Tank Rankings / Tier List for Mists of Pandaria Classic

December 5 update: Updated for the launch of Throne of Thunder and phase 3 of Mists of Pandaria Classic!

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

1. Protection Paladin (S-Tier)
2. Protection Warrior (A-Tier)
3. Brewmaster Monk (A-Tier)
4. Blood Death Knight (A-Tier)
5. Guardian Druid (B-Tier)

In order to further understand the reasoning behind these ranks, we would recommend you to read the rest of the page, as that is explained in more detail in the next few sections.

If you are interested in other PvE role rankings for Mists of Pandaria, check the following links:

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

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

To put it simply: tanking is messy. There are tons of factors that go into what makes tanks good or bad depending on the encounter. While this ranking is specifically for the final tier of Mists of Pandaria, know that every tank is viable. You can easily complete any raid with any combination of tanks.

Paladin has returned to some of their former glory that they saw in Wrath, particularly when it comes to self-healing and mitigation. As a tank, Protection Paladins are exceptional in terms of damage mitigation and recovery, capable of self-sustaining through the most dififcult encounters. Paladins still have the same incredibly array of defensive cooldowns that they normally bring, but their self-reliance is where they truly shine combined with their strong damage output. In an expansion where Vengeance gives tanks a ridiculous amount of Attack Power, Paladins can utilize it incredibly well with Eternal Flame to do equally ridiculous self-healing. Paladins will continue to scale well, making them a top-tier choice the remainder of the expansion.

Protection Warrior falls far short of the other tanks above in terms of base damage mitigation. However, Warrior has far more damage and utility buttons at their disposal for larger pulls, and specifically bring the best damage early on out of any tank. While Warriors are going to be one of the weakest choices defensively, if you can live the incoming damage successfully on the hardest encounters, you also substantially outscale the other tanks when it comes to damage done. This is a double-edged sword, which generally is a poor choice to make when progressing difficult bosses. However, during farm when you have a bit more gear, it can be incredibly fun. Ultimately Warriors do not have quite the same number of powerful cooldowns and passive mitigation options that other tanks like Death Knights and Paladins do, putting them behind defensively in harder content.

The major downside is that Warriors have the worst recovery out of any tank, specifically when it comes to magic damage. Main tanking as a Warrior in heroic raids is quite challenging, but the reward will be the damage boost you offer.

Brewmaster Monk is the new class added in Mists of Pandaria, and tanking is perhaps their strongest role throughout the expansion. The new vengeance mechanic of Mists heavily benefits Brewmaster, primarily thanks to their innate damage mitigation ability Stagger. This allows them to delay some damage taken as a DoT instead, giving them far more survivability than any other tank when it comes to living massive spikes of damage. Brewmasters scale the best out of any tank by far, eventually becoming the overall S-tier tank of choice, especially thanks to their reliable defensive cooldowns like Guard. Brewmasters also deal solid damage, but their durability is where they really shine throughout the expansion.

While Blood DKs were the best tanks early on, they fall off the more gear you get into the expansion. Blood still brings exceptional utility and a solid portfolio, but lacks the raw power of Paladin and the damage output of Warrior. Blood still offers great self sustain, incredible cooldowns, and the some of 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 relocating specific adds can be very beneficial. Mists of Pandaria also introduces Gorefiend's Grasp, which is an AoE Death Grip that ends up being almost required on several encounters. Finally, DKs have just the best magic defense out of any tank without question, which is what makes them a great choice for heroic raiding. The combination of self sustain, recovery, and their incredible array of cooldowns make them a fantastic asset in progression.

Guardian Druid has the highest damage out of any tank, specifically on single-target and small-target cleave situations. Their damage with Berserk and Mangle (Bear) on specifically three-target cleave is competitive even amongst DPS specs. However, outside of this specific niche, Druids start to fall short. In terms of damage taken, Druid is awful early on without the required scaling. Druids have possibly the worst active mitigation option with Savage Defense, giving them an increased dodge chance. All it takes is an unlucky string of hits in a row to put you in near-death territory, which makes taking the hardest content a real challenge. Ultimately, Druid can't compete with the tanks above in terms of damage mitigation and recovery. Druid's selling point continues to be their prowess as an off-tank. Druids have several powerful cooldowns for when they do tank and are quite strong even as a main tank. The optimal use for a Guardian is to off-tank when necessary to reset stacks, allowing them to selectively blow cooldowns. Then, Bears have the unique ability to uitilize Heart of the Wild to either deal damage or heal at full power as an off-role, giving them incredible downtime option outside of tanking.