Replace DPS specs with tanks/healers.

[Pakheth]

Absolutely not true. Like at all.

There is no heal/tank scarcity in raids (generally). Tanks are an afterthought in PvP and healing in PvP is also not that much of a problem. It's only m+ (or dungeons in general) where it's a problem, but one Blizzard made.

The whole concept of m+ favours DDs.
Tanks have to plan the routes ahead, since they are the ones pulling. Often they can't really tank, but have to kite. There are even some affixes that make this necessary (e.g. necrotic). All that while doing as much DPS as possible. Taking defensive talents or legendaries is often not the best choice for them.
Healers have a shit job: They are only needed if the group makes mistakes and otherwise they act as low throughput damage dealers, that occasionally have to burst heal the group. And since they don't have an interrupt (except shamans), they can't even reliably prevent damage but have to rely on the DPS and Tanks to not suck, since one missed kick can cause a wipe on higher keys and there is nothing a heal can do about it.
So we have two roles, that are basically more difficult DDs with more responsibility.

Only DDs can play their intended role: Just make as much damage as possible (and interrupt important abilities).

The timer of m+ coupled with the clear % requirement makes this a DPS race. One good DPS can carry your key. A healer can't do that. A tank could, but only if he does high dps, not by just tanking more mobs than usual (since the DPS would die either way because of missed interrupts).

How I would fix that problem:
Make invisibility potions unusable in m+. Give more mobs stealth detection. Reduce the timer of dungeons. Then, instead of requiring a certain number of mobs for 100%, let each killed mob extend the dungeon timer by a few seconds, that way you're not as punished by not following the optimal route. Essentially you could either kill as little trash as possible and try to burst the bosses in a short amount of time or you could kill more trash and then have more time for the bosses. Assuming you kill the trash fast enough, but in my concept the time extension would be very generous.
That way you have an option to "save" a few boss wipes by just extending your time and tanks don't have to meticously plan the routes ahead.

In regards to healers: Give them something to heal other than the group. We have some raid boss encounters where healers must heal mobs, which in turn buff the group. Maybe implement this mechanic in m+.

Thank you for putting into words the issues I have with M+ and why I don't really want to neither heal nor tank in them personally.

[Aresk]

Sure they wouldn’t have the excuse but a pure dps player doesn’t want to play a tank/heal because they dont want the group responsibility. Changing specs around may increase percentage for tank/heal because of less dps due to them quitting due to their favorite spec changed to tank/heal. Example, i play demo and that changes to tank, fuck that im out.

Conversely, if they brought the old meta style of Demo with Dark Apotheosis back, I'd play the warlock I sidelined because I didn't like the way demo played in Legion. There are people on both sides of this debate. I enjoyed warlock from Cata through WoD, and Legion killed my interest in the class.

[Utok]

All this will accomplish is pissing off players who like playing their specs.



I pugged pretty heavily in WotLK and outside of those who were known to be the absolute worst, notoriety meant little to the pugs I was in. And go-go-go mentality was pretty present even then.

People have some serious rose tinted glasses for the past.

I think it was mostly vanilla+BC where if you were caught out as an asshole then you ended up needing to roll a new character to get around the bad rep. Not having the summoning stones helped a bit too since people had put effort into getting to a specific dungeon, they were unlikely to bail from it for minor reasons.

[Woods123]

The issue never was and never wil be a lack of options, the issue is that they aren’t as fun. Period. The easiest time to ever find a tank was when deathknights first came out. Why? Because they were op as shit and did a metric shit load of damage as a tank and it was fun as hell.

[kenn9530]

Possibly. But if every class had the option, no player would have the excuse.

Games lacking trinity type setups or something to replace them lose a whole lot of depth in my opinion.

The role you play is a choice, tanking and healing is not an option for many players and they refuse to play those roles because they dont enjoy them, more options does not increase the amount of ppl playing those roles, and would you want to limit the options for dps to only have 1 spec option.

Tank and healing are harder roles and not something any player can just do, dps you can get away with it but there is a huge difference between a good player and a player who just jumps into a role they have never done.

[Kithelle]

Thats not even the reason. It is cause the tanks and heals do not want to deal with stupid people; aka pugs. 99% of them have their own groups.

Lots of tanks, just none want to deal woth bad players.

DPS is more fun...you only have to worry about yourself and you get to pew pew and make big numbers. People enjoy it more

But either which is true or not doesn't matter...adding more tank and healer specs won't add more tanks and healers to the pool

[Azadina]

People dont want to tank and heal. Simple as that. Adding more tanks/heals or replacing dps as such will not increase tank/heal players by a marginal enough amount to warrant such a change. If anything remove tank and heal roles then make everything dps with their own personal defensives and healing cds. That will get your queues faster.

GW2 is that way -->>

It was also the worst mistake that games devs made. By far.

[Aleksej89]

some of the tank and heal capable classes, like warriors and priests, are imho very boring and have been so for a very long time.

letting pure dps classes perform tank or heal roles would definitely get me to play some of those classes more often.

[Usernameforforums]

GW2 is that way -->>

It was also the worst mistake that games devs made. By far.

Its just a more logical conclusion than adding more tanks/heals on the expense of dps.

I don’t actually want this change

[Phob]

Let's waste time by revamping classes that already exist into half baked tank/healing specs that don't actually exist outside of our headcanon sounds like a perfect idea for blizzard. The problem isn't the amount of specs, it's the amount of people who enjoy the role. Adding another tank spec will make current tanks try it out not make dps players magicly love tanking, same with healers. And removing specs people actually play and enjoy wouldn't be the best way to do this either. That will probably make them quit and then we may have a tank/healer and dps problem. (Aka death of the game)

[SynDethroc]

This is one of the worst takes I've ever seen tbh.

