Ghostcrawler explains tanking with a vengeance
by Mathew McCurley 
Dec 1st 2010 at 8:00PM
Ghostcrawler admits that as with all new mechanics, there is much tweaking still to happen to Vengeance. He explains that the ability has been implemented to give tanks the tools needed to retain threat, but not do the job for them.
One interesting point that Ghostcrawler makes is that Blizzard and the designers strive for a healthy balance between the mechanics making tanking possible and players' ability to successfully hold threat. All in all, this is a great post, and I hope for much more from Ghostcrawler like this. I love the systems design posts and rationales behind gameplay design, especially when it covers my role of choice. Check out the whole article on the new community blog.
And, Mr. Street, as for that dinosaur -- screenshots or it didn't happen.
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: Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Wellsee Dec 1st 2010 8:13PM
The way I read it, vengeance will help for hard, new content (rawr, big boss hit harder) but will be a drawback when doing older content - like heroics once we outgear them. When we go back to do a heroic to get our gear points, the DPSers will be gunning extra hot but the tank will be avoiding and mitigating more, thereby reducing vengeance. It seems weird to me that the tanking mechanic will make tanking older, easier content harder. Well... at least, it won't help, which is almost like making it harder.
ScytheNoire Dec 1st 2010 8:43PM
One of the problems. If needs to scale with all the avoidance and mitigation, not just damage taken. That's it's biggest problem. Of course, when you do that, it's way overpowered. They need to turn it into a threat generation stat, not damage.
Discolando Dec 1st 2010 9:30PM
If what you're describing means that old content remains interesting (read: something players can't sleepwalk through like current Wrath heroics) because tanks need to do the threat dance then I'm all for it.
devilsei Dec 1st 2010 9:29PM
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that a major tank issue back in The Burning Crusade...? You were fine, but the second you outgeared a heroic, for instance, you ended up having to take the gear off so mobs would actually hit and damage you, otherwise your threat generation was gimped.
scherbaddie Dec 1st 2010 10:28PM
Hurr. It doesn't scale with damage taken, it scales with tank health ("This bonus can’t exceed 10% of her health."). Later tier tanks have more health (as this is one of the things they focus on with their gear), so they get more AP from vengeance - in effect making stamina a dps/threat stat for the tank.
N-train Dec 1st 2010 10:35PM
No one is considering that vengeance is supposed to help you when you're forced to gear for survival when dps gets higher. I think the assumption is that most tanks will start putting threat/dps gear in overgeared heroics, which somewhat alleviates the issue we're talking about. You won't need the extra boost to threat cause you'll be doing it purely by damage.
What I do see being an issue however, is the fact that you'll be taking more damage because you're in threat gear, therefore giving you vengeance dmg that you might not really need if you can hold threat through dps alone anyway. I assume that the decrease in HP (therefore a decrease in the vengeance cap) is supposed to offset this.
It's late so I may be completely misunderstanding the whole process, but that's the way I see it.
Sleutel Dec 1st 2010 10:41PM
scherbaddie:
Saying that Vengeance "scales" with damage taken isn't entirely accurate, but it isn't 100% wrong. The more damage you're taking, the faster Vengeance will stack, so in that sense, it does scale with damage. What scales with your HP is the cap on how much AP you get from the buff.
Really, I'm not happy with the way Vengeance is working right now. At the beginning of a pull, I'm putting out way too little threat; as soon as Vengeance starts stacking, I'm putting out so much that I don't even have to work to stay ahead of the DPS. Mid-fight threat has never been a problem; it's always snap aggro at the beginning of an encounter. And that's exactly what Vengeance does nothing for.
scherbaddie Dec 2nd 2010 2:12AM
You're misunderstanding the purpose of vengeance. If you read the blog post, it is stated that vengeance is meant to help mid-fight threat, not give you insta-threat on the pull. Keeping that in mind, you seem to be saying that it works too well and needs a nerf.
This is also the reason I say it scales with HP rather than damage taken. It doesn't matter how fast it stacks, as it will always be up within a reasonable time ("shouldn’t need Vengeance in the first six seconds"). What matters is the final AP bonus you will be getting for the sustained portion of the fight (the part of the fight vengeance was designed to help with).
