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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Is Cataclysm tanking getting easier and easier?
by Olivia Grace 
Feb 25th 2012 at 8:00AM
And the fairly tricky modes continued as the heroics did. Then Zandalari heroics came in, and a couple of those fights were entertaining to tank. (I'm looking at you, High Priestess Kilnara.) But I do think that the pressure in those heroics rested on the shoulders of the healers and general group cooperation. You all had to do the right thing in order to succeed. The tanking in itself was not inherently hugely challenging; apart from making sure everything was hitting you that should be hitting you, not standing in bad and interrupting, you didn't have to do that much, but the peril was still fun. Hour of Twilight? Well, Azshara can be a little challenging. That's about it.
Let's look at raids for a second. Sure, Magmaw was pretty straightforward; the person dealing with the adds had a far harder job than the tank. But Omnotron was more of a challenge, as was Maloriak. The Ascendant Council and Cho'gall, too, in places. Firelands began well. Trapping Riplimb at Shannox was a fun role, but it went downhill from there. Ragnaros was awfully boring to tank.
And it seems that Rags' Swap at X Stacks model has been adopted and carried over into Dragon Soul. Morchok? Swap at X stacks. Yor'sahj? Guess what? Ultraxion? Sort of. Blackhorn, once he lands, the same. Hagara, at least, has something you have to run away from while tanking. And you might occasionally have to goal-keep Zon'ozz's ball. The Spine of Deathwing and Warmaster Blackhorn fights really excited me simply because there are adds! And the Madness? I seem to spend as much time DPSing as I do tanking. I'm not saying these fights are easy for everyone; I'm saying they're easy for tanks. And this is slightly frustrating -- all you can do to tank better is get better gear to soak more damage or do more. The skill element is fading.
Do you agree? Is Blizzard shifting difficulty off tanks onto other roles? Is this a good thing? Has it been happening forever? Is it because of the Raid Finder? Is it to try to get more people tanking? Am I talking utter nonsense?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Haro Feb 25th 2012 11:05AM
I know my opinion is probably not popular, but i am of the opinion that threat should be done away with completely. Threat mechanics is just a very rudimentary form of AI: mob is going to try and kill first the characters that are hindering him the most, i.e. the healer and the dps. With this mechanic, the tank's job is to fake threat and gather the attention.
But this is not what happens in any game outside the MMO genre. Mobs go to beat on the healer and the highest dps, and the "tank" goes to get in between them, protecting his fellow. When the mob tries to get around, the tank will distract him and slow him down by any means possible. In this picture, it would fall on the tank the responsability of positioning, interrupting and ensnaring at melee range
Gregorysoble Feb 25th 2012 10:45PM
I'm glad it's becoming easier to tank. I just started tanking the other day because I was nervous for the longest time at the wow community flaming me for not being great. I found it to be easy, and as thus its really fun for me.
ern5gd2 Feb 25th 2012 11:28AM
Proper tanks will be comparing themselves on the "mitigation meter" Active mitigation's purpose is to keep tanks actually wanting to tank by not trivializing the role. A surprising number of people tank, have the gear, and are good at it. The biggest reason your queue times are SO high as a DPS is that the LFD tool means you rarely see someone again, therefore don't care how you treat others. Annoying DPS that "gogogo" and pull when tanks aren't above 80% and heals are out of mana are what causes tanks not to queue, not a lack of players able to do the role.
TL;DR Active Mitigation turns dungeons back into gameplay and away from "ok, time to hope 3 DPS and a healer actually want to cooperate just to get some points that don't get me anything I need anymore."
Hateraide Feb 25th 2012 11:58AM
/\ this.
To paraphrase Jean-Paul Sartre "The challange of tanking is other people"
Redielin Feb 25th 2012 2:41PM
Heroic modes get more interesting, where cooldown use and positioning matter a lot more, and your DPS matters, especially in 10 man.
It is nice to have a solid tank who is responsible for themselves and can help with mechanics when doing HMs. A good tank can still help carry a group, and a bad tank can still be a real liability. Overall, though I would agree, there's not enough skill involved in the tanking role these days.
Michael Feb 25th 2012 12:03PM
OK, so I tanked up to and partially through Naxx in Vanilla before I left the game for almost 4 years. I've kind of been avoiding tanking since coming back, because I know how much effort it took me to become a competent tank and so much has changed over the course of a couple expansions. My big question is this: is there any reason I should be worried about this? On the one hand, I keep reading how they have to nerf all the raids, but then I read that tanking is easy now. Can anyone that has tanked from Vanilla to now give me a little insight?
