Shadowlands Tank Rankings: A Castle Nathria Tier List

Last Updated: September 27 - There was some tuning, but this did not affect tanks as much. The rankings have not changed since last update. Blood DK was made a bit weaker, the bottom end a bit stronger, but not enough to shift rankings.

Hello! I am Impakt, an officer in the North American guild "BDGG", or Big Dumb Golden Guardians. We finished Ny'alotha as the second best guild in North America, and at World 14th. We have been hard at work prepping for the new expansion and new raid tier, and this list reflects how we are currently feeling about the various classes and specializations for progressing the new raid tier, Castle Nathria. In addition to our own experience, this list was created and will continue to be update in consultation with raiders of other top guilds, along with input from the Icy-Veins class guide writers.

First and foremost, this tier list is strictly for the first raid of Shadowlands, Castle Nathria. While there are no Warcraft Logs rankings or simulation results yet for most classes in the upcoming raid, this list is based on our experience throughout every raid test playing with some of the best players for each class and specialization inside Castle Nathria on both Mythic and Heroic. While more anecdotal in nature, this tier list will reflect how competitive guilds will feel about bringing the various classes and specs into Castle Nathria. We are also account for current tuning, including even the most recent changes that may have occurred after raid testing finished.

This tier list is entirely based on tank viability for the new raid in the first tier of Shadowlands, Castle Nathria. The main things you want to look for in tank choice are damage dealt, ability to handle or recover from incoming damage of all types, cooldowns, and utility.

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, not the better tank class. All being lower tier means is that, all else being equal, those specs will be less desirable for the raid.

Additionally, this is all very much subject to change. The classes, specializations, and the raid itself will almost certainly undergo numerous changes before we step into Castle Nathria this November. This tier list will be updated as new tuning and balance changes come out, so you absolutely should expect this list to change at least some before and during Castle Nathria's release.

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.

If you are interested in our other rankings for Castle Nathria in Shadowlands, please click the links below.

If you are looking for absolute optimal performance in Castle Nathria then Blood Death Knights and Brewmaster Monks are what you are looking for. Simply put, one of each is the ideal tank duo for the majority of content, but they both bring very different strengths to the table that will make the best tank change fight to fight.

September 27 update: Death's Due got hit with a pretty substantial nerf, which dropped its damage reduction and strength transfer from 15% to 8%. While this is a substantial nerf to their best covenant, it still is not enough to move Blood from the top spot.

The best word to describe Blood Death Knight is every tank's favorite word: agency. As a Blood Death Knight, you have more control over your ability to survive than any other tank out there, which makes this the perfect tank for players looking to flex their personal skill in high end content. Death Strike is still the powerhouse of self healing that it has always been, which is one of the biggest strengths for Death Knights. They have a large array of tools at their disposal, including Vampiric Blood, Dancing Rune Weapon, Anti-Magic Shell, Icebound Fortitude, Rune Tap, and more. But, perhaps the most important cooldowns in their arsenal is Anti-Magic Zone. This is one of the better raid cooldowns anywhere in Shadowlands, making Death Knights incredibly valuable on fights where there are large bursts of magic damage, which will include many of the harder encounters.

The most important abilities to mention however are Death Grip and Gorefiend's Grasp. Grips are the signature, unique Death Knight ability that can be vital for any raid encounters with adds. Castle Nathria is no exception; there are at least 3 fights where having grips available will make parts of the fight significantly easier.

September 10 update: Monks received some nerfs to Celestial Brew and Purifying Brew, but a buff to Shuffle. Monk is slightly worse overall now, but Stagger is still doing its job. Monk has dropped from S-tier to A-tier with these changes, but is still a very strong choice as everything written below is still very true.

Brewmasters are currently the best choice for physical damage mitigation, while also still being competitive at dealing with magic damage. This is primarily because of their core damage mitigation tool, Stagger. Probably the most apt description of stagger is that "Stagger solves tanking." This is a bit of hyperbole, but has some truth to it. The first and most important goal of a tank is to not die. This does not always mean keeping your overall damage intake low, it could just mean making sure you live through the heavier bursts of damage if your healers can handle it. Stagger is designed around exactly that, letting Monks spread out their damage taken over periods of time, even if their overall damage taken is higher than other tanks. They are going to be far more safe and predictable at handling damage than any other tank for Castle Nathria. Especially for physical damage, other tanks like Death Knights are very susceptible to spike damage, whereas Monks are not. In Castle Nathria, this will be most prevalent on Sludgefist, where the tank damage taken will be most likely the highest out of any boss in the raid. Monks will excel at this fight specifically, but are going to be extremely useful for others as well.

