I dont know if this has been mentioned before, but I remember at one point in TBC beta, the armor multiplier was 5, so with thick hide talent we would get 6.5xarmor from armor pieces. Then they reverted it back to 4, and at a later stage started to add the armor heavy items. One way to fix the lack of +armor items i WotLK could be to give us back the 5 times multiplier (or some form of enhanced multiplier) so we get more armor out of the "rogue items".
I know, it was kind of surprising to me as well. It's obvious we do need to scale with more stats than just agility, but parry is not the answer (you spoke about how dodge rating is worse than agility for avoidance .. parry rating is even worse). Itemization wise, they have said they want us using Rogue gear, which will have no dodge or parry rating, but will be loaded with AP. Hence, it (as in the the "fix" they have in store for us) is likely going to be tied somehow to Str/AP.
I'm not disputing that we need help scaling better with gear, but really, giving us parry doesn't solve the problem.
There were a lot of changes after the basic T6 items have appeared in the game. Blizzard did from my point of view did take a deeper look into the 3 additional T6 items and the stats they distributed on them. They had the opportunity to see the results of the T6 itemization above and could counter it with the additional items.
Keeping the tanking classes distinctive without making them different enough that "you don't need any one class" to tank specific bosses is no doubt a difficult task. It's hard to imagine the itemization being sorted out before they know what it's supposed to produce, in tanking abilities.
The first is actually a really good point. And, depending how stuff pans out, both of 'em are if we really will be in full blown DPS gear, cos anything Bears tank might give a major threat leeway compared to the other tanks.
Carlos - Personally I wouldn't compare those. Don't forget Blizzard was inclined to not include any stamina whatsoever on those pieces due to 4 Arena / 4t6 concerns.
There were a lot of changes after the basic T6 items have appeared in the game. Blizzard did from my point of view did take a deeper look into the 3 additional T6 items and the stats they distributed on them. They had the opportunity to see the results of the T6 itemization above and could counter it with the additional items.
You can see that they did counter a lot of over doing on the slayers equipment with substanial amounts of Stamina on the Thunderheart items.
For DPS and healers, the boots, bracers and belt T6 pieces specifically got their stamina values lowered in the 2.4 PTR. The intent was to lower their power in PvP.
Before this change, I think the stamina of the items you mentioned were about equal.
With what blizzard has been saying about "niche" rolls, I'm finding it hard to find one that suits a feral unless its the "high threat short enrage fight" kinda thing that could be remedied with chain misdirects on another tank and not break what they said earlier about forcing a guild into a progression wall because they didnt have a feral or whatnot. It would be interesting if they gave ferals more cat/bear roles in the same fight (ie picking up adds, tanking them with high threat for a little bit, then going back cat to finish the boss) but that kind of job has mostly been for paladins (think felmyst and morogrim tidewalker). I'm not sure I like the idea of being the threat tank with lower mitigation and dpsing most of the time unless they can make cat dps very very competitive with rogues (to the point that they will probably complain and it will get nerfed again) or unless they give bears roles in a raid that make it significantly easier (to where its worth bringing a druid to tank) to do like constant phase changes and aggro dumps or high dps and threat requirements on a boss/mob.
On a side note, does anyone know if cat charge breaks stealth or is it more like shadowstep?
For DPS and healers, the boots, bracers and belt T6 pieces specifically got their stamina values lowered in the 2.4 PTR. The intent was to lower their power in PvP.
Before this change, I think the stamina of the items you mentioned were about equal.
Well, still Druids were not treated as "DPS only" if that was the matter of fact. I mean you saw Rogues with the other T6 setitems in arena, but not with the new 3.
I think the druid still needs a niche. I think "best tank when the boss can't crushing blow" and "best tank that can also dps" aren't great niches now, and perhaps weren't even before LK.
And yes, you shouldn't convert "niche" into "required for" in your mind. A guild lacking any one of the 4 tank classes should not hit a progression wall or we, frankly, suck.
It may be that warriors need a little more space away from paladins and death knights too. This is all stuff we are discussing right now, so it's useful to get all this feedback. I can tell you that two goals we have for LK are that tanking 5-player instances is easier and more fun, and you don't need any one class to raid.
Well, still Druids were not treated as "DPS only" if that was the matter of fact. I mean you saw Rogues with the other T6 setitems in arena, but not with the new 3.
