Burning Crusade Classic Tank Rankings: PvE Tier List for Phase 1 of TBCC

Par Rokman Dernière mise à jour : 18/05/2021 Changelog Patch : 2.5.4

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Disclaimers About This Tier ListTank Tier List for Phase 1 of Burning Crusade Classic

S: Valuable on every encounter, bringing strong throughput, exceptional survivability and universal utility.

A: Excels in most situations, but have some weaknesses on one or two encounters with your throughput, survivability or utility.

B: Solid choices, which may have a niche on some encounters but lack the throughput, survivability, and/or utility of stronger classes.

C: Viable, but without strong throughput, survivability or utility.

D: Suffers from several weaknesses and are only prioritized when there aren't better options available.

F: Generally considered unviable.

Ranking

Spec

Writer Comments

Protection Warrior

Comments by TheKrugLife

Feral Druid

Comments by NerdEgghead

Protection Paladin

Comments by Askalon

Tank Rankings and Explanations for Phase 1 of Burning Crusade ClassicS Tier Specs

Overall Rating: S

The Protection Warrior is no longer the only viable tank option in The Burning Crusade but, especially when it comes to the main tank position, it still outshines both Druid and Paladin and remains on the tanking throne. Warrior tanks will never be labeled as "situational" because the simple truth of the game is that, Warriors have the most complete tanking kit for overall tanking and they even excel and stand out in their own unique tanking categories. Threat, mitigation, utility, and excellent gear scaling all come together to make the Protection Warrior an S-tier tank.

One thing that truly separates Warrior's from the rest is their access to such powerful tanking cooldowns like Mur protecteur and Dernier rempart that can be utilized to smooth out damage intake or simply be used as panic buttons to stay alive. Even beyond these larger active mitigation cooldowns, Warriors also have access to Maîtrise du blocage which allows them to have some form of active mitigation (in the form of block) active at pretty much all times. On the topic of blocking, Warriors gain a massive benefit from the stat that really isn't matched in any of the alternative tank classes which once again sets them on such a high tier, Heurt de bouclier increases in damage (and threat generation) with the more block value you have and items like Auto-esquiveur de Gnomeregan 600 pair extremely well with the Warrior.

One major improvement that Warriors received with burning crusade was a quality of life change to which can now be used in defensive stance as opposed to being limited purely to battle stance. While we won't see the AoE threat capabilities that are present in modern WoW, we start to see the winds change in that direction with the release of TBC, you now have more options to maintain threat on several mobs. There's even a new shield that you can get from reputation in the form of Garde lichen pétrifié that'll help you keep aggro in AoE situations.A Tier Specs

Overall Rating: A

Bears are exceptional tanks throughout the entirety of TBC. They have the highest effective health pool (EHP) of all three tanking specs due to amplified armor values on all feral gear and the amazing armor scaling from and Peau épaisse, allowing bears to soak large damage spikes from bosses with ease. Bears also pack a ton of avoidance from Dodge due a generous Agility-to-Dodge ratio and an abundance of Agility on leather. Finally (and perhaps most importantly for the Classic meta), feral tanks can generate the most threat per second (TPS) and damage per second (DPS) of the three tank specs by a significant margin. The DPS advantage of feral tanks is especially large when not actively tanking, as cats and bears use the exact same talent build and also share a lot of gear, making ferals excellent off-tanks in raids which use protection warrior tanks.

In Phase 1 specifically, a bear in BiS mitigation gear packs over 19,000 health, 74% armor mitigation (almost capped), and 58% avoidance when fully raid buffed, while being immune to critical strikes via a combination of Defense and Resilience. By swapping to more threat-skewed gear (using pieces that ferals will already have for DPS) and giving up uncrittability, the TPS of a Phase 1 bear can be increased from ~1250 to ~1550, enough to hold threat against competitive warlocks and fury warriors, while still maintaining 66% armor mitigation and 53% avoidance. Note that gearing for crit immunity is particularly easy for ferals in Phase 1 without making too many threat or mitigation sacrifices, as the level 70 epic PvP offset contains several high value tanking pieces with loads of Resilience, and the talent significantly reduces the amount of Defense/Resilience needed for uncrittability compared to warriors or paladins.

