Only warrior can tank?

[faithbane]

Was threat big problem in Cata

My first memory of cata raiding is in the first tier , being in a derp derp dps race with a friend the whole raid so Im gonna go out on a limb and say no

[NoRest4Wicked]

8 Warriors for Naxx, the good times.

[Shadowsgrace]

Raid tank... yes, you are correct, Feral Bears could do 5 mans, but Raids were Warrior's glory zone.

[Tojara]

Not sure why this is even a discussion?

Warriors were the only tanks.

Priests, paladins, shaman and druids all healed.

Rogues, warriors, mages and hunters were the only DPS.

Realistically rogues were all around the 'best' dps, simply because they were easier to gear and didn't have threat problems. Warriors could do just as much damage, or more in certain circumstances, but were normally stopped by threat issues. Mages did terrible DPS until they could actually play fire, and because of how ignite worked, their sole damage contribution (based on meters) wasn't as high as one might believe. Essentially the ignite got attributed to one mage, so while one might have looked really good, the rest were all well below the rogues/warriors. Hunters were kinda middling, and fell off as the game progressed.

Warlocks didn't exist for DPS until they changed lifetap (either in 1.12 or 2.0 I forget) and were brought solely for curses. Warlocks actually had the potential to do great DPS, the problem was lifetap didn't scale with spell damage until that point. This meant you did stuff for 5 seconds and spent the next 15 seconds pressing life tap. Hunters were essentially the same but their damage was tuned a bit higher. Do damage for a period of time, then feign death and drink for fucking 30 seconds.

Of course all the 'hybrid' DPS and tanks existed, they just weren't raid specs. Some of them had buffs deep in their trees which meant you would normally have one 'token hybrid' but in reality they did the buff, and ended up just being a less effective healer.

On topic warriors were really the only tanks in vanilla. Threat back then was still dogshit, but they were better than the alternative. They were also the only ones who could reliably push crushing blows and critical strikes off the hit table by wearing a combination of +defense, %dodge and % parry gear. Combined with shield block of course. The other tanks didn't have such options, or had limited options at best.

Not me really shitting on the design of the game because it was still better than the alternative at the time. But as far as the raiding scene went, the above is exactly how it was played for guilds who cared about progression at all. Hybrids and other tanks existed, just in PvP and non-40 man raiding content.

[Ivanstone]

Maybe I'm wrong (don't remember), but crushing blow couldn't be negated, just mitigated (shield blocked).
Crits, in the other hand, could be negated by 440 def. Not 100% negated, there was 1% sneaky crit that couldn't be negated (doesn't matter how many def you had).

That's not true. You could entirely remove crits from the hit table. If you got crit it was due to player error. More likely if you felt you got crit, it was probably a crushing blow.

[Contego]

Paladins, druids and shamans could tank in most 5-man dungeons, due to defense not being as important as it was in raids. I actually tanked the entire BRD once on my shaman, since you had talents to increase armor and defense, and earth shock gave so much threat it was essentially a taunt (it used to have the tag "causes a high amount of threat" attached to it)

[Azadina]

Threat was a serious massive problem up to MoP (didn't play Cata), I remember in SSC a druid friend crit healed twice in row healing touch at fight start (one cast, then instant nature swiftness cast), Hydraxus the Unstable left the entire raid and run after him until he was dead, and boss was immue to taunt of course
Was threat big problem in Cata ? I think it was early Cata but I left that expansion very early and never returned

No. It was nonexistant problem. Tanks received 500% passive threat increase in cata.

Still, rogues and warriors were able to get killed in the first 5 seconds, if tank had barely auto attacked a boss, and those unloaded all cooldowns on it already.

[Vestig3]

Not sure why this is even a discussion?

Warriors were the only tanks.

Priests, paladins, shaman and druids all healed.

Rogues, warriors, warlock, mages and hunters were the only DPS.

Fixed that!

[Xenyatta]

You have to realize, back then, they had no idea what they were really doing. They had no game plan for classes so if you had a heal button, you could only heal. So that mean all druids, shaman, priests and paladins were healers only. They didn't give people the gear or the abilities to do things beyond that til TBC. All plate that wasn't meant for warriors was destined to be intellect with spirit on it. You often saw paladins in cloth dresses because they had better stats than the plate even.

The idea that a paladin could do more was conceived in Blackwing Lair era where they wanted to separate the role of shaman and paladin because in Vanilla, they were essentially the same class for each faction. But Blizz decided to separate them and make Shaman more focus on healing and dps out of shaman and help guide paladins towards the idea of being tanks but the first time they implemented that concept was in The Burning Crusade.

