Ret for Outland tanking?Follow

Ret is fine for tanking Outland instances until Heroics. Judgements, Consecrate and Divine Storm will hold plenty of aggro, and a Shield plus some 'of the Champion' gear will keep you from being an MP sink through any of the difficult trash pulls or bosses. I tanked most of them as Ret on my way to level 70 (including some of the Normal 70 instances), and I never encountered any problems. With a set healer along, I even used a two-hander on a lot of the lighter pulls to good effect.

Advantages: Better damage output, possibly higher mana refresh rate (Judgement of the Wise vs. BoS - probably only the case on bosses, now that I think about it), higher spell damage (Sheath of Light), CC (Repentance).
Disadvantages: No Avenger's Shield to front-load threat, less stamina/avoidance/mitigation.

As long as pulls are orderly and people know what they're doing, the disadvantages really shouldn't play into things enough for you to find enough of a difference between the two in normal instances to feel like you're hurting the group by not being Prot.

Edited, Nov 25th 2008 8:20am by Berdysh

I actually tried it in AZJOL'NERUB (EDITED name 72-74 instance) (cant remember the northrend instance name exactly, my apologies) in basically a PUG. I let them know first I had never been in the instance and I was ret for leveling. Plus it had been awhile since I tanked. It was bumpy at first due to lack of an attack plan. But once I took over and understood the fight and got in a groove, it went pretty flawlessly. I was in mostly quest greens/blues and a couple of epics left over from 70 - merciless gladiator gloves and the furious goggles. Did have a few good tank items left from 70, but didnt bother grabbing them from the bank.

The lack of stam/avoid/mitigation is noticeable and can be tough, but the fact I can insta heal myself and judge seal of light as well as using seal of light along with some divine storm healing, it turned out to be not so bad....little hairy here and there where I threw up a lay on hands out of reaction, but that was more in the beginning. Hell I even helped the healer out by throwing a couple heals up on others, which also helps with threat.

Basically, yes I guess is what I am trying to say. It wont be perfect, and I would let your group know, but regular leveling instances are designed by blizzard to be tankable in most specs for the tank classes. I just had sword and board, and RF up. Aggro is a non-issue and I had two unholy DKs in my group. Just spammed RD when it was up to make sure none were pulled off me.

The healer was a level 70 druid, so below the instance. I checked her armory recently and she respecs alot, so I do not think she even had optimal gear for healing, but really went fine. Most of it ended up being aoe'd, the DKs helped. BUt anytime I could to be safe I would repent something. Found out the first boss with the groups of three adds before them, the primary middle add cannot be CCd, which led to a wipe, but the ones in the back, smaller ones could and once I found that out, and pulled them back to the crowd we did it in pretty record time, beating the time of the boss from the adds.

Irony is my guildy, only one I knew, told me after, that out of five tries inthe instance and dying 10-12 times causing most people to leave, this was the first time he even got passed the first boss and actually finished the instance. :D

This is for 70 and up instances, but basically illustrates that outlands would be the same. Actually due to increase in our spellpower, threat generation and damage output, outlands instances should really be much simpler in my opinion.

Obviously, as previous posters mentioned, this does not include heroics, etc...but regular should be just fine. Doesnt hurt to have a tanking set you can swap if needed, would probably help tremendously. ALso I only have 5 in strength in protection everything else is in ret.

Edited, Nov 26th 2008 12:48pm by spicyoctopusroll

Unfortunately, I really put my healer to the test. I attempted to muster up the best tanking gear I could before heading in, but I couldn't find much in the AH and had only done a handful of quests in outland. With half level 40 plate and half entry level outland quests (along with a bunch of heavy knothide armor kits) I tanked ramparts for the first time.

On the upside, my healer just happens to be my mother. Who was on TS with me and another guildie running with us. I took more damage than I would have liked and a few times had to heal myself (she's brand new to healing in outland). But all in all it went really well.

The real problem arose when I tried handing tanking over to a DK who was probably a kid. He managed, to my amazement, pull 3 groups. My friend and I died, however mom was able to keep the rest up. She got a golden star sticker from us. After a few more pulls like that I put my shield and sword on (the first 1h that drops inside ramparts) and forced my way back into tanking... although a littler harrier on keeping ME up, we didn't have to worry about the entire group eating dust.

With a little better gear and a bit more experience with my bars (I have a 70 healadin who I tank with in 70 instances, non heroic and in a panic situation I try clicking panic buttons that just happen to not be where I expect them to be in a panic) I imagine the rest of outland won't be a problem. Still can't wait for dual specs.

Thank you for your input and if anyone has anymore tips to throw in I'd appreciate it.

Edited, Nov 27th 2008 3:40am by ekaterinodar

pre-patch i tanked every OL instance as Ret(except BM) out of necessity. some were while leveling, some were at lvl 70 and i outgeared them. pre-patch, you had a hell of a time holding aggro with a sword n board. i usually opted for the threat machine approach: 2H'ed. my dps gear was always heavy in +agi and +stam, therefore i was always able to take double the hits that a normal dps'er would.

i always kept a T4-equiv tank set handy for if i needed to respec(i lived as Prot for 5mo through Gruul/Mags/SSC). but i can tell you, in reg OL instances that tank gear will hurt you more than help you. you dont have the talents to make the gear useful. you'll be heavy in block rating but have very little block value, which almost makes the stat useless. you wont have the passive and active dmg mitigation from Prot. you wont have the hard hitting CS and DS that a 2H'er provides for quick threat gain.

my recommendation for Ret tanking is to stay in you dps gear, with your max stam trinkets, rings, etc. this will allow your party to go full force on whatever you're tanking. you will take less hits because the enemy will die twice as fast. use your self heals at will and let the priest shield you at every chance.