WoW IRC Dev Chat

[Tal]

Charsi, one of the tanks for Critical Mass, has posted a very well thought out response to the "Druids and paladins are not mini-warriors" thread common to the chat. You can read it here but I'm quoting it in full in this post.

This little exchange occured after the chat finished:



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Q u o t e:

<w00t> [14:41] <Denise> Why is it ok for some classes to be like other classes (ie: druids gain a taunt ability that's similar to warriors), yet paladins can't have similar abilities as well (the earlier answers that paladins won't be given a taunt ability)?

<Caydiem> Are you aware how a Druid plays in tank form? We may have snap aggro, but we lack many of the other qualities that make a Warrior unique. Druids are in no way mini-Warriors in bear form, and there are no plans to make Paladins similar either.

<w00t> <Denise> Thanks for the answer, Caydiem, but the same thing could be said about paladins if they had a snap aggro ability (although my suggestion would be to make it part of the 31 point talent in the protection tree)

* Quits: Asc|Sayaki ([CS] Quit:)

<Caydiem> Denise, once more -- Druids were given the snap aggro ability as an aspect of the tank. To give Paladins that as well would be to make the "tank" classes all too similar. Druids are different enough in gameplay that the snap aggro doesn't change the much different dynamic of playing them; the same coul dnot necessarily be said for Paladins should a snap aggro ability be added.

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I just wasted a whole lot of my day, so I hope this is worthwhile.

I have a 60 Druid (Feral specced into tank talents) that's MT'd a number of lesser instances, and a 60 Warrior that's MT'd everything in the game - I think I have a decent idea how they both work now. I'll say here and now - Druids ARE mini-Warriors. They don't rival Warriors but they do compare, and that comparison is critical to why Paladins need help and why calls for "Taunt" keep coming up. Why? Read on.

What we really have to do to compare and contrast the three classes is to look at the various aspects of tanking. Not "warrioring" - tanking. These are:

1. Threat

Threat is where it's at. Without threat, your raid wipes, as there is no driving incentive for the mob to focus upon you with your mitigation/avoidance over someone like a cloth wearer who dies in an instant.

Many people often make the mistake of thinking Taunt is the core of tanking. It isn't. Threat is. Without threat, everything else is pointless.

Warriors have ample tools to generate threat. Sunder Armor, Revenge, and Shield Slam all provide a very high amount of threat. Since a Warrior (or a Bear) gains "energy" from being struck, they can essentially use these abilities as if they had an unlimited battery, and generate unlimited threat.

Druids in Bear form have a much more limited pool of threat talents, but they are not any less useful for being smaller. Maul is a high threat move - specifically, when it crits, it is very powerful. It is basically a stronger version of a Warrior's Heroic Strike. (If you don't believe me, level a Druid and try it.) A properly geared Bear with high crit, AC and avoidance can hold aggro with Maul crits. Swipe is also a very useful multi-target threat talent. With the advent of Feral Instinct boosting a Bear's threat, Bear tanks are emerging from the shadows as respectable off-tanks in time of need.

For Paladins, on the other hand, this is the area of greatest concern. The viability of Paladins as off-tanks rests solely on the new ability, Righteous Fury, and it's counterpart talent based improvements. I am no expert on Paladins, but from what I read on these forums, Righteous Fury is simply not good enough and does not even compare to the old Seal of Fury.

2. Snap aggro (including AE snap aggro)

Snap aggro is what you do when it all goes horribly wrong. Someone is a little eager with their crits, doesn't watch their aggro and - oops! off goes the mob to beat on some cloth or leather. Snap aggro is a crutch for when a tank is not dealing sufficient threat or their party has not learned how to play.

There is an exception to the above, however. Quite a few encounters in the game involve either a "zerg" of mobs that cannot all be controlled through threat generation, or involve single strong mobs with a de-aggro component (such as "Knock Away"). The latter can be seen as early as Dire Maul from Tendris Warpwood. Mobs with a deaggro ability practically necessitate a snap aggro move, as the loss of threat is forced upon you. "Zergs" - and there are many - often require the judicious deployment of a long-cooldown AE snap aggro to keep under control.

The Broodlord Lashlayer encounter is one of the most interesting encounters in the game because he deaggros, cannot be taunted, and has a nasty tendancy to kill off the very people who are building threat.

Warriors and Druids both have snap aggro abilities in addition to high threat moves. Paladins do not, and there are apparently no plans to ever give them a snap aggro ability. This means, in a situation involving a tauntable mob where aggro is dicey or a tank might die, a Druid or a Warrior is a vastly preferrable backup as they have the capability to recover a situation that has gone wrong. Without a taunt ability, Paladins are MUCH worse off at the very thing that one would think comes naturally to them: saving others. (They do have other rather unique abilities to deal with it, though.)

