Tanks - why are they so overtuned, yet again?

[Azharok]

Judge all your books just by the cover, do you? I know absolutely NOTHING about you, but what does that have to do with anything?

Using your own logic, you are timing 15s, and yet discussing 25s? Why?

He's best friends with Dorki idk ...

[neik]

Good! And hopefully someone is getting fucking reward for this. Power is the future!

[fwc577]

Guardians being obscenly broken in Legion, solo tanking few bosses, having 100% uptime on AM and even Magic mitigation for some time = OK
Blood DKs being broken being pretty much their toolkit for several expansion and them being MANDATORY on some bosses due to Mass grip oh and also 100% uptime on AM = very OK
Brewmasters for several expansions living in 100% stagger uptime, watching other tanks getting one shot by tank busters = All OK
Prot paladin having more utility than all the tanks combined with cheat death and an immunity as a cherry on top = All normal

Prot warrior suffering for several expansions being shit on and set on fire, scrambling to even get invited to a m+ group after years of crying having the biggest design flaw adressed (SB uptime) = holy shit, nerf it to the ground!!! How dare warriors be COMPETETIVE!!!!1!11

This is all bad design. it shouldn't have happened then. It shouldn't happen now. It should be fixed. Just because you're on the benefitting end this time doesn't mean people are out to get you. We're all just tired of balance being poor when it comes to tanking because they can't seem to get it right when it comes to tanks and there always seems to be a couple of outliers.

In S1 here of Dragonflight, those outliers are Warriors on the good end and Druid, Brew, and DH on the bad end.

[Elbob]

Guardians being obscenly broken in Legion, solo tanking few bosses, having 100% uptime on AM and even Magic mitigation for some time = OK
Blood DKs being broken being pretty much their toolkit for several expansion and them being MANDATORY on some bosses due to Mass grip oh and also 100% uptime on AM = very OK
Brewmasters for several expansions living in 100% stagger uptime, watching other tanks getting one shot by tank busters = All OK
Prot paladin having more utility than all the tanks combined with cheat death and an immunity as a cherry on top = All normal

Prot warrior suffering for several expansions being shit on and set on fire, scrambling to even get invited to a m+ group after years of crying having the biggest design flaw adressed (SB uptime) = holy shit, nerf it to the ground!!! How dare warriors be COMPETETIVE!!!!1!11

Pretty much everyone agreed bears were broken in legion and needed nerfs, (they did get a good few including losing mark of ursol all together mid expac)

Mass grip feeling mandatory has been a discussed problem for years but having high impact on a few bosses vs what prot warrior is now or what bears were in legion is not really a fair comparison. The 100% uptime boneshield is irrelevant because it mitigates far less damage compared to the non 100% ones. AM "checks" don't even exist anymore.

Brm yes have been an above average tank for a while but for most of that time have been in the #2 slot to some other tank. And by 100% stagger I assume you mean 100% shuffle uptime, and they need that or they effectively would be taking hits like they were a dps. Brm doesn't have high armor like other tanks it depends on staggering damage to avoid getting 1 shot by auto attacks.

Prot pallies are probably where I think most tanks should fall balance wise(atm), high utility is/has always been their thing and outside being insane dps for most of SL raid content have been a low quality tank for a long time. ATM they feel like they can stand their ground against physical damage reasonably, the best parts of their kit is high utility(which i wish all tanks brought) and they have impactful but not OP cds.

Prot warriors have not been stuck behind forever like you imply. They were the premier M+ tank for most of bfa, between the DK bonestorm nerf and vers stacking(via corruption) Brm in later nya'lotha, which made them damn near unkillable and could face tank even the highest of keys. They are just TOO ahead atm in terms of ease of tanking M+. I have both a warrior and a brewmaster above 2400 atm and I can tell you I am frequently so glad when im on my warrior. So many things feel easier and safer. If you really want a list I'll throw a shit ton of examples together, but the number of times im glad to be on my monk(outside doing really high burst damage on large packs) is super low. Brm doesn't feel like it smooths out damage well(which is kind of its thing) and so many tank busters feel like a death sentence on it.

[Tech614]

Prot warrior suffering for several expansions

"Several expansions"

Lol prot wars where king throughout most of BFA and where pretty damn close to the meta pick of VDH in Season 1 of Shadowlands. Prot War had 2 relevant seasons in shadowlands of not being near the top! Oh the suffering!

