We just beta tested tanks in INSTANCED PvP

#1 - Sept. 22, 2016, 2:58 p.m.

I will try and make this short.

Personally I have been playing WoW since the game came out in 2004 in both PvE and PvP. This was 99% of the time on my main Rolent a rogue.

When I decided to play Legion I also made the choice for the first time time to play a tank and play both PvE and PvP. I can tank for my friends and wife in PvE and have a fun different role when I am leading RBG's and doing arena.

Looking at the Honor talents it seemed like the great team at Blizzard was really going to try and make the role of the tank work in INSTANCED PvP especially with the success of the role in Overwatch.

Fast forward to now and all the time and effort I put in for my Artifact and rep etc. Going from Sunday to today I would rather you just have told us we can't que for INSTANCED PvP then what you folks have done.

We lost 10% total dmg, had our PvP templates dmg lowered on top of that and now we also take 25% more dmg.

All three of these changes effect INSTANCED PvP where there was no possible way you could say with the lowered PvP template PLUS we do 15% less dmg to players already before these changes that this seems fair at all.

I work just like you very talented folks at Blizzard ( I manage a large Data Center ) and this game is a fun stress reliver. In my opinon I feel lied to about tanks in INSTANCED PvP with the recent changes and all the time and effort I put in means if Tanks want to enjoy both parts of the game they are REQUIRED to level two artifacts. If I had know this before hand I would have just played my Rogue.

I feel very sad about this and would like some clarification on these changes for INSTANCED PvP.

In World PvP I currently could care less if we take 300% more dmg as a tank but the change to tanks in INSTANCED PvP feel lazy and wrong.

Please tell me you folks forgot how these changes would effect INSTANCED PvP because if not I feel like I just Beta tested tanks for you guys since Legion was released and that just isnt fair.

Thanks for you time.

RLM

Desvin

Game Designer

#59 - Sept. 23, 2016, 11:05 p.m.

09/22/2016 07:58 AMPosted by Rolentu

We lost 10% total dmg, had our PvP templates dmg lowered on top of that and now we also take 25% more dmg.

All three of these changes effect INSTANCED PvP where there was no possible way you could say with the lowered PvP template PLUS we do 15% less dmg to players already before these changes that this seems fair at all.

Thanks for the post about this. We understand your concern. Tanks in PvP are a real design and balance challenge for us and it may take time for us to get it just right. Unlike other PvP games (Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm for example), tanks in World of Warcraft are not tuned or designed around tanking other players. World of Warcraft tanks are primarily designed to withstand the onslaught of raid bosses, which do considerably more damage than players. While tanks have a lot of active mitigation buttons, they also have a lot of passive mitigation and survivability. During beta, we applied a lot of spell multipliers to tank active mitigation abilities while leaving their passive mitigation alone for the most part. But this approach has a side effect that a tank's active mitigation buttons don't feel like they're doing anything in PvP.

The 25% increased damage from players is our first attempt at decreasing tank passive mitigation in PvP. Consequently, we will be relaxing or removing many of the spell multipliers we've made to tank mitigation abilities. That is a change we'll be making alongside the class team's upcoming tuning changes.

We're often asked, "what is your vision for tanks in PvP?" First, if you enjoy playing a tank, we want you to feel like you can provide value to your team in some way. But, we don't want that value to be "I can never die." A tank should be harder to kill then a DPS, but not by a wide margin. Likewise, a tank should do less damage than a DPS (and preferably far less burst damage) but not damage you can simply ignore. We want a tank to be able to go into an arena with their friends, compete, have fun, and earn rewards. We're much more hesitant to say we want tanks to be viable in arenas at the highest level. However, in rated battlegrounds, we would very much like to see tanks at the highest level, not only as flag carriers or point defenders, but as target callers and frontline disruptors. We think that is a fun place for tanks to live in PvP.

We don't think we've arrived at this vision by any means and it may take some time and iteration before we do. We appreciate your impassioned feedback and hope you'll continue to give PvP a try on your tank. Thanks!