Tank shortage?

[draticus]

On your server, when trying to pug, are you really short tanks or just short good tanks? Contrary to all this tank shortage talk I know on my server there are tons of tanks in LFG but they're all really dpsers who've acquired a couple of pieces of tank gear and want to give tanking a try. I've seen people in LFG as a tank for Ony and then when they switch into their "tank set" they still have a couple of pieces of dps gear and some level 70 tank gear. It seems like everyone has a desire to tank but no one has the gear or if they've acquired the gear by bidding offspec they're trying to put it to use for the first time in a 25 man raid.

In your opinion, if there is a tank shortage, what is the cause/solution?

[Revitalize]

Nope, no tank shortage.

[atr2982]

IMO this is why.

25 man raid:
3 tanks
6-7 healers
15-16 dps

With tanks being expected to have a very high attendance and guild MT's and OT's spots already filled why would someone want to go through the challenge of gearing a tank to try and get into a decent guild when the spots aren't open. And the chances of one being open is slim. Whenever i see guilds recruiting 99% of the time its not for tanks.

On the other hand the chances of getting a healing spot or dps spot are a lot higher.

When someone says tank shortage i think mainly of non raids. I think with raids the hardest thing to find is healers or fill the dps slots. but when you just need a single tank for a measly heroic, thats when finding a tank is hard. And i think the answer is simple, why roll a tank when you have a much higher chance of getting a raiding spot as dps or healer.

And your asking how come those tanks that do exist dont want to run heroics or reg instances? Do they really need the anything out of them? Hopefully blizzard can come up with something to help this situation. I feel there are a lot more heroics that need tanks than raids.

[cappytoi]

25 man raid:
3 tanks
6-7 healers
15-16 dps

not even 3 tanks, 2 tanks are generally enough for the most of the encounters. guilds mostly have 3-5 tanks on their rosters depending how much participation they are awaiting.

With tanks being expected to have a very high attendance and guild MT's and OT's spots already filled why would someone want to go through the challenge of gearing a tank to try and get into a decent guild when the spots aren't open. And the chances of one being open is slim. Whenever i see guilds recruiting 99% of the time its not for tanks.

this is completely true and if a guild is recruiting a tank they are more selective than recruiting a dps or a healer since tanks generally cover important part of the raids and spots are extremely limited.

Hopefully blizzard can come up with something to help this situation. I feel there are a lot more heroics that need tanks than raids.

this situation can't be solved, it was always like this and it will always be. you always end up looking for a tank or secondly a healer, even when random dungeon thing comes out.

[draticus]

Also, since regular raids only have a couple of tanks those tanks get their gear much quicker since there is less competition. Some raids even give priority on tokens and trophies to tanks since their gear is the most important to the raid as a whole. This means that the few tanks out there also have no reason to run heroics or pugs. They spend their free time on their dps alts.

Blizzard either needs to give regular geared raid tanks an incentive to go back and do heroics and pug easier raids or they need to make it easier for new tanks or even DPSers to get enough tanking gear to tank heroics and pug raids.

Another possible fix to this situation would be to allow people to run heroics more than once a day. If you lock people out of looting a 2nd time, rather than locking them out of the raid, it would be possible for guild tanks to run with their friends multiple times. I'd love it if my tank could run the daily with all my friends every day. Of course this would make it even harder for new tanks to get practice/gear.

[thyrin]

As a tank, though I see many people looking for tanks in trade, doing dailies today, I encountered at least 4 other tanks in the few minutes I actually looked.

I agree with the tanks are not hard to find for raids, just for heroics comment.

I'm going to guess this to be a reason for the latter - it's mine. It comes down to the pug factor. This isn't QQ, but an explanation.

As a tank, I have spent much time and effort gearing myself to be able to do the best job possible, you are on some level expected to be the best player in the party. EVERYONE knows if you're not defence capped you are going to get plastered in a heroic. EVERYONE expects you (these days) to have 25k+ to be able to tank a heroic. I worked long and hard to get there. When I go into a pug, dps NEVER get kicked for doing 1300 dps, healers rarely get kicked for being in greens. I can NOT tell you how many times I as the tank have out-dps'ed the dps and healers are oom from healing those same lame dps or a too squishy tank 1/3 of the way into a boss fight. All the survivability on the world won't help you when it takes 5 minutes to kill a boss and your healer is oom. It's not hard to hit 2k dps in ilevel 200 blues. It's a matter of knowing HOW to dps and to be relatively close to hit capped. You can not heal a heroic in greens (or lower level blues even).

You can not expect to do heroics if the above describes you, and yet I see it ALL the time. I am getting sick of carrying scrubs who are where they shouldn't be, it's especially true when I am tanking.

