New monk tank... Tank abuse constantly. Is this normal?

[Ivalen]

I'm level 80 on my BrM and this is my first tank.

I always start each dungeon with macros: my friendly hello macro, "waiting 20 seconds for you to get your quests", "slow and steady pull rate - please /party speak if you need to slow down. I can't speed up I know my limitations - and please don't pull I'll get 'em all for you". "Let's have fun!"

It's this kind of thing that makes the party dynamic more personal and takes the 'five people just came together anonymously' mechanic that happens otherwise.

This is not foolproof - but it helps and doesn't hinder.

[Rorixis]

Like has been said if you are running tank and healer you don't actually need any dps at all. Just do the instance and don't even respond to anything any pugs say unless they are being nice of course. Ignore them, pretend you are russian or something and just do the instance - Take the nice ppl along for more or just leave and queue again and hope it will get better.

[Deleted]

• People complaining that I'm pulling extra mobs/bosses when we "don't need to". I'm there for XP, using my Monk XP buff, and want to get the most out of it. It takes an extra minute to kill this stuff and it's usually in our path. I've literally had people harass me so badly that I've left groups, only to have them follow me onto my server and tell me I should kill myself.
  
• People complaining that I'm not pulling enough at once. I roll with a healer when I queue, so I know how much I/he can handle based on the dungeon and the mobs' abilities...and I pull A LOT at once. Complaining is one thing, but most take it farther and begin chain pulling themselves, usually through body pulls, then lose it when I don't save them from a 2 shot.
  
• People being general rude pricks, then chain pulling mobs so we can't get out of combat long enough for a vote kick.
  
• People complaining that I'm not going fast enough while barely cracking 1000dps. Most stand around trying to pull more mobs while never DPSing what I'm already tanking.
  
• Hunters who leave taunt on on their pets, then ignore me when I politely ask them to turn it off, multiple times. Pets taunt on bosses with conal abilities, boss spins around, group takes damage. "lrn 2 tank"

This is sadly what happens frequently these days when you level up. If I were you I would only pay attention to the healer and his mana, other than that if people pull something extra that you did not intend or they are being pricks let them tank it and go about your own pulling, turn off the chat even maybe. Its really a shame that people don't behave and they are in a lot of cases extremely aggressive.

[Ihnasir]

Dude, it's been the same thing for me and my gf on our Monks. I've been tanking (1st on dps), and she's been healing (2nd on dps). We eventually got sick of constant combat and shitty pulls by people who have no idea how to pull, and 2 manned Mara, Strat and Scholo at level. Yeah, it took longer, but we didn't have to put up with ridiculousness. I'd recommend running with guildies or friends, you'll hardly have a good time in LFD/LFG.

[Blackmist]

Run in a 3 man guild group.

If everyone seems OK, go at your usual pace.

If assholes join (first line from them will be "gogo lets do this fast gogo") pull every single mob in the dungeon as slowly as possible (use raid markers and CC if you want to see them explode with rage) until they stop.

[Djolisimo]

I'm leveling as shammy healer at the moment, leveled through questing till 68, then only dungeons.

Runs include very little to no talk at all, just straight storming through the instance. I have to heal very little so find my self dpsing a lot.

The instances are so easy and fast that I find it hard to believe anyone would have any objections about anything.

[Obamatheone]

Run in a 3 man guild group.

If everyone seems OK, go at your usual pace.

If assholes join (first line from them will be "gogo lets do this fast gogo") pull every single mob in the dungeon as slowly as possible (use raid markers and CC if you want to see them explode with rage) until they stop.

That is too cruel lol.

[Uncle Julian]

In my experience OP, if you tank good people love you long time, but if you are slow, suck, or don't play well then you are flamed. I'm not saying you are doing anything wrong or bad (I've never tried a monk) but you might want to make sure you're brushed up on mechanics, proper gearing and rotation etc. I've main tanked and main healed every single expansion, and let me tell you I can tell a good tank vs a bad tank easy, any day

[Razya]

your boyfriend is the healer ?

