Is tanking in raids as boring as it seems?

[Zarvel]

Like many people have already stated in this thread, Tanking is a lot more fun at lower gear levels, unless you're the type of tank who prefers pushing for larger numbers.

My first heroic KJ kill came on week 1 as a 905 ilv blood dk. It was the most fun i had as a tank since Krosus mythic. I know people are gonna eyeroll and say 'blood dk', but hey, having those perfect vamp bloods on each claws cast, having that blodo mirror up for large meteor soaks and adds or even on claws, and outhealing healers on the fight, all these things contribute to making it fun.

Then there's encounters like varimathras.

Tanking is also fun in m+, or rather, was fun early on. With the go-go-go mentality that causes more harm than good in a run, it's more an annoying chore than anything. Although, that's not the case if you have a dedicated group to do keys.

[angrys13]

For some reason today, I was pondering about what our guilds tanks actually do. Most of the fights they just pass the boss back and fourth and run out a little bit. Debuff here, big hit there, soak this and that. Wheres the cool mechanics they should be doing? Also no wonder no one likes to play tanks.

What mechanics can you think of that would increase the fun and popularity of a tank? or is it already hard enough?


(The only bosses I see real thought processes used on is Aggramar and maybe Portal Keeper ish)

It's weird, I replaced the word tank (and phrases) with dps and the conversation sounded the same.

[Alvito]

He did get wrecked in that forum lol.. "Go spam your worthelss self in trade chat" classic

Their attitude in that thread and the fact they hadn't really looked for a group just assumed because groups weren't hunting them down they weren't any was some of the big issues there. With so little time in a expansion tank spots aren't there anymore too. Groups that are still raiding have tanks, those that aren't raiding don't need tanks.

[MisterBigglez]

People don't like playing tanks because one fuck-up of a tank is disastrous, and the DPS are quick to harass tanks for whatever reason

Damn right we do. Some bosses are extremely hard to recover from if a tank dies all of a sudden. I've had cases where everything is going well on Argus Mythic and then the tank takes a little too much damage in a short amount of time, dies, then boss does a 180 and slices everyone in half. It is very frustrating. Another case is Mythic Mistress, oh the tank didn't taunt in time, everyone gets zapped for 90% of their health, have fun recovering that healers!

[Biggles Worth]

Progression raiding on my warrior use to be super fun (I haven't done it since MoP). These days it's just stats, know the mechanics, using the right abilities at the right time. Back in the day though, when I'd use a trinket to boost my dodge/parry rating and evade a one hit kill attack was an awesome feeling.

[Khallid]

Kinda reminds me of desolate host in Tomb, when everyone said 3-tanking is easier while in my guild after discussions who should 3rd tank and how do we proceed we settled at "fuck it just kill everything" and never used a 3rd tank. There used to be some other boss people 3-tanked earlier on even though it wasn't mandatory, I forgot which. Xavius?

I'm not talking about bosses that could be 2 tanked but it was an absolute horror to do so (hello pre nerf mythic KJ).

LOL, yeah we also never used 3-tanks for Desolate Host. The strategy with 3 tanks was to keep some adds out of the group, but those adds weren't even particularly dangerous so we didn't understand what was the point.

We used to do Portal Keeper with 2 tanks as well, but the tank stacks were fairly inconsistent because the portals get activated by boss health, not by a timer. So with dps being different every week it was annoying. But the big reason was that we wanted a mass grip for the imps if the portal randomly dropped at a bad spot. Both things combined just make the fight less RNG-dependant.

[Marrilaife]

But the big reason was that we wanted a mass grip for the imps if the portal randomly dropped at a bad spot. Both things combined just make the fight less RNG-dependant.

Yeah, I wish Blizzard stopped with these "mass grip is essential or helps tremendously" fights, I have to play dk for 2 tiers now because of this crap. Grip adds from cage on inquisition. Grip adds on desolate host. Grip adds in dark phase on KJ. Grip adds on portal keeper / eonar. Grip wall on coven. And then there's Aggramar... FML, can they stop already. Or at least give back mass grip to dps dks like during Mannorth / Xul progression times. I miss wotlk when you actually played dk tank to tank and not to mass grip (mass grip didn't exist yet).

