Enhancement = Tanking spec? (Poll)

[Protoman]

I'm wondering if you can see how you just contradicted yourself within your own post.

You have an alt that you tank on. If they added a Shaman tank spec, you wouldn't bother with the alt, you'd just use your Shaman. Net gain in tank presence; absolutely nothing.

Almost every player who WANTS to tank has a tank. Adding a spec just changes the variety of tanks in the game, not the actual number of them.



You're making a distinction that does not exist.

The player base remains constant. Adding a new spec changes nothing about what role players want to play. If they want to tank, they already have a tank. If they don't, adding a tank spec to their favorite class won't convince them. It's absolutely no different with adding a new class, or adding a new spec.

K just to be clear, I agree that people who purely play DPS specs and have no interest in tank/heal will not suddenly decide to play a tank/heal when monks come out, or if shaman could tank.

As for the contradiction, there is none. You have to look from the perspective of my main class. If I have only 3 hours to play, I will play my main class, my Shaman. On my Shaman I can DPS or HEAL, but typically for guild raids, lfg or lfr, I would play as Resto unless we have enough heals or dps que time is real short. After I have saved myself and done my daily lfg....only then would I think about playing my prot warr, assuming I had more free time. Now if Shaman could tank, I would try to que or raid as a shaman tank first because that is my favorite role, and only if tanks are full would I switch to resto or dps. And if I have free time, I would go play my prot warrior. So I have just run 2 dragon soul raids as 2 separate tanks, instead of 1 as resto heals and 1 as prot warr.

The player base that enjoys playing hybrid support roles probably is constant. I am not trying to convert pure dps enthusiasts to try out tanking or healing, simply give those people who enjoy tank/healing more chances to do so.....especially if your main (or favorite) class doesn't have the role you enjoy playing (like me who loves shaman playstyle, but prefers tanking to healing).

If I took a census of all the tanks in the game right now (based on people's main character/spec), then added a 4th tank spec for shaman, and took a census again tommorow, there would be a % of Shaman who used to dps or heal that have switched to tanking.....NOT a prot warr switching to a prot shaman, but a resto shaman switching to a prot shaman. So you would actually gain tanks in the game. And I'm sure 100% of those prot shaman have an alt tank that they used to tank with, but now that their main can tank they will just tank with the shaman, and their alt tank use for alt guild runs or farming lfg or whatever.


"Well if you gonna do it for shaman, why not just let mages and hunters heal, and locks and rogues tank??"

People keep saying that, but Shaman is already a hybrid with a support role, we suffer the hybrid tax. Pure DPS classes don't have a support role, so they typically do more DPS, and have some more interesting tools like CC or buffs. I personally think it would not be all that bad of an idea to add a support spec for the pure dps, similar to how RIFT classes were designed......but it would just look odd to see a rogue tank or a mage healer. I am probably biased in thinking that a Shaman tank seems more plausible, but I have not really seen pure dps ask to heal or tank while there is a pretty solid group of Shaman who wish to tank.

[DrakeWurrum]

TIf you can play your main, be a tank that can basically carry your group and do fast, smooth runs, roll on gear that would be shared with your enhance spec, would you not do that as well?

Sure I would.

But you can't count me, because I already tank on my Druid alt. The result: Lose one Druid tank, gain one Shaman tank, thus queue times stay the same.

People who don't tank on their alts won't give a shit.


Also: there is no hybrid tax.

---------- Post added 2012-02-22 at 05:26 PM ----------

there would be a % of Shaman who used to dps or heal that have switched to tanking.

And that percentage would be extremely small when you consider it as a percentage of the WoW population. Queue times would not be affected largely enough for anybody to notice actual results.

[Endus]

If I took a census of all the tanks in the game right now (based on people's main character/spec), then added a 4th tank spec for shaman, and took a census again tommorow, there would be a % of Shaman who used to dps or heal that have switched to tanking.....NOT a prot warr switching to a prot shaman, but a resto shaman switching to a prot shaman. So you would actually gain tanks in the game.

Except that, since the equation matters most for 5-mans, you're dealing with a certain percentage of the population who only tank because there's Call to Arms rewards for doing so.

