As the title states, I’m keen to get some discussion going around the changes that were made towards the tail end of the TWW expansion beta, and if those changes that were intended to address the “fun” and “difficulty” of tanks/healers were a success, or failure.
I want to point out, that the original thread for these changes was removed and I can’t seem to find a reference to them, so I’m going to quote what was stated:
Tank durability can cause some other problems as well, especially in challenging endgame content, that we want to work toward improving.
Enemy damage has increased to challenge tanks, but if it’s increased too much, it gets spiky and puts tanks in significant danger if their defenses ever drop. This can lead to tanks getting killed rapidly, seemingly out of nowhere. We feel this is unsatisfying and would prefer tank damage to generally be evenly distributed, but still threatening over time.
If tanks are not threatened enough, then the most challenging part of endgame content can become keeping DPS and healers alive, often against high burst damage. Making tank survival a more involving element of group gameplay could give us some freedom to ease up on the threat to other group members.
To address the above, we’re making reductions to tank durability and self-healing. This will allow us to smooth out the damage tanks and parties take while retaining the challenge of keeping them alive over time. We’ll take those changes into account in encounter tuning as well.
Tanks will take more damage overall, but shouldn’t die significantly more often.
To increase the overall damage tanks take and their reliance on healers, we’re primarily increasing the percentage of damage they take, after mitigation, from steady damage sources like physical attacks. We’re making fewer reductions to each class’s defenses against burst damage or other threats that are currently most likely to be lethal to them. Encounters will be tuned with this in mind so the character of tank damage changes, but the lethality of it doesn’t significantly increase.
Healer gameplay should not be dominated by tank healing.
Healers play a critical role, and keeping tanks alive is part of what they bring to the table. However, healers contribute to the success of groups in many ways, especially in dungeons. They sustain the group, dispel harmful effects, and respond to burst damage, all while doing mechanics. Tank healing should not demand so much that it interferes with their other roles. It may take some iteration to get the balance right on this, where healers feel essential to tank survival but with their attention not overly demanded by it.
Tank gameplay should not significantly change or require actions like kiting to survive.
We’re happy that more players are enjoying playing tanks with their friends and in pick-up groups. There are a lot of demands on tanks, such as learning M+ routes, leading groups, and knowing what trash abilities are particularly dangerous. The gameplay of standing toe-to-toe with groups of enemies and the tactics you’ve learned to survive should continue to be effective.
What are your thoughts? Were these changes a success, a failure, or both?