- - - Updated - - -

Can you read bro?

You can't read or type since you said the discord has "people attempting 27s", not one guy in the world who even had the ability to zone into a 27. You gonna sit here like you're buds with the top IO tank in the world now though? Have him come to the thread to defend his good friend, this should be popcorn inducing.

[erifwodahs]

Prot warrior suffering for several expansions being shit on and set on fire, scrambling to even get invited to a m+ group after years of crying having the biggest design flaw adressed (SB uptime) = holy shit, nerf it to the ground!!! How dare warriors be COMPETETIVE!!!!1!11

Several expansions = SL? Can someone link this dude a BFA m+ video with warriors clapping the shit out of everything in existence?

[fwc577]

You can't read or type since you said the discord has "people attempting 27s", not one guy in the world who even had the ability to zone into a 27. You gonna sit here like you're buds with the top IO tank in the world now though? Have him come to the thread to defend his good friend, this should be popcorn inducing.

When he got called out for this earlier in the thread, he did a total derp and was like, but a key requires 5 people. It's a shitty walkbalk because that implies dudes entire M+ team is in that Discord and discussing Warriors and how tanks are busted or whatever bullshit he's trying to pull.

[Deneios]

Several expansions = SL? Can someone link this dude a BFA m+ video with warriors clapping the shit out of everything in existence?

BFA is a bad reference since the corruption lottery had bigger impact than the classes themself.

[fwc577]

BFA is a bad reference since the corruption lottery had bigger impact than the classes themself.

Oh, okay, ignore an entire expansion because of 1 out of 4 seasons and the whinge of borrowed power, lmao

[Kikazz]

Sounds awful. Reduce the depth of all classes for.. what?

a lot of sucessfull MMO's have the 1 player can do all mentality.

just because you dont play it doesnt mean it isnt viable.

the holy trinity has been moved along in a lot of games

[Zendhal The Black]

Several expansions = SL? Can someone link this dude a BFA m+ video with warriors clapping the shit out of everything in existence?

Legion S1 - FR - IP weaving build, while fun to play, it was "fine"
Legion S2-4 - After redesign it was Good when you had Shield Block up, garbage when it dropped down
BFA pre patch - My defensives were literally cut in half, I struggled to survive on any boss in Antorus
BFA S1 - it was a nightmare... not only my nerfed defensives got worse by leveling up, I lost all the bandaid traits from artifact that fixed some issues and every god damn thing was on GCD... I completed dungeon hero achievement early on with guildies (it was a real struggle) leveled my brewmaster, went into the mythics with him with leveling greens on and I felt like a nuclear bunker vs broken umbrella on warrior
BFA S2 - 1 new trait that gave avatar a mastery bonus and a new talent that made TC do more damage on lower CD... on top of that m+ affix was a huge trash wave that did next to nothing so you could just cleave them with boss. This was the "peak" in bfa not for defensives, utility or CC, It was for damage during Avatar... then it got nerfed hard
BFA S3 - pretty much the same.. but after the nerfed damage and new affix prot warrs were in the middle of the pack. Defensive CDs in betweem Shield Block uptime was a part of a rotation...
BFA S4 - Whichever tank rolled better Twilight Devastation won... all that mattered was class toolkit which warrs were lacking

SL - lol

Dragonflight - most of the things we were asking for to fix Prot warrs were given to us (with Shield block to 100% uptime being the most significant one), Now Prot warrs have their full potential. What people should be asking for is bringing up other tanks to a BDK/Prot warr level, not making yet another expansion a struggle to get a group

[Segus1992]

a lot of sucessfull MMO's have the 1 player can do all mentality.

just because you dont play it doesnt mean it isnt viable.

the holy trinity has been moved along in a lot of games

You talk about Final Fantasy and then you talk about holy trinity being removed. You are aware that Final Fantasy is even harder stuck in the holy trinity than WoW is? Your suggestion of "let every class be able to do everything" also isn't what FF14 does, unless you can give me an example of a White Mage tanking?

[sponge5307]

Several expansions = SL? Can someone link this dude a BFA m+ video with warriors clapping the shit out of everything in existence?

LOL yup literally in BFA all every MDI season every team is literally running a port warrior, 2 DK with a WW monk or BM hunter. LOL saying Port warrior is crap for several expansion is such a lie.

