Are DK Tanks going to get a buff soon?

Q u o t e:
I'm curious to why blizzard thinks that DKs are "ok" right now, given how unpopular they are in high end guilds.

They aren't. If you mean they are less popular than warriors as main tanks, that's true. But that is also the case for druids and paladins, whom some of you claim are self-evidently overpowered.

But DKs are very popular in cutting edge guilds for dps and quite popular as off tanks. This is hand waving, and I don't have any concrete numbers to back this up, but my suspicion is that DKs are either the most popular off tank or else are number two after warriors. Warrior + DK is a very popular tank setup for many guilds capable of clearing heroic raid content.

One conclusion that I think you can draw from looking at what classes and specs the very good guilds bring is that there is a lot of variation, and certainly much more than in BC.

Q u o t e:
Are you saying that it's ok if a class can't main tank, but can be a great off tank? (Not that that's what happening here, I'm asking a design question)

If not, where would you draw the line? If it was 50% harder to MT but 50% easier as an OT, would that be OK? If it was 10% harder to MT and 10% easier to OT, would that be OK? If it was 10% harder to MT and 3% easier to OT, would that be OK?

Basically the point I'm going for here is: You've already said you didn't like the tank niches that existed in BC. If DKs are being pushed into an off-tank niche now, which your post implies, why would you be ok with that?

I would be hesitant to try and draw those kinds of conclusions based on popularity. I think the most you could say is that DKs are not so powerful that everyone (or at least a significant majority) of people are using them to MT and not so weak that nobody is bringing them.

My response was just to counter the notion that heroic-focused guilds don't use DKs to tank.

It's not okay for a class to be only good at OT'ing, but I don't think that's what's happening here.

Q u o t e:
why would you make the mistake of posting in this thread...../sigh

I'm content to let players debate almost anything. However, I also know that once a catchphrase gets repeated too many times on these forums that it ends up becoming conventional wisdom. I didn't want "Nobody uses DKs to tank" to get thrown around the way "Everyone is replacing their tanks with paladins" has been. :)

Q u o t e:
Nobody is contesting the fact that Death Knight tanks are viable. Nobody is contesting the fact that guilds use Death Knights to tank Hard Mode encounters.

My original comment was in response to a comment above, which said: "DKs are in an interesting place. On the one hand, they're not very popular, and very uncommon in high end guilds."

As I said, if players want to argue a particular subjective philosophy, that's cool. But when they are tossing around facts, we think it's sometimes appropriate to clarify whether those facts appear to be accurate from our point of view.

Q u o t e:
You guys don't worry. You are great off tanks, and if you're bored about tanking, you're great DPS. Who cares about main tanking? It's not like this expansion was about making all tanks able to main tank everything.

My comments above somehow got twisted into "We want DKs to be OTs and not MTs." My actual post was that warriors are the most common MTs in progression-oriented guilds and my suspicion is that DKs are the most common OTs, though I acknowledged that I did not have the data to back that second part up.

Now you can't have it two ways here. You can't say "DKs are so terrible that they can only OT," while at the same time saying "Guilds use warrior MTs even though they're terrible because they are either ignorant (unlikely) or stubborn (possible)." I think a more credible conclusion is that tank balance isn't in such a dreadful state that it really affects what tanks groups use. They use the tanks they have or that their players like to play.

Example: I asked a designer here whose guild is on heroic Anub 25 what tanks they use. They haven't beaten it yet, but they're close and they'll probably get it before 3.3. They use a DK MT and a warrior OT. I asked him why. It turned out their old warrior MT and paladin OT moved on and they used who they had left. They didn't feel the need to recruit or reroll to get say a paladin MT and druid OT. Now this is a sample size of one so it's hardly a trend. At the same time, I speak to a fair number of players and I think this kind of situation is typical. The relative strengths or weaknesses of the various classes and specs -- including dps and healers here, with a couple of exceptions like Subtlety rogues -- are not a huge factor in who gets brought to a raid. This seems to be true both of those groups that get server first kills and those guilds that come later but still defeat the toughest fights in the game before they are old content. That argues that the differences aren't that big a deal in the grand scheme of things.

Q u o t e:
Statements like this are disheartening. On one hand we are suppose to believe that the developers and designers at blizzard are using sophisticated methods to analyze and design the game. On the other hand we hear how you know a guy who has a DK tank.

There is no perfect computer that governs all decision-making in WoW based on the input parameters. We end up making judgement calls all the time. We look at data trends and we run our own tests, but we also talk to players. A list of who tanks with a DK can't really tell you *why* they do.

We just have to make sure we aren't balancing the entire game around our individual experiences in the game as players. This is the mythical (and false) example often cited for PvP balance where one of us lost to spec X so we come in the next day and nerf X. We try to work around that risk by making all of our decisions on consensus rather than independently and / or secretly or because the person with the most authority so decreed it.

If we were afraid to use anecdotal evidence or player experience to make decisions, then there would be little reason for me to participate on these boards, because the sample sizes are always very small and the collection mechanisms unscientific. You just have to be able to interpret any single data point in context, which is why it's a good idea not to rely too much on any one source of information.

