Cataclysm

[Merusk]

Give tanks three chances at the valor points from the daily dungeon, healers two.  That will bring down queue timers, you have to reward people for doing the unpopular thing.  Or hell make it so queueing as a tank = always getting valor points.

All this will do is let tanks gear-up and quit using the LFD tool three times as fast.   They have no interest in helping you and do it only to get the points for the gear.  Once there's nothing to buy with the points there's no reason to queue.   Once we'd killed the LK I didn't bother queuing as a tank or DPS because all those points/ badges were worthless to me.  I was fully geared on both tank and dps sets and had all the heirlooms.   Considering I wasn't obsessive about queuing daily to begin with I can't have been the only one.

[Paelos]

There isn't anything you can do to equalize the populations except making tanks more accessible. They did that by letting druids, DKs, and pallys do the job besides just warriors. Beyond just letting every class have a tank spec, you're stuck with having to make it less of a job.

[Fordel]

They could stand to add more tank specs.


Warlocks could be converted to tanking pretty easily via Demonology. You could also probably turn one of the hunter trees into a tank spec, more effort though. If they wanted to really play with fire, make a Rogue spec an avoidance tank 


I'm totally serious about Warlocks having a tank spec though, it wouldn't be that difficult, the way Demo/Meta is designed, it's half way there already.

[Sheepherder]

Demonology warlock, combat rogue, and beast mastery hunter would be the obvious candidates.

You wouldn't even have to get that controversial with rogues - combat is a swashbuckling archetype with a mastery called main gauche and several talents increasing dodge, armour values, and health regen.  You could even spin it out like feral so there's effectively two subspecs of combat.

The problem remains that tanking is a chore for most people.

[Azazel]

I agree with Lantyssa.

He's pretty much always been like this when I've noticed him posting in WoW-related threads.

[Merusk]

Demonology warlock, combat rogue, and beast mastery hunter would be the obvious candidates.

You wouldn't even have to get that controversial with rogues - combat is a swashbuckling archetype with a mastery called main gauche and several talents increasing dodge, armour values, and health regen.  You could even spin it out like feral so there's effectively two subspecs of combat.

The problem remains that tanking is a chore for most people.

Should Rifts prove popular enough after the first few months, I expect something like this will be rolled out in one of the content patches since it's similar to their system. (Everything except Mages can tank in that game)  They've seen enough games come on strong for a month then fizzle out to not be worried yet, though.

You're correct in that it won't fix anything long-term because tanking is a pain in the ass.

[Minvaren]

Demonology warlock, combat rogue, and beast mastery hunter would be the obvious candidates.
The problem remains that tanking is a chore for most people.

You're correct in that it won't fix anything long-term because tanking is a pain in the ass.

So I pulled out my main earlier this week (85 prot warrior) and decided to actually check out one of the new Cata regulars.  Queued for BRC, after the obligatory 2 rounds of AFK DPS, we're in.  After wiping once due to me keeping boss #3 in the fire too long (whoopsie!  new here!), we cleared the rest no problem.

But it was about the time we about to spank Beauty that I realized what a bloody chore it was to tank.  The tank has to know the dungeon layout, the boss abilities and fights, mark the mobs, cover for the other party members, put up with all of the explosions going off in your face, tab-sunderdevastate...  It's like everyone says above, it's a chore - and it just wasn't fun anymore.  So I'm back on the Enh Shaman alt until the subscription lapses next week.

With how heavily Blizzard has bought into the Holy Trinity of Classes and Specs(tm), I don't see how they can easily fix this.  But I swear when I ran D&D campaigns years ago that we didn't always have to have a tank there to protect the clothies from accidentally taking a hit.  And that when grouping in DAoC, I could roll aggro onto and off of my Friar as needed with no obvious "tank" handy.

[Rendakor]

More tank specs would have gotten me to queue for more dungeons back in WotLK. I had every tanking class at 80 and well geared then; as it stand I've only gotten 3 of my 8 80s to 85, and only really geared out 1.5 of them.

[Arrrgh]

PUGs are full of DPS warriors, DKs,, druids, and paladins.  They all choose to eat the 40m wait rather than insta queue as a tank. Why would you think adding more tank classes would suddenly make more people want to tank?

People don't tank and heal because every mistake is instantly and glaringly obvious.  DPS mistakes are mostly unnoticeable without meters and/or parsing.

