Too Scared To Tank

[Pendulus]

I've been playing World of Warcraft for about 18 months, and the only thing I've never really had a go at doing was tanking. Not really, at least. I popped Frost Presence once or twice on my Death Knight to kill some time in Hellfire Ramparts, but nothing with an intent to tank in a more permanent role.

A couple of months ago, I made a Paladin since they are apparently the "easiest" to tank with, and got her to level 80. I tanked in LFG for most of that, and had my partner healing me, so I at least had a friendly face with me whilst I was doing it. Mostly my tanking seems to be good and I've got a handful of compliments, with very few complaints. The only time I can generally think I messed up was when I was put into Pit of Saron for the first time, feeling very undergeared and very outclassed by the ICC geared players around me, to which I was only spared a votekick due to the fact I was humble and was willing to admit I sucked hardcore. Since then, I haven't really tanked on my Paladin, primarily because I don't like doing it. Sure, it's a thrill being able to set a pace but I feel like there's so much pressure on a tank (even in lowly Heroics) to perform that I can't do it without feeling nervous and shaky, even when I know the instance inside out.

I picked up a Druid recently, which is now level 73. The majority of Azeroth and Outlands levels were spent as Resto, apart from a couple of instances where I'd switch to Feral to save us having to queue for another tank at 4 AM when one dropped out. I ditched Resto yesterday for Feral tank once again, and got it all geared up, but now I'm feeling that same chill of nerves that's stopping me from tanking. I can sit with the LFG box open for ages just hovering over the "Queue" button and never do it, because I'm too worried I'll mess up. I had one run yesterday with a level 80 Priest friend backing me, and it went okay, I lost agro a couple of times but it was generally quite good.

I guess I'm just scared of people's reactions to my failures if they happen, I have people turn around to me at times and say "it must be hard being an ICC25 healer, how do you deal with the pressure?" and I say "because healing's easy". I turn around to those same people and ask "it must be hard being an ICC25 tank, how do you deal with the pressure?" and they say "because tanking's easy".

I don't want to force myself to tank, I enjoy doing it but I just have this fear of failure, every other tank I watch makes it look easy, there's very rarely a mistake and even when I scrutinize them I can't spot a mistake. When I become the tank myself, I think on every pull "this is going to go wrong" and end up feeling terrible. The only times I can do it and feel happy with it is when I have a familiar face with me as a healer or DPS, willing to cover my back in case I screw up and defend my corner in case PuGers get restless.

Not entirely sure how I'm supposed to stop feeling so worried, it doesn't feel like a case of just "stfu and do it", and I was curious as to whether anybody else has ever had second thoughts about tanking, and if they have, how they dealt with them so they could just get on and do it.

[DakeshiSB]

It is, indeed, quite frightening to tank on a freshly lvled character when icecrown geared retards go all out and blame you for their mistakes.

[epicsalad]

HAH i felt the same way when i got my first tank to 80, now he is my favorite toon. just farm heroics and get T9 when you have your T9 go tank icc 10 its pretty easy and alot of fun. stick with it!

[Bitehattori]

Remember, back in the days, people had to wait for the tank to get agro. If the dps pulled agro it was their fault ;]. Not when the tank lost agro from the DPS using AOE the second you pull.

[infusion]

It is, indeed, quite frightening to tank on a freshly lvled character when icecrown geared retards go all out and blame you for their mistakes.

This.

And quite frankly I understand what your saying but you really wont be able to improve unless you just stick at it. just keep at it you'll improve and so will your confidence which in turn will boost your ability to tank effeciently and safely even further.

[Spartinz]

Dont feel bad if you messed up. haha for a month at the start of Wotlk i decided i wanted to tank and i was under def cap. Some funny experiences with healers.

[pilch]

The only way you get comfortable tanking is by doing it a lot, so I'm afraid there really isn't any answer I can give you apart from just start tanking. Here are some things I think are important in order to be a good tank (in dungeons primarily but this translates to raids as well):

Learn your classes most important abilities for both single target and aoe pulls to keep solid aggro
Get used to using cooldowns at the right times (when you pull too many, someone else pulls adds, your healer gets feared etc) to make life easier for your healer
Keep an eye on your HEALER's mana and stop pulling when they are low (I put that in caps cos I get dps asking for mana breaks all the time when they could drink between pulls quite easily)
Bind everything to easily-reachable keys so you never have to get stressed looking for the right key at a critical moment
PRACTICE
PRACTICE
PRACTICE

Great tanks are rarely born overnight, just work at it and you will learn to love it as much as all us other tanks do.

Good luck

[Ashcrack]

I'm shit scared of tanking a raid, I don't loose aggro or anything in heroics but in a raid it's with people from your server so if you fuck up you'll be labeled a piss poor excuse for a tank and never get into another raid, atleast that's how I see it and won't raid til cata when everyones starting fresh. sigh..

[Aksor]

maybe try asking some friends/guildies to lfd with you, they will have better queues, and you don't need worring that the dps are outclassing you and are assholes

[Squeezed]

When my druid was balance/resto. I wanted my druid to be a tank and tree. So I started farming tanking gear, and all my tanking gear was iLvl 226-232 when I first started to tank. I had never tanked before, and they needed me to tank ToC10.

