Concept of tanking is flawed

[Xudo]

Currently, mob attacks character who is top 1 in his threat list. Characters get threat on specific mob by doing damage to it and healing. Some spells award additional threat. Tanks usually have them.
It is the concept of entire PvE in WoW across all expansions. It is also widely used in other games.

I find it ridiculous.

I also find it ridiculous that huge bosses like Garr or Ragna or whatever large beast you can imagine use same melee mechanics as small ones. They could just stomp on all those insects under their feet instead.
Effectively it leads to situation when mob ignores real source of damage which is killing him and attack highly durable, but less dangerous player.
In PvP this concept absolutely don't work. Players just ignore durable "tanks" who don't deal damage. Players focus healers first and CC damage dealers.

I don't propose to change anything, because tanking in current form is crux of whole game. Just sharing my thoughts.

How it should be?
It should be as close to common logic and simple enough. Mob should want to live as long as possible and it shoult attack current problem instead of guy spamming sunders.

If players attack the mob, then it should identify who is killing him and attempt to attack him.
If that target can't be killed because it gets healing, then healer should be killed first.
Before this line everything works like with threat model. Now changes.

If top DPS or healer can't be reached, then mob should attack the one who is blocking the way.
If mob can't perform his strong attack, then it should use weak attack against the one who interfere.

For example - party of warrior, warlock and priest engaged some melee mob. Warlock deals damage and gets to top of threat list. But warrior used hamstring to slow down the mob. Mob should attack warrior because he is actively interfere. If that warrior decided to dodge damage and run away, then mob should pursue top DPS or healer.
If mob has ranged attack, then he should attack healer or top DPS even when slow is applied.
If mob is melee and top DPS is a melee, then mob should attack top DPS. Regardless of who applied slow on him.
If mob is Spellcaster and some rogue interrupts his cast, then mob should attack rogue.

What exactly it means?
If this concept gets scaled to whole PvE, then all PvE will be played around kiting and interrupting.
Mob will attack the tank not because he used a lot of Sunder Armors, but because he stands nearby, applied Hamstring and obstructs mob movement to real troublemakers.

There will be no warriors who are "DPS-only". Mob will attack top DPS warriors because they do a lot of threat. So all warriors should stack more on their survivability. Otherwise they drain all mana of healers and die. If party has mage or hunter, then they would slow mob and finally kill him.
Every melee top DPS will effectively be a tank. It is problem for fragile classes like rogues and cat-druids. But solution is simple - don't attack melee mobs with melee classes.

Fights against melee mobs will become kite feasts. Probably noone gets any damage if whole party are ranged. Tank would not be used at all. Melee DPS might not be used either. Why bother, if they just sink mana for healer?
Melee characters should deal with ranged mobs. Ranged characters should deal with melee mobs.
Melee classes already provide spellcast pushbacks. They also should pushback ranged attacks of mobs, for example with a bow.
Why ranged classes can't manage ranged mobs? Because of strong ranged damage. Danger of melee class from melee mob should be equal to danger of ranged class from ranged mob.
Because they should excel in interrupting ranged damage and slowing down melee enemies.
For example warriors could reset delay next ranged autoattack of the mob on melee hit.

Why bother bringing durable tank to dungeon? Why should someone ever play with a shield?
Irl, shield were used to protect warrior from arrows. So blocking should work on ranged attacks much better than on melee attacks.

Why do we need gear, if all fights cold be solved by kiting and interrupting?
The stronger the enemy, the harder to slow him down. So spell power should affect value of slow against the specific enemy.
Strength decreases slow percent against you. Spell power increases slow percent made by you.

Similar things to interrupt. Strength increases interrupt value of your attacks. Spirit(for example) decreases interrupt made by attacks of others.
Slow power should be split across all slowed targets, hit by spell. So if you freeze 1 enemy on place by blizzard, you will slow 2 enemies for 50%. 3 enemies will be slowed for 33%. 10 enemies will be slowed for 10%.

Equipped shield should increase resistance against slow and interrupt power.

