Fort/Skittish/Bolstering = Tanks take the week off

[Deleted]

What is a prot warrior? Never seen one.

The sleeping tiger of tanks that is waking up

[RuneDK]

This week is probably good for 1/2 levels lower than a real "push" week.

What makes it hard are retards that blow their load on aoe'ing when they shouldn't. SoTS comes to mind, had the windshaper after the first boss bolstered to Jesus levels because people went nuts.

I like that it makes you think, I dislike that with said idiots it becomes impossible.

some specs have no option to just single target though. Part of optimal ST damage for these specs has AoE abilities....that happen to do a lot of damage....A frost DK for instance has to use howling blast when rime procs...yes it's a proc and not mandatory...but people will bitch if their dps is down because they're trying to be smart. It's a lose lose situation for some people.

[Deja Thoris]

some specs have no option to just single target though. Part of optimal ST damage for these specs has AoE abilities....that happen to do a lot of damage....A frost DK for instance has to use howling blast when rime procs...yes it's a proc and not mandatory...but people will bitch if their dps is down because they're trying to be smart. It's a lose lose situation for some people.

It's not lose lose at all. We all know that theres some cleave involved in most classes dps rotations and in some situations you'll exercise good judgement and not use those procs. I'm not complaining about "some" cleave, I'm talking about full mongo AOE when people should know better.

[Mardux]

It's not lose lose at all. We all know that theres some cleave involved in most classes dps rotations and in some situations you'll exercise good judgement and not use those procs. I'm not complaining about "some" cleave, I'm talking about full mongo AOE when people should know better.

But people don't want to know better. They want to go full mongo with AoE. They want to not have a rogue or hunter that will use tricks/MD. They want to call an affix cancer because they aren't willing to use their brain.

[Druidzorz]

some specs have no option to just single target though. Part of optimal ST damage for these specs has AoE abilities....that happen to do a lot of damage....A frost DK for instance has to use howling blast when rime procs...yes it's a proc and not mandatory...but people will bitch if their dps is down because they're trying to be smart. It's a lose lose situation for some people.

he's referring to things like, a balance druid using starfall over starsurge. we know the dots will apply to most around the main target and wrath/lunar strike will cleave, but deciding to use an aoe ability when you could use a single target in order to not stupidly bolster is the issue people are looking at.

[ydraw]

It's not lose lose at all. We all know that theres some cleave involved in most classes dps rotations and in some situations you'll exercise good judgement and not use those procs. I'm not complaining about "some" cleave, I'm talking about full mongo AOE when people should know better.

As a boomkin literally the only spell I can cast that doesn't cleave is solar wrath. And if you're asking a boomkin to use nothing but Solar Wrath and starsurge then they are going to be doing about 4k dps. It's your responsibility as a tank to not put DPS in situations where they can't use their abilities without accidentally bolstering. If you're pulling packs of non-elites along with elites on bolstering week then that's the tank's fault, not the DPS.

[Voidwielder]

Skittish is a non-affix for 8 and above. By that point most tanks are geared enough that threat is a non-problem.

It's actually lower keys where it can be a problem, if you have say a decent geared turbo DH and a weak Prot Warrior, yeah - trouble in paradise.
Ran several +10s this week, not once it was a problem - both as a tank and a healer.

[Deja Thoris]

As a boomkin literally the only spell I can cast that doesn't cleave is solar wrath. And if you're asking a boomkin to use nothing but Solar Wrath and starsurge then they are going to be doing about 4k dps. It's your responsibility as a tank to not put DPS in situations where they can't use their abilities without accidentally bolstering. If you're pulling packs of non-elites along with elites on bolstering week then that's the tank's fault, not the DPS.

I disagree.

Take the pack after the first boss on SotS. Miniboss and 4 initiates. This pull can be handled in a number of ways.
1) mongo aoe. Grats, you just bolstered quite a dangerous mob 4 times.
2) Minimal cleave. Yes, I know all your dots and abilities cleave but you can get it 50% or so before it starts to bolster making it much less dangerous.
3) Taunt the big mob out and have you treant the little ones to keep them in place. Grats, now its not a scary pull.

