r/CompetitiveWoW • u/SunkistGuru2025 • 2d ago
Tank availability in M+ reduced?
I'm not great at data, so I thought I'd throw a theory a buddy and I were discussing and see if anyone who is good with data can prove or disprove it. Could also be that there isn't enough data yet to really know.
With the changes to rerolls and M+ vs. Heroic and Mythic Raid as it pertains to bonus rolls, I had a thought that there would be an overall reduction in the number of tanks playing M+ this season compared to previous seasons.
What led me to this conclusion was thinking about how there are only 2 Tank spots in raid which disincentives tanking as there just isn't a need for more people to play tanks; however, I have characters in a few guilds as a M+ only player and I noticed that while there used to be a lot of folks that would tank M+ for quick queues to get gear and then play DPS in raid, they just aren't doing anything but delves and raid now or only running one key each week to spend their bonus roll token targeting an item slot they can't get a better item in raid.
So my question is, have the changes to bonus rolls and M+ vs. Raid this season lead to a reduction in the available tanks in the M+ pool by simply reducing the loot benefits of playing M+?
I suspect it led to a reduction across the board based on what i'm seeing on Raider.io as there were 5.1 and 3.6 million runs in week one and two of season 1 and only 4 and 2 million runs in weeks one and two of season 2.
Looking at TWW Season 1, it went from 2.4 and 2.1 million to 2.2 and 2.1 million in season 2. TWW season 3 showing 4.1 and 3.5 million for weeks one and two respectively.
I hope this doesn't devolve into a "raid is better than M+ as content" or "M+ is better than raid as content" discussion, I'm just curious about the effects of blizzards changes.
What does the data show for someone who is smarter than I am?
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u/solvento 2d ago
Most people don't want to play tanks because the role is designed to be extremely restrictive. Tanks have to deal with a long list of limitations on damage, self sustain, and utility because Blizzard doesn't want them to overshadow DPS, Aug or healers.
The problem is that once you impose all of those restrictions, you are left with a role that carries most of the responsibility for a successful M+ run while having one of the least rewarding kits to actually play. You are responsible for pulling, positioning, routing, pacing, interrupts, mob control, survivability, and often recovering from other people's mistakes, yet your actual gameplay can boil down to maintaining a fairly boring rotation while being deliberately prevented from excelling at damage, healing, or even mitigation beyond what Blizzard considers acceptable, which is usually really low.
Utility is restricted for the same reason. So instead of feeling like a powerful frontline character that controls the dungeon, you often feel like a meat wall whose job is to stand absorbing damage and manage everyone else's run without being allowed to be particularly exceptional at anything. A role with a disproportionate amount of responsibility compared to how rewarding it feels to play.
It also doesn't help that a lot of people who tank do it as a secondary spec. Blizzard makes maintaining multiple specs on the same character unnecessarily cumbersome because optimal secondary stats can be completely different between specs. You either take gear optimized for one spec or compromise it for another. Loot specialization has the same problem because you can only target one spec at a time. I understand why some of those restrictions exist, especially to prevent people from exploiting the loot system, but the end result is still that playing multiple roles on the same character is more annoying.
So you end up asking players to take on the role with the most responsibility, give them relatively bland gameplay and tightly restricted power, and then make it harder for people who might tank as an off spec to properly gear for it. It shouldn't be surprising that there aren't enough tanks especially in m+.
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u/United-Market1786 2d ago
Good comprehension. One thing I want to aß: if you do a mistake as a tank it mostly ends/depletes the run. As a dps or healer deaths or mistakes arent that huge (Most of the time)
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u/RoosterBrewster 1d ago
Yea when a tank dies, some people try to kite, tank picks them back up, immediately dies, and repeat until a full reset 10 deaths later. Then the run is over.
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u/kyllingefars 2d ago edited 2d ago
I hate how unfriendly this game is to offspecs. Secondary stats ruin it all. You spend months getting full myth only for it to be extremely subpar for your off spec.
And you have to change enchants and gems too. And ur sparks and catalyst charges are spent on the wrong stuff (main spec) so now it’s time gated and your off spec is months behind.This game takes a big fat shit on off specs
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u/hoax1337 2d ago
Do you remember when mainstat and tier set bonuses wouldn't switch on items, and if you wanted to play, say, resto and enh shaman, you'd need to have two full gear sets, one for int, one for agi?
Cause I 'member.
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u/its_justme 1d ago
that's still a thing for trinkets and weapons for some classes/specs.
why do druids need to wear agi-only polearms/staves as feral/guardian while palys can have str/int maces and devourers can have agi/int glaives?
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u/iRedditPhone 1d ago
Int/str weapons two-handers are extremely rare… a pally will end up having three weapons if they play all 3 specs.
Glaives a but psyduck. But i guess the catch is, only one class can use those.
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u/Schnitzelbro 1d ago
the effect of the perfect "right" stats is very exaggerated. you should not be progging mythic endboss or title with wrong or bad stats but everything else is playable just fine. most people are not even good enough at an offspec to notice bad stats. they just play like shit
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u/twootten 1d ago
the effect is pretty significant if you swap from, for example, Ret to prot. ret is mastery/crit, and prot is haste. having low haste as prot feels turbo bad.
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u/SerbianShitStain 1d ago
ret is mastery/crit
old news. it's mastery/haste now brother. switching between prot and ret is fine this season.
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u/twootten 21h ago
oh thats huge. i hadnt even looked at ret yet this season. love how much easier this will make it.
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u/Long-Beach3 1d ago
Counterpoint If you know that you are not the best in the world and you know your team is not the best, some people might try to compensate by picking a kit that would allow their friends and family casual core team to potentially reach the goals, achievements, mounts they want to for that season.
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u/ghostcrawler_real 1d ago
I hate how unfriendly this game is to offspecs. Secondary stats ruin it all.
I ran the math this weekend and it is easier, less work and more convenient for me to level a second monk to play as MW/WW (which conveniently share secondary priorities for the most part) than to gear my main Brewmaster comparatively for my secondary spec. It's absurd, to me. The crafting stuff in particular is the biggest spit in the face.
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u/Yayoichi 1d ago
It’s really not that bad and it’s the best it has ever been, in the past it was much worse, now you can just swap rings and neck and you should be pretty fine, obviously not ideal for pushing top keys but plenty for anything below 15 or so.
Also most tanks do at least use somewhat similar stats or aren’t that bothered by slightly unoptimized stats, it’s only really monk where it’s the complete opposite for tank and dps.
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u/Eweer 1d ago
Add DH to the list. Tank Haste > Vers = Crit (depending on incoming damage intake). FS Havoc Crit >= Mastery >>>> Haste > Vers
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u/Juapp 1d ago
I thought they theorycrafted with the changes to the fel blood mastery that most secondary stats with VDH were pretty equivalent?
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u/Pepper_Jack_Cheese 1d ago
Value in terms of dps sure. But try playing vengeance without haste. It’s miserable.
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u/Pepper_Jack_Cheese 1d ago
Vengeance wants haste and crit or vers. Havoc wants crit/mast. Last season devourer wanted haste/mast and this season wants crit/mast with some haste. That doesn’t translate at all and playing vengeance with low haste is miserable.
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u/its_justme 1d ago
Hmm I think that's a pretty over dramatic assessment. Secondaries are primarily driven via jewelry slots. Crafted gear can be recrafted fairly simply at a low costs. Catalyst charges are farmable.
The only thing that stinks is the spec specific items at times - stuff like agi items on enh shaman, feral/guardian druid need different weapons than balance/resto.
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u/TheVsStomper 1d ago
It really isnt that big of a deal tough unless you are talking about tanking 20+? Like i can take my bear with balance gear (swapping wep and trinkets ofc) and tank 10-12 pretty comfortably
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u/Nogamara 1d ago
Yeah. we don't know if OP (not the one you replied to) was talking about tanks for pushing or tanks in general, e.g. weekly keys and if the person you replied to just assumed either.
