I think raid tanking is outdated. It’s extremely repetitive, and I feel it really hasn’t evolved in any way. “Taunt at x stacks” is their main job with the occasional “move boss to other marker.”
Not saying it needs to be deleted… just evolved somehow. But idk how to accomplish that either, tbh.
GW2 has non-trinity group play. It’s OK, but I really, really didn’t enjoy it as much. It’s a lot more chaotic. Some people love it, but I’ve learned I much prefer traditional trinity.
Sometimes I wish there was more room for “support” classes, but realistically, I think those went away because they’re even less popular than tanking and healing roles.
Most of the fights already work this way. Hence the importance of positioning, grouping/spreading, and baiting mechanics.
That’s because Shadow Priest are considered DPS specs. So playrs tend to expect to do as much dps as any other dps class, and when they don’t that’s when either you feel bad when you play it or others hate you for your bad dps.
However if there was a 4th type of specialization whose primary focus is on utility, then obviously no one would expect them to do as much dps as a dps spec nor as much healing as a healer, instead, they’d only be expected to do as much dps as a healer; either very little or next to nothing. Instead, their primary focus would be helping the tank to mitigate damage better, helping the dps to do burstier dps, or helping the healers to do more powerful healing.
There’s one class that comes to mind that fits this role perfectly that exist in some other fantasy rpgs: A bard, as a bard’s focus is generally helping tanks to mitigate more damage, helping dps to do more burst dps, helping healers to do more powerful healing, etc. Though WoW doesn’t necessarily need a new Bard class to accomplish this as simply adding or reworking some already existing class specs into a utility-focused spec can work just as well as a dedicated utility “Bard” class.
Let’s take a look at the current fights and what happens in each, regarding the outcome:
Shriekwing - dictated by everyone except the tanks, since DPS/healers bait and control the positioning of mechanics
Huntsman - mixed fight, the Rip Soul tank has some responsibility but a lot of it is on handling Sinseekers, which falls to DPS & healers
Devourer - entirely on the DPS & healers to handle the core mechanics
Sun King - mostly on the healers
Xymox - entirely on the DPS & healers
Blood Council - mixed fight
Sludgefist - mixed fight
Stone Legion - generally on the ranged & healers to deal with the boomerang and placing/handling the reverberations
Denathrius - this is probably the only tank-heavy fight in Castle Nathria, in terms of responsibility
The DPS already control the fights. They are the key. Most mechanics are handled and controlled by them.
I loved that iteration of shadow priest, and so did a lot of the ones I know (and knew then). Being able to offer solid utility while still doing respectable DPS was a lot of fun for me.
I don’t think it’s outdated. But they reached a point where they decided aggro doesn’t really matter anymore because DPS want to log their parses and can’t stand the idea of having to hold off on their DPS because the mobs turning on them and wrecking their faces is a concern. Not to mention getting rid of defense, getting rid of actual tank gear, anything that actually let’s you feel like you took the time to specialize in being the one who can take the hits. Now a demon hunter in his emo leather can press “switch spec” and gain SEVENTY PERCENT stamina. The system in WoW feels contrived because it’s all about serving the parses, it’s why people freak out about literally any mechanics that don’t let them do all the damages. Nowadays it’s more like a… unholy trinity.
I don’t believe tanking is an outdated concept. I really like the holy trinity whilst still acknowledging tanking is in a weird spot.
In my opinion, healers are the best balanced role if we ignore MW for the sake of brevity. Each healing spec feels like it has an identity or a niche. Whether or not that niece is valued currently is a different story. I’m not saying they’re perfect, but I think healers need the least amount of balancing to be nearly perfect, again ignoring MW cause that’s a different conversation.
DPS has a few classes that seem forgotten almost entirely such as assassination, survival, and demo. I don’t really have any strong opinions here, but just wanted to mention it.
The main thing I think DPS needs is each spec to have a distinct Identity. Fire mage, in my opinion, has a perfect spec identity currently. The playstyle and class fantasy are fairly in tune with one another. Elemental shaman is good in my opinion too, whilst not the most exciting it’s one of the few classes that isn’t a do damage in your burst window then afk spec and is still fairly meta even if not op or even top 5 it’s viable. Fire mage being the ideal burst window spec that makes sense.
I want the other specs to have a clear identity that the kit provides. Sorry, I’m kinda rambling at this point
Tanking-if forced to choose I would prefer the stand mono e mono rather than the current kiting meta, but that would remove a large amount of difficulty both from tanks and the rest of the group. I could see why that would be negative to players who like the kiting meta or higher difficulty. I don’t see what can be added to tanking to foster more engaging gameplay for those who want it. Like, the other roles I feel like I’d at least know where to start, but I don’t know. It seems like tanking has the least room for innovation as a role.
I think healing is more outdated in some respects, especially with all the movement they have us do. They could just give everyone some good CD’s and the tank could have abilities that absorb melee damage.
I think the 5-man formula is outdated though and all dungeons should be flex from 3-6 players.
Gw2 tried to do away with the trinity. It sucked as far as dungeons go.
You forgot Shades of Barghast, that’s also a dps responsibility as they need to CC the shade(s) and burst down the shade(s) as this is a wipe if those shades aren’t cc’d or focus killed asap.
mixed fight but I’d say more emphasis on the ranged healers and ranged dps as more times than not, most wipes are caused by the chains breaking mechanic on the ranged group whose typically not accustomed to stacking tight as melee often are.
All good points.
But I was actually trying to under-state the importance of dps/healers, to show than even if I understate, the dps/healers are still the ones controlling every fight. 
The notion that tanks control the fights is just laughable.
Flex Mythics could be an interesting concept and perhaps go well together with no tanks needed.
I think a lot of the problems with tanking right now is that the mechanics are mostly about positioning and tank swapping and DPSing and very little about actually protecting allies. Tanks should have more abilities like Blessing of Sacrifice and Aegis of Light / Antimagic Zone, and bosses should be designed so if the raid doesn’t use those tank abilities effectively players will die.
Why do you want to get rid of tanks when they already have the least impact on fights of anyone?
without a tank you can’t make fights as complex, one way or another you need the tank if not people are just running around and doing whatever they want because everyone is a tank, same reason why healer wont go anywhere
You are not wrong, Blizzard has made an odd thing with M+ where the effort the tank has to make is not within the dungeon, but rather doing homework before starting it, you gotta know your routes, how much % you think you must have before last boss and how many mobs you can take to make the run go smoothly.
I love tanking because, as you said, I do enjoy the “Mano a Mano” with the boss, but M+ tanking is really obnoxious because of the preparations you have to make prior to the run start, not to mention it really messes with new tank’s head when they get afraid to screw up routes and pulls, raiding on the other hand you are just DPS with exclusive mechanics, which is not that bad.
Honestly, this is the real answer-- I find myself more bored than anything while raid tanking. I feel like I could use some more mechanics/responsibility, not have more delegated out.
I don’t want to get rid of them, but simply want to inquire about he possibility of them not being in a fight. It gets people talking about other possibilities which might be interesting.
At the extreme people might want to fully get rid of them, and that brings up the question of what happens to tank specs? Do they get redesigned as a dps spec?
But the DPS (and maybe healers) are already controlling almost all of the fight mechanics. As explained above.
What you want is already in the game.