Quote:Think very carefully what you're calling a "load of wash". An arms/fury warrior can out dps a protection paladin true but cannot cleanse, cannot throw out even meager heals, nor can we throw lay of hands on a target either. We're close but depending on gearing can be out dps'd by cat druids while not being able to throw on another set of gear and heal, buff, innervate or AOE heal even if its a weak mode of healing. Given all of that why would you take an arms/fury or fury/arms warrior on a raid if they couldn't offtank as well as the other hybrid tanks? For our awesome mortal strike debuff? I can't think of a single encounter that you HAVE to have mortal strike for. Battleshout for the rogues? Bring another paladin for blessing of might AND have an offtank/cleanser/healer possibility.
And prior to TBC I had tanked every boss in the game up to Naxx with my Arms/Fury build but no where in my post did I state that any of the tanks should be relegated to offtank only. Small minds will put hybrids into small roles.
IMO, what I think Blizzard is trying to balance out is to put the 'tank' specs (druid/warrior/pally) ahead of the other specs in tanking. I.E. put a feral druid or prot pally ahead of the DPS warrior for tanking. The prot warrior will usually end up on top on the big hitters because their bag of tricks is bigger. However, there are nights the warrior MT(s) have RL obligations, and other assorted things that mean the next tank(s) have to step up and do the job. There's nothing I see to say that won't be a druid, or a pally in many situations. There will be bosses you want a druid on, etc. Druid MTs? That's up to the raid leaders.
NOTE: This is not to say that the DPS warriors won't get to tank, but they may not be the #1 option after the MT(s). Also, any druid or pally tanking in raids is always going to be held hostage to the dispelling/decursing/healing needs of the raid. They can do those, warriors can't, whether DPS or prot. If you're short healers or decursers or dispellers, you're probably going to use the extra warrior you have logged on, and keep the druid/pally around for other duties.
--Mav