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u/Gaatti 1d ago
As a long time tank, I cannot agree with this discourse. First, having responsibility for pulling, positioning, routing and pacing is very rewarding. You do it right, you already have a good 80% chance of a smooth run. You have by far the most agency than any other role. Compare that with being a dps/healer and watching your key being depleted because the tank did a ridiculous illegal pull, or is eating hits in the back every single pack, or do not know how to rotate his defensives. It just feels bad.
There is no better rewards than ensuring a high success rate for your keys. My numbers on details? F* that, if I cared about that I would be playing a dps. What I care about is successful runs.
The other part I cannot agree, and nobody that knows anything about keys should agree, is that tanks are responsible for interrupts, mob controls and recovering from other peoples mistakes. Every tank has a limited number of interrupts and stops and most packs where that matters require more than what one person can supply. Attributing that as a responsibility of only the tank is a mistake, it is a group responsibility and dps that do not help are just offloading their job to someone else and hoping for a carry.
Tanking gives you the most influence over the success of a run than any other role and doing it right feels very rewarding. You can't, of course, do it all alone, but you can do a lot more than any other individual player. Whenever I play dps and healer I just feel helpless when the tank is doing a poor job.
Also, about the rotations: we already have a lot on our plate handling all the responsibilities we have. We don't need overcomplicated rotations for our gameplay to be fun. It is already engaing because we are watching a lot of other stuff.
Honestly, the reason people don't want to play tank if because once the run starts you are the one leading the group and people are just afraid of picking up that role and making mistakes when everybody is watching you. It is just that. People want a role where they can mess up without being called out on it as often.
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u/Nogamara 1d ago
You do it right, you already have a good 80% chance of a smooth run
Apparently it's been a while that you tanked a 10 with 3 dps that are slow on small pulls, slow on big pulls, and slow on bosses.
But very much agreed on the rest.
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u/WhiskeyHotel83 6h ago
a good tank can 100% time 10s with crap dps players. A bad healer is harder honestly.
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u/hagbean 2d ago
Bring back vengeance for all tanks, was such a fun mechanic.
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u/Tymareta 1d ago
Fun, but broken beyond belief on any fight that was solo tankable, which would include all of M+.
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u/dannycake 1d ago
Don't even really need it as a mechanic, it would be fine to just have tanks do equal damage to DPS. Only thing it really fries is world content I suppose but we already have tuners and levers for things like that so... just do that.
I've been saying this for years. The only reason this isn't a thing is because people are currently allowed to go whatever spec they want. Want to fix the tank problem? Give them something fun to strive for like topping the meters. But only let a certain amount of tanks into certain kinds of content.
That means 1 tank for a m+ and whatever limitation makes sense for raids, like for 10 obviously make it 2.
This covers 99% of all scenarios and I can't remember the last time the content was earnestly performed at a top level without a standard tank amount.
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u/Rexxington 2d ago
You forgot to add in the very demanding players that explode at the drop of a hat when you either don't pull how they want to or your pulling too slow for their liking. A wipe happens, which sometimes isn't vene your fault. With the final one being not being able to learn in lower content because the other players feel the need to act like it's the MDI.
Tanking is just a completely thankless role that's not very rewarding in the end because the players are gone the biggest hurdle. A lot of them just need to learn how to shut their mouths, which is impossible for a lot of them to do.
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u/False-Excitement-595 1d ago edited 1d ago
I've had many occasions where a dps or healer body pulls and the group ends up turning on me and flaming me for the deplete. Its exhausting
I had a high AA last season that depleted because a dps just.. hit the wrong pack. Straight up thought we were pulling a pack we weren't then their premade proceeded to flame me and my route because "everyone pulls right pack first"... and gaslit me about how I "didnt even link the route" in a key where i scrolled up and plain as day, the route was linked before the ready check.
No, mage, you getting knocked into a lasher pack is not my fault nor does it make the pull bad. No, rdps player, getting knocked into the trash pack in ToS 1st boss arena that i want to pull and deliberately left up because i want to chain it during the boss does not mean the route is bad. But people go schitzo and just blame tank perma.
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u/Tymareta 1d ago
the very demanding players that explode at the drop of a hat
Who are 1-in-a-thousand and not anything close to approaching common like people like to pretend they are.
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u/Aritche 1d ago
It is much more common than 1/250 keys lol.
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u/Tymareta 1d ago
If it is, you might want to consider the common constant in that case. Because for near everyone else, most runs are either silent, have a "gg" or "lol" at most, or are just people enjoying the game.
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u/Excellsidor 1d ago
These people are extremely common. As a tank I try very very hard not to pug, yes the ragers are rare maybe 1 in 50. But if I tank 10 keys pug, at least 2 or 3 have some one who pings for more, or pulls it themselves, or complains, or some other small thing that while not run breaking is just annoying and makes me less inclined to run a key when my guild isn’t on.
It’s not just the extremes that make people not want to do it. I get that we could maybe handle another pack, but I know how I’m comfortable pulling and I rarely don’t +2/3 a 10-12. People just need to relax.
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u/nate077 11h ago
How can you say tank utility is low?
First, all tanks shape the pull which is the largest inherent input towards utility.
Then, I only know prot warrior and prot paladin but;
Warrior: stun, charge stun, aoe stun, kick, ranged silence, aoe ranged kick, spell reflect, vortex, 2x charge, leap, intervene
Prot paladin: stun, aoe disorient, kick, ranged kick, aoe ranged kick, sac, brez, self immune, phys immune, spell immune. These can invalidate many mechanica and can bootstrap goofball teammates to success.
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u/-Hotface- 2d ago
This is like saying most people dont want to play basketball because its not hockey. I'd say the main culprit is the responsibility. In the same way dps is restrictive, mostly you do dps and have restrictions on healing and tanking. Same goes for healer, you cannot tank and you can do some amount of relatively useless dps depending on the key and level.
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u/AgentCapital8101 2d ago
I can only speak for myself, so here's my two cents:
Its not fun to do M+ as a tank with people you dont know. Slacking on interrupts, stuns, mechanics overall - because another DPS GCD is more important. All slack in a key is covered by me. And if I dare say anything its "oh lol its only a 14 relax". Peoples attitudes overall is just on an all time low, in what seems to be a bottomless pit of how shitty a person can become.
My ignore list is growing fast. My energy for pug groups is depleting as fast. So is my patience and willingness to continue tanking, or even playing.
I think im reaching the point where im just done with the game. Its causing more frustrations than good times. There is no point anymore.
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u/Inside-Addition6460 1d ago
also speaking for only myself, 100%. I love and enjoy tanking for the premade i've put together by asking ppl i enjoy playing with to form a team. I'm mentally exhausted after each keypushing session as a tank than I would as a dps but its very satisfying to solve challenges together. I refuse to dip into tanking for pugs unless there was something specific I had to do, it's just not enjoyable
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u/Content_You4282 2d ago
1.) Stacking debuffs that can only be phys immuned as a counterplay is on too many mobs. RLP and Murder Row first pulls are especially heinous. It makes timing personal defensives and externals very tricky due to parry/dodges and kill speed variance between groups. Way too much guess work for +1 keys and turns these pulls into coinflips.
2.)The M+ loot pool is tragic and the incentives to raid have gone supercritical. Bountiful Delves are faster weekly crests and M+ vaults are agony. Either you have an AOTC capable raid at this point or you are hard stuck below the median ilvl/Sim for 2-3 months.
