Loading ...“Downshifting”, Another step towards more Hybrid Tanks?
Unless you’re one of those people that doesn’t enjoy following along with the hype of a new expansion, you’ve probably already read Wowhead’s coverage on new Cataclysm information. The highlight for me was Downshifting. The ability to take a 25 man raid and break it into multiple 10 man raids. I’m not only excited about this because it gives casual guilds that raid like mine more options, but also because it’s pretty big news for hybrid tanking.
What’s a Hybrid Tank?
All of the tanking classes are capable of being “Hybrid Tanks”. When I talk about Hybrid Tanks what I’m really talking about is a person that’ll dps (or heal) frequently with one spec and just as frequently tank with the other spec. And while sure, a Hybrid Tank was possible in Vanilla and done to a lesser extent then, it was really born with the creation of Dual specialization.
Hybrids or Alts?
What remains to be seen is how will Downshifting be utilized. Many guilds already run a single 25 man and multiple 10 mans right now. So, how is Downshifting different? The difference lies in how the raid changes or doesn’t change during the Downshifting process.
When a raid changes from 25 to multiple 10 mans, will those extra tanking spots be taken over by alts or will hybrids already a part of the 25 man change to their tank spec? (or do just brand new people step into this role?)
I’m banking on the Hybrids.
Once you start farming 25 man content, a lot of loot gets wasted (disenchanted). With Cataclysm’s approach to 25 mans being, “we’re going to throw a massive amount of loot at you” and with them offering the same loot in 10 mans, tanking loot is going to go to waste that much faster. Or more to the point, Hybrids are going to be geared up that much faster. Because of that fact, I’m banking on raids using Hybrid Tanks more and more.
After all, a raid would rather take tanks that are better geared than those that aren’t. And while players often push against this idea because they love gearing up their alts, when it comes to progress, the raid usually wins.
What this means for “New” Tanks
Whether it’s the start, middle or end of an expansion, there’s always a question of how does one become a tank. And while being amazing is a great answer, it’s just not practical.
The road to tanking often starts with dpsing for many players. Cataclysm looks to be encouraging this idea even more. You’ll get into your guilds 10 and 25 man raids by dpsing and while dpsing, you’ll collect your tanking set. If you’ve put in the effort in 5 mans, acquiring boe items and crafting, it won’t be long before you’ve got a quality tanking set to compliment your dps set. That’s how you’ll get the opportunity to tank your first 10 man. Your performance in that 10 man is how you’ll get the opportunity to tank your first 25 man. Your performance there (or perhaps your fellow tanks lack of performance) will determine whether or not you get to make the coveted change from Hybrid Tank to Full-time Tank.
Which isn’t to imply that this all will happen in the course of a few weeks. It can easily take months for even a single tanking opportunity to open up and it’s usually going to take far more than a single performance to even take over the 10 man tanking role. The 25 man tanking role is an even greater long shot.
I hate to admit it gang, but sometimes… you’re better off lucky than good. Of course, the idea is to be both lucky AND good. And since you cannot control the former, you might as well work towards the latter.
Best of luck.
June 13th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
First I’d like to see the concept/playstyle of tanking become more appealing for those hybrid classes that refuse to tank. My guild got their tanks geared up relatively quickly, and all the extra tank pieces get sharded because nobody else wants to tank.
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June 13th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Funny thing is, Vene, at least in my guild, all of the tanks love getting to DPS instead of tanking. I think we’re all just to the point of burnout and any change in roll is fun because of that. Point being, we’re kind of doing the opposite, going from full time tank to hybrid, instead of the other way around.
I’m really hoping that the new xpac will including much more challenging content for tanks so that being a hybrid doesn’t stand out as the best way to enjoy wow anymore. As of now, there’s just too many “tank and spank” fights, and even the ones that require real tanking are simply mastered too quickly and start to feel like tank and spank, even with movement involved.
I’m not sure about you, but when I get to DPS I feel like there’s actually more to do, more things to watch out for, more things to run from, etc, etc. So, now we all prefer dps, go figure.
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June 13th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
I only tank. I have duel prot specs and no desire to DPS. I suppose being a raid leader in my 10 man or helping lead as the #2 tank/officer in the 25’s keeps me engaged beyond just my role. I’m still as hooked as ever on being “only” a tank, however I do agree we could use some more depth in encounters.
