Tank Balance one week in?

[Tojara]

DKs were always an incredibly popular tank, even when they were terrible at the start of the expansion, people still played them.

People gravitate towards the strongest tank, which is why bear druids had an explosion in popularity at the start of the expansion. Through a series of nerfs to them, and buffs to other tank classes, you're slowly starting to see people move towards the other tanks. Tank balance at the start of this expansion, pretty much until the end of Nighthold was a complete travesty in my opinion. Right now, aside from a few issues (protection paladins) the balance is in a much better state.

Monks are still incredibly strong and were incredibly strong in NH as well. People were just riding the bear druid wave from the start of the expansion, which is why you never saw a mass exodus. You would have seen more monks in NH if not for bear druids being better, the class as a whole being unpopular, and monks getting a bad wrap at the start of the expansion. There were actually quite a few DHs at the start of the expansion until they all turned into bear druids several weeks in.

Most tanks I know have played tanks since they started playing the game, a lot of them are also stubborn and won't change from the tank spec they have always played. Which is why you see a lot warriors and DKs, even when they aren't that strong. Bears weren't viable for raiding until the middle to late part of TBC (like protection paladins) and druids as a whole were a fairly unpopular class for quite sometime, because nobody wanted to play restoration druid in vanilla, and the other specs simply weren't viable. The shear fact that we have an absurd amount of bear druids in this expansion is testament to how much they buffed the bears to make tanks swap to them. You see a lot of DKs because DKs were popular in WoTLK, and every single one of their specs operated as a tank spec (even though which one was best changed between encounters and patches).

[Marrilaife]

DKs were always an incredibly popular tank, even when they were terrible at the start of the expansion, people still played them.

Yeah, DK and Paladin are very popular classes, so their numbers are higher than what the state of class balance dictates across patches. Monks were always an unpopular class, probably due to the whole Asian / Panda thematic which a lot of people frowned upon, therefore are always less represented than what their class balance would want to achieve. Bears for a long time also suffered from class fantasy issue ("why would I wanna stare at a fat bear ass?") but the new customizable artifact forms were a big step forward, and ofc making them strong as well helped to get people into the spec.

[Tech614]

Yeah, DK and Paladin are very popular classes, so their numbers are higher than what the state of class balance dictates across patches. Monks were always an unpopular class, probably due to the whole Asian / Panda thematic which a lot of people frowned upon, therefore are always less represented than what their class balance would want to achieve. Bears for a long time also suffered from class fantasy issue ("why would I wanna stare at a fat bear ass?") but the new customizable artifact forms were a big step forward, and ofc making them strong as well helped to get people into the spec.

Except for the part where in mythic Paladin is not even close to popular, if we look at the 75th percentile for mythic there is nearly DOUBLE the amount of Monks as Paladins.

Nobody cares what Johnny LFR champ is playing in his normal PUGs. Not really relevant to a thread about balance.

[Marrilaife]

Except for the part where in mythic Paladin is not even close to popular, if we look at the 75th percentile for mythic there is nearly DOUBLE the amount of Monks as Paladins.

The disparity would be even bigger if we didn't take into account class popularity, inertia and "what people had already geared up", paladins would be way below warriors and monks would be above druids.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

So in the end, even Method's monk was asked to bring his bear alt. What does that tell us, if anything?

[Gorsameth]

So in the end, even Method's monk was asked to bring his bear alt. What does that tell us, if anything?

Stampeding roar is great? Donno why else they would want a bear. A warrior would be superior I think if it was about soaking meteors or felclaws.

[Noodleface]

Stampeding roar is great? Donno why else they would want a bear. A warrior would be superior I think if it was about soaking meteors or felclaws.

I think they brought them for their mass armor% for soaking, roars, and absurd health pools.

I don't follow Sco for everything tank-related as he's playing a different game than virtually all of us, but he makes plenty of strong points on tank balance.

I don't wish for Bears to be nerf; however, I do wish for other tanks to at least be equal.