To control the encounter is to defeat the encounter. Threat is your control. Snap aggro is your saving grace. It follows that the classes with the snap aggro (the saving grace) are in a better position to play the role of backup or emergency tank. By refusing to give Paladins a snap aggro, placing them in the role of "backup tank" becomes extremely dubious.

Put it this way - I would rather a Paladin offtank and a Druid back them up than the other way around.

3. Mitigation (damage reduction)

Okay. So you got them to hit you. Now all you have to do is live, right?

-- a. AC

The bread and butter of mitigation. A high AC means that physical attacks are reduced in effectiveness, lowering the required HP/Sec to keep the tank alive.

Paladins and Warriors have access to Plate armor with similar AC ratings on them. Druids have an AC multiplier inherent to Dire Bear form. Everyone's on a fairly equal footing here, though Druid armor can reach substantially higher levels than other classes.

-- b. Shield Block

Paladins and Warriors can both equip shields where Druids cannot. A Warrior's chance to block is higher than a Paladin's, but a Paladin has talents to improve the amount blocked that a Warrior does not.

The main issue is that one of the primary Paladin talents for increasing their chance to block with a shield comes through being critted. The other comes at a high mana cost. When you are placed in the role of tank, be it main or otherwise, the last thing you want to happen is to suffer a crit - you will most likely choose your equipment to maximise your mitigation and smooth out incoming damage (eg crits) as much as you possibly can. With Redoubt firing infrequently due to high Defense, a Paladin will be spamming Holy Shield as often as possible both for mitigation and threat. The high mana cost of Holy Shield and the relative uselessness of a crit-driven skill on a high defense tank hurts the long term sustainability of Paladins in a tanking role.

-- c. Critical Strike chance reduction (defense skill)

This is the CORE of a great tank. What kills tanks? Damage spikes. What does Defense skill do? It reduces the chance of the tank to suffer a critical strike, which basically smoothes out the damage intake curve leading to a much greater survivability.

This is the area where Warriors excel (and always will) and both Druids and Paladins suffer for very similar reasons. Both classes suffer due to itemization.

To begin with let's outline Defense:

Each point of Defense skill grants 0.04% to Parry, Dodge and Block. Each point of Defense skill also reduces the chance for a NPC to critically strike you. Each point of Defense skill up to but not exceeding 300 reduces the player's chance to suffer what is termed a "crushing blow" from NPC's.

So, 25 defense skill does the following:
+1% Parry
+1% Dodge
+1% Block
-x chance to suffer a critical strike from a NPC
-x chance to suffer a crushing blow from an NPC (not beyond 300 defense)

--> Druids are bound to wearing high AC items with strength and stamina, and there is a noticable dearth of high AC leather with defense bonuses. Furthermore, defense skill inherently benefits a Druid far less than other classes, as they lose two out of three possible gains for upping one's defense skill, as they cannot Parry or Dodge. Given the sacrifice of stats necessary to acquire Defense leather, and the partial uselessness of Defense skill to a Druid, most Druids tend to load up on high stat/high AC gear and not give Defense skill a high priority.

--> Paladins are most likely to be wearing str/sta/int plate. Most notably all of their sets (including the upcoming AQ40 set) completely lacks Defense skill. This means that Paladins will either lack Defense skill, leading to a crippled mitigation/avoidance situation, or will sacrifice their int/sta/str plate and go for str/sta/defense plate drops to tank with. The latter will cripple their mana pool, leaving them in the following quandry: either take a lot more damage, or rob yourself of the mana pool required to survive and generate threat.

4. Avoidance (elimination of incoming damage)

Avoidance is another core skill of tanks. The ability to completely negate some incoming damage is a critical peice of the survivability puzzle.

-- a. Dodge

All three "tank" classes have it. Not much can be said here.

-- b. Parry

Notably, the Druid class cannot Parry in Bear form. This is large portion of physical avoidance that is simply missing, and this hurts Bear tanks.

Paladins and Warriors both have access to Parry, and both have access to a talent to increase their chance to Parry by 5%. Ironically, both classes talents appear outside of each classes respective "tank" tree (Deflection: Arms, Deflection: Retribution).

5. Sustainability

It is worth noting that Druids and Warriors both make use of Rage. Rage is an ability that "recharges" when struck and when striking. The more you are struck, the harder you are struck, the larger the battery you have to draw upon for use in threat-generating moves.

The Paladin is the only class of the three that uses a form of power that does not inherently regenerate from tanking. One could argue that Blessing of Wisdom and Judgement of Wisdom go some ways to compensating for this (the proc possibilities of Judgement of Wisdom was dramatically narrowed on the PTR just before closure) but as any Warrior or Bear tank will attest, the rage gained from being struck is usually far more valuable than the rage gained from striking.

