Tobold on Death Knights as Tanks
Tobold ponders about how Death Knights will affect the tanking classes, in particular warriors, reflecting in anticipation a bit of the class angst which was palpable when patch 2.0 hit and bears and paladins suddenly became tank-viable to a point.
Since January is a good time to delve a bit into futurology, how the tanking corps will play out in WotLK is going to be dependent on a couple of different factors, both objective and subjective ones:
- First and foremost, the DK’s proper tanking mechanism will determine which niche the class will occupy. Niches which currently remain largely unoccupied include, as others have pointed out, a proper magic resist tank. Alternatively and fitting to the shieldless tanking, the DK could be designed as a parry tank, holding aggro through DPS output and being at the top of its ability against fast-hitting bosses (and that would mean eating up one of the tankadin’s niches, but I digress).
- Second, DK’s place in the tanking corps will largely depend on how varied the bosses and instances in Northrend will be. Look at Outlands instances, and you won’t get any serious dispute that regardless of how the bosses are working, a tankadin is the prime choice for both normal and heroic 5-men, followed by a druid. This has a lot to do with group dynamics: in the 5-men sizes where you’ll most likely find little-coordinated PUGs, lessening or completely eliminating the need for CC can speed up the pace at which you clear an instance by a huge factor. Conversely, in raids where boss fights typically last a lot longer and are more complex, an one-size-fits-it-all brute force approach is doomed to failure
- The novelty factor: Within the first month of TBC, you couldn’t take a step anywhere without bumping into a belfadin or a blue shammie. But in the mid-thirties, it started to fizzle out, and come endgame, horde paladins are still in high demand (haven’t been in alliance chats for ages, so I don’t know how it works out for the Draenei shamans).
- Force of habit: Warriors have been the preferred MT during two years and the perceived superior MT choice for another year. Bears have been able to carve out a spot for themselves, but while tankadins have in the meantime proven that they can tank all of the raid content, they continue to be the least popular choice, not just by mechanisms but also by the sheer gravity of the idea that Prot warriors are simply the best tank out there, to the point that the top raiding guilds to this day won’t even consider using one (but they aren’t really representative of the average gameplay).
Force of habit alone will continue to guarantee warriors a long tanking life, unless the DK turns out to be massively overpowered. And chances are, this won’t actually last. Go back in time during the span between patch 2.0.1 (December 2006, pre-TBC but with the new talents) and 2.0.3 (January 9th, 2007, a week before TBC). Bears were suddenly the king of the tanking hill AND melee damage. This was the only real time during which the warrior tanking blues was fully justified, the core of their argument being that they could be either good tanks or damage dealers, but to become one they had to fully give up on the other (something Tankadins still suffer from to this very day, by the way), whereas feral druids had the best of both worlds with one single talent tree.
It lasted all of a month, and druids got a revamp which went too far on some aspects and eventually was to be readjusted a couple of months later again. The most interesting part, though, is that all of this happened before the level cap even got removed.
Now as with the stock market, past performance is no guarantee of future returns, but in terms of intentions, I doubt Blizzard really wants to see level 80 parties consisting of 4 DKs and a healer. I therefore don’t expect DK to be designed to be exceptional either as a tank or a DD, but on the contrary in a way that while it will have its proper niche, dedication and skill will still remain a barrier to get to 80 and carve out your own spot after the novelty effect has worn off.
Its too bad that speculation on these types of things is very rarely even close to what actually happens because the idea of a Parry based tank is simply awesome. A design where the best defense isn’t wearing a shield, but a big 2 handed weapon instead fits the lore of a DK very well imho. Balanced in such a way that specials and threat mechanics favor the use of a 2 hander over a sword and board. One of the primary threat mechanics being that they generate threat by dealing two hander damage (with reduced weap speed due to parry).
As to the whole class warfare thing… Most warriors in the time you recalled didn’t cry for a Druid nerf, they called for a buff to their ability to tank multiple targets. As you pointed out, this still remains the reason why a tankadin or Druid makes for a better tank in most PUGs.
However, the best tank in my opinion remains a prot warrior. In a boss fight, there is little arguing their ability to both hold a very high level of threat and soak up damage. As for multi-mobs. any good Warrior tank knows how to cycle through targets and can hold aggro easily up to about 5 mobs before starting to get overwhelmed.
Warriors also get three snap aggro abilities in Taunt, Mocking Blow, and Challenging Shout. They also get Intervene to grab the stray going after the healer. And finally, they have revenge, sunder, devastate and heroic strike which all build up threat quickly. While Heroic Strike is often overlooked by Warriors, it is a “next attack” ability and can be used while other abilities are on cooldown. This is one reason why I often find the best tanking weapon is a FAST weapon. Then consider that they have a bunch of abilities to prevent damage, namely Shield Wall, Shield Block, Disarm, Demo Shout, Shield Bash. They also have Last Stand and the single biggest stamina buff in the game in Commanding Shout.
The short version is that warriors have more tools to do the job. BUT THAT’S ALSO THE PROBLEM. In my opinion, playing a warrior well is simply beyond the ability of many people who play a warrior. Consider the sheer number of warrior abilities and then also consider that many of them are only usable in certain stances or after a certain proc. A warriors best threat/rage ability (Revenge) is a reactive cast that has about a 4 second window. Playing a warrior requires the ability to be able to frantically and quickly adjust to situations and to be extremely aware of the environment. Consider that to tank multiple mobs effectively, you need to switch targets very frequently. More so (by far) than the other classes. I’m not saying that tanking as a Druid or Tankadin is easy, only that it is EASIER.
Chances are, you don’t pick a MT that sucks as a player, so Warriors typically do make the best MT and it’s not just sheer force of habit. A properly played prot Warrior is simply better. Warriors get a bad name because many people playing the class can’t play it well. Of the three trees, one is excellent at tanking, one is almost on par with a Druid (fury), and one sucks at it (arms).