The whole issue in my mind starts with the fact their are limited slots available for tanks in the “real” raids (currently the 25’s). We actually have the smallest number of slots allocated for us. So when new tanks try to break out into the raiding scene they are already hit with a wall. Most guilds have their established tanks already, so either you get lucky and one quits or you start your own guild/join a fresh one.
I would like to see the number of tanks in raids increase. I think having a tanking “core” of more than just 2 would start to make things interesting again.
Of course every time I talk about this (and I have many times before on tankspot) I get hit with the usual
“you can’t do that, will need more healers!”
“you can’t do that, there will be less DPS slots!”
“you can’t do that, encounters would be to hard to create!”
I call bs.
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cidninja reply on June 14, 2010 12:16 am:
i dunno. to some extent i understand, but as hard as it is to find competent tanks already i don’t want fights to require 5 or 6 of them.
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Celdhyrean reply on June 14, 2010 3:02 am:
>I would like to see the number of tanks in raids increase.
At the very least i’d like to see a smaller disparity between 10 and 25. Requiring 2 tanks for 10 but also only 2 tanks for 25 makes my head hurt as a guild officer :/
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silmarien reply on June 14, 2010 11:19 am:
The thing is, having a strict set of tank requirements per encounter puts a straitjacket on the developers. They have to do things like force a cleave soak mechanic (marrowgar) or blood mirror (BQL). Are these mechanics really all that interesting? They can be - in moderation. When you see them on every boss to force a 3 tank set, it gets a little old.
LDW and VDW are both good examples of built in tank number variety. You CAN do dreamwalker 10 with 1 tank - but its easier to use 2 - BUT you trade off adds dps or direct healing maybe for it. Deathwhisper 25 can certainly be done with 2 but 3 is nice for pulling the back add to a side - or using a dps dk to do it. The raid gets to choose. And each has pros and cons. PUtricide is another good one - 1 tank on ph 1, 3 in ph 3. Thats good variety.
Let me give a an older example: Faerlina in Naxx 40. You had to have SEVEN tanks. Each add hit hard and the priests needed time to Mind Control leading up to her enrage. No way all of them could be prot specced with great prot gear. Often you had to use arms warriors (having no other viable plate dps back then) to hold the least dangerous of them. Once their add was down, they switch to dps. This it can easily be applied in a 10m situation as Vene described (imagine 1-2 prot specced tanks with 1-2 plate dps/beardruids temporarily holding some add then going to dps. Do you really want every 10 man encounter being a strictly 2 tank fight and 25 a strictly 3 tank fight? I think you want fights on either side of that spectrum (sometimes more, sometimes less, sometimes switch roles midfight).
Its hard as an officer to socialize the concept of being agile but such is the nature of things.
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Bhig reply on June 14, 2010 4:20 pm:
I would like to see a “virtual” floor for the number of tanks required for any given encounter. I think most of us would accept that there will always be some parts of a fight when you’ll just be running around doing nothing. I think that’s part of the game. But I’d like to see that during progression, if you’ve been taken into a group as a tank, you’ll have something to do most of the time.
Fights like XT and Ignis are a couple of reasonable examples that come to my mind. I only ran them on 10 man. Those fights were possible with fewer tanks, but during the progression times I think most groups would’ve run 2 (and sometimes a plate dps back up on ignis). That’s what I’d like to see maintained.
Fights like Hodir (and to some degree Mimiron) are ones I’d prefer never to see again. Only requiring a single tank seemed stink to me (although I like the fight from others aspects like coordination, timing, etc). I can only imagine that on 25 man it was even worse for tanks (paper, rock, scissors anyone).
I don’t think the devs will struggle to keep the tank requirements up, but I do think they may struggle to keep it interesting. Hopefully they’ll be scouring the forums for ideas from players.
Personally I want to see the return of resistances! I used to be the soak tank for koralon and had some fun trying to build a flame proof set. It didn’t actually work out unfortunately, by the time I had enough flame resist we weren’t struggling all that much anymore, but it was a fun challenge.
