Tank Discussion: What made each class good or bad?

[Renim-aegwynn (Renim)]

If you want to tank, roll a Warrior.

Paladins and Druids were not designed to be decent tanks, and instead became healers because people needed more healers than tanks.

Sure, you can tank 5-mans with both of them, but its rough.

One of Vanilla’s biggest shortcomings was its stance on how hybrids worked.

[Raelhorn-ravencrest (Raelhorn)]

@Winterspite-blackrock

It’s a good idea to buy into tactical mastery (at least at first) in order to help you get adjusted. That 25 extra rage can help a lot when you need to bounce into zerker and intercept the enemy that the pug kid just picked up, because he/she was bouncing around like a clown and not watching where he/she was going. Or from the rogue who was too busy watching his leet deeps and not paying attention to the threat, and then proceeded to run away from the tank instead of towards him/her. Ultimately though it’s just a good ability all around to get you used to your class without being too punishing when you inevitably mess up and swap stances unnecessarily. It happens at first, you just have to keep practicing and get used to it.

Once you have it down, you can absolutely reduce points in it, or get rid of it all together and use things like rage potions or other abilities to quickly build rage. Then you can spend those points somewhere else to help with additional threat generation and such. Or keep them there if you really like holding onto the additional rage.

Actually, there was a good reason to stick with 5/5 Tactical Mastery.
It was a requirement for Anger Management, another “vital” talent.

While the description was a bit lackluster, reducing rage decay out of combat sounds a little weak… but it had a very useful side-effect. It generated rage passively, IN COMBAT. At a rate of 1 rage per 3 seconds.

It was quirk of how rage decay worked.

• Normally, rage decayed at -3 every 3 seconds while out of combat.
• In combat, it was increased by +3, to 0 decay every 3 seconds.
• The Anger Management talent changed the decay rate from -3 to -2 every 3 seconds… but the increase in the value when going into combat was still +3.
• Net result was 1 rage generated every 3 seconds in combat, which was FAR more useful than the rage decay out of combat the talent advertises in the tooltip.

Now, thinking in retrospect, tanks may have gotten less mileage out of this particular talent… but only because the damage they took meant they were swimming in rage and couldn’t get rid of it fast enough. And that would probably be the only reason.

[Ziryus-doomhammer (Ziryus)]

@Arazlok-kilrogg

Ooh I know, I’m asking the dude who says people who tank as druid was just for “giggles”

Do you take the class that is slightly better on a very small handful of fights or the class that is vastly better on the vast majority of fights?

[Winterspite-blackrock]

@Raelhorn-ravencrest

Actually, there was a good reason to stick with 5/5 Tactical Mastery.
It was a requirement for Anger Management, another “vital” talent.

While the description was a bit lackluster, reducing rage decay out of combat sounds a little weak… but it had a very useful side-effect. It generated rage passively, IN COMBAT. At a rate of 1 rage per 3 seconds.

It was quirk of how rage decay worked.

• Normally, rage decayed at -3 every 3 seconds while out of combat.
• In combat, it was increased by +3, to 0 decay every 3 seconds.
• The Anger Management talent changed the decay rate from -3 to -2 every 3 seconds… but the increase in the value when going into combat was still +3.
• Net result was 1 rage generated every 3 seconds in combat, which was FAR more useful than the rage decay out of combat the talent advertises in the tooltip.

Now, thinking in retrospect, tanks may have gotten less mileage out of this particular talent… but only because the damage they took meant they were swimming in rage and couldn’t get rid of it fast enough. And that would probably be the only reason.

Oh yeah, for sure, that’s a completely valid point. I had actually forgotten about that bit with Anger Management. Good catch.

Swimming in rage could be a thing for sure, however warriors could also find themselves in situations where they were rage starved due to significantly outgearing the content they were tanking. That’s when silly things would happen, like having a warrior running around tanking a 5 man without any pants on. XD

Anger Management would definitely help in situations like that for certain. You definitely aren’t wrong. On the other hand, I often found myself speccing out of Tactical Mastery in order to go for higher threat via more damage talents, such as cruelty in the fury tree. More damage also equals more rage, although I forget the exact math for it, I used to have all of the formulas memorized. Sadly it’s been far too long for me to retain numbers like that.

That was really just a preference though, and I would definitely encourage people to experiment with it a bit. Personally I found that the better the group I was with, the fewer “clinch” situations we would end up in, which meant less stance dancing for me and more sitting in defensive using shield slam every time it was off cool down!

EDIT Forgot to actually quote the post I was responding to, for easier context. XD

[Raelhorn-ravencrest (Raelhorn)]

@Winterspite-blackrock

That was really just a preference though, and I would definitely encourage people to experiment with it a bit. Personally I found that the better the group I was with, the fewer “clinch” situations we would end up in, which meant less stance dancing for me and more sitting in defensive using shield slam every time it was off cool down!

It will be interesting the see what people come up with through experimentation. There will always be “cookie-cutter” builds, but just the same there will be those who “tinker” with it a bit and see what happens.

As for better groups making it easier for the tank… that’s something which has ALWAYS been true for tanking. On the flip side, you often learn more about tanking for one bad group than you do tanking dozens of buttery-smooth runs with friends.

… whether or not you want to subject yourself to that is a different story. It’s no surprise many tanks choose to play with friends only after a while, but even they can’t deny the learning experience of tanking for those bad groups was invaluable.

… which brings me to my favourite maxim:

You don’t find your best tanks in an ideal situation.

You find them when things have gone wrong seven ways to last Tuesday, backwards, upside-down, covered in grease, AND chasing down a dragon with a bad case of indigestion.

When things go wrong, that is when you find out who your best tanks are.

[Winterspite-blackrock]

@Raelhorn-ravencrest

… which brings me to my favourite maxim:

You don’t find your best tanks in an ideal situation.

You find them when things have gone wrong seven ways to last Tuesday, backwards, upside-down, covered in grease, AND chasing down a dragon with a bad case of indigestion.

When things go wrong, that is when you find out who your best tanks are.

I couldn’t agree more.

EDIT What’s with me and doofing up quotes?!