The other t6 items were not a major issue as they locked out the arena set. The belt/boots/bracers meant Rogues (and other classes, for that matter) could now use 4 parts Arena set and retain the 4t6 bonus, getting both.
It's largely a moot point anyway as it's only partially on topic.
I dont know if this has been mentioned before, but I remember at one point in TBC beta, the armor multiplier was 5, so with thick hide talent we would get 6.5xarmor from armor pieces. Then they reverted it back to 4, and at a later stage started to add the armor heavy items. One way to fix the lack of +armor items i WotLK could be to give us back the 5 times multiplier (or some form of enhanced multiplier) so we get more armor out of the "rogue items".
Assuming leather wouldn't have extra armor, if the only change is giving us extra armor multipliers we are basically where we are today (wonky scaling and bad itemization) or even a little behind (less benefit from shared defense and more str on shared tanking gear). Even with no +armor on gear, but a higher multiplier it shouldn't be hard to cap armor at least against even-level mobs or with inspiration.
If this is the only change they make, we'd be looking mainly for gear with agi, sta and armor and later only inflated agi + sta. Unless they make a lot of bear-only gear (their goal is to get away from that) we'll have a tough time finding gear with stats we need for tanking. Basically, if +armor is the only change they make, we'll have a huge chunk of our tanking item budget wasted on stats that give us no survivability: hit, haste, armor pen, block, parry, defense, str etc.
Level 80 tanking with badge of tenacity + mark of tyranny anyone?
If it's part of the solution, it's only part of the solution.
Assuming leather wouldn't have extra armor, if the only change is giving us extra armor multipliers we are basically where we are today (wonky scaling and bad itemization) or even a little behind (less benefit from shared defense and more str on shared tanking gear). Even with no +armor on gear, but a higher multiplier it shouldn't be hard to cap armor at least against even-level mobs or with inspiration.
If this is the only change they make, we'd be looking mainly for gear with agi, sta and armor and later only inflated agi + sta. Unless they make a lot of bear-only gear (their goal is to get away from that) we'll have a tough time finding gear with stats we need for tanking. Basically, if +armor is the only change they make, we'll have a huge chunk of our tanking item budget wasted on stats that give us no survivability: hit, haste, armor pen, block, parry, defense, str etc.
Level 80 tanking with badge of tenacity + mark of tyranny anyone?
If it's part of the solution, it's only part of the solution.
Speculating any kind of problem we are going to run into at level 80 itemization and scaling wise right now is a bit of a moot point. Let them get the content out and tell us by what mechanism we are going to fall into our "niche", which according to that blue post they are not happy with currently. Whether that means they want to change our niche entirely (not likely) or just improve upon it, I don’t know. A percentage based multiplier from our attack power converting to some form of mitigation still does sound like a very valid and optimal solution IF our mitigation/survivability does become a problem once the 80 content is released and tested.
Naxx being a little bit of a been there done that gives them a great way to heavily test 80 raiding and 80 entry level raiding gear / scalability in a lot of different encounters and PvE situations.
Although I will say im getting tired of hearing the knob arguement from Blue "oh yeah when we get there we will just turn the knob and everything will be great".
I think the druid still needs a niche. I think "best tank when the boss can't crushing blow" and "best tank that can also dps" aren't great niches now, and perhaps weren't even before LK.
With what blizzard has been saying about "niche" rolls, I'm finding it hard to find one that suits a feral unless its the "high threat short enrage fight" kinda thing that could be remedied with chain misdirects on another tank and not break what they said earlier about forcing a guild into a progression wall because they didnt have a feral or whatnot.
I disagree. Bears were great as physical mitigation tanks for T4-T5 content and a good part of T6, and because of certain boss mechanics remained that way in Sunwell. Really, they were the best mitigation regardless of crushing blows in T4-T5; the only reason that they lose this is because of scaling. They were also excellent at threat while maintaining those levels of mitigation/avoidance. That was their niche. They had other advantages such as being more easily crit-immune (and thus being useful on resistance fights), being able to do more DPS as a tank and on phase changes, and being exceptional at off-tanking when not being hit for much, but the big one in my mind was the physical mitigation, especially when the physical attacks were slow and hard. There is no reason that druids can't be this again. Having armor as the only mitigation druids can use favors druids against slow, hard-hitting targets. Even without armor capping, so long as the difference in armor between classes is reasonably large and block value does not become insane, druids can still retain this.
