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Q u o t e:
My biggest question mark is how I am going to get 5 full points in Shield Spec. I haven't done that since TBC, and frankly I am scratching my head. Considering the negative changes to Deep Wounds (in regards to Damage Shields and modifier nerfs) I may go with 12/3/56. Bah. Will have to see.

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This is my dilemma as well. What am I going to take points OUT of for Shield Spec? If they're expecting us to drop Deep Wounds, then we need another round of buffs first. Maybe take 2 from Cruelty, but that still leaves me 4/5 Shield Spec... Hm...

Ponderous.

First. kek.

I think the main issue with warriors is not "we can't do it" or even necessarily "folks won't let us do it". It sometimes DOES work out that way, often enough it's a little maddening, but in my experience as a serious but not ultra hardcore raider, it's the exception rather than the rule.

What I'd like to see is warrior tanking made more rewarding. Easier? Maybe. I don't think it's a secret that warrior tanking generally requires more effort. Either simplify it and do what you will beyond that, or make the extra effort something that produces extra results, not lesser or equal.

a tank is a tank. any tank can perform a certain role in a boss fight but to different degrees of effectiveness. often it comes to sacrificing threat or causing healers to have a seizure.

in many cases, guild choose their tanks based on personal experience, trust with the guild and tank skill/experience. a well played warrior can still outplay an average DK, or any other tank class for that matter.

more often that not, the people we raid with are our friends. sometimes being hard to heal and having to watch threat isnt as enjoyable (we raid for fun not loot right) for some, and subpar cds/avoidance/eh may cause unnecesary wipes and stress. but in the end a good tank will always prevail, but to what cost.

i dont want to be the best tank for every encounter, we have several tanks of different classes and all are capable. what would be nice though would be the ability to provide the compeditive edge on some challenging boss fights because of warrior mechanics, whether it be threat wise, easiness to heal and mobility (we are good at this but many boss fights just don't require it but something along the lines of intervene/charge on hodir etc).

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Let's follow that logic for a moment. Why would GC lie about this? Clearly we're not afraid to upset the community when Blizzard decides to nerf a particular class or spec or refuse to buff another class or spec. So what motivation could there possibly be to lie about this? To spare us the community's righteous indignation? We get that anyway. :)

We think warrior tanks need some help. We do not think they are as far behind as some of these forum posts would have you believe, and we do not see many progression-oriented guilds replacing their warrior MTs. The arguments about who is the best tank tend to get pretty vicious because players think it could mean the difference between them getting to raid or not.

Players play WoW because they're having fun. The vast majority of players do not participate in forum discussions. They're not hanging on in desperation because they think they might eventually get buffed at the end of the tunnel. They think it's worth having a subscription to WoW or they don't. Trying to somehow string players along as you suggest would not only be transparent to players, it would have a very limited impact given the size of the WoW player base.

We value interaction with the community, but don't overstate the power of these forums.

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What do you say regarding the numbers that have been posted that clearly show warriors falling drastically behind in TPS & DPS compared to the other tanks? Is that the part that you agree with, or is that the part that you think isn't really as far behind as we claim?

I think a lot of our curiosity stems from the fact that warriors really have no clue what's happening to their class. We are literally the worst at basically every important tanking statistic imaginable, and we aren't sure what Blizzard agrees with or doesn't agree with, and to what extent.

A slight buff to devestate doesn't help since after the stacks are up, you aren't spamming it - unless your goal is for us to use it constantly as part of our rotation... It just seems like that the skills that could seriously improve our "worth" to the gaming community as a whole are being left alone, and the niche skills are recieving slight buffs that will only help once every 28 seconds or so.

Consider it Affirmative Action.

Affirmative Action was Paladins being handed slow and unchanging rotations and superior threat.

Affirmative Action was Druids being handed simple rotations, superior mitigation, and superior damage and threat.

DKs were ubermensch, but I guess the proverbial Russian winter is coming.

If you have to throw in retarded gimmicks to keep the warriors tanking, you've gone too far---that happened in TBC.

I prefer that didn't happen again.

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and we do not see many progression-oriented guilds replacing their warrior MTs. The arguments about who is the best tank tend to get pretty vicious because players think it could mean the difference between them getting to raid or not..

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Ummm

Warrior tanks cannot tank everything on the same level as other Tanks.

<--- Progression guild.

<--- Replaced Warrior MT with Druid/DK.

Nice try GC, sometimes I wonder who these 'progression guilds' are you refer to, when all the ones that are open about their comps replace their Warrs.

Just because Kungen hasnt rerolled yet, doesnt mean everyone else hasnt already.

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Ummm

Warrior tanks cannot tank everything on the same level as other Tanks.

<--- Progression guild.

<--- Replaced Warrior MT with Druid/DK.

Nice try GC, sometimes I wonder who these 'progression guilds' are you refer to, when all the ones that are open about their comps replace their Warrs.

Just because Kungen hasnt rerolled yet, doesnt mean everyone else hasnt already.

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It seems they only look at the top 5 or so world guild when they talk about this kind of stuff, but then claim they don't balance around them.

If I was a serious progression tank in my guild instead of dps, I would have swapped to my druid ages ago.

I plan to switch to my druid in 3.2 for tanking our 10 mans, if the current state of the PTR goes, live with the massive imbalances, because there difference in gear will be minimal.

Let's take this particular high horse outside and shoot it, shall we?
Warrior tanking rotations are no more complex than any other tank class.
Warrior tanking takes no more skill than any other tank class.
Warrior tanks aren't necessarily better than any other tanks just because of the button they clicked at startup (and don't give me that 'but we've had more experience so we're obviously better' line, it's complete BS and y'all know it).

