Regarding a few of Ghostcrawler's Responses

[Kamani]

The druid steps forward and says "I have Battle Res, possibly the best ability in game for guilds when it comes to learning new content. I can also innervate, and I'm really good at switching to dps when I don't have to tank. If we ever get to an extreme fight that requires a lot of healers, I can respec if we need it."
The Prot warrior should also be able to switch to dps, and they come with Battle Shout and Commanding Shout, two very solid buffs. No, they can't heal.
The Paladin steps forward and says "I can cover one of your 3-4 primary Paladin Blessings. I'm still the best AoE tank for large pulls, like those spiders you see scampering around down there. I have many auras which are useful to stack in the raid, I have wipe prevention in the form of DI, and I have plenty of other tricks like BoP or BoF, or Lay Hands. Oh, and I can respec healing too if the raid really needs it for a fight."
If the paladin is so much better at AE that you take him instead of a warrior, then we have a problem. Yes, pallys are able to heal. That part is totally valid.
The Death Knight steps forward and says "I know I'm new, but I'm the WotLK favored child and you know it. I'm the best Magic boss tank, and you know there'll be fights tailored to me. And I bring just as many tricks as the Paladin, only mine are cooler cause they involve ghouls and exploding corpses."
Again, the "best Magic boss" shouldn't be to the extent that you call the raid when she can't come. There will be no fights tailored to a particular class. Sorry. Believe me, we don't have to come up with a gimmick to encourage death knight raiders. Northrend is infested with them already. Ghouls are cool though.
The Prot Warrior steps forward and says "I can Disarm...some mobs, not quite sure yet if it'll hit bosses and how many. And there's an ability that let's me put a buff like Pain suppression on people, which..maybe will come in handy, depending on the bosses we find? And I have a single-target 10% threat reducer."
You Sunder, you Demo Shout, Battle Shout, Challenging Shout. You might Piercing Howl depending on the encounter. You Execute. You Intervene. See where I'm going...? If you are really winning or losing fights based on whether your tank can Innervate, then we've probably made the content too challenging. The difference in skill (or gear) between a potential warrior and druid tank should have a much bigger effect on the outcome.

The situations we've had before have been more like "The paladin can tank all of Heroic Shattered Halls with no CC" or "The druid can do nearly double your dps while tanking" or "The warrior can achieve passive crushing immunity and has the only ability that can handle Shear." Those are egregious barriers to having 4 viable tanking classes, which is why we're trying to fix them.

First, I'm way too lazy to go through that and seperate the posters, so it all appears as one big essay. Read it on the front page news if you need to.


Second, the problem that this poster was trying to point out that everybody still is, in Crawler's terms, a unique snowflake to some extent. And while that level of uniqueness might not be at BC levels, it is still prevalent.

Sitting in a guild that will be going for world top 10/20s in WotLK, I can tell you that we will still be min/maxing as much as possible. Even our farm content raids are perfectly min/maxxed. No reason to believe that high end raiding will be different.

So our problem is uniqueness.

The original poster listed UNIQUE abilities for Paladins, Druids, Warriors and Death Knights.

When unique abilities of DK/Pal/Druids were listed, Crawler didn't reply regarding them. When Warrior unique abilities(or lack there of) were listed, Crawler responded by listing all of our shared buff/debuffs (demo, commanding, sunder etc)

The problem is exactly that. We lack unique traits to bring to raids that other classes have. If all tanks are equal, then choosing a Main tank will be based on finding a skilled (whoever's unique skill end up being most prevalent.)

To exemplify, these are the unique abilities still in place:

Druids:
Battle Res
Innervate
Shift form and DPS(though Warriors might be catching up in this regard)
Respec to a healer

Paladin:
Blessings
Hands
BoP
Bubble
DI
Respec to a healer

DK:
I DUNNO
Ghouls(cool)

Warrior:
Disarm(repeating the "some mobs" sentiment by the OP)
Safeguard


Now given equal tank abilities, who would you pick? Sure as hell seems to me that Warriors get the short end of the stick.

[protonly]

Based on this information, yes, I agree. HOWEVER, I haven't seen the beta much but I know things aren't done yet. I can only hope that the time spent leveling a war to specifically be the best choice class wise/ability wise to tank wasn't for naught.

I think one of the main sources of moaning from the warrior community is the fact that all of our signature abilities were given away and we received none from the other classes. I think some of the recent changes are in the right direction but we need something omfg-i-crapped-my-pants big. Shockwave ain't it, neither is vigiliance. I know I woulnd't waste vigiliance as the blue said on some trigger happy lock...I'd rather have him die and learn threat/aggro management.

