Tanks in pvp

I want to talk about something that has been bothering me. Playing as a tank, I’ve been feeling like our presence is a bit forgotten in PvP. I understand that balancing things isn’t simple, but it’s strange to take only 350k damage from a fury warrior’s ability when my role is to withstand hits.

The most challenging part is when, trying to tank, I find myself melting against a rogue, who theoretically should struggle against tanks. It’s frustrating, you know?

I know that most people prefer being DPS or healers, and we, tanks, are the minority.

We generally don’t like tanks in pvp unless they’re holding flags.

IDK about vengeance but Bear and Blood seem to hold their own

Protection Warrior aginst most melee built around rage gen and spamming ignore pain seem to tank strongly.

Problem is tanks have insane absorbs/self healing potential now instead of just being hardy so it balances out with the +70% incoming damage 1v1 for most part. My prot warrior feels less a tank and more an enrmous sponge that spits out OGCD Ignore Pains that put Disc absorbs to shame.

My prot paladin doesn’t seem to do much 1v1 but this is a general paladin self-sustain issue.

I’d say bringing the bonus damage down to +50% is a good start, but I fear some specs will simply be trolling entire bg’s on points unkillable to 5+ people longer than their tanking CD’s. I say this as a long-running tank pvp’er from BC til Pandaria.

Tanks are also generally much more vulnerable to magic damage and only Arms and Fury seem to have their damage significantly impaired. Everyone deals magic damage these days, even rogues. +70% incoming magic damage hurts.

my main defensive ability is unusable while holding a flag. my 2nd best defensive ability is unusable while holding a flag. meanwhile demon hunter in equal gear can literally solo me from 100-0 in under 10 seconds while those abilities are on cooldown.

oh and to top it all off, any encounter over 2 minutes long ends in me being 100% useless because i’m OOM.

That’s because your main defensive ability is a complete immunity that only two classes can remove if they’re running the talent. To top it off you have multiple immunities with the guardian.

I wouldn’t mind seeing Divine Shield have a different effect if you’re carrying the flag though, such as 70-90% reduced damage or something instead of a complete immunity.

at least you’re putting some thought into it, but FYI guardian was the “2nd best” defensive ability, and it’s also unusable with flag.

Yeah I know. I get immunities are prot paladins gimmick, but typically immunities in general can’t be used while holding flag, (ice block, aspect of the turtle, etc.)

Which is why it’d be nice if instead of a immunity while holding the flag, just reduce their damage taken for the same duration bubble and guardian would last. For the guardian, it can be the same thing it is now, guardian is summoned and reduces your damage taken, but can be stunned/feared to be interrupted.

We should have utility that we can bring to the front lines. So that we’re not stuck defending/carrying flag.