I’ve been playing since the start of Shadowlands, and during that time, I’ve taken on every role in Mythic+ and most roles in raids. I enjoy playing multiple specs and classes—I even managed to hit 3k+ rating on every class in a season, including most specs. While I’ve always enjoyed tanking here and there, pushing slightly above max-reward levels, this season has been a real struggle for me to find joy in the role.
When I first started this season, I mained a Protection Paladin. Despite being one of the strongest tanks on paper, they still feel incredibly weak. It’s shockingly easy to die in even a +12 if you don’t manage your cooldowns perfectly. Sustain and passive mitigation are shadows of what they once were. Back in Shadowlands, I could confidently carry quadruple keys and time +15s for community groups—but now, that feels like a distant memory.
The current state of tanking makes it feel frustrating and disempowering. Tanks are overly reliant on externals and healers to survive, with little room to shine through personal skill alone. Even the best tanks struggle to match the damage output of average DPS players, and that sense of impact—being able to deal great damage, provide exceptional utility, and stay alive through smart play—is gone.
It’s no wonder fewer players want to tank. The role feels unrewarding and overly burdensome. The power and fun of tanking have been stripped away, and instead, responsibilities like interrupts, defensives, and utility coordination are being shifted onto DPS players—many of whom aren’t prepared or willing to rise to the occasion. And let’s face it, most DPS players just focus on their rotations and hope for the best.
For me, this shift has completely killed my interest in tanking. I’ve given Prot Paladin, Warrior, and Brewmaster Monk a solid shot, but I’m done. Until something changes, I’ll be stepping away from tanking entirely—and I suspect I’m not alone.
Yea, came back after not having played TWW at all. Got KSM within 1 week of starting m+ but jeez it’s so boring now. I don’t even think it’s a tank exclusive problem. You barely get gear out of dungeons, the only reason I could hit KSM within a week is because i’m decent at PVP so I was able to get the PVP conquest set, get my ILVL up to 610, and then go from their.
More so then simply making tanking easier, Blizzard needs to give more rewards for dungeon completion so people have a steadier inflow of gear in order to raise their power to push keys instead of our modern system where I have to do a bunch of content that I might not have wanted to do just so I can push the content I actually wanna push because I can get good gear probably once a week.
Tanking is not particularly enjoyable this expansion. I come from the old school, though, when tanks did NOT out damage DPS classes or out heal healers, regardless of ilevel. When tanks wore tanking trinkets and primarily cared about damage mitigation.
The days I miss are when caster mobs didn’t free cast on anyone they felt like, even when the tank has aggro on them.
I miss the days of not every single pull having 48 debuffs you have to manage while the entire party is below 50% health.
I miss the days of line of sight pulls being functional.
I miss having time to actually teach people about a dungeon or encounter so we have the best chance to succeed, instead of hoping they’ve watched enough streamers on Youtube to have memorized the dungeon before ever stepping foot in it.
And yes, if you all could please get out of my yard, that would be great.
I haven’t tanked above +8 because I’ve go no interest in the sudden death surprise funtimes. Will gear my prot warrior next season because I’d rather survive keys than worry about +3ing them.
Good news though! Tanks are miserable. Healers are miserable. And due to the wait times of getting tanks & healers, dps are miserable too. Hooray! We’re all miserable together! What a great season.
Mentioning rating in DF s3 is probably gonna be half the replies
But yeah, tanking feels worse not because it’s weaker but they nerfed fun out of the dps and utility side.
But the tank nerfs also didn’t really land because the the tradeoff was supposed to give less self sustain but you get 1 shot less. But in reality the sustain is worse and you still get 1 shot. The IDEA was fine the execution was bad
Its hard to feel like a tank when one missed GCD means you die instantly, and theres way too many tank busters in the dungeons, something they even had to nerf recently, yeah they shouldnt be doing DPS dmg, but they should actually feel like a tank and no die in seconds or even one second.
The same applies for healers, its one thing feeling like you actually have to heal, its another being under constant stress, a good example being the third boss of CoT, or the brutal dots you have to keep up with, like the curses in SV.
Remember the claim about smoother dmg taken? what a complete lie cause most of the dmg is spiky.
Bad play should be punished. As a tank youre supposed to have your defenses in place before the damage hits. Not after. Like i said, its about rotating your defensives properly
No more than previously
Have you tried pressing your defensives?
Sounds like bad groups not using their kits. The overall damage isnt that high on CoT third boss, and healers have enough CDs to rotate through during the pulse.
The spiky damage is either tank busters we’re preparing for, or avoidable damage
Kinda of a problem with certain Tank buster come out too quickly and even too often.
(remember the part about them nerfing this recently?)
And tank got significant nerfs this expansion, so this point fails.
Timed all 10s on 2 tanks, thank you, doesnt change how dumb the dmg intake can be.
Doesnt change how absurd the dmg can be, to the point of hardly having breathing room, a second too late and one of the dps can just drop on the floor.
Like the poison dot from the miniboss in CoT which btw got nerfed last patch? so much for “unavoidable” dmg, lets not forget how youre forced to move for the entire thing, making healing way harder.
You really have no idea what you’re talking about. Either you’re strictly healing 7s or not playing any healer whatsoever. Unavoidable AOE surges is basically the healer’s entire focus in keys now.
I mean its really not. You can choose how you pull. Not every pull has a tank buster in it.
They really werent that big. Maybe the golem one in GB was actually needed. The others were more PR to quiet the crowd more than actually needed.
No. We’re still as defensively strong as we were before. Technically stronger in the tanking department with the Hero trees. We just lost some self sustain healing, which isnt the end of the world. Being able to consistently solo the last 40% of every boss ever was stupid.
100% does. As thats on you.
Again, this is from bad play and should be that way. People using their own heals and defensives takes a lot off of healers. Bad play = absurd damage. Good play = plenty of breathing room.
Yeah. Use a defensive. Or dispel it. Its not a hard mechanic to deal with. A tank should NEVER be threatened with that miniboss. DPS perhaps, but never a tank.
Youre not. The swirls are RNG. Only need to move if targetted. Can be lucky and only need to move once per round.
Youre really proving my point
Im playing the tank, the one taking the damage and mitigating it. Any spikes in damage come from a lapse in defensives or a tank buster. Aside from that, its consistent white damage which a lot gets mitigated by active mitigation
If you think healers are primarily paying attention to tanks you have no idea at all what healing entails. Tanks are still largely self-sufficient while everyone else is getting blasted by mechanics. If a tank can’t survive on their own for at least a little bit then they are not viable.
Never made this claim. Just said as a tank im familiar with the damage coming in.
Bad play. Not using defensives or self heals when needed. The unavoidable damage is only spiky when players dont react properly (aka defensives). Like 3rd boss in Siege. Hard to find good DPS to use their defensives on the only time they take damage. Doesnt mean the damage is spiky though. And its like tank busters, its predictable.
You said ‘dur hur healers have to heal’.
Meanwhile:
Ain’t none of a word of that talking about tanks. Tanks do not cause healers stress. If a tank is undegeared or doing something wrong or simply out of their meta depth then they get globaled and healers couldn’t have done anything about it. Shrug and hearth.
Yeah healers have to heal more than in DF but all of the ACTUAL problems with DF healing remain in full force.
