Cataclysm tanking changes expanded
by Matthew Rossi 
Oct 29th 2010 at 1:00PM
Zarhym - Re: Upcoming Tanking ChangesHere are a few additional changes we are making which will be applied in patch 4.0.3a:
- Guardian of Ancient Kings -- Damage reduction changed from 60% to 50%. Cooldown still 2 minutes (talented). Duration still 12 seconds.
- Icebound Fortitude -- Damage reduction changed from 30% to 20% (or 60% to 50% talented). Cooldown still 2 minutes. Duration still 12 seconds.
- Shield Wall -- Damage reduction changed from 40% to 50%. Cooldown still 2 minutes (talented). Duration still 12 seconds.
- Glyph of Shield Wall -- Now buffs damage reduction by 10% (to 60%), but only adds 1 minute of cooldown.
- Survival Instincts -- Damage reduction changed from 60% to 50%. Cooldown reduced from 5 minutes to 2 minutes. Duration still 12 seconds.
- Bear Form -- Stamina bonus lowered from 20% to 10% and Heart of the Wild health bonus from 10% to 6%. Bear health should be close to plate tank health with this change.
- Vigilance -- No longer reduces damage by 3%, but will still reset Taunt cooldown and provide Vengeance for the warrior.
In addition to these changes, there was much expounding on the tanking design philosophy, which we will cover after that jump I hear so much about. Being a tank (and thus kind of slow mentally, according to Fox ... man, see if anyone taunts for him in Cataclysm dungeons), I need to go over these things in detail.
First off, these changes (except for the Vigilance one) all seem aimed at standardizing various tanks' "OMFG HE'S CHARGING HIS LAZORS" buttons. Everything lasts about 12 seconds, takes 2 minutes to cool down and cuts incoming damage by 50 percent. The Shield Wall glyph will allow warriors to increase that damage reduction by an additional 10 percent, but it will also increase the cooldown for 1 minute. This basically reduces the damage absorbed for everyone but warriors, who ended up with their baseline 40 percent increased -- but if I were a druid, I would be thrilled with the reduction in the Survival Instincts cooldown. A 10 percent damage reduction lost but being able to use it more than twice as often? Yes, please.
The Vigilance change makes an ability that threatened to become nearly mandatory for using on an off tank in a raid into one you'll still try and use on an off tank -- but he or she won't care, because that damage reduction benefit is gone, gone, gone. I'm starting to wonder if I'll even bother with Vigilance in my tanking build in Cataclysm.
Meanwhile, the Bear Form/Heart of the WIld changes are a pretty hefty nerf. They may be necessary to balance bears against plate tanks, but I can't imagine that any druids out there will be happy with them. Still, if all four tanks end up more or less interchangeable for the content, it means less being forced to sit for "supposedly optimal tanking class of the month," which will ultimately be a good thing. I still don't expect any druid tanks to be happy about it; I know I wouldn't be. Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer) talks more about why this was necessary in a later post quoted below.
Finally, GC went on at length about what the tanking design for Cataclysm is and how it differs or departs from Wrath of the Lich King (which I have got to stop misspelling as Wrath of the Licking). Take us away, GC.
Ghostcrawler - Re: Upcoming Tanking ChangesQ u o t e:
I'd like to point out that this hasn't been true for the entire expansion of Wrath of the Lich King.
The faster a cooldown has been available has determined its importance.
See: Heroic Beasts, Anub'arak, TLK, Sarth +3, Vezax, nearly every single tank death fight this whole expansion.
I believe you guys are just flat wrong.
I'd like to point out that this hasn't been true for the entire expansion of Wrath of the Lich King.
The faster a cooldown has been available has determined its importance.
See: Heroic Beasts, Anub'arak, TLK, Sarth +3, Vezax, nearly every single tank death fight this whole expansion.
I believe you guys are just flat wrong.
