The tanking dilemma - role and design of tanks in Legion

[trm90]

Nice post OP, and starting a discussion on these changes in a non-inflammatory or provocative way is very welcome.

There are a few points I wanted to make, but don't really want to bog down in a wall of text:

1. If you look at all the tanking class feedback threads, only Guardian Druids still feel satisfied with the style of play. BrMs, Blood DKs, and Prot Pallies/Warriors are unhappy with the reduced complexity and control over their own survivability.
   
2. This problem has the added dimension of the natural synergy between tanks and healers. In the past, healers have rarely complained about tank-healing capabilities, but single-target heals are being buffed across the board. This is also at the expense of raid healing CDs being nerfed. Interestingly - this is the strikingly similar to the tank/healing paradigm in Vanilla. But this time, mana and threat aren't as much of a thing.
   
3. Since Cataclysm especially, tanks have had an increasing about of insane survivability-scaling as the expansion goes on, to the point they can solo many mobs given enough time. This isn't particularly engaging gameplay, IMO (being immortal), but I do believe they've nerfed it too hard.

I'm currently leveling a bunch of tanks to 100 before Legion and intend to main one, but I'm still feeling very hesitant if Blizzard go ahead with their current philosophy. Something's got to give. Making tanks less "immortal" is totally fine, but making the actual gameplay more boring isn't fun. So far, I have to admit, only healing classes have stayed somewhat challenging, and might end up being the most complex classes in the future. Something more fun needs to be added to tank gameplay to compensate for the changes.

[Lorianus]

The fact that you can almost hold threat against top DPS players by simply auto-attacking shows how badly they've designed tanking in this game, Legion just makes everything even worse.

Give me a youtube link of a tank auto attacking while a arcane mage goes to town with bl @ boss start.

[Raiju]

Give me a youtube link of a tank auto attacking while a arcane mage goes to town with bl @ boss start.

I don't get what you're trying to point out here... they said almost and you chose the most extreme example you could where 'almost' would likely not apply.

I mean... are you trying to suggest holding threat is a challenge? Otherwise this was pointless.

[Soikona]

I split because I answer a specific in the quote. When yous say bullshit like "it was trivial and you could not possibly fuck up", then I call it bullshit, and it's completely unrelated to the question "how threat did make it more interesting ?". That you claim is the same doesn't make it the same.

It's more engaging because of serveral things :
1) Threat is thematical to tanking. Having a core of your activity of a role being thematical to your role is a good thing. Absence of threat make it a simple DPS check.
2) In a multi-target environement, it's not at all a DPS rotation, it's about keeping everyone on you without having a stray going to kill a healer. It's more about situational awareness and crowd management.
3) Having to take threat into account can change your priority about what abilities to use. You don't have to blindly do DPS, you can check and balance between DPS and threat.
4) Same as above between threat and survivability.

Basically, threat open up another core mechanism which is thematic to the role and which need to be taken into account while you're playing, juggling between surviving, keeping the baddies on you and doing damage. That's what made a tank different than a DPS trying to maximize their output, and what made them different than today's tanks which is about playing a DPS and just throwing a mitigation CD when the boss uses a special ability.

Again, because of your "splitting" you didn't take the entire conversation into account when answering the question. Because of this, you did not answer the question but danced around it like a politician. The question is regarding threat. What you have answered is present in the current live game. The question is just regarding threat gameplay and how it is more engaging than live. Below is the entire statement and question. If you do split the question and dance around it again, then I will know your point is moot as you can not provide an answer.


The difference between a new tank and a good tank at present, is that a good tank knows how and when to use defensive CDs. A new tank, back in vanilla/tbc had to only learn how to keep threat. This was achieved by learning your rotation. Once you learnt your rotation, you never had any threat issues. After a month or two of tanking, that engaging gameplay was gone because you learnt how to do it and gained the muscle memory. After those first two months, how was that gameplay more engaging than today's tank?

[Akka]

You manage to take a post detailing what makes threat interesting as a mechanism, to say I didn't answer the question and danced around.
Seems you're just like grasping at straws and trying to claim points are not answered even when they are. You're just wasting my time.

[shise]

What Blizzard are doing can't even be called making tanks more accessible, their design in Legion simply transfers decisions from tank to healers. Tanks are left with "decisions" of how to make their healers save 2% mana (if the tank presses a "wrong" button, healer spends slightly more mana than if the tank presses the "right" button, there's nothing appealing in that for the tank). Plus positioning and mechanics like tank swaps.

What Blizzard need to do is trust tanks more. Specifically, they should make tanks more responsible for their own health.

Alternatively, they should add some new big universal mechanic (like threat was, although perhaps not that specifically) and make tanks responsible for that. I don't know, maybe put some key debuffs on tanks / have tanks manage boss vulnerability windows / whatever.

But the ship has already sailed, it seems. It's going to be boring.