Surtur Dec 2nd 2010 10:07AM
@Wellsee
"older content - like heroics once we outgear them." I think what you might be missing here is that Mobs die so fast once you outgear the 5 mans that you truly only need to hold the mob for 10 seconds or less anyway. As a Warrior Tank I get initial aggro and focus my threat on the melee mobs in the group (since they generally kill DPSers once they grab aggro), if I lose aggro on something long before its going to die then i will just stun the mobs and by the end of the stun they are generally dead. I think it is a very far stretch to think that tanking older content will be hard in any fashion.
@Sluetel
If you are having trouble with initial aggro then your raid buddies are most likely popping all cool downs right off the bat and your rogue or hunter buddies are not starting the fight off with tricks or misdirect as they should be. Or you have some of the highest DPS friends around. If you are talking about 5 man threat on the other hand then the DPS need to wait until you at least get some kind of an attack on the group of mobs, as prox aggro obviously is not going to hold aggro. I am of the sound mind that if at the start of a fight if I see an attack fly past me while I am trying to get to the mobs that person can tank the guy he hits. At that point it is between them and the healer.
@Everyone
This mechanic is fantastic and even if they need to tweak it here and there as we go this mechanic will balance threat issues in the game.
For those concerned about how it will be over powered in PVP you need to think about how it works. The tank must be taking consistant damage for it to stack and not fall off, and I know that when I am taking damage on my tank I die long before Vengeance stacks up to make a difference, if I am not getting heals. If the tank is getting enough Vengeance in PVP to start doing enough damage to cause you problems then you need to go kill the healer allowing this to happen.
Go GC!
Mayhew Dec 2nd 2010 12:50PM
The way that tanking talents work now, with baked-in crit reduction, I really think that this is much less of a problem than it used to be. If your tank gear gets so good that you are avoiding too much, then there is no reason why you can't just start swapping out tanking pieces for dps pieces. I tank heroics now in full dps gear (but with a sword n' board), and I have very few rage issues. I also rarely have any threat issues, since I'm usually top dps and top dmg done, and therefore have three times as much threat as anyone else.
So avoidance is only as much of a problem as you wish to make it, unless for some reason you are not collecting any dps gear.
Sleutel Dec 2nd 2010 7:52PM
@scherbaddie:
They changed a lot about threat to build it around Vengeance. If threat generation at 0 stacks were the same as it was before Vengeance, we would be completely overpowered once the buff started stacking. Accordingly, we're underpowered early in a pull and overpowered once we start getting thousands of extra AP. I don't think the ability needs a nerf so much as a redesign. Something that starts out with more stacks and then tapers off, for example.
@Surtur:
I'm a hardcore raider; I understand how these mechanics work. We are using MDs and Tricks. My point is that 8k or 9k TPS is very, very low compared to what DPS put out with their normal rotation. Once Vengeance starts stacking, it's not a problem, but early in pulls it can often be a close thing. It's also very noticeable on trash, especially in combination with reduced AOE aggro. And yes, I am up against very good DPS--having formed just this year and raiding only three nights a week, we're top 200 US and looking to push higher in Cata.
Elmouth Dec 2nd 2010 9:11PM
So like the rest of the community blog entries its nothing new and hardly worth covering...
Angus Dec 1st 2010 8:17PM
I remember replenishment was meant to help healers in LK not go OOM too fast. They had tried to curb the healing then too.
So why are they trying a "1size fits all" mechanic again when they couldn't get the last one right for an entire expansion?
Vengeance could have been avoided by making all the plate tanks gain DPS (ie threat) stats from tanking gear. Charsi has an idea on the forums, but I don't think she went far enough.
Want tanks to nit be beat in threat? Have them have an OT ability that let's them gain resources when not hit and a system where being attacked makes them do more damage in PVE only.
Tanks at 75% of the DPS of the real Damage Dealers should be the norm through gear an talents supporting good tanks. Not some poor mechanic that is a nightmare to scale abilities with.
lilywillylover Dec 1st 2010 8:25PM
Who says Replenishment was just for healers? It was meant for all mana users.
And also, gear inflation in Wrath was ridiculous but that won't happen in Cataclysm since 10 and 25-man will share loot tables.
