Legion tanking - thoughts on direction of tanking

[Deleted]

Good points. I personally stopped tanking in WoW when threat didn't matter anymore. I found threat management to be a lot of fun.

Oh well.

Active Mitigation is the superior System to Threat. And it actually has to do with your Role - actually taking the damage and managing how much of it your healer has to heal up afterwards. Threat was more of a "okey, DPS - don't overdo it" rather than actually doing your job as a tank. At least thats what I felt. A DPS who went all out still pulled aggro on a mob and you could do almost nothing against that.
Not complaining. I found myself being able to hold on to aggro pretty quickly but in some cases I was unable to actually do anything against it.
Some might argue for that and sure - people enjoyed this kind of system. I personally found it boring and not very fun as a tank at all. But back then it was just part of the course I guess.

The current changes are pretty weird but I will reserve me judgment for when I actually can try them out. Currently the design looks really really weird to me personally.

[Taeldorian]

This would be an interesting turn on healing, but - playing on live servers I already see how many healers don't even dispel, even in cases where it is really important. I fear, many players would not be able to grasp even more support functions.

Also, Disc playstyle goes a bit in this direction (anticipating healing instead of reactive healing), and this only works out if you already know the fight. If you don't know a fight, then you have to react, or blanket the group with all kinds of preparation.

The whole playstyle of WoW does not work in favor of supporters.

Agreed. As a holy paladin we're losing our illuminated healing mastery in Legion (it's basically a proactive-reactive type of healing) and it does a majority of our healing since we can shield the tanks before the encounter starts (140k+ shield) which is a lot on live. This isn't exactly a bad thing though because it made things somewhat easy.

Personally, I love the way holy paladin plays in Legion. We have more instant abilities which is extremely nice, feels fluid, but right now I agree that not many people will be able to adapt to a more supportive type of healing. I usually do the majority of cleansing in HFC when pugging, even when priests are present. A lot of people don't really know about MD or even Dispel. That itself would cause a lot of worry if we were to shift towards a more supportive role rather than the specific healer type role we have now. I personally wouldn't like it.

[Deleted]

Tanks can always demonstrate skill through DPS. Even in a world where tanks don't do a lot of dps, there will still be a margin between good tanks and bad tanks.
The less self-reliant tanks are, the better it is for the game. Pacing of dungeons, raid trash, everything will be have to be done as a team. For example, nowadays there are 19 guys looting the boss while the tank charges ahead and no-one cares because he can't die. If that changes, people will have to change as well. And heroics are now just an ego-fest for well-geared tanks who can pull literally entire dungeons. Sure, I like doing that but I don't think that people like watching it.

[CenariusTheForestLord]

obviously the point is exaggerated else you would die to mechanics completely afk - but the difference between a tank coasting and a tank dps maxing is pathetically small when compared to dps specs.

As opposed to now? Currently on my druid I can survive any fight without using any AM at all. I can do 70-80 % logs even without min maxing dps, just using my normal rotation.
To go even further. Right now on live I can do every single fight on mythic except archi by only taunting when I need to. I'll have shit damage taken. Shit healing done. Shit damage done. But I probably won't die. It doesn't mean that's the way you're supposed to play.

[Raiju]

As opposed to now? Currently on my druid I can survive any fight without using any AM at all. I can do 70-80 % logs even without min maxing dps, just using my normal rotation.
To go even further. Right now on live I can do every single fight on mythic except archi by only taunting when I need to. I'll have shit damage taken. Shit healing done. Shit damage done. But I probably won't die. It doesn't mean that's the way you're supposed to play.

Yes, so now let's make that how you play on progress and call it a day?

Also, if you had any idea about the tanking meta at all you'd know various specs have had good options in WoD. I've already covered that, though.

[judgementofantonidas]

in my opinion, the current tanking in legion seems fine, but i only played DH tank, since he feels very close to WoD prot warrior.

a bad tank shouldnt be able to do dmg and will die a lot.
a good tank will not die alot, and will do medium dmg.
the best tanks however, can do alot of dmg and survive.

thats how it should be, atleast in my opinion, because how else do you reward good gameplay from tanks ? i really cant agree with the point of "having no control" if i take your example of going afk at a boss and having the same impact as not going afk. i can be a tank who does 50k dps or a tank that does 90K dps. And at the same time i have to watch out that i dont get killed or kill my group and max out my survivability.

i mean if you are happy that you can just stand afk and still survive, thats fine and good for you, but that doesnt mean that tanking has no depth attached to it. because its all about pushing the limits while staying alive.

he speaks in complete exaggeration. a tank who pulls the boss and then stands there is a dead tank unless he has healers that overcompensate for his particular brand of bad.

[Stricks]

Weird out there thought for the day...

Make it harder for tanks to hold aggro and let healers mitigate threat of other players (DPS) while also healing.

[Spunt]

Weird out there thought for the day...

Make it harder for tanks to hold aggro and let healers mitigate threat of other players (DPS) while also healing.

Only us weirdos think threat should be a thing. All 12 of us.

[Spunt]

Threat will be a thing; in Mythic+ when you get that affix that significantly decreases threat done.

Interesting, which affix is this?

NVM: Found it, called Skittish. At least it is being brought back in some form.

[RobertoCarlos]

Threat is still a minor issue you still need to aoe to tag everything before your hunter hits barrage and pulls the entire instance. I dont think it should go back to 5 sunders but it should also be an interesting dynamic to the group environment than what it currently is. Seems pretty clear blizzard is trying to remove all complexity out of the game though so yea...

All I can say is a big sorry to all you long serving tanks, and that blizzard thinks you are not capable of using active mitigation.

[Spunt]

Skittish: Threat generated on all enemies decays very rapidly.

