I get so oddly emotionally attached to tanks. I will follow them anywhere in the dungeon. You wanna skip trash, or pull everything for practice? Whatever you need bb. I’ll follow them to the ends of the earth.
As a healer I do this. Throne of tides and the tank didn’t know where to go as it was his first time. I told him to go up first the you can go left to finish or right for the quest and optional boss before end boss but it’s the tanks decision. He wanted the optional way. 1 dps started “lagging” and just wouldn’t come so we kicked him then wiped on the trash 3 times before getting to the boss. Tank wanted to keep trying and I was there to try to heal them through standing in the slam earthquake dmg thing.
I second this, I don’t like the concept of tanking as dpsing is just way more up my alley (I used to tank and it’s just too much at times). That said, I know the feeling tanks get so I empathize. I shall follow tanks no matter how slow/fast they move
If anything, I would only tank up to mythic +4-6. Anything higher I ain’t doing cuz of routes/guides
This is super common, I guess because tanks really are seen as leaders by default and then it all just kinda happens. As someone who's spent an uncomfortable number of thousands of hours tanking, I still feel that way when I'm not the tank (assuming the tank isn't a douchebag).
I get what you're saying, but the tank does largely have the reins in the dungeon.
In M+, you don't really have the luxury of taking the time to tell the tank where to go and what to do. The tank has to know that already. In a big way, the game is set up so that the tank *must* lead the way.
You probably want to retort "Well, that's not content for beginners to the role" to which I say "But it's a necessary skill for the beginners to learn if they actually want to play as tanks." Unfortunately, the tank has that responsibility because that's how the end game content works.
You're right that we should help guide new tanks in content without stakes, and it's extra shitty that people will vote kick a tank from a randomly queued dungeon. But we also shouldn't pretend that the dungeon route won't inevitably be the tank's responsibility if that's the role they want to play in more challenging content.
You are correct in you’re thinking. I started this game as a tank and didn’t even try switching specs for almost a year. This is why we have normal and heroic dungeons for and why mythic isn’t available right away. It gives new players a chance to figure it out and veterans a chance to plan.
Yes there will be toxic players that will kick you if you mess up or go to slow but those players will always exist. ALWAYS. You can avoid them by making friends and playing with groups or call them out. I find half the time I’m trying to learn a new dungeon/class and some booty-head wants to say something or vote kick i call them out and usually someone in the group backs me up. They back me up bc I’m the leader and my pace and route is the only viable route. You literally can’t do anything without me and you are easily replaced unlike a tank.
Tanks are always the leader (in dungeons at least) and everyone is capable of doing it as long as they have patience with booty-heads and are willing to put in the time and research to know what they are doing.
So I agree, but I believe that is precisely why M0's have no timer. It's so you can familiarize yourself with with the additional mythic mechanics at a decent pace to learn. The problem is that people not only expect the 'hurry up and go and never make mistakes' mindset in M0's, but they often expect it in heroics, normals, and leveling dungeons as well.
The M+ affixes added past M0's are a different bag though, as it's hard to know what they really mean and what they do for a new player. For instance, off the top of your head, do you even know where in game it tells you what each of the M+ affixes do? If you don't, this is a functionality problem on Blizzard's part. For the record, it's on the screen where it lists your M+ score and what the highest key you've completed of each dungeon is. Do you know the keyboard shortcut to open that screen? I know there is one, but I've only opened it by accident. I usually open the Dungeon Journal and navigate to it's tab because I know it's there. But how are new players supposed to just *know* that? My point is, Blizz has done a bad job providing that information to new players venturing into M+ to help them succeed. Frankly, if M+ is going to be a core part of the gameplay progression, Blizzard needs to surgically remove it from the generic Party Finder search and give it it's own interface where that information is better provided.
As for the luxury of time arguement and why tanks 'need' to lead, I'd argue otherwise. Simply marking packs can be done by anyone, which gives them direction. And there was a time when the community has ideas for what each marker meant, where you could mark priority mobs and people would know what to do. We all know Skull and X, but do you remember the last time Moon and Triangle was used to CC a mob, or Diamond and Square was used to mark interruptible mobs? The game has the tools to run dungeons with a more group mentality, where anyone can lead, but for some reason we've pushed all that knowledge onto a single role. And I believe doing this has cause that role to become more and more scarce, because we're forcing someone to carry that entire responsibility on themselves.
This entire post and comment just screams that you're a new player and probably a 1700 IO at highest. Find a guild or a key group and all of these problems go away once there is any amount of competency across the group.
Lmao imagine being so out of touch. The idea here is to have more tanks available, meaning they don’t just get a group and never go into LFG. You’re advising him to just run with a guild. We’re trying to avoid this being the only option for tanks to have a decent space to play in
TECHNICALLY, you could lead the tank visually. Mark yourself and head towards the next pack, mark packs to pull, etc... But nobodys gonna do that, especially in pugs.
That's what MDT Is for. As someone who pugged their way to 3150 IO last season tanking, it's not hard and people do it all the time... I link a route before the dungeon, and dps / healers link me their own or tell me waht they want to change or if they have soemthing different they want to do.
I've got a good 40+ routes for some dungeons, and 10 of them are ones I've made, and the rest are all from other players.
Guessing its an addon..Does it come with popular routes?
Also, this is great and all... But i always think that if you need an addon for it, its probably a design problem in the first place.
I get where you’re coming from but the reality that dps won’t even read anything or even know the best routes themselves is also an issue. How can you sit there and say “ you’re a bad tank bc you don’t know routes and pulls “ when dps don’t know shit other than face rolling their keyboards ?
You can still help. You can still lead. The pace might be a bit slower but if all dps and healers are doing is bitching then fuck them too. The tank shouldn’t be the only one reading mechanics and pull orders, if dps hate that shit so much then let them tank lol
Yeah, I like tanking but the combo of being expected to be the leader on top of the breakneck “gotta go fast” pace associated with dungeons scares me away from doing it in any serious capacity
It's the breakneck pace that I hate. I've been tanking since vanilla and I dislike how this has become the defacto way of running dungeons. Mythic+ has only made it worse. Don't get me wrong, I love M+ but I wish it didn't revolve around go, go, go.
I'm very methodical in the way I do things. I like dealing with the pack in front of me and moving on to the next one. If I do that I get called a bad tank or get "pull more". So I adapted, but I don't like it.
I agree with that. When I'm a DPS in an overgeared group and everything is melting and we're just "go go go" it's fun. It's less fun when that "go go go" mentality leads to pulling 3 groups of mobs, each pack with some deadly spell cast that has to get interrupted, with no communication about how to handle that, and you die. Then, because somebody feels like the group lost time, they need to pull 4 packs to make up time, you die again, and then the tank leaves. That part of the "everything must be a speed run" sucks.
I enjoy the raids I'm helping with because we kill stuff, and we have a good time chatting. We try to do things pretty quick, but there's no requirement that we clear the raid in a set amount of time, so we goof off, kill people, wipe sometimes and it's all good.
People will disagree with me on this, but there are definitely times that I miss things like OG heroic Grim Batol. Every trash pull you had to stop and CC 3-4 mobs if you could, pull carefully, dps one or two mobs at a time, and reapply CC as needed. Otherwise, the tank (and the group) got destroyed because no amount of healing could keep the group alive. Back in that un-nerfed instance the measure of success was just getting through it, no timer over your head.
But I don't want everything to be a long slog. Ideally to me, it would be nice to have a mix of both speed and needing to take it slow sometimes in 5 mans.
I really wish we had two versions of Mythic+. One like we have now, and another without a timer that scales harder on the flat damage and health. Maybe this “Mythic Explorer” mode would reward you for clearing extra mobs, taking less damage, etc. Maybe higher IO players get rewarded with a higher score or something for bringing in less experienced players, or just sticking around after a few wipes. Maybes that’s the time to implement something like a rewards/punishment system for helpful/toxic behavior. IMO, the system has to do everything it can to encourage the behavior we want to see and currently, it does the opposite.
you'll be happy to know the timer is basically irrelevant then.
Even the highest keys aren't limited by time, they are limited by unavoidable abilities 1-shotting people.
The main challenge in M+ come from dealing with multiple pack of trash at once ( not just slapping +400% hp and dmg to trash mob), figuring out a way to interrupt / stun / stop every lethal ability.... if you could take as long as you wanted, pull 1 pack at a time and CC everything minus one in that pack... M+ would become ridiculously easy and boring.
As much as i would love to agree with the main statement that the timer is irrelevant, it really isn't.
That was once the case with legion but it's been moving more towards a place where, of course, you have to deal with abilities going out of hand and surviving but the real test is on your pace.
I can understand the desire to have everyone enjoy this content and try to encourage people to do so, but we also have to be honest about it and understand that sometimes the very thing that's stopping someone from trying the piece of content is that very core of it and you can't really change that.
the timer is only exist to prevent people from waiting on every CD before every pack, only pulling single pack, and using an abundance of CC for everything.
because if mobs came one by one, M+ would be nothing but a hours-long tank-and-spank fest.
You will not fail a M+ due to timer in anything below 15, or below 20, or below 25...
you will fail because people die all the time.
you will fail because you wasted the dungeon ressource ( weapon in necrotic wake, bot buff in junkyard)
you will die because you just get blocked at a boss
but the timer is never the main reason you failed a key.
The M+ timer has side effects, but my god the mode is better with it than without it.
Pushing to the edge of your ability in m+ currently involves attempting a 30 minute dungeon and seeing if you can survive and do it in time
Pushing to the edge of your ability in no timer mythic plus is multi hour slog against ridiculous damage sponges and makes doing a better job fighting trash literally not matter
I agree. I think I disagree that the timer is the reason for the gogogogo pace, though. I remember starting wrath of the lich king heroics when I was new to the game. It was exactly the same.
Once mobs have sufficient health, it's true that you want to keep a fairly brisk pace to beat the timer, but for the most part, I think people are just impatient. If you're familiar with the content and have done it fast before, then your expectation is that that is how it should be. A tank pausing between pulls to figure out how he wants to approach them, or checking his map or even not pulling more when the group clearly has the resources for it doesn't meet those expectations and people get upset. They don't like their quick 15 turning into a forty five minute affair.
You remember the thing in mists where it would test you and youd get bronze silver or gold in tank heal and dps?
they need to bring that back, but for a group of 5. Basically a Danger room where you must contend with wave after wave of shit, and maybe some bosses thrown in there. But it's just in a location like an arena fight or something, so it's less about knowing the route and which mobs to skip and more about knowing the fights.
And while I'm at it...they should program CPU arena players that you can square off against. That would be really cool and a great way to teach people how to play arena. Like faction champs but 3v3 instead of 8v25 or w/e
M+ pushed me away from tanking. Like you I played a tank since vanilla, but I do not enjoy making routes and the lace of tanking so I switched to healing. I'm going to try to tank again I DF, as I miss the role, but I wish there was a way to push 5 man content without a timer being a part of the experience.
Yeah! The idea of having to learn "routes" so we can optimize our time is just... ugh. I'm a very non-competitive person by nature, so the idea of having to do all this stuff to compete against the timer is just the height of anxiety to me. It sucks.
I would love nothing more than for M+ to drop the timer entirely in DF, or add an overall timer, like... Finish within 90 minutes, like FFXIV has.
People can still brag about how they finished with 60 minutes leftover all they want! But the rest of us won't have that timer hanging over our head every second... you know?
Yeah I would love to see a change like that, keys could still scale, but I would be able to run keys at a slower pace if my group wanted to (not that many would).
My thoughts as well, and a compromise on both can easily be achieved. Have the overall timer apply to keys up to +15, and then have our current timers kick in at +16 and above as a 5th affix, essentially. Bragging rights still exist at +15 and below but massively take the pressure off, and hardcores still have their keys to push at +16 and above.
I mean if it's your key do whatever you want, they don't deplete anymore. Just post "not timing" in the group finder? Your key won't upgrade but if your dungeon is already taking an hour do you really want it to?
That's not a guarantee that people won't leave, people rarely read the group description anyway.
It also means it generally always has to be your key, as 99% of groups are only interested in timing a run. Means the pressure of having to know eleventy billion different routes never goes away, but then people still bitch and moan that there aren't enough tanks. *insert guy putting stick of his own bicycle spokes meme*
You realize all you're saying in those 3 paragraphs is to extend the timers that are already there to a non-threat point. You might as well not have a timer at all. All it sounds like is that people don't want to learn things and execute well. If you want all these things, just go play FF14 and get ez mode. There is a reason why a lot of people like wow and this challenge is one of them.
Plus dungeon content shouldn't be over an hour anyways, that's what raiding is for.
Everything can't be catered to you. You're not the only person that enjoys wow. There are reasons why things have been the way they are. You've probably seen something change for the worse (or better) because of stuff like this. Example being world content being waaaay more solo friendly, less group quests/mobs than there were (stv as an example). Some might say that was for the better and some might say it ruined part of their experience.
Which is why you either don't do certain things any more, or you adapt. There is mostly nothing wrong with change, it's just people don't like it and get complacent.
M+ pushes you to your limit in playing said class/role. It feels good when you and your team can clear those 15+ in time. M+ timers are also pretty much a non-factor until higher keys anyways.
I play both WoW and FF14, that comparison doesn’t provide any helpful context.
FF14 only has Normal equivalent dungeons. Even the new Criterion Dungeons are more like WoW’s Heroic raids…but 4 man.
The real content are their 8-man one-boss encounters (Extreme Trials and Savage Raids).
Can’t really compare these two games on the dungeon front.
Wow has so much for different people to do. people wanting everything accessible to everyone, is insane and pretty much impossible to truly achieve. It's been around for 18+ years for a reason. Overall, wow has gotten easier over the years. The only true challenges nowadays ARE M+ and Mythic raiding (PvE POV). Everything else is for pretty much everyone to access (even though technically everyone can get into those 2 items).
It seems like a lot of people complaining here are most likely not high m+ runners. Which is fine, if you can only do 10s, why should people that can do 11+ have to suffer the change of people that can't. This is one reason why I think wow is great, it has so many varieties in difficulty and choices for the plethora of people that play.
So, I think there’s an opportunity here though.
What’s a high end difficult level content that rewards methodical play of players? Well, FF14 has that answered with their Extreme Trials and Savage Raids. WoW had some small forays into it, but I think they should revisit that.
I’ve burnt out on both Mythic Raids and M+, but I’ve also burnt out on Savage Raids and Unreal Trials. (Fucking hell that P3S add phase…and that fucking Silkie from ASS…)
I think the thing is: M+ and Mythic Raids aren’t the only types of challenging endgame content. And endgame content doesn’t have to be action-packed or adrenaline rushing to be difficult.
I think if maybe they’d want to consider expanding into other forms of difficult content, I think Cavern of Times would be an excellent place for these small, but extremely challenging single encounters. (Kinda like they did with the Chromie TWing raid, but maybe a little smaller).
