Quote:
Originally Posted by Estu
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
Could anyone else confirm/deny this? I hear a lot of talk about warriors having to wait before letting the rest of the group engage.
Also, I'm interested in exp groups and level 50 groups as well as raids. Why exactly are warriors only preferred as main tanks for raids? At what level do they become preferable to SKs and PALs in general as main tanks?
|
It's hate list management and all the variables that go into it. You want the tank to absorb as much damage as possible, so your group's healing mana efficiently goes into just one player. Which means the tank needs to do his best to stay at the top of the hate list:
1) Weapon procs/spells build hate
2) Weapon DPS builds hate
3) Taunt throws you 1 "hate pt" higher than the current person at the top of the hate list.
If a mob is yellow/red con, you lose (3) as a tool (until Kunark, when warriors get this fixed). Meanwhile, everyone else attacking the mob is subject to (1) and (2) at the same time you are. And mashing down the Taunt button every time it pops if you are already at the top of the hate list just gives you several seconds that you can lose aggro and not have an instant attempt at regaining it to get the mob off someone.
The tank has to be the highest on the hate list, otherwise the mob will come off him and aggro someone else, who is probably not properly equipped to handle that sustained damage. For example, the ranger who went hells-bells with his flux axe proc. The overnuking wizard who can only take a few hits before he goes down. The CHing cleric, who can't heal anyone if she goes DA to save her own ass and the mob aggros on someone else.
If the warrior is not properly equipped, he will fail at (1) or (2) over other melee classes and probably some casters, so the way to compensate is to let him build hate on his own for a while until everyone else engages, to give him that head start. The advantage that hybrid tanks have is that their spells give them an additional boost at (1).
Or, you go EZ mode if it's not a yellow/red con mob and just root the mob to create proximity aggro... then all the warrior has to do is be closest to the mob. Rangers are good at this because unless they're pulling with harmony, snaring, pretending to be druids and nuking, etc... they generally have non-critical mana they can divert to this task, and can take several hits in case they get a resist or root breaks early.
The reason why warriors are preferred for raids is that the mob DPS starts getting far too heavy for the hybrid tanks to mitigate effectively, requiring more healer mana being consumed at a faster rate (i.e. more clerics in the CH chain and/or faster CH cycles). So you use the class designed to take damage... the warrior.
The problem is, for raid targets, which are most likely going to be yellow/red con to the warrior unless you're raiding Crushbone, you lose (3) again. And with the kind of DPS the mobs are dishing out, and with 10-second cast time on CHs, you cannot afford to have that mob come off the warrior and start crunching your melee DPS or your healers. So you give the warrior a sufficient head start on building hate/aggro before you have everyone else engage, even at the expense of having to expend extra raid mana healing because the mob is not being engaged by full raid DPS for the first 30 seconds or whatever.
Because if that tank loses aggro, the boss mob is going to go right down the hate list and start whacking people that Complete Heals are not incoming to. Ideally you phase in several other tanks before fully engaging the mob so that all your eggs aren't in one warrior basket. If you're fast, your padding heals can save the next tank until the clerics can determine who the mob is on and re-direct the CH chain. Otherwise you start losing healers, melees, etc while the warrior frantically tries to regain his top position on the hate list without having (3) available to use. If your raid is well-honed, everyone stops attacking to let the tank (or the next tank) regain his padding on the hate list (and hope that next tank is sufficiently above the CH chain clerics on the hate list).