By Steve Woodworth, Master of all things Warcraft
Today in this introductory WoW course, I'm going to talk about the three plate dps and tanking classes.

Warrior
The first class I'm going to talk about is the Warrior. The Warrior is probably the premium Tank in the game. A Tank is someone who holds all of the aggro or threat of the npc mobs that you have to fight through to get to bosses in dungeons or raids. What makes the warrior unique is they are made to take a lot of damage and survive if they choose to be a Tank, usually using a one handed weapon or shield to do so.

Tanks have such abilities as Shockwave to temporarily daze opponents, Thunder Clap to cause a high amount of threat, they can Sunder Armor to weaken an enemy's armor, and an ability called Devastate, which is a harsh attack that keeps the mobs or npc enemies ticked off enough to keep attacking the Tank. They also have two DPS specs (Damage per Second). One of them is Fury, the other is Arms. Fury takes advantage of duel wielding 1 or 2-handed weapons (available at level 60 once you obtain the talent for Titan's Grip). This, in my opinion, is better for PvE (player versus environment), as it does long-term overall damage which works in boss fights and against large groups of mobs (npc). The other spec is Arms, which focuses on a single 2-handed weapon and does a lot of burst damage with its abilities such as Slam and Bladestorm. This is very effective in PvP (player versus player).

Paladin
The next class is the Paladin. The Paladin is a hybrid class in that it can do all three of the game's main roles. A paladin can Tank, dps, and Heal. As a Tank, the Paladin can be just as tough as a warrior and even survive longer with its self-healing abilities and shielding spell techniques. However, where the warrior Tank's strength lies in its ability to hold 'single target threat' such as bosses, a Paladin's strength is its ability to hold threat on many targets with minimal ability. This is why they are usually the preferred off Tank for 10 and 25 man raids, and a warrior focuses on Tanking the main boss of the raid.

As a DPS, the Paldin focuses on many abilities, such as Divine Storm to do a steady stream of constant dps (much akin to that of a fury warrior). Ret, if specced slightly different, is also usually the preferred PvP spec because of its ability to be adjusted spec-wise for more burst damage and quick attacks with magical abilities. The drawback for Paladin Tanks and DPS, however, is that they depend on a manna pool, and since they would focus on more Tanking or dps stats and not neccessarily caster stats, they need to carry around manna potions and be ready to use divine plea. Devine plea is an ability that refreshes manna as much as possible. I will cover the healing spec for Paladins when I go through the different healing classes.

Death Knight
The Death Knight is World of Warcraft's first Hero Class. What makes the Death Knight Unique from Paladins and Warriors is that it can effectively Tank and DPS in all three of its specs. The other unique thing about Death Knights is that they tank with two-handed weapons or duel wielding. The Blood Spec is good for burst DPS for either PvE or PvP, some massive attacks involved in the rotations and other things that come along with the abilities such as Blood Strike, Heart Strike and others. As a Tank, Blood provides self-healing ablities with their attacks that can benefit the tank and the party. Blood damage is focused mostly around two-handed weapons. As Unholy, you get more abilities that focus on anti-magic defenses, plagues, and diseases, plus a permanent ghoul pet much like a hunter's pet or warlocks demon. DPS-wise there are such abilities as Desecration that can slow down your enemies, whether in PvP or PvE, and Scourge Strike, which does a high amount of damage. It is recommended that you use two-handed weapons if choosing to be DPS as Unholy.

Tanking as Unholy can either be with two-handed weapons or duel wielding one handed weapons. It focuses on anti-magic shell and shields to shut down manna-using mobs and a bone barrier to help protect themselves from melee damage. Frost DPS is interesting, because it seems to be most effective with duel wielding one-handed weapons with such abilities as Frost Strike and Obliterate in the Death Knight arsenal, for devastating icy attacks. For frost Tanking it is versatile between two-handed weapon wielding and duel wielding one-handers. Death and decay is one of the prime abilities. Think of a Paladin's consecrate to hold threat, while using pestilence to spread the frost fever and then slamming enemies with howling blast to keep that threat. This makes the Frost Spec, in my opinion, the best one for beginner Tanking.

Well that's it for the Tanking Plate DPS classes. In my next column I will be addressing the pure DPS classes.