3141

I kick afks, it’s so easy to replace an afk nowadays, or kick people who talk shit to you. easy to replace DPS or healer than a tank, if they talk shit, I just leave after queue up another one. hey look I got another instance, while your old group have to wait for a tank.

3142

It’s been several months since I queued for random heroics with any regularity, but I routinely saw people initiate kick votes for low dps players.

3143

Yeah, I don’t see this at all. High risk, sure. But if tank gear drops, I get it. When I want in on an instance, I get in in two seconds. High stress? With the current dungeons, if you’re stressing as a tank, I’d say you’re doing it wrong.

3144

“AFK” was an exaggeration. “Play without requiring the slightest mental effort”, perhaps.

It doesn’t counter my point that tanks get a shitload of flak.

3145

what flak? that you die in 2 seconds, you not wearing tanking gear, you don’t have tanking spec?

stop dying, play your class right, and you don’t get any flak, you just get “hey dude, want to queue for another one?” after every instance.

3146

That reminds me, with Cataclysm they toughened up the gear requirements, you can’t even queue for level 80 heroics without an average ilvl of 190, which is nice because it keeps low dps players out of places they’re not ready for yet.

3147

Back in Burning Crusade, I actually enjoyed tanking PUG heroics and sometimes raids because most people expected to move a little slower and payed attention to kill order, a moderate level of tactics, and basic 1-3 mob crowd control. When I was in a guild in Lich King running heroics and Naxx, I enjoyed tanking because in a guild you can insist that people learn to do the above.

Now, not wanting to deal with a guild raid schedule, I rarely can bring myself to run anything as a tank, since I know that people will not follow a kill order, use only the most necessary of tactics (move out of the fire at best), and the idea that one would use crowd control seems to be laughable to almost everyone, if they even understand the concept. As someone else said, often as not everyone but the healer seems to be dedicated to making your job far harder than needed.

It’s easier to lean back and simply do my basic job as a DPS when the group is a problem. If I mentally disengage from the others in my group and we don’t wipe too much, it’s a lot less frustrating. I try to at least do what I can to make things easier for my group’s tank, if I can. I’d rather wait for the queue most of the time unless I’m in the right mood and really overgeared (only the case on one of my tanks).

3148

Well, from players wanting you to chain pull the instance comes to mind. But don’t let me stop you from going into your usual “elitist dickhead” routine.

BTW, they nerfed XP from lowbie dungeon quests today. This should not deter you from doing as many of these as you can, but will mitigate the issue of totally outleveling content somewhat.

3149

So, for those complaining about the dungeon XP earlier in the thread, it looks like it was a bug:

3150

It’s nice that you’re good at tanking, but that doesn’t apply to everyone. Tanking is an unintuitive gameplay mechanic that’s almost unique to MMOs. Anybody who decides to give it a shot for the first time and doesn’t do exhaustive research beforehand is going to get yelled at because they’re too slow, because you don’t have to do this optional boss, because there’s one mob you missed chewing on a clothie, because omg wtf ur threat is so low fakkin noob.

Bad DPS, on the other hand, won’t wipe a group and get yelled at far more seldomly because most groups don’t have somebody obsessively watching Recount for any sign of slack.

3151

Don’t tank if you don’t know how to tank. I thought the question here is Tank high risk and low reward, not should bad tank tank instances.

for a tank you get what you willing to put into, It takes more focus, but you get more groups, your group usually fail less if you are good, as well faster access to loot/rewards.

But don’t let me stop you from going into your usual “elitist dickhead” routine.

damn right I’m an elitist, I don’t hang with the underachievers.

3152

Yes, and doubly so because no one cares about pulling anymore. I did a quick instance as a tank, and was shocked to see the DPS pulling mobs more than a few times. I think those people are in for a rude awakening come Cataclysm.

After tanking for the first time as my DK, several upgrades dropped, so I Needed on them. I got two of them, and got a “Loots $(^%(^ much?” from a party member at the end. Oh well.

3153

It’s perfectly legitimate for somebody new to tanking to make mistakes as long as they’re willing to learn. If you think these people should not be tanking period then, uh, I’m not sure what to say.

The question was why tanking is considered harder or more stressful. I think you’ve done a good job of demonstrating the reason.

3154

Low reward: To me, tank gear is boring. Whee, I can get hit more (or less). Yeah, DPS is incremental upgrades too, but bigger numbers are fun. Dying slightly slower isn’t. imo, DPS gear on a whole is much better designed than Tank gear – cooler procs, cooler enchants, etc.