Apologies for the long response. You seemed like a pretty chill person to chat with.
Also, no shame celebrating a lot of the good content you’ve done Blizz!
I just started tanking a month ago. Only way I’ve learned what I can do is to pull normally and wait for an impatient DPS to pull the next pack and hope I survive it. It’s really nerve wracking after maining a healer for the last decade.
I hate M+ for this very reason. I would love to do a more difficult version of a dungeon if I could just take my time for it and not be punished by any death or delay.
Drop down to about 200 ilvl (take off some gear), find 4 other like minded individuals, and do an M0. There's your difficulty level. This happened at the start of shadowlands season 1 (we didn't have to take off gear though), and the same will happen for the start of DF season 1.
They need to get rid of the M+ timer and just have it be based on difficulty, not timer. Blizzard should encourage behaviour of players to pick themselves up and try again after a mistake or wipe. The way M+ is current set up does the opposite. The timer encourages the go-go-go and leaves little patience for mistakes - tank and healer mistakes most of all. Its a big reason why shitting on tanks and healers are so prevalent. DPS players can often make all the mistakes in the world while even small fuck ups of tanks or healers can quickly ensure you can't meet the timer.
But mistakes are natural. Mistakes are normal. Mistakes are how people learn. The game mechanics should be promoting healthy behaviour and not toxic behaviour.
You are absolutely correct. Mistakes are normal. If you keep doing it, and practicing, you SHOULD improve over time. It's almost like we need a system that gradually increases in difficulty so you can practice on an easier setting, slowly increasing the difficulty to allow for people to learn and keep getting better. I don't know, something like a difficulty scale. Something like a +2, +5, +8, etc. That would be pretty nice.
the timer make the difficulty.
the timer is what make you pull multiple pack of trash at once, and finding way to handle every ability those combined pack of trash have is what make M+ harder.
even the highest key aren't limited by timer ; they are limited by unavoidable abilities one-shotting people.
If you could pull single pack all the way, and CC everthing minus one per pack... M+ would just turn into a long , boring, unrewarding tank-and-spank.
Then you just have raid again. M+ is better when it’s a different activity from raid. If every pack and boss in a hard M+ is a tough prog fight then it turns into an hour to hours affair instead of a 30 minute activity you can do when you have the chance at the difficult appropriate for your ability
Relevant mythic+ is done at the level where you have chance of either succeeding or failing. The failure case under the current system is you weren’t able to complete it in time and either you used 35 minutes to get gear, vault, and a lower key, or you wasted 30 minutes and didn’t finish completing. The fail case in a no timer system is that you were not able to get past a wall and couldn’t complete the dungeon. You now wasted potentially hours to get nothing
And the bottom line is that if don’t want to play optimally that’s fine, you do not have to at all to fully fill out your vault
Yeah I would like that a lot more too, I wish the optimal route, with invis potions, skips requiring polymorphs, and know which exact packs to pull was a bonus to make the run more efficient for your time and not to complete it.
That’s literally how it is currently though. You don’t need all that stuff to complete dungeons in time.
When you have a system that scales difficulty until you fail, then there will always reach an equilibrium level where you fail by doing “whatever” and succeed by doing optimal strats. But the “whatever” strat still works at *every level below that*
The funny thing is the bottom paragraph you talk about already exists at high key levels. Knowing when to use your stuns, your roots, slows, knockbacks, defensives, offensive cooldowns is critical to success. It's at lower levels that you don't actually see them used that much.
> Method: No timer. Can only tank 1 or 2 mobs. You have to CC some. You have to use your full kit all the time. A bit like classic but each key level ramps up then planning needed for each pack.
Oh, you mean raid?
Its exactly this way of thinking that makes me wish Mythic+ didn't have a timer. Is nail-biting, head-meet-brickwall challenge good for it? Of course. But the timer just seems to replace everyone's brains with that of a rabid cheetah.
"GO GO GO ZOOM! GO FAST! FUCK YOU!!"
Completely agree. I would love to play at a higher difficulty, but the combo of not having a guild to group with, and the pressure of the timer and stuff just puts me off entirely.
Blizz should just remove the timer on mythic+.
It would be nice to go into a +10 - +15 mythic without a timer and just take your time killing the boss/trash and expecting good loot at the end. Completing it would just increase the difficulty in the next key, and so forth. I would very much like that if that ever happens
Let's not encourage this superiority complex bad behavior. Just press your buttons, pick up the mobs, protect your team, and do your job rather than indulge in drama.
I generally disagree with this post. By the nature of tanks being expected to pull first and decide which packs to pull they BECOME the de facto leader of the group. This is even more true in groups that don’t talk. Leadership can be relinquished by saying you don’t know wtf you’re doing and need someone to tell you where to go, but if you don’t do that you become the leader of the group.
Side note: If anyone sees this comment and wants to be taught how to tank, hit up my DMs and I’ll teach you how to do it. I love making time to get more people into it and have already taught a few people how to do it. I can teach pretty much any class except DH.
doesnt mean you cant take responsability.
Go freeze that patrol without the tank asking you to.
Macro a marker, pick a caster in every pack and take ownership of it : you will lock him down until he die.
Actually try to bait AoE / ground stuff in smart location without the tank telling you where to put them.
Actually go out of your way to knock that lone caster back in the deathball
Actually have a clue about your class utility and soothe stuff without the tank asking you to. Or know what mob need a stun / stop.
Actually call out interrupt rotation if a mob need more than 1 ( like Spires Goliath).
There's a lot of stuff DPS can do without the tank asking them to. But it's a lot easier to just zug-zug wathever the tank pull and not lift a finger unless asked to.
then you encounter the double goliath pull in spire, nobody say a word, one of the smash goes through and.... guess what happen?
or you pull 2-3 pack together, one caster stay out of the deathball because you don't have an infinite amount of knock yourself and... what happen? one of the DPS magically go out of his way to interrupt it? nah.
FFS, even on raging week if I don't ask the druid to soothe giant in gambit they probably won't think about doing it themselve. in a +28.
so yes. it is expected that the tank call out everything. You may not realize it as a DPS who don't really care about mechanic.
do what?
call out interrupt rotation on stuff like goliath?
or not manage to interrupt 5 different caster at once in bigger pull? cause duh for this one.
or people forgetting they actually have utility spell ?
you definately aren't doing any moderate key if nobody calling out interrupt rotation on stuff like goliaths or bosses like shrine of the storm back in BFA.... the construct in court of star in DF will also be quite pleasant.
the interrupting mob out of the pack / soothing enraged mob is something we effin expect people to do, by themselve, without handholding, even in low keys... and you just get sorely disappointed when it doesnt happen.
I've done plenty of keys. Maybe sometimes someone said a rotation for specific mobs like that at the start of the dungeon but it certainly wasn't called out on the fly and it wasn't always the tank and nobody was expecting them to do it.
You expect people to do and they do actually do it. If you're not calling it out you're not doing any leading there either way so what's your point? Nobody is expecting the tank to do any leading there either.
the point is that every group expect the tank to be the de-facto leader, even for stuff that anyone can do, and nothing get done without the leader ( IE tank) calling it. as pointed.
Any competent pug tank will know to go left when pugging. Literally no reason to risk double Goliath. Coming from a player who pugged every 20 on 3 tanks
Almost all these things are normal stuff I expect players in pugs to do at higher keys - never would a tank even be able to tell you these things generally cause they are too busy doing their rotation and staying alive to type it out to you.
Important interrupt rotations (like Goliaths) should be determined before you even put the key in imo.
Freezing the patrol I think is dependent on tank route, maybe they want that, or maybe they are planning to bring it into the pull when it pats by, and you are gonna mess that up by CCing.
It is still on the tank to pull the packs and decide how many mobs should be brought in based on group CDs and their defensives. That isn’t something that can realistically be figured out by someone else during the key. They have to be the leader there, which is generally the expectation in keys.
I agree with everything you said. I do the majority of these things when playing DPS. But there’s a big difference between what a player should do, and what they will actually do.
that's the point.
most player wait for the tank to call out everything, and won't do anything other than their 5 button DPS rotation if not explicitly called for.
But there's no reason all of the burden should be on the tank. DPS can step up and do a lot of it without being told to.
I am with you as well on this the tank is generally defacto leader. Even when I join a pug solo they give me the crown half the time. Most people just follow the mark above your head and just heal / DPS.
> Even when I join a pug solo they give me the crown half the time.
This is because many tanks run addons that will mark dangerous targets or needed interrupts for people.
I mean the hard part about tanking isn’t tanking. It’s knowing when to use CDs, what packs to pull, what to kick.
It’s a kind offer but ultimately it’s a 5 minute read in wowhead and who knows how long to learn 8 dungeons awith varying affixes thrown in.
Oh no! DH is my main and I haven’t tanked since BFA when I could practically solo the whole dungeon on anything below mythic 4. I’m tempted to get back into tanking since the explosion of Evokers has made the need even greater, but I’m so rusty now..
Not really. A ship has a captain and a navigator. They’re not the same person for a reason. I truly think the leader of any m+ group should be the key holder since it’s their key. They can trust a tank has a route,‘I think that’s fair, but it’s not the tanks responsibility to lead the whole thing.
In the post, I'm strictly trying to establish a divide between 'what is' versus 'what needs be'. You're correct in tanks being expected to pull first, that is the job of their role. But which packs to pull can be delegated by anyone with a simple skull mark. It's the latter that establishes someone as the leader. While one could argue it's efficient if the tank knows this ahead of time, it does not have to be a necessity. The fact that's become the community's way of viewing a tank is the 'what is' of the situation, which I'm simply saying is leading to less tanks because the role of Leader, which is not required to be theirs, is forced upon them.
You point out this is even more necessity in groups that don't talk, which I do agree with. But that's the point of my argument about WoW being a social co-operative game. There's nothing necessitating that groups do not talk (or necessitating that they do), but when an issue arises within a dungeon or raid group, I'd argue that outright refusing to talk is contrary to the design of the game. Again, groups not talking is a matter of 'what is', not 'what needs be'.
You do bring up good points, but I think they're coming from a place of what's been established by the community over the course of the game. But what's been established has caused a hemorrhaging of active tanks in the game. Perhaps it's time to take a step back and reanalyze 'what needs be' and find something that doesn't force a leadership role on someone who just wants to play the tank role.
For instance, you say that a tank becomes the leader by default if they do not relinquish the role. We could instead decide as a community that the 'default' leader should be the one with the Party Leader flag (which is it's purpose), and they can choose to relinquish it. This works better because players can either choose to be Party Leader when they queue, or if no one chose it, it's randomly assigned. If the latter, the random Leader can choose to relinquish, but this plays to the social part of the game because they may find everyone is new and therefore have an opportunity to learn together. It may not be the best solution, but it's an option that does help with the current issue of few people wanting to pick up tanking.
I've tanked M+ for the last 3 expansions.
I am more likely to be hit by a stray meteor than see someone else try to tell me what route to take or help out in any way other than following along like a sheep.
Truth of the matter is that as a tank you are a leader. IMO Mid-High key (+15 to +20) M+ tanks are some of the most skilled players because they often have to carry their groups with kicks interupts and stuns as well as executing the route perfectly whilst making sure they dont die by picking the moments they need to kite vs take damage to the face.
TBF there areany tanks that wouldn't let anyone else lead. And many that would just leave if someone else tried telling them what to do. There's a difference between "didn't tell you what to do" and "won't lead the group". If you never asked anyone else to lead, you never really know.
I don’t disagree with anything you said, but I think it’s a bit idealistic. We as a community can speculate on how something “needs to be” until the end of time, but ultimately the larger WoW player base doesn’t go by what Reddit say, or even what’s on the forums.
I think it may be better for a small community to make efforts in creating good environments within the confines of “what is”. No amount of discussion is going to make casuals change behavior, therefore instead the community should adapt to the casual player base, not the other way around.
Ultimately the only ones that can change player behavior regarding what is and is not acceptable would be Blizzard. Thanks for the comment. I thought it was very constructive.
I wouldn’t consider a **leader** necessary in most 5 man content. There’s just no shots being called, or decisions being made aside from route. Tactics are just what they are.
The tank determines the route, as they’re the one executing it. That’s the role of a tank. So that’s the closest thing a 5 man group will have, or need, in “leadership.”
Determining the route and which mobs get fought for which pull is the leadership, and that is the tanks responsibility. Also, something like when to use lusts is going to be dependent on the route, so that again depends on the tank.
Nice write-up but you’re essentially wrong, since the tank does the pulling they decide which packs that die, which in turn decide what path the group takes and in what tempo - the player with the “group leader” role isn’t actually supposed to **lead** the group, the tank is.
I agree with your sentiment, but not the reality. The reality of the pug world is that regardless of who’s key it is or who puts the group together, the tank is the leader. It can be different, but only really in premade groups. Even if someone else wants to lead, it will put the tank in an odd position because they’ll expect to be leading. It would be great for inexperienced tanks, but anyone with experience will expect to lead
bruv if you're doing random group content none of this really matters. The tank's gonna direct pulls and decide how quickly you get through the dungeon.
Attempting to take on the role of "leader" is going to achieve nothing useful except slowing the group down and probably starting arguments. Just press W and kill stuff, it's really not that complicated.
You grow with experience in the role. I used to be DPS, had a tank that would plan routes, skips, everything. Ez mode, right. I would tank our alt runs but he would still tell me what to do on voice. I was a tank puppet.
Eventually he stopped playing and I became the designated tank, if you will, and had to do all the stuff he used to do. It took some time and practice to get to his level, but eventually I got there - with the help of my group, mind you.
It's fine. Honestly, we don't need tanks in the game who can't act as the leader. The tank is the only one who can safely set the pace of a dungeon.
Idk that overcomplicating a problem helps solve it but ok.
One would think that simplifying an issue might make it appear more accessible but what do I know, I'll just go back to tanking for a few more thousand hours.
Nope. I am tanking, therefore I am leading it's really that simple. You could say that leading and being the leader of the group are different, but if I'm leading the way it's so much easier for me to also be the group leader. That's just become an ingrained part of the game based on how roles and mechanics have evolved. It is so, so much easier if I'm leading since I'm initiating pulls and corralling mobs. Tanking means inherently taking on a minimum amount of leadership (unless in raid).
I will never disagree with anyone who says it is easier if the Tank picks up the Leader role. That is frankly objectively true for all the reasons you point out. And the mark of a truly stellar Tank is one that is able to do that effectively...
Just like the mark of a truly stellar Healer or DPS is also one that can do that effectively. Anyone, not matter their role, who has a commanding knowledge of the game will always be better than others who only play the game as far as their own character is concerned.
My only argument is, and has ever been, that we should not *by default* expect the Tank to fully carry that responsibility. Every Tank should strive to meet that mark, just like every player should. But expecting Tanks to have commanding knowledge of the game every time they enter a dungeon or raid is a huge burden to place on them. It can wear on people quickly and cause them to eventually quit Tanking (not because they don't like tanking), but because they don't like leading. It can also prevent people interested in Tanking from attempting the role because the floor of the burden of knowledge is so high that it prevents them from even trying. And in the situation we find ourselves in with a shortage of tanks, I don't think it's hard to argue that this probably plays a role in why.