If you add more Shaman tanks because there's a small percentage of Shaman players who want to tank but have no tank alt they're currently tanking with, you're not creating more tank positions to fill, meaning you're just going to end up convincing more DPS-focused warriors and paladins and death knights and druids to not bother swapping to tank because the Call to Arms isn't up for tanks today.

And I'm sure 100% of those prot shaman have an alt tank that they used to tank with, but now that their main can tank they will just tank with the shaman, and their alt tank use for alt guild runs or farming lfg or whatever.

If those prot shaman already have an alt they use to tank, then adding a Shaman spec does NOT add a tank to the population. This is where you contradict your own point. Any given player is only playing one tank at a time.

People keep saying that, but Shaman is already a hybrid with a support role, we suffer the hybrid tax.

The hybrid tax is a design principle they abandoned in TBC. It wasn't a factor in WotLK, and it certainly isn't today.

[DrakeWurrum]

Let's not forget the fact that, if I was able to tank on my Shaman, I likely would stop tanking 5-mans altogether, since I'd instead be getting him off-spec gear from raids.

[Manu9]

For me if shamans could tank, I'd go tank MS, as it is my favorite role, but shaman is my favorite class, so I play a shaman, and we can see that there are more like me, but it doesn't seem enough to warrant the trouble of making a fourth spec for shamans in blizzards eyes, or as it seems a chunk of the community.

[Sidorenko]

Please for the love of god, let this idea just die

[Hctaz]

Just make shaman have a 4th spec like druids. I can understand why Blizzard wouldn't want to do this but if you think about it the one thing shamans are missing is a predominantly earth shaman. Resto is water, Enhance is air, elemental is fire (at least according to the Ascendant ability). Earth as tank makes sense.

[franckgod]

HELL yes, I love tanking, but I love my shaman, personally I never used or touched the enhancement spec, changing it to a tanking spec would mean I have 3 spec I can use instead of 2, so PERFECT !!!!

[MestHoop]

No, not gonna happen. Enhancement is melee DPS and considering the fact that they're splitting the feral tree into feral and guardian, that killed any last shred of chance that they might change enhancement. Which they said they wouldn't turn into a tank anyway.

Someone in this thread must've said it already, but I'll go ahead anyway: The only reason why enhancement used to have some "tanky talents" was to make them more like paladins, seeing as each faction only had either class in vanilla. This was since then rectified when TBC hit (where most of them were shifted into more survivability/PvP talents).

[Protoman]

For me if shamans could tank, I'd go tank MS, as it is my favorite role, but shaman is my favorite class, so I play a shaman, and we can see that there are more like me, but it doesn't seem enough to warrant the trouble of making a fourth spec for shamans in blizzards eyes, or as it seems a chunk of the community.

Sigh yea....curse you Blizzard and your damnable laziness!!! And curse you Drake and Endus....you dream crushers!!!

Just make shaman have a 4th spec like druids. I can understand why Blizzard wouldn't want to do this but if you think about it the one thing shamans are missing is a predominantly earth shaman. Resto is water, Enhance is air, elemental is fire (at least according to the Ascendant ability). Earth as tank makes sense.

I have thought the same thing. Earth element would be perfect for tanking.

If those prot shaman already have an alt they use to tank, then adding a Shaman spec does NOT add a tank to the population. This is where you contradict your own point. Any given player is only playing one tank at a time.

Like I said before, I agree with you that people who don't tank will not magically start tanking if they introduce a new tank spec like prot shaman, or a new tank class like Monks. I don't expect people to convert. But if you are just looking at the MAIN CLASS people play, like I play my Shaman, if they added a tank spec I would shift my main role from heal/dps to tank. In my guild, instead of having me as heals or dps I would be tanking. They have lost a healer/dps, but have gained a tank. And I still have my prot warr backup if they need yet another tank for an alt run. I went from playing primarily a healer to a tank, and play 2 tank classes now instead of just 1 (my warrior).

If you add more Shaman tanks because there's a small percentage of Shaman players who want to tank but have no tank alt they're currently tanking with, you're not creating more tank positions to fill, meaning you're just going to end up convincing more DPS-focused warriors and paladins and death knights and druids to not bother swapping to tank because the Call to Arms isn't up for tanks today.

