Tanking Topics #3: Health

[Punchingbag]

I'm a warrior so this will obviously be coming from a warrior's point of view and is not meant to offend or otherwise bad rap any other tanking class. It's also not meant to start a tank class warfare debate even if it sounds like it. (so don't take it that way)

Warriors, particularly those of the protection variant, seem to be the Rodney Dangerfield of classes.

My very first toon was an Arms warrior which I abandoned at 55 when I rolled a Hunter on another realm. The group dynamic is always get the tanks and healers first as you can get a ton of DPS in a matter of seconds to fill the group once that is accomplished. That still holds true. So after sitting on the sidelines too long, I rolled a protection warrior so I could get in the game. The reason I rolled my 1st warrior was largely based on the Diablo franchise. In Diablo, warriors were the class that were the bad asses. My point to all of this was that I wanted to roll on a toon that was tough!

I'll leave Death Knights out of this as I know little about them other than I wish Blizzard wouldn't have added them. (ok, just kidding on the add part --- sort of)

I look at the warrior as a master of one as opposed to a jack of all trades. Blizzard has stated "bring the player and not the class" is their goal and I don't have any big issue with that. However, when we look at the current EH pools it looks like people are going to choose class based on EH vs. the player. I am all for class balance as well but I think some are forgetting about the utility that the other classes get that a warrior does not.

I'll use a duck for an example. A duck can fly. A duck can swim. A duck can run.

However, a duck is not the BEST flyer, not the BEST swimmer, and not the BEST runner.

He gives up these things because he can do all 3. It's utility.

Now, to apply this to WOW. A Druid can tank, dps, or heal. A Pally can tank, dps, or heal. That's a lot of utility. If I am a Druid or Pally and decide tanking is not for me then I can switch to being a healer. With a warrior I have one choice outside of tanking and that is a DPS role and frankly a DPS warrior ranks very low on picking order when it comes to adding DPS to a party. (nor do they rock the DPS meters against other DPS classes)

So should a Druid or Pally have the most EH as a tank? Shouldn't there be a sacrifice for utility?

So if a warrior is a master of one vs. a jack of all trades, shouldn't he not be gimped compared to the others. In fact, shouldn't his EH be higher than the "duck" classes since he has a lot less utility?

Until dual spec rears its head, a prot warrior cannot switch to DPS gear and be a great DPSer. I'm not 100% certain, but can't a druid switch gear, go cat, and be a good DPSer with the same spec?

This is about EH and my point to all of this (in case you're not seeing where I am going here) is that warriors should have the most EH in my opinion. They are already nerfed when it comes to utility so its not an unbalance of classes. The fact that I cannot be the hateful strike soaker on Patch is an outrage for those of us that that are supposed to be the tough guys.

I'm not QQing and saying nerf the other classes. All I am saying is that if warriors are going to be specialists in one area then make us special in that area.

Final note: The lack of magical damage mitigation is a great topic which I won't discuss here. Maybe that would be a great topic #4.

[Krashtork]

• Imp thunderclap also made it such that it wasn't just melee speed that was slowed but also casting speed.
• Vigilance was self-castable to help the toon itself take 3% less dmg.
• Spell Reflect actually reflected spells. This is probably my single biggest ability gripe in the game. I'm tired of having to test out and mentally catalog which boss abilities work with it and which don't.

With Imp thunderclap slowing cast speed, would it make dragon breaths a long cast?
Would the taunt mechanism still work with a self cast Vigilance?
And yes, Spell Reflect actually working would be awesome!

[Krashtork]

I'm a warrior so this will obviously be coming from a warrior's point of view and is not meant to offend or otherwise bad rap any other tanking class. It's also not meant to start a tank class warfare debate even if it sounds like it. (so don't take it that way)

Warriors, particularly those of the protection variant, seem to be the Rodney Dangerfield of classes.

My very first toon was an Arms warrior which I abandoned at 55 when I rolled a Hunter on another realm. The group dynamic is always get the tanks and healers first as you can get a ton of DPS in a matter of seconds to fill the group once that is accomplished. That still holds true. So after sitting on the sidelines too long, I rolled a protection warrior so I could get in the game. The reason I rolled my 1st warrior was largely based on the Diablo franchise. In Diablo, warriors were the class that were the bad asses. My point to all of this was that I wanted to roll on a toon that was tough!

