People don't want to tank because most people who tank do it because they have to. Previously if you rolled a tanking class and wanted to get into an instance you had to tank, due to a tank shortage. With them expanding the potential players that you can run instances with more people feel like they shouldnt have to tank to get a run in.
Also tanking requires you to be responsible for something, everyone doesn't want to play the game and have an important role in a dungeon, they just want to go in there and kill shit. Havent played in a while but isnt there some sort of new loot thing now? Maybe people don't want to tank because then they are only able to roll on tank gear.
People prefer to see big numbers pop over the targets head, and prefer to be "uber dps". Tanking isn't a glorified roll. You don't see people spam "tank" meters in the raid, or major cities. While tanking is not all that hard, at lower levels, people who don't know the game can make it hard on their group. If you are tanking and your healer goes afk every 30 seconds, or attacks instead of heals, or dps runs off to attack mobs, it can really hurt the tanks ability to learn how to tank. Plus this causes them to not to want to do deal with that hassle.
Past that, so many players are just terrible, and even with the easy AoE tanking most tank classes have, they still can't do it.
Because 90% of the time it's a thankless task. Group does well, it's the brilliant dps, group wipes, it's the tank or healers fault. A generalisation I know, but like all these cliches it becomes so as there's more than just a grain of truth to it.
My main is a prot warrior on Zangarmarsh server, I can tell you from experience that the main reason why I dont like to tank pugs or random heroics is the "people". Yes I know, its an MMO, and playing with people is one of the main reasons we play MMOs to begin with; but the actions of other players are what make tanking more a job then a fun role to enjoy.
I haven't played other tanking classes other than a prot warrior so I cant speak on how other tanks handle their chosen role; but overall I think tanking is handled in very similar ways across the board. When I tank I find that alot of dps decide its much easier to just aoe mobs down instead of single target dps, nothing wrong with that, but when dps mindlessly spam aoe when tanks have yet to generate any threat...mobs that I havent got a chance to get threat on get pulled and run every which way leading to chaotic pulls. Other things that people like to do are run up to mobs and aggro them without the tank being ready or close enough to intercept or pickup the adds...meaning I now have to grab the add you pulled and pick up the rest before they decide to punt the healer for throwing out hots.
One other thing I see is that people like to throw out the most damage they can in the least amount of time possible from the get go, and get upset when they have a mob in their face beating them to death. The other day I ran a random heroic and decided that I didnt feel comfortable with this grp due to prior pulls, so I decided to do a little marking; (oh no...a tank that marks..) needless to say they completely ignored the kill order and decided to start attacking the square instead of the skull, which I clearly stated would be the first in the kill order; or the player who wants to be done with this particular dungeon in 10 mins and has some raid/real life thing to do, and constantly states that Im "taking to long between pulls" when I dont know any of these people or trust that they even know what they are doing i.e. boss fights etc....or in many circumstances particular classes tanks know to watch, like hunters/DKs who dont put their pets on passive...or the players that just dont want to do anything today and complain when I ask them to misdirect or use tott so they can help me out with threat issues.
Those are just some of the circumstances I run into on a daily basis, but as a tank I drive on and continue doing as much as possible to keep the mobs attention squarely on me , watching every enemy closely looking for casting animations or making sure they are not hitting you and not running/turned around hitting someone else, tab target devastating, interrupting when possible with stuns and shield bashes, spell reflecting when I can to mitigate damage, trying to position mobs (who run all over the damn place because of buggy AI) so that their aoe attacks dont hit/silence the grp, or running after mobs that a dps decides to spam every instant they have and ignore their threat meter so they can be on top once the recount gets posted.
In conclusion, I dont want people to take this post as whining or complaining, but I just want people who dont tank, to get a feel for the kinds of things that tanks experience every day and understand why some tanks just dont have the energy to constantly run heroics or raids all day long, it takes a lot to be a decent, reliable tank and honestly after three years of tanking from Kara in BC to ICC in wrath, people never give tanks their time of day or care about trying to help them tank better by working with them instead of against them. In essence the reason why you wont see me tanking all day long..and perhaps why you have a long que in the random heroic..is the people I might end up getting grouped with...
To all the people who think tanking is easy and say its nothing more then spamming sunders or aoe taunts have obviously only tanked lvl 1-70 dungeons which are in no way anything close to end game tanking or have never tanked anything in Ulduar, or ICC.
All the way there's no problem until we reach the part where the lady npc split into 3 parts.
Before we start the ret pally said i should stick to 1 of them and get her down. So i follow. We wipe. Second time he said to focus on the fire, we wipe, 3rd time he said we should focus on the ice(?), we wipe.
Needless to say the group disband. After going out the ret pally say in general channel, that he group with a tank that cant hold 3 mobs....
