[squishmitten]

Get alts in there to tank your heroics. Tanking content you horribly out gear can get boring/frustrating. Rage/mana starvation blows.

My tank started off as an alt, geared up completely through heroics and Kara and jumped right into tanking SSC/TK. I do help out guildies with runs, but I'm much more likely to help people who are willing to pug things.

A priest in my guild claimed he was unable to get his SR neck chain completed because he couldn't find a guild run going to Arc to talk to the seer there. There is no way I would help someone who is that apathetic. Pugs suck, but not always. I've been in a few spectacular pugs. Its a great way to scout new members and make people interested in appying to your guild.

All things said and done, getting badges is very very easy. Pug kara, pug heroics, stick too it and don't freak out if you wipe a bit.

[Zusterke]

Greetings,

I would like to contribute to this (very long) thread, by sharing my view as a healer on this problem. I feel there is a lot of frustration and anger when it comes to burned up tanks. I feel for tanks, I really do. Though for some points, I feel they are general problems and not specific to the tank:
- being overgeared for the content or having run the same content is bad for everyone. There is the rage problem... but down/sidegrading gear works. Even I do that
- "Everytime something goes wrong it's the tank's fault!". Healers get their share of the blame & rants. The blaming problem is shared by all players who carry responsibility in a group. The tank is one of them, but not the only one.
- "I helped 50+ guys gear up and got nothing" I feel for people like that, having done the same. It's not a matter of being a tank but it is frustrating, i'll admit!

And some complex issues..

high death cost
This is such a sensitive point to talk about and there is a lot of aggrevation involved. The tank's repair/pot bill is easily twice or three times as high as mine, per death. But my death count is easily twice or three times theirs (especially when there's adds and it's 10 or 25-man content). We too invest gold, time & effort in that very same run! My first Kara runs costed about 140g in elixirs/flasks & pots alone whereas the tank's repair/pot costs would never reach that number. For 5-man's however, I wholehearthly agree & feel with the tank's exorbitant repair costs. I just want to point out that one expensive repair bill shouldn't forbid one from acknowledging others can have expensive runs too.

Group oriented role
The tank's role and performance is group oriented. DPS, on the other hand, is rather self-centered. Although the DPS players themselves are not necessarily self-centered, their group role (in terms of gamemechanics) seems to inhale group effort and exhale epeen. As if fast runs & bosskills are theirs to claim. It is not! But try telling that against their damagemeter and "/flex"-emotes. There is little social reward, respect or acknowledgement of the tank's true performance.

Leadership
Unique to tanking, is the natural position to be a leader in 5-mans. This is very hard in a virtual, multicultural, multilingual environment dominated by young men.
Sociology & science tell us that:
- young boys and men(< age 20) are naturally more self-centered. It sounds like a cliché, but there is actually a brain/mental-'problem'. Young men sometimes still need to physically (as in brain-wise) develop their social abilities. Untill then, some are inapt (or unable) to understand emotions from someone other than themselves. In some studies, many young boys interpreted 'calm & explanatory' behavior as insulting and offensive.
- young boys and men are still in search of an identity or in search of social confirmation. This leads to high competitivity and eagerness to prove themselves or achieve domination over another player. The paired insecurity they feel makes them swift to anger and eager to express their emotions in an aggressive way.
- a virtual international, multicultural environment makes communication more tricky or difficult.

Combine these factors and you have one heck of a leading job! And not the most rewarding, I warrant.

Numbers in raids < numbers in 5-mans
The tank / dps / healer ratio for 25 man raids is:
12%-16% / 55% / 29%
For 5-mans this is:
20% / 60% / 20%

This is not a healthy proportion The PvP world tends to visit 5-man content too but delivers little else than DPS and a handful of healers. And as more tanks burn up, the pve world is lacking ever more tanks.
I believe the culmination of these factors produced a burden too hard to bear for many tanks. I keep tanks in high esteem though. They sacrificed solo progression for the group and get little reward for it. As of late, even the group's respect & acknowledgement of this fact is limited if not gone. I feel I can relate to that as a healer, but I do believe tanks have a tougher job socially.

The tank shortage has reached a level I can no longer log on the game and expect to find a group+tank for anything other than a planned raid. Eventually, I rolled a warrior alt destined to become a great tank some day. While my fellow tanks may have burned up, I found them eager to help, teach and accompany me (on their dps alt) to become a better tank. I take this is proof that their social mindset, natural leadership and group feeling is alive, only hidden under a rock

[Tank]

We are in T6 content atm but I still run 5man heroic content with guildies now and then.

