Group finder was at the end of WotLK, and tank shortages still required them to have a bonus for tanking in the group finder.
Tank shortages are 100% related to the small amount of tanks relative to other roles guilds need to have to raid, its this way now and still on retail. People who leveled as tanks often have to go DPS or they dont get to raid, also consumables are very costly for tanks.
Or you could… I don’t know… make a tank?
I’m pretty sure there would be more tanks if leveling a warrior wasn’t a complete pain. There’s also the endgame issue where people who leveled tanks are told to roll dps instead because the guild already has raiding tanks.
Given the vast numbers of leveled Warriors… no.
I tank stuff all the time as full fury dps spec to help out guildies
Nope, never did that myself. I even dislike running dungeons with over-geared players of the appropriate level (unless we downsize to 3 or 4 man group). Ruins the fun IMO.
So you want to shut it down because people shouldn’t like what you don’t like.
Nope, it’s up to Blizzard whether they want people to play within the spirit & creative vision of their game design, or allow people to cheese & exploit it to the detriment of the overall community. It’s just my personal opinion as a player that cheats & exploits/cheese ruins the fun of a game & makes it undesirable to play (so I don’t engage in that type of behavior myself). Whatever floats your boat though. I’m just doing my own thing in Classic, & weeding out the toxic elements (to me) as best I can.
There was no LFG tool in TBC, you are full of you know what.
There was a basic non-automatic version of a group finder that allowed people on your server to list themselves as LFG. WotLK introduced the x-realm automatic version that ruined the grouping game & individual server communities (IMO).
It’s because tanks are also expected to lead, and if they don’t have a lot of experience with a particular dungeon (which mobs to mark/focus, what mobs to avoid etc) then they feel like most people will get mad at them if they do something wrong and don’t want to deal with the pressure.
I’ve found this to be easily off-set by stating “hi guys, I’m new to tanking. Please bear with me.” at the start of a dungeon run. At that point most, if not all, other members of my group are reasonably understanding if I botch a pull 
But the beauty of being the tank is - I can get another group almost immediately and go try, try again.
Yea usually communicating goes a long way, especially in an MMO. Surprisingly a lot of people don’t do it, but I highly recommend it.
Was just stopping in to say this. Oddly enough I actually liked that functionality better than some we’ve had. You just listed yourself and went about your business. No standing around looking through a list hitting a queue button. and hoping you get picked.
you are a rogue so yeah that sounds accurate
maybe if you were a tank…
Its the classic rogue experience.
I’ve remember doing some dungeon groups back in the Vanilla/TBC/WotLK days that were 4 tanks & 1 healer just for the fun of it. They were pretty cool & still worked just fine, lol. Same with having any assorted “non-dps” specs in your 3 DPS slots. Our guild groups used to do TBC heroics with a second healer or hybrid spec healer in a DPS slot. They would do DPS most of the time but add extra heals for specific encounters/situations where it was needed more than the extra DPS. All sorts of crazy mixes worked, & sometimes were even better in a situational sense. The good old days, when things were really fun.
TBC had nothing of the sort. Not sure why you’re saying “TBC/WOTLK” like it’s 2 different terms for the same thing.
IF you have chosen to not be a tank, then possibly yes. Stop and examine why YOU didn’t choose a class that can tank and gear and run dungeons as a tank. Guess what? There’s a lot of other people who have their own reasons and also didn’t pick a tank.
I don’t see how those two things relate at all. Are you not a tank because there’s some change you think should happen?
Do you think there would be more willing tanks with some change like Dual Spec?
Make friends. Join an active guild. Those are the top two ways. Many of the supposedly missing tanks simply don’t tank for random people. I’ve got people on my friend list who have said to check with them if I need a tank.
Depending on the dungeon and what you’re trying to get, consider alternative group makeups. Two priests, two mages, and a warlock cleared SM Cath. Admittedly, I was a 55 priest “tanking” with my bubble and the warlock was 54, but the trifecta (tank, heal, dps) isn’t as absolute as implied. Five DPS potentially could burn trash fast or kite it, as long as everyone in the group is on-board and able.
Arguably, yes, that is an option. You want random player X to spend the time in the dungeon for you, not for themselves, potentially have to pay to respec (if they’re not normally in tanking talents), have to maintain a separate set of gear that takes up precious inventory space, perhaps has to use consumables, and at the end has to pay to repair their gear which is not cheap for a warrior.
A lot of cost to them in many ways, on top of the potential stress of who knows whether this random group they’re joining is even competent or drama-free.
While I, personally, may not choose to pay a tank, I don’t begrudge tanks asking for some value out of a run above and beyond their share of trash and BoE they greed roll and win. Part of my view is based on the fact I’m not expecting other people to do the work to gear me up.
No tanks in your guild?