The Art of Tanking ( TANK123 )

Learn the essential strategies for tanking in World of Warcraft, covering class differences, stat priorities, defense caps, and combat tactics for Warriors, Paladins, Druids, and Death Knights.

Only four classes can tank in World of Warcraft: Warriors, Paladins, Druids, and Death Knights.

Warriors and Paladins use shields. Feral Druids stack only Agility since a talent removes critical hits against them, allowing for stacking of other stats. Death Knights (DKs) are the best anti-magic tanks and the only class that can tank in almost any specialization (spec). In fact, so long as you push enemy critical hits off the table, it's possible to tank with a pure DPS spec; you just lack the "saving" and other tanking abilities.

Tanking is all about inflating your threat and putting up decent DPS. Reducing/avoiding damage and inflating your health are secondary considerations, meaning pure armor and HP are not as critical as how much threat you can generate. This is why you should not always choose every "tanking" item over a DPS item. Hit and Expertise are very important for tanks because you don't generate threat if you don't hit the enemies.

DKs should tank with a two-handed weapon, as other plate wearers will use shields. Bears (Druids) do not need Parry or Defense rating. All tanks can use Agility, since it buffs your critical strike chance, dodge, and armor, but not your DPS, so it's only a stat to grab "if there's nothing else.".

The defense cap is 540 defense skill, which is equivalent to about 690 Defense Rating. You can check both numbers under the "Defenses" tab in your character pane. At level 80, everyone can reach 400 defense skill on their own, meaning you must find gear, gems, and enchants to increase this further. Defense skill reduces incoming critical strikes and increases your chance to avoid attacks. Reaching the cap is important to prevent boss critical strikes, which could otherwise lead to being one-shot.

For further stats, prioritize Dodge over Parry if you have a choice, since Dodge caps at almost twice the rate of Parry. Here are the caps for DKs, which may vary slightly for other tanks:

• Defense Rating: 690 (DKs are slightly lower with Stoneskin rune)
• Dodge: 88%
• Parry: 47% (useless for a Druid)
• Hit: 8%
• Expertise: 6.5%

Try your best to reach these caps, then focus on DPS. During combat, always use your Area of Effect (AoE) attacks and then anything else to increase threat. Depending on the DPS/Healer dynamics, your avoidance and mitigation abilities may not need to be used. You will often find that single targets and bosses are easier to tank than some trash mobs.

Finally, prioritize Glyphs and enchants that increase threat over avoidance/mitigation, because you won't always use your cooldowns, but increased threat is always active.