Most importantly, if a Paladin is geared for tanking, they are likely to be geared in high strength/stamina/defense platemail. Almost no plate exists with defense and intellect on it - therefore, it follows that Paladins who focus on equipment to aid their survivability will find that their mana pool suffers for it. No other class that focuses on "tanking" gear does so at the price of the "power" bar that they use while tanking. Druids do sacrifice mana, which hurts their flexibility but not their tanking as Bears use Rage.

Conclusion:

Caydiem asked if I understand how Druids tank in Bear form. I do. Caydiem asserted that Druids are not mini-warriors. I disagree, and here's why:

Druid tanks DO lack crucial mitigation skills that put Warriors ahead of them in terms of practical usage. Druids cannot Parry or Block, and tend to go for str/sta/AC leather over defense skill leading to a higher chance to suffer a lethal damage spike.

However, in their favour, Druid tanks have a regenerating "power" bar (Rage) and have both high threat capability (maul/swipe) and both single target and AE snap aggro.

In other words, what a Bear tank lacks in mitigation/avoidance they make up for in the threat of Maul and sustainability of the Rage system. I would certainly call a Bear a "mini-Warrior". But this is not because Bears have the all skills of Warriors (they don't!) but because they use the same tank mechanics as Warriors. Druids, like Warriors, experience the Rage "snowball" effect - aggro, once gotten, is hard to shake because the very act of tanking powers itself!

Compare and contrast this to the mechanics of Paladins in their tanking role. Paladins have the mitigation potential of Warriors, in that they can wear plate, they can Parry and Block. However, they are lacking in threat (righteous fury), in snap aggro (no taunt or AE taunt) and in sustainability (a crippled mana pool in def/sta gear vs Redoubt firing when crit). The mechanics are completely different - instead of a regenerating power source from which to fire high threat moves, the Paladin must expend a finite source to fire abilities of limited threat and are primarily reactive in nature. Catching mobs is frustrating when you lack high threat skills, surviving is tough, and keeping the mob on you is expensive and dicey.

In other words, the Paladin's superior mitigation/avoidance counts for naught if they cannot "catch" mobs and "keep" them; both threat and sustainability are lacking.

Read that carefully: I am NOT advocating that Paladins be given the abilities of Warriors or Druids. Classes should, and must, vary in order to add richness to the game. But the core tenets of what makes a good tanking class cannot and should not be ignored. To that end, Paladins need threat and sustainability, and in it's current form I do not believe they have either in any real sense.

Neither Druids nor Paladins will ever fully realize the role of end-game tanks. This is simply because neither class has access to the full rounded suite of tanking abilities. It appears to be the intent of Blizzard to make Druids deficient in mitigation, and Paladins deficient in snap aggro.

My argument is simply that a deficiency in mitigation is not entirely crippling - however, a deficiency in threat and sustainability renders the class almost completely impractical in any realistic sense. Survivability is worthless if everyone kills you last.

The calls for snap aggro are merely a symptom of a class that cannot reliably keep aggro nor hope to sustain it without stopping to drink between each trash pull.

Final Thoughts:

I understand that Blizzard is unwilling to give Paladins a snap aggro. Indeed, if you actually read what I wrote above, a snap aggro is neither the solution nor the root of the problem - it is a saving grace. To be viable tanks, Paladins truly need high threat and a sustainable means of continually generating that threat while equipped in gear that promotes survivability.

To accomplish this, I would personally implement three changes:

1. Modify Judgement of Wisdom and add the capability for a judged mob to return mana to whomever it strikes. This would help bolster the sustainability of Paladin tanking by granting them mana through being struck, mimicking the Rage system where Rage is generated both on striking and when struck. This would also allow Paladins to step away from int/stamina gear without crippling their tanking capability.

2. Greatly increase the threat generated by Paladin Holy attacks when Righteous Fury is active. If the Paladin cannot have a snap aggro, the least that could be done is to give Paladins the capability to generate and re-generate threat rapidly. I am basing this on the impression I get from PTR testers that Righteous Fury is not sufficient in it's current form.

3. Add a very high threat value to both Reckoning and to the damage transfer of Blessing of Sacrifice (when it occurs). If the Paladin cannot avoid crits, and cannot generate snap aggro to save others, please at least consider adding real value to the countermoves they do have when something bad happens.

As always, Blizzard will decide. I am simply throwing the suggestions out there for you all to chew on. What I would love to see is more input from Blizzard as to where they are going with Paladins, how they see Paladins fitting into the picture of tanking, and - assuming they disagree with the above - how they feel a Protection specced Paladin achieves high threat in a sustainable manner.



The TLDR version: Paladins need more threat, cheaper, if you want them to be able to tank without taunt. Taunt is the bandaid over the real problem of threat.

Thanks for reading.

Excellent write-up but I fear its going to fall on deaf ears.