Patch 3.3

[Ingmar]

Metaphysical question: is there any design change that would fix the Tank dearth issues?  I've played support roles for almost 10-years now and have no issues with the challenge and stress of healing; I'd tank too, but for the fact that I cannot get past the universal assumption that the Tank is _also_ your official tour-guide for the dungeon.  I'd happily tank if I didn't have to heard the cats and memorize every map/encounter.

This would be hard to avoid, I think, because typically the tank is the one who has the most complicated role in terms of knowing what the monsters are going to do and how to react to them. It isn't true in every encounter, of course - sometimes you just have to sit there and push your buttons while the dps runs around doing things, but for the most part the tank is the de facto group leader simply because it is far more efficient and convenient for everyone concerned. A tank who didn't keep track of how all the different fight works would be a tank who might make the wrong response to a given stimulus, and that's typically more dangerous for the group than a DPSer who stands in fire for one too many ticks.

Now I think a completely fresh game design could avoid this problem, potentially, but the holy trinity is too ingrained into the core gameplay of WoW to do anything about it at this point.

[Sjofn]

Can't you guys just have him sit the bench until a boss is on farm? I'd think he'd understand given his condition. That way he can mop up once everything is pretty much idiot proof.

Not really. He is really. Um. Enthusiastic. And while he acknowledges he is out of it sometimes, he uh ... overestimates his awesomeness. And honestly, I complain about him a lot, but he isn't the only dumbass, and he is at least very dedicated and very VERY on top of making sure his shit is all enchanted and gemmed correctly. Which alas, is not a high priority for some of our other people.

My guild is rad, we totally finish shit through sheer force of will.  


EDIT: As for the lack of tank issue, Ingmar said pretty much what I would've. The tank = leadur thing is one of the reasons I haven't really been doing PUGs on my tanks, because I already hafta lead raids and guild groups, and I don't really want to do it in my off times too. The other thing stopping me from doing them is I am horribly intimidated by the thought of having to tank for people who are doing SILLY HIGH dps, especially on my shittier geared tanks. 

[March]

I certainly take your point and mostly agree... though I think you conflate reacting to an encounter with leading the group; we all learn the encounters for our specific roles (its just true that Tank/Healer mishaps are costlier sooner).

My question is more along the lines of fixing this problem: who here knows this boss?  I'll freely admit that I'm the guy who's run all the heroics dozens of times who says, "er, remind me again."

What about something like an "encounter map"... it starts blank and boss characteristics, spells, weaknesses are unlocked as you discover them.  The map could then be annotated with various comments/strategies and then shared on everyone's screen... more like the map window that Deadly Boss Mods.  That way anyone experienced could help lead the group and folks could just focus on their roles.  I see this as a bigger issue for the general population than for well organized guilds on vent.  Still, something to make being a tank less than a temporary guild master might help raise the number of tanks.

[Ingmar]

I should have included the other main factor in that WoW doesn't have a 'pulling' role that exists outside of tanking, really. Thinking about it, the pull in other games I've played is often not done by the tank - in Midgard/DAOC, the pulling/pacesetting was always done by a shaman or healer, until we got PBAE for example - so that is probably a big factor too. The guy who is doing the pulling and controlling the pace of the group is probably also the one picking the path through the instance and just generally setting terms for things.

The idea of the game remembering boss abilites for you and such once you've seen them is a nice idea, especially for "old" guys like me.

[AutomaticZen]

Metaphysical question: is there any design change that would fix the Tank dearth issues?  I've played support roles for almost 10-years now and have no issues with the challenge and stress of healing; I'd tank too, but for the fact that I cannot get past the universal assumption that the Tank is _also_ your official tour-guide for the dungeon.  I'd happily tank if I didn't have to heard the cats and memorize every map/encounter.

Nope.  The tank has to be up to par in gear, but also know the ins-and-outs.  There sadly isn't a way around it.  I'd take a tank who knows the dungeon before one that is slightly undergeared.  I'm generally the leader when I queue up for dungeons.  Add to that the fact that you need a certain amount of situational awareness:  can I tank this, am I going the right way, how much mana does the healer have, is anyone else taking damage, do I feel like saving them, big attack coming, that dps is going to pull, etc.

I'm a Prot/Holy Paladin (I just hit 31K mana in my healing set last night!) so I feel your pain somewhat.  Prot is my main spec just because I like being able to control the pace of the run for the most part.

