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Thursday, May 31, 2012

On cutting tanks some slack

My paladin had almost a level of rested xp, yesterday, and I was itching to get her some levels, so I totally caved and bought her dual spec. She is now prot/ret, and it feels oh so wrong! I completely fail at being a retadin! But she is now level 82 and I've done two dungeons as dps so far and I realized I much prefer to tank in dungeons. 

Watching other tanks do an awful job is just too painful, and makes me wanna slap my shield on just to show em how it's done! - Wow, that sounds vaguely condescending! - I mean maybe they don't know the dungeons that much, and it's only reg, and I'm used to the heroic version, but it's killing me to see the small mistakes they make that I wouldn't make. And then I think about the mistakes I do and don't know about, and then I feel bad for thinking like that and I'm ashamed of myself. 

Bad, bad Lyr!

It can be hard to be a good tank. I know how much crap ppl give tanks in groups. I should really cut some slack to my fellow tanks, now shouldn't I? It's like it's a completely different mindset. When I'm tanking, I'm really hatin' on those stupid dps making my job a nightmare. When I'm dps'ing and the tank is doing a bad job, it annoys me to no end. 

Only recently - since I started tanking to be exact - I've realized how tough it can be to a fairly new tank. To position mobs correctly, to know when to taunt and stuff. Spine comes to mind. I hate when the tank does stupid stuff like getting all nine stacks of blood when the Amalgamation is at full health, or when he fails to bring the exploding Amalgamation close enough to the armour. But maybe it's just that overwhelming. Moving the mob to the bloods might not be an easy thing to do for an inexperienced tank. Maybe it's his first time actually doing the fight and even though he researched it, he just doesn't have enough practice to execute it properly. Or maybe he just panicked. Or maybe it just comes more naturally for some than others.

We are pretty quick to kick a "failing" tank in the Raid Finder. Because everyone wants stuff to go quickly. No time to waste. "I want my easy loot and VPs and get the hell out so I can re-queue with my ten thousand alts." Because if we wanted to spend hours in a raid, we'd be doing heroic progression. But I guess if we'd just let them try again, they might learn from their mistakes. But we usually don't even give them the benefit of the doubt. It's a harsh world, people. Be good fast, or get thrown out. That's why I'm never going to tank a raid for strangers. I'd get eaten alive. 

So to all of you tanks out there, queueing as a tank for the Raid Finder, you have my utmost respect.

Unless you really fail, of course. - You know, the ones for which there is no hope - In which case I'ma vote to kick you.

4 comments:

  1. There's a difference in Vote kicking people because they aren't fantastic at the game, and kicking people because they aren't paying attention on purpose (Like killing extra corruptions after being told to stop) or griefing (pulling trash on the Morchok fight because it's something fun to do and you are a healer with an instant queue)

    Bad people, people with low DPS/HPS/survivability is a whole other story though. Some people are only going to get better if other people help them. Those people I don't kick from LFR. I kick people who /afk for long periods of time to get loot/VP without actually doing any work.

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    1. I completely agree. Except in the Raid Finder, even when I vote no to a kick because the person doesn't really deserve it, it usually still goes through. It makes me sad.

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  2. Unfortunately whenever you throw random people into a group that requires cooperation there is bound to be friction due to many factors. Couple this with a "zerg zerg get'er done" mentality and it makes PUGs a less than ideal situation for most. Especially tanks as you pointed out. And healers, because we can always blame the healer... ;)

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  3. I tend to be pretty rough on bad healers, given that I'm pretty transparently proud of my own healing abilities. If I'm there as DPS or tank, you'd better know that I expect them to be making the most of their situational awareness, hitting CDs when appropriate, and anticipating rather than playing whack-a-mole.

    Guess it's a matter of judging according to your own experience.

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