Could something be done to make people tank?

[Alvito]

Many don't want to be in the spotlight, responsible for routes, interrupts, fixing others mistakes and in many ways being the leader of the group. You can easily be a bad dps and people wouldn't notice, a bad or so so tank gets trashed by others.

[FlubberPuddy]

I mean you just feel like a punching bag and people expect you to know the entire fight for a raid or dungeon.

Healers are just expected to heal / keep people alive without the "know the fight" expectation.

And while DPS are typically expected to know the fight, in reality most just stumble their way through it due to there being two other dps there who can pick up the slack.

Also there's no power fantasy with the tank compared to a Healer or DPS. You can always get BIGGER HEALS or BIGGER DAMAGE, but as far as Tanking goes there's nothing gear inherently affects you as much in terms of "yeah my defensive lasts for a longer amount of time!" or anything like that.

You get BIGGER HEALTH as a Tank but that just reinforces the punching bag fantasy, not a power fantasy.

[msdos]

Tanking my 300th group where people don't understand the concept of the bursting affix (single target dps ONLY) turned me off from tanking.

The tank is expected to play down to the tiniest detail of the dungeon, but the DPS players routinely are oblivious to what's going on, down to not even knowing how to properly play with bursting. They will blow the group up with 7 stacks every single pull.

People don't understand that there's 3 other dps, you don't need to all be hitting cleave buttons to make the timer. "All my damage is AOE!!!!" It's called auto attack.

[Boricha]

I've been tanking recently on my monk and enjoying it. I heard they got nerfed going into 8.3, but I didn't play it beforehand so I don't know how big of a difference it has made.

[Matt0193]

There'd be a ton more tanks, and healers especially, if the majority of DPS weren't selfish, self-righteous shits demanding perfection when they can't even perform themselves. It's sad, because reliable and competent DPS make tanking and healing infinitely more enjoyable. Make fights where 90% of the mechanics have to be performed by DPS, where any fuck up is a wipe, and don't nerf it. Leave it like that for a few months and maybe the dregs of the playerbase will learn to understand mechanics.

[Seuchentiffy]

I mean you just feel like a punching bag and people expect you to know the entire fight for a raid or dungeon.

Healers are just expected to heal / keep people alive without the "know the fight" expectation.

And while DPS are typically expected to know the fight, in reality most just stumble their way through it due to there being two other dps there who can pick up the slack.

Also there's no power fantasy with the tank compared to a Healer or DPS. You can always get BIGGER HEALS or BIGGER DAMAGE, but as far as Tanking goes there's nothing gear inherently affects you as much in terms of "yeah my defensive lasts for a longer amount of time!" or anything like that.

You get BIGGER HEALTH as a Tank but that just reinforces the punching bag fantasy, not a power fantasy.

If i remember correctly there was a Time were it was possible to be Hit immun as a Tank (Warrior i think in LK, embarassing to not remember it as i played W-Tank in that time) you would either dodge/parry or Block every hit and took little to no dmg with that. Thats what i would call Power Fantasy as a Tank "Defenses so Strong you cant do shit to me"

It was way harder to get your Hit/expertise Cap then anything else as a Tank and that were some of the Challenges you had. Remember Anubarak here in Heroic as i had 0.5% Hit under Hitcap and oh well "some" Shockwaves did miss and people got a little Angry at me for that xD

But they got rid of that with the removel of Defensive Secondary Stats, which i even today dont understand why they did that other then "hurr durr so you dont need to collect Prot-Gear and bloat your backs with it".

Hell i was so proud to put on my Def-Gear and see 60% Block 30% Parry etc you knew "Healers wont need to Stress healing me, only if i take a tone of Magic Damage", now regardless which Tank i play, i can see my Healthbar moving constantly and it irks me to some extend.

[Beefkow]

Idk how anyone can possibly play blood dk right now.

It's just utterly unsatisfying and boring.

[zlygork]

the biggest issue with tanking is not related to game mechanics I think, it's more related to the broader pug community intimidating people out of tanking by lvl 40 or something.

[Biomega]

the biggest issue with tanking is not related to game mechanics I think, it's more related to the broader pug community intimidating people out of tanking by lvl 40 or something.

That's pretty much it, though of course it's more complicated. Tanks don't just tank, they LEAD - and many people aren't comfortable with the responsibility that comes with that. Tanks are expected to know everything and do everything, right from the start. And if you don't, you suck, you fail, you're a noob, etc. etc.

Unfortunately, I don't really see an easy solution to this problem.

[msdos]

Idk how anyone can possibly play blood dk right now.

It's just utterly unsatisfying and boring.