3.) Prot War and Prot Pally pay a double tax: offspec gearing and meta M+/Raid. Arms and HolyP are too dominant to trade out, gearing through M+ only this season is not an option. So those two are already at further reduced 15+ populations. Prot P is incredible this season by dropping phys debuffs/bleeds and solo kicking/stopping so much trash tech, but Holy's throughput dwarfs it.
4.) Sanlayn BDK is dicey on threat and difficult to play effectively. You can easily add 50k overall ahead of other tanks with correct coordination, but the conditions for success requires pristine execution. Pug BDKs are coinflips.
I enjoy raiding and M+ but between all the speedbumps to general IO score, probably going to stop playing after the sub runs out.
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u/Gasparde 2d ago
Prot P is incredible this season by [...] solo kicking/stopping so much trash tech
Thank god Blizzard have pulled through on their stated design goal of reducing casts and bolt slop in dungeons because otherwise they'd be looking really silly for taking away interrupts from all healers right now.
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u/Niante 2d ago
The threat during setup is so fucking bad. Blood Boil being both point blank and low damage as far as snap aggro skills go combined with DnD's sub-900 damage ticks and needing to send Grips and/or Gorefiend's which are on the GCD during setup is just like "lol please wait for 5 GCDs until I actually get to send DRW and do any damage" which obviously no DPS is interested in doing (and to be honest, I don't blame them). I feel like they need to buff Blood Boil's threat generation and make Death's Caress erupt into a Blood Boil around your target, and even then you're still going to have the most precarious setups in the game AND need to ensure you're pooling and refreshing Bone Shield, Blood Queen, and RP at the end of every pull so you don't instantly die on the next. I genuinely love SL Blood, but as a long-time tank main with thousands of hours on each of the specs, the setups on SL BDK are just obscene.
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u/FitAlpineChicken 1d ago
As a rogue I feel like I help tanks so much when I immediately start aoe during gathering with tricks of the trade. My runs are always so smooth :)
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u/breadgehog 1d ago
Not that I disagree with most of your points, but myth crests from bountifuls are still capped at 20 a week are they not? Did that change? I know ritual sites gave myth crests at T6 as well but I'm unsure of whether that carried over to S2.
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u/j821c 1d ago
4.) Sanlayn BDK is dicey on threat and difficult to play effectively. You can easily add 50k overall ahead of other tanks with correct coordination, but the conditions for success requires pristine execution. Pug BDKs are coinflips.
They seriously need to fix some of the threat issues here tbh. DPS constantly yank threat when trying to round up packs. There's an argument to be made that they should just wait a second but yea, DPS in low keys aren't going to do that lol
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u/sophisticatedroach 2d ago
Tbh for 14-15+ there seems to be like 3 tanks for every healer and 15 dps for every tank
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u/False-Excitement-595 2d ago
Yep can confirm. I was 3300 with all 15s but one and it was like impossible to get an invite to my last 15 for resil. Granted im VDH but I always get declined and they take bdk/prot pal
Lots of tanks sign up in the 14-15+ range shortages are only really at farm 10s
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u/vlv_Emigrate_vlv 2d ago
This right here. I’ve been a BDK main forever, and yesterday it took me 30 minutes to get invited to a 15 Den. IMO, that key is super easy, but it was a horrible time because I felt like I was the only one looking out for kicks on mobs.
It was the first time I had ever seen the healing cast from those bears go off and that ability is crazy since the whole group apparently gets a strong HOT lol. What was even worse, the dps were dropping the circles all over the place on the last boss to include the middle of the room. Even had a dps soak the tank soak with me and die. We did not time by like 20 seconds.
Spent another 30ish minutes trying to get into a 15 den. Made it to the last boss no problem and again same issues. I even ping where the circles need to be dropped before pull and tell them to keep them all on the same side. Apparently it is a lot to ask for.
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u/EuphoricEgg63063 2d ago
I agree with this. It feels like most of the 'better players' have moved past 10-12s. If youre stuck there or trying to farm at that level your pretty much in Tank hell.
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u/Speed231 2d ago
Joining keys has been a better strategy than making my own group this season. I have lust so I can join groups quite often but when I try to make my own keys basically nobody shows up unless a tank applies first.
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u/NeverEndingXsin 2d ago
A lot of bad tanks in M+ this season lol
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u/Arcaneiy 2d ago edited 2d ago
I feel like it's because everyone rerolled blood DK and is horrendous at it. My data is also skewed considering I think I've only seen a guardian druid and a pally in 50 keys but yeah :D
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u/iQuoteSopranos 2d ago
I've seen a prot pally on every key I've run on my main this season
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u/Money_Echidna2605 2d ago
took me till now but im finally feeling comfy on bdk lol, this shit is not the most beginner friendly
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u/SunkistGuru2025 2d ago
I'm playing Brewmaster and Preservation this season, at least for the start of the season. I just started working on my Preservation Evoker this week and I have stopped queuing into groups with BDK. Not because I think it's weak as a tank, but I'm simply seeing too many of them go down in an instant and then all hell breaking loose because the tank died. I'd rather heal the other tanks that are more stable and aren't FOTM rerollers who don't know the class they are playing. I'm doing 14s and 15s with all the other tanks just fine, haven't grouped with a BDK since 10s.
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u/ArcticML 2d ago
Felt like a mad man pushing with BDK last season only for my S1 score to be the only proof when applying that I actually won’t fall over on first pull
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u/tallboybrews 2d ago
Im thinking of rolling a tank but I have zero experience on blood and ive played prot pal before, so I think I'll just go with that instead. Its crazy how hard it is to find a tank right now. Im just worried that prot pal wont be sufficient to stand up to higher key survivability checks.
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u/flow_guy2 2d ago edited 2d ago
There an insane amount of dps that think tanks are bad and have 0 fucking clue what actually is happening or what killed them.
2 example.
RLP 14. Pulled the last pack into mini boss before last boss. Dps didn’t do shields. We got stunned 2 times. Died. I got blamed.
Again RLP 14. I pulled 3 chilled casters and the big guy. Big guy died but the cast went off. So the aoe he put on the floor doesn’t appear. I’m the only one to move and everyone else dies. I get blamed for pulling too much.
Again in RLP. Healer dies to the burnout aoe. Then pulls lightning dragon. We wipe. I get blamed again
Dps litterally have no fucking clue what’s happening
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u/Aritche 2d ago
People have to learn how to tank which involves being shit for a while
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u/trogger93 2d ago
No I'd rather just flame them and then make complaint posts about no tanks existing. Seems like a great solution.
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u/EsoteriCondeser *Spellsteals your nose* 2d ago
I mean, one thing is learning the role and one is learning you have eyes.
I'm not going to blame you if you're in a big pull and you die because you didn't know something start to kill you at some key level (especially on week 2), but a good chunk of tanks in pugs do shit like keep bosses in goop all the time. You don't need 50h of M+ experience to learn lava hurts you.
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u/anuser69 2d ago
A lot of bad tanks in M+ this season lol
The season hasn't even been out for 2 weeks. Its either genuine noobs or people learning. Always hear the same "this season" shit every season. eye roll
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u/Gaatti 1d ago
Yep. Week 2 and people are complaining that their tanks don't know every single thing on every dungeon yet.
Meanwhile, half the dps are out there playing like they are going to get a 1 month ban if they use their interrupts. A lot don't even know where to drop bears on last boss of Den. A distressing amount of dps think the orb mechanic at the end of voidscar arena is supposed to be soaked by the tank (where the hell did that idea come from?). Still in voidscar arena, dps won't switch to the red mob being devoured for anything in the world.
But yeah, dps mentality is that tanks can't mistakes while they get to "wing it" (meaning getting carried while other people do the job)
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u/Noxm 2d ago
Always funny that people complain about tanks but don‘t want to play it. Then they shit on tanks and wonder why nobody wants to play it.