So .. the question is, why would I tank for people that are not likely to perform when I could wait and tank for guildies or people I know that can dps. The decision is simple really.

It's a matter of putting my life on the line, risking being mocked or gotten mad at for "not holding aggro" when dps can't target "skull" or be smart enough to hit your focus if there wasn't time to throw a mark ... and all of the above. I'd rather not tank for pugs. It's just too painful sometimes and not worth the risk ... and all too often the blame somehow usually falls back on us tanks. Raids are sometimes worth pugging if you missed your guild's because of the gear you could get, but 2 badges is simply not worth the risk.

My 2 cents.

Long and short: I'd just plain rather not in a heroic tanking a fail pug and wait for people I know can play, even potentially passing up 2 badges to do so. Easy decision.

[shockpally]

In my experience on my warrior tank I would have to say the LFG is the biggest cause of this problem.

Why? Because of lack of options.

There should be separate tabs for dungeons, Heroics and Raids. This way a tank that is undergeared for raids could post for a Tanking/dps/healing position in a reg or heroic instance and select DPS for raids.

When you only have one interface like we currently do. I will use myself for example, I am not geared enough to tank some raids but i can DPS them. So my only option is to post for a DPS slot if i have selected a mix of Heroics and Raids in the LFG interface.

And before anyone says anything, NO people DO NOT read the Comments.

[FrOsTSh0cK]

And before anyone says anything, NO people DO NOT read the Comments.

Actually people do. Just because YOU dont doesnt mean everyone else doesnt.

[Daez]

The problem in my opinion is that you constantly have to watch your gear at every level of progression much more than any other class does. Add that to the fact that if you don't have gear that far surpasses the actual gear needed for the encounter then most people won't let you tank at all. Those two things combine leave you with plenty of people wanting to tank but not enough actually having the gear. Tanking is really not that hard, so experience is sort of an afterthought.

[shockpally]

Actually people do. Just because YOU dont doesnt mean everyone else doesnt.

So every time i have typed in the comments "tank heroics only, No raids" and i still got 10+ whsprs to tank the raids i wanted to DPS for never happen, RIGHT?

No, People DONT read the comments. That is why i stopped posting for tank positions anytime i post for raids. Which is all the time now.

[mhp]

I have yet to encounter one person who read the comment I wrote into the LFG tool.

PuGged a lot since the LFG tool was introduced, which was a long long time ago, and did not encounter a single person, not on any of the 4 servers I actively played on since.

As for tanks: most good tanks go with their guilds, to avoid the horrible pug experience. Since there's more DPSers and healers than tanks, that leaves quite a lot of people forced to pug.

[klaps_05]

I really dont think there is a tank shortage, especially for heroics. Its heroic people, not a raid, you get get a blue geared tank and still be done in 20min.

When a guild recruits a tank they usually choose someone RELIABLE and someone who is planning to stay with the guild for a VERY, VERY long time. Because it is easier to replace a healer or a dps, its very hard to get a new MT/OT for your guild.

And tbh most of the time ppl just IGNORE the comments. When you write "tank heroics only, no raids" people are still going to ask you do you wanna tank a raid? why ? well maybe you changed your mind, maybe they didnt read the note, maybe they cant read, maybe they are interested after you have done your heroic/s if u want to come, maybe come for 1 boss only, i mean there are so many options, so its kinda confusing

Personally as a tank i don't even do daily heroics anymore, CUS THEY ARE FUCKING BORING srsly, i dont give a fuck bout the 2 emblems, peace out

[Daez]

You can not heal a heroic in greens (or lower level blues even).

This is ABSOLUTE crap. If you know HOW to play your class than you can EASILY heal a heroic dungeon in blues and greens as long as you are using decent quality blues and greens. Hell, when WotLK first came out I was healing heroics in blues and greens and in many cases leading the meters compared to those that were fully epiced out. You vastly underestimate the quality of quested gear. However, its harder if not impossible to tank in blues and greens.

You can not expect to do heroics if the above describes you, and yet I see it ALL the time. I am getting sick of carrying scrubs who are where they shouldn't be, it's especially true when I am tanking.

Gear by itself does not make the player a scrub by any means.

Long and short: I'd just plain rather not in a heroic tanking a fail pug and wait for people I know can play, even potentially passing up 2 badges to do so. Easy decision.

You see, your issue is that you automatically assume pugs suck. That is just not the case. I can remember the truly failed pugs that I have been in much eaiser than I can remember the good pugs I have been in. The reason for this is most of the pugs I have been in have been good and there are more to remember.

[Deleted]

Theres no hortage on my server or at least there doesn't seem to be. Only groups I've seen stuck on finding a tank are ToC 10 normal ones and very rarely heroic groups too.

