Breakfast Topic: Is adding a tank class solving the tank shortage?
by Dan O'Halloran 
Oct 23rd 2007 at 8:00AM
Blizzard stated that one of the reasons they choose the Death Knight as the first Hero Class to introduce to the game was to address the shortage of tanks. But with Warriors, Paladins and Druids already fulfilling the tanking role, is it really a lack of choices?Or is it the lack of fun of being a tank. No one wants to be low on the dps, but that's often a trade off tanks (and healers) must make to do their job protecting their teammates. How is the Death Knight going to address that? And should it?
What is fun about being a tank and how can Blizzard make it more enjoyable?
Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Jeni Oct 23rd 2007 8:09AM
Wait...what? There's shortage? >.> I wish that was true in my guild!! There's 7 of us, all main tanks. As you can imagine, we don't all always get to raid. There's always rotations because of that. Sigh. No more tanks!
jmet Oct 23rd 2007 8:10AM
Having a 70 priest and a 70 warrior I think the lack of healing and or tank's also has allot to do with the higher pressure and difficulty of playing said classes.
People are lazy by nature and tanking quite frankly is more difficult all around then standing back and going pew pew.
Ghen Oct 23rd 2007 8:10AM
As a tank lover through and through the best part about being a tank is being greedy. All the loose monsters belong to ME! HAHA and your uber-epeen-firemage-dps can't take it away!
Plus the charge in and forget about taking names strategy works really well ;)
I could care less that I don't produce big numbers. Keeping all the mobs on me is fun, takes way more skill than just pushing a /castsequence macro, and in high demand so I get groups quickly.
nativebrown Oct 23rd 2007 8:24AM
i got sick of tanking due to the stress. its so much easier and more relaxing to just hang out in the back stacking up DoTs.
i'm getting back into it now but the stress was part of the reason i stopped enjoying it as much as i did early on.
Dolan Oct 23rd 2007 8:20AM
I think the lack of tanks and healers reflects Blizzard's failure to really explain the grouping dynamic and encourage instance runs by newbies and during leveling. When you sign up for the game the first time, the easiest and only really understandable content is solo content, and so players are drawn to the DPS classes because they are plainly good at soloing. Even those who initially roll warriors or priests probably get frustrated pretty quickly.
If Blizzard did a better job of directing players into groups and into instances, I think new players would:
a) more quickly realize that healing, tanking and cc are actually much more interesting in group situations
b) be able to level those characters faster through more important and easier to find instances
c) figure this out before they've invested months getting their night elf hunter to 70
So, if this is generally true, than yes, there may be DPS class players out there that would like to tank, but don't want to level another alt--DK is a faster way to do that. So it would work to get more tanks not because it is a "different" tanking class, but because it is more accessible to players who already have a high level DPS character.
Making it much easier to level ANY class once you have one to the cap would probably have solved this issue as well, of course. Say, for every char you level to the cap, you can level another at 300% the normal rate.
Fatsobob Oct 23rd 2007 8:20AM
No, it wont solve anything. They need to fix the problem to begin with and make warriors more fun to play as tanks. I am one of a handful of non guilded tanks on my server that runs anything so I am constantly getting tells for this and that.
Arnold Oct 23rd 2007 8:21AM
As a tank when I miss a mob or let the dps pull aggro, we can wipe.
As a healer when I miss a heal, or pull aggro, we can wipe.
Its more stressful.
But occasionally more fun.
Gorganzola Oct 23rd 2007 8:22AM
I'D love the ability to solo with my tank. or maybe even pvp a little.
But all that means respecs and if im not in a raid my kit currently overgears me for normal instances - heroic groups are hard to find.
So i just end up leveling another alt.
orin Oct 23rd 2007 8:24AM
I personally much prefer being a tank or main healer class. That was a big reason I re-rolled Druid two years ago. I was able to MT and MH with a hybrid spec up until I started doing heroics. At that time I went full Resto and am now working into Hyjal with my guild as one of our few long-time main healers.
Though I do miss being a tank, and re-speccing every day is not something I want to do. So now I have a young warrior that I am leveling, though it's a slow process.
I also rolled a Hunter to 70, but mostly to act as a farming character while my Druid is specced as a healer due to the inability to actually kill things with efficiency...
IKoNN Oct 23rd 2007 8:29AM
I can almost guarantee that more of them will be DPS specced for PvP/PvE then for tanking.
skalgrim Oct 23rd 2007 8:32AM
I think one of the big reasons people dont want to be "low on the dps" is because blogs like this insist on reinforcing that crap viewpoint!
Seriously, there are many people who are happy to tank or heal - and I'm one of them - because it's about getting the job done, not having the biggest in a penis comparison competition.