Call of Arms isn't the only reason people tank. I personally tank cause I like quick runs and I know the pulls and how to deal with bosses, plus can make sure I interrupt and stuff.

I'm not entirely sure what your point is here though. If I do 10 lfg runs, 5 as my shaman, and 5 as my warrior.....I only tank for half of those runs. If I had a prot shaman, I would be filling the tank role for all 10 runs. I would not be doing all 10 runs on my warrior, cause my Shaman is my main and he needs his JP or whatever.

Are you saying that because I choose to tank on my Shaman, some other tank spec would just dps instead? That sounds like an assumption....I'm sure those players would still checkmark tank and dps and most likely be called on to tank still.....so you would indeed have more tanks in the general pop....atleast for those 5 runs I do as my Shaman, who previously could not tank.

Whenever I say that you would have more tanks que'ing if shaman could tank, you guys say no, because you tank on your warrior alt. I am not talking about my alt tho, I am talking about my main.

[Dustlock]

I would severely prefer a fourth specialization like druids, rather than ruin the enhancement specialization...

[Yogurthewise]

I think there are still remnants on gear when Shamans were seen as potential off tanks back in Vanilla with some +def/+dodge gear and set bonus like the Scholomance set. Shamans could do it in TBC as well, I remember running H Mech with a Shaman tank on a whim when we needed it for our daily...

I mean, even the current (new) Rockbiter is weird at this point in time.

Rockbiter Weapon
8% of base mana
Instant
Requires Melee Weapon
Imbue the Shaman's weapon with the fury of the earth, increasing all threat generation by 30% and reducing damage taken by 5%. Lasts 30 minutes.

I think thats just for queing as a tank for the lower end dungeons.

[Endus]

Sigh yea....curse you Blizzard and your damnable laziness!!! And curse you Drake and Endus....you dream crushers!!!

Don't get me wrong; if I could spec Elemental/Earthguard, I totally would. I got burned out of healing in TBC, but still enjoy tanking. I'm not attacking the IDEA of Shaman tanking, just the specific argument that adding that spec would somehow have any noticeable effect on the population of tanks in the game.

I don't see adding Monks to be anything that will improve it either, but I'm also really looking forward to them.

[Deleted]

I think the shaman class needs an overhaul, nothing massive. Even though enhancement is the fun-est spec evah!

First of, we should have 4 specs. Those 4 specs have core abilities and spec specific Grace's from elements with an according visual coolness...
The Grace's work like Shadowform.

Elemental - Grace of Fire. (Visual: Your char is on fire! can be glyphed to increase/reduce flames of fury!)
Grants the buffs that ele can provide, increases spell damage. using certain spells in this Grace grants Fire "Maelstrom", which changes your next LB & CL into an upgraded fiery version. (works kinda like the mage's arcane missiles/Dk's Rime?)

Enhancement - Grace of Air. (Visual: Your char is semi-invisible and you leave wind tracks)
Grants the buffs that enh can provide, increasing spell/melee dmg. you have chance that the Grace grants Air "Maelstrom", just makes the same spells instant as in live. When Grace of Air is activated you get an instant spell, Wind Walk, that causes you to be quick (15% run speed) and untargetable by ranged attacks. This spell breaks after you engage combat. When engaged combat, your next stormstrike does extra damage and unleashes the windfury effect + gives you instantly a full 5 stack "Air" maelstrom. Wind Walk is castable in combat, has a mediocre CD. this spell persists when you attack, an not when being attacked.

Restoration - Grace of Water. (Visual: Your arms/hand are covered with a sort of magic water that form a cyclone around them. Best visualization lol?)
Grants the buffs that resto can provide, increasing spellpower/healing. Heal crits in this Grace grants Water "Maelstrom", once you reach 3/5 stacks has no timer - disperses after the use of a spell, your healing wave and chain healing become stronger and visually different.
Healing Wave - increases healing and makes the target regenerate HP and MP. (visual: a pool of water emerges from the ground where the target stands and rise up to form a watery shield -> re-skin of pala bubble.
Chain Healing - increases healing slightly. Instead of a chain, you throw a huge water orb at your target, it then jumps quickly between the lowest hp, and returns to you, healing you too.

