Also, why does Silence take away my ability to smash things with my holy shield (Shield of Righteousness)? God I hate that. It doesn't even stop my magical 'Hammer' splitting my weapon (a sword) into hitting 4 targets at once (HotR)! Bad enough that it stops Judgement, Holy Shield and Consecration. Fuck I hate when I get silenced at the beginning of a pull, and then have the DPS going off with AoE when I can't do most of my AoE threat moves. A single HotR doesn't hold them long, I'll tell you that.
You know, if they removed silences, disarms, and fears from all mobs, I wouldn't complain.
If I have a group of 5 mobs or so, as long as AoE isn't starting the same instant I actually get the mobs gathered in front of me (or before, motherfuckers), the only way I'm going to lose any is probably as a result of a *ridiculously* geared Hunter Volley->Multishotting almost right after I actually get them gathered and start properly attacking them. Even then I'm not sure, but regardless, even switching targets wouldn't help me in such a case because I likely wouldn't be able to do it fast enough. And besides that, if the hunter's that fucking ridiculously geared, he damn well better be Misdirecting me before starting that shit.
I guess what I'm saying is, paladins still rock. Also, why does Silence take away my ability to smash things with my holy shield (Shield of Righteousness)? God I hate that. It doesn't even stop my magical 'Hammer' splitting my weapon (a sword) into hitting 4 targets at once (HotR)! Bad enough that it stops Judgement, Holy Shield and Consecration. Fuck I hate when I get silenced at the beginning of a pull, and then have the DPS going off with AoE when I can't do most of my AoE threat moves. A single HotR doesn't hold them long, I'll tell you that.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying tanks who don't switch targets are bad, I'm saying that bad tanks never switch targets (even if they need to). Contrast that to good tanks who usually don't need to switch targets but they'll switch targets when an issue arises (like a mob peeling off, a caster that should be interrupted, someone pulling extra mobs, etc). The bad tanks plop down/spam their AoE move and tunnelvision on their current target until it's dead and then they tab to the next and continue, so worrying about bad tanks' threat and worrying that they'll switch targets at the same time is silly since bad tanks never switch targets. You get me now?
If I have a group of 5 mobs or so, as long as AoE isn't starting the same instant I actually get the mobs gathered in front of me (or before, motherfuckers), the only way I'm going to lose any is probably as a result of a *ridiculously* geared Hunter Volley->Multishotting almost right after I actually get them gathered and start properly attacking them. Even then I'm not sure, but regardless, even switching targets wouldn't help me in such a case because I likely wouldn't be able to do it fast enough. And besides that, if the hunter's that fucking ridiculously geared, he damn well better be Misdirecting me before starting that shit.
I guess what I'm saying is, paladins still rock. Also, why does Silence take away my ability to smash things with my holy shield (Shield of Righteousness)? God I hate that. It doesn't even stop my magical 'Hammer' splitting my weapon (a sword) into hitting 4 targets at once (HotR)! Bad enough that it stops Judgement, Holy Shield and Consecration. Fuck I hate when I get silenced at the beginning of a pull, and then have the DPS going off with AoE when I can't do most of my AoE threat moves. A single HotR doesn't hold them long, I'll tell you that.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying tanks who don't switch targets are bad, I'm saying that bad tanks never switch targets (even if they need to). Contrast that to good tanks who usually don't need to switch targets but they'll switch targets when an issue arises (like a mob peeling off, a caster that should be interrupted, someone pulling extra mobs, etc). The bad tanks plop down/spam their AoE move and tunnelvision on their current target until it's dead and then they tab to the next and continue, so worrying about bad tanks' threat and worrying that they'll switch targets at the same time is silly since bad tanks never switch targets. You get me now?
Ahhh, much more clear. I do get exactly what you mean. I almost added that the only time I typically change targets is when something does go for someone else. As I was typing that up, the area I had in my mind was the fucking geist pack ambush in H PoS that I ran last night. They jump down in separate spots, then go for people that followed me too closely, or the priest who PW:Shielded me as they were aggroing on me and go to him instead. So I toss down my Consecrate, switch over towards the one going at the healer and Reckoning him back to me, then as I'm finally able to actually start a rotation, the DPS has already started going nuts, and one heads off after the warlock. I continue a couple more moves of my Rotation, Holy Wrath while Reckoning is coming off of cooldown, the Warlock maybe takes a hit, but I pull the geist back after that. (Yes, I could have used Righteous Defense since it wouldn't have been on cooldown, but eh, a geist hit isn't going to kill him.)
But yes, I get what you mean, my interpretation was originally a bit more offensive I suppose.
Also, why does Silence take away my ability to smash things with my holy shield (Shield of Righteousness)? God I hate that. It doesn't even stop my magical 'Hammer' splitting my weapon (a sword) into hitting 4 targets at once (HotR)! Bad enough that it stops Judgement, Holy Shield and Consecration. Fuck I hate when I get silenced at the beginning of a pull, and then have the DPS going off with AoE when I can't do most of my AoE threat moves. A single HotR doesn't hold them long, I'll tell you that.
You know, if they removed silences, disarms, and fears from all mobs, I wouldn't complain.
This kind of strikes me as a sarcastic response, though you probably didn't mean it that way, I can just see how it could go either way.
It does warrant interesting discussion however, as yeah, they're inconveniences and they're intended to make you have to adjust and do things differently sometimes instead of just mindlessly doing the same thing over and over. I can appreciate that Blizzard has a difficult job in trying to add those occasional out of the ordinary aspects to vary tanking a bit.
