The War Within Tank Rankings: Liberation of Undermine Raiding Tier List (Patch 11.1 / Season 2)

Mid Season Update: Every tank now generates more ~15% threat which hopefully means the damage disparity between different tanks is not as much of an issue when it comes to keeping threat of a single target boss. A couple of small updates to the rankings of the tanks to better reflect how they play in the raid today.

The main things you want to look for in tank choice are damage dealt, the ability to handle or recover from incoming damage of all types, cooldowns, and utility (including Raid buffs).

It is incredibly important to emphasize that just because a tank is low in the tier list, it does not mean that you should ignore it completely. For the vast majority of cases, you should choose to bring the better player (or what the player is more comfortable playing), not blindly play the subjectively better class. Your raid composition may demand that tank choices are made regardless of their strength, such as needing Mystic Touch, Chaos Brand, or Death Grip.

Below is a quick summary of the full rankings that we have detailed on this page. While this gives a good outline of the standings of specializations in comparison to one another, we recommend reading the full rankings to understand why certain specializations are ranked as they are.

S	Blood Death Knight Blood Death Knight's are as popular as ever and have recently had some tuning changes to both of their Hero Trees making each of them have more of a distinct purpose. Sanlayn has improved from being never used to now dealing high amounts of Single Target damage and Deathbringer saw some consistency adjustments for the DPS output. DPS isn't the only thing to focus on as Blood Death Knights can handle every boss fight with ease (with a cooldown plan) and are one of two tanks that can satisfy the Mass Grip should any arise! Death Knight Guide Brewmaster Monk Brewmaster Monk's are a very popular choice of raid tank and with a good reason! They being Mystic Touch and can handle absurd amounts of damage with very little healer attention, as long as they're receiving some healing and have a good cooldown plan it's pretty difficult for a skilled Brewmaster Monk to die. Brewmaster Monk Guide Protection Warrior Protection Warrior's are great choices of raid tanks and have seen numerous changes coming into this season. They bring a lot of damage and are strong tank choice if your raid does not need your tank to bring buffs/debuffs. Protection Warriors also bring Rallying Cry with them which is always in demand. Protection Warrior Guide Protection Paladin Protection Paladin's have seen great changes over the last season and they remain a strong contender. They are a popular choice for Mythic+ also which helps for players who only want to keep one character up to date. Protection Paladin Guide
A	Guardian Druid Guardian Druid's are a very good source of Mark of the Wild due to other druid specs falling out of popularity, but that's not the only reason to bring one of these as your raid tank of choice. As Druid of the Claw you can deal significant amounts of single target DPS (which most fights are in this raid)! Guardian Druid Guide Vengeance Demon Hunter Vengeance Demon Hunter's bring Chaos Brand to your raid team (if you do not have a Havoc Demon Hunter) and are one of two tanks that can satisfy Mass Grip requirements should any arise. Vengeance Demon Hunter Guide

If you are interested in our other rankings for Season 2 Raiding in The War Within, please click the links below.

Tanks are reasonably close together when it comes to defensive power. Defensively, every tank is 100% viable. The major differences between the tanks are damage output, utility, and unique buffs that they bring to the raid. Some tank choices will perform better on some encounters, but for the raid as a whole, you are more than fine to pick any option.

Mid Season Update: Blood Death Knights remain at their S-Tier position. Their utility allows repeated raid clears to be consistent with Grips having value on Stix and Mass Grip for Gallywix intermissions. The damage output of Blood DKs is still high and it is also a fan favourite as your survival is completely in your hands which keeps repeated clears of the raid more interesting.

Segmented Ranking:

• Damage: A-Tier.
• Utility: S-Tier

Blood Death Knights are the tanks with the most absolute control over their own survival due to Death Strike, but any mismanagement of your resources can lead to it not being as strong in this department as they should be. In addition to this control, they bring the ability to bring enemies to you with Death Grip and a raid cooldown with Anti-Magic Zone, but they can't have it all, and the main weakness is damage. Blood does not bring any required buffs or cooldowns, but on encounters where you need to group enemies, their utility is invaluable.