[March]

EDIT: As for the lack of tank issue, Ingmar said pretty much what I would've. The tank = leadur thing is one of the reasons I haven't really been doing PUGs on my tanks, because I already hafta lead raids and guild groups, and I don't really want to do it in my off times too. The other thing stopping me from doing them is I am horribly intimidated by the thought of having to tank for people who are doing SILLY HIGH dps, especially on my shittier geared tanks. 

Well, that's rather my point... folks don't mind the role of tanking, its the social dynamic that kills it for many.  Surely there is a way to design around this.

[Gobbeldygook]

Metaphysical question: is there any design change that would fix the Tank dearth issues?

-Reduce the skill necessary to tank even more.  I'm talking making threat so over the top that you can literally press random buttons and hold aggro on every mob in a pull, even if every single overgeared DPS is opening up on a different  mob.
-Remove tank gear, all of a tank's avoidance and health comes from talents, not the gear itself.

That's about all I can think of.

[Soulflame]

One of the biggest requirements to be moderately good at tanking is situational awareness.  I've been healing some instance PUGs with my level 7x druid, and I find myself tanking stray mobs way too often.  Usually a plate dps yoinks them off of me eventually.

[El Gallo]

I'd tank /lfd pugs if they had triple specs. Or if they just got rid of glyphs or made them permanent or something.  I actually enjoy tanking 5- and 10-man content as a warrior, and am geared/overgeared for it just from collecting rot loots.  But I need a fury spec for raiding and an arms spec for pvp.  Between speccing tank, speccing back, and burning 6 major glyphs and a couple minors, I'm looking at over 200g to tank.  It's also a pain in the ass, even with ActionBarSaver and Talented. I'll just sit in /lfd 15 minutes until I get a dps slot to collect my 2 frost emblems.  Seriously, fuck glyphs in the ass, what a terrible concept.  But that's another thread.

There's also a lot of truth the the social stress of tanking.  If you have DBM/Bigwigs, you can sign on to a dungeon/regular-mode raid that you've never seen and chances are nobody will notice as long as you are a DPS.  Toss in a quick scan of Tankspot, MMOChamp, or even Wowhead, and you'll be fine as a healer too.  

Do that as a tank, and its a fucking nightmarish experience of ungrateful jackmonkeys screaming about how much you fucking suck because you don't know every detail of each pull in the place and 1/3 of the raid realizing that they need to log off because their cats are on fire after the first wipe.

[March]

Metaphysical question: is there any design change that would fix the Tank dearth issues?

-Reduce the skill necessary to tank even more.  I'm talking making threat so over the top that you can literally press random buttons and hold aggro on every mob in a pull, even if every single overgeared DPS is opening up on a different  mob.
-Remove tank gear, all of a tank's avoidance and health comes from talents, not the gear itself.

That's about all I can think of.

I actually don't think that "challenge" is the problem (or better put, it's a secondary problem); as Sjofn notes, she can tank but doesn't want to tank for non-role related issues.  I'm the same way, I _can_ tank in so far as I have good gear (for heroics) and understand how it works mechanically... but just don't want the meta-role that comes with Tank.

I mean, if I had to be the therapist for every group just because I was the healer, hell... I wouldn't do that either.

[Polysorbate80]

The changes to LFG have me actually interested in tanking with my protadin rather than just pvp-ing.

My dilemma:  I have *no* tank gear, other than a shitty titansteel shield.

Non-heroics are trivial enough in pvp gear (30khp, 11% dodge, 10% parry, whatever block--it's gemmed for strength, not stamina), but how much of the triumph/valor/whatever gear do I realistically need to not be shit at tanking a heroic?

Fake-edit:  I see looking at my armory profile I do stil have a shitty-shit-shit blue tanking neck, but that's going away as soon as I scrounge up 10k more honor points, so it doesn't count even if it weren't trash.

[Sheepherder]

The Wrath launch heroics require iLevel ~175-187 blue gear all around for starters.  People will bitch if you bring your pvp gear, if they're plate or druid you have the luxury of telling them to fuck themselves.

[proudft]

Well, nothing makes me bust out the tanking suit faster than running a random dungeon with a horrible tank.  Same with healing.  Hell, same with writing, too.  Man, I never wrote so much as the months after I read that first Terry Goodkind book.   

Clearly I have some personality disorder called "Christ, I can do Better than That".