Cornfedhick reply on June 14, 2010 11:05 am:
Some of the most fun fights I healed were the multi-tank fights like Magtheridan and Gruul. Most raids after Kara required at least 4 tanks. Now that my main is a tank it makes me sad that I don’t get to do fun fights like those anymore.
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June 14th, 2010 at 12:26 am
that last paragraph is so true. i had to find a new guild recently, and of course it’s hard to get into an established guild as a tank. i got lucky and managed to get in one as a hybrid tank. i had been collecting offspec gear as i went and i figured it might be nice for a change to switch and dps every now and then. once i proved myself tanking for them and they saw that i was good at it, i got a pretty consistent tank role for progression and such.
i would say tanks should definitely be familiar with (and geared for) an offspec. if something happens to your situation and you’re trying to find a guild, you’ll have much better chances if you can perform in more than one role.
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June 14th, 2010 at 10:34 am
I’m just now trying to get my Pally Tank back up to par so I can try to get into some Alt ICC 10 runs, but I’m a bit frightened to tank in ICC for the first time. I enjoy tanking, but I very much want to be prepared. And when I look at the people who we have currently tanking, and then I look at my Tank, there’s a big difference (and I don’t see a lot of upgrades outside of ICC 10 that aren’t a time sink to get that wouldn’t be replaced in one or two runs). So I’ve been building a Ret set so I can go in as DPS and pick up so Tanking “off spec” pieces.
Even with the gear resets, you can mostly only get 232 gear from Emblems (on the high end), and that’s a big difference to the 251 stuff you get in ICC10.
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June 14th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
I think its a great idea… I usually design any character with ‘Jack of all trades’ in mind, and to have more call to be able to run multiple roles just adds to the playability of the game.
You know what i’m looking for? The day my Shammy gets a shot at Tanking… Ok, its only Mail armor, but i can wear shields!! C’mon! Give Enhancement some defensive cool downs, and i’m GOLDEN!
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June 15th, 2010 at 9:12 am
shamans used to be able to tank at one time but blizz broke it for some reason…wanted to try it on my shaman to, pretty cool idea tbf
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Sanzpants reply on June 15, 2010 12:08 pm:
Especially in the current environment of All Paladins, All the time… there is so much talk of ‘Evasion tanking’ for rogues, and ‘Drain Tanking’ for Locks, both of which have moves for the purpose of generating threat… Shamans only have moves that reduce threat, or produce no additional threat (at least Enhancement, haven’t looked at other specs).
One of my favorite battles was on my Hunter, in my very first Heroic, fighting Skadi… BearTank died, then healer, then he came for my Devilsaur, who died… I ‘Fake Died’, and Skadi went for the other Hunter, who was MUCH better geared than me… he walked past me, I Phoenix’d my Devilsaur and started dropping bombs… other two DPS died finally, Devil died again, but i was able to Kill Shot him FTW… Because i was able to manipulate the threat enough to avoid damage! There are a number of boss fights that both my Hunter and my Lock have picked up the slack and finished it out in the same way, by drawing heat long enough to DPS the thing down…
I know a hunter or shaman will never be able to replace a Plate Tank… and maybe i’m totally off-beat and have no concept of how much damage the Raid Bosses do and don’t realize how futile my Huntard would actually be if the tank died… but, its all about Glory, and Tanking = Glory! I should be able to handle an off-tank position for a minute or two, considering i can heal myself! C’mon, gimme a chance!!
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June 16th, 2010 at 8:39 am
Sanzpants, you should check out WHU.com, they have a whole section on pet tanking, and YES it is very do-able. I actually grouped with the toon that wrote all the articles last night as we ran through Utgarde with the Croc tanking! Not a single death for anyone, nor did we have mobs chasing after us. I can’t comment on tanking with a Lock, as I have no experience with that, but with a Hunter, it is certainly possible (though you spec/gear differently than you would otherwise). I know their article says you can realistically pet tank right up through most of the Wotlk Heroics, but I don’t think its a viable option in actually raid environments.
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Sanzpants reply on June 17, 2010 11:48 am:
whu.com is a search engine, is there an actual sight you had in mind?