What does Blood Death Knight bring?

Functionality	Spells	Notes
Raid Cooldown	Anti-Magic Zone	Absorbs 20% of magic damage taken up to 150% of the DKs health. As Blood has a significantly larger health pool than Frost/Unholy the AMZ from Blood is much more reliable.
Debuff	Insidious Chill	Similar to Curse of Weakness, this reduces the speed of auto-attacks from bosses. With auto attacks contributing a majority of damage taken on any encounter, this is a valuable debuff to bring to the raid.
Enemy Displacement	Death Grip/ Abomination Limb / Gorefiend's Grasp	Ulgrax the Devourer, Bloodbound Horror, and Broodtwister Ovi'nax all have adds that need to be gripped and grouped for efficient DPS.
Debuff negation	Anti-Magic Shell	AMS can be used to prevent debuffs from being applied to you, which makes some encounters easier, but is also a very large magic damage absorb.
Knockback/Pushback negation	Death's Advance	This will completely prevent you from being moved by any knockbacks or pushbacks.

Mid Season Update: Protection Paladins keep their S-Tier ranking in the raid both for their throughput, but their ability to negate the need for mechanical complexity on Mugzee (Soaking Bombs) and Gallywix Mythic (Soaking Duds in P1 and Spellwarding Utility in P2 for the cone overlap).

Segmented Ranking:

• Damage: S-Tier.
• Utility: A-Tier

Protection Paladins bring lots of useful raid tools in the form of Auras and External Cooldowns, but are also a good tank choice with the flexibility to play more defensively with Sentinel or offensively without it. Historically Protection Paladins boasted the highest DPS of any tank. However, this is no longer the case. You will opt to bring a Protection Paladin for the External cooldowns it can provide with Blessing of Protection or Blessing of Spellwarding to negate mechanics where you would otherwise sacrifice a player, where this is not the case, the value of the Protection Paladin falls.

What does Protection Paladin bring?

Functionality	Spells	Notes
Auras	Devotion Aura	Every raid will want at least 1 Paladin to provide this damage reduction aura.
Immunity	Divine Shield	A complete immunity to any type of damage. This can be augmented with the talent Final Stand to make this an AoE taunt as well, which can be beneficial to gather adds and keep them on the boss.
External Cooldowns	Blessing of Spellwarding	All Paladins can bring Blessing of Protection and Blessing of Sacrifice, but Protection Paladins also brings Blessing of Spellwarding. This can be used to make players completely immune to magic damage.
AoE Interrupt	Divine Toll	Being able to interrupt multiple enemies on demand can be valuable in some scenarios as a method of grouping caster adds.

Mid Season Update: Protection Warriors move up to S-Tier. While nothing mechanically has changed about Warrior since the last update this update takes into account how they interact with each boss for the rest of this Season. Protection Warriors are comfortably surviving on every boss and dealing high amounts of damage too!

Segmented Ranking:

• Damage: S-Tier.
• Utility: A-Tier

Protection Warriors have not only a required buff but also the strongest non-healer raid cooldown in the game with Rallying Cry. Protection Warriors also provide a good amount of damage and have more than enough defensive tools to make them a good tank choice.

What does Protection Warrior bring?

Functionality	Spells	Notes
Buff	Battle Shout	A mandatory raid buff for any physical damage dealers.
Raid Cooldown	Rallying Cry	This is one of the strongest defensive cooldowns available. It increases the effective Health of every player in the raid at a similar level to Power Word: Barrier but has no positional requirements. You can never have too many of these.
AoE Silence/Taunt	Disrupting Shout	This is not only an AoE silence, it's an AoE taunt as well!

Mid Season Update: Vengeance Demon Hunters move down to A-Tier with this update. The damage output of a Vengeance Demon Hunter in raid is comfortably middle of the pack in comparison to other tanks and other utility they provide is not really used. They are still a very popular choice of Mythic+ tank and can comfortably manage every raid encounter.

