Anyone else considering retireing as tank?

[neanoa]

I've tanked since I was raiding in AQ40. I've been through the good and the bad periods of this class and spec (feral). I always loved my druid and loved tanking with it. But ever since the launch of wotlk our (feral tanks) state just seem to get worse and worse, and I see no signs of Blizzard or Ghostcrawler actually having the slightest clue what they want with us.

If the newest changes on 3.1 PTR goes live we will have seen the following since the time of TBC:

- Reduced healthpools (this and armor was our major "selling points" and compensated the lack of avoidance)
- Reduced armor-amount (also nerfed 2-3 patches in a row now, depending on gear)
- Reduced threat-gen.
- Still by far the worst aoe threatgen (Although it was changed for better, we are still miles behind compared to the 3 other tanks).
- Dumbening of itemization to the point where even a 7yo understands it.

For me they sucked out all the fun. It just leaves me with an empty feeling knowing that the 3 other classes are (when it comes to button-mashing and aoe-tanking) easier to play - and will have more avoidance and similar mitigation/hp. I have already started to dps more and more in 25man raids since wotlk was released, even though I'd prefer to tank. Atm I'm prepared to throw the towel in the ring and just re-gem all my gear for pure dps, and perhaps just make my Dual-Spec resto or pvp instead of my previously planned DPS & Tank setups.

Sure we might still be wanted for tanking in 5 and 10mans where the amount of tanks available in group is limited. But in 25mans - why would you have a druid in bear instead of any of the other 3 tanks? I know the whole bring-the-player-not-the-class drill. But when a class/spec won't be desired because it has nothing unique to offer anymore - why would you take it if you can get someone else and better for the job?

What are your (my fellow druids out there) feelings on this situation we may face?

Late edit: I know we have yet to see Savage Defense in action - but I have very little faith it can make up for what we lose.

[Mimir]

The changes thus far suck as far as mitigation goes, but remember that this is a test realm and they have been known to test things and then realize they're bad decisions. Once the patch gets finalized and the numbers from the spreadsheet crackheads say we're lesser tanks, then I'd freak out.

[Tigercat]

Oh sure, druid tanks have been in SUCH bad shape since wotlk launched.


Brb, making a petition for sarcasm font on these forums.

[Toranshalur]

I'd disagree with that really; tbh feral has never been better than it is now. I've never found threatgen to be a problem - not in terms of numbers anyway (other classes can apply aoe threat in perhaps more useful ways, even if the tps remains roughly equal over time to swipespamming). Savage defense is more scaling, which is always good. Berserk is a great tool for quick threat gain on stuff like maly and sarth drakes where tank tps can be an issue due to the high dps needed.

I dont think the ptr has reduced bear threatgen from what i've read - in fact primal gore should increase it. Really my only concern for feral tanking is dps - warriors seem to be about 300dps ahead of us on patchwerk-like fights (still that might just be gemming choices).

Shockwave, thunderclap, consecration etc are perhaps preferable to (and definately better thought-out than) swipe - due to the bursty nature of sw and tc, and the fire-and-forget nature of consecrate and DnD, but swipe does allow more mobility than cons/dnd and is similar tps when spammed to TC+SW, while benefitting from not having a cooldown to allow easier mob pickups if needed.

As to itemisation being simple; that may be so, but inspect the next few tank druids you seen in dalaran. I guarantee you at least one will have f**ked up gemming. I've seen non sarth3d tanks going for pure stamstacking, expertise gemmed past the hard cap, dodge rating instead of agility, AP instead of mongoose/agi weapon enchants.
Apparently it's not that easy for some people.

[neanoa]

Oh sure, druid tanks have been in SUCH bad shape since wotlk launched.


Brb, making a petition for sarcasm font on these forums.

You are welcome to go read the patchnotes since 3.0. But I guess it's much easier to dismiss everything and just troll. I actually made this thread to hear the oppinions of those who tank as feral - like I do.

I get the sense you are playing a warrior. Not that it matters - your reply is quite useless to me and everyone else reading this thread.

[Tigercat]

Actually, Neanoa, Toranshalur came along and handled what I didn't feel like bothering to type out. What I posted was less about trolling than it was about simply pointing out how ridiculous your claims are without going into details anyone with a brain can figure out for themselves.

