On Tanking.
on June 13, 2011 at 2:51 pmToday’s strip came to us naturally because it sprung out of an actual discussion between Mike and I over Skype. I was tanking SM – Cathedral for the 8th time in 2 days, trying to get the Scarlet Leggings to drop (and not have them ninja’d by the Hunter in full heirloom gear for lulz). The fact that they hadn’t appeared again since the thievery was adding to the frustration, and then a DPS group deciding that the combination of my tanking and our Shammy’s heals meant we could take on the entire Cathedral at once. Or, as I joked about it afterwards, a “homebrew heroic mode”. We wiped, the healer left, and I was left 3 pulls away from finishing out the run. It was the final pinprick in a long week of impatient party members, afk healers, aggro stealers, and wiped fights without a rez to be found. I started swearing loudly, and Mike, the long-time Warrior and ever the understanding friend, started laughing at me. And this wasn’t a comforting “Don’t worry, it’s no big deal” laugh, either. This was an evil, maniacal, gutteral laugh that was meant to communicate one horrid thing:
You now know my pain.
It took years, but I finally did. I had never made the actual effort to tank. I had a single warrior before this (an arms warrior that only made it to lvl 52 named Cakeordeath) who would tank every once in awhile for giggles, and I had no idea what I was doing or cared to learn anymore. It was simply a distraction so I didn’t get too bored with my Mage. This time around, however, it was different. I was making a concerted effort and I cared about how I did. Mike’s dismissing gesture of “Meh, it’s not even real tanking yet” didn’t dissuade me from wanting to get through every single dungeon without a single HP removed from another party member.
Obviously, that’s not possible without the cooperation from the rest of the group, and as I quickly learned, you don’t always have it, and there’s not much you can do about it without some tough love, kick votes, or the simple resignation to the fact that this won’t be a perfect run. Like the female blood elf who insisted on healing only wearing a Back piece. (Vote to kick reason: “Nudity greatly offends me”.)
And so, I now understand a bit of the perspective of those tanks who have come before me, charging headfirst into mob after mob with the faith that the healer would be right behind and the DPS wouldn’t do anything to attract attention from those who they were pew-pewing from the background. I’m only level 40, so I certainly don’t have the full story yet. But my heart is oh so heavy for those who I have wronged in the past, and I shall pay my penance by continuing to do a better job from the front seat of every dungeon I run.
Excellent Izzard reference.
And so, I now understand a bit of the perspective of those tanks who have…” just saying =P Also if you asked in guild I’m sure you could find people wanting to run cath with the two of you and guild groups tend to make runs quicker and easier.
First, you get a character poster for catching the typo. Second, I do run with guildies when I can, but a lot of times there aren’t many in my level range online when I’m running.
I haven’t tanked in a long time, though I’m working on a tanking set for my DK now. But my guild master tanks all the time, to the point that he ends up tanking on every alt he makes that can have a tank spec. He can solo Venoxxis on his (Blood) DK.
He tries to help me learn to tank by telling me about tanking stuff that’s so esoteric (to me) that I’m not even sure what he’s saying.
My point? Well, from what I can tell, if you continue to transcend through your tanking journey you’ll eventually reach the point of feeling contempt for the rest of your group and come to the realization that you mostly just don’t need them. You’ll stop waiting for the healer to have more than about 33% of their mana, if that. And that’s ALL you’ll wait for.
But man, he’s a really good tank and a super skilled player.
Heh. Next, try healing.
Here’s the key to enjoying random dungeons as the tank, paraphrasing Mel Brooks:
“Tragedy is when the healer gets aggro healing you. Comedy is when a DPS is an asshat and gets instagibbed.”
I love a good DPS, but life’s just being so much easier when you see *bad* DPS as expendable. Let pain be their teacher, or ragequit cull them from your group. I’ll put my (character’s) life on the line and shove my body in the way of incoming blades, but I won’t carry people because then they’ll never learn. I’m a tank, not a bus.
oh man, I’d love to tell you it gets easier but i’d be lying
At level 85 at least you’ll be doing the same heroics over and over, and you’ll be able to pick up what everyone *should* be doing and provide assistance to any legitimately struggling group member, but you always get one that is just along for the ride.