Tanking for WoW Oculus the first time in pug. All the way there's no problem until we reach the part where the lady npc split into 3 parts. Before we start the ret pally said i should stick to 1 of them and get her down. So i follow. We wipe. Second time he said to focus on the fire, we wipe, 3rd time he said we should focus on the ice(?), we wipe. Needless to say the group disband. After going out the ret pally say in general channel, that he group with a tank that cant hold 3 mobs.... I never tank from that day onwards...
That's Nexus actually, that boss is a damned joke. Most of the time it's not a problem of agro since she will random cast on party members. Decent dps and dispellers is all that fight really needs.
Tanking for WoW Oculus the first time in pug. All the way there's no problem until we reach the part where the lady npc split into 3 parts. Before we start the ret pally said i should stick to 1 of them and get her down. So i follow. We wipe. Second time he said to focus on the fire, we wipe, 3rd time he said we should focus on the ice(?), we wipe. Needless to say the group disband. After going out the ret pally say in general channel, that he group with a tank that cant hold 3 mobs.... I never tank from that day onwards...
That's Nexus actually, that boss is a damned joke. Most of the time it's not a problem of agro since she will random cast on party members. Decent dps and dispellers is all that fight really needs.
Thanks for the correction. XD
But i always make it a point to thank the healer, very important me thinks...
Because Tanking is difficult but most peoples play WoW because they search easy gameplay?
Where themepark games try to hide that they are copying WOW, games like Mortal Online and Darkfall make no attempt to hide their inspiration ______\m/_____ LordOfDarkDesire
Tanking for WoW Oculus the first time in pug. All the way there's no problem until we reach the part where the lady npc split into 3 parts. Before we start the ret pally said i should stick to 1 of them and get her down. So i follow. We wipe. Second time he said to focus on the fire, we wipe, 3rd time he said we should focus on the ice(?), we wipe. Needless to say the group disband. After going out the ret pally say in general channel, that he group with a tank that cant hold 3 mobs.... I never tank from that day onwards...
That's Nexus actually, that boss is a damned joke. Most of the time it's not a problem of agro since she will random cast on party members. Decent dps and dispellers is all that fight really needs.
Thanks for the correction. XD
But i always make it a point to thank the healer, very important me thinks...
IMO that pally was just an ass. Get a few guildies or some friends to group with you, run some instances to get the hang of tanking research the encounters. Don't quit tanking because of one guy, what you enjoy should be your only concern.
We've seen a number of testimonials on why tanking can be a PITA. What I view as the common sense approach in a PUG, which is the tank makes the decisions on pulls, determines what dies in what order, is not held by all players, it seems,and my main is one of those bothersome hunters. One who is sure to have growl turned off unless the tank wants it on, one who misdirects when asked, one who doesn't AOE if I'm told not to, especially in HoL when all those explosive elementals swarm.
Basic communiction seems to be lacking in PUGs sometimes. In my view tank MUST set the pace. If you don't like the pace the tank is setting, then perhaps you should leave. I defer to the tank's call on how we approach things unless the tank is totally out to lunch, which with a good tank seldom happens. Then again, I run most of my heroics with guildies and there are established protocols within the guild on how we handle this. Our principle tank lays down the law about some things.
One thing that I was looking forward to was one of our youngest members joining in on heroics and raids when his DK hits 80, and being a player who has soloed his way through a lot, encountering our principle tank (the guild leader and a prot warrior) and driving him nuts. The kid is educable, though...and he'll have to learn fast who is the boss, not to throw D&D out there and generate threat and piss off the tank. He's a kid, is on a somewhat erratic schedule due to his parents laying down the law on WoW playtime, and the guild is made up of mature players, some of whom are ex military and therefore understand the need to follow orders in combat.
Would have been good for a few laughs, at least...the main tank just doesn't put up with crap from the DPS guys. Do it his way, or mail and cloth wearers get to experience the tanking, which means that a wipe is imminent.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
As a tank, even in the ridiculously easy content for groups in WoW right now, you cannot really watch TV, go semi-afk for any lengths of time, take breaks or surf your favorite forums while playing. You have to be there ,glued to the screen, all the time.
That makes DPS classes more suitable to a majority of people who just dont want to "only" play WoW,or cant sit still for any length of time. With ADD becoming more of a standard with the younger generation, I dont see that getting any better.
Furthermore, in WoW (and thats pretty much worse than in any other MMO) as the tank you are expected to know, communicate and handle almost everything. Blizzard has repeatedly taken duties like CC, aggro control, movement etc. off the DPS classes, but whenever a tank class gets a boost, they are now even more than before expected to perform well to allow the DPS classes the widest margin of error possible.
As a good tank, all I am doing basically is giving DPS classes more ways of screwing up without taking the heat, blame or consequences.
