Disclaimer whatever: I’m not a developer. I’m a mage player. If you want to discuss these ideas, please discuss the IDEAS, and don’t focus on the numbers I used. This has had zero testing (obviously), and ALL of the numbers probably should be tweaked. I just used what seemed close to give you an idea of what it could look like. Also, for those less observant: this isn’t real or leaked, this is just how I see a magetank looking, and my suggestion to the SOD devs.
Head Rune: Rune of Greater Mana Shield
Mana shield toggles on and off, and doesn’t break until you’re out of mana.
Mana shield absorbs 50% of all damage taken, draining one mana per 3 damage.
Mana shield prevents critical hits and crushing blows.
Notes: It prevents pushback from spellcasting as per normal (even though you’re still taking some damage), so you can cast and channel spells while getting hit. None of this warlock “only use instant casts” style tanking. It is exclusive with Advanced Warding, which is a shame; I think the bigger wards would be cool to have, but being able to cast this mega mana shield on someone else would be way too strong. A cool idea for making someone else a tank, but not what we’re trying to do here. And it’s exclusive with hot streak, to discourage dps mages from taking it. This essentially gives tank armor, hp, and defense, without needing to itemize anything specifically for tanking, which would make a mage tank easier to deploy without complicating loot tables and set bonuses.
Chest Rune: Rune of Arcane Inversion
Removes the mana cost of all arcane spells.
Arcane spells restore mana to yourself equal to half the damage they deal.
All chronomantic healing is reduced by 90%.
Notes: Using your mana to tank is gonna run you out VERY fast. Mage tanks need a way to refill. This rune is exclusive with regeneration, and other healing runes are nerfed, so you can’t heal with infinite mana, and magetanks can’t keep regeneration on themselves and regenerate mana and hp forever. It’s also exclusive with all the big flat dps talents, so dps COULD use it if mana is such an issue that they can give up that much dps, but in that case fine, have infinite mana. It makes your arcane spells part of your survivability, and a necessary part of your tanking rotation. Also, I envisioned this working for pure arcane spells, and didn’t really consider balefire or spellfrost bolt. However, making them free and restoring mana seems fine, provided your mana is getting depleted enough by taking damage (also, balefire means giving up molten armor, more on that later).
Legs: Rune of Fiery Hatred
Your fire spells generate additional threat.
All of your talents that reduce threat instead increase it.
Blastwave’s cooldown is lowered to ten seconds.
Teaches the rune ability “Intelligent Burn.” Insult your target. If they’re smart, they’ll understand it and get angry at you. If they’re stupid they’ll feel embarrassed and get angry at you. Either way, it forces them to attack you for three seconds.”
Notes: Tanks need to hold threat. Fire is your pathway to that, along with your three threat reduction talents. Exclusive with some dps talents, though I suppose threat is such a big deal it doesn’t really need to be.
Neck: Rune of Chills
Your frost spells debuff the target, increasing the time between their attacks by 5%, and lower the target’s attack speed by 5%, stacking up to five times.
Notes: this stacks with the reduction given by ice armor, increasing it to 50%. So effectively, your arcane spells refill your mana, which is part of your hp. Your fire spells give you threat, and your frost spells mitigate damage taken. All three schools are part of the mage tank rotation.
Shoulder: Rune of Shielding
You can have Mage Armor, Ice Armor, and Molten Armor on at the same time.
These three spells have a 30 second cooldown each, and when cast put the other two on a 15 second cooldown.
When one of your armors is cast, you gain bonus effects for 15 seconds:
Mage Armor: 100% of damage taken is absorbed, but drains one mana per damage.
Ice Armor: Reduces physical damage you take by an additional 30%.
Molten Armor: Deal 100 fire damage to all nearby enemies every second.
Notes: This turns your armor spells into cooldowns. Mage Armor becomes a strong mitigation tool if your hp is getting low, but it will drain your mana super fast. It gives healers a chance to catch up, but if you’re not replenishing your mana your shield will break and you’ll be taking full damage and die. Ice armor is good to use on cooldown. Molten armor is good for AoE threat. You can only use one at a time, and you can cycle through them for maximum efficiency, or save them for when you need it.
I also have an alternative version of this: each of the armor spells grants a buff with charges. Same cooldown system.
Mage Armor: one charge per cast, 100% chance to reflect the next spell. Lasts 30 seconds and stacks up to three times.
Ice Armor: 5 charges per cast, reduces the damage of the next physical attack against you by 50%. Lasts 30 seconds, stacks up to ten times.
Molten Armor: 10 charges per cast, whenever you take damage deal 200 fire damage back to the attacker. Lasts 30 seconds, stacks up to 30 times.
So you can keep stacking one or two of them, but not all three, so there’s choices.
I specifically left wrist runes alone, so you can get Molten Armor (or balefire if you’re that kind of person). And back runes, because you can choose between an instant arcane spell for mana regen, or a crit fire spell as a pseudo taunt off the gcd, or frozen orb for some extra aoe threat. I left waist runes alone because having multischool spells is important, and I left feet runes alone because why not keep the extra crit damage? I also left hands alone because my mage tank needs a reliable arcane spell (arcane blast), though living bomb for aoe threat can be good too.
I had some other taunt ideas as well, but they seemed more complicated to program and thus less likely to be implemented:
Evocation taunts all nearby enemies (use with mage armor for 100% damage absorption while refreshing mana) for a big CD.
Illusion: rune spell that changes your appearance with whoever your target has highest threat. This would literally change your models to each other, for a while, and would instantly swap your threat with theirs. So it wouldn’t actually be a taunt (thus usable on Onyxia), but it’s more complicated to program.
AoE Taunt: Obscure. Again, not really a taunt, but causes ALL other raid members to essentially cast a priest’s fade, making all targets more likely to attack you. You could even cast it on another raid member, which would make THEM the priority target; useful for getting the other tank aggro, or killing off a healer (on accident, I’m sure).