Right now the issue with Prot warrior is they have too much mitigation with 100% uptime. They have shield block, IP and def stance. In fact most prot warrior don't even use def stance till they are doing a +16 and above. Then there is all the passive leech and also there is a ton of armour and also in their talent tree they have. Also their rage generation is off the charts. They no longer have to chose to spend it on Shield block or IP or revenge. On top of that they also dodge, and parry attack they can have spell reflect. A ton of gap closer, good CC.

That's why they are miles ahead of everyone. Look at poor bear tanks and brew. Both suffering and no buff. The 110.0.5 talent tree changes to bear only made it so the left side of the tree can actually keep up with right side but doesn't address surivabilty at all. Bear doesn't block, we don't parry, we only dodge and reduce damage via bear form to increase armour and use Ironfur which is nothing compare to warrior IP or shield block.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

Title.

Tanks deal insane amounts of damage, they have insane self heal and inarguably the best defense and survivability tools in the game (hint: they're tanks).

Didn't Blizzard intend to avoid situations like these, when tanks are basically the holy trinity in unison? I just don't get the idea behind this - I'm playing a healer and it's very comfortable for me, but they seem way too overtuned right now.

What's the reason for this?

I am guessing you play at very casual level? And perhaps the tanks you see are over-geared for the content, maybe just farming augment runes? If so, what you're seeing is over-gear issue, not spec-balance issue.

In high keys tank balance feels fine.

[Ethas]

My blood tank has really good self healing, but he takes huge amounts of damage (health spikes up/down a lot). He also does abysmal damage.

Prot warriors however....absurd

As a Healer can confirm this. Each time our group get DK tank I feel uncomfortable because of the spiky nature of their incoming damage and restoring health I have no way to tell if they are okay or gonna die in a second. Also can confirm that Protection Warriors are the best for me. The pattern of incoming damage is so smooth I can comfortably plan their healing and the healing of the rest of the party.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

I have no way to tell if they are okay or gonna die in a second.

It is frustrating but you should track their runic power. If they have a lot and die it's 100% their fault

[FuxieDK]

And even then, there's still a shortage of tanks for all pve content.

If there is a shortage of tanks, why is it ALWAYS healers that are missing, wether you look at M+ groups, LFR or LFD?

Healers is where the real shortage is.

[Gumble]

As a fellow Guardian, how do you have to use your brain? Bear is the easiest tank season on season, in my opinion. Right now it's not great, might be after the talent tree revamp though. Blood, Prot paladin and Warrior are all good, sure, warrior is somewhat ahead, but it's not that far ahead. Meta seems to be a difficult concept to grasp for some. Lets say Guardian is 0.2% better than Prot warrior next patch, what do you think will happen? you'll see everyone shifting to Guardian, people will make guides with optimal Guardian cooldown usage on certain bosses, and suddenly there will be pulls "you can only do on a Guardian"

While it may be the case that the meta does tend to shift heavily for the slightest imbalance, every tank I know (myself included) who plays multiple tanks finds Prot Warriors grossly overpowered.

I am also a bear main, but my nearly as geared alt is a prot pally. I'm only about +- 400-405 iLevel atm, but my 372 prot warrior can compete on the same keys and feel safer than either of those tanks.

It all comes down to what they did to prot warriors with the talent changes. Compared to previous seasons, they gave them easy 100% uptime on shield block, and an incredibly rage income. This combined with easier ways to use Ignore Pain, that heals them for % health on use, and Prot Warriors have the most mitigation by FAR of any tank while having healing that is only beaten by Blood DKs.

Generally tank balance is between survivability and self healing, either you have alot of one and less of the other, or you have a balanced amount of both. Brews and Warriors tended to be on the survivable end (they die slow), but didn't heal that much. DH and DKs were the opposite. Self healed alot, but could go splat easy. Bears and Pallies sat in the middle, and normally only excelled when a set bonus or balancing issues pushed them into crazyland (think S4 Incarn bears)

Right now, Warriors have the best and the 2nd best of survivability and self healing. That is impossible to beat and it shows.

If you made bears as good as warriors right now, you'd have to give them a 10-15% flat DR and remove the cooldown from Frezied Regen. That's how strong Warriors are right now.