Is it time to kill the second tank?

[bloodmoth13]

Wait. Turning a Tank to a DPS is a very bad idea. There is a DPS role already.

In reality you just don't have to play tank if you don't enjoy the role.

It needs a special character to truly love tanking multiple expacs.


And since it needs a special rare type of character, that explains why they are fewer.

It's the same with healers really, they combine some of both worlds.

That's why most are DPSes, some roll healers, and ever fewer tank.


It's balanced in a sense, more or less, even if not perfect.

I was not suggesting turning tanks into dps at all!
though i can see why you might think that, i was suggesting keeping the main tanks as they are now, and creating a niche class that can pseudo tank say 5 targets at a time (or less), this would allow more complex tanking situations without forcing players to play as a tank class, and should be appealing as i assume that most players just play to measure their dps compared to others. So its a dps class with better tanking capabilities than other dps, but less than an actual tank, what with lacking meaningful active mitigation and having a threat target cap.

[Deleted]

Those things enter into the TBC philosophy and it has been abandoned. You can do all kinds of weird things (e.g. Mages were tanking in a raid). But, it's a problem when you don't have 40man raids or at least always a 20man or more.

[Segus1992]

The reason there are less tank players is because people don't want the responsibility of tanking.

Demand for tanks is almost always greater than the supply. It is not harder to get a raid group as a Tank.

Personally would love to play a tank, but it's pretty hard to find guilds as a tank due to how very few tanks you actually need.

I'd prefer if they upped the amount of tanks you needed for a raid - 3 for a 20 man group, for instance.

[Deleted]

Personally would love to play a tank, but it's pretty hard to find guilds as a tank due to how very few tanks you actually need.

I'd prefer if they upped the amount of tanks you needed for a raid - 3 for a 20 man group, for instance.

You really shouldn't worry about that. Tanking is seen as an obnoxious role by most players in the game, because it can seldom show off numbers, it can only compete with 1 other dude during the raid and it must never dc or slack during any fight. As a result, guilds are looking for tanks left and right.

Sure, it might look stable in your guild, but that's not true in overall.

Also, since many hate tanking, some current tanks want to switch.

[Segus1992]

You really shouldn't worry about that. Tanking is seen as an obnoxious role by most players in the game, because it can seldom show off numbers, it can only compete with 1 other dude during the raid and it must never dc or slack during any fight. As a result, guilds are looking for tanks left and right.

Sure, it might look stable in your guild, but that's not true in overall.

Also, since many hate tanking, some current tanks want to switch.

It was the case when I last tried to find guilds as a tank. Many would offer you a spot as the fourth tank or something, but obviously that's not what I wanted.
I currently don't play though, so I don't know what the situation is like anymore.

[Deleted]

It was the case when I last tried to find guilds as a tank. Many would offer you a spot as the fourth tank or something, but obviously that's not what I wanted.

I would suppose that was a purely hard core guild since it had that big a queue. The old players tend to be very stable in their roles and rarely abandon them. I bet even DPSes would find it hard to not be benched there.

[Time Sage]

As I recall, a handful of dungons in FFXIV only require one tank instead of two, and is thus assembled as such via the duty finder. It could be interesting if wow were to incorporate in a small handful as well.

[judgementofantonidas]

As a tank it's harder to get a raid group, since there's only 2 people needed to fill your role(as opposed to 2-5 healers). Due to this there are simply less tank players.

as a tank you are expected to form your own group and show a little leadership

[Deleted]

That would tip the scale t be even worse for tanks.
Let me just make some relatable assumptions:
We know that we lack tanks in 5er that would be 20% of players that we need.
In 25er is falls down to 8%. Assuming that every tankswho does 5er aslo does 25er this tells us that more than half the 5er are short of a tank. Reducing the numbers to 1 tank in raids wouldn't improve that.
That's also why I am actually in favor of 10er raids.
If you ever tried to raid as a tank you should have found that if you aren't friends with a guildmaster or raidleader there is no way you can get a spot (not literally but most of the time).

as a tank you are expected to form your own group and show a little leadership

Forcing tanks to additionally add the responsibility of leading the raid is also a very dumb practice. you need to focus on the boss and can't tell the whole raid what they are doing wrong otherwise the whole raid gets blown to bits.

[Deleted]

The problem with tanking is that you either are the tank for a guild or you are not. Guilds do not recruit tanks because their two tanks are almost always people with perfect attendance.

That's an erroneous argument. The coin has two sides. Since it requires perfect attendance, some must be replaced and some will switch role to DPS or healer because it's so obnoxious to be a tank for most players in the game.


I think that fallacy mainly stems from looking at 1 current guild and thinking "those tanks are good". But look at the big picture. Tons of guilds are looking for members in general or some good tanks switch roles.

[Spiffums]

I've soloed Council and several of the bosses from like 45% to 0% on LFR. It wasn't by choice mind you and even on LFR it was touch and go at some points due to half the raid being dead. I don't think having just 1 tank is such a hot idea.

[Deleted]

considiring they forced 10 man groups to go 20 man in wod in order to do the hardest content and did not upscale the tanks and remained at a fixed 2 spots in a raid.

A big fucking no.

Its already hard enough to find a decent guild as tank lets not make it any harder than it is.

[Sting]

Its already hard enough to find a decent guild as tank lets not make it any harder than it is.

From my experience over the years, this is definitely true.

[Pua]

From my experience over the years, this is definitely true.

Interestingly, the top guilds don't actually recruit tanks at all very often. They're either very long in post, or internally allocated to the role because a current raider will know the guild, the players in it, and how they tackle each encounter.

I think that says a lot about the "responsibility" required to be a competent tank these days.

[mysticx]

Leave the second tank requirement in normal+ modes, but require just one for LfR (Tanks being the bottleneck role in anything queue-able), the reasons to have more than one tank should if possible be a bit more interesting than "At X stacks, swap tanks", though.

[Super Kami Dende]

Tank Swaps can get boring. But I don't mind them if they aren't part of EVERY fight.

I'd like some fights to have a Single tank on Boss and Offtank doing Adds or a completely different Tankable encounter mechanic. Back to MaintTank and OffTank again. Instead of Tank 1 and Tank 2.

[Sosoulsu]

How far has the WoW community deviated from BC that they think two tanks are too many; and that they'd rather aggro not matter?
I feel like an old person watching the new generation act like idiots.

[PosPosPos]

How far has the WoW community deviated from BC that they think two tanks are too many; and that they'd rather aggro not matter?
I feel like an old person watching the new generation act like idiots.

The poll results suggest otherwise, maybe it's just your own projection?

[Deleted]

Having more tanks required might actually help increase tank population. If someone who wants to try but is perhaps nervous and inexperienced, you might give them the less important jobs in an encounter to start with to build up their confidence and awareness and bring them on steadily.

I'd go with more tanks required not less.

[Deleted]

Leave the second tank requirement in normal+ modes, but require just one for LfR (Tanks being the bottleneck role in anything queue-able), the reasons to have more than one tank should if possible be a bit more interesting than "At X stacks, swap tanks", though.

Writing as an LFR tank/healer, I'd say that healers are usually far more of a bottleneck. One healer per tank in 5-man, 2.5 healers per tank in LFR...

The frustrating thing though is queuing as tank/dps, getting picked as dps and then have a tank leave and be unable to switch to fill that role (so another dps could join).