Before you blast my claim that Fury is almost on par with Druid, remember my earlier comment: Many people can’t play the class well. Tanking as Fury is A LOT more difficult than tanking as a protection spec warrior. However, a good player can tank as well as a Druid. While they do get more beat up on bosses, they also still have Shield Block, Shield Wall, and depending on spec might even have Last Stand.
Arms warriors, on the other hand, just suck at it. It’s worse than a Shadow Priest trying to heal quite frankly. The first 14 to 17 pts in the tree are EXCELLENT for tanking, but beyond Anger Management, there just isn’t anything left here for a Tank. Lots of people will say it aint so, but I think the biggest indictment is that one of the most important talents in the tree (Impale), has a pre-req that PUTS A DOT after a critical strike. Consider this, sheep pops and runs for healer, you taunt and sunder and (oop!) crit for deep wounds before switching back to the skull target. Mage resheeps and the dot from deep wounds breaks CC. Yay!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely not submitting that any tanking class is inherently superior or inferior in general. What I have held for a long time is that different situations call for different tanks, and we have three quite different types of tanks in the game.
There is plenty of room for a fourth tank type which doesn’t have to take over another class’ niche, as well, that’s what I tried to convey with this post.
As far as I’m concerned, I posit that it is much more important that the raid as a whole has downed a boss than which one among the tanking corps did it. The tank the best suited for the particular fight (or a specific phase) gets the job, and best suited means the one which combines fastest killing potential and highest raid safety.
One niche that the DK might fill is that because their rune system is basically Energy based and not Rage based, they will be the only tank that can build threat on a target without being attacked by other targets. At the same time, it means even if a big, strong monster is beating down on them they will not benefit from the “infinite rage” that most raid tanks have.
Though this may change when we find out that in “Tank Mode” the DK’s runes refill faster or they generate threat based off of counterattack abilities. Still, it may be interesting to see if a boss mechanic springs up that relies on these abilities.
Quote Gwaendar:
“Dedication and skill will still remain a barrier to get to 80 and carve out your own spot after the novelty effect has worn off”.
In reference to the coming of Death Knights as a new and different tanking class i’m going to agree with that 100% and I couldnt have said whats quoted above any better though none if us trully will know just how Death Knights will indeed work in the end tanking till the expansion. Even then when release it will be Dedication & Skill of Death Knights with players that will make them effective and allow them to fit well with any senergy in 5 man or raid instancing. Thats my thought on that. As well I can tell you I will indeed roll a Death Knight mainly because as a player I dedicate my playing time and class to pure tanking. Since it will be a new class the challenge and fun will be learning how to master and skill at a new class even theorycraft on it to some degree how to skill at a DK whether its tanking or tanking/dps which will be fun to learn. Most people will roll a DK if they can do so to see what they all about in novelty. But in the end its the dedicated and skill players that will carve the way in learning how to play DK well or find a way to effectively play them which in the end helps the novelty or casual player looking at DK’s as a class.
As for tanking between the other classes they are all differeent and works different for various encounters obviously to their tanking style. Those same 3 tanking classes have different senergy when grouped with different classes some classes having greater senergy that other classes in instances. When I’m tanking all my prefered classes to tank with have a blue bar like me as I’m a Paladin tank. Often its a Mage, Shadow Priest, Healer(any), Warlock, Shaman. Thats usually my personal preference when tanking as lots of senergy with my tanking mechanics and mana.
Warriors take less damage than plaladins we all know that and if you think about it really it should be that way considering current class design. Warrior not taking too much damage great. A Paladin tanking Most instance wants to take some degree of damage that healable without dying as it has all to do with getting mana back in spiritual attunment. So damage taken is apart of our current mechanics for mana, warriors don’t have to worry about mana with a blue bar which makes the two classes more than different.
1. If you’re telling me that playing a warrior is the hardest tanking class to play, you’re completely wrong. Run in, thunderclap, shield slam, throw a devistate on each target, and get back onto kill order. You have to look at the fact that Warriors build threat quickly, and then level out. For the 5 man instances that you are talking about, If the warrior cannot get back to the main person and start the devistate spam in time, 9/10 times your dps will down them fast enough anyway.
2. Granted that Tankadins have consecrate, and that is all they need to do to hold aggro (given everyone followes kill order), On single tanking targets, it is a little harder. Tankadins have so many abilities that they need to use to hold aggro effectivly, Plus they have to balance survivability and bonus spell damage. If they are not taking a whole lot of damage, they have to balance consecrates so that they can hold aggro, but not have it eat up their mana. Once a pally tank runs out of mana, they’re pretty much useless.
so to sum it all up:
Warriors: Shield slam, shield block, devistate, revenge, throw a thunderclap in there to midigate some damage, keep chalinging shout up, rince and repete. Keep a finger on your taunt, and target switch as necessary. To taunt, just click the runner and hit taunt.
Pallys: Avenger shield, judge with crusader, pop consecration, throw holy shield, hit it with Seal of righteousness (for non-70 tanks) or Seal of vengance (for 70 tanks), judge when you can, keep consecrate up (if there is no CC in the area), keep holy shield up, throw avenger sheield if you can, and keep your rotation so your not messed up by CD’s, unless it would drain your mana to the point where you would go OOM and loose all control. To taunt, click the runner, do the target of target command, and hit righteous defense.
When it is all said and done, you need to know your class, and how it operates. Warriors concintrate on dodge and perry, paladins concintrate on block, and druids on armor and health. The only place where i’ve seen a huge difference in tanking (raid wise) is nightbane in Karazan. Paladins don’t have anything to keep from being feared.