BC: The Making of a Rogue Tank... - Page 11

Kasi · 09/02/06, 7:10 PM

Jebus, Kalman was talking about the main tank on PW, not the HS tanks in his main point. Obviously a rogue wouldn't work well in that point now as it stands. I do find it humorous that people are arguing against rogue tanks on the basis that spikey damage is hard to counter. Yet when arguing against druid tanks, they disregard that they're less spikey and say go for the avoidance route. I hope that we do have a plethora of tanking options in the expac. Going on rogue -> warriors/pallies -> druids on the path from avoidance to mitigation.

Jebus · 09/02/06, 8:14 PM

Originally Posted by Kasi

Jebus, Kalman was talking about the main tank on PW, not the HS tanks in his main point. Obviously a rogue wouldn't work well in that point now as it stands. I do find it humorous that people are arguing against rogue tanks on the basis that spikey damage is hard to counter. Yet when arguing against druid tanks, they disregard that they're less spikey and say go for the avoidance route. I hope that we do have a plethora of tanking options in the expac. Going on rogue -> warriors/pallies -> druids on the path from avoidance to mitigation.

Well the reason I even decided to go back to pw is because when I read Kalman's posts he kept alluding to this future attack which will two-shot a warrior, but not one-shot a 'tank' rogue. What I attempted to do in my post was show how contrived such an encounter would have to be specifically to promote avoidance/rogue tanking, which in my experience, is contrary to blizzard's design philosophy.

Comparing the warrior/druid issue to the warrior/rogue also doesn't really make much sense since the difference between hard mitigation between warriors and rogues is non-trivial, whereas with the best gear in the game at the moment, the gap between warriors and druids is significantly lower, and always has been. The druid also has other tanking advantages such as massive hp and unparalleled threat generation. The rogue has neither of these bonuses, indeed, they have far fewer hp even in the highest stamina gear.

There will obviously be more tanking options in TBC, although it doesn't seem as if rogues will be any more viable than they are now.

Kasi · 09/02/06, 8:28 PM

Sure they will be more viable. The new talents in the sublety tree pretty much show that already. As does customization with socketed items. I somehow don't think defence gems will only be allowed to be socketed in plate gear for example. So those are two things going for them. No I doubt they're taking over warriors or even druids anytime soon, but with those new talents and the promise socketing holds, for sure they will be much more effective tanks than they currently are. Even if no other changes happen.

crimsonsentinel · 09/02/06, 11:16 PM

While I certainly can see rogues offtanking (adds and trash definitely come to mind), I don't see rogues generating enough hate to be able to do any semblance of main tanking, and I highly doubt blizzard is going to go in that direction and give you guys a threat poison or something like that.

Pyros · 09/03/06, 1:01 AM

A sword rogue, with BoS raid wide, might be enough to hold aggro on a boss as long as he gets a bit of a headstart.
And for info, my avoidance on MT patchwerk was close to 55%, not 35%. 24%dodge, 20%parry, 8%miss. 52% with 75%mitigation when you get hit, on attacks every second or so, is better imo than 80%avoidance. It's mostly because patchwerk attacks so fast tho, if he was a bit slower, avoidance would be much better. But unless you're spam healing the rogue tanking, there's no reason to use one, and spam healing defeats the purpose doesn't it?
Could have encounters where rogues will offtank, I'm not too sure about main tanking tho, taunts, crushing, random AEs, there's definitely not a tons of fight where a rogue would be a better tank, a TBC patchwerk with slow attacks maybe.

Pyros · 09/03/06, 4:26 AM

Hmm while I understand the speed concept, the downside of it is the faster the attack speed, the more you have to spam heals on a rogue resulting in a lot of overhealing because there's no sure way to say, ok I have 80% avoidance, so I'll dodge 4hits, get hit once, dodge 4more etc. You can and will get hit more than 5times in a row in a 6mins fight. I'm too lazy to do the math, but with a 1.0attack speed, I'm sure the % of it happening is high enough to require healer spam healing, since the rogue will die to any consecutive hits if there's no heal inbetween.