Tanking for heroics is pretty straightforward as long as you don't get the new ones.  Everything else is pretty simple, even Oculus and ToC.  There's not that many awful patrols like there were in most of the TBC instances where if you holy frisbee the entrance robots too soon you can all just turn around and flee. 

I also seem to be getting groups with 2 really high dps and 1 subpar, which makes me wonder if it is setting stuff up like that on purpose.  High dps means you take less hits, so that helps too.  That 10% survivability bonus (5% health, +5% healing) is also a huge bonus.

Plus, it's not like these people are from your server.  Give it a whirl!

[March]

The Wrath launch heroics require iLevel ~175-187 blue gear all around for starters.  People will bitch if you bring your pvp gear, if they're plate or druid you have the luxury of telling them to fuck themselves.

But zero defense on the tank?  Might not be an issue for older heroics and this era of overgeared healers... but I couldn't say for certain.  Other than that, your gear is fine for regular heroics.

[Sjofn]

EDIT: As for the lack of tank issue, Ingmar said pretty much what I would've. The tank = leadur thing is one of the reasons I haven't really been doing PUGs on my tanks, because I already hafta lead raids and guild groups, and I don't really want to do it in my off times too. The other thing stopping me from doing them is I am horribly intimidated by the thought of having to tank for people who are doing SILLY HIGH dps, especially on my shittier geared tanks. 

Well, that's rather my point... folks don't mind the role of tanking, its the social dynamic that kills it for many.  Surely there is a way to design around this.

Yeah, my quote up there was just me saying "I agree" in a longwinded fashion. Having to be the leader is probably the biggest factor behind tanks lagging behind, especially since people probably PUG as a break.

I can't quite explain why I'm a giant puss this expansion about tanking for PUGs. I tanked for PUGs on my druid all the time in TBC, and it's not like people didn't expect me to tell me what to do then. And it's seriously not me thinking "ugh, they're so terrible." It's me thinking "ugh, I'M so terrible, I don't want to be one of those tanks."

[Gobbeldygook]

The changes to LFG have me actually interested in tanking with my protadin rather than just pvp-ing.

My dilemma:  I have *no* tank gear, other than a shitty titansteel shield.

step 1: Get 1k gold
Step 2: Find a blacksmith, get him to make the entire tempered saronite set and Daunting hands/legs.
Step 3: Buy some BOEs and rep pieces.
Step 4: Get cheap def enchants on every piece you can

Done.  You're a tank.  Go here if you more than that.

[Ashamanchill]

In response to all this tank talk, that is the only role I enjoy filling. It's the only one that makes you at least be a little on your toes. DPS is all dick waving, and their favorie fights are ones where they don't have to move and just get to spam their shit over and over, and I never understood how anyone who wasn't an IRS agent would derive fun out of looking at green bars go down then doing something about restoring them (not sure if it means anything, but all four of the healers in my guild are chicks).

[Merusk]

Tanking CAN be fun.. so long as you don't have that idiot ret pally in your group, running RF and bitching that you're not holding aggro.

I, too, have noticed the DK "squishytank" problem on my healer.  It makes me try that much harder when I swap into tank role on Merusk, trying to make up for the many, many, MANY failure tanks I keep running in to.   As I said elsewhere, I need an ignore list longer than 50.

[Selby]

I am horribly intimidated by the thought of having to tank for people who are doing SILLY HIGH dps, especially on my shittier geared tanks. 

Define "silly high DPS" for me =)  My mage does 4000-4500 in most heroics these days, and very rarely has a problem with yanking aggro off of tanks unless I am after a mob that the tank hasn't seen yet.  I assume that any competent tank in decent (heroic) gear can handle my spell rotation without much issue.  If they have troubles, I can reduce the amount of spells I put into it.  And if I have to wand or cast Arcane Blast and Fire Blast only to avoid yanking aggro, the tank is doing something wrong.

[K9]

Reran ICC10 tonight, one shot Marrogar and Deathwhisper (she's a lot easier once your DPS have wrapped their brains around what the adds do). As RL I actually cocked up a bit by calling for all DPS on the boss at 7% mana, only to have the boss detach 0.5s after a new wave of adds. Thankfully we had a pretty strong group and the DPS killed the adds which one of the tanks picked up and we then got to killing the boss.