Q u o t e:
He's said that they only balance around encounters. So if all tanks can manage to down the content to a degree (H Anub adds are an apparent exception), regardless of if it's easier for 2 to do it, it's working as intended and nothing needs to be changed because there is not a mass exodus to another class (which we really have no way to prove and he knows it) or mass players canceling accounts.

I think you are misinterpreting what I said. My apologies if it was not clear. We don't "only" balance around encounters. But we do care much more about how tanks perform against actual bosses then how estimated tank survivability appears on paper.

Also, the "regardless of if it's easier" is a pretty subjective criterion; not the kind of thing you can easily measure. If one tank just barely squeaks by every attempt while another tank nails the encounter with trivial effort, then that would not be acceptable. I also don't think that is what occurring, despite some of the more colorful Gormok tall tales that endure. If one tank has a slightly easier time on a given fight than another, then who really cares? It depends a great deal on what your threshold is for "slightly easier."

Q u o t e:
Read some of the other examples like people getting banned for asking why there's no tanking QD.

People don't get banned for disagreeing with us or failing to be obsequious. Just look around. They get banned when they can't help themselves and say overly obnoxious or offensive things. Too many people come here to vent instead of discussing class mechanics. Most players, even the ones who cross the line, know the difference.

Q u o t e:
To which he replied I misinterpreted, and then went on to say they don't balance around encounters solely - clearly contradicting what he had previously said.

As to Toxsin's trying to trap me in a misstatement or whatever, I've tried to explain our position a couple of times. We aren't going to make changes because one class appears more powerful on paper if those changes aren't manifesting themselves in the game. So far we don't have a lot of evidence that potential tank differences are having a big effect on beating encounters. The evidence players have come up with so far seem to fall into general categories:

1) It feels different to them personally when tanking or healing.
2) They've read on the forums that it's different.
3) It's not actually a big deal now, but could be with higher ilevels on more challenging content.
4) They have trouble on the encounter and assume it's the class design that's to blame.
5) Maybe there isn't a detectable difference on the encounters, but the on-paper estimated difference is offensive and should be corrected anyway.

None of those opinions are irrelevant, certainly. None of them provide really strong evidence either.

Q u o t e:
Tanks are more than stats, and if you look at just stats, you are missing far too much of the equation.

Death Knights are utterly dominant when it comes to cooldowns. Anti Magic Shell is ridiculously good on almost every encounter I've tested in Icecrown - and is additionally in many of the current raids. Honestly this ability is probably too good. The amount of time we can blanket with cooldowns,especially when utilized intelligently, is pretty staggering.

I also still don't get these claims of DK's getting one rounded on Icehowl (or any tank for that matter), most of these are far more attributed to poor play.

Once you actually see more hard mode encounters, I'm sure you'll have a better perspective....

Oh snap. I'm kidding. Thanks for the response, and of course I agree with almost everything you said.

Q u o t e:
The only issue I feel is still outstanding that needs to be fixed is the issue of DK burst threat and how keeping up on our rotation hinders us from being able to react. Fortunately, most of this can be made up through Rogues - but it is still immensely frustrating how dependent a DK tank has to be on Rogues to have a similar level of quick threat to other tanks - and that really we are far more dependent on a Rogue's reaction time than our own for when things go wrong.

I think this is a legit concern. While we don't want to give every tank class identical abilities, I do think DKs suffer from lacking something to fill the Shield Slam niche -- an on-demand high threat ability, great for smacking an add that has just arrived, but that can't be spammed to the exclusion of all else. Rune Strike isn't dependable enough and it is spammed anyway. However, it's pretty easy to conceive (and much harder to implement of course) of a Rune Strike that works more like Shield Slam, but with plenty of threat capable from other attacks. I think DK AE threat is fine, occasionally bordering on overpowered if you can get full use of DnD and Pestilence.

Q u o t e:
DK AoE threat suffers from a similar problem to DK single target threat in my opinion - it's the ramp up. Generally on a pull where there are a lot of adds that we AoE (Vezax trash is a good example) it usually goes something to this extent. If we are both trying, the Warrior has everything for 10-20 seconds, once my diseases get up, and DnD is going, everything gets ripped off of the Warrior onto me and he's got no real hope of taking them off me.

While I won't deny this is frustrating, the situation is a little more complicated with regard to our design goals. Let me explain.

A lot of players have an impression of Wrath of the Lich King trash tanking as the tank spamming their AE moves while the raid uses Fan of Knives, Blizzard, Volley, Hurricane, Mind Sear, etc. This wasn't necessarily something we set out to do. We buffed warrior and druid AE threat abilities in response to paladins having such an easy time of it throughout Burning Crusade. At the same time we also buffed a lot of the AE spells, particularly for those classes / specs that didn't have good ones.

I wouldn't call this is a stirring victory though. It meant that crowd control was irrelevant on a lot of fights. It was important on say Freya or Vezax trash before everyone became so overgeared, but our raid trash didn't feel at all like the BC raid trash (which is both good and bad I suppose). Likewise, classes with a lot of ramp up time (e.g. warlocks, Shadow priests) or whose most interesting mechanics really only kick in on single targets (e.g. combo points) just didn't have as much fun on the AE extravaganza.