[Tech614]

I think they brought them for their mass armor% for soaking, roars, and absurd health pools.

I don't follow Sco for everything tank-related as he's playing a different game than virtually all of us, but he makes plenty of strong points on tank balance.

I don't wish for Bears to be nerf; however, I do wish for other tanks to at least be equal.

It was definitely roar. There is nothing on that might that a bear can mitigate better then a brewmaster.

[Sonnillon]

It was definitely roar. There is nothing on that might that a bear can mitigate better then a brewmaster.

Maybe it was the fact that bears can use Bristling Fur talent from T1 talent selection, which gives you enough rage to keep 4 stacks of Ironfur, which for me depending on my DMC proc gives full physical damage reduction of 85-95%. And if used properly it is up for every other Fel Claws. Beside the fact that Frenzied Regen still manages to batch the hole in incoming healing when and if needed and with the amount of damage received it heals for significant amount. Roar is also helpful to have I would guess. You can also soak the meteors if you have Iron Fur up couple with few other CDs.
But what do I know about mythic KJ anyway, greatest achievement is a 15% wipe on heroic Host *lol* anyway.

[Tech614]

Maybe it was the fact that bears can use Bristling Fur talent from T1 talent selection, which gives you enough rage to keep 4 stacks of Ironfur, which for me depending on my DMC proc gives full physical damage reduction of 85-95%. And if used properly it is up for every other Fel Claws. Beside the fact that Frenzied Regen still manages to batch the hole in incoming healing when and if needed and with the amount of damage received it heals for significant amount. Roar is also helpful to have I would guess. You can also soak the meteors if you have Iron Fur up couple with few other CDs.
But what do I know about mythic KJ anyway, greatest achievement is a 15% wipe on heroic Host *lol* anyway.

That's the thing though, brewmaster always has 85% up front DR, can bank 3 purifies for felclaws(with legendary belt each purify will basically full heal you as well on heroic let alone mythic) can soak a big meteor WITH 5 stacks of felclaw with Zen Med, DH and FB.

A brewmaster doesn't even need to use a cd for felclaws as well, it's not going to change on mythic as higher damage only = even higher healing from belt.

If physical mitigation was the reason for the Switch to bear they would have switched at Avatar. It's not, bear is great at physical mitigation but brewmaster is better. Bear provided the superior utility for the fight.

[Sonnillon]

If physical mitigation was the reason for the Switch to bear they would have switched at Avatar. It's not, bear is great at physical mitigation but brewmaster is better. Bear provided the superior utility for the fight.

I haven't played any other tanking classes (yet this expansion). In that light you are most definitely correct.

[Deleted]

BDk might struggle on M KJ due to their low mobility and the fact that tank have to soak a large number of big Meteor.

[Deleted]

Maybe it was the fact that bears can use Bristling Fur talent from T1 talent selection, which gives you enough rage to keep 4 stacks of Ironfur, which for me depending on my DMC proc gives full physical damage reduction of 85-95%. And if used properly it is up for every other Fel Claws. Beside the fact that Frenzied Regen still manages to batch the hole in incoming healing when and if needed and with the amount of damage received it heals for significant amount. Roar is also helpful to have I would guess. You can also soak the meteors if you have Iron Fur up couple with few other CDs.
But what do I know about mythic KJ anyway, greatest achievement is a 15% wipe on heroic Host *lol* anyway.

You'll hit armor cap anyways (85%)

Warriors for example can use artifact ability for last 2 biggest felclaw hits with Ignore Pain completly negating the damage without even using any CD at all

Did some math a while ago and base armor + crit blocks make 91.2% damage reduction and the rest just gets eaten by Ignore pain.

Also for big meteors I can pop shield block, one full Ignore pain and I get hit for a whooping 170k damage on HC


So why they used 2 bears ? Simple: look at the clusterfuck the intermission is... It's really just for roars and not for mitigation. If they were struggling on mitigation, they would bring Monk/warrior