Why don't you tank LFR?

[Barkhouse]

Mostly it's because I don't care for melee. I'd be all for trying out a ranged tank spec.

[Tengaaris]

I don't tank LFR because carrying the DPS so that things die at a reasonable pace is worth the extra wait in queue. Skada graph usually ends up looking something like an olympic diving board. Thankfully, I've now acquired all but one of my transmog desires from LFR, so the light is appearing at the end of the tunnel.

[Dimzum]

My main spec going into ToT was tank for my monk. I didn't tank an LFR until after SoO and that was to help my wife through her first LFR run.

I've tanked SoO once (first wing) but only after having cleared the first wing on normal. I haven't bothered to do the rest of the wings after how well that first wing went.

I am item level 549. Only a few items would be upgrades (and that's if I spent the valor to upgrade them) so it really isn't worth it for me to run. As mentioned earlier, I also like to know the fights I am going into. We've only cleared the first wing in normal and malkork on flex. I don't have a clue about the rest. I wouldn't dare queue as a tank not knowing the fights.

[Deleted]

For me, it's a combination of 1. i don't need the loot 2. lfr taking longer than a flex pug 3. although i am tanking raids for many years now i still have a certain amount of social anxiety in randomly generated groups, i just need a minimum amount of communication to comfortably play.

[TheWindWalker]

Mostly it's because I don't care for melee. I'd be all for trying out a ranged tank spec.

Not really sure what you're asking for here. If you're tanking, the boss is never, ever outside of melee range. You might as well be melee when soloing any old raid content while playing a ranged character.

[Firebert]

Because I need to focus on my Mage to get my legendary cloak first.

[Matt0193]

I don't want to tank LFR because I'm one of the few DPS who actually pull more than their weight on every pull and while it would drop my queue times, the odds are that the DPS which would replace me would be a 50k DPS semi-afk'er who will shout, rant and cry when we wipe because of his abysmal DPS and reaching berserk times. Hell, for the first time ever I was actually whispered by 2 people, one congratulating me on my DPS (He was also a Ret and asked why I was doing more damage than him with a similar ilvl, ended up helping him with his talent selection and gems/reforging) and the other thanking me for taunting adds off him that the tank just didn't bother with as well as saving him with clutch Selfless Healer crits.

Just, no. I'd rather take 1hr queue times than tank for most of the LFR population.

[Triangulum]

Prot Pally is incredibly boring, and I'm still gearing my Windwalker set to BiS Flex items.

[Peachy]

Mainly abuse/lack of knowledge for me

I've been gearing up my blood dk, I didn't have the greatest gear so i just ran as frost and set my loot spec to blood. I've been pretty lucky with drops and I transferred my dk to my main realm so I could enchant all my gear, my blood set is a 516 ilvl now so I could tank lfr. Yesterday though I kinda got pissed/discouraged cause I was tanking the ox celestial as the 2nd tank and when the first tank died the ox guy ran around and attacked the dps. The ox guy is taunt immune so all i could do is run around and do damage to him to try and get threat. Meanwhile all the dps are going "ERMAGHERD F****ING TANK! HERP DERP"

[Deleted]

Warlock tanking (Demon Hunter - Glyph). Simply isn't viable, especially not after the nerfs.

[roboscorcher]

As a tank, you're expected to lead (mark targets, explain fight mechanics completely, know the fight completely yourself) . In a guild run, tanks are supported by raid members. There's less pressure to perform perfectly. In LFR, people rarely support each other and GOD FORBID there's a wipe. It's hostile by design. I'll still do it, but it gets painful to lead a raid of impatient babies through multiple wipes (while the people complaining are wearing pvp gear).

[tanktank]

I only tank it when I am tired of capping valor via heroic scenarios or spamming dungeons. I don't need gear from it and don't want to put up with the high level of derp.