I‘m tanking m+ on mu blood dk since legion (some seasons more, some less) but the tons of shit I got from randoms is/was insane. On one key they all thank you for great tanking and in the next key you got flamed to death for your shitty gameplay.
As a tank you really need a thick skin and simply ignore chat at all. The other question is, if this is the soul of a mmo (I know it sounds sad)….
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u/no_Post_account 7m ago edited 4m ago
When you play tank you never have to see the bad tanks that exist. There is so many tanks that watch MDI or some top rank streamer tank play with his premade and try to recreate the same pulls in pug groups and it's complete disaster.
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u/sophisticatedroach 2d ago
Dps player who only thinks dps matters to time key spotted
Jokes aside, as a longtime m+ tank Ive never seen so many horrible dps tbh, people have 0 clue how to stop/interrupt and people with 15+ keys not knowing basic boss mechanics.
And tbh its all blizz fault, remember when they said they were going to stop making stops "interrupt" important casts?(i.e them recasting forever) well, thats gone in half the mobs, as long as you use the stop at like 20%~ left on the cast.
There is mutiple mobs that require 2x melee to keep kicked on the important casts etc.
Random boltspam that 100-0 comboes with other unavoidable damage.
They just dont know what they want to do with m+, also raidloot is irrelevant, if you want 0.1% title, you can do it pugging with only m+ gear (as a tank), its not very hard.
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u/Voidwielder 2d ago
Because people are skipping key levels. Realistically if you can understand 1+2=3 there's nothing in practice they can do to stop you doing 10s for Heroic track loot on first day of the season and unlike raid where even the first HC boss will slap you for misplays, a decent tank+healer combo can muscle through the dungeons. And I know this because that's what I did for my guildies.
Blizzard has created such a lopsided skill curve and power gain field. On one hand they want people to get their 2set early so they can play with it and the way to do it is by guaranteeing 1 catalyst charge and plonking one behind 2.5k or whatever it was - basically all 10s and a few 11s but at the same time getting catalyst by AOTC is simply impossible for the average Joe. And it's the raid that punishes you for mistakes. As it should. But M+ system? Not until mid teen keys or having bad tank/healer which of course you can get around by simply keyeing all day and failing upwards.
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u/NaahThisIsNotMe 2d ago
also, a whole lot of horrible people go for the 3k mount / 3.4k whatever while previously they would stop at 10... so spamming 12 for weekly keys isn't safe from scrubs anymore.
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u/Aegisblade99 2d ago
It's keystone hero for the cata charge btw. 2k or like all 7/8s timed or some bs. 10/11s timed is ksm or 2.5k, 12s/13s timed is ksl or 3k.
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u/United_Staff_7243 2d ago
What do you mean muscle through the dungeons? Literally any person can time 10s the past two seasons. You +2 or +3 10s day 1 of the patch. That is not normal.
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u/Voidwielder 1d ago
Well that's my point that it's not normal.
I think the implementation of TWW S1 difficulty curve was wrong but the idea was correct - 10's are basic skill check with 12's becoming the real ''noob'' filter. The curve was a bit aggressive but I thought it was a good idea at the time and I think the last... 4-5 seasons have proven that there are severe difficulty curve issues in M+.
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u/seams 2d ago
Dpsing and healing, it's been interesting how hit or miss dps seem to be this season for me. Either they're a god that is completely locked in, or somehow a non-aug pulling 50k dps in 300+ gear and refuses to interrupt or stun at all
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u/United_Staff_7243 2d ago
The keys are so easy that this is true for all roles. It's simply impossible to find a key with a full group of somewhat competent players after day 2 of the patch.
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u/seams 2d ago
That's fair, and gear will smooth over the bumps
It's just funny how pug 10s have the same iffy vibe asas doing a pre-10 normally is where you never know what you're gonna get lmao
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u/United_Staff_7243 2d ago
Yep. It's gotten to the point where if I'm making the group I actually check if people have m+ logs. On multiple occasions I've had one DPS doing barely above tank damage and one doing below tank damage. I've never done that in my life before. Gear has absolutely made things a way better experience over the past 2 resets.
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u/Viilis 2d ago
What requires 2x melee to kick important casts. Every dangerous spell is on 24+ second cooldown
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u/Yayoichi 2d ago
Only one I can think of is the mini boss at start of voidscar with the shadowbolt volley. But honestly that pull really isn’t that bad once people realize that not every lava bolt has to be interrupted, unless someone gets double bolted or gets bolt+bleed there’s really no danger of dying from the lava bolts, so just need 2 on the mini boss and one on the demo shout guy.
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u/United_Staff_7243 2d ago
Too many people that have no reason to join the keys they join based on their skill level and just get boosted. I've almost not run a key whose keyholder wasn't getting a free boost by virtue of having a +10 or higher.
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u/Emergency-Volume-861 1d ago
The 14’s and up having players not kicking is nuts. It’s one of the things that drives me crazy the most honestly. I played a hunter for a solid decade and I kicked all the time, I had it bound to be super easy and feel natural. I’ve been main healing for 13 years now and the amount of avoidable damage that goes out through missed kicks is ridiculous.
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u/NaahThisIsNotMe 2d ago
tanking keep getting more and more miserable every expect.
pulls are getting bigger and bigger, while also being more and more spread... you just don't pull 2 pack together now, you pull 4 pack open 2 door walk into ground where lasher pop up and there;s 4 archer spread around the place that you need to group up, somehow... but DPS still won't help with kick and knocks to group them
this seems like a BDK season, which is a tank that need setup on every pull to generate threat/ live. meanwhile you have DPS every pull who open as soon as something start to move
Tank balance is still horrible and blizz is either clueless or don't care... no, 25% more mastery won't fix VDH... and gearing up multiple tank is tedious.
gathering mob when wing is down on Ppal is just pure pain
Blizz decided to put a whole bunch of ridiculous mechanic on trash... +25% damage taken proc on earthshaper in ruby? and there's 4 of them on the first pull? sure. that's fun.... -40% max HP + 50% more damage taken on the first pull of murder row? perfect. Flameshaper that no DPS bother to stop because they don't even know what they do? fantastic... atleast most DPS finally figured out it's their job to soak in temple 3rd /4th boss.
Less and less tank pug. because we'd rather not play at all than torture ourselve in LFG with effin retarded DPS.
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u/Lazerkitteh 1d ago
but DPS still won't help with kick and knocks to group them
A part of that is that some of the annoying caster mobs will spam Bolt casts and then later have a "this will wipe you" cast so you don't want to burn your interrupt on a Bolt to help gather and then have the important cast go off later (looking at you, BV cast mobs).
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u/NaahThisIsNotMe 1d ago edited 1d ago
and a bigger part of that is tunnel vision / not wanting to lose a GCD on a kick because they don't have a mouseover / focus target interrupt.
first pull of temple of sethraliss there's no "this will wipe you"" spell from the lightning bolt spamming guy, but somehow the initial caster never get kicked and sit in the ramp forever...
let's stop pretending here. DPS aren't saving their kick because of one particular cast they know is coming 15 second into the fight.... dps don't kick because they don't care. You play DPS because you want a bigger bar on the meter than the other 2 and kicks doesn't help with that. Anything that doesn't make your bar bigger is a tank/healer concern.
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u/Lazerkitteh 1d ago
Well that’s not how I think at least. But this anti-pattern of some mobs baiting you to burn your interrupt only to massively punish it for you later deserves to be discussed. If you just want to shit on dps players that’s up to you, but it’s not original or productive
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u/Aegisblade99 2d ago
I mean... Ppal has wings/DT (aka infinite threat) on a 1 minute cadence. If you don't have it up for every pull you're either using wings when mobs are kinda low, or you're doing really low keys where mobs disappear. When you get to 15/16 range every pull you'll have wings ready
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u/NaahThisIsNotMe 2d ago
If you don't have it up for every pull you're either using wings when mobs are kinda low,
yes. exactly. sitting on wings + toll for 20-30 second because you know you need it as an opener on the next pack feel absolutely awful, especially given the anemic level of damage Ppal do outside of wing.
and DT infinite threat is only if the mob are grouped when you use it ( so every shield bounce AE every other mob and every apex talent spear thingies hit everything). if you need to DT to get spellcaster into the deathball you lose out a ton of damage.