I agree it worked that way in Lich King. Tanks were often at risk of dying within 2-3 boss hits, often faster than a heal could land. In that environment anything that can prolong your life at all is very valuable, and by extension anything not related to reliably prolonging your life (parry for instance) is not attractive.
This is also something we have set out to change. I understand that you personally don't believe we will change it, and since your vision of what the world will be like is at odds with our vision, it is unsurprising that the changes we make to bring about our vision might not make sense to you.
But if healer mana doesn't matter, our whole combat design collapses. Healers won't value cheap heals. Since mana won't constrain them, overhealing will be common, so they may start devaluing crit as well. DPS specs won't value talents that help them stay alive. And the only way to challenge raids will once again be to clobber tanks so hard that any missed heals will result in tank death. It doesn't have to be this way, and in fact it wasn't this way for much of the game. We were watching the new Nefarian fights and recalling the old Nefarian fights where, in the absence of a berserk timer, the fight could really last for a long time -- maybe 20 minutes or more -- if you had a lot of deaths. The tank wasn't in much danger of RNG dying, so as long as the healers didn't run out of mana, the raid could keep the fight going nearly indefinitely.
As we said above, in the beta raid tests, druids were easy to keep alive and the other tanks were dying in two hits. That wasn't the design we were going for, so we brought the druid down to the other tank levels and adjusted the damage accordingly.
So basically, all the changes so far are aimed at helping move us toward a design that does not rely on Mimiron-style, massive damage that forces your tanks and healers to get absolutely everything right, or watch as tanks die, then the raid dies. While as a tank, I've grown used to this kind of design (à la Soul Reaper), I can't say I'll miss it very much. And I do look forward to heroics that are slightly less grueling to tank and raid groups that care less what class you tank with than whether or not you know how to generate threat and help your healers keep you alive.
We will see how it all ultimately shakes out, of course. If the changes to Bear Form and Heart of the WIld end up balancing tank health and the cooldown changes make their survivability more even, we could be entering a pretty positive phase for tanking. At any rate, we're probably entering the phase of tanking where no one taunts off of Fox until he apologizes, which should be fun for us all.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Death Knight, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 5)
Onikuma Oct 29th 2010 3:21PM
Rossi has a point with barkskin.
In regards to spell reflect not working on bosses, I havent raid tanked with warrior since BC. Is that a change new to wrath or Cata? It used to work in BC. It was fantastic on Aran and BT, and several more.
Succulent Oct 29th 2010 3:51PM
Yeah, spell reflect certainly isn't a barkskin or anti-magic shell. They could easily slap a talent addition onto that to allow for magic dmg reduction but it's not a huge worry as far as I've seen. No like, only warriors getting crushed by magic attacks.
Although magic attacks not working on any bosses isn't strictly true. It's extremely situational but it seemed pretty handy on Mimiron flying head phase. But yeah for straight out dragon breath, true.
Eros Oct 29th 2010 3:51PM
@Snuzzle the last effect was added to frenzied regeneration, which is on top of the healing effect. And you can still glyph it to increase healing done to you but it removes the healing effect.
Eros Oct 29th 2010 3:56PM
That should be "the last stand effect"
thebitterfig Oct 29th 2010 4:02PM
Basically throughout wrath, boss spell effects that matter can't be Spell Reflected. Jaraxxus's Fel Fireball, Keleseth's Shadow Lance, and the Deathwhisper's Frostbolt are all unreflectable, and it wouldn't be able to do anything against a dragon's Breath either, even if it was. Oddly, Lady Deathwhisper's Shadowbolt can be, but that's just something she tosses out in phase one randomly, so maybe you'll get a reflect if you keep SR on cooldown, but fairly unlikely.
wildebeast Oct 29th 2010 4:33PM
@Mathew Rossi - I played a Bear all through WotLK and took pride in my health pool as well as the skill it took to generate copious amounts of threat. I like being different from a warrior (read plate tank), sure I roll for weapons with hunters, cats, and the odd arms warrior, while the tank had no competition for his sheild seeing as how I was the other tank. Warriors had much more utility than bears for a long time, now bears have what I call 'warrior tools' with skulls symbols, which is nice.
