World of Warcraft®

I'll be PISSED if they can tank......

They split feral into 2 DIFFERENT trees and then turn around and give a DPS tree tanking abilities?

I can only imagine a whole bunch of awful warlock tanks...

03/23/2012 09:40 PMPosted by Luxifron

I can only imagine a whole bunch of awful warlock tanks...

If Demon Tanking becomes a MOP reality, then yeah, we'll see some really 'bad' Demon Tanks at first. It's to be expected.

I have this guy here, but I'm seriously pondering leveling a Demon Tank from scratch, just to get a good feel for how it works, from the ground up.

03/23/2012 03:03 PMPosted by Zarik

would demo locks have to gear different, would they have to reforge different, could it really just be that simple of switching a glpyh out to be fully tank ready?

I'm not in the beta yet, but my guess is that the answer is the same as current druids tanking in cat gear-- you can tank in your DPS gear and do okay, but you'll have -much- better results if you actually gem and reforge for your role.

My early guess is that, for a dedicated meta tank set, you'd actually want to gem for mastery, stamina, and/or dodge[1]-- as far as I know, int isn't really that helpful aside from threat generation-- and reforge toward mastery and dodge. (Maybe cap hit. Do the demon melee attacks use spell hit, or melee hit+expertise?) Haste and crit would be less useful to you. You might also want trinkets meant for tanks over trinkets meant for casters-- any combination of mastery, dodge, expertise[2] and hit rating on a trinket would be useful to you. Even a tanking ring, neck, or back piece might be acceptable.

[1] I'm not a number cruncher; I'll let the theorycrafters math out the stat weights.
[2] Expertise is spell hit for MoP, remember? A mastery/expertise trinket would work for a meta tank.

I am really hoping this stays in! This looks really awesome.

Even if they don't make it a "Queueable tank" there will be warlocks out there that'll be tanking and I say more power to them. Just as there are the rare hunter tanks there will be the rare warlock tanks and the shamans will be crying in a corner. =p

03/23/2012 09:27 PMPosted by Aibreann

Shamans have earthbiter that taunts also... doesnt mean they're tanks

I love how comments such as this (and others making comparisons to Shammy tanks) completely disregard the complete ability overhaul this glyph provides.

Not only are the changed abilities dramatically different from their original counterparts, but they are far more numerous and better synthesize the 'tank' role than the -- what -- two tanking abilities Shammys have? Warlock mastery even changes to reduce damage taken. The comparison to shaman w/r/t tanking potential is a poor one.

Additionally the thought that this merely is a 'situational use' sort of thing is pretty illogical. Since it is a glyph which changes it, a Demo warlock would not be able to just 'switch' midfight. And taking the actual glyph for said 'situation' would put a heavy nerf on their overall DPS. Meta form -- and thus mastery/demonic fury -- would be rendered somewhat useless until that particular niche needed to be filled. It'd likely be a significant-enough DPS nerf to override any momentary fight utility it could provide.

Sure, Blizzard has made 'useless glyphs' before. But if this truly was only a 'situational' glyph it likely would A) have less 'fluff' added to it and B) be less restrictive of DPS.

This does bring up an interesting question, though. Why a glyph, rather than a separate spec? A couple of things could be the case:

A) Blizzard is 'testing the waters' before they add an entire talent tree, a more open Beta will provide some more numbers to look at that... but hey, letting Warlocks with the glyph queue would be dandy.

B) The abilities aren't differing enough to warrant a true, stand-alone spec (ie, Blizz not wanting to 'rename' a large number of spells which have merely had mechanics tweaked to increase threat, etc.)

C) ... ?

D) Some combination of the previous

Regardless, things look to be heading the way of Tankamorphosis. It'll be an interesting development to watch in the days/months to come, for sure.

I'd absolutely love to see Warlocks as tanks in MoP. The idea of the squishy guy at the back of the group discarding his staff, turning into a great purple winged creature and charging forward to grapple his enemies directly is a pretty damn cool one.
I'll be interested to see how they end up working it, too, if it goes ahead. That video of the Warlock tanking End Time (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGgi341JXQo) makes it look like it'll be uber fun.

The Warlock tank idea is a great innovation, it does fit too of all the pure magic users warlocks due to the demon link already well established can switch to the roll without any major lore shifts

Really, what I want on my Demo Lock isn't to PvE tank. I want to do it in PvP. I want to pop Metamorphosis every time someone tries to focus me in an RBG or Arena and not have to run run run run run until someone else kills my target for me. It's why I also like Feral Druids in WotLK and Cata. Melt things in kitty form but if they try to melt you back you can go Bear form and stand your ground.

4th Spec just by GLYPHING.

FTW Warlock's still winning WoW.

"Hey the Pally's a scrub, can you change a single glyph and stop winning recount and finish tanking this 10man instead?"

"Yes. Because all other classes are inferior; Excuse me while I turn into a Demon".

/drool

must tank
must spank

03/22/2012 08:05 AMPosted by Seahorse

I doubt it'd happen fully. It'll be like the rockbiter weapon: there but nobody is really sure why.

to taunt beth'tilac's spiders down from the roof

...

>_>

How will the LFD/LFR queue differentiate between Demonology dps and tanking though?

Warlock tanking just doesn't sound right to me. It sounds cool but not something I'd ever get used to, it also has it's own share of problems.

How will the LFD/LFR queue differentiate between Demonology dps and tanking though?

This is where my major issue comes in.

Demonology is actually my favourite spec for warlocks and I don't particularly want to see it changed to tanking, which is why I'm slightly hesitant towards the idea.

They could rework the system to have Demonology as a dps and tank tree but if they do then I, alongside hundreds of other people, will demand that they also allow Druids and Death Knights the ability to spec for dps and tanking in one tree, something DKs haven't been able to do since Wrath and Druids won't be able to do it well in MoP.

Both your examples had "introductions" into the game before they became what they are now. Perhaps the glyph is an introduction, and they have all these neat beta testers to work it out. No one has ruled out a 4th tree all together, perhaps just just placed it as a glpyh for the time being while they work on the coding/balancing.

Either way it is an exciting prospect, I hope they throughly allow testing on it and make a move from there.

I am so pumped for this if it makes it through beta, I love to tank but I can't ever imagine ditching my lock as my main ever. This *crosses fingers* is so amazing and now I might not have to choose between bringing my tank or playing my lock!!!!

This is easily the most excited I've ever been for a game, keep it up Blizz!!!!

Obviously their damage needs to be probably about a 1/3 of what it was in the video, but other than that, warlock tanking looks awesome. However, it makes me sad how they decided to split feral into 2 trees, and with warlocks, they just have to switch out a single glyph to switch from tanking to dps.

now you know that they aren't going to make warlock tanks. after all shamans still have a lot of tanking abilities yet they are forever stuck as not tanking by blizzard.

Where is the pummel, rebuke etc.?

Also a tank with no vengeance? Seems too OP