This concept naturally solves some cancers of WoW:
1. Lack of tanks. All melee players should fight ranged and avoid getting melee damage. All melee enemies should be killed by ranged players. There is no point of highest responsibility like now.
2. AoE grinding of mages. If slow power of spell gets divided to all affected targets, they would not be slow enough.
3. Dumb DPS gameplay. They should at least choose who to attack and do some CC against it: slow or interrupt.
4. Vast difference between PvP style of gameplay and PvE one.
5. Trash-killing in naxx by kiting. Naxx enemies will be more resistant to slow.
6. Vast difference between leveling style of play and PvE raiding

Though this concept require to redesign whole warcraft content to fit that "interrupt ranged, slow melee, no taunts" design.
That concept can be used for "heroic" version of dungeons because it is harder to train group to play differently. It require more cooperation.

Giant bosses should entirely skip all this threat stuff and don't attack in regular melee. They should attack by AoE skills with small radius. Players should avoid those attacks by running during cast.

To prevent endless fights, mobs can get slow/interrupt immunity after some time.

[Shaman111]

tldr.

scratch that, how about we remove tanks and give everyone cool dodge/blink skills to dodge mob attacks?

[Xudo]

tldr:
ranged classes should kite and kill melee mobs.
Melee classes should interrupt spellcast and ranged attacks of ranged mobs.
Everyone has their own portion of responsibility

[Darktifa]

Players are here for the Vanilla WoW experience
Why would anyone agree to such a big change into the fundamentals of tanking?

[Shaman111]

tldr:
ranged classes should kite and kill melee mobs.
Melee classes should interrupt spellcast and ranged attacks of ranged mobs.
Everyone has their own portion of responsibility

ok wheres fun in that?

[Xudo]

Players are here for the Vanilla WoW experience
Why would anyone agree to such a big change into the fundamentals of tanking?

I don't propose to implement it. Just discussing.

Answering your question. Following reasons come to my mind:
1. Less queues in LFT because tank is not mandatory for running a dungeon. All DPS are tanks. Ranged classes tank melee mobs. Melee classes tank ranged mobs.
2. PvP builds could work better in PvE
3. Enemies will look more smart. So it is more challenging and interesting. At least I would try it and see how it will turn out.

[Mativh]

The way you can see the games world; non-dogmatically, through critical thinking - I can relate to it, and I think your perspective and insight can be valuable. I'll later provide my feedback/constructive criticism more specifically.

It is good to ask this when it comes to fundamental changes:
Does it make sense, and will it deepen the "vanilla experience", instead of straying away from it?
If the answer is yes; can it be realistically conveyed in the game the way you've suggested?
If not, what other way can it be implemented, and does the improvement to immersion/worldbuilding/gameplay outweight the effort input?

Sometimes these ideas can lead to brainstorming and something good can result from it in unexpected ways.
It reminds me of a post I've made about expanded/more immersive stats, we got the Cartographer title from one of the intellect stat suggestions.
I've had on my mind some time ago an idea about perfecting the vanilla jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none hybrid-role design that deals with a somewhat similar issue.

I'll tell you this; if your suggestions were 'the way things are', and someone suggested to change it to the one that is in place now, some of those opposing your suggestion would be defending it, and rejecting what they are defending now. May that not dether you.

[Phil29]

Remember that this is a 20 years old game. Those mechanics were absolute progress back in the days and even after so long, some players still have a hard time to manage their threat.

I agree that it would be fun to have more fights with different mechanics. One that comes in mind as an example of that is the "pvp fight" in Trial of the Crusader (wotlk). Lots of threat resetting, many mobs healing, crowd controlling, interrupting, etc.

I would be very happy if we had more challenging fights with the release of newer content but I would assume this is hard to script and balance. I have faith and patience. The team got more pressing priorities and we have years and years of great wow content to come on this server.

[Balake]

You want an action combat rpg, play an action combat rpg. World of warcraft is a tab target rpg.
Everything in your post is just ridiculous

[Choosingname]

1. Shield only blocks arrows? So if I swing my sword to your face you'll just take it like a champ and not block with the shield you are carrying? OK.
2. Threat also means provocation/appearance of threat. The tank distracts the mob, taunts it, mocking blows it so that it focuses on him, while the rest of the team flanks and kills it. "For Frodo!" and all that.
3. There are many dungeon and raid bosses who drop threat to 0 or disable the tank, thus switching targets. Most bosses are also immune to taunt - because they are either smart, determined or too deranged.
4. PvE is unrealistic but PvP is? Moving with 0 collision through the body of a huge armored warrior, who swings his sword and shield bashes you, but "deals no damage" just so you can get to the healer behind him. That sure sounds realistic.

