Psibeast

I'm thinking of it has a new skill, learned at the trainer. Instead of us going Lacerate Lacerate Lacerate Mangle (or switch lacerate for swipe if applicable), let's have something more interesting to do. You could spam it every cooldown, but if it catches a 200 damage hit it's not very interesting, or you could anticipate when a big hit is coming and use it defensively. For example, you see a spell being cast at you, and you know it's gonna hit for a bunch, hit that button and absorb it.

 

TimWischmeier

I would really love to have more possibilities to show a bit skill when tanking. That said, since I got the combination of Badge/Moroe's (which was when we started Gruul and Mag), I just rarely used other trinkets (up to Felmyst now). Why? I love have some buttons I can reactively or proactively use. It's tremendously helpful to pop those two trinkets about five seconds before a stomp, because you are most probably at full health when stomp occurs, which will help the healers alot. Hopefully when reworking bear tanking they will give us some talent which would make us able to show some skill while tanking.

 

Toranshalur

What about a change to frenzied regen? Make it an activatable no-cooldown ability, consuming X rage per second when active and restoring Y health per second (or % of total hp)

You get hit a lot - lots of rage, frenzied regen activated, some damage mitigated.
Hit not very much, not much rage, cant spare any for regen, no damage mitigated.

It's a similar idea to health regen on being hit, but as rage is generated while being hit, might as well use it.

 

Psibeast

The reason frenzied regeneration isn't used much as a raid setting tanking ability is that it is simply too weak. Furthermore, it consumes far too much rage for the amount of benefit you get from it. The most important point, though, is that it simple doesn't scale. You get the same amount of health from a full rage bar no matter how hard you are being hit.

My suggestion both scales (the amount of damage you mitigate is directly linked to the amount of damage you are taking), and adds a tactical skill element. You use it at the right time, you mitigate a lot of damage. You use it at the wrong time, you get little benefit. You need to make choices - do you want to use it or keep it off cooldown for emergency? you need to react quickly if you see a big blow coming.

 

pininer

Similar to your idea, I had been mulling over in my mind for the last couple of days a new druid ability called Natural Dispersion, with similar functionality. The ability I was considering was really the druid answer to spell reflection, and went something like-

Natural Dispersion:
Takes one magical attack cast upon the druid and converts 100% of the magical damage into a 10 second heal over time on the druid. Cooldown 15 seconds (or so).

I figured with the homogenization of tanking abilities, and our overall lack of magical defense that this would be a unique way to get similar functionality to a warrior, without just copying spell reflection. Instead of making the dynamic offense, like a warrior, it would be more defensive (helping to mitigate the lacking static magic dmg reduction). REally though the buff coudl be anything instead of a hot- increased dodge, -10% magic dmg buff, a group heal over time.

I wouldn't expand it to physical attacks though because I think it could potentially op us, and give us a huge advantage over other tanks for bosses that have cleaves or other big physical attacks.

 

Mara

The below post, while admittedly a "gross simplification" is rather worrying.

WoW Forums -> Tanking in Wrath of the Lich King

"Currently we are talking more about HOW classes tank, not WHAT they tank. Potential examples: The warrior tanks by having a shield, a lot of mitigation and avoidance. The druid tanks by having a huge health pool. The paladin tanks by using passive reactive abilities. That is a gross simplification, but perhaps you get the idea."

I don't tank with a huge health pool? Do you? I may have 1-1.5k more health, at most, fully buffed than our Warrior MT when we are both wearing stam-whore gear.

A warrior tanks with "a lot of mitigation and avoidance"? Wasn't the sunwell radiance debuff introduced largely because Druids could hit avoidance cap on bosses? And when have warriors ever hit the armor cap like Druids do?

Tanking has traditionally consisted of threat, mitigation & avoidance, where health was often considered merely a part of mitigation. Health doesn't give us more threat (unless you are counting being alive vs. being dead as more threat). Health doesn't give us more avoidance.

I like the Natural Dispersion idea in that it gives at least one idea on how a druid could tank with 'a huge health pool.' However, do we want to encourage Blizzard to take this route? Better yet a Feral on Beta who can make a persuasive post re: how tanking with health will require Blizzard to give us additional new abilities and creates an unwanted tax on healer mana, when they are already facing new issues due to the elimination of down-ranking.

