#0 - March 8, 2009, 10:55 p.m.
This is his original post:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=8246768118&sid=1
He asked me to mirror it here because he doesn't have a US account to post it on.
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What follows is - I think - the most in depth comparison between the tanking classes that has ever taken place. Before I go into the methodology though, I would like to point out some ground rules for the discussion that will follow this thread:
1.) Sartharion + 3 Drakes is a banned topic. Seriously. Stay away from this landmine. This is not a Sartharion topic. Sartharion+3 in both 10 and 25 man versions is a gimmick fight that even Druids have to use cooldowns for, and they're one of the better tanks on this fight. Is it easier for some tanks? Yes. Is this okay? YES. Because it has been done many, many times with a Warrior or Paladin tank. It's not impossible without a Druid/DK, just harder. Now you can make the same arguments about our dear Shears and Fears, but the point is, it is perfectly acceptable for some bosses to be harder for some classes than others. Even if that boss is currently the hardest in game. Especially if that's the case. This is not "yet another Sarth+3" QQ topic. Do not turn it into one.
2.) Do not muddy the water. By this I mean, do not try to justify deficiencies in one class for an entirely different deficiency your class has. Tanking has many different aspects which are important to it. Some are admittedly more important than others. Just as you cannot consider them in a complete vacuum, you have to accept that there is some kind of balance between all tanks in each of the areas. Being slightly above or below is fine. But justifying absurdly high threat because your relative survivability is abysmal is not - and vice versa. Because some tanks are better at picking up and holding aoe threat does not mean they deserve less survivability. There is enough variability within the whole survivability field (because it's seriously massive) that each tank has plenty of room for distinction and that dreaded "flavour" within it.
3.) Leave your baggage at the door. And I'm not just talking about butthurt hybrids here that like to see other classes suffer for perceived injustices in previous expansions. It's helpful to no-one. I also mean any well meaning individual who perpetuates various class myths that are either out of date, or were flawed to begin with. One I can name offhand is: the idea the block may scale too well with endgame gear. It doesn't, it won't, it will never. Whichever developer got the idea that it would was quite clearly mistaken. They are mistaken a lot.
4.) This is not about Polar gear. It's not about the amount of health or avoidance a tank can reach. It's not about the armour difference. It's not about any one single tank issue by itself. You cannot properly examine the differences in tank classes when you take each property of the tanks stats by themselves and disregard how they interact with each other. The point of this thread is to get a measure of the overall strength of tanks. Not to point out individual strengths and call foul when not considering what drawbacks are made at the expense of those strengths.
With that out of the way, lets take a look at the important factors that sum up tanking, and specifically, the ones we'll be looking at in this thread. Boiled down to its very roots, tanking is about 3 things which are variably important depending on the encounter.
1.) Staying alive
2.) Reducing the damage you taken
3.) Holding aggro
To anyone who hasn't tanked before, 1 and 2 look remarkably similar. They're not. They have a relationship - to be sure. But it's more like an internet romance than anything serious. Gearing for survival and gearing to avoid damage are entirely different schools of thought, often headed by belligerent posters on either side insisting they're right. It's a pretty shaky internet romance.
