Warrior tanking pet peeves, seeking advice from high level Warriors

[legoBrick]

My main was to be a paladin class and I got him to level30 as I always played a paladin class in previous MMOs.
After that, I decided to try warrior tanking too see what its like so I leveled him up to 33 and absolutely fell in love with the class. The animation and quest story resonate with me much more than a gladiator path.

However, I have to put in much more work trying to efficiently tank as a Warrior class than a Paladin, because there are so many cooldowns and self buffs to manage.
AOE tanking for example paladin can just spam flash and not worry about breaking cc, and warriors need to manage timers for defiance/maim/all the cross class cooldowns.

I know it's still early to make a judgement but I want to ask high level warriors, is the class viable end game? and are artifact gears the best in slot at current stage of the game? I'm not a big fan of paladin look whereas warrior one looks bad ass.

[Kyp]

WAR tanks are mainly for picking up add trash during boss fights that you mean to burn quickly

[Stormsoul]

WAR and PLD are supposed to be equals balance-wise, if they aren't then they'll make adjustments, so i wouldn't worry about that. WAR just has a higher learning curve than PLD, honestly. PLD is your by-the-book straight forward cookie cutter tank while WAR mixes it up a bit with branching combo chains, powerful self healing and moderate damage.

WAR is a viable choice if you're committed to learning it. WAR and PLD should both be capable of MTing bosses in the end, so it's all preference.

[LebronJames]

We mitigate no damage. We survive on raw hp and self heals that are 'meh' at best.

We pick up trash mobs and that's about it.

I would pick a paladin to tank a boss anyday of the week.


EDIT:
Pull with tomahawk from a distance, flash once they're grouped. Position yourself to where you can hit everyone with overpower. Once you get steel cyclone you can manage your rotations from there and actually be the AOE tank you want to be.

[Pinch]

Warriors are fantastic.

Warriors can get flash from Gladiator if you need to build threat on CC'd mobs, but you can only do it 3 times before your mana is out. Twice is usually enough before I break a CC'd mob though.

A lot of your other issues go away with levels, such as keeping Maim up (lasts longer at higher levels), or keeping up 5 Wrath on a pack of mobs (you can just Infuriate to get 5 instantly).

[Pinch]

We mitigate no damage. We survive on raw hp and self heals that are 'meh' at best.

We pick up trash mobs and that's about it.

I would pick a paladin to tank a boss anyday of the week.

I'm probably incredibly biased, but:

Warriors:
- Have a minor cooldown up 100% of the time
- Have a huge health pool which makes Stoneskin incredibly effective with a healer who knows how to use it right before a burst.
- Can self heal 20-25% of their health after nearly all big hits (15s~).
- Receive increased healing most of the time, leaving them comparable to Paladins taking reduced damage all the time.
- Have 3 really good "oh crap" cooldowns to recover (Infuriate for an on demand Inner Beast, Thrill of Battle for general panicking, and Berserk for huge Inner Beasts).

Every healer I've played with at 50 says healing me is easier than a Paladin.

I'm not saying we're clearly better, since Paladins have a lot of tricks and a bunch of extra mitigation, but I think Warriors are more than capable of tanking bosses. They just require more effort from the tank.

[Scerick]

Every healer I've played with at 50 says healing me is easier than a Paladin.

FWIW, so far every Warrior I've healed has been easier to keep at 100% hp than their Paladin counterparts.