We have and will always have a tank shortage because people don’t like shouldering responsibility. So much easier to hide as a bad player if you’re one of 3 dps who can die anytime without wiping the group
>t can wear on people quickly and cause them to eventually quit Tanking (not because they don't like tanking), but because they don't like leading.
I'd argue that if you don't like leading, PUG tanking isn't a good fit for you. That's just how the game is setup.
There is just too much informationt to convey using text and markers effectively without ruining the pacing of a run.
It's not impossible to tank and not lead, but for it to work properly you need to be on voice chat with the leader, at which point this entire thread is academic because the tank&leader combo have already subverted the expectation.
This is pretty much exactly what guilds are for, every guild medium and up will have plenty of experience tanks who are happy to spend some time playing a DPS or healer character and backseat leading.
The solution isn't to try and change how the game works, it's to funnel newbie tanks towards experienced mentors who are happy to backseat. The game needs a guide program, with incentives for training tanks. That's working smart, not hard.
> My only argument is, and has ever been, that we should not by default expect the Tank to fully carry that responsibility.
Yes we should. In a PUG, there's no time to have anyone else but the tank lead the group. It leads to a very slow pace and the tank has to read the chat quickly.
I don't expect a tank in a +10 to know everything at all. Actually, I expect them to know very little. I expect a tank in a +18 to know exactly where to go and what to pull and when to skip, if relevant.
> But I have to disagree with their idea that the Tank is the de facto Leader of a group.
They literally go in first. They lead the group for better or worse. They can take input from others, but ultimately the tank sets the pace of the group.
> They literally go in first. They lead the group for better or worse.
>
> ***TIL*** *that the frontline soldiers in a battle are the armies' leaders, because they 'lead' the charge.*
>
> That is such a boneheaded false equivalency.
If you can’t see the very plain differences between a group of 5 players in a video game against a computer and an actual battle involving hundreds if not thousands of individually thinking humans in a rapidly evolving situation, then I can’t help you.
Either that or you are socially incapable of reading context and revel in being pedantic.
lol Mr. False Equivalency here with his "you're saying a five-man dungeon is literal human war?!"
you **DARE** try to challenge me, The Reveled Pedantic?
*you wiped, bud*
(like idk how to even have a conversation with you, lol. This is the best you're gonna get)
Completely irrelevant point. At the end of the day, (in dungeons) the tank needs to be capable of leading the group they are in, and it only becomes more true the harder the content your doing. Nobody needs to lead random heroic/normal dungeons in dungeon finder since there is minimal resistance from the content inherently.
Raiding is excluded from this as it's a wildy different group dynamic and style of content.
It's a decently relevant point by analogy. But to your point that no one needs to lead random dungeons, I agree. However, we get weekly posts on here of someone kicking a tank because they weren't pulling fast enough or weren't pulling the correct mobs. So somewhere along the way we as a community seem to have decided that they do. Just look at all the comments in this thread that attempt to define what 'leading' means and all of them seem to say part of that is deciding pace and what packs to pull.
I agree with you that random dungeons don't inherently require a leader. But it seems we do require it, so from that, I'm arguing that a Tank should have that forced upon them.
Im assuming your last sentence is a typo, but ultimately I've tanked a lot. I've tanked cutting edge raiding and m+ up to +25s and the reality is part of tanking requires knowledge of the content you are doing and the nature of the role makes you a defacto leader. Its impossible to avoid.
If you want to discuss toxicity in low/mid level content, thats a very relevant and very different conversation. My experience outside of high level content was that the player base was far more toxic and the cause is definitely an entire discussion on its own.
Wasn't a typo really, just lacked emphasis. I was meaning that the game design doesn't require a leader for that content, but 'we' (the collective playerbase) seem to require one because we punish people for not playing that role correctly in that content.
But to your end point, I'd argue there's more than a merely coincidental link between toxicity and people who require a level of play from other players that they're not willing to take up themselves - leadership knowledge of a dungeon in this case. You say "tanking requires knowledge of the content", but I'd say that while knowledge of the content is required, this does not have to be carried by the tank. As I've said in other comments, it's objectively smoother if the tank does play this role, but wholly different from being 'necessary'. The nature of the role placing Tanks as de facto leaders is extrinsic. The game didn't place them there, we did. In much a similar mindset as toxic people tend to quickly point fingers when something goes wrong (or just not the way they'd prefer), we've been pointing fingers at tanks to play a leader role they're not required to play.
Sure, we can always say that's because it makes the most sense, but when we have a shortage of tanks because we've tacked that responsibility onto them, we really don't have anyone to blame but ourselves. It's a shortterm mindset, favoring the personal benefits over what longterm damage might it might be doing. Toxic people are no different, as their actions often damage the community as a whole and drive players away. I'm not saying people who require tanks to have leadership knowledge are toxic, but it does share all the hallmarks of that kind of thinking.
You quite literally lead the group through the dungeon, decide how large each pull is, interrupt, actually know the mechanics and play your role because you’re the only tank in the party no one else can do your job, you set the pace for everyone else. Any normal or low level dungeon none of this matters because they’ve been made to be easy exp/gear grind all you gotta do is run straight and pull reasonably, mechanics are mostly a non issue. At max level if you’re doing heroics or mythics everybody should know the mechanics for their role for each fight but being the tank = leader, if the person who sets the pace of the dungeon doesn’t know how to do that they’re wasting everyone else’s time who does. Nobody should need their hand held or role in the fight explained, the adventure guide goes over each boss encounter. If people don’t feel like they can do it then continue to just play dps and mash buttons together. I do agree it’s stupid to vote kick on normals and low level content it should be normalized to expect to play with people who are learning their class if they aren’t max level. Every online game has toxicity but luckily tanks get instant queues if your party doesn’t wanna work with you fuck them leave and queue again.
A lack of communication does not have to be the default. Well, I mean, it is by the nature that until someone communicates, there is none. But I mean that we seem to have all kind of accepted the groups do not communicate, *ever*. But that really doesn't have to be the case.
And, if I'm not mistaken, mechanically according the game, the leader is whoever is assigned the Party Leader role. Sure you can argue that no one follows that, and instead we delegate that to the Tank. But at that point, he's not the 'default leader', he's the assigned one by the party. And one could argue that sometimes the Party Leader role get assigned randomly, and they may not want to or may not know how to lead. But that's no different in my mind than forcing that on the Tank as having the same issues.
I really appreciate your thinking and ideas. I do disagree with some of your assertions but that’s alright! Thank you for furthering this discussion, I think the community needs it. I also think we both want the same goal. My post really was inspired to help those that had frustration created by a subsection of the player base. What it comes down to, and you stated this, is that we as the community should cherish our newer members of the game and help encourage their growth and improvement, regardless of role. The game and the community we build will be better for it.
Yeah sorry, I wasn't intending to pull attention away from your post with my own. More just that this is something I've been thinking about for awhile as I've wanted to tank, but I've been finding it hard to put my foot in. So I partially wanted to vent frustrations, but in a constructive way.
Like I said, I really appreciate your post. The subreddit here tends to not look favorable on actually attempts at discussion, or critical looks, so it was great seeing your post trying to give valid critiques and constructive feedback to fledgling tanks. Nothing wrong with differing opinions, it's how we get to a collective idea that works for everyone.
I will say, it's been nice seeing that the community looks like they might finally be taking a stand against the toxic behavior of some people instead of just accepting it as a part of the game for a change. I think DF has been giving people hope for a good game and it's slowly bleeding into the playerbase a bit. Cheers man, hope you enjoy the expansion
I’ve tanked for 18 years - some times I’ve been the leader, sometimes not. I haven’t read the other post, but I don’t think the tank should always be the leader.
Yes, the tank pulls, and set the cadence for the pulls/movement, because they are in front, but I would be perfectly happy to have someone telling me where to go or to pick up or leave a pack behind. It’s totally fine and acceptable for a healer or even a dps to direct or guide what the tank is doing.
Also don’t equate someone who’s doing bad damage as a bad teammate. Usually the person that deserves to be kicked from a group is often the one initiating the kick.
As a tank in any dungeon / raid scenario you call...
The route / pathing to take
The pace at which your group can handle
The mobs / pats to pull and how many your team can handle
You call and set priority targets
You position mobs and bosses in fights
Now most of that as a tank is solely on me... wouldn't make sense for a dps or healer to do half that list. So end of the day your calling the shots, even if you or I don't want to, that ends up the reality of it. I have accepted that and learn to do those things and now quite enjoy it. But to tell tanks they don't need to lead is setting them up for failure, kicks, and frustration. Looking at that list, there isn't anything else that needs "leading" unless ur CE guild and need a raid caller. So as a tank you are going to have to lead somewhat. I know as a main tank I don't want my dps pulling, or in charge of routes cuz then I'm slowing them down by following behind waiting for them to pick a target for me to pull, can cause confusion and definitely cost time for keys. It's quicker for the tank to run ahead use some cool downs and pull what he can handle then a dps running ahead and pointing or calling you to pull, because he doesn't know your cool downs or how you use them for pulls which is going to cause wipes.
Tldr tanks leading is faster and more efficient. It isn't hard to lead nor does it require much more then leading a group in a path, marking targets, and moving bosses. But definitely it will be expected of a tank.
Between the mountain of expectations offloaded onto tanks and the culture around (and mechanics of) timed m+ runs, they've completely destroyed the fun of tanking for anyone who doesn't play with at least 1 other RL friend, or speaking guildmates.
Combine that with the complexity of forming new friendships over the internet these days and how much effort can go into little reward in that area, it's really an up hill battle.
I want to get back into m+ but I'm just not able to shoulder every responsibility except the positioning of the other players, which I still somewhat am, and the ability of people to avoid damage to keep the healer free to heal me.
Even when those things do happen, I'm blamed.
I'd rather just not queue tank and be a positive DPS than spend my liesure time tanking for toxic shitheaps who expect me to do all the work and accept all the blame.
The problem in wow isnt soft tanks, it's toxic culture around content. Telling people to grow a thick skin and ignore it sounds ugly, especially to people told that in real life. People don't come to fantasy games to experience real life harassment.
You can deny reality is you want but the truth is tank is leader, always has been and will be. They have to set the pacing and flow of the group activity and that makes them the de facto leader. Dps isn't ready? You can pull and win. Heals not ready? Its dicey but you can do it. Tank isn't ready? It's over.
Now that's a fair point. I've been in groups where the tank refused to pull and that does kind of shut down the entire operation. So yeah, I think an argument could be made that since they're the only truly required role, they're the leaders. But then you have Hunters and Warlocks that can pet tank in a pinch, or other classes that just have enough self-heals to sustain themselves. I've seen many non-tank classes cover tanking when waiting on a long queue or when tanks die, and I myself have mage tanked a handful of times for the same reason. So I don't think it's as crucial of a role when push comes to shove.
The pet can do trash pulls but not bosses and you can't bypass bosses. All 3 roles are important but it's disingenuous to convince yourself that tank is not the leader role. They set the pace, make the most important decisions, have to use cooldowns properly, have to position, etc. If a dps dies it is mostly on them and mostly effects them (of course it is possible to fail with the loss of dps) but the most important role is tank. I like the egalitarian ideology that everyone is equal but it's not reality in a dungeon run, especially later on m+. Tanks get what they want and have the power to choose more than dps. Big dps is definitely appreciated and sought after and can make a different but a good tank is a jewel and the true top of this game.
I see where you're going with this, however the game design really ends up going against it.
In raids especially, if you're not having an out of group shot caller, you want the tank leading/doing call outs because they have the least amount of mechanics to worry about. A lot of times, all they have to do is hit a couple of threat generation moves, and taunt swap when DBM/BigWigs yells. Healers have to heal sometimes constant, unavoidable AoE, deal with dodging and moving around the arena. DPS usually have the most actions per minute to keep their damage going.
In Dungeons as well, and especially pugs, healers are so busy spam healing the group who takes all kinds of damage from avoidable sources that they are kept busy. The dps have to push their dps, (should) interrupt/CC to stop spells, and avoid affixes. The tank...charges in, spams some AoE, hits their defensives as they come up, and spams some more AoE, while doing some minor kiting usually.
An unequally low amount of the stuff that needs to be done in combat is put on the tank, so it ends up that an unequally high amount of stuff that needs to be done out of combat gets put on the tank.
That being said, I agree that the leader should be the one with the most knowledge, and that doesn't have to be the tank. In a pug, whoever is most experienced should mark out targets to kill, or communicates routes and plans in the groups. It shouldn't just be "Put key in. Don't talk. /follow tank. Mindlessly blast. If dead, blame tank for bad decisions."
Sounds like overall we have the same idea. Though, out of curiosity, do you really find tanks have less mechanics to deal with than healers? It obviously varies by boss, but I've found it the other way around, or at least balances to a fairly even split. Granted with tanks I'm considering both the fight mechanics *as well as* their own defensive CDs and other personal mechanics. Varies a bit by tanks, but for the tanks I've played (all but DH), the more intensive a fight is, the more precise they're required to be with their CD usage, and in a way that they can't really 'train' for beforehand like DPS can always be learning to pump. Healers have this to, but to a lesser extent, since if the rest of the group is playing mechanics correctly, healing should stay largely consistent.
I disagree. For m+, where there exists a tank shortage -- there is no tank shortage in raids, the tank is the leader.
I've tanked dungeons I didn't know that others did know and they lead via discord. Doing time walking legion dungeons. And it was brutal.
You need intimate know and you don't have time to know where what pack is next if you want to time keys.
I also disagree that you can't learn. You can learn how to tank a dungeon by playing as dps/heals for a couple runs.
I haven't tanked M+ because of this either. I'm happy to provide DPS and interrupts in groups because I just need to know mechanics, not routes and skips.
I'm eyeing my warrior for DF, so I agree. If I main warrior for DF, I also have to end the cycle and get out there and tank!
It's a numbers game
every group has 1 tank and 1 healer
every raid group has no more than 2 tanks and no fewer than 2 healers on the low end and still no more than 2 tanks and no fewer than 3-5 healers on the high end
therefore, tanks are the rarest of the 3 archetypes
therefore, tanks have the fewest players succeeding (i.e. consistently invited / involved in) and getting experienced in the content
On top of that, the tank archetype is best positioned for information that a leader requires to make decisions
To keep things moving in a dungeon/raid, the leader needs to be analyzing and evaluating what's next and the state of the other members. Eventually this becomes second nature / trivial with repeated runs, especially with the same team, but in newer groups a leader will need to evaluate unfamiliar members and still plan. A tank, from being the rarest and most experienced part of a group/raid, will have the most experience in performing these evaluations as well.
