Why Tanks aren't in the LFG queue

[Kojiyama]

Main reason in my case:

Most of my guild is so desperate to avoid pugging random Arms DPS Warriors queued as "tanks" to get into dungeons faster that I have a nearly full group clamouring to queue up with me for my daily every day.

That said, I leveled my Priest to 80 recently and ran an ungodly amount of random heroics in 2-3 days (50+) in order to gear up as quickly as possible. Honestly, healing heroics is very relaxing compared to tanking and generally not a problem. I would die of frustration if I had to do that as a tank, though--even though my gear level is such that I can pull groups through quite easily, you have to deal with the mistakes of others in a very direct and stressful way.

Healing can be like that as well, but realistically you spend 90% of the time watching nothing happen in heroics and thus the 'exciting' moments are actually kinda fun--whereas tanking you pretty much always have to be busy and watching out for the cases of random stupidity.

Tanking in pugs is just draining, moreso than DPS or Healing by far. It doesn't help that I have actually outdamaged all the "DPS" in the last two randoms I've done when they were at odd hours without guildies around.

One run a day isn't too bad as a well-geared tank, just because it goes quickly and you basically know you are nearly invincible in old content like that. (Heaven forbid you get HoR with randoms, though...) However I wouldn't call it "fun" at all, even though I love my Warrior to death.

[Sennex]

I have had a few issues like these, but its died down allot recently.

The main reason I attribute for this is that I tank, and my wife plays a Healer (Priest). So we are in and out insanely fast, if my wife isnt' on, then there are three dr00ds in my guild that play the same time frames I play and will jump in and heal for me at the drop of a hat.

The few times we have had DPS jerks that want to do things like are posted above, or that talk trash because I am a Frost DK Tank (DW) (Still not sure why folks balk at DK tanks), either I or my wife point out how fast and easy it is to replace DPS, and they tend to shut up fast. Granted we have had to boot quite a few folks, but I have yet to see any vote to kick someone be turned down when I or her post it up.

[Mert]

A bear from my guild generally starts his pugs by saying "I'll make this a nice fast run for you but if you pull it you're tanking it and no I won't battle res you for overaggroing", heh.

[Zyffyr]

Nearly every random group I have had so far has been good. The exceptions on the other hand, have been horrid.

My personal favorite :

Heroic Old Kingdom, on my Paladin. I load in, get near the rest of the people (who all managed to load in faster than me and were already down by the first mobs), and start buffing. About the time I cast the 3rd blessing the DPS warrior gets impatient and pulls. I stop buffing, run over grab the mobs and tank them. Go to cast the remaining blessings (and I am using Pally Power, so we are talking GCD speed), and the warrior pulls the 2 roamers in front of the stairs. Again I rush over pick them up and we kill them. I actually get to be the one to pull the walking trash pack at the top of the stairs, and all goes well. They even die fast enough that Avenger's Shield is still on cooldown when the last dies. Being the sensible person I am, I decide to wait the 4 seconds before I try to gather up the next group. Guess who charges in? Yes, MR. Dumbass Warrior. Again, I head in pick them up and tank them.

After the mobs die DAW says "WTF man, if you don't want to tank don't queue as a tank", and pulls the next group immediately.

[Mert]

After the mobs die DAW says "WTF man, if you don't want to tank don't queue as a tank", and pulls the next group immediately.

Try queuing with a healer friend - if you're lucky only you and your friend will be able to res them. Forcing them to run back in each time they decide to ninja pull will teach them how it works pretty quickly.

[Chamenas]

I have had a few issues like these, but its died down allot recently.

The main reason I attribute for this is that I tank, and my wife plays a Healer (Priest). So we are in and out insanely fast, if my wife isnt' on, then there are three dr00ds in my guild that play the same time frames I play and will jump in and heal for me at the drop of a hat.

The few times we have had DPS jerks that want to do things like are posted above, or that talk trash because I am a Frost DK Tank (DW) (Still not sure why folks balk at DK tanks), either I or my wife point out how fast and easy it is to replace DPS, and they tend to shut up fast. Granted we have had to boot quite a few folks, but I have yet to see any vote to kick someone be turned down when I or her post it up.

Tanked ICC 10 last night. I groaned when I realized who was leading it, because that guild on my server is notorious for being douches. Lo and behold, I zone in and he looks at my gear. "Why do you have the new trinket from emblems?" "Because, I haven't been able to get better stam trinkets." "omg, you're a DW tank, all the DW tanks I've known are fail. If you suck I have no problem kicking you."

I did fine all night, not perfect, but I did my job. But I could hear him in vent all night muttering under his breath about how fail DK and especially DW DK Tanks were. However, I pulled more threat than the Warrior tank (who slapped Vigilance on me, which I HATE) and I took much less damage than whatever Vigilance might have prevented.