The higher mitigation lets you actually stop casting every now and then, or cancel heals you started casting without having the risk of not having time to recast it if you cancel it right as a hit land.

So imo, even if in the end you do gain a bit of dmg you don't have to heal, you'll be forced to overheal much more with an avoidance rogue tank than with a warrior.

As you said, avoidance works for a moderate damage per hit encounter with rapid swings or stacking debuff. Imo patchwerk doesn't fit that description tho, he hits way too hard and way too fast at the same time.

I think what blizzard is trying to do is have some rogues to be able to do what fury warrior do on some encounters, pick up adds that are running around. A fury warrior in dps gear tanking isn't really something you'd choose but it's always useful when stuff goes wrong. I don't really believe they're thinking about having main tanking rogues tho, which could be pretty fun to see nonetheless, like that hunter that tanked Nef ^^

Trindade · 09/03/06, 5:49 AM

Originally Posted by Maipohe

With 52% avoidance, the average number of swings attempted per hit is 2.083. With 80% avoidance, the average number of swings attempted per hit is 5.

If crits and crushing blows are impossible outcomes, then a tank with 52% avoidance and 75% mitigation is receiving 12% of in-bound damage while a tank with 80% avoidance and 50% mitigation is only receiving 10% of in-bound damage, provided the tank can live through a hit.

If crushing blows are possible, then a 52%/75% tank is receiving 13.88% of in-bound damage and the 80%/50% tank is receiving 10.31% of in-bound damage provided the crushing blows don't one-shot the tank.

That's only true on a long time-line. You havn't accounted for streaks. The fact that your 80% avoidance tank just received a hit doesn't mean that he/she is going to avoid the next four attacks. It's still a 20% chance to be hit on each swing. You -will- encounter scenarios where your avoidance tank takes 5 hits in a row.

Secondly, in stating 75% mitigation, you've failed to account for two things.
1: Defensive stance
2: Shield block

The combination of these two can push the warrior close to 80% mitigation.

In the previously mentioned scenario, where both tanks take a streak of five, your rogue takes 48% damage, your mitigation/avoidance tank takes 20% (factoring defensive stance and shield block). Knowing that said streak exists, and is in fact likely to occur, you'll set your healing pattern to it. Thus you've saved nothing by relying on avoidance by itself, you've just overworked your healers. Warriors are effective tanks because they bring the whole package: threat production, avoidance, mitigation, and a high hitpoint ceiling. Druids are not often used because they are weaker in two of those areas (avoidance, mitigation). Your rogue tank, without the suggested threat producing poisons, is weak in three (threat production, mitigation, high hitpoint ceiling).

Ask your MT next time he's tanking something on farm to not shield block, and see how many crushings get chained off in a row. Remembering, that's only a 15% chance to occur.

Zephro · 09/03/06, 10:03 AM

Originally Posted by Kalman

Warriors can tank *and* DPS. But in no way should their DPS role ever supercede a primarily DPS classes DPS role (which is the current concern), just like off-tank talented classes shouldn't exceed warriors tanking capabilities. Ideally everyone gets something they get to be "best" at (warriors are best at tanking overall, but a druid is good in heavily threat-constrained circumstances and in very mobile fights, a paladin may be optimal for AoE tanking, etc, while a mage is the best AoE damage while a rogue can put up more single-target damage for longer, and a druid is excellent in HoTs and in reactive healing with two instants while a priest is good at group healing and sustained healing, with paladins being good at healing forever and healing in situations where they're taking hits, etc, etc.) and everyone gets to do something else on occasion too.

I don't think these distinctions are well-drawn enough, though. Being good at reactive healing vs being good at sustained healing doesn't feel interesting enough to hold my attention. It's all still just 'healing.' Woohoo, once every other raid I can save the raid a 10-minute res-and-rebuff with a well-timed NS on the tank. That's not enough to feel I have a 'unique role.'

