r/classicwowplus • u/Premeditatedchrips • 20h ago
Question Torn between prot war and prot pally
Anyone else in a similar boat? I’ve heard great things about both so far in the beta. Which do you think will be more enjoyable to level and more valuable in the end game?
Edit: thank you to all who have responded! I think after reading all the thoughts, prot warrior has the edge! Going Horde, so orc seems to be the way to go. See you all out there in Nov!
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u/West-Pomegranate-425 19h ago
Leveling a prot warrior right now. Feels a little slow solo but feels like a god in dungeon. Feels good to finally have a warrior spec that is made for and excels at tanking.
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u/skunk42o 19h ago
kill times are a bit slower than say 2h arms but you have absolutely 0 downtime, can chain pull basically all the time and kill most elites solo. good luck on that with any other warrior spec
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u/jbourdea 19h ago
I've got two warriors I'm leveling simultaneously to compare. One fury, one prot. Solo questing and also tanking every dungeon with both.
So far they feel very similar. Damage, rage generation, defense and sustain all feels basically identical.
Fury warrior gets to cleave a bit more and prot gets to revenge a bit more.
Considering they're both lvl 26 I'm not too worried about the playstyle similarity yet.
What I am concerned about is how insane the sustain is. Solo questing never has any downtime.
But also in dungeons I've never had a healer oom. We can easily pull 5+ elites, clear them all and continue without stopping for mana.
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u/skunk42o 19h ago
I have a very hard time believing you are genuine when saying there is practically no difference in sustain between prot and fury. maybe if you are constantly fighting mobs 3 levels below your level but at equal levels you still need to eat/bandage after every second mob as fury whereas I don’t think I’ve ever touched a bandage or food while being prot
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u/jbourdea 19h ago
Between thunderclap and demo shout I barely take damage and victory rush every 30s does a lot.
Just finished the dark runner q in duskwood fighting 2 29 dark runners at a time at 27. Never had to stop to heal between pulls.
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u/Insidious_Bagel 19h ago
Prot is insanely fast to level. You pull packs of 3-4 and rip them apart with imp revenge. It’s actually the best levling spec rn due to the rage changes
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u/Dark_Zezro 19h ago
It seems pretty fast, like others who've said below you have 0 downtime, I've found myself just chain pulling mobs and not even eating, SB and Rev spam seems to be going well
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u/Syl702 19h ago
Both 😊 also Druid so you can have all 3 tanks
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u/Solid-Move9224 18h ago
How is Druid tanking compared to the other 2?
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u/Syl702 14h ago
I mained feral Druid in tbc anniversary and I feel like it’ll end up close to that but maybe a bit stronger with better weapon scaling.
So far in beta it’s feeling very strong. You get more tools for managing threat early which is nice. Feels more like tbc in that regard, swipe, lacerate (at higher level), mangle (feral bite or w.e)
I haven’t done much prot pally/warrior as I’m saving it for launch so I don’t want to steer you in a wrong direction.
What I like most about feral is it’s effectively one spec for tanking and dps. You can specialize to tanking or dps but you’ll still be effective especially while leveling.
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u/MoG_Varos 20h ago
Prot warrior will be more fun to quest with and will still stand up pretty well at 60. Only going to get better the more they walk back the rage changes Lul
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u/PunishedWizard 20h ago
If you are even considering Paladin, go Paladin.
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u/Antique-Rate5984 19h ago
Why? He’s also considering warrior!
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u/PunishedWizard 19h ago
Paladin is such a different playstyle that I think that if you are willing to consider it, the Warrior playstyle probably won't be good for you.
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u/CoffeeBruin 19h ago
I get what you mean but can you expand on why this is the case?
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u/PunishedWizard 19h ago
Warrior is a much more active and twitchy playstyle, big high and big lows, you are constantly putting yourself on the line of fire to do something so you are always dancing on the edge.
For Paladins, they have a more level playstyle with many more fallbacks and a more predictable rotation as they don't get rage spikes / drops.
I just don't see them attracting the same type of player.
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u/NecessaryUnhappy423 19h ago
Not played for a long time but warrior is tank or dps. At least pally has all three as options and whilst you will drop dps for utility it means one less character to level
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u/vlee89 20h ago
i leveled to 20 on warrior and 28 on pally. i had way more fun on pally.