Angus Dec 1st 2010 10:05PM
As a person with a shaman whose off-set was ilevel 200-219 gear mostly, I can tell you gear inflation was unimportant. Shaman in Ulduar 25 gear didn't care about mana anymore.
I don't think they'll be able to balance vengeance. You have to balance a bunch of skills around it or they are too good with it. So that WoG that is utterly pathetic when you are not the main tank? It's okay as a main tank. Otherwise it is beyond OP as the main tank.
That design principle never works.
scherbaddie Dec 1st 2010 10:35PM
"making all the plate tanks gain DPS (ie threat) stats from tanking gear"
Tanking gear has increased stamina.
Stamina gives you more HP.
If you have more HP you get more AP from vengeance.
AP is a DPS (ie threat) stat.
Bears don't wear plate.
"Want tanks to not be beat in threat? Have them have... a system where being attacked makes them do more damage in PVE only."
You mean like vengeance?
Angus Dec 1st 2010 11:25PM
Scher: vengeance is a DPS monster.
It doesn't give you threat stats from armor, it gives you a stupidly large AP boost.
When a tank is outdoing the pure classes for DPS because he is eating damage a lot, it is a broken system.
When you HAD a way to may a tank's stuff scale with their stats but now you have to change those things because if they have vengeance stacked they can alter how the fight works with self healing, damage absorbing or some other mechanic it isn't scaling.
Bears already get threat stats on their gear. Wearing rogue leather isn't a problem for them.
They get more rage from crits and haste so with some tweaks they could be easily made to do comparable to plate tanks for this.
Finally, vengeance works in PVP and they made it ramp up like that partially to avoid it being too good in PVP. So no, not like vengeance. The ability needs to be locked out of organized PVP so it can work well and not get a massive nerf from the QQ that would happen.
scherbaddie Dec 2nd 2010 2:31AM
A stupidly large AP boost is a threat stat (from your armor!). Vengeance is meant to make tank threat scale off tank oriented gear, hopefully as well as dps threat scales off dps oriented gear. What people seem to be saying is that it's currently working too well (too much extra damage/threat).
If what you're saying about bears was true, in late WotLK bears would have either a) been the preferred tank as their threat would've gone much higher than plate tanks & in turn allowed higher dps & shorter fights; or b) been completely forgotten about as their survivability would've lagged behind due to all the "threat stats" on their gear.
I agree with your point that vengeance has been designed not to be good in PvP. Everything you said you wanted in your original post (threat stats from tank gear, pve only damage boost) is exactly what vengeance already is.
Maybe the solution is to have vengeance give the same +threat bonus to each attack it already gives now, without actually dealing any extra damage.
SR Dec 2nd 2010 3:30AM
Um... Since when was a decent tank beating a decent Damage Dealer's DPS? From what I see, I'm still nearly at the bottom of the DPS chart, and I still don't have issues in holding threat...
I think you're just paranoid.
Angus Dec 2nd 2010 8:00AM
My entire point on this is that vengeance is a hammer.
It isn't precise, it doesn't really scale correctly.
So what has happened is that bears have had their armor dodge and health dramatically altered to not make it too good for them, avoidance stats are discouraged, and tools the tanks had that would have scaled with AP are now too good with vengeance.
And they keep hammering at it instead of looking for a good alternative.
They did this with replenishment. Instead of just getting rid of it because it was too good they kept trying to balance all the classes around it, and it wasn't working.
A hammer is great at doing one thing. Vengeance will be the same, it will be great at one thing. The problem is, tanks have other tools and vengeance is going to break them because they need other kinds of tools and the devs applied a hammer to them.
WoG has been hit hard. Without Vengeance propping it up, it is a waste of a GCD. I have seen this first hand. Shor/Shield Bash, savage defense, etc... they all were designed to scale off of gear so the more AP you had, the better they were. Vengeance added to the mix completely threw them out of synch.
The tool itself has a major issue in that once you build a threat lead, there is no worrying about threat at all. No one will creep up, ever. Because at max stacks it makes your TPS way beyond what it needs to be. You can go afk and not care at that point. It isn't precise, it isn't doing what they want, it is screwing up other abilities. They got tons of feedback saying precisely this in the beta and they stuck to their guns instead of backing off and saying "well, it couldn't be balanced, it gets to sit next to spirit link and wait in the corner until we can get it right"