Being a tank in pvp

[Ванхаллен-eversong]

At first Blizz promised tanks a decent spot in soloq, so we can get a top endgame gear. That was a lie. Tanks are dead weight in soloq. No damage, no utility, no reason for enemy to target a tank ect.
Now we have this soloq bg blitz. Again, we have 1 decent tank for battleground. Tank that actually not-so-easy to kill. Other 5 tanks are squishy as hell.
I play pwar. Everytime i see mage or dh, man, that gives me a PTSD. Tanks take about 60% more damage + fc debuff. Sometimes u can get globaled with just 2-3 flag stacks if u dont pre-shieldwalled. Its just freaking dumb.
At the same time disc priest is literally a demigod. Unkillable machine, that can heal himself without even casting. Yes, priests are better flag carriers than warrior or other 4 tanks (not sure about DH tho). How on earth did this game come to this? Cloth are far tankier than actually plate-armored shield wielder? And they got armour buff -_\\

Let tanks be TANKS in pvp. Give us interesting utility, strong buffs, non-dr stuns, big mortal-strikes etc. Also remove this stupid 60% damage debuff, so we can sustain and be usefull. Tank can be a good support role in PVP. Even take a healer spot in arena, if balanced right. I need to hear ur opinion guys. Lets not troll. PvP is dying and this is important stuff.

[Sunny-aggramar]

It won’t happen. Tanks are inherently toxic to play against. And Blizzard are not going to rework a role from the ground up to do what you’re suggesting.

[Ванхаллен-eversong]

Ok. Why? What is toxic about tank? Please, be specific

[Azalex-pyrewood-village]

@Ванхаллен-eversong

Again, we have 1 decent tank for battleground.

As a Galactic Guardian I feel epic Battlegrounds with a lot of players present, is where I as a ‘Tank’ can both enjoy myself and really make a difference in the larger scheme of objectives and crowd control.

All my talents in those cases are focused on AOE buffs and enemy crowd controls, including my aoe heal for melees around me. I feel incredibly useful and viable in those circumstances where I need to push into the enemy team and cushion our ranged healers/dps.

For smaller BG’s I still feel there are enough niche areas where I’m very useful and don’t feel like a burden at all. But as the amount of players decrease, I feel the role of Tank becomes less wanted and more of nuisance that delays the game.

Overall I think that’s a ‘composition’ issue, just like in an average raid you have 2 tanks and about 18 dps, that should ideally also be the case in larger scale PvP. I’d dread a BG with an equal amount of tanks and dps…

Tanks are naturally quite powerful and they have to be gimped hard in PvP to make it feel fair in 1 vs 1. If they’re not nerfed into oblivion, you end up with everyone queuing Tank spec.

That’s what I saw in the original “blitz” design, they’re not necessarily trying to get rid off tanks. They’re trying to find ways to limit their numbers and have them evenly spread.

Basically they should be treated as ‘healers’ in that sense you’re working with limited supply of people who can queue for that role. But I think it’s just much harder for them to Balance their usefulness across all available Tank specs.

@Ванхаллен-eversong

No damage, no utility, no reason for enemy to target a tank ect.

That’s why you shine in BG’s more than in Arena’s, when there are objectives or when you’re pushing into their group. They HAVE to target and attack you, or lose the objective or see their front-line crumble.

But yeah, that’s from the privileged position of a Guardian Druid with top-tier mobility, an ideal tool kit and a mastery scaling that is basically an extra versatility stat.

@Ванхаллен-eversong

Let tanks be TANKS in pvp.

That’s also quite a relevant issue, you have Tanks wanting to play Tanks. And you have DPS wanting to play in Tank spec…

What I mean with that is they have fundamentally different ‘tasks’ on the battlefield, and then Devs have to balance for two different roles.

Quite often I see players in Tank specs, essentially acting and playing as if they were DPS and focus on killing other players. Not being a support, CC’er or busy with objective.

You need to know where your added value lies. Just understanding where you are more valuable on the battlefield and what allows your raid members to reach their full potential, at the expense of yours.

[Shwosh-kilrogg]

Tanks are meant to tank but if players ignores you and go for another target, then you are not tanking. You are just being annoying.

[Azalex-pyrewood-village]

Ironically yes… if enemy players are not targeting you while playing as a Tank. You s*ck at your job.

And I don’t mean that as an insult, but it’s fundamental you do ‘stuff’ that basically makes it impossible for the other team to ignore you. If you can’t do that, you’re just a DPS that’s difficult to kill.

[Azalex-pyrewood-village]

That’s also a difficulty with the ‘role’ assignment in PvP:

Do you want Tanks to fill an overall support function for their team and undermine the enemy team, and thus difficult to kill, because like healers they should be a priority to be targeted and killed?

Or do you want Tanks to be basically in a DPS role, doing a lot of damage, able to finish off players?

It feels a bit like a balancing act on the development side because they’re catering to two groups with different playstyles, but you can’t have both.