That niche - of being the best against physical mobs - has apparently been passed to warriors, at least according to the blizzard designers. IT bothers me that the class designers apparently have no idea what to do with druids and they do not know what druids were used for prior to this.
That niche - of being the best against physical mobs - has apparently been passed to warriors, at least according to the blizzard designers. IT bothers me that the class designers apparently have no idea what to do with druids and they do not know what druids were used for prior to this.
I would have to agree with this when the blue post seems like we are now a red headed step child and we aren’t exactly sure what you are going to be good at since now the other tanks can do the same thing you could.
I say fine, then allow all 4 tanks to tank just as good as the other with no niche. Don’t force us into a niche you thought up just because you feel everyone has to have a niche.
I'll just throw a two-cents, since I'm a Warrior tank and do not have a beta key...
Are not Druids the most mobile tanks? Being able to instantly break CC/snares, and now with the +speed talent available indoors, they *could* work on mobile fights that favor the Druids.
Imagine, say, a fight against a boss that roots a tank and runs away shooting arrows; the other tanks would be able to PvP trink out, but it would favor the Druids because they could do it faster, more times, and run faster. I'm sure the devs could do something much better than this example, hehehe.
I never tanked as a bear, though, so it's just an idea that crossed my mind. :P
I'll just throw a two-cents, since I'm a Warrior tank and do not have a beta key...
Are not Druids the most mobile tanks? Being able to instantly break CC/snares, and now with the +speed talent available indoors, they *could* work on mobile fights that favor the Druids.
Imagine, say, a fight against a boss that roots a tank and runs away shooting arrows; the other tanks would be able to PvP trink out, but it would favor the Druids because they could do it faster, more times, and run faster. I'm sure the devs could do something much better than this example, hehehe.
I never tanked as a bear, though, so it's just an idea that crossed my mind. :P
Paladins have hand of freedom + cleanse. Also the speed talent is cat form only.
I'll just throw a two-cents, since I'm a Warrior tank and do not have a beta key...
Are not Druids the most mobile tanks? Being able to instantly break CC/snares, and now with the +speed talent available indoors, they *could* work on mobile fights that favor the Druids.
Imagine, say, a fight against a boss that roots a tank and runs away shooting arrows; the other tanks would be able to PvP trink out, but it would favor the Druids because they could do it faster, more times, and run faster. I'm sure the devs could do something much better than this example, hehehe.
I never tanked as a bear, though, so it's just an idea that crossed my mind. :P
Definitely good thinking -- encounter design is the huge missing variable here. However, Safeguard + Intervene / Intercept, Hand of Freedom (which a prot pally obviously has and can be applied to a warrior as well), 115% run speed for pallies, etc., combined with the fact that we could be one shot in cat form, all add up to largely moot the druid mobility advantage, at least in raid level content.
Mobile tanks cannot be dazed. We do not have the defence in live, and definitely do not have the defence on beta to not be dazed. Thus we cannot be mobile. This to me is a bug/oversight, however we've lived with it so long that it is considered normal, and my hopes for it changing are not high.
Imagine, say, a fight against a boss that roots a tank and runs away shooting arrows; the other tanks would be able to PvP trink out, but it would favor the Druids because they could do it faster, more times, and run faster. I'm sure the devs could do something much better than this example, hehehe.
That's absolutely true - druids do great against snaring bosses. To my knowledge, there's all of one fight in TBC where this is directly relevant, and that is Vashj. Except Vashj does so much magic damage that druids aren't that great relative to warriors even with this being the case. This shows up on trash all the time - being able to shift out of frost traps or wing clips - but it's hardly a tank-defining characteristic and it certainly wouldn't be enough to earn a progression slot unless the mechanic was used a huge amount of the time.
I'm not sure what answer you're looking for on the paladin issue. There are 4 tank classes in the game and the design is that all 4 can MT any boss in the game (provided you have a decent spec and gear and know what you're doing).
If you want to be the MT in your guild as a prot paladin, you can do that. Will some encounters be a little harder for you? Maybe. But there will be some that are a little harder for the warrior too, and none of them should be so hard that you can't beat the boss. This is a change in philosophy from BC where I honestly believe some encounters were nearly impossible for some tank classes (unless you outgear the encounter).
Part of the reason we had to give what were traditionally warrior abilities to other classes is those classes flat had trouble without them. But it goes both ways. We need to give some of the druid dps and some of the paladin AE threat to warriors as well to keep parity.