It's not black and white but it revolves around people playing smart, thats the point I'm trying to make, not "nnnghhh, my spells cleaaave, not mah fault!" which is the usual brainless response.

[ydraw]

I disagree.

Take the pack after the first boss on SotS. Miniboss and 4 initiates. This pull can be handled in a number of ways.
1) mongo aoe. Grats, you just bolstered quite a dangerous mob 4 times.
2) Minimal cleave. Yes, I know all your dots and abilities cleave but you can get it 50% or so before it starts to bolster making it much less dangerous.
3) Taunt the big mob out and have you treant the little ones to keep them in place. Grats, now its not a scary pull.

You actually can't do 2 though, that's the point. If I don't AOE the little adds will die anyway to the tank's passive cleave, which he needs to use to build threat on them. The proper way to handle this pull is 3 in your example. But you can't do that if the tank just charges in and tanks them all together. So, like I said, the responsibility for bolstering lies equally (if not more so) with the tank, because the tank is the one who's choosing where mobs end up, and if he puts them in the wrong spot on bolstering week it makes it impossible for the DPS to do their job. And I see tanks do this dozens of times per dungeon.

[Lenis]

I am BrM who runs 15-19s. Most people have no idea how threat is generated so they have no idea how Skittish works. On normal week you generate threat roughly 6-7x your damage (overall damage done to target multiplied by that value). Geared tank (385) on ST target does roughly 6.5-8k based on length of the fight and class. That means u generate threat as 39k-48k dps. No dps will ever reach these numbers. Skittish reduces threat generating to roughly 2x. That means you generate threat as 13-16k dps, which is already beatable by well geared (385) dps. You can mitigate this by using taunt and using your biggest hitting abilities (even though it is not in tooltip, while target is taunted you generate increased threat to it) or Hunter Misdirection/Rogue Tricks.

A lot of people have no idea how Misdirection and Tricks works as well. I see so many dps dropping those skills on me when they get agro and some even try kitting with them active. That's because a lot of people think that those skills redirect mobs to tank which is totally not how it works. Some people do their full opener and when skills are on cooldown they use Tricks/Misdirection as filler, that is just as stupid as kiting with them on. They simple add your damage done to tank overall damage done in threat generation while active.

Reality is that difficulity of skittish really scales a lot with M+ level. There are two reasons for that: DPS damage scales much more from gear than tank dmg, a lot of pulls are too big or some mobs does too much damage to facetank them without defensives.

I think Skittish is in really good place as affix but it makes Rogue utility kit even more overloaded.

[Tatahe]

This week is free, just avoid guardian druids and you should be fine...

[Lenis]

You actually can't do 2 though, that's the point. If I don't AOE the little adds will die anyway to the tank's passive cleave, which he needs to use to build threat on them. The proper way to handle this pull is 3 in your example. But you can't do that if the tank just charges in and tanks them all together. So, like I said, the responsibility for bolstering lies equally (if not more so) with the tank, because the tank is the one who's choosing where mobs end up, and if he puts them in the wrong spot on bolstering week it makes it impossible for the DPS to do their job. And I see tanks do this dozens of times per dungeon.

Tank doesn't have to lead the group, it is just something that is expected in lower keys. There is very little tank can do against bolstering besides not doing stupid pulls. However, there are many packs without any easy work around, that's where best tank can do is call out how to deal with it (get agro and kill smallies while he moves out big mob, mass root or ring of peace small mobs, dont do any cleave in rotation and so on). If none of the clever tactics are used, you as dps should flex your brain and not bolster mini bosses into raid bosses.

[Aoyi]

I pugged a couple this week since my usual mythic plus running friends were away for the holidays and it seemed to go super smooth. The one I was most worried about was a Freehold 11 pug without voice that the leader picked the tank purely as a joke to see how it would go. He picked a bear tank over a much better geared DK with a better raider.io just because he thought it would be funny. No deaths and just missed a 2 chest by a few seconds. Still a very comfortable 1 chest in a non-ideal comp with a leader that said he didn’t care how long we took as long as he got a 10 for the week. It was a hunter, warrior, enhancement shaman, bear tank, resto shaman group.

