Blizzard wants tank specs to be viable; massive mistake?

[morislayer]

I haven't heard of any limitation in that. From what I have heard, it is supposed to be instant change with only the combat limitation while using the exact same gear and PvE viable DPS.

If it makes it out of beta at all, that will be a massive failure on blizzards part, it should be its own spec, not just a stance. If it does make it out of beta, you can expect massive complaints from all the players who don't keep track of the changes and see that travesty hit live, especially the old school ferals who are still playing. If it goes live as is, it will make it massively OP.

Yes, that is why I asked the question. I had no problems with this talent, in fact I wanted it to go to my Blood DK and Prot Paly for solo-ing. Then after reading this thread I thought back to wrath and TBC when I would do bg's on my bear and I would just hold flags / bases and dps as cat every so often. Especially since PVP gear was amazing for feral tanks.

Back then, in tank gear I didn't do squat for damage but having a viable dps and a viable tank all it one spec is exactly what blizz destroyed feral for.

[Fugus]

Yes, that is why I asked the question. I had no problems with this talent, in fact I wanted it to go to my Blood DK and Prot Paly for solo-ing. Then after reading this thread I thought back to wrath and TBC when I would do bg's on my bear and I would just hold flags / bases and dps as cat every so often. Especially since PVP gear was amazing for feral tanks.

Back then, in tank gear I didn't do squat for damage but having a viable dps and a viable tank all it one spec is exactly what blizz destroyed feral for.

Yep, the whole thing is a giant middle finger to old school ferals. They actually have had 2 or 3 actual threads popping up in the druid section of the forums over just this. The newer druids or the guys who played as balance or resto don't see the resemblance while the actual old school ferals see it and are very much annoyed by it.

As for the main topic of this thread, there is only one way to make them all viable in everything.

1) DPSers would have to have nothing but DPS abilities and cool downs, no defensive ones or healing ones, not even passives. No crowd control at all.
2) Healers would have to have nothing but heals and defensive cool downs, no major offensive abilities or crowd control at all.
3) Tanks would have to have no healing or offensive abilities or cool downs at all and would be the only ones to have crowd control.

Or in other words.

DPS == DPS and DPS only.
Healers == Healing and defensive cool downs only.
Tanks == Mitigation and Crowd Control only.

That is the only way they could get what they are asking for and it would ruin most classes further than they already have.

[Deleted]

So first Blizzard makes tank specs able to do pvp, then they change their minds and force tanks to be just flag carriers, then they change their minds again and put a debuff on tanks who carry flags, then they change their minds once more and want to make tanks able to pvp again.

[Darksoldierr]

On this i agree with literally everyone from AJ to Skillcapped. Tank spec shouldn't be allowed in PvP, period.

[Graeham]

I've always considered it to be a major design flaw for tanks to dish out damage that is equal to or greater than what a character devoted purely to a DPS role can inflict upon an opponent.

[finn]

I've always considered it to be a major design flaw for tanks to dish out damage that is equal to or greater than what a character devoted purely to a DPS role can inflict upon an opponent.

absolutely! it's just plain stupid to see tanks being among the top DPS and healers (in certain encounters). somebody over at blizz invented the wheel'o'silliness for MoP and nobody stopped him from spinning it for over a year as it seems...

bttp: i don't like the idea of tanks being a competitive PvP-role in todays WoW because the gap between PvE and PvP is just enormous, especially for a tank. furthermore, in WoW there are only two distinct roles in PvP: DPS and Heal. in that simpelest of paradigms a tank, someone who should be able suck in a good amount of damage without going down, can never be DPS because that would make DPS redundant; and naturally he can never be a (self-)healer, because that would make him an immortal god or at least some kind of raidboss.

so, for a tank-spec to fulfill an appropriate role there must be created a niche first. i think, that could only be the supporter/debuffer with little DPS and little (self-)healing capabilities. but that would be a hell of a lot of work. many skills which have a function in PvE had to get an appropriate function in PvP ("taunt" comes to mind which would be one of the more easy ones to adjust). on the downside for blizz, that would widen the gap between PvE and PvP, something they really avoid to do if it's not a-freaking-bazillion-% necesary. I really doubt blizz will ever do that just to allow tank-specs to pvp properly.

as long as this two-role-pvp-paradigm exists in WoW, there will be no balanced place for tanks in pvp. they will be eiter absurdly OP or ridiculously UP. and looking back at WoW' pvp history that's exactly what tanks have always been. either ways, it has never been fun for me fighting a tank or fighting as a tank.

