What makes a boss "fun" to tank?

[Raxxed]

You know, I think you might be on to something, OP. That it was the design of the raid encounters and what tanks were asked to do, is what made tanking fun. Looking back at the Cataclysm raids, I can list some encounters that I really enjoyed tanking.
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Tier 11 was hands down my favorite tier to raid this expansion. Tanks were given a lot to do, whether it be kiting, interrupting, or just plain positioning. As the expansion progressed, the tanking requirements became more and more simplified. Firelands had some interesting mechanics on some fights, but the tanks weren't really engaged as much as they were in T11. Alysrazor was fun to tank, but for different reasons. And then we get to T13, where seemingly the raid devs have just given up on engaging the tanks.

My view might be a bit skewed seeing as I play a Blood DK, which is arguably the most "active" tank currently. I think that's the reason I'm able to put up with the drudgery of Dragon Soul to be honest, because while DS is boring, I still have to pay attention and time my Death Strikes correctly. Even then though, it's still not engaging to me.

I would hope that they step up the raid design in Mists, because most of T12 and all of T13 were completely awful for tanks. I think the design of the raids, and the role of the tanks in the encounters, is what dictates the fun of tanking, more than anything. They can try this "active mitigation" thing, and that may or may not work out (let's hope it does). But the raid designs need to be engaging if tanks are going to enjoy tanking.

QFT. This guy knows what it's all about. Agree with everything you said in your post.

[Illunis]

I like the idea of a more active tanking style, hopefully it will be more fun come MoP. I've been really loving the active 'tanking' style of my monk in DIII, which would be the same type thing as an active mitigation tanking in wow I presume.

Speculation aside, no boss mechanics have really wowed me as of late. I rather enjoyed Alysrazor on my fire mage, but beyond that, the only fight I've found remotely entertaining is madness heroic, just from a raid leading point of view.

Don't get me wrong, I still have fun with the game, and love playing it, but I haven't had anything super spectacular that's made me go 'Wow, that's really cool.' When it comes to a boss encounter, in any role, tank dps or heals.

I suppose just making the fight more interactive at every standpoint would be cool. Though it would take some major tweaking rotation wise for most people who don't have a mobile way of dpsing, to make sure everyone is viable.

[Letharg]

I have never been a fan of tanking because I found most fights to be boring as hell but I always liked those where movement and positioning are needed or helping the group.
Standing still and pushing your aggro/only caring for cooldowns is boring imho and I really hated it in Wotlk when your life was always either full or near death and you couldnt really time your cooldowns in a lot of fights so this got better in Cata but only watching your cds is boring, too.

In my opinion in most fights tank was the easiest Class to play but that showed in fights where the tank really had to do something. Maloriak hc as an example. After we killed him we still wiped whole evenings on him when we had the "wrong" tank with us to kite his adds but those are the fights that are Fun to tank for me.
Alysrazor is also a very fun fight for tanks because it is something totally different but its not something you want (or will) see in every raid.

tl;dr: Movement and positioning/ gathering and kiting adds without losing aggro and such things are fun. Standing still and mashing your buttons is not!

[Durchfall]

You know, I think you might be on to something, OP. That it was the design of the raid encounters and what tanks were asked to do, is what made tanking fun. Looking back at the Cataclysm raids, I can list some encounters that I really enjoyed tanking.

Tier 11:
Omnotron Defense System - Moving Arcanotron out of the puddles, moving Toxitron out of the fartgas, moving away from whoever was targeted by Magmatron, watching out for Lightning Conductor on Electron; all positional based mechanics. The shield mechanic that required damage to stop, too, was another mechanic I liked. Especially as a Blood DK, when timing your Death Strikes was crucial.
Maloriak - There's a bit of positional stuff in P1, but the real meat of it comes in P2. Suddenly you're strafing out of Magma Jets, making sure you don't hit the raid at the same time, and watching out for Frost Bombs as well. Very active and engaging encounter.
Nefarian - Nefarian was an incredibly demanding fight for the tanks, and it was amazing. Ony tank had to turn her at the right time so she wouldn't spray the raid with lightning. Phase 2 was complete and utter chaos. Pink fire everywhere, offtank kiting adds and trying to maneuver around the fire, Nef tank slowly rotating Nef... Really really fun fight.
Halfus - This was a bit dependent on what drakes were up that week, but there was still a lot going on that the tanks had to pay attention to. If Fireball Barrage was up, positioning became super super important. Even more so during Furious Roar, because you'd get knocked down.
Ascendant Council - Probably my favorite fight in Bastion of Twilight. Phase 1 didn't really have too much going on, but Phase 2 and 3 were nuts. Maneuvering around trying to get Grounded or Swirling Winds was fun. The Terrastra tank had to be super careful about the spikes, and the Arion tank had to chase Arion around the entire room. And then Phase 3, when you had to move the Monstrosity out of the puddles. Very fun fight.
Conclave of Wind - The platform switching was pretty fun, having the tanks swap the two bosses back and forth. Moving Anshal out of the pacifying circles and moving out of the ice patches on Nezir was fun.

