Defense cap through gear only needs to return

[Lovestar]

I actually thought the Defense cap was really cool. It felt like a serious investment in your tank's durability, differentiated you from other roles, and was a neat special tank stat.

I get the people saying "it's just stacking bleh", but idk, somehow it felt different to me than the dull hit-cap grind. I guess with hit-cap it's very binary: Whiff Mysteriously/Don't Whiff. Whereas with Defense every little bit felt like building a mountain one pebble at a time. Same with gimmicky high-Blocking builds for dungeon spamming.

It's similar to the talent trees. At the end of the day, yeah, there's no practical difference between clicking 61 times in a familiar pattern, or just having all those talents handed to you automatically behind-the-scenes. But there actually is, because just having something handed to you is different than "building" it yourself.

It's like your parents surprising you with a pre-built LEGO set and people going "Why are you complaining? You just would have followed the instruction manual and built it anyway", or suggesting we should get loot in our mailbox because "You just would've wiped a few times and killed the boss anyway, fighting was tedious and repetitive and predictable."

Gray lines and everyone sees it differently, but I think WoW has actually lost a lot of engagement value and depth in its attempts to be "logical" and cut away "pointless" things. Right ideas, but missing the more subtle aspects.

[LurkerOnly]

I actually thought the Defense cap was really cool. It felt like a serious investment in your tank's durability, differentiated you from other roles, and was a neat special tank stat.

I get the people saying "it's just stacking bleh", but idk, somehow it felt different to me than the dull hit-cap grind. I guess with hit-cap it's very binary: Whiff Mysteriously/Don't Whiff. Whereas with Defense every little bit felt like building a mountain one pebble at a time. Same with gimmicky high-Blocking builds for dungeon spamming.

It's similar to the talent trees. At the end of the day, yeah, there's no practical difference between clicking 61 times in a familiar pattern, or just having all those talents handed to you automatically behind-the-scenes. But there actually is, because just having something handed to you is different than "building" it yourself.

It's like your parents surprising you with a pre-built LEGO set and people going "Why are you complaining? You just would have followed the instruction manual and built it anyway", or suggesting we should get loot in our mailbox because "You just would've wiped a few times and killed the boss anyway, fighting was tedious and repetitive and predictable."

Gray lines and everyone sees it differently, but I think WoW has actually lost a lot of engagement value and depth in its attempts to be "logical" and cut away "pointless" things. Right ideas, but missing the more subtle aspects.

If the lego set could only possibly be built in one way, it would be called "A model airplane", which I'm only interested in having to build once.

Blizz forced me to build the same model airplane for years, I'm glad that system died. Cut its head off, put a lemon in its mouth, stake it into its coffin, put silver shillings on its eyes, burn it in a pyre with garlic and myrrh, don't let it come back.

[judgementofantonidas]

The 490 tbc cap and 540 wrath cap made it interesting while gearing if you were a tank because defense cap was the number 1 priority. Now it's just so idiotic with every tank Stam stacking while adding just enough hit and expertise to maintain threat.

Defense is sooooo necessary and needs to be brought back as a cap only attained through gear.

whoa, wut? who is stam stacking other than fail tanks???

[Zka]

Defense is NOT necessary, I haven't missed it for a second. Stack-to-cap stats are always dumb and boring and Blizzard is doing away with them. Stop daydreaming.

[Eggers]

If they are going to get rid of all of the "extra" and "flavor" stats, why don't they just simplify it to the max and just have 3 stats in the entire game?

"Tank power"

"Dps power"

"Healing power"

Or heck, just a single "power number" that adjusts automatically.


By some of your logic, isn't that all they need?

What's the point of any other stats if it's just another thing to stack?

[Kraineth]

If they are going to get rid of all of the "extra" and "flavor" stats, why don't they just simplify it to the max and just have 3 stats in the entire game?

"Tank power"

"Dps power"

"Healing power"

Or heck, just a single "power number" that adjusts automatically.


By some of your logic, isn't that all they need?

What's the point of any other stats if it's just another thing to stack?

Yea sure, except for the fact where they want to remove stats that have a cap that you have to reach, that is what is uninteresting. These aren't "flavor stats" as you call them, they are imposed caps that you need to meet and then never think about again.