Gunship is really fun, but remember to acquire and equip your jetpacks before starting the event. We lost one attempt because we started it and were then unable to cross to the other side. We lost another to people enthusiastically jumping into the void, and got it on the third go (our first proper attempt). Only downside was that the loot chest wasn't interactive, so we had to ticket for loot. The kill was a bit messy, but I think we can polish it up by having the healers knowing where they are going. One healer, one tank and one (GOOD) DPS seems enough to do the cross over, but we had a few close calls with the enemy leader who starts hitting like a psycopath pretty quickly. Overall though a really fun an innovative fight.

We one shot saurfang blind. Having a disc priest seemed to help, but we did get three people with marks. Running three healers we just kept them alive. Earthbind didn't seem to do much, and we didn't really pull the beasts off the melee. I suspect we could do this much better, but we'll have to see. Apparently also HoP removes Mark of the Fallen champion, which seems a tad cheesy, but who knows. This is probably the most boring fight in here until he frenzies, then it's marginally interesting for the healers. Consider this fight to be Patchwerk: The ICC Edition and you should be fine.

[Sheepherder]

But zero defense on the tank?

Resilience still reduces chance to be crit, he actually has significant amounts of mitigation due to strength and iLevel 213-226 armour.  He's fine, switching to blues would be a clear downgrade.

[Sjofn]

I am horribly intimidated by the thought of having to tank for people who are doing SILLY HIGH dps, especially on my shittier geared tanks. 

Define "silly high DPS" for me =)  My mage does 4000-4500 in most heroics these days, and very rarely has a problem with yanking aggro off of tanks unless I am after a mob that the tank hasn't seen yet.  I assume that any competent tank in decent (heroic) gear can handle my spell rotation without much issue.  If they have troubles, I can reduce the amount of spells I put into it.  And if I have to wand or cast Arcane Blast and Fire Blast only to avoid yanking aggro, the tank is doing something wrong.

That's a lot higher than the dps I usually tank for (in heroics, anyway). I just ... don't know how well I would do with the occassional DPSer that is hitting 7k. I would probably be fine but I dunno for sure and for some stupid, stupid reason I am intensely paranoid about being the shitty tank people bitch about when they're trading "oh my God, shittiest group ever" stories. I don't know why, I didn't used to give a shit!

[SurfD]

I am horribly intimidated by the thought of having to tank for people who are doing SILLY HIGH dps, especially on my shittier geared tanks.  

Define "silly high DPS" for me =)  My mage does 4000-4500 in most heroics these days, and very rarely has a problem with yanking aggro off of tanks unless I am after a mob that the tank hasn't seen yet.  I assume that any competent tank in decent (heroic) gear can handle my spell rotation without much issue.  If they have troubles, I can reduce the amount of spells I put into it.  And if I have to wand or cast Arcane Blast and Fire Blast only to avoid yanking aggro, the tank is doing something wrong.

That's a lot higher than the dps I usually tank for (in heroics, anyway). I just ... don't know how well I would do with the occassional DPSer that is hitting 7k. I would probably be fine but I dunno for sure and for some stupid, stupid reason I am intensely paranoid about being the shitty tank people bitch about when they're trading "oh my God, shittiest group ever" stories. I don't know why, I didn't used to give a shit!

Most of the big ticket dps classes wont ever hit a true 7k dps number in a heroic outside of boss fights, because the trash just dies too fast for them to rev up a proper rotation (barring stuff like decked out arcane mages blowing their wad on single trash mobs for the lulz).  And inflated DPS numbers on trash usually wont matter in the long run, because most of the time the damage is spread over multiple sources, so they have less chance of pulling off you.   Of course, there is always that one guy who has the magical nack for finding the ONE mob you are generating the least threat on and dumping everything he has into it.

[Merusk]

I enjoy letting that guy die as a healer.

Also, if you notice the problem, just say "hey I'm not decked out like you are, please hold back a bit. Otherwise this will take longer than it should because you'll be getting rezzed every pull."   I did it for a tank that was in ilevel 187/ 200 blues surrounded by a group of 245 DPS mages and a pally.  "Hey, the tank is in ilevel 187 blues and 200 purples.  Please hold back because I'm not geared enough to heal a mage tank, thx!"

[March]

But zero defense on the tank?

Resilience still reduces chance to be crit, he actually has significant amounts of mitigation due to strength and iLevel 213-226 armour.  He's fine, switching to blues would be a clear downgrade.

I did not know that it translated back to PvE... golly, it's almost like they have two totally different games that prevents one side from enjoying the other.

