[Grimkk]

u prolly noticed that being a tank isnt easy
when u got a wipe ,thats always your fault, im sure u experienced this injustice system
especially with random group, not so good coordinated or balanced

when some dps overthreats the target and died- your fault

when somebody hits the traped or spaed mob and get aggro- your fault

and so on and so forth

i got used to it, and found it funny,but sometimes it can be really frustrating

for example ,today i got a MGT normal run, in the second boss's room with fish, i pulled first group of fish-and we died
ok, shit hapenns
so next pull- we died again, and they all blamed me ( they thought that im supposed to tank 15 fish?) ,they kicked me out in the end.
i want to add than i ve been to mgt before and never thought that fish can be deadly,some aeo killed them fast and easy

We al fell frustrated sometimes

[Kazeyonoma]

welcome to tanking, we have doable aoe threat but its not much, and definitely not gonna work against those fish pulls, they need to just let you get aggro through 3-4 tclaps and demoshouts and ease into the aoe. If they blow up before you get aggro, then it's their fault, You can put out only so much threat, and good dps'ers will always be able to pull threat from a tank, that doesn't show that they're good, good dps will stay below the tank and still do good damage.

[Rak]

What?

[Draygo]

Rule of thumb when tanking for pugs:

If the healer dies, it's your (tank) fault.
If the DPS dies, it's their fault.
If you die, it's the healer's fault.


Of course, this is if you've tanked the same instance before with no problems.

[veneretio]

Ya PuGs can be frustrating at times. I wonder though... did you use Challenging Shout?

[ebs2002]

It's hard to be kicked from a group when you're the leader.

I never run a pug without leadership. I'm marking, I'm tanking, I'm leading the group.

[Grimkk]

same here, but i got an error,and dc for a sec after da second wipe
so i asked one memeber of my party "wtf" and they said that was becouse of wipe
,i didnt use challlenging shout ,it would be too risky wth our healer,heh
i used thunder claps so many times, but i noticed i was the only oen that was using aeo, when i was almost dead, shadow priest started doing his aeo (about time,)

[Raize]

Shadow priests don't have aoe. Only aoe i know of for a priest is Holy Nova, on the Holy tree. Previous posts really sum it up. Always maintain leadership if you're tanking. If you lose it, ask for it back. Not sure how challenging shout can affect your healer, but use it, if its available to at least give your trigger happy aoe a chance to live.

[Grimkk]

iwth challenging shout all mobs focus on me,and it needs a lot of healing,and he barely kept me alive without challenging shout when i was tanking like 5 mobs, u know

[Grimkk]

edit
so it must have been holy priest who used aeo
but tbh i ve never seen holy priest using this ability
we got two priests there

[Worldie]

Source: Draygo If the healer dies, it's your (tank) fault. If the DPS dies, it's their fault. If you die, it's the healer's fault. If the whole party is made by idiots, pull as much as possible, bubblehearthstone out, and claim it being healer's fault.

*fixed for PuGs*

[rustyboy]

For that pull I use the Figurine of the Colossus Trinket which heals you for 20 secs every time you block. I tell them nobody heal or dps until I say so and I try and pull as many as possible on the first pull, just make sure you hit the trinket before you start getting hit. I also use a shield with a shield spike for extra threat while using Thunderclap and cleave.

Tell anyone in your group if they have an AOE to use that and make sure you AOE as hard as possible. Then I use Challenging shout on the next pack of mobs.

[clavarnway]

I have a set with high block rating and use [item]Petrified Lichen Guard[/item] + [item]Felsteel Shield Spike[/item]. The group gives me a little time to get aggro on them then goes to town.

[Felisin]

Helllo, healer main here with tank alt (levelling and gearing up). I heal MGT a lot on my priest. Mostly heroic, but I help people out in normal as well.

If you priest healer puts Prayer of Mending on you before the pull, and then every CD, it gives you a headstart on threat as well. Healing through fish damage is normally not an issue even on heroic, the only issue is getting healing aggro. AOErs and other DPS are normally too trigger happy on those pulls and will only let the tank get one thunderclap in before going all out, and then crying since I didn't heal them, or I did, and got aggro after they died, which also caused my death.