[March]

It's not the mechanics of tanking people hate, it is the social aspect of tanking that people hate.

I agree with Minaveren that a design closer to DAoC made for better times, but that's just not WoW.

[Rendakor]

People also get upset at parsers because they make DPS mistakes as obvious as tank/healer ones (see: the Rift thread).

[Fordel]

DaoC had a terrible system for PvE tanking, it was one of the contributing factors in DaoC PvE being so god damn shitty. It was a total avoidance system, you got hit, or you didn't. Shield Tank, with Second Shield tank with guard buff up and PBT running, the 'tank' never took a single hit.

If you didn't just use the broken Enchanter pet with 98% Damage Reduction. 

[Ingmar]

And you kept aggro by spamming your one high threat style over and over and over and over and over and over and ugh.

[Fordel]

Whatever, your stupid Hammer taunt was OP compared to my Blades taunt attack.

[Nevermore]

You pansies!  Nothing could beat the body pulling, carpal tunnel Paladins! (Twisting: it's not a bug, it's a feature!  )

[Fordel]

Pfft, Paladins didn't even have instruments.


Triple twisting speed, endu and regen on my bard. 

[Rokal]

But it was about the time we about to spank Beauty that I realized what a bloody chore it was to tank.  The tank has to know the dungeon layout, the boss abilities and fights, mark the mobs, cover for the other party members, put up with all of the explosions going off in your face, tab-sunderdevastate...  It's like everyone says above, it's a chore - and it just wasn't fun anymore.  So I'm back on the Enh Shaman alt until the subscription lapses next week.

Just more reasons to run dungeons with guildies or friends. When I tank dungeons, usually a guildie marks targets for everyone else. When I play my rogue, I mark targets and explain the fights to any guild members that haven't seen it before.

Tanking is also much more of a pain with the default UI. Trying to determine what targets are on you, or see past the things hitting you: obnoxious. I found tanking to be much more fun with an addon like Tidy Plates. It basically changes the name-plates for enemies (or players) in game to be a bit easier to read, and to also change colors if the enemy is attacking someone besides you. With default settings I know that if a name plate is yellow, that enemy has threat on someone else in the group and I can just click the very-clear name plate to taunt the target rather than trying tab-target to the enemy or manually click their model.

It makes tanking substantially less of a pain in the ass.

[Selby]

It's not the mechanics of tanking people hate, it is the social aspect of tanking that people hate.

Yup.  People are dicks, especially to the person who is supposed to be in charge.  Any time a tank screws up, people can be downright evil and it makes me not want to tank for random idiots anymore.

[Paelos]

It's not the mechanics of tanking people hate, it is the social aspect of tanking that people hate.

Yup.  People are dicks, especially to the person who is supposed to be in charge.  Any time a tank screws up, people can be downright evil and it makes me not want to tank for random idiots anymore.

Meh, you usually don't get blamed if you don't do something really dumb. If they want to really complain about nothing (speed usually), I tell them they are free to drop and see how that goes. It really comes down to the fact that as a tank you simply have more to do than everyone else in an average run.

[Sjofn]

You pansies!  Nothing could beat the body pulling, carpal tunnel Paladins! (Twisting: it's not a bug, it's a feature!  )

Oh God, twisting. I thanked God every day I was a skald, and didn't have to do that. Or fiddle with idiotic instruments.

[El Gallo]

Shamans were fine 5-man tanks for a long time.  Giving every class a tank spec (at least one capable of doing heroics) would go at least a little ways toward alleviating the problem.

I agree that the bigger issue is the "the tank is expected to know everything" problem.  Not sure what to do about that.  Someone needs to know what's going on.  And moving that duty to some other role will just make people gunshy of playing that. 

[Sjofn]

Yeah, I think the main tank problem is "oh God people expect me to be in charge, fuck that." It's why I prefer healing in a PUG (or at least used to, I was great at willing people through a dungeon with my l337 h34lz but that doesn't really work so well  now). I don't have to be in charge! It's relaxing. YES. HEALING IS RELAXING.

[Fordel]

That just goes back to the feeling of simply not being able to recover and carry. Being "The Leadur" wouldn't be so nerve racking if mistakes weren't so damning again.


For the end of TBC and almost all of WotLK, half our tanks pulls were with their faces. 