[Valdrakon-doomhammer]

For me tanks are kinda like lonewolves that plays according to objectives, for example, a lone defender for a tower or bunker in AV with the sole purpose to buy time for the offensive team to capture the opposition’s tower/bunkers and gain an timed advantage so that your team can proceed with drek’thar/vanndar before the enemy team does.

Or in a silvershard map where tanks will defend a cart by him/herself with maybe 1 extra back up and avoid the teamfights, unless necessary for a quick regroup or what not.

And most importantly is know how to defend a base in an domination map by being quick to react & call for help if needed be.

[Ванхаллен-eversong]

I think we need to get rid of the idea tanks being a normal dps. Its just boring. Yes its much easier to implement ( just add x% dmg), but it wont work in bg - battlegrounds require 1 tank to do tank job. I WILL work in arena, but overall this will fail. Ofc we can imagine all tanks have their “glad stance” to switch between dps and tanking, but it just too hard for indie company.
I think, in soloq tanks must have some type of an aura. Lets call it “Guardian presence”. Guardian presence - redirect 40% (number is adjustable) of all damage ur party member recieve to a tank. This will be an addition to the toolkit they already have. This will force people to focus tank, and tanks actually will need to survive and tank other players. I think this is a very decent solution.

[Takirukido-mograine]

@Ванхаллен-eversong

Tanks are dead weight in soloq. No damage, no utility, no reason for enemy to target a tank ec

Tanks are not dead weight. They can keep / defend points solo because they are tough and give the other team mates time to capture other objectives.
Tanks are not dps they don’t need massive damage but they can be very good and helpful in Blitz and i have won a lot of Blitz matches because of a smart tanks.

[Ванхаллен-eversong]

They bad in soloq arena. In blitz bg they are ok. Just too squishy. I mean, dh can 100-0 me in 2-3 globals as a prot war if i dont have IP. Tanks should be VERY hard to kill on bg. And then we have this flag carrier debuff, wich reduce our tankiness slowly, to the point when we cant be healed and take a lot of dmg.

[Axran-ravencrest]

all they need to do is put Scaling into play during PVP arena or BG

a passive buff for example :

• Tank spec: you no longer take less damage, damage mitigating attacks now have alternative abilities
  this passive could be applied too all tank specs in pvp

an example of what this might mean ,
DK : Rune tap no longer reduces damage taken, and instead makes your target take 10% more damage for 3 seconds

would open up more specs to pvp, essentially turning tank specs into dps specs

[Ванхаллен-eversong]

Yes. But, “Gald stance” for every tank too expensive for B-Lizzard to implement. If we talk about the esiest way to balance tanks in pvp - just give tanks spec x% amount of flat damage. Reducing main defensive abilitys. But its just boring…
What u mean is to bring uniqness and good utility for tanks specs- its a good way to balance tanks. But its prolly never happens, just too complicated.

[Aprix-frostmane (Aprix)]

The problem with tanks did not start because they could “tank damage” . The problem started when tanks could heal and shield themselves .
Looking at it from this angle the debuf tanks should get is not 60% damage taken , but 60% healing done and that , not a blanket to all tanks , but depending on their utility .

But yea the whole PvP scene is a mess .Mele classes having more healing that hybrids . Infinite mobility . Infinite resets . Too much cc . Every class has everything x2 . This includes tanks too . So if tanks also are x4 tankier it gets too much .
The problem is that none of the classes are unique so you do not have strengths and weaknesses to offset by things like “takes less damage”.

[Ayhuya-runetotem]

Locks and priests are better tanks, well said. Just move on, they will never fix that.

[Azalex-pyrewood-village]

"Druid: 23/1

• Bear Form now increases armor by 175% in PvP (was 220%). "

Welp, guess that’s end of Guardian Druids also. It was fun while it lasted.

[Priskah-ravencrest]

@Takirukido-mograine

They can keep / defend points solo because they are tough and give the other team mates time to capture other objectives.

In theory But in practise most healers can survive longer than most tanks…

[Ванхаллен-eversong]

Nah. I think thats gonna be around 10-12% more phys damage. Magic is far more dangerous than phys. Prot Warriors, for example, unkillable by arms, fury, monk and hunters, but it doesnt make them tanky in bg overall. It takes 1-2 casters or dh to massacre warri. They also get extra 10 %HP with trinket bonus, wich is huge for bears.

[Azalex-pyrewood-village]

@Ванхаллен-eversong

Nah. I think thats gonna be around 10-12% more phys damage. Magic is far more dangerous than phys

Yeah but normal armor didn’t affect magic to begin with… So that’s a nonsensical point, it blocked 0% of magical damage and it still blocks 0% of magical damage.

So taking around 10-12% extra damage from every physical damage dealer in BG’s is a pretty big thing, since there are lot of em. I’m also concerned how it scales, since tank specs already get to take a blanket of extra damage.