Share your fun five person group story!
Posted by: bigbearbutt in General, Recap, SoapboxI’d like to spend today opening the floor for telling stories about tanking or playing as a member of a team. This is a very long post, very long. So just do what Cassie does when I post one of these… mark it read in your feedreader and move on. :)
There will be some crankiness about tanking, a lot of talk about leading and tanking and AoE pulls versus crowd control, and teamwork and fun, ’cause… well, that’s me.
What’s ahead in the post;
I will babble on for awhile about the idea that tanks must be group leaders, that tanks are the special rockstars of a party, speculate on causes, challenge the concept that tanks are the most important people on a run, and pee all over the idea that crowd control is old fashioned and possibly for sissies.
I’ll then tell a story about playing in a 5 man group as part of a team and having fun.
After that, I’ll ask for people to offer their personal “Favorite story of a fun fight where me and my friends did x and x and x to handle a tricky pull or fight with everyone working together and having a great time” story.
I’d love to hear other bloggers share their stories of great experiences in 5 man groups on their blogs, as well. Since I bash Paladin tanks in this post a little hard, I’d especially like to invite Blessing of Kings to share a story of his own, a fight he personally enjoyed when playing with friends, just to help show that I am well aware that not all Paladin tanks act like self-important rockstars without consideration for players in the group.
Where is this call for teamwork stories coming from?
I have talked to more than a few people that tank over the last year or so, people that discuss how to handle a pull, how to run a fight, or how to run a raid or instance in a certain way.
It became pretty clear that, as far as some of those tanks were concerned, it’s a one man show. The tank is the all-important rockstar, and the rest of the group are just there to keep him alive, as if he needed it, and to provide some vague DPS to kill the mobs faster so they’re not there all day. But the tank could so totally do it by himself, really.
The tank who is a soloer at heart, and the rest of the group is there as an audience or something. And I’ll not mince words; I’ve encountered it as more of a Paladin attitude than from any other class, often enough that I’ll single them out.
But they are not alone, it just started with them. I’ve certainly seen it among the feral types, as well. It has rapidly grown out of the rise of the AoE tank, and with Blizz deciding to add AoE tanking to all tank classes rather than remove it from Paladins, this attitude has just gotten more common.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying the problem is AoE tanking. I love AoE tanking. I love having more tools available to help me keep aggro off the rest of the party, I love being able to handle more mobs without tab targeting or mouseover macros all the time.
I also love my ranged Growl, and I’m enjoying the extra thrill or having CC up and trying to reposition myself on pulls so I don’t break it, a challenge I’m facing and sometimes failing at because I keep underestimating my Swipe’s range and arc.
No, the problem I have is with any player that has the attitude that what they themselves enjoy in the game is somehow more important than what anyone else in the group enjoys.
And I’m drawing the focus on this, because with the rise of AoE tanking and the way most tanks are expected to lead a party by default, the rockstar tank with entourage is becoming a common sight to see.
Teamwork.
Once upon a time, single target tanking was the gold standard, and having players that could effectively Crowd Control were critical for every run. Mages were cherished for Sheep and Hunters were slammed, and slammed HARD, if their chain-trapping skills were lacking in a group. Classes complained if they didn’t have CC abilities, saying it left them excluded from runs, and with good reason.
As recently as Magister’s Terrace, crowd control was king and teamwork a mandatory part of playing well.
And boy, did we hear complaints. Have a group lacking in one form of CC, and the run would turn into a nightmare… unless you had some blessed AoE tanking available that overgeared the run.
But it did serve to force some players to go back to using CC, at least until they overgeared it again with new Badge rewards. And players that were very skilled at CC were remembered, cherished, and invited back again and again.
Think about it. Good teamwork and team players shone again, for a golden brief moment in the sun.
Blizzard responded to many complaints about the CC imbalance by adding the ability to a class that lacked it, like Hex for Shamans, or by widening the number of mobs that could be affected by it, like the Rogue’s Sap, or by letting it be used indoors, like Entangling Roots.
