Hi,
I’m not a 1% speed runner, big brain theory-crafter. I’m just a decent dad raiding in a decent guild doing 1h ST clear. Nerdy enough to roam around on some class discords, and trying to play the best I can, fully aware I suck compared to all the pro gamer out there, but managed to clear all content so far on first night. I just try to find my enjoyment between the fun, immersion and effectiveness of the class I play.
Why would one take a Warrior Tank in raid with this patch ?
We bring no utility , we do lackluster threat and damage now, we are not even tougher …
utility
We can’t rez, innervate, teleport people, bring so many buffs that we don’t have enough slots on our action bar and need an addon to manage them like pld, etc.
We have the cries, that are on short timer, all other class have baseline QoL extension of time, but we are forced to invest skill point in our talent tree to improve that ? This is serious ? Why rallying cry is fighting against other runes, where it should be baseline skill. You provide baseline skill to other classes (hybrid that have so much already), why do we have to choose between runes ? You don’t want fury giga dps warrior to heal the whole raid, make it conditional to being protection warrior if that’s your concern. It’s in the name “PROTECTION”.
toughness
New tanks have baseline crit immunity with runes, we don’t. We need defense + shield block. We had shield wall , nice to see the CD reduced, but paladin have a similar rune now ? don’t they have enough already with the bubble to cheat raid boss mechanics ? So , we can cross that now, we don’t have this edge anymore. (if it ever was one actually)
Warrior tanks have been wearing plate dps gear for the last phases, healers are getting stronger and stronger, boss/trashes hit like noodles, they should one shot dps, and tank should matter, they almost don’t, they are just there so the boss don’t move all around during the fights.
aoe
All tanks have better AOE threat / damage, some are uncapped since the beginning, some have their target hit increased the previous and next phase, some are getting 3 new AOE this phase. (tbh, paladin is getting absurd at this point). We are the tank that let dps tank during trashes … we are designed to be the “taunt tank” : look at vigilance rune, pick some threat from someone and reduce taunt CD ? are you serious ? Taunt should be a tank switch mechanic, something you use to recover from a situation not almost a rotation thing.
I don’t understand why you don’t add some additional target on thunder clap per improved thunder clap combo point maybe. Have us be able to spread rend via tclap. You can do more to the furious thunder rune.
We’ll have to see what shockwave brings, but the idea of stunning mobs when I’m a rage based tank feels awkward to me. There is nothing more annoying on lower level dungeons than a rogue chain stunning your target, and we get a spell to aoe tank that stuns mobs ? It’s probably for PvP, but what is our alternative on aoe tanking situation in pve ? Ask for a paladin or a druid to tank instead ?
There is also this thing where if you want to tank dungeon, you have to play arms as warrior (particularly during leveling) … Yes, it’s like asking paladin to be 2h retribution in dungeons to be able to tank properly. That’s the design you propose.
ST Threat / dps
In current state on PTR, it’s just depressing. At least, in previous phases, while sucking at everything else, we would have that: the damage. If you wanted to push, you’d put that warrior tank on the boss and have him go turbo. Given the patch, it’s dead. WB might save us, but it means we can leave the raid if we happen to die. This only makes the difference between WB and none bigger. This also means that outside any raid context, tanking as warrior will be even more terrible (no WB, no Windfury …).
Gameplay wise, this will be debatable from one player perspective to another. If you look at P3, you have to play like a dps, or if you play prot, you do absurd amount of threat and totally crap dps. You have twice the threat of the first DPS on the threat meter, what’s the point ?
No scaling from AP on shield slam, only sbv, which is not given by any of the world buff. The new defense => AP is interesting but , once it just comes from gear, no synergies with any other buffs from the game. Is vengeance from cata such a bad thing ? scaling from stamina instead ?
Mobility
Mobility is fun on warrior, warbringer is cool, why do I have to constantly change my runes between trashes/boss for flag, this is annoying. Merge the two (the new flag and warbringer), if we have to suck at everything at least, give me mobility and the ability to chain. We were a rage based tank, so we should be able to keep going forever, we don’t even have that anymore. Paladin have 0 mana issue anymore , it’s not even a resource to manage a this point, rogue have energy, druid are rage based, and lock they don’ care as long as they have HP.
Stance dance
Stop right now. I don’t know who is finding stance dancing fun at HQ, but it has to stop. It is not. Stances are a way to limit the class , not to bring fun mechanics. All other tanks have access to their full toolkit at all times. Maybe except druid, but the more time passes the more access their have been added to stuff without shifting out (consumes, now brez, etc).
The tier bonus are terrible.
Gladiator stance, once you revealed it , I was like : yeah ! finally , to only realize it’s in a weird spot, not really for tanking, not really for dpsing. Why ? and now it’s gutted from a tanking perspective.
I mean you have already a hard time balancing 2 DPS spec on the warrior (arms/fury) , why would you introduce a third one !?
Gladiator stance should be tanking stance only, no dmg reduction, that’s what dstance is for. Period. flip the sign on the threat modified: -30% to +30% threat, remove that absurd armor debuff as well and let the warrior tank have access to their full toolkit like any other tanks.
sustain
We have 0 sustain in or out of raid. Warrior tank is horrible to play outside raid. No other tank require so much babysitting in and out of raid to perform. This is depressing. I see 3 mobs, I know I have to die or hope to be able to charge between them and reach a zoning portal, if not, I’m toasted, or I’ll have to pot + bandage. If I live, 40 seconds downtime to eat now. So fun. (This is a none issue for other tanks, either stealth it, or just kill/heal thru).
All related sustain abilities/runes are either fighting for a better rune in a slot (why victory rush is not baseline ? why enraged regeneration is fighting with gladstance) , or being conditionals like enraged regeneration, while other tanks just self heal on block, or just cast it because their are hybrid, or have non channeled healing drain … It hurts to see paladin pulling half instances and survive, warlock tank running around with 3 mobs on their back and not needing a healer, druid killing 4 mobs on their own and healing back to full like it was nothing.
Introduce some self healing based on a % bleed damage so we can use rend
Conclusion
Why are we punished ? Because it feels like that. Warrior tank was only viable on classic because there was no other real tank with the full toolkit. DPS were not on steroids due to runes. It is not the case anymore.
What is the vision behind the Warrior Tank ? Can you share it ? so we see if there is some consistency somewhere ? because, so far, there is none. In my mind, when you announced SoD, I was hoping for us to be this charging death ball from packs to packs, smashing and bleeding enemies to death while bathing and healing in their blood. Speed, impact, burst. The fast and furious tank.
I understand there is a balance problem with warrior dps, and it needs to be addressed, hence the “warrior are OP” on the announcement slides, but you can’t destroy the warrior tank for that reason.
Look at the protection tree, look at what has been done in later expansions (p4 ptr and still nothing regarding revenge ?), make the warrior protection relevant, please. We are so outmatched by the other tank at this point that we are getting irrelevant.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far.