Who else is tired of the Warrior MT line?

Q u o t e:
Ghostcrawler plays a Prot Paladin, and duel-specs PvP Ret.

I play whatever is overpowered at the time. That's how those things get overpowered. Duh.

Q u o t e:
Ghostcrawler is pretty much one of the only people who claims that he cannot see that concept, to the point where he argued for nearly 100 pages a week ago, that Warriors absolutely were not still heavily played because they've been tanks since the beginning of the game, it was because they are clearly the most powerful tank in the game.

I hope that's not what you took out of that discussion. I fully believe warriors are the most common tanks out of tradition and because a lot of those warriors have been played for a long time. However I also think that many of those warriors would step aside if they were seriously hurting their raid's progression. I say that with some confidence because they've done it before.

Q u o t e:
What GhostCrawler has said three dozen times makes perfect sense to me. Just because your little calculator says pallies and druids are better does not matter. If the encounters do not favor a paladin or a druid then it's a moot point. If there's some raid boss that warriors just die and die and die against, that's a problem. The oft-cited opinion that "pallies have it easier" than warriors is nearly impossible to quantify, and it would be irresponsible for developers to change the game based on something like this. If you are a dissatisfied warrior, I would like to know which fight it is that's giving you trouble? Maybe there's something else we can fix besides your class to help your success rate.

I would agree with most of this, though I wouldn't use that tone of course. I feel like the heart of the matter here is your definition of "easier."

Does easier mean he wipes less than you? If so, this is a big problem. I don't think it's happening though.
Does easier mean you don't need the same amount of gear? This is a slightly smaller problem, though I'll point out again that the server firsts are typically done with very little new gear, which reinforces that skill and coordination can outweigh big gear disparities.
Does easier mean you have to work a little harder at playing your class?
Does easier mean the healers have to work harder?
Does easier mean your group can have a little more slop in its execution?

If you agree with any of these issues other than the first one though, I have to ask why it's such a big deal. That falls more into quality of life issues. What I keep reading in this forum (though remarkably not so much on other WoW-dedicated forums) is that warriors and DKs have a higher failure rate on "bosses that matter" to the extent that they are being replaced by paladins and perhaps druids. We don't have a lot of evidence either of those things are happening though, which is why I have spent so much effort trying to understand where some of you are coming from.

Q u o t e:
It can be, and believe me, blizzard has that data. The point is that it's true that GC does not balance by population. You are missing the point. He already spelled it out for us once. It isn't the representation that makes warriors better. The issue is that IF warriors started switching, THAT would send a red flag up that something is amiss. Maybe something is amiss and everybody is just too stubborn to stop being a warrior anyway? I don't believe it. I believe paladins and druids are overrepresented in middle class guilds because of the community's (mistaken) belief that having a paladin is a much greater tank than an equally skilled and geared warrior.

Yes. I think it’s just a safer answer for some players to think that their class is broken and that’s why they aren’t farming the content. “Blizzard balances around population,” is a more fun soundbite than “What can I do to improve my tanking?”

Q u o t e:

I think it's sad that anytime a large segment of the population doesn't agree with the Blizzard party line it gets explained away as 'lrn2play.'

It's fine to say you disagree with our "party line." That's why I'm here. You don't need to try an invoke a silent majority here. You don't know if it's a large segment. Very, very few of our players post here, and typically only those with an axe to grind, so you're already selecting for the disgruntled.

Q u o t e:
It's the human factor. No one likes to log on their character one day and be told that they're going to have to work just a little bit harder, play just a little bit longer to do the same exact thing that another class can with less risk and better results, no matter how minor, inconsequential of a gap it might be. This goes all the way back to the very dawn of class based role playing games.

My point was I don't think all of these warriors are here posting because they think their raid has to work a little bit harder when they're tanking (yet success doesn't really change). Call me naive, but I don't think that would drive so much forum posting. I think in the minds of many of these players, they are much, much worse than other tank classes and have trouble killing bosses because of it.

Q u o t e:
I understand why tanks stepping aside would raise a red flag. But why would you wait until raids are replacing their friends to do something about it? I apologize if this isn't what you're doing, but from all your replies, it seems to be your biggest argument for not balancing them now.

The red flag part is all I've ever really been talking about. We can't find any evidence that warriors are failing on encounters, and not many players have been able to provide much yet. Most of what is being brought up is that "When I estimate EH, my number looks lower than his number." That is very much an issue IF it actually means something in the game. I'm looking for some explanation of what actually happens on a boss. Some players post that they've personally experienced a discrepancy and I have no reason to think they're lying or anything. But if it's a trend, it's one that's pretty hard for us to detect.

If you read a lot of these posts, they seem to just be saying "You should just buff us because we're weak," holding as self-evident or intuitively obvious that they're weak so just focusing on the "should just buff us" part.

Q u o t e:
It's easy to prove the EH difference means less wipes, it's been done on this forum in any number of ways many times.

No, it has not. Not to our satisfaction anyway. Too many of you are using EH (which is a very powerful concept for purposes of trying to decide how to gear your tank) as the number that indicates tank awesomeness. The higher the EH, the better tank I must be. It's just not that simple.