I'll leave Death Knights out of this as I know little about them other than I wish Blizzard wouldn't have added them. (ok, just kidding on the add part --- sort of)

I look at the warrior as a master of one as opposed to a jack of all trades. Blizzard has stated "bring the player and not the class" is their goal and I don't have any big issue with that. However, when we look at the current EH pools it looks like people are going to choose class based on EH vs. the player. I am all for class balance as well but I think some are forgetting about the utility that the other classes get that a warrior does not.

I'll use a duck for an example. A duck can fly. A duck can swim. A duck can run.

However, a duck is not the BEST flyer, not the BEST swimmer, and not the BEST runner.

He gives up these things because he can do all 3. It's utility.

Now, to apply this to WOW. A Druid can tank, dps, or heal. A Pally can tank, dps, or heal. That's a lot of utility. If I am a Druid or Pally and decide tanking is not for me then I can switch to being a healer. With a warrior I have one choice outside of tanking and that is a DPS role and frankly a DPS warrior ranks very low on picking order when it comes to adding DPS to a party. (nor do they rock the DPS meters against other DPS classes)

So should a Druid or Pally have the most EH as a tank? Shouldn't there be a sacrifice for utility?

So if a warrior is a master of one vs. a jack of all trades, shouldn't he not be gimped compared to the others. In fact, shouldn't his EH be higher than the "duck" classes since he has a lot less utility?

Until dual spec rears its head, a prot warrior cannot switch to DPS gear and be a great DPSer. I'm not 100% certain, but can't a druid switch gear, go cat, and be a good DPSer with the same spec?

This is about EH and my point to all of this (in case you're not seeing where I am going here) is that warriors should have the most EH in my opinion. They are already nerfed when it comes to utility so its not an unbalance of classes. The fact that I cannot be the hateful strike soaker on Patch is an outrage for those of us that that are supposed to be the tough guys.

I'm not QQing and saying nerf the other classes. All I am saying is that if warriors are going to be specialists in one area then make us special in that area.

Final note: The lack of magical damage mitigation is a great topic which I won't discuss here. Maybe that would be a great topic #4.

\

I actually very much agree with this.

[Oiysters]

Just because GC mentioned Savage Defense may involve an armor nerf doesn't mean it ultimately will. This stuff is going to be on the PTR for quite a well as they work out all these new class changes.

Original talent designs have shifted completely over the course of testing, this could easily be another one.

Simply reducing bear HP isn't what we're asking for anyway. There's a whole slew of issues identified and discussed in this topic.

It's indisputable that druids are getting an armor/EH nerf with SD. Giving druids an active pseudo-shield block without an armor nerf would be utterly ridiculous. The only thing in question is how much of a nerf it will be. Darksend's numbers are correct; my armor is slightly higher than his and I am looking at roughly 9% more damage taken for a 50% SotF nerf. That's a significant nerf to my EH.

So knowing that druid EH will be nerfed from the mitigation side only leaves us with a pile of hit points to finish the work of balancing EH between the classes.

I agree with the premise of the OP. The debate is how to accomplish it. My concern is that normalizing EH without normalizing tanking cooldowns/characteristics/abilities will make druids inferior tanks again, and not viable for progession content.

[Satrina]

One of the problems with EH and comparative mitigation is block and the fact that it's broken. It's overpowered against small hitters and a token effort on big hitters. Some my disagree with that assessment, but I'd rather have it be equally useful across opponents than be known for being nigh-invincible against a mob of teckla. As it stands, if you adjust block values to make block more useful at the boss level, it gets even more unbalanced.

I'd like it if Spell Reflection was renamed to Spell Absorption, which is passive that makes block work against spell damage normally. Improved Spell Reflect becomes just Spell Reflect and causes the damage blocked by your shield to be reflected. Or, Improved Spell Absorption replaces Improved Spell Reflection to just increase the amount of damage blocked, possibly with the two of your closest allies thing still included

[Liar]

So should a Druid or Pally have the most EH as a tank? Shouldn't there be a sacrifice for utility?