[Geojak]

Why not okay sekiro instead

[Xudo]

I do understand that changes are radical and probably won't be implemented. But as Mativh said, devs could implement some good parts from main idea or improve game in other way based on feedback in those threads. So constructive criticism is welcomed.

Does it make sense, and will it deepen the "vanilla experience", instead of straying away from it?

I think it will. I see that classes are not equal in current raiding meta. There are a lot of suggestions to change classes to fit raiding meta. But what if we change raiding meta to fit hybrid classes?
Gradual change of hybrid classes over all patches led to blending them all similar. In tankless meta classes will contribute not only by damage/healing values. Each class would utilize its arsenal of abilities to do damage, slow, interrupt and survive damage incoming from mobs.

can it be realistically conveyed in the game the way you've suggested?

Actually, threat system as whole is not bad. It should just change a bit.
Threat of all abilities with slow, root, silence and interrupt should be increased.
Threat of all abilities with plain damage or other effects should be removed.
Bonus threat of Dire bear and Defensive Stance and Righteous Fury should be removed.
Make all mobs including thrash immune to taunt/growl etc.
Make all mobs including bosses NOT immune to slow and roots.
Grant every mob option with ranged attack: bows, throwing stones, axes, spells etc.

Mobs are already switch target to adjacent if they are rooted.

Replacing autoattacks of giant bosses with AoE is case by case job. Not a critical point here.
Nerfing mages slow AoE by dividing is not critical to main idea. Though, AoE farming by mages is banned in SEA and not really welcomed in EU. So nerfing it technically fits into server philosophy.

Slow power/resistance and interrupt power/resistance are technically hard to correctly display and calculate. Main idea could live without it. It is just to prevent green parties to successfully complete t3-level raids.

I've had on my mind some time ago an idea about perfecting the vanilla jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none hybrid-role design that deals with a somewhat similar issue.

Yeah. Hybrid classes don't fit in refined raiding meta where you need to be perfect tank OR perfect DPS OR perfect healer. I'm not sure how tankless dungeons will work, but I believe that hybrid classes will get more chances.
For example elemental shamans could be anti-melee AND anti-ranged characters.
They are durable enough to survive melee attacks, they have slow and ranged interrupt.
Elemental focus procs off melee attacks and it can be finally used.

Current tanking meta lead to situation when elemental shamans and balance druids are compared to mages. It is obvious who is losing at this comparison.
Why does it happen?
Because ranged DPS all stay in safe place spamming their 1 button. They don't have to survive at all. Warlocks can lifetap almost to death knowing that they wont be hit by anyone. Why would they pick Dark Pact to restore mana? It is useless.

1. Shield only blocks arrows? So if I swing my sword to your face you'll just take it like a champ and not block with the shield you are carrying? OK.

1. I didn't used word "only". My point is: you need to get close to enemy somehow. If enemy shoots you with a bow, then shield is your first best friend. When you finally got to melee, then there are options.

2. Threat also means provocation/appearance of threat. The tank distracts the mob, taunts it, mocking blows it so that it focuses on him, while the rest of the team flanks and kills it. "For Frodo!" and all that.

Sure, loud noices attract enemy attention. But why do enemy get distracted from that dude with large battleaxe who is hitting pretty hard from the back? Tank voice is more painful?

3. There are many dungeon and raid bosses who drop threat to 0 or disable the tank, thus switching targets. Most bosses are also immune to taunt - because they are either smart, determined or too deranged.

Idea is not about resetting threat. It is about changing threat priorities. Ones who are actually dangerous should be killed first. That guy who is screaming "For Frodo" and pokes you with a toothpick can easily be ignored.

4. PvE is unrealistic but PvP is? Moving with 0 collision through the body of a huge armored warrior, who swings his sword and shield bashes you, but "deals no damage" just so you can get to the healer behind him. That sure sounds realistic.

I agree that it is not realistic either. Wow designers granted Hamstring to every warrior, so enemies couldn't just pass by.
I'm not sure that it is possible to add collisions between players. Potentially yes, but will take too much effort. So lets stick to the threat mechanics of the game.

tldr:
ranged classes should kite and kill melee mobs.
Melee classes should interrupt spellcast and ranged attacks of ranged mobs.
Everyone has their own portion of responsibility

ok wheres fun in that?