[inboundpaper]

Now it's just so idiotic with every tank Stam stacking while adding just enough hit and expertise to maintain threat.

Isn't that what we did when we had defense?

[zoomgpally]

So.... Defense was interesting because you went for Defense cap, just like gearing for Hit or Expertise cap, and now gearing as a tank is boring because you're going for Hit and Expertise cap?


Also, any tank worth their salt, outside of bleeding edge content where health is king, is gearing for resource generation (crit, haste, etc.) with the exception of, I think, Death Knights, who just stack Mastery, not Stamina. They're also not gearing for Hit and Expertise to maintain threat, they're gearing for Hit and Expertise to achieve maximum resource generation and active mitigation uptime and availability. You don't seem to have any idea about the current state of gearing for a tank...


Finally, Blizzard is removing hit and expertise cap, just like they removed defense cap, because they've established that they don't like forcing players to gear for specific stat caps across the board.

DKs can choose parry/dodge or haste after 200-250% buffed mastery, even some high end dks(raegwynsolo is one of them) do it.

That means ALL tanks can gear for resource generation

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why hasnt anyone made a comment about him saying every tank stam stacking?
=_=

the defense cap was pointless and boring, didnt change anything about it.
not even sure why i bothered..

Daetur did

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Isn't that what we did when we had defense?

Yep, defense cap then stamina, stamina and more stamina

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whoa, wut? who is stam stacking other than fail tanks???

Bleeding edge use stamina, but even those don't go all out stamina AFAIK

[Treeskee]

They just got rid of hit, expertise, dodge and parry... why in the world would they reintroduce defense?

Are they actually getting rid of parry and dodge also? Thought it was just hit/exphttp://i.imgur.com/VaIphPC.gif

[Super Kami Dende]

Are they actually getting rid of parry and dodge also? Thought it was just hit/exphttp://i.imgur.com/VaIphPC.gif

getting rid of Parry and Dodge on gear.

You will still gain it through Str/Agi (respectively) and active mitigation abilities such as Elusive brew will continue to increase X dodge for X secs on use etc.

[The Kao]

Defense is NOT necessary, I haven't missed it for a second. Stack-to-cap stats are always dumb and boring and Blizzard is doing away with them. Stop daydreaming.

Just this. Get real folks, we need interesting stats for an interesting and varied game instead of mandatory ones.

Imagine what would happen if people go into tanking LFR with a stat like Defense. It's bad as it is with all the guys in half quest gear. But then you'd have 4 out of 5 tanks die instantly on the pull. Patch notes read: You'll now have to wait another hour or five to complete easy mode; great gameplay.

[Sky High]

asinine stats are taken out back and shot. like they should be.

[Lolsteak]

Defense was never meaningful, just like Hit / Exp you get your cap then ignored it completely.

I'm happy they're removing the useless stats in WoD so i can spend less time using Reforgelite and more time playing.

[Master Guns]

OP just exhibited the worst logic known to man.

[Lovestar]

Well said.

One thing I miss when tanking is having to worry about TPS. =P It was fun some xpacks back..

Yeah, I also loved the "threat game", both when tanking and DPSing. It was quite fun to deliberately over-DPS (in "safe" situations where there was no wipe risk) and then pop defensive CDs / flee for your life while your tank gripes and regains control. Or when getting smart MD/Trix from your DPS felt really cool and helped pulls go smoother.

I suspect I'm just a different mentality of tank and will not be very popular in my views, since the people who are still tanking now probably like the changes and new systems. =)

So, I'll just put myself out there for lynching: I cannot stand active mitigation and I miss when good tanking was about springing into action and staying on top of threat. I liked the old-school tank stat design with the very heavy focus on building up your defenses through gear, rather than exploiting DPS stats to trigger more defensive buffs. And I liked having most of my defense just "happen" while I focused on more important matters like that caster in the back that switched to the heals.

I guess I'm just a simple person who was happy charging into battle and hitting things. Now tanking feels like I'm more focused on my UI and buff bar than what's going on around me or who's under attack... I feel like I'm spending my energy and attention protecting myself, not everyone else. =|

The irony is I was one of the people on the forums/Twitter aggressively campaigning for the active mitigation conversion and destruction of passive defenses back during Cata, because it sounded like a great idea, hahaha. Be careful what you wish for. :p