Honestly, I'd love to see ALL pure dps classes get either a tanking or a healing spec. 'Pure' classes used to do slightly more dps in exchange for a lack of versatility. Those days are long past, (rightfully so, IMO) and yet the pures have gotten little new to make up for their lack of flexibility. Lorewise, it wouldn't take all that much to justify the new roles.

Rogues: swashbucklers. Not really much of a stretch to imagine the flashy swordsperson challenging all comers.

I just imagined a rogue tanking with dual rapiers, glorious!

The devs say they want to end the tank shortage, yet they keep resisting the suggestion to give everyone a tank spec. Why?

Because they learned in WotLK with DKs that more tanking specs doesn't mean more tanks. Tanking is just not for everyone, first of all, secondly tanks get a lot of flak in PUGs (which is where the shortage exists), finally the real imbalnce comes from 25 mans needing relatively fewer tanks than 10s and 5s. 1/5, 1/5, and then suddenly 2/25, or roughly 1/12.

Fix the tank percentage imbalance and I guarantee that'll be a HUGE step towards the tank "shortage" shrinking.

Tanks get a lot of flak because the devs insist on making tanking difficult, therefore fewer people put up with it.

The devs thought they had a brilliant idea by increasing the dps threshold for stripping threat from the tank, but they failed to see that the bigger problem is stuff running around randomly, attacking everyone but the tank. The tank--every tank--needs to emit a loud bubble of threat to everything in the vicinity BEFORE THE FIRST BLOW IS STRUCK, so they'll focus exclusively on that tank.

@SamLowry Sounds a little too easy mode, all you would ever have to do is aoe damage and all the mobs automatically come to you. A lot of tanking nowadays you can do with your eyes closed since the boss stays relatively stationary for several fights and lots of audio cues. With adds automatically coming to you, that would be even more so.

But I like how you put it, "bubble of threat", reminds me of that little guy from Surf's Up "CAN YOU SEE THE HAPPINESS EMANATING FROM ME??" I'm sure mobs would attack him first.

Eyhk, I have tanked a few times but would do it more if I didn't feel like a cat herder, constantly running around gathering up critters who keep taking off to attack everyone but me. I can understand this sort of mayhem in a leveling group when the tank is in greens and perhaps doesn't know what he's doing, but to see the same stuff going on when I'm in blues and purples (good enough to let me solo UP without breaking a sweat), I really have to wonder what's going on.