Dragon soul: Your protective services is no longer needed.

[Deleted]

TBH, as mentioned above, its silly easy to gear up an OS these days that there is no reason why you shouldnt have gear for it ...

Unless you had fury warrior and a DK as DPSers in 10 man raiding group - given how borked 10 man loot is I've yet to see a single drop for my ret offspec (not to mention I do hate raiding as RNGetadin - why should I be forced to do so? I'd rather taunt at 4 stacks of whatever). Of course I think I'd be forced to run DS heroics ad nauseam to have around 377+ ilvl offspec... But blizz should make it so that at least 80% of each tier will require 2 tanks - not like T13 where almost half of the fights will be solo tanked...

[snegro]

Most annoying thing is my off-spec is holy for PvP. I mean, that was the whole point of introducing dual-spec, right?

>game needs more tanks so we introduce a hero tanking class
> go from 3-4 tanks to 2 tanks
>game needs more tanks, not enough in LFG
>cut tanks down to 1 and a 2nd here and there

But hey, if you play a tank you can LFG all day for a little satchel of shit. Yeah, great design Blizzard.

[Andaja]

Im the tank myself, and being a druid i think i will be expected to go dps in favor or prot paly to tank those.
Im of course worried about it, but im still not shouting sky is falling because we dont know what are the enrage timers on those bosses.
When i checked with firelands it seems that for example Alyse doesnt have an enrage timer, and majordomo has a ten minute one. I know ragnaros is made around 12 or so (or is that heroic only).
Nevertheless when i checked second boss in dragonsoul (think it was second), it had 47.2kk hp. For a ten minute enrage timer with 5 dpsers thats an average or 16k dps from each. I think thats pretty doable considered that if we add one tank and maybe one healer that number goes down even more. Sure there is no fun in being that idiot that does nothing and just drags along, collects tank gear for few encounters and does subpar dps but still, i dont think well see any tank benching to bring that one extra dps.
Maybe it will be of concern in hc modes, but we dont even know what they have in store for us, plus id think that if we are doing heroic modes we do know how to play more then one spec, dont we?

[Myrkur]

Tanking 5-Man Heroics is a hell of a lot more interesting than Raids at the moment. I love to Tank trash. As I get more confident and better, the more Trash I can pull at one time. It's a sliding difficulty scale, and it's a lot of fun. Plus i get to use ALL of my abilities. Concussive Blow is useful. I can interrupt stuff. Heroic Throw Gag Order actually does something. I can Disarm! Shockwave is like a mitigation cooldown. I can charge/intercept/interven/heroic leap to move around and pick stuff up. Tanking 5-mans is a ton of fun.

Even some 5-man Bosses have better Tank mechanics than Raids. Karsh Steelbender is a fucking great example to show people one of the most important qualities Tanks must have, being able to move the Boss and place the boss exactly where you want him. Ozruk was a quality Tank dance fight where the Tank needed the confidence to know exactly how far his abilities reached and how to aim the boss. General Hakan and Prophet Zaphim both required you to reposition the boss constantly. A group with a Melee or two benefited greatly from a really good Tank on the Corla fight in BWC.

Shannox was interesting on Normal mode, but fucking boring as hell on Heroic. Rhyolith was always enjoyable to me because I like Tanking lots of things at once as a Warrior. Beth'tilac would be great if my DPS were terrible, but they kill everything so fast there isn't really anything for me to Tank. Alysrazor is fun to see the big numbers, and quality Tanks are necessary to beat the encounter but meh. Baelroc, Majordomo and Rag I stand in the same spot for 80% of the fight.

Dragon Soul is worse than Firelands. Morchok, Yor'shaj, Hagaara, Ultraxxion all require close to 0 movement on the tanks part. Just stand there and get hit in the face. Zon'ozz you only need to move twice every minute, snooze fest there too. Spine of Deathwing requires one Good Tank to manage the health and placement of enemies but for the most part it is standing still in one spot and Taunting every 5 seconds. No opinion on Madness because it's not final.

