I’m a bit late responding to this, but I just wanted to thank you for putting together a great article. I read it back when it was first posted, but didn’t have a chance to comment until now. I found it to be a very honest and even-handed overview of tanking (and tanks! ). I can very much relate to everything you’re saying. My druid is what I would call an “up and coming” tank. I’m still fairy new to it, but am getting better all the time. I didn’t really have a chance to try it until I got to Outland. I soon discovered that tanking is like a whole other game! In fact, over the course of my first few runs, I made sweeping changes to my UI (and playstyle) just to accommodate all the new things I had to pull off!

Although it’s true that tanking is a lot of work, in some ways I find that there’s an extra degree of freedom that I don’t get when DPSing in cat form. My feline self has to be so careful about always hitting that one correct target, watching my burst damage and threat, and making sure to respond to changes in the tank’s focus if the battle becomes complicated. It can actually be sort of awkward and stifling. When bear tanking, however, nobody’s off limits! Your job to to lay the bear-powered smackdown on everyone! (Well, almost everyone. Gotta watch out for those freezing traps… darn butter paws! ). It can be a lot of fun when generating threat is a goal, not a danger!

You’re right though, that situational awareness is a very challenging and important aspect of tanking, and probably the part of what they do that’s most under-appreciated by others. I think it’s especially hard for Druids, because shifting into feral form seems to lower your camera’s centerpoint, making it even harder to see everything that’s happening (especially since most instances are indoors, requiring you to stay zoomed-in pretty close to the ole’ bear butt). It makes it even harder to be responsive and agile with your targeting

In regard to the underlying question of “where are all the tanks?” the only thing I would add to what’s already been said, is that in my limited experience doing PUGs, I found that people are sometimes very impatient and discouraging to one another, often out of ignorance to what that other person’s role entails. If there’s a shortage of tanks, it’s probably not a good idea to aggravate people like me who are moving up to fill the ranks. Some of them may just decide it’s not worth the trouble! It’s not productive for DPS to complain that a tank is taking too long marking and pulling. At the same time, it’s inappropriate for a PUG tank to expect perfection, and rudely chew out a DPSer for pulling aggro off them once in a while (I’ve seen this too). I think some people just get stuck in their own point-of-view on things, and forget that a 5-person effort has 5 people, each with their own experience of the events. For that reason, I can especially appreciate this article for presenting the role of tanking, not as a discussion of what abilities to use and when, but as a discussion of what things look like through a tank’s eyes. Great stuff!

But regardless of any frustrating experiences, I do love tanking… enough so, that I’m also leveling a Prot Paladin and one day, I’d like to try a Warrior as well. I don’t plan to quit it anytime soon… that is, unless I finally give into the voice inside me that’s pushing me to go full Resto! For the good of all Azeroth… keep the Feral articles coming!!

Feral4Death!!
-Tone

1) SP (of course not heroics, i’m 63). This group had a hunter in level 60 blues and purples. But the blues were rogue gear, and the purple was a level 40 gun. Then we had the two healers. holy paly and a resto druid. Add to that a fury warrior I believe. Anyway, just about anything would work in below 70 instances. So we chugged along and did fine. Until we got to the 3rd boss, and we wiped.

No problem. We run back, but one person had to leave and left, the other (the hunter) said they had to go and clean their house and take a shower. No problem, we removed them from the group to get on with our lives. 5 minutes later, the hunter comes back. Lots of cursing. I apologized 4 times, was under the impression they were leaving. Others had same impression. Didn’t help. Finally I put him on ignore. THen he proceeded to cuss out every other group member, until everyone had him on ignore. Then he proceeded to cuss out our guild on Trade chat. I submitted a petition to a GM at this point. I have no idea what happened. Hopefully he got a ban.

