Tanking Topics #4: Cooldowns

#0 - March 4, 2009, 8:31 p.m.

This is the fourth post in a series of topics dealing with tanking issues. These posts are the distillation of discussions*, and are presented here formally for the community to debate in a peer-review manner.

In this topic we look at how cooldowns, the "emergency buttons" in specific, affect gameplay and how we approach encounters. Of particular interest for this discussion are progression encounters.

The TankSpot discussion for this topic is here: http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f56/46623-tanking-topics-4-cooldowns.html

Cooldowns and Encounters
In Wrath of the Lich King, we have had an interesting introduction. We begin with Naxxramas, which is older content refreshed via storyline to be relevant again. The mechanics of the encounters have not changed, only certain tunings to bring them in line for level 80 characters and 25 person raids. In addition, Naxxramas has been stated as being entry-level content, and in practice is certainly not classed as progression content by experienced raid guilds (this is not to say that it is easy for new raiders by any means!) The Malygos and Sartharion encounters are new, and bring challenge to raids via achievements (time and personnel limits) or hard modes (drakes up).

Beginning with Sartharion with drakes up, we have seen the beginnings of the use of cooldowns as a means to the end. That is, using cooldowns in rotation to win the encounter. With the Ulduar content being tested on the PTR, we are seeing more of the same - and to be perfectly fair, we haven't seen much of the content at this point - but it is likely that several encounters will benefit from this strategy whether designed that way or not. However, the now-famous "Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test)" mob has been very good at illustrating cooldown shenanigans. (Reference: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=15443288561&sid=1)

With that in mind, here is a description of the cooldowns available to the tank and non-tank classes alike, followed by some thoughts on the matter.

Warrior Cooldowns
Last Stand increases the warrior's health by 30% for 20 seconds, with a 5 minute cooldown. A glyph is available to reduce the cooldown to 2 minutes, at the cost of reducing the amount of health gained to 20%.

Shield Wall grants the warrior 60% reduction on all incoming damage for 12 seconds, with a 5 minute cooldown. The four piece tier 7 set bonus increases the duration to 15 seconds. The Improved Disciplines talent can reduce the cooldown by 1 minute. A glyph is coming for 3.1 that would reduce the cooldown of Shield Wall by ?? (was 3, not going live as that) minutes, at the cost of reducing the damage reduction to 40%.

Shield Block can be considered an emergency button. In normal situations, Shield Block provides 15-30% extra mitigation over its duration, granting some relief from incoming physical damage. In the right situation, Shield Block can remove all incoming damage for its duration. This is very limited to scenarios where incoming individual hits are each releatively not very hard, and are not magical in effect. There is, however, no charge count on Shield Block - any number of incoming hits over the duration will be blocked.

Enraged Regeneration regenerates 30% of the warrior's total health over 10 seconds, with a 3 minute cooldown. While not an emergency button in the same sense as others, it can be quite useful when healing is tight. A forthcoming glyph will be available to increase the amount of health regenerated to 40% of the warrior's total health.

Paladin Cooldowns
Divine Protection grants the Paladin 50% reduction on all incoming damage for 12 seconds, with a 5 minute cooldown. The 4-piece Tier 7 bonus can increase the duration to 15 seconds. The Sacred Duty talent can reduce the cooldown by 1 minute. Divine Protection and Avenging Wrath cannot be used within 30 seconds of each other. Divine Protection also causes Forbearance, which restricts the use of Divine Shield for 3 minutes.

Ardent Defender is a passive ability that causes all damage taken while under 35% health to be reduced by 30%. Although very effective when used in AOE situations or in conjunction with Divine Protection, it is very weak against large incoming hits.

* Contributors to this Tanking Topic include: Devium, Dots, Guaritor, Hypatia, Jamor, Jere, Kojiyama/Jayde, Liar/Tyds, Lore, Satrina, Veneretio, Xav

#122 - March 5, 2009, 11:46 p.m.

I said in one of these threads that having cooldowns that are too precious (usually because their cooldown is long) aren't fun. When you tanked Golemagg (and you were a warrior of course, because nobody else tanked) you had your nice Shield Wall button that you only used to avoid a wipe. Shield Block was used every time it was up. I think those are the extremes and we need to avoid them.

In other words, having oh snap buttons that you can use regularly (say every few minutes) is something we think is fun, especially if you can match them to the boss doing something terrible to you.

We definitely designed the DK to use a lot of cooldowns, in part because otherwise they would be hitting the same buttons they did when not tanking. But we recognize the danger of chanining cooldowns. One danger is it makes non DK tanks less viable on new or challenging content. Another danger is that tanking becomes a game where if you miss one button in the right fraction of a second then you wipe.

We also recognize that if we change DK cooldowns that their base mitigation would need to come up to compensate. We futher recognize that doing that too much leads to four tanks with the same exact health, armor and avoidance numbers. We don't want a world where the druid has Bear Wall and Bear Stand and Bear Block all of the same magnitude as the warrior, and some players would argue we are too close to that already.

However we also don't want a world where there is one real tank class and several backup tanks only suited for trash or heroics. That one real tank class was the warrior for a long time. We don't want it to be the DK or the druid or really anyone now.