I want Raid Bosses like Karsh Steelbender and Ozruk. I want my ability to place a Mob on a dime to shine. I want to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight. I wanna drive a range-rover. I wanna make bank bro.

Edit: I recently lost the Hunter on my Team to College work and a Fiance. Instead of recruiting a new hunter, I am looking at leveling my hunter from level 40 to 85 and gearing it for Dragon Soul and just recruiting a Tank instead. An adequate Tank is 1000 times easier to recruit than an adequate DPS. There is just not much responsibility for a Raid Tank at this time.

[4KhazModan]

one of the reasons i quit tanking after 5+ years was because blizzards design for every fight for tanks was either

A: MAKE IT A 1 TANK FIGHT SO ITS REALLY FUN FOR THE OFF TANK LOL

B: MAKE A STACKING DEBUFF THAT TANKS HAVE TO REMEMBER TO COUNT TO 5 TO TAUNT, WOW SO ENGAGING AND FUN LOL

C: MAKE ONE TANK TAUNT TO TAKE THE HATEFUL STRIKE EVERY 3 MINUTES LOL SO FUN

D: BOSS IS TANKED BY 1 TANK, OTHER TANK JUST JERKS OFF TILL THAT ONE ADD COMES OUT LOL SO FUN

feels like blizzard really doesnt know how to make fun fights for tanks anymore, thats why im playing my lock in raids now until they figure out how to make something fun for a tank again.

So true. The only fun tank fight this x-pac so far is Aly. The rest is all just kite, tank adds, or tank swap for a debuff.

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

I'm in a 10-M raiding guild and though I'm Spriest/Warlock dps I noticed that our OT has been picking up a lot of dps gear lately and now I know why. The new tier seems like it's half and half about 1 or 2 tanks which is still pretty rare. I think my guild will still bring our OT along even as an under-geared DPS just because none of us could alienate a dedicated raider and friend like him.

[fengosa]

As someone who's not even raiding on his main right now because the guild need heals I have little sympathy for people who can't switch specs to help out their guilds. It really isn't that hard to gear/learn a second role and there's no reason not to given that it's completely foreseeable that it will be needed.

[Sylreick]

The tanks in my guild just gear out their DPS specs, both warriors. They do pretty well, so going for one-tank fights are no worry at all. Let's them have a change in roles once in a while.

[Gritalian]

Aside from heroic tier pieces, the off tank in my guild is pretty much fully geared as ret (90% of our tier drops have been Vanquisher, to the point that our Resto Druid has 3 complete sets).

I've begun building my fury set just so he doesn't have to dps all the time. I could see this being an issue with guilds who aren't the most social with each other: raiders who sign on 3 days a week for 3 hours and don't talk. Or guilds who go through tanks left and right and don't have much of a rapport with their tanks.

The core of my raid has been around since Burning Crusade so I don't plan on replacing anyone because they are 2 or 3k short of what a MS DPS would be doing.

[Deleted]

The taunting-off-eachother-to-remove-a-debuff strategy is so done and is extremely boring. However, I also realize that it's quite a kick to the head having to cut your tanks (basically) in half for the next raidtier.

I think it's a good change nonetheless, it means that the single tank needs to keep track of other things other than taunting off his friend and most likely will result in a more active tanking roll for the tanks from now on. Also, keeping in mind that blizzard wants to turn all tank specs into more actively mitigating tanks (similar to blood DKs), this is probably a good step in that direction!

As several people have said before me, you most likely have several weeks to gear up your DPS specs. With some reforging on current tank gear and a couple of new dps pieces you'll be good to go!

[Fenixdown]

why don't they just allways make all the fights based around 2 tanks?

Because that would get old and repetitive real fast.

At the same token, three or more tank fights can't really be designed because of the 10-man setting. We will certianly never have another Four Horsemen in it's original incarnation, that's for sure.

