Comprehensive Tank Guide - PuGs, LFD and Beyond

[krasgoth]

There's a lot of posts cropping up on the subject, mostly whining about tanks being arrogant, or tanks being bad, or tanks not being able to tank, or queue times. Tons of opinions, only one subject - LFG tanks. Here's what we really need to know as DPS or healers when you take your first step in that dungeon.

Zoning in:

When you zone into an instance, don't inspect the tank. Don't check gearscore, don't eye him up, looking to see if you can find a tier 8 piece or a subpar piece of gear. Even if the tank at first glance looks to be wearing paper, make your greetings to everyone around you, buff if you have buffs, and get ready for the first pull.

It'll improve the tank's ego and overall mood if they're not a great tank (or even if they are an amazing one) to not have the other 4 members of the party whispering them about how bad their gear is, or giving them gearing suggestions on what they should be wearing. Let the tank get ready for a couple of seconds and let him make the first pull, see how he does. Don't instantly start aoeing your heart out until you see what he's doing, at least on the first pull. Does he thunderclap right away and then shockwave while cleaving? Go crazy! Or does he seem a little slower on the pickup? If so, adjust accordingly, pulling aggro nonstop and making the tank insecure is the best way to make the instance slower.

Pulls:

Are you doing all you can to help out the tank? Honestly, I'll admit when I queue as dps I want to just dps as hard as I can and don't always do the right thing when it comes to dpsing. I was playing a lowbie hunter the other day and volleying like normal, the tank had lots of trouble holding aggro (As I was geared far better than them, and they were specced wrong) and mentioned to me that I should feign instead of "wasting the healers mana" very rudely. Now, usually I would take offense to it and tell them to fix their own stuff before yelling at me for doing things properly, but I actually thought about it, and yes, I should be feigning to make the tank's life easier.

Do what you can, even if your numbers suffer a little bit for it. Healers, heal those folks in the fire, even if it's funny when they die. If you're a mage and arcane explosioning inside a group for massive numbers, have the decency to iceblock or blink away when they suddenly start to beat on you. There's no reason to misdirect that pull at the tank, even if they're going slow, just let them go at their own pace.

You'd be surprised how much smoother an instance can go when people do what they can to help others out. Mages, why not counterspell that mob you're already casting arcane blast at? Or dps, run out of that poison nova so the healer doesn't have to scrape up wind to get you back up? So what if you lose 500 dps randomly, the run will go smoother and everyone will be happier in the end.

Etiquette:

Your tank is wearing bad gear, or pulling really slowly, or doing something terribly wrong. Instead of reaching your hand over the "Kick Player" button and whispering everyone "Omg what a noob" , have you tried talking to the guy?

If you're a healer, give him a gentle nudge and say "Hey, think you could pull a bit faster? I've got you". You'd be surprised how often this works. If you're dpsing, give him a playful /yawn or ask in party if he can be faster, or suggest changing something in his rotation. Heck, I had a Death Knight tank in Ramparts the other day who was continually losing aggro, so I mentioned to him he should pestilence his frost fever before he blood boils to increase his damage. He did it after constant prodding and tanked great the rest of the instance.

Sometimes people just don't know things, or a rotation, or a little trick, and telling them nicely to do it is about 500x better than saying "lol, paladin noob cant even hold aggro, ur wearing Green shoulders of the bandit ahahaha". Just mention something to them that they can change IN THE INSTANCE (Don't tell them that they can respec and get another bunch of talent point, or that they should regem all their gear or get more gear) because mentioning that stuff does absolutely nothing for them or your instance group except irritate everyone involved.

Finishing up:

When you finish up the instance, if the tank did a good job, give them a little thank you, or ask if they want to run another instance with you. If they did a bad job despite all this advise, simply leave, don't tell them off or say that they suck, just leave. Your chances of running into the same tank is very, very slim, so no matter what you tell them, you'll probably never see them again in your entire life, even if you ran dungeons all day, every day.


If there's anything you'd like to add, feel free. Just remember, there are good tanks and bad tanks, but you'd rather people queue as a tank and get instances done than wait in a neverending queue, so help your group along to make it a fun experience for everyone, no matter what your role is

[krasgoth]

Almost forgot:

If you see someone blatantly abusing the queue (Such as a ret paladin who queues as a tank, puts on righteous fury and proceeds to run into mobs in ret gear with a 2 hander), make sure that they are removed from the group as they deserve to be.

The above rules of common decency don't apply to people who want to skirt the dps queue and get into an instance instantly, without doing any of the associated work. So feel free to boot at will to these people.

[Dhurn]

+ if the tank is doing more damage than you, don't bitch about the instance going too slow!