It does strike me that there's a severe disparity in some of these methods however in how they affect things between the tanking classes. For instance, when silenced, a Paladin's threat generation is almost completely nulled... like I said, the only thing you can do is Hammer of the Righteous. Warriors when silenced can't do Shockwave or Thunder Clap but still have plenty of 'physical' moves to continue to work on a target. DKs can't Pestilence, Blood Boil, DnD or set up Icy Touch and probably other (Frost tree specific) threat moves I'm not completely familiar with, but they can still do their main physical strikes for the most part. Druids can't... challenging roar? Seriously I'm not that familiar with Druids but I'm pretty sure they're hurt the least by far by silence.
Disarms are a little different in that I *think* the only thing Paladins lose is Hammer of the Righteous but can do everything else still. In fact, if you keep your Unarmed skill up, you can continue to keep your stack of Vengeance/Corruption up with no problems. Warriors lose almost all of their main attacks I believe, but can still Thunder Clap and maybe Shockwave, not terribly familiar again. DKs lose all their main strikes which can be major, but at least they can still Pestilence off a target, drop DnD and Blood Boil their targets. Druids... are completely unaffected by disarms still as far as I'm aware.
Fears pretty much affect all tanks equally, can't block, dodge or parry and are getting raped in the back as the mobs follow you around. And of course, this is a change from mid TBC, where up until that point, when the tank got feared, the mobs when and attacked next on the list. That was pretty devastating.
I think my main issue with things like Silence/Disarm is in random 5-man parties when you're not in vocal communication with your party members and it happens at the beginning of a pull, with no real way to quickly tell anyone that you haven't gotten to do anything and to not start yet. Obviously these are all short-term issues, but at times they could certainly cause a wipe. When it happens in the middle of a pull where you've already managed to get a decent threat lead, sure it probably isn't really going to be an issue. At least they don't use the Disorient debuff very much anymore, in fact Karazhan is the only one I can think of using it much at all, no real 5-mans. Disorient the tank and causing a whole pack of mobs to ignore him and go rape the DPS for even 5 seconds is fairly major. Random mobs that Mind Control and happen to do it on the tank is bad enough, though at least that *should* be interrupted. Fucking Controllers in Halls of Stone...
I still don't understand why Silence/Disarm is so completely negligible for Druids though, unless I'm missing some major things. My druid is only 30 and has only tanked a little.
I guess my main bitch is that being a Paladin, it *seems* like the most prevalent method throughout WotLK 5-mans has been Silence/spell Lock outs, which seems to affect me much more severely than any other tank. God those Arcane Torrenting fucking Blood Elves in Nexus, or the mage hunter dogs before and after them...
Also, why does Silence take away my ability to smash things with my holy shield (Shield of Righteousness)? God I hate that. It doesn't even stop my magical 'Hammer' splitting my weapon (a sword) into hitting 4 targets at once (HotR)! Bad enough that it stops Judgement, Holy Shield and Consecration. Fuck I hate when I get silenced at the beginning of a pull, and then have the DPS going off with AoE when I can't do most of my AoE threat moves. A single HotR doesn't hold them long, I'll tell you that.
You know, if they removed silences, disarms, and fears from all mobs, I wouldn't complain.
This kind of strikes me as a sarcastic response, though you probably didn't mean it that way, I can just see how it could go either way.
It wasn't sarcasm. These are simply bad, uninteresting, frustrating mechanics.
"Here, we're going to remove some or all of your ability to do anything and there's nothing you can do about it and nothing you could have done to avoid it. And we're going to arbitrarily assign these abilities to some trash mobs just to increase tedium."
What's far more interesting is to have mobs with varied mechanics or things you can avoid if you pay attention rather than just the same old melee, ranged, caster mobs that do standard X damage abilities but then have bonus abilities like "here, you don't get to AoE or taunt for a few seconds. hope your DPS survives" or "might as well go AFK for 5 seconds as there's nothing for you to do right now in the middle of combat."
Bears are completely unharmed by disarm (unless their weapon can't proc during that time, which is negligible), and aren't hurt too badly by silence. They lose FFF, Demo Roar, and I believe taunt on top of what you listed. However, bears have the least utility of all the tanks, so they could use a bone for that kind of stuff (a better design would be to give them appropriate tank utility and not have stupid mechanics like the above).
At least they don't use the Disorient debuff very much anymore, in fact Karazhan is the only one I can think of using it much at all, no real 5-mans. Disorient the tank and causing a whole pack of mobs to ignore him and go rape the DPS for even 5 seconds is fairly major. Random mobs that Mind Control and happen to do it on the tank is bad enough, though at least that *should* be interrupted. Fucking Controllers in Halls of Stone...
I've occasionally run across things that are about as good as disorients. Some of those blood elf trash mobs in Nexus like to use a freezing trap sort of CC, and if the tank gets hit with it they'll all go after the DPS.
Oh, and something else I forgot to mention. Warriors have a fear break on a fairly short cooldown so they've got a huge advantage on that front.
Also, why does Silence take away my ability to smash things with my holy shield (Shield of Righteousness)? God I hate that. It doesn't even stop my magical 'Hammer' splitting my weapon (a sword) into hitting 4 targets at once (HotR)! Bad enough that it stops Judgement, Holy Shield and Consecration. Fuck I hate when I get silenced at the beginning of a pull, and then have the DPS going off with AoE when I can't do most of my AoE threat moves. A single HotR doesn't hold them long, I'll tell you that.