The thing with this complaint is that it's not very big of a deal unless there's one key factor. Your secondary tank either a. does not have a properly set up dualspec or b. he sucks at anything other than tanking. However, between the two of you, I'm sure at least ONE of you is capable of doing something besides tanking. The best thing is that dependant on your tanking setup can depend on your dualspec setup.

Examples :

Paladin tank : offspec holy, healer offspecs DPS
DK tank : offspecs DPS
Warrior tank : offspecs DPS
Druid tank : offspecs healing, healer offspecs DPS

See, with two tank classes, you even get a thirde offspec option (healing), which opens offspec usage up for your healers as well. This really doesn't seem like an issue to me, you just need to know more than one portion of what your class has to offer and be a little creative with your raid design.

[noteworthynerd]

I guess it is a good thing I'm switching to a DPS toon. =D

On a serious note: My 10-man guild solo tanks several encounters in FL (Rhyolith, Baleroc, Majordomo and Ragnaros), so I was specced Ret OS. I don't know why that wouldn't be viable for DS as well, unless you do not like DPSing... If you are having trouble getting the gear, run the new 5 mans, the gear that drops there is 378 item level, correct?

[Chaoslux]

A: 1 tank
B: 2 tanks: Stacking Debuff
C: 2 tanks: Ability Soaking
D: 2 tanks: Wait for Adds

feels like blizzard really doesnt know how to make fun fights for tanks anymore

How many fights since the release of wow doesnt fit in these categories? Saying "Anymore" implies they did things differently back then. But pretty much every single fight with a few exceptions are under those four.

[theyanger]

It's been the writing on the wall since the ten man and twenty five man split, not surprising in the least, but it's sad that skilled tanks are better served dpsing than tanking. I know I don't regret swapping in the least, less pressure and I don't have to ride the bench our displace my fellow tanks anymore.

[ambident]

Tanking 5-Man Heroics is a hell of a lot more interesting than Raids at the moment. I love to Tank trash. As I get more confident and better, the more Trash I can pull at one time. It's a sliding difficulty scale, and it's a lot of fun. Plus i get to use ALL of my abilities. Concussive Blow is useful. I can interrupt stuff. Heroic Throw Gag Order actually does something. I can Disarm! Shockwave is like a mitigation cooldown. I can charge/intercept/interven/heroic leap to move around and pick stuff up. Tanking 5-mans is a ton of fun.

Even some 5-man Bosses have better Tank mechanics than Raids. Karsh Steelbender is a fucking great example to show people one of the most important qualities Tanks must have, being able to move the Boss and place the boss exactly where you want him. Ozruk was a quality Tank dance fight where the Tank needed the confidence to know exactly how far his abilities reached and how to aim the boss. General Hakan and Prophet Zaphim both required you to reposition the boss constantly. A group with a Melee or two benefited greatly from a really good Tank on the Corla fight in BWC.

Shannox was interesting on Normal mode, but fucking boring as hell on Heroic. Rhyolith was always enjoyable to me because I like Tanking lots of things at once as a Warrior. Beth'tilac would be great if my DPS were terrible, but they kill everything so fast there isn't really anything for me to Tank. Alysrazor is fun to see the big numbers, and quality Tanks are necessary to beat the encounter but meh. Baelroc, Majordomo and Rag I stand in the same spot for 80% of the fight.

Dragon Soul is worse than Firelands. Morchok, Yor'shaj, Hagaara, Ultraxxion all require close to 0 movement on the tanks part. Just stand there and get hit in the face. Zon'ozz you only need to move twice every minute, snooze fest there too. Spine of Deathwing requires one Good Tank to manage the health and placement of enemies but for the most part it is standing still in one spot and Taunting every 5 seconds. No opinion on Madness because it's not final.

