Tank Rankings / Tier List for Cataclysm Classic (2024)

Last updated on May 14, 2024 at 14:02by Impakt

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

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 wouldrecommend you to read the rest of the page, as that is explained in more detailin the next few sections.

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

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

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

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

In Wrath, Paladins were the god-tier tanks for the entire expansion. In Cataclysm, thethrone 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 everyindividual 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 relocatingspecific adds can be very beneficial. Finally, DKs have just the best magic defense out of any tankwithout question, which is what makes them so incredible for heroic raiding. The combinationof self sustain, recovery, and their incredible array of cooldowns make them an unrivaledasset in progression.

Feral Druidshave the highest damage out of any tank, specifically on single-target and small-targetcleave situations. Their damage with Berserk and Mangle (Bear)on three-target cleave is competitive even amongst DPS specs, making them adeptat 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 prowessas an off-tank. Druids have several powerful cooldowns for when they do tank and are quitestrong even as a main tank. The optimal use for a Feral is to off-tank when necessary to resetstacks, allowing them to selectively blow cooldowns. Then, Bears have the unique ability togo 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 anyother tank in the game while not actively tanking.

After a dominant reign in Wrath, Paladins are significantly weakeracross most roles in Cataclysm. As a class, Paladins still bringthe 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 recoverywhen compared to Blood DKs. Paladins still have the same incredibly array of defensive cooldownsthat they normally bring, but their consistent damage mitigation is substantially worse thanDKs. Both Paladins and Bears are roughly equal in terms of main tank viability, but Paladinsdo substantially worse damage than Bears. They have a solid enough AoE and single-targetdamage profile to hold threat well, but they are not nearly as competitive as Druids when it comesto getting the most out of the role's potential in a heroic raid.

Protection Warriorsare reasonably strong early on in terms of base damage mitigation, but they have a muchhigher skill cap to achieve similar results. Warriors have far more damage and utility buttonsat their disposal for Dungeons and other larger pulls, but lack strong AoE toolsfor consistent AoE threat generation. Holding aggro on large pulls as a Warrior is franklyquite difficult. More importantly though, Warriors do not have quite the same number of powerfulcooldowns that other tanks like Death Knights and Paladins do, putting them behinddefensively in harder content. Warriors do offer probably the most engaging tank rotationand play style out of any tank however, so if you are looking for a challenge and for a classwhere 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, specificallywhen it comes to magic damage. Main tanking as a Warrior in heroic raids is quite challenging, andyou will be putting yourself at a notable disadvantage compared to the tanks above.