Long time healer here, 3k+ level player, both in PUGs and push groups: if the stuff you’re describing is happening outside of bosses, that’s usually an indicator that the tank is inexperienced or not fully utilizing their kit
A decent, not even a good tank, but a decent tank will generally be able to carry potato groups pretty hard. For example in the current season, you can basically pull as if you’re drip feeding your potato party and still time most +4s/+5s with a comfortable amount of time to spare. Outside of bosses, there really isn’t much room to allow your potato party to mess up that bad when you’re decent, outside of very specific sections of one or two dungeons
Now, you can’t expect to have success when nobody is kicking, I’ll give you that, but there also isn’t much that needs kicked until you start getting into the +6 or higher range; a decent tank paired with a healer who can just send HPS and dodge frontals can basically carry DPS through most keys if they are at least minimally geared for the content
A good or a strong tank can definitely carry a potato group this season to some performance, though that’s also true of DPS as well as healers. A single high value player in a sea of potatoes can easily make untimed keys into timed keys, at least far enough to be able to farm champion gear and heroic crests.
If you’re going up to heroic gear or myth track GV, however, the barrier of entry is MUCH higher than “I can play my class well”. On the first day, the non-RWF M+ crowd had struggled to time some of the +6/+7 keys in their early runs, and these are players who PLAY play M+. As of this morning, we barely had +10s being cleared by the top end players, even with a solid 615+ ilvl and 4p tier
So part of it might be tailoring your expectations to the range youre playing at. If youre pugging and not vetting properly, you’re going to incur a rough sampling of the general population, which is going to hover right around that +3/+4 mark in terms of gear/skill. If you’re sitting at that range and seeing this outcome, this suggests you’re not doing your job as a tank properly as you have the means to throttle groups to baby proof them and still time keys if you’re actually decent or better. If you’re going higher and timing some and whiffing others, you might be fine, but then you’re at a point where you’re ahead of the general population curve and thus potentially an outlier. In other words, your expectations would be above and beyond reasonable for the general population.
either way, a good or a great player doesn’t even sweat over stuff like this. Why? Because if you’re a strong player and you’re pugging, you’re going to generally be providing a HIGH impact to your keys and that will be reflected in your experiences with others as you play more
And in general, gear is a crutch. M+ is always rougher in S1 of an expac when people, especially tanks, cannot overgear the target content.
Peeking behind the curtain, what I can tell you is that if I’m healing an undergeared and mid tank, I have to spend notably more globals on that tank, which means less for the group, which means less globals for DPS, which means greater TTK, which means more room for misplays. Even if that tank plays well, the tank not fulfilling their role fully often causes the cascading of failure.
The others may fail mechanics, but they’re failing them more often because they’re given more opportunities to fail, and the tank is often the one who sets that series of opportunities up; that’s their role.
If you’re not adjusting to your groups, as your post suggests you’re not actually doing, then you ARE misplaying your role. And you’re placing burden on your healer to carry and cover for your mistakes. And you’re setting your DPS up to fail more often.
Tanking is probably the easiest of the three roles to DO, but definitely requires a thick skin to stick out long enough to learn to DO IT WELL. The reason tanks get criticized so heavily is because the failures start with tanks, and ends with the other roles
