Why does every guide-site suggest to tanks to get dps major essences?

[epigramx]

I get it that they do it for 5mans to go faster but it's really nonsensical. The main reason it's nonsensical is that they usually *DO* suggest defensive essences on the minor slots so it makes no sense that they tunnel-vision so much the DPS aspect of the major essences since they do care about defense anyway so it's like it became a meme that you are pro super tank if you go dps mainly but it's really such nonsense especially if you find a healer that can do good DPS will less healing.

[Keisori]

Honestly, most of the majors are either another defensive or are some kind of utility. The issue comes up, you should never need the extra defensive. If you do, you're not using your abilities well enough. Or way to under geared. But I mean, no one I have seen has ever called out a tank for taking a defensive essence.

[prwraith]

I get it that they do it for 5mans to go faster but it's really nonsensical. The main reason it's nonsensical is that they usually *DO* suggest defensive essences on the minor slots so it makes no sense that they tunnel-vision so much the DPS aspect of the major essences since they do care about defense anyway so it's like it became a meme that you are pro super tank if you go dps mainly but it's really such nonsense especially if you find a healer that can do good DPS will less healing.

As a tank unless you screw up...you're basically unkillable unless the healer is afk or you fuck up..why wouldn't you pump extra dps

[Tojara]

Most of the defensive options are just terrible though and more often than not, just killing things faster (tank DPS included) is going to reduce the overall damage the raid takes more than a tank 'optimizing' (and I use that word loosely), the essences they decide to choose.

The entirety of tank design is almost exclusively designed around giving the necessary tools within the base kit, and for extreme examples, you call out for external CDs which can be both on the spot, or planned for based on the encounter design (which has been in the game forever). They've long moved away from incredibly powerful trinkets and made it much more of a rare occurrence that other minor changes can drastically influence your overall survival aside from just knowing your rotation, and hitting your classes CDs at the right time. I'd ask you, what major essence are you even thinking of that's good in any capacity right now?

The reason people suggest defensive essences on some minor slots is because they're usually the best of both worlds. You're likely talking about aegis, conflict and strife and a host of others. These are not only amazing offensively, but they offer defensive benefit as well. Again, I have to ask what essences you're even talking about, because the amount of essences across all tanking capable classes that are actually 'good' is pretty narrow if you're talking about optimization.

Finally the raiding world typically doesn't operate with your final thought either. The amount of tanks your bring to an encounter is almost always static (except in very extreme categories) with the healer role being far more flexible. One of the first things people look for when doing a raid encounter is how few healers they can get away with, so while it's important that healers get away with DPS when they can, it's usually much better you focus on the minimum amount of healers you actually need, simply so you can throw another DPS in.

Tanks focusing more on defense rarely is going to remove a tank from the encounter or as a result allow your healers to DPS more. This is simply because a lot of encounters are binary pass/fail in regards to tanks that you bring and unless you have extreme amounts of DPS (or the encounter is designed poorly), and no amount of defensive min/maxing is going to get around an encounter designed around having two tanks.

TLDR: Major essences for tanks aren't very good and the core kit is more than enough to deal with raids. You don't min/max a tanks defensives so you can have your healers DPS more, instead you bring as much DPS as possible so the potential to drop healers and make the overall raid damage go down as a result is far more likely.

[epigramx]

you should never need the extra defensive. If you do, you're not using your abilities well enough.

But don't you get that this works BOTH WAYS? For example you may have a lot of offensive gear equipped, or others to be too offensive like a healer with high dps or dpses with no defensives on them at all.

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Most of the defensive options are just terrible though

But there're clearly some that are GOD LIKE. For example Brewmaster can very easily get one that reduces the damage of EACH HIT by like ~500 which is extremely effective if you have to pull multiple mobs or/and have mobs with multiple dots on you.
This is not too niche because this is reminiscent of hard core raiding aiming for high block volume/rate on some bosses (granted not all but for trash in 5mans it's not that niche).

[exochaft]

But don't you get that this works BOTH WAYS? For example you may have a lot of offensive gear equipped, or others to be too offensive like a healer with high dps or dpses with no defensives on them at all.

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But there're clearly some that are GOD LIKE. For example Brewmaster can very easily get one that reduces the damage of EACH HIT by like ~500 which is extremely effective if you have to pull multiple mobs or/and have mobs with multiple dots on you.
This is not too niche because this is reminiscent of hard core raiding aiming for high block volume/rate on some bosses (granted not all but for trash in 5mans it's not that niche).

In practice, the benefits of defensive options don't outweigh the loss of DPS from using offensive major essences. Also, more often than not, you get dual benefits from some of your offensive options (which you will see in the minor slots).

For example, as a bear you can run Visions as a major as it provides both a DPS and survival gain. The minors you pick generally have versatility, which again is both very good offensively and defensively. The magic absorption minor essence (name escapes me atm) is also a hefty DPS gain despite being defensive in nature due to the explosion. If we're talking raids, we're at the point where we overgear the content to where defensively we don't need more layers that a trinket can't take care of that.

