I definitely feel like I lucked out as returning prot warrior this season. I watched a lot of M+ tanking guides and took note of all the tank busters, and then was surprised that none of them really seemed to put a dent in me even in 10s, or I just negate them completely with spell reflect. It sounds incredibly stressful for any tanks that can't block, and hopefully these nerfs help a bit to make these mechanics a better balance of engaging instead of punishing - if it's not too late. As for the toxicity, I think the stakes can be just too high for people with how M+ is currently designed. There are times where if a single person misses their interrupt, or defensive, or mechanic check, or pull, etc., the run is screwed for everyone. On the one hand, difficult content should be difficult, and the whole idea of M+ is it gets infinitely more difficult to keep giving players a reason to log in and play. But for the typical pug group (which is very likely the vast majority of M+ groups) there's absolutely no way to communicate with your group once a run has started, making it very difficult to communicate with everyone what is expected of them for each pull/boss/mechanic. You just have to trust that everyone knows everything and that it's the same 'everything' that you know. Maybe I'm just an old man these days, but I remember playing the end game dungeons in vanilla, and then heroics in BC, which all seemed incredibly difficult at the time because the game hadn't been 'solved' yet. But because there was no timer you could take you time communicate with your group on which mobs to CC, which to interrupt, how you were going to pull them, etc. You had time to talk to people and work towards achieving something, make friends, be social, etc.. Now there's no time for that, it's just go go go until someone slips on a banana and then everyone is pissed. I think timers can still be fun and engaging, but maybe in some sort of 'bonus' way. Like giving extra crests depending on how fast you clear a M+, tie portals to clearing a 10s in a certain amount of time, etc.
I definitely feel like I lucked out as returning prot warrior this season. I watched a lot of M+ tanking guides and took note of all the tank busters, and then was surprised that none of them really seemed to put a dent in me even in 10s, or I just negate them completely with spell reflect. It sounds incredibly stressful for any tanks that can't block, and hopefully these nerfs help a bit to make these mechanics a better balance of engaging instead of punishing - if it's not too late.
As for the toxicity, I think the stakes can be just too high for people with how M+ is currently designed. There are times where if a single person misses their interrupt, or defensive, or mechanic check, or pull, etc., the run is screwed for everyone. On the one hand, difficult content should be difficult, and the whole idea of M+ is it gets infinitely more difficult to keep giving players a reason to log in and play. But for the typical pug group (which is very likely the vast majority of M+ groups) there's absolutely no way to communicate with your group once a run has started, making it very difficult to communicate with everyone what is expected of them for each pull/boss/mechanic. You just have to trust that everyone knows everything and that it's the same 'everything' that you know.
Maybe I'm just an old man these days, but I remember playing the end game dungeons in vanilla, and then heroics in BC, which all seemed incredibly difficult at the time because the game hadn't been 'solved' yet. But because there was no timer you could take you time communicate with your group on which mobs to CC, which to interrupt, how you were going to pull them, etc. You had time to talk to people and work towards achieving something, make friends, be social, etc.. Now there's no time for that, it's just go go go until someone slips on a banana and then everyone is pissed. I think timers can still be fun and engaging, but maybe in some sort of 'bonus' way. Like giving extra crests depending on how fast you clear a M+, tie portals to clearing a 10s in a certain amount of time, etc.