Not defending it, just pointing out this is a carefully constructed group of specific specs who are all extremely geared AND playing to the near 100% potential of their specs.
This kind of stuff is beyond 99.9% of the playerbase, and demanding the entire game be buffed or nerfed because 5 players pulled off a one trick pony is a bit of an extreme reaction.
Healers are still needed in 99% of groups. This specific group probably has the best gear, is entirely coordinated and played every single mechanic perfectly, all while sacrificing dps in certain places to off heal each other.
Not to mention the dungeon itself… Necrotic Wake is a dungeon where most boss mechanics are “Don’t stand in the bad”. There is not a lot of guaranteed group damage going out, which is probably a big part of how this could even be done in the first place.
I was wondering this too. Does BoP prevent you from being targeted by the mechanic perhaps? Maybe that’s why they had two paladins to cycle BoPs on the Aug or maybe they just got lucky
Would be kind of interesting to see a breakdown of exactly how they did everything. I highly doubt they went in and just played their specs like normal and pulled this off.
This is not even close to the original conclusion you made about how this will make healers more scarce, though. Feeling prot paladins and hybrids are inappropriately tuned is fine. But top 200 players running a key that is well below their capability with characters nearing item level cap with a group comp that is unusually suited to self-sustain is very unlikely to result in the average group even at that same level choosing to abandon bringing a healer.
now let’s see a +15 Siege of Boralus with a brewmaster tank, fire mage, sin rogue, feral druid, and arms warrior. oh, that’s not possible? hmm, i wonder why. must be healers need buffs!
Is it because it can live without a healer? No…any good tank can do this.
You have correctly identified the S-Tier tank, but have missed the mark as to the reason why.
Prot pally right now has above average DPS, but really the damage they do is not crazy out of whack, this is evidenced by logs for the raid on ST and AOE fights both.
Their survivability is also in a really good spot, it’s not like prot pally is sturdier than warrior. On the contrary, pally is probably a bit squishier than prot warrior.
The reason prot pally is giga meta right now is the UTILITY
Freedom, sac, poison cleanse, poison immunity sac, bubble, magic bubble, BoP, offheals, and infinity interrupts with divine toll and avengers shield spam.
Unfortunately, when the nerf comes, it won’t address any of the utility. Blizzard will just nerf prot pally survivability and damage to the point where paladin is so far beneath the other tanks it isn’t worth it to bring them for their utility anymore. This will be a sad day.
Almost exact same thread posted a month ago, but it was a for 12’s while top runs are 15’s.
Now it’s 15 while top runs are 18s. So if you’re among the elite and want to run a key 3 levels lower, go nuts.
Didn’t make a difference a month ago, doesn’t now, but I’m sure we’ll see “wow someone ran an 18 with no healer” a month from now when the top runs are closer to 21, brace yourselves!
So I agree with your overall post here, but this isn’t really good evidence of the amount of DPS a tank can muster in M+. There is not a single boss this tier where both tanks will have threat on an enemy 100% of the time. The amount of damage a tank can generate while not tanking will factor into their overall damage on logs, but won’t be applicable in M+ where they are tanking 100% of the time. Some specs have better damage output when they can commit a shared resource to damage versus when they have to put that shared resource to survival.
Your conclusion might be correct, perhaps prot paladin DPS isn’t completely out of whack. It’s just raid logs are not a reliable way to prove this to be true in M+.
The players that can successfully pull this off is not indicative of the rest of the player base. It’s cool that it can be done but it doesn’t mean that healers are optional.
I once had someone ask back during the old key levels, can I tank a dungeon without heals as they wanted to do a run without a healer.
Sure, I can tank it, but can the DPS survive? The person asking was not very high on my list of players who don’t need a healer, and I was tanking on my druid, so I couldn’t off heal even if I wanted to.
Point is, some classes and specs perform better without healers then others, but some DPS also perform better with a healer and a tank since the tank can pull bigger and you get a better overall DPS from the group.
You see dungeons were designed to be pulled one pack at a time, every dungeon I have ever tanked where I pull one pack at a time and everyone does the mechanics correctly has been timed. You do not need to pull big to time anything, just do the dungeon correctly, have adequate DPS and you are good, so running without a healer and going at a steady pace is enough.
But it still comes down to individual skill and group co-ordination, don’t come here giving pugs the idea that they can also time a dungeon without a healer, especially an M15.
or maybe they just got lucky