[Pantalaimon]

A game mode where only certain classes are able to fill a raid role. Remind me why Blizzard is bringing this thing back?

[Deleted]

A game mode where only certain classes are able to fill a raid role. Remind me why Blizzard is bringing this thing back?

theres a salt crisis at blizzard, they need your tears

[Pantalaimon]

theres a salt crisis at blizzard, they need your tears

Tears? More like I am very confused as to why they are bringing it back. This thread is just one example of how that part of the game was very much so not well thought out. Why would you make a game and then leave it balanced and tuned for so long when a large handful of specs couldn't perform in raids with many of the specs the classes had to offer.

So no, don't mistake my massive head-scratch worthy response for "tears".

[Logwyn]

Implying that there's a difference between the two terms. Both refers to pre-TBC WoW.

Classic is they keep the quality of life features like auto looting and bag sorting. Vanilla would be that they don't.

[Ivanstone]

Cata was the beginning of the end of threat management, really.

You still need to keep aggro from other tanks. This is more annoying than you'd think.

[ThrashMetalFtw]

Classic is they keep the quality of life features like auto looting and bag sorting. Vanilla would be that they don't.

What are you on about. Classic isn't some new word they came up with 2 weeks ago.

"Classic" refers to the version of WoW that was retail before TBC.

Just like the terms "vanilla" or "pre-TBC". All 3 terms mean the exact same thing.


I have never ever used the term "vanilla" to describe pre-TBC WoW, and never will. I called it classic back in TBC, and still do. Vanilla is a flavour.

[Logwyn]

What are you on about. Classic isn't some new word they came up with 2 weeks ago.

"Classic" refers to the version of WoW that was retail before TBC.

Just like the terms "vanilla" or "pre-TBC". All 3 terms mean the exact same thing.


I have never ever used the term "vanilla" to describe pre-TBC WoW, and never will. I called it classic back in TBC, and still do. Vanilla is a flavour.

Vanilla is like Nov of 2004.
pre-TBC has around 2 years of content added.
Classic could be exactly like 2004 or somewhere between November 2004 to January 2007 with or without things added to it from Nov. 2004 till Nov 2017.
Example. If they released a server that was exactly like Nov. 2004 but had area looting added then that's not vanilla it could be classic.

[Youn]

So, if we are looking at Vanilla for Tanks:

Alliance:
Warrior - Should have a bugged Rend that is based off your spell power. This wasn't fixed until WotLK.
Bear - Must do damage to hold threat, has bad damage output
Paladin - Must use spell power to hold threat, Very difficult to both get defensive stats and good spell power.

Horde
Warrior
Bear - Same as above

Pre-TBC your only valid tank was Warrior. Post-TBC launch Bears become valid tanks because defensive stats appear on Leather gear.

It was possible post-TBC launch for Paladins to become valid until you reach Illidan. Then strangely your best tank was Warrior and Rogue with 100% dodge defensive gear.

[Dhrizzle]

(shaman will get a talent review, honest guys!)

Patch 1.11 was the Shaman talent review, it was warlocks who had to wait until TBC to get their trees fixed.

- - - Updated - - -

but thats how hybrids ARE in vanilla jack of all trades master of none and sucking at dps

No, it was mostly jack of all trades but shut up and heal.

[Sabever]

As I heard, only warrior could tank in vanilla. Why was that so?
In BC, paladins were great tanks, so what was wrong with pallies in vanilla?
Also, druids?

People keep saying this and they really do not know what they are talking about. The same people probably also say you can carry 20 players in a 40 man raid. It is either one or the other. If everyone is getting carried than why cant some classes work if everyone works together? Feral can dps and tank. To DPS you use a level 40 helm and you shift to time energy. People who were good at the game knew how to do things. In some cases, Shaman, totems, Warlocks pets and Hunter pets could tank. You just had to know how to do it and it only worked for a very short time.

Yes Warrior tanks were overall the best. But to say that Feral cannot tank is just simply false. IMPO every raid should have 1 druid who can both tank and dps to pick up the off tank if he goes down.

[Projectmars]

What are you on about. Classic isn't some new word they came up with 2 weeks ago.

"Classic" refers to the version of WoW that was retail before TBC.

Just like the terms "vanilla" or "pre-TBC". All 3 terms mean the exact same thing.


I have never ever used the term "vanilla" to describe pre-TBC WoW, and never will. I called it classic back in TBC, and still do. Vanilla is a flavour.

Vanilla is a fairly common term for a game prior to expansions. or a mtg card with no abilities. To me Classic feels like it could be applied to Vanilla/TBC/Wrath, aka the game when it was growing more and more popular and populations were at the peak.