Please don't go there. All tanks are equal, and that's that. Word of God has said so so let's not go offtopic here when we had such a good discussion going on. ^_^

[Darksend]

Please don't go there. All tanks are equal, and that's that. Word of God has said so so let's not go offtopic here when we had such a good discussion going on. ^_^

Agreed, warriors can respec and do dps, I WANT TO BE THE BEST AT WHAT I AM SPECED TO DO! when i am speced for tanking i cannot heal, so why should the fact i can heal when i respec have any affect on my non healing spec.

btw liar, i am patiently awaiting the savage defense change to see how they decide to finalize but we cannot ignore the fact druid EH is going to take a hit, even if its only a 20% nerf to survival of the fitest it is going to happen

[Liar]

btw liar, i am patiently awaiting the savage defense change to see how they decide to finalize but we cannot ignore the fact druid EH is going to take a hit, even if its only a 20% nerf to survival of the fitest it is going to happen

Yeah, like I said I am going to wait until the change is finalized before drawing conclusions just yet.

[Thrym]

I think the issue of magic damage in and of itself is what makes a topic like this even appear relevent.

A warrior/paladin is a shield class at its very core. This shield, however, doesn't do a thing versus this integral damage component.

Now, if bosses all of a sudden became all physical dual wielding blenders of death, the shield wearers would suddenly appear to have a marked edge not only because of damage mitigation but also parry haste.

This leads me to believe that a fair bit of homogenization would be a good thing. Tanking classes play pretty differently from one another and is really has nothing to do with their base survivability in terms of HP. The bulk of their differences lie in their attack rotations and the way their cooldowns survive burst damage.

In my opinion, this is what needs to be built upon. Tanking classes with less cooldowns(druids being primary) need this aspect to grow. Classes with less total but plenty of cooldowns need that health pool to grow.

[warpdrive]

please bare with me as this will probably get real long winded....

I'm a war tank that still belives that for the most part, each tanking class can and does a great job at all content.
when we were talking about healing, even druids are not out of balance as compared to others.
threat is also not an issue with any tanking class.

so to me, the slogin of "bring the player and not the class" still holds true for the most part.

after reading each and every post here, I'd like to say a few things that some might think is crazy.

first off, while I agree (to a point) that EH or MEH is getting out of hand for some classes. what scares me is why would you take a warrior (or pally) tank on any raid if this is aloud to continue?
yet if you do bring a warrior (or pally) tank into the raid, why would you let him tank the boss if you have a druid or DK?

pallys and warriors are more or less in the same boat right now. they are both great at AoE tanking, but can't do anything to help reach the EH lvls that druids and DKs can reach for progresive fights.
on top of that, warriors (and to some degree pallys) have the lowest DPS even while tanking. also, with the rage mechanic right now, warriors also make the worst OT as far as threat goes too.

the more I look at this, it's once again a gearing issue (and a talent one) for druids.

(I'm gona speak about only warriors and druids as I'm not too familar with DKs, and pallys are more or less in the same boat as warriors anyway.)

the problem with the way Blizz redid druids talents and gear has made them too overpowered at this moment.
ok, maybe just one talent, but the gear is crazy blessed for druids.

the problem with warriors is that we have too many things to gem/enchant for. Def, hit, exp, str (to a point), stam...even BV if that is your thing.
while a druid gets a free ride on Def from talents, and expertise from gear.
just look at any of the druids on this forum, few if any are gemming/enchanting for expertise because it's free on thier gear. now I'm not talking about some small exp rating like 24 that a warrior gets on some random item, but more like 60's to 80's on most items.

on most druid tanking gear you have 3 bonus stats: crit, AP, and expertise.
on warrior tanking gear we have everything from defense to hit, dodge, perry, BV, BR, exp...and BR, as well as BV, robs us of hit and exp. you will not find crit or AP on tanking plate.
with so many things to gem/enchant for (including defense), there is no way a warrior can stam stack like he used to.
(and let's face it, plate tanks constantly have no choice but to make sure we have enough defense to even tank...and raid gear normaly has far less defense then heroic gear. heroic gear has less then blues, and so on.)

if you're a druid, ask yourself...just how would you gem if you had no talents that gave you free Defense (crit immune), or free expertise on gear?

so that just leaves +hit. yes some smart druids do gem or enchant one or two items with +hit if your gear doesn't already max that out too.
but now your only worrie is should you gem/enchant for AGI or STAM. an option that plate users can't make.

trinkets are no better. if a plate user needs to use a defense trinket due to losing 20-50 def rating from a new item, his health or threat suffers.
again, it's also a gearing issue.

