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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsGhostcrawler 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 3 of 3)
Breska Dec 2nd 2010 7:59AM
GC says: "If a lucky dodge streak causes Vengeance to fall off, and that means that you can’t generate enough threat, then either our numbers aren’t tuned correctly, or you need to L2tank."
Yeah, I'm sure random heroics are really going to believe my paladin saying "Looks like Vengeance isn't tuned correctly" before they kick her and find a different tank.
I'm skeptical.
Imnick Dec 2nd 2010 8:58AM
Surely every tank would have the same problem and finding a new one wouldn't help?
So eventually yes, they'd learn from experience that you were right and would listen.
Breska Dec 2nd 2010 9:34AM
It's kinda like the whole "you MUST use crowd control" thing.
On the one hand, hopefully people will learn2group, yes. But I'm generally a pessimist, so:
1. those first few weeks/months are going to suck a lot, and a lot of potentially good people may be turned off if they don't have good guild support;
2. people will stumble for a while until they outgear a given tier of content and they'll start to say "Oh, I can do this just like Wrath" again.
Sigh. :)
Nicks87 Dec 2nd 2010 8:48AM
My problem with Ghostcrawler is that he always acts like everything is the players fault and that the developers are working soooooo hard to make the game more enjoyable but us ungrateful PAYING customers are the reason WoW has so many balance issues.
Gimme a break, Ghostcrawler, WoW would be alot better without your snarky, elitist attitude.
Blizz should've fired him a long time ago and hired someone who can relate to WoW players and better use their input to improve the game.
Imnick Dec 2nd 2010 8:59AM
I didn't personally see any of that in his post, if he was acting like that I'd think he wouldn't bother answering community questions at all.
noel mcleod Dec 2nd 2010 9:02AM
I have led a team of professional IT developers (and still do, actulally). You are a typical modern user - whining, spoiled and ungrateful. It wouldn't surprise me if you are 20-something, drive a tuner and have a dead-end job. The WoW team does an awesome job and they clearly do it because they love the game and the player community. (Most devs work because they love the work, it's something that management rarely understands).
Go play one of the free games - I'll cover the shortfall of your paltry $15 a month. WoW is an incredibly complicated and difficult piece of work. The devs in general and GC in particular do a superlative job and this kind of crap should be voted into oblivion as quickly as possible.
Jason Ralph Dec 2nd 2010 9:52AM
I never have made an alt until recently. No offense, I just love my Holy Paladin (still haven't dual specced). When Tauren were given the ability to become them, I made a Protection Paladin. Don't get me wrong, at level 18 there's some specs I cringe when seeing cuz keeping aggro sucks my @$$ as they blow by it like CHP chasing someone on the I5 (in Los Angeles, CA) (looking at you Ret Pallies and Furry Belf Elf Warriors). But overall, I'm liking it. I've got a lot of help on this site (and some on Blizzard's official site) but I very well could find my Holy Paladin collecting dust. I'm hooked. Only thing I want changed is the ability for my healer to see my Holy Powah bar so they know if I have a big heal for myself or not (as that's the only thing I can use Holy Powah on yet). Aside from that, it's fun (but damn I cringe when I see Rets and Furry Warriors in my party). Lol
Sondre Dec 2nd 2010 11:54AM
I cringe at furry elf warriors too!
Branden Dec 2nd 2010 1:53PM
I really don't notice vengence at all then again my Tauren war is only lvl 52. The only time I really noticed Vengence in the Service Entrance of Strat when some idiot would pull the boss and like 12 other mobs. But threat is such a joke in the 1-60 content. I go afk all the time tanking lol
Anafielle Dec 2nd 2010 1:15PM
I was pretty excited to get (another) response to my Vengeance whining. I don't want to get all full of myself -- it could have been referencing another, female tank, who has not let the question of Vengeance drop -- but I have a distinct feeling it's a response to... me :D
My response, which I posted on his blog, is also located here: http://rhida.ch/2010/12/01/vengeance-part-iii-ghostcrawler-responds/
Anafielle Dec 2nd 2010 1:16PM
Here is the text of my response to GC --
Missing The Mark
As (maybe) the tank referenced in this post – since I’m the one who berated the devs about Vengeance at Blizzcon – I’m pleased to see a response. :)
Unfortunately, it’s not the response we need.
For reference, please see Meloree’s post on the subject here: http://rhida.ch/2010/11/18/it-burns-how-i-learned-to-love-the-fire/ … he laid out the concerns better than I could, and from the perspective of a main tank in a US top 100 guild. I am an 11/12 HM 25 raider, and I and my cotank have noticed the same things although to a lesser extent. Problems are always clearer at the extremes.
I think you’ve missed our concerns a bit here.
Tanking Is Fun!
No need to be so defensive! We love tanking! Tanking has never been about the rotation. Tanking is about the role you play in the raid. If we think it’s fun, we tank. If we don’t, we don’t. I don’t think anyone is arguing that tanking isn’t fun — I certainly am not! I hope no one is doing that.