Was pretty easy after all

[Warriorfury]

Not really scary to tank, besides, if they don't like it = leave, it'll take them a good 10minutes to find a tank. Or do the more humble act and tell them to get over themselfs and to either stop overaggroing or even CC the targets - after all, they should know to stop DPSing when Omen makes a big *whoosh* noise. They are ICC geard after all...

[JeKv]

This is 100% true, and I'm glad to see someone talking about it. I think tanking just feels a lot more difficult than it really is, and I'll bet that when you tank, even though you're all nervous, the rest of the group thinks you're making it look easy.

I've been tanking for a few months now, but I still get that feeling, even in heroics. Whenever I lose threat on anything, even one target out of a big AoE pull, my heart stops. Even though I'll just taunt it back in a second, it's agonizing!

One thing you could try, just to get started, is tanking some regular dungeons. Lower pressure, you won't have very many jerks in ICC gear trying to pull Raid DPS, and you can get your technique down before you start trying heroics regularly.

[Oneoldfogie]

I had the exact same deal when I leveled my paladin to 80, and I leveled it to tank aswell.

I got a few of the T9 bits, and some heroic gear, then one heroic run, I had a bunch of ICC25 geared players doing like 6k DPS each or whatever, and I just got called a noob, while the warrior explained that he was now tanking, because I was crap.

Needless to say, after that, I didn't enjoy tanking, and went holy instead.

[Myrsky]

I have a habit of tanking on every class I play. My main is a Warrior Protection/Protection and I haven't changed spec once. Last night I even started tanking on my Ele Shaman.

[roboscorcher]

I tried tanking with my DK when he was 71, and it was horrendous.

A FAR better way to learn tanking is to start from scratch. Level a fresh character to 15, deck him out with heirlooms, and run Ragefire Chasm over and over. Then you keep doing dungeons all the way to 80, or until you're comfortable tanking with your main.

Why this way? Because everyone's a noob in the low dungeons, so there's no pressure if you wipe. The mobs are as basic as they get, so you'll wipe less too. Also, you have time to learn your core abilities and see how they compare with higher-level ones. It's much better than being swarmed with a million choices at level 80.

EDIT: You also get instant dungeon queues while levelling.

[Kenark]

I leveled a warrior to 80 during the last view month and have since spent 90% of my time in rnd-heros.
First I was realy afraid of tanking, because hey, when you fuck up everyone dies
So I mostly did heros as dps with realy crappy gear (no one ever said anything bout me pulling only 1,5k dps...)
but when I saw just how bad some of my tanks were equipt and how little idea of tanking they had, I put on my all blue/some purple equip and dived in head first.
It went realy well...On the third day I even had to tank HoR, which still is my personal nightmare as prot warrior...

Now, there's always people who think they know best, or have to pull, or aoe before you have agro, or generally anything that would normaly get them kicked out of a guild if they did it in a raid...
Best thing to do is to let it happen once (cause before that you can't know^^) then ask them to stop at and simulationously whisper to the healer (who shouldn't be from the same guild as the dps preferably) to let who ever it is that did what ever he did, die next time he does it... (whoa, what a sentence)
He will either continue to die, leave or stop what ever he was doing...win/win/win for you...

Just remember, you are the tank! all other have to wait 20min in queues 'til you show up and HELP THEM OUT.

[Damax]

I think that tanking is the only thing in wow I tend to forget how to do. I'm very multidiciplinary in wow because I have 9 lv 80's and I played all of their specs over the last year and I never had trouble getting back into healing or dps, a heroic usually did the trick. but going back to tanking could take a complete day of heroic to get back to it but thats for pally tanking. for the harder tanking classes (dk warrior) could take up to 2-3 days and not even reach my best until a full week. I haven't tanked in so long on my dk that I prolly can't do it anymore.

tanking is a little unatural for me I guess and it may be for you. but what I sure do know is if you focus on it and keep at it long enough at somepoint your gonna have the skills and gears of all those other icc25 tank. And you'll be answering those noob aspiring tank: well.... it's easy!

[Qtulu]

I agree. I also avoid tanking, simply because the tank is the one like taking on the instance. The pressure is on you. Sure, dps and healer can fuck up a little, but it feels like when tanking you get all eyes on you, and one mistake, or even going too slowly, makes others complain. It's definitely the role that is easiest to judge.

[wintersbane]

I totally agree with you, how tanking is scary sometimes... it was even worse at Wrath launch, to be honest.
now everyone gems straight stam, so it's smooth constant damage being done to you... back when my DK stacked avoidance, it was nerve-wracking seeing myself drop low randomly, because 2 or 3 hits got in..

what I find even worse though, is healing D: all the healing experience I've had now is my shaman from level 69-72 :P I find it scarier than tanking, to be honest

[Wardley]

I'm actually the 'other way around' to the OP. I'm fine tanking but I'm too chicken to heal with my lvl 80 priest so I've just got him as a shadow priest now.

To build up my confidence though I've basically created a new priest with the sole intention of just levelling him up through instances as a healer - basically to learn it as I go along. I've only just started so he's on lvl 18 but managed to heal RFC and WC ok without any problems (and WC was with a lvl 16 tank who only had lvl 9 gear on!)so maybe there's hope for me yet.