So to replace this guy,we found another hunter via LFG. He was a solo hunter, didn’t believe in pets. We all laughed a bit (my main is a hunter, been playing for a year, i know the class quite well). Okay, whatever. Its a RP server. Fun enough guy, didn’t have any problems. (but what’s with hunters anyway?). Turns out this guy RPs that he’s a bounty hunter, anyway, a fun, strange person. We finished the instance fine I believe. Well, I would inevitably die when the boss was at 10%. I blame this on healers. I may be wrong

2) UB. We did it with a shammy, resto druid, a lock, someone else. Me tanking. We get to the 3rd boss, the hunter. I tell the lock to sic their pet on the bear add. He said fine. Sure enuough, felhunter was on the main hunter boss. We wipe. I asked what happened. He got confused between the two bears (me and the mob). That was funny. Take two, was fine.

3) Ramps. This was a mostly guild event, fun. Again a hunter, a prot paly, a level 70 raiding holy paly who insisted he had some good thing to get from one of the bosses here (whatever), me and another feral druid. After several trash pulls I realized that we had a prot paly – he tanked the rest. I could dps well but his was lacking for obvious reasons. We lived mostly because of healing uberness. I had to explain chain trapping to the hunter. The prot paly never heard of LOS pulling. We didnt’ wipe at all, it was great. The last boss was fun though, two of the party members (inc the tank) accidently fell through the place you jump down to exit the instance quickly. So we finished with the uber healer, one dps, and me tanking, and standing in fire and not realizing it (because i’m an idiot, but also because I wasn’t taking any damage thanks to the heals).

Anyway, TL;DR, so far PUGs are entertaining for me, I raid in a serious guild, and this is my fun char. I never know what to expect with PUGs. As long as we can get through the instance fairly easily, it remains fun. But I like being able to switch from healer, to dps, to tank, depending on gear and spec.

I adore good tanks, warrior tanks especially… they always seem like they’re doing so much work! And I really appreciate it.

As everyone knows, a Prot warrior basically devotes themselves to tanking. Their solo play is slower and their PvP is laughable (until they can start to get a decent amount of block value anyway which I’m trying to work on… but anyway) and so usually I’m the Main Tank, and it’s the role I like best, that’s why I’m specced the way I am.

But… when there’s someone else around that day who’s way better equipped than me, and way better suited to leading a smooth run, I of course defer to them. The good of the group is a lot more important than me flexing my e-muscle But it really did remind me of how… impotent you can feel when the ONLY role that your spec caters to isn’t what you’re doing.

So… again, to go back to the original point, another reminder of why tanks dry up a little in the end-game. Unless they’re able to do the job they’re specifically built for, they just can’t perform as well as others can in their backup roles.

(Though my DPS was fairly significant once I just decided that was a better use of my raid slot than offtanking stuff that the other tank could easily handle without assistance The nice moment of the evening was a rather remarkable execute crit with about 90 rage on Curator while he was evocating… biggest number my character’s ever seen that’s for sure!)

Another reason I could see there being a shortage of tanks is that it’s hard to come up and break into raid tanking unless you have a guild that is already supporting you and bringing you in. Getting gear is one problem, but you also have to deal with the scarcity of tanking “jobs.” How many tanks does a good guild need? If they already have a few, plus some extra tanks for screwin around in five mans, why do they need you?

As for dealing with stupid people – both in PUGs and guildies that want to flex their e-peen – here’s a simple solution. Let them die. It’s hilarious.

Otherwise, I agree that a tanking class is generally one who needs to show leadership potential, have a good understanding of their limits and strengths, and have a cool head to help counter any tension (especially in a PUG). This is on top of the situational awareness and a basic grasp of how other classes play or what they bring to the table.

D’oh! If it makes you feel any better, it isn’t the only typo in the article, but thank you for pointing that out!

Thanks for all the input folks, it’s nice to see so many people interested in getting their faces smashed in for fun and profit!

I read you blog to just keep a casual eye on the healing side of durids, so i was pleasantly surprised to see a TANKING article. Very nice thank you. I also started my feral druid because of a lack of tanks for my hunter I really like it so far, and even though I currently suck I think i will be up to the task with a little practice. Love the spotlight too, although i didn’t know it before I started.

Out of topic, 90% of the rogues i pug with are just awesome. They know their role, do their job, and use all their abilities to make the group go well. Anyone else have the same experience or am i just lucky.