Ask The Devs #9 - Tanking

[Joels]

Ugh.. bad answers to bad questions

[Higg]

However, they could certainly have standing in stuff also penalize personal dps, not only do you take damage but it locks your action buttons for 10 seconds, dps would probably get a lot better at staying outta stuff very quickly.

never underestimate a player's ability to make a dumb choice

A: We think Vengeance works well overall.

... wat?

I think it works well

[Balir]

4.3 legendary - much narrower appeal. I reckon it will be a tanking weapon/shield designed around class. Same stats (except agi for Str in the case of Druids), same gem slots, only main change would be if it has a proc - how it procs. Maybe dodge (as it's what all tanks have in common) an attack and have a 5% chance for proc to happen.

Note: This will mean that Blizz have to use defensive stats on a pole arm/staff and a 2H weapon for DKs. As it's a legendary, a one off exception would be acceptable to most players I think. Dodge/Mastery + proc perhaps.

I would guess the stats would have to have massive armor (yes, incl weapons but scaled back if needed), 3 gem slots, the agi/str/stam mix, dodge, mastery and an uber proc.

Question is.... what would be an uber proc for Tanks?

[underdogba]

After having read this series of answers, is it possible that the Devs don't actually understand what's going on in their own game?

For example, how is it possible to go from GC proclaiming that pallies block capping is not a problem, to suddenly paladin mastery becoming a seriously scaling problem necessitating a rework of holy shield in 4.2? All within a single tier of the game. Is there not even "napkin-math" going on at Blizz?

[Gahgoots]

Piss poor group of questions. Seriously though, "people vote on these"....right.

[Alianthos]

These questions are fucking bad, so are the answers. Good job Blizzard.

[Rioo]

"Protection paladins do bring a lot of utility, but it is quite difficult to make a table comparing a paladin’s Divine Guardian to a Protection warrior’s mobility or a bear druid’s ability to cast Innervate or even Rebirth during lulls in an encounter."

Hahahaha. So a paladin can put barkskin on the entire raid, the warrior have a lot of mobility (like that would come close), and the druid can give 5k mana to a healer by switching out of bearform while tanking, or combat ress out of form as well. Oh lord, Blizzard really don't have a clue about this game anymore. There are some perks to feral tanking but it sure ain't combat ressing or innervate, which they would know if they played the spec.

[videotape]

What are people complaining about? What questions do you want? What answers do you want?

"BAD BAD BAD GG" is not very constructive.

[Azidonis]

New tank class? Give us a Demon Hunter! A mail-wearing evasion tank that uses "class specific" (Demon Hunter only) weapons... yes, warglaives!

I'm blind, not deaf.

[Mercadi]

If the tanking legendary would have an option of being a staff it would need to have some massive, unreforgeable Dodge stat on it, to prevent it being a cat druid/hunter staff. Or just restrict it to Druids, and it would be a general feral druid legendary (did they ever get one? Don't think so.) And since the legendary is not visible in shapeshift, it would be so cool to have the feral form being visually modified for the wearers of the legendary. Technically it would be easy to do.

[Tareku]

"or a bear druid’s ability to cast Innervate or even Rebirth during lulls in an encounter."

HAHAHAHAHA yeah... right

---------- Post added 2011-06-08 at 07:17 PM ----------

oh yeah, about the legendary... PLZ MAKE A FERAL STAFF/MACE/POLE PLZ PLZ PLZ

[Ajaxthegreat]

Bears are getting a significant mitigation buff in 4.2 and we’re retuning their damage such that it’s a little easier to hold aggro at low gear levels, and a little harder at higher gear levels. While we definitely don’t expect the community to ever agree on anything, we’ve seen little evidence of a widespread concurrence that druids are “the weakest tank.” There are plenty of druid tanks out there, handling everything from Grim Batol to Sinestra. Tank balance overall is in a really good place. Players may focus on potential problems that could arise in the future but we also have ample time to address those problems should they occur. Gone are the days when we would just release a class into the wild and refuse to touch it again until the next expansion.

...Wat? These answers are beyond terrible. They also skipped the more important parts of the question...

Have you considered normalizing initial Rage for feral druid tanks? Do you have any plans to improve bear tanking in the future? Have you considered giving druid tanks an additional tool to pull casters at range? It’s the only tank class that doesn’t have a talent or spell to help in those situations.

These are what all the bear tanks I know care about. The toolbox is small and full of garbage/poorly designed abilities. While they can take a hit, they are mind-numbingly boring in comparison. At least Stampeding Fail lasts 8 seconds now...

