Comments on: Thought of the Day: A new solution for lack of tanks

By: Malevica

Malevica — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:49:36 +0000

One aspect which causes some problems for tanks is the one Pazi alluded to, which is that for most of a dungeon you might not actually need a tank. DPS, especially plate-wearers, can often have HP and armour not far behind the actual tank if they’re relatively new to 80.
Along with not being able to learn your job because every other GCD is a taunt, it’s also extremely frustrating to have people actively working to prevent you doing your job.
So yes, I’d love to see mobs do a lot more damage to non-tanks, so that ripping aggro carries a serious risk of death. And I’m less happy about shifting the burden of ‘blame’ onto healers, via a can’t-spare-the-mana mechanic.

I also wanted to share a positive anecdote, albeit from a healing, not tanking, perspective.

A few weeks ago my resto druid in 50/50 blues and 219s was picked for healing hHoR. As we ran in the tank looked me up and down and asked “Hey, do you reckon you can handle this with your gear?” I replied to the effect of “Not sure, but I’ve healed this before plenty of times on my main, I’ll give it my best shot and I’ll leave quietly if it doesn’t work out.”. “Great attitude!” replies the tank, “Stay out of trouble and I’ll blow my cooldowns”.
We got through the whole place without a death.

That attitude is (in my experience) a pretty rare thing, but I really appreciated the guy’s willingness to trust me and work with me.

By: Spinksville: For The Tank! | MMO Melting Pot

Spinksville: For The Tank! | MMO Melting Pot — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:15:48 +0000

[...] over at Spinksville has turned her thoughts to the lack of tanks in random groups and has come up with some practical steps all players could [...]

By: Pazi

Pazi — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 13:30:18 +0000

Elite mobs should hit like a truck on anything that is not specced as a tank – a dps pulling aggro should fall over instantly, unhealable.
AOE-threat should be abysmal (enough to only overcome healer aggro) so anyone not targeting the tanks target should pull aggro immediately – and die (see above).
Standing in the Bad (TM) should kill instantly after 1 or 2 seconds (sorry if that makes the game unplayable for players with serious lag, go find another none-network-game).
Mobs (mind you not bosses that need tankswitching) should become only tauntable to the player doing first damage on them.

I love tanking (I have every class (but only the 2 in ICC as tanks, the druid is now resto), and even 2 paladins, one alliance and one horde) and I never did dps with them to collect tank-gear. Honestly, I consider those that do, cowards. Especially those that roll need on tankgear even if there is a tank that rolls need too – Blizzard should flag those that roll need on tank-gear without entering LFD as a tank with a debuff called COWARD and it should show a stinky cloud around the player, for at least one week played-time. To BE a good tank is not the hard part, to BECOME one is, the gearing up, the learning the encounters, the knowledge what to do when shit hits the fan, the knowledge what your class and other classes can do.

My 4 former tanks (all alliance and now shelfed) all had the luxury to tank for guilds/friends but mostly before LFD.
My 5th, bloodelf-paladin leveled only through LFD, with the luxury of heirloom-items and goody-bags and practically every item out of dungeons that was good for tanks. The weekend I dinged 80 (friday) and started chain-tanking every dungeon up to heroic HoR and then later ToC10 on sunday was the hardest time in WoW – I swear, I will never drink that much again xD.

I still love tanking. Some noobs won’t change this, quite the opposite, because I love it when I have to pull every little trick.

By: Ferran

Ferran — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 03:56:25 +0000

How incompetent does a tank have to be to deserve verbal abuse from a stranger?

By: Ferran

Ferran — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 03:45:13 +0000

You’re not alone. I do this too.

By: Visit Spinksville | Kill Ten Rats

Visit Spinksville | Kill Ten Rats — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:16:29 +0000

[...] over there, including in the comments. See Spinks on StarCraft 2 (Zubon: “WTB LAN”), tank gear (Spinks: “STFU”), cosmetic gear (I still want it as CoX unlocks rather than as [...]

By: Burnita

Burnita — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 01:14:55 +0000

Outside of Burnita I’ve found tanking Random Heroics pretty bad. Artigan gets a bit of stick when I trot him out, and he’s in mostly 219 Epics. This is mostly from people who pull before I do and then whine when I let them die (This would happen on Burnita, were it not that the aveage DPS that does this has such low DPS that Burnita can pull back without taunting.). But yeah, Art stopped doing random Heroic some time ago.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 22:48:13 +0000

Ugh Emberstorm. I used to have a warning that I’d drop group immediately and without warning if someone was offensive in my healing pug macro.

By: Akasza

Akasza — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 14:02:50 +0000

When dps complain about low gear of a tank / healer and that guy is doing okay, I usually tell them openly what I think of their “elitism”, GS and bitching. And usually it’s that some other people join me and the one moaning shuts up or leaves.

It’s not only about whining or not whining. It’s also about remaining silent when someone abuses your tank or healer. An old saying goes silence means approval.

By: Denethal

Denethal — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 07:41:58 +0000

I play a paladin and back when I first started tanking, some epic-geared mage started whining about stealing aggro off me. It was my responsibility to keep aggro off her hiney, while she was aoe-nuking.

I didn’t bother much with her whining, I kept doing what I was doing, she was the only one that managed to steal aggro anyway. That is, I didn’t mind until she started suggesting that the party should find a new tank, since I didn’t know what I was doing.

So I snapped. It was not -my- responsibility that she didn’t watch her own aggro, the only one who got any rights at all to complain about gaining aggro was the healer. -HER- responsibility is to do as much damage as possible and still stay beneath the tank threatwise. And failing to do so would not be my problem, if she managed to pull a mob off the tank by behaving like an idiot, she was more than welcome to tank it. I also told the healer to stop healing her when she steals aggro.

She left after dying a few times.

I guess the moral of the story is “Don’t whine at the tank unless you’re willing to tank yourself.”