[PrairieChicken]

They should just give DPS stance for every tanks. I doubt they will be able to balance the tank specs (it will either be broken or useless).

I think best way is to just eliminate tanks from PVP. They should take 100% extra damage from players

[Mouri Kogorou]

They should just give DPS stance for every tanks. I doubt they will be able to balance the tank specs (it will either be broken or useless).

I think best way is to just eliminate tanks from PVP. They should take 100% extra damage from players

due to bug in beta they were taking 25% less damage instead of 25% more damage.

[Wow]

due to bug in beta they were taking 25% less damage instead of 25% more damage.

Even after the fixed it tanks are still retarded to kill. But thats to be expected as why would 25% do it when for a tank fc to die on live it takes 100-150% dmg increase. It will probably take even more than that since thats wil mop burst with dmg being slower tanks will be even harder to kill even with the same dmg taken.

[Reveries1]

Tanks can stay hard to kill that's fine they just need to make sure they aren't running around doing tons of damage. Properly balance survivability with Damage output.

Its honestly stupid they are leaving the tank Debuff to FC maps. Why would anyone want the tank to get a flag.

[Wow]

Its honestly stupid they are leaving the tank Debuff to FC maps. Why would anyone want the tank to get a flag.

Because it still takes lots of stacks to kill a tank. The new debuff only takes 2 stacks off what it would take so tanks will still be the best.

[clevin]

Why not fix the problems and increase the diversity of specs in pvp? More options leads to more play compositions for arena and group strategy's. I see zero down side to having tanks in pvp if they are adjusted and balanced correctly.

The increase to damage tank specs take directly effects the issues you listed about health and absorbs. as for your unlimited CC comment I don't understand as Tank specs have pretty much the same CC as their DPS counterparts.

To turn that around - why spend time making tank specs viable in PVP when there are a lot of other issues the teams in Blizzard could be working on? Every tank character has two other specs that they can use for PVP, at least one of which is DPS (presuming they don't want to heal if they're a pally).

Insisting that every spec be viable all over (and that they be close to one another, so that viable ends up being 'equal') takes real resources. Even if it doesn't end up being a tradeoff between doing that work and doing something else, it does mean work has to be done and the product can't ship until it's either done to some quality level or explicitly abandoned.

[Reveries1]

To turn that around - why spend time making tank specs viable in PVP when there are a lot of other issues the teams in Blizzard could be working on? Every tank character has two other specs that they can use for PVP, at least one of which is DPS (presuming they don't want to heal if they're a pally).

Insisting that every spec be viable all over (and that they be close to one another, so that viable ends up being 'equal') takes real resources. Even if it doesn't end up being a tradeoff between doing that work and doing something else, it does mean work has to be done and the product can't ship until it's either done to some quality level or explicitly abandoned.

I don't have control over how blizzard spends development time. They made the decision to put the resources into this and I think its a good idea.

This is more about a Role being viable not a spec. The only Tanks you see in pvp really are Guardian druids and that is only BG's and they bring a hard to kill mobile node spinning member to your team. With the changes to tanks they will now bring more damage and its about as good of a time as any to try and give the role itself more significance in all pvp.

IMO a player who enjoys a particular role should not feel they need to change that role to be useful in pvp.

[Dristereau]

If they buff Guardian Druids anymore PVP won't need anything else. Most OP thing in RBGs I've ever seen.

[clevin]

I don't have control over how blizzard spends development time. They made the decision to put the resources into this and I think its a good idea.