Segmented Ranking:

• Damage: A-Tier
• Utility: B-Tier

Vengeance Demon Hunters are a strong all-round tank. The utility bought by Vengeance is not showcased in this raid as Havoc is a strong Melee DPS option, and there are not many circumstances where Sigil of Silence is invaluable. If your raid team needs Chaos Brand, then playing Vengeance can be a solid option.

What does Vengeance Demon Hunter bring?

Functionality	Spells	Notes
Debuff	Chaos Brand	You will want this in any raid group for the 3% bonus to magic damage. Even physical damage dealers benefit from this as a good portion of their damage is buffed by this.
Raid Cooldown	Darkness	This cooldown shines when the entire raid is stacked together.
AoE Silence	Sigil of Silence	An AoE Silence that can be applied from 30 yards away!
AoE Grip	Sigil of Chains	This AoE Grip will find good use on Ulgrax the Devourer, Bloodbound Horror, and Broodtwister Ovi'nax.

Mid Season Update: Guardian Druids remain in the same position they were from the last update. The only notable change for Guardian Druids are the addition of additional threat, but that covers all tanks. The other main selling point of bringing a Guardian Druid is having an additional Stampeding Roar which can be valuable on fights such as Sprocket or Gallywix.

Segmented Ranking:

• Damage: A-Tier.
• Utility: B-Tier

Guardian Druids are still a strong tank option in Mythic+ however, this does not translate into raid as well as it did before. They provide high amounts of Single Target damage and are a good all-round tank option. They, unfortunately, do not have any boss-breaking utility that is required for the raid, but the utility they do bring is still valuable! (But everything they bring can be bought by another Druid spec.)

What does Guardian Druid bring?

Functionality	Spells	Notes
Buff	Mark of the Wild	A mandatory raid buff which increases Versatility for every player.
AoE Movement Speed	Stampeding Roar	In many encounters, every piece of raid movement is a set piece movement requiring the raid to move from one static location to another. Speeding this process up increases raid DPS.
Healer support	Innervate	Most raid builds can include this piece of core Healer utility. This can make a healer do an entire ramp on the raid without needing to worry about their mana.
Enemy Displacement	Ursol's Vortex	This can be very impactful on encounters where adds need to remain in a static position, such as Raszageth , Sarkareth and Larodar.

Mid Season Update: Brewmaster Monks move up to S-Tier. Following a few round of damage buffs over the course of this tier they are now doing competitive damage with the other tanks and comfortably survive every raid encounter with little prep needed for cooldown plans.

Segmented Ranking:

• Damage: A-Tier.
• Utility: B-Tier

Brewmaster Monk is a strong all-around choice for tanking but has by far the most rotational keybinds of any tank. This can be reduced by passive talent options such as Press the Advantage. However, each of these switches lower the damage but make the spec easier to manage.

Monks bring solid damage output, can smooth out their damage taken with Stagger, and have strong but infrequent defensive cooldowns. The main reason to bring a Brewmaster would be for Mystic Touch, as both other Monk specializations are quite weak comparatively.

What does Brewmaster Monk bring?

Functionality	Spells	Notes
Debuff	Mystic Touch	Increases physical damage dealt to the target by 5%.
Buff	Generous Pour	Reduces AoE damage taken by players within 10 yards by 4%.
Buff	Close to Heart	Increases healing taken by players within 10 yards by 8%. For many encounters in the raid, the group is stacked near melee range, so this benefits more than just the melee clump!
Speed Taunt	Hasty Provocation	This forces bosses to run faster when you taunt them.
Defensive Cooldown	Diffuse Magic	Not only is this a very strong magic damage reduction for the Monk, it can also dispel Magic debuffs.
AoE Taunt	Summon Black Ox Statue	If you use Provoke on this statue, you will taunt everything around the statue, making Brewmaster one of two tanks with an AoE taunt.
AoE Knockback	Ring of Peace	An AoE knockback that can be used to prevent adds from running away or bouncing them closer to the raid.