Easiest Tank Class for Beginner Tanks?

[Anaximander 0]

Hi everyone,

I'm thinking about creating a new character as a dedicated tank (as opposed to trying to learn on an existing character) and I'm wondering as of now (6.2?) what you think is the easiest tank class to play and learn. This includes possibly doing raid content in the current expansion.  If this is too vague, perhaps try to explain which class has the simplest rotation, which holds the best aggro, does the most dps, is least squishy, has best mitigation, etc.

 

Thanks!

[Bradykin 16]

Hey Anaximander. In my opinion (and it is just an opinion) the easiest tanking specs are the Prot Paladin and the Guardian Druid. Prot Warriors have a lot of finicky procs and some trouble with AOE threat, Monks have weird interactions with Stagger they have to deal with, and DK's have to be reactive instead of proactive, which I personally find more difficult from a tank perspective. There's a good chance that if you ask 10 people this question you'll get 10 different answers, but imo Prot Paladin and Guardian Druid are your way to go for relatively simple and forgiving tank mechanics, and solid aoe threat. I will warn you, however, that both of these specs are seeing some pretty significant changes in Legion, in case that matters to you (then again, I think all of the tanks are, so that point is moot).

[Carrn 284]

I'm mostly in agreement with Brady there. I think Guardian Druid is probably the easiest by a relatively significant margin. 

Following that, you're probably looking at a lengthly debate between Monk, Warrior, and Paladin as to which is easier to play.

• Prot Paladin requires you to look ahead and plan how much Holy Power you have for various mechanics, which experience greatly helps, and depending on your talent choice can have a fairly complex rotation swapping between Seals.
• Prot Warrior has some trouble with AoE threat, which makes them a challenge for new tanks
• Brewmaster Monks do have a different set of mechanics than other tanks due to Stagger, and take some practice to get used to, but are otherwise very straightforward

[Valks 2,375]

I'm going to be a rebel here and put Prot Warrior as the easiest tank other than the Guardian Druids.

On our standard kit of abilities, we do lack some AoE capability, but the talents can make up for this. For AoE, you have a choice of the following:

• Thunder Clap (Baseline)
• Heroic Strike (when combined with Glyph of Cleave)
• Ravager (Talent)
• Shockwave or Dragon Roar (Talents)
• Mocking Banner (Baseline, but long CD)
• Heroic Leap can be used when chain pulling

Generally, between all of these things, you can hold aggro in most situations. If you're really struggling on big pulls, throw down a banner and you'll have guaranteed aggro.

It's also worthy to note that Vigilance allows you to spam taunt on various mobs if you're in trouble, as well as Devastate being a fantastic generator if you keep swapping mobs.

Personally, I think Warrior is the perfect class to start tanking on. As they said above, you will get different answers from everyone. It all depends on what type of tank you want to be. 

[Estarriol 167]

Yeah, I pretty firmly disagree with the above posters. Brewmasters are extremely easy. The interestions with Stagger are minimal and excessively easy to pick up, especially since one of the go-to talents takes care of purify for you. Stagger was much more significant factor in BRF and even then, Brewmaster was very simple to pickup.  With current 4set, you have immense ability to heal yourself and get a ton of absorbs.

Prot paladin is by far one of the most forgiving classes out there. You'll have more than enough holy power and there are few fights where you have to plan much at all for it. They have a ton of healing and cooldowns and a lot of tools that can outright save you if you mess up. Additionally, the class trinket is a get out of jail free card that procs automatically with a 12 second internal cool down.

I agree with bears. Very easy class, but I find them fairly satisfying despite that.

I would actually 100% disagree with Brady on DKs. Critically, until you have enough mastery that you are getting a larger Blood Shield per Death Strike use than you are getting healed for, then Blood DKs are extremely reactive. You hold your DS until you have taken enough damage to heal back up (or unless you're about to lose rune regen uptime). It's less complicated than it seems.

Prot warrior is medium difficulty to pick up, but one of the hardest to master. I really don't think AoE pickup is a big deal at all. It takes a tiny bit to get used to your primary AoE to be available only every 6 seconds, but it becomes second nature quickly. Warriors are less forgiving with less skilled healers and less forgiving if you mess up. I find them to require more forethought than other tanks, but realistically, you'll be totally fine with whatever you pick up first.

I think my ending recommendation would be either bear or Paladin. Both are fairly engaging with a ton of tools.

[Orthios 271]

I'd definitely agree that Brewmaster Monks are quite easy to pick up on.  The stagger mechanic is practically non-existent until max level or you're doing some serious mass pulling in dungeons, and even then Brewmasters handle large packs quite well.  Keg Smash is used on cd and is a huge source of both AoE threat and damage, your level 60 talent is a medium-cd cc, and you can glyph Breath of Fire to disorient mobs as well, not to mention you have Guard (which is one of the biggest self-bubbles in the game) and Expel Harm for self-healing make for an incredibly potent tank while leveling.  That's not to mention that Brewmasters are the most mobile tank class with Roll, Tiger's Lust, and Transcendence.

[Oreoxd 165]

You guys are the literal worst. you all disagreed basically stating that all but blood dks are the best for beginners :P

In my personal opinion, I find guardian druid in its current iteration, to be the easiest to pick up and understand out of all of them. Most of the other classes have an extra mechanic you need to worry about while guardian druid is mostly about just knowing what to use when. To break it down: 

Prot paladin- Seal swapping, holy power usage, and knowing when to heal or when to do damage are big factors, for someone relatively experience in tanking and raiding, it won't be an issue but from the pure start you need to worry about so much more.

Blood DK - Runes, Runic Power, keeping up your shield, learning quickly which attacks to AMS, and which talents to use make it an easy class to look good on, but rather difficult to master to the point where you're soloing older content with ease.

Prot Warrior - easy to faceroll and keep threat, but maintaining rage and mastering this spec makes it rather difficult to not drop the ball when getting into more difficult content

Brewmaster - SO MANY BUTTONS. To clarify brewmaster monks have a lot going on. In my opinion. It's easy to say that it's an easy tank to level with but when it comes to doing post-leveling content, it can be rather easy to see who knows what they're doing and what they aren't.

That's my personal opinion on all the tanks, and while I'm no expert at them, and most of the mods here that hate me would probably disagree with me about, As someone who usually only plays one class, that's how I feel when I pick up those classes to try out.