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Scrawny reply on June 18, 2010 1:44 pm:
he’s talking about WarcraftHuntersUnion.com
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June 16th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
I started playing wow when TBC came out as a warrior.And until Wotlk i didn’t hat do dps for raids with a few exception.I even leveled as protection, i know had time back then.
Even so i had full tier 6 dps gear so i can farm.The only difference was i didn’t had the dps spec., that came with dual- spec.
The good thing about downshifting is that you don’t need to make extra days of raiding.About hybrids they all ready exist and now you will get more gear then will be in Cataclysm.In TOTC and TOTGC i played 4 characters with 4 raids each , a total of 16 raids of 10,10H,25 and 25H so we can get all the items and gear we needed for progression.I believe that the gearing will be harder in Cataclysm since you can only raid one lock-up.The big downsize is that guild will have to rely on people to stick to a guild.
I hate the idea that a main tank should only have 2 specs of tanking.We run with 5 tanks and we all have the second spec as dps.If i need an other spec for tanking i respec before the raid.
Remember one thing guilds don’t change tanks to often, so finding a spot as a tank(in particularly MT ) is way more hard then entering as a dps.
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June 16th, 2010 at 2:38 pm
Being a player that has played since release, I appreciate the thoughts of other-class tanks (although i think they are misplaced in this discussion). I have very fond memories of farming Scholomance with shammy tanks while trying to get my first dungeon set helm.
However, I’ve seen the other side of this. The game made to have role-blending. I hated Everquest 2 for this reason. What do you want to be? Caster dps? Grats, theres 4 classes that do that.
Rogue/stealthy DPS? Grats, another 4 classes.
Be able to soak some damage? Cool, 4 possibilities. Heal? 4 there too.
It may sound cool, but it was (still is) the biggest mess of not-knowing-who-to-pick you could imagine. Having 4 classes for every role just meant each one was veeeeeeeery similar in what they did. Simply put, it was bad game-design. It was actually the primary reason for me leaving the game.
WoW gives you options, but not so many that you really have no idea what to pick. Everquest has 24 freaking classes. WoW has 10. I don’t care how good, how creative, how imaginitive, or how balanced your game design is. You CANNOT make 24 different classes feel useful in a role AND unique.
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June 18th, 2010 at 10:44 am
I think opening up tanking roles to more classes is only going to create problems for current tanks. It’s fine in very specific scenarios (using a Lock to tank Mim’s head or Keleseth, or a hunter to kite Rotface ooze) but the reality is that tanks currently have the fewest available positions per raid, whether 10 or 25 man, yet there are already as many Tank classes vying for those spots as there are healing classes, who on average get 1-4 more raid slots. I’m lucky in that I’m in an established, 3+ yr old guild with clearly defined intentions to continue raiding on through Cata and beyond, but for current tanks in less-stable situations, I would be greatly concerned for their tanking future if, say, Hunter Pet tanking (as an example) were ever a universally-viable alternative for a raid slot prevously occupied by a player tank.
Bring back the days of The Few and The Proud.
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June 18th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
Seeing this article has made me think that it has more to do with Dual Spec than anything else “imo”. The simple fact that a tank that does not know the roles of the raid itself is astounding to me. Personally, I do not understand that concept. If you have speicific roles in a raid then great. However, if you do not have the humility to be able to say “tank this because your class is more suited for it”, then you shouldn’t be raiding.
The reasoning I have is because I believe the optimum raid group is one that continuously adapts to any situation and adversity. aka.: Switch when needed to benefit the team, not yourself.
Bowing down and being able to do more than one side of your toon makes us better tanks. No matter pally or bear or warrior, being proficient in each aspect is better for an all around tank. You know where the mele stand so face boss this way, you know how certain spells are cast so mitigate the damage to help the healers.
To many people down the line have seem to forgotten about all the team instead of just themselves.
If there are to many people that want to lead and not enough followers, who do we obey other than the leader with the biggest stick……but only out of fear do we follow that leader. The one that earns the respect is the one that becomes the true heart of a group.
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June 30th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
I think that’s an odd definition of “hybrid tank” given they’re increasingly talking about dps flavors of tank classes being able to slap on a shield and tank in normal dungeons and such.
I also think the looting/sharding of gear is a hard thing to quantify since random loot is random and different guilds have different loot systems.
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