To Homogenize or not to Homogenize

[Berith]

Blizzard has taken a stance that they do not wish every tank to be the same. Unfortunately every cross class disagreement occurs specifically because certain tanks will be or are favoured in certain situations. The only solution to certain tanks being better in some situations then others is to homogenize them.

Now I ask you do you really care as a warrior if a DK can do the same job as you? Do you really care a Paladin that a druid can do the same job as you? I can’t speak for everyone else, but the only time I care is when I can’t do something that another class can do. If Blizzard truly believed in “bring the player not the class” they would have made it so that all 4 tanking classes where equally good choices for every fight.

Now I don’t mean that every tank class should be “exactly” the same, that’s just silly. They should however be a lot closer together then they currently are.

One class should not be pigeon holed as an off-tank class, an AoE tank, a trash pull tank, burst damage tank, or a magic resist tank. All 4 tanks should be able to perform all these roles interchangeably with equal success. One tank should not be the obvious choice for a certain fight over another.

I can only speak for myself in this, which is why I want to know other people’s points of view. Do you care if other tank classes can do the same job as you?

[Pul]

I personaly think it's good certain classes have a small bonus in specific situations. It opens doors, aslong the other classes can still do it aswell.

I have seen a warrior being MT at 3D so what's the issue if DK's and Druids had it a little easier? No guild would replace a good warrior MT because he's less advisable in 1 or 2 encounters out of 50.

Where is the fun if regarldess of what class you play you can do exacly the same thing? Surely not all guilds may have the 4 tanking classes avaiable but that's why all classes are currently suitable to do the job, just one class is better here and another is better there.. but all can do it - maybe a bit more equalize is needed like you said. I like to play WoW because of the diversity it allows. I don't want to be «another tank».

[kolben]

People hung a lot on the statement "We want any class to be able to Main Tank an encounter, if you have an X class you shouldn't feel like you need a Y class on certain encounters", paraphrasing of course.

This is the heart of the issue.

I'll be direct with anyone who reads this here. Most of the arguments that I read on the official WoW forums are emotionally driven, I read quite a bit of that in the replies to the articles generated by tankspot as well.

Personally I don't care who can tank what, I really don't. The harder job in many cases is not the MT role on fights with multiple adds. I know, I've MT'd a crap ton of bosses and if you've got the chops and experience it is just not that hard of a role to play... it just isn't. Unless someone can provide proof that a Warrior or Paladin tank has never successfully tanked Sarth3D then as far as I'm concerned this is a non-issue.

What I love about WotLK is that a good 85% of the posters on topics like this have never even seen the content, it's all bandwagon bitching. First people were whining that it was too easy (the vast majority of which didn't have a heroic KT kill achievement), now people are bitching about Sarth3D and it's world ending implications *scoff* (when most don't have a heroic Sarth2 kill on the books). Ridiculous, truly ridiculous.

[Bearncat]

I have to agree with this thread. I'm surprised it even up.

A question for everybody is now after Xav's post and half of the tanking classes are upset at his biased results, how many people are still coming to tankspot? I see quie a few upset at tankspot. I know for myself I agree with most of the people who are upset and I'l.l only come here when I have absolutely nothing else to do, I used to coem to this site daily even though I don't post much and before anybody says anything about me being a druid, my druid is a healer not a tank anymore and my warrior is the tank now, but I do not agree with the nerf's that Tankspot has caused. Its pretty obvious that tankspot is biased towards warriors and pallys even though they are supposed to be a tanking site, not a warrior pally site. I think you guys should change the name to warrior/pally tanking.

[TomHuxley]

The OP brings up an interesting point, about whether it's better to just go ahead and homogenize the tank classes to make it easier to balance them rather than keep struggling with balance issues. Personally I hope not, but perhaps ultimately that is what it will come to.

After that there were mostly emotional over-reactions. No one is saying these changes were necessary because more DKs or druids could tank Sarth, they were necessary because the scaling of the stats that caused these (and the chainable CDs) were going to mean much larger problems in Ulduar.

It's not clear at all that druid survivability will be nerfed by the time 3.1 goes live (savage defense implementations are still coming), the concern was simply that MEH was so disparate that it was almost impossible to balance classes around it on magic bosses. Druids will still be better at those encounters, the point is it will be "that was a bit easier to heal", not "we couldn't do this, next time we'll have to bring the druid".

The DK issues were more serious; one spec of DK could chain CDs together to make almost any amount of incoming damage trivial; this didn't matter so muchin Naxx, where the encounters were easy enough that everyone sailed through them. But on the two hard(ish) encounters in Wrath and going forward this was going to make a huge difference, making DKs uber tanks that would be selected for their CDs, not for their skill level. BTW, that was also unfair to frost and unholy DKs, who didn't have that ability and wouldn't have been used in progression either.

Even on the PTRs DKs have the most avoidance, it's just reduced. Their armor scales better than people who wear shields for cripes sake, and DKs can larger health pools while still putting out more DPS than other tanks. It _still_ isn't balanced, it's just a lot closer. Yet already there are people running around talking about how unfair it was, or how warriors are out to get everybody.

