Ghostcrawler gives homework!

[Optimoos]

As for the people who keep repeating the "bring the player, not the class" BS, clearly if it were true, you would see 25 man DK groups succeeding; there is a "almost" requirement to have 2 priests for Raz in Naxx (we were pretty successful using a 2 warrior 1 druid taunt rotation the other day, but we are kind of a "special" (as in retarded) case, and I don't suggest people try to make that a regular strategy).

Wait wait wait... I thought we did a very nice job of making this work... I mean we only lost what, like 1/3rd of the raid before finally downing Raz? Ahahah good times.

[lost]

One of the things you have to keep in mind with the player not the class thing is (and blizzard stated as much) not to be so absurdly intended to mean no healers or no dps or no tanks. Their original intent as they stated was you didnt NEED a druid, or a priest, but any heal specced capable class had the tools to do the job. Same with tanks. You were not supposed to NEED a warrior. Nor a pally. Dont try to over extend the implication that a 25 man DK raid would succeed. THAT was never their intent.

I have been tanking since the game came out, and have plenty of friends who play different tank classes. I was happy to see every tank class reach the point they were viable in every role, now I hope they are able to keep us unique in flavor, but the same in capability.

[TomHuxley]

Since Sarth3D is the only encounter where anyone even has an advantage, and can be worked around by having other raid members use cooldowns, this seems pretty unnecessary.

Sorry, but Sarth 3D is NOT the only encounter where there's a noticeable difference, it's just the one that is the most obvious. We attempted Malygos for the first time last week (we're a small, 10-man guild) and while I MTed Malygos on all the attempts, twice when I went down our DK tank (who's a great player, but neither outgears nor obviously outplays me) picked him up when he's in a very agressive DPS hybrid tanking spec and took substantially less damage from the breaths.

I kept tanking it because he can also put out almost 3k DPS in the same spec by swaping clothes (/cough...another balance issue), and ultimately we failed for reasons besides tanking, but that doesn't change the fact that any large dragon or magic-heavy encounter is unbalanced at the moment. The fact that many are easy enough to be trivial doesn't mean they are balanced.

[Roana]

I would think so, but GC has stated that Ulduar is going to have more fights that play off the strengths of certain tanks. I don't feel like pulling in a 4th tank or sitting out one of our core tanks because the fights are going to fluctuate so much on hard difficulty.

The way I'm reading him is that some encounters may inadvertently favor one type of tank over another (simply because this cannot be entirely avoided), not that the encounters are designed to be untankable by certain classes.

[mistersix]

One of the things you have to keep in mind with the player not the class thing is (and blizzard stated as much) not to be so absurdly intended to mean no healers or no dps or no tanks. Their original intent as they stated was you didnt NEED a druid, or a priest, but any heal specced capable class had the tools to do the job. Same with tanks. You were not supposed to NEED a warrior. Nor a pally. Dont try to over extend the implication that a 25 man DK raid would succeed. THAT was never their intent.

That's true of tanks but blizz is on the record as saying that the sentiment DOES NOT extend to the healing classes. They very much want guilds to bring a strong complementary variety of healers to raids. Why? A couple of reasons:

• healers do generally have the most thankless job. nerfs and general public perception impact them much much worse than tanks or dps. i.e. if you feel your holy priest toon is broken you're at greater risk to reroll or just bail then dps or tanking classes that can just wait for the pendulum to swing again
• because as someone alluded to earlier it's a stronger variable to tweak encounter design around since dps and tanking homogenization is what it is already.
• the healing corps has been designed from the ground up to work well with each other (big heals, fast heals, hots, etc.)

My issue is that the tanking corps dynamic is nowhere near as synergestic. At best we get (boss tankers, trash tankers). That's not as rewarding.

[lost]

I missed that distinction somewhere in the early phases of it all then. My wife has been a resto specced druid since beta so she kinda kept up with more of where the healing was headed than I did. I seemed to recall one of the blues saying somewhere they didnt want a raid to NEED a certain healing class, but I spose I could have remembered wrong. My apologies if that was an innacurate statement.