The only bit of fun I could find in it is never taking your eyes off the damage meter and also pressing Marrowrend once, then Heart strike spamming and not caring if boneshield falls off. When you go into high keys you just die anyway because BDK scaling comes to a screeching halt in any key higher than 10. You can't block and you rarely dodge or parry anything and everything you have is on CD. You basically just face tank every single hit while trying to endlessly kite. It's gutted tank gameplay, feels like a DPS with high HP and low damage with a couple defensive CDs on long af cooldowns.

[bracan]

Another problem is the "rush rush rush" mentality and "no errors allowed" ,esp since Legion and the introduction of M+, of most groups in my Opinion.

I think this is the largest issue. If you're a tank, people seem to automatically expect you to know the dungeon layout, pulls, etc and just want to steamroll through the entire zone. This doesn't allow a new tank to really learn much, especially if the group is kick-happy. Who wants to try and learn to tank, get kicked from instances and forced to wait to queue again, and then repeat the process?

Design is another issue. Maybe there's something wrong with me, but I liked the old classic/BC dungeons when we had to CC and not just rush in and pull 100 mobs to AE. I fail to find any entertainment whatsoever in just bombing huge piles of mobs as fast as possible to get to the end.

[arr0gance]

They could introduce a Corrupted effect to the game that makes tank damage higher than most DPS specs. Then they could add effects to the Corrupted gear that don't mean anything to the tank because they're a tank. Then they could make it so that the tank can stack as much of this Corrupted gear as they wanted because, again, they're a tank. But then they'd have to nerf it by like 50% the second or third week it's out. And nobody would want to see that happen, right?

[melodramocracy]

Tanking is fairly fun, and really shouldn't do as much damage as a dps in the first place. If you're a meter hound, you're simply not cut out for the role. I like that there's so few of us, more expediency in getting in groups.

- - - Updated - - -

Many don't want to be in the spotlight, responsible for routes, interrupts, fixing others mistakes and in many ways being the leader of the group. You can easily be a bad dps and people wouldn't notice, a bad or so so tank gets trashed by others.

Fuck 'em.

/10char

[Sixnalia]

Would say not much can be done becouse biggest problem is the community and how they act at lower levels, i fully understand why alot start out and try tank and then give up and switch,

Scream on them to go faster and pulls stuff becouse the tank isnt fast enough, seen to many trying to vote kick tanks for not moving fast enough.

Pretty much this.

The community is definitely the problem.
No tweaks to tanks(or healers) will magically make the community not treat a Tank or Healer like shit if they're new and learning.
So they either give up the roles and go DPS. Or they stick to guilds, friends, small communities that don't treat them so poorly.

To add:
FFXIV has a much more tolerant community for new players in tank/healer roles.
And those new players often have a Sprout symbol by their name, so you know they're newer at a glance if they're quiet.

But as nice as that system is. The WoW community would likely just kick a tank or healer with a Sprout symbol.


It's why I prefer sticking to my guild and small M+ community group.
The WoW community has felt the same for over a decade now. The only differences are the new ways to criticize players.

[durrtygoodz]

Returning vengeance would be a start. But simply making it fun to play will get people playing. Loads of people who never tank, myself included, played prot paladin and/or brewmaster monk in MoP because those specs were simply fun.

I think that's the answer to pretty much anything in the game. "How do we get players to do X?" - make specs fun.

[rrayy]

No, unless you can force DPS players to be nice to Tanks and Healers, because being patient and understanding is beyond their normal possibilities.

tank
go
go
go
tank
pull
pull already
TRASH TANK

Because Tanks are innocent angels that never do anythign wrong or hateful to others, right? It goes both ways.

[agentsi]

Sorry, all I hear is " I don't wanna do it, so make someone else do it.".

This fits perfectly into our political and much of our social climate at this point. Folks wanting tons of things for free and not wanting to work for them.

If you need a tank, Tank, stop trying to force other players to do something you need them to do.

[sarahtasher]

I would point out that there an hellish for tanks and for healers affixes in Mythic-not so much for DPS….

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Ok boss, most people do the "lower level" stuff though, so if something applies to that level, it is an issue. If something applies to about 1% of the playerbase, it doesn't really matter at all.

Its not an issue though, is my point.
Just advance to high levels of content or switch to tank until you do.
There is no way to get players to do things they don't want because other players think they can't advance themselves.

Either way, the "1 percent" thing is nonsense. The game doesn't have anywhere near the playerbase it would have to to assume those numbers.
https://raider.io/mythic-plus-charac.../34091#content
Have a look around at that. There are 681,821 current players that have completed a key this season so far.

Figure out where you would rest and then you will know how many people are ahead and behind you.

Either way, sadly, I do not think 600 some thousand characters are 1 percent in 2020, even if everyone played 10 alts.

[SoulSoBreezy]

I just tank for my guild and love doing it, but you won't see me because I don't want to deal with jackasses telling me to GOGOGOGGOOGOGO