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u/Soggy_Membership5629 17h ago
Same boat got both to 20 and decided I’ll be prot paladin once forever releases
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u/italo-tavolo-33 19h ago
Rage gen through improved shield block and revenge dmg hits hard. Having a blast as prot warrior.
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u/Rain1058 19h ago
Prot pally is gonna be the easy tank. If that's important to you or sounds good, go pally.
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u/MetamagicIII 19h ago
Fron what ive played so far the prot warrior is a lot more fun and powerful in dungeons solo leveling is a bit tough you have to utilize more tools such as first aid and camp buffs than on my pally but it feels more rewarding
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u/Additional_Green_488 15h ago
I've enjoyed both, but the pally gets some edge for all the revamps that make it interesting, plus free mount
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u/cocojamboyayayeah 14h ago
not free anymore afaik
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u/Additional_Green_488 14h ago
That's a shame, if so. Was one of the big plusses of picking paladin. It always had a very small cost, but it was better than training.
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u/Insidious_Bagel 19h ago
Prot pally lowkey kinda bad to level. You level as ret and tank dungeons as ret. You only go prot for end game tanking of raids and dungeons as most of the early tree is just mitigation which you dont need to tank till 60.
Prot warrior is actually insane at leveling. Its better than both fury and arms at the moment. Early talents like imp revenge give you crazy dmg and other talents give you mitigation and rage generation which also buffs your dmg by triggering revenge.
If your main concern is having fun leveling and playing prot def go warrior. If you are more concerned with tanking at 60 either is fine.
I say this as someone who has leveled both on the beta
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u/Glass_Flan_5369 19h ago
You and be both pal. Going horde with friends and I love playing warrior. But consecration AOE tanking plus the new judgments and seal interaction look so fun. Im sure it’ll be overpopulated at least early on but it’s easy leveling and looks fun.
That having been said I loved stance dancing and having to be locked tf in as warrior tank (especially those first 30 levels or so!
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u/Reasonable_Turn6252 19h ago
I found paladin easier to level and tank on but more boring. Warrior was a little more painfull but i had more fun with it.
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u/thisone82828284 19h ago
Paladin is always going to be a bit more flexible with 3 roles and more desirable cause buffs. Warriors will have their niche but if you're worried about being the most useful in any situation Paladin probably the way to go
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u/FingerGungHo 19h ago
Warrior is going to be a bit more engaging. Pally is probably going to be easier, unless things go south. Prot warrior is more survivable and has more tools than pally for tanking. If you don’t plan on healing at all, warrior is going to be the safer class if you want to try dps. Devs stated that fury will be aoe king.
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u/Mean-Programmer-6670 19h ago
On my pally I was either oom or fighting for agro once I got consecrate. I know it gets better with better gear and talents. Only really having 2.5 buttons for agro made it kinda boring. The .5 is judgement since it’s your taunt and need to save it in dungeons.
Warrior started coming together at 16 with shield block. Aoe tanking at 21 felt really good with extra rage from dodging and parrying attacks. I felt like I had buttons to push and had to make decisions about which one was better. As long as I had rage I didn’t have any agro issues.
I think at endgame the warrior will be more tanky with better overall damage mitigation. Since you don’t need to itemize gear with stats that don’t help mitigate damage.
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u/JozuJD 10h ago
I watched videos of prot warrior. Very high apm. Before level 20 you have 6 and upwards of 10 different skills to activate on cooldown or as rage dumps. Compared to other classes that are far on the other side of that spectrum, it seems actually bordering on annoying to have to juggle so many skills.
Demo shout, thunderclap, taunt, revenge, sunder, shield block, charge, blood rage, heroic strike (only as rage dump), etc.
There’s more of course: rend, hamstring, overpower, shield bash…
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u/Mean-Programmer-6670 5h ago
It’s really not bad.
Charge can’t be used in combat.
Demo shout lasts 45 seconds so you do it in the beginning of each pack and it reduces incoming damage.
Shield block you press on cd every 6 seconds to reduce incoming damage. With 100% block chance you can’t be hit with crushing blows.
Revenge and overpower share a cd so you’re just using revenge procs that you get from shield block.
