Why tanks DO belong in PVP and arena

Hi!

Controversial topic, thats why it needs to be adressed.

I love the fantasy of playing a sword and board type of charachter like a roman gladiator and currently it is only prot warrior and prot paladin that can do this which is the reason I started playing a tank from the beginning

The most fun i´ve had in all of pvp in wow ( or any game for that matter ) Is when im playing a tank spec in pvp and arenas. I got my first 1800 rating as a prot pala and since then I have switched to prot warrior and im having a (thunder) BLAST!

It´s such a unique playstyle to be more survivable than the dps, do decent damage but what really makes or breaks the game is how good you can use your team utility and positioning of both the own team and the enemy team.

Tanks are for the most part also easier to play rotation wise which is great for older players or players that can´t keep up with a super high apm class and still want to do decent. Also it gives more time to react to enemy cooldowns and positioning which is a great way to learn PVP.

Looking at how fast of a gameplay current wow PVP is and how much is going on at the same time, the last thing a new player needs is a complicated and fast rotation that makes them look at their action bars 90% of the time.

We need more tanks in PVE and making tanks acceptable and viable in PVP is going to make more people play tanks overall thus increasing the tanks in PVE as well. Just looking at myself, thanks to how fun im having with prot warrior in PVP im now tanking in dungeons and raids as well all while contributing to shorter q-times!

I also feel like a lot of people dislike tanks without knowing WHY they dislike them, it´s like it has become mainstream to dislike tanks in PVP and some people just join the train.

Now the ones that do try to argue for why tanks should be banned often say things like:

“They delay the games and make them longer”

  • Sure, but so do healers and Rogues who reset multiple times. Should they be banned too? In that case we won´t have PVP at all…

“They don´t contribute to the team”

-Paladin tanks can literally save the entire team with a crucial LOH on a flag carrier or a BoP on a healer that is low. Warrior tanks survive with the flag and heroic leap in the last second to turn in the flag and become the hero of the game. How is that not contributing to the team?

Im very happy Blizzard buffed the damage of all tanks in the recent patch because it makes it a lot easier to bring more value to the team as a tank and I hope we are going to see more tanks in all forms of pvp.

Thanks!

The problem is tanks are usually extremely toxic to play against, litteraly immortal and usually makes theit team immortal as well until huge dampening.

They also are easy to play and forgiving, which makes the game unfair, why bother play something else if you can get free win playing tanks?

Tanks are designed for pve not pvp.

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Fair point regarding the ease of play, thats why they should never to more damage than a pure dps with their rotation but instead help the team with utility to compensate.

It should never be a free win to play a tank and as of today I don´t think it is if we look at the leaderboards of solo shuffle, 3v3, 2v2. I understand that it´s very hard to balance around this. I just want tanks to be viable and accepted and not seen as toxic trolling. I want my teammates to feel that im contributing and helping the team in my own way, you get me?

Tanks are very fun to play, especially in Blitz.

As blood dk you can take 2 healer like a priest as hostage and drag them away from the fight, unable to do anything.

As warrior you can tank any and all physical dmg as flag carrier or orb holder.

We don’t need hero specs in PvP.

Blizzard has tried to make tanks “viable” in PvP, and it always resulted in them being ridiculously overpowered and toxic to play against. That’s not a “bias”, it’s a fact based on experience.

based and tankpilled

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Exactly why people hate tanks, gripping and slowing people under water 24/7 the entire game with 0 counterplay isn’t fun for anyone beside the tank.

Also prot pal, having to go through 3 bubble + bop or magic bop and loh is extremely broken and dumb, that’s why nobody likes prot pal lobby it’s litteraly stupid garbage design.

Stuff like this should never happen

Tanks are, imo, supposed to be what augmentation evoker is supposed to be but even this spec has never been balance and blizzard abandoned it…

If you wanna play something like this, you should play ret or sp has they are close to what you are describing.

Yeah well i dont like facing resto druids and rogues and/or mages either, and as much as I’d love to have them be tuned down to the point fighting them doesn’t feel like taking a slide coated in sandpaper, here we are.

There’s lots of annoying specs in the game that are only fun for the player and nobody else. Not just tanks.

If anything I’d like them to double down on tanks area denial, staying power, crowd control etc.

ye and alot of them specs are unfun to play against because they have a high skill cap and a lot of crowd control which makes good players feel like an unfair advantage.

Now a tank if that is strong its not immortal because of skill it just survives multiple dps for free if its damage is good on top of this then it just becomes a target that will run at you all game dealing damage and there is no other option other than to cc it which many of them have extra gap closers and lower cds to make this impossible.

Tanks have one place in pvp and thats carrying the flags in blitz maybe blizzard can make some changes there so its viable but they do not belong in arena and the only time they are seen in arena is when they are broken and then its just not fair for anyone.

Also currently prot warrior is busted and is in need of nerfs as we speak so i would focus on improving instead of asking for something to be viable just because you cant play it .