While Monks do not have the same utility that Death Knights have, it is important to note that a Brewmaster Monk is probably the easiest way to get your 5% physical damage raid buff, which is a reasonable requirement for any raid group. Windwalker and Mistweaver Monks can also bring it, but they are not as commonly found inside raids, making Brewmaster an easy way to grab it if you cannot reliably field another Monk specialization.

September 10 update: Warriors received a small armor buff, which is nice but not enough to bump them up a tier. They will remain at the top of B-tier for now.

Thanks to a recent rework, Protection Warriors have gained back much of their defensive power that they were lacking earlier in beta. Ignore Pain fills the need for magic damage mitigation well inside Castle Nathria, while their array of cooldowns helps them in high damage situations. Demoralizing Shout, Shield Wall, Last Stand, along with some other strong talent options provide Warriors with multiple ways to deal with damage of any sort. While still a bit weaker than the tanks above, Warriors are in a much better state now, and actually have some very competitive use cases inside Castle Nathria.

Warriors have a solid toolkit now, but there is one specific strength that needs to be emphasized: Spell Reflection. Spell reflection along with the legendary power Mass Spell Reflection works on a surprising number of boss abilities in the new raid, which has some incredibly powerful uses in the new raid that could even change how you approach some fights.

Protection Paladins have strong damage mitigation actives with many powerful cooldowns, which makes them incredibly durable when those abilities are up. However, Paladin's main weakness comes from that vulnerability window. Shield of the Righteous is not always active and if you do not have a cooldown like Ardent Defender or Guardian of Ancient Kings available during that downtime, you could be in trouble if any sort of burst of damage is coming. Paladins have some passive mitigation from Consecration and potentially Holy Shield, but they still are vulnerable outside of their active mitigation, more so than other tanks.

Paladins may be a bit weaker outside of active mitigation than other tanks, but that does not make them bad for raids. Paladins are still one of the best tanks to bring for the damage and utility, which is a very real need on some encounters. Paladins have a personal immunity, an immunity they can place on a raid member, high single target damage comparatively, and their new Covenant ability Blessing of the Seasons (see Paladin Covenant abilities), which they can use to give some pretty useful buffs to a player of their choice.

September 10 update: Vengeance received some pretty devastating nerfs this build. With the changes to Shattered Souls and Shear, Demon Hunters lost 25% of their self healing along with a 40% nerf to Metamorphosis uptime. This has drastically lowered their ability to deal with both magic and physical damage, which was one of the main reasons they were in the A-tier before. Because of these changes, they have dropped from A-tier to C-tier.

Demon Hunters have a strong all-around toolkit that combines decent damage mitigation with moderate self-healing. Specifically, Demon Hunters offer a very strong passive reduction against magic damage when combining Demonic Wards with Viscous Ink. Metamorphosis is still an incredibly powerful defensive cooldown, which along with Fiery Brand gives them decent options for dealing with high damage periods. Finally Demon Hunters are still one of the most mobile classes in the game, which is of course incredibly useful to have as a tank.

It is also worth mentioning that similar to Monks, Demon Hunters have a 5% magic buff that they bring to the raid. The main difference is that unlike the other Monk specializations, Havoc Demon Hunters are actually one of the more common DPS found in raids, making it likely most raids will have one anyways. Vengeance Demon Hunter is definitely much more attractive if your raid does not have a Demon Hunter.

September 27 update: Guardian got a new talent and an updated legendary, but neither are strong enough to move Guardian up. The new talent Tooth and Claw was looking promising, but now it will not stack, meaning it caps at 15% damage reduction. This is unfortunately not strong enough to make a meaningful difference. The updated legendary Ursoc's Fury Remembered has some potential, but only for a high number of targets, which will not be the case inside the raid.

While Guardian does bring some strong cooldowns and utility, it still just does not have the same level of damage mitigation that other tanks bring to the table. Survival Instincts is still one of the highest damage reductions for any tank, but is only 6 seconds and more for targeted used. Bears also have Barkskin and Frenzied Regeneration, but their primary active mitigation comes from Ironfur. Currently their toolkit is just on the under-tuned side and they do not have great responses to the high volumes of magic damage found in some of the more difficult encounters inside Castle Nathria. On the plus side though, Stampeding Roar is still a great utility option for any sort of raid movement and can be quite valuable.