I prefer classes with strongly defined roles, because otherwise everything just blurs into a vague and indistinct mush.

edit:

Originally Posted by Kalman

Ideally, I really believe every class should have multiple roles, though *never* at the expense of another class

This is the problem. There are eight classes in WoW, but there are not eight distinct roles.

Kalman · 09/03/06, 11:52 AM

Originally Posted by Zephro

Originally Posted by Kalman

Warriors can tank *and* DPS. But in no way should their DPS role ever supercede a primarily DPS classes DPS role (which is the current concern), just like off-tank talented classes shouldn't exceed warriors tanking capabilities. Ideally everyone gets something they get to be "best" at (warriors are best at tanking overall, but a druid is good in heavily threat-constrained circumstances and in very mobile fights, a paladin may be optimal for AoE tanking, etc, while a mage is the best AoE damage while a rogue can put up more single-target damage for longer, and a druid is excellent in HoTs and in reactive healing with two instants while a priest is good at group healing and sustained healing, with paladins being good at healing forever and healing in situations where they're taking hits, etc, etc.) and everyone gets to do something else on occasion too.

I don't think these distinctions are well-drawn enough, though. Being good at reactive healing vs being good at sustained healing doesn't feel interesting enough to hold my attention. It's all still just 'healing.' Woohoo, once every other raid I can save the raid a 10-minute res-and-rebuff with a well-timed NS on the tank. That's not enough to feel I have a 'unique role.'

I prefer classes with strongly defined roles, because otherwise everything just blurs into a vague and indistinct mush.

edit:

Originally Posted by Kalman

Ideally, I really believe every class should have multiple roles, though *never* at the expense of another class

This is the problem. There are eight classes in WoW, but there are not eight distinct roles.

Nine classes, actually.

There don't need to be, is the thing. There are 3 distinct major roles, which gives 6 pairings, unless you consider that DPS and tanking can both be considered to be two roles (mitigation and avoidance tanking, magical and physical DPS), at which point there are enough unique *pairs* to give everyone a role. And yes, since there are only 3 major roles, you ARE going to need to accept being better at reactive vs. proactive healing as your unique aspect, just like rogues accept that single target melee DPS should be theirs, while mages are the best at AoE (while still being very good at single target). I guess you could also consider adding CC/kiting as a major role, if Blizzard wants to add more function for it, in which case you don't need the hypothetical DPS and tanking splits.

Examples:

Warriors: mitigation tank major, physical DPS minor.
Druid: healing (reactive) major, mitigation minor.
Paladin: healing (sustained) major, ?AoE tank/mitigation minor?
Priest: healing (proactive) major, magical DPS minor.
I don't have a lot of experience with them, but - Shaman: Healing (reactive) major, ?DPS minor?
Rogue: physical DPS major, ?avoidance tank minor?
Warlock: magical DPS major, ?flexible? minor. If warlocks pets were a bit more raid-functional, they could conceivably be used to shore up weakest areas - felguard for DPS/tanking, or voidwalker for tanking if no felguard, succ for DPS/CC, imp for buffing/DPS, etc. This requires them being a bit more survivable in raids.
Mage: magical DPS major, CC/kiting minor. Alternately, you could give them a bit more in the way of elemental shielding (like allowing them to shield other people) to give them more of a healing-ish role as their minor.
Hunter: physical DPS major, CC/kiting minor. See note re: warlock pets for a possible expansion of functionality.

Note how no class has the same functions, but all have multiples? Druid/paladin come closest, but paladins don't heal at all in the same way as druids, and don't seem like they'll be effective tanks in the same sort of encounters (paladins seem like they will excel at holding aggro on lots of little things at once - AoE situations - between the taunt mechanism they had described for aggro control and their block mechanics for mitigation).

