Awakened and mythic +10 dungeons as a tank

[FlubberPuddy]

Thats just not true. Still see plen ty of tanks in normal, hc and m0 learning the ropes, which is fine.

You might think everyone goes online watches videos and studies dungeons before going into them, thats a very, very small part of the poulation though.

routes are important in high m+ keys, essentially where you'll see the obelisk mechanics. If you learn better by doing than watching a video then keep running 10s and learning the routes.

Or go in as dps first and see how tanks who know how to do it get it done. I exclusively DPS for high m+ and I've been able to tell inexperienced tanks where the ob needs to be taken.

Granted when you have to do that there's a higher chance of not timing because depending on the group the timer checks get really tight the higher you go and depending on the affixes for the week.

- - - Updated - - -

At this late in the expansion timing 10s should feel like timing 0-5s, especially since the obelisk mechanics actually makes dungeons easier by skipping terrible/annoying packs.

[chiddie]

Just popping in to remind everyone that Awakened is still the best seasonal affix Blizzard have ever put in the game. All of the complaining I've seen in here seems to boil down to "I'm bad and I don't want to get better in order to do harder content so Blizzard should nerf the content instead". I think the biggest problem here is that people watch MDI and see the pulls people do there and assume that they have to do the same thing to time a +10, when they blatantly don't. You could pull one pack at a time, skip no trash, kill all of the obelisks right where they spawn, probably still wipe once or twice AND make the timer on a +10. Stop getting so hung up on shit that doesn't even apply to the part of the game you're trying to play.

By the way, I've seen people say they don't want to watch videos, refuse to use MDT to plan things in advance, and refuse to actually practice by trial and error. If that's the case, what do you actually want to do? Do you want Blizzard to somehow download the perfect M+ route for every dungeon directly into your brain along with every patch cycle? Have you considered that maybe, if you refuse to read, watch, or do yourself, you shouldn't be as good at something as someone who will do those things?

Except that you have to see this from a TANK perspective.

DPS and healers can compete by basically knowing nothing about routes while tanks have to learn routes 1-9 and other routes for 10+, with the 10+ routes even changing after X months.

[Nzx]

Except that you have to see this from a TANK perspective.

DPS and healers can compete by basically knowing nothing about routes while tanks have to learn routes 1-9 and other routes for 10+, with the 10+ routes even changing after X months.

How is this a problem? You're complaining about doing something the role is supposed to do. If you don't want to do the things the role is supposed to do, don't play the role - this is like complaining that you have to memorise what spells are important to interrupt and which ones aren't as a DPS, or memorise boss damage patterns as a healer. You're also, much like a lot of people in this thread, massively overstating how difficult "learning a route" is. A "route" is literally just pulling mobs in a dungeon and I don't recall anyone complaining that they had to "memorise a route" through dungeons at any other point in this game's history.

As I have said before: walk into the dungeon. Kill everything in a straight line to each of the bosses. Kill the obelisks right on top of where they spawn. Pull one pack at a time. Lust on bosses even on fortified. Congratulations, you just timed any key up to and probably above +15. Stop stressing out about pulling as if it's the MDI when you're trying to get through a +10, they're not even in the same universe.

E:

I am a big fan of trial and error but my concern was that it would have to be in a toxic enviroment. It turns out my concern was right. So far i've had 1-2 runs of noone complaining but most of them have ppl either complaining about the route i choose or other people doing the wrong thing within the awakened pillars.

People complaining that you didn't know what you're doing isn't "toxic". It's an accurate observation. You said earlier that you learned all of the dungeons previous to Awakened - that's excellent, almost nothing has changed for you then. How did you decide what to shroud skip? Did you plan it all out in advance or did you literally just shroud past whatever looked difficult and work from there? Because that is exactly how Awakened works. If you knew the dungeons before, then you know what count you do and don't need. Skip the bits you don't need with obelisks. Easy. You're overthinking the complexity of the affix - at its heart, it is just your group pressing shroud and determining when it ends by defeating a miniboss.

[HCLM]

Thats why i wasnt running 10+ dungeons. Believe me i havent been wasting anyones time because i hate doing that. I'd rather not do a dungeon then be carried through one. And i agree, the tank is the leader(or should be) in most cases. Thats why it was a little annoying/daunting for me to start doing 10+ keys as i had no sandbox mode to learn in.

