Yes. Because there’s a lot of solo content in the game, and DPS is almost always the preferred spec for such content.
Also there are pure DPS classes but we have yet to see a pure tank or pure healer class. I wonder how popular such classes would be if they existed.
I don’t really know that it /is/ necessarily ‘harder’, but the focus is shifted and that’s why I don’t tank that much any more.
Tanking used to be primarily about three things: gear, threat, and positioning.
You weren’t tanking anything but the floor without enough gear to let you survive (read: Defense “soft cap” to avoid crits; armour/block rating/value to smooth out incoming damage; stamina to absorb big hits and give heals time to land).
You also weren’t tanking anything if you couldn’t hold threat. You had to actually be actively pushing your buttons - not to do damage yourself - but to give your DPS the threat threshold to do their job (read: damage). The more threat you could put out, the more damage your DPS could do, the faster you were done the dungeon. But DPS had to be mindful, too. Be on the right target, watch their procs and stop damage if they started “popping off” ::cough Windfury cough::. Threat management was a two-way street. It was an aspect of teamwork.
Positioning was a bit less important, but on some fights it was absolutely vital, and in most fights it can help a lot (especially with melee DPS). Knockbacks, conic attacks, moving bosses so the rear arc is out of the “fire”.
These days tanking seems more about matching your “active defense” to the boss’ attacks and not a whole lot else. Harder when you don’t have timers. Pretty trivial with timers.
Gear is whatever, sure you can optimize it, but you’re given crit immunity for free, and everything has oodles of stamina on it. Threat is whatever, unless it’s the very start of the fight, or you go AFK for 5 minutes, no one’s pulling threat off a tank. Positioning seems to be largely ignored unless the fight absolutely demands it, and even then, I can’t tell you how many times tanks force me to attack the front arc because they keep the rear in fire.
So yeah. Forget tanking in Retail.
Tanking isn’t hard right now, nor it is harder than it ever was.
It is just not as fun as it was and that makes less people play tanking, or play at all.
This entire argument is meaningless.
Nothing matters if you don’t complete the content. In keys beyond portals, nothing matters if you don’t time the content.
A tank could survive without the rest of their group, but that’s meaningless when the group still can’t achieve the victory condition. Overpowered tank, underpowered tank… you still need the entire group alive to achieve your goal. I choose overpowered tank.
If you don’t have stops for all pulls everyone takes tons of damage and then start dying. Every mob is casting and most of them doesn’t go to the tank get everyone, if not all members have kick on short cd or multiple kicks or multiple stops again everyone takes tons of damage.
Why did you quote me? Your post has zero relevance to mine.
Tanking is the same as it’s been for 6-7 years now. Probably even easier if we’re being honest. They’re just not unkillable DPS any more and people dislike that because the skill or lack thereof starts to show through.
I dunno, I find tanking super easy. Boring even.
Healing was fun but now I’m realizing just how critical DPS support really is. A good Ret Pally or DPS Shaman can really increase the chance of success.
Tanking’s just… Eh? I’ll do it but the other two roles are more engaging. It also sucks not being able to sustain yourself while everyone else can.
Because I can?
Ask an adult to read it for you, it might make sense.
You’re being so condescending but entirely wrong on that.
Except in the content I was talking about, the tank is able to complete the content. That is the entire problem with tanks becoming as overpowered as they were in DF. Even through low keys, it was possible for a tank to solo the entire dungeon. Yeah you may need DPS to beat the timer of those keys, but not get the end of dungeon or vault reward. And when we aren’t dealing with keys, there is no timer in the first place.
Nobody cares about trivial content man. Tanking balance has absolutely nothing to do with that stuff. lmao
Clearly you don’t care. And designers don’t care. But players show they care when they make their decisions on what role to level.
Because it’s incredibly hard to balance multiple tanking/healing specs for a class. They tried DKs with multiple tank specs and scrapped it. Priest healing has always been out of balance with each other and the only thing that saves it, is that disc is primarily DPS to heal and holy is traditional healing. A lot of times disc is better for m+ and holy raiding, to the point that priests end up playing the spec they don’t prefer to perform properly in content. Most times I’ve complained about holy not being overly great in m+ (since DF), I’m often told I have another spec that is better for m+.
I don’t know if that’s a good idea lol. At first thought you’d think it’d be cool as a healer to be able to change your playstyle so easily by switching specs but they would probably be bland replicas of eachother and one spec would be meta at any given time over the others or straight up neglected by Blizz because as long as one spec works Blizz doesn’t make it a high priority
Tanking isn’t hard, when people allow tanks to tank.
No more, and realistically less, than healing.
Nope, not that either.
Nope, again.
There is a perceived issue with tanks because others treat tanks like crap. The personality required to be a good tank actually enjoys the challenge it entails, knowledge, skillset, the whole ball of wax. In fact, there are still plenty of tanks out there, they just don’t want to engage with the public because the puggies are too negative toward tanks.
That’s it. Nothing to do with the challenge, it’s just about the other folks (almost always dps) making tanking unbearable.
No. Its a personality thing. People whos feelings are easily hurt would still stop tanking with their chat disabled.
Tanking is a mindset and not a “how people treat me” issue. Otherwise Huntards wouldn’t be as popular as they are for all the flack theyve caught over the years
We also technically get 2 specs for each spec with hero talents. I know from experience holy priest oracle and archon play very differently from one another. Again, I play the version I prefer, which just happens to be the one that is tuned and kitted out properly.
The treatment of tanks is true but the knowledge checks is what is what really turn people off especially new m+ players. Its Huge wall for newer player and although someone that done m+. They still have to figure out routes/pull sizes/ tank busters/every tank mechs/group comp vs dung. Its a lot for anyone. Thats why we are not getting new tanks getting past the 2-7 mark. Its not rewarding enough to play tanks although we could do everything.
Yeah, I have been asking newer tanks and its the checks before hand. They are stress out on trying to figure out 8 dungeons and do the perfect routes and pulls.