Tank and healer XP

[Akos1896]

Hey!

Was thinking about current dungeon situation. DPS pops fast but after that it's a waiting room. Many people enjoy DPSing the most, that's fair but the leveling is also skewed towards being a DPS - you wanna kill quest mobs as fast as possible 99% of the time.
Was thinking about how to incentivize people to be healers/tanks in dungeons more freuquently.
[[Adding a bunch of quests to the world which require healing or tanking would work but wouldn't be realistic. Way too much effort.]]
My idea is to give 1,5x dungeon XP to those who LFT as healers or tanks (maybe even double for tanks).
Sure, an arms warrior can be specced as a DPS and can perfectly tank a dungeon, but it is also fine. Problem is not only the lack of people specced as tank or healer, problem is also the lack of other people who can tank/heal with their DPS build but refuse to do that. F.ex. an ele shaman, a retri pala or a shadow priest can perfectly heal most dungeons. For tanks, most warriors are able to do that, just like the druids who all have bear form. Not optimally, but well enough to have a tank and a healer.

For lategame dungeons, some epic BoP can motivate healers and tanks to attend. There's a reason purple warlocks are so frequent in hateforge, that trinket is awesome for them.
If dungeons like SWV, BM, Karta Crypt etc would have 1-2 purple BOP for healers and tanks with a low droprate, that would make sure there is no shortage of them.

[Calli]

So many ppl go to MC with green gear they care no more abt dungeons. Most of the ppl don't like the roles other than dps, it is a pyschological thing, nothing will change that.

[Ishilu]

[[Adding a bunch of quests to the world which require healing or tanking would work but wouldn't be realistic. Way too much effort.]]

I actually like this much better than the original idea. How about updating mobs in some leveling areas (e.g. Northwatch in the barrens or the Grimtotem area in 1000 Needles) to elite and adjusting the rewards for their quests? This should require much less effort than coming up with all new content from scratch and wouldn't hurt from the lore perspective.

I also agree that tanking and healing is not a problem in a dps spec. However, I believe that the proposed system could be abused in a not very nice way and would even - if implemented poorly - result in hybrid classes simply rushing past pure dps classes in their leveling process. I also think that more XP boosts are not in the spirit of turtle WoW and might attract the wrong player crowd. 2023 sucked.

I personally recommend to not rely on the LFT tool as a primary means or at all to find groups for various reasons.

[Zvyrhol]

Giving more XP to healers and tanks means they will do dungeons less frequently because they will move to the higher zones faster at least in low level brackets. Meanwhile the DPS get normal XP. This solution actually only hurts current state of dps/any-other-role ratio. It's calculation. By the way I don't think there exists any good solution to this problem supposing that the change is in spirit of vanilla.

[Wafflecrusher]

It seems like the ideal solution would be to reward tanking and healing roles monetarily. Basically if they que via LFT they get like 10g or some amount scaled to their level. If this sounds familiar, it's because I'm 100% taking this from what they did in wrath. Because LFT is an outside addon, I don't know how feasible this is, but it seems like the best solution.

As pointed out, buffing exp just means there will be less tanks and healers long term. If the game pays a tank 10G for every completed dungeon, people will hop on and tank just because hey, why not. It becomes a sort of farm.

Other solutions seems like they create problems as they try and solve them. Adding loot drops for those specific roles could trivialize raids for said roles, if you try to mitigate that by making the drop-rate near zero, then tanks and healers won't be attracted to it. Re-designing fights could make them less engaging and/or just a pain to deal with. The only solution I see is to literally pay tanks and healers based off demand. Even that I don't think will solve the problem, but it would help.

[Zulnam]

So many ppl go to MC with green gear they care no more abt dungeons. Most of the ppl don't like the roles other than dps, it is a pyschological thing, nothing will change that.

A tank, even an off tank, cannot afford to go to MC in greens.

A healer might do it, and it might be ok provided the majority of your healers are decently geared, but you are still pushing it.

OT: would be nice to have some sort of incentive for support roles to alleviate their scarcity, but not sure how. More XP might be nice, but it doesn't mean much and how would you take into account groups that form outside the LFT?

[Bigsmerf]

The incentive is instant groups. Tanks also get lead by default if I'm remembering correctly- and we all know how much WoW players like being in charge no matter how bad they are at it.

[Calli]

A tank, even an off tank, cannot afford to go to MC in greens.

I see you have no idea how it goes. They join as damage dealers and roll gear for tank MS. Their willingness to tank is appreciated so they are carried.