Just do every dungeon once as dps and you will know the path. Then you only have to learn how to not die as a tank. Tanking m+ isnt so difficult

[Zantera]

Finding chill people or a guild to play with might be an overused advice but honestly don't underestimate it. There's a lot of 'chill' people who just want to do keys but aren't super fussed about how it goes. You even have people with +15 keys with the mentality of just wanting to get it done for weekly so they don't care that much if its on time or over. Just looking at my own tank characters I had a few depleted 15s this season before I started timing them. Practice helps.

[Moonsorrow]

The point is, if I pug a +15 with experienced players it can be expected for the Tank to know the route and how to use the pillars. However this also happens even more so in group of inexperienced players that all get the hang of M+ at all or that all have to learn the awakend affix. I'm absolutely allergic to the phrase "I don't know, you are the tank. I'll follow you" after we did a +11 in the first week of the season and all the dps expected me to know everything already! and the worst part was, that they were guildmates and not random puggies...

I you want to learn, search for a group of likeminded players and figure it out together.

[Zantera]

I agree there is an expectation that the tank should know the route but I also feel people sometimes jump too soon and flame or ask the tank if he pulls something that they aren't used to. I was just in a Junkyard key where the tank took a route that I have never seen myself but it ended up pretty good on % so I just followed along and didn't question it. There's obviously extreme cases where there's big NO-NO packs (usually depending on affixes) that should always be avoided but there's different ways of doing it sometimes. A good example that comes to mind is the first bridge of Temple of Sethralis where some tanks want to skip that rider (4 people stay in void realm, 1 guy who can stealth or shadowmeld runs down to activate next pillar) but some other tanks prefer just killing it. I never expect the tank to know the bis MDI-route or whatever, but I do expect them to at least have a route in mind and stay consistent to pulling accordingly.

Though I'm probably a bad tank because I usually just wing it when I tank. I follow the normal pulls that I'm used to but sometimes I have to improvise when we get closer to last boss and pull something to make up for some pack that maybe I forgot. It's usually in time though so I don't stress over it.

[Tziva]

I know i could have watched videos to start with but i feel like if you need to do that there is an inherent problem with the design of the affix.

I know. And i agree. And thats why i think they affix is a problem. Because i have done the due dilligence of learning all the dungeons in a setting where i didnt annoy anyone by occasionally not doing exactly what i was supposed to do

What about this affix makes this true that wasn't before? Players have always been expected to know at least the relative route to take by the time you're doing keys ten and above, whether having learned by video, route planning guide, or prior experience in the dungeon. The obelisk affix didn't cause, or change, or amplify this. The affix only modified what the best routes happen to be for this specific season, but this is no different than several other of the previous +10 affixes or from the initial learning curve of stepping into this expansions m+ for the first time. There's always the expectation that no one is going into it blind, least of all the tank.

At this point it feels like you're arguing just to argue since several of us cleared up a bunch of your fears and misconceptions you had about this season's affix within a few hours of your initial post.

[Skylarking]

How can someone dislike awakened? It makes dungeons so much easier...

[FiveDkp]

How can someone dislike awakened? It makes dungeons so much easier...

They are all secretly Rogue FOTM rerollers - they want their confirmed spot back for shroud.

[deenman]

Just popping in to remind everyone that Awakened is still the best seasonal affix Blizzard have ever put in the game. All of the complaining I've seen in here seems to boil down to "I'm bad and I don't want to get better in order to do harder content so Blizzard should nerf the content instead". I think the biggest problem here is that people watch MDI and see the pulls people do there and assume that they have to do the same thing to time a +10, when they blatantly don't. You could pull one pack at a time, skip no trash, kill all of the obelisks right where they spawn, probably still wipe once or twice AND make the timer on a +10. Stop getting so hung up on shit that doesn't even apply to the part of the game you're trying to play.