You know, if they removed silences, disarms, and fears from all mobs, I wouldn't complain.
This kind of strikes me as a sarcastic response, though you probably didn't mean it that way, I can just see how it could go either way.
It wasn't sarcasm. These are simply bad, uninteresting, frustrating mechanics.
"Here, we're going to remove some or all of your ability to do anything and there's nothing you can do about it and nothing you could have done to avoid it. And we're going to arbitrarily assign these abilities to some trash mobs just to increase tedium."
What's far more interesting is to have mobs with varied mechanics or things you can avoid if you pay attention rather than just the same old melee, ranged, caster mobs that do standard X damage abilities but then have bonus abilities like "here, you don't get to AoE or taunt for a few seconds. hope your DPS survives" or "might as well go AFK for 5 seconds as there's nothing for you to do right now in the middle of combat."
Bears are completely unharmed by disarm (unless their weapon can't proc during that time, which is negligible), and aren't hurt too badly by silence. They lose FFF, Demo Roar, and I believe taunt on top of what you listed. However, bears have the least utility of all the tanks, so they could use a bone for that kind of stuff (a better design would be to give them appropriate tank utility and not have stupid mechanics like the above).
Hehe, like I said, I wasn't sure if you meant it sarcastically or not. But I agree with you, as a minor example of tank awareness and ability to deal with a mechanic, I like the Eadric Radiance idea. Sure, it's a bit simple, and it is a Disorient, but fuck I know I've nearly died a couple of times when a tank can't turn away for a second at the right time and suddenly my 4-5k DPS Mage is next in line and Eadric starts making a beeline for me. Or my DK in melee range that had turned around, is suddenly having Eadric smash me in the back. But that sort of thing is *all* on the tank, because there's absolutely something he could've done to avoid it.
It isn't like the Gouging Moroes where every 30 seconds or whatever it is, you *are* going to lose aggro for a bit. I guess that only happened on the offtank though, right? Damn it's been a while since I've done that fight... and last time I did, I was duoing it with a Resto Druid, so I *did* get Gouged, we weren't ready for it and the druid went splat. Next attempt, he stood farther away, and just to make sure, went Bear form for a few moments until I came out of it.
I suppose the Maiden of Sorrow in Halls of Stone is an ok example, though it doesn't depend entirely on the tank and you can still get screwed by mechanics. For instance, *I* know when I see Shock of Sorrow being cast to make sure I'm near the edge of a black pool and step into it for a second right before the end of the cast, I get broken out by the damage and move back out to continue tanking her. Tanks that don't know/do this don't usually matter quite as much, but if someone still has that DoT she casts on random people on them when she does the Shock, they're suddenly getting wiped out.
Tyrannus in PoS has a few various mechanics in place, only one is supposed to be tank specific and that's his enrage type ability. You're supposed to tank him with your back to a frost patch so that when he punts you before the enrage, you're on the other side of it and by the time he gets across it his enrage wears off. If you barely had the gear to tank the instance I suppose that would be pretty important... however, with a good healer and good gear, sometimes a cooldown, you can tank him right through that. My Prot Pally only has the 232 or less gear and does fine on him right through the enrage, I've had a few close calls, but that's when I pop Divine Protection or have Ardent Defender proc. Last night, the closest I came to dying was from either the Mage or Warlock who wouldn't stop attacking with Overlord's Bane on them. Fuckers.
At least they don't use the Disorient debuff very much anymore, in fact Karazhan is the only one I can think of using it much at all, no real 5-mans. Disorient the tank and causing a whole pack of mobs to ignore him and go rape the DPS for even 5 seconds is fairly major. Random mobs that Mind Control and happen to do it on the tank is bad enough, though at least that *should* be interrupted. Fucking Controllers in Halls of Stone...
I've occasionally run across things that are about as good as disorients. Some of those blood elf trash mobs in Nexus like to use a freezing trap sort of CC, and if the tank gets hit with it they'll all go after the DPS.
Oh, and something else I forgot to mention. Warriors have a fear break on a fairly short cooldown so they've got a huge advantage on that front.
Argh, I knew there was another reason I hated those fuckers. And you're right, they do. Being mages, I'm assuming it's supposed to be Deep Freeze, which does break on damage. Again, there's nothing you can do to avoid it. Granted, it's a pretty rarely used ability, you don't even usually see it every pull as far as I'm aware. But mostly I hate it when they chain Arcane Torrents together, my god.
I suppose Disorients are less of a tanking mechanic and more of a mechanic to keep the rest of the group on their toes? I don't know. I guess they do have to throw curveballs in some way... I like Disorient types for that a little more than straight up Disarm/Silence effects, mostly because at least with Disorient types it's immediately obvious. If a tank gets Disarmed or Silenced almost right off the bat and never gets a chance to even establish aggro, it's a lot less obvious to the rest of the group what happened other than the tank just being terrible, in their eyes.
I will say again that I kind of miss the conventions of TBC Heroic tanking, which typically, at least on my server, was to let the tank engage, then give a count of like 5 before starting in with DPS. These days I'm pretty much seeing DPS going in at the exact same time as the tank, ranged starting up as soon as the tank has the mobs standing in front of him, if not before. Is this just a side effect of heroics being 'easy' and something to be blitzed as fast as possible? It just annoys me and makes it harder on the tank without it really needing to be. I mean, my DK tank needed about 3 or 4 GCDs to get good snap aggro on a pack and not have to worry about them, and I just never see DPS waiting like that anymore.
Edit: And yes, I realize I've certainly got some rants going today... slow day at work, luckily we're out early!
