Ok, I also posted this on the official European Warcraft forums, but I feel that the euroforums are often ignored by blues, so if there's any US poster kind enough, would they mind reposting this on the US forums? Anyway, here it is:
I really have to say, I simply do not understand Ghostcrawler's rationale.
This is in response to Ghostcrawler's latest comments, which can be read here: MMO-Champion BlueTracker - If Blizzard Cant even get tank balance right
I don't want to continually bring things up, I'm sure the guy comes under criticism enough, but one particularly famous quote in response to Warrior tanks from GC that had a lot of people up in arms was:
A lot of people took that comment in a bit of an alarmist fashion (including me at the time) and read into it that Blizzard were intentionally keeping warrior tanks down in order to fill out the ranks of other tanking classes, and perhaps that idea was given credence to with the admitted practice of some guilds swapping out Warrior main tanks for Death Knights on fights like Sarth +3D and Vezax. Now, I don't subscribe to the notion that Blizzard hates Warriors like some people do, and I will take a lot of comments from Ghostcrawler at face value rather than try to read too much into them, but it does seem that the issues with Warrior tanking are pretty low on Blizzard's list of priorities.It seems strange to buff the most popular tanks.
The reason for this? Warriors are the most popular tanks. That despite the differences between classes in terms of effective health, cooldowns and such, for most guilds Warriors were still tanking everything and will still be tanking the content in 3.3, therefor no issues need to be addressed.
I just don't get it.
Ghostcrawler said:
I think that's a given, there's no getting around the fact that Warriors are the tanking majority. If Warrior tanks didn't give up their class and either rerolled or quit in 3.0 and 3.1, then they certainly going to now when class balance is better, and Warrior tanking has improved since 3.2. Even anecdotal evidence says that Warriors aren't in such a poor state that people are quitting, because I've only known one Warrior tank that's quit recently, yet I know 2 Paladin tanks who've quit. So it just stands to reason that despite some alarmist notions, Warriors aren't going anywhere and will still be the tank majority for the foreseeable future, because even in the face of imbalance, players are holding fast with their choice of class. That's all fairly well established by now, and assuming that the effective health differences between Warriors and Paladins are as dire as predicted in 3.3, it's still only going to end up with some resentment towards Pallies and not effect who is tanking what. The EH differences aren't going to make any fight in Icecrown Citadel impossible if you're a Warrior, and I think we all know that.My prediction is warriors will main tank more bosses in Icecrown than all the other tanks (probably more than all others combined), even the hard modes, even Arthas.
But again and again, with regards to balance, and with regards to class issues being addressed, or changes being made, it's always the same thing being pointed out. Warriors are the most popular tanks. Warriors are still tanking all the content. And what I don't understand is, why is that a reason not to address issues? Why is that the reason Warrior tanking is at the bottom of the list of priorities? Because it seems to me that the fact that Warriors make up the vast majority of tanks should logically mean that they should be at the top of priority when it comes to issues with the class. Why? Because if Warriors are the majority of tanks, then an issue that effects warriors is one that effects the majority of tanks. Simply, the issues that effect the largest player base should be the ones that are the most pertinent. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Back before we got rage on avoidance in 3.2, tanking a heroic with a Warrior was something that was extremely frustrating, because as our gear got better, we got more avoidance, and that left us in a position we'd be extremely rage starved. I myself had pretty much refused to tank Heroics during 3.1 it became so much of a pain. This had been an issue for an extremely long time, yet it was something that went completely unaddressed by Blizzard for a very long time, until our latest major content patch. I remember Ciderhelm making a straight up appeal to Blizzard to fix this issue on the front page of Tankspot before:
http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f64/5...ke-damage.html
It was a huge quality of life issue for Warrior tanks (that has thankfully has been addressed at last), but that also means that it was a huge quality of life issue for the majority of tanks, because as Ghostcrawler likes to remind us constantly, the Warrior class makes up the majority of tanks, and made tanking heroics frustrating for the majority of tanks. So I really don't understand why the "warriors still tank everything/warriors are the majority" lines keep getting trotted out as a reason not to fix Warrior issues, when it's in direct opposition to addressing issues that effect the majority of tanks.Give us rage on Avoidance. Don't make it a glyph, don't make it a new set of talents, put it somewhere that we're going to get it by doing what we're already doing. There is absolutely no reason for us to be doing worse DPS as our gear increases, and it serves absolutely no sensible purpose. Even if it's a bandaid or a short-term fix until a long-term solution is given, it's still better than sitting there wondering when we're actually going to get to use an ability because we were unlucky.