[Mori78]

I spent almost an hour in hTOC-5 last night. I have 32k hp, def capped, some mighty fine gear for any 5 man but HoR. We died on EVERY Boss. The crowning glory was the Black Knight. Phase one, the zombie constantly resets aggro, and jumps around beating people til I can yank him back. Then he exploded with the lock standing right next to him. Next phase, all those adds, running everywhere, I disease and HB them all, throw down D&D, BB, AoE like a fiend with just enough attention on the BK himself to keep him targeted.... so he dies, and dps 2 stands in the middle while the zombies ALL explode.... phase 3 starts, wherein the BK begins AoE all over... healer can't keep up, last dps goes down right after healer dies, I die last.
Walk back in
start buffing/eating/pissing/moaning


"WTF, learn to tank man"
"no kidding, I pulled aggro on that fight every 5 seconds"
"you have to keep them off us so we can dps"

......
.......
........

[Nez]

I run my 2 tanks through randoms every day and the new 5 ICC heroics as well. I think it just seems like there are no tanks because there are so many more dpsers in Que vs tanks. After my 2 tanks, I take my hunter to hers, so I get to wait also if there are no guild tanks going in.

The random thing is pretty much like tossing out a call to fill a pug in trade. Sometimes its great, sometimes its horrid. But for the most part I'd say 90% of the groups I've been in have been fine. Maybe not uber DPS but enough to get through the instances. That may be easier for me because my tanks are all at ToCG Icc Gear level so even the Ret Paly in PVP gear who Qued as a healer can still keep me alive LOL.

Lately I've started to see a trend of people waiting till the last loot then ninja-needing everything. So I've started to wait to see how everyone rolls before I do. Other than that I do like the system.


BTW - Try dropping your AoD on that P2 in ToC. Besides the Hilarity, works great.

[Sennex]

Tanked ICC 10 last night. I groaned when I realized who was leading it, because that guild on my server is notorious for being douches. Lo and behold, I zone in and he looks at my gear. "Why do you have the new trinket from emblems?" "Because, I haven't been able to get better stam trinkets." "omg, you're a DW tank, all the DW tanks I've known are fail. If you suck I have no problem kicking you."

I did fine all night, not perfect, but I did my job. But I could hear him in vent all night muttering under his breath about how fail DK and especially DW DK Tanks were. However, I pulled more threat than the Warrior tank (who slapped Vigilance on me, which I HATE) and I took much less damage than whatever Vigilance might have prevented.

Same here, I have tanked all the 10 man content in LK as DW, and I do my job fairly well (Except HoR, I can't get the hang of that place). Gear Score is like 4780 (?) using the mod, so I know I am not bad, but still folks gripe and just can't seem to get it through their heads.

This has actually caused me to start leading more PUG Raids though, I led an Ony the other night after two rogues stared telling an unguilded friend of mine to drop me as tank because DW DK's sucked. After we downed her with no losses, I posted in raid that they needed to grow up and stop talking trash without seeing what someone was capable of. (Might have been childish on my part)

[Mori78]

BTW - Try dropping your AoD on that P2 in ToC. Besides the Hilarity, works great.

The truly sad thing is that I DID drop my army on phase 2 that try... and they STILL got themselves killed. And they still blamed me......

I figure if they are trying that hard to die, I shouldn't keep them from their goal

[Chamenas]

I always drop AotD on phase 2 of the Black Knight, it's amazing.

[Mooney]

The main reason there are so little tanks. at least 50% of wow players are trash and tanking take more awareness than dps(or healing imo but thats another debate) so people refuse to tank because they cant afk(at least mentally) through the instance.

I tank 2 pugs every day one daily and one FoS(damn trinket) i dont really care about the pugs but there are a few where i have left. I mainly gauge my chain pulls on the group dps and sometimes i ask "mind if i chain pull?" it works well for me.

The dic move i pull sometimes is on FoS i always say "Kill the orbs/souls when they come out" before the first boss pull. I actually made a macro for it. A couple times with slow dps the souls will come out and i'll start kiting the boss and no one dps's the orb. I'll hit my macro a couple more times... then mark skull and still no dps. So by this point the boss went from 60% back up to 85% twice so i just left the group in the middle of a fight.(intant tele to dal ftw) i know its a dic move but im not going to waste 12g on some pugs from a diff server that cant read.

[Fenier]

I play two tanks, a Feral Bear, and a Prot Warrior.

Various things that have happened to me recently.

H Old Kingdom on the Warrior: Pickup Hunter would mark and lay into his own targets, which were -not- the ones the rest of the group were on. I'm not 100% sure but he may have had distracting shot in his rotation because it was that common he yanked (just one) mob off me, and didn't feign.

H FoS on the Warrior - 3 4k+ DPS are incapable of killing Soul Fragment, blame me when we wiped due to their inability to target switch.

H FoS on the Bear - the huge 2 pack guards that spell reflect. I am tanking a set of those, DK runs up stops at the bottom of the ramp, and DGs one of the guards off me. Decided to let him die, since he wanted to tank that badly I felt it was best to let him live the dream.

