World of Warcraft has the perfect solution for everyone to become a tank. A new affix specifically helps tanks at the beginning.
The least popular role in World of Warcraft is the tank. Blizzard knows this too. It is not because tanking is not fun, but because you often have to put a lot of work into preparation. While DPS characters and healers “simply follow the tank,” it is actually the tank who has to know where to go and which enemies to defeat. A problem for which Blizzard has now found an ideal solution.
What is the problem for tanks? The biggest problem for new tanks in World of Warcraft is that they have to deal with external sources before entering dungeons in the “Mythic+” range. Other group members generally expect that the tank already has a fixed route in mind and knows exactly which groups of enemies need to be defeated in order to quickly and efficiently get through the dungeon – after all, there is a timer to beat.
For this, it is usually necessary to read guides beforehand, watch tutorial videos, or plan on your own before even entering the dungeon. A major hindrance – after all, some just want to play and not study the instances in advance.
Tanks get a clear route that is immediately visible
How does Blizzard fix this? In Season 1 of Midnight, there will be a new affix active from “Mythic+2” to “Mythic+5”. The affix is called “Lindormis Guidance” and has the following effects:
- Some enemies will be visually highlighted and have 5% reduced health points and deal 5% less damage.
- Defeating all marked enemies provides exactly 100% of the necessary “enemy forces” you need to defeat to complete the dungeon.
- The affix additionally prevents deaths from reducing the timer.
This allows Blizzard to achieve something quite genius: tanks (and everyone else) can see a successful route through the dungeon at first glance. You just have to move from group to group that is influenced by the “Lindormis Guidance” affix.
Why is Blizzard doing this? The developers want to provide tanks with an easier entry into the “Mythic+” system, and this is achieved through the affix. The lower tiers, where Lindormis Guidance is active – that is, Mythic +2 to Mythic +5 – are particularly suitable for learning and preparing for the harder difficulties.
However, Blizzard emphasizes that the routes from Lindormis Guidance are not “optimized” for higher-level dungeons. They are only meant to provide a foundation upon which players can navigate through the dungeon and later develop their own routes.
The community finds this step genius: The announcement is received quite well by the WoW community. In the WoW subreddit, many perceive it as an almost perfect solution to reduce the fear of tanks about getting started:
- “This sounds like a great idea. It should make starting tanking in Mythic+ significantly less exhausting.” – PreviousMidnight
- “Yes! Learning an ‘easy’ route with 100% is the biggest barrier to entry. That’s great!” – Ocronus
- “This is actually SUCH a good idea. It will MASSIVELY reduce the entry barriers for tanks and allow them to focus on actually playing their class instead of checking external sources to learn a dungeon.” – zani1903
With this change, World of Warcraft seems to become much more accessible for tanks. While it remains to be seen how “good” the standard routes will actually be – for beginners, however, they should be more than sufficient to venture into Mythic+ significantly more relaxed. That’s good, because tanks have had it particularly hard for a long time.