I would love to toss a stam gem into a red slot, or maybe add some threat/DPS gem into a yellow. maybe even enchant AGI on my gloves, or maybe AGI on my weapon.
but there is no way any plate user can do that. so a warrior will always be forced to keep his DPS and stam lower then say a druid.

mechanics aside, druids have such a huge advantage when it comes to gemming/enchanting, that it's silly.

--------------------------------------

now you might think that I want druids to be nerfed.
that is not the case at all.
the reason I even posted this is that most druids don't understand just how hard it has gotten for plate users to deal with such issues like the above.

I also understand that some of you feel that in the next patch you will be nerfed.
it's sad in a way. but try to get past it.

what some people here are saying is that right now warriors are having a hard time matching the quality of druids (and DKs) with the gear we can get.
in other words, we have to gem or enchant more for what you get for free...be it EH, MEH, or other aspects like I talked about.

Warpdrive

[Tharr]

on most druid tanking gear you have 3 bonus stats: crit, AP, and expertise.
on warrior tanking gear we have everything from defense to hit, dodge, perry, BV, BR, exp...and BR, as well as BV, robs us of hit and exp. you will not find crit or AP on tanking plate.
with so many things to gem/enchant for (including defense), there is no way a warrior can stam stack like he used to.
(and let's face it, plate tanks constantly have no choice but to make sure we have enough defense to even tank...and raid gear normaly has far less defense then heroic gear. heroic gear has less then blues, and so on.)

That can also be a very good advantage, warriors and paladins can gear to the extreme to the needs of the encounters and situations. Need more avoidance? we can get it, the mobs hit soft? no problem we have blockvalue/rating, threat is difficult? no problems we can cap hit/expertise. Where it fails though is when you need the huge health to just soak damage and all skill just is useless. Paladins and warriors need to be able to tank that to if true balance is wanted.

So far it seems how you deel with magical damage is the biggest issue. Every tank is built to handle physical damage, paladins and warriors with medium avoidance and block, deathknights with higher armor, more avoidance but no physical damage reduction (afaik) and druids with even higher armor but less avoidance then warriors/paladins.

Where it fails is the magical damage where only passive damage reduction and health matters. Deathknights get's more health and alot of cooldowns, druids get's even more health but not alot of cooldowns, and warriors and paladins get what? With the least amount of health (by a fairly large margin) and about the same or worse passive reduction but 5 min cooldowns or no mechanics to handle it. That's what needs to change really, in one way or another or paladins and warriors will be severly disadvantaged every time magical damage get's high.

Health values don't need to be the same, the chance to survive however needs to be. If you have less health you need to be able to avoid more damage, through passive or active abilities, then a high health tank who can just soak it.

I have no idea how to do it, but both paladins and warriors need it. A logical way would be to work with the shield and the shield mechanic and have that affect magical damage in some way or another in a fairly consistent manner.

[Tamsteinhuf]

Just my opinion on atmospherical aspects:
I really like larger differences between classes, like Prot Warriors having less health than a bear tank or "unnatural" deathknights but taking less damage instead (lots of armor and huge shields compared to nothing but a fur or an undead who doesn't really care much about something like pain).
For me it would be really nice to modify block value to lower magic damage partially especially because using shields beeing as big as other chars are is a style factor :P.
But I wonder how to compensate this enormous buff on block since a simple decrease of the physical effect per block rating would change so much for warriors' avoidance.

Another idea on big bursts: Taking armor from druids or DKs in exchange to even more hp combined with giving heavy physical bursts to certain encounters what would buff warriors and paladins because they would require much less heal with at around 2/3 reduction by armor.

