Topic
Dear Blizzard, Stop making 1 tank fights.
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Dear Blizzard,
My offtank just quit the game after we killed Heroic Madness of Deathwing and I am finding it extremely difficult to recruit a new tank, because when they ask about how much raid time they will see I have to explain to them that " Because I am a tank also, and I raid lead for the guild, you will likely be higher priority in sitting than myself. Assuming there are 2 tank fights, you will always be in. If it is a 1 tank fight, you will likely be sitting." When you add in the fact that 6/8h fights in Dragon Soul are 1 tank fights (in 10man). That means a new tank will only be in for 2/8h fights or 25%. Most competent players are NOT OK with joining a semi-hardcore raiding guild and only raiding 25% of the time. If all fights were 2 tank, this would be not be an issue. Guilds could recruit the standard 2 tanks and the tanks would not have to worry about being sat or falling behind on offspec gear, or not enjoying playing their dps/healing specs. After all, if they want to raid as a tank, they should be able to raid as a tank! So Blizzard! Quit worrying about "making tanking more exciting with active mitigation" and all that BS. Worry about making sure that your players can raid in the first place! By making ALL FIGHTS 2 tank. I don't care if it's a sunder armor mechanic, adds that need to be picked up, an aggro drop, a stacking debuff you have to watch out for, or a major cooldown rotation that you need 2 tanks to handle. Figure out a way to make sure that EVERY fight requires 2 tanks so i can recruit a competent tank and ensure them that they will have substantial raid time with us. Sincerely, Bradleypitt |
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Having to sit in the first place sucks but unless everyone in the world had unlimited time to raid, never had any accidents/etc that threw off their schedules, and multiple raid geared toons (which would kind of be a necessity for 10m anyway), it's not entirely avoidable.
Anyway yeah, 1 tank fights are a mixed bag. |
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There's only two fights that are seemingly designed to be single tanked in Dragon Soul on 10-man, and they are Warlord and Hagara. And even on Hagara, it can be argued that their intention was for two tanks to rotate or taunt-kite Focused Assaults.
What you're talking about isn't for them to design fights for 2 tanks, they almost universally do - you're asking them to enforce two tanks in a way that strats involving one tank are impossible. |
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OP: Your point is a very valid one, but realistically if you've already killed Madness of Deathwing on Heroic, do you really need to drop your 2nd tank out for another person every other fight? Just have them DPS and your personal problem will be solved.
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85 Troll Druid
7110
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There's only two fights that are seemingly designed to be single tanked in Dragon Soul on 10-man, and they are Warlord and Hagara. And even on Hagara, it can be argued that their intention was for two tanks to rotate or taunt-kite Focused Assaults. yor'shaj, zon'ozz, hagara, spine, madness thay all can and should be one tanked in 10m normal, and even on heroic you can one tank them (spine can but it's really hard) even ultraxion can be one tanked on normal... op: well, you should try to recruit someone with a dps offspec or even start to build one, in my guild we have a 10 person rooster, and the other tank is switching dps for pretty much the first half |
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um find a tank with a dps os or a dps with os tank set...
how gd hard is that 2 do? |
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You're saying "can be 1-tanked" Slash is saying "were designed to be 1-tanked" There's a difference. Only Hagara and Zon'ozz (normal and 10H) don't have an obvious role for a second tank. That that role isn't important enough to warrant dropping a DPS is a different issue. |
This is important. A lot of "two tank" fights aren't really fights for two tanks. There are mechanics that lean that way, with more or less severity, but a lot of the time there just aren't two things that need to be tanked separately. So you cheese it a bit. You single tank it, and power through the bad effects of that with cooldowns. And by doing that, you get an extra slot in your raid for whatever else you might need more of - typically dps.