But we usually do heroic for the reason of getting mount and badges.
Sometimes i run heroics to practice on speed and efficiency.

In any case i dun really think it is the burn out but rather your tank (like me) could have started off pugging 5man content all the way to heroic, join guild 10 man raid and 25 man raid. So can you imagine running like the same instance day after day, it can be really boring.

Seriously, i cant even remember the number of pug mech, SH and other instance that I have run to get gear and rep. So spare some thoughts for your tank.

[ThreeKills]

It is a guild recruiting problem.

You need to have constant recruitment, especially of under-geared players/classes.

I think, in a smoothly run guild, that you need membership of 30% Tanks, 30% Healers and 40% DPS at any given time.

Make it as easy as possible to get new group make-ups into instances.

If you see that the same 5 people are burning through content together, be proactive in splitting them up and spreading them around to other players in the guild.

If your guild had a "cool kids" or "first into the heroics" clique, you get to pay the price for it now.

Recruit constantly.

Let the best rise to the top, but keep funneling new members in.

[Krashtork]

This "Tank shortage" is not unexpected or irregular. It is natural for tanks to be burnt out by the end of an expansion. Remember before TBC launched and finding tanks for 5 mans was near impossible? I do. That's why i rolled tank. Around TBC launch tanks seemly spawned out of the very landscape of TBC. It was as if all the tanks had been taken off azeroth and were abducted to outlands to play frisbee golf until TBC launched.

Now as the 5 man content has become disgustingly common place and cliche' it is once again hard to find a tank.

As soon as WoTLK hits, tanks will once again spring forth from the woodwork. The content will be fresh, which will match the attitudes of the tanks. Add onto this that there will be a new tanking class. Until then, expect to have a rough time finding tanks.

We tanks LIVE for new content. When the content gets stale, so does our attitude about running it.

It's all just a big cycle. Fresh content, lots of tanks, as content gets older, fewer tanks.

[Nortibiry]

I've found myself in the situation of not wanting to tank old content, somewhat to my surprise, and feel a little guilty about it. I think in my case there are two main factors:

First, the expansion is getting old, and I have tanked the five and ten man content a lot. It can be fun once in a while, but often as not I just don't feel like it or enjoy it anymore. I know all the pulls, I know what the mobs are going to do, and the biggest challenge is working with the limitations of whatever new alt has found it's way into the group.
Secondly, while I like to help people out, I have helped a lot of people out already. I can't even imagine how many times I've done the various attunement quests and heroics. It felt like I had keyed half the server for Karazhan back when I was actually running Karazhan, and now it really does feel like an unending, thankless task. So it's not so much that I don't want to help people, as that I have already helped people. A lot of people. A whole lot of people.

I think most of the people here get it, maybe some of these reasons will filter down to the rest of the world and everyone will understand each other better. And lastly to the OP I fully agree that people raiding (at least progression raiding) really should be putting in the time to get non-raid upgrades. There's not a lot of excuse to not be working on badge gear as if you don't already have it all, tank or otherwise. It is free loot.

[Koch]

I think I am in the lucky situation of only just approaching this burnout situation. My gear is now close to optimal for the instances our guild is capable of doing. We managed to put together three groups for Zul Aman, but can't quite scrape enough players for a 25-man instance.

That obviously limits progress a tad. Still - now that the summer holidays has actually brought people to the game again, we are progressing on a single raid night in the 25 mans. Got three bosses in The Eye and two in SSC in five nights of playing.

All those of us who wanted great gear (and I think there is a playstyle difference here) spent a lot of time going for badges and Zul Aman drops. They are, in fact, better than most of the early SSC/The Eye drops as far as I can see.

That also meant that each and every one of the tanks, healers and DPS usually in the 10-man raids spent a lot of their time doing daily heroics. Mainly because it is incredibly efficient.

While we can clear Kara completely in 3 hours 30 minutes for 22 badges, we can also run a heroic botanica in 1 hour 15 minutes for 7 badges. Which is approximately the same and fits in nicely before dinner, just after sending the kids to bed.

That gives the social raiding guilds (is there such a thing) with decidedly slower progress something to do.