Outstanding.
But even so, with all of these widened crowd control abilities, many tanks seem to feel their goal is to improve their gear to the point where they can eliminate all use of crowd control as soon as possible, so everyone can stand back and watch as the tank takes on the full group… and oh yeah, you are allowed to provide MQoSRDPS, too. What? I died? The healer sucks, man.
People tell me so many stories about this still going on, rushed chain pulls and AoE tanking whether the rest of the group likes it or not, and to heck with CC. I really expected us to be relying on CC more than ever in Wrath.
So I wonder, maybe part of the problem is… the rockstar tanks are just very, very visible, and such tanks are quick to share stories of their leet uberness… but people aren’t sharing the stories of having fun playing the game, playing their class, using CC or class abilities in groups, and having fun. Maybe folks just don’t think it’s interesting enough to talk about.
How fast things changed.
It’s crazy how fast the focus shifted from teamwork to rockstar tank during the last year.
It’s hilariously like the front runner of a band that suddenly thinks he can pursue a solo career with a pick up group of musicians grateful to sit in the shadows and play instruments while he shines on the stage in the spotlight.
It didn’t start in Karazhan, but the AoE tanking thing, and the outgearing of existing content making tanks more survivable certainly played a huge part.
When excellent Badge rewards and the vast number of Badges available in Karazhan made running that raid a regular part of even Black Temple guilds, the focus inevitably changed to speed runs. And an AoE tank that could hold aggro on massive groups of mobs and live became a very potent symbol of success.
People began discussing how a Paladin really shone in that raid, because of AoE tanking.
Some people began specifically trying to build raids based around Paladin tanks and lack of CC.
Our guild even took advantage of it to some extent, simply because it was faster, and Karazhan complete clears for a casual guild is a very, very large time commitment.
And I think it sent the wrong message.
The tank is not the super special rockstar of the group. Every player of the group has an equally valid right to have fun on the run. It’s one team effort. Every single member of the group is important, not only because of the role they play, but because each and every one is a player.
Every class has a right to shine.
Everybody chose their class for a reason, and maybe part of that reason was to provide something to the group on a run. Whether it be to heal, or trap, or sap, or spell interrupt, or sheep, or drop totems, or mana recovery, or explosive AoE damage, or healthstones and soulstones and fear and drain tanking, or even just to wear feathers and dance.
Everybody chose their class for a reason. And to tell someone that you don’t care what else they brought to the party, you’d just like them to stand back and DPS is irritating.
Maybe, and this is crazy talk I know, but maybe they were a Hunter that didn’t want to be considered a huntard, went to BRK’s website and obsessed for hours over how to chain trap, watched the videos, practiced it, macroed focus targets and pull shots and went and kited their butts off…
And now, excited and with sweaty palms, they got in a group, only to hear, “Okay, I’m going to pull the group and you’ll all open up on the main target. As soon as Skull dies switch DPS to X.” “But, I can trap one, I’m all set.” “No, that’s a waste of time, we’re gonna chain pull, it’s too much trouble to try and have CC when my Consecrate is just going to break it anyway.”
Just because a tank CAN pull the entire group of enemies and survive, does not mean that this is how it has to go. Not for Bears, not for Warriors, not for Paladins, nor for Death Knights. Period.
If you are the tank, and you sneer at the use of Crowd Control or other classes’ special abilites as being somehow beneath you or as a waste of your time when they want to use them… you need to re-examine your attitude.
The need for speed.
Chain pulling, fast pulls, pulling the entire group and beating them down and moving on… yes, these pulls are lots of fun, faster, exciting, yes. Yes, indeed. Everyone is overgeared, and the group decides to destroy the instance or raid. Just crush it. Steamroll the bloody thing and leave the remains a steaming pile of rubble under your booted feet.
That’s fine. As long as that is what all the people in the group actually want and know about it in advance, hey, go for it.