Likewise, if we stand a level 80 warrior in Naxx gear next to a level 80 bear and find that the bear's armor is much better than the warrior's and the warrior's stamina is much higher than the bear, we'll adjust talents and gear to fix that.
The numbers don't have to be identical: If the bear's high stamina is enough to make up for the warrior's high armor, then we're in the ball park. But if the bear has better mitigation and all the toys of a warrior, then I think that would be unfair to the warriors. If the paladin has the same mitigation as a warrior but much better threat generation, that would likewise be a problem. But, if the warrior could tank a boss that a paladin, druid or death knight could not, that would also be a problem.
We're not done with Ferals. The builds you get are often a week or more behind ours, and that assumes that a designer actually went in and made changes. It's impossible for us to balance the threat and mitigation of the 4 tanking classes until we can take a look at the level 80 characters, wearing raid-level gear, and fighting a raid-level encounter. None of that content is done yet.
I said above that I think the old design of "You can't ever be a MT, but you get to be a terrific OT" feels dated. But in order to be a MT as good as a paladin or warrior, you can't also dps as well as a Fury warrior with the same spec. I don't think anyone is asking for that, but realistically the only way to address is it with talents. (And before someone asks, if you like the OT role, you can still do that too.)
I'm fine bouncing between druid, warrior, paladin and death knight forums posting "You will be able to MT Ulduar without gimping your raid" every few days if that's what it takes.
Sounds like it's just a wait and see situation, at this point, until we get to level 80 on the beta.
While I appreciate Greven's suggestion (as impractical as it was), I don't think thats the right direction. Who wants to be the "niche" tank for "gimmick" fights, whether based on being able to shift out of forms or some other unique druid ability?
Of the two roles suggested by Blizzard: "best tank when the boss can't crushing blow" and "best tank that can also dps," neither will apply in WotlK. The first (assuming that bosses will remain lvl 83) because crushing blows will only come from 4+ level opponents. The second, because it should have been stated as "best tank that can also (single target dps)". The Prot Pally tanking adds during Felmyst Phase II does alot more damage than any WWS I've seen for a feral attempting the same job, or doing boss dps and helping on the adds. Similarly, on Brute, a Prot Pally actually has superior single target threat generation, esp. at the start of the fight when they can pop their "wings" and hit exorcism, etc (granted, this could be considered a "gimmick" fight as the boss is a Demon).
According to Blizzard, Warriors are the physical mitigation tanks, Paladins are the AoE tanks, Death Knights look set to be the "magic damage" tanks. I honestly don't have a good solution for Blizzard. The "Threat" tank for "Frenzy" Bosses suggestion sounds workable, in that we will already have good mitigation and do more single target dmg, but that still plays into what seems like a fairly limited and "gimmicky" dependent role.
At the end of the day, it looks like we are left as the "Second best" tank that has good physical mitigation and "Second best" AoE threat (depending on how DKs work out). Not sure being "second best" is what any of us are interested in, and it certainly doesn't sound like a description that anyone would want for their Main Tank, if indeed Blizzard intends any of the four classes to be a raid MT.
Last edited by Mara : 08/12/08 at 7:10 PM.
Reason: clarity
Of the two roles suggested by Blizzard: "best tank when the boss can't crushing blow" and "best tank that can also dps," neither will apply in WotlK.
To be fair, ghostcrawler was stating that's what's around right now but doesn't really work as a niche.
I wrote an article about this earlier, and the best I could come up with is having the warrior and druid swap somewhat in their tanking roles. Change the druid so that they are the generalist tank which neither excels nor fails against any encounter. This goes well with the druid design philosophy before while allowing a lot of flexibility in raid progression. It need not hinder raid progression either; having one of each tanking class would mean you could have two tanks that could deal well with physical damage, two tanks that could deal well with magic damage and two tanks that could deal well with AoE encounters. This would require druids to be changed significantly, but I think it could be a reasonable solution for basing a druid's niche. And I think having a tank that can tank any encounter well (though not as well as any given substitute) would be something most raiding guilds would want.
Though honestly I think a warrior should have the generalist role; they've already got the tools to make them good AoE, good physical damage and good magic damage tanks and would require the least amount of tweaking.
To be fair, ghostcrawler was stating that's what's around right now but doesn't really work as a niche.
I wrote an article about this earlier, and the best I could come up with is having the warrior and druid swap somewhat in their tanking roles. Change the druid so that they are the generalist tank which neither excels nor fails against any encounter.