It does not, however, solve the original posters problem. We all go with the people that form our 10-man raids (or 25 now .. but I don't want to jinx that attempt). We know those instances backwards and can just breeze through - and actually survive the mishaps that come with being careless and pulling a group too many or the boss with the last group.

We do - on occasion - take along someone who is not fully geared up. Of course they can fill the group if no one else is available. It's much better than sitting around. But the catch is in the "if no one else is available". No one likes dragging undergeared players around.

Is this what I'd like to do? Well to be completely honest: No. My gear should be fine for 25 man instances - probably even the higher ones. The same goes for many of our DPS and healers. Yet the guild as a whole is not up to serious raiding - and that was not the thing we were looking for as well.

We are well behind the power curve of serious raiding guilds ... but we are now beginning to run into the same problems. Our tanks and healers are playing other games or just playing around on alts because we finally reached the maximum possible we can do. Realistically speaking I won't see a Bulwark of Azzinoth drop before WotLK comes out. I wish I could - I love new content as much as the next tank - but it's not going to happen.

I am looking forward to new content, though - content that is available to me. The game seems to have trouble adding content at a proper pace for everyone, though: The hardcore raiders need new, tough 25-man instances. We as a guild need a new, tough 10-man instance and of course there are always late arrivals, server transferrers, new class try-outers and just slow people who need 5-man content to gear up on.

In a reasonable amount of time - and that does include waiting for an instance group to actually happen. It's no use finishing mechanar in 35 minutes if you have to wait 2 hours for it to go.

[Slept]

I can see ZA bear runs being the next burn out for me. As the only prot pally in my guild, I've tanked every single successful run we've had.

After 15 or so runs, I still enjoy them to a degree, but the groups are getting progressively more "B team" as our top raiders get their mount and lose interest in helping others get their mount. I'm sure the inevitable failed run is going to happen due to new people not knowing the instance, and I'm certain it's going to piss me off.

[Crimsonstorm]

The reasons I never tank 5 mans anymore are:

1) Tanking 5 mans is more difficult (intense) than tanking 25 mans. Having to deal with all of the (uncced) mobs on every pull, and having to ensure that no one ever pulls aggro on any mob is quite difficult. Multi target tanking is far harder than single target.

2) There is ZERO reward. I dont need badges anymore because 25 mans and 10 mans give me WAY more badges. Nor do I need any of the gear or primal nethers.


As to tank %ages: The endgame raid instances (Sunwell, BT, Hyjal) all require a VERY low number of tanks. You can pretty much get through the entire endgame with 3 tanks maximum in the raid, and many fights you need only 1-2. The result is that only about 10% of your guild should actually be tanks. If you have more than this you are screwing yourself by spreading the gear out too much.

[Edge]

I actually look more forward to heroics than to 25mans. Not sure why, maybe i want to push my self to be faster and faster and time my runs to beat myself. Of course this is only possible with a solid group of people i know / guildies. I still imagine it to be a lot of fun.

Helping undergeared guildmates or twinks i guess would be no problem for me. On the other hand that might change and i may start hating heroics after a while, i hope i don't.

[CyCy]

Our main tank guild officer is the person we offer to help with his alts. He is the guy who keeps you alive and gets you to progress. To say they should help newbs that your tier 1 rogue recruited is BS. ALT LEVEL a tank yourself that's what my Cycy toon is for. However I help out his alts with SM and ZF ord BRD runs that he usually grabs me for runs when he is bored.

Let your Druids get a decent set of tank gear and run the heroics. I have a 70 druid on smolderthorn and let the newbs pay for the repec and my repairs.

After posting notes like that on guild your lucky you have any tanks at all. Imagine a note to priests "please heal regular instances for our pre 70's if they ask. How long you gonna have healers. But to have to read crap like that every time you log on? I would rather go solo and tank trash then help anyone who thinks I owe them that.

[Haltira]

Source: Slept I can see ZA bear runs being the next burn out for me. As the only prot pally in my guild, I've tanked every single successful run we've had. After 15 or so runs, I still enjoy them to a degree, but the groups are getting progressively more "B team" as our top raiders get their mount and lose interest in helping others get their mount. I'm sure the inevitable failed run is going to happen due to new people not knowing the instance, and I'm certain it's going to piss me off.