[Zvyrhol]

Even if you want to reward tanks and healers for playing these underrepresented roles, is there any lore reason behind Jesus sending you gold/items/XP after finishing dungeon for playing that role? Don't forget that dungeons in Vanilla are first of all destined to be explored. Venturing through dungeons is to be adventure. If you propose suggestions like these, you break this immersion of the game. The dungeons would become reward factory.

Besides it's unlikely current server core could recognise who is healer/tank. It's not WotLK server, it's vanilla server.

[Akos1896]

Lore-wise I agree with you but something has to be done imo. Wheneevr I check LFT, I see 3 DPS (sometimes with a healer) waiting for tanks for a very long time (sometimes tank is there and healer is missing). DPS is always a given but one of the other pieces always is always missing. It's not a selfish reason for me, I mostly play my lvl 60 char but I think that doing something about this to make dungeon experiences more smooth would make the server a better place.

[Xerilin]

People just don't like to tank or heal. They would rather wait for hours for a tank for SM with two dozen dps warriors unwilling to tank waiting with them. A slight reward won't change that.

[Gantulga]

People just don't like to tank or heal. They would rather wait for hours for a tank for SM with two dozen dps warriors unwilling to tank waiting with them. A slight reward won't change that.

Pretty much this. It's a player-created problem. The game itself is already fine.

[Xudo]

People just don't like to tank or heal. They would rather wait for hours for a tank for SM with two dozen dps warriors unwilling to tank waiting with them. A slight reward won't change that.

Pretty much this. It's a player-created problem. The game itself is already fine.

While I agree that game is fine, I can't agree that source of problem are players.
It is WoW design that every dungeon and raid with this tank+healer+DPS composite in mind. Basic threat mechanics was designed for that. So it leads to situation where tank is supposed to know how to pull, which order to kill enemies, where to go, what to avoid and how to do stuff in general. Essentially, tank is required to pick specific class and train leadership skills.
We all see that there are enough people of specific class.
What can be done?
1. More skills for DPS classes to help the tank instead of to compete against the tank.
Actually, there are skills to "help" tank. I mean: Feint, Cower, Disengage But I think noone uses them because DPS compete against the tank and also compete against eachother. So they can't spend resources on skills that don't deal damage.
Those skills could be changed to be more frequently used.
2. Leadership in dungeon comes from knowledge which mobs should be pulled in every situation.
Role of tank is also to coordinate DPS of others. So mobs could be killed in specific order. Thats why tanks are usually group leaders, so they could use marking functionality.
So devs could add more skills to show players which mob should be pulled or killed. May be more debuffs like Hunters Mark.
For example Curse of Shadows or Curse of Recklessness or Curse of Elements could use additional animation on enemy and don't lead to pull itself. It will be possible to use them as marks.
May be add additional visible animation to Detect Magic to let mages to use it as mark.
Marks should not feature additional threat, but should encourage DPS to focus that specific target.
3. Add TBC skills like Misdirection.

[Templar85]

Pretty much this. It's a player-created problem. The game itself is already fine.

The game is not fine when not handling player created problems that have serious impact on the game. At the end of each instance there can be a chest. If all bosses died more reward inside. All can loot the chest but Tanks gain 3x more gold, Healers 2x more gold from it. Looting the chest have a chance for high lvl enchanting materials and high level potions as reward JUST for tanks and healers. Chest can grant a token. If players collected 5 dungeon tokens per week below a set amount of time they can exchange their token for rewards like transmog looks, custom items, toys, companions and gold.

[Gantulga]

Pretty much this. It's a player-created problem. The game itself is already fine.

The game is not fine when not handling player created problems that have serious impact on the game. At the end of each instance there can be a chest. If all bosses died more reward inside. All can loot the chest but Tanks gain 3x more gold, Healers 2x more gold from it. Looting the chest have a chance for high lvl enchanting materials and high level potions as reward JUST for tanks and healers. Chest can grant a token. If players collected 5 dungeon tokens per week below a set amount of time they can exchange their token for rewards like transmog looks, custom items, toys, companions and gold.

Hey let's just punish damage dealers for no reason.

There's nothing complex about playing a tank or a healer compared to playing a damage dealer (properly). This isn't a complicated game.

[Templar85]

There's nothing complex about playing a tank or a healer compared to playing a damage dealer (properly). This isn't a complicated game.

