How many of you even played a warrior to be a tank in an instance? I see quite a bit of lack of knowledge from some people. How many people here have been a tank in high-end instance? I am talking BRD, BRS, Scholomance, Stratholme. Regular pulls there consist of 4-5 elite mobs, or often they are a mix of 6-10 elites and non-elites. Theorycraft is nice, but it often just doesn't work. Now lets consider a simple scenario:
The hunter has to pull 5 mobs. He pulls 5, then he has aggro on all 5. Even if he disengages, they will still stay on him, because no matter how little aggro he has, the warrior has none. So, how does a warrior get them off hunter? He can get the main target off with a simple taunt/smack. No big deal. But what about the other 4?? You could polymorph one, mez one, but you still need to get the other two off him. Simplest way is to use demoralizing shout or piercing howl, which requires rage, which warrior doesn't have. Yes, bloodrage is nice, but an earlier heal leaves less time to grab sufficient aggro on the surrounding mobs (And if you think a warrior is not doing good enough job tanking, perhaps you should try and keep the main target on yourself with several dps classes are beating on it AND keep the 3-4 other elite from running after priest. Spamming taunt no longer works, and every little bit helps.)
Now you can say, what about charging into mobs after hunter pulls them? Not only this adds an extra complexity (which we know can cause mistakes), but it's not even that reliable. Often the mobs will be strung out, so you might not get all of them within demo shout/howl radius, but if the mobs resist they will not switch target to you either, even if the hunter uses disengage. Yes, he could use feint death, but then he is taken out of the fight for a short period of time, since the hunter has to "unfeint", then get certain distance away before he can use ranged attacks again. In short, you are adding layers and layers of complexity while the warrior could simply pull and have all the initial aggro on him.
And this whole " absolute safety zone" idea. There are three problems with this.
- One is as simple as the fact that often there aren't any "absolute safety zones to fallback on. Patrols/area design/respawns make it hard.
- Second (and biggest probably) issue is caster/ranged mobs. The hunter cannot reliably pull caster/ranged mobs, which are the more difficult pulls. Just how much more difficult would the above scenario be if it had 2-3 casters? Hunter has no way to bring them closer besides running back to the group. By then he has melee mobs on him and casters shooting him, and the warrior can gain aggro on one or the other, but would have really hard time getting aggro on both due to the two groups being certain distance away from each other. Compare it to a warrior pulling, where he will have the aggro right away.
- Third issue is that ranged pulls are often not needed, or even would be detrimental to killing speed/safety. A typical 4 nonelite/2 elite pull in BRD would be preferably charged by the warrior, so that he can gain and maintain aggro on the two elites while mage/warlocks kills off the nonelites. Is it faster to charge in? Yes. Is it less safe? No, not really, because the mob spawns are far apart and involve casters. Charging the group allows you to stack both melee and casters for AOE attacks, while with a bow pull you would have to deal with casters hanging back, having to fight melee first while someone else brings the casters closer, all the while prolonging the fight. Also, if we are talking about the BRD - the places that most groups wipe in aren't regular pulls, but specific areas such as Lyceum or the 7 dwarves bosses.
I will give you this - it IS safer to pull with a hunter to prevent the group wipe. But so it is with a rogue (vanish is nice, and dps is better), or any class, as long as they are far enough from the group. If they do die, well, it's just one death. I stand by my point - until hunters get some special pulling ability that other classes do not have, they will have difficulties finding a spot in a high-end group. Heck, if a Hunter had some special truly distinguishing pulling abilities, I would probably see him as one of the top choices for a group. As it stands now, there really is no need for a role of a "puller", until the hunter gets some special pulling abilities that will make pulling with him easier, as opposed to warrior pulling.
The hunter has to pull 5 mobs. He pulls 5, then he has aggro on all 5. Even if he disengages, they will still stay on him, because no matter how little aggro he has, the warrior has none. So, how does a warrior get them off hunter? He can get the main target off with a simple taunt/smack. No big deal. But what about the other 4?? You could polymorph one, mez one, but you still need to get the other two off him. Simplest way is to use demoralizing shout or piercing howl, which requires rage, which warrior doesn't have. Yes, bloodrage is nice, but an earlier heal leaves less time to grab sufficient aggro on the surrounding mobs (And if you think a warrior is not doing good enough job tanking, perhaps you should try and keep the main target on yourself with several dps classes are beating on it AND keep the 3-4 other elite from running after priest. Spamming taunt no longer works, and every little bit helps.)
Now you can say, what about charging into mobs after hunter pulls them? Not only this adds an extra complexity (which we know can cause mistakes), but it's not even that reliable. Often the mobs will be strung out, so you might not get all of them within demo shout/howl radius, but if the mobs resist they will not switch target to you either, even if the hunter uses disengage. Yes, he could use feint death, but then he is taken out of the fight for a short period of time, since the hunter has to "unfeint", then get certain distance away before he can use ranged attacks again. In short, you are adding layers and layers of complexity while the warrior could simply pull and have all the initial aggro on him.
And this whole " absolute safety zone" idea. There are three problems with this.
- One is as simple as the fact that often there aren't any "absolute safety zones to fallback on. Patrols/area design/respawns make it hard.
- Second (and biggest probably) issue is caster/ranged mobs. The hunter cannot reliably pull caster/ranged mobs, which are the more difficult pulls. Just how much more difficult would the above scenario be if it had 2-3 casters? Hunter has no way to bring them closer besides running back to the group. By then he has melee mobs on him and casters shooting him, and the warrior can gain aggro on one or the other, but would have really hard time getting aggro on both due to the two groups being certain distance away from each other. Compare it to a warrior pulling, where he will have the aggro right away.
- Third issue is that ranged pulls are often not needed, or even would be detrimental to killing speed/safety. A typical 4 nonelite/2 elite pull in BRD would be preferably charged by the warrior, so that he can gain and maintain aggro on the two elites while mage/warlocks kills off the nonelites. Is it faster to charge in? Yes. Is it less safe? No, not really, because the mob spawns are far apart and involve casters. Charging the group allows you to stack both melee and casters for AOE attacks, while with a bow pull you would have to deal with casters hanging back, having to fight melee first while someone else brings the casters closer, all the while prolonging the fight. Also, if we are talking about the BRD - the places that most groups wipe in aren't regular pulls, but specific areas such as Lyceum or the 7 dwarves bosses.
I will give you this - it IS safer to pull with a hunter to prevent the group wipe. But so it is with a rogue (vanish is nice, and dps is better), or any class, as long as they are far enough from the group. If they do die, well, it's just one death. I stand by my point - until hunters get some special pulling ability that other classes do not have, they will have difficulties finding a spot in a high-end group. Heck, if a Hunter had some special truly distinguishing pulling abilities, I would probably see him as one of the top choices for a group. As it stands now, there really is no need for a role of a "puller", until the hunter gets some special pulling abilities that will make pulling with him easier, as opposed to warrior pulling.