Yes, I play a warrior. This is a fairly obvious fact you could have confirmed for yourself with about 30 seconds of browsing my post history. Last I checked, Blizzard was on my side of this little debate, as evidenced by the changes that prompted you to make this little QQ thread.




PS: Opinions*

[Zarcob]

I don't agree with most of your assessments. Druids still have very good threat gen in dps gear. Granted they are losing mitigation and health bonuses that set them apart, but blizzard seems intent to give them a type of shield block to compensate. Even with the nerfs it simply puts them at levels which all other tanks have had for 4 years. It sucks to have all the tanks homogenized but frankly, if the other tanks have managed with those level of stats for 2 expansions then druids can too.

I will say that druid's can't manage more than 3 targets as well as the other tanks. Warriors and DK's have excellent snap AE aggro and paladins still generate the most threat on huge packs over enough time, but I don't know if I'd be ready to jump ship because of that alone. You should give changes a chance before you're ready to begrudge them.

[neanoa]

Actually, Neanoa, Toranshalur came along and handled what I didn't feel like bothering to type out. What I posted was less about trolling than it was about simply pointing out how ridiculous your claims are without going into details anyone with a brain can figure out for themselves.

Yes, I play a warrior. This is a fairly obvious fact you could have confirmed for yourself with about 30 seconds of browsing my post history. Last I checked, Blizzard was on my side of this little debate, as evidenced by the changes that prompted you to make this little QQ thread.

PS: Opinions*

I didn't check up on your profile - simply guessed based on your attitude. And claiming Blizzard is always right about their changes, and haven't made mistakes before when messing with talents, seems pretty ridiculous.

I'd disagree with that really; tbh feral has never been better than it is now. I've never found threatgen to be a problem - not in terms of numbers anyway (other classes can apply aoe threat in perhaps more useful ways, even if the tps remains roughly equal over time to swipespamming). Savage defense is more scaling, which is always good. Berserk is a great tool for quick threat gain on stuff like maly and sarth drakes where tank tps can be an issue due to the high dps needed.

I dont think the ptr has reduced bear threatgen from what i've read - in fact primal gore should increase it. Really my only concern for feral tanking is dps - warriors seem to be about 300dps ahead of us on patchwerk-like fights (still that might just be gemming choices).

Shockwave, thunderclap, consecration etc are perhaps preferable to (and definately better thought-out than) swipe - due to the bursty nature of sw and tc, and the fire-and-forget nature of consecrate and DnD, but swipe does allow more mobility than cons/dnd and is similar tps when spammed to TC+SW, while benefitting from not having a cooldown to allow easier mob pickups if needed.

As to itemisation being simple; that may be so, but inspect the next few tank druids you seen in dalaran. I guarantee you at least one will have f**ked up gemming. I've seen non sarth3d tanks going for pure stamstacking, expertise gemmed past the hard cap, dodge rating instead of agility, AP instead of mongoose/agi weapon enchants.
Apparently it's not that easy for some people.

They nerfed our threat-gen indirectly by reducing damage on Mangle. But the threat-gen is not what concerns me - I could deal with that. My concern is with the outright nerfs to our survivability. If these changes go live we will below the 3 others.

The thought of more nerfs to our already sparse defensive stats, just making me lose the passion I had for this class and role and makes me wonder if I should even bother trying.

[Toranshalur]

But really, what's wrong with nerfing survivability a little? As of pre-3.1 there has been no real test of a tanks survivability power in "normal" tanking gear. There was sarth, which required unusual gearing (and look which class was tanking that) but really no test of a naxx25 geared tank, so we don't have much of an idea which one is best suited to take on a really painful boss.

Don't look at just at numbers, look at the whole picture. For example, you might say "warriors have 10% more avoidance, and druids have 5% more mitigation through armour and 5% more hp, therefore we are equally good tanks". Obviously i'm grossly generalising the situation and choosing numbers out of thin air, but my point is that something like that wouldn't practically make us equal.

Look at what kills tanks, apart from things going wrong like enrage timers. It's unpredictable burst damage. Even with higher avoidance, you're going to receive 5 hits in a row at some point. My argument is that if that's the case, then the best bet is to take the tank which is best to deal with it when it comes - and druids are still that tank.

