Tank Rankings / Tier List for Cataclysm Classic

Below you can find a quick summary of the current PvE tank rankings:

1. Blood Death Knight (S-Tier)
2. Feral Druid (A-Tier)
3. Protection Paladin (B-Tier)
4. Protection Warrior (C-Tier)

In order to further understand the reasoning behind these ranks, we would recommend you to read the rest of the page, as that is explained in more detail in the next few sections.

If you are interested in other PvE role rankings for Cataclysm, check the following links:

When sorting out the rankings for tanks in PvE, we are looking at several factors:

• Damage mitigation — the ability of a tank to mitigate their damage intake, both from Physical and magic damage.
• Damage smoothness — how smooth is their damage intake? Is the tank likely to take huge spikes of damage, or is their damage intake relatively consistent.
• Damage output — how much damage can the tank do in both single-target and multi-target situations?
• Threat generation — the ability of tank to generate and hold threat on either a single enemy or multiple enemies at once.

To put it simply: tanking is messy. There are tons of factors that go into what makes tanks good or bad depending on the encounter. While this ranking is specifically for the final tier of Cataclysm, know that every tank is viable. You can easily complete any raid with any combination of tanks.

In Wrath, Paladins were the god-tier tanks for the entire expansion. In Cataclysm, the throne is solely occupied by Blood Death Knights with no close second. Blood DKs are exceptional in every aspect of tanking, taking the S-tier spot in almost every individual category. Blood offers the best self sustain out of any tank, incredible cooldowns, and the best AoE damage and threat in the game due to the power of Blood Boil. While Death Grip is not always required, it is extremely useful in niche cases where relocating specific adds can be very beneficial. Finally, DKs have just the best magic defense out of any tank without question, which is what makes them so incredible for heroic raiding. The combination of self sustain, recovery, and their incredible array of cooldowns make them an unrivaled asset in progression.

Feral Druids have the highest damage out of any tank, specifically on single-target and small-target cleave situations. Their damage with Berserk and Mangle (Bear) on three-target cleave is competitive even amongst DPS specs, making them adept at generating threat on new enemies.

In terms of damage taken, Druids are average. Ultimately, Druids can't compete with Blood DKs in terms of damage mitigation and recovery, but no tank can. Druid's selling point that puts them into the A-tier is their prowess as an off-tank. Druids have several powerful cooldowns for when they do tank and are quite strong even as a main tank. The optimal use for a Feral is to off-tank when necessary to reset stacks, allowing them to selectively blow cooldowns. Then, Bears have the unique ability to go cat form in what is known as "bear-catting." Ferals can take talents that allow them 95% effectiveness as both a DPS and tank, letting them do substantially more damage than any other tank in the game while not actively tanking.

After a dominant reign in Wrath, Paladins are significantly weaker across most roles in Cataclysm. As a class, Paladins still bring the strong raid buffs, but every buff they bring can also be brought by other classes and specs. As a tank, Protection Paladins are probably second in terms of damage mitigation and recovery when compared to Blood DKs. Paladins still have the same incredibly array of defensive cooldowns that they normally bring, but their consistent damage mitigation is substantially worse than DKs. Both Paladins and Bears are roughly equal in terms of main tank viability, but Paladins do substantially worse damage than Bears. They have a solid enough AoE and single-target damage profile to hold threat well, but they are not nearly as competitive as Druids when it comes to getting the most out of the role's potential in a heroic raid.

Protection Warriors are reasonably strong early on in terms of base damage mitigation, but they have a much higher skill cap to achieve similar results. Warriors have far more damage and utility buttons at their disposal for Dungeons and other larger pulls, but lack strong AoE tools for consistent AoE threat generation. Holding aggro on large pulls as a Warrior is frankly quite difficult. More importantly though, Warriors do not have quite the same number of powerful cooldowns that other tanks like Death Knights and Paladins do, putting them behind defensively in harder content. Warriors do offer probably the most engaging tank rotation and play style out of any tank however, so if you are looking for a challenge and for a class where you have room to express personal skill, Warrior can be a fun choice. The final major downside is that Warriors have the worst mitigation and recovery out of any tank, specifically when it comes to magic damage. Main tanking as a Warrior in heroic raids is quite challenging, and you will be putting yourself at a notable disadvantage compared to the tanks above.