Where have the tanks gone?
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Feb 16th 2007 at 1:11PM
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Unlike many guilds, my guild has never had a problem with finding healers in TBC. We have a ton of 70 shamans, most of whom are resto specced and on nearly all the time. We have a couple of priests with good healing gear. We even have some up-and-coming paladins who are in the mid-60s.
Instead, our problems are tank-related. Like most guilds, we have a good number of warriors, about evenly divided between tanks and DPS warriors. But our tanks seem to have fallen into the habit of mysteriously disappearing for days at a time, which has slowed their leveling speed. Two of our tanks are still 67, which kind of puts a damper on Karazhan plans. Two of our prot warriors are 70, but one let his game card expire and can't afford a new one and the other is only on occasionally. So as of now, our theoretical main tank is a feral druid. Admittedly, he is a very GOOD feral druid, and he is excellent in five-mans and heroics, but he's not quite confident that he can handle the big raid bosses.
Other guilds I've spoken to have reported similar issues. One has a shortage of prot warriors and is having difficulty in Karazhan with druid tanks, and as for five-mans, "we've got 20 people wanting to instance and 2 tanks online." Another has trouble "finding tanks that wake up in time for raids." The third guild has enough tanks right now, but the leader noted that they leveled slowly.
As I see it, the problem has three parts. First, prot warriors level slowly, so the first warriors to 70 are likely to be those who spec arms or fury and have the gear for it. Second, warriors are sort of gimp right now, and many warriors have switched to other classes, either because they didn't like being nerfed or because they had trouble getting into a guild as a warrior. And finally, most raiding guilds only needed two or three regular protection warriors for their raids. When forty people doing one instance with three tanks turns into forty people doing eight instances, needing eight tanks, there's likely to be a perceived tank shortage -- even if you have the same number of tanks you did before.
Have you noticed a tank shortage on your guild or server? What do you think players can do to make life easier for tanks?
Filed under: Druid, Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, Guilds, Instances, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Zuuler Feb 16th 2007 1:21PM
I really don't know about tanks in my guild. But I have noticed a sharp decline in warriors tanking for instances or group quests. Seems everytime I go looking for a tank, I find a druid. Most of the warriors I find aren't specced for tanking and usually refuse to tank because of that. Not that I am complaining, having the druids in instances has been a breeze. After a dificult fight its nice when the druid shifts out of bear form and assists in healing the group so e can move on from boss fights much faster.
Oblivian Feb 17th 2007 12:16AM
i try to tank in instances, i do karazan and im a warrior...but druids are better no matter what, maybe if i spec fully protection i can outdo a resto specd druid tanking or something, but right now i can self buff with 10Khp+ and 10K+ armor, but my feral druid whos i guess the tank can buff for around almost 18K ARMOR ( 17.8K was what he told me b4 ) and i forgot how much health, but i think it was like 14k.
on aggro, its so hard for me to keep aggro, a awrlocks felguard fully buffed can actually fight for aggro with me. The items i got right now are pretty decent, and im not a bad tank too...but now i am. I am really a dps warrior, but now after i was told to tank in lots of instances after the TBC, warriors REALLY need a buff in tanking and holding aggro
Halicante Feb 16th 2007 1:36PM
I got so frustrated with my warrior that I left her in thrallmar, where she is still chilling in her full tbc epic gear (probably having a big party with Nazgar and boozing it up...but i digress).
Warrs arent much fun to play these days. My guild's warrs hate leveling. When they are specced for dps, they can't hold aggro for the life of them and when they are specced prot, solo leveling and farming is hell. In pvp, they get owned by classes that used to be ezmode for them. All in all, not much entertainment to be had as a warr.
We're lucky in that we have a few reliable warrs who stuck it out to 70...I can see where some guilds could have trouble though.
ihalo Feb 21st 2007 1:33PM
rerolled as a hunter. having lots more fun =D
Halicante Feb 16th 2007 1:37PM
pre-tbc epic gear rather
doh
Ocsrep Feb 16th 2007 1:41PM
Protection tanks are broken. I don't blame them for re-speccing or rolling another toon.
Finagle Feb 16th 2007 3:28PM
We've definately noticed this trend as well. Pre-BC we would have about 8 warriors with 4-5 tanks in rotation for raiding. Post BC we dropped to about 3 warriors, 2 tanks due to server transfers, new guilds starting, quitting etc...
