Bad Groups

[kildorn]

ICC25 geared tanks in heroic instances are absolutely boring.

This is true. I finally had my healer tell me to take off my chestpiece because he was bored two months ago in heroics.

I demanded the moonkin tank once. Because it was more fun healing him. :P

I still fondly remember a few of our raid deaths. Kara raids where healing trash was so boring the healers would take turns DPSing.. and once a tank getting gibbed because both healers thought it was the other one's turn to heal. <3

[Arinon]

Would have rather they left defence in there.  Now as DK I have to dump my DPS or PvP (gasp!) spec if I want to tank AT ALL.  No more putting on tank gear to smash out heroics or sub in as 3rd tank in some 10 man fights.  I have to lay down cash and hit town before I can become crit immune.  This is supposed to be a good thing?  Real tanks still need to get a tanking set together so who's benefiting here again?  Reforging should be able to solve most or all of the issues they seem to have with the Defence stat.

[kildorn]

Would have rather they left defence in there.  Now as DK I have to dump my DPS or PvP (gasp!) spec if I want to tank AT ALL.  No more putting on tank gear to smash out heroics or sub in as 3rd tank in some 10 man fights.  I have to lay down cash and hit town before I can become crit immune.  This is supposed to be a good thing?  Real tanks still need to get a tanking set together so who's benefiting here again?  Reforging should be able to solve most or all of the issues they seem to have with the Defence stat.

DKs were odd because they could in theory pass as a tank in any spec. In reality, they'd probably be missing about 10% or so avoidance in the "wrong" spec and be silly squishy compared to a tank specced DK.

But killing Defense is really the best thing that's ever happened to tanking. It was an idiotic stat that was so important that it caused you to happily wear blues when you had epics with twice the ilevel on them for said slot because it would drop you below your Defense floor, and thus were temporary downgrades.

Such a stupid, Stupid stat.

[Lantyssa]

DKs could do it because the best tanking talents were at the top of the trees.  Pick those, then which tree you took was flavor.  It's why Blood Tanks became rather effective even though Frost was the intended tanking spec.  With free +30% damage Death Coils proc'ing off Heartstrikes, wildcard runes, high runepower generation, and all the healing mitigation of Improved Blood Aura and Runetap, I was rather beastly for the level of my gear.

[kildorn]

DKs could do it because the best tanking talents were at the top of the trees.  Pick those, then which tree you took was flavor.  It's why Blood Tanks became rather effective even though Frost was the intended tanking spec.  With free +30% damage Death Coils proc'ing off Heartstrikes, wildcard runes, high runepower generation, and all the healing mitigation of Improved Blood Aura and Runetap, I was rather beastly for the level of my gear.

Yeah, but they weren't the DPS or pvp talent picks. So you still technically needed a "tank" spec and a "DPS" spec, or you'd be half assing one or the other.

Arinon's complaint pretty much seemed to be that he has a DPS spec and a PVP spec, and wants to tank.

[Rendakor]

The thing is, you can have 32k hp as a dps now, which means when you see 32k hp on a "tank" you have to wonder if they're even specced for tanking at all. And if they aren't the run will be painful because, you know, crits.

Crit immunity is now Talented for all tanks.  No more defense to worry about.  Unless your tank is decently lower level then whatever he is tanking, a tank should never be crit.

I didn't say geared, I said specced. I've seen Arms Warriors and Ret Pallies galore throw on a shield and try to tank; even feral kitties who shift into bear form but don't have Thick Hide. It's fucking awful, and worse at low levels. I've bailed on so many instances on my low level disc priest simply because I refuse to heal a "tank" that's really a dps who wanted a fast queue.

[Paelos]

Before this expansion, expecting a warrior at low levels to be levelling as prot was stupid. There was no functional differences in the specs at that point. Now with the new talents, I'm less sure given that you have to PICK AND STICK!

[Ingmar]

Protection has been easy-to-overpowered for leveling since Burning Crusade actually.