At least they don't use the Disorient debuff very much anymore, in fact Karazhan is the only one I can think of using it much at all, no real 5-mans. Disorient the tank and causing a whole pack of mobs to ignore him and go rape the DPS for even 5 seconds is fairly major. Random mobs that Mind Control and happen to do it on the tank is bad enough, though at least that *should* be interrupted. Fucking Controllers in Halls of Stone...
I've occasionally run across things that are about as good as disorients. Some of those blood elf trash mobs in Nexus like to use a freezing trap sort of CC, and if the tank gets hit with it they'll all go after the DPS.
Oh, and something else I forgot to mention. Warriors have a fear break on a fairly short cooldown so they've got a huge advantage on that front.
Argh, I knew there was another reason I hated those fuckers. And you're right, they do. Being mages, I'm assuming it's supposed to be Deep Freeze, which does break on damage. Again, there's nothing you can do to avoid it. Granted, it's a pretty rarely used ability, you don't even usually see it every pull as far as I'm aware. But mostly I hate it when they chain Arcane Torrents together, my god.
I suppose Disorients are less of a tanking mechanic and more of a mechanic to keep the rest of the group on their toes? I don't know. I guess they do have to throw curveballs in some way... I like Disorient types for that a little more than straight up Disarm/Silence effects, mostly because at least with Disorient types it's immediately obvious. If a tank gets Disarmed or Silenced almost right off the bat and never gets a chance to even establish aggro, it's a lot less obvious to the rest of the group what happened other than the tank just being terrible, in their eyes.
I will say again that I kind of miss the conventions of TBC Heroic tanking, which typically, at least on my server, was to let the tank engage, then give a count of like 5 before starting in with DPS. These days I'm pretty much seeing DPS going in at the exact same time as the tank, ranged starting up as soon as the tank has the mobs standing in front of him, if not before. Is this just a side effect of heroics being 'easy' and something to be blitzed as fast as possible? It just annoys me and makes it harder on the tank without it really needing to be. I mean, my DK tank needed about 3 or 4 GCDs to get good snap aggro on a pack and not have to worry about them, and I just never see DPS waiting like that anymore.
Edit: And yes, I realize I've certainly got some rants going today... slow day at work, luckily we're out early!
I'm curious, though, what exactly does requiring dps to wait five seconds before engaging actually accomplish, other than making all fights five seconds longer?
5 seconds? Hell, it used to be 5 sunders. Depending on misses, that could be a bit more than 5 seconds.
Ahh, molten core. Oh, and people using some ancient damage meter that didn't synch, so some hunter afk fapping/auto shotting goes on about how awesome their damage is, except they're far enough away they aren't getting the melee dps at all. Yeah, we were probably wrecking your whiny ass.
But that said, more of the ranged were into that stupid Poker mod than the melee. Cause we had to do shit. And run. Oh, the running.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Most tanks have capabilities to build threat at a rate as high or greater than the DPS immediately.
DKs have Death and Decay, and can follow it up with pestilenced disease and eventually blood boils. Paladins have Consecrate; druids, Swipe. Only class I can think of that doesn't have really strong AOE threat is warrior, since Thunderclap is fairly weak, but their single target aggro is strong enough that they can tab slap a small pack and have them under control more than fast enough for DPS to start in as soon as the tank makes first smack.
5 seconds? Hell, it used to be 5 sunders. Depending on misses, that could be a bit more than 5 seconds.
Ahh, molten core. Oh, and people using some ancient damage meter that didn't synch, so some hunter afk fapping/auto shotting goes on about how awesome their damage is, except they're far enough away they aren't getting the melee dps at all. Yeah, we were probably wrecking your whiny ass.
But that said, more of the ranged were into that stupid Poker mod than the melee. Cause we had to do shit. And run. Oh, the running.
I wasn't around when MC was being run, but I do remember narrowly escaping death many times on my Rogue in early TBC. Or getting cleaved by something even though I was behind it. Fun stuff.
I'm curious, though, what exactly does requiring dps to wait five seconds before engaging actually accomplish, other than making all fights five seconds longer?
Allows the tank to position the mobs so that he can *get* a rotation going that will hit all of them for example without worrying about one or more of them being ripped away by trigger happy DPS before he can even start getting a threat lead on them.
For some tanks, positioning is more important than for others, but no tank wants the mobs behind him anyway because they can't dodge, parry and/or block. Warriors need them all in front of him to be able to hit them all with Shock Wave. Druid's Swipe is 360 now, but I don't think their other swings are. DKs probably don't care *that* much other than not being able to parry or dodge mobs behind him, the rest of their threat tools spread in all directions anyway, as long as you can hit one of them in front of you.
But yeah, mainly I'd say it's positioning for me. Especially with as twitchy as mobs have been since the patch, you take a slight step and the mobs all immediately run right through you and start hitting you in the back. Running up and Consecrating will keep them on you through the initial healing aggro while you're trying to position them well but it won't keep them on you for too long through outright DPS. If they wait 5 seconds you can actually get them positioned *and* start getting a decent threat lead.
Come to think of it, some of that also probably has to do with how much the tanking damage/threat has changed since TBC, as well as the baked in Salvation with its removal. It's just different... in TBC, you *had* to let the tank have a threat lead before you started because as DPS you were *going* to catch him, it was just a matter of whether the mob was dead by the time you did or not.
I wasn't around when MC was being run, but I do remember narrowly escaping death many times on my Rogue in early TBC. Or getting cleaved by something even though I was behind it. Fun stuff.
