This is Why No One Wants to Tank Pugs

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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Long story, so skip to the TLDR if you like.

While playing on an alt last night, I recruited a new guildie-- a level 25 warrior. After joining, he asked if anyone was interested in running stocks. Myself and another guildie offered to go. I asked if he was comfortable tanking, otherwise we’d be in for a wait as it was late and finding a tank in chat would take awhile. He said that he was nervous to do it, but would try.

Given that I am the MT for my guild, I said no problem and I would be happy to walk him through it. Our other guildie was healing, so all we needed to do was find two dps. I ask in chat and immediately get two dps (shocking): a ret pally and a feral druid.

As everyone is making our way to stocks, I politely say to our pugs that our tank is new and to please be patient. The feral druid (to his credit) asks if he can swipe so he can aoe dps. I asked him not to and instead single target dps so the tank could focus on learning tanking.

Now, I made it clear that we had a new tank, and the druid could have chosen then to leave the group if he wanted a faster group-- he did not. He then goes on to say that the warrior should watch others to learn how to tank instead of trying to learn in a dungeon. I wasn’t in the best of moods, so I said if he didn’t like it, he could find a different group.

He then replied that he was glad that he wasn’t healing, then, and that his main is a healer and he dislikes healing tanks that do not know what they are doing. I am done at this point. I tell him that I have a tank and a healer (both 60s, because no life) and then I say that everyone complains about there being a lack of tanks, yet no one wants to let people learn how to tank. He then replies “watching is learning”.

And then, for the first time since the launch of Classic, I kicked someone. I said “yeah, this isn’t going to work” and then kicked him. We ultimately finished the dungeon and our new tank did just fine.

TLDR: Please stop complaining about the lack of tanks if you aren’t willing to be patient with people who are willing to learn the role. This is why many tanks (not all) will not, or at least are apprehensive to, tank pugs.

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Your only mistake was waiting so long to kick him.

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And some people think “Duel-Specs” will cure the shortage of Tanks :rofl:

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Lowbie tanking is pretty rough, No Aoe other than tc after charge, short range on taunt.

Understand why ravager zerg became the meta.

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This is my first attempt at a healing toon. I went slow at first, and with friends as that’s more forgiving. After I got somewhat comfortable with it I joined almost EVERY pug I could. Reason being I wanted to have every last bit of stupid thrown my way to learn how to deal with it.
I hope he finds support until he’s comfortable dealing with whatever is thrown at him.

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So where exactly are you meant to learn then? youtube? jesus christ… if anything, you took too long to get rid of your mongo DPS.

Doing some research to improve is fine if you wish, but everything should be learned by actually playing the game. You are expected to be proficient without actually being able to learn. It’s like how companies hire in my country:

“20-25 years of age, 5 years of verifiable experience”

get lost.

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It’s not really about “learning”, it’s about the lack of respect. I’m not going to group with rude people. I’m just not. You will not find me in a PuG group, ever (doesn’t matter the role). That’s what my Guild is for.

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Why you kick the druid os beyond me. He’s right in that the guy should watch and learn. Also with him AOE swiping run would has gone super fast.

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Absolutely the right move; not only did you remove a problem from the group, but perhaps the Druid learned something about treating others decently.

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A level 25 warrior isn’t gonna learn much about how to be a good warrior tank watching a druid swipe spam. Seems pretty simple, don’t sign up as a dps if your intent is to tank. That druid didn’t want to teach anyone lol

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No, he’s an idiot.

Lolno.

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He would learn how to AOE tank by watching lol.

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Level 60 feral druid puts on his raid BIS threat set with over 30 pct crit and chugs an elixir of the mongoose. Finds a dungeon group doing BRD with a level 55 warrior in blues.

Proceeds to spam swipe with infinite rage and criticizes warrior for his slow pace and inability to maintain AOE aggro. Proceeds to school warrior on how he should tank…First you pull with faerie fire, then you mash swipe. On bosses, you’re gonna want to maul.

Warrior can’t find faerie fire, swipe, or maul in his spellbook. Wonders wtf the feral is going on about but realizes he’s in the wrong and has learned much about tanking.

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Lol, you’ve never played a feral druid, have you?

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Druid goes bear form. Everything is instantly scared, so starts attacking the bear. Bear has unlimited rage now. Then the bear just pulls, and pulls swiping away and boom done dungeon.

/dripping with sarcasm I can barely contain.

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I’m always perplexed by players who go into a low-level dungeon expecting everyone to be pro-level advanced.

I’ve also always found Stocks to be sorta deceptively tough right after VC. Obviously it’s a straightforward dungeon with all melee mobs, but they hit hard, and the near-constant disarms, stuns, bleeds, and debuffs can be really hard on a new tank, especially if the group is rushing. Most of the mobs run away and they run straight towards other groups.

But that’s the thing about tanking, especially pugs. You’re front-and-center, all your mistakes are there for everyone to see, and everyone’s a critic and hypothetical expert, but nobody else wants to actually do it.

Tanking taught me something interesting about this game (and life I guess), especially in pugs. You’ll be in one group and they’ll say you’re great, you’ll be in another group and they’ll say you’re terrible. You gotta try to listen and incorporate their input, but at the end of the day you’ve got to control your own character and make your own decisions, and let other people think what they think.

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It’s like swimming. You can’t learn by watching. Someone just has to throw you in.

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How much damage do you think swipe is doing at stockades level?

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A month or so ago I got a whisper on my then-level 18 paladin: “Want to tank Deadmines for us?”

Me: “I would, but I have no gear.”

Whisperer: “We’ll keep you alive, don’t worry.”

The rest of the party was in their low to mid 20s. I spent precious silver to buy a white one-handed mace (all I had was my blacksmithing hammer) to go with my level 7 green shield.

I made mistakes, but they didn’t complain. And no one died.

Everyone learning to tank should have a group like that.

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This should have been in the TL;DR, imo. It’s the best part of the story :heart:

Also, Elite’s Warrior Tanking Guide is a pretty good read for new warrior tanks, I think.

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