Some of the dungeons I seem to have a mental block on navigating, especially the newer ones. I love playing tank characters; something about the paly throwing a shield or the druid in bear form. I also love dungeons. But I haven’t really played my tanks in any dungeons because of my navigation issues. Is this an issue, or do some people just know the dungeons so well it’s not a problem? Another idea I was thinking of was going in with my level 50 and wandering around (aside from watching YouTube videos), but that won’t really work too well with BFA dungeons I don’t think.
As a Tank main of several years now, You need to know that getting lost is part of the Learning Process. You will, with time, get to a point where you have a nice route memorized for every current dungeon.
Modern day dungeons tend to be quite linear, and you will only need to make a few executive decisions as a tank player of what to pull and when to pull it. Once you have a nice route in mind for all of the current expansions dungeons, the hardest part is already over.
Getting lost is something every single tank goes through, and it’s particularly complicated in earlier Vanilla-Cataclysm dungeons as they can be quite confusing.
Of particular note are Blackrock Depths, Lower Blackrock, All 3 Wings of Dire Maul, and most Titan Dungeons from Wrath of the Lich King.
If you get lost during a dungeon, it’s best to suck it up. and admit to the team that you don’t know where to go. It is almost always better to just tell the tank “Go this way” then it is to Kick the Tank, and wait 30+ minutes for a new one who may or may not know the route.
Generally speaking, the easiest way to get through this learning process easier is to bring experienced friends, who can point you through a dungeon. After 1 or 2 runs of the same dungeon, you will find you have the general route in your head.
In Modern WoW, thanks to Mythic Plus, dungeons are relevant content for an entire expansion. You will have a few years to get them all neatly memorized, so it really won’t be a problem, considering it only takes around 4-5 runs to have the route drilled into your brain.
Just remember to keep a level head, and remember that slow and steady always wins the race. Mistakes happen, and they are part of the process of becoming a better Tank.
And remember, you play this game to have fun. Enjoy yourself.
Getting lost isn’t generally a issue, especially as a tank. Just understand that people, especially right now when we’re still under BFA content with SL content, we should ALL know the dungeons by now, what the best flow of direction, least path of resistance, etc. It easily makes it a ton easier to just state that you never been to this dungeon before and ask where to go. Or open the map in the dungeon in question, eventually it makes sense and eventually develop a habit.
I can’t say for sure EVERYONE will be generous and nice enough but hopefully a lot of them will have to learn that we are in SERIOUS NEED OF TANKS AND HEALERS! And so many are being scared off from becoming such.
I actually don’t really know the BFA dungeons since I only came back a month ago and haven’t done any of them. But I figured YouTube walkthrough videos will help with that, or I can probably pull up my healer (or this hunter) and go through them in a group. Thank you!
Guardian Druid I can say for sure you won’t have much trouble for sure. Protection Paladin…I dunno. Since the whole game about tanking is just keeping aggro off your groups, so yeah. Just keep in mind. Anyways, do try to have fun!
In case we’re talking about bfa dungeons, maybe you could try play as a dps first and follow other tank?
But don’t go intentionally pull unnecessary packs as a dps and interrupt the tank’s route tho, most people are not like me, they’ll just kick you instead of letting mobs smack you to death.
I know the dungeons and the various routes through them like the back of my hand but that comes with a lot of practice.
I’d advise just looking up some simple routes if you’d like or to just play the game and not worry about it too much. Specific routes don’t matter overmuch until you’re trying to push keys–and even there anything but a basic route doesn’t matter until you start pushing higher keys.
Then you start learning the more advanced stuff but you’ll get to that later. Just chill and have fun.
I used to go into a dungeon and say I’d done it before but wasn’t sure about the way, could someone else lead? Somebody always was happy to do that.
But as they kept nerfing the lower level toolkit, I had less desire to tank those dungeons. I finally stopped altogether, as I got so fed up with having to try to explain the mechanics of leveling dungeons I’d had all I could take of what felt like unpaid labor.
As far as dungeon pathing goes, for me, I need a good map. While most dungeon maps are pathetically undetailed, in classic you’re on your own. That didn’t work for me. I suspect there are a lot of people like me who need an actual map to help learn a dungeon.
It’s because the new dungeons in bfa are set up for mythic plus players that are the 1% that decide the game for us. BfA dungeons are by far the least fun/most flustercuck of them all.
I built a mediocre yet more than adequate tank set for my pally because prot is fun to play. Then I decided to go into some heroics to practice since I knew I wouldn’t take much damage in them. Queue popped and it was atal dazar. I sat down to eat as I usually do because why not have food buffs? Cooking is easy and worthwhile. While I was eating everyone ran down the stairs and pulled all the saurids while one person slow falled down to rezan and pulled him. All while I was taking five seconds to get a food buff. I stood up. Looked at all of it, said, “have fun” and left. Tanking in this game especially casually is borderline and sometimes literally abusive. That’s why I won’t tank even though I’d really love to.
But I figured YouTube walkthrough videos will help with that, or I can probably pull up my healer (or this hunter) and go through them in a group. Thank you!