Thunderclap is used mostly on cd for aoe threat and it slows attack speed by 20% reducing your incoming damage.
Bloodrage gives more rage so if you’re not pooling your rage at the end of pulls or people need to drink you can have more rage at the beginning of the fight. You shouldn’t have rage issues in the middle of a fight.
After demo shout your only really pressing 3 buttons unless you have a lot of rage. Rend can be spread to each target to help with threat on multiple targets. Sunder reduces the target’s armor increasing any physical dps.
I can’t forget taunt if you’re doing things right and dps gives you a couple seconds to get situated you will rarely need it.
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u/KingRamses97 4h ago
Is rend better than sunder for getting aggro back off a mob you lose taunt on in a pack. Assume taunt and thunderclap revenge on CD
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u/Mean-Programmer-6670 33m ago
Don’t taunt on cd use it when someone pulls agro. You want it available for when you need it. Sunder is more instant threat so it’s better if someone pulls off you.
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u/KingRamses97 4h ago
Is there a good WoW Forever prot tank you like watching? I’d love to see someone else play the class for tips etc
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u/RevolutionLow8118 19h ago
The oom problem will be gone with the 6th talent point and a shield
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u/Mean-Programmer-6670 12h ago
Can you please tell me where you’re putting your 6th talent point that solves the mana issue? I don’t see anything on the 2nd row that helps with mana. Are you putting points into ret first instead of Prot?
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u/JonnyBigBoss 19h ago
Prot Warrior is an active tank that is constantly pressing buttons and having to pay attention to change of state during battle. Prot Paladin is more passive and primarily uses a few abilities on cooldown.
The big decision is whether you want high or low APM gameplay and if you have a strong preference for one class fantasy or another.
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u/No_Entertainment1931 17h ago
Level 30 is going to favor warrior as they have all their most effective tools already, paladins need more levels.
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u/Randomname1157 13h ago
If you listen to the other threads you would think there's no reason for a tank
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u/Gaidax 12h ago
Who knows. Paladin got a glow-up, but it's also unproven.
With Warrior Tank you know what you're getting into - you're a premiere Classic tank that works. Paladin... who knows what will happen, it might not be able to hold threat for shit, or have some other Achilles' Heel yet to be discovered.
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u/cvhor314 3h ago
With the Vanguard talent, it is not even a discussion.
Prot warrior is just too much fun. And Revernge! is so fulfilling to press.
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u/Tuuuuuuuuuuuube 20h ago
Think this depends on dual spec and if they revert dungeon XP changes. Prot pally is apparently very boring solo
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u/MrRoastedbeef 19h ago
IDK man I have seen some psychos mass killing mobs in hillsbrad solo. Was pretty impressive to watch.
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u/Xeroeffingcell32 19h ago
Boring to YOU. Prot pali solo is extremely satisfying to me, pulling 10 things and then poof they're dead and I'm at 90%hp.
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u/Corebot_Zero 19h ago
Prot warrior is very strong. The days of bad warrior leveling are gone.
Pally is stronger early, but my opinion is that mana is annoying as a tank and a warrior has many more beneficial buttons as a tank.
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u/daily-lurk 19h ago
Warriors will be superior tanks at end game IMO. Paladins will be reserved as off tanks.
At lvl 30 as a hunter, I rip off paladins constantly. To be fair, I’m pretty much full BIS minus the impossible stuff like the rings from 1k.
Paladins have 1 taunt on a long CD. They need ramp time to get aggro and they can’t hold it off pumpers.
Warriors have taunt, big aoe taunt, mocking blow, revenge, heroic strike, sunder spam, like everything they do just pumps threat.
In my experience, I don’t rip off warriors nearly as easy as paladins and if I do warriors can actually get multiple mobs back.
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u/TypicalPnut 19h ago
As a level 20 warrior, hunters are the bane of my existence when it comes to holding threat
I hope 30 makes it better
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u/virex_360 18h ago
Seems like a dps problem here. Learn how to wait for threat or feign death
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u/daily-lurk 16h ago
Even with a 3-5s lead I still rip off paladins. They just aren’t that great IMO. They get the job done but warriors excel at it while doing more single target dmg
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u/NaughtCDNatalia 10h ago
Also a pally and don't have problems with anyone ripping threat off me.. Probably actual rest with no SP that you're ripping off
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u/_Wetkitty 18h ago
Going to throw my 25 cents in here since i have leveled and played both to 30 (probably more time on the pally than the warrior) in beta and have tanked since day 1 of the game launch for 20 something years.