But if people in the group want to take more time in the run in order to get the chance to use their abilities, or to learn a new aspect of the game or their class, then how do you justify telling them no? By telling them it’s more fun for you to do it your way?
Who died and made you Captain Bipto?
Leading by default.
Speaking of Captain Bipto, I find most groups usually expect the tank to lead the group and mark targets automatically. It’s the rare run I’ve seen where the tank is not given group lead to mark.
The assumption, as far as I can see, is that it is the tanks’ job to lead the run properly.
Leading a group does not have to be the tanks’ job. It really doesn’t. It’s fine if that’s what you’re used to, and you work at doing a good job of it, but it doesn’t always have to be that way. And I think having that expectation be the norm really contributes to the problem of rockstar tanks.
In a perfect world, everyone knows their own roles in the team, everyone understands the fights, and any one of the people could lead the group, but one person is chosen to actually lead the team out of convenience. Perhaps one person does a better job at staying focused on priorities, or perhaps one person has more experience on that particular fight than the rest.
But in that perfect world, the role of leader is not a dictatorship. Everyone is equally engaged and driven towards success, and feels quite comfortable in offering their own suggestions as to what they could do, especially when the player feels their class has something special to offer.
The person that ends up leading the team should be the one that has the best handle on the abilities of all the classes in the group, has the most experience with the weaknesses of the enemy (if possible), and does a good job of selecting a strategy that best uses the skills of the group to take down the enemy in a safe, smooth, efficient and fun manner.
I honestly think that the utopia I describe is what the majority of runs out there are like.
We just don’t hear about them. They don’t provide the same opportunity for self-promotion or boasting of how leet and uber someone is. Just having fun together as a group must seem so boring.
Leaders of groups shouldn’t expect themselves to be infallible.
I have to wonder how much of the rockstar tank situation comes from a simple fear of failing as a party leader, and being afraid to ask questions and reveal there might be something in the game you don’t actually know.
The secret is, you can lead a run without knowing everything about every class, so long as everyone works together and is comfortable in speaking up. You really can. Innocent mistakes can happen, sure… but they happen a LOT more often if you don’t open up and make sure everyone is comfortable talking in the group.
As an example of an innocent oversight, if a leader hardly ever plays with a Priest in the group, unless the Priest speaks up, it may never occur to the leader in a run that the Priest could have been Shackling undead mobs. Intellectually, the group leader knows Priests can Shackle, but emotionally he’s not used to including that as a strategic option. But hopefully the Priest will see that undead mobs are not being Shackled, and will feel comfortable enough with the leader to gently remind him that Priests can, like, do that.
“Hey, is there a reason you’re not marking a Shackle, dumbass?”
I think that shows an admirable level of comfort with the group leader, don’t you?
Sometimes it’s not just fear of speaking up that prevents a discussion. You can’t just put people at their ease; you need to encourage people to speak up and offer ideas.
I know I have tried to learn as best I can what the various classes can do, but I have my blind spots. The Warlock class is a huge black hole to me. I just don’t keep their abilities in the front of my brain, even after all these years. Nobody ever plays one near me consistently, and mine hit level 20 and stalled. I know they can Banish… but it’s not the first thing that springs to mind when I finally have one in a group.
I’ve been on a run in Burning Crusade where we had a Warlock in the group, and as we ran back from a wipe on the end boss, it occured to me, “Damn, we could have had a soulstone!” I asked the Warlock why he didn’t put one on the healer. He said to me, “You never told me to.”
That’s the kind of passivity you should want to discourage. You should want everyone to want to chime in on suggestions. If you are playing with friends, you need to openly encourage everyone to engage in the group and offer suggestions, and to make sure they don’t expect to be slapped down for it. I love vent, it makes it so much easier to chat about pulls and how things are going.
And if you are made group leader and someone else clearly has more experience than you in the instance, and has a good handle on the classes and is willing to try… pass the lead on to them.
Pulling these many threads together.
