Sep 29

Wrath of the Lich King, to me, represents a paradigm shift in the way we think about classes and stacking, both in the smaller 5-man group and the larger 10- and 25-man raids. This is especially true of tanking. Let’s take a look at some blue posts, or at least a portion of them (some of them are a big large):

Ghostcrawler in "Tanking in Wrath of the Lich King"
Threads have popped up in several class forums that seem to be converging on a few of the same issues. So rather than cross-posting a lot, I thought I would start a new thread.

Tanking design:

1) Our goal in Lich King is for all 4 tanking classes to be viable.

[...]

5) For raids, we want all 4 tank classes to be viable. If your group has e.g. a Prot paladin and Feral druid as main tanks with appropriate gear and reasonable skill, you should be good to go.

6) This is a shift in philosophy for us. Previously, we sometimes tried to steer Ferals as being better off tanks than main tanks. We also expected specific classes to appear in the raid. Our new assumption is that you might have any of the 4 tanking classes as a tank. We are trying to achieve as much parity as we can among the 4 tanks without making them too similar. If nearly all guilds want the same class as their MT, we’ve failed.

Here’s another one, in response to the question, "So can someone tell me (preferably Ghostcrawler) why someone would chose to bring a bear druid over a protection warrior to a raid? As nearly as I can tell all bear abilities are available to a warrior and a protection warrior has far more utility while tanking.":

Ghostcrawler in "Feral Tanking, looking for enlightenment"

There is no reason to bring a druid over a warrior. Not if we do our jobs right. There is no reason to bring a warrior over a druid either. We want you to get a tank. We don’t want you sidelining your X tank while you are trying hard to recruit a Y tank.

Bring the tank with the best gear or the most skill. Bring the guy that always shares consumables or can make every raid. Bring the dude who doesn’t complain or researches boss strategies or finds great new people to join your group. Don’t bring a player because his class has the magic button for a boss fight; if we do our jobs right, there won’t be any.

I mentioned to a good paladin friend of mine, "Hey, they removed the target limit on Swipe and Thunderclap, nice." to which he replied, "Great, now Pally tanks are useless."

His statement got me to thinking: why? Why are paladins suddenly useless? Is it because Druids, Warriors, and Death Knights can do respectable AoE threat now? Say this same friend was a warrior. I would much, much rather bring him to a raid or dungeon because he’s my friend and I know that he’s competant, than go, "Sorry, we need a paladin for some big pulls."

I’m sorry, but I can’t see how this is anything but a good thing. The fact of the matter is, if you’re a competant player, or you have, you know, any friends at all, you’re going to be able to get a group. This will actually let me play with people that, you know, I acutally like and know how to tank.

Furthermore, instead of me going, "Wow, I should really level a paladin, tanking would be easier and my friends would invite me to groups more and girls will like me and I will like myself," I can say, "Wow, I can play my feral druid, a class that I actually enjoy playing, and I can tank as well as any other tank. I’m now an asset to my team, instead of a liability (thanks Ratters).

Part of me can understand the idea that "Oh no, the thing that defined me as a class is going away, how will I ever be useful," but the answer is, "You’re a tank, you’ll always be useful." Just because some random druid can AoE tank a bit now doesn’t mean your friends won’t invite you to a group.

Personally, I really like the new idea: play the class you enjoy, bring the folks you enjoy playing with, and still get the job done.

Related posts:

1. Decisions
2. Moving Forward
3. The Slightly Deeper End of the Big Kids’ Pool
4. Why Can’t I Decide?
5. Chill of the Throne: Sunwell Radiance 2.0