360 degree cleaves were one of the worst things Blizzard used far too heavily in the early days of TBC heroics and even some regular instances, as I recall.
But my self congratulatory stance on being nigh-unkillable as far as rogues goes is probably not worth going over again, so I'll just say that I agree, sir.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Resist a fear, and you're not a tank? Grats, you get to tank anyway!
And yet occasionally I miss being known as the fastest evasion tank in the west.
But yeah, that was a bullshit mechanic, and I was so very thankful when they changed the functionality.
I remember fighting The Beast in UBRS and being prepared at all times to use one of my fear breaks because the healers were out of fear range so I needed to break my fear so the beast would come after me again.
Most tanks have capabilities to build threat at a rate as high or greater than the DPS immediately.
DKs have Death and Decay, and can follow it up with pestilenced disease and eventually blood boils. Paladins have Consecrate; druids, Swipe. Only class I can think of that doesn't have really strong AOE threat is warrior, since Thunderclap is fairly weak, but their single target aggro is strong enough that they can tab slap a small pack and have them under control more than fast enough for DPS to start in as soon as the tank makes first smack.
'course, the tank has to be good...
I have had problems with AoE threat with my druid in Ramparts, Blood Furnace and Slave Pens so far. I think my lack of rage at the beginning of a fight are a big part of that.
And bursty DPS attacking a mob that has not been aggroed yet can also cause problems.
I'm curious, though, what exactly does requiring dps to wait five seconds before engaging actually accomplish, other than making all fights five seconds longer?
Allows the tank to position the mobs so that he can *get* a rotation going that will hit all of them for example without worrying about one or more of them being ripped away by trigger happy DPS before he can even start getting a threat lead on them.
For some tanks, positioning is more important than for others, but no tank wants the mobs behind him anyway because they can't dodge, parry and/or block. Warriors need them all in front of him to be able to hit them all with Shock Wave. Druid's Swipe is 360 now, but I don't think their other swings are. DKs probably don't care *that* much other than not being able to parry or dodge mobs behind him, the rest of their threat tools spread in all directions anyway, as long as you can hit one of them in front of you.
But yeah, mainly I'd say it's positioning for me. Especially with as twitchy as mobs have been since the patch, you take a slight step and the mobs all immediately run right through you and start hitting you in the back. Running up and Consecrating will keep them on you through the initial healing aggro while you're trying to position them well but it won't keep them on you for too long through outright DPS. If they wait 5 seconds you can actually get them positioned *and* start getting a decent threat lead.
Come to think of it, some of that also probably has to do with how much the tanking damage/threat has changed since TBC, as well as the baked in Salvation with its removal. It's just different... in TBC, you *had* to let the tank have a threat lead before you started because as DPS you were *going* to catch him, it was just a matter of whether the mob was dead by the time you did or not.
Tank positioning has nothing to do with DPS, though, unless your DPS is bad and not focus firing at all.
And I'm forced to repeat by original question; how can you miss tanking during a time when DPS pulling off the tank was, by your own admission, inevitable. Aside from Paladins, tanking kind of sucked in TBC. They just plain didn't have the tools to deal with the ridiculous trash packs in almost every instance, hence the absolute need for CC in many situations.
Tank positioning has nothing to do with DPS, though, unless your DPS is bad and not focus firing at all.
And I'm forced to repeat by original question; how can you miss tanking during a time when DPS pulling off the tank was, by your own admission, inevitable. Aside from Paladins, tanking kind of sucked in TBC. They just plain didn't have the tools to deal with the ridiculous trash packs in almost every instance, hence the absolute need for CC in many situations.
I disagree, the tank wanting to position the mobs *so* he can start a threat rotation has everything to do with the DPS.
And I didn't say I missed tanking in TBC, I said I missed the convention that existed in TBC of waiting a few seconds (or sunders, as Forar's comment reminded me) before the DPS opens up on mobs. I really don't think that's too much to ask.
Tank positioning has nothing to do with DPS, though, unless your DPS is bad and not focus firing at all.
And I'm forced to repeat by original question; how can you miss tanking during a time when DPS pulling off the tank was, by your own admission, inevitable. Aside from Paladins, tanking kind of sucked in TBC. They just plain didn't have the tools to deal with the ridiculous trash packs in almost every instance, hence the absolute need for CC in many situations.
I disagree, the tank wanting to position the mobs *so* he can start a threat rotation has everything to do with the DPS.
And I didn't say I missed tanking in TBC, I said I missed the convention that existed in TBC of waiting a few seconds (or sunders, as Forar's comment reminded me) before the DPS opens up on mobs. I really don't think that's too much to ask.
A lot of that was because the pulls often required LOSing or CC, rather than just run in and spam whatever AOE you have.
Or my DK in melee range that had turned around, is suddenly having Eadric smash me in the back.
Why are you turning at all? Anti-Magic Shell blocks Eadric's radiance, so you never get disoriented.
I don't remember why I thought to try that, I might've been pissed at the pug I was with that day.
"WTF Y U DO THAT?"
"Theorycrafting! -oh crap it worked..."
I'm not sure the cooldown's short enough to use it every time, is it? So the other times you'd have to turn anyway so... Regardless, that wasn't the point, the point was while DPSing on my DK, if the tank doesn't turn and I do, I get fucked in that instance.
Dranyth on
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jackalFuck Yes. That is an orderly anal warehouse.Registered Userregular
edited December 2009
Apparently powerleveling a profession doesn't have to be like punching myself in the nuts, my faction/server just has a sucky economy. I rolled a lvl 1 on the other side and it is like the promise land, mageroyal and briarthorn as far as the eye can see.
