, between paladins and warriors?
AE thread generation? Damage mitigation? DPS? Is it just the ability to self heal that tips the scales to paladins for so many?
Thanks for the input so far. I'm really bouncing between these 2 and less so the DK. The DK, in my mind is a whole other animal and something I will try anyway simply because I've never played one.
I have now tanked as pally, warrior, dk and druid bear in heroic cataclysm. The difference between a warrior and paladin is the mechanics although I will tell you from experience that I consider the Paladin the winner hands-down when it comes to group mechanics BECAUSE..... the pally can do things that a warrior, dk, or bear (cant really heal someone while tankin soo) cannot do with a group.
A pally can lay on hands SOMEONE in your group. A Pally can WOG someone in your group. A pally can bubble someone in your group. There's so many instances where a healer might be strugglin and you as a pally can use your tools to help em or somone in the group. I've run so many heroics with my pally and saved wipes because of these abilities.
WARRIORS CAN'T DO THAT. What's he gonna do.. bandaid someone? All tanks can hold threat just fine. All tanks can dps just fine. All tanks can mitigate dmg just fine. But only the Paladin can do the things I've mentioned.
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Best 5-man tank for cata?
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I vote pally as well. Simply for the healing side of things. I am just echoing what has already been said here, and I have only leveled my pally tank up to level 50-something, but I do have some expirience healing a pally tank at level 80-84.
When I was healing the tank, I was under geared for the dungeon and the pally tank in my guild good make up for that. Using his judgment and holy power to periodically heal himself and if I really screwed up he could throw Lay on Hands. I mean Lay on hands can save a wipe pretty easily.
Leveling as my pally tank if I have a bad group I find I can almost provide my own healing and tanking. I've had healers go AFK during boss fights and though it was a challenge and I was OOM at the end of the fight, I could heal myself and tank at the same time. -- I know this won't be the case end game but it is just an example of the things a healing class can do that the others can not.
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NightPath
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Best 5-man tank for cata?
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Pallies are amazing tanks for the reasons stated, but I keep seeing calls for a DK tank or off tank for dungeons. Probably their glowing eyes, thats my 2c
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Auenwing
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Best 5-man tank for cata?
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Simply put: the pally just has so many things they can reach for to save themselves or someone else.
Someone called them a rock. That's very apt. We've always called them cockroaches... just so hard to kill.
And yeah, Syrus, I've had situations where the healer was AFK and we got aggro; or there was an accidental overpull... it's a finger-dance, but the pally can not only heal himself through it he can mitigate damage on others while tossing a life-saving heal. I love it when people are screaming, "It's a wipe!" as your fingers are already flying across the keyboard, thinking "Hell No!" and you pull it off! 
My guildmate says he also enjoys tossing Salv on rogues that are over zealous. By the 2nd time it happens, usually they get the message about backing down on threat, without him having to say a word. 
For AoE, I prefer the pally, even back in the days when prot was "unheard of". I've tanked on a warrior off and on since Vanilla but never liked it, and I got REALLY tired of looking at my druid's huge furry backside by the time TBC came out.
That said...
DK's for single-target/off-tanking in raids (where folks are on their "A-game") are my first and only love! (but I'm not there yet in Cat. So grain of salt that.)
last edit: (darn interrupts)
for tanking info/comparisons you can also check EJ, Tankspot and (for 'expert' advice specifically on paladins:) maintankadin.
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lithale
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The best tank is one that knows how to have his group CC and not break any of them.
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vn_cuch
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Best 5-man tank for cata?
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dk and druid tank here.
Enjoying both types. I think that DKs have the edge when it comes to agro and reactive abilities (mitigation/avoidence). Druid AE agro has been weak and has fewer reactive abilities, but brings other bonuses to the group.
All things being said, forget which is the strongest/best and find one that you like to play. All the tank types have different mechanics, and are "equally" as good for 5 mans.
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IndridCole
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Best 5-man tank for cata?
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vn_cuch posted:
dk and druid tank here.
Enjoying both types. I think that DKs have the edge when it comes to agro and reactive abilities (mitigation/avoidence). Druid AE agro has been weak and has fewer reactive abilities, but brings other bonuses to the group.
All things being said, forget which is the strongest/best and find one that you like to play. All the tank types have different mechanics, and are "equally" as good for 5 mans.
Very true. It's about what you like to play.
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Renegade.
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Best 5-man tank for cata?
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I am really enjoying the play style of the bear tank so far. My gear has finally hit the 350 ilvl mark, leaving me with somewhere around 150k HP. Pug dps is always giving me a hard time telling me I need to get "moar hp". Guess they didn't get he memo were we were hit hard in the bear hp bonus.
We do feel like we are lacking a cooldown at the moment. Survival instintics wax changed from a HP bonus to 50% dmg reduction. Barkskin is still there. Our new mastery mechanic seems like it does have promise. Right now anytime a critical hit occurs I am given Savage Defender which absorbs x amount of damage based on your mastery. I'm sitting pretty at a 72% absorb at the moment. When I'm taking dmg it feels less spiky then when I was raiding ICC.
Single target is still pretty great. I am only in heroics atm. I can start a pull on a boss that will peak around 27,000 TPS. Area pulls can be a bit tricky now. No longer can we just spam swipe. Now Trash and Swipe are on a 6 second CD. Once you get a trash then swipe and a roar out they usually have my attention. DPS just needs to learn to wait till they are near me before attacking.
I find myself out of form more then ever. It's nice to have a root and Cyclone for those big tough pulls.
I've done all of the heroics so far and Beradin Hold
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heiromancerdrackus
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Best 5-man tank for cata?
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As a healer, I have no real preference.
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Zero_Washu
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Best 5-man tank for cata?
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I found my Pally the easiest overall, followed by the DK. The pally has the easiest "get aggro back" effect because you can target the mob or the target of the mob making good use of VuhDo bars. Warrior is great for stomping casters but with all Pallys getting Rebuke they won't be too far back. My druid just feels like a spank me target. Hardest for me to get group aggro on adds because I always feel stuck on CDs.
Regardless, one thing I did notice, it was far far far easier to level 80 to 85 in tank spec than dps specs (even my over geared DK frost spec) simply because tank specs remove critical hits on top of overall damage reduction. Once I swapped back to tank spec to level my DK never had down time (before she would have to bandage/food every four or so fights - sometimes after fights against multiples).
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Cryme
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Best 5-man tank for cata?
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Thank you all for the responses and the input!
I know it's about "what I want to play" but I don't have any experience with either tank, so I don't know which that will be yet. I'm prodding you all for your experience and input... I'll read it, interpret it, and then I will decide which class I feel will be the best fit for me. Just because I'm soliciting you for your feedback doesn't mean I'm blindly going to choose class A because Z poster said it was better. I am glad that so many responded with the reasons why they like one class or another. It is helpful information.
I really appreciate everyone taking the time to throw in their $0.02.
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