WotLK with its stupid AoE Aggro sort of is the epitome of this misguided design attempt to try and create a role (DPS) that has absolutely no requirements in terms of skill. Basically, tanks and healers are not just expected to carry the groups by the playerbase, they are also expected to do so by Blizzard, who seem to think its a good idea to keep lowering the bar for DPS.
Being a bad DPS player in a group usually doesnt even register much. It certainly doesnt matter in almost any group content these days. Being a bad tank or bad healer gets people killed, fails the content, and usually results in getting trashed for it.
So, frankly, as long as the "mainstream" goes for DPS classes, adn developers like Blizzard keep piling luxury skills, advantages and comfort on these classes because most people play them, there will be shortages of the "workhorse" classes.
The next step is an all-DPS class MMO. We ll see that within 3 years I reckon.
Again I'm sitting here writing the post because my DDs can't find a group and I'm in the queue. 30 minutes so far and counting. According to the group finder, I'll have another 20 or so minutes to spare. Plenty of time to go on your nerves. Since I have a tank (before anyone says "why don't you...?"), but even I want to level something else for a change, I wonder why? What is it that makes people roll a warrior but insist in playing the DD in a group? In all seriousness, I've seen more bear druids and pallies tanking than warriors. Even when counting myself, pretty much the only def warrior below level 60 that I know. So it's not that people don't want to play warriors (who, unlike paladins and druids, cannot be anything but tanks or DDs in the end). And Paladins, Druids and DKs are popular anyway for their soloability. So it's not a lack of people who could. It's also not a lack of solo survivability if you put your talents into the def tree. I level as a def warrior. Granted, it's now easier than ever with the LFG tool practically ensuring you have a group when you want it (in all seriousness, the only reason I had to wait 1 minute once before entering a dungeon was that someone refusing the invitation happened twice in a row), but even before groups became the norm for me, leveling was anything but hard. I could easily tank and down 4-6 equal level mobs without losing more than 1/2 my HP. Is it rep cost? I can't vouch for level 80, but so far it's anything but crippling. Even if I happen to die a few times, it's usually pocket change compared to what we drag out of the dungeon. Is it "hard"? Be reasonable. Tanking is spamming AOE taunts and rending armor. If that's hard for you, pray that WoW never ceases to exist and you'd be facing a really challenging game. What is the reason? Why is nobody willing to tank?
Buddy, I think this problem stems back to Vanilla WoW and TBC.
Blizzard has had a problem, with spreading out the Role of Tanking. It is even Believed that the original developer of WoW hated Hybrids, more improtantly,,, Hybrids that Tank,,, which is why Blizzard shoved them into the Healing Role.
But Problem came along, that there was just too few Healers, since only Priest and Druids were the Primary Healing Classes (AKA best Healers, and good at mostly that alone). Most people didnt want to play a class that was designed only to Heal. This is why people avoided those classes.
Many people that made Paladins on the other hand, wanted to be Melee Fighters like Warriors, but again, Blizzard never buffed the class or give us the tools needed to Tank untill patch 2.3 in TBC.
But As we moved into Early TBC, Blizzard decided to get rid of the idea of Primary Healer classes, but they didnt decide to do the same for the Tanking Role. But they did give Druids a Tanking/Melee buff, in order to repopulate the class. (So in other words, Warriors remained the Primary Tank most of TBC)
Paladins had to sit around as the risk Tank. Worst Tank in the game. They didnt get the needed tools until late 2.3 and even that wasnt enough.
But finally along came WoTLK, when Blizzard made the idea of AoE tanking that standard, Paladins became the great tanks, while many Warriors over the years grew tired of the role that they had to do for 5 years, and like the Paladins and Druids, they want to explore new main roles for its class
I just dusted off my level 64 Warrior last night. Filled him up with Protection talents and jumped right in. My gear is pretty terrible, and I have not played the character for around 1 year, so it was a little intimidating and I'm sure I can do better, but damn if it wasn't easy to find a group.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Think about it. The top end content, 25 man raids, mainly only requires 2 dedicated tanks maximum for most content, a main tank and an off tank. That's only 8% of the raid composition as tanks.
Now for the rest of group content, 5 mans have 1 tank, and 10 mans have 2 tanks. That's 20% of the group/raid composition as tanks.
Considering that players we would assume would tend to prefer to stick with a particular character and playstyle, those that do raid in 25 mans will fill the same class/role in 5 and 10 mans. This creates a shortage in tanks for that segment of players. Now considering that there are many 25 man raiders that are queuing up for heroics, there's obviously significantly less tanks than required.
This is even before taking into consideration that tanking requires more attention and thought than pretty much any DPS role, which the majority of players seem to prefer.