I think that switching from spamming 1 button and checking 1 CC to more dynamic combat is more fun.

I would be very happy if we had more challenging fights with the release of newer content but I would assume this is hard to script and balance. I have faith and patience. The team got more pressing priorities and we have years and years of great wow content to come on this server.

Sure that any changes in game are not main priority of devs. But I'm a bit tired of all those threads "I like new PvP server", "I hate devs because of new PvP server", "I like that chinese get their server", "I don't like that chinese get new server and we don't".

[Jc473]

I see that classes are not equal in current raiding meta. There are a lot of suggestions to change classes to fit raiding meta. But what if we change raiding meta to fit hybrid classes?
Gradual change of hybrid classes over all patches led to blending them all similar.

I've had on my mind some time ago an idea about perfecting the vanilla jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none hybrid-role design that deals with a somewhat similar issue.

Yeah. Hybrid classes don't fit in refined raiding meta where you need to be perfect tank OR perfect DPS OR perfect healer.

I might derail this topic a bit because of these comments which have struck a chord with me!

I've had recent conversations where I've said the same thing; current hybrid design (e.g. paladin/shaman/druid etc) doesn't fit in that well in a raiding environment with a lot (40) of people. Why? Well, because you have that many slots, why not just bring 40 speciliasts and you will not have to rely on the versatility of hybrids' kits. Outside of raiding (e.g. levelling, any PvP, dungeons etc), the hybrids shine because there are more opportunities to utilise the entire kit. In essence, versatility is the trade off (i.e. hybrid tax) of specialism.

Over the course of the expansions, Blizzard changed their philosphy by allowing hybrids to match the damage/healing output of the specialists (whilst still retaining the hybrid nature of the entire kit). I can only assume this was in response to people feeling underwhelmed with the raw damage/healing output of their hybrid class in a raid setting.

For me, this was a mistake and I very much think that it was primarily to do with the Vanilla raid design. It's not an easy problem to solve given that you have 40 people in a raid, but the fact is, if you can design raids (trash & bosses) to have more opportunities for hybrids to express themselves (using their entire kit), this will undoubtedly empower the players and make them feel more useful.

I will not expand any further because, as mentioned, I don't want to derail this topic. However, happy to discuss this sort of thing with you (Xudo & Mativh) in another thread.

[Drubarrymooer]

Great post Xudo! I didn't agree with all of it, but it was all good and very well thought out.

[Choosingname]

Irl, shield were used to protect warrior from arrows. So blocking should work on ranged attacks much better than on melee attacks.

1) Didn't say only but the first sentence sure sounds like a very definitive statement.

Sure, loud noices attract enemy attention. But why do enemy get distracted from that dude with large battleaxe who is hitting pretty hard from the back? Tank voice is more painful?

2) It is a common strategy/trope in both life and popular culture to distract the opponent before a strike. It would actually be realistic if mobs and players had 1HP and permadeath like in real life. Then that dude with the large battleaxe wouldn't be swinging from behind for solid 3 minutes.

Ones who are actually dangerous should be killed first.

3) You know that if you massively outdamage the tank and go to top threat, that is exactly what will happen, right?

[Xudo]

2) It is a common strategy/trope in both life and popular culture to distract the opponent before a strike. It would actually be realistic if mobs and players had 1HP and permadeath like in real life. Then that dude with the large battleaxe wouldn't be swinging from behind for solid 3 minutes.

I don't propose real life simulator here. We stick to fantasy world and hp/damage/healing stuff as usual.
Distraction now is too artificial. You scream, enemy get distracted.
It is too easy to fix DPS "mistakes" now. Just press button and enemy returns to you.
In tankless meta there would be no DPS mistakes. Warrior did a lot of damage, warrior gets attacked by mob.

Ones who are actually dangerous should be killed first.

3) You know that if you massively outdamage the tank and go to top threat, that is exactly what will happen, right?

The difference is that now tanks usually have a lot of threat multipliers. So you need to do much, much more damage than tank. Meanwhile, tank might just spam sunder armor which don't do any damage.

In tankless meta it would be easier to get attention of mobs by damage.

