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Q u o t e:
But, you're right, the problem is lacking effective health for Paladins and nonleapable AD only makes up for that.

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Glutton's/Fasc's/Communism's number's don't count because they weren't proven on patchwerk.

Oh wait...

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Q u o t e:
There was a time when you simply wanted "enough" EH to make the fight manageable for mere mortals and then you heaped on the TPS or Avoidance depending on the nature of the fight and the capacity of your Healers.

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But that isnt the players fault. thats the fault of the designers making encounters that have large amounts of spike damage that cannot be avoided ... think frozen blows. Frozen blows is unavoidable and the only thing that will save you is cooldowns and EH. period. Recently I finally got t8 4 piece bonus and thought hey... this will make frozen blows so much easier combined with some frost resist. And it did. Meanwhile a druid guildmate laughed at me for bragging about how much less damage i was gonna take since he mitigates it better just because he is a druid. little did i know that my 4 pc bonus was a blizz bandaid for something the other tanks already had. :(

fusion punch, frozen blows, laser barrage etc ... there are MANY examples of an encounter design where EH is the ONLY factor in determining success or failure assuming correct timing of cooldowns. for example on mim we down phase 1 in 3 barrages ... i can shield block with the bonus the first barrage which is scary since its only 20% less damage and i still almost die... shield wall the second.. and last stand the 3rd. if there was a 4th barrage due to low dps i would die for lack of a cooldown OR i would be at the mercy of my healers. Perhaps its exactly the same for every tank but i suspect it is not. With last stand i have 50k hp. my druid has that much normally...

edit: fusion punch was a bad example. any capable healer combo should handle this easily.

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Q u o t e:


I have argued against EH before many times not because I think it is a worthless stat but because I think there comes a point where you should have to balance EH with Avoidance to be a good and knowledgeable tank. Over the last few months EH has become the only stat that matters and Avoidance is largely ignored because the dreaded term "mana-sponge" no longer effectively exists. Healers simply don't care if you are going to avoid or not, they blast you with Holy Light/Greater Heal/Whatever anyway.

There was a time when you simply wanted "enough" EH to make the fight manageable for mere mortals and then you heaped on the TPS or Avoidance depending on the nature of the fight and the capacity of your Healers. Now though it is just stack EH and EH and oh look more EH.

All of the tanks are capable of getting enough, there is no question about that because tanks are tanking everything. But getting more and more is desirable because it doesn't impact the Healers negatively so why not get absurdly more Health so they can practically fall asleep before healing you again?

Tank gearing philosophies have changed in a bad way due to a number of things and thus what matters for tanking is skewed when these debates occur.

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This.

The problem with current tank balance is that EH is the only stat the is really different from a survival standpoint. Avoidance currently (pre T9 BiS that bosses aren't out for) is nearly equal across all tanks (less than 2% difference), and yet there is a huge discrepancy between health levels for tanks.

There is no negative tradeoff for stacking stamina anymore, since healer mana hasn't been an issue since 3.0 hit back in October. Without the danger of healers running out of mana in a fight, the only way to threaten the raid as a whole is to make bosses that are capable of 1 shotting any one raid member, either the tank is it's a one time thing (Thorim/Steelbreaker), or multiple people if it's not (XT's tantrum, Kolo's favorite RPG, Algalon's Big Bang).

Given how much easier the fights that rely on multiple people dying are compared to the single tank death fights, which fight do you think raids are more worried about balance and advantage on?

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Numbers lie all the time.

99% of the people that have cancer eat carrots. Therefore, there is a very high chance that carrots cause cancer.

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It amazes me the number of people who don't know what constitutes a statistic.

2+2=4 is not a statistic

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Q u o t e:
I don't come here often... could someone link me to the proof/theory/suspicion of this "5%"? Is there a website somewhere that I can mock-up a warrior/paladin in T8.5 and see the difference?

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Fasc's number thread for 3.1 numbers. Bluedeep's 3.2 end game tank stats thread for 3.2 numbers (where the numbers in my other post came from).