The point is, the alure for me to log onto my bear is gone, no more 'o.o HOLY COW, see that bears health?? who is he?' I'm going to miss that. It sucks when all my major achivements are on the one toon that I cringe to play now, I work so hard for all the raid mounts, I practice maximizing the potential of my bear to solo alot of old game content and hone my skills all to find out after two years of shape-shifting fun to finally shift into a warrior paradigm... NO THANKS!!! I'm a druidic 'bear' more than I am a 'tank'. This homogenization is GARBAGE. I've downed the LK before and after patch 4.0 the changes are nice and all but what they aren't is bear-like. I can't throw a Brez while the other tank taunt juggles my target because that utility has been neutured, I can't roll with thorns Unless I want to die or I can convince a fellow druid to make a focus macro to apply it.
To you mathew rossi... when is my cat going to be able to dual weild? I'm guessing 4.1 at this rate but any help concerning the matter would be nice. I might just roll 'need' one handers to stockpile for when the change is implemented.
I apologize for anything seems too agressive, I'm really upset I ditched my warrior because of its play style after level 70, the druid was more 'fluid' in my personal experience. And now that play style is literally forced upon me... forced, with out cause... lower the dodge 4% i dont care, lower the armor 75% from 360% or whatever it's at, but do not take my bear form identifying health pool please!!!!
Snuzzle Oct 29th 2010 4:43PM
@Eros and @Rossi, thank you. I haven't tanked much at all since 4.0 (and I'm sure most tanks understand why), and I guess it shows.
If it's indeed true that the Last Stand effect was baked into Frenzied Regen, well that's certainly nice since most bears pushed them together anyway, but it's also a bit annoying since that's essentially one less cooldown. Honestly, I'd prefer them to be separated again so that we can choose whether or not to push them together. But I guess we can call that a wash.
As for the Spell Reflect vs Barkskin thing, I guess you can just call it tanking envy. I sure as heck miss Spell Reflect when there's one specific spell I want to avoid (ie, Spell Flinger's Shadow Blast) but Barkskin is nice for when I want to take the edge off of constant damage. It does seem a little unbalanced, now, because Barkskin used to be like a mini Shield Wall, but now we have full-on Shield Wall in addition to the mini.
Honestly, I'd rather have seen Barkskin changed into full-blown Shield Wall (in the form of a deep feral talent to increase the damage reduction to 50%, and increase the cooldown to 2 minutes), Surv Instincts left alone, and Frenzied Regen left alone. Right now if their goal is relative cooldown equality, they're going about it in a weird way.
But that's just one bear's opinion.
kworry Oct 29th 2010 4:51PM
@Matthew Rossi
I may be mistaken, but don't you get a flat 10% reduction to ALL damage just from being in Defensive Stance?
This isn't supposed to be confrontational as I don't think Bears OR Warriors have it very good when it comes to magic mitigation, but still, 10% reduction to all magic damage all of the time seems better than 20% reduction 12% of the time.
Killik Oct 29th 2010 5:13PM
@kworry Bears have Natural Reaction, which is slightly better than Defensive Stance
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=57880
Onikuma Oct 29th 2010 7:31PM
As it boils down, Warriors and Druids both suffer heavily from magic damage. Perhaps Barkskin is better than spell reflect. Back in the day, you kept SR on CD just during boss fights for threat and survivability. I suppose it has been nerfed to be less than barkskin.
I have to agree that they should have made barkskin into "Bear Wall". The lacerate proccing Savage Defense is OP and so that is justified. I still think that bears should have high HP and warriors should go back to reflecting many spells (maybe not all) instead of a few.
Perhaps instead of druids having 20-50% more health than their plated counter parts, they could have 10-20% more health. That will be how they deal with magic damage. It would not be fully "in line with other tanks" but it would still leave the meat shield flavor of druids somewhat intact.
