It’s a scarce land, that Warrior-Tanking
In the last two months, after the initial WotLK-hype vanished, warrior tanking instantaneously went from “hot topic” to “silent mode”. The blogging scene paints a clear picture here: Even the most insightful and highest-quality blogs seem to struggle with the quest of finding valuable content to post, interesting stuff to talk about.
I think this is due to two reasons: First off, tanking has been trivialized. No way around that. Back in Kara at level 70 you could tell from the first couple pulls if a tank knew what he was doing, or not so much. There were three levels of tanks: Great tanks, good tanks and bad tanks. The latter were either learning or just not up to their game, and wipes or chaos was what you got.
Good tanks were just that; good. You would get through and things would work. Bosses would die. Trash would be okay. And then there were good tanks. They had done their homework, made life easier for everyone and would make for a smooth and fast-paced, succesful run. The tank(s) was/were a very important part of “how the raid goes”, and a tank’s performance made a big difference.
Now, with all sorts of tanking WotLK-ified, really pretty much anyone can tank. You will recognize the difference between a bad tank and a not-bad tank by their movement on certain fights and by how often they loose aggro on 3+ trash pulls, but that’s that. There’s only very few encounters where tanks need real skill. Most fights these days for a tank are no more than a check on gear and if they can press their cooldown-buttons at the right time.
With EH triumphing avoidance and a lack of skill required due to spike dmg vs. cooldown encounter design, plus threat being a non-issue (if you’re not working on those hard modes) really every jack and joe with proper gear can tank.
And this is why DKs are so much in favor these days. They do have large health pools. They do have obvious and plenty cooldowns. They do have awesome AoE tanking capabilities. There’s not much to measure beyond staying alive and the occasional kiting, so honestly: What’s the point about min/maxing?
Most fights do not fail due to tank failure. Most fights either fail due to underperforming healers (their job with the whole spike damage design is even less forgiving and more depressing than ever) or a lack of dps. As far as I’m concerned these days it’s better to have the best players, the min/maxers, the dedicated, play a damage dealing or healing role and put anyone in proper gear on the tanking spot.
Naxxramas is a bit more challenging tank-wise, but still mostly tank & spank. Where’s a Moroes-like encounter where a good tank can shine? Where’s a Maiden-like encounter where that avoidance set we love to build comes in handy? How about a Netherspite, where tanks have to react quickly and be on their spot? Blizzard has taken a lot of challenges out of tanking, and thus taken away a lot of possibilities to make encounters more interesting. Tanking Akil’Zons adds in Zul’Aman was challenging, especially as a warrior or druid. That wouldn’t be the case now. Spike damage and moving out of stuff are, quite frankly, the only things left to throw at a tank.
Offtanking offers some challenge. Taking care of the lightning-guy at the iron council is the one thing I look forward to in Ulduar. Tanking the adds on Emalon is something where you can shine if you have the “picking up the new spawn” down. Offtanking XT’s robots, I’m all in. Gothik’s adds were somewhat interesting when we moved in freshly, but have lost their appeal with overgearing them. Razorscale’s most fun part are the add phases, not the boss. But that’s about all the fun tanking offers in my book these days. Heck, even some of the 5-man bosses are more demanding than Ulduar-tanking. To pin it down I’d go as far as to say most encounters are designed around a Razuvious-theme: Stand there and manage two cooldowns. Job done.
I can see the design idea behind it, really. Tanks were in lack. Now we have easy-mode tanking mechanics, easy-mode tanking encounters and another tanking class to begin with. The results? A serious lack of healers. I think the model of Tank – DamageDealer – Healer is getting out of fashion. People don’t like being stuck at a role, and more and more healers and tanks decide to just go DD, because their job – for the most part – sucks.
Tanking once was an awesome thing to do. Now it’s no more than taking damage. It makes me want to cry – not that I’m not the most important guy in the raid, but because I can hardly make a difference anymore.
I hear you. I myself am not posting much about tanking, because a trained monkey could tank most heroics. The encounters in Naxx are heavily outweighed by some really boring fights. Razuvious, Gluth, they’re all boring to tank.
Still, I am hanging in there. I am looking forward to tanking through Ulduar, because there will be some fights that are interesting as warrior. But I’ll be honest, I am looking forward to healing Ulduar as much as tanking.
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[...] haven’t really done any meaty tank talk post for quite some time. Talldar summed it up nicely a while ago, though I don’t agree with all the points he’s making. It’s not so easy to write [...]