What finally had me quit this game and quit my tank was dual-specs. I was irritated as a tank by all the other things mentioned, but when I would lose rolls to DPS warriors and DKs for their 2nd spec, I pulled pin on the game and never looked back.
I have always loved to tank and heal. DPS gets old fast and can ussually be done my just slapping at the keyboard willy nilly. I left WoW over 2 years ago though. I would say tanking takes the most attention and you need to know all of the pulls. There are a lot of people who do not want to learn every dungeon, every pull, every encounter. They just want to pew pew.
“It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”
Healers are ALWAYS blamed for deaths. Mostly by hunters, mages and rogues ... )) who just try to top the dps meters without watching anything coming their way.
Mages don't get healed. Mages get rezzed.
Healers and tanks actually have a simple but interesting advantage that can be summed up neatly in a simple sentence: My way or the highway. Don't like my style? Get outta my group, for ever DD nagging there's like 10 lined up that would gladly take your spot.
So shut up and do damage or you're replaced before you can start a "but..." sentence.
Yes, tanks (and to a lesser degree healers) have the bonus that being an ass is nothing that disqualifies you from a group. More often than not, you'll notice that if you start a kickvote as a tank, surprisingly ALL the other members agree with you.
Could be that the self proclaimed experts that want to rush a dungeon are just very vocal little idiots that everyone just loves to get rid of?
You don't attack my target, get aggro, get killed and complain? Get out! You spam out your AE spells right after I pulled a mob with a bow? Get out! You keep your pet on taunt even after I told you to stop that? Get out! You are a Paladin and keep spamming high aggro styles? Get out! (Well, you're a Pally, get out!
And so on. Yes, tanks have the liberty to be a complete ass. So far I refrained from the temptation to be one (well, aside of mocking people... Hey, Pally, you wanna be the tank? No? Then stop taunting!) but it's only a matter of time 'til I simply ignore a mob that the hunter pulled with a high aggro shot before the healer regenerated his mana.
In all seriousness. I have seen bad tanks in the last week. Very, very bad tanks. Tanks that concentrate on a single mob and ignore the adds that ran towards the healer. Tanks that pulled with their taunt and sat there wondering how to convince the mob back towards them. And Paladins tanking in healer gear and healer spec. Not a single time I could remember a kickvote against a tank.
DDs could be on the receiving end of a kickvote for simply not casting the right spell at the right time. And, behold, it often succeeds.
I have an 80 prot warrior but have quit WoW for good. Played on and off since launch and always enjoyed tanking while leveling. My last experience in WoW was going into some heroic 5 man....I told group leader I hadn't been in that particular instance before. We proceed and everything is going fine, I am holding aggro, noone is dying and we are making good time. The ret paladin in the group keeps complaining that we could be moving faster. Eventually I said after this pull I am leaving and you can tank. I did. Right after that fight I logged out and haven't been back since. That was pretty close to a year ago. Just too many jerks and little kids playing anymore. In my opinion the community in WoW has gone downhill as the game has gained popularity. Also, the game seemed to devolve into just burning through content as quickly as possible to "gear up" and watching dps meters etc.
Instead, ask the group "him or me".
Only problem then is usually finding a new DD. In other words, a matter of a few seconds.
Quite frankly, in my experience, when someone is going on your nerves, you're not the only one who is suffering. Either that or you have 4 people suffering who think that you should go faster. It may depend on the server (frankly, it seems that morons congregate to certain servers, I didn't figure out the reason for that so far), but in general I had (so far at least) usually groups that consisted of mostly intelligent, level headed people. If you have one complainer, he's usually very alone with his position. If he is a DD, it also usually means you can easily get replacements.
Face it. DDs are replacable. Easily. Got a problem? Get the f. out! For every DD you take along, 10 are waiting in the queue. Tanks are rare, I think we should start acting like it.
Again I'm sitting here writing the post because my DDs can't find a group and I'm in the queue. 30 minutes so far and counting. According to the group finder, I'll have another 20 or so minutes to spare. Plenty of time to go on your nerves. Since I have a tank (before anyone says "why don't you...?"), but even I want to level something else for a change, I wonder why? What is it that makes people roll a warrior but insist in playing the DD in a group? In all seriousness, I've seen more bear druids and pallies tanking than warriors. Even when counting myself, pretty much the only def warrior below level 60 that I know. So it's not that people don't want to play warriors (who, unlike paladins and druids, cannot be anything but tanks or DDs in the end). And Paladins, Druids and DKs are popular anyway for their soloability. So it's not a lack of people who could. It's also not a lack of solo survivability if you put your talents into the def tree. I level as a def warrior. Granted, it's now easier than ever with the LFG tool practically ensuring you have a group when you want it (in all seriousness, the only reason I had to wait 1 minute once before entering a dungeon was that someone refusing the invitation happened twice in a row), but even before groups became the norm for me, leveling was anything but hard. I could easily tank and down 4-6 equal level mobs without losing more than 1/2 my HP. Is it rep cost? I can't vouch for level 80, but so far it's anything but crippling. Even if I happen to die a few times, it's usually pocket change compared to what we drag out of the dungeon. Is it "hard"? Be reasonable. Tanking is spamming AOE taunts and rending armor. If that's hard for you, pray that WoW never ceases to exist and you'd be facing a really challenging game. What is the reason? Why is nobody willing to tank?