[Grinspoon]

you're going down a path that has no end and no place in a fantasy game.
how can a gnome warrior do the same damage as a tauren warrior? how can you shoot a humanoid boss in the face a 100 times and they still live?
game mechanics, son. you can deconstruct the entire game if you go fully logical and then you'll end up with forklift simulator 2023.
as for the question if a game without tanking is more fun because it's more engaging that way (entirely different argument than the logic aspect), there are plenty of games like that out there yet here we are.

[Choosingname]

2) It is a common strategy/trope in both life and popular culture to distract the opponent before a strike. It would actually be realistic if mobs and players had 1HP and permadeath like in real life. Then that dude with the large battleaxe wouldn't be swinging from behind for solid 3 minutes.

I don't propose real life simulator here. We stick to fantasy world and hp/damage/healing stuff as usual.
Distraction now is too artificial. You scream, enemy get distracted.
It is too easy to fix DPS "mistakes" now. Just press button and enemy returns to you.
In tankless meta there would be no DPS mistakes. Warrior did a lot of damage, warrior gets attacked by mob.

It is not as easy as you make it sound. And as I said there are many bosses that are immune to taunt and you can't just yell. (Onyxia, Drakkisath, Hakkar are some i've encountered so far). Taunt can also miss or be resisted. People still need to think, halt dps, reposition.

Warrior did a lot of damage, warrior gets attacked by mob.

So like a fury warrior tank? Like the ones most raiding guilds use right now?

[Xudo]

you're going down a path that has no end and no place in a fantasy game.
...
as for the question if a game without tanking is more fun because it's more engaging that way (entirely different argument than the logic aspect), there are plenty of games like that out there yet here we are.

Where to stop in making things more logical? Good question.
I think that changing tanking mechanics solves tank shortage problem for low level dungeons.
While I always reply in those threads "learn to tank and reduce that shortage", shortage is the natural consequence of tank-heal-dps system. In most cases it is needless to search for the tank at all. Team could manage without it just fine.

2) It is a common strategy/trope in both life and popular culture to distract the opponent before a strike. It would actually be realistic if mobs and players had 1HP and permadeath like in real life. Then that dude with the large battleaxe wouldn't be swinging from behind for solid 3 minutes.

I don't propose real life simulator here. We stick to fantasy world and hp/damage/healing stuff as usual.
Distraction now is too artificial. You scream, enemy get distracted.
It is too easy to fix DPS "mistakes" now. Just press button and enemy returns to you.
In tankless meta there would be no DPS mistakes. Warrior did a lot of damage, warrior gets attacked by mob.

It is not as easy as you make it sound. And as I said there are many bosses that are immune to taunt and you can't just yell. (Onyxia, Drakkisath, Hakkar are some i've encountered so far). Taunt can also miss or be resisted. People still need to think, halt dps, reposition.

Warrior did a lot of damage, warrior gets attacked by mob.

So like a fury warrior tank? Like the ones most raiding guilds use right now?

Some bosses now are immune to taunt. My idea is to disable taunt entirely. I believe things will change only for bosses who are NOT immune to taunt now.
Hovewer, removing additional threat from sunder armor will reduce effectiveness of protection warriors even more.
They already have issues of not being good enough compared to fury. I believe that their damage could be improved regardless of whole threat system rework. For example increased damage of Revenge and Shield Slam. But it is another topic.

[Voidrever]

"Always aim for the head of the snake". If Tank is the group leader, then always take him down when u get a chance, especially when you as a boss have a swarm enemy surrounding you, you must take their leader down if you have a chance to reduce their will to fight and bring fear to the enemy. Kill 2,3 enemies doesn't mean anything if the other 37 players still go after you with high spirits.

[Turboman]

tldr.

scratch that, how about we remove tanks and give everyone cool dodge/blink skills to dodge mob attacks?

So basically Guild Wars 2 ?

[Ishilu]

tldr.

scratch that, how about we remove tanks and give everyone cool dodge/blink skills to dodge mob attacks?

So basically Guild Wars 2 ?

Just my thought.

However, I do see the OP's point. Fact is, big raids with 40 small guys vs. 1 big mob really look a bit weird. Just compare our established tank'n spank to the 9-guys-vs-1-cavetroll-scene in LotR. That was a bit more dynamic .

Thing look better (for me and probably the OP) in 5-man dungeons where all class roles are a bit more fluid and people get to improvise occasionally, especially in harder trash encounters. Maybe more really crunchy and punishing 5-man content (like DMN hardmode) would make the OP happy.