Nice hot debate to be my first post :)

Can we tank? Do you think we should be able to tank to an extent? Do any of you actively seek to be tank for a group for the fun of it? (like I do hehe)

I am fed up of being told I can't tank because I am a druid. Ha! Watch me. Obviously, I am nothing on a similarly geared 'real tank', but I have tanked Icefall bears and such with a bard slower and another druid healing me for a bit of variety. Bard thought I was mad. The other druid thought it was funny. But I did it. Etc ~

So...thoughts please! :)

I am a Demiplane/Deathknell geared druid. The mob at the end of Skylance 3 is the toughest mob I've tanked without external healing.

Recently a warrior returned after a 2+ year absence. He is mostly Time geared with some early GoD stuff thrown in. He tanked the very same mob a couple days ago, and hardly needed any healing in the first place. (Oh, and he has about 300 AAs, compared to my 1400+.)

My conclusion is that druids can generally tank things that warriors used to 3 years ago. It's fun to push our limits sometimes, but it's highly impractical.

Sure it's fun to solo 1.5k+ hitters and sometimes tank for group, but I really wouldn't call it tanking. Tanking is more than just being able to take hits. It's also about managing aggro, positioning etc. It's not that easy to hold aggro in a high dps group, mob interrupts castings way too much. I hate that, I feel like being a sand bag. Also our damage mitigation just sucks.

Gladly I have a ranger too, I love taunt and snap aggro. I enjoy tanking with him, but not with my druid. Makes me feel ridiculous :P

Hi Kalsari ;)

I don't think we CAN tank, perhaps we can survive on "older" content. But it really depends of the "era" of the content. For a fair comparison, try the "hardest" end of group content in each expantion and also with equally geared group with no tank classes (not even Ranja, MOnk, BST), their agro would be higher than ours, even with the new lovely DoT ;)

OOW - Tried something in RSS/MPG?
DON - NEST?
PoR - Relic? Devastation? (the tower in Devastation? -forget the name).

Yes, we can tank.

We can solo tank/nuke mobs that hit 1.5k and we can certainly perform the role of a tank in a group on AG trash (not tried FC) with a dedicated healer, sure it's not efficient for the cleric, but it does need a certain level of gear.

We can also hold aggro quite well when we need too especially if you are allowed to prep the mob with debuffs etc on inc.

I have not yet, and probably wont for some time yet, bought the spell casting subtlety AA. I get the impression most people buy this early on to reduce healing aggro. Being as I wriggle out of healing as a druid as much as I can, I didn't bother with it.

Sometimes I get aggro by accident, simply by overnuking. But if I want to do it on purpose, I use Gale of the Stormborn (or whatever its called, the lvl 71 whirl til you hurl line spell) and Winters Flame. Moonshadow is fun aggro too sometimes. I haven't tried the new nuke/dot thing for aggro yet.
If you you are willing to burn the mana, aggro isn't too much of a problem, but the downside is you need to med more.

I've tanked one AG mob when tank died, but never tried it since and it might have been a fluke :) But I have 3.2k less HP's than you (though more AC).

Yes I agree that we have good aggro spells, but they take quite a bit mana and it's not efficient, they can be interrupted and the stun spell has long recast time. So I'd still say that we can take the beating if have good enough gear/AAs, but we cannot tank :)

Tanking is more than just being able to take hits. It's also about managing aggro, positioning etc.

Some things I would add to do would be the ability to multi tank, comforably tank nameds, and tank with only hybrid heals. What a plate tank brings to a group is security. Three mobs are pulled at once? np. Hard hitting named is pulled? np. Cleric dies on inc? np.

Of course we can tank :p I love getting agro and tanking, although the "real tank" doesn't always like it. When working hardly on nuking as much I could with Winter's Flame on Kessedona I got agro and lived a couple of time (only tanked for a very short period). Sure it's stupid, but fun still.

But more seriousley, sometimes the druid has to tank. I've met a couple of druids lost in the "druids can't tank" and "druids can't solo summoners" etc. Well, it's their loss. Back when lvl 70 was cap I tank-solo'd most my signet mobs for Anguish acces etc, and sometimes tanked nameds in my group because of the low lvl and poorly geared warrior.

I could also DS/Tank in MPG soloing at lvl 70 and take 2x WoS mobs at the same time, which I am quite happy with :P Didn't have the best gear either - pretty much what my magelo says (not played since Christmas 06:p).

I guess this is a bit outdated, as I've been slacking and not playing :( although just had to get that out:p. Hope you're all doing well.

-vid

Wahey, someone as daft as me hehe :)

People that do not wear plate should not claim they can tank. People that cannot snatch back agro with taunt and save their healer are not tanks.

Now, properly geared, we can take some damage, and heal ourselves if we don't get pushed around, or be healed by another healer, I've done it two-boxing with my cleric, but if I lose agro to heal agro, it's a bitch to get it back. But there is a big difference between being able to survive X mob and being a tank.

I agree. Can we survive stuff and kill it? Sure. Does that qualify us to call it tanking? I don't believe so.

"When working hardly on nuking as much I could with Winter's Flame on Kessedona I got agro and lived a couple of time (only tanked for a very short period). Sure it's stupid, but fun still"

I'm sure also the rogues, monks and zerkers think it's fun when caster gets aggro after over nuking, gets summoned, mob turns and they eat ripostoes and die :P

Nah, usually the tanks that do that for a laugh. Well, one warrior in particular that I know lol.