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What Tank Should You Play in Season 4 of Mythic+?
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Опубликовано
09.01.2020 в 03:52
trellsky
The six tank specializations are looking fairly balanced going into Season 4 of BFA. Many players wonder what class will perform the best in mythic+, and whether they will need to change classes to time higher keys. The short answer is no! All 6 tanks are capable and will likely do within 1-2 key levels of each other (at the highest mythic+ level) by the end of the season. If you are looking to do +15’s for weekly loot and achievements throughout the season, any tank class is perfectly fine.
In season 3, each of the 6 tank classes timed at least +23 keys, where a couple classes timed up to +25’s (with one +26 Tol Dagor being done in time). This is important to note because I believe tank balance will be even closer in season 4, and tanks were already performing within two key levels of each other in season 3. Lots of new
corruption
effects and tank essences will be available to choose from (after getting lucky and finding the corruption you want!). A dedicated player will be able to build a very strong tank out of a class that is not necessarily top tier for mythic+ and be competitive.
About the Author
Hi, I’m Trell. I am a guidewriter for Brewmaster Mythic+ on Wowhead, and a veteran in the Peak of Serenity discord and community. I am a cohost on the
TitanforgeWoW
podcast. I have been a top ranking tank player focused on high Mythic+ since the launch of BFA. I enjoy competing for the highest keys possible on live servers, and competed in both 2019 MDI seasons. I am a monk player at heart so you can be sure to find lots of Brewmaster-focused content on my
Twitter
,
My Youtube channel
or
Live on Twitch
. Feel free to stop by and say hello!
Tier List for Tanks in Mythic+
This is my prediction list of tanks for the upcoming season regarding survivability, threat generation, damage, and utility in mythic+
S-tier
: Protection Warrior
A-tier
: Protection Paladin / Brewmaster Monk / Vengeance Demon Hunter / Guardian Druid
B-tier
: Blood Death Knight
This article will explore why this is my prediction, new challenges and options for tanks in 8.3, and may help if you are on the fence on what tank to play.
New Seasonal Affix - Awakened
The new seasonal affix
Awakened
brings dungeons back to primarily physical mitigation requirements similar to season 1 and 2 of BFA. In season 3, every emissary from the
Beguiling
affix did 100% magic damage attacks and caused tanks to worry about magic damage mitigation much more than before. Emissaries of Tides caused any given pack of mobs to deal quite a lot more tank damage because of their design. Some Void Emissary placements were impossible to line-of-sight, causing huge unavoidable magic damage in high keys. The new Awakened mini-bosses throughout each dungeon have differing damage profiles, but since they cannot be pulled with anything else in the dungeon except the last boss, they will not drastically affect the tank meta. Here are the 4 Awakened mini-bosses, the adds that accompany them, and what to look for as a tank:
Мал'тир - маг Бездны
(caster)
The least dangerous for tanks, this mini-boss casts on random players constantly. Most of the damage from this mob is avoidable with a good kick rotation. This is a good option to pull with the final boss of the dungeon.
Взрывоопасный скарабей
: These summoned adds do little tank damage and there is plenty of time to step away to avoid the explosion they cast on death.
Сам'рек Призыватель Хаоса
(fear)
The magic debuff fear mechanic
Низвергающийся ужас
goes on 3 random players, including the tank sometimes. The tank should have dispel priority, or they will get feared and killed from behind by the mini-boss and adds on higher levels.
Голодный пожиратель плоти
: apply a nasty stacking bleed on the tank constantly, requiring kiting to drop the stacks. They will target the nearest player when the tank is not in range, much like many other mobs in BFA dungeons.
Кровь Заразителя
(slime)
Move this mob constantly to avoid the high damage Defiled Ground that spawns under the mini-boss and 2 random players every few seconds. Stacking and moving as a group tends to work well with the puddles. This is also a good option to pull with the final boss of the dungeon.
The most dangerous adds of the four Awakened mobs:
Раздирающее разум щупальце
. These adds can easily combo players as they greatly slow and keep them in ground effects while also dealing high damage. The best options to deal with these are to move completely out of range, as a group, to cause them to teleport near a random player stacked up, or to avoid them entirely by doing this mini-boss with the final boss.
Ург'рот Сокрушитель Героев
(tankbuster)
The most dangerous mini-boss for tanks – Be ready on pull for the 15-second cooldown
Убийца духа
cast. At the +15 level, this will nearly one-shot most tank classes early in the season and the remaining 8 second debuff after the hit will likely finish the job. Have a plan to mitigate this damage heavily or alternatively run from the mob the entire time it is in combat. The cast can be outranged by 20 yards or line-of-sighted, but will be re-cast at the tank until it lands. Brewmaster, Vengeance and Guardian have the mobility to effectively kite Urg’roth around while staying out of range of the cast consistently; Plate tanks will have a harder time avoiding the cast. The damage from this ability is scary-high currently, and the best solution at the moment is to run away and avoid it entirely until it is reduced or changed in some way.
