Role Swap: Changing Perspectives

Well, I finally made the switch to tank after many years of playing and I feel I made the right choice. Due to IRL comittments I have missed the end content of every major patch and expansion since 2007 with the exception of a few select progressions. With that said, i never stopped reading guides and watching videos etc. I started as a DPS in BC and moved to healing during WotLK and through Cata. Tanking has come to me extremely naturally and although it appears to be the most stressful role, it feels (at least in my opinion) the least stressful and the most fun. Then again, maybe it's more fun than work. Has anyone else make a swap for the good?

tanking is no more stressful than any other position, the stressful part is, for the most part, that typically the main tank ends up being the raid leader

My first max level toon was a paladin. I originally was ret and as I discovered dungeons, I tried to tank and tried to heal at times. When dual spec was introduced, I went Prot/Ret. Unfortunately, my tanking skills weren't up to par yet. I went holy/ret and got my start raiding that way. I did eventually transition to Prot/Holy and finally got to tank full-time.

I really think the time doing dps and/or heals was important to learn certain fundamentals. Then there was another learning curve once I really started working on prot. I guess prot was a goal for me all along. Not sure if I would call my experience a "swap" or more of a growing into the role.

For me, I think its a holistic perspective thing... knowing who needs to be where and why etc. Re: Being a RL, Leading a group of people to complete objectives is what I do professionally and therefore not personally a stress point - the stress I referred to earlier was more of a mechanics-of-the-role issue. I see now I should have been more clear in my post.

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Originally Posted by sifuedition

more of a growing into the role.

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This. Exactly this:)

It used to be that most others could mess up and there was a way to recover. When the tank messed up, it was game over.

I think that is one of the changes I appreciate about the direction raiding is going. Now, dps and heals definitely have more mechanics that are "get it right or wipe the group". I started to say I "enjoy" that change and realized that it is frustrating the hell out of me because so often our dps/heals are failing these checks. I think it's a good direction for the game to go but it is really hurting my guild.

Tanks are still the de facto lead in most situations, although if you want your raid to run faster you'll designate a separate master looter who can stay behind and adjucate while you pull trash.

This practice is a lot more difficult to pull off unless you keep track of who wants to use charms on what boss, however.

Tanking used to be a lot harder when

1: Threat mattered
2: Heroics were difficult (more difficult to learn fundamental skills, less patience for poor tanks, harder to get pre-raid gear)
3: CC was often necessary
4: Tanks had very little control over their own survival
5: Defense rating was a "you must have this much gear to start tanking" stat (also filling in slots with dps gear was out of the question, whereas now with reforging you can have a crit/expertise ring end up being better for you than a dodge/parry ring)
6: Heals and dps were significantly more fragile (lower margin of error, especially when combined with 1, 3 and 4)
7: Finding a 5-man to learn to tank in took work instead of queuing

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Originally Posted by Travelsize

Tanking used to be a lot harder when

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You can replace the word "Tanking" with "WoW" and your proceeding points still apply.In anycase, I look forward to future adventures in this expansion.

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Originally Posted by Travelsize

1: Threat mattered
2: Heroics were difficult (more difficult to learn fundamental skills, less patience for poor tanks, harder to get pre-raid gear)
3: CC was often necessary
4: Tanks had very little control over their own survival
5: Defense rating was a "you must have this much gear to start tanking" stat (also filling in slots with dps gear was out of the question, whereas now with reforging you can have a crit/expertise ring end up being better for you than a dodge/parry ring)
6: Heals and dps were significantly more fragile (lower margin of error, especially when combined with 1, 3 and 4)
7: Finding a 5-man to learn to tank in took work instead of queuing

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Just my feelings on those points:
1: Threat mattered
- I prefer the survival game more. I feel like I'm doing my primary job.
2: Heroics were difficult (more difficult to learn fundamental skills, less patience for poor tanks, harder to get pre-raid gear)
- We had this in Cata and I didn't feel it made the difference people seem to think it does. It made me want to only tank for my guild. Heck, I didn't want to run randoms unless I had guildies. I like having content that I would rather do with my guild but I like having random content too. Challenge modes might not be the right answer yet but I think it's a step in the right direction of having content for both.
3: CC was often necessary
- Had this in Cata too, for a while. This usually led to the healer, tank, or both having to do WAY more work than the dps because there is always SOMEONE who thinks it's just slowing them down and f's it all up for everyone else.
4: Tanks had very little control over their own survival
- This wasn't more fun for me. In fact, as a tank, this is about the worst situation I can think of. My job is to survive...but I can't influence that with the buttons I push? No thanks.
5: Defense rating was a "you must have this much gear to start tanking" stat (also filling in slots with dps gear was out of the question, whereas now with reforging you can have a crit/expertise ring end up being better for you than a dodge/parry ring)
- To me, this is just too much of a barrier to entry, and a very artificial one at that.
6: Heals and dps were significantly more fragile (lower margin of error, especially when combined with 1, 3 and 4)
- I did enjoy the game more when a dps pulling was more likely to go splat. Having said that, in raiding where everyone is legitimately trying, I like the healing model where it's not always full or dead.
7: Finding a 5-man to learn to tank in took work instead of queuing
- I hated this for the stuff you felt you needed to do every day. If you mean learning how to tank, you should be doing that with your guild regardless. If you mean finding a group should be hard, you and I will just have to disagree. I never want to post in /2 LFG blah blah blah for hours at a time again.