WoW Stratics IRC Chat

[Taelas]

Why not?

Because no other class gets special treatment in this manner. You can scrap ANY class completely from a raid composition except for a warrior. It doesn't even have to be a Protection warrior, by the way, as the abilities which give warriors MT-spots are base, not talents. This is not on all encounters. It's on encounters which relies on those abilities.

Because they rely on those abilities -- Defensive stance, Shield Wall, Berserker Rage, just to name a few -- it's not just a benefit to have a warrior tank, it's directly detrimental NOT to have a warrior tank.

The "MT spot" as we define it, the tank that the boss is targeting most of the time, is only one role to be played in the fight. Almost all of the time, it's one of multiple tank roles being played in the fight. Why shouldn't a warrior be the best at it - since non-warriors are the best at other tank jobs?

That's an assumption. It's not even true. Paladins have threat generation going for them. That's it. Druids have slightly better physical mitigation (though no way of blocking crushing blows) and a slight edge on threat generation (and they deal more damage than Protection warriors as well, not that it's significantly different).

Yes the warrior gets special treatment for being the boss-target-tank, but druids get advantages on secondary threat generation, multiple target tanking, and periodic deaggro situations.

Agree on the first two points, but to the last... wha'? I assume you're talking about the disarming ethereals in Karazhan, but that's not enough to base a class strength on. It's probably not even intentional. Warriors have better tools to get back aggro than druids do, period. Faster taunt, secondary semi-taunt.

Paladins...need a bit of tweaking, but their area-effect and secondary threat generation is still healthy. Paladin issues primarily rest in itemization; until recently, their tier sets were horrifically itemized crap. I can't imagine that a full-t5 paladin couldn't tank at least reasonably well.

I haven't looked at the new tier sets, but unless they were completely redesigned, and I mean completely, they are still horribly itemized, wasting stats on spelldamage, spellhit, int, and MP5--all of which "benefits" paladin tanking, but they cost far too much in terms of mitigation.

Two prot warriors is basically the max for any encounter in SSC/TK, to fulfill the "get-beat-on-by-main-boss" requirement of the fight. For all the rest of the tanking, a warrior would struggle or be outright incapable of pulling it off. When you want something for the boss to target, a warrior is the best choice. For everything else, go druid, and in some cases paladin.

What, exactly, can a druid tank which a warrior can't? A paladin?

You're making stuff up now. Keep to the facts?

Suppose that the job of boss-target-tank is diversified across all tanking classes, as you wish. What do you give warriors in return?

In an ideal world, Protection warriors (and not just any warrior, only Protection warriors, as other warriors have specced for other tasks) should be a benefit to have for any raid. On the same token, it should not be directly detrimental not to have them, so that other people can fill the role.

All other roles and all other classes have this. Then there are the occasional stop-block encounter (non-Fear Ward Nightbane, Hydross, Doomwalker) who basically say, "Only for warrior tanks".