Posted on by Sunnier

Tank Comparison: Active Mitigation

This is the first of an MoP series on tank comparison. I’ve asked several tanks for improvements to this list, but it’s still possible that I’ve missed something. Please comment if I’ve forgotten or improperly evaluated something. Next I will cover long cooldowns.

My plans for this series are as follows:

  1. Active Mitigation
  2. Long Cooldowns
  3. Passive Bonuses and Masteries
  4. Strengths and Weaknesses in all of the above

In this post I compare active mitigation for all tanks, which I define as rotational skills with short cooldowns (less than 30sec) that keep you alive through average damage (i.e. melee hits or spells that are used very often), or consume resources that would otherwise keep you alive. Some of these abilities are more situational than others, but my goal is to include everything that fits the above definition.

Please keep in mind that this is for knowledge purposes only. I do not attempt to make an analytical argument, and tank abilities should never be compared in a vacuum. They are designed with the whole kit in mind. For example, the Death Knight kit revolves around several cooldowns, but they weren’t short enough to consider active mitigation. To reiterate, this list is only composed of active mitigation abilities, and cooldowns will be in the next post.

I’ve divided active mitigation abilities into the following classifications:

Reducing Damage

  1. Avoidance (dodge, parry, etc)
  2. Physical Mitigation (non-random physical damage reduction)
  3. Magical Mitigation
  4. Healing

Scaling

  1. Scales with Vengeance (scales with attack power, typically reduces damage by X amount)
  2. Scales by Percentage (reduces damage by a percentage of a boss’s current or very recent attack)

Dealing Damage

  1. Defensive skill that also deals damage
  2. Purely offensive skill that consumes defensive resources
  3. Defensive skill that deals no damage

Brewmaster Monk

Basic Rotation: Generate Chi through Keg Smash and Jab, use Chi on Blackout Kick / Shuffle and Purifying Brew to survive.

  • Blackout Kick / Shuffle: Avoidance (parry), Physical mitigation (stagger), Scales by Percentage, Defensive damage
  • Purifying Brew: Physical mitigation, Scales by Percentage, No damage
  • Elusive Brew: Avoidance, Scales by Percentage, No damage
  • Expel Harm: Healing, Scales with Vengeance, Defensive damage
  • Level 30 Talents
    • Chi Wave: Healing, Scales with Vengeance, Defensive damage
    • Zen Sphere: Healing, Scales with Vengeance, Defensive damage
    • Chi Burst: Healing, Scales with Vengeance, Defensive damage
  • Breath of Fire: Purely offensive damage
  • Guard: Magical mitigation, Physical mitigation, Scales with Vengeance, No damage

Guardian Druid

Basic Rotation: Generate rage through Mangle and critical hits, use rage on Frenzied Regeneration and Savage Defense to survive.

  • Frenzied Regeneration: Healing, Scales with Vengeance, No damage
  • Savage Defense: Avoidance, Scales by Percentage, No damage
  • Maul: Purely offensive damage
  • Level 30 Talents
  • Symbiosis
    • From Rogues: Feint: Physical Mitigaton, Magical Mitigation, Scales by Percentage, No damage (only works on AoE)

Protection Warrior

Basic Rotation: Generate rage through Shield Slam, use rage on Shield Barrier and Shield Block to survive.

  • Shield Barrier: Physical mitigation, Magical mitigation, Scales with Vengeance, No damage
  • Shield Block: Physical mitigation (guaranteed block), Avoidance (chance to critical block), Scales by Percentage, No damage
  • Heroic Strike / Cleave: Purely offensive damage
  • Level 30 Talents
  • Spell Reflection: Magical mitigation, Scales by Percentage, No damage (doesn’t work on all spells)

Protection Paladin

Basic Rotation: Generate Holy Power through Crusader Strike and various fillers, use Holy Power on Shield of the Righteous and Word of Glory.

Blood Death Knight

Basic Rotation: Time Death Strike after large bursts of damage to prepare for later damage.

  • Death Strike: Healing, Physical mitigation, Scales by Percentage, Defensive damage
  • Level 60 Talents
    • Conversion: Healing, Scales by Percentage, No damage
    • Death Siphon: Healing, Scales with Vengeance, Defensive damage
  • Rune Tap: Healing, Scales by Percentage
  • Heart Strike: Purely offensive damage

Comparison

These comparisons only take into account short term, active mitigation. For example, both Monks and DKs have very strong magical mitigation when you look at the big picture, but have hardly any rotational magic mitigating abilities, so they are considered ‘weak’ and ‘none’ in this comparison.

✔ = Strong, always have access
~ = Weak, sometimes have access
✖ = None, never have access

Brewmaster Guardian Warrior Paladin Death Knight
Avoidance ✔ ✔ ~ ✖ ✖
Physical mitigation ✔ ✖ ✔ ✔ ✔
Magical mitigation ~ ✖ ✔ ✖ ✖
Healing ✔ ✔ ~ ✔ ✔
Scales with Vengeance ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Scales by Percentage ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Damage of purely offensive resource consumers ✔ ~ ~ ✔ ✔