Homogenization

I'd like to talk about homogenization today since it's coming up in the tank community in a different sense than other roles or classes.

So what does homogenization mean? To start it's simply when things become similar. For example, this comes up in pvp a lot in the form of "this class has some type of ability that I don't have." An example here is something like warrior's have charge, they have several charges. Enhancement shamans and ret pallies have no charge like mechanic. We don't have a way to instantly be near our target. We have ways to move quickly or slow our opponent (which often the other classes have in some way such as hamstring or chains of ice or spring). Now for melee classes in pvp this is a pretty big deal, tough there are ways around it. Paladins have ways of moving faster and ways of limiting how fast others move. It's not a charge but it does help them close the gap.

Tanks are a bit different since they have certain requirements to be balanced. A straightforward example is something like ultraxion. If any tank was missing a 3m 50% dr cd (or something similar since warriors have a bit smaller cd and dr on their big cooldown) they would have trouble surviving the hour of twilight mechanic. It's not the greatest example but you can see how, being the tank, you need to have similar responses to boss mechanics or you are in a very real danger of being sat for said boss if you are unable to deal with it as well as other tanks. If there is even one tank that doesn't have a counter to these abilities you run into a problem of "a double [class] tanking comp just doesn't work." This isn't usually a problem since most guilds I've raided with over the years have avoided (by choice or intent) a comp of double one class for tanking but I've also been in raids where we've had situations like a double pally tank was the only setup we had. Sometimes just getting the 10 or 25 people together to get into the raid, and it's extremely frustrating when you're having problems with a mechanic because you're missing something on your tank. I always think of tanks as the "fulcrum" of the raid, and if they aren't all equipped to deal with bosses in certain ways there are large problems.

Blizzard has been pretty good so far in keeping the tanks comparable. For a while there (specifically 4.2) death knights had an issue with the way they were taking damage but that was mostly fixed with some changes to slow down the spike damage. Death knights suffer from the problem that they are so incredibly different from the other three tanks that making them "the same" has it's problems. There's a lot of reasons they're so different primarily due to the fact that they were designed significantly later than the rest of the classes. However they still have much of the same toolkit as we do.

However there is a danger with homogenization, which is that the classes become too similar. This is where I'm really happy about how blizzard is handling the active mitigation. I'd like to briefly point out that I'm going to exclude DKs from the majority of the comments here since they aren't getting the same rework as the rest of us tanks. Firstly, our self buffs are all going to be balanced around being able to hit the bosses, making more stats useful (that's for another time though since I do have a lot to say about two stats that have a cap). They also have a design of building up resources to generate your defensive buffs. So there's this back and forth that you're playing with your class. Build up to x hopo/rage and spend for a fairly significant buff. The great part about being different here is how it's implimented right now (remember things are still in beta and the numbers may not be 100% accurate as they change very often):

Paladin: 30% physical damage reduction for 3s.
Warrior: Block everything for 6s.
Druid: Increase dodge by 10% for 6s

They're all somewhat similar in the long run. You can save up more resources to chain 2 of these together for some boss burst (the occasional 20% frenzy) and their total uptime is similar. This is the good sort of homogenization since it lets blizzard tune incoming boss damage more easily since they know how and how much damage tanks will be taking.

The second point I find in the talent trees, it's similar functions but drastically different talents that make this interesting. Druids and warriors get their tank talent tier at 30 and paladins get it at 45. Taking a brief look at the talents there's some similar functions and I can't help but feel that paladins get the nicer ones though nothing gamebreaking.

Druid: Nature's swiftness, duration and size of next heal increased by 50%, cost is free and usable in all forms. (1m cd)
Renewal, basically desperate prayer from priests. self-heal for 30% of your hp. (2m cd)
Cenarion ward: HoT version of earth shield with one charge. Next time you get hit you have a 6s hot. (30s cd)

Warrior: Enraged regen, 15% of max hp heal now, another 15% over 15 seconds.
Second wind: you regen health when under 35% hp (and some extra rage gen outside of that)
Impending Victory: changes victory rush into a 30s cd deals dmg and self-heal for 10% hp

Paladin: Selfless healer, judgement lowers cast time of flash heal (instant at max stacks) and large heal when used on others.
Sacred Shield: Yes, it's back. wog crit chance up by 30%, shield when you get hit.
Eternal Flame: HoT for 30s, uses holy power.

As you can see they all server a similar function and at least as a paladin I know what I'm taking, however they are all very different in flavor, but all serve similar functions while allowing some varying flavors. Looking at a druid it's entirely about how you want to heal yourself and how often. It's the same choice for warriors, how often do you want to heal and how you want to heal. Paladins don't have that same style of choice but they do have several that help them heal/shield themselves. Sacred shield is just so strong right now in comparison to the others, but again that's another point.

Lastly I'll just mention shield barrier vs word of glory vs "guard" (monk) and how they're similar but with different flavors. I know I haven't mentioned much of monks just yet but they're still fairly new and I haven't had a whole lot of time to work with them on the beta yet, though I do intend to once lvl 90 is unlocked as well as on live when the expansion is up and running. I'm sure they'll have a similar issue to DKs in that they function differently, but we'll see how things go.

In any case, things are looking good for tanks in the expansion and I'm pretty excited, lets hope things keep going in the same direction.