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u/Aegisblade99 2d ago
If you press DT targeted on a caster outside, the other 4 avengers shields will hit other targets, and that's normally in melee already. Yes, holding wings for abit near the end of a pull isn't great, but that's the reality of the spec
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u/NaahThisIsNotMe 2d ago
the other 4 avengers shields will hit other targets
sigh.
yes. but each shield AoE around them. if you DT when everything is stack every shield AE everything around them for big dam.
if you DT while stuff isn't grouped because your DPS opened early, as they alway do, then each shield only AE a small portion of the pull.
Yes, holding wings for abit near the end of a pull isn't great, but that's the reality of the spec
jesus effin christ. so close yet so far heh?
I'm not holding my breath that "" infinite damage for 2 global, good damage for 15 second, and less-than-healer for 45 second is a bad profile for a tank"" complain will be heard... it has only gotten worse compared to TWW... but god damn silence your DPS brain and try to understand the issue here.
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u/patrick66 2d ago
anytime theres a blood or bm season that happens no one knows how to play them except for the mains lol
blood especially blows the fuck up if bone shield falls off (or isnt active because they dont know to pull by turning it on so lol)
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u/NaahThisIsNotMe 2d ago
you mean DPS don't know how to play with them. Especially when we are out of a Gdruid season , a tank that can pump AoE threat on the move all the time.
BDK need setup on every pull before they can generate threat / live... in a world where you have to group 3-4 pack spread apart, with archers and caster mixed in, + DPS opening as soon as something move... playing BDK in a pug setting is just torture.
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u/RigidCounter12 Prot Paladin M+ Connoisseur 2d ago
The thing I have realized the most (seeing as I swapped from tank this season) Is how insane most tanks egos seems to be.
Like in my KR 16. My Veng DH pulls right before 2nd boss perfectly fine. He then leaves a bunch of mobs with 30% and runs sttaight to the 2nd pull, but since he has the pack so close to 2nd boss, the mobs runs straight through the boss and pulls the boss and we wipe. Legit impossible to blame anything other than the tank, but he still lost his shit on us, telling us to "just kill the mobs"
It feels like there are a lot of tank primadonnas out there. Never accept responsibility
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u/Giorgas99 2d ago
Its both tbh obv. Tanks make mistakes but its kinda also a defense reaction to blame dps before they can Blame the tank i think its 3 vs 1 often times
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u/Agentwise 2d ago
This is super easy to see.
2 Tanks for raids
13 DPS
5 Healers
not enough tanks for the dps and healer count.
Why the hell would you ever run a pug as a tank when everyone expects you to know everything and do everything and also if you fuck up its a wipe but if a dps fucks up its a res and dungeon moves on. Also know the route, also know the route I want you to know because thats what my favorite streamer does. Also perfectly line up my cooldowns with your pulls otherwise you're throwing so please know the cool downs for every class. etc. etc. etc.
Tanking is awful and blizzard should make them giga OP for all the crap they have to deal with that DPS dont. Also you dont get to do giga DPS and because of last season your extremely relient on your healer to live, so pretty much your entire job is just to get flamed or play absolute perfectly so other people can shine.
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u/Noet 2d ago
I agree with your post generally (it’s why I started tanking even though I’d rather dps), but what’s missing for me is blizzards design philosophy. They want you to raid with your guild, that’s the primary way to play wow and get gear. And gearing from m+ will always be inferior, because it’s spammable and they want to timegate your progression.
That’s demonstrated even more with the changes to the vault and raiding this season, making raiding even more attractive. But tanking is the least needed role for raiding like you said, so even if you have a guild you’re kind of out of luck. IMO tank stat prio should completely overlap with at least one of the dps off specs.
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u/Chrisand11 18h ago
I agree otherwise they need to introduce threat modifiers that turn the tank into a dps.
E.g. turn on gladiator stance, you’re still doing shield slam and revenge with thunder blast procs, just with dps increase and threat/health/survivability decrease. I recognize the flaws (tuning dmg vs survivability sucks, what if a CE raid clears full of healers and tankdps etc.) but something gotta change.
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u/iQuoteSopranos 2d ago
I can't say I can agree with this. I was pushing 17s last season and no one ever fucked with me unless I did something so monumentally stupid that it ruined the run.
On the other hand I do have to bite my tongue when I'm playing a non tank alt and watching the tank do dumb shit.
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u/cabose12 2d ago
Yeah idk, I've only alt-tanked in the ~2-3k+ range over the past few seasons, and I've truly only had one person hit me with something you could even call toxic, and it was just a "why" on a redundant pull. I'm not defending or justifying toxicity, but I have to imagine that if you're getting shit that much then you probably are doing something wrong
DPS not doing mechs is definitely a problem, but I've also seen plenty of tanks who don't do them either lol
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u/EuphoricEgg63063 2d ago
In the US if youre playing at level its pretty much filled with people that dont even speak English. So youre not going to hear anything. Pretty much zero chat. You esp know its one of them cause no ready check or countdown. Just key goes right in when last player zones into the dungeon.
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u/ghostcrawler_real 1d ago
Tanking is awful and blizzard should make them giga OP for all the crap they have to deal with that DPS dont.
End of Dragonflight had this philosophy nailed, but people had a hissy fit when they ran keys without any healers so Blizzard in their standard way decided to drastically overcorrect into making tanking suck, actually.
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u/Agentwise 1d ago
Oh I'm aware I used to tank on 5 toons until this expansion. Always played Paladin, Druid, Warrior, DH, and BDK. Once Monk became meta I switched to DPS and was like... wait a fucking minute you mean I don't have to do shit literally ever and if I fuck up my roto no one even notices? This shits nice. Will likely never go back to tanking M+, there is little to no reason to. There are literally 0 benefits and only negatives. If they let Tanks either do giga DPS (bring back veng talents) or sustain themselves I might try it again. But for now M+ lost essentially 4 tanks (I'd run one in high keys usually 1-3 behind title) and then the other 4 I'd pug low keys (usually around 3k rating).
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u/TheAverageWonder 2d ago
As some one who plays tank in pugs, I really do not want more competition to get invite!
Since all the good gear in raid I am not playing M+ as much, I am trying find a TVA group.
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u/keg-smash 2d ago
Hahahahaha yeah but blood is fun so fuck 'em. But fr there's a lot of facts here. Cynical but true.
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u/Majuro20 2d ago
Besides the obvious DPS with limited kicks (spriest, balance), if you have less than 20 kicks in a dungeon with plenty of casters in, you have no right to complain about bad tanks / healers.
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u/awrylettuce 2d ago
all the responses lamenting the pains of the tank role could be copy pasted to any season, they're not specific to this season at all.
And all the changes to bonus rolls hit each role the same...
I always OS tank keys because it's insta queue and you have the most influence on the key, but the people playing 10s atm are absolutely asscheeks. Even one-button rotation couldn't save them, the NPCs from follower dungeons would be better. I'm seeing people end at 85k overall end of key. Some keys even ending at #1 overall as tank.
For me, lowering the skill floor for content all the way to the bottom and mixing people of all skill levels has made the pugging experience horrible. Game is more fun when playing at skill parity
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u/United_Staff_7243 2d ago
We've basically gone back to when a 10 was a 10 and the max vault was a 20. Or almost at that point seeing how few 20s were done week one. The max vault needs to go up again.