[Malaegis]

In response to GC's question:

if it were (physical damage), would things feel more even?

Answer: No. Large bursts of damage are best handled by a huge health pool and lots of armor. Lowering the base number coming in and having the health to absorb that is the most consistent way living through it.

What if there are Ulduar bosses who hit very quickly but not for very large numbers?

Firstly, because of the problems with rage, if the hits are small enough that block is a factor, rage becomes a huge issue.

The bottom line is that according to the numbers on the Tank topic 3, health, the difference in EH is 39% between bears and warriors, and MEH difference is 19%. Even if all damage was physical (not likely) you would need the hits to be small enough that 39% of the incoming damage is removed through block. Assuming an average block of 2500, you would need hits to be and average of 6500 damage (actually 6410) for the block to account for the 39% difference in EH. That is average hit, over the encounter. Also, any large single damage spike is both going to screw up that average, as well as throw the advantage to the tank that can take that big hit more easily.

So to answer the question... I have still yet to see a way for warriors to perform equally with druids or DKs, let alone have an encounter in which they shine.

[Slantedvision]

Would it be too OP to maybe buff shield block rating to allot for some amount of magic resistance. Maybe change Imp Def Stance to 1.5/3% total reduction and 25/50% chance to reduce damage based on some calculation of block value. so 2000 block value = 200 magic resistance.

Paladins can have a similar effect applied to their Holy Shield. I believe spells, including breaths should be a blockable ability, as the entire concept of blocking is that you're taking a slab of wood/metal and putting it between you and what's about to mess you up.

[mistersix]

I missed that distinction somewhere in the early phases of it all then. My wife has been a resto specced druid since beta so she kinda kept up with more of where the healing was headed than I did. I seemed to recall one of the blues saying somewhere they didnt want a raid to NEED a certain healing class, but I spose I could have remembered wrong. My apologies if that was an innacurate statement.

No need to apologize. That's the problem with mantras.

[Gromblee]

All I have noticed as a warrior tank is that groups pretty much demand I overgear content before I tank it.

[thecrazyman]

What would happen if they consider a modifier to Strength for this difference. Basically going on the lines of having a shield and a strength modifier to get to the HP loss for this burst spell dmg.

Ex

Tank A has 45k HP and has no shield but is made up with stm

Tank B has 35k HP and has a shield

Tank A has more HP to deal with but Tank B has the modifier to compensate for roughly 5k HP through actually mitigation of his strength so 1k strength get us roughly gives us HP but not really. What it does do is even the field by 5k so.

Now tank A has 45k Hp and get hit for 25k he is now down to 20k

Tank B is at 35k get hit for 25k - 5k = 20k so you now have 15k

this would cut the HP down some to a reasonable class difference but still allow all tanks to tank the encounters.

Right now the only tanks with a shield are pallys and warriors so they are the ones hurting against the burst spell dmg that is occurring in some fights. Have this based off strength and require a shield would remove the BR issues for the two classes but also a high strength set provides a threat mechinic to the warrior. I am unsure how this would help a pally but more spell power I think. Bottomline BR is still would be a good item to pickup but strength would be and some BR items actually have more strenght then avoidness ones. If you consider BR for the this it would make pallies overall better which they wouldnt want. So a strenght modifier is what all tanking gear has so why not have it on the gear that they are picking up you know...

any thoughts??

[TomHuxley]

I still say let shields (i.e. shield block) mitigate fire and ice damage. Cause...you know...large hunks of metal actually do that in RL too. Certainly a lot more likely then having a chance to reduce magic damage based on parry...

[Esillymidget]

I still say let shields (i.e. shield block) mitigate fire and ice damage. Cause...you know...large hunks of metal actually do that in RL too. Certainly a lot more likely then having a chance to reduce magic damage based on parry...

Deathknights must be part Jedi.

[Odwome]

Deathknights must be part Jedi.

Jedi ruined Star Wars Galaxies. Does that mean DKs are ruining WoW?