 

Duilliath

Come on.

Reading comprehension, people !

It was
1) an example
2) about WotLK and not at all about the current state of affairs.

Now stop throwing hissy fits and at least read and understand what the blue says.

 

Toranshalur

Sorry, you didnt really understand what i meant. The numbers on frenzied regen can be altered, and it does scale - with how hard we are being hit (if, like i suggested it has no cooldown and is just switched on or off) or it could scale with stamina or anything like that.

It doesnt have to be frenzied regen, but should be something like a reactive block (like warriors' is pro-active, activated when incoming damage is anticipated) so that it's basically life tap in reverse, using rage instead of mana.
For example, feral tank takes massive hit > full rage bar > uses "rage tap" > regens some health, like a warrior would have blocked it already.

On this idea that warriors are avoidance tanks and druids hp-based tanks; it seems flawed. Isn't that the tbc design? Yet warriors gem for stamina, and druids for agility. As you get more hp, avoidance gains in power (in terms of reducing chance of death from burst damage) and as you gain avoidance, stamina gains in power. You can't have 2 tank classes based around different tanking mechanics which should go hand-in-hand.

 

Psibeast

I think that the fact that it is a recurring example in the blue posts when referring to druid tanking in wotlk is what got people worried. They are afraid that the examples they give reflect their current state of mind.

The thing is, it converts rage to health at a constant rate. Right now it is not very hard for us to fill our rage bar. It doesn't even take a very hard hitting boss to do so. You get a lot of rage from your offensive abilities as well. If I don't maul, I get a full rage bar even against trash mobs just due to the damage I am doing, so the incoming rage reflecting incoming damage isn't very accurate.

The other thing is, it doesn't really create a "niche" for druids. It doesn't affect the way a druid tanks and doesn't make the druid more suited to certain kinds of encounters.

 

Mijae

While the Natural Absorbtion is a nice idea, it would need to be drastically scaled down. If you gain the same health as the damage taken, it's essentially like you avoided the hit. This means it is essentially, press X button to guarantee the next attack that would be a hit is instead a miss. That is quite an emergency button I'd love to have. However, every 6 seconds is far too frequent imo.

I prefer the idea about the Natural Dispersion idea. It's a great way to reduce overall healing required for high magic damage without actually mitigating the damage.

Barkskin in form is still the most simple change and is readily available. It might be interesting to have an active defensive ability on a shorter cooldown, but it seems they are even moving warriors away from it.

Feral DruidStats spreadsheet
v3.2.0.0.xls - updated 8/4/2009

 

Jone

Agreed, I've seen "big health, low mitigation/avoidance" at least twice (hereand here) in connection to druids, and I hate the idea. I've got stam gems now because I was going 50>0 in one hit on Teron, but I've always been most pleased to put in agility. I love the high dodge/armor bear tank and am a bit worried about the low mitigation these two comments seem to imply.

 

kalbear

The biggest problem I have with that example - of any tank's niche being 'tons of stam' - is that it is inherently a poor scaling mechanic relative to mitigation or avoidance for tanking purposes. 20% more stamina is not the equivalent of 13% more mitigation as you increase the amount of damage you take. If the blizzard developers are going to give any tanking class this as their niche that tanking class will have an inherent disadvantage relative to others going forward. I'm also confused how predictable, larger damage is better than predictable, smaller damage or unpredictable smaller damage.

Hopefully this will be brought up on the beta forums and the developers can get a good grasp on effective health theory.

 

Psibeast

I actually think that the Natural Dispersion idea is far more powerful. It doesn't just fully mitigate the damage of the spell, it actually mitigates more because it replaces it with a HoT.

As for Natural Absorbtion, yes it is guaranteed mitigation of the next hit, but many things factor in here. You can't always be sure what the next hit would be. AoE damage, adds, other things like that could all contribute to this ability being wasted on a minor hit. Thus, if you want to use it effectively you must use it as close as possible to an anticipated large hit. That adds a skill factor that I think many druids would like.

