When I play as my tanks I embrace the GO GO GO spirit. Now Ill admit I don’t do Mythic’s, but when I level I always level as a tank and when I have the option I queue as the tank.
I also frequently get tells after dungeons about being awesome and wanting to stay with me.
The problem isn’t all tanks, its the tanks who are bad tanks…the ones that want to CC every pull, or take a water break every 3 pulls, or want to stop before every boss to “make sure were all ready”… “OMG THAT HUNTER PULLED A MOB THAT I DIDNT…” Who cares…just pick em up
when I tank with my friends - I know they’re going to run ahead and CC mobs. I know the mage is going to run up and pull the pack away from the obelisk so we can enter without killing it. I know exactly how much I can pull on any given week/affix, because I know what the healer can do.
basically, I know that I’ll be tanking the dungeon, not corralling and guiding players through it who couldn’t do it on their own.
I don’t have some knucklehead running a zillion TD on skittish week opening with eyebeam on mobs before I’ve hit them.
I don’t have to stop to ask for that one single caster to be CCed, I don’t have to type out instructions on who hits what totem on that boss in AD, I don’t have to be seriously annoyed by the chucklehead ranged who can’t stay in Melee on Yazma, the melee who just has to stand behind the boss on Unbound Abomination, the guy who causes Crawgmaw to charge out to the middle, etc.
those players just suck to be grouped with. and when I group with my friends, I 100% avoid them.
Tanks are rare because people are too polite to take the full advantages that tanking has to offer.
As a tank, you can never be wrong. If a DPS challenges your route, just tell them this is the route you take on your 6,000 IO alt. If they ask the name of the alt, just say it’s on a different account. No biggie.
If you die, it’s the healers fault. If you pull too many mobs and die, it’s the healers fault. Just tell the healer “Sorry I thought you could handle that” or the classic “Sorry this is how I pulled in my +28 yesterday, I’ll slow it down.”
Again… always act like you know everything. But never be the first one to talk in a group. Do not even type hello first. Remember, you’re the tank. The pug is even lucky you’re giving them 45 minutes of your time. You could be doing better things. Like queuing for instant queues and getting that sweet, sweet tank cache full of gold.
If a DPS asks to pull more. Pull way more than people expect. Show them that you’re serious and they need to step up their game to match you. YOU’RE THE LEADER. Without you this group is hopeless! They are destined to fail.
But on a serious note, I think it’s just people don’t want to get criticized by others over the internet. Especially if they’re trying to have fun.
All of it probably. Y’all can’t seem to be nice folks for some reason. These dungeons are a mess to guide through and people forget that not everyone’s been playing this game since release all they get the crap on.
I have tanked quite a bit on my Kul Tiran and I have only had three instances where people have been dickheads to me personally. It’s not my favourite role, but I also do not hate it nor fear toxic players, I just banter with them until they simmer down or leave. I do wish more people would read the adventure guide so we don’t have Runecarver Sorn or Lord Stormsong incidents where people die because they don’t know to stay in his rune or in Stormsong’s case, soak the ancient mind bender and attack it off the person.
I think that the toxicity is the second largest reason. People expect tanks to know everything about the dungeon even if the DPS don’t know anything. And people flame if the tank uses a different route from that person’s favorite route.
The largest reason there’s fewer tanks is how much preparation they’re expected to do.
I can only speak for myself here but, I enjoy both tanking and dpsing on my warrior and demon hunter but, I enjoy dpsing more on them. I used to be more of a support player in other games so I guess i’m going through a phase of wanting to be the guy who does all the murderating.
The problem with tanking is that you have very little interaction with your group via your abilities. You have one job most of the time: to prevent them from getting hit. You rarely buff your team, your abilities rarely target your teammates, you are only a meat shield.
Healers interact with everyone on both sides of the playing field. DPS can go ham with their imagination in new and creative ways to destroy things. All tanks have for stimulation is to practice kiting or to pulling bigger.
Some of this is being alleviated in SL, with tanks getting more abilities that interact with their team (mass spell recflect and intervene for example)
What I would like to see is for all roles, tanks dps and healers to get more active abilities that synergize with and provide boosts to your teammates in other roles
Control abilities are also fun and engaging. If they allow us to have greater kiting tools, more survivability mechanisms, more grips and chokes and chains and such, that is fun. Controlling mobs is fun, but having them smash you for 45 minutes straight with no escape or break, is just the worst
I like to tank. It’s my favorite role. However, I feel like I have to research the dungeon and know all the tips/tricks before I can run it. If I’m to slow or too fast or skipped something, went the wrong way or whatever, I have to listen to a constantly litany of abuse.
For me I just don’t want to learn all the stuff that comes with tanking. The mechanics and dungeon layouts. You see 10 new dungeons say on average 4 bosses per, that’s 40 boss mechanics, not to mention other things you should know. That’s not even getting into raids. Mythic has all that other stuff going on to for difficultly.
WoW is something I play to have fun, learning a bunch of stuff is not fun for me, not right now. It hasn’t been for the last two expansions. Then you could have 50 runs that go fair to great and then you get this one person that just makes makes the run miserable. So miserable you forget about all the other good runs.
I’m getting the itch for group content so I might get back into it in Shadowlands. We will see.
edit: Oh and time, it’s pretty rare I can sit and play for the time it takes to get a group going and finish a dungeon.
Tanking and to a slightly lesser extent Healers have far more to know and do in most content than DPS and is not clear cut. That is not to say that DPSing is easy by any means but it has a simpler goal. Do the big numbers so the baddie dies.
Tank and Healer mistakes are far more noticeable and detrimental to a group than the mistakes of the dps on average. Failure brings out the worst in people at times which leads to lashing out and often at Tanks and Healers. Sort of like a goalie in Soccer or Hockey. Block 100shots on goal means nothing if the one you let by decides the game.
There is also just a bunch more DPS specs to pick from. 24dps spec with 4classes only able to pick dps. VS 6 Tanks and 6healers with 1class having 2choices of healing.
They’ve made changes to make the spells and animations of Tanks and Healers to be more flashy but for a long time the cool looking spells and animations were mostly stuck on dps specs/classes which also pushed people there.
With the years of WoW pushing the game to a lot of the free time of the player being spent doing solo stuff being a tank or a healer while questing is slow, which would also push people to do more dps specs to kill things faster.
Over all it isn’t just one issue that does it but a bunch of things. So while adding more healers and tanks or changing some dps specs won’t just solve the problem but it sure wont hurt either.