Mistaya · 09/03/06, 1:30 PM

Originally Posted by Trindade

Originally Posted by Maipohe

With 52% avoidance, the average number of swings attempted per hit is 2.083. With 80% avoidance, the average number of swings attempted per hit is 5.

If crits and crushing blows are impossible outcomes, then a tank with 52% avoidance and 75% mitigation is receiving 12% of in-bound damage while a tank with 80% avoidance and 50% mitigation is only receiving 10% of in-bound damage, provided the tank can live through a hit.

If crushing blows are possible, then a 52%/75% tank is receiving 13.88% of in-bound damage and the 80%/50% tank is receiving 10.31% of in-bound damage provided the crushing blows don't one-shot the tank.

That's only true on a long time-line. You havn't accounted for streaks. The fact that your 80% avoidance tank just received a hit doesn't mean that he/she is going to avoid the next four attacks. It's still a 20% chance to be hit on each swing. You -will- encounter scenarios where your avoidance tank takes 5 hits in a row.

Secondly, in stating 75% mitigation, you've failed to account for two things.
1: Defensive stance
2: Shield block

The combination of these two can push the warrior close to 80% mitigation.

In the previously mentioned scenario, where both tanks take a streak of five, your rogue takes 48% damage, your mitigation/avoidance tank takes 20% (factoring defensive stance and shield block). Knowing that said streak exists, and is in fact likely to occur, you'll set your healing pattern to it. Thus you've saved nothing by relying on avoidance by itself, you've just overworked your healers. Warriors are effective tanks because they bring the whole package: threat production, avoidance, mitigation, and a high hitpoint ceiling. Druids are not often used because they are weaker in two of those areas (avoidance, mitigation). Your rogue tank, without the suggested threat producing poisons, is weak in three (threat production, mitigation, high hitpoint ceiling).

Ask your MT next time he's tanking something on farm to not shield block, and see how many crushings get chained off in a row. Remembering, that's only a 15% chance to occur.

This is what I was trying to get at in my post, I suppose I didn't come off clearly enough.

As a healer I am against this, and the reason for that is because healing a tank who is guarenteed to take massive spike damage is not fun, and puts extreme stress on a healer. Any avoidance tank is going to be hit, and when he is hit he is going to be hit hard. And when he is hit multiple times he is going to dip very low before we can get him back up unless we are patchwerk style chain interrupting. Again this is not fun, and when you die to a 4 hit combo because you failed to dodge and we wipe due to no one's fault but bad luck people get angry. Or if we manage to heal you through said 4 hit combo, which is also possible, it will be because we allocated way too much healing to you and the encounter better not have any other incidental damage for us to be worrying about. You'll still get the hypothetical stacking debuff, it may wear off more often than a warrior in some cases but dont think you will be immune to it.

Its just a headache for us.

Druids have the HP and base armor pool to take their spikes. Healers have a time buffer when healing a bear between green hp and red hp. Few things short of patchwerk can take a properly geared/spec'd bear from green to red in a hit. I just don't see that happening with a rogue tank.

If dodge tanking somehow becomes viable, I really expect Blizzard to nerf whatever made it work. Any encounter a dodge tank would be superior on so far has either been too trivial to require one or had a gimmick to make dodge tanking not work. The reason its "LOOKING FOR A BEAR" is for any guild to not use a warrior to tank, the fight has to be custom made to discourage warrior tanking. If its got a bunch of abilities that make it impossible for a warrior to tank it, make it so only an avoidance tank can tank it, its "LOOKING FOR A BEAR."

Kalman · 09/03/06, 11:30 PM

Originally Posted by Mistaya

If dodge tanking somehow becomes viable, I really expect Blizzard to nerf whatever made it work. Any encounter a dodge tank would be superior on so far has either been too trivial to require one or had a gimmick to make dodge tanking not work. The reason its "LOOKING FOR A BEAR" is for any guild to not use a warrior to tank, the fight has to be custom made to discourage warrior tanking. If its got a bunch of abilities that make it impossible for a warrior to tank it, make it so only an avoidance tank can tank it, its "LOOKING FOR A BEAR."