Playing a tank by using threat abilities and having a gear for it just 20% of the equation. 80% is knowing the dungeon in and out. Others already explained it. So IT IS complex to play a tank properly and efficiently. Game is not complicated but DPS players have high expectation towards tanking. If you are not efficient with pulls damage dealers starts to moan about it + they overaggro and starting to attack enemies at pulls when tank not even touched the enemy. There is a reason why there is huge tank deficit on the server. Physiologically can be stressful.

Hey let's just punish damage dealers for no reason.

All party members getting loot from the chest + tokens. Tanks and Priests getting higher share and better rewards.
Not granting the same level of rewards not meaning punishing DPS.

If you think as a DPS tanking is not complex or you have a tank and saying it is not complex?
I have a tank. I know how is it. If you don't have roll one and you will see.

[Xudo]

Pretty much this. It's a player-created problem. The game itself is already fine.

The game is not fine when not handling player created problems that have serious impact on the game. At the end of each instance there can be a chest. If all bosses died more reward inside. All can loot the chest but Tanks gain 3x more gold, Healers 2x more gold from it. Looting the chest have a chance for high lvl enchanting materials and high level potions as reward JUST for tanks and healers. Chest can grant a token. If players collected 5 dungeon tokens per week below a set amount of time they can exchange their token for rewards like transmog looks, custom items, toys, companions and gold.

Actually, if you want to reward tanks or healers, it is quite easy to do.
Just add additional item with tanking and healing stats to loot tables. DPS just are not interested in "+20 stamina + 5 defense" or "+5mp5 +20 healing" items.
Though, I don't think there is some need to reward tanks and healers more. If you are skilful, you will surely be blue-geared all your way to 60.

[Nahath]

Simplest possible solution: Increase dungeon rewards.
The greater payoff for doing dungeons incentivizes hybrid classes to tank or heal occasionally. It might even encourage DPS to build non-meta groups (ex: the double-pet tank), which can be an extremely fun way to play if the group is willing to tolerate a few wipes while they figure it out.

Turtle WoW made some progress with this by expanding loot tables and adding a few more dungeon quests (ex: if you are an alliance hunter, there's a ridiculously good gun from a gnomer quest), but they could easily push it further. Even something simple like a pile of gold from each dungeon boss.

[Ishilu]

1. More skills for DPS classes to help the tank instead of to compete against the tank.
Actually, there are skills to "help" tank. I mean: Feint, Cower, Disengage But I think noone uses them because DPS compete against the tank and also compete against eachother. So they can't spend resources on skills that don't deal damage.
Those skills could be changed to be more frequently used.

I'd also count all CC's under this skill category (sheep don't hit people), along with stuff like decurse. The tools are all there.

I've seen DPS behave like that and these guys are what I call bad players. I don't care whether they're following the latest guide to the letter, use the right addons, totally destroy everyone else on the meters or look back on 20 years of vanilla eperience. If a DPS thinks first about their big numbers and only afterwards or not at all about making life easier for tank and healer and adjusting their playstyle accordingly, that's a bad player in my eyes who still has a lot to learn.

I partially agree on your comment on leadership. Fact is, the LFT tool (the use of which I keep ranting against) gives the crown to the player designated as tank. I know that the tool in later WoW versions (one reason why everything past tbc sucked, btw) lets players check boxes not only for their preferred class roles but also an additional one for "group lead" so the crown is passed only to players who feel up to the task of leading the group, but not necessarily the tank. This feature might encourage some people to sign up as a tank even though they don't know the dungeon. Might be easier than changing class skills, too.

Finally, TBC did a lot right when it came to fixing some classes or at least specs, especially when it comes to utility. Nobody is saying that every single TBC ability should be a thing in turtle but looking at TBC for inspiration is a good idea.

[Akos1896]

You have some exact ideas about skills which should be implemented in TWOW?
I usually like those as long as they are watered down (for example TWOW bloodlust is a fun but not oppressive version of a later iconic spell). I'd welcome some more if they fit into TWOW flawlessly.

[Gantulga]

There's nothing complex about playing a tank or a healer compared to playing a damage dealer (properly). This isn't a complicated game.

Playing a tank by using threat abilities and having a gear for it just 20% of the equation. 80% is knowing the dungeon in and out. Others already explained it. So IT IS complex to play a tank properly and efficiently. Game is not complicated but DPS players have high expectation towards tanking. If you are not efficient with pulls damage dealers starts to moan about it + they overaggro and starting to attack enemies at pulls when tank not even touched the enemy. There is a reason why there is huge tank deficit on the server. Physiologically can be stressful.

