Mythic raiding tanks going offensive instead defensive builds?

[reyson]

I raid on two mythic teams, one working on Aggramar where we have a prot warrior running all offensive talents and parsing orange every fight, he also randomly gets one shotted by bosses (including Aggramar on pull frequently). Should he be running Indomitable and more defensive talents? He runs STR food and flask because it "apparently contributes to his Ignore Pain".

Our Brewmaster and newly aquired, slightly undergeared BDK are working on Varimathras on our second team and have a serious problem staying alive, but again, they're not running things like High Tolerance and Purgatory. From what I understand (from what was discussed during the raid), BrM is the worst tank on this fight as they die from Stagger damage when they cannot be healed from his debuff. 90% of our wipes on Vari last night were due to tank deaths.

Now I play all tank toons except monk as alts, so I don't do a heavy amount of research or have a heavy depth of knowledge about the class mechanics for mythic raiding, but maybe I am from an old school way of thinking that tanks shouldn't give a shit about their damage parse and spec into max defensive builds for progression, my bear has 15m hp with a stam flask for christ sakes, and that's running a meme M+ build with Lady+Fury+Galactic Guardian.

And with our current gear level, our dps is blowing through bosses regardless of our tanks dps, so the only thing holding us back is mechanics and tank deaths.

Who is right? How do I solve these unecessary, constant tank deaths that keep wasting everybody's time?

[Frolk]

If he is dying while running dps build/food/trinkets? then he should change it, or be replaced, he sounds like a dpswhore, a person u DONT want in ur team on progress.

Tell him to go defensive and stop dying or get replaced.

[clevin]

this is a easy one. If they are dying and are running a build that doesn't optimize for survival they're fucking up. They need to take and use those talents. Period.


Now, as a tank gets more and more gear, really knows a fight and plays better? I can see a top tank in great gear being able to move some choices from D to O. If they still live through stuff and aren't stressing healers etc then sure, go for DPS because it shortens the fight a bit and thus lessens the chances for an error, etc. But what your tanks are doing is like a healer DPSing - it's a nice to have and if they can do it without endangering the raid, it's a slight help but if the healer is working full time to keep people alive and, in choosing to DPS, lets people die... they're not doing their role.

TLDR: change or kick.

[Jester Joe]

To be fair, for the Blood DK, purgatory could be useless since the healing debuff would stop them from getting healed up anyway most the time.

Either way, regardless of difficulty, if a tank is going splat because they're sacrificing survival over damage, then they should change up their strat.

[Deleted]

If warrior needs Indomitable to stay alive, he should not play warrior... indomitable is dps AND survivability loss

Most of the time warrior dies, it's personal mistakes with shield block/ pumping more rage into revenge instead of IP
And yes, str increases IP strenght


Purgatory won't save DK on Varimathras, and BRM shouldn't use high tolerance (it would kill him even more) instead learn how to pause stagger

[Kapaya]

How does a Blood DK have issues with Varimathras? Rune Tap each shadow hit or AMS it, literally immortal on that fight.

[Holofernes]

strenght flask is actually best for prot warr (larger shield barrier), as talents go, indomitably means u take more dmg overall, and cut deeply into your rage generation, which means u will have wholes in block uptime but have 20 % more hp. But 20 % hp wont help survive unblocked hits on aggramar so for your warrior i would say he is doing stuff right, its just a very hard class for the player compared to all other tanks, prot warrior are the least used tanks in this expansion for a reason, because of the hardcore nerfs early in this expansion.. last time i tanked in raid (normaly im dps) i helped out in nighthold mythic, and jesus this shit was so fucking hard to do as warrior tank. I switched to a 20 ilvl lower blood dk, and stuff that woulld kill my well geared warrior, that used cds and external and stuff in a complex rotation via voicecom was suddenly piss easy faceroll.

As 950 warrior you get oneshotted at m12 first boss in maw of souls with boss-trait without cds, and after 3 casts from the boss, u are out of cds, so u need externals (or the new leg legendarie for extra spellreflect charge). all other tanking classes laugh at this stuff.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

You misunderstand what it means to play "defensive" or "offensive."
Your comment about indomitable is worrysome as well. It is just an inferior talent right now compared to Devastator. The ability generates more resources more reliably. Its not an "offensive" talent where he is just doing nothing but dps.
As a tank, you do offense and defense at the same time. The only thing that should be tweaked is trinkets, and that is not why he is dying, more than likely.

