As a tank I agree 100% in what you said; however I would mention the hack to always have a tank on hand is to befriend a tank.
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But to befriend a tank, that means we…as a community…would have to treat them nicer.
Obviously the best course of action is to berate any tank that doesn’t read my mind and pull exactly how I think they should.
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Blizzard is complicit in designing the game in simply not needing tanks for much if it. Don’t need tanks in PvP, Warfronts, Islands, World Bosses, elite quests, or leveling up… tank specs can largely be ignored until endgame, and by that point, players haven’t even bothered to learn the spec or what it’s capable of. If they designed the game with role requirements a bit wiser this problem wouldn’t be as prevalent.
Most everyone mentions why dungeon tanks are harder to find, so I won’t add more of the same.
As for casual PvP, I go tank too. Because as feral if someone looks at me wrong I die.
Azerite powers made it really bad this xpac while leveling and only slightly better after cap, peaking in ease with the release of Residuum.
Gear is absolutely not the issue. The community is 100% the issue… er, okay, more like ~75% of the issue but certainly the majority of the issue.
The tanking problem is not something that can just be “fixed” mechanically like you suggest, the tanking problem is that the player base expects perfection and does not create an environment for tanks to learn. No one wants to take the time to teach a tank what to do because everyone has the mindset of their personal time being most important. (Obviously not literally everyone, but most the players even in low keys. I saw a group expecting 460 ilvl for a M0 today. You can say “Well, they just want a fast run” and to that I say “Exactly! That is the problem mindset that is dominant”)
This issue keeps coming up again, and again, and again and every time I see people trying to point the finger at in game mechanics, gearing, everything except what the real problem is. The community.
Anyone who wants to get into tanking is EXPECTED to do far more studying than any other role due to needing to know the pathing and how to tank ON TOP of also having many of the same duties that DPS have such as coordinating interrupts and such. Tanks have by far the most on their platter and are expected to know everything about what they are doing else are not given the time of day.
On top of that they are treated like dirt and often the first to blame when things go wrong. There are several mechanics in M+ dungeons that can make it look like the tank is chunking in health/not performing their job well if DPS and others do not interrupt or pay attention and it often leads to garbage DPS calling out the tank. Tanks and Healers often get the short in the of the stick.
So what ends up happening is you have people interested in tanking who have to put up with far more trash from the community than other roles and their either quit tanking because its far too stressful or find a dedicated group to run with that are not complete jerks and play EXCLUSIVELY with people they know.
The community is 100% to blame for the tank shortages, not some arbitrary thing like “Oh, its gearing, if gearing was made easier then there would be more tanks!” or the other community favorite of “If there were more tank specs/every class had a tank spec then that would solve the tanking shortage!” Its not just something that can be fixed purely mechanically and the mechanical parts that do need to be fixed are not the number of tank specs or loot.
Gearing isn’t the problem, period. Before Vulpera came out and I made the switch to Shaman I EASILY maintained a Healing, Tanking, and DPS sets on my Paladin. It was not an issue and its certainly not the problem with the tank shortage.
The only way for the Tank shortage to end is for the community to be better and I don’t see that happening any time soon.
But lets say that for a second the community does change. Do you know what the second biggest issue is?
Tanks are the LEAST needed role! How many tanks do you need for a raid? 2, a fixed 2 outside of world crazy, top 1%, world first guild strats. No matter how big or small a raid group, tanks are fixed at 2 for a raid and some times even get cut down to one when content is on farm. Raid gets bigger, DPS and Healer requirements go up but tanks never really change. You never go from having a 2 tank raid of 10 people to a 3 tank raid of 15 people or a 4 tank raid of 20, ect. Tanks are static, DPS and Heals are variable.
How about this. How many tanks are needed in Dungeons? Only ever 1. Sure, healers are only ever one as well but because other sections of the PvE environment require more there is more of a surplus.
How many Tanks are needed in non dungeon/raiding PvE content? How many Tanks are needed in PvP environments?
Surely you see where I am going with this. So even if the community were to be nicer and more helpful to new Tanks, the one actual “mechanical” issues is the fact that the game just does not need as many tanks as other roles! Tanks are still by far the least required in numbers by a much wider margin in all aspects of the game.
Pair that with the first issues mentioned fact that tanks require the most study/preparation and there are just so many turn offs.
Those are the two biggest issues behind why we lack so many Tanks. Not that gearing is burdensome, that’s honestly such a non-issue compared to the other mentioned issues.
Heck, I personally loved playing Tank! If Shaman had a Tank spec I would probably rather Tank than DPS just because I personally enjoy it.