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Q u o t e:
I thought that Redoubt was on par with Shield Mastery (30%). I also thought warriors had 10% passive mitigation from Defensive stance, compared to Paladin's 6% from talented Righteous Defense. Are we playing the same game, or did I miss something in my (admittedly quick) comparison?

I'll concede the 8% stamina difference (if I'm reading talents correctly). I'm still skeptical that it's both different from your 5% number, and unverified by actual characters in actual gear.

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Redoubt compares to Shield Spec (10% chance for 30% block = ~5% block given durations), and Holy Shield compares to Critical Block. . .

On paper. . .

In practice, Holy Shield allows Paladins to block every hit, which means that Block Value is EH for Paladins.

As for Base mitigation, Paladins have: 6% (RF) * 3% (Shield of Templar) * 3% (Glyphed Plea) = 11.5554% base physical mitigation and an additional * 6% (Guarded by the Light) in magical mitigation, or 16.862%. Higher than every other tank (with the sole exception of Druids and a tie with Frost for Physical damage).

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Those are both goals (group flexibility vs. tank heterogeneity) and they are partially at odds with each other, but so are many of our goals for WoW (say simplicity vs. depth).

We understand that there is a segment of the community that wants to see all tank numbers virtually identical to each other on all fights. We see requests for DKs to block and druids to parry and for every class to have an equivalent snap-aggro move for single target and AE fights, etc. That's just not the direction we want to take the game. We want your group to do things a little differently if you have a bear instead of a paladin tank. We want that if you've played a DK throughout LK to have to learn and adapt to class differences if you choose to reroll a warrior. We want the numbers to be close enough so that a group that runs with tank X doesn't feel at a serious disadvantage on specific fights. But we aren't trying to make everyone the same.

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ah so it was flavor that made warriors and paladins the bottom of the barrel in 3.1.

and it's now FLAVOR that makes dk's worse then warriors.

My my how blind we have been. Math doesnt matter, only flavor.

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Q u o t e:
We want your group to do things a little differently if you have a bear instead of a paladin tank. We want that if you've played a DK throughout LK to have to learn and adapt to class differences if you choose to reroll a warrior.

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IE we want you to reroll to our new FOTM so we can equalize the population more.

A dpser having to apply debuffs instead of the tank, that's ok. A raid requiring 2 more healers to use a tank isnt. this is what you guys are doing.

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Q u o t e:


Statistics can lie, because the art (and I do mean art) of statistics is analyzing numbers and trends to attempt to conclude some sort of pattern by which to make appropriate decisions. For simple problems, statistics can be highly accurate and helpful but the more complex and varied the simulation, the more problematic values derived can be.

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Anything except pure value can lie, anything. In fact, if you had studied physics at all on your way up through the math-hell that is programing core, then you would realize that everything in the known universe is based off of an observer relationship, meaning that everything only has a random chance of existing in its current state and said state can vary depending on the point of observation.

I could theoretically make an argument that you do not currently exist and it would be a damn good one, to. The point is though that you can't base everything in life on what could be, sometimes you need to interpret what is. People can lie with statistics. Statistics if recorded correctly never lie.

There is a huge difference in that statement. The cardinal rule with statistics is to read the numbers before you read someone elses conclusions. Numbers are truth, people lie.

Aside from that, we are talking about values, not statistical abstracts based on theoretical testing. The values don't match up...That is simple math.

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I don't know that I would say we want tanking niches. I ultimately am agreeing with what you're saying, but once we say "tanking niches" players have visions of the DK who parks outside of Icecrown until boss 4, 17 and 31 (yes, IC is that big).

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WHHAAAAAAAT? 17? 31?

Not even gonna get involved in this argument, but...

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Q u o t e:
I don't know that I would say we want tanking niches. I ultimately am agreeing with what you're saying, but once we say "tanking niches" players have visions of the DK who parks outside of Icecrown until boss 4, 17 and 31 (yes, IC is that big).

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Q u o t e:
boss 4, 17 and 31 (yes, IC is that big).

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Whaaaaaa?

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Q u o t e:



WHHAAAAAAAT? 17? 31?

