Bring Player, Not Class, How can We?

#0 - Feb. 16, 2009, 6:04 p.m.

The Problem

Being told you cannot tank an encounter simply because of the class you choose at the character selection screen is a horrible feeling. You could have the best gear in the game currently and simply because you only have one 4 minute cool down, you cannot tank a boss.

Bring the player and not the class. How can we?

Paladins are the worst possible choice for the hardest boss fight currently in game. Warriors are a close second. (Paladins only have 1 cool down on a 4 minute timer while a warrior has 2. The warrior’s damage and threat problems when compared to other tanks are not an issue for this fight.)
When damage that cannot be blocked/dodged/parry starts to come in at 30,000+, naturally the tank best designed for this type of damage are going to be chosen for the fight. Tanks with the highest health pool or tanks with cool downs that help mitigate the damage somehow up 56 seconds of every minute. What about a player's pet being able to out tank a tanking spec? How big of a downfall is that? How could of this been overlooked so drastically? What about the tanks fully raid buff that sit 40,000 – 42,000 hp that can only have a cool down active 15 seconds of every 4 minutes of the fight? Being told “No you cannot tank this boss, go over there and have fun tanking adds like you do every trash pull” is far from any type of fun.

The Story

For those of you that fail to comprehend the concept. Imagine with me the hardest boss ever conceived in wow’s history. Now this boss will drop some of the best loot in the game. Now this boss will hit the tank every second ten times. This attack cannot be dodged/parry but only blocked. Each attack will hit for 1,000 damage once armor is factored in. People will only let warriors or paladins tank this boss. Perhaps you need another illustration. Same boss. Only this time his attack may be dodge/blocked/parry. He attacks every second ten times. Each attack does 2,000-4,000 damage. Now a paladin is always chosen to tank this boss simple because of the talent Ardent Defender. (Each time the paladin falls below 35% hp, the damage taken is 30% less.)

At this point, would the tanks that are not a warrior or paladin come to the forums and ask why? Why they cannot tank this boss? They are in the best gear possible. The best talent spec. They have the highest amount skill possible for their class. They are still unable to tank this boss.

It is understandable at this point that tanking classes will only receive very minor changes. It is also understandable that any encounters currently in game will only have very minor changes.

The Plea

For future reference
Designing an encounter so only certain classes may tank it is an out dated idea. Having a boss hit like a semi-truck is nothing short of a gear check, a check that certain classes will always have a certain advantage over others. Not a minor advantage, but a huge advantage. There is nothing wrong with a gear check, so long as a player is not dropped for another player simply because of their class. The player base has been amazed before by the developers of this game. I need only say the words Ragnaros and First Kill to remind players of this. Do not fail to amaze us in the future. Do not break the promise of “Bring the player, not the class” when it comes to a dps spec or a tanking spec and when healing receives its long overdue overhaul, to healing specs.

The Update

Well my guild went back tonight. This time the voidwalker tank was used. (Bpsadin is the warlock; his gear/spec should be updated on the armory soon if you want to look.) Guildmaster pulled the 3 guild tanks into vent and told us that one of us had to sit out; we were being replaced by a voidwalker. It really is hard to think of a lower point in my wow experience than being told that a voidwalker is going to tank the endgame fight rather than someone who has spent the past few months learning the new tanking system, getting the gear together, and working with fellow tanks learning when it is ok to taunt and not to taunt etc. Sitting there tanking whelps watching the voidwalker replace our druid tank left me with a depressing feeling. Healers imagine a pet that can do your healing roll on Arthas and therefore, you are useless to the guild. Dps imagine a pet that do more dps than you. Yes the pet will do more damage than you, a dps spec.

It is hard to understand how this could have been overlooked and not fixed by Blizzard. Gc has stated that the voidwalker tank will not be viable in 3.1 instances but what about current end game? Is a hot fix so much to ask for? How did the beta testers miss the glaring oversight that druids/Dk would own this fight while paladins/warriors sat on the sidelines cheering them on? Did they not scream loud enough?

#188 - Feb. 18, 2009, 6:32 a.m.

We're not going to promise that every tank has equal difficulty with every fight in the game, particularly those that are designed to be extra challenging. We'll get as close as we can, but at some point unless we give the exact same abilities to every class, some abilities or emphasized stats are just going to work better in some cases than others.

On the other hand, we will avoid very gimmicky fights where you are "supposed to" swap out to a particular class to tank. You won't see a boss in Ulduar that wipes the raid unless Infected Wounds and only Infected Wounds is kept up on him. (Even Razuvious 25 is probably closer than we want to get in the future).

It doesn't help matters that there is only one super challenging encounter in the game now, so "the best tank" tends to get judged by that alone. It would feel different if there were 3 hard fights and different tanks were superior for each of them. (I said "superior" not "impossible without".)

It's awesome that so many players have adopted the "bring the player, not the class" mantra. I think we managed to get that message across. Do remember however that its original context was that after you have the major buffs and debuffs covered that you will have room to bring who you want and generally a lot more flexibility on which classes you need to bring. It doesn't mean that you can put together any kind of contrived raid comp and then point the finger at us when your 12 prot warrior group wipes in Ulduar. :) But that also doesn't mean we are reneging on our promise that you can MT with any of four classes. Just remember things are going to feel the least equitable on the hardest fights.

Now we also need to avoid the situation that Ciderhelm and others describe where one particular tank is superior for learning new content.