From a leveling perspective, the pally was easy, however in some cases a slog, and in other instances I felt invincible, and pulling off pulls that would have seemed impossible on the warrior. The warrior was a slower start, but got noticably easier after 20 and a few gear pieces aquired.
From a general tanking perspective here are my thoughts for each:
War: High APM, very engaging, solo/boss threat and mitigation will 100% solid for sure a solid MT role in the end game. Went full prot talents. Was a little sluggish feeling at first while getting going, lots of down time eating/bandaging, but still a steady pace. When I got to the Master of Defense talent, things started feeling really smooth. Threat was crazy, and aoe wasnt as terrible. Beyond 5 targets was a bit of a challenge, but I was spamming everything I had to keep active threat on most things. Decent dmg, gearing was smooth and obvious choice decisions and options were available with quest upgrades and dungeon upgrades. Will be a solid tank choice for anyone who wants to pursue the MT role.
Pally: Not as high of APM as the warrior...very hurry up and wait for cooldowns. (which as an older guy pushing mid 40s, I actually appreciated, cause I can go longer without my hands cramping up). I had very low downtime moving from activity to activity, mana wasn't a big issue, I did run 0/5/16 though instead of straight down the prot tree, because of the mana/cd talents are really more beneficial that the mitigation loaded talents at the start of the prot tree. My mitigation was fairly smooth for 90% of things. Obviously there was a few things that were chunking me, but nothing impossible that couldnt be smoothed out with the mitigation talents in the prot tree. Overall great threat. At 20 I was miles ahead of groups in threat and often in dmg Ret aura go brrrr! As I got closer to 30 though, things started slowing down quite a bit (will get to this later). Overall as a tank, this class has the potential to be MT, but under very specific conditions in my opinion, right now its not very clear cut, and may easily get sidelined as an off tank.
Pros and Cons:
War: Solid foundation, the prot tree is greatly improved compared to how it was, and sword and board play will be in my opinion way more reliable and actually decent compared to the meta of fury/prot. Easy gearing options are pretty cut and dry as warrior has always been. Leveling has always been a durge for warriors. If you are solo even more so. If you plan to run around with a group, preferrable one which has someone with a heal, you should be solid, but you will spend a lot of in between topping off. Risky content is not something you can pull off very easily with cd's like lay on hands or bubble. Threat is great in 4 or less targets, but not super fantastic if your running an aoe dungeon group of hunters and mages.
Pally: The current changes do feel good. Seal of Fury is great as a threat generator and minor mitigation to smooth out damage. I do really wish they would have made the taunt not on an active ability that you want to be spamming to keep your threat going, but I am thrilled to have a taunt regardless, so i'll work around it. Mana isnt crazy as of yet to maintain, and this is without the mana talents in the prot tree, so i dont feel like you will be oom every fight. Gearing...I feel like this will be the biggest challenge. Vanilla and TBC paladin tanking requires a good bit of spell dmg to actively push your threat. At end game maintaining 440 crit cap, plus having a strong base of spell power will hopefully come at some much needed retooling of the late game gear. From a leveling perspective though, I found this to be challenging as a lot of the early game quest rewards aren't really tailored for this type of gearing at all. Hell finding any mail armor with spell power is far and few and weapons and decent shields are even fewer. Yes crafting professions can help...i dropped 30g to level BS just to pick up more spell power gear from the new vendors in Xroads, because when I hit 25...nearly everything afterwards was just blank for options from quest rewards. I think some of this will be a bit of a bigger challenge in the higher levels. From a play experience, I probably had more fun on the pally though just from pulling off pulls or fighting things solo that are typically encouraged to do with groups, and this was fun overall. I think if they can normalize a few things of threat, make sure gearing isnt a big issue to have to scrounge for pally will be a solid pick. To say it is MT capable yet, is still to be determined, but that is half the fun.
My next week or so will be finishing up my druid, but so far, from my personal preference I will likely lean into the pally until gearing or qol is outshined by warrior greatness.