Two reasons for me:
1. They made tanking ignorant and I quit the game (AOE everything no CC), where is the strategy in that?
2. The players that are left in WoW make tanking a miserable experience or grouping in general miserable, they all are awful and on top of that they are arrogant. Weird combination.
I have an 80 prot warrior but have quit WoW for good. Played on and off since launch and always enjoyed tanking while leveling. My last experience in WoW was going into some heroic 5 man....I told group leader I hadn't been in that particular instance before. We proceed and everything is going fine, I am holding aggro, noone is dying and we are making good time. The ret paladin in the group keeps complaining that we could be moving faster. Eventually I said after this pull I am leaving and you can tank. I did. Right after that fight I logged out and haven't been back since. That was pretty close to a year ago. Just too many jerks and little kids playing anymore. In my opinion the community in WoW has gone downhill as the game has gained popularity. Also, the game seemed to devolve into just burning through content as quickly as possible to "gear up" and watching dps meters etc.
Instead, ask the group "him or me".
Only problem then is usually finding a new DD. In other words, a matter of a few seconds.
Quite frankly, in my experience, when someone is going on your nerves, you're not the only one who is suffering. Either that or you have 4 people suffering who think that you should go faster. It may depend on the server (frankly, it seems that morons congregate to certain servers, I didn't figure out the reason for that so far), but in general I had (so far at least) usually groups that consisted of mostly intelligent, level headed people. If you have one complainer, he's usually very alone with his position. If he is a DD, it also usually means you can easily get replacements.
Face it. DDs are replacable. Easily. Got a problem? Get the f. out! For every DD you take along, 10 are waiting in the queue. Tanks are rare, I think we should start acting like it.
true damage dealer are 100 for a dime
1 tank for 100 gold and they will get even more rare because lot of player act so rudly to tank the tank just get out of tanking and leave
oten the tank will be speced for dmg but group will say you got to be this way and that and that
tank say ok go spec a tank the you want and you tank the run but said group dont want that
lol me i ll take any tank be it specced fury or prot because i know that whaever the choice he made he will still be better then a rogue for the job of tanking
Comments
People don't want to tank because most people who tank do it because they have to. Previously if you rolled a tanking class and wanted to get into an instance you had to tank, due to a tank shortage. With them expanding the potential players that you can run instances with more people feel like they shouldnt have to tank to get a run in.
Also tanking requires you to be responsible for something, everyone doesn't want to play the game and have an important role in a dungeon, they just want to go in there and kill shit. Havent played in a while but isnt there some sort of new loot thing now? Maybe people don't want to tank because then they are only able to roll on tank gear.
My sig is just as logical as your posts are
I love how People bitch about there being no tanks but like 1 outta every 1000 people that bitch go and roll a tank.
Ea is like a poo fingered midas ~ShakyMo
its thankless job like healer
its too costly
People prefer to see big numbers pop over the targets head, and prefer to be "uber dps". Tanking isn't a glorified roll. You don't see people spam "tank" meters in the raid, or major cities. While tanking is not all that hard, at lower levels, people who don't know the game can make it hard on their group. If you are tanking and your healer goes afk every 30 seconds, or attacks instead of heals, or dps runs off to attack mobs, it can really hurt the tanks ability to learn how to tank. Plus this causes them to not to want to do deal with that hassle.
Past that, so many players are just terrible, and even with the easy AoE tanking most tank classes have, they still can't do it.
Oh and, LOLMY DPS WAS HIGHER THAN YURZ LOL again.
I wish Blizzard would bring back the need to crowd control in instances again.
Tanking was a better experience for me back then.
Now its boring with all the AE.
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I like tanking. what I dont like is to babysit other people.
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
Because 90% of the time it's a thankless task. Group does well, it's the brilliant dps, group wipes, it's the tank or healers fault. A generalisation I know, but like all these cliches it becomes so as there's more than just a grain of truth to it.
Healers might disagree
My main is a prot warrior on Zangarmarsh server, I can tell you from experience that the main reason why I dont like to tank pugs or random heroics is the "people". Yes I know, its an MMO, and playing with people is one of the main reasons we play MMOs to begin with; but the actions of other players are what make tanking more a job then a fun role to enjoy.
