Encounter Design - What We Really Need to See In Mists

Does anyone else think that Brewmasters should get a 10% buff to their drinks this time next year? Hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable St. Patrick's Day. I'm kind of ashamed to admit that I'm Irish but don't really care for drinking.  Le gasp!

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If you remember last Wednesday, I concluded my thoughts with a pseudo-segue about what we need to see in Mists. Unless you're some weirdo who reads the body of articles before the title, you are now aware of WHY it was a segue - today, I'm going to (big shock) be talking about something that we need to see in Mists. There are definitely some things that are on my wish list for tanks in general, and monks in particular. Today's highlight, however, has nothing to do with tank design, and EVERYTHING to do with tank gameplay.

My name is Leonard Church, and you will fear my laserface.

Encounter Design
Fellow tanks, how many times this expansion have you had an encounter where you simply spammed your rotation on a boss, waiting for your co-tank to reach 3 or 4 stacks of some debuff before you taunt (and then wait for them to do the same)? I bet it ain't zero. Hell, even some TRASH has stuff like this. There are dozens of bosses in WoW that have little for the tanks to do besides play catch with boss threat. Even Ultraxion is a tank swap mechanic that's just dressed up for a night out (twilight out?). Aside from the problems this can cause with Vengeance, it's also kind of boring. Then there are some encounters that have some pretty fun mechanics, like the Faceless Ones in Dragon Soul. Deal with the repercussions of a raidwide decision about slime, spin the boss in place and position him in front of a psychedelic ping pong ball...now we're talking! Oh, wait. These guys only require one tank. Whoops. That's another recurring issue.

Hell, the CAPSTONE encounter for this expansion manages to exemplify BOTH of these problems! You're either using the strategy where tanks swap the Corruptions after an Impale, or you're doing the entire encounter with only one tank. My guild has done both. This isn't a new concern, either. Consider everyone's favorite raid, Trial of the Crusader.  After watching some alarmingly efficient gnome-killing, I always had a lot of fun with Jaraxxus. I'd get to manage a ton of adds that flew all over the place, timing Holy Wraths to stun the demons precisely where I wanted them to let my Shield fly through all three of them...yet I'd always have to give my warrior co-tank a regretful look over my shoulder. He got to stand on the boss and interrupt a spell because paladins didn't have an interrupt that worked on bosses at the time. The only times both tanks had something equal were when there were two enemies. Blizzard just seems to have a really hard time coming up with interesting things for both tanks to do.

That's not to say they haven't gotten it right at times, though. Let's pick apart the bosses in Firelands, often called the Ulduar of Cataclysm. We'll see if they hold up from a tanking perspective.

There's a joke that goes here about him fighting us from a giant cereal bowl, and "TOO SPOON," but I'm not clever enough to make it.

Firelands Boss Audit
Shannox - SUCCESS
This fight works because both tanks have something interesting to do based on positioning. The boss tank has a challenge in that he or she not only needs to avoid traps, but needs to keep the boss's butt out of them too, for the sake of the melee DPS who can't see through Shannox himself. In addition, there's the Magma Rupture to dance around. The tank on Riplimb has to avoid traps as well, while managing distance, positioning (to let stacks fall off both tanks), and timing. In my opinion, this is a much better way to handle a stacking debuff, and even if one tank doesn't have much interaction with the boss himself, both *do* have something engaging to do. The teamwork between the two also makes me want to high-five my comrade.

Lord Rhyolith - FAILURE
This is a fight that I find really cool. It just happens to suffer from single-tank syndrome. That alone makes it a missed opportunity in my eyes. Fortunately, my warrior pal likes going Arms every now and again, but I'm sure there are just as many raid groups where neither of the tanks like being a DPS yet are forced to for bosses like this. There are ways to fix this, though. This encounter in particular seems to have an intuitive way to be made more interesting for the tanks. Instead of one tank dealing damage and the other playing cowboy by wrangling up some adds, give Rhyolith a couple of lieutenants. Or maybe a baron. Take that level 88 trash mob, and make him part of the boss fight. Nix the little adds, and keep the Sparks around.  Have the Spark tank regularly interrupt a raid-damage explosion ability from the Spark while he slowly kills it.  However, have Kar's tank bring him close, and allow the Spark to do his blast (healers be ready).  This could overheat Kar.  The Spark tank goes back to interrupting and gets some help killing his add, while Kar is dragged over a volcano. This ignites the volcano for Rhyolith to be steered over. Wait until another Spark comes out, and repeat. It's still not really all that complicated, but it would completely change the feel of the fight. The DPS and healers do almost exactly what they were doing before (steer Ryholith over active volcanoes and heal, respectively), while the tanks each have something interesting to do. I'm not a professional designer, but this sounds way more like a boss that I would look forward to.

