Shield Profiency being added to game at the level it was pretty much destroyed whatever minor need which was left for tank swaps. Powerful mitigation style abilities should have stayed a "limited" duration only type of thing and not merely equip a shield then become nearly unkillable with half way adequate healing against the toughest things in game
That's false, you didn't become "unkillable" with average healing on boss mobs. And one of the reason of this stance being put in place 24/24 for only warriors was to rebalance an overall tanking situation that was more favorable to knights. I take it here as a compensation for the knight self healing tools. This happened after knights received their new defensive disc, while keeping their 2 other dmg capped mitigation discs. So warriors had only defensive disc, and knights had 3 mitigation discs. There had been some threads at this time that were stating that before defensive proficiency, knights were MT all raid bosses as good as warriors. And it's believable when you look at the tools available for each class at this time. I remember in my low/average tier raiding guild I as a tank leader was using for "fun" SK / Paladins to tank some Corrupted NToV dragons they were doing it as good as warriors, and good paladins were even sometimes surviving better than warriors on the same task, chaining their 3 mitigation discs and adding their self healing in the process. It helped also a lot group geared warriors to stand a chance in group content versus knights. So no at this time, it should not have been "limited" in duration for warriors at least.
P2aa, I have no idea why you're bringing up a very old debate. You know my stance on it, it's well documented. My response was to the OP. Again, the moment Shield Profiency came out, it completely destroyed whatever minuscule need was left for tank swaps. WK2 and DH2 boss were the only two current raids in game that were semi worth swaps for guilds with low DPS levels. They both were easily 1 tankable after Profiency addition and nerfs. If you feel Wars should have got that ability because Knights received a tiny duration defensive disc, so be it. All tanks have it now, as I told you years ago would occur =p. If you think such things have made raiding as a tank more interesting/enjoyable I'm not sure what to tell you. 1 Vie disc being added to game for Wars + original NTB never being nerfed and you guys would have been completely fine in raid/grp game without Shield Profiency ever entering equation. Dicho type abilities would have solidified things all the more. Also, you have been saying 24/24 for many years in tons of posts. What you're aiming for is 24/7. It stands for 24 hours a day, seven days per week. Don't say I never taught you anything
Tank swaps wasent happening even without shield proffichency. that died way b4 that stance was created
I know for the guilds I have been in regular tank swaps pretty much died off when clerics started spam healing verse coordinated CH chains. During that time it was easier to put a new tank with discs up to tank the mob than it was to adjust the CH chain to account for discs down. Now mind you not all guilds changed then, and I believe some still do tank swaps but generally it is not the norm, with all the spam healing happening. Now it is easier to keep the same healing target and not introduce another fail point into the raid mechanics.
Besides the smoothing out of the potential mitigation by the addition of shield proficiency and other abilities, I think the increase in aggro control abilities tanks have also reduce the need for planned tank switches. In the CH chain glory days I had 1 taunt that sometimes worked and auto attacked. Tank switches had to be done with everyone's cooperation and were highly regimented. If an adhoc switch was needed the second place would pop defensive and just hope that taunt worked. These days if a tank dies I've got a handful of pure taunts, 2 aggro locks, phantom aggressor and a backpack full of massive aggro generating abilities. If a tank drops I can just mash my keyboard and pick up the mob.
While i know that some events can be one-tanked, like the OP i am amazed as to why. I am not too badly geared, yet i am all BUT "ready" to tank after death, hitting breather and "a few self-buffs". Tenacity can compensate to some point. In some events, i do not stack discs/AAs simply to have some kind of mitigation running all the time (or 85% of it). But when in "Boss events", we still stack defensives. And that makes tank-changes basically necessary. (speaking current expansion, not old ones with maxed-AA tanks in current gear) All in all: I think whether or not you (still) do tankswitches very much depends on your guild's make-up. I know one guild that does not, and it's behind for a reason (not necessarily that one only). Guilds ahead of us may have more and/or better healers so lack of mitigation does not matter much, allowing for the above-mentioned "benefits" of not switching. But when bosses start bluring themselves on certain percentages (or at least seem to, even without appropriate "spell casts"), the 1tank approach is bound to fail without an abundance of (AE/group)healing. Still.
There are lots of things wrong with the end game... healers are vastly overpowered and the combination of defensive abilities stacked with buffs can make bad tank usable. But none of that really matters - it's the lack of innovation used for encounter design that's really made raids stagnant. I am not a fan of tank swamps "because the mob hits too hard." When you first learn an event, MT deaths are part of the norm, but onced learned, MT deaths come from the raid force itself (more than likely dps).
I haven't pushed tank swaps in many many xpacks, mainly for reasons already mentioned: There are so many defensive-like abilities that can be staggered over the duration of a fight until the first used are back up, that will maintain a fairly consistent amount of mitigation, that there's really no need to risk healers not swapping, or a clean aggro transition taking place. Ultimately, the MT may die, in which case the next tank should either be high on aggro, or have his or her finger on Ageless and fort/flash, but that situation is part of the game. No need to introduce further points of possible failure. From time to time I've heard the argument that it strains the healers, or tanks that get upset because we've got 6 on the raid, and do 5 events, and each event only uses 1 tank, and someone gets left out. To the former, healers have evolved just as wars have, to where they have so many AAs, and items, and means to heal that mana is really not a problem. If you want super easy mode CHeal rotation-type stuff, you probably dont belong raiding any more, because the rest of your group just died. To the latter, most events are about managing adds or some other mechanic that will ultimately kill your raid. It wont be the 'boss' that does it. There's really no glory in MTing a boss now, as you're simply filling probably one of the most boring, but necessary roles on a given raid. I get that for some it's an ego thing, or bragging rights or w/e, but the role of tanks on raids has really shifted over the years to not just tanking the boss, but also distracting adds etc so the dps have enough time to kill them. The ego era is dead.
lol, I never got the ego thing of tanking. Not like it's the tank fighting the boss - it's the healers. There's a tug of war going on between boss & healers, tank is just trying to be a decent rope. If I'm not needed under a boss, I'm totally happy going Captain of the Jr. Berserker Squad-mode
