Lack of tanks shows that per spec gearing has to stop

Community General Discussion
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Title says it. Getting a tank these days has become stupid. Raids and Mythic+ constantly held up waiting for someone to join. Even the LFG folks are suffering for it.

Obviously, the first step is to make tanking more enjoyable, but the other big thing is that forcing people to stick to a single spec with gearing has to stop. People shouldn’t have to commit to being a tank 100% of the time. I know this is part of the grand scheme to keep people from spec switching for each fight and keep people grinding out gear to keep people logged in, but something has to be done.

It also may seem like letting people who have no tanking experience give it a go is a bad idea, but as a healer this is really just the status quo. When there is a high demand for tanks, most of us are going to get saddled with the bottom of the barrel because even a moderately good tank is going to get geared fast and be choosing the creme de la creme of groups.

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It’d be good if tanks had a talent or whatever that increased their damage in open world against mobs, corruptions helps but it is getting a nerf next week.

But there are 2 things that devs cannot solve: how tanks are seen as leaders of the group and how punishing other players can be if you are not performing well as a new tank / in new content. That is enough to make most players not want to play tanks ever.

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I feel like we as a community have to be more appreciative and respectful to those who tank for us. Maybe that would help kill the current stigma of playing that role.

And yes I may be a little bias lol

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You can add essences to that list. I wanted to tank, but I’m not grinding out 4 other essences.

I think there are way larger issues for tanking though. Like you mentioned, make it more enjoyable. Tanking is either so boring you just stand there taking hits or it’s so annoying that you’re running all over the place trying to drop necrotic. Doesn’t seem to be much of an inbetween.

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i mean, a good start is to not nerf the things that made tanking fun. another thing thatd be nice is to not lock key esences behind hidden achievements and multi week quests. the lack of tanks stems from blizz’s anti tank policy. tanks cant have fun. were here to be hurt and get crapped on by the community, not much else.

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I feel like this isn’t even true anymore. At least I don’t see it. There are so few tanks that when one joins you try so hard to get them to stay. I’ve healed trash tanks were we would wipe over and over again, but at least we were playing, and maybe we could pull the tank through or he’d learn. It’s the tanks that join and then leave after a wipe and sitting for 40 minutes doing nothing that is making the game not fun.

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As a previous dungeon tank main (4 druids, 2 pallies, 3 dks, 2 monks, 1 warrior) from WOD to BFA and WOTLK, i agree. The idea that players should have specialized roles, but be useless or hamstrung in PVE content or world questing inane.

Tank essences minors have almost NO balance to them and all the good ones are extremely grindy, slow, and some of the worst old grinds. (Exalted with Anakoans + combat quest xp + 1k a rep from mechagon),

The insistance that “A player in Tank spec should never hurt a DPS’s feelings, even if the tank is Mythic geared, they should struggle to outdps a 300 lfr hero with healer trinkets” is ridicolous.

I remember back during WOD, my old bear while not being a super dps rockstar still had great aoe and during a aoe fight could hold even with dps and still do like 2/3rds of the damage st in a raid fight. (like 45k-60k Wod Feral dps vs 30k-39k ST bear tank. )

This expansion i gave up on trying to do any world questing in tank spec, because it took too long to kill anything, was useless in pvp, and bad for quests, and even as a spec not as good as warrior or monk until health% corruptions came around and a monk stagger nerf.

With dps specs doing 40k-60k dps this expansion, how is it that a tank spec, expected to solo even fairly mediocre 1.2m-3m hp bosses 3x a day supposed to kill anything when a dps spec kills a boss in 2-3 minutes, a Tank spec takes 5-20 and gets ganked and dogpiled and killed and tagged by the horde!?!?!?

Tank specs are absolutely dread awful in pvp and clearly not meant to ever be good there, they’re not fun to play against, they don’t defend your team, players have, contrary to common belief a ability to tag target other things around them. And they have no magic defence to 50% of dps specs. Healers are the Unkillable 1v4s tanks of PVP, why on earth, does a tank fighting against a bear form resto druid casting mindless hots on themselves get to be easy prey to anything while the other is nearly unkillable 1v1 without a 20 second lock?

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I’d try to tank if I wasnt shunned for learning lol

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Yeah i know right? I remember even as a tank, i unlocked nearly 7 of my DPS Essences R3 before i even got one R3 time gated null barrier minor. Not to mention Conflict and strife and Worldvein resonance for DPS R3 and my DPS spec got TWO BIS R3 essences from pvping while my tank spec only got ONE. Conflict and strife, a highly situational essence that is basically 100% mandatory if you don’t want to log off necro week.

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ive somehow become the little tank that could in pvp. ive earned my palace as alli slayer and it shows. but yeah. tanking is a labor of love.

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Tanks are always in demand for dungeons.

From classic where there is 1 or 2 tanking classes, and it’s common to pay tanks, through BfA with 6 tanking classes.

Most people are followers in general and don’t like the responsibility of leading anything.

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I’d tank if I didn’t have to be the navigator of dungeons.

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This is the biggest thing.

Tanks who make a single wrong pull mistake in mythic+ are crucified while dps and healers can skate by just following the norm of interrupt and don’t stand in bad

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Haha nice i hear of the PVP tanks, Pally tanks, BDKs and Bear druids tend to have it best but by god lol VDH is heal 40% of all damage taken in the last 8 seconds. Which… ironically means in a pvp situation they have a tendency to die by a death of a thousand cuts in 2v1s but become nearly unkillable (though they can’t kill anything with 10k dps) in a mass korraks newb 10x 60k hps vs 1x 700k vdh lol… Though…; I think bear druids kill them faster lol. XD… I don’t know of a single 1v1 that VDH wins by killing… it just stalls for like… 20 minute long matches going nowhere with 10k dps and 20k self healing to 20k dps and 10k self healing…

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Tanking in this game is boring and has been for a while.
There’s literally no danger, no sense of dread or worry about having to manage threat at all.

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TBF you’re leveling and playing one of the tankiest and damagiest give everyone +10% More damgest tanks in the game right now atm lol. My leather tank spec i found out, had less base armor than some of my healers lol. XD

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I stopped tanking because I was sick of people in pugs. Not gonna lie. I used to love tanking. It wasn’t the class or mechanics that killed it. It was people.

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I feel like the reason we’re seeing less and less tanks is due to the extra pressure that comes with the role. Just doesn’t seem worth the extra hassle for no extra appreciation.

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thats where youre wrong kiddo.
youve never pushed things in a tank spec desperately relied on your healers to keep you up when youre slightly undergeared or somehow taken down the boss as the last man alive.
also youve never had your dps aggro anything cuz theyre bored.
and youve never run with a DH who just runs off without anyone.

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Not from mobs or bosses but pugs can be brutal, I know I’ve gone into a pug feeling ok about the world and come out knowing little about anything and feeling awful about myself.

Tanking itself is not that hard for the most part, but you’re expected to know what you’re doing, so it makes getting in there and learning a bit tough for some.

Tanking Mythics Solo is anything but boring if you want to push yourself for funsies :slight_smile: Which is my intent when I out gear them a bit more.

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