I haven't played other tanking classes other than a prot warrior so I cant speak on how other tanks handle their chosen role; but overall I think tanking is handled in very similar ways across the board. When I tank I find that alot of dps decide its much easier to just aoe mobs down instead of single target dps, nothing wrong with that, but when dps mindlessly spam aoe when tanks have yet to generate any threat...mobs that I havent got a chance to get threat on get pulled and run every which way leading to chaotic pulls. Other things that people like to do are run up to mobs and aggro them without the tank being ready or close enough to intercept or pickup the adds...meaning I now have to grab the add you pulled and pick up the rest before they decide to punt the healer for throwing out hots.
One other thing I see is that people like to throw out the most damage they can in the least amount of time possible from the get go, and get upset when they have a mob in their face beating them to death. The other day I ran a random heroic and decided that I didnt feel comfortable with this grp due to prior pulls, so I decided to do a little marking; (oh no...a tank that marks..) needless to say they completely ignored the kill order and decided to start attacking the square instead of the skull, which I clearly stated would be the first in the kill order; or the player who wants to be done with this particular dungeon in 10 mins and has some raid/real life thing to do, and constantly states that Im "taking to long between pulls" when I dont know any of these people or trust that they even know what they are doing i.e. boss fights etc....or in many circumstances particular classes tanks know to watch, like hunters/DKs who dont put their pets on passive...or the players that just dont want to do anything today and complain when I ask them to misdirect or use tott so they can help me out with threat issues.
Those are just some of the circumstances I run into on a daily basis, but as a tank I drive on and continue doing as much as possible to keep the mobs attention squarely on me , watching every enemy closely looking for casting animations or making sure they are not hitting you and not running/turned around hitting someone else, tab target devastating, interrupting when possible with stuns and shield bashes, spell reflecting when I can to mitigate damage, trying to position mobs (who run all over the damn place because of buggy AI) so that their aoe attacks dont hit/silence the grp, or running after mobs that a dps decides to spam every instant they have and ignore their threat meter so they can be on top once the recount gets posted.
In conclusion, I dont want people to take this post as whining or complaining, but I just want people who dont tank, to get a feel for the kinds of things that tanks experience every day and understand why some tanks just dont have the energy to constantly run heroics or raids all day long, it takes a lot to be a decent, reliable tank and honestly after three years of tanking from Kara in BC to ICC in wrath, people never give tanks their time of day or care about trying to help them tank better by working with them instead of against them. In essence the reason why you wont see me tanking all day long..and perhaps why you have a long que in the random heroic..is the people I might end up getting grouped with...
To all the people who think tanking is easy and say its nothing more then spamming sunders or aoe taunts have obviously only tanked lvl 1-70 dungeons which are in no way anything close to end game tanking or have never tanked anything in Ulduar, or ICC.
Tanking for WoW Oculus the first time in pug.
All the way there's no problem until we reach the part where the lady npc split into 3 parts.
Before we start the ret pally said i should stick to 1 of them and get her down. So i follow. We wipe. Second time he said to focus on the fire, we wipe, 3rd time he said we should focus on the ice(?), we wipe.
Needless to say the group disband. After going out the ret pally say in general channel, that he group with a tank that cant hold 3 mobs....
I never tank from that day onwards...
RIP Orc Choppa
That's Nexus actually, that boss is a damned joke. Most of the time it's not a problem of agro since she will random cast on party members. Decent dps and dispellers is all that fight really needs.
That's Nexus actually, that boss is a damned joke. Most of the time it's not a problem of agro since she will random cast on party members. Decent dps and dispellers is all that fight really needs.
Thanks for the correction. XD
But i always make it a point to thank the healer, very important me thinks...
RIP Orc Choppa
Because Tanking is difficult but most peoples play WoW because they search easy gameplay?
Where themepark games try to hide that they are copying WOW, games like Mortal Online and Darkfall make no attempt to hide their inspiration
______\m/_____
LordOfDarkDesire
That's Nexus actually, that boss is a damned joke. Most of the time it's not a problem of agro since she will random cast on party members. Decent dps and dispellers is all that fight really needs.
Thanks for the correction. XD
But i always make it a point to thank the healer, very important me thinks...
IMO that pally was just an ass. Get a few guildies or some friends to group with you, run some instances to get the hang of tanking research the encounters. Don't quit tanking because of one guy, what you enjoy should be your only concern.
We've seen a number of testimonials on why tanking can be a PITA. What I view as the common sense approach in a PUG, which is the tank makes the decisions on pulls, determines what dies in what order, is not held by all players, it seems,and my main is one of those bothersome hunters. One who is sure to have growl turned off unless the tank wants it on, one who misdirects when asked, one who doesn't AOE if I'm told not to, especially in HoL when all those explosive elementals swarm.
