The problem with tanks in rated arena
Tanks have rarely been seen in WoW arena. In Shadowlands, they were briefly popular as prot paladins (until some nerfs made them hard to play) and as guardian druids (before a very powerful 4-set was nerfed in PvP).
Once prot paladin word of glory was nerfed, prot paladins were exclusively used for glad boosts. They would play a melee cleave, use blessing of summer on a windwalker/DK or rogue, and then use the immunity guardian from range so that dps player can instantly oneshot a healer.
Prot paladin also saw a resurgence when their tier set caused free judgements to fly out when they take damage. This, combined with a PvP talent that made judgement casts dispel teammates, made it impossible for comps that rely on magic debuffs to play the game.
No other tank has seen significant play in arena during Shadowlands.
The reason is because tanks are either busted (via a gimmick mechanic) or useless. They will generally fall towards the useless end of the spectrum. When a tank spec becomes overpowered, it’s not lifetime tank players that play that spec in arena. It’s flavour of the month rerollers.
Tanks have to be designed to perform a specific role in PvE. They have to each have a unique playstyle, unique tools, abilities, ways to control a PvE encounter. PvE tank balance is important. The game is better and more alive when PvE content is engaging.
But the tools tanks are given rarely transfer to arena gameplay, and when they do, they tend to create hard counters and frustrating gameplay one way or the other.
The nature of tanks makes them prone to one-sided (cheesy) matchups. That is why tanks cannot be balanced. Tanks are un-fun to face in arena and the current solo shuffle system is going to create an issue from something that used to just be a rare annoyance.
Why tanks in solo shuffle are more of a problem than regular rated arena
- Queue times are faster as tank, so regardless of how much people want to play those specs, we are going to see much more of them. If you’re grinding conquest for your arms warrior, but you don’t intend to mess up your arms ratio before you’re fully geared, or to spend time in LFG looking for healers, why wouldn’t you just queue prot for instant queues and fast conquest? Lower ranks are going to suffer tank games often. Anything that makes low mmr gameplay worse has an adverse effect on the ladder (just take a look at how the shadowlands gearing system made low mmr unplayable, and you end up with a ladder solely of high exp players on alts…)
- Rank 1 titles are spec based. That means there is a genuine incentive for people to pick up unplayed tank specs like blood DK, prot warrior specifically. In a normal ladder this isn’t a consideration - if you could get a higher rank as unholy, why would you go blood? Now that rankings are spec based, people are going to wonder if they can have an easier time pushing high spec ranks by choosing the tank spec.
- Random matchmaking brings out the worst in people. It puts people on edge. Any minor frustration is amplified when you’re put into a randomly generated team. I don’t think anyone advocating for solo shuffle that has played Overwatch/LoL seriously didn’t expect this to happen.
- There is an actual loss of CR whenever the matchmaker puts you in to cheesy tank matchups. Frustration intensifies. We have all seen and felt this.
I strongly believe that if nothing is done about tanks in solo queue, we’re going to see a much higher number of toxic experiences/arguments/frustrating games and the arena players that have been asking for solo shuffle giving up on the mode entirely.
Why is this particularly important now?
If tanks aren’t removed from rated solo queue in time for the start of Dragonflight season 1, then they will probably never be removed. Taking away a toy you’ve already given is more painful than not giving the toy in the first place.
Arena players have been asking for solo shuffle for years. We’ve finally got it and it will be a real shame to make the gameplay considerably worse to appease a population of PvP arena tank mains which, if we’re being honest, has never existed except for when a particular spec has poor tuning or imbalanced mechanics.
Because you need to grind gear in this game, and currently queueing tank is the fastest method, people trying arena for the first time or coming back to the game are going to face tanks constantly. This is not a good new player experience. This is not engaging gameplay and the lower end of the ladder will suffer.
At the very least, an option to “opt out” of tank games should be considered.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.