[Rendakor]

Low level Prot Pallies are pretty OP too. Also, dual spec costs 10 gold.

[Lantyssa]

Yeah, but they weren't the DPS or pvp talent picks. So you still technically needed a "tank" spec and a "DPS" spec, or you'd be half assing one or the other.

Arinon's complaint pretty much seemed to be that he has a DPS spec and a PVP spec, and wants to tank.

That's the thing though.  Prior to 4.0, a DK could easily switch between Tank and DPS by swapping out a few pieces of armor and changing their Presence.  If you had the base tanking talents, you didn't lose enough dps for it to matter.  (Now a pure dps spec trying to tank had a bit worse go of it...)  I could tank, I could dps, and I was a terror in PvP against anything that didn't outgear me.

Now you just can't.  Pick two.  That's what he's complaining about.

[Arinon]

You don't really need to limit the discussion to DKs.  Going forward if you want to tank you have to be in a tank spec because there is no other way to get crit immunity.  Even absurdly overgearing content isn't going to make you safe from a crit string.  The rest of the tank classes all have more than one other thing they may want to do.

If the response to that is 'Tough shit!' I understand but the complaint is certainly valid.  What have they gained by moving crit immunity from gear to talents?  Letting level 30ish+ tanks be crit immune while levelling up without having to worry about gearing.  Yawn.

[kildorn]

You don't really need to limit the discussion to DKs.  Going forward if you want to tank you have to be in a tank spec because there is no other way to get crit immunity.  Even absurdly overgearing content isn't going to make you safe from a crit string.  The rest of the tank classes all have more than one other thing they may want to do.

If the response to that is 'Tough shit!' I understand but the complaint is certainly valid.  What have they gained by moving crit immunity from gear to talents?  Letting level 30ish+ tanks be crit immune while levelling up without having to worry about gearing.  Yawn.

They fixed the "this 60 ilevel higher epic tank item is worse than my current blue tank item because it will make me non crit immune what the shit kind of design makes a better same spec item lightyears worse because it's 10 points lower in a stat that shouldn't matter that much"

There's no point where a DPS picks up a higher ilvl epic with the same stat distribution (int, sta, crit for example) where the 60 ilevel higher item is WORSE. But there are a ton of cases where a tank item (str, sta, def) is far shittier than it's lower level comparison item, because Defense's mechanics were downright broken.

[Arinon]

You occasionally get this in DPS with hit rating and now expertise.  It's easy to get too much of them and see a 'better' item that's not as good because it's full of hit/expertise instead of stat/haste/crit. 

In the past I'd pretty much agree with you but that's what reforging is for. Or gems, or enchants for that matter.  Defence could have easily stayed in the game as is.  Tanks would just shoot over the defence cap by a reasonable margin and reforge down as close as they wanted.  You even get more flexibility that way.  This can only be chalked up to Bliz trying to make things even simpler by ripping out another degree of freedom in tanking stats.  Probably saves their item designer some headaches too.

Why am I miffed about this so much right now?  I turned my random HoR into a gong show last night because I didn't realize this was all in place already.  Marwyn had to three shot me before I figured out why I was such a sieve in tank gear.

[Sheepherder]

Why am I miffed about this so much right now?  I turned my random HoR into a gong show last night because I didn't realize this was all in place already.  Marwyn had to three shot me before I figured out why I was such a sieve in tank gear.

So effectively you didn't bother looking at your gear, stat summary, new talents, or month old patch notes and now you're pissed because much anticipated changes have occurred and can no longer piss off everyone else in your group by being sub-par at the role you signed up for, forcing them to pick up your slack?

[Arinon]

Yes, that's exactly what I said.

Incidentally does any of that have anything to do with the points I raised?  It was merely an attempt to get the thread back on topic.

[Valmorian]

Seems to me that to be DPS or a PvP build, you'd have to devote talent points to that end, but before all these changes you could get away with the Tanking role without doing so?  Why is it a bad thing to make it also require devoting talent points?

