Tanks. A perennial shortage. A new tank-capable class didn’t fix the shortage. Dual-specialization did little to address the lack of role. So what now?
First up is to analyze why. Now, most people would blame it on Protection being poor for solo PVE, and while I’d normally agree, Dual-specs changed the landscape. A tank can now hop into his DPS spec and off he goes butchering mobs aplenty. So this can’t be the problem. The next logical conclusion is that tanking is too hard. But in reality, it’s easier than ever. Bar a few really challenging gimmick fights, there really shouldn’t be any reason no-one would want to tank heroics. They’re faceroll territory.
There are two reasons, I believe, that tanks are still rare. One, they need two vastly different sets of gear. Contrast this with caster dps/healer hybrids, which can share many pieces of loot between roles. It’s clear that something similiar needs to happen with tanks. There should be less of a need to stack defense, for example. Being able to switch to a prot spec while utilising much of your current DPS ghear would go a long way to making tanking much more accesible to the common man.
The second reason is PVP. Despite some strides, tank specs still perform poorly in PVP in WoW. PVP has become all about burst damage, cc and heals. Now, obviously, you can’t give tanks burst damage. But I think WoW could take a lesson from WAR, and consider making tanks better at CC and perhaps damage prevention. Tanks in WAr had a buff they could place on a friendly player that would divert a percentage of damage taken by that player to the tank. Coupled with the powerful CC that WAR’s tanks have – knockbacks and knockdowns and powerful, debilitating debuffs – made tanks in WAR highly valuable in RVR. There’s little reason I can think of that the same cannot be done for WoW.
Fact is, many if not most WoW players tend to dabble in both PVE and PVP, and the type of playstyle that they enjoy in PVP is generally echoed in their PVE gameplay. DPS is relevant in PVP. Healing is downright godly in PVP. But tanking is rubbish. This is a huge disparity, one that needs to be addressed.
Well, you probably want to consider what exactly -is- a tank in the context of PvP. Is there even a tanking role in PvP?
If you give a tank damage or healing options, then they’re not really “tanks” are they? Then they’re DPS/Healers ;).
So i guess as things are, “Tanks” = PvE . If you see a warrior in PvP, you can probably bet your behind he’s not there to tank anything, he will be a pure and simple DPS class.
Now as you mentioned WAR had some good abilities to enable players to “tank” in PvP. The Shield-Block [everyone behind an arc of the tank gets a def buff] and the damage-diversion buff [guard?] is good examples.
You really need tools to “pull aggro” , and right now these tools are limited to PvE mechanics….
I’ve been mucking around with prot in PVP for a while now and I totally dig it.
I play with my warr and have full PVP gear, sitting at about 850 resilience and 30k hp, I can routinely crit shockwave and concussion blow for 6k+.
I have two on demand stuns, one at 30 sec CD (5 sec stun) and one AOE cone at 17 sec CD (4 sec stun).
Couple the stuns with gag order, which causes my shield bash and heroic trow to silence for three seconds and a disarm on a 45 sec cooldown.
Intervene that reduces damage on a friendly target by 30% for 6 secs, warbringer that causes charge / intercept / intervene to be used in defensive stance and to break snares.
Prot warriors have a lot of utility in PVP, and with the right PVE gear mixed in, can crit shield slam for 12k, no jokes.
I’m currently working on a 3v3 setup for my warr as prot with a healer and maybe a rogue.
Prot in PVP aint dead m8, it’s more alive than ever 😉
I, as a tank love it! Ive brought up a Pally tank to toc25 on cruse control then shelved him and started a dk tank thats ready for toc10.
In my old guild, ppl complained that they have a such a hard time getting in to groups while i just sit there with a big smile on my face.
While yes, in the current iteration, you can faceroll tanks though most heroics I find when I go dps, tanks have no idea what they need to be doing. Tanking takes alot of responsibility and patence. When they get get b1tched for wiping the group (bad pulls, bad aggro gen) they quit it and submit themselves to just dps (and join the masses of the dps in lfg channel). Darwin’s theory holds so very true here.
I really dont want wow to become easier on tanks, the current set up culls out the weak and the strong flourish. It took me a month from hitting 80 to running so many heroics that I am at the point that im buying dps gear cause i got what i needed in tanking gear from conquest badges.