I have yet to see any data that suggests warriors wipe relatively more than other tanks. What so many of these posts say are:

1) I wipe a lot. It must be my class.
2) Because my EH is lower, I am guessing that I wipe more often.
3) I'm not sure if I wipe more often or not, but please just give me a buff so I feel better.

The only argument I have seen so far that seems at all reasonable is that stamina scaling or other factors might eventually lead to warriors (and DKs) having a problem, and that "eventually" could happen in Icecrown. Unfortunately that's impossible to prove or disprove at this stage since it's all speculation. It's definitely something to keep an eye on though.

(P.S. To be fair though, there are plenty of druids worried that scaling will end up hurting them because there is so much bonus armor on plate. They just tend to get drowned out in this particular forum.)

Q u o t e:
I don't doubt (much ;) ) your data regarding raid guilds and tank switching, but I do think you are not looking at the right data. You know, the data that is relevant to the other 95% of you player base. I feel there is a disconnect again with what is happening in game outside the top guilds. I feel you can't see for the forest for the trees on this issue. Player perception is huge in this game and to who gets invites to PUGs and raids in the lesser guilds.

We don't balance solely around the top 5% (in PvP or PvE). I've explained before why I think it would be a mistake to do so.

On the other hand, the very best guilds are good barometers. They will stick with tradition as long as they can, but they will switch completely to a different strategy / class / tradeskill / whatever if they think it is required for the content.

The reason I bring up good guilds a lot really is this: these guilds are often phenomenally better than the average guild. They aren't 5% better. They are hundreds of percentage points better. Therefore, obsessing over a 5% buff for your class won't affect your success rate nearly as much as improving your game. I'm not terribly sympathetic to arguments that you can't improve your group's performance at all, and if that's really the case (which I find unlikely), why are you worried about hard modes anyway? The normal modes of raids are designed to be completed by most groups with any interest in raiding. Most of these players would barely detect a 5% buff or nerf to stamina. They will get far more out of making sure Demo Shout or Curse of Elements are up 100% of the time or even swapping their gems.

Q u o t e:
You want data that meets a certain criteria that you also know we can't meet. The only data us players have is from our own guilds and maybe a couple pugs we have ran. In your mind that is not enough. How is one player of the game supposed to get the data you ask for? I argue it just isn't possible until things are to the point of being broken. At that point the forums will be flooded with people in all forums complaining just like they did with DKs and ulduar.

I'm not at all expecting players to do that. These forums aren't here for players to post data. They're here to discuss the game's classes. Saying "I'm worried that my class doesn't tank as well as it should," is certainly an appropriate thing to say. However, if you are expecting us to buff you solely on that assertion then I think we're going to end up with a pretty crazy game in the end (as well as some mighty exciting forums).

On the other hand, if you're going to make assertions (not you personally, though plenty of folks have) such as "warriors die more often" or "warriors are rerolling" then you need to back that up with *something*. Anecdotal data counts as something. Pure intuition does too. So do simulations and even shaky estimates of trying to put an EH number on say Vampiric Blood. In this case, all of those arguments have not been enough to persuade us, at least so far.

The forums are "flooded with people in all forums complaining" now. I don't think that's a very good measurement for when it's time to make a change.

Q u o t e:
The thread was locked for 3 days and then unlocked? What madness is this?

All posts hit a default thread cap. Sometimes the moderators extend the cap if they think the discussion might benefit from additional posts. The risk is that new arrivals get intimidated over the size of the thread and don't read anything.

Q u o t e:
I've also taken from common sense that statistical data being listed here will always be too small of a sample to be relevant. Always.

As Eminaera and others are trying to point out, you don't need a titanic sample size for statistical tests. The tests are "smart enough" to know when sample size is a problem. If the size is too small, it's not that you end up with a wrong answer so much as you learn that you can't conclude anything meaningful about the numbers.

Sample size isn't the problem. It's the complexity of the data itself. You can't easily look at raid logs and determine the experience of the tank, or if they're having a bad day, or if the content is on farm for them or if they used every last trick in the book to win. If these are experienced guilds with very talented warrior tanks, maybe we'd actually expect the failure rate for warriors to be lower since these guys should really know what they're doing. Maybe it's important to look at gear. Do we exclude samples that forgot to keep Demo Shout up? Maybe paladins allow you more slop in keeping Demo Shout up so we actually should include it.

Now none of that means we should give up and say the answer is unknowable. We just have to accept that it's complicated.

Q u o t e:
And from the amount of anecdotal and intuitional evidence being posted on these forums every day, there's apparently not enough of that to warrant change, either.

Anecdotal and intuitional evidence are valid sources of feedback. You just have to recognize that they have their limits. I would try to get out of the habit of thinking that if you just bury us under enough forum posts with anecdotal data that you can get us to make any change you're looking for. The way this system has to work is you guys provide feedback and we make informed decisions based on that feeback. If you're setting up a situation where we have to do what you say then you aren't really standing back and letting us develop the game.

Q u o t e:
My subcription ends next week, I don't expect any changes at all before then... or afterwards.

See ya. We'll be here.