What if you have a tank that is ignorant about any class but his own? What if that tank is automatically expected to lead the group on every run? What if that tank doesn’t want to admit there is something he doesn’t know? And what if that tank reads all these wonderful stories featured on WoW Insider about the latest uber-soloing rockstar AoE tank, and what he soloed this time?
I would imagine the temptation of the player of this tank, when invited into a group and lead is passed to him by default, is going to be to go with what he understands best, his own class, and mark kill targets 1, 2, 3, 4 and then pull. It’s easier than admitting to people that you don’t know that much about the other classes, that you haven’t run much before, that you haven’t really done this kind of thing much… and if the tank lives through it, even if there is the occasional wipe, it just reinforces the idea that you can do it and get away with it.
I haven’t really focused on it as much as I could, but there are also those players that want to be the tank because they crave the power and attention. They want to be the rockstar. That’s the whole point of being a tank, to them.
I have actually talked to some tanks in the past, thankfully not in my guild, trying to get the idea across to them as to why their method of pulling and running a group was unpleasant for some of the other players involved, and that when done regardless of what anyone else in the group wanted, it showed a lack of care or respect for the other players.
And I discovered to my amazement that the reason I just couldn’t get through was that they didn’t get my point. Because they were the tank, and therefore the leader, and that’s how they liked to play, so why were the wishes of the rest of the party of any concern? Where was the problem?
As far as I can see, all you can do is make a mental note to run far, far away from any group run by that person. And from the guild too, as far as I’m concerned.
No, I’m not declaring war on Paladins.
It’s not all tanks, it’s not all Paladins, and it’s probably not very many Paladin tanks at that. They just are so darn visible.
I have the perfect example of the other side of the spectrum on Paladin tanks.
Graimerin, treasured Paladin tank. He is the least likely Paladin tank in history, if you go by what I just finished writing, because he cares about everyone else in the run BUT himself. I keep threatening to pull his punk card if he doesn’t start acting more like a typical Paladin. It’s unsettling.
My favorite Graimerin quote when we run an instance; “If I keep offering suggestions or ideas and it gets annoying, just tell me to shut up, I don’t want to butt in.”
Dude… you’re too nice of a guy to be a Paladin. You’re killing the stereotype I’m trying to build, here.
Storytime!
Here’s where you folks come in. I think the stories of runs where folks all have fun together as a team don’t get enough attention, and it’s time to change that. All I hear about are speed runs and I’m tired of it.
So here’s your chance.
Share your story of a 5 person group fight that stands out in your memory. Tell us of a time where you really enjoyed playing your class, and had fun working together as a team. Win or lose, trash pull or a boss fight, I don’t care. The key is that you felt, walking away from the fight, that by God everyone had fun and played their class well together.
Post it on your blog, write it in a mile long comment, I don’t care. I’m going to read every one.
~~~~~
I’ve got one story to get the ball rolling.
Earlier this weekend some Sidhe Devils went into Heroic Nexus.
We had Windshadow as feral furry tank, Sinnas the Hunter with his kitty, Critics the Warlock rolling Demonology, Cassieann the Rogue specced Combat Swords and Nighthawque the Resto-specced Tree.
I was the group leader.
On the run, Nighthawque had warned us up front that he couldn’t stay long, he had to leave soon for work on the night shift. So we were moving kind of fast, and I was doing some quicker pulls than I’d normally like. A lot of “Sinnas, please Misdirect the mob onto me while I hide around the corner to bunch up the casters” kind of things.
But when we reached the corridor just after the frozen mobs, and right before the second Heroic Nexus boss, Grand Magus Telestra, we had a group of four mobs standing all in a pretty line against the left wall. Apparently enjoying a smoke break, I dunno.
And the pull seemed to be the perfect opportunity for us to have some fun.
Nighthawque had been healing great, I certainly had no worries about the pull. Furthest thing from my mind.
But here we are, a group of four HUMANOID mobs, a handy corner behind me to the right, and there they stand in a line stretching away from us.
Oh, c’mon, let’s have some damn fun!