Evelinda Oct 30th 2010 9:58AM
Touche, Mr Rossi... Touche.
Sterb Oct 30th 2010 9:12PM
Yeah, I know it's in the second tier of Resto. Bears are still fine Wrath, they'll be fine for regular dungeons (you're delusional if you think that talent matters for regular 5 mans), and they'll be able to take it for raids (if they need anything beyond Barkskin and Survival Instincts).
I'd really love a breakdown as to why bears are so much worse off than any of the other tanking classes (other than DKs who simply have a plethora of cooldowns, but are lacking in other areas).
Cheeselandman Oct 29th 2010 1:25PM
I'd look forward to this system, only I feel like one of the things that was good about wotlk, and is worth mentioning, is the variation between the different classes. True, some tanks were more valuable than others at different times, but I feel like all the tanks played differently in Wrath. Each tank had a different skill set, and while sometimes it meant off-tanking instead of main-tanking, it was unique to be a warrior, paladin, death knight, or druid. Now, I feel the play styles are much the same. I'm not sure about DK's, because I don't play one, but druids and paladins and warriors all have a "shield slam" sort of ability, something which stacks to 3 and then does massive threat/aggro, and now, the same sort of cooldowns.
I don't play in the Beta, nor on the PTR, so I'm soley basing my experience on what my friend druid/paladins have told me, and my own experience as a warrior tank through Ulduar/ToC/ICC. I suppose my issue is this: all the tanks play similarly now, which raises the question, why pick a druid over a warrior? Or a paladin over a druid? Sure, their survivability is now standardized, but that brings dps to question- especially in an environment where healers will run out of mana. A shorter boss fight means less heals. Now again, I dont play on the PTR or Beta, but currently, my paladin friend can pull up to 10k on fights like festergut in ICC, and 6-7k dps on everything else. At the moment, this is more than some hunters can manage. So, though all tanks now play the same, won't there be a disposition to get that one tank that does 2-3k more dps than any of the others?
Saeadame Oct 29th 2010 1:38PM
On the choosing which class: I think people will, as always, pick classes due to things they like. If they want a tanking class, they have a choice of two classes that can also be damage dealers or healers, and two classes that can also choose between two damage dealing specs. I think that now, instead of people having to choose the flavour-of-the-month 'best' tanking class so they are highly desirable in raids, people will be able to just choose what class they like best, and for me, that's a good thing.
Cheeselandman Oct 29th 2010 3:26PM
But thats just it. If all the tanking classes play the same, tank in the same way, why should you pick a druid over a warrior? Or a death knight over a paladin?
Bapo Oct 29th 2010 7:18PM
@Cheese,
Like Saeadame said, it's because they want to play that class / find it interesting / lore reasons w/e.
Also, you can't really use Fester as an example for tank dps vs an actual dps'r, just because of the bloated de/buff.
Jabadabadana Oct 29th 2010 7:53PM
As a warrior tank I pull 10k+ on festergut. It's dependent on the fact that I tank him first, and we down the boss so fast that I spend almost no time with low stacks, and I get all the ToT boosts at the fight start. I don't see your damage difference to that scale. Sure, a pally can do 500-800 dps more than me, while I still pull better threat; but when we're talking about the health pools of high end raiding, or the cata environment, I doubt that will be significant to anyone. And tbph, anybody that needs a tank to do 500 more dps to kill a boss, is probably too underpowered for the fight anyway.
silvernoise Oct 31st 2010 10:21PM
what they are going for, is the player, and not the class. its not, "pick bob, hes a pally, not jack since hes a bear"; its, "pick bob, he is a good player, not jack, hes pretty fail"
AltairAntares Oct 29th 2010 1:25PM
Yeah, but "bear"wall having only a 2 minute CD is a huge benefit imo- it makes it so that tanks will be much more willing to use it, which will really help conserve healer mana imo.
AltairAntares Oct 29th 2010 1:26PM
Sigh- Yay fail comment system. Supposed to be a response to Onikuma...