This is more about a Role being viable not a spec. The only Tanks you see in pvp really are Guardian druids and that is only BG's and they bring a hard to kill mobile node spinning member to your team. With the changes to tanks they will now bring more damage and its about as good of a time as any to try and give the role itself more significance in all pvp.

There's no difference in WoW between role and spec, at least not in current content. Sure, if you overgear something you can heal it or tank it in an off spec, but in current content with appropriate gear you spec for the role you play.

The problem with tanks in PVP is that it's a role that makes little sense outside of being 'the high survivability person.' Tanks in WoW are a role that is designed to attract a threat away from the tank's fellow players and onto the tank. That necessitates ways to survive a lot of damage in concert with being healed effectively and that works fine in PVE since you can use artificial taunt mechanics. Taunts make no real sense, but the AIs in WoW are trained to react as if the mere act of taunting was a much more serious threat that the healer or the players actually hitting the monster. Players, of course, are smarter than this... taunts don't work on them.

So what are you left with? You can make a high survivability character but the players will CC or kill the tank's healer. At that point, the tank needs to be killable and not have such high mitigation or self-healing that they're effectively unstoppable. They also need to trade off damage, but not so much that they can be ignored as a threat to the attacking players.

IMO a player who enjoys a particular role should not feel they need to change that role to be useful in pvp.

Why not? Constraints are part of any good game design and not everything should necessarily be equal. I've never really understood people who have 3 specs and just flat out refuse to use more than one in any aspect of the game.

[Yoshimiko]

For the record: PVP specs were viable before. Anyone remember African turtle cleave(Hunter, Prot warrior, healer)? Prot Warrior Arms warrior Holy Paly? or triple dps comps that used prot pallies(especially prot pally fire mage demo lock)? Tank druids were viable til this expansion. Blood DK wasn't as popular, but it was still seen in the duelist range occasionally.

It wasn't an issue then, just the idea of them being viable isn't enough to deem them OP. Prot Warriors were often the target of Wizard cleaves in ATC. Prot Pallies weren't actually that hard to take down. Blood DKs were annoying, but easily kited. They brought things to each of these teams but had glaring weaknesses.

[Reveries1]

My point about Role is its effecting all specs that play that role.

There are multiple ways they could go about incorporating tanks into pvp. They currently seem to be trying to make them be DPS with lower damage but higher survivability. Personally I am not a fan because they lose the tank feel. Another way like I mentioned at some point in this thread is to make changes to taunt to allow it be used against players (Targets damage dealt is directed to you for the next 6 seconds) type deal.

[Aqueous]

Tanks will never be balanced in PvP as long as they operate as tanks. They will either be useless or overpowered.

[clevin]

My point about Role is its effecting all specs that play that role.

There are multiple ways they could go about incorporating tanks into pvp. They currently seem to be trying to make them be DPS with lower damage but higher survivability. Personally I am not a fan because they lose the tank feel. Another way like I mentioned at some point in this thread is to make changes to taunt to allow it be used against players (Targets damage dealt is directed to you for the next 6 seconds) type deal.

Sure, they could. But why make it a focus of their work at this point in WoD's release? It feels like a nice to have thing vs an OMG we can't ship without this thing. People who play tanks now could PVP as DPS or heals and if they really want to pursue this, they could patch it in. Also, making taunts work isn't a good idea since 1) it's a CC and we have too many of these and 2) taunt is a silly mechanism anyway. It's needed in PVE where they have the trinity idea so deeply ingrained but forcing a player to lose their intelligence and attack a player who's not the main threat is just... off.

[Yvaelle]

Tanks in PvP seems like a huge mistake to me - it really adds very little to the game, and messes up the meta a lot. Plus, all previous times tanks have been viable in PvP - it's been OP as sin.

It's clearly hard enough for them to balance DPS across their sustain, burst, CC, mobility, anti-CC, and survivability - and balance healers across their instant burst, mana regen, sustained healing, CC, anti-CC, mobility, and survivability. Why add back a whole new archetype of mess - when they can't even handle DPS+Healer balance as is?

They're biting off more than they can chew.