A better design might be that you use e.g. Thunderclap when a group of adds spawn in, but you don't keep applying Thunderclap over and over to lock them down. (This is a little bit of a bad example because there are other reasons to use Tclap obviously). Instead, you tank maybe a 1-4 adds while the raid CCs and then burns down single targets at a time. Vezax trash generally worked like this. TK and SSC trash certainly worked like this. Now not every trash pull has to be the same. It's fine to have say the Solarian trash that you're clearly supposed to just AE down and can't effectively tank all at once. It's fine if groups shift more to AE when the instance is truly on farm. The majority of tanking abilities are just designed around the assumption of tanking 1-2 things at once though, so AE tanking just doesn't have much depth. (Surprise: sort of how AE dps and healing don't have as much depth.)

I suspect too that our encounter design has probably adjusted to fit the current state of things, so I wouldn't worry that Cataclysm is going to constantly bombard you with large add groups while your DnD is on cooldown and your group constantly calls you a bad tank for not being able to manage the adds. Related, runes on cooldown works out as a reasonable gating mechanism overall, but I'm not sure the emergency buttons are doing what they should. Things like Blood Tap need to be more about "Oops, I have no runes for DnD, but I really need it this instant."

Q u o t e:
We didn't even use CC when the content was new. AKA, no knowledge of the pulls, lack of gear, etc.

Thanks to the way WOTLK changed things, it's just never been needed. Disappointing to say the least.

I'll buy this for Naxx. I would be surprised if you just AE'd down the Freya trash (the pulls with the drakes, not the flowers) or Vezax trash when it was new. I would be surprised if you AE'd down the heroic 5-player dungeon pulls unless you overgeared them. The problem is many players overgeared them (partially thanks to Naxx).

Q u o t e:
But I have to use it to use my cooldown.

Yeah, I think I have said before that this was not the intent.

We think it's still a good goal to have DKs who are tanking use different abilities than DKs who are doing dps. I don't thing tying Blood Tap to Vampiric Blood et al. the way it has been has worked out well however. That wasn't really where we were going with it.

I'm arm-waving here, but imagine a world where (say it in movie preview announcer voice):

-- Blood Tap finishes the cooldown of all your runes. It's on a 15 sec cooldown.
-- You can use Blood Tap for an emergency Death and Decay.
-- Neither of these are things you do rotationally, the way you hit Plague Strike, Icy Tough and Blood Strike though. You use them for emergencies.
-- These emergencies aren't super common because there aren't encounters where large groups of mobs regularly stream in that will one-shot the healers if they aren't tanked. If it's a large pull, sure AE tank that, but the individual mobs will die quickly. On large pulls with serious mobs, you CC the dangerous casters, kill a couple of others as quickly as you can, and have the tanks pull out a couple of the mobs, essentially tying them up too.
-- Likewise, Consecrate (especially Consecrate) gets somehow changed to a similar mechanic. Now nobody is just spamming AE threat moves to keep stuff stuck to them.
-- Imagine a Hyjal raid where the dangerous adds have to be tanked or CC'd, and then the weaker minions are just blown up with AE. These weaker guys don't have to be tanked because they won't one-shot a dps player (though you may have to Frost Nova once in awhile or whatever).

Q u o t e:
I would assume Swipe would get pulled into this mix as well since Bears do use Swipe as a single target TPS move as well as spam it until infinity when 2+ mobs are present?

AoE fests are fun and all but I kinda liked the "skill" of orchestrating a handful of more difficult pulls with these things CC'd, these things tanked, and these things kited/burned. Sunwell trash was pretty fun like that, and they weren't so painful that we all cringed to do them. Pre-nerf Kael trash? No thank you never ever again.

Yep. /agree with all of that. Swipe was one of those examples where we buffed everyone instead of nerfing the guy who was too good. Players ask for that all the time, but I think here is a decent example of how it causes bad side effects.

Q u o t e:
I like your world. It seems fun.

Everyone should have a pony on their yacht.

Q u o t e:
How would you enforce this on dps? I'm curious.

Make Death and Decay cause almost no damage but very high threat, and let dps DKs use Blood Boil or something. I'm not saying that's the best solution, but it isn't an unsolvable problem.

Q u o t e:
I'm not sure where you're going GC... I've read the thread and imagined all this, and it sounds cool but... what do you mean? Are you saying that this sort of mechanic is the direction you'd like to head in the future or what?

Yes. I was answering Devium's question in a round about way. We could make DnD take one rune, or give it a short cooldown and make it free. It would make it easier for DKs to AE tank, but I'm not sure it's a good direction for the game ultimately. (Though if DKs have horrible problems AE tanking in Icecrown, we'd fix it anyway.)

Q u o t e:
What if Blood Tap did this?

"Makes your next ability with a cooldown longer than 10 seconds cost no runes."

It would make it so you can instantly access any of your utility moves and not really the damage ones. I think this is perfect. O.o

Yeah, that's not bad.

Q u o t e:
But... do you agree with Communism?

I think we should all embrace Communism.