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u/GodsFaithInHumanity 2d ago
3300io tank here who is quitting. yes m+ loot sucks and is unrewarding. blizz keeps buffing raid loot. all my dps friends have 4p tier and i only have 2p.
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u/Gasparde 2d ago
Hey now, at least you have bad trinkets and no overpowered cantrip weapons to look forwards to. Because god forbid we didn't put the best gear in the game exclusively into raiding, wouldn't wanna dare upsetting the raiders - after all, logical and reasonable pillars of the community such as Dorki, Growl and Tettles keep driving the point home that everything's totally fine the way it is and if you disagree you're a bad mole person anyways.
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u/Care_Cup_Is_Empty 2d ago
Bonus roll bullshit aside, a huge factor is that m+ gear is just turbo bad but this would mainly be a factor for weekly level keys rather than push keys. As a side note, i feel that blizzard has completely missed at their attempts to give DPS players more responsibility in dungeons too.
From the perspective of my push group, it's been really rough to go from the highs of what we think was a very good season in S1, to the lows of the raid loot realization and boring W route dungeons of this season. Morale is pretty low and it feels like we are all waiting for tuning and heroic bosses to get nerfed so that we can go reroll them for inferior gear.
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u/EuphoricEgg63063 2d ago
Blizzard for sure misunderstood that making whatever they tried to do a 'DPS' responsibility just became and extra 'Tank' responsibility.
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u/Care_Cup_Is_Empty 2d ago
In their defense, i personally can't think of any easy ways that don't involve more obvious accountability when someone fails a mechanic, but they probably don't want solutions that are "toxic".
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u/ghostcrawler_real 1d ago
Even a standard "DPS down" style failure state just makes it the responsibility of the healer and tank to pick up the slack rather than the DPS doing literally anything.
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u/Wisterjah 2d ago
Seems like people are still figuring out which tank spec to gear and being cautious about blood dk meta being real. I'm a blood dk main so I've been having a good time but I can see how disaster à fotm reroller would be on blood.
For keys at the moment people have barely stopped farming their 10-12s so à lot of dps pushing 16-17s without any clue about mechs making most depletes about failing mechanics.
I think in a few weeks as player base and meta becomes more set it will be more tank friendly
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u/nyrudah 2d ago
From a mostly tank player here are a few things I’ve noticed compared to last season.
1 more cc is needed and dps has not been adjusting to help (on my prot pally I’ve had 50+ interrupts vs 15 of the rest of the team combined in a single run) yeah prot is a monster at interrupts but still.
2 a lot more adds fixate and jump to others and then return to tank. Dps not using defensive when needed kill the timer
3 dps pulling extra adds constantly (arcane is the new boomkin)
4 people refusing to learn the mechanics is making people not tank for them
5 dispel is becoming an issue
6 micro managing, and being ungrateful (not asking for hero worship, but damn stop blaming the tanks for others bad playing, kill the totems, kick, and bump when needed)
I’m sure it may not be a popular opinion or that more issues may be involved but we can’t abuse a key member of a run and then complain when no one wants to do it for us.
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u/Zanaxz 1d ago
Bonus rolls put the game in a weird spot. For the most part you are better off taking them, unless it's a piece of gear from something that doesn't offer anything else you want.
Essentially all you have to do is get 3 vault slots, and they can be lvl 1 delves or a heroic dungeon/ lfr e.t.c. This is pretty nice for maintaining alt options depending on what gets nerfs and buffs later.
The biggest problem in the game is the early season is way too timegated. Crest limits, having to wait on catalyst charges for people that got unlucky, waiting on bonus rolls, sparks, e.t.c. Tbh outside of playing the game for fun with friends, I just do the maintenance chores as boring as they are. Pretty sure it's the same for most people.
I think they need to speed up tier and crest caps much sooner. Seasons are short, let people play the game if they want to. People that grind will probably swap to alts pretty often and play them too if the pacing doesn't suck. Artificial timegates just make a lot of people quit, rather than keep them playing imo.
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u/JakeParkbench 2d ago
This theory would make alot more sense in like 4 or 5 weeks from now since raid is still really dogshit for getting bulk loot at the start of a season compared to spamming some of the frees 10s in a while.
A single full clear raid will expect to get a play 1.4 pieces on average a week, with the majority not even close to killing hero altar or ulatek. Raiders dont suddenly have 16 BRs week one and you arnt getting funneled loot unless you are buy the run. So the majority is still farming keys for gear early.
Additionally if we are talking the majority that would be heroic raiders who will be only getting myth 1/6 pieces from BRs and will still need myth crests. And they only get 40 from raid and delves each week. So they still need the 10s to 12s for crests.
Myth raiders will be less likely but thats such a small percent of the overall endgame playerbase, and even then most need to roll on late boss for gear which they wont see for months, so they will be rolling heroic for weeks. But will likely still require a few crests for a bit until they can do late reclears, which most wont since there is likely a few perma extend bosses again.
Overall I think its just standard season to season drop paired with the fact that players are banking hard on only getting BRs for alts which means you dont need any runs on those toons while the mains are still farming.
Side note. Nothing this season did addressed the nature of playing tank at the moment so I doubt any real changes hit the role, rather we are probably experiencing a continued drop of tanks as less people join the role and more just quit because the role sucks.
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u/Gemmy2002 2d ago
Myth raiders will be less likely
still need crests, won't have enough bosses down to cap with delves + raid for a while unless you're HOF level
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u/lackofexistent 2d ago
Loot in mythic plus sucks.. there’s really nothing there other than bragging rights.
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u/Gasparde 2d ago
And even those bragging rights basically mean nothing considering that what feels like half of the presumably prestigious keys are boosted anyways.
So unless you're actually getting title, you don't even get to brag - because we're 10 years in and we still don't have a proper ladder system or reward structure.
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u/Varanae 2d ago
Loot sucks, bonus rolls only need 3 slots of any vault level, knowing 1% will be ~4k is demotivating.
Anecdotally I’m seeing very few people playing around the 13 level currently and those that do join are pretty bad. Yesterday it was the weekend and there was only a max of 10 keys in the group finder and even when I joined one there simply wasn’t many people applying, even dps
I thought it was odd but perhaps it is simply that most decent level players have no reason to touch m+ and the good ones are already well above 13/14
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u/m00tz 1d ago
The changes to bonus rolls have likely lead to a reduction of the available *players* in the M+ pool overall.
My guild is like 80% people who have always done a sufficient amount of keys in order to not fall behind on raid gear. I wouldn't be surprised if this was somewhat similar across most of the upper-middle section of the pve-focused player base. With m+ gear being mostly bad, bonus rolls, and being in a guild that clears heroic and raids mythic; the sufficient amount of m+ required from next week forward is zero.
I think bonus rolls and vault changes just exacerbate the problems that already existed with finding groups at key levels higher than +10-12.
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u/TiltedSkipper 1d ago edited 1d ago
Most of this is community driven imo.
I am 2700 io on my vdh. Decided to gear up my prot warrior. Played with a few friends and got 5/8 dungeons done all +10. Many we kept getting the same +10 over and over. Ended up sitting at 1700ish io, 305 ilvl.
They aren't online so I decided to pug the last 3 dungeons i hadn't done yet on my prot war. Im 305 ilvl btw. Anything below a +7 is literally a waste of my time and frankly just boring.
Declined to every group key range 7-10. Most of the party leaders were 500+ io lower than me too. They would rather sit waiting 20 min for a 2600 io tank than invite a tank who actually needs the dungeon for io/gear.
Finally ended up accepted to a +6 after 15 min.
100% a community issue. People want to be carried and they put that responsibility on the tank. Both in the dungeon and at the group formation.