[amaze123]

snip

Tanking is also fun in m+, or rather, was fun early on. With the go-go-go mentality that causes more harm than good in a run, it's more an annoying chore than anything. Although, that's not the case if you have a dedicated group to do keys.

That is what i like most about tanking m+. I allways try to go as fast and as big as possible without dying or overhelming the group. If the dps are pulling for you it is a good indicator that you are pulling under the groups potential and you can go faster.

[Zarvel]

That is what i like most about tanking m+. I allways try to go as fast and as big as possible without dying or overhelming the group. If the dps are pulling for you it is a good indicator that you are pulling under the groups potential and you can go faster.

Please fully read what I had written before incorrectly quoting and responding.

In a proper dedicated group, the go-go mentality does not overwhelm anyone because everyone knows their strengths. If a tank is slow at pulling, such a group will fix it early on by communicating it to the tank.
I'm not one of those tanks who takes it slow and calm. I go at a pace that i know the current group can handle. In most cases I end up soloing stuff anyway because such people end up over-reaching.
This brings me to what you said - "If the dps are pulling for you it is a good indicator that you are pulling under the groups potential and you can go faster." You couldn't be any more unaware than what you've written in this post. In most cases, when a group/dps over-reaches and pulls for a tank in a pug group, it almost always risks a wipe because either the healer is reeling from being low on mana, or the group lacks dps and those dps overestimate themselves.
The opposite is also true, where a tank may be going slower than the group's capability, but 99 out of 100 times, in such cases, the tank picks up the slack if the group can handle the first few packs gracefully.

Probably a good idea to think about stuff before you spill your mind on any forum just to build yourself up, to look capable.

[Marrilaife]

This brings me to what you said - "If the dps are pulling for you it is a good indicator that you are pulling under the groups potential and you can go faster." You couldn't be any more unaware than what you've written in this post. In most cases, when a group/dps over-reaches and pulls for a tank in a pug group, it almost always risks a wipe because either the healer is reeling from being low on mana, or the group lacks dps and those dps overestimate themselves.

I noticed usually the dps that is the most eager to pull ahead of the group pace is the guy lowest in dps meters who thinks having a head start on the pack will pull him ahead, usually doesn't work and just frustrates everyone. The tank is trying to tag each mob and group them in a ball so people can start aoeing and there's that guy who'll blink ahead and start pumping dps into something and then do whopping 800k on aoe... /clap

[Galaar]

Once things are on farm even dps get bored.

[david0925]

tank is something you either enjoy or you don't.

People rarely are going to praise good tanks for "tanking properly" but as soon as an encounter goes wrong, you are going to be lynched for every minor mistake you make. Think of it as infrastructure maintenance : it is absolutely essential but people take it for granted until shit hits the fan.

Most tanks also don't really min/max enough, so of course in those cases things get more boring even faster. A good tank is able to maximize his damage while staying alive: you only need so much mitigation because at some point you are just getting overheals (with the alternative being dropping more healers, which is also 100% fine).

Most players, but especially most tanks and healers, become complacent once things are on farm because "lol tank dps" or "lol healing meters", so of course things get old fast.

[Deleted]

Yeah, I wish Blizzard stopped with these "mass grip is essential or helps tremendously" fights, I have to play dk for 2 tiers now because of this crap. Grip adds from cage on inquisition. Grip adds on desolate host. Grip adds in dark phase on KJ. Grip adds on portal keeper / eonar. Grip wall on coven. And then there's Aggramar... FML, can they stop already. Or at least give back mass grip to dps dks like during Mannorth / Xul progression times. I miss wotlk when you actually played dk tank to tank and not to mass grip (mass grip didn't exist yet).