[Worldie]

the time spent leveling a war to specifically be the best choice class

That time is wasted in WotLK, they stated it already multiple times.

[Horacio]

I've said it a few times and I will say it again: I think striking a balance between tanks having equal viability and class specific skill sets is simply the most difficult task Blizzard has before them. I think in the recent pushes on the beta servers, at least according to what I've read, they have made some significant strides but there may still be some ways to go.

The data Cider and Xav have posted suggest it may be possible to drop some ridiculous shield slam bombs on mobs and as such, provide meaningful DPS. Its one thing to go into a raid as a protection spec and throw on DPS oriented gear for a specific encounter. Its another to off tank a mob and then in the same mitigation/EH/avoidance gear, swap weapons and flail helplessly at subsequent targets.....or camp SS CD with no rage.

Changes in mechanics seem to be bridging that gap. Incorporating raw damage stats into tanking abilities with scaling by AP and the obvious 2 str/1 BV change will mean, along with some new skills and talents, warriors will at laest be able to put out more DPS on any gear set up.

Well, there are still concerns with the interconnecting raid buffs/auras/shouts and the like.

While it is said a druid or pally can respec to healer, a warrior too can respec to a full DPS spec. It may not provide the same utility but while specced arms/fury or some hybrid, warriors have an ability still to tank.

The number one reason why I am not too terribly concerned is that as a raid leader and a guild leader....and not too terribly hell bent on speed progression, I will decide who tanks and who does what :P

[Taelas]

Oh, give me a break...

Protection paladins bring TWO blessings (which they aren't happy about, by the way). They won't bless Wisdom or Might -- they'll leave that for Holy and Retribution paladins. They have Kings, but most Protection paladins want Kings to be baseline, to give it to all paladins. They also have Sanctuary, which recently was buffed like crazy. Their ability to respec Holy does not matter -- if a tank has to respec to be a healer, your guild needs to recruit more healers!

Druids bring Rebirth and Innervate. Innervate is far less useful than it used to be, however it's still strong. Rebirth is good as well. Neither abilities can be used while tanking, and all druids bring Rebirth and Innervate (though both Balance and Restoration need their Innervates for themselves). Their ability to respec Restoration -- again, it doesn't matter.

Warriors bring Intervene and Sunder Armor. Disarm to a lesser extent. Vigilance. They have Execute, Battle Shout, Commanding Shout, Demoralizing Shout. They have an AE-cone stun. They have Spell Reflection.

Ghostcrawler already answered this more than adequately. No, you won't get a spot merely because you're a warrior. Guess what, you won't get a spot merely because you're a paladin, either. You won't get a spot because you're a druid.

Will there be a Protection paladin in your tanking corps? Most likely. Is it a certainty? NO, a Retribution paladin can spec into Protection and pick up Blessing of Kings. A warrior can replace Blessing of Might with Battle Shout. A Discipline priest can replace part of Blessing of Sanctuary with Grace; a Restoration druid can replace the rest with Replenish. All paladins can use Hands, all paladins can use Divine Shield, all paladins can use Divine Intervention, etc. A Protection paladin brings nothing unique to a raid.

Will there be a Feral druid in your tanking corps? Possibly. A certainty? No; they bring nothing that is particular to Feral druids to a raid that cannot be replaced. They bring nothing unique to a raid.

A warrior brings Intervene. It could be replaced by a Fury or an Arms warrior, but not well. A warrior brings Vigilance, which is 100% unique. Spell Reflection, also 100% unique.

Stop crying doom.

[Galushi]

Well said Norrath.

And Horacio, I'm right there with you. While I'm a dps/tank officer in my guild, I'm certain my raid spot is guarenteed by the fact that I will bring a skilled tank/dps character to the table, dedicated to being geared and proficient with both roles and being a consistent high attendance player. While I'm not against giving protection a unique raid buff/utility, I think we will easily pull our weight with our strengths in tanking, and perhaps, Dps.

Personally I pity the people who are in such a hardcore guild that they feel they can only get a raid spot if their spec brings some sort of unique buff or utility. The strength of your personality and skill as a player should be the merit that gets you into raids, not a buff. I'm glad Blizzard has taken this stance.

