Dev Watercooler -- Threat Level Midnight

[ragingsoul]

this really is a sad moment for the tanking roll.
Only started playing in TBC, but since then:
- removal of crushing blows
- removal of defense rating
- only 1 type of tanking weapon speed
- reforging to take almost any gear
- Self healing mechanism, instead of mitigation

I loved the time I passed on maintankadin researching gear setups, talent setups, rotation setups, to pull out the max dps and thus threat possible of my class. Threat is part of the things you see in a good tank, and there you go, something unique will go down the drain again. To the people that don't think it's fun to hold aggro, you're mistaken on your feeling. It's not fun trying to hold aggro from noobs and people that do wtf they want, but hold aggro from good players is pretty much the only thing fun and challanging about tanking. Removing that, you're just a dps getting hit on.
edit: I forgot DR, the only spec in game that has some. how fun is it to get less and less effects on stats as your gear gets better right?

IMO, next change? Tanking gear removed, you have talents to to convert crit--> parry, haste --> dodge.

After not caring about block cap (crushing blows), after not caring about crit immune and defense rating (read, how to organize your gear to have the best aggro possible while still maintaining crit immune.), after not caring about drops (reforging), , after thinking 1 more spell name is too much to remember (shield bash gone and replace) let's not care about threat anymore (vengeance and+ threat), next stop, what's tanking gear?
Seriously, tanking was about adapting your gear to your healers and the encounter, it was something unique about the class, and something you could be respected for. those changes, 1 after another is just making tanking a generic role, and like everything in WoW at the moment, it's removing the uniqueness and aspect of the game, patch after patch.

[Damax]

I didn't say anything was reducing threat. L2read.

I said it was "further reduction... ... of what used to be an interesting role."

Oh no, I can push holy shield every 30 seconds, and hit shield wall when DBM tells me. 2 interactions required past autoattack. WHEEEEE FUN!

Furthermore, GW:2 does have tanks, any role can tank, you swap your weapon set to fill different roles. So, talk about an engaging playstyle, my engineer (or whatever cool dps class i decide to roll) can both heal and tank if needed.

I'm dislexic so give me a break -_-

they said it wouldn't be about using holyshield every 30 sec and using shield wall. you are clearly a war or paladin and didn't try dk current tanking mode or maybe your one of the dks that let the healers do all the job and hope for good dpses

pretty sure your GW tank thing then is the same as wow... your trading 2 25 cents for 5 10 cents. who said gw will have threat? and if they do, who said that it'll be hard to keep? chances are you'll just be doing what you do as a dps but with a shield and lower numbers.

its like when people used to say: rift will be so much different... with all the souls and different spec you could do).... yep pretty sure its all about min-max anyway and so not much customisation

[Papadragon]

One of the worst update i've seen by Blizzard. As a warrior tank, I can say that the starting threat was sometimes an issue without any hit/expertise on single/aoe target, but not enough to return to a faceroll method.

Issue is a big word, cause it was still working.

All I mean is that, that's a little detail that won't make any difference when I log in a capital city, make a quick AH tour, take my flying mount, make a ride around the town, queue up for a dungeon...wait 15 minutes to find out that my pug players can't get pass 10k dps and we finally wipe on the first ZG boss, quit the group and find out I got a 30 minutes debuff...logout and wait for raiding.

Get something going on ...

PvP world, Outdoor Bosses, Invasions (Rift style), Housing, guild leveling, more classes, 8M raid, mount combat, More legendary weapons...revamp classic content...

[melonhead]

I'm dislexic so give me a break -_-

It's spelled dyslexic. If you were really dyslexic, I think you'd know something more about it than a random person. And also if you're dyslexic, I'd think I'd triple check before not giving someone else a break.

they said it wouldn't be about using holyshield every 30 sec and using shield wall. you are clearly a war or paladin and didn't try dk current tanking mode or maybe your one of the dks that let the healers do all the job and hope for good dpses

I'm a paladin that actually played like a blood dk, back when it was possible. Sacrificing threat for survivability, balancing threat output versus vengeance. I know exactly what the playstyle is like.

pretty sure your GW tank thing then is the same as wow... your trading 2 25 cents for 5 10 cents. who said gw will have threat? and if they do, who said that it'll be hard to keep? chances are you'll just be doing what you do as a dps but with a shield and lower numbers.

its like when people used to say: rift will be so much different... with all the souls and different spec you could do).... yep pretty sure its all about min-max anyway and so not much customisation

I'm pretty sure GW:2 won't be anything like Rift or WoW. Go educate yourself on it sometime. And so what if a tank is just a dps spec with a shield? That's one extra item to carry, not 15, a weapon swap, not a dual spec switch, a choice in playstyle instead of 2h tank, 1h tank 1, 1h tank 2, or furry tank blatantly copied from 1h tank 1.