But I must add that the other tankable classes have really picked up the slack. Having a group of Shadow Priest, Oomkin, Pally Tank, Mage, and Holy Priest made for fun and easy instance runs. We still love our warriors, we just dont have to sit around with our thumbs up our nether regions waiting for one to log.
Seper Feb 16th 2007 1:45PM
hehe on venture co (US alliance) we seem to have that problem. luckily so far my bestest buddy is a warrior and he tanks in instances and DPS's when questing. I'm a healer specced druid so its an awesome combo. The guild I'm in will be heavily relying on both of us.
Mabye warriors dont like tanking cause its expensive. You cant just go by with gear in the 30s when your lvl 55. (haha yes i do that). My buddy upgrades at least 2 pieces of gear each lvl. Hes constantly broke because he needs to buy the new piece of armor that boosts his armor 200 here 400 there. Then the extra stats. I know of some non warrior tanks that dont do that and you notice a big difference bettween my buddy and them.
Druid dude Feb 16th 2007 1:48PM
Major shortage of tanks, yes. Minor, sometimes shortage of healers.
I think the biggest reason is straight numbers. In a 40 man raid, we needed usually around 5 tanks, so guilds were built around this number. Take those same 40 people, split them up in to 5 man groups and send them off to run 5 mans, you need 8 tanks. But there were only 5.
On my druid, I went from resto to feral to level up in BC. The plan had been to group and instance my way as a healer, but couldn't get groups often enough, thus the feral approach for viable soloing. I have been tanking 2-3 or more instances every night since going feral. Nevermind that my tank gear isnt all that great, people just want a tank. Often when I log on, 2 or tells come within minutes for groups.
Christian Holton Feb 16th 2007 2:14PM
I was full-protection going into TBC after MTing in UBRS and OTing ZG and AQ20. Post-2.0, when the damage regulation nerf happened, I noticed that, even pre-TBC, my regular technique no longer did the same job at holding aggro that it used to. I had to start asking the hunters to turn off all their pet's aggro abilities, and even then I still had a hard time. This used to not be a problem, and I never really did that much damage to begin with using my Fiery Retributer.
I think that Blizz needs to show prot warriors a little love and encourage their growth by giving Devastate a damage boost. All things considered equal, Devastate does considerably less damage than Shield Slam or Heroic Strike, but still supposedly generates more aggro.
Make Devastate a Mortal Strike junior; no debuff, just instant-attack goodness on par with the damage done by Heroic Strike. I mean come on, Blizz, it's a freakin 41 point ability.
Really...
Matthew Rossi Feb 16th 2007 3:32PM
I've commented on this so many times in so many places it's become tedious for me. So I'll keep it short.
The expense is part of the issue, yes. Also, the necessity of carrying two sets of gear around everywhere you go (which is why I laugh at druids bitching about it) and the fact that, unless you respec after every run, you'll be gimped in one of the only two things you can do as a warrior. If you're an Arms or Fury warrior, you're not even remotely as good a tank anymore (before the 2.0 patch, Arms and Fury warriors could tank anything in the game, but rage normalization helped put an end to that) and if you're full prot, you can forget questing and grinding solo outside of an instance. A feral druid doesn't have to respec to DPS, a warrior does.
My current guild is small, so I don't have to worry about raid tanking anymore. My level 70 human warrior is full prot, and he's basically sitting on his ass doing nothing while I level my Shaman and Hunter. Let druids tank everything. Let them experience the fun of MTing in raids. Let them be blamed for every wipe and have to deal with PuG's that won't wait five seconds for aggro to be established.
Druids and Pallies can do everything a warrior can, and can heal themselves and others. Warriors have gained no utility to compensate for this. So why should I tank?
shakalu Feb 17th 2007 4:02AM
i have a warrior myself wich was my main char but since BC i abandoned him for a rougue that im now leveling.
leveling a warrior is, as said above, hell in TBC...left mine at lvl 61 and i have no intention to get him to lvl 70...
coming into TBC i was a arms warrior but leveling still was very hard, then changed my spec for the guild to protection and had enough...very slow, very painfull, very nasty...no thanks! i'll just lvl up my rogue
hostile Feb 16th 2007 2:05PM
Being the warrior class leader, and MT, for my alliance guild on Skullcrusher I have certainly always seen a shortage of protection-spec warriors. Specing protection is not desirable for many warriors, especially those that enjoy PvP, because it's really limiting.
