Mythic+ Tank Rankings: A Tier List for The War Within (Patch 11.0.5 / Season 1)

This tier list is NOT FINAL; it will change and will be updated as often as necessary prior and during The War Within Mythic+ Season 1. There are often moments of tier set and class tuning, as well as talent changes and secondary stat scaling that will impact the placement of the specs.

I am Petko, a competitive Mythic+ player, known to be pushing the boundaries of High Mythic+ with several World first and Europe first rankings among past seasons on multiple classes. I have worked hard on preparing for Season 1 of The War Within, spending numerous hours per day examining each and every spec in a dungeon environment on Beta. This Tier list will continue to be updated as much as it requires over the course of The War Within and it will also focus on what the "meta" will look like as it stabilizes. Along the way, this Tier list will also be supported by various professional Mythic+ players with high credibility in the community, theorycrafters across all specializations, and my own empirical evidence.

To begin with, this Tier list will exclusively focus on the first Season of Mythic+ in The War Within. There will be no Warcraft Logs rankings added nor simulation data for the majority of the classes and specs. As a result, this Tier list will be solely based on empirical evidence of the current state of the classes' performance in Mythic+ from my own point of view and the point of view of the group of players testing those classes who are among the best representatives of the specs in the community. Moreover, this Tier list will take into consideration every impactful class change and tier set tuning before and after the start of the season.

It is important to note that opinions might vary and that is completely okay, but remember to be respectful when providing feedback as the sole purpose of this tier list is to help the WoW community with their choice of main or alt each season.

This tier list is entirely based on several factors, such as tank durability, group composition synergy, mobility, damage profile, self-sustain and external party-wide cooldowns.

Below, you can find the full rankings for Tank specializations in The War Within Mythic+. We encourage you to read further and understand why some classes are placed lower or higher than expected, with several factors taken into consideration.

1. Protection Paladin (Best)
2. Protection Warrior (Excellent)
3. Guardian Druid (Excellent)
4. Blood Death Knight (Excellent)
5. Vengeance Demon Hunter (Good)
6. Brewmaster Monk (Good)

If you are interested in our other rankings for Mythic+ in The War Within, Season 1, please click the links below.

Patch 11.0.5 update: Protection Paladin As with almost every specialization so far, Protection Paladin has received its fair share of changes, which will end up being a net buff not only for their survivibility, but also their damage profile. The spec's durability is now much better and is strong enough to compete with the majority of the tanks while still maintaining their unique (and sometimes overpowered) Mythic+ utility. In addition, their damage profile is quite impressive, and it is one of their strongest assets. Overall, we are happy with the direction that the developers has chosen for Protection Paladin and we are happy to see them climb the ladder.

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Utility Package

Functionality	Spells	Notes
Core	Avenger's Shield	Extra interrupt option that has a follow-up silence effect.
Core	Devotion Aura	Permanent 3% group/raid-wide damage reduction aura.
Core	Hammer of Justice	A powerful single-target 6 sec stun effect.
Core	Lay on Hands	Heals a member of your party/raid to full health.
Core	Intercession	Combat-resurrection
Optional	Blessing of Spellwarding	Granting magical damage immunity for 10 sec on a chosen ally.
Optional	Blessing of Sacrifice	Helps a single member of your raid in a critical situation. This can be further improved by talenting Sacrifice of the Just.
Optional	Blessing of Protection	Physical immunity, which can help you with some boss encounters.
Optional	Blessing of Freedom	Immunity to movement impairing effects.
Optional	Repentance / Blinding Light	You have the option between single-target crowd-control effect or a powerful mass AoE stop.
Optional	Cleanse Toxins	Removes all Poison and Disease effects from the target.
Optional	Turn Evil	Be able to fear any Undead, Aberration or Demon, which is an additional form of crowd control.

Patch 11.0.5 update: Protection Warrior will continue to perform exceptionally well in the upcoming patch and second half of Season 1. Their damage profile and durability is considered one of the best across all tanks, which is the major factor of ranking tanks. Spell Reflection is proving to be a useful utility in the Season 1 dungeon pool, which will positively influence their rankings. Additionally, with the strength of melee characters, Battle Shout is looking much more appealing. Overall, Protection Warrior has a great offensive and defensive profile making it the best choice for Mythic+.

As always, Protection Warriors may suffer if anything cannot be blocked or reflected. Although their utility and mob control have never been considered the best, they make up for it with their raw power in terms of damage and survivability.

Utility Package

Functionality	Spells	Notes
Core	Rallying Cry	Temporary increasing the health of your raid/party.
Core	Battle Shout	Extra 5% attack power.
Optional	Spell Reflection	Usable in niche situations.
Optional	Intimidating Shout	AoE disturb effect capped at 5 targets.
Optional	Storm Bolt	4 sec single-target stun.
Optional	Shockwave	AoE Stun

Patch 11.0.5 update: Guardian Druid barely received any changes in the upcoming patch, leading to the second half of Season 1. Their damage profile against many enemies is one of the highest, and so is their durability. There are a lot of spec-specific talents that do not fit well with Guardian Druid and are considered a "burden." In addition, their versatile utility can tackle any situation, as both offensive and defensively support your team. All that considered, the bears are in a commanding position to be one of better tanks of the season, despite its rotational flaws.