Wowhead now has a profiler and sync addon that uploads your character data to a Wowhead profile. Includes all the stuff armory has, as well as lets you see what quests you have left in a zone by zone basis.
Wowhead now has a profiler and sync addon that uploads your character data to a Wowhead profile. Includes all the stuff armory has, as well as lets you see what quests you have left in a zone by zone basis.
God damn it. Is it too much to ask for Wintergrasp to give you like 10 seconds of grace time before it PvP flags you for five minutes? I just got stomped in Sholazar because I accidentally flew a little too close to the Wintergrasp border.
QuantumQuark on
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jackalFuck Yes. That is an orderly anal warehouse.Registered Userregular
edited December 2009
"You cannot bid on your own auction." Damn. There goes my dream of not having to wait days to buy materials. Seriously, how can my faction not have any briarthorn?
The gear is actually quite decent. Not a single piece is enchanted or gemmed (only the head piece has slots anyway I do believe), though the weapon is quite outdated.
This character pulled a solid 600 DPS or so through the run. The hunter we had was quite good (around 2.8k as I recall, which is fine), the DK was pulling about 1.8k but was *always* attacking from the front of bosses/mobs, and didn't even know Mind Freeze was an interrupt, after I bitched at the party for not interrupting Shadow Blast when I told them in the beginning to do so and even marked Spell Flingers with skulls and they weren't the first to die sometimes.
With that group I decided to go ahead and just do the first boss, the vampire and then just get to the Herald and finish it. On the way up to the last boss, the priest said, and I quote, "SORRY I JUST DC'D". I just said in party, "I don't think we would've noticed anyway." We killed the last boss fine and I got the hell out of there. I also liked the Hunter sitting at half health after the last trash mob before the last boss (that Shadow Crash thing they throw), and the tree druid just completely ignored it and he had to eat food to heal up before we went even after I asked the druid to heal the hunter before we started.
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Ahhh, much more clear. I do get exactly what you mean. I almost added that the only time I typically change targets is when something does go for someone else. As I was typing that up, the area I had in my mind was the fucking geist pack ambush in H PoS that I ran last night. They jump down in separate spots, then go for people that followed me too closely, or the priest who PW:Shielded me as they were aggroing on me and go to him instead. So I toss down my Consecrate, switch over towards the one going at the healer and Reckoning him back to me, then as I'm finally able to actually start a rotation, the DPS has already started going nuts, and one heads off after the warlock. I continue a couple more moves of my Rotation, Holy Wrath while Reckoning is coming off of cooldown, the Warlock maybe takes a hit, but I pull the geist back after that. (Yes, I could have used Righteous Defense since it wouldn't have been on cooldown, but eh, a geist hit isn't going to kill him.)
But yes, I get what you mean, my interpretation was originally a bit more offensive I suppose.
This kind of strikes me as a sarcastic response, though you probably didn't mean it that way, I can just see how it could go either way.
It does warrant interesting discussion however, as yeah, they're inconveniences and they're intended to make you have to adjust and do things differently sometimes instead of just mindlessly doing the same thing over and over. I can appreciate that Blizzard has a difficult job in trying to add those occasional out of the ordinary aspects to vary tanking a bit.
It does strike me that there's a severe disparity in some of these methods however in how they affect things between the tanking classes. For instance, when silenced, a Paladin's threat generation is almost completely nulled... like I said, the only thing you can do is Hammer of the Righteous. Warriors when silenced can't do Shockwave or Thunder Clap but still have plenty of 'physical' moves to continue to work on a target. DKs can't Pestilence, Blood Boil, DnD or set up Icy Touch and probably other (Frost tree specific) threat moves I'm not completely familiar with, but they can still do their main physical strikes for the most part. Druids can't... challenging roar? Seriously I'm not that familiar with Druids but I'm pretty sure they're hurt the least by far by silence.
Disarms are a little different in that I *think* the only thing Paladins lose is Hammer of the Righteous but can do everything else still. In fact, if you keep your Unarmed skill up, you can continue to keep your stack of Vengeance/Corruption up with no problems. Warriors lose almost all of their main attacks I believe, but can still Thunder Clap and maybe Shockwave, not terribly familiar again. DKs lose all their main strikes which can be major, but at least they can still Pestilence off a target, drop DnD and Blood Boil their targets. Druids... are completely unaffected by disarms still as far as I'm aware.
Fears pretty much affect all tanks equally, can't block, dodge or parry and are getting raped in the back as the mobs follow you around. And of course, this is a change from mid TBC, where up until that point, when the tank got feared, the mobs when and attacked next on the list. That was pretty devastating.
I think my main issue with things like Silence/Disarm is in random 5-man parties when you're not in vocal communication with your party members and it happens at the beginning of a pull, with no real way to quickly tell anyone that you haven't gotten to do anything and to not start yet. Obviously these are all short-term issues, but at times they could certainly cause a wipe. When it happens in the middle of a pull where you've already managed to get a decent threat lead, sure it probably isn't really going to be an issue. At least they don't use the Disorient debuff very much anymore, in fact Karazhan is the only one I can think of using it much at all, no real 5-mans. Disorient the tank and causing a whole pack of mobs to ignore him and go rape the DPS for even 5 seconds is fairly major. Random mobs that Mind Control and happen to do it on the tank is bad enough, though at least that *should* be interrupted. Fucking Controllers in Halls of Stone...