[Dunmail]

I can see why people feel there's an imbalance as we've spent 4 sessions hammering away on Sarth+3D.
Yesterday our DK was unavailable so I had a go as MT on the Boss. Not had an issue with any content so far, or the instance up to 2D but I wasn't surviving until the REALLY nasty breaths, so- so much for the panic buttons and trinkets. Tried with a drood and it was more stable for healers, but we missed the guy in his original role.

Got our DK back, nailed the healer/tank sorting their CD's out and finally got him down tonight and ironically won the mount as a bonus. However I knew tonight would be more doable given the personnel and class mechanics to use. I like the difficulty (for once in LK) but even if I hoovered up another 3-4 pieces of gear to gem purely for stam, I still couldn't match the bear/DK on raw EH survivability, even if just for the healers benefit.

One option would be to reduce block slighly for more usage, but that would go against the homogonization ethos and I don't mind the CD that much as I can rotate 2 trinkets with it if I have to. Another idea would be to combine a spell reflect into the block, partially to assist with rage issues (if the empty/full issue remains) and partially as above in using that lump for something useful.

With the rage issues and the way gear has been itemized I'm not that happy with the way things appear to be going. Dumbed down & homogonized then fair enough, but our AoE is mediocre in contrast to other classes, and what was shown on the beta Once past the overpowered to cover heroics... threat trails off slightly. Not a huge issue yet, bar suffereing in relation to rage. Block and that - does have its use but I'm not sure it provides much of the still remaining niche in contrast to other classes. I still enjoy the class to an extent (especially the mobility) but it has started to feel a bit lacking, and lacking decisiveness in where it's going.

[cudmaster]

All I have noticed as a warrior tank is that groups pretty much demand I overgear content before I tank it.

This is more of a social issue than a design issue, it has been there since the old MC days...

What it comes down to is "people are lazy" why would they want to have to heal someone who wasn't as geared as they could hope to get... similar arguments for dps, etc... when a group looks for a tank, they are looking for someone to carry them to victory, would you rather ride in a Bently or a Ford, if you had the option?

Even if the Ford would get you there just as fast.

[Timetheos]

I have a few thoughts.

If every tank is capable of tanking every encounter, then variations in difficulty/strategy keep the game colorful.

MEH and EH imbalances should be solved differently; I don't want to see everything reduced to "damage" in order to find a fair solution.

The last thing I want to see happen is a change to block. It shouldn't scale; that's what AC is for.

Magic damage being blockable is realistic I suppose, but the challenges in that kind of damage, and especially elemental damage, keep encounters interesting.

If magic was blockable, it wouldn't help with huge dragon breaths at all.

Since nobody stacks resistance gear, druidsS always have a ridiculous advantage over warriors/paladins in MEH; while their AC levels are comparable (all 60-75%), MEH is basically equal to health, with small variances from talents.

Blocking isn't mandatory any more due to crushables. Blocking is an optional gearing path, with rewards at high levels, just like stamina or avoidance or resistances; different applications in different fights. It keeps things interesting, and gives consciencious tanks an advantage.

Druids needed huge EH in BC because of crushables. There are no longer crushables, but druids still have huge EH. Why? They still have big avoidance, and on boss fights block doesn't give any tremendous advantage over them.

In melee Dr/Pa/Wa have comparable avoidance, including block for boss fights.
In melee and magic, druids have hugely imbalanced EH.
I don't know much about DKs, but I gather they have comparable avoidance too, and high MEH.

If warriors and paladins are the classes who need MEH buffs, the solution should have something to do with shields. My earlier suggestion of a resist-all shield would be ok for specific magic-oriented fights, but in general (trash, 5-mans etc.) it wouldn't help because they wouldn't use it. On the other hand, trash gives tanks the opportunity to show off their class - blocking to reduce damage, high avoidance is practical, AoE threat, dps... EH imbalances don't generally come up.