DPS should always remember that DPS is easily replaced.
idburns Oct 23rd 2007 8:35AM
I played a warrior for the first two and half years that I played WoW. For almost two years I MT'd for my guild through MC, BWL and AQ. When BC dropped I had a 60 warrior, 60 hunter and 60 druid. When I got my warrior to 70 and tanked a few times in Karazhan I realized that I was finally burned out on tanking. When I got my hunter to 70 I switched mains and now I sit back and pew pew all day. But I've started getting bored with my hunter now...there just isn't any challenge there. I'm consistently in the top 3 on our damage meters in 95% of our encounters and I don't even break the proverbial sweat. My druid is now 68 and I gotta say, Boomkins are fun, but I'm mainly leveling him to whip up pots.
I still tank the occasional heroic or alt-Kara and to be honest I'm starting to feel that fire again but we have quite a few good tanks already, and by now my warrior is horribly under-geared in comparison, so there really isn't room for me to tank anymore. Oh well, as they say...less qq more pewpew.
DaddySpaz Oct 23rd 2007 8:34AM
It may solve the tank shortage but that doesnt solve the problem of Deathknights being stupid and unoriginal.
Matt Oct 23rd 2007 8:38AM
As it is, we're turning away prot warriors. WTB moar ranged DPS, thx. And competent DPS, not lol i r huntard, i shoot thingz.
Vestras Oct 23rd 2007 8:40AM
My server has a massive tank defecit for pugs, although most raiding guild are well set. The death knight's help/hurt factor will depend one whether DK tanking is simply more fun or easier than say bear or warrior tanking. If their tanking style lends itself to a more dynamic system, then yea, more tanks will pop up. but if the DPS side is more developd and entertaining, then we just end up with yet anoter DPS surge. Of course, depending how DK's talent tree(s) work out, they might have an easier time switching from tank to DPS w/o the cost of a respec.
Aaron Oct 23rd 2007 8:40AM
There's only an apparent tank shortage because its stressful to tank in 5mans with players you don't know and have no clue about game mechanics. Those certain kind of noobs/retards think its funny to aggro mobs all over the place, and it's not fun for us at all:p This is why today we find trade channel or such spammed with LF tank for last spot etc, and most of the times these groups never go ahead and just disband. Guild-wise there's no shortage of tanks at all, they just avoid pugging :)
java Oct 23rd 2007 8:50AM
my first 2 toons were dps'ers 70 rogue / 70 mage, I've got a warrior Im trying to level but its hard as hell to level, gotta spec one way to solo and another to do instances... it would be nicer if warriors got a discount on the respec due to how incredibly gimpy the prot spec is out there leveling... considering how much our repair bills for tanks are compared to the rest of the raiders I think it would be a fair trade...
Kaylek Oct 23rd 2007 8:54AM
If you want more tanks, drop the respec cost dramatically (full cost reset on Tuesday, for example) or entirely.
Don't discourage people from being versatile, encourage people to min-max their spec right down to the point for every need. The cost can be in place to prevent excessive respeccing in a single day, but a player should be able to arena one night and main tank the next without breaking bank constantly to do it.
outlaw Oct 23rd 2007 9:14AM
I think it's all about utility
In a raid we excel but once you get Tier 5 and 6 kit heroics and normal instances are off the cards due to no rage spam :( we also saw this pre tbc.
Trying to do anything outside an instance just takes far too long (no rage, no dps), Yes we can kill things but it's just not worth the silly amount of time to do so when you see other people ripping though stuff in their raid specs.
Aside to that tanking is hard work most of the time and many inexperienced dps types don’t fully understand the mechanics of it all which does nothing to help when they want a tank again.
I think overall there are plenty of warriors about, plenty of paladins and Druids who are all capable of tanking giving us another class will do nothing to change this situation because they are introducing another dps tank class. Dps will always be chosen over a tanking role (by many not all), the only option is to up the damage for tanks and more people will be inclined to spec that way (the idea would be to give additional utility to a much needed role), druids are the exception here as they can do both very well.
Just some random babble there but you get the idea.
Kayleeh Oct 23rd 2007 9:34AM
I believe it is the stress of being MH or MT that causes people to avoid those classes. I have a Level 70 hunter and Priest and before BC used to love healing instances and doing the raids like Ony and MC but after BC the stress is to much.
I find myself wanting to hang in the back and pewpew. To many non-healing/tanking classes try giving tips on how they view healing/tanking should be done, yet have no healer/tank to back up said tip. :/
DPS in its self is just to fun, why save a life when you can take it? ;) It's why I respec'd to shadow.