What's wrong with that? ^^ I'm running the same setup. I'm the tank and my bf is my healing slave. Mostly because I suck at healing in a way you can't even imagine and always loved tanking and he likes the power of playing with my life. :P

Anyway, back on topic. I've been tanking for 6 years off and on, on numerous different classes. Tanking has changed immensely in this time and honestly in low levels you don't need a tank. This however does not give the dps a right to pull for you! If you're a new tank, or a slow tank, or doing something stupid, it'll be much better to help that person out. He/she needs to learn how to tank for later levels so people aren't complaining that there are no tanks. Ofcourse not if people insist on scaring 'em off.

Which ofcourse leads to having dps queue up as tank with no concept of active mitigation and/or too undergeared to compensate for their lack of knowledge of tanking. Not to mention all the other horrors that dps queueing as tank brings with them.

But people at low level are extremely abusive. I've been insulted for not having heirlooms for instance. I still did triple their dps, had no problems surviving and it was a smooth run. One of the funniest things I ever seen happen was a healer bemoaning that the tank was undergeared for Maraudon. MARAUDON. In greys you wouldn't even be undergeared, but that just goes to show how people's minds work. First lesson to remember, those who yell loudest are compensating for their room temperature iq. They are honestly not worth your time and certainly not worth getting worked up over since even if you call em out - and god forbid try to use logic and reason - they'll never understand it.

Then you have the lovely randoms who want you to pull more and more and some more. But only do 25% of your dps. Or are yelling gogogo because your healer sat down to drink (it can happen!). Point out to them that the moment that mobs die faster, you may be inclined to listen to him. Generally another kind you cannot reason with.

Hunters and locks with growl on.... they are just a nightmare in low levels, but at 90 every single hunter I've had in a group that had growl on I could ask nicely to switch it off and they always appoligised for having it on. Simply do as others mentioned at lower levels and let that pet die, and die, and die some more. Then you can possibly make comment along the lines of: Sheesh, you must really hate wolves/cats/spiders to abuse your pet so much. They'll never get the point, but it'll give you some giggles from the rest of the group.

Dps that do less than a tank... I'll admit SOME classes can't outdps a tank in aoe packs, but honestly I've even outdpsed tanks on ele shaman, hunter and spriest. That not all classes can pass the tank, ok, but they should be able to at least get close to the tank.

But it does get better at higher levels. People actually start becoming people sometimes instead of machines. You do need a thick skin however, cause even at higher levels there will still be abusive people. That's just how it goes. And you need to be sure enough about what you're doing to tell em to stfu. But it's thankfully hardly ever.

[flavie]

it's shit like this that makes me glad i went to Rift, where ppl are actually polite to eachother, haven't met a single douchebag yet (altho i'm very sure there are more than one ofc)

[frogger237]

I haven't had any bad experiences when I tanked lvling up but i quit tanking from 60ish to 80. Most groups were pretty good and if there ever is some dbag pulling shit cause they are in a hurry, tell the healer to not heal them and let em die and dont res em they will either learn or leave.

[SurrealNight]

I did RAF so never tanked below 81 but doing LFD 81-90. Never had a bad experience and most groups loved having a tank that could dish out some serious DPS.

I know we don't get all of our tools (PB at 75?) so maybe your a bit squishier than you will be at higher levels. Also a lot depends if your Shuffle/Guard uptime is good. Overall it should get better as you level up, my guild actually jokes how OP I am.

[Lalicat]

What's wrong with that? ^^ I'm running the same setup. I'm the tank and my bf is my healing slave. Mostly because I suck at healing in a way you can't even imagine and always loved tanking and he likes the power of playing with my life. :P ...

Thanks Rayza! Your post was really helpful.

Also...yeah, my boyfriend has been healing. We have switched roles often, just depends on what we feel like playing at the time. He's tanked, I've healed. We've both DPSed. He's tanked I've DPSed. I've tanked he's healed...etc etc etc. We're flexible and it lets us experience many different types of play.