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The real reason for raid lockout extensions just became clear. At least 31 bosses in Icecrown Citadel? :P

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Q u o t e:


I don't know that I would say we want tanking niches. I ultimately am agreeing with what you're saying, but once we say "tanking niches" players have visions of the DK who parks outside of Icecrown until boss 4, 17 and 31 (yes, IC is that big).

I totally agree that no tank can be the worst at everything. What you have to remember though is that "everything" is generally defined as the current raid content. Coliseum isn't a large raid. If there are 5 bosses and 4 tanks then it seems that even in the best case that someone might be "the best" on 2 of them and everyone else is "the best" on 1. (And honestly, we don't design raid encounters with that goal in mind -- they have enough constraints on them already.)

Again, the goal is "close enough" and the mushiness of that definition is intended. For some groups, having a tank that is "5% harder to heal" (whatever that means) is acceptable and perhaps not even detectable. We just need to avoid the extreme situation where the guild that feels gimp because their MT is a paladin (or whatever) and paladins have a lot of liabilities on the current raid content to the extent where that player is getting replaced on more than just a couple of fights. (And I should add by knowledgeable raid leadership, and not just the Naxx pug guy that read on the forums that bears are the best tank and so only accepts bears.)

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even a 5% healing difference if the players in the raid are not great is going to be noticeable.

Our best healer, a druid, decided to go feral dps; he needed a break from healing. He could pull between 7-9k hps, when he is dpsing the rest of our healers notice the difference between me tanking and our warrior. Why? because i take 3-5% more dmg due to no block, (using your arguement posted prior to 3.2 that block was 3-5% mitigation for warriors.) Also his amazing healing covered up that 5% gap so people didn't notice. till he wasnt healing anymore.

We dropped 1 dpser and added another healer. all you did was shift who got dropped and replaced to another type of raid member.

So the raid reacted differently, yaaa goal acchived, ohh wait... we sidelined a good dps and made him bring a healer instead because if the warrior doesnt log on we might not finish the raid without the extra hps he brings on his healer.


remember balancing for the cutting edge guilds only amplifies the problem for the casual guilds.

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Q u o t e:

I totally agree that no tank can be the worst at everything. What you have to remember though is that "everything" is generally defined as the current raid content. Coliseum isn't a large raid. If there are 5 bosses and 4 tanks then it seems that even in the best case that someone might be "the best" on 2 of them and everyone else is "the best" on 1. (And honestly, we don't design raid encounters with that goal in mind -- they have enough constraints on them already.)

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What magically do you believe makes the discrepancy disappear or decrease in Coliseum as opposed to Ulduar? From Naxx to Ulduar it didn't change it just got worse. You had to intervene with a class patch in order to change that (nerf DKs and buff Paladins). I don't understand what makes you think that your new design is going to do anything to change the favored tanks since they were the favored tanks on all encounters. It isn't like only 1 aspect made them favorable. The tanks with the highest EH, Avoidance, and Threat will always be the best tanks. Please name 1 situation where you would take a tank with worse EH, Avoidance, and Threat (all of those). I can understand if 1 tank you wanted the tank with the highest mitigation, one with the highest avoidance, or one with the highest threat - but that isn't how it is designed or the situation you have with tanks currently. The best tanks are the best tanks across the board, you don't have them swapping roles continually, if they did you would see a much greater variety with progression guilds - which if you look at WMO or any of your proprietary information gathered would see that this isn't the case.

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Q u o t e:


parks outside of Icecrown until boss 4, 17 and 31 (yes, IC is that big).

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Starting to better understand why they created that raid lockout extension functionality.

I've gotta guess this (4, 17, and 31) is a joke.

If not, though, it explains why Call of the Crusade was not as awesome as most major patches!

