Legion tanking - thoughts on direction of tanking

[daschalki]

Tanking since the start of Burning Crusade now and I have to say that each addon had its up and downsides.

I experienced the famous Shattered Halls Heroic everyone talks about where you really had to take care of where your next Devastate or Shieldslam has to land or where Shield Block Value was actually a thing.
I kept playing my Warrior through WOTLK and must say that when the time of overgearing came in ICC i had to adjust my gear not in favor of Vengeance but to keep hitting buttons at all. I remember sitting down at marrowgar since I didnt gain rage at all. It felt awesome when doing 5man heroics with parts of the gear switched to offgear though.
Since then I felt kinda trapped in a downward spiral beginning with Cataclysm where prot warrior tanking just felt shit and MoP where it just felt like facerolling.

Even though a prot warrior in WoD isnt the best self-healing tank available it feels like you just have to mitigate not the boss mechanics but the slacking attention of others not noticing spikes or just enjoying to be overgeared.
I really hope (what i've seen from watching videos) that the changes Legion brings makes the tanking job a bit more difficult where I can focus on my own role and dont have to try to get my selfheal done and have to compensate another slacking dd.

Regarding the taunt thematic I have to admit that I'm rarely using taunt at all - the way threat works on live it is simply not necessary at all.

I hope my english was not too bad, thanks for sharing your Legion thoughts!

[Sickjen]

I don't understand why people blame tanks for doing to much damage. I play brewmaster and run soul cap/mirror of the blademaster and basically anything that has a aoe pull on it i do 100k+ damage but my number 1 damaging spell is spirit eruption. People constantly say brewmasters have OP damage but really it's the trinkets that cause this mis-balance on all classes. I mean really i can put 2/3 keg smashes plus 2/3 4chi explosions into one soul cap. When i blow up i do ridiculous damage. That's like blaming warlocks in throne of thunder for taking the 100% crit trinket and pairing it with chaos bolt because it's super useful.

Punishing good players using game mechanics to their advantage is stupid.

[Echo of Soul]

Tanks should do some DPS and some healing/absorbing imo. Maybe 30% of a dedicated DPSer or healer.

[Deleted]

Tanks should do the same DPS as a dedicated DPSer.

[Deleted]

Tanks should do the same DPS as a dedicated DPSer.

fill a raid with tanks? :P

[Ealyssa]

Which still makes threat significant

Tank A stop dps
Tank B burn your CD to pass tank A

Isn't making threat significant, neither is it making threat interesting. But at least we now are 100% sure you aren't a tank...

[Vaerys]

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".

Threat never was a thing in wow?

Never WAS?

Obviously, you don't remember raids making everyone use Omen or KTM. And there were dps twiddling their thumbs that would pull threat if they went all out. I remember those days distinctly. Go read the comments on the warlock spell Soul Shatter. I also remember tanks seeking out Enchant Gloves - Threat, that dropped from Twin Emps in AQ. Paladins used to have to use Blessing of Salvation on the top DPS.

Threat absolutely used to be a thing.

[Ealyssa]

Paladins used to have to use Blessing of Salvation on the top DPS.

Again, that's not making threat "a thing". Yes threat exist, wouhou what a shock. It doesn't mean that blizzard built a mechanic around it at any point in the game's history.

Vanilla threat was : omen blink, stop dps and the infamous "wait 5 sunder". wow amazing.
BC threat was : paly put salvation on everyone (remember palypower to manage the blessings ? Remember tanks ahving to right click the blessing cause it was put by class not by group ? I do). Threat wasn't an issue. And when you didn't have salvation in your raid (WTF ?) basically back to "omen blink, stop dps"
After that threat remained as useless as before, just without the hassle to bless your whole raid with salvation or wait 5 sunder.

And what is funny, is that Legion may be the first time in wow's history where there may be a gameplay built around threat. With the mythic+ dungeon and the threat affix. Still need to see how it will play, but that's is actually the first time where Blizzard directly put threat full face of a PVE content. Hope it will be fun and not just "focus tank's target or get agro" that again is not a "thing" just level 0 of the holy trinity.

[Vaerys]

Again, that's not making threat "a thing". Yes threat exist, wouhou what a shock. It doesn't mean that blizzard built a mechanic around it at any point in the game's history.

Vanilla threat was : omen blink, stop dps and the infamous "wait 5 sunder". wow amazing.
BC threat was : paly put salvation on everyone (remember palypower to manage the blessings ? Remember tanks ahving to right click the blessing cause it was put by class not by group ? I do). Threat wasn't an issue. And when you didn't have salvation in your raid (WTF ?) basically back to "omen blink, stop dps"
After that threat remained as useless as before, just without the hassle to bless your whole raid with salvation or wait 5 sunder.