In response to someone saying that just because Warriors are popular, doesn't mean they're overpowered, Ghostcrawler has said:
No, it means you should sooner address the issues of tanking class that most players are using, than those of the tanking class that nobody is really using. It makes far more logical sense than ignoring the issues of the tanking class that most players are using. I think that maybe Ghostcrawler would be better off not questioning about why there are not so many people playing druids when numerically they are the better class, just accept tank representation as it is, and work on addressing the most pertinent tanking issues that effect the most players.I agree it does not mean that warriors are OP. But does it mean we should nerf the tanking class that nobody is really using?
Or to put it in a colorful euphemism, lets say you have an extremely large concert venue, and you have the chance to book Rush, or a little known underground band. More people love Rush and would benefit the most from seeing a concert from them in their area, and they would fill your venue far more than the underground band would. Do you repeatedly ask why the lesser known band isn't as popular, or do you just book Rush?
On a related issue, a lot has been said of the lack of the "Tank Shortage", there's just been comments from Bornakk about it here:
MMO-Champion BlueTracker - How to solve the tank shortage
Speaking as a tank, I don't really know much about a shortage, my problem is usually finding healers. However, lets assume that tank shortages are a really big problem. Keeping in mind that for Warriors, tanking heroics was largely very frustrating because of rage starvation when you out-gear it, would that not mean that the majority of tanks were feeling that frustration, because Warriors are the majority? And therefor, could any tank shortages be caused by the majority of tanks not wanting to do 5 man content because of class issues? So why was an issue that effected Prot Warriors ability to tank 5 man content left until 3.2 to be addressed?
And look, Effective Health always seems to be one of the issues Blizzard comment on, and the blue response is always saying that Warriors can tank all content. But there's more issues than just EH, and I don't think that "can tank all content" is valid reasoning at all. Lets go back to rage on avoidance again, because that was an issue that made little difference to whether a prot warrior was able to take a hit or not. If we still didn't have rage on avoidance in 3.3, then I'm sure we'd still be able to tank everything in the game. So I don't think any rationale should exist that if we can tank the content, then no changes are necessary, because the rage issue was a very serious one that didn't relate to the class being able to tank the big bosses from the latest tier of content. Quality of life issues can be just as serious as effective health issues, and they should be looked into regardless of how well the class can tank the content.
Now I know at this point, people might feel like they're reading a novel on the habits of the lesser spotted Ghostcrawler, but I don't believe that this constant excuse of "but warriors are the most popular" is a valid one, when all we're seeing in the patch notes of 3.3 is that Victory Rush is trainable at level 6, and damage shield won't proc any effects. There's a lot of issues that are quite easily fixed, yet aren't getting so much as comment, never mind a test run on the PTR.
Something from Ciderhelm in the same post about rage on avoidance that I wholeheartedly agree with:
I just can't understand why we've got to take 2 major glyphs and have to spend 2 talent points to reduce our cooldowns to something other classes have as standard. It just seems silly. Warrior talent specs are already stretched fairly thin, and it feels as though I've only got 1 glyph that's free to work with, or change to taste. I'd like to have 2 minute cooldowns as standard, and have those glyph slots to work with, to suit my playing, instead of having 2 glyphs that are near-mandatory for progression. Hell, there's a lot of changes I'd like to see, but that's for another thread. Go here if you'd like to see what I have to say about the issue of Heroic Strike spam: World of Warcraft (en) Forums -> How Heroic Strike spam could be alleviated.Two major glyphs & two talent points to bring our survivability cooldowns in line with encounter timers. Why?
