Blizzard recently hot fixed tanking.

What did they do you ask? Let me put it in non-tank terms for everyone. Mobs will ‘stick’ to the tanks quicker and easier.

The rest is just numbers and details, and not what we are going to discuss. We are going to ramble on about the possibilities of these changes.

Right now a geared T12 geared tank isn’t going to really feel the effects of this change. They already produce the numbers needed to get mobs on them and not let go. This change is going to effect the under geared tank that isn’t pumping out 10,000 dps in 5 man dungeons. You can now walk into a lvl 85 heroic with ilvl 333 gear and effectively hold the mobs on you against a t12 geared dps.

So the question to be asked now is; What is a brand new tank, whom may never have donned the sword and board, do with these mobs now that they are stuck to him? The answer is quickly going to become what separates a poor tank from a great tank.

Line of Sight Pulls

Silencing casters, bringing them into AoE range.

Interrupts

Stuns

Positioning

Add pick ups

Active damage mitigation (4.3 mechanic)

Spike Damage

I could go on….

Above is a list of things that a good tank will do without batting an eye during a dungeon run, and it’s what you can expect to become standards expected to be done now that making mobs angry at you is not at the top of a priority list. I for one, think this has a lot of that fun potential I talked about in an earlier post this week.

Imagine dragging a pack of melee mobs onto an erupting steam vent increasing frost damage taken. Stunning a caster to let a dps burn him down, then charging at the new pack of adds. Choosing between a parry or dodge buff before a boss readies a devastating blow? Deciding on a damage 20% reduction buff or a 75% chance of spell reflection against the next one?

I think these are the types of changed coming down the pipe for 4.3

If you’ve thought about tanking before, but never thought you could do it, now is the time to charge in. Aggro generation is baked now baked int. It’s up to the tank to set tempo in this dance. So get out there and set the pace!

/Salute

Serawk the Guild Hawkman