Tanks shouldn´t have to be concerned about their health in general, only on those occasions when defensive CDs might be used.
They should bring back the very old threat mechanisms, not as far as it used to be because it would be stupid having dps to slow down, but close enough so that tanks are in a constant look for threat. That would make it far more interesting for tanks to play their role.

[Lorianus]

I don't get what you're trying to point out here... they said almost and you chose the most extreme example you could where 'almost' would likely not apply.

I mean... are you trying to suggest holding threat is a challenge? Otherwise this was pointless.

Every raidgrp uses 1-4 mages nowadays, i wanted to call him out on the hyperbole he is spouting, holding threat is not a challenge and it never was, warriors who knew their game understood to spam sunder all the way in vanilla because it produced more threat than heroic strike, in bc it was just a matter of macroing heroic strike into every ability and BAM threat problems gone, half the time in the games lifespan holding threat was just like a damage dealer rotation anyway.

And that´s the reason blizzard nerfed threat gameplay because of bad tanks ruining everyone elses fun in a raid.

[Raiju]

Every raidgrp uses 1-4 mages nowadays, i wanted to call him out on the hyperbole he is spouting, holding threat is not a challenge and it never was, warriors who knew their game understood to spam sunder all the way in vanilla because it produced more threat than heroic strike, in bc it was just a matter of macroing heroic strike into every ability and BAM threat problems gone, half the time in the games lifespan holding threat was just like a damage dealer rotation anyway.

This isn't even comparable. We produced around 1/5th of the threat respective to dps back then and multi-target/aoe actually meant you had to pay attention.

How you can even compare us doing 500% more threat now with strong aoe is ridiculous.

[Tehterokkar]

Anyone who wants tanks to turn into what they were in Vanilla/BC/Wrath are idiots. Back then tanks were completely at the healer's mercy with little to no say in whether or not they die or live to a boss mechanic. Cata fixed a lot of this, making you know who was a good tank, and who was not by giving tanks a reliable way to reduce damage taken every so often through AM.

Being a good tank pre-cata only meant you know how to press 1-2-3 in order without losing GCDs over the course of a fight(AKA how a DPS played). Paladins in Wrath were the easiest thing to play, as your entire rotation could be macroed to 1 button literally. You could literally make that macro, use a mouse/keyboard macro software, press it to repeat key press and go take a dump. It would not matter if you were there or not, as long as you were hitting the boss to make sure you keep threat.

Now we move to Legion.. Alpha to be precise. Tanks are so imbalanced at the moment it's weird they haven't even touched the fundamentals with basic tuning. Death Knights got a playstyle change that a lot of DK veteran tanks are questioning(death strike costing RP), Warriors gained an entirely new AM tool to replace Shield Barrier. Druids lost their Dodge, but it was well worth it because Druids before relied too much on Dodge and most boss special abilities couldn't be dodged, making Druids now better at those abilities. Demon Hunter tanks are an absolute mess right now, they have very weak AM, it has long CD and only 2 charges. On top of that they are incredibly weak on defensive CDs, only having Darkness, an RNG way to reduce damage taken from multiple mobs. Monks are also lost at the moment, their damage intake is very high compared to other tanks.
And then we arrive at Paladins, the gods of alpha at the moment. They do equal damage to a DPS on single-target and absolutely destroy even some DPS classes on AoE. And to top it all off, they have the strongest defensive CDs, with all 3 of their CDs being pure damage reduction, with talents a 4th one if need be.

[Raiju]

People aren't asking for vanilla/tbc back though, so don't strawman. They're asking for the threat management of vanilla/tbc where you actually had to consider it.

Your alpha outlook is also peculiar given paladins main strength would be in content where tank survivability doesn't really matter, as they don't hold a candle to guardian but are strongly top of the pile for the 'mortal' tanks. In terms of utility, it's the best but DH's are not far behind.

Also if we're talking out of game tools any rotation can be automated - but how about we don't because they're against the rules?

[nathrizarri]

Anyone who wants tanks to turn into what they were in Vanilla/BC/Wrath are idiots. Back then tanks were completely at the healer's mercy with little to no say in whether or not they die or live to a boss mechanic. Cata fixed a lot of this, making you know who was a good tank, and who was not by giving tanks a reliable way to reduce damage taken every so often through AM.

Being a good tank pre-cata only meant you know how to press 1-2-3 in order without losing GCDs over the course of a fight(AKA how a DPS played). Paladins in Wrath were the easiest thing to play, as your entire rotation could be macroed to 1 button literally. You could literally make that macro, use a mouse/keyboard macro software, press it to repeat key press and go take a dump. It would not matter if you were there or not, as long as you were hitting the boss to make sure you keep threat.

