Mage Tanking Spec

[Zantesuken]

What if Blizzard changed one of Mage's specs to be a tanking spec? Something like a melee battle-mage?

[Deleted]

I wouldn't see battle mages as a tank.

They would be more like a melee magic dps. Kinda like ret/enhance.

[Deleted]

A lot of mages would reroll to protest if mages became healers, tanks or melees.

[Reachie10]

If they ever made a caster a tank, it would be a warlock, they make the most sense in WoW lore, mages are babies :P

[Deleted]

There are way too many close quarter specs as it is, no one even plays survival hunters.

[bloodmoth13]

A lot of mages would reroll to protest if mages became healers, tanks or melees.

Lol.
Stupid, but very likely

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If they ever made a caster a tank, it would be a warlock, they make the most sense in WoW lore, mages are babies :P

If they make pet tank specs that is

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There are way too many close quarter specs as it is, no one even plays survival hunters.

i do, its my favorite hunter spec atm

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I wouldn't see battle mages as a tank.

They would be more like a melee magic dps. Kinda like ret/enhance.

i have to agree

[Alvito]

What if people just played one of the 6 types of tanks we have already instead?

[mrgreenthump]

Battle Mage isn't a tank, it's a very high mobility melee/ranged that uses magic to enchance it's attacks and mainly instant cast spells. We all want it to happen, but people like their perfect class balance.. Or what is left of it after DH adding yet another melee and tank.

[Zantesuken]

Battle Mage isn't a tank, it's a very high mobility melee/ranged that uses magic to enchance it's attacks and mainly instant cast spells. We all want it to happen, but people like their perfect class balance.. Or what is left of it after DH adding yet another melee and tank.

I mean, it doesn't HAVE to be what you described. You could design a Mage spec that tanks. Just conjure up some armor and weapons to use in battle. Could easily make it work.

[fearist]

no. please refrain from shit posting.

[Lioo]

Battle Mage isn't a tank, it's a very high mobility melee/ranged that uses magic to enchance it's attacks and mainly instant cast spells. We all want it to happen, but people like their perfect class balance.. Or what is left of it after DH adding yet another melee and tank.

So you just discribed an enh shaman?

[Zantesuken]

no. please refrain from shit posting.

0/10, troll failed

[NakaKuro]

Old Arcane should have been a tank. Its talent tree used to be a pile of damage reduction/survivability talents, plus Mana Shield.

Mana-management as a mechanical-focus would actually mean something if you were nursing a Mana Shield as your active mitigation tool (Evocation as a Survival Cooldown? Lol).

[Deleted]

New range class should be a SAGE

[Deleted]

nope - next please...

[Deleted]

When Blizzard introduced Death Knights and made them have multiple tank specs, and similiarly made feral be able to dps and tank within the same spec, I always thought it would be cool if something similiar was made with other classes.

For example Discipline could have been a damage or healer spec, BM hunters could have been a pet focused tank (eyes of the beast) or dps spec, frost mages could have used their frost armors and slows for tanking and arcane could create a heavy armor or maybe even create a "The Curator"-like being to protect you.
Even warlocks got their demonology form in Wotlk that could potentially have been changed to be a tank, it was even implemented in MoP beta as a dual spec, but it was removed and Demon Hunters got the form instead.

These kind of specializations were possible because of the huge talent trees in Wotlk, so that it was not possible to be good at both things within a talent tree, but Cataclysm and later MoP-onwards made specialization something that you picked from level 10 and not from individual talent choices.

Abilities that generated a lot of threat, such as sunder armor, searing pain, death & decay etc no longer has that feature, nor do very few classes have stances/transformations left. It is nice for raiding and class balance that everything is less flexible in regards to specialization options, but it also removed the option to implement more than one role within a talent specialization.

[Deleted]

Aren't we practically battle mage in all specs? The traditional non-battle mage doesn't necessarily battle that much. It might be the Gandalf-y guy that opens portals and stuff.

[Zantesuken]

Old Arcane should have been a tank. Its talent tree used to be a pile of damage reduction/survivability talents, plus Mana Shield.

Mana-management as a mechanical-focus would actually mean something if you were nursing a Mana Shield as your active mitigation tool (Evocation as a Survival Cooldown? Lol).

That would actually be pretty cool! I remember Arcane having a bunch of defensive talents and abilities, I could see something like that working

[Meagree]

As a tank loving Mage, a Mage tank is a stupid idea. Doesn't fit thematically at all.

[Deleted]

A cloth tank could be neat, but Blizz shouldnt add or change a specc of already existing cloth classes to be tank. Something for a new class possibly, but it can only go wrong if they make frost,arcane or whatever a tankspecc. There are still people who are mad that they cannot be blood dk dd
Also, not every class has to be able to tank,dd and heal, or have 2 different roles.