High stress:

-Most (all?) aggro reduction talents have been removed from the game. If I crit on my Mage, I pull threat. That’s not a me being a noob thing, that’s me critting a single spell. TPS is nowhere near as high as it needs to be to make up for the crazy DPS still present in the game. It’s frustrating to me as DPS, but I’m sure it’s even more frustrating to the Tank. I hope Cata fixes this.

-As a tank, it’s always your fault. You’re not just the mobs’ punching bag, you’re the group’s.

To me, and I’d wager many other players, tanking is equivalent to time on the casting couch. You whore yourself out til you get the DPS gear you want and then switch to full time DPS. (Also, I was tanking on a DK, and I really, really, really hated what they did to DK tanking with the rune changes.)

3155

Well, it’s polite to say if you’re going to need. Though my sense of etiquette is a couple of years old, things may have changed.

3156

Yeah, the XP was waaaayyy too high. I missed Azshara entirely on one of my characters because of two dungeons.

3157

Fuck you. Everybody has to learn some time. That includes tanks.

damn right I’m an elitist, I don’t hang with the underachievers.

You are everything wrong in MMOs, personified. Guess what? Your epeen doesn’t matter. It’s just kinda pathetic.

3158

Well, bug, or an oversight. Still, I was going to save this until I actually hit 60, but with the change it’s more useful now. I wrote down my leveling progression. I’m currently 51, and my impression is that early dungeons have a disproportionate effect on your leveling pace compared to later dungeons, but the later ones (especially those with 3 or more quests) can have a very significant impact on xp gain (3/4 of a level or more). Zones have level ranges listed, instances are bounded by asterisks.

Dun Morogh (1-10)
Loch Modan (10-20)
Deadmines
Wetlands (20-25)
Shadowfang Keep
Gnomeragon
Desolace (30-35) (incomplete, questline bug but got most of the quests in zone).
SM - Graveyard
SM - Library
Maruadan - Wicked Grove
Razorfen Kraul
Maraudon - Foulspore Cavern
SM - Armory
Maraudon - Earth Song Falls
SM - Cathederal
Uldaman
Dire Maul - WarpWood Quarter
Scholomance
Dire Maul - Garden (incomplete run)
Badlands (45-48)
Searing Gorge (48-50)
Dire Maul Godrok Commons
Stratholme - Main Gate (incomplete run)
Zul Farrak

And that’s where I’m at now. I left the wetlands at 29 and then went to Desolace. I entered the Badlands at 43 (4 bubbles or so) and had to grind to 44. I did each of those dungeons only once, some incomplete and now sit at about 5 or 6 bubbles from 52 and trying to decide if I want to do Burning Steppes or instances since once you hit 60… you can’t queue for classic dungeons.

Edit: Oh and relatively little rested XP… as I’m a dwarf warlock. This is all post shattering.

3159

Yep. The leading is actually a key point - as a tank you’re the one who sets the pace of the group (though technically it’s the healers’ mana that does that). OR LEASTAWAYS THAT’S HOW IT WERE BACK IN T"DAY.

It’s heaps of fun when you get the hang though. I’m feeling the siren call of the game again after 18 months away… Might respec my little 75 pallie as a tank…

3160

About the whole tanking discussion: i’ve tanked with my DK, my paladin and bear druid and regardless of how “well” I managed to tank it all boiled down to two things: the gear and behaviour of the rest of the group.

I’ve had sweet pugs where we go in, we do everything by the book; I don’t lose aggro, dps behaves and doesn’t step on fire and healers keep everyone alive; we all exchange pats in the back and promise to do the same next week.

Then there’s that random dungeon you went because you are gearing up a friend of yours where you get the DK Kingslayer “lolroflownage” who keeps insisting we are going “too slow” and “lol just aoe”.
Some people claim this is an issue that comes from having overgeared people in the end of an expansion who clearly can solo most content by then but I call bullshit on that; i’ve had people do the same when they had crappy gear, I’ve seen super geared dpsers underperfoming like they just bought their character on ebay and people who just dinged 80 pulling their weight and behaving like champs.

So, without trying to sound like an old man or bitter even, I blame Humanity; it’s a social game so you will always get elitist idiots who think “if you can’t tank don’t tank” and people like the lads at maintankadin or tankspot that actually bother to try and teach you how to be a tank.

Me, I’ll always love tanking in WoW and i’m happy to see the return of CC and actual tactics instead of “taunt entire dungeon - aoe - profit”.

Edit: my bulladin just dinged 47 and I’ve avoided dungeons (even while leveling as prot) simply because I wanted to experience the entire zones’ quest chains; so far I’m pleased, Stonetalon Mountains, Desolace and Thousand Needles were awesome.