 

Maeltne

Every tank needs (excuse my poor knowledge of other tanks)

1) A 'large enough' health pool. Large enough so that you can survive ~4+s without a heal. Too little of this and you get random tank deaths, too much and ... well nothing interesting happens.

2) Passive mitigation/avoidance. TBC Druids have armor/dodge, Warriors have less armor, comparable dodge/parry/block and shield block, whose usage was so extreme that even 'activated' it counts as passive. Paladins have dodge/parry/block and holy shield, with similar usage as shield block, though thankfully not as spam heavy. What is it going to be in TBC? No idea, but the examples are so ... simple and showing a general lack of knowledge and experience that I'm moderately concerned.

3) A minor activated mitigation/avoidance/incoming damage decrease. TBC the only things that come to mind are Thunderclap and Demoralizing Shout, and these are Warrior exclusive.

In WotLK it appears that all tanks are getting an attack speed slow, although the Warriors is still by far the strongest with it's AoE application, and the Druid's by far the weakest with the number of stacks required. Warlocks are even getting one... Interesting.

Also in WotLK Warriors are getting Shield Block tuned to an ability of this class. A significant about of mitigation on a 30s activation. Death Knights are getting a similar ability in Anti-Magic Shell, but it applies to spells only.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe that Paladins or Druids have anything of this type currently currently in beta. Holy shield is more of a passive/threat ability at this point.

4) A major activated mitigation/avoidance/incoming damage decrease/survivability increase. TBC the only thing that comes to mind are Shield Wall and last stand, once again Warrior exclusive.

In WotLK, the Shield Wall (50%, 10s, 5 min CD) ability has been toned down and given to Paladins (Divine Protection), 50%, 12s, 5 min CD), and Death Knights (Icebound Fortitude 50%, 12s, 1 min CD). Currently Druids have no such ability.

Also the Last Stand (6 min CD) ability has been given to Druid in the form of Berserk (30%, other stuff, 5 min CD). Death Knights have the Lichborn (+25% miss, other stuff, 5 min CD), however that is more of a proactive ability as opposed to a reactive ability, and should probably be saved to remain in control of your character. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe Paladins (or Death Knights really) have this ability.

5) Abilities to remain in control of their Character. The only thing that comes to mind is the Berserker Rage (fear, sap, incapacitate, 10s, 30s CD) warrior stance dance.

WotLK Warrior retain their 30s spammable ability, and Druids get Berserk (All loss of control, 30s, 5 min CD), Death Knights get Lichborne (Charm, Fear, Sleep, 30s, 5 min CD)

6) Ability to move. Defense grants daze resistance giving all defence using classes the ability to move or reposition without a daze effect. Druid use less and so can and do get dazed, and will use even less in WotLK.

In my mind there is very little room to play with niches. All tanks need comparable (1) HP, and (2) Avoidance/Mitigation. Every tank should have a Shield Wall and Last stand type activated ability with similar cool down. Every Tank should have abilities to remain in control of their character on a similar cool down. The only place for a 'niche' in my mind is with *VERY MINOR* variations in HP/avoidance/mitiation, and with the minor activated ability.

Warriors get shield block.
Deathknights get anti-magic shell
Druids currently get ... nothing
Paladins currently get nothing.

My suggestion for the Druids minor activated ability would be the old standby, make Barkskin castable in forms. Shorten the effect to 6s, and the CD to 30s. Tinker with the % reduction if you want.

 

Coldturkey

I kinda like the idea of the "cloak of feral" for pve and pvp. It would bring some magic damage reduction that i have longed for to druids.

 

Psibeast

Druids have Demoralizing Roar.

Make that none. Druids will be crit immune from talents alone making Defense/resilience very poor stats for druids at wotlk.

 

kalbear

Druids have demoralizing roar, though it's not as good. They also have infected wounds, though I'm not sure whether it'll actually be usable against most mobs. Paladins have their tclap built into their judgments. Death Knights have a slow ability as well, and I believe have had an AP reduction.

 

Melthu

Sure, the idea of tanking with "a huge health pool" might seem scary if considered in a vacuum, but let's recall the changes to downranking (i.e. it's complete removal from the game). Just because you only have 1.5k more health than your warrior right now it can drastically change in the expansion.