Ianmis Feb 25th 2012 3:58PM
I did not tank in vanilla or BC but I did hear of the stories. Tanking now, is nothing like that. Sadly, some of the rules that dps followed in the past have been thrown out and there is no waiting to dps. Ultimately, tanking is not hard now, dealing with other players is the real challenge. However, as they can rarely be killed in 2-4 hits, it is just not worth worrying about. Hit and expertise are not needed. Just get as much mitigation as possible, block and avoidance cap if you are a shield bearer. Never rely on dps to do interupts, especially the pvpers. (not sure how they manage to fail at interrupting) Just laugh at the trolls when you try to offer helpful instruction but don't engage. Seems to tick them off the most. ;) Other than that, just pretend your a dps with a shield and do your best to help the healer. Good luck and have fun.........as we wait for Diablo III, in which everyone is responsible for themselves and if they die, it's their own damn fault. lol
Snuzzle Feb 26th 2012 10:02PM
I agree with the above. While I only casually tanked in classic (lol druid gtfo to the back and heal the warrior) I tankd extensively in TBC and Wrath. In TBC was where I felt tanking really shone; it was enough of a challenge that succeeding felt like an accomplishment yet wasn't face-smashingly difficult. In Wrath everyone got a coast thanks to the obscene gear levels. At the beginning of Cata I felt like I was tanking uphill both ways-- it wasn't a challenge so much as plugging a dam with Kleenex. It sucked.
Now... it feels like Wrath all over again, except instead of stacking stam I'm stacking agi. Big diff right? :\
The main reason it's so boring: not only do I not need to use any cc or mitigation, but hardly any strategy unless you're doing HM raids. Remember in Wrath, where tanks would just charge into a pack, lay down a tclap and fall asleep? Yeah, it's kinda like that now, except you can't be blatantly stupid (ie, you must be in the proper spec, mostly proper gear, and can't pull 3 or 4 packs at once).
So to recap my personal opinion:
-Classic: tanking anything was an accomplishment because no one hd the tools at the time to do their job properly. Was fun because we didn't know any better.
- TBC: perfect balance of skill and flow imo. Tanking became a sort of rhythm and once you got into it, you soared.
-Wrath: boring. Pull pack. Spam aoe move. Goto 10.
- 4.0 cata: like Classic, except now we know better
-4.3 cata: like Wrath, except without the obscene gear levels that let us be pants-on-head idiots.
Jaq Feb 25th 2012 12:09PM
I tanked tier 11 and tier 12, and know the mechanics for the fights in Dragon Soul in the (hopefully) unlikely event I'm asked to tank again. And based on what I know, Dragon Soul IS a lot easier on the tanks. Tank swapping is the key dynamic of Morchok, Yor'Sahj, Ultraxion, both phases of Blackhorn, and the impale swaps on Madness. Zon'ozz and Hagara were one tank fights from the start. The most difficult thing for tanks in Dragon Soul is picking up the adds on Blackhorn if the DPS hasn't killed the first wave yet (I've seen healers get devoured there) and the all adds, all the time insanity of Spine.
Other than those two fights, I think I'd be bored tanking DS.
Maybe it's because that was where I learned to tank, but I loved tanking tier 11 and Firelands. Sure, you had some fights that were deadly dull to tank (hello there, Magmaw once you could one tank it) but you also had fights that were dynamic and interesting and required a tank to be on their toes. I can't imagine there's a fight in Dragon Soul that compares to the nail biting, hitting my panic buttons delight of tanking Shannox in 353 and 359 gear, or the utter chaos of being a tank on Chimaeron and trying your best to survive as long as possible for the last 20%.
There's a lot of things I like about Dragon Soul, but the first five fights in particular aren't anywhere near complex, especially for tanks.
Stormy Feb 25th 2012 12:47PM
I really hate to disagree, and genuinely do hope I'm wrong, but my faith is a little shaken here. Seeing what they've done with talents for the upcoming xpac (less choices in the name of "more choice, less cookie cutter"? What?) is cementing the idea, for me, that the current dev team is fine with leaving the bar at the lowest rung. It was an idea toyed with in Wrath, there was an outcry from the hardcore, they tried to make things interesting at the start of Cataclysm and now we're right back to facerolling.
It isn't just tanks either, it's just more noticeable for us because it's what was once the hardest job reduced to nothing. I dunno. Here's hoping the devs prove me dead wrong, because more than anything I love my characters in this game, but right now I'm just bored and don't see it improving.
Will Feb 25th 2012 1:05PM
Yep, especially with the newfound irrelevance, more or less, of threat. The HoT heroics are especially boring, I would have liked to see another tank-oriented fight like Karsh, but the closest thing to that is Asira Dawnslayer, and even that one is pretty dull. I know that "interrupts are the tank's job now," and I do keep that well covered, but that by itself really doesn't add a lot of meaningful gameplay.
They could go back to the Wrath-era design where tanks have to soak a Big Damn Hit every so often, but that comes with its own issues. I want to see more adds, positioning requirements, kiting, debuff management, and yes, more high-damage mechanics that will kill even the best-geared tank if not handled correctly.
I just hope that in MoP, they don't use the speed runs as an excuse not to make 5-man fights more mechanically interesting. "If you think it's too easy, go faster" is something I'm really worried will be the inevitable response to the problem, and that's not ok.
Naryn Feb 25th 2012 1:14PM
As well as Blizzard making a fair few encounters a 1 tank fight, I mean Yorsahj, Zonozz, Hagara even Ultraxion and Madness can be one tanked, if a fight doesn't have enough mechanics in it to require 2 tanks minimum then that's an easy reason why tanks have an easier job.
In my opinion the number of tanks should be a minimum of 2 and on 25 man you might need up to 3 or 4, then at least Blizzard could have some more interesting fights than they have so far. Anyone remember mimiron? or gruuls? where a ranged was a tank? that was an intresting mechanic but I mean even kitings basically been forgotten in Cataclysm, barring Nefarion.
CursedMonk87 Feb 25th 2012 1:55PM
I think the whole concept of tanking needs an overhaul. I think the "Hey UGLY! Attack me!" idea behind threat is just too simplistic. I could understand that concept working on "dumb" mobs like Ogres, ghouls, or beasts who attack the one making the most noise and don't realise the healer or top dps is the much bigger threat. Whereas devious villains like Illidan or Arthas shouldn't be so dumb to only see the tank. In the future I'd like to see a more active style of actually taking damage for party members, with more necessary "Intervene" style moves. It could also make tanks a useful role (besides being so hard to kill) in PvP again. Maybe the "threat meter" model could be dropped for moves that would make party members untargetable for a period of time. Instead of throwing out AoE to build aggro on mobs, have moves that require the group to stand behind the tank to avoid damage while he puts up his shield. Power Word: Barrier could be a tank skill instead of a healer one. So essentially the role of the tank would be to mitigate damage to the raid as a whole (while still taking the most of it), and still being able to literally taunt and provoke mobs and bosses to position them. I think it'll get better in Mists, especially with an entirely new class that will be a unique model for tanking, healing, and dps.
It would also open up the possibility of other classes being able to "tank" the mobs. Rogues could leap in front of a party member and catch arrows, or send dopplegangers around for the boss to cut through. Warlocks could summon guardian demons around the party to absorb magical damage. The possibilities are truly endless if they just took the decade or more-old tanking model and gave it a complete overhaul.
Now the caveat: This is probably too big of a change for World of Warcraft. I think the developers and most of the players are pretty set in their ways of how the tanking role should work. Not only that, but retro-fitting the "new" model to old content would just require too much work changing the mechanics of every fight. I'm just dreaming here. GW-2 may change the landscape of how class roles work, but I think what we have isn't going to change until we have a new game altogether...like Titan.
deitrickhenry47 Feb 25th 2012 1:58PM
As a pally ive tried all three classes. I was a off tank in my cores raiding guild back in wrath and I though it was easy. I stepped into my first cata dungeon and died on first pull...tanking was just so different that i couldnt do it. I switched to heals and Im doing great now. Ive seen many types of tanks and some are great and easy to heal, Others aren't so. I think it just how well you want to tank and how much you want to put time into your tanking. Just like any other class. You have to work alittle to get them up there but once you got it its easy
nymrohd Feb 25th 2012 2:08PM
Honestly, go do heroics. Tanking gets much harder on every fight.
xrarndx Feb 25th 2012 4:17PM
What's tanking?
I just DPS in front of the boss.
jcompguy Feb 25th 2012 4:25PM
Tanking defenitely appears to be getting easier from a mechanics perspective. The fear of having to move adds and bosses correctly, losing threat to dps, needing to calculate threat vs defensive stats, and needing to have a complete understanding of even normal mode fights before even attempting them all kept me from wanting to tank. It just seemed like to big a job.
Now though, threat is mostly a non issue, DS has made almost every fight stationary for the most part, and the LFR is a perfect stepping stone for a nub tank to learn the basics in a raid setting. While I can see the new ease of tanking as being frustrating to skilled veterans because it has certainly made the club less exclusive, I definitely enjoy the tanking wall being more of a large step now. Especially as a new blood dk, so many buttons.
Elzam Feb 25th 2012 6:18PM
Our 25 (H) Hagara strategy for focused assaults involves intervenes, heroic leaps, as well as lifegrips. I don't think we've made it easy on our tank at all.
That being said, in 5 mans it's really the easiest job in WoW to do correctly right now. And keep in mind, I'm saying that when every healer has some way to coast through a heroic effortlessly with ease (here's to you, Healing Stream and Riptide!)
Andrew Feb 25th 2012 8:09PM
As a DK tank that took on Wrath, I'd have to say that the instances (especially HoT) are significantly easier. I remember hitting the Icecrown instances when they first came out and finding it challenging; HoR's adds in conjunction with the pugs from the LFD tool led to the end of more than a few tanking careers as I'm aware of. Hunter can you silence one plz? Mage? Anyone...?
I think Bliz are trying to cater for these groups in Cata. I actually went afk during part of HoT Heroic and my group 4 manned it. I mean seriously? I'd never felt so redundant!