Убийца духа
is currently physical damage but is not blockable, dodgeable or parry-able. It can be staggered, or prevented with blessing of protection. It is no longer spell-reflectable.
Malicious growths spawn around Urg’roth which slow and deal damage in an area around them (similar to the G’huun encounter!).
The best strategies for season 4 will likely include pulling one or possibly two of the minibosses with the final boss of the dungeon. The best two options are
Мал'тир - маг Бездны
(spider) or the
Кровь Заразителя
(slime), since the damage is mostly avoidable and there is low tank and group damage. The slime is a good choice but only if the final boss room has ample kiting space for the ground effects. Keep in mind: each Awakened miniboss adds that accompany them during the dungeon do not appear at all if the mini-boss is fought with the final boss.
Mechagon Mythic+
Mechagon Mythic+ is also a completely new part of season 4. After much testing of both Mechagon dungeons, it doesn’t necessarily point to a specific tank class outperforming the rest. In previous years, sometimes you would see certain dungeons heavily favor tanks with immunities - Upper Karazhan as an example. The tank damage profiles in Junkyard and Workshop look to be similar to other BFA dungeons, though many things in Mechagon deal much higher damage than expected and are probably a little overtuned. This tends to happen with new dungeons and I am sure many things will be scaled down over time. Watch out for those fortified trash pulls and tyrannical bosses during the first few weeks of patch 8.3.
In the
Junkyard
Mythic+ key, be sure to grab the three bot buffs as soon as possible as a tank. Both the Grease Bot buff
Смазка
, and Welding Bot buff
Усиление
give nice defensive bonuses. The shock bot buff
Проводимость
is a large damage gain and should be picked up as soon as possible as well. Guardian druids are able to grab a few hard to reach bots with stealth. Brewmasters can Ring of Peace mobs away out of combat and grab some extra bots as well! Having a disease dispel as Brewmaster or Prot Paladin is nice for the
Токсикоид
boss - players or patrolling robots can be dispelled whenever they get trapped. This is an open dungeon, so plan to pull mobs that are nearest to the 3 outer bosses, and then add in the better mobs to the route afterwards. In testing, the easiest and most efficient trash mobs were in the area just before the
Воздушный подавитель ОУ-8
final boss. These packs consist of the
Анодированный разрядниконосец
and
Мехагонский нормализатор
mobs.
In the
Workshop
Mythic+ key, plan a route to skip the last pack of the dungeon if possible. On Bursting weeks it may be better to skip the slimes near
КУ-ДЖ0
instead, but the final pack is the most difficult and deals the most group damage (Enemy forces count here allows to only skip one of these two groups of mobs). The notable tank damage in this dungeon is on the final boss King Mechagon. Phase one is 100% magic damage, and the auto attacks are reflectable. Phase two - the
Гигаразряд
mechanic does a very high amount of magic damage, so plan to use big cooldowns whenever targeted, even as a tank. Anything large and robotic in this dungeon has a frontal cleave so be sure to point those mobs away from the group.
Notable Essences and Corruption Effects
The new essences and third minor essence slot will be great for adding an additional strength to any given tank, and can potentially fix a weakness or two that some classes bring. The new essence
Сила хранителя
can be used as a solid counter to the Skittish affix or threat issues in general. The new essence
Бесформенная Бездна
can also be used (carefully) to deal quite a lot of damage if copying Focused Azerite Beam or Blood of the Enemy from a dps player. Prot Paladins can stack the new corruption haste proc
Учащенное сердцебиение
to hit 100% uptime on Shield of the Righteous in most situations. Vengeance could solve some burst threat issues with stacking
Эхо Бездны
corruption traits. These are only the tip of the iceberg for what each tank class can do with the new options in 8.3. There will likely be a few best corruption options once the patch settles in but many options look attractive for tanks at the moment.
Corruptions that give stat bonuses (
Искусность
as an example) can be very strong if paired with a class that stack that particular stat. The stat bonuses update dynamically from all sources. Triple
Оплот мощи
warriors gaining 2000+ mastery during avatar benefit greatly from 9% extra mastery.
There are many, many corruption possibilities out there. Be sure to check out the complete list of corruption effects and their costs in a recent
Article by Squishei
.
Here is one fun currently over-tuned example of the new corruption
Эхо Бездны
dealing huge amounts of damage in a Waycrest Manor pull:
Сила хранителя
is a new Tank essence that does a decent amount of healing as a minor, and can be used for threat and damage as a major trait. This trait is particularly strong if burst damage can be lined up with the 50% damage increase window, and is a good choice if the tank class does not need Vision of Perfection Major to thrive. DPS players and healers can also copy this essence using Formless Void to have their very own mass taunt!