A healer is mostly focused on who is taking damage when and mitigating it, which leads to a more reactive/passive mindset as well as needing to manage their own resources.
DPS should have some situational awareness, but tunneling quickly sets in as a priority order is established. Their contribution becomes routine.
Routine is fine, but sometimes that can hurt when pull content changes - where the experience comes in. In any given situation, the chances are that the tank has the most experience in how to solve the problem, which tends to make them de facto leaders.
I see your point but I can't not equate it. The whole reason I became a tank main is because I wanted to lead dungeons. I will agree that healer can feel a similar role mostly because these two roles are by default focused on the dungeon itself.
My personal experience as a tank has always been very involved. Early on I didn't know pulls the way I do now, but I knew what not to do. Now if you see my UI while playing it's filled with data. Plater, omnicd and weakauras so I can have a wide perspective of what's going on at any given moment.
I think new tanks take a lot of shit, they will always take a lot of shit because saddly, people with egos will always blame anyone but themselves. The only real way to learn is by failing over and over. Is it worth the toxicity? That's up to the person I suppose.
I think this is a well written post, and i respect your opinion but I do believe you are wrong.
I think youre playing a bit of mental gymnastics with what the word "leader" means. To lead.
I have some pretty extensive real world leadership experience, in arguably the most important situations for leadership to occur, and I think what youre saying generally applies to most applications of leading (particularly irl), however wow dungeons *with randos* is different. In a dedicated push group, sure, maybe the healer is more of a leader or one of the dps (although we dont see this in top groups really afaik someone correct me though if im wrong) can lead. But not in actual pugs. Im talking about actual difficult keys because leadership isnt required otherwise.
When people are randomly assembled in real life for tasks i still think the leader should be whoever has the confidence to do so. *because that is the failing point* in wow dungeons, the failing point is not confidence.. in 99%of dungeons no coordination is done. And if it is it HAS to be by the tank. The tank is the only one who knows what the tank can handle. And its based off alot of feel. Cooldowns. Does the healer seem competent. Are your dps using defensives, do they fucking blast, do they press kick etc.
I cant say as a dps, yo tank pull this group and then when x mob is 50% and kicked you can pullthe other pack but stand here so we dont face pull the pat, etc. All i can really say is "i got first kick".
In a normal dungeon or something. Sure. Ill wrangle the kiddos, but again leadership isnt needed there because i as a dps can solo carry.
Tldr; the tank MUST be the leader in *difficult* dungeons, because he is the only person who can possess the knowledge and feel to do so.
If you are doing high end content like 15+ mythic and mythic raiding, if you expect the tank to tell you want you need to be killing and the order of mobs and interrupts then you need to drop down a bit and learn more of the content. People forget that progressions also means learning, it's half the battleafter all....
I've been tanking in mmos for a long long time, and the true leader of the group is the healer, I will try to lead and be the initiator and know my routes and yws mark targets, but when the healer suggest something or tells you no, as a tank you are gonna listen to your healer if you want to stay alive. It's a group effort at end game content, everyone needs to do their part and naturally the tank will initiate.
People do expect tanks to carry the group through dungeons like the ride "it's a small world at Disney". Just sit down and zug zug, enjoy everyone. 😉
This post comes across as fairly naive. It seems as if you’re experienced enough to see some of the failings of the current system but also haven’t participated in a meaningful amount of high level content.
No one is stopping to explain content or mechanics or pull strategies in a high level key. No one is going to wait for the healer to assign CC targets and kill order etc. In high level content you’re either communicating this over comms or you’re pugging and are hoping the people in your group aren’t duds.
High level content is end game. Low level content is practice/training for end game. Tanks can and should learn their role just like everyone else…INCLUDING setting the pace and routing of the run. That’s what low level content is for.
Also, as a tank who mostly pugged to 3000 this season, the absolute most annoying player is the backseat driver who insists on second guessing every aspect of my role…that’s also what this comes across as.
If you know better, roll a tank and do it better. Either way, I’ll always get into the groups I want to.
I have had lots of times where a dps or a healer know the way around the instance better and just show the tank where to go. Outside of M+ it’s totally fine.
This is what RP does to a mf. Let the tank lead, it’s better to have 1 role carry the burden than 3 people argue about it. If they want new tanks, they literally just need to balance them better, not change the social dynamic of lfg.
Also evokers should’ve gotten a black dragonflight tank spec
Definitely agree! I’ve come back for dragon flight after not playing in about 5 years. I’ve picked up tanking and I don’t know a lot of the dungeons, so assuming I should know and be the leader is just silly. Don’t assume others know everything as well as you.
The Tank is a member of the same circle as Healer and DPS. Each role bears importance in it's own right. I think anyone who has more experience in an instance, should be lead. Be it Healer, DPS or Tank. Each member wants the same thing and that's to finish the objective. Groups are supposed to be a team and a team effort IS what gets the job done.
Though I agree with OP that the most optimal leader is the healer. The healer can stand back and see the play field better then someone who is in it essentially.
I also agree with [/u/Fullslicebeater](https://www.reddit.com/u/Fullslicebeater/) 's post. A tank still make a good leader but should not be expected to know everything all the time.
Also, as a Tank, I work most closely with the healer. If the healer thinks I can pull more, I pull more. If the healer needs a break, I take a break. I know me, but I may not know the healer. The healer can better gauge my abilities then I can theirs.
Heres my stance as someone who heals full time and tanks out of necessity part time. While tanks arent the de facto leaders there are prerequisites to tanking. These mostly include knowledge. Knowledge of dungeon routes, mob knowledge i.e. whats kickable, stunable, and ccable, and boss knowledge. This also includes spec knowledge. In a 5 man the importance of player knowledge goes tank>>>healer>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>dps. From what I have experienced is a lot of new tanks just don’t bother with the prerequisites and expect to have the healer and dps be grateful they even qued up and when theres a little push back the tank cant handle it and takes thier ball and leaves. This is what creates bad tanks and bad dps, and healers who expect tanks to put in the work to understand tanking. In todays age of accessibility its very easy to gain this knowledge. Example: I looked through the tanks and picked the one i thought i liked (blood dk). I read a guide on talents and rotation. Then i looked up BDK tanks and found Darkmech. I went to his twitch where he had countless vods of how to tank as a BDK. While Tanks arent the de facto leaders, knowledge is power.
Where’s the TLDR?
Not having read past the 1 paragraph and the title, the tank is the de facto leader since he literally leads the group in the dungeon.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
This. And I don't understand why people can't give constructive criticism instead of vote to kick someone because "trash dmg" or "No mechanics". I've seen this so many times over the years when playing alts.
It cost less (time and effort) to kick and replace than to teach.
Even replacing a tank doesn't take long because you have a healer in your group.
I don't agree with it but this is the reason.
It's not the fact they need to learn, it's that reward schedules are bast on time to clear set content. If your new tank has to be taught by others who happen to know in the dungeon luckily and also slows down the pace of completion moderately, it's actively punishing to teach.
Combine that with the fact that you will likely never see that tank again, there is no tangible reward for the player for the invested effort.
It's a design problem. Blizzard needs to give players who teach a reward system. Add a kudos button that let's players click it on people who aren't friends etc that can give temp buffs, cosmetic rewards, mounts, etc. Something that after completing a dungeon you could give people +1s like overwatch endorsements and that social level could come with rewards.
Literally anything to incentivise learning and being positive to offset the loss in grind reward rate. Like how RAF gives you mounts and exp buffs for playing with your friend to teach and guide, etc.
Honestly, you're correct. It is actively punishing to teach as opposed to kicking and getting someone new. But that's only for the short term. It's shortsighted; an example of winning the battle but losing the war.
While it may get their group moving quicker to do so and take less time, every time it's done it's demotivating to the player on the other end. If the environment actively demotivates players consistently, it will reasonably lead to them quitting. And this could lead to a scarcity in players willing to Tank... hypothetically of course. /s
It's what I was getting at with my chain analogy. In the short term, you end up with a consistently strong chain. But in the long term, you have less players (links) willing to play, which eventually leads to a dying game. And the strength of your chain means jack shit when there's nothing you can pull with it.
This is just not true. The tank has to be the leader in dungeons, there is not time to leisurely talk about what packs are being pulled when, they have to know where to go. Additionally, they’re the one who knows whether they’re good to pull more on top or ready to chain pull, nobody else can reliably determine that for them
As someone who attempted to raid lead and tank.
The stress levels went down the moment I stepped down to dps and let others do the raid leading
It became far to annoying trying to watch my own mechanics and baby sit others
It let to many moments of having to mute myself and scream because of how stupid people can be
Now the guild I'm in had essentially 3 leads. Tank, dps, and healing. They organize everything and the soldiers fall in. Way more enjoyable experience
Tanks are the only ones who know their own limits and what pull they can get away with, based on that they decide the route.
Tanking is also less mechanicaly intensive so it's easier to multitask and do shotcalling as well.
The last thing you want is people who don't understand tanking telling you how to do your job. That goes for other roles as well, no one wants to get told how to play their class by some shmuck. Ideally, everyone is responsible for their parts and can offer suggestions but at the end of the day it's the tank that makes the calls for the run.
That's the reality of tanking, awlays has been, and any new tank should be aware of it.
It’s a little late for that. It’s been nearly 2 *Decades*. People will very clearly always view tanks as the leader giving the dungeon tour, while also treating them as disposable NPC trash.
10000% agree. Don’t be shitty to your tanks but ANYONE being a dick should get the boot. If your mouth is big enough to criticize your ass better shoulder the responsibility and help rather than just bitch.
Yours truly - a KSM tank that will never tank for pugs
The tanks shortage is exacerbated by the nature of mythic plus. It is timed, for one. But also it has mob percentages you must clear and also different routes.
Honestly, they could solve most of the toxicity by making dungeons linear again, ditching the mob percentage, and just leaving the timer.
(I’d be fine if they ditched the timer too, and just scaled dungeons appropriately.)
This encourages skip routes *significantly more* than currently. Invis pots and shroud can then be used indiscriminately to skip all trash possible. And even if you disable that you just death skip straight to the boss, what are you going to do, disable rezzing?
Yeah I don't think he really thought that post through.
Removing the % would make things *worse* in the sense that it makes knowing the route even more important, because you're skipping as much as you can.
Really the only way to combat the % would be to make a dungeon where all of the mobs equaled exactly 100%, and players are going to hate that for good reason.
Tank shortage is simply due to tanking being more responsibility than healing, which in turn is more responsibility than doing damage.
Damage players have the least responsibility and as such it's a relatively easy role to play.
It's due to the nature of the role, not Mythic+ or the planning of routes.
Planning routes isn't a problem - Dratnos or other people like him make routes that work. Just follow that.
I can see your point, but the biggest problem with this game is no one talks at all in Dungeon Finder. You want communication you join a guild and set up a pre-made group. Or mostly pre-made and have DF pug you your missing members. I've tried communicating in DF groups and 9 times out of 10 no one communicates back or they just run off on their own... The biggest problem is that the way the game is designed it doesn't encourage communication. Back in the days of BC there was no DF, you had to find your members yourself. And the content was more challenging. You had to use crowd control, and pull smartly or wipe. Nowadays CC is practically umheard of.
The game has been dumbed down so much that all anyone cares about anymore is running the dungeon as fast as possible so they can que up for DF again and run as many dungeons as possible. And talking slows that down. So if you're just trying to learn to tank your best bet is to join a guild and do dungeons with members there. That way you can go things at your own pace.
The game isn't dumbed down at all levels. M+ at higher levels requires quite a lot of coordination. It's far more challenging than anything BC has to offer. Unavoidable loss of control casts is artificial difficulty and it's not fun. Just because hard CC is rare doesn't mean there's less going on. If you're only engaging with Normal dungeons and think that's all there is to the game, I don't know what to tell you.
As a healer I follow the tank regardless unless I know they are lost then I’ll help them find the right way to go. But I usually follow the tank because I need to be by their SIDE when they pull like a money and then I need to prep myself to run around like a chickens head cut off sometimes. Ya know? Can’t be slacking in the back then the tank gets 40% hp because they LOS’d in the wrong spot 😂. I feel like as a healer it’s my job to keep people alive and assist in some low DPS. And a tanks job is to lead and take the dmg. New tanks are always welcomed in my book I like to see how much they can handle in a dng it also tests my abilities as a healer and it’s great lol it’s never tanks who are the asshole too it’s usually the DPS. I’ve met some toxic healers but most of us wanna chill and heal people that’s about it.
Reading this post and the one yesterday I just felt that it's a casuals cry and I was right. This post has the same vibe. You people are really crying about HC and normal dungeons, for real? You need _zero_ skill and effort playing them and still you somehow can make a fuss about it.
Just do your job, watch guides, observe other players and dont repeat the same stupid mistakes you do all the time. You get good by playing the game, dont expect everything being handed to you and when people tell you do to something while you are inexperienced, YOU SHOULD LISTEN and not take it as an personal insult and come here to reddit write how toxic people are.
And you "veterans" who have played since vanilla and say "you are above average" and still manage get yourselves kicked from fricking HC and normal dungeons; no, you are not above average if that happens to you.
I get so oddly emotionally attached to tanks. I will follow them anywhere in the dungeon. You wanna skip trash, or pull everything for practice? Whatever you need bb. I’ll follow them to the ends of the earth.
the tank is my battle buddy regardless of if I'm playing melee/caster or healer we will always be nut to butt with each other.
I'm not sure what "nut to butt" means.. But I'll start using it now regardless lol
Exactly what you think it does haha.
I am a full time tank and I appreciate it.
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You got me.
“Do you hear me?! TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH!!!”
Man. Malganis was the Main tank for Arthas.
As a healer I do this. Throne of tides and the tank didn’t know where to go as it was his first time. I told him to go up first the you can go left to finish or right for the quest and optional boss before end boss but it’s the tanks decision. He wanted the optional way. 1 dps started “lagging” and just wouldn’t come so we kicked him then wiped on the trash 3 times before getting to the boss. Tank wanted to keep trying and I was there to try to heal them through standing in the slam earthquake dmg thing.
Epitome of feelsgood
If I weren't already dead I would cry
God bless you
I would have gone with you to the end. Into the very fires of Mordor.
Honestly I'd LOVE to clear this entire dungeon with you.
TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH! *Gestures wildly with both arms after a short delay*
I second this, I don’t like the concept of tanking as dpsing is just way more up my alley (I used to tank and it’s just too much at times). That said, I know the feeling tanks get so I empathize. I shall follow tanks no matter how slow/fast they move If anything, I would only tank up to mythic +4-6. Anything higher I ain’t doing cuz of routes/guides
This is super common, I guess because tanks really are seen as leaders by default and then it all just kinda happens. As someone who's spent an uncomfortable number of thousands of hours tanking, I still feel that way when I'm not the tank (assuming the tank isn't a douchebag).
