True. When I started, my anxieties were through the roof. At some point, I don’t know when, I told myself “screw it”, and jumped in head first. I don’t know if anyone complained, I usually ignore dungeon chat, I didn’t get kicked, so I thought I was doing something right.
You’ll come to the realization that people will bad mouth you just because they can. Just /smile and /wave and go on your merry way. There isn’t much, if anything, they can do to you ingame.
OP, Let them judge you, you are doing something they won’t or are incapable of doing, that makes you better.
The struggle with tanking nerves used to be mostly all technical issues. Since tanking is now generally so easy technically, this is the kind of pressure that creeps in. What I decided is my job as a tank is to set the pace and perform my job in an effective manner. As soon as DPS or anybody else take that role I just start walking around following them. Usually they die but either way, I just wait until they either settle down or if they’re capable I let them go. If they’re running a tank class, I may ask if they want to go ahead and tank.
It helps to look at everyone like they’re pieces of garbage until they prove otherwise.
You don’t know them so for all you know they well could be, and every time they aren’t it’s a pleasant surprise.
Just don’t let that personal mental elevation cross the bridge between thought and action or you might end up saying things you regret.
Turn party chat off. Get some good jams rocking in your headset. Watch the healer’s mana.
Don’t worry about the dps. If they start pulling stick to your plan and if they die they die and if they don’t they don’t or take their pull as an opportunity to practice tanking when a dps butt pulls (accidentally pulling).
Follower dungeons to get a feel for it, then LFR or even heroic or M0.
What I did. Starting with guildies groups helps. But really just gotta jump in and don’t let criticism especially negative remarks cut you down.
Being new to tanking you are bound to mess up and that’s just part of learning.
People forget not everyone is 10/10 out the box and everyone starts somewhere.
Tanking is stressful and scary to start. But once you get a few runs under your belt friend, things feel more comfortable.
Start easy and slow. If the DPS are killing fast and no ones at risk of death, pull bigger. Always watch your healers mana and have fun!
YOLO and it’ll be your fault anyways (especially if it isn’t really your fault when something goes wrong) so turn on all the things you can in your chat window so any party complaints get drowned out by mob and npcs casting spells, general chat, rep gains - hell turn on the services channel if you have to.
Also, don’t pull if the healer doesn’t have mana.
Hold aggro, have fun and say “thanks for the run guys!” before you leave the instance.
Also if the hunter pets grab aggro or the DPS grab aggro: they broke it, they bought it. They must know better than you to pull aggro anyways since you’re already trying to breakdance while holding aggro on the mob pack.
Relax, it’s a game and have fun. If you die well the healer is probably going next. At least you won’t be alone in the spooky graveyard!
In mythics my advice is ignore your item level it really attributes very minimal to how you play.
What I mean is at the start of season 4 I was 489. I went directly into tanking 8s.
Next I would say is pug life isn’t as hard as people make it seam.
If you aren’t a seasoned tank then start small. 2-5 mythic keys. This isn’t the quickest most efficient way to gear up but it’s the best way.
Download mythic tools ( I think it is ). And decide your paths ahead of time so you aren’t over pulling.
People will criticize you. Sometimes rudely sometimes not so much. Some times it’s helpful & rude, while other times it’s just rude. But listen to them they might be telling you something you didn’t know or weren’t aware of.
After that run a couple decided what you like about your pull path or what you didn’t like about it and adjust.
Don’t be a clicker, hot key everything.
Lastly in my opinion if you want to be the absolutely best tank you can play a healer and a dps. I have found through playing all of the trifecta of classes you learn a whole lot about how to make healers & your dps the best they can be. Being a tank you eat most cleaves so they go unnoticed however play a dps you will die if you get cleaved.
I could go in depth on each and every one of these points if needed.
P.s.
The tanks job is to control the momentum of the dungeon you are running. If you aren’t doing it someone else will. Like for example I was running a 13 neltharus the other day as a resto shaman. The tank was pulling 1-2 groups on fortified week, so I started pulling for him. He was good at getting agro, but had I not started pulling we would not have timed. And honestly if you aren’t going to time a 13 there is not reason to run it.
So when you google some subject, you are IMMEDIATELY going to get the answer from “1 top player”. no, you won’t, you’ll get a bunch of RANDO’s (as you put it) giving their OPINIONS not facts. By now it is obvious that you are trolling for attention. The forum SHOULD BE THE EXACT PLACE TO ASK THESE TYPES OF QUESTIONS. That way, a person can get an array of advice for SPECIFIC questions and/or concerns they have. If you cannot or are not willing to do more than say “google it” then what you say is irrelevant. You’re just in this thread to troll and be a jerk.