Hey let's just punish damage dealers for no reason.

All party members getting loot from the chest + tokens. Tanks and Priests getting higher share and better rewards.
Not granting the same level of rewards not meaning punishing DPS.

If you think as a DPS tanking is not complex or you have a tank and saying it is not complex?
I have a tank. I know how is it. If you don't have roll one and you will see.

Tanking dungeons is much more relaxed and safe than playing DPS/healer with a bad tank. I've tanked a whole lot in this game.
Tanking is easy because you're setting the pace, learning the pulls takes one or two runs if you haven't played the game before, and even if you haven't, pulls all follow the same aggro rules so they're obvious in most cases. Building threat is incredibly simplistic in vanilla compared to dealing damage properly.

Playing as a healer with a bad group is infinitely more stressful.

[Ishilu]

Playing as a healer with a bad group is infinitely more stressful.

True.

About TBC skills or talents to be implemented, it's widely agreed that some specs were just underdeveloped in vanilla and TBC fixed that, even though perfect balance is probably unachievable.

I liked best how they fixxed survival hunters. Traps + Wyvern Sting both in combat already bring a lot of support for 5-mans, Expose weakness brought raid utility and Readiness just lets you pull all that hunter stuff twice in a row. Hilariously powerful in many different situations.

Also, Ele shamans with better manareg and lightning overload were fun. Just sit back, press "1" and "2", watch the numbers and rejoice whenever you hear that clearcasting "brrr". Really relaxing .

Sorry for going off topic there.

[Borefficz]

There is no way to implement this, LFT is just an addon that sends messages in one of the game channels.

[Templar85]

Tanking dungeons is much more relaxed and safe than playing DPS/healer with a bad tank. I've tanked a whole lot in this game.
Tanking is easy because you're setting the pace, learning the pulls takes one or two runs if you haven't played the game before, and even if you haven't,

I have AQ40/Naxx tank gear. Tanking for me is fun and easy. I still running lvl 60 dungeons and speed pulling. 30 mins Strat live runs which I do regularly. We have to see the situation on a blue geared newby warrior, pally, druid. What is their experience? My experience about tanking does not change the fact that server lacks tank by extreme margins so have to do something about it. That means people do not find it easy or not fun enough to play or not rewarding enough.

3 different ways to handle the situation.

• Give hybrids better tanking toolkit, emergency tanking kit to dps classes, like rogues, warlock Voidwalker/Infernal, hunter pet tanks. They should be able to pull aggro and tanking at least 45 seconds with the usage of CDs

• Make boss encounters more fun than just tank and spam. Provide proper mechanics that groups have to do or they wipe.

• Make it more rewarding for tanks to queue up for dungeons.

[Zvyrhol]

There are some dungeons that don't give anything useful for some roles. It's pain to find a healer for SM Armory because Herod doesn't drop anything for healer. Healers only come here to complete a quest once. Another example is Dire Maul West - in this instance you have many good pieces for casters including healers but nothing for melee tank. At least this is what I've observed about DM:W. Most level 60 dungeons at least drop some universally demanded items like Tier 0 pieces, trinkets, Scourgestones.

[Nahath]

There are some dungeons that don't give anything useful for some roles. It's pain to find a healer for SM Armory because Herod doesn't drop anything for healer. Healers only come here to complete a quest once. Another example is Dire Maul West - in this instance you have many good pieces for casters including healers but nothing for melee tank. At least this is what I've observed about DM:W. Most level 60 dungeons at least drop some universally demanded items like Tier 0 pieces, trinkets, Scourgestones.

That's definitely another low-effort change they could make. Just a few well-placed drops in the right dungeons could make a big difference in helping people find groups.

[Kobiq]

Nice idea

[Slashignore]

wtf
healers and especially tanks can find a dungeon VERY easily.
So why reward them even more?

[Bigsmerf]

wtf
healers and especially tanks can find a dungeon VERY easily.
So why reward them even more?

Literally just this. I see no point.

[Templar85]

healers and especially tanks can find a dungeon VERY easily.
So why reward them even more?

Following that logic: There are always 3 dps waiting for hours to find a tank, lets honour their dedication by giving them more rewards to que up for dungeons. Tanks and healers can find easily groups don't incentivise or reward them more than a dps, they have very short or instant join time. Also tanks and healers can kill mobs more faster and level faster in the open world than a dps. Let them do solo stuff instead of group content. Right?

My idea will help about the extreme lack of tank situation on the server and making forming dungeon groups more frequently. Am I right?