[Sjofn]

Nah, even in WotLK, people didn't especially want to be In Charge. Even in dungeons where I knew I could almost solo the goddamn thing, I didn't want to be In Charge. In Charge is for raiding, I want to turn my brain off completely. Even in the WotLK dungeons, you were still in charge of pacing and where to go. Even that little bit of In Charge is too much for most people.

[K9]

Most people just don't want to tank. This has been true all the way through.

[Sheepherder]

I found tanking to be much more fun with an addon like Tidy Plates. It basically changes the name-plates for enemies (or players) in game to be a bit easier to read, and to also change colors if the enemy is attacking someone besides you. With default settings I know that if a name plate is yellow, that enemy has threat on someone else in the group and I can just click the very-clear name plate to taunt the target rather than trying tab-target to the enemy or manually click their model.

Colour coding for aggro is in the stock UI since Blizzard added their own threat meter in late Wrath.

[Merusk]

Not to mention name plates and targeting via hitting them have been in for ages as well. Hell, I think it goes back to release.

Type "V".

[Rokal]

Colour coding for aggro is in the stock UI since Blizzard added their own threat meter in late Wrath.

Both nameplates and color coding for aggro are in the default UI, but the best you'll get for aggro *on * nameplates is a slightly more red health bar for enemies that are targeting you. If you are targeting an enemy, you get a nice aggro % in the default UI, but the point of using something like Tidyplates is that it makes it easy to see if you have aggro on an enemy (or an entire group of enemies) without targeting them. Is their name plate blue? You have aggro. Is their name plate yellow? Then you don't have aggro. It's a cleaner version of nameplates with more functionality. I found it to make tanking a hell of a lot easier.

I'd recommend you actually try using it before dismissing it, but this is F13 after all.

[Ironwood]

Whoa, you need a hand with that last nail ?

[Ingmar]

I'm not using it at the moment but Tidyplates really is much better for that if you're colorblind. (Like me.)

[Vision]

I finally unsubbed. My time runs out at the end of the month. After leveling a goblin mage to 85, and running BOT for gear I have to say the game feels just as uninspired as it did in BC to me. I personally think the raid content is good and I was happy with what I did, but the chore of competing for raid spots, especially as dps, is more hassle than I care to put into the game.

[Lightstalker]

The weekly lockout and the hard limits on who/what you can bring are really painful.  I moved from DPS-SwingHealer to MT this expansion because I was tired of our tanks burning out as soon as we trained them to do their damn job.  I now log in to help other people do their thing all the time, so that's probably poetic justice.  That's probably the biggest pain point, as a limited resource you aren't free to be doing what you feel like doing when you've got 15 people who all want to run an instance with you at the same time.  Then drama builds when people can't get in your group whenever they happen to log on, etc. etc.  This game is designed so that you end up telling your friends you can't / don't want to play with them day after day.  This isn't new with Cata, but cata makes it harder for people to fake it at being a tank (and healer).  Throw in the raiding game where the cross-queueing tank doesn't get to tank in raid and you've polished up that negative feedback loop nicely.

I geared out a while ago and still log in every day to run guildmates through their daily instance.  20 minute runs aren't expensive, unless you recognize that there is no good reason to be seeing this content again and no matter how many I run there will be some subset who didn't get the easy ride and will complain about missing out.   Valor points may or may not have any future value to me, but earning all the dungeon achievements again certainly does not.  I'm in until my friends de-sub, but I wouldn't mind a little less RNG and insta-kill in the boss encounter design to open the roles up again to a wider audience.  It is like they planned the initial instances in Cata for fully geared end of cycle groups and that has stomped flat any interest in trying new things.  People who cross-queue into a role they can't handle get abused harshly in game - why put up with that?  Just take your 45 minute queue and don't be the guy getting yelled at for another day. 

And whomever worked on stonecore and archaeology really needs to find a new line of work. 

[Sjofn]

Welcome to one of the many reasons tanks burn out. 

[Setanta]

My first char to 85 was my pally tank. She is exactly one point short of tanking heroics... on purpose.

[Vision]

If PVP isn't your thing after you gear up from Heroics there really isn't anything to do save run rep quests for enchants or play the AH. As dps, this is an extreme amount of downtime where you want to play but have absolutely nothing to do.