WoW Forever Tank Tier List

WoW Forever Tank Tier List TL;DR

• All Tanking specs are viable, but with a considerable amount of discrepancy in performance.

• Protection Warrior looks like it’s still the best option we’ve gotten, especially for raid main-tanking.

• Protection Paladin - a good dungeon tank with proper defensive cooldowns, but your mana and tanking caster packs still cause problems.

• Feral Druid: Can tank anything in the game, but big pulls could be a handful.

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Best Tanks in WoW Forever

Warrior takes S-Tier because its kit has fewer holes to deal with when a boss hits hard, or a pull goes wrong. Paladin is A-Tier since Forever is fixing several of its biggest Classic problems in threat generation, although getting a taunt hasn’t removed its mana issues or given it an interrupt. Bear sits in B-Tier: the new attacks and improved scaling help its case, but its large health bar and armor are just not a universal answer to every mechanic.

These are PvE rankings built around the known level-60 abilities and talents. Once again, every spec is viable, a B-Tier tank can absolutely tank a dungeon or get a raid spot. 

S-Tier: Protection Warrior

Warrior has the most convincing kit for the main-tank job. Shield Block handles regular melee damage, and you have Last Stand and Shield Wall that give you emergency options when healing dries up, or a dangerous attack is coming. Whether you press these buttons well or not basically decides if you’ll perform well with Prot or not.

Its threat gen also benefits from defensive gearing since it’s increasing your damage via Shield Slam that scales better with Block Value. Thus, a single shield upgrade feels like both a defensive and offensive improvement.  One change Forever did that I like the most is that armor and absorption effects no longer reduce Rage gained from incoming attacks. The old argument over whether a Disc Priest or whoever else should shield the tank loses a lot of its point - you get the protection without sacrificing the resource needed to keep attacking. Blizzard explains this in its Warrior class changes.

Dungeons still need some work from you and can get overwhelming for new players. Thunder Clap being usable in Defensive Stance helps, but you’ll have to be constantly tab-targeting, interrupting a caster so it walks into the pack, and manage Rage well enough for your abilities to be available whenever needed. A thing you’ll see a lot the first days into Forever is a Prot spending everything on Heroic Strike, then having no resources going forward. 

A-Tier: Protection Paladin

Finally, in Classic Plus, Protection Paladin has moved a long way past “good at dungeon trash, bad everywhere else.” Seal of Fury gives it a taunt when pressed through Judgment, and Templar’s Bulwark provides an actual tanking defensive. Those are solid fixes to what felt like an underwhelming spec. The taunt also reaches a respectable 10 yards, compared with the 5-yard range of Warrior Taunt and Druid Growl. That little bit of reach can save you from chasing an enemy all the way into the backline. There’s a catch, though: the taunt uses Judgment. You’ll have to be a bit conservative with resources in order to keep it available. 

Templar’s Bulwark is another great reason that makes Paladin belong in A-Tier. It grants an absorb equal to 100% of maximum health for 8 seconds. It’s a huge panic button that’ll be invaluable in a lot of encounters, maybe even breaking some if there are no fixes on the Blizzard’s part.

Mana keeps Paladin below Warrior overall. Shield Specialization restores 4% maximum mana, with a 3-second internal cooldown, when its block-based effect triggers. That might sound great, but it’s only useful while melee enemies are hitting you - if you’re off tanking or dealing with casters, you might struggle with mana. Paladin also doesn’t have an interrupt, which is a huge drawback. 

B-Tier: Feral Druid - Bear

Bear’s weapon scaling is a welcome change - equipped weapon’s DPS now carries into Bear and Dire Bear Form, and weapon enchants, and procs work while shifted. Finding a better weapon is therefore much more exciting than checking whether it happens to have a Feral-specific bonus on it; gearing flexibility is improved tenfold. The defensive changes help as well - Thick Hide converts bonus Defense skill into extra armor, Barkskin works while shifted, and Frenzied Regeneration can restore 100% of maximum health over its duration, given you have enough Rage. Blizzard’s Druid overview covered all of these changes in detail.

Bear lands in B-Tier because difficult pulls expose its limitations faster. You have a satisfying rotation with Primal Bite and Lacerate in it, which is great during longer boss fights, but might fall short on thinner mob packs. Swipe hits three targets, and dealing with more enemies than that becomes a chore. Caster packs also put more responsibility on the rest of the group to interrupt and help bring enemies together.

I think there is still good raid tank potential here. Feral can tank an add or a boss assignment, then switch to Cat when another tank takes over. That flexibility is useful, especially if you enjoy both sides of Feral. I also value Bear highly for PvP, more on that in the next section.

WoW Forever PvP Tank Tier List

When it comes to PvP, Bear moves to the top thanks to his kit being insane in BG. Getting a flag across the map as quickly as he can is an immense value and cannot be overlooked if you’re serious about PvP. 

Feral Druid is an amazing flag carrier since his Travel Form gets you a whopping 40% movement speed, and you just switch to Bear to take hits when enemies catch up to you. Shifting out of roots and slows helps you create distance again. Running the entire route in Bear wastes that advantage; switching to Travel Form with melee already on top of you risks taking their damage without Bear’s defenses. Knowing when to switch is what makes a good Druid carrier difficult to kill. 

Protection Paladin is decent, especially when used beside the carrier. Freedom helps them keep moving, Cleanse removes debuffs, and Hammer of Justice can stop a pursuer for up to 6 seconds. All of these combined make up for a decent kit, and being a tank is sometimes a great thing in a BG since you can distract several enemies at once and survive with some backup from your teammates. 

Similar to the Paladin, Protection Warrior works better as an escort than a carrier, though the latter might work sometimes. Concussive Blow is a 5-second stun, plus you have access to even more disables through your Disarm and Shield Bash that can interrupt an enemy’s attempt to kill your healer or carrier. Protection earns its place by disrupting the attackers, but loses value when better enemies can just ignore it and chase higher priority targets.

Find more helpful WoW Forever Guides here:

• WoW Forever Best Class Tier List

• WoW Forever Best Professions

• WoW Forever Paladin Class Guide