[threads]

changing specs that have been established for over 10 yrs would be a huge mistake. look at how survival turned out.

[EmrysForrest]

I don’t understand how people missed the point of replacing specializations INSTEAD of adding in a completely new class with 2 or 3 specializations? That way instead of 2 additional specializations in the mix to balance, there’s a net 0? Because you’re removing one and adding another. I’m not saying it will REDUCE balancing or cost no development time- I’m saying it will give them less balancing to do over time as opposed to outright adding two specs into the mix of the existing ones.

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Because math? If you change a specialization every 2 or 3 expansions, then you aren’t adding an additional specialization to balance on top of the existing ones, you’re REPLACING a specialization so it’s a net zero gain in number of specializations to keep track of and balance. I’m so confused how this is confusing for people.

[Progenitor Aquarius]

Remove Arcane? Nevar!

[Hobbidaggy]

I think you posted in the wrong thread; your reply has nothing to do with what the OP wrote.

OP is bring up the age old solution to the “tank and healer shortage” by adding more healers and tanks. There isn’t a shortage because of classes and accessibility there is a shortage because people got sick of being abused by people in a game and decided “I don’t need to put up with this” so they either only rank or heal for their friends/guild and very rarely in pugs or moved to a DPS spec.


On an aside: what I have noticed now after coming back to play, healers and ranks are expected to be DPSing high levels during fights as well as healing/tanking. This I find a bit ridiculous. Sure pop a few quick and cheap shots at a boss etc but to be abused for not doing high dps as a healer when I need to manage my mana and your health and boss abilities and that one person who always stands in stuff and takes massive damage because “moving will lower their dps” it’s not going to happen. The mindset of people in this game needs to change (I know it won’t) then you might see some bigger uptakes and you don’t need a huge overhaul of classes to add additional specs of healers and tanks to the game

[EmrysForrest]

I think people have missed the point of my original thread- there seems to be a misunderstanding that I think this would solve the tank and healer drought- I couldn’t possibly care less if it does or not. Purely from a player fantasy perspective, having 3 DPS specs in one class seems asinine to me- you could explore some much more entertaining archetypes by changing one of the redundant DPS specializations into a support specialization. Let’s be real, usually only one specialization for DPS is used per patch anyway.

Even though I don’t care whether or not this would bring more healers and tanks into those roles- I think it’s absolutely absurd to think it wouldn’t. More people would be off spec tanks/healers by necessity, meaning more people would learn the roles or attempt the roles, and more people may learn that they enjoy them. And even if they don’t LOVE the roles, they still might have to use them and perform well in raids and mythic+. Also it’s possible that people LOVE the fantasy of playing a rogue but have always wanted to tank- well there ya go. Or perhaps people love the fantasy of playing a mage but wish they could heal- again, yay. The classes still have TWO DPS specs to choose from- that’s enough.

I’m not asking you all to do mental gymnastics here, christ.

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OP is bring up the age old solution to the “tank and healer shortage” by adding more healers and tanks. There isn’t a shortage because of classes and accessibility there is a shortage because people got sick of being abused by people in a game and decided “I don’t need to put up with this” so they either only rank or heal for their friends/guild and very rarely in pugs or moved to a DPS spec.

No. I didn’t bring that up. I don’t care about the lack of tank and healer players at all. More gear and faster queues for me.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

Even if this was a good idea, which it isn't, it's not feasible in a game like this where you'd alienate tons of veteran players who have played those specs a long time!

I do agree that we shouldn't have any more specs, though. Evoker will just end up pushing other people out of the raid.

[Khaza-R]

I think people have missed the point of my original thread- there seems to be a misunderstanding that I think this would solve the tank and healer drought- I couldn’t possibly care less if it does or not. Purely from a player fantasy perspective, having 3 DPS specs in one class seems asinine to me- you could explore some much more entertaining archetypes by changing one of the redundant DPS specializations into a support specialization. Let’s be real, usually only one specialization for DPS is used per patch anyway.

Even though I don’t care whether or not this would bring more healers and tanks into those roles- I think it’s absolutely absurd to think it wouldn’t. More people would be off spec tanks/healers by necessity, meaning more people would learn the roles or attempt the roles, and more people may learn that they enjoy them. And even if they don’t LOVE the roles, they still might have to use them and perform well in raids and mythic+. Also it’s possible that people LOVE the fantasy of playing a rogue but have always wanted to tank- well there ya go. Or perhaps people love the fantasy of playing a mage but wish they could heal- again, yay. The classes still have TWO DPS specs to choose from- that’s enough.

I’m not asking you all to do mental gymnastics here, christ.

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Even so, its still a terrible idea. You might not personally understand it but there are plenty of people who only want to DPS and enjoy that their pure class offers 3 different playstyles to do so. Its like how many hunters enjoyed that their class offered 3 ranged specs, then one of them was abruptly changed to be melee. For those hunter players who never wanted to melee, the decision was alienating.

What you're asking for isn't bad per say. But it would be much better achieved by adding 4th specs to some classes to fulfill new roles. This was it only adds to player options and doesn't detract from the current offerings.

[Phob]

Again, yea let's take a dps spec that you don't play but others do play and enjoy as a dps and screw those current players just because you want it to be a tank or healer spec. Do you really not see the trash logic behind this? Literally trying to change something you don't play because you want it to be different makes 0 sense. The only thing this will do is make those current players of those specs quit.

[Eosia]

Never going to happen. More people would walk than would sign on for this stupid idea. There are 6 classes that can tank. Dragonflight might actually, depending on how the trees are designed, actually move the needle from 6 to 9 specs that can tank with DKs potentially tanking in any spec. 5 healing classes. Druid can do all three roles.

No, they don't need to crap all over someone's preferred spec because some entitled person thinks that spec needs to go away for stupid reasons.