Latest patch making non tanks mitigate better

Why is the latest patch both raising the soft cap on ac for all classes:

Yet exclusively reducing tanking classes ability to mitigate by:

This effectively gives a hefty boost to non tank classes to mitigate. Is this an attempt to make the game more molo friendly, or more easy? Why dork with such a large mechanic like this? It's getting boringly easy as is...

They probably want item-AC to be a meaningful stat for all classes again. If they didn't raise the softcap, we would eventually reach a point where AC was a meaningless stat, like resists or heroic-charisma is today.

Because non tanks die in 1 or 2 rounds to mobs that tanks snooze through?

I think a lot of the changes made today are intended to make the new content easier to balance and more enjoyable. It should hopefully change things so the game is more balanced and you don't have some classes clearing entire zones because of broken or overpowered abilities. I think the changes are designed to keep the game fun and challenging in all future content and are not intended to fix past content. I'm going to hold all criticism until I play the new expansion and see how the changes fit in to group and raid content.

Why are they going back 10 years in content then (level 85)?

Why go back 10 years in content? It's a dumbing down of the game.

Well Heroic characters start at 85. So does the HA system scale down start.

The softcap increases will not be that big of a bump in power. Especially at those levels when it's only like 2%.

I get the notion that the phase in coincides with heroic characters, it still seems like a dumb down of the game, kind of like a relatively successful competitor has it set.

Well some level 85 is pretty harsh for non-tanks, UF-mobs hits a bit too hard imo. Besides "smoothing" the softcap curve isn't a bad thing, having the softcap suddenly jump 26% would be weird...

And I don't see how making item-AC meaningful is dumping down the game, the more stats that actually do something the better, Imho.

This, in a game with levels you have to start the curve somewhere or level 100-104, or maybe even 105-109 would be odd if you realized the gains only at max level.

Seems the only way to make tanking an actual challenge without making everyone else get one-rounded in group content (that's what would happen by simply leaving player power alone while boosting mob power). Not sure that's their actual intent, but this is the required direction if they do want to do that. Tanking (even in group gear) has been a joke for a few expansions now. Just yank several mobs, don't worry about cc or pulling. It's made the game less interesting.

They're also going after cc abilities with this patch. That would also point to them wanting to make handling swarms of mobs more difficult.

In the end, this might not be about them wanting to make things more challenging for the sake of fun, but more about them not wanting people to cap out the first week of the new expansion.

Forgive my ignorance on the situation, but:

Tanks have more AC than other classes
AC helps with mitigation, so increase in soft cap = better mitigation.
Reducing Weapon Stances + Increasing AC Soft Cap would bring it back to where it was (or at least in the ball park...shield block is another matter).

So yes, every class is getting a boost, making things better for them, but with the AC increase, won't tanks kind of stay where they are?

Not at all.
AC impact on today's content is irrelevant. Raising the softcap won't change anything.
It's been a while since winning more AC you did see any impact on your hit distribution.
To give you an idea, going from TDS raid gear to TBM raid gear I won + 1000 AC, and on the first TBM raid Vim and Vigor, my average hit barely moved when I compared parses. Same for dmg spikes, graphs didn't look better after + 1000 AC won.
Loosing 8 % mitigation on every hit you receive will have a bigger impact.
So all in all, tanks are loosing.

I haven't done testing to characterize the impact, but no, tanks will not break even with this change. The change in soft-cap won't help much, the 8% mitigation nerf will be noticeable.

As a warrior main, it's a good change. Compared to non-tanks, tank's mitigation is way too high.

The gulf between tank and non-tank damage mitigation is huge.

Tanks can snooze while getting pounded, and most other classes get 2-3 rounds and are dead.

"Tanks can snooze while getting pounded, and most other classes get 2-3 rounds and are dead."

Isn't that the whole purpose of bringing a tank with you? Or are you wanting this to be more like WoW, where you can solo/molo you way pretty much through everything?

Feels like they are taking things back so they can sell them to us again. If that was not the case, they would simply change the way mobs affect us in new expansions, not all pre-existing content.

Well shoot thanks for the update

There is a difference between other classes tanking, and making the game just dumb.
If a tank screws up, whatever he takes some more hits.

If a non-tank screws up, dead.

The purpose of being a tank isn't to snooze while tanking. They probably want tanks to feel challenged by the content, while still being forgiving towards other classes.