I main a warrior and primarily play DPS, but I occasionally tank. Recently, I’ve been tanking more often because of the long DPS queue times. After weeks of tanking in different dungeons, I can’t help but notice a decline in player awareness and skill. For example:
Pulling Aggro Too Early:
Tanks typically mount up to pull larger groups of mobs, and DPS is supposed to wait for the tank to establish aggro before attacking. However, in almost every dungeon, while I’m still riding and pulling mobs, the DPS don’t wait and start attacking behind me. I’ll be 100 yards ahead, gathering the next group, while they’re busy fighting the first pack I passed through.
Rushing Ahead to Pull Mobs:
I’ve encountered DPS or healers who rush ahead and pull mobs themselves. These aren’t geared or skilled players, most of the time, they’re poorly geared and doing subpar DPS. I normally go back and save them, but lately I am hitting my tolerance cap and just let them die. For the record, I’m not a slow tank by any means I know these dungeons well and kknow the proper routes.
Splitting the Group:
In dungeons with multiple paths, I’ll choose one route, only to look back and see a DPS taking another route and starting fights. Worse, the healer and other DPS often follow them, leaving me alone with the mobs I pulled. Common sense will dictate that you follow a tank. I had a healer Paladin yesterday that was pulling everything ahead of me, that I though maybe he forgot he was the healer since he is a paladin, I know I have mistakenly queued as tank once or twice when I planned to play dps.
Lack of Basic Dungeon Knowledge:
Players seem to lack understanding of basic mechanics. For instance, if I pull a group of mobs to a corner to break line of sight, the DPS often stands in the open, attacking mobs that didn’t follow. I’ll be tanking 10 mobs in a corner while the DPS is fighting 3 mobs 20 yards away. Instead of moving to me, they stay there, oblivious.
Unnecessary AoE and Aggroing Avoidable Groups:
Some players continuously use AoE on everything, even when it’s unnecessary. I’ll go out of my way to avoid groups of mobs to complete the dungeon quickly, only to have a mage or hunter mistakenly AoE the pack we just bypassed. Even worse, some players blatantly walk straight through the mobs, pulling them unnecessarily and slowing the run down.
I’m generally patient and try to help when I can, but this has been happening so frequently that I’m starting to question whether I’m just noticing it more as a tank or if players really have forgotten how to run dungeons properly.
This right here. The good ones have either moved on or moved up. I’m just a “decent” player that interrupts things, dodges swirlies and kills stuff. I bailed on M+ months ago lol. This season wasn’t fun, so now my alt army is just raid logging.
EDIT: You know what, nevermind, since youa dmit in the post after this you’re complaining about people in a dungeon queue MEANT for people to learn and level.
Yea, no. That’s just you not being a compassionate player to new players.
That makes sense. I’ve been tanking and farming Timewarped badges recently. I tanked all throughout the 30th Anniversary Timewalking event and now through the Turbulent Timeways. It’s been incredibly frustrating, but it makes sense that most veteran players are likely focused on harder content rather than Timewalking.
What type of dungeons are these? timewalking/heroic/normal or mythic?
Sometimes communication can be important and pugs may not know how far you’re going to pull. Although in normal or timewalking people probably are used to just zerging more.
I had a this alts 11 and 10 key bricked by two different tanks trying to double tank gatekeepers in NW. A 9 hurts with low gear but im gonna level it up again.
These are usually Timewalking dungeons, but what Marsage said makes sense. it’s probably mostly new players. I’ve been continuously tanking Timewalking dungeons while leveling alts/ farming badges for the last two to three months. I am usually patient and adjust as needed. Plus I’m geared enough to makeup for their mistakes, but this week has been particularly frustrating.
I think partly because I am using more of my less geared characters and robably a higher stress level due to school and work. I am feeling less patient . I was sitting here wondering if it’s just me or if something has actually changed.
so these are queued dungeons you are talking about, correct?
so that would be normal dungeons and heroic dungeons.
Normal dungeons and heroic dungeons are the places for players to learn, you should not be surprised that you get inexperienced players when you are doing content geared towards inexperienced players.
this is because players that do normal and heroic dungeons are new to the game and don’t understand things like this, yet.
If you are looking for a dungeon mode where players know what they are doing, then you have to move up to keys. M+ 2-9 are still mostly learners, but +10 and above people generally know what they are doing.
Yeah, it makes sense. I think I never noticed this when I mostly played DPS. I just assumed everyone knew what they were doing. If I saw a tank on a mount riding through mobs, I knew not to attack until they stopped. I thought things like this were common knowledge, but I might have been biased in my thinkin