[Damax]

It's spelled dyslexic. If you were really dyslexic, I think you'd know something more about it than a random person. And also if you're dyslexic, I'd think I'd triple check before not giving someone else a break.

I'm pretty sure no one does typos on the internet. Also I triple checked but it wasn't enough I guess.

[Grithmir]

Look, it's those guys with the "Wasn't hard to begin with" and "It's a small change" argument. No, holding aggro wasn't hard. Holding aggro while managing your cooldowns, health, surroundings, other tanks, boss abilities, etc was hard. Of course they nerfed those things one by one, and now it's a complete joke. I was thinking of resubbing for a month, but I'm going to spend my money on something else, because tanking sounds like it's totally boring right now. (and it already was since WotLK, Cata barely changed that.)

[ragingsoul]

While on topic of paladin tanks, the control over ones own -and- the groups survival is also part of the reason prot paladins are so popular no doubt, beside the standard arsenal of -dmg cooldowns and self healing, they can lay on hands the healer, blessing of freedom the frostbolted rogue out of a voidzone (lets say his cloak is on cd), then go right ahead and hand of protection the mage who has a dog eating him, and to celebrate the occasion then pops Divine Guardian reducing his groups damage taken by 20% for 6s. Hell he can even use that 3 holy power Word of Glory on someone else than himself, almost like a DK transfering a death strike heal unto a friendly player.

I don't think you tanked on a pala a lot.
Most of the fights where hands are useful, I could never use them because they were too far away (ruby sanctum, rotface etc in wrath), and each time they cost a gcd too, and in this example, you can't magically save everyone at the same time either.
That said, I'm absolutely not a fan of self healing as tank, I don't think a tank should have the possibility of self heal, but rather mitigation. WoG on others are to me stupid mechanics, same as DK healing, but that's just me.

[Deleted]

I'd just love getting back to having tanks deal threat, not damage. If I wanted to be high on DPS, I'd have specced for DPS. Plus, when you group with n00b players, it just looks so bad with me as a tank on top of the dmg meter. Once again, Blizz should really balance their content around 3 dps being enough to do stuff quick enough in heroics and whichever number is relevant in 10 and 25 man raiding without needing tank dmg (and Disc priest healing dmg )

[wiIdi]

the hotfix sounds good because frost DKs press one single button and pull aggro

[melonhead]

I'm pretty sure no one does typos on the internet. Also I triple checked but it wasn't enough I guess.

You poor victim you.

This change is still bad.

[Jogan]

Wohooo! I am loving this change. I primarily will have threat problems at the start of fights and in aoe tanking(play a druid). This will allow me to focus much more on my role in the fight. It will also allow well geared dps to dps normally when they are paired with a lesser geared tank in the dungeon finder. Those who are whining and complaining about this change can go drown in their tears.

[Deleted]

The real reason for this change is to make tanking easier and require less skill, so that more players will want to play as a tank, and so that bad tanks won't seem so bad. Ultimately it's another dungeon finder change to make up for the class call fail.

[melonhead]

Wohooo! I am loving this change. I primarily will have threat problems at the start of fights and in aoe tanking(play a druid). This will allow me to focus much more on my role in the fight. It will also allow well geared dps to dps normally when they are paired with a lesser geared tank in the dungeon finder. Those who are whining and complaining about this change can go drown in their tears.

I'm glad you can play with the big boys now too.

Just wondering... what did you think your role was before? And why were you losing focus on it?

---------- Post added 2011-08-16 at 10:04 PM ----------

The real reason for this change is to make tanking easier and require less skill, so that more players will want to play as a tank, and so that bad tanks won't seem so bad. Ultimately it's another dungeon finder change to make up for the class call fail.

And good tanks will be bored to tears and stop tanking so that ultimately there will be fewer tanks. Engaging and rewarding (you get something when you succeed) gameplay is what players want.

[Damax]

---------- Post added 2011-08-16 at 10:04 PM ----------

And good tanks will be bored to tears and stop tanking so that ultimately there will be fewer tanks. Engaging and rewarding (you get something when you succeed) gameplay is what players want.

there's more baddies than good players... true fact

[melonhead]

there's more baddies than good players... true fact

even bad players want engaging and rewarding game play.

