Taunt the boss NOW!!!

[Kahmal]

Ok seriously, after going through most of DR without breaking a sweat, I'm growing very tired of the ever so present taunt the boss at 3 stacks roll as a tank. What once one most exciting role in a raid is often reduced to nothing but a mere buffer to allow the other tank to get his debuff is growing very tiresome, and seeing it present on both Morchok and Ultraxion just kind of has me a bit fed up.

This mechanic as I recall didn't become popular until WoTLK I believe. At least back in Burning Crusade tank swaps required the current off-tank to surpass the other tank in threat which would give one options on how they wanna gear and test how well they can generate threat, since most bosses were untauntable. I remember Hydross where the swap was based on who was wearing the proper resistance gear for the current phase and a bad swap would completely wipe the raid.

Now the main reason I complain about this is because we seasoned raiders are having issues seeing recycled mechanics that have made raiding a bit more bland, but from my recollection fights where the its not the off-tanks job to just simple be a taunt bot are among the most involved encounters. H Lady Deathwhisper, Putrecide, Valithria, Thorim, every final boss, the list goes on.

Now some of the above still do feature tank swaps but are in done in more clever ways, LDW not only has a bunch of adds to deal with, but the boss is untauntable and it has to be done the old school way. Putrecides tank swap isn't until phase 3 and the other 2 phase the Off-tank is an abomination! Even on Sindragosa though there is a tank swap it is done in a far more clever way then simply hitting taunt before the current tank gets one shot.

At the end of the day if there is something that the off-tank has to do besides taunt the main boss it usually means the encounter has more enrichment. I'm not sure if Blizz is running out of idea, being lazy or simply not wanting encounters to put too much weight on a tank.

If they are to keep up with these tank swap debuffs, I mean at least have some fun with it. Its always, "takes additional shadow damage" "reduces armor by 80%" "will one shot you if you get too much"
Why not also make it increase damage and make the tanks DPS detrimental to the encounter, or make it transform you into some hostile creature that has to be dealt with by the raid. Who knows, maybe I've just been tanking for too long.

[Tengenstein]

What bosses in WotLK that required a taunt swap where taunt immune? Gluth, Rasuvious, Horsemen, Archavon, Razorscale, Hodir, Thorim, Gormok, Deathwhisper, Suarfang. Festergut, Putricide, Sindagosa and LK where all tauntable, the only untauntable Bboss i can recall was HC LDW. I think you're being a bit rose tinted in your recolletion of wrath tank swaps, or got it confused with TBC content (I really can't recall taunt swapping on Valithria).

That said yes its a boring ass mechanic. It was a boring ass mechanic in wrath, it's still a boring ass mechanic. I think the problem is that Blizzard sees that the tank population is low, and thinks that most people don't want to try tanking becuase tanking is percieved as being hard, so won't risk making things complicated as it risks putting people off tanking.

[Dreador]

The tank swaps in all of WOTLK were one thing...boring. Every one of those fights made one feel like a drooling idiot if the raid wiped due to a tank problem (and until hardmodes, any raider screwing up). Stand here, now run here. Taunt at this time, taunt at this many stacks, pop shield wall, next round guardian spirit, etc.

Agreed with Tengenstein, there wasn't any threat switches in WOTLK that were taunt-immune, unless one of you spammed taunt and made it immune.

[Kahmal]

What bosses in WotLK that required a taunt swap where taunt immune? Gluth, Rasuvious, Horsemen, Archavon, Razorscale, Hodir, Thorim, Gormok, Deathwhisper, Suarfang. Festergut, Putricide, Sindagosa and LK where all tauntable, the only untauntable Bboss i can recall was HC LDW. I think you're being a bit rose tinted in your recolletion of wrath tank swaps, or got it confused with TBC content (I really can't recall taunt swapping on Valithria).

I typoed. I said bosses were taunt immune in WoTLK instead of TBC, hence my Hydross reference, editing now ty. Also my reference to Valithria and the others I stated with her points out that encounters that aren't simple off-tank stand 2 feet from main tank and taunt boss and tank for 20 seconds are usually more intriguing.

[Reev]

The tank swaps in all of WOTLK were one thing...boring. Every one of those fights made one feel like a drooling idiot if the raid wiped due to a tank problem (and until hardmodes, any raider screwing up). Stand here, now run here. Taunt at this time, taunt at this many stacks, pop shield wall, next round guardian spirit, etc.

Agreed with Tengenstein, there wasn't any threat switches in WOTLK that were taunt-immune, unless one of you spammed taunt and made it immune.

Marrowgar was briefly taunt immune with an aggro reset, which was kind of cool.

And yes, Hydross is one of the best tanking fights ever.

[Tengenstein]

Ah I really liked Marrowgar when he used to do that, and it annoyed the hell out of me when pugs 6 months later would taunt off me after each bone storm "why?! he doesn't reset aggro anymore and taunting didn't used to help either!"

as to things going Taunt immune, Dreador said something about drooling idiots.