[Skinzenbonz]

Blizzard will never be able to acheive the balance they are looking for outside of specific functions. If a warrior and a druid tank the same all things being equal and DPS the same all things being equal then the druid has the advantage since they can also heal. I realize that it would require a spec change to be truly effective but in the end druids are more versatile than a warrior. The same is true for pallies.

If warriors were given the ability to heal as well as a pally or druid would there be any backlash? Most definitely! In reality we would only be asking to function as well as those other classes. I realize it is ridiculous to suggest warrior get the ability to heal. I knew that warriors would never be able to heal when I picked up the class those many years ago. I also believed that the reward for limiting my utility would be a boost in those things that I could do.

I don't have an axe to grind with pallies or druids. They deserve to have as much fun as the next guy (or gal). I don't think that warriors should be the defacto supreme tanking class but I do think that the lack of versatility in our class should count for something. Blizzard should focus their effort on making hybrids valued for their versatility, the sum of the parts, instead of one function.

I realize that many warriors will not be out of a job. Skill counts for a lot but ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL right now, a great druid (or pally) is more valuable than a great warrior.

I don't know why someone would roll a warrior in WotLK. We bring nothing unique. The hybrids offer everything a warrior does and more.

5 Pallies can make a group together and hit an instance just as 5 druids can but never 5 warriors. I don't think it should be a goal to make this happen but it does reflect the point that druids and pallies are more 'equal' than warriors.

I am trying to hold out some hope that Blizzard will make it so warriors aren't just pallies that can't heal.

[Taelas]

You bring in a tank to tank, not respec to be a healer. While it is certainly a useful ability, whenever you force them to do so, you're out a tank.

If your guild needs your tanks to respec to healers, clearly they need to recruit more healers -- not more tanks.

[Shortypop]

I don't want to enter into this debate, all I will say is please don't compare battle shout to BoM - a pally (any) can cast BoM, drink for a few seconds and start the pull where he would have been before casting it (and even if it takes longer to get his mana up, he doesn't have to do it every pull). A warrior has to bloodrage, cast it, wait 30seconds (in order to have enough rage to actually do something at the start of a fight), bloodrage again and pull, re-put it up in-fight and try and end the pull with enough rage to recast it. It really really needs to have its duration increased in order for me ever to use it instead of a pally casting BoM (assuming enough pallys ofc), or no rage cost associated with it, plus a larger area would be nice, nothing worse than casting it mid-fight to find it's dropped off some melee becuase they were fighting a different mob

If the dev's want prot, to be fun - I can say this, rebuffing every 2 minutes is not fun at all - either for the warriors or those benefitting from the shouts.

[Satrina]

See, here's my thing. I'm a tank, and I'm supposed to be the protector. So I go to Commanding Shout my raid, only to get told a more powerful effect is in place, because the FURY warrior did it already.

Sensical? Nyet.

[Magnuss]

Keep in mind shorty, with the diversity and talent specs you will be able to get the talents that increase duration and range of Battle Shout and other such shouts if you really want to. Either way it has always been a warrior's job (especially the solo warrior in a raid) to keep his shouts up at all times. You can do this in combat without hardly disturbing your rotation, you can do it in between pulls, before pulls or whenever you feel like. You dont have to worry about blowing your mana supply because recruit dumbass died and had to get a battle res. The shouts are superior in my opinion to BoM simply because we can apply them whenever, and raidwide, at the cost of a global cooldown.

[Brucimus]

Kamani, I'm starting to worry about you. WHAT ARE YOU SO AFRAID OF? why are so insecure in your raid spot?

from Galushi

Personally I pity the people who are in such a hardcore guild that they feel they can only get a raid spot if their spec brings some sort of unique buff or utility. The strength of your personality and skill as a player should be the merit that gets you into raids, not a buff. I'm glad Blizzard has taken this stance.

Seriously man. Why would you put yourself through this mental anguish?

[Lilie]

See, here's my thing. I'm a tank, and I'm supposed to be the protector. So I go to Commanding Shout my raid, only to get told a more powerful effect is in place, because the FURY warrior did it already.

Sensical? Nyet.

Mm. This is true. At least, then both buffs will be up? Doesn't seem like deal killer to me.

[Galushi]

Isn't there an updated warlock imp blood pact that doesnt stack with commanding shout? maybe if its as good, and the pallies doing Imp BoMight, we may not have to keep up shouts at all. I probably wouldn't mind not having to worry about it.