By the way, I've seen people say they don't want to watch videos, refuse to use MDT to plan things in advance, and refuse to actually practice by trial and error. If that's the case, what do you actually want to do? Do you want Blizzard to somehow download the perfect M+ route for every dungeon directly into your brain along with every patch cycle? Have you considered that maybe, if you refuse to read, watch, or do yourself, you shouldn't be as good at something as someone who will do those things?

uhm,unless 480 people are doing those 10's by doing all that crap you mentioned,than no,they likely arent gonna time it,the people doing 10s are not very well geared,those 10's depending on their gear/experience can feel like a 20 for a max geared player

[Nzx]

uhm,unless 480 people are doing those 10's by doing all that crap you mentioned,than no,they likely arent gonna time it,the people doing 10s are not very well geared,those 10's depending on their gear/experience can feel like a 20 for a max geared player

And if it's that slow, then none of the people in the key should be complaining that the tank doesn't follow the perfect MDI pull routes and obelisk skips because they aren't geared or experienced enough to do them anyway. There's just no validity to the contention of the OP whatsoever, it's just people complaining about something and wanting the rules changed because they don't want to put in the effort to actually improve. None of the people who are competing in the MDI or pushing 26/27 keys on live sat around and said "i don't want to watch videos that means blizzard failed at design and i don't want to pug because everyone is toxic and i don't want to make friends and do keys with them either because that's too hard so blizzard needs to nerf the content so i can do it", they did everything they possibly could to improve, understand more about the game/their class/the dungeons/mechanics etc.

[Raisei]

There is no point restarting this whole discussion.

I know i could have watched videos to start with but i feel like if you need to do that there is an inherent problem with the design of the affix.

Thats a subjective stance obviously

The design of the content is for an organized group. The same design that creates raid fights. The idea being a group of 5 friends or guildmates running it. The only content actually created for a pug group is Heroic dungeons and LFR raiding.

Pug groups are a huge increase in difficulty, because they usually do not communicate well and the members usually do not give a shit about each other so they WILL be toxic if they get irked where a guild group might crack jokes about a failed key or at most be frustrated, pugs will always fly of the handle.

As a fellow Tank I will give you this advice: Get used to toxicity or find a nice guild to run with. The second being the better choice I find.

Perfect runs are very seldom and in many cases it won't even be your fault, but pugs will blame you anyway. People pull accidentally, one of the Obelisk bosses dies too soon and the skip does not work correctly, a boss mechanic is failed and a wipe happens, dps is too low etc. At high levels it really does not take a lot to wipe the group.

The affix itself actually makes the dungeons a ton easier and some skips are awesome, but you need experience to know how and this you can only collect by actually doing them. Guides are nice, but it does not beat experience. Much like with a raid fight, you can watch that fatboss vid 50 times, but you still cannot 100% copy what they did just from that.

So what is my solution to your problem?

1) You ignore toxicity, because there is simply no way that you will only do perfect dungeon runs and never be blamed by an unsatified idiot, who has probably done 50 mistakes along the run, but calls you out for the one you did. That is just PUG Life. People are idiots and leavers. Even if you clearly state "no experience, wipes guaranteed" you will get that one illiterate guy that leaves when the first wipe happens.

Had one of those only last night. We casually progress in Mythic Ny'alotha with the guild mostly. Were on Maut, but some of the guildies had to go and we had to get 2 pugs. Despite writing in the decription that it would be progress and wipes are expected, that one idiot priest witnessed one wipe and instantly left again.
Moral: You cannot avoid the idiots of the world, you can only ignore them.

2) Find a guild, really, learn new things with a guild group, so they can help you out. Doing a new thing with decent people on voice comms makes it a ton easier. When we started this patch the Obelisks completely raped my face. Especially the Fear guy with his super painful adds. We failed several 10s and 11s, but slowly got better. No one expected perfect runs, so the stress was minimal.
Now I am tanking 15-18s with general ease and confidence (depending on the affixes less of both) and I am trying to teach the newer Tanks in the guild how to do it by giving pointers during a dungeon (while I run along in dps spec).
Despite this, finding good Tanks for a guild is very hard, especially for M+, so guilds are usually very interested. DPS players you generally get a dozen for a dime (and about 60% of these is embarassingly bad at their role) but a good Tank or Healer is very hard to find.

[Kokolums]

Awakened is a horrifically awful idea. Once you get halfway thru an expac, the tank is expected to be pro at it. And that's just not the case. It would be fine if you can just run m+10 all day without penalty. But if you fail, the key drops down. That puts the added pressure of guilt on the tank.