Basic communiction seems to be lacking in PUGs sometimes. In my view tank MUST set the pace. If you don't like the pace the tank is setting, then perhaps you should leave. I defer to the tank's call on how we approach things unless the tank is totally out to lunch, which with a good tank seldom happens. Then again, I run most of my heroics with guildies and there are established protocols within the guild on how we handle this. Our principle tank lays down the law about some things.
One thing that I was looking forward to was one of our youngest members joining in on heroics and raids when his DK hits 80, and being a player who has soloed his way through a lot, encountering our principle tank (the guild leader and a prot warrior) and driving him nuts. The kid is educable, though...and he'll have to learn fast who is the boss, not to throw D&D out there and generate threat and piss off the tank. He's a kid, is on a somewhat erratic schedule due to his parents laying down the law on WoW playtime, and the guild is made up of mature players, some of whom are ex military and therefore understand the need to follow orders in combat.
Would have been good for a few laughs, at least...the main tank just doesn't put up with crap from the DPS guys. Do it his way, or mail and cloth wearers get to experience the tanking, which means that a wipe is imminent.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
As a tank, even in the ridiculously easy content for groups in WoW right now, you cannot really watch TV, go semi-afk for any lengths of time, take breaks or surf your favorite forums while playing. You have to be there ,glued to the screen, all the time.
That makes DPS classes more suitable to a majority of people who just dont want to "only" play WoW,or cant sit still for any length of time. With ADD becoming more of a standard with the younger generation, I dont see that getting any better.
Furthermore, in WoW (and thats pretty much worse than in any other MMO) as the tank you are expected to know, communicate and handle almost everything. Blizzard has repeatedly taken duties like CC, aggro control, movement etc. off the DPS classes, but whenever a tank class gets a boost, they are now even more than before expected to perform well to allow the DPS classes the widest margin of error possible.
As a good tank, all I am doing basically is giving DPS classes more ways of screwing up without taking the heat, blame or consequences.
WotLK with its stupid AoE Aggro sort of is the epitome of this misguided design attempt to try and create a role (DPS) that has absolutely no requirements in terms of skill. Basically, tanks and healers are not just expected to carry the groups by the playerbase, they are also expected to do so by Blizzard, who seem to think its a good idea to keep lowering the bar for DPS.
Being a bad DPS player in a group usually doesnt even register much. It certainly doesnt matter in almost any group content these days. Being a bad tank or bad healer gets people killed, fails the content, and usually results in getting trashed for it.
So, frankly, as long as the "mainstream" goes for DPS classes, adn developers like Blizzard keep piling luxury skills, advantages and comfort on these classes because most people play them, there will be shortages of the "workhorse" classes.
The next step is an all-DPS class MMO. We ll see that within 3 years I reckon.
Buddy, I think this problem stems back to Vanilla WoW and TBC.
Blizzard has had a problem, with spreading out the Role of Tanking. It is even Believed that the original developer of WoW hated Hybrids, more improtantly,,, Hybrids that Tank,,, which is why Blizzard shoved them into the Healing Role.
But Problem came along, that there was just too few Healers, since only Priest and Druids were the Primary Healing Classes (AKA best Healers, and good at mostly that alone). Most people didnt want to play a class that was designed only to Heal. This is why people avoided those classes.
Many people that made Paladins on the other hand, wanted to be Melee Fighters like Warriors, but again, Blizzard never buffed the class or give us the tools needed to Tank untill patch 2.3 in TBC.
But As we moved into Early TBC, Blizzard decided to get rid of the idea of Primary Healer classes, but they didnt decide to do the same for the Tanking Role. But they did give Druids a Tanking/Melee buff, in order to repopulate the class. (So in other words, Warriors remained the Primary Tank most of TBC)
Paladins had to sit around as the risk Tank. Worst Tank in the game. They didnt get the needed tools until late 2.3 and even that wasnt enough.
But finally along came WoTLK, when Blizzard made the idea of AoE tanking that standard, Paladins became the great tanks, while many Warriors over the years grew tired of the role that they had to do for 5 years, and like the Paladins and Druids, they want to explore new main roles for its class
I just dusted off my level 64 Warrior last night. Filled him up with Protection talents and jumped right in. My gear is pretty terrible, and I have not played the character for around 1 year, so it was a little intimidating and I'm sure I can do better, but damn if it wasn't easy to find a group.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
A good part of it is from poor game design...
Think about it. The top end content, 25 man raids, mainly only requires 2 dedicated tanks maximum for most content, a main tank and an off tank. That's only 8% of the raid composition as tanks.
Now for the rest of group content, 5 mans have 1 tank, and 10 mans have 2 tanks. That's 20% of the group/raid composition as tanks.