My brother in christ the skillcap of any spec and/or class can be high or low, and the spec can still feel degenerate to play against.

For example, DF S1 Brewzin was the highest brewmaster ranked in shuffle, actually higher than even some dd specs and he flat out played better than 90% of the dps at the equilevalent ranking.

If he was carried by his spec or if tank specs are indeed so easy to play, why don’t we see more of them? They should be everywhere, but close to nobody plays them.

In his case, for context, he was 1k rating above the next brewmater, which was his alt. He even played in awc and played amazing but wss let down by his warrior teammate.

In every meta people gravitate toward the path of least resistance, and if tanks were that, people would play them. But they aren’t.

Tanks are no less or more skill intensive to play than any other spec. The annoyance of a spec is a feature, not a bug.

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Wrong if a classes skillcap is low and they feel degenerate to play against then they are overtuned and in need of nerfs.

Because who wants to play tank the guy plays tank because he finds it fun dont think for one second any of the top players cant pick tank up and play it blood dk was played for a little last season because the other 2 dps specs were useless and blood was broken it got nerfed nobody wanted to play blood they had to if unholy was just as good no1 would have played blood.

There you have it he was 1k rating above his alt coz nobody plays it because its boring to play in pvp you have to be a person who enjoys ruining other players time to consistantly want to play a tank in arena.

Wrong no1 plays them because there is a dps alternative which is more fun to play also there is other dps classes to reroll to if your class does indeed suck.

They are way less skill intensive because they by default dont have to care about dying as fast as other dps classes do no1 is annoyed at tanks in arena because they are a tank its because they are immortal and in certain comps make the game hell and force you to go onto the 2nd dps which could be as we saw this expansion a BM hunter with a blood dk gripping meele dps off them all game.

Do with it as you please but a rogue could deal 0 damage and be majorly undertuned but a good rogue will make your life hell no matter how weak it is where as a BM hunter is only ever obnoxious when it deals insane ammounts of damage.

A tank while immortal if it deals 0 damage its manageable and you just kite them if they do damage it becomes obnoxious because you then have 0 way to deal with it.

Tanks should get their own pvp template, where their defensive are nerfed in pvp, damage is buffed in pair with dps, hp is cut to normal amount and the damage increase they take is removed.

That requires a minimal attention from devs so definitely not happening.

Also at that point your not playing a tank anymore and might aswell play fury/arms.

Yeah exactly, people swapped to blopd because it was good and when it no longer was they swapped away from it.

It’s actually still pretty good, but community perception.

In general people tend to play what they enjoy- That goes for skilled and non skilled players alike. I don’t see how that is relevant.

And Brewszin was definitely more skilled than your high end rogue or mage, utilizing the whole toolkit of brew to stop goes and cc the heal.

Ww and fistweaver most certainly did not suck in DFs1. Arms and fury are good as well rn but I love playing prot. It’s a very fun playstyle.

In return, it takes them much longer to kill anyone. It’s a fair trade off.

yes ofc but ur still fullfilling the “tank” sword and shield fantasy. Rn nobody enjoys playing as a tank or vsing a tank. It’s just a free way ticket for a title in shuffle.

Prot warrior in Wrath was doing giga dam, while also being very squishy. The addition of shockwave and mass spell reflect gave it enough tank fantasy.

But ye that would probably not work since every class is overloaded with cc toolkit and defensives anyway.

Frost and unholy were unplayable when blood was good unholy remained unplayable all of last season only frost started to become good after the buffs it recieved it wasnt because it was good it was because it was the only viable comp dk had to get gladiator/r1 on.

People didnt reroll to play blood dks it was just the leftover dks who couldnt play their main trying to get gladiator on it.

Ye and thats why no1 played Brewmaster and only brewszin did and if he is more skilled then why does he not pick up rogue and go and win the AWC dont say its because he does not want to because there is prize money for it.

Not when you are asking for buffs and cc buffs like the guy above is.

I mean then ask for blizzard to add cosmetics that allow arms to play with a shield and a one hand sword but the same playstyle and abilities why try to redesign an entire class around a tank wanting to pvp lol.

Its like me saying i want to play restoration shaman but i want to throw water at them instead and be a dps please blizzard add a change and make it happen.

Its true current classes that have been added to the game dont fit for a lot of people and they could add other classes that fit this sword/shield dps type but again its such a minority that want to play like this that it does not matter.

Its basically when you see some unholy dks complaining about they want a necromancer build when the class is just not designed like that and would make 0 sense to make.

Could easily fixed by adding cosmetics to demo lock for them to summon undead instead of demons.

He is a good player, but even if tanks are viable, beside prot pal and guardian druide other spec aren’t popular (even in pve apparently brew master is the least played spec).

And people hate tanks so much it prevent people playing it except dew exception like this season when blood was better than uh and frost.

I didn’t play pvp in wrath but I remember something similar in wod with gladiator war spec, I did play it and it was fun but the stance to compensate made you a dps (but with the tanks ability) so nothing over tune.