I like those pulls better if it's just me (healer) and the tank. We have done it like that when all the DPS died and it went just fine. A decently geared tank takes only a little damage from the fish, and if the warrior tank (I mostly do MGT with warriors and sometimes druids) has a block set on as well, plus ProM, the DPS can go for a cup of coffee while we sort it out, steadily and slowly.

A common mistake healers make here is healing the tank too early on the fish (unless you get several groups of fish, or the tank is losing a lot of HP quickly). I have done it myself many times. It's hard to go against your normal behaviour and keep the tank topped up. Heals like ProM and lifebloom are better since they don't generate aggro for the healer (lifebloom generates on the final bloom I believe). Advice your healer to chill a bit and maybe even help with single target DPS the fish if possible.

I am really looking forward to taking my paladin tank to MGT and have a go at the fish groups from a tank point of view.

[Wrokanh]

Doesn't sound like your group was completely at fault either.
Yes tanks do take credit for a lot of wiping, and yeah it'll be other peoples fault as much as yours at times... since as tank you can help to make a recovery by hitting your cooldowns (such as challenging and last stand together if your healer is weak). You also have to know that abilities of the different classes you're interacting with (especially who has threat drops and how they work). Shadow priests until the next expansion have no AoE. And if your holy priest was only doing Holy nova expecting that to be enough healing he wasn't doing enough direct healing to keep you all alive.

This stuff all comes with experience, but since you're already catching that people love to blame the tank in pugs, you're gaining wisdom already

[Leytur]

Umm. . . . those fish don't hit for jack if you're in decent gear. I've survived 3 pulls of them for about 30 seconds with no heals.

A trick I haven't seen anyone mention is popping Challenging Shout then Retaliation.

Don't be scared of challenging shout. You are generally going to use it to avoid a wipe. So if you end up dying anyway. . . well you would have died in the first place.

[Moonschwine]

If it looks like a wipe is going to occur I just hit CS and Shield Wall or Retaliation on. Usually this gives enough time for people to get a head start on a bolt towards the exit or break aggro enough for a jumper-cable recovery.

I do have to say that I agree with the first post of this thread. You really just have to laugh at it and that it can be frustrating. On the other hand however I do feel that as a Tank (especially being new to WoW) the expectations of some people are simply unrealistic.

For example I was running BRD in my mid 50's with a fire mage, a hunter, a priest and an Enhance Shaman. The shaman would literally run around tagging everything, breaking cc, ignoring marks, 8-10 mobs at one point. Then spams screams for AOE's, heals and aggro removal, all the while the hunter continued to multi-shot away. No surprise we wiped, and everyone blames me as the Tank "for not holding aggro".

In no way can any one be justified in pointing the finger back at us Tanks everytime something like this occurs. Yes bad pulls happen, yes its our job to take aggro, yes some times the cognative ability of your fellow players falls into question, but come on; can I get at least a little respect from the fact at the end of the day I'm the one who takes the beating even though the Protection tree is not the 'magic bullet' to aggro management?

[Draygo]

This is why there is a lot of talk of 'Tank Shortage', the clarification should be 'PUG Tank Shortage', experienced tanks know to stay away from pugs. New tanks start pugging and then learns to stay away from pugs.

[feday]

My thinking at the moment is; I'm approaching 60+ now, so I still need lots of questing etc, plus cash from farming for gear... Why whould I spec prot now and waste time on PUG's, when I'm 70 with decent gear I'll probably be in kara or such...
There will be very little time for me doing pug's as prot spec = tank shortage.

more on topic though; screw people that are clueless... I investigate my class so should they. If they don't like me there's more where they came from.

[ebs2002]

Source: Draygo This is why there is a lot of talk of 'Tank Shortage', the clarification should be 'PUG Tank Shortage', experienced tanks know to stay away from pugs. New tanks start pugging and then learns to stay away from pugs.

Quoted for truth. It's sort of like a tank cycle: you start out pugging, and you deal with a lot of bad groups and some good groups. You stick people from the good groups on your friends list, and they do the same. Eventually, you start transitioning to only grouping with people on your friends list, and only taking groups from people who send you tells.

The "tank shortage" is simply for people looking for a pug. Outside of the PuG world, a tank can easily find a group and a group can easily find a tank who doesn't suck.

At least, that's been my experience.