Considering that players we would assume would tend to prefer to stick with a particular character and playstyle, those that do raid in 25 mans will fill the same class/role in 5 and 10 mans. This creates a shortage in tanks for that segment of players. Now considering that there are many 25 man raiders that are queuing up for heroics, there's obviously significantly less tanks than required.
This is even before taking into consideration that tanking requires more attention and thought than pretty much any DPS role, which the majority of players seem to prefer.
What finally had me quit this game and quit my tank was dual-specs. I was irritated as a tank by all the other things mentioned, but when I would lose rolls to DPS warriors and DKs for their 2nd spec, I pulled pin on the game and never looked back.
I have always loved to tank and heal. DPS gets old fast and can ussually be done my just slapping at the keyboard willy nilly. I left WoW over 2 years ago though. I would say tanking takes the most attention and you need to know all of the pulls. There are a lot of people who do not want to learn every dungeon, every pull, every encounter. They just want to pew pew.
--John Ruskin
Mages don't get healed. Mages get rezzed.
Healers and tanks actually have a simple but interesting advantage that can be summed up neatly in a simple sentence: My way or the highway. Don't like my style? Get outta my group, for ever DD nagging there's like 10 lined up that would gladly take your spot.
So shut up and do damage or you're replaced before you can start a "but..." sentence.
Yes, tanks (and to a lesser degree healers) have the bonus that being an ass is nothing that disqualifies you from a group. More often than not, you'll notice that if you start a kickvote as a tank, surprisingly ALL the other members agree with you.
Could be that the self proclaimed experts that want to rush a dungeon are just very vocal little idiots that everyone just loves to get rid of?
You don't attack my target, get aggro, get killed and complain? Get out! You spam out your AE spells right after I pulled a mob with a bow? Get out! You keep your pet on taunt even after I told you to stop that? Get out! You are a Paladin and keep spamming high aggro styles? Get out! (Well, you're a Pally, get out!
And so on. Yes, tanks have the liberty to be a complete ass. So far I refrained from the temptation to be one (well, aside of mocking people... Hey, Pally, you wanna be the tank? No? Then stop taunting!) but it's only a matter of time 'til I simply ignore a mob that the hunter pulled with a high aggro shot before the healer regenerated his mana.
In all seriousness. I have seen bad tanks in the last week. Very, very bad tanks. Tanks that concentrate on a single mob and ignore the adds that ran towards the healer. Tanks that pulled with their taunt and sat there wondering how to convince the mob back towards them. And Paladins tanking in healer gear and healer spec. Not a single time I could remember a kickvote against a tank.
DDs could be on the receiving end of a kickvote for simply not casting the right spell at the right time. And, behold, it often succeeds.
Instead, ask the group "him or me".
Only problem then is usually finding a new DD. In other words, a matter of a few seconds.
Quite frankly, in my experience, when someone is going on your nerves, you're not the only one who is suffering. Either that or you have 4 people suffering who think that you should go faster. It may depend on the server (frankly, it seems that morons congregate to certain servers, I didn't figure out the reason for that so far), but in general I had (so far at least) usually groups that consisted of mostly intelligent, level headed people. If you have one complainer, he's usually very alone with his position. If he is a DD, it also usually means you can easily get replacements.
Face it. DDs are replacable. Easily. Got a problem? Get the f. out! For every DD you take along, 10 are waiting in the queue. Tanks are rare, I think we should start acting like it.
Two reasons for me:
1. They made tanking ignorant and I quit the game (AOE everything no CC), where is the strategy in that?
2. The players that are left in WoW make tanking a miserable experience or grouping in general miserable, they all are awful and on top of that they are arrogant. Weird combination.
Instead, ask the group "him or me".
Only problem then is usually finding a new DD. In other words, a matter of a few seconds.
Quite frankly, in my experience, when someone is going on your nerves, you're not the only one who is suffering. Either that or you have 4 people suffering who think that you should go faster. It may depend on the server (frankly, it seems that morons congregate to certain servers, I didn't figure out the reason for that so far), but in general I had (so far at least) usually groups that consisted of mostly intelligent, level headed people. If you have one complainer, he's usually very alone with his position. If he is a DD, it also usually means you can easily get replacements.
Face it. DDs are replacable. Easily. Got a problem? Get the f. out! For every DD you take along, 10 are waiting in the queue. Tanks are rare, I think we should start acting like it.
true damage dealer are 100 for a dime
1 tank for 100 gold and they will get even more rare because lot of player act so rudly to tank the tank just get out of tanking and leave
oten the tank will be speced for dmg but group will say you got to be this way and that and that
tank say ok go spec a tank the you want and you tank the run but said group dont want that
lol me i ll take any tank be it specced fury or prot because i know that whaever the choice he made he will still be better then a rogue for the job of tanking