I want Raid Bosses like Karsh Steelbender and Ozruk. I want my ability to place a Mob on a dime to shine. I want to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight. I wanna drive a range-rover. I wanna make bank bro.

Edit: I recently lost the Hunter on my Team to College work and a Fiance. Instead of recruiting a new hunter, I am looking at leveling my hunter from level 40 to 85 and gearing it for Dragon Soul and just recruiting a Tank instead. An adequate Tank is 1000 times easier to recruit than an adequate DPS. There is just not much responsibility for a Raid Tank at this time.

This is a point I've tried to make to my friends for the longest time. Tanking right now is such a snoozefest, even if you are the greatest tank that wow has ever seen the skill cap is so low that there aren't any ways to stand out. Tanks can be your dumbest players and you'll do just fine.

The average heroic likely takes more skill than these FL bosses. You are absolutely right that you use 1/3 or less of the abilities for tanking FL than a heroic.

I remember tanking ulduar, that was a very fun raid to tank. Even naxx was more difficult to tank than firelands.

Blizzard just changed direction and didn't want a whole raid of people to rely on 1 or 2 people to play exactly right. When they designed the hardmodes they added more stuff for dps/healers but were very hesitant to make the tanking more difficult.

I think many of the amazing tanks have switched to dps roles since that's where the competition/skill checks are.

[Twiddly]

No issues or concerns as I have collected a very viable OS (DPS) set, and so has the other Tank ... all in all bring on more 1 Tank fights as I prefer to Tank more than DPS and vice a verca for the other MT in our guild

TBH, as mentioned above, its silly easy to gear up an OS these days that there is no reason why you shouldnt have gear for it ...

Our tanks love one tank fights, they like to try to beat our regular dps with there off specs, and they both like to dps just as much as tank.

[ambident]

How many fights since the release of wow doesnt fit in these categories? Saying "Anymore" implies they did things differently back then. But pretty much every single fight with a few exceptions are under those four.

Heigan in naxx
thorim
freya
razorscale
ignis
mimiron
iron council

all these fights were significantly more interesting to tank, utilizing more of a tanks abilities or incorporating movement. There was a time when you wanted your best players to be tanks and you could easily tell if a tank was good or not. The worst thing a tank can do in FL is not use a cooldown.

Part of it is just that encounter design has gone way downhill, fights are less interesting for all roles, but specific to tanking the skill cap is at its lowest it's ever been. As tanks did fights in ulduar they improved each time they did them, once you do a fight in FL you know it and can repeat it every time exactly.

[lotj]

As my guild's OT, I welcome this change. Raid tanking is excruciatingly boring in Cataclysm.

EDIT:

Our tanks love one tank fights, they like to try to beat our regular dps with there off specs, and they both like to dps just as much as tank.

This exactly. With a handful of one-tank fights, it seems like it should be common for guilds to have at least one of their tanks building a dps off-set to keep things going.

[Chudbrochil]

What you are not understanding is that tanks don't go off spec in hardcore guilds. All those pure dps sitting the bench replace them. It isn't as easy as "just gear up your off spec stop being selfish". In a hardcore setting if the fight requires only 1 tank then that's all that will be in.

[Deleted]

There are some pretty innovative fights in this tier already, if you ask me!

Kiting riplimb around, timing it with the spear throw to get the debuff to fall off, while communicating with the other tank to make sure you're not pulling them out of range of eachother and enraging them.

Almost soloDPSing an imprinted bird down whilst running around making it eat other adds is another pretty sweet example.

What you are not understanding is that tanks don't go off spec in hardcore guilds. All those pure dps sitting the bench replace them. It isn't as easy as "just gear up your off spec stop being selfish". In a hardcore setting if the fight requires only 1 tank then that's all that will be in.

In a hardcore guild, they will already have realised this and reacted accordingly. I.e., rerolled to another character/alt and go DPS for the guild. Also, as this doesn't apply to 99% of the people here, I doubt it's the main concern of the OP.