Sheesh

[jere]

You do realize that tankspot has absolutely no power to buff/nerf classes right? The devs make their decisions on their own, regardless of what we post. That isn't to say they don't read or consider player posts, but in the end they make decisions based on their own thoughts and feelings and data. If that data hadn't been posted, I would be willing to bet you still would have seen DK nerfs. I realize the timing coupled with how much you care about your character could make you think otherwise, but really, the Devs made those decisions because they thought they should, not because of tankspot.

[Hengist]

I have to agree with this thread. I'm surprised it even up.

A question for everybody is now after Xav's post and half of the tanking classes are upset at his biased results, how many people are still coming to tankspot? I see quie a few upset at tankspot. I know for myself I agree with most of the people who are upset and I'l.l only come here when I have absolutely nothing else to do, I used to coem to this site daily even though I don't post much and before anybody says anything about me being a druid, my druid is a healer not a tank anymore and my warrior is the tank now, but I do not agree with the nerf's that Tankspot has caused. Its pretty obvious that tankspot is biased towards warriors and pallys even though they are supposed to be a tanking site, not a warrior pally site. I think you guys should change the name to warrior/pally tanking.

Tankspot does not cause nerfs. Tankspot points at problems, presents arguments and data. People can read those and come to their own conclusions, Blizzard developers included. If you disagree, you are free to present your own arguments. -If- tankspot had anything to do with the changes, which is likely, it is because of quality of presented evidence, not because of whining.

On topic:

I care a lot about how other tanks are performing, that is because I can't be satisfied with playing the class which is subpar at everything (not saying that is, just explaining my line of thought). I collect the best in slot gear, I enchant best enchants, gem best gems, read theory to optimize my rotations, because I want to be as good and prepared as I can. If that means I am not only because of my class choice, then I am unhappy and not enjoying the game anymore. If the only way to balance classes is further homogenization, then be it, so far warriors lost more their signature moves and debuffs than any other class, so from my, warrior's, point of view more homogenization can be only good.

[TomHuxley]

Let me point out another important issue; I don't want other tanks classes to be sub par either. When tanks had "roles" in BC that was fine; I knew I had to work my butt off to tank ZA half as well as a pally, and knew I could be one-shotted on Prince a lot easier than a druid. I also knew that on most of the bosses I'd be tanking if I were good enough compared to other warriors. Warriors were my baseline, because they were the "other" boss tanks.

Now that everyone is supposed to be able to tank all the content, I naturally judge all tank classes during self-evaluation. I know that I still have to work harder to AE tank, but I can actually do it just as well as most pally and DK tanks if I work hard enough. I want to be a better best boss tank because I outwork/outgear/out prepare other tanks, not because their class simply isn't as good; otoh I also don't want to be an inferior tank to another class simply because they get more free stats than I do.

Parity is hard to achieve I'm sure, and in Naxx it didn't matter much, but for 3.1 it's what we should all want, regardless of class.

[Tatt]

I think we also need to remember that Blizzard, being comprised of people, is obviously not going to be perfect. I very seriously doubt that they would purposefully build an encounter that had to be done one way and one way only, I think intelligent players simply found this loophole out through a combination of skill and theorycrafting. Blizzard attempting to fix this or balance it only shows that they understand the implications and are donig their best to correct them.

Also wanted to congratulate Cider on being Chuck Norris level awesome, because obviously he would have to be for Blizzard to bow down to his every whim, amirite?

[Kazeyonoma]

I think it's obvious...

Ciderhelm is GC.









or not.

[Tatt]

I thought GC had bewbs?

[blackhand]

As long as it's possible for all tanks to tank an encounter, it's fine to me. I think we all saw nerfs coming to DKs in all respects. Blizzard saw it coming too I feel. Also druids health was getting pretty crazy and I know, I'm a druid :-P But seriously for Blizzard to craft fights there needs to be a closer gap between all tanks so that one tank can't faceroll a fight.

[Hengist]

As long as it's possible for all tanks to tank an encounter, it's fine to me. I think we all saw nerfs coming to DKs in all respects. Blizzard saw it coming too I feel. Also druids health was getting pretty crazy and I know, I'm a druid :-P But seriously for Blizzard to craft fights there needs to be a closer gap between all tanks so that one tank can't faceroll a fight.

So it will be fine for you, if you will be worst choice for majority of encounters, but it will be still doable? I can't believe that, tbh.

[Tatt]

Hengist where are you getting majority of encounters? Right now their are 2 fights that being a dk or druid makes it marginally easier for the raid, but still possible by a warrior or pally. Majority sounds like warrior tanks don't get Naxx invites. Please do not over exaggerate this.

[Hengist]

Hengist where are you getting majority of encounters? Right now their are 2 fights that being a dk or druid makes it marginally easier for the raid, but still possible by a warrior or pally. Majority sounds like warrior tanks don't get Naxx invites. Please do not over exaggerate this.

I am not saying anything like that. My question to Blackhand is just describing a -theoretical- situation which can happen to some class when the "all tanks can tank all content" will still be true. Would you be satisfied in such situation?

