PSA to all DPS players when you group for a dungeon

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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This is not retail. Tanks do not have infinite threat.

You are not there to put up the highest numbers on the most amount of targets.

A tank needs to take damage to generate rage so that he can use that rage to generate more threat so they can use that threat to allow you to safely do more damage.

I’ve been tanking AND healing on and off since level 12 to level 40, and right away I understand that I’m never going to hold threat on every mob when I tank and thats fine, thats why taunt exists, stuns exist, ect. This isn’t a rant about people not letting me get attacked. Especially at low levels, you should expect plenty of lost aggro and scrambling to get some kind of control, that is part of the game.

Let me run you through a day in the life of a tank. You ranged LoS pull with a bow or a spell, and before that mob even gets to you, your rogue opens on it or your dps warrior charges in on it. Now you have 3 additional mobs and still at 0 rage. Now a squishy is tanking 3 mobs, so your healer has to spend excess mana to keep them alive while you auto attack as quickly as you can to try and generate enough rage to use a single ability other than taunt.

BUT WAIT! Your group’s mage decided he wanted to kill another target! And what is this? It seems your Hunter has pulled a pack of mobs on the opposite side of the room!

Now you have no threat on anything, no rage to generate threat, no damage taken to generate rage, and your healer is spending 400 mana to heal squishy DPS instead of 200 mana to heal your beefy tank.

When you DPS players wonder why it’s so hard to find a tank, it’s because most of you are terrible. No one wants to tank when everyone wants to hit a different target, no one wants to tank when they cant use their abilities due to lack of rage, and no one wants to tank when they are scrambling on every single pull to try and contain the situation you terrible DPS put them in.

Bad DPS makes everyone’s life more miserable than it needs to be. I’d rather have a 20 DPS hunter who hits the tank’s target than a 40 DPS rogue who constantly demands healing.

You think your high DPS makes the run quicker, right? Thats your excuse? You also make your healer drink for 15 seconds after every pull because you hit the wrong target at the wrong time and make the healer spend excess mana on you, while also mitigating the damage your tank does due to lack of rage.

You’re not a carry, you are a burden.

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Nervous glance

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I’ll keep you safe!

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Thats a good name, “Burden”, that will be my next character, affliction rain of fire lock. Thanks for the idea!

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Rebuttal from an experienced tank:

Pull those numbers dpsbro’s, our collective job is to make the run as fun, quick and rewarding as possible. If I can get away with it I’ll dps tank, if I take too much damage ill weapon swap.

Exactly you are tanking with half a toolkit and on the wrong class. Farm up some MCPs if you want to play a niche, exotic build.

Challenging shout, sapper charge or dynamite that yo.

Any healer that doesn’t drink between pulls I probably don’t want to be grouped with. Heck if you really don’t need to use the mana for heals throw some damage dots/wand whatever.

TL;DR
Look I am being harsh on you here but I think the “entitlement era” of the tank role is well and truly over, people didn’t know any better back in the day so everyone pretended tanks were some kind of messiah.

Just try to remember its a game, everyone is on it to have fun. When the group is dysfunctional try to be introspective on how you can adapt to their bad play. Rather than berating them for being that way.

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Unfortunately, the people that visit the forums are a minority of players.

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I wouldn’t call a necessary part of the group a burden. The ones who act like crap, yeah. But don’t view any other role as somehow less than you. Everyone brings their own utility and such to the group.

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If its a bad group and you’re tanking, just call out targets. If you aren’t happy with the group just leave it. This isn’t the era of LFG anymore, people really don’t like finding tanks.

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True stuff.

It groups continuously fail from
This kind of thing then eventually they’ll learn and it’ll self correct.

However if groups can succeed in this wild chaos type of pulling, it’ll become the new normal and we must adapt .

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im guessing you put more effort into this post than you put into being a good tank

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just let them die and learn, gosh.

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  1. Its not fun for the tank when they don’t get to use their abilities due to lack of rage from 3 DPS hitting 3 different targets.

  2. I’m full tank spec, with all threat gen possible. I’m not going to farm Gnomer at 40 to hold threat for SM, thats incredibly stupid.

  3. Druids can’t use items in form. They can’t even talk to NPCs in form.

  4. I’ve literally never had to drink after every pull while I was healing, and this is with a full bear spec. Healing in Classic isn’t the same as healing in retail, the damage is MUCH more predictable, so you can let your tank get to 40% and cast one healing touch to top them, let your mana tick up, and do that again. I’ve had RFC runs at 38 where I had to stop 3 or 4 times total to drink.

You try to cherrypick things like “dps shouldnt do as much damage as they can before the tank even hits the mob” so you can come in and say “ackshually, u shuld! Lets all make it fun!” And you neglect the fact that tanks cant use abilities without rage. What fun it is auto-attacking and trying desperately to get rage, right? So fun.

You wonder why tanks are so underrepresented? This is why.

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Are you marking targets? You should have at minimum three raid markers keybound and at the very, very barest minimum mark the focus fire target.

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and here’s a PSA to you.

You don’t have to keep all the aggro. Most competent DPSes can solo a single elite just fine. The world won’t end if you lose aggro on a single enemy. Especially if it’s on a warlock or hunter pet.

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I literally said that already in the initial post.

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Correct. I am the one who is a fool in this case.

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THIS x 10000000000000000000000

The number of priests I’ve seen who bubble the tank as they pull…PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP.

Give it about 10 - 15 seconds pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease !!! before you bubble the tank / save it for the DPS who go nuts in the first three milliseconds / whatevers…it’s gotten that bad I am getting in the habit of clicking the “buff” to remove as I pull.

And as to the rest of the you lot who came from Refail - your trash clear ways are not welcome by most old school players for reasons exactly like this, Classic is a different game, adapt or get ready for a miserable time in end game long term.

Edit : every DPS should use an /assist macro if you insist on DPS bingo.

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this is slightly overrated. just get on warrior, get in defensive stance and check how much rage you generate when mob attacks you and you don’t. Much more important to get fast weapon and keep your shield ability up, also talent shield mastery helps.
But people are really getting crazy when see priest shields tank once in a while when he needs quick patch up.

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Don’t you love when Priests cast Mind Blast every cooldown?

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I feel your pain but that being said maybe try to help educate the people in your groups as you go?

Most people seem to be willing to listen and many are new or new to classic and don’t understand the mechanics.

As previously stated marking kill order helps, as does marking cc targets. If you think they can improve then maybe a friendly pointer or reminder would help.

I played in Vanilla and all dps were expected to /assist the tank. I think most people are completely unaware of this macro functionality. While a good tank will tab through targets at least it might keep them from hitting things you haven’t touched at all.

Just my 2c. Ymmv.

PS… druids can use MCP’s on use in forms.

Edit: this was directed @Ccow. Appears to have just picked the last poster.