[SurrealNight]

Well one advantage of Monk is you won't have to build a Tank+DPS set if that is the route you go. BrM and WW gear exactly the same outside of maybe your meta. So you can dump all the int leather on one and all the agil leather on another and basically have access to all 3 specs without being under geared.

[Deleted]

What's wrong with that? ^^ I'm running the same setup. I'm the tank and my bf is my healing slave. Mostly because I suck at healing in a way you can't even imagine and always loved tanking and he likes the power of playing with my life. :P

The boyfriends are the new healers mine is healing too!

[Temp name]

Typical bad run:

I enter the dungeon, buff, and pull my first group. Immediately people are already on me about making sure we "do this fast".

If this means they ask if you'll pull fast, put them on ignore.

At that point I'd been dealing with morons run after run, so my healer comments that it would be easier to pull more if they did more DPS... IMMEDIATE. INSANITY.

Repeat above.

The DPS monk in the group decides to "show us what bad DPS really is" and proceeds, for the rest of the run, to not participate AT ALL (as in zero DPS), while following the healer spamming /dance and /joke. Every time I try to kick her she pulls something before we can drop the vote kick "in combat" debuff then runs backwards, forcing me to pick it up or wipe us.

Don't pick up the mobs, tell your friend to not heal, watch them all die horribly, initiate kick.

We finally get to the end and are at the boss. Once again, she pulls it, then takes off heading for the entrance.

Repeat above

The entire group bitches me out for being a "double douchebag" because I didn't pick up the boss. I was busy cleaning up pop from my keyboard, watching the screen. Once the warlock is safely kiting the boss, the monk runs back and begins dancing next to me. Once I'm able to get back and ensure my keyboard isn't screwed, I finally convince them that she's been absolutely horrible and we kick her. Immediately following they say, "NOW FOR THE HEALER" and kick my healer. igiveup.

put all of them on ignore before leaving. You won't be put into a group with them again

And that's typical. I run into people who abuse the pull/vote kick in combat debuff over and over, knowing that we can't get rid of them.

You can get rid of them, you just have to let them die first.

Yep, I have put in a ticket before for this, and I was told to report them through the right click > report feature in game...which makes no sense, because they weren't swearing or spamming. They're just being dicks.

Click on cheating, state that as you cannot report for harrasment this is the more appropriate option, then proceed to describe what they've done.

So TL;DR I love monk tanking. Very fun. People are jerks. Will it get better? It wasn't like this when I used to tank.

It is better at 90, it is also better if you have a VERY thick skin (something most people lack unfortunatly)

Edit: Just remember, 90% of the time, it's NOT your fault.

[Deleted]

What makes it worse when tanking and you have a friend healing is when a dps that joins the dungeon goes afk and you cant kick him..keeps saying unable to kick for 2 hours now that gets on my nerves other than that its been pretty cool had to tell a hunter tot ake growl away from his pet and a ret pally to remove righteous fury 4 times..i suppose the pally thought it gave him a dps boost tbh although he was only doing 200 anyway

[Teriz]

My experience with this is to just not care. If I end up in a bad group, I just leave after the first boss and requeue. Tanks get almost instant queues anyway. Also Monk tanking was so much fun, I didn't mind doing instances over and over again.

DPS treating tanks badly always confuses me. Some of them are in queues for upwards of 30 minutes in some cases. You'd think they'd be polite and not risk having to be stuck in a queue again. Then again, some people are just plain stupid.

Oh and yeah, lvl 81+ gets a lot better.

[LurkerOnly]

Why do you tank?

If the answer is "In order to be praised" then I sympathize with you.

"Not wanting to be bothered about trivial things" isn't the same as "Wanting to be praised" except in the false-dichotomy "either-or" mindset of a lot of the current generation of freshman and sophomore internet users.

Might be off-topic to mention that, but more people need to be made aware of it.

[Incognito Noctix]

Sounds like you've been insanely unlucky. I've never had that much bad luck with people in randoms. Sure, there's the few assholes here and there, but most of the time it's a decently pleasant experience.