Tier 12:
Shannox - Shannox was fun, if you were the Riplimb tank. Especially on Heroic. Making sure he got trapped, getting enough distance to reset your stacks, all very fun.
Alysrazor - Alysrazor was a very different kind of fight for Tanks, where we effectively became dps. That was super fun, and hadn't really been done before, I don't think.
Baleroc - Baleroc was a fun fight for me, despite it being completely standstill. Being a Blood DK meant that I would get ridiculously huge Death Strike heals and Blood Shields. I also have tanked him on my Druid, though, and that wasn't nearly as fun. So a bit of an oddly specific one, but fun nonetheless.
Ragnaros - The Phase transitions were fun to tank, especially the 2nd one. Every tank has some form of utility for handling the Sons, be it Stuns or Deathgrips or whatever. And then when the Scions came out, making sure those were picked up and trying to dps down the Sons at the same time.

I have to agree here, however Council/Conclave would not be on my list. I might get flamed for going back to WoTLK, but even Lich King was extremely fun for me to tank. It required most of what the OP brought up, my guild's strat required a lot of movement and thinking on my feet. Putricide was fun as well for me because of the movement required.

I'm pretty sure Rotface was fun as well simply because I enjoyed running around in a circle kiting those oozes, the Benny Hill theme song played in my head oh so very often.

Most of the T13 boss fights have you standing in roughly the same spot and smashing keys.

[Pua]

I have to agree here, however Council/Conclave would not be on my list. I might get flamed for going back to WoTLK, but even Lich King was extremely fun for me to tank. It required most of what the OP brought up, my guild's strat required a lot of movement and thinking on my feet. Putricide was fun as well for me because of the movement required.

I'm pretty sure Rotface was fun as well simply because I enjoyed running around in a circle kiting those oozes, the Benny Hill theme song played in my head oh so very often.

Most of the T13 boss fights have you standing in roughly the same spot and smashing keys.

Anyone flaming you for liking Arthas will be flaming me, too; I thought it was a far more epic experience than Deathwing ever was, and a far more enjoyable fight to tank. My memory of our first kill is only enhanced to due personal failure on my part when my tanking partner taunted Arthas and said “Zell, any chance you could go pop some spirits?”

The whole raid, concentrating for our first kill, laughed at my “oh, yeah” response and it probably relieved quite a bit of pressure.

If we’re discussing Icecrown Citadel, though, I also enjoyed tanking Professor Putricide – really good laugh.

There does seem to be a recurring theme here though, one that seems to go against what the developers think makes tanking “fun”.

[Deleted]

Well, when I tank I like moving the boss, hence Morchok is pretty high on my like list...

I'm used to fighting for threath since I used to play a feral tank in BC, now its just pala tanking... I didn't really like doing that since before I knew it I was looking more at omen then at anything else.
What I did like tho, was moving the bosses, or at the blades of azzinoth where you had to keep the adds moving while dodging beam of total destruction.

In short tho, I love soaking up big numbers, I love the knowledge that if a mage would stand where I stand then he'd be dead before you could say "lol noob", and I love moving bosses arround the room dodging projectiles.

[Dreyen]

I'll admit though, i really like the activite mitigation in the beta. It's like everytiem you are in danger, you can push your "danger button" at the right time, if rage permits. On my druid, if im near full health, i just use savage defense, granting me 45% moredodge for 6 seconds, if i get mid/low health, i start using frenzied regen to heal up. It might be a low gear thing, but it seems like it takes quite a bit of work from healers to top you back up, so you definitely need to help them with active mitigation. It does feel like youre doing something with your survival, its more than just dpsing the shit out of the boss.