I could go on and on about issues, but that's not what this thread is about. I'm not trying to highlight any issues that have been brought up time and time again, and I'm not asking for buffs either, I've done that plenty of times in other threads, this is about questioning the rationale behind the reasons Ghostcrawler state are why Prot isn't seeing anything addressed this patch. This thread is about saying that no, that reason doesn't wash, the logic is faulty. If one class is the most popular at a given role, and that class has issues, then those issues are the most pertinent for that role, logic dictates those issues are the most important. Because if it's constantly hammered in that Warriors are the most popular tanks, then we can no longer see a Warrior issue as just a Warrior issue, we have to see it as an issue that is effecting the largest player base of all tanks.
Or to sum it all up nice and succinctly:
It seems strange not to fix the most popular tank.
Needs of the many and all that.
As way of apology for that massive amount of text, here's a picture of my wonderful little puppy: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2424/...7b0e7993_o.jpg
Well written, and I agree with a lot of points. But the fact is that even though warriors do have a few issues, none of those issues are pressing or major. We're capable of tanking anything, we are fun to play, and even with things like the HS mashing and the 2 glyphs for cooldowns, we are still very functional.
There's something to be said for continuous improvement, and there's plenty to improve upon. But honestly, I'm pretty happy with my warrior, and I think a lot of people are.
My theory is that at this late date, they know they're going to have to totally rework the block classes for Cataclysm anyway, and fix the Heroic Strike issue somehow, so they don't really want to do much to the warrior class as it is right now, because a full re-work of tanking/stats/block/etc is coming anyway. Why re-work it twice if the class is working as is?
As he says, warriors are still tanking the majority of things, so there can't be *that much wrong with them*, and there's not. A lot of the issues are either:
A) known, but won't be worked on till Cataclysm. Block and Heroic Strike are two of these.
B) small things that cause issues in perception, but don't really cause a warrior to not be able to tank encounters. Sure, they could change the stamina modifier, but, the fact is, if you're losing your spot over 1500 health at this level, then your RL doesn't know much. I guess he should just get druids and be done with it if stam is all that matters to him.
So, from a "How important is this to the bottom line?" perspective, they're not going to put a lot of time into it. Warrior tanks are still tanking every day, and not losing 'market share' if you want to call it that, so there's no urgency from their end at this point. Some of the quality of life issues were fixed in 3.2, the ones that weren't pushed back to the expansion.
That's why they're not wasting energy on it right now, since they have a lot of work to do in Cataclysm anyway.
Just my theory. Do with it what you will.
I'm a firm believer that Warriors don't need major overhauls or complete mechanic changes. All the class needs is a few tweaks here and there, refinements to existing abilities, a little bit of spit and polish and we're good to go. Look at the rage on avoidance fix, it wasn't an overhaul in the design, just a small fix that didn't change the mechanics at all, and it made a staggering difference to Warrior tanks. I don't believe for a second that there's any aspect of Warrior tanking that needs to be completely redesigned, and I would probably like if there wasn't.Originally Posted by mavfin
And really, I don't see the need to hold off on any changes at all until the new expansion, which could be a very, very long time away yet. But understandably, most, if not all classes will be getting an overhaul next expansion, but that doesn't see them not receiving any changes. Even if they're only stop-gap fixes, I don't see why we're seeing no fixes at all. I'll probably have to repost my ideas on rage and heroic strike spam here at some stage.
In GC's defense alot of this is outside his area but a more generic wow issue.
Everyone talks about tank/healer shortage but to be honest it's in one area heroics and raids that are easily outgeared (naxx etc). Why because at some point when the tanks/healers get geared they stop running them. To fix the problem you need to give them a reason to go into these instances something they cant get from high end raids. Solve that you solve the shortage.
People talk about tank balance and tanks changing as GC said the figures they look at don't show that. He is right at a high end raid level you don't see it and he gave the example on ptr on one weekend they didn't see one pally tank on ptr. However if you looked at heroics and naxx you definitely see more pally tanks and the distortion is two fold people rolling an easy to play tank and warrior's not running heroics because they are painful for them because of aoe tanking issues.