It should piss you off, having had something on farm for 15 or so runs and than failing is a very valid reason to be pissed off. If you dont know the instance you shouldnt be in ZA bear runs,

chain pulling until you have the bear mount is the way to go. And the time a run failed i would probably hesitate to do it again if the rewards turns out to be failed runs since by that point you dont need any of the drops in there.

[Mambak]

I was our guilds fury warrior for about 5-6 months until we had a slight tank shortage and i would fill in occasionally, but even as i was fury i found myself tanking heroics/kara because our more geared tanks would refuse or just ignore any sign up. So when summer came i had decided i would take the leap and become one of my guilds tanks, and the more and more i tank the more burned out/bored i feel.

What im trying to come to here, is should I become one of our older tanks and just show up for big raids, or Should i just ask for my old spot as dps?

We are a small guild, 3 raids a week, 3 hours a night.

[CyCy]

Just be more selective. If it's someone you like and helped you in the past then I say tank for them. Other then that, do what makes you happy you pay $15 a month to play wow and dedicated months of actual online play to get to your current status.

SO DO WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY NOT WHAT OTHER PEOPLE TELL YOU DO! Guild jumping isn't anything I suggest but find the right group dynamic that will make you happy.

[Mambak]

Yea, i love my guild and it would be hard to ever leave. Despite that, the tank burnout feeling is hitting hard.

[Krashtork]

If people NEED you for 5 man content then they are lazy. When people ask me to do them a favor and tank for em, or they are my buddies and just wanna kill some time and hangout, sure, i'll probably do it. But no one should NEED jack in a 5 man. PvP gear > Heroic gear for most classes other than tanks, who probably don't need the 5 man gear either cause they've probably tanked more 5 mans then they care to count or have better gear. The exception to this is Heroic MgT. That place actually has some nice loot.

If someone is so undergeared that they need to go to 5 mans before they can raid Kara to replace 5 man gear, they probably don't belong in a guild that does 25 man raids anyhow.

If someone asks you to tank because they NEED something from a 5 man, ask them what they "NEED" and then direct them to the battlegrounds to go get something that's probably just as good if not better.

[Deletha]

Source: Slept I can see ZA bear runs being the next burn out for me. As the only prot pally in my guild, I've tanked every single successful run we've had. After 15 or so runs, I still enjoy them to a degree, but the groups are getting progressively more "B team" as our top raiders get their mount and lose interest in helping others get their mount. I'm sure the inevitable failed run is going to happen due to new people not knowing the instance, and I'm certain it's going to piss me off.

So with you here. Despite my love of tanking, I'm stuck healing the raid I lead.. because .. we need it And I've tanked or healed at least 2 ZA's a week since the patch that brought it out.

As to the tanks only logging in for that content, it's a game. Give them incentive to enjoy it, or don't expect them to come along. I do agree with helping others, and I do a lot.. you can imagine I've been done with ZA gear for a long long long time. In fact, replaced some of it on farm nights to keep my prot warrior viable. But the people I tank it for will help me if I need something .. I hope.. and being reliable and knowing the favor will be returned is my incentive.

[Daavos]

Source: ceffo In our guild we have 5-8 geared tanks who can tank well yet will not run heroics/kz/za if their life depended on it and would rather spend time doing other stuff in game (aka circling shatt). And only show up for ssc/tk/gruuls etc This doesnt help some of our lesser geared dps/heals get BOJ gear and speed our progression up somewhat. We have put in guild note for tanks to "offer" to run dps/heals 1-2 heroics a day (ie the easy ones sp/mech etc) which take around an hour of their time. Well this hasnt really changed their veiws. Any suggestions?

Chuck you Farley.

I had to pug my gear with craptastic dps'er and there newly crafted purple gear of I'm-a-tailor-give-me-my-purps while I was out farming dungeon blue gear, mixed with my green champion gear.
I did every goddamn quest chain to get the best tanking BLUE gear item available.
I farmed Mushroom people rep! And the actually MUSHROOMS! - to get the Spore shield.
I spent hours in LFM for Elite 5 quests that dps'ers NEVER want to do get rep and tanking gear.
I graciously bowed out of kara runs for more geared guild tanks.
I sat outside of kara for the opptunity to do the chess event, without spaming guild chat, in case one of the dps would be so kind to drop group, so I get a chance to roll on KD or the battlescar boots.
I took up the cost of respec'ing every week to do and learn arena, because SOME OF THE BEST TANKING GEAR IS IN ARENA, (outside of a raid)
I got ganked non-stop while in proc spec farming engineering BOP recipes so I could move my engineer up 5 points closer so I make the goggles, tank gun, the goblin rocket launcher.