Warden - Grace of Earth. (Visual: Your armor (+cloak) is covered with enhanced earth, your shield has rock spikes, the amount of rock spikes differ from shield to shield, perhaps makes you look like stone golem version of your race with flamey eyes?)
Grants armor and vengeance. provides respected buffs increases threat.

New Abilities:
Shield Quake - Slam your target with your shield. increasing block chance for x seconds. high threat. 15s CD
Solid State - Causes you to strengthen yourself with solid enhanced rock that reduces dmg taken by 20%. causes immunity to stun/knockback effects.
Primal Strike - Cause x dmg. moderate threat.
Earthen Slice - progressively high hitting ability, only available at earth maelstroms. 1 maelstrom 110% 2 Maelstrom 130% 3 Mealstrom*
Earthslide - instant AoE effect that causes low dmg and high threat, pulls your enemies slowly towards yourself. 25s CD
Rockspike - Stuns your target, if target is immune it increases dmg for 20% for 10s. stun lasts 15s PvE.
Rock shelter - you create a shelter that reduces AoE dmg taken by you and raid/party members by x%. instant cast. 2-3min Cd


*Primal Strike grants you the Earth "Maelstrom" up to 3 stacks. every stack grants increased dmg + threat. Upon reaching the third stack,
- Shield Quake becomes an AoE effect, increasing block chance by 50% for x seconds.
- Earthen Slice at 3 stack allows you to deal 150% dmg + it absorbs dmg for x% dmg dealt.





Just an idea.

[Teriz]

I think what Endus has been almost saying, but hasn't quite said directly is this: People who like to tank are going to tank, it doesn't matter how many classes can tank. People who don't like to tank aren't going to tank, it still doesn't matter how many classes can.

You'll get some movement. Current tanks may try out another tanking class. Some people who play a class that gains the ability to tank might try it (which is what this thread is about?). But mostly, people who like to tank are already doing it.

People who like to tank, tank on the characters they like to play as. Case in point, I like to DPS and Heal on my Shaman, but I don't like to DPS on a Rogue or Mage, or heal with a Paladin or a Priest. The same applies for tanking, because if the Shaman class could tank, I'd be doing that as well.

Obviously, some people are completists and enjoy tanking on every spec that can tank. However, there's another subset of players that only level a 1-2 characters to max level and stop there, because that's the only class they like in the game. My Shaman is my only 85 for example, and its probably going to stay that way unless the Monk catches my interest like the Shaman did.

[Endus]

People who like to tank, tank on the characters they like to play as. Case in point, I like to DPS and Heal on my Shaman, but I don't like to DPS on a Rogue or Mage, or heal with a Paladin or a Priest. The same applies for tanking, because if the Shaman class could tank, I'd be doing that as well.

Obviously, some people are completists and enjoy tanking on every spec that can tank. However, there's another subset of players that only level a 1-2 characters to max level and stop there, because that's the only class they like in the game. My Shaman is my only 85 for example, and its probably going to stay that way unless the Monk catches my interest like the Shaman did.

The majority of people who "like to tank" but only have 1-2 characters would have rolled a tank class for one of those two characters.

Otherwise, we're not talking about people who "like to tank", but people who "might, someday, maybe like to tank, if it's no big deal, maybe, kinda".

If you don't like any other classes in the game, to use your own example, you don't like tanking in WoW. Maybe monk tanking would change that, but Blizzard's gone to some length describing the necessary similarity between all tank classes (all need vengeance, all need relatively similar damage reduction, all need a taunt, all need on-demand DR increases on similar CDs, etc).

And even if monk (or Shaman) tanking WAS that perfect mix that wins you over, there's a Warrior or Paladin or DK or Druid out there who looks at his LFD queue and doesn't see a tank Call to Arms since you filled the last spot, so he queues as DPS since the only reason he queues as a tank is for that satchel.


It's like if role needs were pools, and players were swimmers. The DPS pool always has a lineup. The tank pool is usually open for business, but it's a salt water pool and most people don't want that. So they start offering free drinks (Call to Arms), and some of the DPS poolgoers decide they can deal with the salt water for the free drinks.