Finally I think part of the tank balance issue is actually gear issue. The gun slot seperates pally and warrior tanks yet there is very few choices for that slot outside raids. Basically a non raid tank will have the combat shotgun or if the have done enuf heroic dailies they might have the triumph emblem throwing weapon thats it 2 choices. Really if they gave some more options in that slot and a few more shield options I think warriors who werent hard mode raiding could adjust there stats slightly better.
** Remember Warcraft players fail in directions you never thought possible.
I have yet to see a great argument for buffs to warrior tanks. I see a lot of skirting, but no legitimate argument.
Courinack Rancher
After discussing things a bit with the OP via PM's, I've decided to go ahead and clear out some of the chaff that was here before and reopen the thread. Just as a reminder for everyone as the discussion continues -- rational and respectful discussion about Blizzard's thought processes is generally alright, but "Ghostcrawler just hates Warriors" and so forth never is. As soon as your post crosses that line, it will be moderated.
Well, come Cataclysm many of these issues will be addressed.
I wholeheartedly agree on the 2 talent points 2 major glyphs issue. I can live with the two talent points but two major glyphs is just not right.
Blocking mechanic will be overhauled. I like the ideas that have been communicated by Blizz.
The HS issue has been acknowledged to be an issue and they tend to find fixes for that. Just don't expect it for 3.3.
They don't like rage generation on damage taken so I guess there's some change to that come Cataclysm.
But the main issue here is that a lot of stuff the Blues say is being interpreted, double interpreted and no matter what they say major QQ will ensue. I can fully understand why they word their stuff carefully. It sometimes reads like it's been worded by a politician that has to make good on its promises.
Oh! you pretty things
Don't you know you're driving your
Mamas and papas insane
Two points of contention on this.
1. Many fixes for issues are things that probably wouldn't be considered buffs at all.
Lets take for example the current situation we face when we want to buff the party with Commanding or Battle Shout. We need to blow a 1 min cooldown in order to have the resources available to buff the party, and that's something I find counter-intuitive and lacking reason. Now, it's not a major issue, but it's one of the many small frustrations with the class that can be easily addressed. It's a case of, I've just popped Bloodrage in order to use Commanding Shout, now it's time to pull and Bloodrage is still on cooldown. It's just a quality of life issue. It's been suggested plenty of times that buff shouts should be rage free and on a small cooldown, and even had Ghostcrawler comment on it before saying it was a good idea.
If we got rage free shouts and were able to buff the party without blowing a cooldown, is that a buff, or just removing an annoying flaw?
2. This thread isn't about arguing for buffs, there's many, many other threads dealing with the flaws of the class and suggesting fixes, this is about questioning the "Warriors are the most popular, therefor don't need anything addressed" line of reasoning. Taking the above issue of party buffs, the 'Warriors are popular' path of logic is like saying; this is an issue that effects the largest demographic of tanks, therefor it doesn't need to be addressed. And I just don't get that logic.
You can say that you don't see an argument for whatever issue is at hand, but on the flip side, there's no argument against it. I think that in the sense of Warrior changes, it seems illogical for people to be arguing against changes on the basis that they don't find the argument strong enough, when they should be looking to see if there's a strong argument against it, and whether a change would be imbalanced or game breaking. For example, is there any argument against rage-free shouts?
Is "warriors are so popular they don't have/can't be fixed" even a reasoning? It seemed to me it was used to STOP people saying "qq now only paladins/dks/druids will tank".
I don't think the shouts are a good analogy, everyone agrees they should follow a mechanic similar to Horn of Winter, which is, as you said, a small quirk that has insignificant weight on tank balance. I don't think anyone is against that type of change so bringing it up in tank balance discussions seems rather empty.
There will be a major overhaul in Cata. The trees will be trimmed when it comes to +1% dodge talents. Blocking will be changed. They want to get rid of rage on taking damage. They want to find a solution for HS.