Solutions:

Shield-related solutions to MEH:
-flat reduction with blocks, modified by BV and/or resistances
-block chance also affects magic mitigation (unrealistic)
-Shield Block directly increasing magic mitigation, or reducing with blocks as above, or increasing resistances
-Shield Slam and pally equivalent could give a ~10 second debuff like Glyph of Blocking, which reduces magic damage taken or magic damage your target does
-Make Spell Reflect have a passive effect and last longer, after the reflect charge is exhausted

The problem with EH is a buff to block would make it overpowered in some situations, just as a MEH imbalance is overpowered on 3d. An alternative to buffing Wa/Pa/DK is nerfing druids. A reduction in armor and/or stamina would fix this simply.
-changing modifiers
-not making them both multiplicative
-reducing stamina stats on leather gear
-reducing druid avoidance instead, to keep the classes different, and make the EH imbalance a tradeoff rather than a simple advantage?

[TomHuxley]

Some good discussion imo:

If magic was blockable, it wouldn't help with huge dragon breaths at all.

Wait...why not? Shaving 3k off of malygos breath would help. A lot.

while their AC levels are comparable (all 60-75%), MEH is basically equal to health, with small variances from talents.

AC has no effect on MEH atm, so that's irrelevant. You are right that health plays a very large role in magic soaking, although DK talents and CDs provide the equivalent of magic armor, so that has to figure into their MEH.

Druids needed huge EH in BC because of crushables. There are no longer crushables, but druids still have huge EH. Why?

My understanding is that they don't in fact have as much avoidance at this point, although it would seem like a good idea to swap in some dodge and perhaps armor in trade for some of their health to help balance MEH without sacrificing their ability to tank melee bosses.

In melee Dr/Pa/Wa have comparable avoidance, including block for boss fights.

I'm pretty sure DKs have substantially more avoidance than tankadins and warriors. And of course DKs have no block (they are supposed to work out to be equivalent, although a DK who knows how to gem and enchant invariably has more survivability after the last round of tank buffs...subject to skill as with anything else).

In melee and magic, druids have hugely imbalanced EH.

I'm not sure I see druids being terribly OP on most melee fights; certainly I don't think it's anything that would have come up in a serious discussion of class balance. MEH you are spot on though.

I don't know much about DKs, but I gather they have comparable avoidance too, and high MEH.

The discussion has sort of politely stepped around DKs. They were already some of the best tanks in the game prior to the buffs in 3.0.9. Honestly, I think we all just accept for the moment that they are the golden children, although I'd really like to see a couple of changes to bring them back into line with the other tanking classes.

Otherwise I agree with much of your post; I think shields should have something to do with buffing pally and warrior magic mitigation. It seems to me like pallies ought to actually get to use some magic to do that (cause, you know, they actually can use magic and all) while with warriors it would make sense to me to base it on SBV/SBR or something (I don't know that a CD would be appropriate, unless it gets tied in to spell reflect, which would be totally awesome IMO since Imp SR would be a really useful talent then).

[Timetheos]

while their AC levels are comparable (all 60-75%), MEH is basically equal to health

I meant that AC has an effect on EH; MEH on the other hand is almost solely dictated by health

[Fleshsplitte]

I'm not much of a forum poster but after reading this thread I thought I would post my thoughts....The tanks with the worst amount of effective health for magic are pallies and warriors....as everyone knows they both use shields. Why not put a built in magic reduction on shields that is based on item level.

Say you have a shield with an item level of 200 (which most raiders would have if attempting maly or 3 drakes on sarth) this shield would have 20% magic reduction built into it which would only be seen by classes that can use shields (pallies, shamans, and warriors). In essence the same way they added attack power on weapons that can only be seen by druids.

So your tanking Maly and he does his breath on you for a flat 20k damage your shield would take 20% of that or 4k damage which would make his breath hit you for 16k.

Those numbers are just used for simplicity and would have to be adjusted to make it work but from what I've seen 4k damage being mitigated by pally and warrior tanks would possibly bring their effective health in terms of magic in par(or within reason at least) with DK's.

I wouldn't think this would be to difficult for Blizzard to implement since they did something of the like with the extra ap on weapons for druids.

Just my two cents and a possible solution I haven't seen posted on the thread yet.