Old School vs. New School what did you prefer?

[Kahmal]

I recently got my Warrior level 80 after my Holy Paladin. I'm already defense capped with 27k Health.

I'm just debating still like I was pre-xpac if I like this new style of tanking better then the old.

I enjoy seeing the AoE numbers from Shockwave and Thunderclap, and I can't argue with the Shield Slam and Revenge crits. All of this steamrolling and facerolling though kind of makes me miss the old ways.

I liked steadily scrolling through targets, actually useing a mouse over macro, tanking Heroic Shatt Halls and MgT with minimal if not any CC was awesome. It made me feel like some elite fighter that can take on many enemies at once using just a sword and board. (not relying on Thunderclap or a Shockwave)

Deep down though I think what I'm missing the most is just being among the few that could pull this off. When me and my friends rerolled Horde, I was annoyed that one of them picked Warrior knowing that was MY class. But I looked forward to being able to school him in every possible way and then only after embarrassing him, I would teach him what he had to know.

We're all level 80 and he's not bad at all, but then again barely any tanks seem to be. If your a smart player your a smart tank, skill or technique is nearly as important.

He was complaining that Grobbulus was a bitch to tank though which cracked a smile across my face. I said "trying doing that shit while worrying about keeping Shield Block up."

I gotta say with the old crushing blow mechanic gone Main Tanking isn't nearly as exciting as it used to be. Always having to be on your toes for cool downs incase that one darn crushing blow snuck in. And actually having to keep your threat up while keeping your ass alive. I liked being admired for my TPS out put.

Now I can be known for being able to dish out good DPS as a tank, I can do 1700 on a straight tank and spank, but no one ever seems to notice it unless I actually out DPS someone, and people dont consider 'hey thats good for a tank' they just say the DPS sux. (normally the case. DPS seems like the only thing that really reflects on your skill now)

What do you guys think?

[nips]

I miss the time when everything was not an aoe fest tbh. I know its just trash and trash is boring etc... but knowing which mob to stun/disarm/reflect and doing alot of marks for cc etc was fun when you finaly figured it out. It became something you could somewhat improve on each run in instances and to some degree take pride in. Now there is no difference in doing an instance for the first or hundered time. its just mark skull and aoe the rest. Works for every pull in every current instance/heroic/raid.

On the flip side boss fights seems more interactive and fun in wotlk.

[Warwench]

I dont miss a damn thing. Warrior is fun and playable now. My Warrior was retired pre-WOLK, tanking instances (raids were ok) were just more work than i wanted to putin after 8 hours at a real job.

Playing a Warrior now is fun.

[Murdog]

Meh i miss old school mind numbingly hard boss's (Fundamentaly not hard but still seem'd that way) followed by rediculus raid requirments, but that's me. Wrath is ok just to easy over all atm (yes i know stuff will get harder but still i doubt anything is gonna be to hard since nothing is gonna be 60Naxx/Sunwell hard)

[Muffin Man]

I don't miss the awesome step function that meant farming every heroic only let you tank the first half of Kara, meaning no one would take you since they wanted to kill Prince.

I do miss wiping on trash sometimes, not because it was fun, but because it made the entire instance daunting and more rewarding. On the flip side, I do like being able to chain pull ala Xav's awesome video; for the ADHD in me it's a non-stop thrill.

I like the new way of tanking that seemed less like work and more like kicking ass. But I do hate the new perception that tanking is a faceroll. There are still bad tanks out there, and there are still decent tanks that have trouble holding AoE threat. I like being recognized for that in the past and I still like being recognized for it now (although people really take it for granted).

Overall I like the new school. But change is change, there's some bad with the good.

As an aside I love how inventive some of the boss fights are now, Insanity in Old Kingdom has to be one of the most fun encounters around (my priest friend was so pumped after we cleared it for the first time).

[Kahmal]

I personally draw the line at having a ranged taunt, thats what just makes shit too damn easy. It's what I hated about the few times I tanked on my paladin, I could hold multiple mobs with little effort and when some one did pull agggro I could taunt them from range!? WTF!

Now we have it. Theorycrafting hardly seems worth it any more since its so easy. I miss doing Heroics and actually THINKING before pulling. Marking up the targets and assessing the situation. THe one thing I can't argue with though is there a hell of a lot faster to clear now and it is nice that bosses are a bit more interesting.

[Rhyseh]

Tanking is definitely much much easier now than it was pre 3.0 and I kind ofmiss being amongst the elite cadre of warriors who where considered great at what they do. I would always pride myself of my ability to generate threat. I do miss that element to the game, where it was all about generating as much threat as possible so as to not threat cap your DPS.

However having said this I enjoy much more now bwing valued for other reasons than just havig good threat and being able to tank things. As a tank my DPS is no longer something to be disregarded.

Overall I think I enjoy the new changes to my class, warriors are more fun now than they have ever been.

[blackhand]

Sounds like the OT was a bit jealous of his friend there. I feel that the changes were all positive. I think people got too stuck up in their elitism that they forgot the game is about fun. And they all also forgot that this expansion is far from over. All we've done (and when I say all, I mean a small percentage of WoW players) have defeated the first stage of Northrend. They are far from finishing the whole experience of Northrend that Bliz should have in store.

[Lightmgl]

I like a combination of new and old. I think the way they made our abilities scale and our aoe scale is a good step forward even though it could use a bit of tweaking in some cases. I really like how they have removed any sort of target limitation which allows them to make gigantic encounters with large numbers of creatures.