Now i just wish theyd get rid of maul... its a useful tool, some parts i dont need to use active mitigation in the heroics i did, but god damn i have too many buttons i need to push now, they dont even fit on my easy to acess buttons.

[Pua]

I'll admit though, i really like the activite mitigation in the beta. It's like everytiem you are in danger, you can push your "danger button" at the right time, if rage permits. On my druid, if im near full health, i just use savage defense, granting me 45% moredodge for 6 seconds, if i get mid/low health, i start using frenzied regen to heal up. It might be a low gear thing, but it seems like it takes quite a bit of work from healers to top you back up, so you definitely need to help them with active mitigation. It does feel like youre doing something with your survival, its more than just dpsing the shit out of the boss.

Now i just wish theyd get rid of maul... its a useful tool, some parts i dont need to use active mitigation in the heroics i did, but god damn i have too many buttons i need to push now, they dont even fit on my easy to acess buttons.

While this is a perfectly legitimate thing to say, warriors have no such option. We can only mitigate damage in the conventional sense, we can't help the healers to plug the hole left by being hit. We either block some damage or absorb some, and that's it.

For my money, druids are looking far better than warriors at the moment but this really isn't a topic about the whys and wherefores of the AM model - it's about what people find fun to tank during an encounter.

[Dreyen]

I have to admit in quite puzzled at the warrior active mitigation.. the two abilities sound really repetitive to me. Perhaps blizzard expect us to have so much rage at a certain point that we spam both abilities? I doubt so, but druids do have a cap of 60% uptime on savage defense in total (We have 3 charges of savage defense, each charge refreshes itself after 10 seconds, and one charge lasts 6seconds..)

[coocoo]

@OP: [x] Like.
I loved the fights where you had to pay attention to what was going on around you, where to move bosses next, where to drive & move the raid (where to herd the sheep
Fights which required for you to think about positioning, not just for where to place the boss but also for where to place the melee/raid safely for the next moments.
Fights where you had to race against the raid on threat building so the boss wouldn't turn around & turn someone into a roadpizza.
Wrath had a lot of great fights like those, T11 in Cata had some really decent fights which asked for you to focus... Firelands had a few interesting positioning + kiting moments, DS.. not at all for the most part.

It feels like this new active mitigation model is an excuse to make up for removing the threat aspect of the fights, to give us something else to do, but... it doesn't really sound interesting. It sounds/feels more like focusing on tanking being a singular personal responsibility (mash buttons to survive, like dps mash buttons to do damage), instead of being a role where you have to take care of your whole raid & their wellbeing.

6/8 fights in Dragon Soul feel like being a glorified hunter pet that just sits on the boss without caring where the boss is stashed away while you pewpew away.
I sincerely hope that isn't what waits us in Mists.

[Deleted]

Basically anything is more fun than just "taunt at x stacks".

Was going through all of cata bosses and this pretty much summed it up. On my paladin tank I was getting rather bored quickly, since a lot of the stuff is stand there and pop a cd when you up for it (not doing lot of heroic raiding with it anymore tbh). And taunt when other tank has X stacks.
I'm having fun on my tank when they making us do something like - as said multiple times - positioning or adds. Alysrazor heroic was my absolute favorite though that's a bit of a weird case. Still: positioning mattered A LOT there and keeping up a solid rotation to get it down quick enough was also required. Defensive cooldowns weren't that much needed if your positioning was good but there was always the odd "oh ****" moment where you were getting locked in by something so you could use them for that.
On that part atm I'm enjoying tanking more in dungeons than in raids. Trying to see how good you can get your AoE dps up and keep a couple of pug dps nuking something entirely different from getting aggro. I'll take it anyday over a decent amount of raid fights. In DS Morchok is ok on heroic I suppose, rest rather boring (haven't done spine hc yet but looks good fun to tank). Beth'ilac, shannox and rhyolith also had their moments depending on your role. Baleroc was nice to grow huge but after couple of wipes it's pretty much stand there and pop defensives accordingly.