The Stress of Being a Tank in WoW

We all know that the tanking position in WoW can be stressful at times, even if it’s just that nibbling feeling at the back of our minds. However, it seems that this job is getting tougher and tougher while at the same time reaping little rewards. On the Lightbringer realm (alliance side) for example, the tanks are all in hiding in the top raiding guilds and it’s not often you managed to obtain one for a PuG run of a raid or heroic instance. Even the heroic daily is struggling to find enough tanks to go around as the realm is flooded by DPS classes. Essentially speaking, once you find a tank for a run you have a guaranteed group in minutes if not seconds. Otherwise you could be waiting hours for any kind of successful group to form. So why is this happening in Wrath so much? Where did all the tanks go and why?

Aggro!

One of the key features of a tank is to gain aggro on mobs so that other classes don’t get hurt. A good tank knows how to keep aggro on these mobs whether it is one mob or twenty mobs. However, tanks are getting an increasing strain on their aggro abilities thanks to the “Well Geared Noob” phenomenon that is sweeping across the realms. The well geared noob is becoming an increasingly more frequent occurrence in WoW as Blizzard have made it easier for players to obtain endgame raiding level gear without actually raiding at all. This means many people jump into raids and instances without knowing how to play their class or what they are supposed to do (even though they often think they know it all). A Well Geared Noob can sabotage even the most skilled and well geared tanks efforts to gain aggro on mobs. Each class has their own way of reducing their aggro to avoid pulling mobs from the tanks but these days other classes simply blame the tank if they lose aggro. The mechanics of aggro and each class are supposed to work together in harmony but many DPS classes especially fail to use these abilities properly and then blame the tank when they are killed by a mob. Many people fail to realise that tanking requires help from everyone and not just the tank.

For example, rogue classes need to use their “Tricks of the Trade” ability on the main tank on every single cool down to avoid pulling aggro during the encounter. If a rogue pulls aggro, it’s because they didn’t do this and not the tanks fault at all. Without tricks of the trade a rogue is almost guaranteed to pull aggro from tank however, with tricks of the trade their threat will never exceed 40%~ and therefore makes it impossible to pull aggro. Therefore if a rogue pulls aggro, it’s their own fault entirely but still we see time and time again tanks getting blamed when a mob runs away.

Another mechanic that DPS classes often forget about is to be careful about what mob you are targeting in the first place. In order to avoid pulling aggro from a mob you must ensure you are only targeting (or primarily targeting) the same mob that the tank is hitting. It stands to reason that if you are putting your full DPS force on a mob that is stood outside the AOE ability of the tank or only receiving minimal AOE damage from the tank you will pull aggro. Remember that a tank cannot put their full focus on all mobs at the same time so you need to make sure you take that into consideration.

Thanks to a combination of “Well Geared Noobs” and a job which has become full of blame and little praise many tanks have now retired from the job and switched to another role such as DPS which is much less stressful and much more rewarding and simple. When a DPS character plays they are being judged primarily on their DPS output and not many people take into consideration the unnecessary strain they put on healers or tanks. However, when a tank plays they are judged on a whole variety of things including damage mitigation, aggro holding abilities (whether its’ their fault or not), HP quantity, taunting reaction speeds and more. Remember, if the tank dies, the raid dies so look after your tanks and remember to praise them for their good work or you might find yourself in short supply in the future.

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