[Needonboots]

At Cataclysm release: "We want threat to matter, so tanks actually have an engaging experience" TANKING IS TOOO HAAARRRD HOW DO I PRESS BUTTANS "Threat no longer exists, if you are a tank spec all mobs will automatically only target you" Bear in mind I had already quit WoW before this change, however this solidifies my choice. What the shit fun is tanking if there's absolutely no effort required? Not that effort was required before tbh. When it was already super easy if you had the slightest clue about your class, who the fuck needed threat buffing to be able to tank?

[Calamari]

I don't think you tanked on a pala a lot.
Most of the fights where hands are useful, I could never use them because they were too far away (ruby sanctum, rotface etc in wrath), and each time they cost a gcd too, and in this example, you can't magically save everyone at the same time either.
That said, I'm absolutely not a fan of self healing as tank, I don't think a tank should have the possibility of self heal, but rather mitigation. WoG on others are to me stupid mechanics, same as DK healing, but that's just me.

You are right, a well designed raid encounter will have means to prevent the full use of such situationally powerful support tools, however most fights give opportunity for the smart paladin to play his support to the fullest. When tanking Rotface in the center of the room, I used to Blessing of Protection any healer who was being targeted by the large slimes as they spawned, their agro could be tricky no matter how ontoes the slime tank was.

Hand of Sacrifice is fantastic, 30% damage reduction on a friendly tank is -huge- when, effectively another cooldown to their arsenal at your disposal. The current Intervene prevents 1 attack (usually not even that, it can be very unreliable), and unlike hand spells, requires you to charge all the way over the friendly player's melee range and through whatever might lie inbetween, most raid tanks can't afford leaving their positions all too often.

Lay on Hands? I've saved so many wipes with this in raids and 5 mans. Can top off a near death tank within 1 gcd, at a 7min cd that's simply magnificent.

Prot paladin self healing is but an icing on the cake and not necessary to use at all, it's simply a bonus in addition to all the support tools available to you.

The true trump of being a prot paladin is having the tools to assist and counter almost any danger on individual party members without interrupting the tanking process at all. A protection warrior has none of that, we have our dps rotation, there is no reactive self healing outside of Frenzied Regeneration. We have 1 support cooldown, which is Rallying Cry, and that pales in comparison to Divine Guardian. We have 0 support tools to reduce a friendly targets damage taken, or heal the group, we are the only tanking class with such drastic limitations to group support.

[Isterra]

I think this is a great idea. As a tank myself I think the hardest thing for me is to try to hold threat off those crazy classes like Arcane mages and Frost DK's who don't know how to just wait 1 sec while moving to avoid stuff in a fight.

[Northern Goblin]

People who are saying this is an unnecessary or unimportant change have never played a Fury Warrior or Frost DK with any credible effect in this expansion.Those of us who have know this is a huge change.

[Cows For Life]

You are right, a well designed raid encounter will have means to prevent the full use of such situationally powerful support tools. However even in raids Hand of Protection is very powerful (think Rotfaces slimes, when they catch up with someone who can't dodge the poison pool).

Hand of Sacrifice is fantastic, 30% damage reduction on a friendly tank is -huge- when, effectively another cooldown to their arsenal at your disposal. The current Intervene prevents 1 attack (usually not even that, it can be very unreliable), and unlike hand spells, requires you to charge all the way over the friendly player's melee range and through whatever might lie inbetween, most raid tanks can't afford leaving their positions all too often.

Lay on Hands? I've saved so many wipes with this in raids and 5 mans. Can top off a near death tank within 1 gcd, at a 7min cd that's simply magnificent.

Prot paladin self healing is but an icing on the cake and not necessary to use at all, it's simply a bonus in addition to all the support tools available to you.

The true trump of being a prot paladin is having the tools to assist and counter almost any danger on individual party members without interrupting the tanking process at all. A protection warrior has none of that, we have our dps rotation, there is no reactive self healing outside of Frenzied Regeneration. We have 1 support cooldown, which is Rallying Cry, and that pales in comparison to Divine Guardian. We have 0 support tools to reduce a friendly targets damage taken, or heal the group, we are the only tanking class with such drastic limitations to group support.

You think it's bad for warriors? It could be worse, you could be a druid. At least now they've nerfed Innervate into oblivion so it's one less tool they need access to.