Hero Talents are quite boring (so is your rotation), mostly passive, and do not have a massive impact on the gameplay. Talent positioning is a significant issue for Guardian Druid both in the spec-specific and general tree talents.

Utility Package

Functionality	Spells	Notes
Core	Mark of the Wild	Increasing the Versatility of your raid/party by 3%.
Core	Entangling Roots	Single-target root effect.
Optional	After the Wildfire	Extra off-healing.
Optional	Innervate	Allowing 1 friendly healer to cast spells without spending mana for 8 sec.
Optional	Stampeding Roar	Increasing the movement speed to all raid members by 60% for 8 sec.
Optional	Remove Corruption	Removes all Curse and Poison effects from a friendly target.
Optional	Soothe	Dispelling all Enrage Effects from an enemy target.
Optional	Hibernate	Single-target crowd-control effects against beasts and dragonkins.
Optional	Incapacitating Roar / Mighty Bash	You have the choice between AoE disturb effect or a single-target stun.
Optional	Typhoon	Aoe knockback.
Optional	Mass Entanglement / Ursol's Vortex	You have the choice between AoE root effect or AoE wind-of-vortex, pulling all the mobs to one location.

Patch 11.0.5 update: Blood Death Knight The rework of Blood Death Knight has put them in a prominent position to be to a great tank choice this season as it most definitely strengthens their durability, self-sustain and damage profile by a large margin. On top of that, they will be getting a brand new utility, from the general Death Knight talent tree, which fits perfectly for a 5-man content - Vestigial Shell. In addition, one of their signature spells - Gorefiend's Grasp has much better positioning in the new Blood Death Knight spec-specific tree and is further supplemented by Tightening Grasp (if you talent it) which allows for a 3 second silence.

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Utility Package

Functionality	Spells	Notes
Core	Anti-Magic Zone	Provides extra durability against heavy magical damage.
Core	Death Grip	Repositions an enemy of your choice.
Core	Raise Ally	Combat-resurrection.
Optional	Blinding Sleet	AoE disturb effect.
Optional	Abomination Limb	Every 1 sec an enemy is pulled close to you.
Optional	Gorefiend's Grasp	Mass-grip.
Optional	Insidious Chill	Reduces the auto-attack speed of your target by 5% stacking up 4 times.
Optional	Control Undead	Mind-control an undead enemy to fight on your side.
Optional	Asphyxiate	5 sec single-target stun.
Optional	Vestigial Shell	Adding Anti-Magic Shell on 2 nearby allies.

Patch 11.0.5 update: Vengeance Demon Hunter will still posses one of the best mob controls across any tanking spec in Mythic+, which will turn valuable for any team looking for a tank. Although their damage is great, their defensive profile must be further bolstered to be up to par with the rest of the tank specializations. Overall, we believe that if the DPS meta favours magic damage, they will have a much bigger incentive to be taken due to Chaos Brand, which provides a noticeable damage boost for the entire group and likely become the best tank spec.

Further buffs on their survivability are needed. They will still rise in rankings if you are playing a full magical composition team due to their Chaos Brand debuff.

Utility Package

Functionality	Spells	Notes
Core	Chaos Brand	5% extra Magical damage
Core	Darkness	% chance to avoid all damage from an attack.
Core	Sigil of Silence	Silences all enemies affected by the Sigil for a short time.
Optional	Sigil of Chains	All enemies affected by the Sigil are pulled to its center and snared.
Optional	Chaos Nova	AoE stun effect.
Optional	Imprison	Single-target out of combat crowd-control.
Optional	Consume Magic	Remove 1 beneficial Magic effect.
Optional	Sigil of Misery	AoE disturb effect.

Patch 11.0.5 update: Unfortunately for Brewmaster Monk, they have barely seen any meaningful changes leading into the patch. Overall, playing Brewmaster Monk will be easier than playing in Dragonflight as many of the button bloating issues have been cleared, which is a welcome change. We expected to see further buffs to bolster their already weak defensive damage profile, but we have seen none of it. At last, if you do play this spec, remember to always try to group up with a physical orientated setup, so you can get the best out of Mystic Touch.

Further durability buffs are must before they climb the rankings.

Utility Package

Functionality	Spells	Notes
Core	Mystic Touch	5% extra Physical damage for your raid.
Core	Leg Sweep	3 sec stun effect.
Optional	Tiger's Lust	Removes all roots and snares.
Optional	Ring of Peace	It can be used to help your tank kite and as a AoE disturb effect.
Optional	Detox	Removes all Poison and Disease effects from the target.
Optional	Paralysis	Single-target disturb effect.