H PoS on the Bear - the multi caster packs on the mountain. I mark the casters first, I specifically focus on the Flame Bearers, and I save bash for them. I die, with 50k hp and 32k armor. Check recount, I had 1 rejuvenate ticking as my only healing taken for over 15 seconds. Druid was not afk, just slacking. My fault for dying because apparently the group is undergeared.

H Nexus on the Warrior, DPS druid screws up and aggros a pack you can avoid, while I am tanking a pack. Healer dies, we don't wipe. I ask the Ret Pally to rez the healer (Druid also died by aggroing a 3rd pack somehow). Pickup Hunter starts giving me a hard time about the priest dying. Said hunter had done 900 DPS all freaking run. Vote Kicked him before final boss.

And not tanking related...

My Girlfriend playing her Priest was blamed for a H PoS wipe on Garfrost because both melee DPS decided having 20+ stacks of Permafrost was the way to go.

And finally, leveling my Mage through the mid 30s and every single group I had, had a Paladin tank... which was ret spec'd. Seriously wth?

[Skywar]

I tank at a fast pace and now since I have all the badge gear I dont tank 5-mans anymore. I usually ran into jerks that would complain I was going to fast or that they wanted to kill certain things. I also ran into people pulling under 1.5k dps trying to get the new level 232 epic gear. I didnt have the patience for all that which is the reason why I only run with guildies now. If everyone would be thoughtful of their tank and apprietiate what we do then things would be a lot smoother.

[Theotherone]

I always wonder why, if tanking is sooooo easy, there aren't more of us?

[Fledern]

I run my tank random daily early in the morning. That usually puts me together with really great people. Pulls are made properly, only the mob i'm working on is dps'd even though i dont bother marking, stuff dies extremely fast and yes i have to work for my aggro but for such great groups i'll gladly do it.

On the other hand, i've become a total asshole for fail groups. The second i see any sort of whining, i'll quit party. It takes me less than 10 secs to find a group anyway, no need to stress myself over some clueless dude.

Even then, i dont tank more than my once-a-day. Often times i'll jump on my healer and party up with my fury warrior friend. He goes in in full fury gear & berserker stance but since he pulls 9K+ dps on heroic trash, stuff goes down real fast and aggro is less of a problem than trying to keep aggro vs him as a tank. We usually have a lot of fun with random dps showing up, asking who's tanking, start qq'ing, getting told to shut up by me and then finishing the instance in record time

Now here's an entertaining run i had as a tank: My friend is Akhilleus, the above-mentioned fury warrior.

Akhilleus: I was talking with Todu (our server's best geared fury warrior. Akhi is #2) a few mins ago. We talked about finding some poor tank and going into a heroic and abusing him. hehe.
Akhilleus has invited you to a party.
You have joined a party.
Todu has joined the party.
You are now queued in the Dungeon Finder.
Me: Oh shit.
Akhilleus gains Guru's Elixir
Todu gains Guru's Elixir.
Welcome to Pit of Saron (Heroic)

Interestingly, it was one of the best instance runs i had. Todu & Akhi were racing on the dps meters, popping trinkets & cooldowns all over the place, each pulling 8-10K, i somehow managed to keep aggro through it all. PoS cleared in record time

[BruisedOoze]

A rogue was TotT pulling on the tank repeatedly and the warrior asked him to stop it (I wish in some ways there was cross realms whispering so I could have told the tank to remove the TotT buff as the rogue pulled). The rogue didn't stop and told the tank to "QQ." I was healing and suddenly I became ignorant of the color yellow. The rogue died 4 or 5 times after that (a very well equipped one 245-260s stuff hehehe).

Rogue: WTF you didn't heal me at all
Me: Unfortunately I couldn't stop a wildgrowth from hitting you so you got something.
Rogue: %$^&ing baddies
Tank: And here I thought I was losing aggro lol
Me: Nope. You did just right

I love places with incidental damage. I'll heal people that do silly things. It doesn't bother me. But as soon as I determine you're being an unbearable arse I'll leave if it's the tank, or the DPS is going to find themselves on a disproportionate ratio of healing received to damage taken.

[Aliena]

Queuing as healer on Aliena I pretty much get instant queues, always. Not sure why but I've never waited more than half a minute. It is kinda nice. Apart from 2 tanks I've had pretty good luck with them so far, too.

[Darksend]

3 DPS in full 245 epics, and I as the tank am doing 50% of the groups total damage

[Bovinity]

A rogue was TotT pulling on the tank repeatedly and the warrior asked him to stop it (I wish in some ways there was cross realms whispering so I could have told the tank to remove the TotT buff as the rogue pulled).

Hehehe, I actually enjoy that. There's a rogue in my guild that likes to pop engineering boots and zip ahead and ToT/FoK packs of stuff onto me as I'm running along. Keeps me occupied and moving along. =D