I do wish some more emphasis was placed on 1v1 tanking either through our gimmicks like spell reflect/cooldowns though like in the old days. It seems more like a buttonfest now while keeping an eye on your health instead of really having to watch for tricky things.

They definitely needed to make these changes though. The warrior class is still one of the more complicated ones and they had designed our tanking abilities in bad ways that did not have any outlook for beyond early TBC content. By the time the problem had caught up with them it required a complete rebuild of pretty much the entire prot tree and every ability related to it.

As for things being easy... That is not currently a problem with tanking but rather the game as a whole. Blizzard has been open about it too. They said raiding now is supposed to be easier than Karazhan was and that they tuned heroics to a much lower level in some cases. They've also broken many of the dungeons down into very short runs which come across as easy to people who are used to longer runs or painful wipes. Overall the have opened the entry level of the game to a larger population. They've said they won't do a sunwell again but hopefully they find a nice median between BT and Sunwell difficulty to end the expansion at. I would personally like to see other gimmicks too such as a 5 man level above heroic possibly or maybe some old world raid zones could get a heroic difficulty put at the level cap. They could stretch out all sorts of things like that for content to give players stuff to do without the majority of the population missing stuff.

The question now is, how will they make the game interesting using the new tools they have given us. AoE fests are boring but the potential for fighting large numbers of creatures as a norm could lead to some interesting encounters.

[gacktt]

I did not enjoying doing crap dps, not holding any aoe threat at all, and having to mark 3-4 things every pull, 25 times in an instance.

Not being able to charge in combat, 5 yard taunt that barely works with 300 latency, Doing 700 shield slams and 250 devastates in mh/bt gear.

Being a free kill to anyone decent in pvp.

[GROGtheNailer]

Ive been bored lately as a long time tank. Playing with Fury and Arms atm as Im geared as well as i can be and AoE tanking (while fun at first) is taking it's toll. Lost interest.

Time to dust off an alt. Im not going to bitch about what I miss as that will get the thread locked. (what's up with that anyway?)

[sabinsmain]

ya i mean the old days of being known as a good warrior tank for multi tank mob handling are over so i guess we just evolve with it...i mean on one hand its sad that we are still palying and discussing this but in one sense its made us better because we know the class better than most. Even though they throw new abilities and concepts toward us the older veterens will just shrug it off and crack a smile and remeber tanking MC as arms...

[Kataztrophe]

I enjoy the new style over the old. However tanking now and in BC is pretty much the same aside from us having Shockwave and not having to spam SB every few seconds in a boss fight.

Multi-tanking is easier now with shockwave, but other then that and more devastates its not too much different from BC. You didn't need CC in any heroic in BC if the prot warrior and the rest of the group knew what they were doing. Including Shattered Halls. You're still tab targetting and que'ing cleave like crazy.

[Kataztrophe]

I enjoy the new style over the old. However tanking now and in BC is pretty much the same aside from us having Shockwave and not having to spam SB every few seconds in a boss fight.

Multi-tanking is easier now with shockwave, but other then that and more devastates its not too much different from BC. You didn't need CC in any heroic in BC if the prot warrior and the rest of the group knew what they were doing. Including Shattered Halls. Yea, it helped but could be done without it. You're still tab targetting and que'ing cleave like crazy.

[tobarstep]

Facerolling? If anything, I think the new tanking requires you to pay more attention if you want to maximize it. The old way was boring: 2,3,4,4. Now you don't have a rotation, you have to react to things.

[Ciderhelm]

Baseline performance for Warriors has become easier, particularly with AOE packs.

However, skill potential has shot up -- way up -- past what it was before (and it was already good). It's not like we're suddenly unable to pull off neat tricks now that we have more tools to do it with -- for instance, sure, we could Intercept if we were quick before, but Warbringer is faster, more versatile, and allows for more acrobatic gameplay. Factor Shockwave and Heroic Throw in here as well.

[Kolga]

Since when was TBC old school?

Back in MC a skilled warrior carried the raid. My raid (a two guild combo back in 05) kept wiping over and over on Magmadar because the warrior did not know how to stance dance. A good Warrior made sure your UBRS/Strat etc run went smooth. Now everyone and their mother can faceroll an instance and tank it "good" enough to complete it. Don't get me wrong, I like that it has become easier to get a tank in the party, but they have dumbed down the game far too much from where it once was.

[kolben]

I have to echo what others have said and add my own comments on this.

I preferred old school, really old school as in classic wow. Frankly on my server at least, you had to be a good tank to get your average group through something like a Strat or UBRS run. I suppose it was the original definition of a good tank, one that reliably got groups through instances. That implies carrying other players, but to a degree I don't mind teaching people who don't mind learning how to do smooth instance runs.

It's odd I guess. The skill level on warrior tanking went way down , and it's more fun to do in the moment, but it doesn't leave that sense of accomplishment with you when you're done.

Seriously doubt it will ever go back to the way it was so guess we have to conjure up new criteria for patting ourselves on the back :P

[Talani]

I like being able to quest in a timely mannor now. To me it is easyer to tank but still room to stand out.

[Orenus]

for instance, sure, we could Intercept if we were quick before, but Warbringer is faster, more versatile, and allows for more acrobatic gameplay.

This is what I like the most. It seems like I move a lot more than I did pre 3.0. Tanking feels much more active and less reactive than it used to. I feel like I'm on the offensive now, which is great fun.

Factor Shockwave and Heroic Throw in here as well.

I'm not sure if I can overstate my love for Heroic Throw.