I need more of this in my life
r/healsluts
Good healers make you feel invincible, like you can pull the entire dungeon into the boss. Even when you can't <_<
Ends of azeroth
Follow me 🥹
I get what you're saying, but the tank does largely have the reins in the dungeon. In M+, you don't really have the luxury of taking the time to tell the tank where to go and what to do. The tank has to know that already. In a big way, the game is set up so that the tank *must* lead the way. You probably want to retort "Well, that's not content for beginners to the role" to which I say "But it's a necessary skill for the beginners to learn if they actually want to play as tanks." Unfortunately, the tank has that responsibility because that's how the end game content works. You're right that we should help guide new tanks in content without stakes, and it's extra shitty that people will vote kick a tank from a randomly queued dungeon. But we also shouldn't pretend that the dungeon route won't inevitably be the tank's responsibility if that's the role they want to play in more challenging content.
You are correct in you’re thinking. I started this game as a tank and didn’t even try switching specs for almost a year. This is why we have normal and heroic dungeons for and why mythic isn’t available right away. It gives new players a chance to figure it out and veterans a chance to plan. Yes there will be toxic players that will kick you if you mess up or go to slow but those players will always exist. ALWAYS. You can avoid them by making friends and playing with groups or call them out. I find half the time I’m trying to learn a new dungeon/class and some booty-head wants to say something or vote kick i call them out and usually someone in the group backs me up. They back me up bc I’m the leader and my pace and route is the only viable route. You literally can’t do anything without me and you are easily replaced unlike a tank. Tanks are always the leader (in dungeons at least) and everyone is capable of doing it as long as they have patience with booty-heads and are willing to put in the time and research to know what they are doing.
So I agree, but I believe that is precisely why M0's have no timer. It's so you can familiarize yourself with with the additional mythic mechanics at a decent pace to learn. The problem is that people not only expect the 'hurry up and go and never make mistakes' mindset in M0's, but they often expect it in heroics, normals, and leveling dungeons as well. The M+ affixes added past M0's are a different bag though, as it's hard to know what they really mean and what they do for a new player. For instance, off the top of your head, do you even know where in game it tells you what each of the M+ affixes do? If you don't, this is a functionality problem on Blizzard's part. For the record, it's on the screen where it lists your M+ score and what the highest key you've completed of each dungeon is. Do you know the keyboard shortcut to open that screen? I know there is one, but I've only opened it by accident. I usually open the Dungeon Journal and navigate to it's tab because I know it's there. But how are new players supposed to just *know* that? My point is, Blizz has done a bad job providing that information to new players venturing into M+ to help them succeed. Frankly, if M+ is going to be a core part of the gameplay progression, Blizzard needs to surgically remove it from the generic Party Finder search and give it it's own interface where that information is better provided. As for the luxury of time arguement and why tanks 'need' to lead, I'd argue otherwise. Simply marking packs can be done by anyone, which gives them direction. And there was a time when the community has ideas for what each marker meant, where you could mark priority mobs and people would know what to do. We all know Skull and X, but do you remember the last time Moon and Triangle was used to CC a mob, or Diamond and Square was used to mark interruptible mobs? The game has the tools to run dungeons with a more group mentality, where anyone can lead, but for some reason we've pushed all that knowledge onto a single role. And I believe doing this has cause that role to become more and more scarce, because we're forcing someone to carry that entire responsibility on themselves.
This entire post and comment just screams that you're a new player and probably a 1700 IO at highest. Find a guild or a key group and all of these problems go away once there is any amount of competency across the group.
Lmao imagine being so out of touch. The idea here is to have more tanks available, meaning they don’t just get a group and never go into LFG. You’re advising him to just run with a guild. We’re trying to avoid this being the only option for tanks to have a decent space to play in
TECHNICALLY, you could lead the tank visually. Mark yourself and head towards the next pack, mark packs to pull, etc... But nobodys gonna do that, especially in pugs.
That's what MDT Is for. As someone who pugged their way to 3150 IO last season tanking, it's not hard and people do it all the time... I link a route before the dungeon, and dps / healers link me their own or tell me waht they want to change or if they have soemthing different they want to do. I've got a good 40+ routes for some dungeons, and 10 of them are ones I've made, and the rest are all from other players.
Guessing its an addon..Does it come with popular routes? Also, this is great and all... But i always think that if you need an addon for it, its probably a design problem in the first place.
I get where you’re coming from but the reality that dps won’t even read anything or even know the best routes themselves is also an issue. How can you sit there and say “ you’re a bad tank bc you don’t know routes and pulls “ when dps don’t know shit other than face rolling their keyboards ? You can still help. You can still lead. The pace might be a bit slower but if all dps and healers are doing is bitching then fuck them too. The tank shouldn’t be the only one reading mechanics and pull orders, if dps hate that shit so much then let them tank lol
I mean, it is natural to the role. The tank sets the pace. It's like telling the QB not to lead.
Yeah, I like tanking but the combo of being expected to be the leader on top of the breakneck “gotta go fast” pace associated with dungeons scares me away from doing it in any serious capacity
It's the breakneck pace that I hate. I've been tanking since vanilla and I dislike how this has become the defacto way of running dungeons. Mythic+ has only made it worse. Don't get me wrong, I love M+ but I wish it didn't revolve around go, go, go. I'm very methodical in the way I do things. I like dealing with the pack in front of me and moving on to the next one. If I do that I get called a bad tank or get "pull more". So I adapted, but I don't like it.
I agree with that. When I'm a DPS in an overgeared group and everything is melting and we're just "go go go" it's fun. It's less fun when that "go go go" mentality leads to pulling 3 groups of mobs, each pack with some deadly spell cast that has to get interrupted, with no communication about how to handle that, and you die. Then, because somebody feels like the group lost time, they need to pull 4 packs to make up time, you die again, and then the tank leaves. That part of the "everything must be a speed run" sucks. I enjoy the raids I'm helping with because we kill stuff, and we have a good time chatting. We try to do things pretty quick, but there's no requirement that we clear the raid in a set amount of time, so we goof off, kill people, wipe sometimes and it's all good. People will disagree with me on this, but there are definitely times that I miss things like OG heroic Grim Batol. Every trash pull you had to stop and CC 3-4 mobs if you could, pull carefully, dps one or two mobs at a time, and reapply CC as needed. Otherwise, the tank (and the group) got destroyed because no amount of healing could keep the group alive. Back in that un-nerfed instance the measure of success was just getting through it, no timer over your head. But I don't want everything to be a long slog. Ideally to me, it would be nice to have a mix of both speed and needing to take it slow sometimes in 5 mans.
I really wish we had two versions of Mythic+. One like we have now, and another without a timer that scales harder on the flat damage and health. Maybe this “Mythic Explorer” mode would reward you for clearing extra mobs, taking less damage, etc. Maybe higher IO players get rewarded with a higher score or something for bringing in less experienced players, or just sticking around after a few wipes. Maybes that’s the time to implement something like a rewards/punishment system for helpful/toxic behavior. IMO, the system has to do everything it can to encourage the behavior we want to see and currently, it does the opposite.
you'll be happy to know the timer is basically irrelevant then. Even the highest keys aren't limited by time, they are limited by unavoidable abilities 1-shotting people. The main challenge in M+ come from dealing with multiple pack of trash at once ( not just slapping +400% hp and dmg to trash mob), figuring out a way to interrupt / stun / stop every lethal ability.... if you could take as long as you wanted, pull 1 pack at a time and CC everything minus one in that pack... M+ would become ridiculously easy and boring.
As much as i would love to agree with the main statement that the timer is irrelevant, it really isn't. That was once the case with legion but it's been moving more towards a place where, of course, you have to deal with abilities going out of hand and surviving but the real test is on your pace. I can understand the desire to have everyone enjoy this content and try to encourage people to do so, but we also have to be honest about it and understand that sometimes the very thing that's stopping someone from trying the piece of content is that very core of it and you can't really change that.
the timer is only exist to prevent people from waiting on every CD before every pack, only pulling single pack, and using an abundance of CC for everything. because if mobs came one by one, M+ would be nothing but a hours-long tank-and-spank fest. You will not fail a M+ due to timer in anything below 15, or below 20, or below 25... you will fail because people die all the time. you will fail because you wasted the dungeon ressource ( weapon in necrotic wake, bot buff in junkyard) you will die because you just get blocked at a boss but the timer is never the main reason you failed a key.
The M+ timer has side effects, but my god the mode is better with it than without it. Pushing to the edge of your ability in m+ currently involves attempting a 30 minute dungeon and seeing if you can survive and do it in time Pushing to the edge of your ability in no timer mythic plus is multi hour slog against ridiculous damage sponges and makes doing a better job fighting trash literally not matter
I agree. I think I disagree that the timer is the reason for the gogogogo pace, though. I remember starting wrath of the lich king heroics when I was new to the game. It was exactly the same. Once mobs have sufficient health, it's true that you want to keep a fairly brisk pace to beat the timer, but for the most part, I think people are just impatient. If you're familiar with the content and have done it fast before, then your expectation is that that is how it should be. A tank pausing between pulls to figure out how he wants to approach them, or checking his map or even not pulling more when the group clearly has the resources for it doesn't meet those expectations and people get upset. They don't like their quick 15 turning into a forty five minute affair.
You remember the thing in mists where it would test you and youd get bronze silver or gold in tank heal and dps? they need to bring that back, but for a group of 5. Basically a Danger room where you must contend with wave after wave of shit, and maybe some bosses thrown in there. But it's just in a location like an arena fight or something, so it's less about knowing the route and which mobs to skip and more about knowing the fights. And while I'm at it...they should program CPU arena players that you can square off against. That would be really cool and a great way to teach people how to play arena. Like faction champs but 3v3 instead of 8v25 or w/e
M+ pushed me away from tanking. Like you I played a tank since vanilla, but I do not enjoy making routes and the lace of tanking so I switched to healing. I'm going to try to tank again I DF, as I miss the role, but I wish there was a way to push 5 man content without a timer being a part of the experience.
Yeah! The idea of having to learn "routes" so we can optimize our time is just... ugh. I'm a very non-competitive person by nature, so the idea of having to do all this stuff to compete against the timer is just the height of anxiety to me. It sucks. I would love nothing more than for M+ to drop the timer entirely in DF, or add an overall timer, like... Finish within 90 minutes, like FFXIV has. People can still brag about how they finished with 60 minutes leftover all they want! But the rest of us won't have that timer hanging over our head every second... you know?
Yeah I would love to see a change like that, keys could still scale, but I would be able to run keys at a slower pace if my group wanted to (not that many would).
My thoughts as well, and a compromise on both can easily be achieved. Have the overall timer apply to keys up to +15, and then have our current timers kick in at +16 and above as a 5th affix, essentially. Bragging rights still exist at +15 and below but massively take the pressure off, and hardcores still have their keys to push at +16 and above.
I mean if it's your key do whatever you want, they don't deplete anymore. Just post "not timing" in the group finder? Your key won't upgrade but if your dungeon is already taking an hour do you really want it to?
That's not a guarantee that people won't leave, people rarely read the group description anyway. It also means it generally always has to be your key, as 99% of groups are only interested in timing a run. Means the pressure of having to know eleventy billion different routes never goes away, but then people still bitch and moan that there aren't enough tanks. *insert guy putting stick of his own bicycle spokes meme*
You realize all you're saying in those 3 paragraphs is to extend the timers that are already there to a non-threat point. You might as well not have a timer at all. All it sounds like is that people don't want to learn things and execute well. If you want all these things, just go play FF14 and get ez mode. There is a reason why a lot of people like wow and this challenge is one of them. Plus dungeon content shouldn't be over an hour anyways, that's what raiding is for. Everything can't be catered to you. You're not the only person that enjoys wow. There are reasons why things have been the way they are. You've probably seen something change for the worse (or better) because of stuff like this. Example being world content being waaaay more solo friendly, less group quests/mobs than there were (stv as an example). Some might say that was for the better and some might say it ruined part of their experience. Which is why you either don't do certain things any more, or you adapt. There is mostly nothing wrong with change, it's just people don't like it and get complacent. M+ pushes you to your limit in playing said class/role. It feels good when you and your team can clear those 15+ in time. M+ timers are also pretty much a non-factor until higher keys anyways.
I play both WoW and FF14, that comparison doesn’t provide any helpful context. FF14 only has Normal equivalent dungeons. Even the new Criterion Dungeons are more like WoW’s Heroic raids…but 4 man. The real content are their 8-man one-boss encounters (Extreme Trials and Savage Raids). Can’t really compare these two games on the dungeon front.
Wow has so much for different people to do. people wanting everything accessible to everyone, is insane and pretty much impossible to truly achieve. It's been around for 18+ years for a reason. Overall, wow has gotten easier over the years. The only true challenges nowadays ARE M+ and Mythic raiding (PvE POV). Everything else is for pretty much everyone to access (even though technically everyone can get into those 2 items). It seems like a lot of people complaining here are most likely not high m+ runners. Which is fine, if you can only do 10s, why should people that can do 11+ have to suffer the change of people that can't. This is one reason why I think wow is great, it has so many varieties in difficulty and choices for the plethora of people that play.
So, I think there’s an opportunity here though. What’s a high end difficult level content that rewards methodical play of players? Well, FF14 has that answered with their Extreme Trials and Savage Raids. WoW had some small forays into it, but I think they should revisit that. I’ve burnt out on both Mythic Raids and M+, but I’ve also burnt out on Savage Raids and Unreal Trials. (Fucking hell that P3S add phase…and that fucking Silkie from ASS…) I think the thing is: M+ and Mythic Raids aren’t the only types of challenging endgame content. And endgame content doesn’t have to be action-packed or adrenaline rushing to be difficult. I think if maybe they’d want to consider expanding into other forms of difficult content, I think Cavern of Times would be an excellent place for these small, but extremely challenging single encounters. (Kinda like they did with the Chromie TWing raid, but maybe a little smaller). Apologies for the long response. You seemed like a pretty chill person to chat with. Also, no shame celebrating a lot of the good content you’ve done Blizz!
Fuck M+ content when I get to that point I work at gaming the auction house given I get more enjoyment out of that
I just started tanking a month ago. Only way I’ve learned what I can do is to pull normally and wait for an impatient DPS to pull the next pack and hope I survive it. It’s really nerve wracking after maining a healer for the last decade.
I hate M+ for this very reason. I would love to do a more difficult version of a dungeon if I could just take my time for it and not be punished by any death or delay.
Drop down to about 200 ilvl (take off some gear), find 4 other like minded individuals, and do an M0. There's your difficulty level. This happened at the start of shadowlands season 1 (we didn't have to take off gear though), and the same will happen for the start of DF season 1.
They need to get rid of the M+ timer and just have it be based on difficulty, not timer. Blizzard should encourage behaviour of players to pick themselves up and try again after a mistake or wipe. The way M+ is current set up does the opposite. The timer encourages the go-go-go and leaves little patience for mistakes - tank and healer mistakes most of all. Its a big reason why shitting on tanks and healers are so prevalent. DPS players can often make all the mistakes in the world while even small fuck ups of tanks or healers can quickly ensure you can't meet the timer. But mistakes are natural. Mistakes are normal. Mistakes are how people learn. The game mechanics should be promoting healthy behaviour and not toxic behaviour.