I still don't understand why Silence/Disarm is so completely negligible for Druids though, unless I'm missing some major things. My druid is only 30 and has only tanked a little.
I guess my main bitch is that being a Paladin, it *seems* like the most prevalent method throughout WotLK 5-mans has been Silence/spell Lock outs, which seems to affect me much more severely than any other tank. God those Arcane Torrenting fucking Blood Elves in Nexus, or the mage hunter dogs before and after them...
"Here, we're going to remove some or all of your ability to do anything and there's nothing you can do about it and nothing you could have done to avoid it. And we're going to arbitrarily assign these abilities to some trash mobs just to increase tedium."
What's far more interesting is to have mobs with varied mechanics or things you can avoid if you pay attention rather than just the same old melee, ranged, caster mobs that do standard X damage abilities but then have bonus abilities like "here, you don't get to AoE or taunt for a few seconds. hope your DPS survives" or "might as well go AFK for 5 seconds as there's nothing for you to do right now in the middle of combat."
Bears are completely unharmed by disarm (unless their weapon can't proc during that time, which is negligible), and aren't hurt too badly by silence. They lose FFF, Demo Roar, and I believe taunt on top of what you listed. However, bears have the least utility of all the tanks, so they could use a bone for that kind of stuff (a better design would be to give them appropriate tank utility and not have stupid mechanics like the above).
Resist a fear, and you're not a tank? Grats, you get to tank anyway!
Oh, and something else I forgot to mention. Warriors have a fear break on a fairly short cooldown so they've got a huge advantage on that front.
And yet occasionally I miss being known as the fastest evasion tank in the west.
But yeah, that was a bullshit mechanic, and I was so very thankful when they changed the functionality.
Hehe, like I said, I wasn't sure if you meant it sarcastically or not. But I agree with you, as a minor example of tank awareness and ability to deal with a mechanic, I like the Eadric Radiance idea. Sure, it's a bit simple, and it is a Disorient, but fuck I know I've nearly died a couple of times when a tank can't turn away for a second at the right time and suddenly my 4-5k DPS Mage is next in line and Eadric starts making a beeline for me. Or my DK in melee range that had turned around, is suddenly having Eadric smash me in the back. But that sort of thing is *all* on the tank, because there's absolutely something he could've done to avoid it.
It isn't like the Gouging Moroes where every 30 seconds or whatever it is, you *are* going to lose aggro for a bit. I guess that only happened on the offtank though, right? Damn it's been a while since I've done that fight... and last time I did, I was duoing it with a Resto Druid, so I *did* get Gouged, we weren't ready for it and the druid went splat. Next attempt, he stood farther away, and just to make sure, went Bear form for a few moments until I came out of it.
I suppose the Maiden of Sorrow in Halls of Stone is an ok example, though it doesn't depend entirely on the tank and you can still get screwed by mechanics. For instance, *I* know when I see Shock of Sorrow being cast to make sure I'm near the edge of a black pool and step into it for a second right before the end of the cast, I get broken out by the damage and move back out to continue tanking her. Tanks that don't know/do this don't usually matter quite as much, but if someone still has that DoT she casts on random people on them when she does the Shock, they're suddenly getting wiped out.
Tyrannus in PoS has a few various mechanics in place, only one is supposed to be tank specific and that's his enrage type ability. You're supposed to tank him with your back to a frost patch so that when he punts you before the enrage, you're on the other side of it and by the time he gets across it his enrage wears off. If you barely had the gear to tank the instance I suppose that would be pretty important... however, with a good healer and good gear, sometimes a cooldown, you can tank him right through that. My Prot Pally only has the 232 or less gear and does fine on him right through the enrage, I've had a few close calls, but that's when I pop Divine Protection or have Ardent Defender proc. Last night, the closest I came to dying was from either the Mage or Warlock who wouldn't stop attacking with Overlord's Bane on them. Fuckers.
Argh, I knew there was another reason I hated those fuckers. And you're right, they do. Being mages, I'm assuming it's supposed to be Deep Freeze, which does break on damage. Again, there's nothing you can do to avoid it. Granted, it's a pretty rarely used ability, you don't even usually see it every pull as far as I'm aware. But mostly I hate it when they chain Arcane Torrents together, my god.
I suppose Disorients are less of a tanking mechanic and more of a mechanic to keep the rest of the group on their toes? I don't know. I guess they do have to throw curveballs in some way... I like Disorient types for that a little more than straight up Disarm/Silence effects, mostly because at least with Disorient types it's immediately obvious. If a tank gets Disarmed or Silenced almost right off the bat and never gets a chance to even establish aggro, it's a lot less obvious to the rest of the group what happened other than the tank just being terrible, in their eyes.
I will say again that I kind of miss the conventions of TBC Heroic tanking, which typically, at least on my server, was to let the tank engage, then give a count of like 5 before starting in with DPS. These days I'm pretty much seeing DPS going in at the exact same time as the tank, ranged starting up as soon as the tank has the mobs standing in front of him, if not before. Is this just a side effect of heroics being 'easy' and something to be blitzed as fast as possible? It just annoys me and makes it harder on the tank without it really needing to be. I mean, my DK tank needed about 3 or 4 GCDs to get good snap aggro on a pack and not have to worry about them, and I just never see DPS waiting like that anymore.
Edit: And yes, I realize I've certainly got some rants going today... slow day at work, luckily we're out early!
I'm curious, though, what exactly does requiring dps to wait five seconds before engaging actually accomplish, other than making all fights five seconds longer?
