Lich King US First Kill, Tanking Changes

[Boubouille]

Lich King 25 Normal Mode US First Kill by Vodka
Vodka was the first guild to defeat the Lich King on the US realms, congratulations to them! (And nice kill shot.)

Tanking and Survivability Changes

We are making some adjustments to tank survivability based on what we’re seeing in Icecrown Citadel. We feel this is particularly important in preparation for upcoming Heroic attempts. This is tricky and occasionally subjective, so we might very well make more adjustments as we get even more data.

Paladin (Forums / Talent Calculator)

• Sacred Duty now provides 2 / 4% Stamina, down from 4 / 8% Stamina. The cooldown advantages of the talent remain unchanged.

Death Knight (Forums / Talent Calculator)

• Frost Presence now provides 8% Stamina, up from 6% Stamina.
• Icebound Fortitude now provides 30% base damage reduction, up from 20% damage reduction. For a geared tank with high defense, this translates to 50% damage reduction, up from 40%.

It’s important to note that we aren’t trying to single out paladins here. We like the tank balance of warriors and druids at the moment, and we have a larger sample size of warrior tanks that we can compare. Another solution would have been to buff warriors, death knights and druids and then increase boss damage accordingly. Obviously, that would have been a much larger change with greater risks and a longer delay.

Though Ardent Defender is always a possible target for changes, we like that this talent provides such a distinction between warriors and paladins. Rather than have all the tanks have the same health, armor, avoidance and cooldowns, we’d rather have four unique tanking classes rather than just superficial or artistic differences. Yes, that design is harder to balance, but we think class distinction is ultimately more interesting, which is better for the long term health of the game. The goal remains to have all four tanks be viable for any encounter, assuming sufficient gear and skill, and any differences in performance on individual encounters to be minor. “Minor” is obviously a subjective term.

Please note that the death knight change will result in a small survivability increase in PvP, which we think is appropriate. We chose it partially with that in mind.

[Oakenlove]

Grats vodka!

[Rodian]

what's this? Dk tanks are getting a buff again? Hurraay!

[Contrivez]

TEAM AMERICA, FUCK YEAH.

^_^

[Stixxz]

Grats on the kill (lol at the spectral toy mounts xD)

Yay for dk tank buffs.

[LavaDuck]

Hehehehehe, riding spectral-I-forgot-the-whole-name-of-the-item

Congratulations Vodka!

[Stiffen]

Gratz vodka on a fine clean kill =D

[Losk]

Mages low on the meters again....hmmm......

[Nymrohd]

Awesome, keep the kills rolling Nice buffs for the DK tanks. But did we deserve to lose 4%? Maybe 2% but why 4%!
*starts crying in a corner

[Antik]

Mages low on the meters again....hmmm......

I died because our healers are fucking bad

[Beelzebubs]

I assume Acrylic was running Affliction, do you know if he was just tunnelvisioning the boss or spreading DoT's? I read something he wrote before about how he rarely switches to adds and as a Lock I'm intruiged to see how his damage is done on the fight. Shame the parses are still pending

[vendelin]

Grats! And Katching, I never thought they would get buffs, blizzard semeed to be so sure. Anyways I guess Blizzard is the sanest who doesn't go AAAH THEYA RE BAD BUFF EM! but take it slow and easy.

[Tetrarchy]

They definitely win the prize for best kill screenshot. Woot Landsoul - you're my hero!

[Jozy]

The stealth pally nerf got documented.

[TobiasX]

[quote=Boubouille ]
Tanking and Survivability Changes
[blizzquote="Crygil;http://blue.mmo-champion.com/26/22749574063-tanking-and-survivability-changes.html]Though Ardent Defender is always a possible target for changes, we like that this talent provides such a distinction between warriors and paladins. Rather than have all the tanks have the same health, armor, avoidance and cooldowns, we’d rather have four unique tanking classes rather than just superficial or artistic differences. Yes, that design is harder to balance, but we think class distinction is ultimately more interesting, which is better for the long term health of the game. The goal remains to have all four tanks be viable for any encounter, assuming sufficient gear and skill, and any differences in performance on individual encounters to be minor. “Minor” is obviously a subjective term.[/quote"]

I'm assuming Blizzard still don't understand the monster that this talent truly is.