Let's just throw some numbers out there and say you have 6k more health than a warrior tank and the boss hits for 5k. You can survive 1 hit more than the warrior, which may be long enough to let your healers heal reactively rather than pro-actively, which will reduce overheal. Again, just making up numbers, but what if encounters were designed such that druids require 100k healing and warrior require only 75k, but the fight is such that healers can reliably achieve just 10% overheal on you while overhealing the warrior by 47%. Now you've both successfully tanked the fight and even required the same amount of total healing.

That's just one possibility. It's also possible that we would need more total healing over the course of a fight, but have only half the chance to be "inst-gibbed" thanks to our large health pools, while warriors are vulnerable to non-avoidance strings. Again, you've both tanked the fight, but you have to choose between stretching healer mana running dry vs. tank gib.

Lastly, let's not forget that little if any of what the dev posted is actually in the beta at this time. Hell, the level cap is still 77, how much work do you think they've really done on endgame raid tanking balance? Even things already in the game have been subject to swift and violent change, let's not get too flustered over something that's barely a twinkle in a developer's eye.

 

kalbear

No, see, this is incorrect. That's what the blizzard points were saying - druids would have less mitigation/avoidance than a warrior, but a greater health pool. So both tanks would be able to survive the same amounts of hits. A druid would just take more damage than a warrior and require more healing. This is an advantage on bosses that do magic-based damage or otherwise bypass mitigation, like Hydross. Which is a bit ironic if given to druids given their position in TBC.

 

Melthu

Yes, they did say (theoretically, of course) that warriors would be the mitigation tank, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they can survive the same number of hits, it just means that they'd take less overall damage. If both druids and warriors could survive the same number of hits but druids required 20% more healing due to inferior mitigation we would be pretty underpowered. If we could survive a hit or 2 more than equally geared warriors while requiring 20% more healing then we'd still strain healer mana more, but we'd be more stable. That's what I would call a niche: both can tank the same fight, but somewhat differently.

 

pininer

What would make natural dispersion less powerful is that it would only impact magical attacks (similar to spell reflect). I think one of the largest problems with druid tanking has been our weakness to magical damage, and our inability to mitigate it. The HoT aspect could be changed to anything, in fact I think it may make more sense as an added 10% reduction in magical damage taken for the duration of the cooldown. This way we have a way to fully mitigate one spell every 12-15 seconds, and then have a passive reduction in magic damage taken. This would in effect be less powerful than spell reflection (it causes no damage), results in the same degree of mitigating that one attack, and then provides a passive buff against magical damage similar to what other classes get.

Perhaps even making the ability one of the "tanking feral talents" somewhere deep in the feral tree, thus making this an ability that someone who wants to be a MT would want to pick, but someone who is more into catform would not. Something along the lines of 2 talent points-
Magical Disspersion:
1 point- absorbs 50%(or 100%- depending on balancie) of 1 magical attack, converts attack to 5% reduction in magical damage taken for 15 seconds
2 points- absorbs 100% of 1 magical attack, converts attack to 10% reduction in magical damage for 15 seconds
coodown 15 seconds.
or something along those lines.

All of the specifics could be tweaked for balance reasons, and I don’t think this would be overpowering in pvp or pve. This would then hopefully add a higher degree of engagement to druid tanking, and address one of our largest deterrent to a druid as a MT- magical damage mitigation.

 

Unity

'More hitpoints, less mitigation' is pretty easy to balance, at least in principle - if Druids get 20% more hitpoints and take 20% more damage then simply allowing Nurturing Instinct to work in Bear would make the bigger numbers merely cosmetic. Getting the numbers right for all sensible gear combinations and attack types isn't trivial though.

 

Toranshalur

Actually, that would make sense lore-wise. Druids being in tune with nature and all that; they should receive extra healing, at least from nature spells (druids and shamans).

 

Septus

It's not quite so good as that, because healers are using more mana to heal more hitpoints.

 

Cuer

It doesn't sound like the differences between the tanking classes will end up as dramatic as that. At least, the way it's being phrased in the latest post by Ghostcrawler: