WotLK Tanking Change - Major AoE Buffs

September 29, 2008 by Zuggy · Leave a Comment

There’s been a lot of discussion recently regarding tanking, specifically how each tank in the WotLK will be able to effectively handle AoE pulls. Druids in particular are probably the worst off in this respect, but a major change to druid’s swipe ability should help quell some of these concerns.

Swipe Limit Removed - Ghostcrawler

We are going to remove the target limit on Swipe.

This change is pretty big, mainly for PvE as it should remove many difficulties feral druids have with maintaining similar AoE aggro compared to paladins and warriors. To me this change is more than just a buff to druid’s tanking abilities, it’s a fundamental shift in Blizzard’s thought process for tanking in Wrath of the Lich King.

Warrior Thunderclap Buffed - Ghostcrawler

Swipe should not be limited by targets. This goes for Thunderclap too.

Just like the buff to swipe this change will effectively bring warriors on par with paladins as far as AoE tanking goes.

Tanking in Lich King - Ghostcrawler

Any LK encounter really. We know the BC encounters were not designed to be tanked by any tank.

This type of thinking is bigger than any buff or nerf Blizzard could ever institute, because it tackles the problem at it’s root. By fixing the tanking issues at the instance level we should see additional balance issues solve themselves, thus avoiding these type of mass class overhauls WoW has become all too known for.

I hope we see a simlar approach taking to arena and PvP as further testing and changes are made for WotLK.