[TheJester]

i could not agree more with you neanoa!
when i logged in on ptr today after i heard about the nerfs of our healthpool i was shocked..

from a tanking point of view the changes they have made are horrible.. it feels like in a few month all tanks will be equal in stats and abilities
for me it would be totally ok to be a bear with 60k health unbuffed but with only 20% avoidance but please dont put all tanks in a cauldron and start stirring blizz :'(


they took our avoidance..they took our armor..they took our health..but they'll never take...OUR FREEDOM!

[cybor]

As a druid I em pretty much caped with everything, and there is not much that blizz can give us at this point beside more stam and ap. So ya, blizz has to nurf us to make it seem like they r giving us stuff.... in tanking gear in a 25 man I have 47k health, 45% dodge 37% crit with 42k armor, and close to 7 or 8k ap. This is with all buffs plus totems..... What can blizz give us??? It would be nice to be able to parry..

[Rathyl]

This actually has a decent chance to make me retire my druid. I have a warrior as well, and both tank at 80, but I had them both for different reasons. I liked the warrior for my AoE tanking and their different utility(Sunders, demo shout, sanp AoE threat), and I liked the druid for the HP and armor. If druids are brought down though and homogenized, its basically what I play the warrior for, without a lot of benefits.

What gets me the most though is its just more of the same homogenization crap thats also starting to push me away from tanking though, and thats what gets me the most. All of the tanks are just being crammed into the same ideal, and in reality theres scarcely a place where any do anything unique at all. All its starting to come down to is complaints over which tank has more buttons...

[Aristocratic]

I'm not sure why tanks love to compare threat generation against other tanks. Yea, it makes sense to do so on fights like Patchwerk (I've never seen any of the four classes, played right, have an issue on this boss) but it does not in terms of tanking trash. The only time threat generation makes sense as an issue is when dps starts to outthreat the tank. This has never been a problem for any tank in my guild and it looks like it never will be. So, why does this topic come up all the time? Who cares if a warrior or paladin can pull 500 more tps on trash, when you can still hold aggro over 15 or so other people causing a crapload of aoe damage?

[Zhalseran]

You were tanking in Vanilla WoW and you think bears are getting WORSE?

[axxey]

How many patches do you know of that go live looking like their first release?
Look at current live status of druids.

We are stupid OP vs the current easy content.
If you're wearing full tank gear in 25man naxx you're doing it wrong. Wear near full dps gear, still have over 30k armor and HP, high dodge.
Laugh and pity other tanks as you tear the place apart. No other tank remains crit immune wearing whatever they like, leaving us with our glyph of maul stupid overpowered.

[ReD-EyeD]

I've tanked since I was raiding in AQ40.

Don't think so. Sorry.

[beanfinnalblow]

dodge rating instead of agility

we do this cuz blizz f***d up and didnt add a blue quality gem of agility stam in purple i know u can do straight agility gems and straight stam gems but some of us like to put the avidence with the stam on each piece to make sure our gems are balenced

[cagoule]

I've tanked since I was raiding in AQ40.

You played an hybrid class for all this time, and never switched your spec?

It's hard to believe. Did you ever take some items for your heal, balance spec? Well.. maybe it's time to think about it, dual spec is coming too.

[ReD-EyeD]

we do this cuz blizz f***d up and didnt add a blue quality gem of agility stam in purple i know u can do straight agility gems and straight stam gems but some of us like to put the avidence with the stam on each piece to make sure our gems are balenced

We have hybrid set and it has a lot of red sockets. AND our best in slot tanking gear is a dps rogue leather. Surely it has no (or almost) blue sockets. Not a real problem, but a sad factor for bears.

Yeah, I miss my agi/sta gems.

[arel00]

Get your butt on the PTR, collect data, do your math, and then come back with RESULTS.

I can't care less about your personal feelings. If you feel hated and nerfed to death, reroll and shut up. There is people here that is trying to check how changes will really affect us, both by sheer mathematical equations, and both by BEING THERE on the PTR and trying to test current content and Ulduar.

So far all the math, all the tests that have been done show a slight downside, not a "the sky is falling" nerf. AND we're still on par if not superior to other tanks.

So instead of spilling your sad-panda tears over us, get to work and get to the PTR, or just shut up. Those who love their class and are trying to figure this out for good, trying to give you reports that are true to reality, deserve some respec.

Enoguh said.