So first, this isn’t to imply tanking is super hard or anything. I play all tank classes and at lower levels of content it’s basically just dpsing with a few defensive CDs thrown in. Of course once mobs start hitting hard you have to time stuff and you’re usually expected to know routes for M+.
But that’s where the difficulty is, and perhaps part of why so many people say there is a tank shortage frequently. how are new players or even players new to the tank role supposed to learn?
Levelling dungeons aren’t the way, as dps can run ahead and pull 4 packs with no risk. Even heroic dungeons at 70 frequently get steamrolled by that one overheared alt in the group doing heroics for a quest or transmog. And low M+ works but you can’t do it without being expected to know the dungeon and your class backwards and forwards.
I was lucky when I learned my first few tanks I had friends on and now the skills are mostly transferred to all other classes.
The only time I don’t recall using an external resource to learn or improve tanking was vanilla–mostly because I was an OT and there wasn’t much I needed to know. TBC and up, I always used resources like Tankspot to learn.
WoW was also my first MMORPG. I don’t think it’s a heavy lift to expect folks to use the Internet if they want to improve beyond the most basic elements of tanking.
Only twinks pull 4 packs with no risk. This happens, but not most of the time.
Things happen sometimes. Not all the time.
I personally think players should learn basic tanking in a zero risk situation. Then they move up to challenging content. The only change I would make would be to add a “tanking basics” tutorial for players who have never tanked before.
no, Tanks can learn to tank just fine in +2s even heroic is fine. because what you are mainly needing to learn as a tank is what the dungeons are. +2s are easy enough on timers that you dont need a geared group to complete it. and pushing the key as far as you can go with your gear will inform you where you need defensives. Tanks, DPS, and healers can learn which are the dangerous mobs once they actually start to hurt and rely on people doing their given roles.
it is an option to watch other people do their M+ runs to learn the dungeons as well but imo its just better to go in and find those pain points first hand. if you hit a wall, then you can look up specifics of where things are going wrong.
this season seems to be a little easier with how spread out the affixes are and the reduced affix total active at any time so its possible to get fairly high up into a key without knowing certain mechanics.
leveling dungeons dont really teach much because the scaling is all over the place.
There is plenty of tanks this season for what ever reason. the healer shortage is simply, there being fewer healers than there are 4/5 groups only waiting for a healer to apply. so many groups sit for 10+ mins waiting. and its probable that when the healer does apply its only because they finished a previous run.
I killed a lot of my grp in tw’ing on my dk because i overpulled in mana tombs and wasnt watching my healer. Did i care? Not really. I just laughed
I still dont have a solid route for freehold. Im too lazy to look it up and Its whatever for the 13-15s i bother with.
Tanking isnt that hard. In fact you can screw up more mechanics and live then if youre dps or heals.
Ppl just worry ppl will yet raged at. Sure it happens but guess what, its strangers on the internet. Ignore it and just get a new insta grp invite and go from there.
Idk about raid tanking. That probably needs a bit more consideration cause of the time investment. But 30 min dung? Its all gravy baby.
another option to learn tanking is to do some content as a heals or dps. then you can see what other tanks are doing. Granted. they could be doing things wrong. but over several runs you’ll start to see a pattern for the runs that work vs the ones that done.
for instance. i ran an obscene number of keys of the exact same dungeon for my Evoker’s trinket. the respective nature of doing the same dungeon over and over again helps you internalize the timings and knowing what a dps need can help you create pulls as the tank to support those needs of the dps.
as far as healers, i think it has a bit more to do with the dragon fragment things… what ever its called… Drake, Worm, Aspect crests.
keys that are not the floor for their respective drops have the harder times finding a heals. a +15 wont find healers as easily as a +11 or a +16
+18 and up is going to be more score oriented so the number of active keys goes down while the healer pool doesnt get much smaller
Just do what 95% of people do and copy-paste a route. Or literally just pull the pack in front of you until you get to the end of the dungeon because that works at most key levels.
World elites is now my preferred advice for new tanks. Learn to fight and survive some level appropriate elites, then slowly try 2 or 3 at a time and see what happens.
At least, that’s how I learned to tank. After survival and kit use, mechanics come later. But now a lot of world elites have mechanics to dodge or interrupt which is neat.
There are people who do care. They don’t want to ruin other people’s content by doing their practice on someone else’s key. They know that they don’t know, and they don’t want to start moving into harder content until they understand the basics.
Most people are not capable of training themselves to be expert at a complex activity they don’t understand. That’s how learning works.
Interesting, this is similar to what I did at times soloing old raids. Picking something that was challenging but not impossible so I had to weave in cooldowns and avoid mechanics.
I think you are overestimating the value of failing in someone else’s key when the tank doesn’t know the basic of managing mobs and babysitting his group.
Nothing will change. New players will continue to look at tanking, see the learning curve you claim is immaterial, and decide not to try. You will continue to complain about bad or clueless tanks who learned by watching some dude who had no idea what they were doing, but it looked impressive. And dps will continue to be blissfully unaware of how their actions affect the tank and the healer, because the system discourages them from attempting to tank or heal.
Running the dungeons multiple times in heroic and m0 will build confidence as you learn what trash and bosses do. As the main part of tanking is to know which mobs have lethal frontals, which ones stun, which ones have a bad debuff/bleed. Its litterally practice makes perfect. You dont want to blow your major def cd on a single attack while there is no other major damage as thats something that can be easily healed unless its a ohko.
It’s not about learning curve. It’s people not caring that they suck if they dps.
And people equally don’t care if they suck as a tank, some tanks in LFR can’t even taunt swap.
The idea that tanks are all experts (or trying to be) is not true. The idea that people care about that they ruin people’s gameplay is also not true, else they wouldn’t be grey parsing and doing zero mechanics.