This is pretty much what they did in DS, and look where it got them. Ultraxion has the aggro drop. Yor'sahj has the stacking debuff. Spine has the adds. Madness has the cooldown rotation. Those are not how you make a fight require two tanks. Those are ways to shoehorn an extra tank slot into a fight that never planned anything for the other tank from the beginning. |
What about players who want to DPS sometimes and tank other times and are happy with the current system? Do they get any consideration at all? |
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Edited by Zapwidget on 2/19/12 8:40 PM (PST)
After all, if they want to raid as a tank, they should be able to raid as a tank! No. You get no say! Really though, a healthy mix of encounters is what they need. Each tier should have a solid mix of 1 tank, co-tank, and MT/OT encounters. A compelling reason to have 2 tanks other than generic debuff #X stacking to unhealable would be nice, but anything other than Blood Mirror. I would say more council-type fights, but even Tron was single-tankable well before Firelands. I will also say that one of the things I didn't like about a lot of the MT/OT encounters, namely Maloriak and Shannox this time around, is that the glory tank, the one standing in front of the big ugly looking cool in the screenshots, is the simple part while the muck tank in the back does the stuff that actually requires working the mechanics. |
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I'm the Off-tank for my guild's main raid group. : /
The reason why? The bear that main tanks it has an average item level of 395, 3 points higher than me. |
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Edited by Arcdeek on 2/19/12 8:40 PM (PST)
Dear Blizzard,
Please ignore this guy. I actually like having variety, and don't want a repeat of ICC. Sincerely, This guy. ... In all seriousness, OP, why are you benching your co tank instead of keeping him in as DPS to improve his skills there? I'm the Off-tank for my guild's main raid group. : / If your guild is deciding who should be tank a given fight by item level instead of skill, toolbox, or even just asking who wants to DPS, you may want to find a new guild. |
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Edited by Windfuehrer on 2/19/12 9:01 PM (PST)
Okay :(
I strongly agree with this. Someone should start brainstroming for this. In addition, there's been a lot of talking about niches. I wouldn't be opposed if Blizzard made it so it was advantageous to have a block tank and a sponge to make fights a little easier, but that might not be a good idea. I don't know. |
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Edited by Slashlove on 2/19/12 9:53 PM (PST)
yor'shaj, zon'ozz, hagara, spine, madness thay all can and should be one tanked in 10m normal, and even on heroic you can one tank them (spine can but it's really hard) even ultraxion can be one tanked on normal... That's exactly why I said "designed to be 2-tanked". It was the same deal in Firelands - the only fight designed as a single tank fight was Staghelm. What we're talking about is the ability to get away with using one tank because cooldowns/extradps/fightbeingeasyanyway offsets the absolute strict necessity of that second tank, whereas on fights like Morchok or Beth, you're forced to 2-tank it because fight mechanics don't let you get away with 1-tanking it without making it a bit harder on the hard scale than "heal through 6 stacks of OH VOID BOLT ONLY TICKS FOR 5K A STACK ON 10-MAN INSTEAD OF 25K". Most Spine strats use a Bearcat or a DPS tanking the Amalg because the Amalg doesn't hit as hard at 0 stacks. That's effectively 2-tanking it - you can just get away with doing it in dps gear and (mostly) dps spec because that's not the hard part of the fight. They COULD increase its base damage by 60% and then increase the absorb effect to give 6% more damage per stack instead of 10% or something if they wanted to enforce 2 tanks, but they probably aren't going to. They could make Void Bolt tick for 20k on 10-man if they want to enforce 2-tank, but they probably won't. The only way to really enforce 2 tank on Madness though would be to take away things like Dispersion from Shadow Priests. MUST ENFORCE 2-TANKS, or MUST ENFORCE 5 HEALERS or MUST ENFORCE 3 HEALERS isn't something they have as a policy. So that's what the request is - not that they stop making 1 tank fights, but that they make it impossible to 1-tank fights and succeed. |
Bad dwarf pally. No beer for you! Just cuz you have a beard doesn't mean it excuses your /hairflip! On a side note, with tanking getting harder, there will be more and more ppl who are MS dps, call themselves a DPS; but pick up a tank set OS, and can stand in front of maloriak or "OMG hit taunt on chimera" Tanks are the thinnest role. The need for less of them just means more guilds will rush through content faster. Remember how easy it was to find kick@$$ guild mid WotLK? |
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I will also say that one of the things I didn't like about a lot of the MT/OT encounters, namely Maloriak and Shannox this time around, is that the glory tank, the one standing in front of the big ugly looking cool in the screenshots, is the simple part while the muck tank in the back does the stuff that actually requires working the mechanics.I actually loved that part of the 2 tank fights... Also I know this has been said a lot in this thread, but @OP, since it is no longer progression content (where it'd be entirely understandable to sit your tank because his OS doesn't do enough damage) it's now farm content, so... |
But unless you are running an alt group clearing roughly the same content, your OT should have the best off spec gear. |
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Edited by Omegal on 2/19/12 11:02 PM (PST)
Hagara was DEFINITELY intended to be a 1 tank fight, the dev of the fight has said so themself. The other 7 however were intended to be 2 tank. Whether that worked out or not or players found ways to gimmick them though is more oversight and design failure then clear intent to screw over the 2nd tank. They didn't design the raid to have 6 1 tank fights. Sure you can gimmick some fights, like taunting from upper deck on blackhorn to gimmick his pathing to clear stacks, but that doesn't actually make the fight designed for 1 tank, that's more of a bug. I don't really understand gimmicking fights this way to squeeze more dps on any of em besides madness really which has a considerably tight dps check still. the dps checks on all the other "1 tankable" fights are so low, and are considerably easier to just 2 tank. Like ultraxion, why 1 tank it, risk some pretty big hits after fading light when you take double damage , so you kill it in 4 min instead of 4:20? The fight is stupid easy either way. Or really high stacks of void bolt, etc. How much dps do you really gain on blackhorn with him running up and down deck while you clear stacks? Also we have dual spec, i'm with the other posters on teaching your man some dps. I still got room to improve when i dps, I was sat on hagara a few times early progression, however, sometimes, a main spec dps was sat to bring ME in in my offspec. Why? because it's fair, and it's how I'm going to actually learn that role. THAT is what you need to do with your OT. |
