Blizzard defies all laws of physics and proves time travel is possible with latest tank nerfs

Lots of people were upset about WoW’s incoming tank nerfs, but I was mostly just impressed: Blizzard’s managed to do something that’s eluded physicists for years.

Let me explain.

Imagine taking your dog for a walk. You throw on a jacket, clip Rover’s leash on, and exit your house at 10:00 am. Setting off at a brisk pace, you complete a circuit around your neighborhood, arriving back at your front door at 10:30 am.

Now imagine that you have, by some miracle, developed the capacity for time travel. Maybe you’re magic. Maybe your neighborhood suddenly has a supermassive black hole. Maybe you’re just on a lot of drugs. You throw on a jacket, clip Rover’s leash on, and exit your house at 10:00 am. Setting off at a brisk pace, you complete a circuit around your neighborhood, arriving back at your house at … 10:00 am.

This is what physicists refer to as a closed timelike curve. (Sort of. We’re glossing over a lot of details, but this is elf journalism, not Physical Review X.) In a closed timelike curve, a subject will return, not just to the same point in space, but to the same point in time. As you walk up the driveway, you see yourself and Rover emerging from the door. Your neighbor Peggy pokes her head out to yell that HOA bylaws prohibit more than one of you from existing at your address in a single timeline.

“It’s a relativistic universe, Peggy!” you scream. “There aren’t two of me! Events that look simultaneous from your stupid frame of reference are sequential in mine!”

Doubtless you are now wondering what this is all about. “Allie,” you say (as you take me by the shoulders and steer me gently in the direction of the Clozapine). “This is supposed to be about tank nerfs. Why should I care about closed timelike curves?”

You should, dear reader. You’re in one.

I’m not really here to offer an opinion on whether the proposed nerfs are good or bad, merely to observe that “role balance” is a cycle. Does any of this look familiar to you?

“Tanks are too strong.”

Blizzard notices that tanks take very little damage and do good DPS. After too many developers are left waiting while a pug tank solos Manifested Timeways down from 70%, consensus is reached that the situation will no longer be tolerated.

“In order to balance group content, tank survivability has been reduced.”

The nerfbat strikes. Sometimes it hits health. Sometimes it takes aim at mitigation or self-healing. Sometimes Blizzard employs the circumcision principle and just takes 10% off the top of everything. The rationale is that tanks were never meant to be completely self-sufficient, and that they should require more healer attention and support from the group in what is — after all — group content.

Testing on actual gameplay is insufficient.

These changes typically happen in the transition between expansions. Blizzard tests extensively on its own end, and then opens the alpha and beta.

However, it’s difficult to predict what’s going to happen when the changes hit the live servers, because the beta never has a representative sample of players. Beta population is weighted toward big content producers, streamers, and elite raiders/key runners. These people are an indispensable part of the community — they’re our guide writers and information brokers, the primary conduit through which we improve — but by definition they’re not average.

Moreover, tank changes tend to occur at the same time as other big changes (e.g., new raids, dungeons, affixes, mechanics, tier sets, and weapons/trinkets with unique effects). It’s difficult to isolate what’s causing a problem and which team is responsible for fixing it.

The expansion goes live and all hell breaks loose.

Newly-weakened tanks hit brand-new, hard-hitting content with all the force and majesty of a bird hitting a window. Dungeon and raid mechanics that seemed problematic to elite players who spent months testing them are worse for people seeing them for the first time.

The first few weeks are spent getting your bearings and trying to determine which mechanics are genuinely overtuned, and which are simply annoying because you’re not familiar with them. And — here’s that relativistic universe again — there’s no objective standard to judge whether something’s “overtuned.” If you’re in a stable group on voice comms, you’re going to have an easier time than someone who’s pugging. In one group, the DPS are undergeared and inexperienced, and you die to a tank buster once you run out of cooldowns: In another, the DPS have gotten some purples and good trinkets, and the boss dies before you do.

Inevitably, one or two specs weather the changes better than others.

And boom — there’s your meta.

I’m far from being the first person to observe this, but the most immediate impact of the tank nerfs won’t have much to do with tanks themselves. Rather, it increases the odds that the Augmentation Evoker will immediately command a group slot.

Player population on the weaker specs declines.

Many tank players are attracted to the role more than a particular spec, and will simply abandon the low performers. Stubborn lifers will grit their teeth and continue playing their favorites even if they’re “bad,” dealing with longer queues and more skeptical groups. For everyone else, or when Blizzard’s really dropped the ball on a given spec, content gets demoralizing if you feel like you’re just getting kicked in the face. These people respec, hop to another class, stop doing challenging content, or stop playing entirely.

If the number of players doing this reaches critical mass, the wait for a tank in LFG goes up, and the forums fill with complaints.

Developers wait to see what can be buffed/nerfed, and sometimes wait too long.

As with the beta, it’s difficult to determine what the actual cause of a problem is. However, time is its own diagnostic aid. Tanks who are having problems in week one may be cruising comfortably by week three (i.e., gear and skill issues). A wide variety of players still having issues by week four indicates that the content is probably overtuned.

Unfortunately, these decisions don’t always arrive in time to prevent an exodus from the weaker specs, or from the ones whose underlying design means they will struggle with unavoidable mechanics. Data sites show an embarrassing lack of balance among the tanks in higher content.

Blizzard gives up and starts buffing tanks again.

Timing on this is always unfortunate, because tanks would have improved no matter what. More experience, better gear, set bonuses, and access to good trinkets all positively impact survivability. And because game balance has always been a complex ecosystem, tanks also benefit when other players improve. A geared, experienced healer can cover any number of mistakes. Geared, experienced DPS will reduce the content’s perceived difficulty. While Blizzard buffs the content in each patch to ensure it’s not too easy, tanks always seem to scale just a little bit faster.

The end result is a noticeable gulf in difficulty between the first and final seasons. There’s no one more respectful of the content than a tank at the beginning of an expansion:

Tank: Okay, I’m gonna pull him over here and kick first. Rogue, you get second kick, and Mage, you get third.

Rogue: It’s a single non-elite.

Tank: Can’t be too careful.

Rogue: Literally a bunny.

Tank: /readycheck

And there’s no one more dismissive of it than a tank at the end of an expansion:

Tank: k half the group’s afk but I’m gonna pull Arglebargle, Slayer of a Thousand Orphans.

Priest: We could die.

Tank: You could die.

Eventually the loop closes and we arrive back at:

“Tanks are too strong.”

And a weird sense of déjà vu asserts itself. Have we been here before?

I said earlier that I wasn’t going to offer an opinion on whether the nerfs are good or bad, and I’m not. Your experience in the game is relentlessly contextual. It feels less useful to ask, “How bad are the nerfs?” than “What is tuning going to be like?” Likewise: Who are you playing with? What content are you doing? What content do you want to do? Are you trying to improve with each run? All of these things will make the difference between a reasonable challenge and a nightmarish slog, and not just for you, but for everyone you play with.

So lots of people were upset about WoW’s incoming tank nerfs, but I was mostly just impressed: Blizzard’s managed to do something that’s eluded physicists for years.

Let me explain.

Imagine taking your dog for a walk …