[Theotherone]

We did Ultraoxin last night and since our OT is shipping out for pilot training, I go back and forth between tanking and healing (we have priest that will go Shadow on one tank fights while I go Holy) any way I like the taunt mechanic on that fight it's kind of a fun variation on 4 stacks and taunt.

[Kahmal]

We did Ultraoxin last night and since our OT is shipping out for pilot training, I go back and forth between tanking and healing (we have priest that will go Shadow on one tank fights while I go Holy) any way I like the taunt mechanic on that fight it's kind of a fun variation on 4 stacks and taunt.

maybe i'm not fully comprehending the mechanics of that encounter because it seemed like all I was doing was standing 3 feet away from the main tank and pressing taunt whenever he got a debuff on him. And then clicking a button to prevent myself from getting one shot....fun

[Theotherone]

maybe i'm not fully comprehending the mechanics of that encounter because it seemed like all I was doing was standing 3 feet away from the main tank and pressing taunt whenever he got a debuff on him. And then clicking a button to prevent myself from getting one shot....fun

What I liked about it is have to time the Heroic Will to make sure you hit the real world to prevent the one shot. You're only in the real world a second or two and the Fading Light can last 5- 10 seconds, then you come back to an Hour of Twilight. I liked it, it's an updated Patchwerk dps check.

[Kahmal]

What I liked about it is have to time the Heroic Will to make sure you hit the real world to prevent the one shot. You're only in the real world a second or two and the Fading Light can last 5- 10 seconds, then you come back to an Hour of Twilight. I liked it, it's an updated Patchwerk dps check.

I find that fight extrememly boring, maybe fun for healers. Like I said encounters where the tank isn't just there for taunting always makes the encounter more interesting, more movement, etc.

[klausi]

I find that fight extrememly boring, maybe fun for healers.

I've to agree, watch your poweraura or focus frame debuffs for searing light, taunt and hit the "oh shit" button once in a while without moving once after engaging is rather boring. Good thing about that fight? You can hit shieldblock every 15 (less magical damage) to 20 seconds and have a 100% uptime on heavy repercussion'd shield blocks. Combined with the new vengeance + vigilance you'll put out some decent numbers.

Baleroc was also an dps check but healers had to handle their stacks and dps had to handle crystals (and on heroic: debuff) to make it work. Now it's just hitting that large training dummy for 6 minutes straight, dealing 280k rdps.

[Kahmal]

Every raid has one of those stand still DPS encounters, it appeases the DPS and lets them know where they stand. But I just found the other 3 bosses prior to that so darn simple that i was expecting something way more epic for "Deathwings great creation"

I mean seriously why not just remove that stupid mechanic increase a bosses health slightly and let the off-tank just DPS, I could at least get more satisfaction watching numbers fly around.

I always thought interrupts as an encounter mechanic where dumb also, it was an issue in WoTLK because your 10 man might not have enough people to interrupt, so they gave one to Paladins and Feral Druids knowing full and well this would cause problems in PvP, they were better off just taking out things that had to be interrupted since its not something you should mess up anyway. Truth is though people do. They interrupt too early, get confused on the cast, forgets its there turn etc. Wiping because your tank didn't taunt usually means ur tank d/c'd or fell asleep.

[feralminded]

Yeah the ultraxion tank swap is pretty stupid. That said, at least on 25 man, the healing was really fun ... specially for my undergeared priest who hasn't had a drop since BWD when I put him on the shelf. Our DPS was in the low 500k range which meant the 6 healers had to keep the raid alive until 5:50 for the kill ... and we did it without a single death or even a timeloop pop. We may just 5 heal it since DPS is slacking and an extra 30-35k would put us very close to the 5 minute kill mark.

[Libellus]

What I liked about it is have to time the Heroic Will to make sure you hit the real world to prevent the one shot. You're only in the real world a second or two and the Fading Light can last 5- 10 seconds, then you come back to an Hour of Twilight. I liked it, it's an updated Patchwerk dps check.

Agree. Visually it is a very grand encounter which helps a lot, but I really enjoyed the mechanics of it. Ok the tanks don't have to do much beyond managing their cooldowns and swapping at the right times, but it was still fun.

Probably more enjoyable for the DPS, where the challenge will be getting the timing of real world right, so the impact on dps is minimal.

[Nifron]

if they made tank swapping so bad it took 5 tanks it would be funny

[woodyman]

did anyone else really enjoy tanking riplimb as warrior tank....Heroic leaps charges etc etc, was fun zipping about the place

[feralminded]

Yeah Riplimb was a very fun challenge ... specially early on heroic before the nerfs.

[Libellus]

I didn't find riplimb that interesting or particularly fun. Not hard, just.....not interesting. But then moving your character around is inherently interesting anyway.

Moving around on heroic Alysrazor, now that I did find fun and interesting.

[Outbackjack]

Riplimb tanking and Alysrazor tanking were both loads of fun after I got the knack for them. There's something about those movement fights that got me excited to do them that most other movement boss fights (Illidari Council comes to mind, that was just annoying) could not.

[Dreador]

Illidari Council, now that you bring it up...holy cow what a memory. Move left, move right. OMGSPELLREFLECT. Move left. Gaaahhhhhh almost as bad as Saurfang for tanks.