Getting a warrior to spec protection can be like pulling teeth and while we are a raiding guild we do not require our members to spec any particular way. Because of this I don't make a habit of making my warriors play their classes in a way that they do not want to, they are the ones paying their subscription fees, not me.
That being said some times someone has to bit the respec bullet and step up to the plate because I can't be there every single night.
As for the writer's abundance of priests, I wish we had that problem.
Nuno Feb 16th 2007 6:09PM
Yeah, my friends and I have trouble finding warrior tanks even for 5-man groups. Tanking usually falls to our Druid. If he's missing we have to fall back on a Paladin alt (at the expense of a priest main) or *gasp* pet tanking!
Flit Feb 16th 2007 2:05PM
I just don't have fun playing a warr alone. Maybe you guys should go run around with your tanks to help them level faster. Man is it annoying to sit and hack away at a mob as a war.
Deusirae Feb 16th 2007 5:30PM
My buddy switched to a Hunter because life as a Warrior was no longer a life worth living. He only plans on playing him again if Blizzard fixes them. The idea that you have to wait until 70 before you become a viable member of the team is pointless and not accurate (since you need to be 70 AND well-geared). I don't blame him. I am playing my Paladin again, and between his pet and myself, we don't ever lose aggro and have leveled very quickly. Hunter/Pally made a much better team than I expected. I still miss him using the old Warrior though...
James Feb 16th 2007 3:51PM
I was the main Tank for two guilds before BC now I switched to DPS build to level to 70. I still tank for most of the elite quests,I must say much better then our "tanking" druid. I don't know maybe he doesn't know how to play but the priests hate him tanking. Anyway, for a protec spec warrior the lvling grind can be slow. Way to slow for me and I'm really liking the arms 2Hand DPS I can deal, I may not switch back soon....
Bill Feb 16th 2007 2:16PM
We don't have a shortage of protection spec tanks in our guild. In fact, we have too many in my opinion. The number we have is fine for while the guild is concentrating on the 5 man instances (we have at least 4 or 5 prot spec tanks), but once we start raiding places like Karazahn there will be a big problem. A 10 man instance...where only one or two of the 5 prot spec tanks that WANT to go can be in the raid.... We are quickly going to get into a situation of "haves" and "have nots" where the prot spec warriors who get into the first several runs are going to out gear the other several prot. tanks...the rich get richer...
With regard to leveling, I leveled very quickly as a fury Dual Wield warrior. I loved that build, but it became OBVIOUS to me that in the harder 5 man instances (arcatraz for example) that I needed to be protection spec to MT. I COULD MT as fury, but the amount of healing needed to keep me up was prohibitive. We found that we had to bring 2 healers to keep me up...and in our guild...
...we have a severe shortage of lvl 70 healers. we have only 2 lvl 70 priests...several of our druids have gone feral, and only one shaman who is resto...
About half the time we have 4 people in a group looking for a healer for an instance. This problem has only gotten worse because the several lvl 70 healers we DO have are overused to the point where they are tired of running the same instances to get everyone keyed to heroic or Karazahn. They've started doing Karazahn runs with other guilds...making them unavailable for OUR runs.
Argh. Where are all the Priests and resto Druids when you need them!
deviationer Feb 16th 2007 2:16PM
pre-BC I was one of our guilds MT's. There was 2 of us who the entire guild counted on most of the time and I was one of them.
Now with BC I have not done a single new instance and I'm only lvl 64. Almost 65. Lvling slowly because of real life things. Plus since I use to do a lot of raiding I'd rather just enjoy the quests and than pound out 5 mans over and over because I'm a good tank who knows my shit.
I have switched from 41 prot to Arms+Fury to lvling.
The only thing I find that sucks is not much non-instance blue gear and weapons, limited selection of 2H'ers ,and even dual-weilding is kinda meh now.
When I was prot I use to dual-weild Eskhandar's Right Claw and The Lobotomizer with dual crusader for DPS/farming.
hostile Feb 16th 2007 3:57PM
I should have added that I was full prot up to BC but changed to Arms for the grind to 70. Man...I love being 2h Arms, it makes questing so much easier.