Whats up with tanks?

Community General Discussion
69

used to be a pug tank, not likely to pick it up in the future, i’ll tank for my guild, or for my friends. not for a group of random strangers who most of the time expect me to lead the group, tell everyone what to do, compensate for their mistakes when they don’t do what they’re told and abuse me if/when the group fails.

70

First. There is a raid vs dungeon composition problem. Standart raid consist from 20 people with 2 tanks. If this 20 people go to dungeons, they’ll need 4 tanks. So, if you plays tank, you have to squabble with other tanks for a raid slot. Its realy annoing.
Second. There are big gap between DK and other tanks. To much groups in lfg marked as “DK only” or “DK pref”. If you a bear or other tank, you will face a lot of rejects.
Third. Timer. Timer puts tank in big stress. You will constantly make hard choise: whait for CD and let heal drink or take risks and pull without some abilities. And this is yours and only yours responsobility. But many dd think that they know your job better and willing to “help” you by pulling some extra packs or just saynig you what tot do. And this leads us to forth.
Fourth. Your cannot hide your mistakes as dd can do. If you do something wrong, everyone will notise this. Usualy by mobs ataking everyone after your death. And you instantly get some “cheering” notes in chat.

1 Like
71

Here’s why I don’t pug high keys.

If the dps expect me to know all the tactics and routes for trash and Boss I expect the exact same in return.

I can’t very well take a route that is risky if some random dps player just wanders into a pack.

I’m not your tour guide, I’m not covering your mistakes, It’s not my fault dps can’t avoid avoidable damage or pay attention to their surroundings.

Some of us are tired of being blamed for mistakes that others make.

73

Prot is a god-damn powerhouse of ungodly destruction. Get gud.

74

In dungeons you rarely have to worry about being interrupted however, beside specifics mob abilities that stun you or an affix like Quacking. Healing becomes scary when your tank isn’t up on par with trash mechanics or your DPS has a hard time avoiding bad stuff.

As for tanking the basics aren’t complicated. Almost everyone can tank on a basic level (since it is just a matter of manage cooldowns and your rotation to keep optimal DPS.) There is a difference in the small nuances tanks have however, which shows not just in positioning, but in interrupts/CC rotations as well. These subtle things are what differeniate a good and a very good tank. It both comes with experience and situational awareness, which people might not realise, but they feel it when the run goes smooth.

Sure, to just get through a low-ish key that is all there is to it for tanking, just be in the face of the mobs. You are wrong on nobody noticing if you took too much damage though: The healer will definitely notice.

75

All tanks are fine, so far every tanks done a 19 key in time. Less then 0.01% of players actually do those keys lol.

Guardian/dh is more then fine for 10-15 keys (done plenty, no issue). Our main tank for keys a guardian who does 15k dps, 10k heals. He’s an absolute beast.

It’s community perception that’s wrong. They look at keys and the first 50 are DK and brew. So that makes very other class bad? Go to page 3/4 and every other tanks in there, just 1 key below.

76

I think I would have agreed with you up to WoD :slight_smile: I spent a lot of Wrath, Cata and WoD tanking in dungeons while healing or dpsing in raids, and these didn’t feel particularly bad.

On the other hand, M+ had not been invented. Tanking that looks like you really have to have the mechanics nailed down, which packs to pull, which to bypass - and if you don’t, you miss your timer and your group gets peeved (and your rio score suffers).

Tbh, I wonder if key-decay is part of the problem. If it’s your key, you want to be super-picky about who is in your group, because not only can they make your run fail, but they can drop your key 2 levels, and randomise it to a dungeon you might not want to run. Most tanks are probably doing guild-only runs, such that the pug world never sees them.

(Not that key-decay is only a tank problem. I’d argue it’s responsible for a lot of community toxicity because everyone’s got something to lose every time they run a dungeon.)

77

In terms of mechanics tanks depend on passive abilities : armour, dodge, block, parry, stagger etc

People avoid playing tanks because it is perceived to be harder and stressful, but they do not realise that melee DPS is exactly the same, you go to make the same moves, be at the same place, do the same things. It is funny then to watch 23 players waiting for 2 tanks in LFR for ages, when in fact half a dozen players are plate melee and could easily do the role. It is mostly perception.

When we talk about M+ and progression raids, there things are tougher for tanks, they need to stay alive and they are beaten continuously, and the healers may not cope so well (being progression) so that is an added element of stress, but equally stressful on the healers.

If Blizzard allowed more classes to tank we might see more people trying it, mages, warlocks, hunters, shamans, priests - a lot of classes currently unused in tanking.

1 Like
78

I’m one of the few persons who actually gets sad switching to DPS in guild raid progress… I feel happy when I have my shield and being in front of everyone.
All of my S1 score and S2 score so far I made it through PUG, spitting blood and breaking my back.

Pug life is hard, really hard… for 10 dungeons you do, at least 6/7 are not finished. No discord, no people you know, no friendly faces. That’s why I like to think that I and people like me are the true heroes of this game. We overcome real challenges.

Tank life is harder, being at the front, being the leader, being precised like a Swiss clock, no room for mistakes.
So… if pug is hard, tanking is harder, tanking pug is absolute hell. That’s why there are not many. For many people it’s more rewarding seeing lots of numbers in damage done than taking damage.