Now we move to Legion.. Alpha to be precise. Tanks are so imbalanced at the moment it's weird they haven't even touched the fundamentals with basic tuning. Death Knights got a playstyle change that a lot of DK veteran tanks are questioning(death strike costing RP), Warriors gained an entirely new AM tool to replace Shield Barrier. Druids lost their Dodge, but it was well worth it because Druids before relied too much on Dodge and most boss special abilities couldn't be dodged, making Druids now better at those abilities. Demon Hunter tanks are an absolute mess right now, they have very weak AM, it has long CD and only 2 charges. On top of that they are incredibly weak on defensive CDs, only having Darkness, an RNG way to reduce damage taken from multiple mobs. Monks are also lost at the moment, their damage intake is very high compared to other tanks.
And then we arrive at Paladins, the gods of alpha at the moment. They do equal damage to a DPS on single-target and absolutely destroy even some DPS classes on AoE. And to top it all off, they have the strongest defensive CDs, with all 3 of their CDs being pure damage reduction, with talents a 4th one if need be.

It is the best Blood change happened in legion, Also DS healing scaling with crit.

[rda]

It is the best Blood change happened in legion, Also DS healing scaling with crit.

Why is that change good? Are you saying things just to stir up the pot? First, quoting the first post and replying basically "that's nonsense, tanks are an outdated concept anyway", now this.

[Raiju]

Why is that change good? Are you saying things just to stir up the pot? First, quoting the first post and replying basically "that's nonsense, tanks are an outdated concept anyway", now this.

nathrizarri is a troll, yes. Just ignore, if you question he won't actually give you arguments just call people bad and go on rants about addons.

[rda]

nathrizarri is a troll, yes. Just ignore, if you question he won't actually give you arguments just call people bad and go on rants about addons.

Got it, thanks.

[Deleted]

this post is way too long for stating the obvious that everybody knows these days

To me tanking is on the same "fun-level" as dpsing is. Blame for mistakes usually goes to healers and then dpsers. Im fine with making tanking easier, i enjoy it. I have prot pally tank only for occasional heroic dungeons and its fun and i pretty much use one button macro because im not that great at watching the environment so this way i sacrifice maybe those 2-3% effectiveness to be able to watch around me.

I usually pick as many passive talents as possible (unless there is like 20% increase in dps/healing/defence if i took active ability). Legion seems to have minor differences between active and passive talents (still alpha though) and this is great. Do you play in normal/heroic dungeons&raids? Pick passives, enjoy it (or maximize your character!) but if you play mythic content then you should learn how to get the most out of these active abilities. This kind of design is great imo.

The ever-present problem is "availability of tanks for the masses". We should have enough players tanking so that average players dont have to sit 1+ hours in a que. I already wrote somewhere that in my mind this 1+3+1 ratio of 5men group should actually be preserved in raiding atleast in some way. Mythic 20 could be tuned for 2main tanks and one off tank atleast, flex normal&heroic is a bit more difficult. Another reason would be over-incentivising tanks to actually qeue up for these dungeons (improving bonus loot for roles in demand?). I dont see other ways to improve this situation, qeue times are the worst imo.

[Carmion]

Yes, I get that some people think that my OP is too long, but I wanted to start this conversation with some common ground to argue about and some ideas, which topics or developments could be discussed.

I think some very interesting things were brought up in this thread that I did not expect.

First thing is the massive discussion about threat. While I do not miss this concept, I think it is fair that a lot of veteran tanks miss it a bit, as it was a major part of original tank gameplay. I personally prefer dps, as it does not limit other players, but even in my guild some dps players miss the concept. So absolutely a topic of personal taste.

The second thing is the mentioning of the difficulty of finding a raid spot in an advanced raiding guild. I am a guildmaster and raidleader myself, so I never came into the situation where I had to apply for a raidspot as a tank and I have little experience how long it takes to find something appropriate. This is why I did not include this in my original post.
Now thinking about my own recruitment and what I would expect from a tank, if I had to recruit one, I can agree that the bar for an applicant would be quite high. Maximum attendance, high performance and preferably good gear to not hold back the raid. While I think that I am a more social kind of person that would invest some time and effort to bring a good player into the position to become a great tank, I see that this has some consequences for the raid group and that other GMs will surely be much more picky.
so thank you for bringing this point up.

Lastly the amount of tanks needed in a raidgroup. I acuaully think that 2 tanks is a good number for a raid. The tanking role is quite specific and I see little room for encounter design to keep more than 2 tanks engaged. In fact most encounters struggle to keep even 2 tanks engaged, but for even more you had to flood every encounter with hard hitting adds or make a bigger taunt rotation only to justify more tanks.

I guess that is the core problem why tank raid spots are so hard to get. All those tanks needed for 5-man content have no use in raids. So there is much competition for raidspots or there is tank shortage in 5-man content. Swinging between those problems.