[Nebu]

I never understood how anyone who wasn't an IRS agent would derive fun out of looking at green bars go down then doing something about restoring them (not sure if it means anything, but all four of the healers in my guild are chicks).

I enjoy healing for reasons that have nothing to do with the mechanics of healing.  I enjoy playing a healer because you feel like an integral part of the team.  Most DPS can be easily replaced.  The healer/tank represent the core of the group and will usually determine success or failure of a run.  Granted, I haven't had much grouping experience in WoW, but I've played a healer in the endgame of nearly every other title for this reason.

[Soulflame]

Saurfang...  

We downed him in a few tries last week, but this week... not so much.

A Disc priest is pretty much required for 25 man.  Without one, we wiped for around an hour.  Never managed to get him below 14%, always ended up with runaway marks at the end of the fight, which meant damage on marked people outpaced healer output, thus resulting in marked people dying, and Saurfang getting healed.

Our disc priest logged in.  Someone had to leave.  Ten minutes later, Saurfang was down.

Really really annoyed with this fight right now.

[AutomaticZen]

Saurfang...  

We downed him in a few tries last week, but this week... not so much.

A Disc priest is pretty much required for 25 man.  Without one, we wiped for around an hour.  Never managed to get him below 14%, always ended up with runaway marks at the end of the fight, which meant damage on marked people outpaced healer output, thus resulting in marked people dying, and Saurfang getting healed.

Our disc priest logged in.  Someone had to leave.  Ten minutes later, Saurfang was down.

Really really annoyed with this fight right now.

Was your disc priest able to roll bubbles across the entire raid in 25 man?

[Sheepherder]

I did not know that it translated back to PvE... golly, it's almost like they have two totally different games that prevents one side from enjoying the other.

They were actually considering making it that way, however when they changed resilience to have a x%  damage reduction instead of periodic damage they changed that effect to not work in PvE.  So resilience works if you need to cap -crit%, but it doesn't have the dodge/parry/block/miss so it's an inferior stat.

[K9]

Was your disc priest able to roll bubbles across the entire raid in 25 man?

You don't have to roll it over the whole raid. Shielding the tanks, melee and targets with boiling blood or blood nova is enough. Anyone who isn't getting hit isn't a concern.

[March]

The Looking For Group item level requirement for Halls of Reflection has been raised to match the difficulty of the encounters.

Glad I got my HOR achievement... wonder if I'll qualify in the future; it was definitely a stressful run.

[Evildrider]

The Looking For Group item level requirement for Halls of Reflection has been raised to match the difficulty of the encounters.

Glad I got my HOR achievement... wonder if I'll qualify in the future; it was definitely a stressful run.

I will only run this with guildies.  The farthest I ever got with Pugs is the first boss.  I also think sitting in one of the side rooms is stupid.  If 2 mages are pulled, you are pretty much fucked once they get their fire crap on the ground.

[Kail]

On a side, side note I'd like to see either a tighter gear check for the harder random heroics (HoR) or a way to self select out of some dungeons...

Yeah, I'd really like some kind of "How badass am I" slider that you can adjust.  I haven't run anything in Lich King except naxx 10, so I have no idea how to do anything or how my gear stacks up.  I'd rather be learning an easier instance which I don't really need gear from than wiping over and over trying to get the newest carrot, even if I can scrape past the gear check.

[Ingmar]

The Looking For Group item level requirement for Halls of Reflection has been raised to match the difficulty of the encounters.

Glad I got my HOR achievement... wonder if I'll qualify in the future; it was definitely a stressful run.

I will only run this with guildies.  The farthest I ever got with Pugs is the first boss.  I also think sitting in one of the side rooms is stupid.  If 2 mages are pulled, you are pretty much fucked once they get their fire crap on the ground.

Yeah the alcoves are bad. The fight is much easier to manage in the entrance hallway.

[Soulflame]

Was your disc priest able to roll bubbles across the entire raid in 25 man?

You don't have to roll it over the whole raid. Shielding the tanks, melee and targets with boiling blood or blood nova is enough. Anyone who isn't getting hit isn't a concern.

I'd also shield targets with Mark of the Fallen Champion, and anyone with add aggro, if possible.

The reason why Disc is key is any of those abilities give Saurfang blood points.  If damage is absorbed, he doesn't get blood points.  Our wipes had him putting out the first Mark of the Fallen Champion at around 66%, very consistently.  With the disc in the raid, the first Mark went out almost exactly at 50%.  Made the fight way more manageable.