If you are worried about this, have him find a way to play from a balanced perspective.
My goals as Blood are to orange parse in both healing and dps. If I do that, I will be as effective as I can be.
But there is really no way to not play defensively as blood and do good dps. Your best ability for damage also heals you.
I assume its like this for all tanks, but I'm sure there is slight variance.

[Zyky]

Truth be told, this has been the thing for the longest time. Tanks run damage because a tanks damage can actually effect if the boss dies or not. Think Krosus, Guardian Druids had to Cat Weave for Mythic early on. In my opinion, if the tank isn't being 1 shot or close to 1 shot every few seconds, then it isn't a problem to run full DPS. If a tank is dying over 6 seconds to minimal heals, that sounds like a healer problem, not a tank problem.

[reyson]

How does a Blood DK have issues with Varimathras? Rune Tap each shadow hit or AMS it, literally immortal on that fight.

Doesn't have talent ring. Newer toon, re-rolled from BrM since we didn't want to run double BrM apparently.

[Kapaya]

Doesn't have talent ring. Newer toon, re-rolled from BrM since we didn't want to run double BrM apparently.

Who cares about the talent ring? He can just, you know, pick the talent? If he's having survivability issues cause he lacks stamina he should just play spectral defflection as well. Varimathras doesn't hit that hard oustide of the one tank mechanic he has, so as long as he gets topped off and uses Rune Tap or AMS he won't die.

[reyson]

strenght flask is actually best for prot warr (larger shield barrier), as talents go, indomitably means u take more dmg overall, and cut deeply into your rage generation, which means u will have wholes in block uptime but have 20 % more hp. But 20 % hp wont help survive unblocked hits on aggramar so for your warrior i would say he is doing stuff right, its just a very hard class for the player compared to all other tanks, prot warrior are the least used tanks in this expansion for a reason, because of the hardcore nerfs early in this expansion.. last time i tanked in raid (normaly im dps) i helped out in nighthold mythic, and jesus this shit was so fucking hard to do as warrior tank. I switched to a 20 ilvl lower blood dk, and stuff that woulld kill my well geared warrior, that used cds and external and stuff in a complex rotation via voicecom was suddenly piss easy faceroll.

As 950 warrior you get oneshotted at m12 first boss in maw of souls with boss-trait without cds, and after 3 casts from the boss, u are out of cds, so u need externals (or the new leg legendarie for extra spellreflect charge). all other tanking classes laugh at this stuff.

Then why is he frequently getting one shotted when he first pulls the boss? If he needs extra rage to use SB or IP, why doesn't he use his T20 2pc for Berserkers Rage.

Also if Indomitable isn't that answer, WHAT is the answer to him getting insta-gibbed on pull?

- - - Updated - - -

Who cares about the talent ring? He can just, you know, pick the talent?

Her reasoning was that she would lose a huge chunk of her health pool, which makes sense as she is slightly undergeared. If you think Rune Tap is still the way to go, even being undergeared then that's something I'll bring up tonight.

[MrKnubbles]

I build for survival first but as I outgear content and stop taking damage, I transition to damage.

[reyson]

Truth be told, this has been the thing for the longest time. Tanks run damage because a tanks damage can actually effect if the boss dies or not. Think Krosus, Guardian Druids had to Cat Weave for Mythic early on. In my opinion, if the tank isn't being 1 shot or close to 1 shot every few seconds, then it isn't a problem to run full DPS. If a tank is dying over 6 seconds to minimal heals, that sounds like a healer problem, not a tank problem.

Right, but we're far past raid dps issues. We blow through bosses with our dps at this gear level, so it doesn't matter whether the tank is pushing 1m dps or 1k dps. Especially if they are getting insta-gibbed by the boss.

[Zyky]

Then why is he frequently getting one shotted when he first pulls the boss? If he needs extra rage to use SB or IP, why doesn't he use his T20 2pc for Berserkers Rage.