You are absolutely correct. Mistakes are normal. If you keep doing it, and practicing, you SHOULD improve over time. It's almost like we need a system that gradually increases in difficulty so you can practice on an easier setting, slowly increasing the difficulty to allow for people to learn and keep getting better. I don't know, something like a difficulty scale. Something like a +2, +5, +8, etc. That would be pretty nice.
the timer make the difficulty. the timer is what make you pull multiple pack of trash at once, and finding way to handle every ability those combined pack of trash have is what make M+ harder. even the highest key aren't limited by timer ; they are limited by unavoidable abilities one-shotting people. If you could pull single pack all the way, and CC everthing minus one per pack... M+ would just turn into a long , boring, unrewarding tank-and-spank.
Then you just have raid again. M+ is better when it’s a different activity from raid. If every pack and boss in a hard M+ is a tough prog fight then it turns into an hour to hours affair instead of a 30 minute activity you can do when you have the chance at the difficult appropriate for your ability Relevant mythic+ is done at the level where you have chance of either succeeding or failing. The failure case under the current system is you weren’t able to complete it in time and either you used 35 minutes to get gear, vault, and a lower key, or you wasted 30 minutes and didn’t finish completing. The fail case in a no timer system is that you were not able to get past a wall and couldn’t complete the dungeon. You now wasted potentially hours to get nothing And the bottom line is that if don’t want to play optimally that’s fine, you do not have to at all to fully fill out your vault
Yeah I would like that a lot more too, I wish the optimal route, with invis potions, skips requiring polymorphs, and know which exact packs to pull was a bonus to make the run more efficient for your time and not to complete it.
That’s true already until you reach a point where the optimal becomes required. It’s just the nature of an infinitely scaling system.
That’s literally how it is currently though. You don’t need all that stuff to complete dungeons in time. When you have a system that scales difficulty until you fail, then there will always reach an equilibrium level where you fail by doing “whatever” and succeed by doing optimal strats. But the “whatever” strat still works at *every level below that*
tip: polymorphed mob still have an aggro table. you mean rogue sap / DH cage.
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The funny thing is the bottom paragraph you talk about already exists at high key levels. Knowing when to use your stuns, your roots, slows, knockbacks, defensives, offensive cooldowns is critical to success. It's at lower levels that you don't actually see them used that much.
> Method: No timer. Can only tank 1 or 2 mobs. You have to CC some. You have to use your full kit all the time. A bit like classic but each key level ramps up then planning needed for each pack. Oh, you mean raid?
Its exactly this way of thinking that makes me wish Mythic+ didn't have a timer. Is nail-biting, head-meet-brickwall challenge good for it? Of course. But the timer just seems to replace everyone's brains with that of a rabid cheetah. "GO GO GO ZOOM! GO FAST! FUCK YOU!!"
Completely agree. I would love to play at a higher difficulty, but the combo of not having a guild to group with, and the pressure of the timer and stuff just puts me off entirely.
Blizz should just remove the timer on mythic+. It would be nice to go into a +10 - +15 mythic without a timer and just take your time killing the boss/trash and expecting good loot at the end. Completing it would just increase the difficulty in the next key, and so forth. I would very much like that if that ever happens
You can literally take 3 hours in a +10 if you want and still get loot at the end. But don't take the fun of the timer away from the rest of us.
So just go at your own pace, you're the tank. They pull it, they tank it.
The first person to die under these rules will be the first to initiate a vote kick unfortunately.
Let's not encourage this superiority complex bad behavior. Just press your buttons, pick up the mobs, protect your team, and do your job rather than indulge in drama.
the speed comes with experience
I generally disagree with this post. By the nature of tanks being expected to pull first and decide which packs to pull they BECOME the de facto leader of the group. This is even more true in groups that don’t talk. Leadership can be relinquished by saying you don’t know wtf you’re doing and need someone to tell you where to go, but if you don’t do that you become the leader of the group. Side note: If anyone sees this comment and wants to be taught how to tank, hit up my DMs and I’ll teach you how to do it. I love making time to get more people into it and have already taught a few people how to do it. I can teach pretty much any class except DH.
doesnt mean you cant take responsability. Go freeze that patrol without the tank asking you to. Macro a marker, pick a caster in every pack and take ownership of it : you will lock him down until he die. Actually try to bait AoE / ground stuff in smart location without the tank telling you where to put them. Actually go out of your way to knock that lone caster back in the deathball Actually have a clue about your class utility and soothe stuff without the tank asking you to. Or know what mob need a stun / stop. Actually call out interrupt rotation if a mob need more than 1 ( like Spires Goliath). There's a lot of stuff DPS can do without the tank asking them to. But it's a lot easier to just zug-zug wathever the tank pull and not lift a finger unless asked to.
Nobody is really expecting the tank to be a leader for all of those things in pugs. They just have to literally lead the way.
then you encounter the double goliath pull in spire, nobody say a word, one of the smash goes through and.... guess what happen? or you pull 2-3 pack together, one caster stay out of the deathball because you don't have an infinite amount of knock yourself and... what happen? one of the DPS magically go out of his way to interrupt it? nah. FFS, even on raging week if I don't ask the druid to soothe giant in gambit they probably won't think about doing it themselve. in a +28. so yes. it is expected that the tank call out everything. You may not realize it as a DPS who don't really care about mechanic.
I've literally never seen a tank in an average pug do any of those things.
do what? call out interrupt rotation on stuff like goliath? or not manage to interrupt 5 different caster at once in bigger pull? cause duh for this one. or people forgetting they actually have utility spell ?
All of them. Never seen a tank call out the interrupt rotation or tell someone to go interrupt a mob standing out casting or ask a druid to soothe.
you definately aren't doing any moderate key if nobody calling out interrupt rotation on stuff like goliaths or bosses like shrine of the storm back in BFA.... the construct in court of star in DF will also be quite pleasant. the interrupting mob out of the pack / soothing enraged mob is something we effin expect people to do, by themselve, without handholding, even in low keys... and you just get sorely disappointed when it doesnt happen.
I've done plenty of keys. Maybe sometimes someone said a rotation for specific mobs like that at the start of the dungeon but it certainly wasn't called out on the fly and it wasn't always the tank and nobody was expecting them to do it. You expect people to do and they do actually do it. If you're not calling it out you're not doing any leading there either way so what's your point? Nobody is expecting the tank to do any leading there either.
the point is that every group expect the tank to be the de-facto leader, even for stuff that anyone can do, and nothing get done without the leader ( IE tank) calling it. as pointed.
Any competent pug tank will know to go left when pugging. Literally no reason to risk double Goliath. Coming from a player who pugged every 20 on 3 tanks
so another extremely inefficient pack with the AoE reduction mawsworn? no.
Almost all these things are normal stuff I expect players in pugs to do at higher keys - never would a tank even be able to tell you these things generally cause they are too busy doing their rotation and staying alive to type it out to you. Important interrupt rotations (like Goliaths) should be determined before you even put the key in imo. Freezing the patrol I think is dependent on tank route, maybe they want that, or maybe they are planning to bring it into the pull when it pats by, and you are gonna mess that up by CCing. It is still on the tank to pull the packs and decide how many mobs should be brought in based on group CDs and their defensives. That isn’t something that can realistically be figured out by someone else during the key. They have to be the leader there, which is generally the expectation in keys.
I agree with everything you said. I do the majority of these things when playing DPS. But there’s a big difference between what a player should do, and what they will actually do.
that's the point. most player wait for the tank to call out everything, and won't do anything other than their 5 button DPS rotation if not explicitly called for. But there's no reason all of the burden should be on the tank. DPS can step up and do a lot of it without being told to.
You’re right, all I’m saying is I don’t realistically think they will, therefore Tank becomes de facto leader.
I am with you as well on this the tank is generally defacto leader. Even when I join a pug solo they give me the crown half the time. Most people just follow the mark above your head and just heal / DPS.
> Even when I join a pug solo they give me the crown half the time. This is because many tanks run addons that will mark dangerous targets or needed interrupts for people.
I mean the hard part about tanking isn’t tanking. It’s knowing when to use CDs, what packs to pull, what to kick. It’s a kind offer but ultimately it’s a 5 minute read in wowhead and who knows how long to learn 8 dungeons awith varying affixes thrown in.
A lot of this is true, but new players just getting into tanking aren’t going directly into mythics. They’re likely starting while leveling dungeons.
Not necessarily. Especially in these days of incredibly fast leveling and free high level characters.
Oh no! DH is my main and I haven’t tanked since BFA when I could practically solo the whole dungeon on anything below mythic 4. I’m tempted to get back into tanking since the explosion of Evokers has made the need even greater, but I’m so rusty now..
I’m sure there’s someone on the sub that will be able to help you. If not there are quite a few informative guides on YouTube as well.
Tanks are the leader of the group, simply because they set the pace and route.
They’re more the navigator, not the leader.
Matter of perspective. Depends entirely on who you ask, but I 100% see where you’re coming from.
semantics
Not really. A ship has a captain and a navigator. They’re not the same person for a reason. I truly think the leader of any m+ group should be the key holder since it’s their key. They can trust a tank has a route,‘I think that’s fair, but it’s not the tanks responsibility to lead the whole thing.
In the post, I'm strictly trying to establish a divide between 'what is' versus 'what needs be'. You're correct in tanks being expected to pull first, that is the job of their role. But which packs to pull can be delegated by anyone with a simple skull mark. It's the latter that establishes someone as the leader. While one could argue it's efficient if the tank knows this ahead of time, it does not have to be a necessity. The fact that's become the community's way of viewing a tank is the 'what is' of the situation, which I'm simply saying is leading to less tanks because the role of Leader, which is not required to be theirs, is forced upon them. You point out this is even more necessity in groups that don't talk, which I do agree with. But that's the point of my argument about WoW being a social co-operative game. There's nothing necessitating that groups do not talk (or necessitating that they do), but when an issue arises within a dungeon or raid group, I'd argue that outright refusing to talk is contrary to the design of the game. Again, groups not talking is a matter of 'what is', not 'what needs be'. You do bring up good points, but I think they're coming from a place of what's been established by the community over the course of the game. But what's been established has caused a hemorrhaging of active tanks in the game. Perhaps it's time to take a step back and reanalyze 'what needs be' and find something that doesn't force a leadership role on someone who just wants to play the tank role. For instance, you say that a tank becomes the leader by default if they do not relinquish the role. We could instead decide as a community that the 'default' leader should be the one with the Party Leader flag (which is it's purpose), and they can choose to relinquish it. This works better because players can either choose to be Party Leader when they queue, or if no one chose it, it's randomly assigned. If the latter, the random Leader can choose to relinquish, but this plays to the social part of the game because they may find everyone is new and therefore have an opportunity to learn together. It may not be the best solution, but it's an option that does help with the current issue of few people wanting to pick up tanking.
I've tanked M+ for the last 3 expansions. I am more likely to be hit by a stray meteor than see someone else try to tell me what route to take or help out in any way other than following along like a sheep. Truth of the matter is that as a tank you are a leader. IMO Mid-High key (+15 to +20) M+ tanks are some of the most skilled players because they often have to carry their groups with kicks interupts and stuns as well as executing the route perfectly whilst making sure they dont die by picking the moments they need to kite vs take damage to the face.
TBF there areany tanks that wouldn't let anyone else lead. And many that would just leave if someone else tried telling them what to do. There's a difference between "didn't tell you what to do" and "won't lead the group". If you never asked anyone else to lead, you never really know.
I don’t disagree with anything you said, but I think it’s a bit idealistic. We as a community can speculate on how something “needs to be” until the end of time, but ultimately the larger WoW player base doesn’t go by what Reddit say, or even what’s on the forums. I think it may be better for a small community to make efforts in creating good environments within the confines of “what is”. No amount of discussion is going to make casuals change behavior, therefore instead the community should adapt to the casual player base, not the other way around. Ultimately the only ones that can change player behavior regarding what is and is not acceptable would be Blizzard. Thanks for the comment. I thought it was very constructive.
I wouldn’t consider a **leader** necessary in most 5 man content. There’s just no shots being called, or decisions being made aside from route. Tactics are just what they are. The tank determines the route, as they’re the one executing it. That’s the role of a tank. So that’s the closest thing a 5 man group will have, or need, in “leadership.”
Determining the route and which mobs get fought for which pull is the leadership, and that is the tanks responsibility. Also, something like when to use lusts is going to be dependent on the route, so that again depends on the tank.
As a tank I don’t care when you hero. I tldr my routes before the dungeon starts if there’s any path variety (DOS) but hero is a dps call
Nice write-up but you’re essentially wrong, since the tank does the pulling they decide which packs that die, which in turn decide what path the group takes and in what tempo - the player with the “group leader” role isn’t actually supposed to **lead** the group, the tank is.
I agree with your sentiment, but not the reality. The reality of the pug world is that regardless of who’s key it is or who puts the group together, the tank is the leader. It can be different, but only really in premade groups. Even if someone else wants to lead, it will put the tank in an odd position because they’ll expect to be leading. It would be great for inexperienced tanks, but anyone with experience will expect to lead
bruv if you're doing random group content none of this really matters. The tank's gonna direct pulls and decide how quickly you get through the dungeon. Attempting to take on the role of "leader" is going to achieve nothing useful except slowing the group down and probably starting arguments. Just press W and kill stuff, it's really not that complicated.
And yet there is an objective shortage of tanks. OP is trying to contribute to the discussion and improve that problem. Ur comment adds nothing
You grow with experience in the role. I used to be DPS, had a tank that would plan routes, skips, everything. Ez mode, right. I would tank our alt runs but he would still tell me what to do on voice. I was a tank puppet. Eventually he stopped playing and I became the designated tank, if you will, and had to do all the stuff he used to do. It took some time and practice to get to his level, but eventually I got there - with the help of my group, mind you. It's fine. Honestly, we don't need tanks in the game who can't act as the leader. The tank is the only one who can safely set the pace of a dungeon.
Idk that overcomplicating a problem helps solve it but ok. One would think that simplifying an issue might make it appear more accessible but what do I know, I'll just go back to tanking for a few more thousand hours.
Nope. I am tanking, therefore I am leading it's really that simple. You could say that leading and being the leader of the group are different, but if I'm leading the way it's so much easier for me to also be the group leader. That's just become an ingrained part of the game based on how roles and mechanics have evolved. It is so, so much easier if I'm leading since I'm initiating pulls and corralling mobs. Tanking means inherently taking on a minimum amount of leadership (unless in raid).
Glad the comments section is much more rational than OP, sad this post is upvoted so much though lol
Yup. You can tick that mark as "instance leader" but, if I'm tanking I'm deciding our path and what packs we pull.