Бесформенная Бездна
major can be used on tank classes to copy Focused Azerite Beam, Blood of the Enemy and other active essences from group members in the dungeon. This is dangerous, but fun to use. The channel to copy an essence is much like Cyclotronic Blast in that tanks cannot mitigate attacks while channeling.
Tank Changes and Explanation
All tanks will suffer from the K value increase for the first few weeks of the new season (see the
K value and dungeon scaling Article by Squishei
for further explanation). Once fully geared, all tanks should feel roughly as sturdy as they were in the previous season but this means that less damage will be mitigated overall until fully geared. The general dungeon scaling being buffed by 52.6% is also a big contributing factor to tanks taking more damage, and is a larger jump than in previous seasons. That being said, scaling alone shouldn’t put one tank class ahead of the others in Mythic+. While it’s true that K value affects tanks in different ways - Tank strength comes more from how dungeon mechanics and damage profiles are handled, how well they can survive incoming damage, and what the strongest DPS and healer classes end up being. For example: Resto Druid synergizes with Brewmaster well, Hpal synergizes with Prot Warrior well.
Brewmaster is currently ranked S-tier alongside warrior until the nerfs hit in patch 8.3, greatly reducing the self-healing from
Дар быка
. This reduction and some other minor changes to Brewmaster have caused a 20-25% self-healing loss going into the new season. Brew also shined in dealing with the Beguiling emissaries, and no longer has the bonus of being the most capable tank for handling the seasonal affix in any given pull. This brings Brew down to the A tier, but still remains a very good tank choice. Brewmaster is also looking great for the
Ни'алота, Пробуждающийся Город
raid, and will probably remain very popular for the season, especially in the first few weeks.
Warrior remains as powerful as ever in terms of damage and mitigation, maybe even more powerful with a buff coming in 8.3 for
Видение совершенства
Major (Vision buffs indirectly buff Vengeance and Guardian in some cases as well). Warrior’s unique tank utility
allows several boss fights and trash pulls to go considerably faster, which has been a huge bonus to the class in BFA. Warrior’s weaknesses in season 3 were largely due to emissaries dealing heavy magic damage to them, which will no longer be the case. Another indirect bonus for Warrior is the rise of the Holy Paladin. Holy Paladins excel the most when playing with a Warrior because their most efficient healing patterns align with the damage intake of a Warrior quite well (similar to the synergy between Resto Druid and Brewmaster). Holy Paladins are becoming more common in season 3 and are likely to do very well in the final season of BFA.
Blood Death Knight continues to be the lowest ranked tank in Mythic+ since heavy nerfs occurred earlier in the expansion. DK armor was gutted, leaving them heavily susceptible to dying to physical damage in any given pull or boss-fight in high Mythic+. DK self-healing will be very high, but unfortunately nothing is being buffed to allow DK’s to survive the initial heavy hits from mobs in higher level Mythic+ keys. The new cheat death essence
Касание вечности
could potentially help with this problem, if it ends up being worth the loss of another major essence. A skilled DK player can make their specialization work, outranging most attacks and using cooldowns and group utility wisely to survive. My guess is that DK’s will only be limited 1-2 key levels from the top provided that a skilled player is piloting the class and building the dungeon group around the class. Prot Paladin suffers to an extent in this area, susceptible to dying within a global outside of shield of the righteous. Haste scaling and additional sources of haste may prove otherwise though, and mitigation uptime may rival that of Warrior in season 4. Prot Paladin looks to be pretty strong, but will likely still fall under the overall value of Warrior due to less damage and spell reflect.
Vengeance and Guardian are also well-rounded tanks, but like Paladin and Monk, fall just short of the overall value of Warrior. Guardian can deal almost as much damage as warrior but falls off in the mitigation area, especially at the beginning of a pull. Vengeance excels at encounters such as shadow of zul (which will likely be required in season 4 instead of skipping), and is generally very tanky with the Vision/Gluttony build. Unfortunately, Vengeance falls behind other tanks in the damage department with this build.
Conclusion
I ranked the tanks closely together because by the end of Season 4 there should only be a 1-2 key level disparity of how all six tank specs performed when played by their most capable players. Each tank brings unique utility and game-play to any given dungeon and when played well, the weaknesses they also bring can be covered and worked through in order to make their strengths shine.
The addition of new essences, gear scaling, removal of Beguiling, and corruption bonuses should help tune tanks a little closer together for Mythic+ than in season 3. There are now more options for gearing, and many more options for pulling the dungeons based on how the Awakened affix encourages creativity (I'm liking it a lot so far). Like any season, the meta will prominently feature one or two tanks more than the others due to community perception, but any tank is viable up to nearly the highest level. If you are looking to be extremely competitive in the highest Mythic+ keys, I personally recommend playing warrior. Otherwise, have fun and play your favorite tank spec!
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