[RicardoZ]

I stopped DPS'ing because I got so much hate and decided that I'd only ever tank and heal ever again. Healing went beautifully, I really think that's my calling WoW-wise. Tanking is kind of it and miss though. I think the main thing that bothers me about it is that everybody else thinks that they can do your job better than you. Between all the hunters and mages who go pull huge packs it just gets frustrating, not to mention the people who yell at you for going too fast, those who scream at you for going too slow, for pulling too much, for pulling too little...

...and then Blizzard wonders why nobody wants to do it.

[Museigen]

The best example I can give is imagine you were driving a big old school bus, you are responsible for getting the bratty children from point A to point B alive and well. However you are instructed to not be able to administer any slight form of discipline so nobody listens to you anyway. The children are all jumping over seats, throwing things at the back of your head and screaming their lungs off. Now take away the steering wheel, brakes and put the bus on an unstoppable cruise control. You're in charge of a bunch of people you can't do anything about, wouldn't listen anyway, who generate more problems than they solve all the while you're expected to control the large vehicle without a steering wheel or brakes as the bus continually hurtles forward. Despite all these circumstances, if anything goes wrong it's your fault.

That is what solo queuing for LFR feels like as tank. As I said earlier it's not even the abuse, at least not for me. It's just more frustrating trying to control the bus without any of the proper tools to get a bunch of brats their purples than it is fun/rewarding.

[Kujako]

Need an option for "I don't know the tactics well enough yet to satisfy the vocal people who just want to be carried".

[tuxedobob]

Too busy on my main character (DPS only).

Also, I just hate LFR in general.

[Deleted]

Do tanks really get that much abuse? The only ones I've seen take abuse were AFK, had terrible gear (saw pally tank with intellect/agi gear...), died a lot (didn't use cooldowns or didn't know how to play, etc), or some combination. I abuse DPS who do the same thing, and so should everyone IMO. There's no reason anyone can't spend 10 minutes on icyveins (or just google <talent> MOP guide).

Edit: I've never encountered this "it's cool to abuse a tank" attitude. That seems pretty far-fetched to me. It may just be that the people who queue in LFR as a tank are just doing that to get around a long queue time and have no idea what they are doing. If that's the case, and they waste the group's time, we should be abusing them. Don't queue for a spec you can't or refuse to play/gear. See that a lot with healers. They queue as healer then DPS.

Just because you are not seeing the abuse, does not mean it is not occurring. Classic example of this, last week on the shamans in SoO, typical group not bothering to kill the green slime so we quickly became overrun. I'll admit I fecked up and walled myself and died, happens rarely but I do occasionally feck up. So off tank who is my wife has both bosses, the slime and purple shit everywhere, she has to kite, she has no choice....by this point most the group is dead anyway so its a wipe no matter what. We wipe, then one healer starts throwing abuse via whisper at my wife, vile torrent of abuse because she was kiting preventing him from planting his feet to spam heal...lol wut? No abuse for my fail, no abuse for range ignoring the green slime, but vile abuse for the tank trying desperately to save the situation.

Obviously ignore here is a winner and the rest of the group vote kicked said healer when they found out he was abusing the tank so in fairness the rest of the group were great. That said, the abuse was enough my wife was all for quitting group and tanking....Luckily I managed to talk her out of it, but other tanks may just quit completely over such an experience.

[Kuthe]

Why don't I tank LFR?
Because tanking in LFR is like ramming my eyeballs into a fist of sewing needles.

It's the most painfullest thing in the god damn game, and even if I know every mechanic and do it to a tee, I (and the other tank) get blamed if the raid wiped for any reason (Enrage, bad placement of DPS/Heals, no heals going out) anything, we are the problem.
So honestly, the dps can deal with it for all I care, they can go level and gear up a class that was tank and do it themselves, see how they like it.

[Gandrake]

because most people who queue lfr do dps that was exceptional/decent in the final tier of the previous expansion

[Deleted]

For me its more a case of performance anxiety. I've tanked some parts of throne of thunder on by bear but I just don't feel comfortable with that amount of stress.