ATM we don't know the exact plan and what will actually make it into the game. I guess Blizz themselves are currently trying to find out how their ideas play out.
I think nobody in his right mind expected a major mechanics overhaul in 3.3.
they are doing some tweaking tho with this whole new emphasis on +armor and +block stats. I wouldn't even be surprised if we wouldn't see fights that favor warriors due to Spell Reflect which has been sadly neglected in the past encounters.
In the mean time we should judge Blizz and GC by their actions and not their words. Or wording. Or whatever we read into it.
When I get a complaint from my customers and suggestions for improvement I usually take a step back and try to figure out what caused the complaint and then find my own solution. Sometimes it is even what the customers suggest.
If I always implemented the customers ideas then I'd end up with a scary unusable complex mess. That's my job. I'm the consultant. I'm the one with the experience. That's what I get paid for. Same goes with Blizz.
So what I'm saying is suggestions are not futile. I like quite a lot of the ideas that float around here and in the net. But don't be too dissappointed when they choose another way. They won't acknowledge everything directly in the forums but once an idea is read it will be brought forward in a meeting one way or another. If it passes the BS filter, that is.
Just don't expect news too soon. Blizz only comes forward with news when they got the whole thing in the bag. The WoW community is scary.
Oh! you pretty things
Don't you know you're driving your
Mamas and papas insane
I think warriors are good at the moment. There are no major worries on mind. Sure, I have a few niggles that I wouldn't mind seeing addressed but I play other classes and they have niggles too... much more serious ones that on my warrior.
- I am a little concerned that the buff to glyph of devastate and AP scaling generally may have made revenge unimportant (although that might go with T10 set bonuses)
- I'd quite like to see Glyph of Battle and Command merged, it's daft to have two.
- I have no problem with Glyph of Shield Wall, in fact I like the ability to tune my shield wall damage reduction/cooldown to suit the encounter
- I don't have a huge problem with heroic strike mashing, I like mashing buttons, but I look forward to seeing it addressed in Cataclysm
This is all pretty small fry stuff. I'd much rather they fix up unholy DKs and rogue poison mechanics (both of which directly impact me and both of which have serious issues) than touch what isn't that broken just for the sake of there being some patch notes labelled "Protection Warrior".
All tanks can tank all current content, there's no discussing that, it's a fact.
But warriors do have a few quality of life issues:
- Why does it require rage to shout? It's illogical to have to use a cooldown to buff your party/raid.
- Why is there nothing about Heroic Strike spam? It's been said over and over again by the developers they want to get rid of it. But we hear or see nothing.
- What's up with the rage system? It's kinda broken in the current state and have been since vanilla. But we hear or see nothing.
- Why does a warrior have to use 2 talent points and a major glyph to get a 2 min shield wall? Especially since death knights have that as baseline and when paladins specc for it they also get 8% stamina. But for warriors it takes 2 talent points that do nothing else then reduce the cooldown by 1 minute and then a major glyph to reduce it another 2 minutes but now it suddenly only reduces damage by 40%. That 2 min Shield Wall cost alot, so what's the reason to reduce the damage reduction to 40%?
And then you have just weird talents:
- Why does Vigilance reduce damage taken by 3% and reduces threat by 10% and transfers that to you? The damage reduction effect would be awesome to put on another tank, but then you drop their threat by 10%. And if you put it on a dpser the damage reduction is mostly wasted. And despite it beeing asked several times why that talent even exists there's still no answer. Is warriors balanced around having it on a dpser? Or are we balanced around not having it up at all so that we're overpowered when we do use it? Or are we meant to put it on another tank and hinder their threat? I just wonder what's the thougth behind it?
- Why was Armored to the Teeth changed from strength to AP?
And then there's a few other questions that's never been commented either:
- Why was blockvalue doubled but the strength contribution still the same?
- Why does Shield Slam even scale with Blockvalue and not strength or AP?
- Why does tanks not get a pvp set when everyone else does?