Enjoy the insta-queues and coming up with creative kick reasons ^_^ plus I found I never really appreciated a really good pug until I tanked for a bunch of terribads. Also fill ur friends list with trusty healers to bring along. I firmly believe with good healing and tanking, any grp can make it.
My philosophy if you pull off of me is: Either you can handle what you have threat on and that’s why you kept hitting it after Omen yelled at you or you’re an absolute moron for pulling threat… and I will always give you the benefit of the doubt, allowing you to die if you’re a moron.
Hunters don’t need plate dps gear. Also, you do OK tanking as long as people give you time to get aggro. You’ll improve as your lvl and gear improves
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*mail Str gear /facepalm
AMEN!
couldn’t agree more. I’ve been tanking for 2 months with various tanks (warrior, paladin,DK) and have lately taken to chanting “patience is a virtue” during the entire instances.
I “grew up” as DPS but had a good tank teaching me how to NOT pull aggro and to support the tank rather than causing wipes. Then I tried healing but found that too straining. I love tanking…but… 3 huntards with flying pets don’t really help.
Great, great, great Blink.
God, there is no explanation how loud and long I laughed
) .
I already made a topic in my guild forum about this one directed especially to our lock who have alt mage (he never ever tried to tank but insisted to join when I tank in hcs through wotlk and cata and almost every run pissed me as hell
Ah and welcome to tanks lil greeny I am sure You will like it
I played all four healing classes in Wrath and decided this time around after leveling my Resto Shaman and Disc Priest that I would level my Paladin as Prot. I went on a mining frenzy, gathered all the obsidium and saronite I could find and made her a tank set. The first few instances went really well. I told the group this was my first time tanking and please don’t kick me for incompetence and we made it through relatively smoothly. But this was only Throne of Tides 10 times with some Blackrock Caverns thrown in.
Today I got Vortex Pinnacle and I had a Beast Master Hunter whose pet repeatedly pulled off me, no matter what I did. I asked him to turn off growl multiple times and he *swore* it wasn’t on every time I asked.
So I let it go and figured I must be doing something wrong, I changed in a couple of hit/expertise dps pieces, redid righteous fury just in case and changed from the hp/mana seal to the holy damage seal. Nothing helped. After the last boss everyone left and I was casually scrolling through my combat log and what do I see? “Hunter’s Pet used Growl.” I had a five minute nerd-rage-fest silently to myself.
@Kerfanna There are addons that will report to party chat when a pet pulls with growl. It’s the best to make those people who swear theit growl is look even more dumb than they already are.
Hey I’ve caught typos before!
All I do is tank. I have a warrior tank that I love to a level that disturbs people… just kidding… maybe. Warrior tank is my favorite flavor of tanking, but that hasn’t stopped me from leveling and gearing 1 of each other tanking class (and another warrior for the lulz). I have wished, prayed, and ticketed for a button given to people to sign up as a tank for a random to be able to deliver a mild electric shock to a dps through their keyboard or mouse. When you get mad about a dps rofl-pulling (I had a mage the other night on an alt run at omnitron pop all his cool downs 15 seconds into the fight… as I was still running in to pick up Magmatron and amused himself pulling 40k + dps), just repeat this phrase calmly on vent: “You are nameless. Faceless. DPS… Nameless Faceless EASILY REPLACEABLE. DPS. That phrase got me through leading and tanking so many Karazahn runs.
Amen.
I have gone from being a mage to a holy pally to a prot warrior. Burnt out while healing and took a break, but now as far as raids go tanking is so easy. Much easier than having to pay attention to what’s going on as a mage.
Sure aggro gets stolen from me sometimes by much better geared dps warriors, dks, rogues and hunters but I just let the boss hit them once to teach them a lesson and then taunt back. Actually tanking has reinvigorated me with WoW at a point when I was close to going back to Eve.
Ever since wtlk ive been a pretty smart tank. I had a frost tank dk when everyone else was switching to blood and i made it work. But the biggest thing i can tell you is watch your little spells, the ones that you hardly ever use. Those could be the difference between wiping and owning BOT. On my protadin I had an addon called tauntmaster which fot some reason no longer works T_T but it was like healbot for tanks and i used that to control my differnt hand spells such as hand of protection sacrifice and the threat reducing one. And i saved sooooo many healers with those spells alone. It just takes time and experience but after a while tanking becomes like driving.