You need to pick one. These two points cannot actually coexist.
The big part of ease of play, though, I don’t particularly understand why people make this argument. Nothing in this game is, by virtue of its design, complex to play. If we want to bar specs from PVP based on the ease of play, where would DH and Fury Warrior end up on that chopping block?
Depth of play, however, is where the criticism is valid for most tanks. Outside of Prot Pally, no tank really brings anything to their group (or at least nothing that isnt already brought by the other specs) and when you dont bring anything to the group it essentially absolves you of any need to use a brain to perform at skill limit.
A properly tuned tank in wow would be something like 50% less damage 50% less healing takes 50% more damage however they have 1 mandatory talent point that makes taunt increases the damage taken by a target by a %.
I can bet that even the tank players probably won’t play tanks if they couldn’t do damage or healing and had to actually play utility properly.
There’s always going to be complaints about matchups unless they force mirror comps with only 4 rounds. Then solo shuffle would be more than just a roll of the dice every time you queue.
Truth. One of the things that bothers me the most in beta isn’t the damage, but the tankiness of some specs. Aff, DH, Rogue (double vanish+vanish lowering cd’s and healing), Evoker (can actually livelord if played correctly), Fury, Spriest, maybe a couple others I’m forgetting all have way too much survivability atm.
I don’t see a problem with this at all. Proper gameplay should be encouraged and rewarded.
Having low cd/high frequency of use, high potency cooldowns like Blur, Evasion, Vanish, Dark Pact, etc removes any semblance of risk assessment from the moment and encourages rotating cooldowns, even if you don’t necessarily need to, because they will come bac rapidly anyway.
Conversely, Ret Paladin for example, has to look at the incoming damage and make a decision on whether they need to use a 4 minute major defensive cooldown and if they can stop any subsequent Shattering Throw/Mass Dispel from what were the two most prevalent classes in arena.
Another problem is that so many specs have noob protection so, even if you do mismanage your own defensives, you still have some sort of passive mechanic to fall back on. Cheat Death, Cauterize, Auto Guardian come to mind, DH gets Desperate Instincts now easily as well but that’s not as potent.
Sure we will. Tanks are the foundation of the game. The bedrock that WoW is built on. We are the glue that holds this MMO together. Tank participation needs to flourish so the game can flourish.
Just this would be its own separate discussion about class design. This problem is just more apparent in solo shuffle. I don’t think any class survivability should be based on some other player healing them. The healer should be a bonus not a requirement.
I’d rather they buffed those classes survivability than remove a whole spec from an activity.
Edit: I wanted to add that I think Solo Shuffle will be a great visibility to spec balance once we see season 1 end rating per spec.