#0 - Dec. 27, 2006, 11:11 p.m.
I've been reading both this forum and the beta forum, and I'm frustrated by the Fog of War going on. There are lots of people sayiing that Bear Druids or Paladins or both hold hate better than Warriors, period...Protection or non-Protection. For myself, post-patch I saw significantly greater problems holding aggro on bosses, likely due to the higher threat potential of the raid as well as a minor effect from the rage normalization. (Tanking warriors never have had infinite rage merely by tanking a raid boss, excluding Vaelastrasz)
In the middle of all the posting flurry, it's been really difficult to tell what the real truth is. For myself, I'm happy that Bear Druids and Paladins will be viable tanks. If they're viable tanks for any content you can name, so much the better. They should be. What I'm hearing from beta experience, however, is that Warriors don't do single-target aggro as well as Bear Druids and they don't do multiple target aggro as well as Paladins or Druids. Typically, scaling problems are referenced, as well as the lack of any relevant multiple target aggro move.
For my part, I could care less if the others do it better, as long as I can do it well enough. From my own experiences in post-patch live World of Warcraft, Warriors are already on the edge of not being good enough at holding aggro on a single target. This is with a heavy Protection Warrior who's been raiding with the same guild for well over a year and Thunderfury.
Naturally I'm concerned.
The fact that I'm concerned doesn't mean there's a problem, however, and the fact that people are complaining doesn't mean there's a problem. I can't tell for myself, and without asking questions, I can't get straight talk.
Additionally, I've heard the mantra for a long time that Bear Druids and Paladins were better at tanking multiple creatures, and that's certainly the case right now. It has been for a long time. I was willing to accept that at the time, however, because that was their niche role. Without sufficient tanking itemization and in the case of Paladins an inferior skill set for primary tanking, that was as well as they could do. The patch brought decreases in both Demoralizing Shout and Battle Shout, neither of which were sufficient for holding aggro in the typical encounter before. (Nefarian excluded. Too many shouts could go off before the drakonoids reached you.)
What I'm left with is a subpar skillset for mutli-target tanking that's only gotten worse. Many or most reports from the beta even indicate that Sunder-tabbing through all of your targets is no longer sufficient. While it might not be the ideal way to tank, it was simple and ought to be enough to hold most of the aggro to keep Warrior tanking for being an elite-class-only affair.
These concerns have left me feeling as though I won't be capable of multiple target tanking, especially since that's an assumed Paladin/Druid role, and that even my single-target threat won't be up to the task of holding aggro off a raid. As I stated before, it barely feels like I can do it now, following the dps boost some classes got at the patch. The typical mantra I'm hearing is that Warriors will still be the best tanks for bosses, which probably sounds very generous to overzealous Paladins and Druids. I play to tank, though. It's what I do. By both speccing and gearing Protection, I have sacrificed everything else to be good at that, and I'd very much like to not be stuck with only single-target tanking assignments that I'm just barely capable of performing regardless of my play level.
My concerns are likely inflated due to all of the thrashing the forums have been doing lately, but overinflated concerns are still concerns. Are skilled Protection Warriors truly having difficulty tanking even basic multiple-target encounters in the beta? Are the same Warriors putting out sufficient threat on single targets when that's all they're needed for?
To be frank, single-target tanking was something I got used to before World of Warcraft went live two years ago. It's not a challenge without some of the gimmicks the bosses tend to pull. I don't want an easy-mode shout to hold all aggro, but I do want to be capable of doing so, and I'd really like some assurance that Warriors will at least be capable of generating sufficient threat on single targets.