Beth'tilac - SUCCESS
The Red Widow is an interesting beast, and reminds me of Ulduar's Thorim for one simple reason: an "away team" setup. The tank on the ground runs around taunting down dangling spiders so the DPS can focus on the real problem, all while facing drones away from the raid. Meanwhile, the other grabs some mates and climbs up onto Beth'tilac's web to deal with her, avoid meteors, and and pseudo-rappel back down to avoid being burnt to a crisp (a rather common threat in the Firelands, but not a pleasant one in any case). Phase 2 is your standard ol' debuff tank swapping, but since the first stage keeps both tanks busy, and the second is so short, I'll let it slide by.

Alysrazor - SUCCESS
This is another neat example of a fight where tanks barely deal with the boss but can still have a good time. Those who know me well could tell you that I'm a bit OCD for symmetry (I have a compulsion to straighten apple displays in grocery stores...don't judge), so this encounter speaks to me on a deep level. It also hearkens back to the reason some ToC fights worked - there are two enemies for two tanks. I like the hatchlings thinking I'm their mother, I like keeping them fed so they don't eat my face instead, I like being able to fly once I kill it, I like dodging tornadoes, I like interrupting and locking down her burnout recovery...as far as I'm concerned, this boss is designed brilliantly.

Baleroc - FAILURE
The gatekeeper forces a tank to become DPS. I'm not going to come up with solutions for every time this happens, or we'll be here forever. Moving right along.

Majordomo Staghelm - FAILURE
One tank. Otherwise, I love the fight. It may be a bit undertuned, but that has nothing to do with creative mechanics. I get really into controlling the boss's behavior, and I think it's a lot of fun. Still, one tank. TOO SOON.  I mean, NEXT.

Ragnaros - SUCCESS
It's true, I lampooned his tank-swapping mechanic just a little bit ago. Still, on the whole, I think the Firelord's design does a lot of things right. There are a pair of large adds for the tanks to pick up, but they have to keep them busy until other mechanics are dealt with first. I'm a fan of that, "We'll get to them when we get a moment, we have other priorities; just deal with it for now!" In addition, there are other things to worry about while you tank swap through the entire encounter. This is important; the tank swapping isn't the lone mechanic to keep us tanks awake. Everything the raid has to deal with, WE have to deal with, *while* monitoring our compatriot's debuff stacks.

- Summary -
As you can see, not one boss in Firelands falls victim to the "Tank swap and tank swap alone" problem. Even though it only demonstrates a 4:3 success rate, I think the raid, on the whole, does an admirable job. Every time both tanks are involved, they have something fun to do.

A Word On Dual Spec
I know that there are some of you out there who enjoy DPSing from time to time, and see these single-tank encounters as a welcome break. I'm afraid that's not an argument I can put much stock into, however, because there are just as many who cannot stand DPSing and suddenly find themselves forced to. [Note: Madness of Deathwing, as mentioned above, allows for either one OR two tanks - while the tank jobs may be boring, the encounter ITSELF is really elegantly designed and cool, and allowing for either composition you like is definitely deserving of merit.] The purpose of Dual Specializations was allow you to fulfill another role for an entire night if the raid needed it, or to switch with somebody if you felt like playing an off spec, or to let you optimize two builds of the same spec. The purpose of Dual Specializations was not to make it acceptable to be pigeon-holed into a role you don't enjoy because a given boss wasn't built for the accepted raid composition. If you're truly committed to fulfilling more than one role, find somebody who also enjoys filling yours, and switch every now and again. That way, everyone's happy. If you can't, but enjoy DPSing more, go DPS! This is a game; do what's fun for you. Lastly, if you're tanking because you just can't find another tank...try your damndest to find a tank. Don't toss it aside as a fact of life.

One, uh, Minor Note Here
Andy's birthday party has been moved to today. Nah, for serious, though: I'm kind of new to this blogging thing, and I'm trying to optimize a little. I'm going to change my guaranteed updates to Tuesday instead of Sunday. My Tuesday evenings should be free after music rehearsal until I graduate from my university next fall. This way, if I have a busy weekend, I can use that time to crank out an article. This weekend I had to pick up shifts over the holiday after we lost somebody at work. While I was still able to write this up for y'all, it still led me to rethink a time buffer to write in.

Lastly, instead of doing a cop out and pushing *this* update to Tuesday, I'm posting it today, as planned, and I'll try to burn something out for you about all of the new Mists of Pandaria information we're getting once the Nondisclosure Agreement is lifted tomorrow. It might be a smidge late, since that's only a day to write, but I'll see what I can do. Perhaps you'll see a number of small, focused (talents, spells, design intent, etc.) updates throughout the week. In any case, NEXT Tuesday will definitely see a return to order, and hopefully you'll have something to read during the server downtime each week, unless I get stuck writing in the evening.

Later, folks!

- Stonepalm -