[kildorn]

Seems to me that to be DPS or a PvP build, you'd have to devote talent points to that end, but before all these changes you could get away with the Tanking role without doing so?  Why is it a bad thing to make it also require devoting talent points?

He wants triple spec, essentially. My opinion would be "stop making pvp only talents" or "stop making DPS/Tank trees with choices between pvp talents or damage increases so you don't need a dedicated pvp spec"

The defense stat was just obnoxiously stupid in every possible sense.

[Azazel]

In very real sense, I don't much care myself. I've discovered I can do over 3k dps while auto-attacking (at least before shaman haste got nerfed). It's enough to finish any heroic effectively. The problem is I LIKE playing my character and doing it the way it's meant to be done. That means 6k dps in a 5man. Most tanks aren't up to it these days.

That's the thing. I give tanks (especially after 4.0) a few secs to build aggro on bosses, then I go for it. If I see my aggro building too fast, I back off. If I find myself pulling aggro when the tank really should have it, I iceblock. If it happens a few times, I say fuckit and go into "low-but consistant" DPS mode for the rest of the instance. If someone else wants to btch at me at that point for not DPSing hard enough, they can bite me.

[Merusk]

The defense stat was just obnoxiously stupid in every possible sense.

Yes.  And it didn't scale well and involved too much fiddly math on the class and item designer's parts.  Talented crit immunity worked out well enough for druids over the last 2 expansions, I'm glad to see it expand to the rest of the classes.

Remember, everything has been done in the name of simplifying things.  I assume because they've got fewer designers working specifically on wow than before as they're ramping up other projects.

[Ingmar]

Their stated design goal is that non-tank specs will be able to handle leveling dungeons and maybe non-heroic max level dungeons, but you'll need to be a Real Tank to do heroics or raids - from what I've seen so far this seems to be more or less true. I don't really see what the problem with that is.

[Sjofn]

The defense stat was ass and I am thrilled to death it died.

[apocrypha]

Their stated design goal is that non-tank specs will be able to handle leveling dungeons and maybe non-heroic max level dungeons, but you'll need to be a Real Tank to do heroics or raids - from what I've seen so far this seems to be more or less true. I don't really see what the problem with that is.

The contradiction is that at the same time they're saying that they're going to make healing harder. So you're going to end up with healers running out of mana fast with non-tank tanks going "FFS healer" when they rush off and wipe the group.

WOTLK tank shortage is very likely going to be replaced with Cata healer shortage IMO.

[Fordel]

Healer mana isn't going to be an issue in 5 mans I don't think. In raids absolutely, and yea, I do think we'll see a drop off in healers because of the new mana model, because finite mana sucks fucking donkey balls.

[Soulflame]

I remember a shaman who made some videos of him tanking raid bosses with his guild.  I'm guessing this change to defense pretty much puts the kibosh on that?

Kind of a shame if so, I always enjoyed seeing people do weird stuff like that.

[K9]

In the sense of being able to tank a wide range of bosses, that's going to go for the most part. I suspect there will be a range of off-tanking scenarios where Enhancement Shamans will be able to work; it'll probably be very fight specific though.

[Sheepherder]

Yes, that's exactly what I said.

Incidentally does any of that have anything to do with the points I raised?  It was merely an attempt to get the thread back on topic.

Read the title.  Read your bitching about how terrible quality of life changes are because they force you to choose two roles just like everyone else.

Next time Blizzard has promised that they'll announce major changes better than just sticking the details in talent descriptions, on your stat summary, on gear tooltips, on their forums, and in the patch notes.  Ghostcrawler has suggested a scrolling marquee across your screen that says YOU HAVE NO DEFENSE OR WEAPON SKILLS ANYMORE, DIPSHIT.

EDIT: For everyone not you, this is the biggest, bestest thing evar; because it means that every properly specced tank you get auto-grouped with has zero chance to get gibbed by a crit regardless of what gear they wear, has no incentive to not wear their best-in-slot gear, and is not spending a gratuitously large amount of their stat allocation even at the lowest level of gear on a stat that gives shitty returns.  Or: less repair bills, spend the saving on respecs if you absolutely cannot pvp in a DPS or tank spec.