Edit: quoted wrong post

^

Warrior tanks don't have a set rotation. Many of our skills are RNG based and we have to use them when/if they proc and if we have the rage.

There is no 9696969 rotation
There is no 1234567 rotation

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Let's take this particular high horse outside and shoot it, shall we?
Warrior tanking rotations are no more complex than any other tank class.
Warrior tanking takes no more skill than any other tank class.
Warrior tanks aren't necessarily better than any other tanks just because of the button they clicked at startup (and don't give me that 'but we've had more experience so we're obviously better' line, it's complete BS and y'all know it).

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We take more buttons, then the other tanks our threat rotation is highly fluid proc/cool down based system.

I would say that is more complicated then having a cast sequence macro, and getting better threat then a warrior playing perfectly.

To me that says it takes more skill to play a warrior properly.

The guilds that don't replace there MT warriors is because there tanks work amazingly well with there guild, which allows the raid to adjust smoothly and properly in case something happens.

If you talking about out playing other tanks, generally experience = people get better at doing there job especially if it is with the same guild.

None of the tankng rotations in the larger scheme of games really take much skill, sure there are some differences but none of them can fairly be discribed as hard to do.

Warrior however, because of rage and HS spam have the most annoying (and painful) tanking rotations by far.

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To me that says it takes more skill to play a warrior properly.

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Of course it does, you're a warrior.
Hitting button 2 when it lights up, button 3 when it lights up, button 4 when it's off cooldown and button 5 when the red bar is over half full takes no more skill than Judging, then ShOR, then HS, then Hammer, then Consecrate. And if you think taking 3 steps back so the badguys are in front of you for your shockwave is vastly more complicated than dropping consecrate in the right place or throwing D&D in the path of those guys running for the healer, then your problem isn't the class.

And no, playing your warrior for 3 years with one guild doesn't mean you're a better tank than someone playing their tankadin for 2 years with the same guild, or someone who switched from a warrior or tankadin to roll a DK this go round. Sorry to burst your bubble there, but that's just plain delusional.

I got nerdrage in my peanut butter.

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We think warrior tanks need some help. We do not think they are as far behind as some of these forum posts would have you believe, and we do not see many progression-oriented guilds replacing their warrior MTs. The arguments about who is the best tank tend to get pretty vicious because players think it could mean the difference between them getting to raid or not.

.

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Every progression guild on our server has replaced their warriors as the MT. Either with a druid or a DK. Including mine. (No, GC..I won't lose my slot, I'll still be playing with my guild long after WoW is dead and gone, I know many of them in RL.)

Did we have to? No. We could have done all the content thus far with a warrior (We'll be killing steel breaker and hodir this week on hard mode.). However, we only raid 3 days a week and its not very conducive to such a limited raid schedule to use a sub-par tank. These differences aren't cosmetic and as much as you would like to gloss them over, they are not small.

In the next patch, we already have a druid and paladin geared for the slot. We know they will go live stronger than the other tanks and we also know DKs will be crap for at least a few months. We'll use the current best progression tank because we, like most guilds, have a ton of great members and we have that option. The fact that we have to use an option like this is ridiculous but its there.

You're right GC, we play because we have fun. I played EQ because I had fun, to. EQ died for many reasons but for me, one of the main ones, was that the developers absolutely could not get class balance between tanks down. (And could not release finished content, which thankfully isn't a problem you guys have, which I apreciate.)

Now, GC, I have played this game for four years...You can choose to not listen to me, that is fine. You are the developer and I have always believed that "community" developed games=suck. I'm not "telling" you how to develop your game...I'm just letting you know that you are sorely mistaken if you think the differences are small. I'm also letting you know that some of your changes, make absolutely no sense...or seem to be done purely by happen-chance..for example.

An example...In one breath you state that having 3.5k bonus armor over the shield tanks is too much (It is)...But then you allow druids to have 3k more armor and 2% high base mitigation and a "block" mechanic (With higher mitigation rates than warrior block mechanics.)....Why?

I guess that is the best question I can ask right now. What is the mentality or "vision" behind the differences between druids and DKs. Why was it a problem for one and not the other?

I'm going to quote you now, GC.

As I explained, we compared DK armor, health and avoidance to other tanks, and found that the DKs ended up in better shape than other tanks even if you totally ignored cooldowns. When you consider cooldowns, things are even more skewed.

I just didn't want potentially disgruntled players to perpetuate a myth that DK armor got nerfed because their cooldowns were too good. DK armor got nerfed because their armor was too good

Now, again...You explained clearly that having 3k-3.5k more armor, 5-7% more health and roughly the same avoidance was out of line.

Druids have 3k more armor, 5% more health and roughly the same avoidance (2% or so less.)...And they also have a block mechanic and 2% high base mitigation.

Now do you see why you guys appear to be all over? Whats fine for one tank isn't fine for another. Why was it not fine for the DKs to be this good "outside of cool downs" but it is fine for druids to be even better "outside of cool downs".

Most of us players are scratching our heads, maybe you could enlighten us, GC.

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Warrior however, because of rage and HS spam have the most annoying (and painful) tanking rotations by far.

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I tank on my warrior daily. I also have this tank, and a prot pally (all at different levels of content, obviously). Heroic Strike is no more annoying or painful than RP dumping.

And for the claim that warrior have far more buttons to press than any other tank?
Sorry, also not true. I've got 24 actions bound to my mouse alone for this guy and use them all during a hard fight, and still make heavy use of keyboard hotkeys.
The warrior has a lot to do, sure, but it's not far and away more than anyone else (even my pally uses as many), but all this 'oh, woe is us... we take so much more skill to play but still get treated like red-headed stepchildren' QQ is really wearing thin.