Hey folks. As a tank main I had a lot of bad pug experience growing up (as a character), I’m sure plenty of you too. There are a lot of ranting posts about that as well. Tanking in general is undoubtedly stressful, plus a lot of work goes into memorizing route, tactics etc. Healing is stressful as well, as you need to keep 5 people including yourself alive, while doing the mechanics (even worse for low mobility healers).
I have seen a lot of people dreading tanking (healing maybe less so cuz you are not ‘in charge’ of the dungeon, so to speak), some new tanks find it hard to grow and learn without taking abuse so they drop tanking all together, which only adds to the tank drought in pugs. An easy and obvious solution is to run with friends and guild, as yall mentioned, but not everyone can find a steady group or enough friends to play with.
Today I had a little bit of free time so I made a “tank/healer training group”, Plaguefall. My purpose was to maybe offer help and training to tank/healers in actual dungeons, also for myself to refresh on the route (i like to learn them by heart). I put down in the description that tank/healer in-training welcome, tank can come as dps to see how the route and tactics look like etc. DPS welcome too cuz in high keys DPS competence is just as important. Honestly at first I thought I was going to sit in the group for 2 hours. After all, who am I to train anyone? I ain’t the best tank in class. But I got a lot of applicants in a very short time and they all came for “training”. We went through M0 steadily, following exactly the M10+ route, and finished it with 1 wipe. It was pretty cool and I explained some key mob/boss tactics along the way. Everyone was following and we had only 1 accidental pull. In the end I got some appreciation and thanks, no toxicity at all.
I am by no means the best tank, and I still feel a bit bashful about “educating” someone on tactics and stuff. But I’m glad that I can offer some help, maybe if I keep doing this, other new tanks/healer won’t suffer as much when they gather experience and grow as a (game) character? This most likely won’t solve the pug tank drought, but it’s worth a try. I think instead of key-ruining movement, more people can try to offer “training” group to make everyone’s life a bit easier. (This wont solve toxicity problem though, some people are just built like toxic waste radiating garbage).
If you have time, of course.