I remember a shaman who made some videos of him tanking raid bosses with his guild.  I'm guessing this change to defense pretty much puts the kibosh on that?

Kind of a shame if so, I always enjoyed seeing people do weird stuff like that.

It was hard to crit suppression cap non-plate characters via defense even prior to diminishing returns, most of those examples usually involved resilience, stacking avoidance (versus bosses) to 100%, or just getting the shit healbombed out of them and hoping to not get fucked by the fickle hand of fate.

[apocrypha]

EDIT: For everyone not you, this is the biggest, bestest thing evar; because it means that every properly specced tank you get auto-grouped with has zero chance to get gibbed by a crit regardless of what gear they wear, has no incentive to not wear their best-in-slot gear, and is not spending a gratuitously large amount of their stat allocation even at the lowest level of gear on a stat that gives shitty returns.  Or: less repair bills, spend the saving on respecs if you absolutely cannot pvp in a DPS or tank spec.

As a healer primarily I totally agree. Now all we need is for the RDF to not let plate wearers without a tank spec queue as tank.

[Rendakor]

I agree that you should have to have a tank spec to queue as tank apocrypha. I also wish the loot system looked at spec when determining what you can hit Need on. Maybe even add in an "Off Spec" roll option.

[Sheepherder]

I agree that you should have to have a tank spec to queue as tank apocrypha. I also wish the loot system looked at spec when determining what you can hit Need on. Maybe even add in an "Off Spec" roll option.

1. Checking for spec isn't really needed under max level, though 10g dual spec certainly is a good counterpoint to that.
2. Need/Greed rolls not being spec limited seems like an intentional design decision.

[apocrypha]

1. Checking for spec isn't really needed under max level

I've healed enough shitty DK "tanks" between 70-79 to strongly disagree with that.

There are plenty of situations where you can get away without a proper tanking spec and/or gear: twinked up lowbies below 60ish, overgeared plate wearing DPS in heroics right now, etc. But there are also many, many times at all levels where not being a "real" tank means a shitty ride for you healer/DPS.

I suppose, being philosophical about it, at the end of the day ALL classes and roles can be dicks and make a dungeon run harder for everyone else. Whether it's bad healers letting DPS die, DPS standing in fire or overpulling or shitty tanks after a fast RFD queue. Blizzard can attempt to limit the possible dickishness or we can just accept that there's always going to be fucktards blaming the healer when they die in Uldum when they're tanking in DPS spec. 

[Lantyssa]

If they're shitty tanks, wouldn't it be even more important they be able to roll on a piece of gear that helps them tank?

[apocrypha]

Sure, but weren't we talking mostly about tanks in DPS/PVP spec?

[Sjofn]

As a healer primarily I totally agree. Now all we need is for the RDF to not let plate wearers without a tank spec queue as tank.

I am OK with someone not tank specced queueing as a tank as long as they realise what stance to stand in and put on a shield if applicable and realise THEY HAVE TO FUCKING TANK. I've been in serveral PUGs now where the ret dickhead (it's ALWAYS a ret paladin for me for some reason) queues as a tank or healer and then demands someone else change to that role because they can't REALLY do that job, they just wanted the faster queue.

If they're shitty tanks, wouldn't it be even more important they be able to roll on a piece of gear that helps them tank?

Mostly depends on what's making them shitty.

[K9]

My level 69 DK seems to tank fine in blood spec with DPS gear, I also tend to be #1 for damage done and DPS in most groups. It requires a lot more awareness and thought than playing as a standard DPS though. I had a run of several terrible healers last night, in DPS (full heirloom) gear I'm not exactly squishy, but I could probably have more avoidance and mitigation. Nonetheless, not getting healed for 6 second periods at a time will result in me dying.

[Arrrgh]

The best thing about no weapons skills is that you can level in the BGs as much as you want without having to worry about beating on green mobs now and then to keep the weapon skills up.