1 Like
79

Blizz should give tanks more self sustain, in BFA tanks are too much dependant on dps’s interrupts, and when one of them will not use it properly, tank gets ton of dmg and it’s a wipe or almost wipe. Tank should be diamond tank which can stand on his own, but cannot win alone.

80

Yes, I think this is true. Melee has the same issues as tanks, e.g. cleaves, what to interrupt, etc…

81

As others said, one of the issues is that you only need two tanks for raids, and these slots are often taken by established tanks.

And also as others have said, tank balance is pretty off. I’d probably be at least a part-time bear, but the Guardian spec is in such a poor state that I would not enjoy it.

2 Likes
82

Nerf.
Buff.
Remove.
Return.

This is the cycle that happens at Blizzard so I wouldn’t worry too much.

When they make tanks easy mode again, everyone will flock to them.

83

I never read so much bs.

If people play their tanks exactly same as they play their melee dps classes then they probably are really bad tanks.

Tanking becomes a bit more interesting when you got to manage Shield Blocks uptime etc, not so much on DKs, but that is all. As long as you are alive no one cares how much damage you took, and what you could have done better .

I play multiple tanks including a prot warrior and saying that the only thing you need to manage is Shield Blocks just proves how much you understand the role.

As long as you are alive no one cares how much damage you took, and what you could have done better

Looking at the damage the tank was taking isn’t something that you can measure or compare because different classes are designed differently some tanks are designed around avoiding the incoming damage whereas others are designed around taking the damage and then there are some tanks that are designed around these two extremes and then there is the player decision, some tanks are choosing to play more offensively when possible than defensively and on top of that there are different players playing different builds so how exactly you’re going to measure that? most of the time if the tank doesn’t stress the healer it shouldn’t matter how much damage the tank took as long as he/she gets the job done.

There are plenty of things you could measure though like positioning, pulls, routes, tactics, interrupts, deaths and depends on the tank dps or hps, by contrast, you can measure a dps by damage taken so much for “exactly the same” but not really.

So if you really want to measure the tank judge the player by overall performance.

Short version: as a tank you simply need to be there (right up to the mobs) and this is more or less all there is to it.

Right. :roll_eyes:

All roles have their “challenges” even dps… unless ofc all you do is running regular Mythics and LFR then maybe you can play your tank just as another melee dps.

2 Likes
84

Well reaping is much easier than infested from my point of view, half of dungeons has very lax dps requirements like toldagor, atal, freehold which can be completed in time even with bad deeps. If you start group as tank there are many 400+ dps to choose from which will easily carry you in +10, to up chances install raider io addon and invite 1k+ people only.
I didnt play first week much, this week i am almost ilvl400 (from like 372) and have 7/10 dungeons completed at +10 or higher in time.

85

Ok mon I will tell ya what goin’ with tanks. I play on EU servers and today I decided to do some mythics with European comrades on my warrior tank. +2 went great and I blessed de moon for such a wonderful and smoth run. But den I went to de Temple of Sethraliss +4. When we started to do first boss, I was killed by some kind of instant dark magic. I was like WTF…loas…why did you leave me…

During de second attempt, de same thing happened. DPS in my group attacked de boss like animals and it was difficult to keep aggro, because everyone attacked different targets. And I was again killed instantly by some AOE. Do ya know what happened next?

My group began to insult me. Dey began to say “what kind of tank are you??? Sh*t tank!”, “How could you be killed in a second? You’re a bad tank!” “Go learn to tank in m0!”.

Long story short, we killed de boss on 4 attempt and finished de dungeon with almost no problems. Only DPS died often, as they stood in AOE or when dey were the first to attack targets with their heavy AOE. One priest always shouted “GOGOGO! You are all useless! It’s all a waste of time!”.

Will I go next time to tank? No thanks. And after dis nervous experience, I need a bottle of vodka.

8 Likes
86

The fact is DPS think tank have AOE taunt, eyes everywhere, keeping 6 mobs and try to find the ‘rogue one’ who turned the focus. Dps don’t help… they stand there spamming aggro aggro aggro or running away like headless chickens and die… no effort to help the tank… but it’s easy… paladin? Bubble, priest fade, rogue vanish, mage invisibility, hunter feign death, and bla bla bla… no they prefer monitoring their dps meter… reaping… would range dps stack up to the tank? Hell no… the tank has to go around trying the impossible… that’s pug.
I know I can find ilvl 400 but when I group I’m trying to find brain rather than power.
Pug is hard, because people don’t know me, my style, my class, my experience and so on.
I pull and go back to have more room… I turn back and mobs are still there, with a DH swinging around like a demonic sonic the hedgehog… :unamused: anyway, pug is hard. Tank are fed up. I’m fed up, but I keep going.

2 Likes
87

This is by far my favourite affix. As the famous DK Donald once said,
If it tanks like a duck …

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88

Thats a rough affix, random polymorphing into DUCKs!

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90

It took me a while to realise what you meant. My bad, will leave it there for prosperity because my friends do refer to that affix as such.

1 Like