While useful the only fight where mass grip is mandatory is Aggramar, and even there, there are a lot of guilds that killed the boss only with one offtank DK (that can be your usual DPS DK on his offspec).Inquisition is a joke, and his adds are killed easilly even if you are not massgripping them, adds on desolate can be gripped by a UH/frost DK (and even not needed at all), dark phase of KJ was done by hundreds of guilds without a DK (but i accept having a THIRD tank as DK is useful here, then again it can be a DPS on offspec). Portal Keeper adds just die in one Stormkeeper from any elemental. Eonar is not a boss and hardly needs grips, even individual ones. Coven is a lot more reliant on mass root than it is on mass grip (if you do the grip but there are no roots, the adds just spread again). Aggramar is the most "shitty" case and, as i said, it can be done by only one BDK on its offspec.

If you want to find that "super usefull fights" where blood DK where "essential or help tremendously" you may aswell name a lot of encounters from past raids, like Il'gynoth, Elerethe, Helya, Aluriel, Tel'arn.... Where were blood DKs back then? Oh yeah, they where the worst tank, so nobody would even bother using them even if mass grip or individual low CD grips where good. I only remember some guilds having a THIRD tank to massgrip on ilgynoth (so they where basically DPS on blood spec).

It seems that your guild just forced you to play Blood DK and you are pissed off, more than Blood DK is mandatory (except for Aggramar where i agree having double Blood is almost mandatory).

[Marrilaife]

It seems that your guild just forced you to play Blood DK and you are pissed off, more than Blood DK is mandatory (except for Aggramar where i agree having double Blood is almost mandatory).

Ask any rogue / hunter how much they enjoyed being a soakbot, this is a similar example. But that's getting a bit offtopic.

If the guy I quoted earlier brought 3rd tank to portal keeper to have a mass grip on adds, it means it had enough value to be better than just slotting yet another dps instead. My guild didn't do it because we already had a massgrip from the existing tank and a dps dk for single grip, and fire mage with helmet for extra aoe interrupt, but maybe his teamcomp lacked aoe stuns / interrupts so 3rd tank was warranted. You don't bring a 3rd tank if it doesn't bring a significant advantage or makes encounter easier. For example some guilds use 3rd tank on Imonar because it clears the bridge faster, but some other guilds were bringing an extra healer instead (early progression, not now), that gives you more healing cds so again you can clear quicker without people falling over from aoe damage.

[theyanger]

It's better in 20 mans than it was when the 10 split existed, but it's still not interesting a lot of the time. It just depends on the fight, if you enjoy things like positioning and handling mechanics (I do) some fights are super fun, and some are just a bore.

Anything that is just 'taunt as debuff falls off' is a bore.

[manyak]

Definitely boring during farm content but I'll always enjoy speed clearing mythic+

[Insahnitee]

I think it honestly depends on the class, but I do wish that ranking was a tad bit
More interactive and situational than it currently is...

[Zarvel]

I noticed usually the dps that is the most eager to pull ahead of the group pace is the guy lowest in dps meters who thinks having a head start on the pack will pull him ahead, usually doesn't work and just frustrates everyone. The tank is trying to tag each mob and group them in a ball so people can start aoeing and there's that guy who'll blink ahead and start pumping dps into something and then do whopping 800k on aoe... /clap

Yeah, precisely. The amount of +15-17 weekly runs i've had to carry on my dk as blood because the group didn't know their limits is just hilarious. If someone thinks a geared blood dk is afraid of pulling large packs, think again. The only one left standing when it all goes south will be the tank in that case. It's a lot more frustrating when the dps who do such pulls for me are doing as much dps as i am as tank....like seriously?

[Understarmor]

When I tanked in WOTLK I tanked on every class, i healed on every class and i dps'd on every class at every level of the game, I did it ALL...I have to say tanking is awesome, with a good healer you literally feel like a freaking super hero.

I loved running into a group of mobs only to pop some cooldowns while they all died because it was the opposite of when I was a dps where I would usually run into a group of mobs and probably die lol

tanking is awesome

[Deleted]

Raid tanking is too much responsability. If you fail at dps, it means nothing. If you fail at healing, other healers will make up for it. If you fail at tanking...

Also it requires you to be online every raid day, and I can't be 100% sure I will make it, and I don't feel like disappointing 15 people.