- Why is tanks excluded from Kirin'tor Rings, Algalon quest rewards and now Quel'Delar? Especially when it was mentioned everyone would get something from Quel'Delar and they even implemented items for non sword users.
- Why is there such a difference between idols, relics, librams on one side and ranged weapons on the other? And why is the first ranged tank weapon crafted, the second a drop, the third from badges and now the fourth a drop again while all librams, relics and idols can be bought from badges?
That's just a few of the questions I do have. But as usual nothing ever get's answered by Blizzard. They really could do some work on communication on specific questions rather then talk about philosophy and where they want all tanks in 10 years or so.
I hope it's not to much. It's just frustrating when there's quite a few questions which could be answered and a few things that could really need some work and all we get is Victory Rush from level 6.
Last edited by Tharr; 11-18-2009 at 05:36 AM.
I'm still convinced that the main reason warriors are the most popular tanks, especially in top guild of each server, it's thanks their long earn experience for the most part.
Warriors have been tanking ever since vanilla. The guild know and trust the player, regardless of the class.
raid lead know he's not cheap and he'll use those indestructible pot
dps know they can go all out because they know its aggro generation
healer know that he'll be prompt tu use survival CD if things go south
raid members know in general that he'll will pick those adds up quickly.
Even if another class may be superior on paper for the encounter, if the guild doesn't trust the player, he won't get the job.
Some big exception however, sartharion 3D for example, where DK were so far above the other tanks that, guild were relying on fing a good DK tank rather than trusting their own tanks. That was really broken imo, and was adressed.
I am pretty sure GC never really said they wouldn't make any changes or address issues because warriors are more popular. Take the rage on avoidance issue. The eventually fixed it. The do make QoL changes, but I think the community expects a different timeline than they plan. That might be the disconnect. They plan to fix rage, but they haven't done it yet. Some people can't understand why it isn't done already. I don't think everyone really understands what goes into an MMO and making changes. Ideas are simple and easy to plan, but changes are harder to implement.
Some of your questions have been answered before, mostly when they happened.
These are too vague or already talked about. Specifically the HS spam has already been recognized as something they've been thinking of changing for at least as long as wrath's been out.
I'm not gonna enter into comparing talents. There has yet to be one of these that doesn't end in blind bitching.
It was too powerful as strength. Specifically for prot warriors they have been worried warriors' blocking may become too powerful, and that was already after this change. Guess it'd be even nastier with it being STR.
BV is the baseline of those things you talked about... str->bv is probably just scaling worries.
They're meant to be unique, and currently that's what we get. No idea on it's weird availability tho. Dunno what's to question about those items really.
Yes it's frustrating, don't let yourself be blinded by it.
I think GC's comments need to be read in total and in context. Popularity is not the basis for a decision, but rather it gives insight into things the community may have picked up on that the sterile development environment didn't. GC's example was that when DK's were the tank of choice the community flocked to DK's for tanking, there was an increase in DK tanks because they were overpowered. This was a signal that something needed looking into. What GC said was that they are not seeing this type of flight from Warriors or to Pallys. The point being the community picks up on advantages in game and acts on them with a herd mentality e.g. stacking Armor Pen, DK tanks, etc. It's a signal to Bliz to look into it, but not the sole basis on which decisions are made.
It makes perfect sense, it's like the financial markets, the astute will pick up very quickly on an imbalance, and the crowd will follow.
Might I suggest the following book on the crowd mentality: "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds."
.
To continue this analogy, let's say that the owner of the large concert venue (your boss) has given you the instructions to "book the band that will sell out the venue". "Rush are my favourite band and everyone loves their songs", you think. You see no problem with booking Rush as they sell millions of records and of the bands that are touring in your area they are by far the biggest.
Then someone from the local paper points out that Rush are technically (in terms of musicality) inferior to Dream Theater, they have less "singalong" value than Kings of Leon and they put on a less impressive stage show than Kiss. Rush are, therefore, the worst of the four it concludes.
"But any of those four bands will sell out my venue", you cry, "we'll make exactly the same profit regardless. Why does it even matter which one we book?"