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Q u o t e:


What magically do you believe makes the discrepancy disappear or decrease in Coliseum as opposed to Ulduar? From Naxx to Ulduar it didn't change it just got worse. You had to intervene with a class patch in order to change that (nerf DKs and buff Paladins). I don't understand what makes you think that your new design is going to do anything to change the favored tanks since they were the favored tanks on all encounters. It isn't like only 1 aspect made them favorable. The tanks with the highest EH, Avoidance, and Threat will always be the best tanks. Please name 1 situation where you would take a tank with worse EH, Avoidance, and Threat (all of those). I can understand if 1 tank you wanted the tank with the highest mitigation, one with the highest avoidance, or one with the highest threat - but that isn't how it is designed or the situation you have with tanks currently. The best tanks are the best tanks across the board, you don't have them swapping roles continually, if they did you would see a much greater variety with progression guilds - which if you look at WMO or any of your proprietary information gathered would see that this isn't the case.

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Mini wall of text, but whatever. He's right. We understand you have to select your words carefully, but jumping into a thread and telling us "you'll only be 5% harder to heal (whatever that means)" when we all know full well equal ilvl tanks of different classes are not close to being equal tanks when they're standing in front of the boss is frustrating.

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Q u o t e:

Again, the goal is "close enough" and the mushiness of that definition is intended. For some groups, having a tank that is "5% harder to heal" (whatever that means) is acceptable and perhaps not even detectable.

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But we're seeing things like... 20% less damage. 15% more health. Has block and... not has block. Cooldown for every death blast and not cooldown for every death blast. Kiting Vezax or not moving him at all.

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I understand why that might be appealing, but we also look at the downside of them all playing exactly the same. Remember, it wasn't that long ago that paladins didn't even have a single-target taunt. Once everyone had all of those abilities, I could see it going to everyone needing the same ways to debuff the boss or everyone needing a self-heal or a way to convert damage into resources or a targeted (DnD) and a persistent area (Consecrate) threat generator.

Choosing paladin vs. warrior isn't supposed to be a cosmetic choice, like choosing male vs. female is. Class choice in WoW is very meaningful, perhaps the decision that has the most impact on your play experience. We try and protect anything that can erode that.

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You could distinguish them differently through raid utility and gameplay. Certain things should be homogenized such as mitigation, threat, ae threat capability, stamina, cooldown times and effects. You should tweak it to where 1 tank does not dominate all categories and 1 tank does not fall behind in all categories (which is the current situation).

If a tank has the best single target threat, it might warrant them being the worst at AE threat, however they should still be CAPABLE of maintaining AE threat. If a tank has the best physical mitigation, it might warrant them having the worst spell mitigation. But it should not have both. The disparity amongst the tanks, should not exceed a certain amount. Right now, the top two tanks are fairly close. The bottom two tanks are fairly close. The gap between the top 2 and bottom two however is relatively high. This goes for all of the categories I listed above.

Players have made good suggestions and identified key problems. Feral Druids for example and Protection Paladins complain a lot (or people that chose not to play these tanks) about their playstyle. Address those concerns, do not arbitrarily buff them to the point of trivializing encounters to get population numbers up (which does not matter for game balance with respect to PVE in and of itself).

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Q u o t e:


I understand why that might be appealing, but we also look at the downside of them all playing exactly the same. Remember, it wasn't that long ago that paladins didn't even have a single-target taunt. Once everyone had all of those abilities, I could see it going to everyone needing the same ways to debuff the boss or everyone needing a self-heal or a way to convert damage into resources or a targeted (DnD) and a persistent area (Consecrate) threat generator.

Choosing paladin vs. warrior isn't supposed to be a cosmetic choice, like choosing male vs. female is. Class choice in WoW is very meaningful, perhaps the decision that has the most impact on your play experience. We try and protect anything that can erode that.

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At the sametime, you can't have a single class that their EH is better, their threat that skyrockets, and their debuffs on par with 2/3 of the other tanking classes.

Flavor is great. But there's a line where you cross from flavor to weak.

Everyone doesn't need a block.
Everyone doesn't need a targeted AoE.
Everyone doesn't need a Last Stand.

Some things they do need though, is ways to make up for lack of things.

Examples:

No Block = More Armor/HP
No Continous AoE = More Burst AoE
No Last Stand = Damage Reduction
No Bursty Threat = Better Sustained Threat

Counter-Balance, it's a wonderful thing.