[Satrina]

It's just something that has always bothered me because it makes no sense =)

[Magnuss]

Well technically... If you were to think back to like some middle ages battlefield and one huge dude in armor threw his sword in the air and shouted charge as loud as he could, it would probably motivate you. What if the other guy threw two swords and shouted "charge" so loud that it killed the man in front of him? Still motivated, one just spec'd differently.

[Galushi]

Well technically... If you were to think back to like some middle ages battlefield and one huge dude in armor threw his sword in the air and shouted charge as loud as he could, it would probably motivate you. What if the other guy threw two swords and shouted "charge" so loud that it killed the man in front of him? Still motivated, one just spec'd differently.

Is there a protection talent i can take to gain resistance to random death due to being shouted at? We could use some more Bloat, srsly.

[Kamani]

You bring in a tank to tank, not respec to be a healer. While it is certainly a useful ability, whenever you force them to do so, you're out a tank.

If your guild needs your tanks to respec to healers, clearly they need to recruit more healers -- not more tanks.

If only Blizzard followed that rule.

Sunwell....Eredar Twins requires 10/11 healers to be done. My guild currently uses 12 because you beat the enrage timer by a mile and the only way you wipe is if people die to raid damage.

12 healers. Normal is 7. Is it safe to recruit 12 healers? Think you won't get a ton of turnover while having 5 healers normally sitting the bench?

We often do have people respec for certain fights. Prot warriors going arms, feral druids going resto, boomkins going resto, Paladins bouncing between all 3 specs.

Respeccing happens a lot and it is very much so a benefit to being a hybrid class. If you don't think it is because of your situation then that is just your guild, I have been in multiple guilds where we have had many different people swap specs routinely.


And about rebirth. It is arguably the best skill in the game at the moment. Again, basing off my experiences in Sunwell.

While learning KJ, player dies in p2/3? Battle res. No res up? Wipe it and run back. That's it. Cutting edge content is designed to be scraped by with 25 people. 24 people usually doesn't cut it.

Same thing with M'uru farm clears. Healer DC'd and died as we pulled last night. No res was up. RL called to wipe it because it isn't doable without a full raid.

And there aren't many fights where you can't spare a few seconds to bres as a tank. Everything in SW yes, Illidan yes, council yes, Shahraz ots yes, RoS yes, BB yes, Gorefiend no, Akama side tanks yes, Supremus yes, Najentus no etc etc.

Warriors bring Intervene and Sunder Armor. Disarm to a lesser extent. Vigilance. They have Execute, Battle Shout, Commanding Shout, Demoralizing Shout. They have an AE-cone stun. They have Spell Reflection.

Intervene - Not that useful ><
Sunder armor - Not unique, 3 other classes have an equivalent.
Disarm - Usable on maybe 1/2 BC bosses? Maybe less.
Execute - Not usable while tanking because of stance change and the fact that it does less damage then a normal cycle.
Battle shout - Not unique, supplied by other classes.
Commanding shout - Not unique, supplied by other classes.
Demo - Not unique, supplied by other classes.
AE-cone stun - Useful on...trash? No bosses are susceptible to stun.
Spell reflect - A "warrior must tank this boss" gimmick in BC. A notion that they are completely removing.

I intentionally went over this point. The gist of my post was uniqueness amongst the classes and your response listed a whole bunch of non unique points.

[Warwench]

Mm. This is true. At least, then both buffs will be up? Doesn't seem like deal killer to me.

and in the future we wont need a Fury War for commanding shout, we'll have a Warlock for that.. and he can summon, and do stones, and DPS. What can you do silly little Fury Warrior?

Ohhh.. you Battle shout.. nope got a Pally for that..

Ohh you can sunder?.. tanks already doing that..

DPS?.. well yeah but who doesnt ?

Why dont you go level your DK and get back to us in a month or so.

Fury War *pouts*

[Horacio]

I think those situations are poor design in some ways....though, to make it a challenege for bleeding edge guilds, there's not much else you can do. The days of a dozen scrubs dropping dead and "just keep me up" badass tank with his trusty healers carrying the raid are long gone.

Having to drastically alter the baseline raid make up is poor design. Period. Being required to use 12 healers for Twins is poor design. But is it poor design if it means 7 specced healers and 5-6 off spec healers can handle it? But that's not the case (speculation) because to 'win' to max/min, people will zone out/respec. And so they try to balance around that to keep it challenging.

The flip side is allowing people to spec how they like and performing multiple raid roles. It will breed garbage, generic specs among the casual population.