Originally Posted by Daedalix
If their aim was to hurt DK tanking, they would have played with our cooldowns and not our base numbers for hp and mitigation. These are long-term scaling changes designed to fix an imminent problem.
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But they did. They increased Icebound to 2 minutes. I agree with the latter, but they did even include nerfs to cooldowns.
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Seeing as we currently scale way better than other tanks that are receiving the buffs, these tweaks to our armor and HP will be covered up by how well we still scale compared to warriors and paladins (you could easily argue against this statement but I'd have to look at some numbers for how blocking will be affected first).
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I think that the numbers thing you mentioned that would convince you will be necessary for me to believe that we still scale enough to make up for this. However, in theory, what happens is that we don't have block, and block is being doubled in essence, while our passive reduction is "in line" with other classes. One could argue about our cooldowns, but again, Icebound was nerfed as well. In a way, this is a double-nerf of sorts. I have no problem being the offtank and staying in that position. But the changes interfere even with that particular job.
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You'll notice druid tanking is unchanged.
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Not sure how that applies to us but yeah, I think people noticed that one. Can you clarify whether you mean that druid tanking is perfect so doesn't need a tweak, or that you think they are getting a "nerfbat" by not being buffed through shield block? From what I'm gathering, its as if you feel druids are in between warrior/pally and DK tanking. I'm not sure I'm convinced that this is the case, as it depends on play-style of healers.
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Scaling changes is also why they changed our Toughness. If you're hitting armor cap under certain situations already, how out of control do you think things will be when you're in T9?
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I'm not sure who's actually hitting armor cap with the previous nerf to Frost Presence. Certainly the changes to healers so they don't give you armor will keep us from hitting it though.
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These changes should bring us down to druid levels and warriors and paladins up to par. While I dislike my class getting hurt, I believe we are currently too powerful and can stand to take a hit.
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I have no problem with Warriors and Paladins being "brought up to par." What it does feel like is that they are both raising effectiveness of paladins and warriors, while nerfing the DK's. One or the other would have been fine. Doing both seems a bit excessive. That said, the previous nerf to Frost Presence already interfered with my tanking. I'm unsure how the new changes are necessary. If I had only a few of them to look at, like a change to icebound to 2 minutes and that alone, I could probably live with that as I felt it was overpowered. As it stands, nerfing us so that we need to use those cooldowns to survive, and then also nerfing icebound at the same time despite the fact that we don't have block value is too much.
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As our Off-tank, I currently have worse gear but roughly 3k more armor, 1k more hp, and the same avoidance as our Paladin MT who is in a bunch of BiS. I have better cooldowns. It was a joke. Hopefully these changes will put us all more in line. By then I'll have more Hardmode gear and won't be worried about an HP and armor tweak and neither should you.
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But the problem is, the armor and HP is supposed to offset the fact that we have no block. Again, the cooldowns are being tweaked as well. I think that perhaps with the fact that you're not Unholy-specialized, the nerfs may not be as problematic to you. But with the loss of Unholy Blight as an aoe aggro, the loss of Desecration as a snare + aggro improving skill in one, the fact that very little of our tanking is done by death coiling since most of our runic is burned through rune strikes, and obviously the fact that we're "third in line" in DK tanking - all this contributes to the feeling people get about the nerfs in general.
The answer to all this seems to come in the form of "DK tanks will merely have to spec either blood or frost (frost preferably) to have a good chance of doing their job." This flies in the face of their design making each tree both a tanking and DPS tree. I'm not sure what Blizzard is intending here, and I feel that they are perhaps overcompensating for the fact that Unholy has been the most popular tree up until now.
As a note: Prior to the previous patch, I felt that I was way overpowered compared to our main tank Warrior. I would often get the request to main tank instead of him. After that patch, I was not asked to do so again, and I took very spiky/scary damage. With the nerfs to armor, I can no longer hold a ton of mobs on me and expect to miraculously live. And that's fine, as I felt we were overpowered, and was willing to live with it. This on the other hand is on an entirely different scale.
06/19/09, 3:16 PM