In general, the way tanking works at the high end is that you gear offensively as long as you don't need extra survivability. I alluded to this above, but trinkets are a great spot to alter your tankiness as you can get passive or on-demand usage. While you could do it with Essences, more often than not Essences either provide both offense/defense or the defensive aspect is not needed. However, the other aspect of this conversation that tends to get lost is gear for your group. If you know you have weak healers, you can opt for more defensive benefits. If your group DPS is weak, you can go more offensively if your healers can manage. Everything is a balance. What you're noticing in the guides is that the assumption is your healers are fine and the content won't dictate extra defensive layers. The guides aren't gospel, there are always caveats.

[XDurionX]

I really don't like shifting responsibility to the healer like this either. Sure, i might do 10% more damage, but in turn, the healer might do 40% less, outweighing all the gains.

[epigramx]

we're at the point where we overgear the content

That's off topic. Those guides are old.

To play devil's advocate: offense can be a defense relatively clearly here because dead mobs-> no dmg from mobs (and it can be visible on trash that die fast (not so much on bosses of course)).

[callipygoustp]

Serious question: people still use sites rather than discord channels? Genuinely surprised if so.

[Caerrona]

No point in stacking defensives if they arnt needed. If you dont die do more damage.

[ClassicPeon]

Serious question: people still use sites rather than discord channels? Genuinely surprised if so.

Even the class discords have links to icy veins for the most part.

Like if you dont know it thats fine. But in general, you are the uninformed one :/

[callipygoustp]

Even the class discords have links to icy veins for the most part.

Your experience with discord class channels and my experience are vastly different. More often than not, people in discord, essentially, laugh at how out of date icy-veins tends to be.

Like if you dont know it thats fine. But in general, you are the uninformed one :/

Sure.

[vulfrika]

If you can survive comfortably, then any extra defense is a waste of both your and your group's time. Better to actually help out by making the mobs/boss die faster. Same with healing. A non-dps'ing healer is a bad healer.

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Serious question: people still use sites rather than discord channels? Genuinely surprised if so.

Apparently Icy veins get literally milions of clicks each month. Preach from PreachGaming asked the site about it as a means to gauge if the "only the 1% min-maxes and/or go for the most efficient builds" truism was actually true. Hint: it was not.

[callipygoustp]

It's a similar notion for my resto druid. Early in a point release I'm usually worried about mana. By the end of a point release, I'm focused on increasing the potency of my heals and my damage output.

[shise]

This late in the expansion, it makes sense. Most people are running in full mythic gear, so pushing DPS from every member makes things go faster ) less mechanics to be concerned about.

[callipygoustp]

Apparently Icy veins get literally milions of clicks each month. Preach from PreachGaming asked the site about it as a means to gauge if the "only the 1% min-maxes and/or go for the most efficient builds" truism was actually true. Hint: it was not.

The folks on discord tend to be much more up to date with what is the current best spec/builds.

Icy-veins and other similar guide sites are great for the casuals though.

[erifwodahs]

I get it that they do it for 5mans to go faster but it's really nonsensical. The main reason it's nonsensical is that they usually *DO* suggest defensive essences on the minor slots so it makes no sense that they tunnel-vision so much the DPS aspect of the major essences since they do care about defense anyway so it's like it became a meme that you are pro super tank if you go dps mainly but it's really such nonsense especially if you find a healer that can do good DPS will less healing.

Well, a good healer will pump dps regardless, it's quite often not the tanks they have to worry about anyway. Why do the guides suggest that? Because it's most viable thing? It's all about how much you can get away with. Just go to warcraft logs and look at what guys are using. Plus deep protection tanks are horrible for aggro with bursty classes. No one doing +28 will handycap themselves by going extra offensive or defensive - that is where the guides come from. Also it's way more fun to play when you have to dance around not dying and doing dmg than just over the top mitigation where all you do is hold aggro.
Look at what offensive dual wielding tanks are doing in classic. The deep prot tanks just used to bottleneck the groups.

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Your experience with discord class channels and my experience are vastly different. More often than not, people in discord, essentially, laugh at how out of date icy-veins tends to be.
.

This is my exp too. Came back to WoD after skipping MoP. Looked up some Icy Veins builds for my mage. Got into raid, got shit on by people for my low dps and using some fucked up build. never did that again.

[rrayy]

Your experience with discord class channels and my experience are vastly different. More often than not, people in discord, essentially, laugh at how out of date icy-veins tends to be.


Sure.

You are always going to have elitists everywhere who think they know better. So, you are going to have those in discord who laugh about icy-veins. OF course others will laugh at them for that attitude.

[Hellobolis]

Serious question: people still use sites rather than discord channels? Genuinely surprised if so.

discord is useless. on a site like wowhead and icy veins you at least know some dude from a good guild wrote the guide. on discord (and here) any random pleb can answer you and it's a coinflip if you get someone who knows that they are talking about or not.

discord is only good if you have specific questions that go beyond a general guide.

[Azerate]

Serious question: people still use sites rather than discord channels? Genuinely surprised if so.

There always has to be that one, "more modern than everyone else" person in every such thread

Discord is okay as a messaging app, and as voice chat. It's absolutely and utterly shit for forums / guides / any sort of other more complicated content, and I wish the fad of using it for literally everything you can imagine goes away asap.