If you like the way m+10 and beyond is currently built, there's a high chance you are a sociopath that has no feeling for others. If you actually care about people, the guilt would totally put you off tanking them. You actually have to go in with the mentality that you don't give a fuck if you wreck someone's key, you are going to learn how to run it. That's a bizarre and malicious game design.

[Twdft]

Awakened is a horrifically awful idea. Once you get halfway thru an expac, the tank is expected to be pro at it. And that's just not the case. It would be fine if you can just run m+10 all day without penalty. But if you fail, the key drops down. That puts the added pressure of guilt on the tank.

If you like the way m+10 and beyond is currently built, there's a high chance you are a sociopath that has no feeling for others. If you actually care about people, the guilt would totally put you off tanking them. You actually have to go in with the mentality that you don't give a fuck if you wreck someone's key, you are going to learn how to run it. That's a bizarre and malicious game design.

What has any of what you said to do with awakened?

Bizarre train of thought you're on...

[Kokolums]

People aren't interested in wasting their time for low reward and teaching someone they will never meet again. There is no incentive for them to not be shitty, but there is a punishment for when things go bad.

That's true in life in general. That is why in sports, the greatest athletes almost never make good coaches, because they are too impatient and angry and will quickly have a mutiny on their hands in the locker room. Its almost always the bench guy that makes a great head coach, because it takes enormous patience to be left out and still keep trying to play. And patience is the key to coaching. But those people are rare.

[Matthias]

Awakened is a horrifically awful idea. Once you get halfway thru an expac, the tank is expected to be pro at it. And that's just not the case. It would be fine if you can just run m+10 all day without penalty. But if you fail, the key drops down. That puts the added pressure of guilt on the tank.

It's funny how the community seems to prefer agency within a dungeon as opposed to a linear path. The role of the path finder is on the tank and if the tank isn't 100% confident on the path it can screw the run. A lot of Blizz's design philosphy lately has been to make the tank less crucial, threat easier to generate, tanks can survive most mechanics if they botch them etc.

I've failed several +10 Atal'dazar runs simply because I wasn't sure which route to take, there are so many options, and i don't consider which skips aren't as viable if we don't have a Rogue, Hunter or Mage. Between how a tank positions mobs, and amount of CC they bring I think they do hold the most weight in a dungeon therefore I always feel like crap if we miss the timer.

With that said, a pug is a pug and most key holders understand this. Practice makes perfect.

[Zantera]

I think it's interesting to see the effect Awakened has had on the dungeons. Certain dungeons I used to love are now close to the bottom (like Atal'dazar) whereas other dungeons I didn't use to think much of have skyrocketed to the top (Temple of Sethralis and Motherlode). If you're a tank and you are just getting used to Awakened as an affix I would just recommend doing Workshop where the route stays fairly the same. I think Atal is probably the worst dungeon right now in terms of routes because there's so many options that it just gets confusing.

[Mardux]

I do have MDT but it does seem like a really daunting task for me to plan a dungeon run ahead like that. I'm not looking to do super serious dungeon runs at 20+. Just seems to me like this feature is way over the top in terms of complexity added for no real benefit. I get a lot of people like it. It just really, really turns me off

Typing raider.io, then clicking 3 times isnt nearly as daunting as you're making it out to be.

If you dont want to make the effort to plan your own route, either copy/paste from r.io or ask the group if someone has a route they want used.

If you cant be bothered with any of the above, dont tank anything above 9s. Even without addons, you should be doing the pulls which means you should know where you are and where the group is going.

[Ichology]

Upon further investigation (recently gearing up an alt tank through strictly pugging), the experience gets MUCH better once you hit 15 keys, as the quality of player increases dramatically. 11-14 is filled with tons of toxic, overly arrogant players that haven't realized they are actually bad at the game yet, and usually frustrated as they are in depletion after depletion group in that range on a character that they should be able to carry that key level easily (470+, good corruptions).

Basically don't take most "advice" or criticism in that range, and when you get the gear your experience will improve tenfold starting around 15's, as you'll be with not only noticeably better players, but often time people as well.