Now, the tank pool staff isn't stupid. if it's full enough, they stop offering free drinks. If a few Shaman Tanks show up to enjoy the salty goodness, that trickle of people who prefer the DPS pool are going to see the "NO FREE DRINKS" sign go up, say "screw it", and go back to their lineup for their preferred pool because the wait's not THAT bad.

End result; the tank pool remains at about the same occupancy. Even if there are enough Shaman players, who want to tank in exactly the way Shamans would tank but hate all other tank classes, to statistically matter, which isn't a given.

[Arinnaya]

You're also making numerous assumptions about the design of a spec that doesn't exist. Blizzard would not design the spec to be similar to Enhancement because, again, Blizzard likes unique playstyles.
What gives you the impression there would be a maelstrom weapon? Or Windfury? Or Lightning Shield? It's more likely that Blizzard would use entirely new mechanics. Rockbiter is being removed completely, but if there was a tank spec it would likely be completely redesigned. A new imbue, just for them, a new elemental shield, just for them. A completely different mechanic that prevents the tank Shaman spec from chain-casting spells (especially the Shaman healing spells), while still allowing the tank Shaman to at least make some usage of Lightning Bolt. (hell, with how specializations work in MoP, I can imagine them simply getting a different version of the Lightning Bolt spell that has a cooldown)

Stop talking about "assumptions" - Shaman tanking doesn't exist in any form, so there's no right or wrong. Dismissing every single idea because it's an assumption kills discussion.

Wrong. Absolutely wrong.

Proof: Three tank specs were added in Wrath. Number of tanks did not increase. Endus has covered this, twice.

I play a Shaman as a main. If that Shaman could tank, I would tank on it. That is at least one more tank in the system regularly.

The "lack of tanks" at the 5-man heroic level (the only level that lacks tanks - LFR tank queues will show you that there are too many tanks), has everything to do with the fact that people don't LIKE tanking 5-man heroics. It has nothing to do with the playstyle of an individual tank.

%age of group as tanks: 5 man = 20% (1 tank/5 players), 25 man = 8% (2 tanks/2 players). From this we can reasonably deduce that the number of tanks in the playerbase is between 8-20%. Care to back up your assumption that people don't like tanking 5-mans with some evidence?

If they want to tank, they'll pick a tank that already exists, and go post on the forums about the things they want Blizz to fix.

Or, if they're like me, they'll enjoy tanking and naturally prefer to lead, but overwhelmingly prefer their existing class, partly through time invested but also partly because of playstyle and get enough enjoyment out of healing or dps to do those jobs. Like I said, if my Shaman could tank, she would be doing so regularly. You're now the one making assumptions.

This is absolutely not true, and we know this, because Blizzard tried that, and it didn't work.

In TBC, there weren't enough tanks running around, and it's no coincidence that the new hero class in WotLK was the Death Knight, with not one, but three fully capable tank specs.

And the result, to the community? No more tanks than there had been before. The lack of tanks (for 5-mans, mostly) remained a serious issue, and it wasn't until they added Call to Arms for roles on LFG that they actually made a dent in the problem.

Adding tank specs does nothing at all to the number of tanks in the game, because the one constant factor is not the number of tank specs, but the number of tank players. I have a paladin I tank on when I want to. All adding a tank spec to Shaman would do is give me greater freedom with my main. Nor would it have any significant effect on the community; the number of players who are die-hard only-ever-a-Shaman players who want to tank and can't because of that self-enforced choice is vanishingly small, and what little effect it would have would be negated by other players feeling less obligated to tank as often.

The end result? Same number of tanks. Just a wider variety.

Which is a legitimate reason, in and of itself. But if they're going to add a spec to Shaman, they may as well add a new spec to everyone.

Disagree until someone can show me tanking numbers. Like I said above, when there's more tanks required (as a percentage) in 5-mans than in raids, it's always going to cause problems, because gearing two specs takes longer than gearing one (and people will naturally gear their raiding spec before their 5-man offspec).

One of the main problems with the Death Knight was specifically that there was no clear tanking spec - you had to know your stuff to put together a proper DK tank-spec (like how many people knew the 5-5-5 rule?) which is a barrier to entry for new players. In addition, there was a lot of misinformation (e.g. Frost is the tank spec) which can be offputting for people.