The primary disadvantages of feral tanks are the lack of strong AOE threat generation (similar to warriors), the absence of defensive cooldowns, no protection against crushing blows, and the inability to block with a shield (which is important on a few key encounters in later phases such as Kael'thas and Illidan). However, none of these disadvantages are game breaking: now scales with attack power in TBC, so holding multiple targets as a bear is a lot more viable than in vanilla for a skilled tank despite not matching the capabilities of a paladin. Similarly, despite no innate defensive cooldowns, the sky-high passive avoidance of feral tanks allows on-use avoidance trinkets such as Montre de gousset porte-bonheur de Moroes and Ecusson de ténacité to function essentially as strong defensive CDs. In fact, when wearing Agility gear, bears can become completely immune to physical hits when avoidance trinkets are activated, providing buffer against big damage spikes or boss mechanics. Crushing blows are also not a significant concern, as the massive health and armor levels achieved by bears are tuned around the fact that damage intake will be spikier than for warriors or paladins.

Given the strengths mentioned above, the reason for an "A" rather than "S" rating in Phase 1 is due to the significant gear advantage that protection warriors have relative to bears in early TBC progression. Warrior Tier 3 gear is on par with level 70 dungeon gear and more than good enough to take straight into Karazhan and 25-man raids. In contrast, feral gear from vanilla is a far cry from TBC raid gear, as Blizzard did not figure out how to properly itemize for ferals until TBC. As a result, bears will be a lot squishier than warriors in the first few weeks of TBC raiding prior to picking up Tier 4 gear, but should still have no issues tanking Karazhan right at 70. For initial Gruul and Magtheridon kills, however, a warrior tank can be more beneficial as the defensive toolkit of a warrior can compensate for being undergeared. By the end of Phase 1, bears are perfectly competitive with warriors as main tanks for all raid content, and are in fact preferred over warriors in threat sensitive scenarios. In later phases, bears will far surpass the other tanking specs in TPS, as prot warrior threat scales poorly with gear unlike ferals, and bears also end up outclassing the other tanks for damage mitigation due to their absurd avoidance scaling with Black Temple and Sunwell gear.

Overall Rating: A

For Phase 1 of TBC, Protection Paladins will excel the most compared to other tank classes when tanking dungeons and heroics, and be very viable for raid tanking. Most, if not all of the optimal raid compositions recommend having a Protection Paladin in their tank roster due to their massive AoE threat, buff utility, and survivability.

THREAT:
The threat generation of Protection Paladins is primarily dependent upon their Holy damage dealt due to Fureur vertueuse with the talent nearly doubling threat from Holy abilities.
Protection Paladins are the preferred tank for encounters that have numerous mobs due to the massive AoE threat generated by which is unrivaled by any other tanking class. This enables AoE damage classes such as Warlocks and Mages to be extremely liberal in their use of AoE spells for quickly eliminating trash packs.
For single-target threat generation, Paladins can rely on damage from Seals, Jugement, and , which can be significantly amplified using Courroux vengeur. Compared to other tanking classes, Paladins also have the strongest threat burst at the start of pulls thanks to , an excellent ability for starting off fights in raids and dungeons due to its large damage, long range, and ability to hit multiple targets. In heroics and raids, Paladins can also rely on additional, passive threat from mana restored by due to the heals received while tanking.

UTILITY:
Paladins offer great utility to their groups and raids through their Blessings, Judgements, and Auras. in the Protection talent tree is one of the most sought-after raid buffs, as it can greatly benefit all classes and roles. The debuff from the Judgement effect of provides excellent utility for mana users in the raid, as they can get a significant amount of mana restored from their damaging abilities on enemies with the debuff. If specced into , a Paladin Tank can also significantly increase the damage of the raid with the +3% crit bonus from the Judgement debuff. When it comes to coming to the defense of your allies when they have aggro on enemies, Paladins have Défense vertueuse for taunting multiple enemies simultaneously and for temporarily removing aggro your friendly target, allowing you to rebuild aggro on them.

SURVIVABILITY:
Protection Paladins have a large set of abilities and talents for maintaining high survivability in dungeons and raids. Paladin tanks are able to have an extremely large health pool due to Bouclier du templier, , and increasing their stamina from gear and buffs by an additional 28.2%. The talents , , , and can also improve a Paladin tank's survivability through additional damage mitigation and avoidance.
Paladins are extremely gear dependent for achieving uncrushability and defense cap, however, with the right gear and , Paladins are able to maintain uncrushability for up to 8 blocks within 10 seconds, which is excellent for surviving bosses with fast attack speeds or thrashes.
One of the largest drawbacks of Paladin tanks is the lack of powerful defensive abilities, such as the Warrior's Mur protecteur and Dernier rempart, which can be crucial for surviving emergencies when at low health or when taking extremely high damage. However, for surviving emergencies, Paladins have the talent for passive damage reduction at low health, for instantly removing debuffs that may be extremely dangerous such as Frappe mortelle, and for instantly restoring oneself to full health.

Burning Crusade Classic Tank Rankings: PvE Tier List for Phase 1 of TBCC

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