The new skill system overhaul changed things in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight , providing new skill and ability combinations never before seen in WoW, including tanks . Today we examine all the specializations of the tank class and determine what we believe will be the best tank class for Dragonflight.
This list of tank tiers is largely guesswork as there is not enough data gathered from the beta and we only have a few days of experience with dungeons in Dragonflight. As more information is gathered, we will continue to update this list to appropriately reflect current trends in WoW Dragonflight.
It should be noted that all tanks perform really well and players should not worry too much that their class is holding them back. The balance between tanks is one of the best we've ever seen regarding tanks in WoW.
Dragonflight's new skill system starting with the pre-patch in Shadowlands was not the best indicator for tanking as it has a variety of skill options and the systems are not available for the current expansion.
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► WoW: Dragonflight PvP DPS Tier List
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Tank tier list criteria should consider:
WoW Dragonflight Tank Tier List
Layer | mastery | |
---|---|---|
S Tier | Protection Warrior | Vengeance Demon Hunter |
A Tier | Brewmaster Monk | Blood Death Knight |
B Tier | Guardian Druid | Protection Paladin |
C Tier | ||
C Tier |
S Layer
The tanks below provide the best toolset for survival, offer great handling and have good damage to boot. These traits will be seen in all of the World Firsts' best compositions.
Protection Warriors
Protection Warriors receivedmajor buffs with the skill system refresh that came with the Dragonflight pre-patch . Their playstyle is mostly intact and hasn't changed much, but they've gained abilities that increase the usefulness of skills and passive abilities you already know and love. The Shadowlands skill system allowed you to choose between some very effective abilities, and you can now specialize differently to hit some at once.
Vengeance Demon Hunter
Vengeance Demon Hunters hasn't changed much compared to the early version of Shadowlands. The game differs from the last patches of the Shadowlands expansion with the removal of legendary abilities. The changes mostly revolve around rotation and what skills to use, but the robustness aspect of the class hasn't changed much.
Making good use of the Frailty skill will be the way to success in Dragonflight. Combining several abilities to increase Frailty's effectiveness makes Vengeance DH a self-healing powerhouse while remaining the mobility king. They lack the sheer damage mitigation of the Protection Warrior, so they're second on this list, but they mostly make up for it through self-healing and magical damage reduction.
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► WoW Dragonflight: Raid and Mythic+ | PvE DPS Tier List
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Tier A
Brewmaster Monk
The main thing keeping Brewmaster Monks from hitting S-Tier is their vulnerability to high amounts of Magic and Bleed Damage and the difficulty to master the spec for most players. If you're already a skilled Brewmaster, this will be the S-Tier for you . This specialization feels ridiculously good to play and is top notch for physical damage using the stagger system. Some players dislike the stagger system as it means that the damage is constantly coming and doesn't need to be mitigated much, it's just delayed. You'll need to perfect your cooldown management to perfect this feature, but if you can do that, you're probably pushing Monk into the S-tier region.
While they have access to most damage reduction tools, they lack group utility compared to other tanks. However, this specialization is an excellent choice and is borderline S-Tier.
Blood Death Knights
Blood Death Knights remain self-healing crushing powers with less damage reduction abilities, focusing on restoring lost health rather than preventing it entirely. We expect them to continue to be very good tanks in Dragonflight and therefore belong to Tier A. They have less mobility and damage output than our S-Tier classes, and this is the main weakness that keeps them from becoming stars.
Tier B
Playing as one of these tanks is definitely not a bad thing and will be able to complete any type of content. However, the following tanks will likely not be seen in high-end world firsts as they fall behind in some areas where other tanks excel.
Guardian Druid
Guardian Druid has regressed a bit from the skill system refresh that came with Dragonflight. There are fewer vehicles in some areas and this hurts their performance. The Guardian Druid is still a great AoE tank and thrives in these environments, but lacks single-target atmosphere. Player consensus is mixed on the Guardian Druid, but after looking at the other classes we've covered, they don't quite level up with the others.
The Guardian druid will continue to be used, especially in Mythic+, but if you want to minimize your group composition, the S-Tier options will likely perform much better in a wider variety of scenarios.
Protection Paladin
The Protection Paladin has been slightly overhauled with the new skill system. One of the biggest negative changes is that both Avenger's Shield and Divine Toll no longer generate Holy Power. This means that generating Divine Power will be much more difficult than before, which also reduces the runtime of the Shield of Truthfulness. As these abilities change, you get other cooldown options to choose from from the class and trait skill trees to help ease that nerve. These help, but it certainly doesn't feel good to have fewer resources to spend.
The Prot Pally still offers some great defensive prowess as well as a fair ability to capture and sustain aggression, but with all the changes we've seen, they definitely fall behind compared to other tank options.
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