It's not that I am a "die-hard Shaman" who refuses to play other classes - I've got loads of alts, the problem is one of time. My Paladin and Druid tanks can't really tank DS right now because I hardly ever play those character, my shaman is the one that gets all the attention because of my limited time to play. Valor-capping every week and raiding every week would mean I'd pick up a decent tank set quickly as a Shaman.

There were no queues back in TBC. It was hard to get groups due to the lack of tanks/healers.
In WotLK, they added DKs, and eventually the LFG tool. DKs did nothing to fix the dearth of tanks. LFG didn't help either, but cross-realm LFG helped reduce times overall.
In Cata, they didn't add any new tank specs, but they DID add Call to Arms to reward people more for playing needed roles. THIS is what dropped queue times from 40m+ to 20m or less. Because while you can't add more tank players, you CAN convince people to switch to a tank spec for additional rewards.

Adding tank specs does NOT make for more tanks. Just more variety among tanks. We've gone down that road, and we KNOW it doesn't work. This is also why the problem didn't get worse when they made Blood the DK tank spec, and removed tanking from the other two.

The idea that adding a tank spec to the game would improve the ratio of tanks to other roles is outright false. They tested that, and it did not work. We know this, and perpetuating an incorrect assumption helps nothing.

There's value in increasing the variety of tanks, which is a valid reason to want a Shaman tank. But that's it.

Come on, you must be aware you're oversimplifying here. It was hard to get groups in BC because some people required pally tank + healer + 3 mages for Magister's Terrace. Not just that, but you're spamming in trade only on your server hoping to find someone. The level of difficulty of some of the heroics in BC meant that your group would sometimes have to be well put-together to stand a chance, which turns a lot of people off (I remember having to enslave a demon in MgT, use her CC on another and then banish an imp all in one pull on my Warlock - horrible stuff). The only people that could get away with not using huge amounts of CC were people who raided and therefore already had access to other players. Finding a group for the daily heroic was MUCH easier in WotLK than it was in BC - I'm not going to say it's all because of DK tanks, but that was a contributory factor. At the very least, until you can prove to me that there weren't an increased number of tanks, I'm going to continue believing, and saying, that DKs had some influence on the number of tanks, even if it didn't SOLVE the problem. Given that LFG came AFTER Death Knights you can't account for any effect on queue timers unlike Call to Arms. Can you show any evidence that adding DKs didn't add more tanks? Or are you only basing it on the fact that there was still a shortage of tanks? Can you prove (or even just show evidence) that there were NO NEW TANKS in WotLK? Right now it sounds like you're assuming that it had ZERO effect because it didn't COMPLETELY solve the problem of tank shortage.

You can disagree all you want, it won't change the facts. A person who likes to DPS will like to DPS because of what DPS do, and a player that likes to tank will like to tank because of what tanks do. One person isn't going to suddenly decide they like being a tank just because of a new class.
Again, look at what happened with DKs. A lot of players new to the class decided to try tanking as DK, thinking maybe it would be new enough for them to like tanking.
It didn't turn out all that well. There were a lot of players who sucked at it, for one. For another, a lot of players didn't enjoy tanking, and the result was that they kept playing as DK... but as DPS. Or they only played as a tank in 5-mans in order to get quick groups so they could steal DPS gear from everybody else (and then once they had everything they needed, they STOPPED TANKING). Dunno about you, but I don't want THOSE kind of tanks, especially when both of my raiding toons use Agi gear, considering the new tank class will use Agi gear.

Dicks will always be dicks, but for the people that sucked, part of that was because it wasn't easy to tell where tanking ended and dps started - there was TOO MUCH freedom for people trying tanking for the first time. With a dedicated spec, I believe that more monk tanks will stick around than DK tanks - yes some players simply won't like it and stop, but if players are given more help as to what to do (and I believe that new people playing as monks will get that help) then people have a chance to ease into tanking.

Death Knights were insanely popular, too. It did not make any significant difference, even when all three specs were tank specs.

By the same token I can say that all three of the specs were DPS specs... not a convincing argument here.

Reality isn't a place where you can just say "agree to disagree" when someone is citing hard facts at you. Reality isn't up for debate. It is not subject to your decision to agree with it. I'm not making a claim, I'm stating demonstrable fact.