There has to be change imo, as soon as our druid tank for patch gets replaced by a warrior (though he has better gear level) we get in huge truble at the moment, not to mention magical encounters...

[Tharr]

Another idea on big bursts: Taking armor from druids or DKs in exchange to even more hp combined with giving heavy physical bursts to certain encounters what would buff warriors and paladins because they would require much less heal with at around 2/3 reduction by armor.

You can't do that though, every tank needs to be fairly equal, both on physical and magical fights. Unlike healers who are good at different things and all have a roll on most fights you don't have the same ammount of tanks so all have to be able to get the job done. It doesn't seem to be a problem with dps, they all seem to do about equal but retain their different playstyles, why is it that much harder for tanks?

[warpdrive]

That can also be a very good advantage, warriors and paladins can gear to the extreme to the needs of the encounters and situations. Need more avoidance? we can get it, the mobs hit soft? no problem we have blockvalue/rating, threat is difficult? no problems we can cap hit/expertise. Where it fails though is when you need the huge health to just soak damage and all skill just is useless. Paladins and warriors need to be able to tank that to if true balance is wanted.

sorry, but I have to respectfully disagree.

my point was that warriors and pallys can't just gear to the extreme like you say.
we don't get enough defense, hit, and expertise from our gear like a druid.
our gear contains far too much block value and block rating, and far too little defense rating....forcing us to gem or enchant for defense, hit, and exp. ( and not gem/enchant for avoidance and stam)

while I agree with the rest that you're saying, it still wont matter if they do change block mechanics and not our gear.

in other words, block needs to do far more then reflect or absorb magic damage...it needs to absorb more phyical damage as well.
(personaly, I'm happy with the way BV helps with DPS and threat. so I couldn't care less if they don't increase our damage output from it.)

now I don't know about you, but for progression tanking, you don't have more then 1 type of gear. sure we have block value gear as well. but who in there right mind is going to use a set like that on a boss?
never mind the fact that no one here is gona keep 2 or 3 stacks of gems, plus mats for enchants just to chage some stats on your gear for the next fight.

now I do have a few extra pieces of gear that I will swap from time to time. but there is always a cost in doing so. be it a small amount of health or threat.
but please don't ask warriors to reduce our threat output to have more avoidance or health in large amounts. it's just silly. we can't do it.

the only way I see a true fix is to change block to absorb damage, AND add more health to our gear. doing just one wont help (unless Blizz makes a drastic change to one of the two).

Warpdrive

[Tharr]

Well, for progression you have 1 set of gear initially, when you findout what's happening. Once you begin to get a feel for it you start chainging pieces around. At one point in Sunwell I had 1 set for each boss each a bit different to maximise something.

I don't say druids and deathknights don't do this aswell, but paladins and warriors just do have more options due to block and switching weapons around.

Either way this is about how to make tanks more equal at tanking magic damage, because at the moment druids and deathknights do have a huge advantage.

[TomHuxley]

As a serious question - what would you suggest as a change for druids specifically to get it right?

To jump in here...I'd have to say that nerfing their stamina rather than their armor would be a much more "correct" change given the current MEH balance issues, wouldn't you?

[Darksend]

To jump in here...I'd have to say that nerfing their stamina rather than their armor would be a much more "correct" change given the current MEH balance issues, wouldn't you?

yet blizzard choose to nerf armor with savage defense, a decision i am still at a loss over

[Consecrate]

You appear to have missed the fact Warriors also have a gun slot, which is another reason to have higher stam scaling...

[Satrina]

All the gun slot does is move the point where the stamina scaling surpasses a warrior out a bit further. The flat stamina boost from a single slot will never prevent that.

[Punchingbag]

Agreed, warriors can respec and do dps, I WANT TO BE THE BEST AT WHAT I AM SPECED TO DO! when i am speced for tanking i cannot heal, so why should the fact i can heal when i respec have any affect on my non healing spec.

I think it is all part of balance. For example, if a class that could tank, dps, or heal could be the very best at each category wouldn't we all just play that one class?