Ardent Defender Rank 3
Damage that takes you below 35% health is reduced by 20%. In addition, attacks which would otherwise kill you cause you to be healed by up to 30% of your maximum health (amount healed based on defense). This healing effect cannot occur more often than once every 2 min.

"attacks that would otherwise kill you cause you to be healed by up to..."
"attacks that would otherwise kill you cause you"...
"attacks that Would Otherwise Kill You..."
It could be a 3 day cooldown and it would STILL be stupid to have a talent that basically says "when everyone messes up, you'll still survive, through no effort of your own". It is the single oh crap button in that game that requires no player interaction, thus no measurable amount of skill, in order to use.

Screw 'adjusting', this talent should never made it into live.

... and yes, it doesn't matter that it's "only 1 hit". It's 1 hit more than it should be.

[AcrylicVodka]

I assume Acrylic was running Affliction, do you know if he was just tunnelvisioning the boss or spreading DoT's? I read something he wrote before about how he rarely switches to adds and as a Lock I'm intruiged to see how his damage is done on the fight. Shame the parses are still pending

There is a difference on how you approach a boss that is a pushover where adds die in 2 seconds(Marrowgar), and a boss that is progression(Arthas). Hope you can understand the difference between the two, and understand what my comment on the WoW forums was directed to.

[Fyreeze]

TEAM AMERICA, FUCK YEAH.

^_^

omg... i had 1 kid in a game of COD:MW2 on the PC, yell that every time he got a kill...
TEAM AMERICA!!! FUCK YEAH!!!

so annoying

[Stixxz]

I'm assuming Blizzard still don't understand the monster that this talent truly is.

"attacks that would otherwise kill you cause you to be healed by up to..."
"attacks that would otherwise kill you cause you"...
"attacks that Would Otherwise Kill You..."
It could be a 3 day cooldown and it would STILL be stupid to have a talent that basically says "when everyone messes up, you'll still survive, through no effort of your own". It is the single oh crap button in that game that requires no player interaction, thus no measurable amount of skill, in order to use.

Screw 'adjusting', this talent should never made it into live.

Indeed, free Guardian spirit anyone every 2 mins?

[bazrek]

Blizzard hates tanks. Pally's specifically.

Tanks are generally your most skilled players, which means we dont come on boards like this one and QQ (like this) endlessly. The result? They don't care if they nerf us because the result is minimal. DPS have no problem trolling trade for "40k hp unbuffed" tanks for whatever reason (I have 36K unbuffed and have tanked ICC10 with no problem at all.) Then, when the tank isn't geared to the teeth everyone is quick to blame them, not stopping to consider that they got all of their i264 gear and the like because nothing dropped for the tank.

Perfect examples of this: Name one Legendary tank weapon in the game. Or one Legendary Shield (that can be used outside of TK)? Or how about the fact that there are only roughly 6 tanking shields in the entire WOTLK expansion? Or how about the fact that we are the ONLY spec that has no Quel'Dalar? Or that there are only 2 or 3 upgrades for Rimefang? Hey Blizzard, it doesn't really benefit me to have Rimefang's Claw if every tank you see has one (or 2 if they are a DK). Whats the use in that?

To top it all off, they just took 4% of my stamina. That is about 140 stamina! I would have to get 3 or 4 upgrades (TOC or ICC) in order to account for that much stamina, and then I'd just be earning back what I just lost.

Give tanks a break Blizzard, we are the hardest working spec in the entire game.

[Plankeh]

Blizzard hates tanks. Pally's specifically.

Stopped reading after that, because .. well .. are you serious ? The only tanks blizzard hates are druid ones. Pally ? lol, don't make me laugh.

Anywho, nice to see a buff to DK tanks .. perhaps we can dust off our little benchwarmers