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Of course, Blizz is always making it harder to play multiple specs and that hurts tanks more than anyone else.
Still, the community is rotten. Everyone wants more tanks, yet we all scream and shun any inexperienced tank that shows up to tank our mythic dungeons.
Maybe we should all put ourselves in their shoes and level a tanking class. I know I’m doing that, but i will probably end up tanking for friends since pugs are a nightmare.
This is what happens when we have stupid trees covered in stupid abilities.
I honestly think it is the evolution of dungeons and the mythic system… Mechanics are overly complicated for the “average” player. If you are a tank or healer there is no end to the wrath you will endure if something is not flawlessly executed.
Funniest, not literally, part is that there are often situations where its a DPS fault for not doing mechanics and they blame the Tanks or Healers XD
Did a Kings Rest 11 the other day with a Mage, 2k IO, who only interrupted once the entire duration of the run and we kept wiping to AOE casts going off before the first boss. After about a dozen deaths the mage goes “We don’t have the heals for this” and left the group even though the problem was the DPS not pulling their weight and doing mechanics thus getting everyone killed.
Its so freaking common too! When I would heal on my Paladin there would be situations of people standing in cleaves or not interrupting spells that need to be interrupted and the first people to get blamed are the Healers or Tanks and often times its DPS fault but there is nothing super obvious to indicate that unless you are really paying attention to the fine details. So many people just see the group dying or the tank chunking and go “Ah-ha! The problem is the Tank or Healer!”
The fact that DPS can get away with that so easily is troubling because no one ever seems to question it XD
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I feel like the problem of the lack of tanks in BfA has been both made better and worse by M+. Better because of the higher number of dungeons runs you will do compared to before incentivizes learning that playstyle more. Worse because the entire concept of speedrunning relies on knowing in advance how much you’re able to do as a tank per M+ level, how much you’re able to pull and which packs to even pull. Tanks generally acting like the leaders of the group because they’re the pullers, they have an extra weight on their shoulders (and extra blame).
Good thing I’m a pretty passive healer.
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The community is only a part of it.
Every roadblock, every time they nerf tanks, every mechanics change that makes things less fun and more aggravating is one of the factors that cause people to decide not to play tanks. Lots of people have said that due to gearing/essences/etc in BfA they stopped playing tanks.
That’s not a “community” or “people” issue.
Up until WoD tanks needed a literal full set of different gear.
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I was going to make a similar post. People have been making claims that XYZ is making tanks hard to find since Vanilla.
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I did love reading where people said “But no one will take a tank if they don’t have the op corruptions!” Like even horrible tanks have a problem getting in any group they have the ilvl for.
Gear and content is definitely an issue. I would personally tank if I had the protection traits and gear. But I’m stuck playing holy because there’s just no way I’m going to push keys or raid as an offspec with just my normal gear.
Also, content like visions makes it super hard to find tanks. Tanks need to know where to go after only a few runs, and they need to run the same number an kind of zones as you, and once they get their capped rank their is no incentive for them to keep helping.
Honestly, I don’t know why people defend such a broken system as a mere social problem. Yes, there is some social aspects to it, but it doesn’t need to be as bad as it is.
You completely missed what I said. People have made these same complaints since VANILLA. Back when you had to respect and get a full suit of new gear to change roles. Being able to just swap roles with minimal work doing so was like a 1 xpac thing in WoD before Legion brought on artifacts and legendaries.
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Damn I thought I was alone. I actually loved the artifact weps. Just take out the grind and let us keep the cool back stories, unlock skins, and we wouldn’t have to worry about it. Hunting artifact wep skins was a blast! Class halls were pretty cool too. Having every class a unique story was awesome minus the stupid timegated quests with the mission table. If they took out that entire cellphone bs mechanic I would love to use our class halls again.
I’ve made a blood DK with whom I plan on learning the generalities of tanking and the specifics to blood DK tanking during the rest of BfA. I plan on avoiding dungeons and just want to become familiar with my abilities, build muscle memory, and use horrific visions to practice managing groups of MOBs and pulls. Once Shadowlands starts, I plan on learning the dungeons along with everyone else. To hell with trying to learn how to tank for a group right now. The PUGs are simply too difficult to deal with.
I pulled back from pugging as well. Had a group and the healer kept saying pull more–etc etc. I sound saw I was 3rd in damage going into the last boss. I took my break bio etc. I told them not my job to carry their guildy or they could have asked first i would have said yes. I now make my own groups and most groups on 3 that apply auto-declined. lesson learned.