Death of the Main Tank

In the beginning…

My first MMO was World of Warcraft back in 2005.

Initially I started playing a Paladin as a healer who was able to tank a little. After a little time (about 35 levels), I started a Warlock who was my first maximum level character and with who I raided through Molten Core, Black Wing Lair and into Naxxramas and An’ Quiraj.

While these were all 40-player raid instances, I soon found that while there was usually a large number of Warriors (who were really the only viable raid tanks at the time) there was always one Main Tank whose responsibility it was to tank the Boss. All the other tanks were there as off-tanks to pick up adds or tank trash mobs, but these very rarely saw the boss up close and personal.

On hearing of the release of Burning Crusade, my wife and I lost some of our interest in raiding. Our general view was “why bother getting Epic gear when it would be replaced by Uncommon gear in the new questing zones” and we had fairly much been as far as we were likely to in the existing raids. At this time, we started to level a Warrior / Priest combination of players. Before the release of burning Crusade, these characters were at level 57 (level 60 being the pre-expansion level cap) and we soon stopped playing them and returned to levelling our main characters so as to start Burning Crusade end-game content as soon as possible.

After some time, we realised that there was a distinct lack of tanks and, with our Guild tanks all leaving for real life reasons, I looked to get my Warrior up to level 70. Once I started raiding, I found that being a tank hadn’t changed at all. There was one Main Tank, whose responsibility it was to tank the boss and one or two off-tanks who could manage adds or trash. The worst part was that these off-tanks didn’t need to be tank specced characters - there were a number of times that my wife, on her healing specced Paladin, off-tanked in Karazhan and Zul’Aman.

While we never really got past Gruul’s Lair or Magtheridon’s Lair, these instances were very similar in that one tank would hold the Boss and there were a number of off-tanks who were responsible for managing the adds and tanking trash mobs.

When did the change start?

When I first started to investigate Age of Conan, I entered the game with the mentality that I would be speccing for tanking and, in particular (somewhat arrogantly), main tanking in raids. My tanking build was worked out before the game was even released and I religiously worked my way to the build I used for almost 10 months of raiding.

When my wife and I started raiding, raids were generally bugged and again, there was little need for more than one main tank assisted by one or more off-tanks.

I found that the forums continued referring to a main tank and, with gemmed mitigation tanking suits, all raid instances could be and were tanked by sole main tanks.

The first signs of change really started in Patch 1.03 when they significantly reduced the effectiveness of mitigation gems (resistances went down by 80% on each gem) and now after Patch 1.05 with the bosses hitting harder and the healers healing for less.

And now?

Age of Conan has now redefined tanking.

Since Patch 1.03 and more recently Patch 1.05 there are very few raid encounters which can successfully be done with one tank on the boss and even fewer which do not require a number of off-tanks. We now have encounters where there need to be two or three tanks on the boss and who now need to work together to keep each other alive by sharing the damage from the boss.

Even the entry level Boss, the Champion of the Honourguard in Kyllikki’s Crypt, now requires two or more tanks capable of withstanding high amounts of damage and with the ability to work together to swap hate between them.

Yes, there will always be a position which will still be referred to as off-tank, that of managing adds and tanking trash mobs, but given the design of current encounters, there will never be a single tank who is able to solo-tank every boss in the game.

Some of you may have read some of my input on the official forums and may have noted that, apart from some early posts, I have now re-defined my role as lead tank and I hope that the rest of us will start doing the same.

Now is the age of co-operative tanking, and while there will always be one tank responsible for initiating an encounter, we hope that Funcom (and other developers) continue recognising that co-operation between the tanks and the ability to work together makes the game more interesting and makes raid encounters dependant on more than just a main tank / main healer combination.

So please join me in wishing a fond farewell to the main tank and welcoming the tanking group and lead tank to our fold.