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u/dankq 1d ago
Sat in a stack with one player on an alt in full veteran/champ to help gear with no score, 3 title players in group with high ilvl. Got declined from every +10 group that we applied to. If the m+ community doesn't change it's going to cannibalize itself like the PvP scene.
10s have been farmed first day of the season in last seasons gear for a very long time now, I'm not even sure why people are like this but it's so gross.
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u/IllPurpose3524 2d ago
People would still be running keys to get to 3/6 hero at this point. In a month or so I could see that becoming an issue. Just anecdotally, I haven't had issue finding groups in the under 12 range.
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u/flinsypop 2d ago
It's a problem for me still even with guild keys, never mind pugging. I'm not a tank main but I tank guild keys. If my raid ever needed a triple dps class for something, it'd be impossible and I'd just be adding a lot more work because it's not as if weekly keys suddenly arent needed. I did it in TWW S1 and it was hell waiting and its the same still to this day. It says a lot about the game when even in the safespace of a guild, people still have problems tanking. I realise that it sucks that if your class can tank, youre expected to try and help. However, if tanking sucks to the point where its a problem to trade weekly keys without a fuss then Im not sure if its a mechanics/design problem or social expectation burnout. I would guess its the latter because its not like +10s are even difficult with fresh characters but for those not comfortable with tanking, it really feels like the first.
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u/FlintFlintar 2d ago
I been waiting 5 and 10 years for blood dk to be good again. Im having a blast :)
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u/jvcgunner 2d ago
What are bad tank traits?
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u/SunkistGuru2025 1d ago
As someone who plays all three roles throughout the season, I think there are a lot bad tank traits but the ones that stand out the most to me are:
- Failing to actively tag each mob while grouping the pack. Tagging all mobs allows DPS to start doing some damage to build resources, spread dots, fish for procs, etc. so they can dump damage when stacked. It also allows the healer to do triage healing as the group is being gathered.
- Pulling outside of or significantly below their ability. Pulling one pack at a time, or overpulling such that the group cannot survive (think last platform RLP all in one pull with no lust).
- Letting enemies hit them in the back. This has become more common in midnight or i've just noticed it more. Tanks will just stand in the middle of a pack of enemies letting 2-3 smack them in the back instead of repositioning. Also relevant when gathering enemies, some tanks run straight through the middle of the pack letting the entire pack hit them in the back on their way to the next pack or the newest one is after RP event in MR, they gather those mobs before 2nd boss and try to open the door themselves with the pack just punching them in the back of the head.
- Not using defensives for tank busters. I get this being a thing in lower keys as you're learning the fights, but tanks should know the tank busters by 14s and 15s and have a plan on how to deal with them other than just "hope I live."
A lot of it comes with experience, and tanks unfortunately gaining that experience can mean a tank death which impacts the group a lot more than a DPS death or Healer death as a group can recover from the later two in some cases but a tank death is almost always going to result in multiple deaths if not a wipe.
The tank has the responsibility of not dying more than anyone else in the party and in most cases, can and should be able to survive without the healer intervening so it puts a lot of pressure on the tanks. Tanks have to balance defensiveness with damage and both require good positioning, planning, execution and awareness so the mental load can be a bit higher, especially early in the season when people aren't fully geared and are less well equipped to handle the unexpected.
What leads to bad tanking is I think a combination of what is required of a tank and how quickly a tank can progress through key levels. A tank can quite easily get to +12 keys with very little knowledge of their class or dungeon and then as they push into keys where that knowledge matters and they don't have it, they start dying. The impact of that death is often lost on them as they can just queue and instantly get into another dungeon without much reflection on what went wrong.
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u/Sad-Donut747 2d ago
i played tank since legion but this addon i switched to heal/dps because tanking feels so boring compared to before midnight and i cannot play tank anymore with the changes. blizz actively destroyed tanking for me and im 100% sure im not the only one which feels this way
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u/Sad-Banana7249 1d ago
Doesn't help that the default, highlighted route they added to help tanks not have to memorize dungeons suck this tier, especially in places like Den. If you use that route it's tough to time. And yeah yeah, I've heard "tanks should memorize routes before" but that's a ton of homework for one spec in the group alone. They added this to make tanking easier to get into, then basically took it away.
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u/TiltedSkipper 1d ago
Are the highlighted actually that bad? I was doing MDT routes and then just switched to highlighted as im lazy and pugs seem to prefer it. Been +2ing all my 10s and just had a 10 +3 murder row using highlighted.
Probably changes at the higher key ranges.
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u/Sad-Banana7249 1d ago
For some dungeons it's bad, like Den. Others the there's not many options in the route.
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u/TurtleTurtleTu 1d ago
Long time tank here. And exclusively M+ for years now. Mainly I just feel kind of unmotivated - I can't put my finger on exactly why, but I think it's a death of a thousand papercuts:
- Tanks feel weak, and tank balance is horrendous. I only play DH, and it's...fine. My DPS specs are much more fun.
-VDH specifically I just can't get past having RNG defensive cooldowns. This needs to go.
M+ loot and especially tier acquisition from M+ is at an all time low. I have gotten zero tier from vault.
Even if I got tier I'd probably take a token instead for long term value. So I can just fill vault from low effort content and accumulate voidcores and gear tokens for a few weeks.
Trinkets are more skewed towards raid than ever.
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u/Monkaaay 1d ago
I just started tanking this season and I'm really enjoying it. I like the dungeons, as I'm currently working through 12s. I have the quickest ignore trigger finger for any player who complains and that makes a big difference.
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u/Agreeable_Hawk_7513 1d ago
I hit 3k on my vengeance dh week two, crests are maxed vault is filled. I have no incentive to log back on besides maybe farming gear but gear farm feels so bad in m+ so why bother.
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u/No_Technician1870 1d ago
The best thing you can do for yourself as a tabk is push IO early on so you consistently play with good players. Ive got all 15's timed on my prot pally and maybe 1 out of every few keys there is someone who shouldn't really be in that key and I've noticed less ragers when the key doesn't work out. Tanking is extremely fun!!
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u/Ecstatic-Engine4550 1d ago
You just press a button and your character converts to being a tank. Most people will not tank because they are not very good and it would be revealed with a spotlight if they tanked whereas it's somewhat masked and carryable by dpsing
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u/Nogamara 1d ago
FWIW I think comparing anything in S1 and S2 of an expansion is problematic, especially if one has Heroic week and one doesn't.
Main point: You don't just walk into Normal with last expansion's gear but people did Heroic and +10s on day 1 in last season's gear and that is just the very simplified metric.
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u/SunkistGuru2025 1d ago
I also looked expansion to expansion. TWW consistently had closer numbers between S1, S2, and S3 than we are seeing between S1 and S2 of Midnight. Similarly, S1 of Midnight I am not a 1% player and I had resilient 12s on day one of season 1 in midnight. In terms of M+ and gear you are coming into the season with, I don't think the gap is as wide as you are suggesting.
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u/Electrical_Pop_2850 1d ago
From a perspective of a main tank who doesn't like raiding in general, i really don't feel like I'll be playing this season much longer
Last season I hit resil 22, and this season I am currently resil 17
I have spent many hours playing this season, forced myself through weekly raids even though I hate it (just to get nothing btw) and pushed keys that feelt way harder than they should because of my awful gear
I don't feel motivated to farm gear from M+ because if I plan to push to title this season I have to either get gear from raid or quit, there is no in between
The gap between m+ and raid gear has gotten so big that just by not raiding you are in crazy disadvantage, and honestly I can't see myself doing the raid every week, I can't find anything fun about raiding
My original plan was to stack reroll tokens and in the mid season when it's much easier farm the bosses I need with the rerolls but that option disappeared aswell when blizzard decided you can reroll each boss once a week
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u/j821c 1d ago
I did begrudgingly spend some time this week trying to run the raid instead of tanking mythic+ because blizzard felt the need to put 75% of the BiS for my class in the raid so that was annoying. Also, I've found tanking this season to be a bit more irritating. The pulls are just annoying because there are so many casters. There's also a fair few stacking debuffs that healers must dispel but at lower mythic+ just...don't
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u/Deagin 1d ago
I've decided to try to learn tank at a high level this season and I see why tanks are not popular.
