World of Warcraft: The War Within Season 3 is easier when you know which tanks step up in M+ dungeons. Choosing the right Tank spec ensures faster and easier Mythic clears. This tier list ranks the best tanks for survivability, damage, and utility, helping you optimize runs efficiently. However, players still need a base item level to kickstart their Mythic journey. In that case, buying WoW gold here can help you get some high level gear for your runs.
S Tier Tanks
This season in The War Within, there is a lot of variety among the Tank specs, especially at the highest Keystone levels. Classes in the S tier are still stronger in almost any situation compared to those ranked lower.
Protection Warrior
Protection Warrior’s main way of mitigating damage is through Block. This allows it to take reduced damage from all forms of physical attacks.
- Tankiness: Prot Warrior in Season 3 has one of the best profiles in terms of survivability. Since both Hero Talents are viable, you can choose between a build focused on raw damage reduction or a build with improved self-sustain. Regardless of the build, Protection Warrior is a reliable choice if you want a stable Tank that can survive with minimal healing attention.
- Damage Throughput: In AoE scenarios, Prot Warrior has almost unmatched damage. If played correctly, you can even race with the DPS specs in your party. Its single target is also great, but nothing that impressive. Overall, PWarr has a great damage profile that shines more in big pulls. It’s great damage can be perfect if you are trying to farm some specific mobs for WoW gold.
- Utility: Protection Warrior has access to an AoE interrupt, which automatically makes it comparable or at least close to VDH in terms of mob control. It also has access to ‘’Shockwave” and a lot of mobility spells. When it comes to group utility, Prot Warrior falls a bit short since it has only ‘’Rallying Cry’’ to help the party and its signature raid buff ‘’Battle Shout’’.
Brewmaster Monk
Brewmaster Monk has been at the bottom of most tier lists for the past few seasons. The class itself is not weak, but the way it functions on a fundamental level makes it very difficult to play optimally in the Mythic/+ environment.
- Tankiness: Since the buffs, Brewmaster Monk is performing very well in terms of mitigating damage. It is nearly the “tankiest” Tank this season and is actually on par with Prot Warrior. Its main mitigation is excellent, and self-healing is also very high. Brewmaster can even off-heal its team, which adds to its versatility. The spec can feel slightly weaker against magical damage, but it scales very well with gear. Investing some WoW gold in upgrades is a good idea.
- Damage Throughput: Brewmaster Monk, like Prot Warrior, has two viable builds. One focuses on dealing massive damage in large pulls, comparable to a DPS character. The other is pure single-target, which is also strong in terms of numbers and can help you time a Mythic Key.
- Utility: In terms of group utility, Brewmaster does not offer much. It has Ring of Peace, which can be useful in niche scenarios, but unless your group is full physical composition, its raid buff does not provide significant value.
Protection Paladin
Protection Paladin also received some changes before the release of Season 3, making the spec significantly more powerful.
- Tankiness: Prot Paladin does not have the strongest mitigation among the Tanks. Sometimes it can even feel squishier than some of the lower-ranked Tanks. It has decent self-sustain, but it can also feel low at times. Overall, Protection Paladin falls slightly short in terms of Tankiness. While it has access to many defensive cooldowns, outside of them you need to play very well to survive at the highest Mythic+ levels.
- Damage Throughput: Protection Paladin has very high burst in AoE, just behind Prot Warrior and Brewmaster Monk. However, its single-target damage is relatively low compared to the other Tanks.
- Utility: Its utility is the main reason to play Protection Paladin. It has tools for almost any scenario in a dungeon: a semi-range interrupt, AoE silence, strong off-heals and shields, and the damage reduction raid buff. Paladin utility is currently unmatched, which is the main reason it is placed in the S tier.
A Tier Tanks
In the A tier, we placed Tanks that perform well at any level of Mythic+ Keystones but fall slightly behind in stats compared to the top Tanks. They are still solid choices if you want to casually complete weekly keys, farm delves for gear, or farm WoW gold.
Vengeance Demon Hunter
Vengeance Demon Hunter has been the top Tank for the past few seasons. Blizzard made a smart choice by nerfing it slightly while also buffing other Tanks to its level. Since VDH can be very fast, it is a great option for farming materials and WoW gold.
- Tankiness: In terms of damage mitigation, VDH does not have many options, but its baseline tankiness is very high. Even outside Metamorphosis, it is difficult to take down. Its self-healing is the second best among Tanks, allowing the healer to focus more on the party. Overall, Vengeance Demon Hunter has a strong Tank profile and can handle almost any type of damage effectively.
- Damage Throughput: Unlike its tankiness, Vengeance Demon Hunter’s damage profile is weak. It can deal decent AoE damage, but its single-target damage is lower than Prot Paladin.
- Utility: VDH still has access to excellent utility with Chaos Brand and Sigil of Silence, making many dungeons easier. Unfortunately, its low damage output makes it difficult to push VDH into the S tier.
B Tier Tanks
The Tank specs in this tier are just average. They do not offer anything exceptional in terms of tankiness or damage throughput, but they remain viable choices for any type of content.
Guardian Druid
Guardian Druid did not receive notable changes this season, but its core playstyle of absorbing a lot of damage and relying on healing remains the same.
- Tankiness: Guardian Druid has the easiest way to reach the armor cap, making it extremely strong against physical damage. However, it can struggle a bit against magical damage. Its self-healing is decent, but not exceptional.
- Damage Throughput: Guardian Druid’s damage profile is quite low. It is not terrible, but mediocre at best, and it often struggles to gain aggro early in the pull.
- Utility: Druid utility has always been excellent, and Mark of the Wild remains the best raid buff. However, since the other Druid specs are more popular currently, Guardian Druid’s utility is often overshadowed.
C Tier Tanks
In this tier, we placed Tanks that can be viable but need to be played near perfectly.
Playing them often feels less rewarding than simply using one of the other Tank specs.
Blood Death Knight
Blood Death Knight, unfortunately, faces the same issue as always: it is prone to being one-shot.
- Tankiness: In theory, BDK’s tankiness is solid. However, when it comes to actual gameplay, there isn’t a worse feeling than just being one-shot in one global cooldown. Their self-healing is the best in the game, making it completely self-sufficient, but BDK still cannot avoid being one-shot by bad RNG.
- Damage Throughput: The damage profile of BDK is average as well. It can do good damage in large pulls, but single target struggles a lot.
- Utility: The utility of BDK is also nothing special, since it does not have a raid buff, and the only thing that can help the team is “Anti-Magic Zone’’ which also got nerfed.