Frankly, I really dislike Rebirth being considered so much utility for bears. DKs now have it and easier to use. Warlocks have it. Caster druids bring it and it's better for them, as it doesn't Rez the person in front of the boss without losing an entire rage bar or risking a death. Bears have the crappiest utility by far. Nature's Grasp is really the only thing I can think of without a comparable ability on another tank, and that is so limited it's just silly (Maloriak, P1 Nef).

Also, did they really suggest a bear innervates someone? /mindblown

[nogard64]

yeah their response to the LEGENDARY question IS REALLY STUPID!

The legendaries have never had a broad appeal, the warglaives was basically a rogue only weapon, the Bow was for hunters, the Mace in Ulduar for healers, mace in ICC? MEH. THAT rationale is LAME and STUPID! The rationale they should use for legendaries should be HEY LETS DO SOMETHING WE HAVEN'T DONE YET!???!!!!??? Like an Orange BAD ASZZ tanking shield off Deathwing called FLAMEGUARD SCALES OF DEATHWING, that has 500 fire resist and an incredible PROC like chance to instantly HEAL TANK for 100% health or something like that! NOW THAT WOULD BE AWESOME NOW THAT WILL BE A LEGENDARY SHIELD!

AND YES people will QQ about it being OP in PVP, well 1) who PVP in DEF set 2) SO WHAT THATS THE POINT OF PUTTING IN ALL THAT HARD WORK AND FARMING! IS to get a SICK ITEM!

[Winterstrife]

Did I not read that wrongly? Another legendary in 4.3? I CAN'T WAIT FOR THIS!
As a DPS-orientated player I hope it'll be something for the Tanks.

[shimargh]

it's all paladin's players fault...
too much "why my paladin can't do that?" questions FFS
holy crap, for this i've been waiting 2weeks+?

[Deleted]

Q: Vengeance is a great tool to help raid tanks hold aggro over DPS, but in 5-man heroics it doesn't stack high enough to keep up with the threat generated by overgeared DPS burst damage. Are there any plans to address this? Are there any plans to help warriors put out more initial threat before Vengeance has been ramped up? – Nikelsndimes (NA), Cémanana (EU-FR), Arthur (TW), Mancake (NA), Migol (NA)

A: We think Vengeance works well overall. It provides sufficient threat without causing the tank to do more DPS than the dedicated DPS characters, and doesn’t let the tank just neglect abilities that cause threat. A full stack of Vengeance probably provides too much threat, but we didn’t think it was necessary to nerf that mid-expansion. Overall, we don’t want tanks to have 100% guaranteed threat on a pull, so we don’t want to buff that aspect of Vengeance, but we also don’t want DPS specs to constantly have to throttle the DPS they can deliver midway through a fight, so we have to strike a balance.

Note: There are fights with tank swaps or incoming adds, or similar mechanics, when threat may matter mid-fight. This is intended – encounter design varies widely.

I'm sorry but how is the question and the answer related? Makes no sense.

[Winterstrife]

it's all paladin's players fault...
too much "why my paladin can't do that?" questions FFS
holy crap, for this i've been waiting 2weeks+?

I agree thought, other then information about a possible tanking legendary, those were some shit questions.
Another Tanking class? No thanks, I'd rather they spend their time fixing stuff that are broken atm, such Ret Paladin's burst threat.

[Azrile]

hahah vengeance = easy deeps for tanks :P and people are complaining. if you cant hold aggro against deeps. Its mostly either A) they arent using their threat reducing abilities or managing their threat meters in lieu of OMFG I NEED TO DEEPS HARDER. B). Your not pumping out the maximum amount of threat, its quite easy.

The problem many players, and the person asking the question have, is that they don´t understand the purpose of vengeance. Vengeance never had anything to do with burst aggro. The solution in that case is to tell the dps to hold off for a few seconds. Vengeance was created for long fights at the end of a tier where the dps in BIS were being forced to throttle back dps for long periods of time because the tanks couldn´t keep threat because his BIS stuff was all about avoidance.

I have a bear and a pro pally, I have no problems with either of them.

I do think they were onto something regarding DKs. I think average tanks for all specs are fairly equal, but I think bad dks are much worse than bad players of other tank specs.

[VanishO2]

I agree about the Innervate bit, but it's piss easy in most every fight to safely combat rez someone while tanking. Magmaw head phase, Chimaeron Feud, Dragons during phase change, Cho'Gall on tank swap, etc, etc. Druid Combat rez isn't as easy as DKs' but then the Druid's rez is also infinitely safer due to coming back with full health (= glyph).

And you don't need 50 runic power to use it (the same resource you do use for some CDs, Rune Recharge, etc...), making Druid Rez way more reliable for an "ask'n'get it" right out.

[uzumati]

Did we get trolled by Blizzard???????