Also if Indomitable isn't that answer, WHAT is the answer to him getting insta-gibbed on pull?

Truth be told he shouldn't be pulling as a warrior, and if he has to pull he should be using a defensive on the pull if he's getting gibbed like Last Stand. Indomitable isn't the answer ever.

Edit: Also if you're going to look for specific advice you should put logs so that people can give you better and more accurate information.

[Tech614]

There is no reason a blood should talent purgatory, a war should talent indomitable or a monk should talent high tolerance outside of situations where they are well under geared for a fight.

At appropriate gear levels those are not only "dps losses" they make you take MORE damageand/or do less self healing then the better options in those rows. Hell the fact you suggested a monk take HT on varimathras gets 9 facepalms out of 10, you want a brewmaster to be taking an even bigger DoT whiler misery is up instead of having more brews for purify or the option to pause stagger? GENIUS! Please at least do some research on the specs before trying to comment on them.

Lastly if a tank needs stam flask and food to survive anything they're bad period. There is no 1 shot mechanics in Antorus period that they will make a difference in, such a small difference in EH every tank should be running agi or str flask/food(or secondary stat food).

[cuafpr]

sigh allowing tanks to "dps" and not have to worry about defensive stats on gear is one of the worst choices blizz has made for WoW. that said if they are dying change to survival specs/gear or replace.

[callipygoustp]

The best raid teams are raid teams with players that care more about their numbers than they do about the success of the raid.

[Scrysis]

I raid on two mythic teams, one working on Aggramar where we have a prot warrior running all offensive talents and parsing orange every fight, he also randomly gets one shotted by bosses (including Aggramar on pull frequently). Should he be running Indomitable and more defensive talents? He runs STR food and flask because it "apparently contributes to his Ignore Pain".

Our Brewmaster and newly aquired, slightly undergeared BDK are working on Varimathras on our second team and have a serious problem staying alive, but again, they're not running things like High Tolerance and Purgatory. From what I understand (from what was discussed during the raid), BrM is the worst tank on this fight as they die from Stagger damage when they cannot be healed from his debuff. 90% of our wipes on Vari last night were due to tank deaths.

Now I play all tank toons except monk as alts, so I don't do a heavy amount of research or have a heavy depth of knowledge about the class mechanics for mythic raiding, but maybe I am from an old school way of thinking that tanks shouldn't give a shit about their damage parse and spec into max defensive builds for progression, my bear has 15m hp with a stam flask for christ sakes, and that's running a meme M+ build with Lady+Fury+Galactic Guardian.

And with our current gear level, our dps is blowing through bosses regardless of our tanks dps, so the only thing holding us back is mechanics and tank deaths.

Who is right? How do I solve these unecessary, constant tank deaths that keep wasting everybody's time?

If he's getting insta-gibbed (100 to 0) or near insta-gibbed, it's probably more of a mechanics issue than a talent issue -- i.e. he's sucking, and he needs to suck less. Healers can't heal through that, and it indicates an improper use of abilities.

If the tank is dying to more than two hits, but within a span of 2-3 seconds (still too fast for healers to realistically counter all the time), it's probably more of a talent thing, and he needs to pick more defensive abilities. (Just make sure your DK isn't running Bonerstorm; I believe that bloodmirror actually gives 20% mitigation for the time that it's up).

If the tank is dying in a span of greater than 2-3 seconds, it's potentially a healer issue. I would make note of when these tank wipeouts occur. It could be that dps is screwing up and the healers diverting attention to them off of the tanks (which does happen), it could be that there is crazy raid damage and every healer you have is trying to keep the raid up (This would indicate that you might need to sub in another healer), or it could be that the tank is dying during periods of movement, in which case, healer assignments would help with this (assign one healer to prioritize the tank in question above all others, and have druids specifically hot before movement periods. You might think this is obvious, but it isn't always so clear cut, especially with mana management.)

[thebdc]

Then why is he frequently getting one shotted when he first pulls the boss?

Is he charging in alone? Then maybe he gets wrecked by the Taeshalach's Reach mechanic:

All melee attacks made by the caster strike the next closest target. If no target is found, the primary target is struck again.