[ydraw]

Tank doesn't have to lead the group, it is just something that is expected in lower keys. There is very little tank can do against bolstering besides not doing stupid pulls. However, there are many packs without any easy work around, that's where best tank can do is call out how to deal with it (get agro and kill smallies while he moves out big mob, mass root or ring of peace small mobs, dont do any cleave in rotation and so on). If none of the clever tactics are used, you as dps should flex your brain and not bolster mini bosses into raid bosses.

And as I've explained twice now, some classes literally have nothing they can do in that situation. As a boomkin I can't do any DPS at all if I don't use moonfire and sunfire, those spells build the astral power I need to use starsurge to deal any single target damage at all. If the tank pulls a pack with small non-elites and an elite, then those small non-elites are going to die to the tank's damage alone before I can do any meaningful damage to the main mob.

Tanks have to realise that not all classes have the ability to single target focus a single mob that's in a pack surrounded by others without cleaving, and pull accordingly.

[Mardux]

And as I've explained twice now, some classes literally have nothing they can do in that situation. As a boomkin I can't do any DPS at all if I don't use moonfire and sunfire, those spells build the astral power I need to use starsurge to deal any single target damage at all. If the tank pulls a pack with small non-elites and an elite, then those small non-elites are going to die to the tank's damage alone before I can do any meaningful damage to the main mob.

Tanks have to realise that not all classes have the ability to single target focus a single mob that's in a pack surrounded by others without cleaving, and pull accordingly.

If your group chooses not to CC mobs or doesn't have the capability to CC mobs, that falls on the person who put the group together. You cant always just blame the tank when you want to go full mongo while knowing that you shouldn't.

[Lenis]

And as I've explained twice now, some classes literally have nothing they can do in that situation. As a boomkin I can't do any DPS at all if I don't use moonfire and sunfire, those spells build the astral power I need to use starsurge to deal any single target damage at all. If the tank pulls a pack with small non-elites and an elite, then those small non-elites are going to die to the tank's damage alone before I can do any meaningful damage to the main mob.

Tanks have to realise that not all classes have the ability to single target focus a single mob that's in a pack surrounded by others without cleaving, and pull accordingly.

I guess you are one of those who are incapable of flexing the brain. I actually once had boomie who wiped us twice in shrine after me specifically telling him not to do any cleave. He was really mad and flaming me. I asked him which of his abilities doesnt have any cleave, he said it is only Solar Wrath. I said: "if u click any other ability on next mini boss I am leaving". It worked out perfectly, zero problem with bolstering.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

some specs have no option to just single target though. Part of optimal ST damage for these specs has AoE abilities....that happen to do a lot of damage....A frost DK for instance has to use howling blast when rime procs...yes it's a proc and not mandatory...but people will bitch if their dps is down because they're trying to be smart. It's a lose lose situation for some people.

Rime has a 15 second duration, they can hold back on it for a couple of seconds and I'd much rather somebody hold back on their dps a bit so we don't have a 5th boss in the dungeon when a mob gets 5+ bolstering stacks.

So the trash pull takes 30 seconds instead of 15-20, but at least we don't have to make the choice between spending 2 minutes killing a trash mob bolstered to the high heavens or wiping (which costs 25 seconds of timer) and running back (can be a minute depending on the dungeon and where you were at the time).

However, what would be better would be to play a bit with positioning if you have a good tank (move the big mob(s) so that the Howling Blast doesn't hit the small adds) and a DK with a bit of spatial awareness.

[Kokolums]

Eh, by most standards this is considered one of the push weeks if any at least regarding some dungeons.

See, this is what helps make M+ cancerous. You get people trying to cheese it by running during the most advantageous weeks. Blizz needs to penalize players for only running on soft weeks.

[Aktec]

See, this is what helps make M+ cancerous. You get people trying to cheese it by running during the most advantageous weeks. Blizz needs to penalize players for only running on soft weeks.

Or perhaps fix their game so that its more balanced and people dont feel the need to do that.

[ONCHEhap]

Eh, by most standards this is considered one of the push weeks if any at least regarding some dungeons.

that's because DPS consider anything that they don't personally have to deal with easy
And DPS outnumber the other two roles

So you have tons of DPS talking out of their ass about affixes they don't really understand,and that the other two roles have to handle