Is Blizzard aware of the massive tank shortage?

Shaman Tanks clears throat :slight_smile:

No tank shortage, otherwise no declines for m+. Resto shamans and mages get into any key.

There is always a shortage of Tanks and Healers and yes Blizzard will be aware, they know every piece of data about this game. Do they care enough to change it? Seems after nearly 20 years of ignoring the issue, they do not.

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Tbh ive just started tanking , my favourite part is the dps screaming i do not do enough dps and either leave or just cry more.

Its my favourite part, i went from full time healer for like 10+ years to try something different, to get screamed at.

from my perspective the biggest problem of low keys is people doing astonishing low dps.

did a test - joined a random +4 on my dk tank and in grou pthere was warrior who was doing like 300k aoe - not 3-4 mln aoe burst which he shoudl be doing but 300-400k - below me on meters as tank - after couple of packs i just left :slight_smile:

if blizzard does othing to accomodate those people m+ wont survive long.

well if you do 1 mistake as a tank, the key is bricked.
if you pull too slow the key is bricked
if nobody ccs and kicks stuff after you went all out and then die, the key is bricked
people randomly pull extra even though you have no cds left and thats why you only pull 1 pack and then flame you

also tanks are quite boring to play

wonder why people dont play tanks

I’m a returning player, tanked in a few previous expansions and always enjoyed the role.

I’ve got two main reasons I don’t enjoy tanking M+:

  • Trash completion requirements make no sense to me. It means as a tank I need to go and study routes to make sure I only pull the right selection of trash or I’ll be responsible for wasting time. Why can’t we design dungeons in a way that simply killing the bosses within the time limit is the measure of success. Routes could still be a way to min/max for the tryhards without the trash requirement.
  • Old dungeons being in the rotation makes no sense to me. As a returning player this puts me at an immediate disadvantage. Tanks are leading groups through dungeons, and guess what happens when you join a dungeon where your 4 random teammates have completed this dungeon dozen times before in a previous expansion and you are still learning? We don’t need more opportunity for toxicity. New expansions if anything should be a chance to reset and jump in on equal footing.

The reason tanks are rare is because less than half the classes in the game can tank and of those one is a magic class.

You’re not going to get a magic lover who loves that fantasy to reroll off his mage or lock and go tank as a prot warrior or brewmaster. Same goes for hunter. Those guys like pets snd bows. Tank has neither.

Make lock tanks.

Make shaman tanks.

Make hunter tanks.

Make evoker tanks.

Make more tanks. Make a new tank every single expansion for the next 5 expansions and you will solve the tank shortage.

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You can thank the pointless tank nerf a week before the launch of the expac for the tank drought, why would anyone want to tank when you went from feeling amazing in the pre patch to dying through wall to autos of random filler mobs in dungeons.

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I’ve been maining tank and pugging keys just for mong dps to fail mechanics, die, brick the key, and leave. I get nothing for my time. The chance of getting a usable hero track item is already low and then add on top of that bricked runs that never get finished.

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Stop running M+ for loot run it for the Vault. When you cant do +10 just run +3 for the Hero track gear.

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I think the lack of tanks and healers is partly driven by design and social changes over time. Which one drives the other, I don’t know.

But if you go back to ye ol’ days of WoW, then the player distribution of dps, tanks, and healers, was driven by guilds. It was the guilds that invited players for the purpose of raiding, and they invited those roles that they needed. That created a demand for tanks and healers that always corresponded to the same amount relative to dps. And players would naturally gravitate more toward whatever was in demand by guilds, so they could get invited and get a spot on the raid roster.
In many ways it was a beautiful system that balanced itself through social dynamics. And when WoW got real 10 man raiding with WotLK you suddenly had quite a lot of tanks and healers relative to dps in the game, because that was needed to support all the 10man guilds and their raid rosters - on top of all the 25man guilds.

But over time the game has emphasized PuGs and solo play and role agnostic activities like Torghast and Delves. So if you look to play the game today and you have World Quests, Delves, PvP and PuG groups in front of you, there’s just so much more reason to play dps - because that’s really the role all this content is made for.
And because players don’t feel that strong pull toward guilds and raiding, then there isn’t anything that encourages the individual to pick a tank or a healer.
So as the game continues down this solo play, ARPG gameplay design, people are going to increasingly err toward dps. A tank or a healer is a role that functions in a group environment and a guild setting where you play as a collective. But that’s not the way many play WoW anymore.

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It won’t solve the issue with pathing; if anything it will make it even worse: Pull 1 more enemy than the exact optimal and you will be berated. Don’t take the “unintended by the developers” shortcut that requires you to jump behind some column or something to save 3 seconds and you will be flamed.

Not a game design issue, this is a community issue. Players shouldn’t be toxic towards others, period.

you have 6 tank specs already in game.

maing more wont make more players play them .

with seaosn like this - why woudl people tank on alts in m+ to gear up when they can just go faceroll dvelves

there is absolutely 0 point to run any m+ keys for GV below +10 .

why bother with it when you can faceroll T8 dvelves .

do zekvir x8 and have 8 slots open in 20 minutes.

who sane would run m+ for GV below 10s ?

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6 of the 39 specs in the game are tanks. literally just by pure RNG, 85% of the time you log into wow as a new player or decide to play an alt or reroll, it won’t be a tank spec.

the game wants 1 tank for every group of 5 players. 20% of total specs should be tanks minimum, instead its 15%.

this doesn’t even include factors like:

  • zero magic tanks (32.6% of characters)

  • zero pet tanks (17.1% of characters)

  • zero ranged tanks (42.9% of characters)

  • the added pressure and responsibility of tanking

    DataForAzeroth numbers

include all these intangibles into that 15% and you’re probably looking at a number closer to 1%. there is a reason a ton of people play wow for a decade+ and never, ever tank - the role simply is so pigeon holed into the ‘big tough guy in melee getting punched and attacking back’ archetype.

thats a cool archetype, but its one archetype. i like that archetype - thats why i have 5 or 6 tanks most expansions. my wife doesn’t. she likes wizards and pet classes - so the only time she has ever tanked was on mop remix for 2 days.

again - you want people to tank? broaden what can tank and how they look and feel doing it and you’ll pull in some mages or warlocks or hunters or shamans or evokers.

as an example - DK alone tanking with a 2h sword pulled in so many perma DPS players back in the day

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One good thing about the tank shortage is that it forces players to invite protection paladins.
Lobby blizzard to balance the under tuned tank specs and I the shortage will improve.

Look familiar? threads like this are happening throughout the forums, right now! You could be next. That is, unless you make the most important decision of your life. Prove to yourself that you have the strength and the courage to be a protector. Join… the protection spec! Become part of an elite protection force! See exotic new lifeforms, and spread death throughout various worlds. Become a Hero. Become a Legend. Become a Tank!" :wink:

jokes aside though people will play what they want to play …

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I tanked a lot. But this expansion, the insults remind me of the LoL community and im not starring at mdt for routes and spamming all raid tactics as macros to lead people, just to get insulted.

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But problem here is, this ultimately ends up hurting the tank or the healer too… Less damage = Longer fights… Longer fights = You’ll need a better tank / healer to keep people going

Then the problem will just shift to meta being the healers that have the most party defensives, more mana capable etc. and what tanks can self sustain the longest.

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