Care to show us these "hard facts?" - I've seen your CtA making an improvement, and I don't disagree with you there - adding CtA reduced queues. But you keep talking about BC->early Wrath tank numbers, but you're not showing me any numbers.


Anyway, there seem to be a mindset that if Shaman tanks didn't COMPLETELY AND ENTIRELY solve the tank-shortage problem then it's not worth doing. However, what I'm saying is that an increase in tanks (and despite the protests to the contrary, there would be SOME increase in tanking) will cause a decrease in queue times. It might only be a 1 minute decrease in queue time, but it's still a decrease, and therefore, to me, still worth doing. Yes some people will only switch from one tank to another, but there will be some people who a) switch from a dps/healing spec on Shaman to tank b) decide that since Shaman tanking is new, they're going try it. Of group b) not all of them will remain tanks, but some of them WILL enjoy it and therefore stay tanking in some form.

---------- Post added 2012-02-23 at 10:13 AM ----------

And even if monk (or Shaman) tanking WAS that perfect mix that wins you over, there's a Warrior or Paladin or DK or Druid out there who looks at his LFD queue and doesn't see a tank Call to Arms since you filled the last spot, so he queues as DPS since the only reason he queues as a tank is for that satchel.

Completely wrong, he either continues to queue as a tank because the queue is much faster, or if he's only there for the bag then he simply doesn't queue. Even if there's no call to arms bag available, the tank queue is still just about instant. Noone who needs that heroic is going to wait 10-15+ minutes for his valor points/gear/achievements/whatever he's running for. If he's only there for the bag then no bag = no queue. However, this has two points 1) he doesn't increase the timers by queuing as dps 2) if the bag is available later then he will run then. This means you have some tanks who will run heroics WHEN THEY'RE NEEDED MOST. How can that not be a benefit overall?

[Deleted]

Don't get me wrong; if I could spec Elemental/Earthguard, I totally would. I got burned out of healing in TBC, but still enjoy tanking. I'm not attacking the IDEA of Shaman tanking, just the specific argument that adding that spec would somehow have any noticeable effect on the population of tanks in the game.

I don't see adding Monks to be anything that will improve it either, but I'm also really looking forward to them.

I agree with that. I even think that if every class had a tanking spec we would barely notice a difference in the amount of tanks vs dps.

[Endus]

Completely wrong, he either continues to queue as a tank because the queue is much faster, or if he's only there for the bag then he simply doesn't queue.

I already linked the proof; everyone was saying queue times dropped by half or more due to the addition of Call to Arms, for DPS.

The ONLY reason that could happen was if the addition of Call to Arms increased the number of tanks queueing up.

In other words, the satchel and ONLY the satchel was the entire reason. A whole bunch of tanks who did NOT queue as tanks for the faster queue times they could have had, suddenly were for the satchel.

The evidence is crystal clear on this. The satchel convinces people to tank who otherwise wouldn't. More tanks queueing means less tank Call to Arms meaning less tanks queueing. It's a self-regulating system by design.

[Arinnaya]

I already linked the proof; everyone was saying queue times dropped by half or more due to the addition of Call to Arms, for DPS.

The ONLY reason that could happen was if the addition of Call to Arms increased the number of tanks queueing up.

In other words, the satchel and ONLY the satchel was the entire reason. A whole bunch of tanks who did NOT queue as tanks for the faster queue times they could have had, suddenly were for the satchel.

The evidence is crystal clear on this. The satchel convinces people to tank who otherwise wouldn't. More tanks queueing means less tank Call to Arms meaning less tanks queueing. It's a self-regulating system by design.

Read my point again, and read the bit of your post I quoted back.

You said that he would queue as a DPS, I'm saying he doesn't queue at all.

Either way it's irrelevant because the proof I'm looking for from you is to back up your claim that the introduction of Death Knights did not create any new tanks. I agree that the CtA reduced queue times for DPS, that's not my argument. My argument is that the addition of DKs DID increase the number of tanks. You keep saying that it didn't, stating explicitly as a fact, yet you have no evidence to back this point up. Stop focusing on Call to Arms, because that's not where I'm arguing.