Again I can offer no solution for the problems that exist. I know that it might be a bit selfish to demand that tanking stays as I love it, knowing that this means a lot of issues for other players or groups, but who can blame me for liking the playstyle I am used to.

I agree with what other posters said, that whatever Blizzard is trying to change, it will probably not change the number of players willing to tank or how the community embraces learning tanks, driving even more of them away. So isn´t it the greater loss for the game, to lose a part of the existing tanks due to a feeling of meaninglessness or lack of engagement?

[nathrizarri]

nathrizarri is a troll, yes. Just ignore, if you question he won't actually give you arguments just call people bad and go on rants about addons.

Like if any given arguments are listened/taken seriously. There is no point to stick the fish upto someones throat when they do their best to reject it. I just share my feeligns/opinions. Will gladly go into meaningful conversation with people above my standards.

Why is that change good? Are you saying things just to stir up the pot? First, quoting the first post and replying basically "that's nonsense, tanks are an outdated concept anyway", now this.

It's all tied to rune system. Runes regen constantly, saving up a DS with runes means losing damage/heal, I am talking about primary runes here, this is important.

Even if you manage to get a full DS heal out of a DS that you delay with primary runes sitting idle, you need to account the mastery you have to justify the dmg loss. Now If you add AAs into account which will generate RP, you may overcap your RP during that primary rune delay. OFC this is WoD, and I am talking about a hypothetical scenario where we would be having Legion DS now.

Legion, we do not regenerate runes via RP, instead it is tied to BS with extra RP and MR with extra haste. There are some talents effecting rune regen but I exclude them to simplify things. Player can have more control over their RP in this scenario. Personally I never liked Rune regen via RP anyway. You use builder, then you use spender, and it gives you more builder on top of your already regenerating builders. Clunky.

Legion, you can 7/24 save your 2ndary runes for reserve and slow down your gamepace and hit more meaningful deathstrikes, or you can faceroll and go for more damage with using 2ndary runes and DS'ing for Dps. What comes to my mind is off-tanking. It is not only tied to DS being RP, but more of runic power spent not contributing to your rune regeneration. WoD was spending DS's to generate RP, than Death Coiling the RPs down to generate runes and use on demand DSs with blood tap. After a point you just ignore the DS healing and spam it all day long, how healthy is this for such an ability that sits in the center of spec/role?

--

Yeah troll, here is a perfectly valid argument, lets see how well it will be understood.

[Raiju]

Legion, you can 7/24 save your 2ndary runes for reserve and slow down your gamepace and hit more meaningful deathstrikes, or you can faceroll and go for more damage with using 2ndary runes and DS'ing for Dps. What comes to my mind is off-tanking. It is not only tied to DS being RP, but more of runic power spent not contributing to your rune regeneration. WoD was spending DS's to generate RP, than Death Coiling the RPs down to generate runes and use on demand DSs with blood tap. After a point you just ignore the DS healing and spam it all day long, how healthy is this for such an ability that sits in the center of spec/role?

This is what you should've been doing in WoD anyway in threatening content. Not spamming your runes but getting them at good windows ideally without them capping. You only ignore DS healing due to tuning, not due to it being rune or runic.

[nathrizarri]

This is what you should've been doing in WoD anyway in threatening content. Not spamming your runes but getting them at good windows ideally without them capping. You only ignore DS healing due to tuning, not due to it being rune or runic.

Except the fact that you can only do it for a limited period of time, 9 seconds with 0 haste and if you had 2 main runes instead of 3. With 3 it is even shorter due to the fact that you can only spend 2 in 1 GCD without Army(10min CD), or DS+Rune Tap, which I do often to kill that unlocked rune. WoD has mechanics that forces you to use DS. In legion you can do it untill the end of an encounter if you wish so. Bone Shield/Vampiric Blood/AMS/Rune Tap/IBF/Externals are waaaaay more enough to deal with those threathening moments. See tyrant, it is a CD management fight, not healing. WoD Death Knight is all about Blood Shield Stacking, and getting some heals out of DS from time to time.

See? I just told how it is not realistically possible to perform in WoD, and had to go over it again.

[Raiju]

Except the fact that you can only do it for a limited period of time. WoD has mechanics that forces you to use DS. In legion you can do it untill the end of an encounter if you wish so. Bone Shield/Vampiric Blood/AMS/Rune Tap/IBF/Externals are waaaaay more enough to deal with those threathening moments. See tyrant, it is a CD management fight, not healing.

See? I just told how it is not realistically possible to perform in WoD.

So WoD has the added complexity of balancing your DS vs a limit and that's a bad thing? that you can't munchkin your way through an encounter? Even this is considered simple without Breath play (removed in legion) but you think it needs to be simpler? This is why you are largely considered a troll in the DK forums.

Once again, bringing up examples of TUNING is irrelevant. Imagine if we had the tuning of Paladins in HFC? Every DS would count for progress pretty much.