And what is funny, is that Legion may be the first time in wow's history where there may be a gameplay built around threat. With the mythic+ dungeon and the threat affix. Still need to see how it will play, but that's is actually the first time where Blizzard directly put threat full face of a PVE content. Hope it will be fun and not just "focus tank's target or get agro" that again is not a "thing" just level 0 of the holy trinity.

You make no sense. All those things you admit people had to do to manage threat constitute gameplay.

that's is actually the first time where Blizzard directly put threat full face of a PVE content

Baloney. Bosses had threat-dropping mechanics since forever.

[Aleax]

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

Well 80% is nerfbat territory, 75% would'nt be. Nitpicking much? Maybie.^^ The best solution imo is to give tanks dps, with a shared cd with mitigation spells anyway. They so won't be anymore a pain to level up, or to quest with, and might be an enough good threat in pvp. (the same should be true for healers, dps shared with then healing, same shared cd). 75% is pretty much not within the DPS realm, DPS would still top the chart, always, and that's what you are looking for while playing a DPS.

[CenariusTheForestLord]

Threat never was a thing in wow?

Never WAS?

Obviously, you don't remember raids making everyone use Omen or KTM. And there were dps twiddling their thumbs that would pull threat if they went all out. I remember those days distinctly. Go read the comments on the warlock spell Soul Shatter. I also remember tanks seeking out Enchant Gloves - Threat, that dropped from Twin Emps in AQ. Paladins used to have to use Blessing of Salvation on the top DPS.

Threat absolutely used to be a thing.

Most of us just hope it will never be a thing again. Maintaining threat is the same as maintaining your dps, just with different coëfficients. At some point a tank will do the max threat he can do. IF at that point a dps can still take threat the entire community will blow up because they can't do their dps rotation correctly because of this threat thing. On the other hand if a tank is never challenged on threat why does the mechanic exist?

No dps in the current state of the game will stop dpsing for 20 seconds to drop below 100% threat again. Ever. Like really ever. Ever ever. Maybe add an extra ever to be sure.

[Acethekraut]

So far, 1/4 tanks know what they are doing in the dungeons I have done on beta. FeelsBadMan

[CenariusTheForestLord]

So far, 1/4 tanks know what they are doing in the dungeons I have done on beta. FeelsBadMan

I have never gotten beta. In any expansion (except MOP. But everybody got MOP beta), and I've been a mythic/heroic raider since WOTLK.
Then again a friend of mine who quits 1 month into every expansion got into all of them.
I like this beta invite thing.
So fun

[Raiju]

I have never gotten beta. In any expansion (except MOP. But everybody got MOP beta), and I've been a mythic/heroic raider since WOTLK.
Then again a friend of mine who quits 1 month into every expansion got into all of them.
I like this beta invite thing.
So fun

Even when a majority of people in alpha were 13/13 mythic raiders they were 2/3 absolute shit.

[CenariusTheForestLord]

Even when a majority of people in alpha were 13/13 mythic raiders they were 2/3 absolute shit.

I'm just saying I wouldn't be a shit tank. And I'd gladly replace the shit tanks he's been having. Blizz just won't let me.

[Daffan]

Is CC a thing in Legion?

I hope.

It's still kind of zergy and overgear is fast still so it's not looking good. Maybe with a Mythic dungeon perk thingy it might be required.

[Raiju]

CC was popular in skittish modified mythic+/bugged bolsters, other than that it was largely ignored.

[Vaerys]

Most of us just hope it will never be a thing again. Maintaining threat is the same as maintaining your dps, just with different coëfficients. At some point a tank will do the max threat he can do. IF at that point a dps can still take threat the entire community will blow up because they can't do their dps rotation correctly because of this threat thing. On the other hand if a tank is never challenged on threat why does the mechanic exist?

I can't dispute that, but to say it was never a thing is pretty much the opposite of the truth. It was totally a thing at one time, and tank gameplay has changed dramatically from those days.

No dps in the current state of the game will stop dpsing for 20 seconds to drop below 100% threat again. Ever. Like really ever. Ever ever. Maybe add an extra ever to be sure.

20 seconds? Probably not, but the Skittish affix in mythic dungeons, if it turns out to be relevant, will force thoughtful dps.

[Deleted]

Personally I quite prefered TBC and even WotlK tanks to their current state. But maybe that's just me.

[Saul Goodman]

Healers have to step up there A game...