Good Morning GD!
TL;DR: Noticed tanks taking huge dmg/not using mitigations in normal rotations while dungeoning and wondering if others are seeing the same.
So, last night I was playing a couple of my alt healers (resto druid and shaman) through dungeons to burn off my rested xp and noticed that in all of the 14-ish runs I did, I only had 1 tank that knew how to actively use their mitigation CDs to smooth out damage. It seemed like they would just run into a pack of mobs, take 2-3 hits and then be down to 40% health.
Both of these characters are running in the mid 80s dungeons (MoP/Cata), so not sure if that matters, but I figured with people getting their masteries at this level range or would have been smoother/less damage spikes. I was using my dmg reducers on CD to keep these guys afloat and it was still rough.
Has anyone else seen this lately?
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Just heal and let the big boys worry about the important stuff.
Keep those bars topped off.
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Not really, no.
Lots of people learning to tank at lower levels or they just don’t have all the tanking gears that many max levelers do. Don’t let it leave a bad taste in your mouth.
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The game doesn’t teach tanks (or anybody really) to use mitigations/utility, so players don’t use mitigations/utility. Players learn from other players after running a few dungeons, but there’s that inevitable period early on where things aren’t going to be so clean.
There’s external guides that can be looked up to sort of sidestep the noob period a bit, but I think most would agree that looking up guides for below-cap content is kind of silly. This is pretty clearly a shortcoming on the game’s behalf.
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Yep I agree that its part of the problem. They (and myself while learning) view them as OH CRAP buttons to be used in emergency. it takes wome learning to know that its supposed be activly used to moderate the flow of damage. I’ve seen it a bit this weekend and for those with classes i know i try to help them.
Just because health drops doesn’t mean they are not using mitigation.
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depends on the class - if it’s a DK that’s just how they roll.
they don’t even really have real mitigation like other tanks do.
Warrior to me feels the most “tanky” in that you have so many abilities to actively mitigate damage that it feels so much more interactive.
tanking on warrior just feels better, regardless of the results.
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Well for the classes I know like monk when I see big spikes over and over I start focusing them to watch buffs and see if ISB is being used. A lot of times they are never using ISB and just trying to purify every few seconds
No, it’s not; learning from others is a strength of MMORPGs, not a shortcoming.
If you are a healer, you can help by learning the key mitigations for the various tanking classes - it’s Shield Block for warriors - and then saying, as the healer, “I’m having a hard time keeping up with the damage on you; any chance you could help me out by using [mitigation] more?”
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Can’t speak for everyone, but generally I’m holding my CDs for big pulls or oh no moments. I trust the healer(usually) is able to keep me up.
If they’re making giant abnormal pulls and not popping CDs to compensate, ya, that’s on them.
If you’re just annoyed that they’re not burning CDs to allow you opening to dps, I’d argue that you’re probably looking at healing wrong.
see, that’s a big issue - don’t hold back on CD’s and don’t use them reactivley.
Use them proactively and pretty much on CD.
During the course of the dungeon, if you hold off on CD’s with the mentality of “i’ll save it for when i need it” you get off less CD’s per dungeon and burden your healers more than you need to overall when they could be doing damage instead of healing you while you wait “for the right moment”.
EDIT: of course, i am not talking about being strategic about pulls. I mean the guys who hold onto their CD’s the whole dungeon waiting for “emergency” and never end up using it. at all.
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Warriors have really solid passive mitigation as well. Between vanguard being so silly strong, shield armor, and shield block, they’re very tanky even when afk.
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In games where players are giving room for others to get their bearings, absolutely. WoW is increasingly not one such game. Just look at all the posts from players getting booted from leveling dungeons for not being kitted out with heirlooms…
If there’s a way to turn around the aircraft carrier of a ship that is WoW player culture, that would work instead of changing the game to be a better teacher.
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I am leveling a Kul Tiran guardian druid right now, and when I charge into mobs, I pop ironfur and my health still drops. I pop frenzied regen, and it drops again. Healer spams to keep me alive until ironfur comes back up. I always think healer probably thinks I’m not using either of those.
I’ve actually tried that a few times, but most times it is not met with appreciation. I think a lot of the player base sees that as an attack on them rather than a learning opportunity.
Leveling up, sure, whatever. But if I did that while doing high keys on my druid, I’d inevitably run into that very uncomfortable moment when I’m rage starved, can’t get a single ironfur up before another pull. My normal playstyle usually means I have a CD I can burn to compensate, your suggestion leaves me in a situation where if timing sucks, I just instantly die.
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obviously you’re going to be strategic about it, but sitting on CD’s for half the dungeon is not better than using them twice as often.
which is why i said “pretty much on CD” instead of “on cd always”
some classes have more options. For example, warriors have so many active mitigation abilites they should be using them very very often. Same with paladins.
On classes like DK’s, you really only have VE and AMS to play with. IBF is so long of a CD that it is probably worthwhile to use more sparingly or when timed appropriately.
That said, the discussion here is about low tanks. These tanks typically have the mentality to “i’ll hold onto my 30% DR until i’m at 20%” which doesn’t help at all by then, compared to having used it at 100% during a large pull.
One thing I’ve noticed while tanking low level dungeons is that often even when i keep my active mitigation up I feel like my armour is made from paper.
I’m not sure if your tanks were doing that or not, but it feels like the last time they did a stat squish it caused some wonky numbers in dungeons that never got fixed.
Some classes also need those last couple of talents to really shine. I don’t tank much so I don’t know about all of the tanks, but I know that things like Last Defender on pally can really buff their kit in dungeons. The level 100 row can really make a class in some cases.
How many mobs are you typically trying to pull at once? What is your “internal limit” for how many mobs you can typically handle at once?
On my druid I will always pre-HoT and burn my Barkskin to keep a tank up during big pulls, but it seems like a lot of these tanks dont know their limits (or ability usage), even after 80+ levels.