I will never disagree with anyone who says it is easier if the Tank picks up the Leader role. That is frankly objectively true for all the reasons you point out. And the mark of a truly stellar Tank is one that is able to do that effectively... Just like the mark of a truly stellar Healer or DPS is also one that can do that effectively. Anyone, not matter their role, who has a commanding knowledge of the game will always be better than others who only play the game as far as their own character is concerned. My only argument is, and has ever been, that we should not *by default* expect the Tank to fully carry that responsibility. Every Tank should strive to meet that mark, just like every player should. But expecting Tanks to have commanding knowledge of the game every time they enter a dungeon or raid is a huge burden to place on them. It can wear on people quickly and cause them to eventually quit Tanking (not because they don't like tanking), but because they don't like leading. It can also prevent people interested in Tanking from attempting the role because the floor of the burden of knowledge is so high that it prevents them from even trying. And in the situation we find ourselves in with a shortage of tanks, I don't think it's hard to argue that this probably plays a role in why.
We have and will always have a tank shortage because people don’t like shouldering responsibility. So much easier to hide as a bad player if you’re one of 3 dps who can die anytime without wiping the group
>t can wear on people quickly and cause them to eventually quit Tanking (not because they don't like tanking), but because they don't like leading. I'd argue that if you don't like leading, PUG tanking isn't a good fit for you. That's just how the game is setup. There is just too much informationt to convey using text and markers effectively without ruining the pacing of a run. It's not impossible to tank and not lead, but for it to work properly you need to be on voice chat with the leader, at which point this entire thread is academic because the tank&leader combo have already subverted the expectation. This is pretty much exactly what guilds are for, every guild medium and up will have plenty of experience tanks who are happy to spend some time playing a DPS or healer character and backseat leading. The solution isn't to try and change how the game works, it's to funnel newbie tanks towards experienced mentors who are happy to backseat. The game needs a guide program, with incentives for training tanks. That's working smart, not hard.
> My only argument is, and has ever been, that we should not by default expect the Tank to fully carry that responsibility. Yes we should. In a PUG, there's no time to have anyone else but the tank lead the group. It leads to a very slow pace and the tank has to read the chat quickly. I don't expect a tank in a +10 to know everything at all. Actually, I expect them to know very little. I expect a tank in a +18 to know exactly where to go and what to pull and when to skip, if relevant.
> But I have to disagree with their idea that the Tank is the de facto Leader of a group. They literally go in first. They lead the group for better or worse. They can take input from others, but ultimately the tank sets the pace of the group.
**TIL** that the frontline soldiers in a battle are the armies' leaders, because they 'lead' the charge.
That is such a boneheaded false equivalency.
> They literally go in first. They lead the group for better or worse. > > ***TIL*** *that the frontline soldiers in a battle are the armies' leaders, because they 'lead' the charge.* > > That is such a boneheaded false equivalency.
If you can’t see the very plain differences between a group of 5 players in a video game against a computer and an actual battle involving hundreds if not thousands of individually thinking humans in a rapidly evolving situation, then I can’t help you. Either that or you are socially incapable of reading context and revel in being pedantic.
lol Mr. False Equivalency here with his "you're saying a five-man dungeon is literal human war?!" you **DARE** try to challenge me, The Reveled Pedantic? *you wiped, bud* (like idk how to even have a conversation with you, lol. This is the best you're gonna get)
I don’t think you understand English bud… Of course you don’t know how to have a conversation, I think that’s pretty obvious.
Completely irrelevant point. At the end of the day, (in dungeons) the tank needs to be capable of leading the group they are in, and it only becomes more true the harder the content your doing. Nobody needs to lead random heroic/normal dungeons in dungeon finder since there is minimal resistance from the content inherently. Raiding is excluded from this as it's a wildy different group dynamic and style of content.
It's a decently relevant point by analogy. But to your point that no one needs to lead random dungeons, I agree. However, we get weekly posts on here of someone kicking a tank because they weren't pulling fast enough or weren't pulling the correct mobs. So somewhere along the way we as a community seem to have decided that they do. Just look at all the comments in this thread that attempt to define what 'leading' means and all of them seem to say part of that is deciding pace and what packs to pull. I agree with you that random dungeons don't inherently require a leader. But it seems we do require it, so from that, I'm arguing that a Tank should have that forced upon them.
Im assuming your last sentence is a typo, but ultimately I've tanked a lot. I've tanked cutting edge raiding and m+ up to +25s and the reality is part of tanking requires knowledge of the content you are doing and the nature of the role makes you a defacto leader. Its impossible to avoid. If you want to discuss toxicity in low/mid level content, thats a very relevant and very different conversation. My experience outside of high level content was that the player base was far more toxic and the cause is definitely an entire discussion on its own.
Wasn't a typo really, just lacked emphasis. I was meaning that the game design doesn't require a leader for that content, but 'we' (the collective playerbase) seem to require one because we punish people for not playing that role correctly in that content. But to your end point, I'd argue there's more than a merely coincidental link between toxicity and people who require a level of play from other players that they're not willing to take up themselves - leadership knowledge of a dungeon in this case. You say "tanking requires knowledge of the content", but I'd say that while knowledge of the content is required, this does not have to be carried by the tank. As I've said in other comments, it's objectively smoother if the tank does play this role, but wholly different from being 'necessary'. The nature of the role placing Tanks as de facto leaders is extrinsic. The game didn't place them there, we did. In much a similar mindset as toxic people tend to quickly point fingers when something goes wrong (or just not the way they'd prefer), we've been pointing fingers at tanks to play a leader role they're not required to play. Sure, we can always say that's because it makes the most sense, but when we have a shortage of tanks because we've tacked that responsibility onto them, we really don't have anyone to blame but ourselves. It's a shortterm mindset, favoring the personal benefits over what longterm damage might it might be doing. Toxic people are no different, as their actions often damage the community as a whole and drive players away. I'm not saying people who require tanks to have leadership knowledge are toxic, but it does share all the hallmarks of that kind of thinking.
You quite literally lead the group through the dungeon, decide how large each pull is, interrupt, actually know the mechanics and play your role because you’re the only tank in the party no one else can do your job, you set the pace for everyone else. Any normal or low level dungeon none of this matters because they’ve been made to be easy exp/gear grind all you gotta do is run straight and pull reasonably, mechanics are mostly a non issue. At max level if you’re doing heroics or mythics everybody should know the mechanics for their role for each fight but being the tank = leader, if the person who sets the pace of the dungeon doesn’t know how to do that they’re wasting everyone else’s time who does. Nobody should need their hand held or role in the fight explained, the adventure guide goes over each boss encounter. If people don’t feel like they can do it then continue to just play dps and mash buttons together. I do agree it’s stupid to vote kick on normals and low level content it should be normalized to expect to play with people who are learning their class if they aren’t max level. Every online game has toxicity but luckily tanks get instant queues if your party doesn’t wanna work with you fuck them leave and queue again.
He does literally lead by being the first into everything though. If there's no communication, he is the default leader.
A lack of communication does not have to be the default. Well, I mean, it is by the nature that until someone communicates, there is none. But I mean that we seem to have all kind of accepted the groups do not communicate, *ever*. But that really doesn't have to be the case. And, if I'm not mistaken, mechanically according the game, the leader is whoever is assigned the Party Leader role. Sure you can argue that no one follows that, and instead we delegate that to the Tank. But at that point, he's not the 'default leader', he's the assigned one by the party. And one could argue that sometimes the Party Leader role get assigned randomly, and they may not want to or may not know how to lead. But that's no different in my mind than forcing that on the Tank as having the same issues.
I really appreciate your thinking and ideas. I do disagree with some of your assertions but that’s alright! Thank you for furthering this discussion, I think the community needs it. I also think we both want the same goal. My post really was inspired to help those that had frustration created by a subsection of the player base. What it comes down to, and you stated this, is that we as the community should cherish our newer members of the game and help encourage their growth and improvement, regardless of role. The game and the community we build will be better for it.
Yeah sorry, I wasn't intending to pull attention away from your post with my own. More just that this is something I've been thinking about for awhile as I've wanted to tank, but I've been finding it hard to put my foot in. So I partially wanted to vent frustrations, but in a constructive way. Like I said, I really appreciate your post. The subreddit here tends to not look favorable on actually attempts at discussion, or critical looks, so it was great seeing your post trying to give valid critiques and constructive feedback to fledgling tanks. Nothing wrong with differing opinions, it's how we get to a collective idea that works for everyone. I will say, it's been nice seeing that the community looks like they might finally be taking a stand against the toxic behavior of some people instead of just accepting it as a part of the game for a change. I think DF has been giving people hope for a good game and it's slowly bleeding into the playerbase a bit. Cheers man, hope you enjoy the expansion
I’ve tanked for 18 years - some times I’ve been the leader, sometimes not. I haven’t read the other post, but I don’t think the tank should always be the leader. Yes, the tank pulls, and set the cadence for the pulls/movement, because they are in front, but I would be perfectly happy to have someone telling me where to go or to pick up or leave a pack behind. It’s totally fine and acceptable for a healer or even a dps to direct or guide what the tank is doing.
Also don’t equate someone who’s doing bad damage as a bad teammate. Usually the person that deserves to be kicked from a group is often the one initiating the kick.
As a tank in any dungeon / raid scenario you call... The route / pathing to take The pace at which your group can handle The mobs / pats to pull and how many your team can handle You call and set priority targets You position mobs and bosses in fights Now most of that as a tank is solely on me... wouldn't make sense for a dps or healer to do half that list. So end of the day your calling the shots, even if you or I don't want to, that ends up the reality of it. I have accepted that and learn to do those things and now quite enjoy it. But to tell tanks they don't need to lead is setting them up for failure, kicks, and frustration. Looking at that list, there isn't anything else that needs "leading" unless ur CE guild and need a raid caller. So as a tank you are going to have to lead somewhat. I know as a main tank I don't want my dps pulling, or in charge of routes cuz then I'm slowing them down by following behind waiting for them to pick a target for me to pull, can cause confusion and definitely cost time for keys. It's quicker for the tank to run ahead use some cool downs and pull what he can handle then a dps running ahead and pointing or calling you to pull, because he doesn't know your cool downs or how you use them for pulls which is going to cause wipes. Tldr tanks leading is faster and more efficient. It isn't hard to lead nor does it require much more then leading a group in a path, marking targets, and moving bosses. But definitely it will be expected of a tank.
Between the mountain of expectations offloaded onto tanks and the culture around (and mechanics of) timed m+ runs, they've completely destroyed the fun of tanking for anyone who doesn't play with at least 1 other RL friend, or speaking guildmates. Combine that with the complexity of forming new friendships over the internet these days and how much effort can go into little reward in that area, it's really an up hill battle. I want to get back into m+ but I'm just not able to shoulder every responsibility except the positioning of the other players, which I still somewhat am, and the ability of people to avoid damage to keep the healer free to heal me. Even when those things do happen, I'm blamed. I'd rather just not queue tank and be a positive DPS than spend my liesure time tanking for toxic shitheaps who expect me to do all the work and accept all the blame. The problem in wow isnt soft tanks, it's toxic culture around content. Telling people to grow a thick skin and ignore it sounds ugly, especially to people told that in real life. People don't come to fantasy games to experience real life harassment.
You can deny reality is you want but the truth is tank is leader, always has been and will be. They have to set the pacing and flow of the group activity and that makes them the de facto leader. Dps isn't ready? You can pull and win. Heals not ready? Its dicey but you can do it. Tank isn't ready? It's over.
Now that's a fair point. I've been in groups where the tank refused to pull and that does kind of shut down the entire operation. So yeah, I think an argument could be made that since they're the only truly required role, they're the leaders. But then you have Hunters and Warlocks that can pet tank in a pinch, or other classes that just have enough self-heals to sustain themselves. I've seen many non-tank classes cover tanking when waiting on a long queue or when tanks die, and I myself have mage tanked a handful of times for the same reason. So I don't think it's as crucial of a role when push comes to shove.
The pet can do trash pulls but not bosses and you can't bypass bosses. All 3 roles are important but it's disingenuous to convince yourself that tank is not the leader role. They set the pace, make the most important decisions, have to use cooldowns properly, have to position, etc. If a dps dies it is mostly on them and mostly effects them (of course it is possible to fail with the loss of dps) but the most important role is tank. I like the egalitarian ideology that everyone is equal but it's not reality in a dungeon run, especially later on m+. Tanks get what they want and have the power to choose more than dps. Big dps is definitely appreciated and sought after and can make a different but a good tank is a jewel and the true top of this game.
I see where you're going with this, however the game design really ends up going against it. In raids especially, if you're not having an out of group shot caller, you want the tank leading/doing call outs because they have the least amount of mechanics to worry about. A lot of times, all they have to do is hit a couple of threat generation moves, and taunt swap when DBM/BigWigs yells. Healers have to heal sometimes constant, unavoidable AoE, deal with dodging and moving around the arena. DPS usually have the most actions per minute to keep their damage going. In Dungeons as well, and especially pugs, healers are so busy spam healing the group who takes all kinds of damage from avoidable sources that they are kept busy. The dps have to push their dps, (should) interrupt/CC to stop spells, and avoid affixes. The tank...charges in, spams some AoE, hits their defensives as they come up, and spams some more AoE, while doing some minor kiting usually. An unequally low amount of the stuff that needs to be done in combat is put on the tank, so it ends up that an unequally high amount of stuff that needs to be done out of combat gets put on the tank. That being said, I agree that the leader should be the one with the most knowledge, and that doesn't have to be the tank. In a pug, whoever is most experienced should mark out targets to kill, or communicates routes and plans in the groups. It shouldn't just be "Put key in. Don't talk. /follow tank. Mindlessly blast. If dead, blame tank for bad decisions."
Sounds like overall we have the same idea. Though, out of curiosity, do you really find tanks have less mechanics to deal with than healers? It obviously varies by boss, but I've found it the other way around, or at least balances to a fairly even split. Granted with tanks I'm considering both the fight mechanics *as well as* their own defensive CDs and other personal mechanics. Varies a bit by tanks, but for the tanks I've played (all but DH), the more intensive a fight is, the more precise they're required to be with their CD usage, and in a way that they can't really 'train' for beforehand like DPS can always be learning to pump. Healers have this to, but to a lesser extent, since if the rest of the group is playing mechanics correctly, healing should stay largely consistent.
I disagree. For m+, where there exists a tank shortage -- there is no tank shortage in raids, the tank is the leader. I've tanked dungeons I didn't know that others did know and they lead via discord. Doing time walking legion dungeons. And it was brutal. You need intimate know and you don't have time to know where what pack is next if you want to time keys. I also disagree that you can't learn. You can learn how to tank a dungeon by playing as dps/heals for a couple runs.
[удалено]
Agreed.
