Thursday, April 7, 2011

Call to Arms: Tanks!

Is this the fix we need? I'm not sure, but one thing is certain, having a shield is going to make the tidal wave of tears much easier to ride, heck I can even use my mace as a paddle for when it slows down.

In patch 4.1 we'll be introducing Dungeon Finder: Call to Arms, a new system intended to lower queue times. Call to Arms will automatically detect which class role is currently the least represented in the queue, and offer them additional rewards for entering the Dungeon Finder queue and completing a random level-85 Heroic dungeon.


Any time the Dungeon Finder queue is longer than a few minutes for level-85 Heroics, the Call to Arms system kicks in and determines which role is the least represented. In the case of tanking being the least represented role, the "Call to Arms: Tanks" icon will display in the Dungeon Finder UI menu where class roles are selected, and will also display on the UI when the queue pops and you are selected to enter a dungeon. Regardless of your role, you'll always be able to see which role currently has been Called to Arms, if any. (source)
I don't know what to think of this. I can see on the "we are trying to fix it front" that is could be a good thing. After spending just a few minutest browsing the web, I can see resentment and angst.
 
Reason for LFD tank shortage:
-Blizz has still designed fights with minimal tanks. Of course there is a lack of tanks, most 25 man encounters only requre two.
-The /2 LFG for random heroics is gone, now everyone thinks, due in part to anonimity, they can act like an asshole while in said dungeon.
-Gear is not tank specific any longer, if something has mastery on it, a tank and a DPS can use it. This makes gearing tanks up harder. DPS still need on tanks gear.
- CC is past its need now. Very few pulls need CC even at this stage of the game. If you mark a mob for CC, you are lucky if the DPS does it, you can almost guarntee someone is going to break it early.
 
Again, is Call to Arms going to fix the tank shortage? it might lessen the blow of some of the long ques, but I can say that most good tanks are geared up and don't do randoms. I don't think this is going to put an influx of your "real" tanks back in ques. It will however put those w/duel specs and others racing to get their tank to 85 now in ques, causing more agravation. What I mean by real tanks is those who care about the tanking job, those who want to tank for their enjoyment in the game, not those who "OS that for muh tankz set" and only do it to que faster.
 
Lots of posts I've read say tanking is easy and shocker, these are posted from DPS toons. Is tanking hard? Not really, what is hard is dealing with the 12 year olds who join a group and make everyone elses life hell. As a tank you need to set the pace, mark, CC and control the group. You have in mind your healers mana and your cooldowns. You also have 3 others who's sole job is to put up big numbers and tell you how to do your job. Thats the hard part.
 
Thank you Blizz for trying, I'm not sure this will help and from the out cry it seems that this is not what others want but at least you are giving it a go.
 
What is your impression of this change? Good or bad? What would you do to change the shortage? Tanks, are you going to que?

1 comment:

  1. I'm with you. Unlikely to change anything. I tank on the tanking toons I have, other than my pally, who I've recently rediscovered healing on. But if insta-queue wasn't enough incentive, I'm not sure "free stuff" is either. It's not a question of incentive but rather of "the curve." People don't want the stress and aggravation of learning to tank and gearing for it. That means we'll always be short on tanks.

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