Btw, using DK tank or Sartharion 3D makes it marginally easier for raid? Marginally?

[Tatt]

I doubt it would ever reach the point that one tanking class would find itself the least preferable for multiple encounters. Again unfortunately a "sky is falling" mentality is turning 2 encounters into much more than it really is. I would not know where to look, but let's say that 1% of all players have accomplished 3d sarth....and 1 in 10 of those players is a non dk or druid tank....so we are creating pages and pages of "Blizzard is broken" threads over an encounter affecting one tenth of one percent of players? All I am saying is that I think this has gotten way out of hand, and everyone sort of needs to take a breath. And yes I say marginally, because I have seen it accomplished by warriors, and I have seen it accomplished by paladins....so if it can be done, the that tells me that the only reason someone cannot do it is raid ability, not raid VIABILITY.

[Hengist]

I doubt it would ever reach the point that one tanking class would find itself the least preferable for multiple encounters.

Why? It was very much true in TBC and vanilla, can happen again.

Again unfortunately a "sky is falling" mentality is turning 2 encounters into much more than it really is. I would not know where to look, but let's say that 1% of all players have accomplished 3d sarth....and 1 in 10 of those players is a non dk or druid tank....so we are creating pages and pages of "Blizzard is broken" threads over an encounter affecting one tenth of one percent of players? All I am saying is that I think this has gotten way out of hand, and everyone sort of needs to take a breath.

Again, Sartharion 3D is just an example of a typical progress encounter, where EH > all. There will be more like that for sure, and since the problem is identified already, it is better to fix it now and not wait for it to become more common. There just simply are not enough fights in current content that are really testing the tanks ability to survive. We also have PTR Patchwerk tests now, which are showing exactly the same thing Sartharion 3D did.

And yes I say marginally, because I have seen it accomplished by warriors, and I have seen it accomplished by paladins....so if it can be done, the that tells me that the only reason someone cannot do it is raid ability, not raid VIABILITY.

That statement is very wrong. Just because paladins and warriors can possibly tank 3D does not mean that Dk's not have a huge advantage on it. You can kill Loatheb with 2 people and you can do it with 25, but difference is not marginal.

[Tatt]

Killing Loatheb, or Heigan as my guild seems to prefer lately, with 2 people is not because of class design, it is because 23 other people did not have the skill/ability to complete the encounter. Remember when no one ever wanted to ask a warrior tank to do shattered halls because pally's made it so much easier? The good warrior tanks still did it, and made it look easy. I used to be in a guild where a warrior tank wanted to prove that he could be as good a dragonhawk add tank as any pally could.....and he did it (I still remember Nuberino)....let's stop looking for fault in others, or in the game. Their have been 2 major gripes since lich king hit around here....it was too easy....and now this. Enjoy the difficulty, take pride in overcoming the "if you aren't a dk or druid tank go hang up your spurs" mentality.

[Hengist]

Killing Loatheb, or Heigan as my guild seems to prefer lately, with 2 people is not because of class design, it is because 23 other people did not have the skill/ability to complete the encounter.

I meant 2 manning Loatheb, by prot warrior/paladin and healer. And I used this example to show you the flaw of your "if it is doable both ways, the difference must be marginal" logic. Calling this difference marginal is neglecting this issue. And it was an issue in Blizzard's eyes too, as recent changes on PTR prove.

Their have been 2 major gripes since lich king hit around here....it was too easy....and now this. Enjoy the difficulty, take pride in overcoming the "if you aren't a dk or druid tank go hang up your spurs" mentality.

I do not want to. I don't want my guild to use subpar tank on an encounter only to prove something, we are a very average raiding guild on not a very good server, we are doing things the easy way, if that is possibe. If the encounter will be better tanked by druid and dk, I will be first to let them tank it. I just do not want that to be every single encounter where tank's life is endangered by boss damage. I didn't roll a tank to tank only trash or bosses hitting like gnome girls.

[TomHuxley]

Sorry Tatt, you're way off base here. In BC there were niches by design; sure good warriors could work their butts off and tank Shattered Halls and it was a fun challenge; that never threatened the pally niche on raid fights with adds (Hyjal waves, ZA, etc). Likewise pallies could work their butts off and gear in the right way to down major raid bosses, but it never really threatened the MT role that the devs had purposely put warriors in. Regardless of what skill could achieve, tanking classes all had a purpose, and most guilds tried to gear up a tank or two in each class for that reason.

The very success of the current attempt to let all tanks be viable in all content is exactly why this is a problem now. If a tank class can trivialize all progression content relative to the other classes and there is no reason to bring a pally, warrior, or druid to the warrior, druid, or pally niche encounters, then you are talking about guilds gravitating to just one type of tank, quite possibly at odds with skill/experience.

The fact that parity was attempted is why it now is going to become important to try and achieve as harder raid content is released. There's no problem with some encounters being a bit easier for one class or another (as long as it isn't always the same class), but we were talking about being able to push your "win" buttons and take a string of otherwise unsurvivable hits for an indefinite period of time.