Im prob going to get a lot of arguments about this post but if you disagree keep doing what your doing and wondering why there are no tanks for your pug.
The main reason your having trouble finding a tank is not a lack of them, its that they dont want to tank for you because of the abuse they take. This abuse is not only verbal abuse or blaming them when things go wrong, theres many other types of abuse that makes a tank wish they hadnt agreed to tank for you.
The biggest would be dps that go out of their way to make a tanks job harder. This includes things like: pet dps sending their pets out to attack a mob before it even gets to the tank, mages aoeing mobs before they get to the tank, any dps attacking a mob while the tank is trying to los pull, not attacking the tanks target, ignoring tanks marks on attack order, etc etc etc. All these add up to making the tanks job harder.
There are many more things I could list but I think you get the idea. Any dps who allows others to continue this type of practice isnt any better. If your not part of the solution your part of the problem.
Is because they want to be paid to tank your dungeon and on top of that reserve items most of the time. Most of them also got an inflated ego thinking they are better than everyone.
It goes both ways. i did not do many dungeons, but the ones I did in P1 and P2 with random tanks were exactly that. Random disconnects or being rude to the 4 other people.
This post is based on experience, so is mine. This is not a tank issue, this is a human behaviour issue.
I can definitely see where you’re coming from. There’s a lot more pressure on tanks to really know what they’re doing, and a lot of the time people will have unrealistic expectations of perfection, or maybe their idea of what good tanking is, is actually totally off.
Personally, I pretty much always insist on actually forming my own groups as a rule especially when I’m tanking, and I don’t put up with idiots. If people are being dumb (not just being bad or making mistakes, but are literally being jerks about it), I’ll let the mobs kill them and kick them the moment they start trying to fight about it.
I think one of the big problems with tanks, and with most players in general for that matter, is that they feel like they have to deal with people. I think a lot of this feeling of abuse comes from the fact that people will subject themselves to groups where expectations are way too high and in many cases, based on completely incorrect information. I think this community would be much better for it if more people decided to form their own groups and to do away with the pathetic, insecure min/maxing attitude.
I’ll still join other peoples’ groups from time to time because I’ll feel lazy every now and again, but overall, my experience with group content has been very relaxed and positive because I don’t gear check or bar specific classes from joining my groups. I’ve almost never run into problems as a result of this (when I do, it’s usually just not having enough CC) and most of the time, the people who I take along with me have a great time too. Not to sound like a tank-elitist, but the DPS, and to a very small degree, healers, generally speaking, are beggars, not choosers. I think it’s especially important for people to learn a lesson that they’re replacable and that they need to show people respect and patience even when things aren’t going the way they wanted. When someone’s toxic and wants to start a fight with you, don’t leave the group. Drop kick their asses out and replace them!
I would highly suggest you either try forming your own groups, or loosening your standards for putting groups together. That worked absolute wonders for me.
I just dont tank dungeons for people anymore on my prot warrior or prot paladin, it is pointless for me to do so, if I were paid I would consider it but most people have your mindset where a skilled and geared tank should just go out of his way to tank a dungeon for you, for free with nothing but nearly useless badges as a reward.
why shouldnt they be compensated for their services? it has nothing to do with ego and everything to do with the fact that we are playing a in demand role that has much more responsbility than both of the other roles combined.
Sorry, but if you read what I wrote you would know I only done dungeons in P1 and P2 which means gear in there was still good, talking about heroic dungeons. My experience with tanks back then was that most had an inflated ego, not just the dpsers. So it was not tanking for free at all either…
You say you got more responsibility and thats exactly what its not about. You think you are special but a healer and sometimes a dps even depending on dungeon is just as much needed for you to complete a dungeon. Therefore thats kind of an inflated ego. You wont make it through the dungeon alone, neither will the other roles unless they got some super tactics.
I started charging people upfront for my tanking services. What I’ve noticed is that a lot of the behavior you’ve outlined in your OP doesn’t happen in my runs anymore.
People play a lot better when the tank they paid gold for could leave at any time.
Almost every skilled tank had anything they needed from normals and heroics within the first 2-3 weeks of the expansion launch if not the first week.
After that ether you dealt with bad tanks for the most part, alts, or paid for services.
Charging to tank a dungeon is just… selfish and uncool. It’s just a game.
Having said that, yeah, people casting Blizzard as soon as I pull, and attacking everything but my target, is very annoying and actually slows down the run, since the healer and I need to drink more since we expend more mana trying to keep your stupid dps butts alive.
-refusal to CC when asked.
-not in touch with AOE strength of all tanks. If a Paladin has lower spellpower, you need to adjust
300 SP versus 450 with sanc aura is much different
-DPS is usually low as a whole between 3 DPS
Tanks can have issues in a heroic below 485 def for uncrittable status for level 72’s and it’s obnoxious when they maintain their uncrushable status in a heroic dungeon sacrificing stamina or threat stats
Healers in all blues in heroics are toxic and will accuse people of being squishy
When I healed a T6 quality tank without cc in post NERF (not pre) blood furnace pushing near 1,600 healing per second
Switching from prot to holy I see it for what it is
Dps are almost always ungrateful and I can understand why tanks charge gold or something
I say we all start charging gold to join groups. Do you need a dps? slide me that clean 50g. You get a healer. Well, I need 100g this oil isn’t going to buy itself. Need a Tank? Sorry kid, unless you are willing to pony up 200g and the frozen orb at the end of the run you are on your own.
I find that if I set expectations pre-key-drop in a pre-written macro, any real grief happens prior to risking the key and wasting any more time than needed.
This week I have two:
Please do not “help” with pulls. It’s Necrotic week, very hard on Tanks and Healers. I need to manage mob count and location. I can’t do that with DPS pulling more to speed the run. Faster doesn’t matter if you kill your Tank.
and
Hunter, please keep a Tar Trap up behind me, near me, or center of room so I can use it in emergencies to drop Necrotic stacks. Thanks in advance.
I only run the second one if I find a hunter for the run.
This whole week I had one run where the TWO hunters in the group said, “Okay boss” and then proceeded to ignore my requests and one run where the HEALER the Hunter and one other DPS left because “You can’t tell me how to play” (with other words interleaved in there I can’t say on the forums) but by and large it’s worked very well for me.
Essentially just a reminder of the effect this week’s affixes have on the two “skill” positions and a request for a bit of help from the Hunter.
I mean, that’s a good use-case for taunting off the healer. If the healer continues healing the DPS that is causing the healer to pull aggro, then it’s a healer issue.
Tanking isn’t a “service”, it’s one of three roles necessary for running dungeons and raids. Looking at this game like it’s some kind of full time job that you need some payment for is a horrible perspective to have. This is a video game. Play it for fun.