(snip)
To be fair, they (the developers) do not want any of the four tanks to fail against any encounter. What they seem to be attempting to do is have warriors, paladins, druids, and deathknights be able to MT any encounter in the game without really making it harder on the raid, while each tank has its own 'flavour'.
From what we've seen so far, I'd venture to guess that MT niche preferences are as follows (sorry if this has a rehashed feeling):
Paladins -> Bosses with adds or fast swing timers, or dual weild; also undead or demon bosses.
Warriors -> Bosses with slow swing timers, also bosses that cast the occasional single target spell at the MT.
Deathknights -> Bosses that deal primarily magic damage (think Vashj, Solarian, and their ilk)
Druids -> They don't know yet. Conjecture: Physical damage bosses that hit really hard or have large damage spikes. Having the higher HP pool of the bear giving healers a buffer time to heal.
Personally, I hope they hope they continue the niches that have been there all along: Bear=Physical, Paladin=AoE, DK=Magic, Warrior=Universal. I have no problem giving up some DPS for better tanking.
We outright suck at magic tanking, and I don't mind at all. We are awesome at taking physical damage, and I sincerely hope we remain kings at that. (The only exceptions being extremely fast hitting bosses, where the value of block goes up, which I'm totally fine with)
Paladins -> Bosses with adds or fast swing timers, or dual weild; also undead or demon bosses.
Warriors -> Bosses with slow swing timers, also bosses that cast the occasional single target spell at the MT.
Deathknights -> Bosses that deal primarily magic damage (think Vashj, Solarian, and their ilk)
Druids -> They don't know yet. Conjecture: Physical damage bosses that hit really hard or have large damage spikes. Having the higher HP pool of the bear giving healers a buffer time to heal.
How is the niche that a druid has here different than the niche a warrior has here? Unless the warrior's niche is slow swing timers with meh damage, in which case I suspect it really doesn't matter.
And I apologize for using 'fails' here. If you like, I'll restate - a druid may make a good generalist tank, one that is not optimal for any encounter but is not the most suboptimal for any encounter.
I'd really rather druids remain king of physical damage mitigation as well, Astrylian. However, I think that ship is going to sail and druids better get used to the notion that warriors are going to be the best at taking physical damage.
Personally, I hope they hope they continue the niches that have been there all along
Yea I pretty much agree with that. As well, we have always been better sponge tanks than other classes on damage taken when stunned, or that which is otherwise unavoidable but still mitigated by armor (although this gap lessened over time as we bumped the armor cap and other classes kept going up, not to mention stuff like Defensive Stance and Imp Righteous Fury). I certainly wouldn't have any issue if Warriors were able to tank a physical boss as well as us, and then go ahead and tank the next magical boss as well as a DK .. as long as we were also able to tank the magical boss at an acceptable level (i.e. no Spell Reflect, legendary shield or Shield Block gimmicks) and the DK was also able to tank the physical boss at an acceptable level. Paladinesque AoE threat, I'd be wary of handing out freely though =p
Would be nice to post this thought in response to ghostcrawler if you can Astrylian.
I said above that I think the old design of "You can't ever be a MT, but you get to be a terrific OT" feels dated. But in order to be a MT as good as a paladin or warrior, you can't also dps as well as a Fury warrior with the same spec. I don't think anyone is asking for that, but realistically the only way to address is it with talents. (And before someone asks, if you like the OT role, you can still do that too.)
One thing Ghostcrawler seems to not address is how prot warriors currently aren't that bad at dw devastate dps when they put on fury gear. I'd expect that death knights even in a tanking spec could put on dps gear and do similarly. Considering the gear consolidation direction Blizzard's taking, druids won't even have the option of differentiating dps and tanking gear (aside from gems/enchants/whatnot) anymore. If we're not supposed to be at fury warrior dps levels, will we at least be beating death knights and prot warriors in tank spec/dps gear in our "bear" talent tree? How far apart is prot dps and fury dps, and where should we fall in between to be balanced?
With current feral dps being more around prot dps than fury dps, and prot warriors getting dps buffs in the expansion, it would feel somewhat demoralizing if a MT specced prot warrior is capable of switching gear and out dpsing a feral druid, while being a better magic, aoe, and fast hit physical damage tank when wearing his tanking gear.
08/12/08, 6:05 AM