A little birdie whispered in my ear and said Flourish is a real ability (controllable finisher, uses combo points to boost Parry significantly). Which should pretty much make rogue tanking viable, so long as they can hold threat.

You don't understand "LOOKING FOR A BEAR". "LOOKING FOR A BEAR" is an encounter which *cannot* be tanked by warriors. An encounter in which warriors are simply not the best tanks is not looking for a bear; it's an encounter with tanking requirements favorable to druids.

Jin'do is a good example. A warrior can tank Jin'do. A bear is a little easier, since you won't have MC/hex problems.

Sartura is another example of a fight where a bear is arguably superior, with their 15 second intercept not requiring them to take more damage, and superior mitigation vs. physical damage.

There's a difference between "LOOKING FOR A BEAR" and stacking an encounter to make it preferable to use a non-standard role.

JIHAD JERRY · 09/03/06, 11:31 PM

hahahahah this thread

Lord BEEF · 09/04/06, 4:27 AM

I don't see them doing avoidance tanking at all really because it's so easily fucking broken and is based on an increasing returns formula.

If you can really get 85% avoidance with current itemization as a rogue, you can add the darkmoon buff of agility (and lets assume that gives about 50 agility after buffs), and the hakkar heart buff and those will give you another 8-9% dodge combined. Suddenly you're at 94% avoidance, almost 3x as good as before the buffs, and during ghostly strike you're immune to physical attacks.

Hell if you just take the gear profile kalman listed and swap out defense for dodge, (swap the warhammers with maladath/dragonfang blade), swap styleens for av exalted trinket, swap the golden hive cloak for elementium threaded, nozdormu ring for reanimation), hey suddenly you're at 98% avoidance. If you're a night elf you're now at 99% and if you can find one or two items I didn't think of grats you can prepare for a raid with buffs to be completely invincible and you can not only main tank patchwerk, you can solo him.

suicuique · 09/04/06, 7:43 AM

Actually this thread got me thinking.

Has any of the rogues in this thread arguing for rogue tanking tried to maintank Fankriss as a 2 rogue combo?

To recap:

1) Finkriss doesn't hit for a lot. Its been a while since i have been tanking him, but IIRC his hits were pretty gimp. Raidbuffed a rogue should be out of two shot range. (2 consecutive crits COULD be a problem though - flask and zanzil help a bit)

2) He does only physical damage. Stoneshields would up the mitigation by a lot.

3) His hits result in a stacking debuff, which greatly plays into the idea of avoidance tanking.

4) He does not stun/sleep/fear/deaggro the tank. So avoidance is never cancelled out.

Thats on the plus side.

On the con side we have some abilities which do not make this encounter trivial to rogue tank.

1) You could get unlucky with debuffs stacking too high and be in need to change to the second rogue as maintank.

2) I see aggro as an issue. Sure most rogues can take aggro from a warrior tanking if they *wanted* to. No ones denying that. But tanking is not solely about having aggro once (or two times, or three times ,... ), but having it the whole time. Because losing aggro as a tank meaning the raid lost the control of the encounter.

Summary:
Fankriss, being a trivial boss nowadays, seems like the ideal avoidance tanking mob to me in game to test the idea of rogue tanking. Even more so that even if it gets horribly wrong the raid should be in no danger of a wipe.

This is not meant as a flame towards the OP or the other rogues arguing for rogue tanking. I'm asking it just out of real interest.

Trying to rogue tank Fankriss *now* would give a better idea of what is feasible and what not.

regards

Ghost · 09/04/06, 8:18 AM

Trying to rogue tank Fankriss *now* would give a better idea of what is feasible and what not.

The problem is, this whole idea of being a rogue tank at level 70 is highly dependant on the rumored 'Flourish' finishing move. Im not sure rogues have enough oomph to tank anything remotely difficult for any extended fight without this finisher.