Ahh, molten core. Oh, and people using some ancient damage meter that didn't synch, so some hunter afk fapping/auto shotting goes on about how awesome their damage is, except they're far enough away they aren't getting the melee dps at all. Yeah, we were probably wrecking your whiny ass.
But that said, more of the ranged were into that stupid Poker mod than the melee. Cause we had to do shit. And run. Oh, the running.
DKs have Death and Decay, and can follow it up with pestilenced disease and eventually blood boils. Paladins have Consecrate; druids, Swipe. Only class I can think of that doesn't have really strong AOE threat is warrior, since Thunderclap is fairly weak, but their single target aggro is strong enough that they can tab slap a small pack and have them under control more than fast enough for DPS to start in as soon as the tank makes first smack.
'course, the tank has to be good...
Allows the tank to position the mobs so that he can *get* a rotation going that will hit all of them for example without worrying about one or more of them being ripped away by trigger happy DPS before he can even start getting a threat lead on them.
For some tanks, positioning is more important than for others, but no tank wants the mobs behind him anyway because they can't dodge, parry and/or block. Warriors need them all in front of him to be able to hit them all with Shock Wave. Druid's Swipe is 360 now, but I don't think their other swings are. DKs probably don't care *that* much other than not being able to parry or dodge mobs behind him, the rest of their threat tools spread in all directions anyway, as long as you can hit one of them in front of you.
But yeah, mainly I'd say it's positioning for me. Especially with as twitchy as mobs have been since the patch, you take a slight step and the mobs all immediately run right through you and start hitting you in the back. Running up and Consecrating will keep them on you through the initial healing aggro while you're trying to position them well but it won't keep them on you for too long through outright DPS. If they wait 5 seconds you can actually get them positioned *and* start getting a decent threat lead.
Come to think of it, some of that also probably has to do with how much the tanking damage/threat has changed since TBC, as well as the baked in Salvation with its removal. It's just different... in TBC, you *had* to let the tank have a threat lead before you started because as DPS you were *going* to catch him, it was just a matter of whether the mob was dead by the time you did or not.
360 degree cleaves were one of the worst things Blizzard used far too heavily in the early days of TBC heroics and even some regular instances, as I recall.
But my self congratulatory stance on being nigh-unkillable as far as rogues goes is probably not worth going over again, so I'll just say that I agree, sir.
I remember fighting The Beast in UBRS and being prepared at all times to use one of my fear breaks because the healers were out of fear range so I needed to break my fear so the beast would come after me again.
I have had problems with AoE threat with my druid in Ramparts, Blood Furnace and Slave Pens so far. I think my lack of rage at the beginning of a fight are a big part of that.
And bursty DPS attacking a mob that has not been aggroed yet can also cause problems.
Tank positioning has nothing to do with DPS, though, unless your DPS is bad and not focus firing at all.
And I'm forced to repeat by original question; how can you miss tanking during a time when DPS pulling off the tank was, by your own admission, inevitable. Aside from Paladins, tanking kind of sucked in TBC. They just plain didn't have the tools to deal with the ridiculous trash packs in almost every instance, hence the absolute need for CC in many situations.
I disagree, the tank wanting to position the mobs *so* he can start a threat rotation has everything to do with the DPS.
And I didn't say I missed tanking in TBC, I said I missed the convention that existed in TBC of waiting a few seconds (or sunders, as Forar's comment reminded me) before the DPS opens up on mobs. I really don't think that's too much to ask.
The tank still has to position them.
Why are you turning at all? Anti-Magic Shell blocks Eadric's radiance, so you never get disoriented.
I don't remember why I thought to try that, I might've been pissed at the pug I was with that day.
"WTF Y U DO THAT?"
"Theorycrafting! -oh crap it worked..."
....
FFF, rolled a 2.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
I'm not sure the cooldown's short enough to use it every time, is it? So the other times you'd have to turn anyway so... Regardless, that wasn't the point, the point was while DPSing on my DK, if the tank doesn't turn and I do, I get fucked in that instance.
Hallefuckinglujah
Still buggy (in beta), but pretty fucking cool.
Sure that wasn't just a mistake? That just too dumb to be on purpose. Or maybe he meant a priest shield?...er...Ok, I dunno, he's dumb :P
It is Christmas, let us assume he misspoke rather than that he's an idiot.
Shield Block/Block value/rating?
That's far too logical... and probably the case.
Anyhow, I just tanked random heroic OK with this shadow priest http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Boulderfist&cn=Holyfx
The gear is actually quite decent. Not a single piece is enchanted or gemmed (only the head piece has slots anyway I do believe), though the weapon is quite outdated.
This character pulled a solid 600 DPS or so through the run. The hunter we had was quite good (around 2.8k as I recall, which is fine), the DK was pulling about 1.8k but was *always* attacking from the front of bosses/mobs, and didn't even know Mind Freeze was an interrupt, after I bitched at the party for not interrupting Shadow Blast when I told them in the beginning to do so and even marked Spell Flingers with skulls and they weren't the first to die sometimes.
With that group I decided to go ahead and just do the first boss, the vampire and then just get to the Herald and finish it. On the way up to the last boss, the priest said, and I quote, "SORRY I JUST DC'D". I just said in party, "I don't think we would've noticed anyway." We killed the last boss fine and I got the hell out of there. I also liked the Hunter sitting at half health after the last trash mob before the last boss (that Shadow Crash thing they throw), and the tree druid just completely ignored it and he had to eat food to heal up before we went even after I asked the druid to heal the hunter before we started.
Sheesh.