I pugged BM for 2 weeks BM?!!! I hate BM. To get my last key frag to kara with frost mages, stun lock rogues and improve rend MS warriors and other cast offs from non-raiding guilds because I had to get it done.
I farmed Revered rep to get Heroic Keys.
I got trapped in "Kara/Gruul Guilds" who couldn't progress past it.

And now you want to send back and help some Night Elf hunter.... your brother's Warlock... your buddy's shadow step alt rogue... in their PVP purples, who soloed their way up to 70, who have never been group, who can't be bother to do attunement for kara because they can spam "open door" now? So they can sit back and spam 2 buttons, and pst me to "hurry up" while marking, while I (and the healer) do all the work?

Are you nuts?

[Unger]

If your guild is like ours, there is a constant flux of players getting in and dropping out for various reasons (RL issues, girlfriend stuff, work schedules, etc.). The guild I am in has completed everything but Sunwell so there may be 4-5 other guilds at our level or better on the server. Having said that, even we rotate players in and out of the starting lineup.

At the SSC/TK level, you dont need great tanks..... you need well geared tanks. Once you get to BT and Sunwell, its not enough to just be geared....., you have to be good. Based on that, it is more important to find great PLAYERS who want to tank, understand theory/gameplay and need to build their tanks. If you subscribe to this theory, then you have to be developing players and characters all the time.

Our guild has a philosophy that all members should contribute something towards the enrichment of the guild. For the T6 players, that often takes the role of gearing other guildies. For lower geared players, they often do a lot of the grunt work in the guild such as farming primals for resist gear (remember when we were building our Hydross gear fellas?), consumables, etc. Our guild pays for repairs for all T6 tanks so they can focus on helping the guild..... and it helps a lot. The tanks feel appreciated.... and they respond in kind.

I personally have a prot warrior and a holy priest so grinding for me can be a bit of a pain. Instead, I make myself available to the guild to tank or heal any instances they need to further their cause. I know that when you are clearing BT, doing a SLABS run doesnt seem that exciting, but the other way to look at it is that it takes a different set of skills/gear to run 5-10 mans as oppose to 25 mans. As a tank, you want to stay sharp, build a 2nd set of gear (like a DPS set) and collect badges for the random times when badge gear is better than the drops you have amassed thus far.

Yeah, its a game..... but cmon. Are we too busy doing "important" things to remember what it was like to need a group to get keyed for Kara? Or how many of us can remember farming Caverns of Time to get the rep legs for tanking? If youre tanking in BT, youre probably pretty good..... maybe a Kara group with a new tank to show him (or her) the ropes could help a lot. Leave the dailies and the grinding to others and serve your guilds. Its what we all do best.....

Dont kill yourself running 15 heroics a day.... but 4-5 5-mans or 1 10-man a week won't kill anyone. Hell, tank it at 490 def and a ton of hit/AP gear on..... see if you can out DPS the newbs.

One tanks thoughts.....

[Bubalus]

Source: Unger Yeah, its a game..... but cmon. Are we too busy doing "important" things to remember what it was like to need a group to get keyed for Kara? Or how many of us can remember farming Caverns of Time to get the rep legs for tanking? If youre tanking in BT, youre probably pretty good..... maybe a Kara group with a new tank to show him (or her) the ropes could help a lot. Leave the dailies and the grinding to others and serve your guilds. Its what we all do best..... Dont kill yourself running 15 heroics a day.... but 4-5 5-mans or 1 10-man a week won't kill anyone. Hell, tank it at 490 def and a ton of hit/AP gear on..... see if you can out DPS the newbs. One tanks thoughts.....

i do remember and i pugged it, grinded , did most 'solo'.
i'm in a raiding guild, we have gear standards as well as reputation , no offence but anybody needing anything from 5mans part from badges is not in their place in our guild , sure that goes for a lot of tanks guilds in this threath. So basicly if that's the case they are being caried or they are alts , not my job to gear those tbh.

And i also do remember hydross , all the tanks also worked their ass off for the primals , not just the 'lesser gods' so to speak.
So , if they want badges (or gear/rep for their alts) , start pugging or go kara, no need for me to spend (inclined to say waste tbh) my time there.