How to solve the tank shortage

#0 - Nov. 16, 2009, 7:51 p.m.

Tanks are in a short supply for Heroics, because tanks have a dead end progression patch.

Heroics and 10 man raid require 20% of the party to be a tank. 1 tank for a heroic, 2 tanks for a 10 man raid.

25 man raids, still only require 2 tanks. Tanks are less than 5% of most raids.

This automatically means that progression becomes harder for tanks (and healers to some extent) than for DPS.

Plus, only the best gear is available in 25 man raids, and tanks can't get tanking gear from PVP. Both DPS and Healers can at least get decent epics from PVP. Not the best for PVE, but better than blues.

The solution is to allow tanks to gear up, without having to be in 25 man raids, while still making 25 man raids desirable.

I suggest changing the drop rules in 10 man raids. Make it so that 40% of the time, when a tanking item drops in a 10 man raid, it's actually a tanking item from the 25 man raid.

For example, in Naxx, 40% of the time, instead of the iLvL 200 gear, it would be the iLvL 213 gear.

This means tanks can get the best gear in the game, based on the 10 man raid, but it would take much longer than if the tank didn't run 25 man raids.

Remember, healers and DPS can get gear from PvP that tanks cannot. This evens this out. Though the same concept could be applied to both as well, but at lower percentages (to compensate for the availability of gear in PvP)

Bornakk

#22 - Nov. 16, 2009, 8:45 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Tanks are in a short supply for Heroics, because tanks have a dead end progression patch.

Heroics and 10 man raid require 20% of the party to be a tank. 1 tank for a heroic, 2 tanks for a 10 man raid.

25 man raids, still only require 2 tanks. Tanks are less than 5% of most raids.

This automatically means that progression becomes harder for tanks (and healers to some extent) than for DPS.

Plus, only the best gear is available in 25 man raids, and tanks can't get tanking gear from PVP. Both DPS and Healers can at least get decent epics from PVP. Not the best for PVE, but better than blues.

The solution is to allow tanks to gear up, without having to be in 25 man raids, while still making 25 man raids desirable.

I suggest changing the drop rules in 10 man raids. Make it so that 40% of the time, when a tanking item drops in a 10 man raid, it's actually a tanking item from the 25 man raid.

For example, in Naxx, 40% of the time, instead of the iLvL 200 gear, it would be the iLvL 213 gear.

This means tanks can get the best gear in the game, based on the 10 man raid, but it would take much longer than if the tank didn't run 25 man raids.

Remember, healers and DPS can get gear from PvP that tanks cannot. This evens this out. Though the same concept could be applied to both as well, but at lower percentages (to compensate for the availability of gear in PvP)

The "shortage" is caused by a lot of people not wanting to tank or not spending the time to gear up and tank - and if they don't want to gear up at all then they probably don't want to tank anyway or maybe don't want to spend the time learning it.

I still think the new Dungeon System will help with this through the faster turnover rate and random heroic feature, but overall we can't force people to play something they don't want to play so there will likely always be a shortage of tanks or healers to some degree. You should try playing one those, it is pretty amusing when finding dps is your biggest issue.

Bornakk

#57 - Nov. 16, 2009, 9:09 p.m.

Q u o t e:

No Bornakk, it's because I don't enjoy tanking heroics for people when me actually being outdpsed on meters is the grand exception instead of the rule.

Sure this can happen, but I've been in many groups where it wasn't an issue at all. I find it less enjoyable when it's people who are out-dpsing the tank but are failing on a grander scale. /shruge - To each their own.