Gearing like you mentioned sucks because its hard to get into a pug raid as a tank and when you do its boring as fuck. you can go dps but you gotta be able to parse well to get into any good group. M+ is easy to gear but you wont be getting bis trinkets and your vaults are going to be way shittier (harder to stay on top of meta).
You have to spend a lot of time outside the game to learn routes, how to pull certain packs, cd usage etc and if you just spam keys and vibe it out your routes will be out dated and you'll get flamed for eternity.
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u/Secretary-Foreign 1d ago
I used to tank. I loved it and did it literally for years. I even made title 1 season. But tbh I just can stand the other players constantly giving me shit about everything anymore. You have to learn top steamer MDI routes and follow them perfectly or people complain or worse yet pull extra mobs into you to match what they think you need to do. They don't care what your CDs are. On top of that when you miss the timer or wipe 99% of the time they blame the tank. Idk if the griefing is actually worse or maybe I'm just getting older and can't be f'ed.
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u/wyolars 1d ago
I enjoy tanking keys, so I do it but I have to maintain a holy set for raid.. the bonus rolls kinda suck in that regard as I have to choose which spec get priority.
I really wish all slots would change from int to strength and/or let you save crest of you already spent crest crafting same spot, I need 2 diffent weapons at the very least plus trinkets and different rings cuz I meed different stat prio.
So I'm 2 more weeks behind other m+ tanks cuz I have to prioritize raid tons degree. If I went ret it be even worse with 4 sparks, and the star prio is flipped..
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u/Rewnzor 1d ago
You can collect your bonus roll in 20 minutes by running lvl 1 delves. Once you have a bonus roll you just need to kill the boss/dungeon you're rolling once. This gives you one of your three squares for a bonus roll. 4 delves (10 mins) and you're good for the week.
I believe blizzard fully intends to kill m+ for the season to benefit project camelot.
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u/Mintasa 1d ago
I can’t speak for other tanks, but I’m a tank in a raiding guild, I usually play a lot the first 2-3 weeks of a season in m+. On multiple classes aswell.
But this season i got 3k Rio on day 2. And I have done maybe 10 m+ since then. 4/8 Dungeons this season, absolutely suck..
Also… there is shit on the floor on every pull. And targets that need to be interrupted, every single pull.
And with the changes to bonus rolls in raid, I’ve had 0 reason to actually go into a m+ again.
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u/BurnForestBurn 1d ago
The best kickers among dps are arm warriors and rets
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u/SunkistGuru2025 21h ago
This was written by an arms warrior with a ret alt wasn't it? lol
Really, some DPS are really good at kicks and CC's nowadays, even if their class' ability to kick is fairly limited. Some, unfortunately, are also really bad.
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u/BurnForestBurn 20h ago
No. I have only one character on the account. It’s how I see people care about dps duties. It’s clearly noticeable on fire/healing totems who run for them to kill
As a tank killing those totems it’s a pain in the ass for me moving 5+ hiring like trucks mobs.
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u/Apart_Security8614 1d ago
Call me crazy but when you make all the m+ item stats utter shit, change how catalyst works, and add the reroll mechanic, its small wonder everyone goes to raid. My m+ team was chunked hard this week as everyone was trying to clear bosses to get invites to ulatek to get their bis
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u/SnooDoughnuts2302 1d ago edited 1d ago
You are right, the answer is very simply: People don’t want to play tanks, I mean, tank role is great and nice to play as tank, but as tank you have to be always on the edge, dance with mobs.a lot of work to do and will be always some guy who will say: STOP MOVING MOBS, sooo… =
80% of people want do m+ and watch YT, that’s why there is tons of healers and DD.
Plus, extra reason is - as solo tank, you can go in random party (not your own key) and you will see that in this party will be 1-2 low geared people who are in AT with friends, and you as geared tank don’t want to turtle this. And people don’t want low geared tank, because, if heal is a party leader and it’s his key, often, healer will be low geared.
This is why tanks use their own keys, after they geared up, yes they do raids or quests, or/and start DPS or heal twink.
Something like that
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u/Failnewbxen 18h ago
Highly anecdotal but I rerolled tank and got invited to +10s as a 250 ilvl guardian druid. People def be hurting for tanks for 10s. The push keys seem to have the same amount of tank sign ups though, 13+ plenty of sign-ups.
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u/Vutenheim 5h ago
I don't think it's a tank only issue. I just spent 3 hours in queue (both applying and listing my key) to just not get to play the game. I am playing a lust class, but I am not meta, and I can pull my weight in spite of that and not having set bonuses yet. And I only started about a week late, it's only going to get drastically worse as the season ages.
I'm wondering why I even bothered trying to play.
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u/no_Post_account 16m ago
You are probably right. If you don't have to do M+ for gear anymore, why would you go and tank when you are raiding as a dps? There is just no reason to play m+ right now.
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u/sugmuhdig19 2d ago
Always thought changing it to 4 dps + healer + tank would solve a lot of problems, the tank ratio in raids just sets m+ up to fail
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u/WideOption9560 2d ago
Tank pugging +16s here.
Honestly, I don't play much and that's because of the community.
You can't imagine how much players are toxic with tanks because they don't know X or Y mechanics (even tho it's only the 2nd week OF THE SEASON).
And my English is quite bad and basic, so it's another reason for players to make fun of me.
If you want to see more tanks: Be friendly, explain where are mistakes and how to fix them. Not gonna lie, I always have to DM people to make the first move and apologize (even if the person insulted my family going back 16 generations) just to get information about the mistakes that were made.
It's quite exhausting, I usually need a pause after 2 or 3 keys.
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u/Ojntoast 2d ago
the impact of bonus rolls should hit all roles similarly.
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u/SunkistGuru2025 2d ago
Unless one role in particular is needed at a much higher rate in M+ than it is in raid. Raid is typically 2/5(or 4)/13(or 14). That's 5 healers for 4 groups, 13 DPS for 4 groups, but only 2 tanks for 4 groups. This means without incentive for non-tank players to play tanks (faster M+ queue times to get M+ loot), the tank shortage would be exacerbated. Loot from M+ being closer to raid loot encourages those who can, to play tank for quicker queues. If M+ loot is largely irrelevant, there is less incentive for DPS or healers who can swap to tank, to do so for M+, thus maintaining the gap between tanks and other roles.
While it may reduce the total number of players doing M+ across all roles, I suspect it impacts the number of tanks more because M+ loot was the incentive for more people to play tanks.
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u/Redd411 1d ago edited 1d ago
ignoring 'social' issues for sec.. reason I stopped playing at all is that class design is dog shit.. this includes all classes but feels even worse as tank.. their only way to add friction is to cut down on tanks survivability and agency. Dungeon design is mid and playing recycled dungeons that I've played to death in past is just inexcusable in sub based game. Addon rework was a big miss and things are still janky for bliz own addons. It was a fun ride but it's been progressively just getting worse after legion. (and.. this is just conjecture.. for past few expansions it felt like someone had a mission to nerf bdk into the ground.. while keeping vdh the golden child.. as a bdk player this felt super shitty and just another reason to quit).
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u/HabloMemes 2d ago
I have spent more time waiting for tanks in queue than I have playing this season it feels like. Pure speculation and bias but it does feel like combination of the dungeons kind of sucking and people not needing keys for the gear they want.