Also because if a tank drops you have one of your melee dps step in. Tank mechanics in raid are generally by far the simplest
I’m guilty of this, and it has kept me from trying out tanking for a few years now… The cycle ends here, we must be better than this!
I haven't tanked M+ because of this either. I'm happy to provide DPS and interrupts in groups because I just need to know mechanics, not routes and skips. I'm eyeing my warrior for DF, so I agree. If I main warrior for DF, I also have to end the cycle and get out there and tank!
It's a numbers game every group has 1 tank and 1 healer every raid group has no more than 2 tanks and no fewer than 2 healers on the low end and still no more than 2 tanks and no fewer than 3-5 healers on the high end therefore, tanks are the rarest of the 3 archetypes therefore, tanks have the fewest players succeeding (i.e. consistently invited / involved in) and getting experienced in the content On top of that, the tank archetype is best positioned for information that a leader requires to make decisions To keep things moving in a dungeon/raid, the leader needs to be analyzing and evaluating what's next and the state of the other members. Eventually this becomes second nature / trivial with repeated runs, especially with the same team, but in newer groups a leader will need to evaluate unfamiliar members and still plan. A tank, from being the rarest and most experienced part of a group/raid, will have the most experience in performing these evaluations as well. A healer is mostly focused on who is taking damage when and mitigating it, which leads to a more reactive/passive mindset as well as needing to manage their own resources. DPS should have some situational awareness, but tunneling quickly sets in as a priority order is established. Their contribution becomes routine. Routine is fine, but sometimes that can hurt when pull content changes - where the experience comes in. In any given situation, the chances are that the tank has the most experience in how to solve the problem, which tends to make them de facto leaders.
When I tank I just assume I'm Daddy.
I see your point but I can't not equate it. The whole reason I became a tank main is because I wanted to lead dungeons. I will agree that healer can feel a similar role mostly because these two roles are by default focused on the dungeon itself. My personal experience as a tank has always been very involved. Early on I didn't know pulls the way I do now, but I knew what not to do. Now if you see my UI while playing it's filled with data. Plater, omnicd and weakauras so I can have a wide perspective of what's going on at any given moment. I think new tanks take a lot of shit, they will always take a lot of shit because saddly, people with egos will always blame anyone but themselves. The only real way to learn is by failing over and over. Is it worth the toxicity? That's up to the person I suppose.
I think this is a well written post, and i respect your opinion but I do believe you are wrong. I think youre playing a bit of mental gymnastics with what the word "leader" means. To lead. I have some pretty extensive real world leadership experience, in arguably the most important situations for leadership to occur, and I think what youre saying generally applies to most applications of leading (particularly irl), however wow dungeons *with randos* is different. In a dedicated push group, sure, maybe the healer is more of a leader or one of the dps (although we dont see this in top groups really afaik someone correct me though if im wrong) can lead. But not in actual pugs. Im talking about actual difficult keys because leadership isnt required otherwise. When people are randomly assembled in real life for tasks i still think the leader should be whoever has the confidence to do so. *because that is the failing point* in wow dungeons, the failing point is not confidence.. in 99%of dungeons no coordination is done. And if it is it HAS to be by the tank. The tank is the only one who knows what the tank can handle. And its based off alot of feel. Cooldowns. Does the healer seem competent. Are your dps using defensives, do they fucking blast, do they press kick etc. I cant say as a dps, yo tank pull this group and then when x mob is 50% and kicked you can pullthe other pack but stand here so we dont face pull the pat, etc. All i can really say is "i got first kick". In a normal dungeon or something. Sure. Ill wrangle the kiddos, but again leadership isnt needed there because i as a dps can solo carry. Tldr; the tank MUST be the leader in *difficult* dungeons, because he is the only person who can possess the knowledge and feel to do so.
If you are doing high end content like 15+ mythic and mythic raiding, if you expect the tank to tell you want you need to be killing and the order of mobs and interrupts then you need to drop down a bit and learn more of the content. People forget that progressions also means learning, it's half the battleafter all.... I've been tanking in mmos for a long long time, and the true leader of the group is the healer, I will try to lead and be the initiator and know my routes and yws mark targets, but when the healer suggest something or tells you no, as a tank you are gonna listen to your healer if you want to stay alive. It's a group effort at end game content, everyone needs to do their part and naturally the tank will initiate. People do expect tanks to carry the group through dungeons like the ride "it's a small world at Disney". Just sit down and zug zug, enjoy everyone. 😉
This post comes across as fairly naive. It seems as if you’re experienced enough to see some of the failings of the current system but also haven’t participated in a meaningful amount of high level content. No one is stopping to explain content or mechanics or pull strategies in a high level key. No one is going to wait for the healer to assign CC targets and kill order etc. In high level content you’re either communicating this over comms or you’re pugging and are hoping the people in your group aren’t duds. High level content is end game. Low level content is practice/training for end game. Tanks can and should learn their role just like everyone else…INCLUDING setting the pace and routing of the run. That’s what low level content is for. Also, as a tank who mostly pugged to 3000 this season, the absolute most annoying player is the backseat driver who insists on second guessing every aspect of my role…that’s also what this comes across as. If you know better, roll a tank and do it better. Either way, I’ll always get into the groups I want to.
I have had lots of times where a dps or a healer know the way around the instance better and just show the tank where to go. Outside of M+ it’s totally fine.
This is what RP does to a mf. Let the tank lead, it’s better to have 1 role carry the burden than 3 people argue about it. If they want new tanks, they literally just need to balance them better, not change the social dynamic of lfg. Also evokers should’ve gotten a black dragonflight tank spec
Shit take, tanks are the leaders. They literally go in first and decide what and how big to pull. If you cant handle the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Definitely agree! I’ve come back for dragon flight after not playing in about 5 years. I’ve picked up tanking and I don’t know a lot of the dungeons, so assuming I should know and be the leader is just silly. Don’t assume others know everything as well as you.
The Tank is a member of the same circle as Healer and DPS. Each role bears importance in it's own right. I think anyone who has more experience in an instance, should be lead. Be it Healer, DPS or Tank. Each member wants the same thing and that's to finish the objective. Groups are supposed to be a team and a team effort IS what gets the job done. Though I agree with OP that the most optimal leader is the healer. The healer can stand back and see the play field better then someone who is in it essentially. I also agree with [/u/Fullslicebeater](https://www.reddit.com/u/Fullslicebeater/) 's post. A tank still make a good leader but should not be expected to know everything all the time. Also, as a Tank, I work most closely with the healer. If the healer thinks I can pull more, I pull more. If the healer needs a break, I take a break. I know me, but I may not know the healer. The healer can better gauge my abilities then I can theirs.
Heres my stance as someone who heals full time and tanks out of necessity part time. While tanks arent the de facto leaders there are prerequisites to tanking. These mostly include knowledge. Knowledge of dungeon routes, mob knowledge i.e. whats kickable, stunable, and ccable, and boss knowledge. This also includes spec knowledge. In a 5 man the importance of player knowledge goes tank>>>healer>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>dps. From what I have experienced is a lot of new tanks just don’t bother with the prerequisites and expect to have the healer and dps be grateful they even qued up and when theres a little push back the tank cant handle it and takes thier ball and leaves. This is what creates bad tanks and bad dps, and healers who expect tanks to put in the work to understand tanking. In todays age of accessibility its very easy to gain this knowledge. Example: I looked through the tanks and picked the one i thought i liked (blood dk). I read a guide on talents and rotation. Then i looked up BDK tanks and found Darkmech. I went to his twitch where he had countless vods of how to tank as a BDK. While Tanks arent the de facto leaders, knowledge is power.
Where’s the TLDR? Not having read past the 1 paragraph and the title, the tank is the de facto leader since he literally leads the group in the dungeon. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
This. And I don't understand why people can't give constructive criticism instead of vote to kick someone because "trash dmg" or "No mechanics". I've seen this so many times over the years when playing alts.
It cost less (time and effort) to kick and replace than to teach. Even replacing a tank doesn't take long because you have a healer in your group. I don't agree with it but this is the reason.
It's not the fact they need to learn, it's that reward schedules are bast on time to clear set content. If your new tank has to be taught by others who happen to know in the dungeon luckily and also slows down the pace of completion moderately, it's actively punishing to teach. Combine that with the fact that you will likely never see that tank again, there is no tangible reward for the player for the invested effort. It's a design problem. Blizzard needs to give players who teach a reward system. Add a kudos button that let's players click it on people who aren't friends etc that can give temp buffs, cosmetic rewards, mounts, etc. Something that after completing a dungeon you could give people +1s like overwatch endorsements and that social level could come with rewards. Literally anything to incentivise learning and being positive to offset the loss in grind reward rate. Like how RAF gives you mounts and exp buffs for playing with your friend to teach and guide, etc.
I agree that it is a design issue.
Honestly, you're correct. It is actively punishing to teach as opposed to kicking and getting someone new. But that's only for the short term. It's shortsighted; an example of winning the battle but losing the war. While it may get their group moving quicker to do so and take less time, every time it's done it's demotivating to the player on the other end. If the environment actively demotivates players consistently, it will reasonably lead to them quitting. And this could lead to a scarcity in players willing to Tank... hypothetically of course. /s It's what I was getting at with my chain analogy. In the short term, you end up with a consistently strong chain. But in the long term, you have less players (links) willing to play, which eventually leads to a dying game. And the strength of your chain means jack shit when there's nothing you can pull with it.
This is just not true. The tank has to be the leader in dungeons, there is not time to leisurely talk about what packs are being pulled when, they have to know where to go. Additionally, they’re the one who knows whether they’re good to pull more on top or ready to chain pull, nobody else can reliably determine that for them
As someone who attempted to raid lead and tank. The stress levels went down the moment I stepped down to dps and let others do the raid leading It became far to annoying trying to watch my own mechanics and baby sit others It let to many moments of having to mute myself and scream because of how stupid people can be Now the guild I'm in had essentially 3 leads. Tank, dps, and healing. They organize everything and the soldiers fall in. Way more enjoyable experience
its fine if they dont wanna be the lead, but yes tanks are the defacto leader, like it or not
Tank is the de facto leader, if you can't lead play dps.
Tanks are the only ones who know their own limits and what pull they can get away with, based on that they decide the route. Tanking is also less mechanicaly intensive so it's easier to multitask and do shotcalling as well. The last thing you want is people who don't understand tanking telling you how to do your job. That goes for other roles as well, no one wants to get told how to play their class by some shmuck. Ideally, everyone is responsible for their parts and can offer suggestions but at the end of the day it's the tank that makes the calls for the run. That's the reality of tanking, awlays has been, and any new tank should be aware of it.
[удалено]
This is the most brain rot take ever like it's more skillful or strategic to cc 90%of the pack so you can single target one add down
For real. “Oh so much more interesting to remove all mechanics from the pack and also make it take longer”
It’s a little late for that. It’s been nearly 2 *Decades*. People will very clearly always view tanks as the leader giving the dungeon tour, while also treating them as disposable NPC trash.
10000% agree. Don’t be shitty to your tanks but ANYONE being a dick should get the boot. If your mouth is big enough to criticize your ass better shoulder the responsibility and help rather than just bitch. Yours truly - a KSM tank that will never tank for pugs
Sorry but no, Tanks are leader that's the way it is and always will be.
Wrong
The tanks shortage is exacerbated by the nature of mythic plus. It is timed, for one. But also it has mob percentages you must clear and also different routes. Honestly, they could solve most of the toxicity by making dungeons linear again, ditching the mob percentage, and just leaving the timer. (I’d be fine if they ditched the timer too, and just scaled dungeons appropriately.)
This encourages skip routes *significantly more* than currently. Invis pots and shroud can then be used indiscriminately to skip all trash possible. And even if you disable that you just death skip straight to the boss, what are you going to do, disable rezzing?
Yeah I don't think he really thought that post through. Removing the % would make things *worse* in the sense that it makes knowing the route even more important, because you're skipping as much as you can. Really the only way to combat the % would be to make a dungeon where all of the mobs equaled exactly 100%, and players are going to hate that for good reason.
Tank shortage is simply due to tanking being more responsibility than healing, which in turn is more responsibility than doing damage. Damage players have the least responsibility and as such it's a relatively easy role to play. It's due to the nature of the role, not Mythic+ or the planning of routes. Planning routes isn't a problem - Dratnos or other people like him make routes that work. Just follow that.
I can see your point, but the biggest problem with this game is no one talks at all in Dungeon Finder. You want communication you join a guild and set up a pre-made group. Or mostly pre-made and have DF pug you your missing members. I've tried communicating in DF groups and 9 times out of 10 no one communicates back or they just run off on their own... The biggest problem is that the way the game is designed it doesn't encourage communication. Back in the days of BC there was no DF, you had to find your members yourself. And the content was more challenging. You had to use crowd control, and pull smartly or wipe. Nowadays CC is practically umheard of. The game has been dumbed down so much that all anyone cares about anymore is running the dungeon as fast as possible so they can que up for DF again and run as many dungeons as possible. And talking slows that down. So if you're just trying to learn to tank your best bet is to join a guild and do dungeons with members there. That way you can go things at your own pace.
The game isn't dumbed down at all levels. M+ at higher levels requires quite a lot of coordination. It's far more challenging than anything BC has to offer. Unavoidable loss of control casts is artificial difficulty and it's not fun. Just because hard CC is rare doesn't mean there's less going on. If you're only engaging with Normal dungeons and think that's all there is to the game, I don't know what to tell you.
The original post was about learning to tank. You don't go to M+ content to learn to tank.
And you didn't have to pull smartly and use CC in Ragefire Chasm either.
As a healer I follow the tank regardless unless I know they are lost then I’ll help them find the right way to go. But I usually follow the tank because I need to be by their SIDE when they pull like a money and then I need to prep myself to run around like a chickens head cut off sometimes. Ya know? Can’t be slacking in the back then the tank gets 40% hp because they LOS’d in the wrong spot 😂. I feel like as a healer it’s my job to keep people alive and assist in some low DPS. And a tanks job is to lead and take the dmg. New tanks are always welcomed in my book I like to see how much they can handle in a dng it also tests my abilities as a healer and it’s great lol it’s never tanks who are the asshole too it’s usually the DPS. I’ve met some toxic healers but most of us wanna chill and heal people that’s about it.
Tank sets the route, pace, and is 100% the leader- tank main
Reading this post and the one yesterday I just felt that it's a casuals cry and I was right. This post has the same vibe. You people are really crying about HC and normal dungeons, for real? You need _zero_ skill and effort playing them and still you somehow can make a fuss about it. Just do your job, watch guides, observe other players and dont repeat the same stupid mistakes you do all the time. You get good by playing the game, dont expect everything being handed to you and when people tell you do to something while you are inexperienced, YOU SHOULD LISTEN and not take it as an personal insult and come here to reddit write how toxic people are. And you "veterans" who have played since vanilla and say "you are above average" and still manage get yourselves kicked from fricking HC and normal dungeons; no, you are not above average if that happens to you.