But the local voices now join that of the paper. It seems that every time you get an email, answer the phone or read a blog it's saying that Rush are worse than the other options. You don't deny that Kings of Leon, Kiss and Dream Theater outperform Rush on the areas they've mentioned but you know full well that Rush have their good qualities too - it's not like they suck - they sell millions and millions more records than any of the other three and are by any sales metric the most popular, but you're being told time and time again that they're the inferior choice.
Fans aren't switching from buying Rush CDs to Kiss CDs. They're either buying the one they like or buying both. They haven't abandoned Rush for the reasons given as to why the others are "better".
Maybe Rush do need to write better songs from a music theory standpoint, maybe they do need to put on a better show and maybe they need hookier choruses. But at the end of the day, whether they do that or not means precicely nothing to your core objective which is to sell out your concert venue. If Rush would half fill it and the others would fill it, you'd understand. Maybe if Kings of Leon would require two nights to satisfy demand but the others could only sustain one you'd understand too. But that's not the case - they'll all sell out and they all require just one booked evening.
You've already booked Rush and the profit is more or less exactly the same regardless of who you book. Would you really want to go to the hassle of promoting Rush more heavily and getting them more air time etc just to remind their fans that you're taking the booking seriously? Would you overspend on your marketing budget even though you know it'd sell out regardless?
That is exactly how I believe Ghostcrawler sees it - people are crying out for something that makes no significant difference to the outcome, which is bosses going down. Each tank has its strengths and its weaknesses by comparison and he probably even agrees that Warriors are a little behind the curve against other tanks in terms of EH, avoidance/mitigation and cooldowns. However, that difference is not significant enough to change the underlying principle that any tank can tank any boss.
To be honest I don't think you can ever balance tanks to the point where all is exactly equal because it's simply impossible to compare the relative values of a strict macro-able rotation with a situational rage-based system. Or how much Persuit of Justice helps your tanking compared to Feral Charge or Intervene. Or even how Bubble Wall with additional parryable SoV applications compares to Last Stand or Critical Block but with fewer chances to be parried per minute. The tanks are all different in often unquantifiable ways so people over-value the things which are comparable like HP.
The fact is that right now every tank is tanking every boss in the game. Sure, there's a few discrepencies between the classes but nobody is being left out of their MT slot in favour of another. That's the objective and surely that's the most important thing?
Why do warriors think it's needed, ever, to buff shouts before a fight begins?
It's hardly gamebreaking, and free shouts would break part of the game design where shouts are a choice, not something to freely switch back and forth between.
Contrary to popular belief.... rage was never a huge issue in vanilla wow or TBC. If you had high end gear you didn't care about 5 mans, and if you still wanted to do them, it wasn't hard to make a great set from mixing gear either. Is it an issue now? A little... but it's blown way out of proportion.
Tanking is simply not a PvP spec. No tank classes have tank pvp gear, for obvious reasons. Armored to the teeth was too powerful with strength.
Block Value would be too powerful with higher Strength modifiers.
Tanks being excluded from quest rewards is not warrior-centric.
I don't understand the vigilance argument... it's useful in a pretty large variety of situations.
Warriors don't grasp the big picture sometimes. You are the only tank class with sunder, an incredibly powerful skill especially in the scheme of 5 mans. You are the most mobile tank class with intervene and charge. You have both demoralizing shout and thunder clap, and a HP boost shout that can't be mimicked with drums. Warriors have the ability to block, something which may not seem like a big deal, but is in a lot of encounters. You have a controllable, low cooldown interrupt. You have an AOE stun, and one of only 2 AoE taunts.
It may not be as easily quantifiable as armor and life, but try playing a tank without it sometime, and trust me, you might be willing to trade those 1500 hit points back.
Really, warriors are probably the last tank class that needs to be griping about gear issues. The class has always bee pretty darn ok on that front.- Why is tanks excluded from Kirin'tor Rings, Algalon quest rewards and now Quel'Delar? Especially when it was mentioned everyone would get something from Quel'Delar and they even implemented items for non sword users.
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