Hopefully this bring back the fun and chaos similar to Heroic Shattered Halls without a paladin tank. Best times I've ever had tanking.

[Aleax]

The problem with tanks has always been this... if they do DPS that's competitive to a dedicated DPS toon they bring double value. If they bring so much healing that they need little healing, same. If they don't do competitive DPS and are very reliant on healers, then they're nothing more than a meat shield. If that's all they are then threat needs to be interesting and require skill to maintain. If it doesn't, then tanks are incredibly boring - grab aggro, build a threat lead that even the best geared DPS can't steal, position things correctly and adjust as needed and... keep threat.

If they design tanks in any one of those niches it's bound to piss off some other faction who like the a different style.

Blizzard devs wanted for tanks to do 75% of the dps of a DPS, I don't recall when they said it, and wanted this exactly, I believe they wanted this at the launch of MoP or WoD not before that, this would perfect in my book.

[Raiju]

Blizzard devs wanted for tanks to do 75% of the dps of a DPS, I don't recall when they said it, and wanted this exactly, I believe they wanted this at the launch of MoP or WoD not before that, this would perfect in my book.

Important to note with this number they err on the side of caution - 80% is nerfbat territory, 50% is fine.

[PrairieChicken]

Threat never will be a thing in wow. Never was, never will. And no, "wait 5 sunder" isn't a interesting threat mechanic. Neither is "do 30% dps of a damage dealer but have 800% threat mod".

Remove taunts and bam threat is super important now

[Raiju]

Remove taunts and bam threat is super important now

no it won't be, outside of making tank swaps annoying if you have tanks with threat on opposite ends of the spectrum

[Deleted]

Hopefully this bring back the fun and chaos similar to Heroic Shattered Halls without a paladin tank. Best times I've ever had tanking.

Heroic Shattered Halls with pugs....brrrrr......

[Deleted]

Tanks can always demonstrate skill through DPS. Even in a world where tanks don't do a lot of dps, there will still be a margin between good tanks and bad tanks.
The less self-reliant tanks are, the better it is for the game. Pacing of dungeons, raid trash, everything will be have to be done as a team. For example, nowadays there are 19 guys looting the boss while the tank charges ahead and no-one cares because he can't die. If that changes, people will have to change as well. And heroics are now just an ego-fest for well-geared tanks who can pull literally entire dungeons. Sure, I like doing that but I don't think that people like watching it.

I am playing quite defensive and don't go overboard with chainpulling if I see that the healer / DPS cannnot handle the groups, and I like having some kind of self-healing on my tank, that's why I mostly play paladin and DK tanks. Being more dependant on the healer would definitely hurt me more, but I will probably resort to CC in some groups.

Is CC a thing in Legion?

[PrairieChicken]

no it won't be, outside of making tank swaps annoying if you have tanks with threat on opposite ends of the spectrum

Which still makes threat significant

[Pua]

The tanking role, when I started doing it properly (The Burning Crusade), effectively had a trio of considerations: the establishment, maintenance and survival of threat. That was roughly it. Many years have passed since then, and many things have changed - this is largely normal, and largely accepted by the community.

For me, I think the tanking issue boils down to three very simple questions. These are:

1) What do the designers want the tanking role to be defined by?
2) In what way should playing a tank differ from playing another role?
3) In what way should each tanking class differ from the others?

The snag, obviously, is that the second two questions are also largely defined by what makes playing a healer or DPS differ from playing a tank, and how each healer or DPS differs from the other classes that fulfil that role. Blizzard can only really set the agenda, and it's up for players to either accept these differences or play something else. The biggest issue is that the top-tier content is so competitively tuned, that "differences" are seen as weaknesses and liabilities. That, in turn, has led to a terrible increase in homogeneity, which is extremely difficult to rein back in once you've done it.

For me, I think it should boil down into discrete roles where there are clear strengths and weaknesses.

- Pure ranged DPS should do the best single target damage.
- Pure melee DPS should do the best cleave and AoE damage.
- Hybrid DPS should take a slight damage hit, but have the strongest utility.
- Healers should be responsible for the healing of unavoidable damage.
- Tanks should be responsible for threat management and positioning.

Now, clearly, I've grossly oversimplified this - but you should get what I mean. The problem is that too many players simply won't accept a weakness, no matter what their strength is, based on the class they play. Because this extends across tanks to an arguably larger degree, the role is the last one considered when anything needs to change. Why can't our tank classes be separated into their own niche, where each gets the chance to shine, but all are at least capable of doing the basics?

Class-stacking is typically the answer, but varied encounters that don't simply prioritise one tank over others would be the start of a solution. It's also worth remembering that class-stacking only really happens at top end guilds who shouldn't be a significant consideration regarding the behaviour of the playing majority; they'll always do what's needed to gain an edge.

The other significant issue is power creep. For tanks, the best example was the Protection paladin moving into Wrath. In giving paladins the ability to single-target tank better than they could before, they effectively made paladins the best tank in the game because they didn't tone down their strengths. When compared to warriors, in particular, they were simply better at everything and it sucks to play what is, essentially, a weaker class.

While I've touched on loads of topics, my point is that the extreme homogenization of classes has brought us to this point, via the vehicle of "tuning" and a horribly change-averse community that won't accept certain maxims that just might be better for the game.

But it's an awfully convoluted topic, and not one the developers take lightly I wouldn't expect. That's why I suspect the Legion changes are so limited in scope.

Personally?

I think a coherent vision, with a proper overhaul, is the way to sort it out.

Sadly, I just don't see it happening.

[Raiju]

Which still makes threat significant

No, it'll make you only pair certain tanks together and then one will just relax at intervals.