I guess we complain. Well, I will moan about boring 93939, and I will moan about Vengeance, because they are concerns and because the devs will listen. Also, because it’s part of the contract I signed when I became a paladin that I would QQ about everything. I’m required to QQ about something at length at least once a day.
The Need for Vengeance: We Agree!
I think you’re not giving the community enough credit. I like the idea of Vengeance and I agree with every reason why it should exist. I, at least, appreciate all the concerns raised by the devs, and I don’t need anyone to tell me why they think threat should be hard – I also liked the Misdirection / Tricks change, because I hated fake threat. I, at least, want it to be a challenge. Witness how the tanking community responded to the threat problem in this tier. We geared for threat on farm fights. We like the threat game.
The problem WITH Vengeance, is not that it exists, but how it works.
A stacking buff that is based on the damage we take has very un-tank-like implications.
Vengeance can contribute 150% of a tank’s natural AP. That’s a pretty absurd amount of threat generation dependent on your damage intake and avoidance. Unfortunately, higher avoidance = less Vengeance.
What this means: The first twenty seconds of a fight can look wildly, wildly different depending on if the tank gets an avoidance streak or not. For a ranked progression guild, this is enough of a problem to wipe it if the tank gets a bad avoidance streak at the start. Is this the spirit of Vengeance? No, I know, it’s not. Will it happen? Oh, yes, all the time. It’s already happening.
I don’t like my avoidance harming my threat generation. I don’t like standing in fire to do more threat. I don’t like being even more inclined to put on Strength gemmed gear, and ret gear, in old content – because it gets Vengeance stacked, and in WOTLK old content, I absolutely need it. Vengeance was supposed to solve this problem – taking off tank gear for old content – and instead it has made it worse.
I do appreciate the big numbers, though.
Not Seeing the Logic
I’m just not seeing the logic behind making Vengeance dependent on precisely what the tank is gearing to avoid. All this does is penalize tanks, threat wise, for doing tank like things, and reward us for doing un-tank-like things. Sure, this is an exaggeration… but that doesn’t make it any less true. I feel like the design is weird, and un-tank-like.
Even if the design is just The Way Things Are Meant To Be, the numbers right now are way off. 150% of a tank’s natural AP is far, far too high a number and makes for huge swings of RNG depending on how your avoidance works out.
Don’t get me wrong – I love the threat game. I love looking for a balance between threat and survivability. I love playing with my gear. But I don’t like my threat being inherently tied to my avoidance. I know in Cata, we won’t be seeing these ridiculous avoidance numbers, but the mechanic remains, and I still don’t like the logic.
Anafielle Dec 2nd 2010 1:36PM
Comments like these are the reason why I don't like to read the Wow Insider comments.
It makes me disgusted to be a wow player who criticises this game, in case I am lumped in with this sort of person.
I have berated the devs about Vengeance. I have bitched and moaned about it for pages and pages. I found Ghostcrawler THREE SEPARATE TIMES at Blizzcon to whine about Vengeance - once at the Q&A and at two separate parties - and i harassed every GM I met for an answer.
And you know what? They talked to me!!
We can disagree with the decisions they make. We can bitch and moan our hearts out in blogs, in forums, and on official forums. And you know what? They listen. They don't always do what we want, but they listen because they care about what we have to say. That is an incredible thing, and it's the opposite of elitist.
Blizzard- the part of it I met, that has impressed the shit out of me since Blizzcon- is the classiest, least elitist and most connected company to its customer base that I've ever seen. The fact that the LEAD GAME DESIGNER takes time out of his day every single day to respond to players and make things clear to us... it's really, really amazing and no other game company I've ever seen does that. The devs relate to players, respond to players, and are clear with players every single day.
You can take your childish, elitist attitude and shove it. You give the rest of us who sometimes disagree with Blizz a bad name.
Carr0t Dec 2nd 2010 2:17PM
Boo :( I can't comment on the blog because I don't have a valid US WoW account linked to my Battle.net account (EU here)...
Vigilante Dec 3rd 2010 6:01AM
Ugh. It's really annoying when you have a blog post or article that's essentially about another post or article, but you can't find the freaking link to it.
Let's take a look at this sentence here:
"[...] in a recent blog post on the new World of Warcraft community website."
Now, where would you expect a link to the BLOG POST on the community site? Right! On the words "blog post". If you put the link on the words "community website" people will think it links to the freaking COMMUNITY WEBSITE, but not to the particular post on it.
Yes, I'm aware of the "Source" link (or at least became aware of it after having to look around all over the place), but it's still irritating to have to look all over the place because the links in the article are completely counterintuitively labeled.
davehoehn970 Dec 3rd 2010 1:16PM
Anyone know of a way to change the order of the comments on the new WoW Community site? It kind of doesn't do any good to read the newest comment first, if it's not in a reply chain, yet still referrs to a previous commenter. I wasn't singed in, if that matters, after linking from the article.