2 of my .. well, mains, can tank (a warrior with 41k UB and paladin with 38k as OS) so I usually tank daily heroics but wehn I feel like DPSing, other tanks are easy to find too. Just most of them can't hold aggro well.

However ToC10/ony10 groups I mostly join as DPS and those groups seem to have the hardest time finding a tank. I don't mind tanking them at all, it's just that in PuGs, if anything happens, it's the tanks or the healers fault, followed usually by pretty rude language and more importantly, most PuG leaders seem to be rather dense and thickheaded so it's easier to join as DPS than to explain to them that I don't need any tank loot and want to roll on DPS instead.. oh and of course then they'd replace me with another plate DPS, even when they agree so it's harder to get the loot.

[Gron]

I am getting sick of carrying scrubs who are where they shouldn't be, it's especially true when I am tanking.

This can happen, and will happen more and more with Blizzards new philosophy of giving away "free" loot on normal modes in raids. If you can get your hands on pretty decent gear without learning how to play, why put in the effort?

On another note, that tank who raids, what is his reason to run heroics? I do maybe 1 per week so I am not totally bored, but there is nothing there to go for.

[Saliz]

There is no tank shortage (Unless you are on a shit realm).

[Lynalis]

For PuG's there might be a shortage but very unlikely, As you see since dual specc came out every pala/druid can tank :=) But as a tank ( who has a tank alt too ) I dont do pugs.

[thyrin]

This is ABSOLUTE crap. If you know HOW to play your class than you can EASILY heal a heroic dungeon in blues and greens as long as you are using decent quality blues and greens. Hell, when WotLK first came out I was healing heroics in blues and greens and in many cases leading the meters compared to those that were fully epiced out. You vastly underestimate the quality of quested gear. However, its harder if not impossible to tank in blues and greens.

Gear by itself does not make the player a scrub by any means.

You see, your issue is that you automatically assume pugs suck. That is just not the case. I can remember the truly failed pugs that I have been in much eaiser than I can remember the good pugs I have been in. The reason for this is most of the pugs I have been in have been good and there are more to remember.

lol ... Ok, thanks for calling me on that .. I exaggerated, and I know it well. Firsthand experience having played a healer and tank for almost 5 years tells me that .. I do know that gear does not make the player, and I did make a statement about gear that I shouldn't have. ... But you seriously think you can tank a heroic with 500 defense and 20k health? That most new 80's would have? It's possible with a superb healer and sharp dps. You will probably die a couple times, even if you're good, and even when your whole party is good enough to CC properly and use skill.

However, I wasn't talking about the great players. I'm talking about standard pugs. You encounter decent players, but they are less common these days, at least on our server. It sounds like your server has a superior player base to draw from because I can tell you on our server I have seen FAR too many pug dps doing 800-1300 in a heroic. Believe me, when I see people actually doing what they can to the best of their gear ability, that's fine. But like I said, when I see a level 80 dps is doing 800-1300 dps, there is something WRONG with the way they are playing. I could do that at level 70 on my lock in blues. That's nothing to do with gear. However, If I go tank a heroic with 500 defence and 20k health, people are going to complain about my gear. I do have a right to complain about a rogue in greens/blues doing 800 dps. You and I know its probably not gear related, but it's still a complaint nonetheless. Either get better gear, or better yet, learn to play. If you're doing 2k ish which is easily doable by most dps classes in high 70's greens/blues, I would NEVER complain about you in a pug. I'm not talking about people that are playing to their gear level.

But I suppose even I am beginning to associate gear with play skill, and in that I am at fault. Maybe (speculation) my statements of gear come from an increasing percentage of people these days that are doing pugs and don't know what they are doing (whether it is because they are learning to actually play new alt classes or are new players - whatever the reason).

Or maybe the problem is that I have no patience to deal with it being that my playtime is so limited. I don't mind what would be a 15 minute run with 4k+ dps being a 30 minute run with 2k dps ... but when a lock walks into a heroic with 30 hit and in straight greens and pulls a wopping 800 dps, there is a serious problem.

It's easy to be cynical as a tank that has seen far too much of this.... So I've just stopped doing it. That's just not fair to the party when everyone isn't pulling their weight to the best of their abilities.. It might not be gear, but you have some junk to learn. You obviously aren't ready for a heroic either way. It comes back to learn2play. If you're in my guild and you have questions about what to do to be ready for heroics, I am happy to help you .. But if you're going to pug a heroic, please know what you are doing.

So, I do stand corrected at least on my statements about gear making the player. I do know that that is simply not true. But either learn to play or get better gear. Something. Don't make the tanks and healers suffer by not contributing what you can to the party.

On a side note - I am guessing that the so called "tank shortage" is probably different server to server. I equally dps to tank when I actually do a pug. I don't think we're really that short. Tons of my friends have tank alts too that can easily do heroics.