So I marked them up… marked the closest mob as a Sap target for Cassie, and the farthest target as an Ice Trap… and asked Sinnas if he could throw Misdirect on me, and then use a ranged Freezing Arrow to nail, as close as he could, one of the farthest mobs in a trap.
Sinnas… Sinnas, who has been to 25 man Naxx pugs and gotten great loot drops, who has done Heroics, who has been playing lots since hitting 80 and is a wonderful Hunter… he has never used Freezing Arrow in a pull before, he tells me.
I’m serious, doesn’t that make you sad? The guy gets this great fun ability at 80, and hasn’t been called on to use it before in a group?
Now, I’m sure Sinnas felt that he was put on the spot being asked to use an ability for the first time in a Heroic setting, being watched by everyone and all.
But I knew we could do it.
So I asked Cassie to go in to Sap, and that once Sinnas saw that the mob was sapped, he should Misdirect onto me and then fire off his Freezing Arrow, so the pull threat from the arrow would go to me, hiding around that corner, and I would end up having one mob sapped, one mob trapped, and two mobs in my face whether they were a caster or not.
Everyone agreed, sounded like a plan, so we went with it.
Everything rolled just like clockwork. Distraction and Sap, boom! Misdirect the Freezing Arrow, boom! And here they come…
The fight was very, very easy. Ice trap came running to us around the corner just as mob two died, then Sinnas laid down an ultimately unnecessary but smart Ice Trap in front of the Sapped mob while we took down number three, keeping the extra totally controlled until we felt like handling it.
It was not a hard fight. It was not a panicked fight. It did not challenge Nighthawques’ +Healing or Mana pool and it did not bring me to the edge of low health and popping Frenzied Regen. It was totally unnecessary and it took longer than face pulling the four and laying down Swipe.
But it was very, very fun, because everyone contributed to the fight in some way other than just DPS. You could feel the mood over vent lighten and cheer up as folks felt the pride of doing something other than just attacking, and doing it damn well. Rather than being passive travelers, we all became active adventurers. It engaged everyone to think tactically and offer suggestions.
Okay, on that pull Critics didn’t have a special role, but I am totally not used to running with a Warlock. Ever. Our guild just doesn’t have any active Warlocks. I’m hoping Critics hitting 80 will cause that to change, they are tons of fun. But he more than made up for my ignorance by reminding me of some of what he could do, and he Banished Elemental mobs frequently later in the instance.
A simple trash fight, but that set the tone for the rest of the run. We discussed how to do pulls, we used Freezing Arrow and Sap and Banish where we could, and while it was rushed as hell because Nighthawque had to leave… in the end, even though we were rushed we took our time with most of the pulls, and we still ended up clearing all five bosses together in less than two hours before he had to leave, and I swear we never wiped. Ever. As far as I know, that was our groups’ first ever Heroic Nexus.
And instead of being a serious, ‘game face on let’s get this sucker’ kind of run, or even feeling all that rushed because we knew we were on the clock… it felt fun, light-hearted and a pleasure to do.
Hell, I’m thinking about the Heroics we could do, and the Instances we could do, and I find myself really wanting to do Nexus again… even though there are no drops for me in there, simply because of the great feeling left over from that one run. I want to experience that again. Because it felt great to feel that everyone on the run was having fun.
Okay, there we go. That’s my team story, and a very simple story it is, too.
What’s yours?
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I think aoe tanking is great for one reason alone: it lets my ultra casual dps friends contribute instead of wiping the group. For some of us that liked more of a challenge and technical fights yeah things are too easy now. But I have a friend that doesn’t have time to read up on anything. He just shoots his bow. If he were to try to chain trap he’d never make it and would be forced to solo, even in our friendly guild there’s only so many wipes before we call it a night. I try to help him some but he’s having fun playing the way he wants. With our guild’s pally tank and DK tank he can shoot away and the only thing that could go wrong is he might not have enough dps. But I send him some boe blues now and then to make sure he can keep up.
Anyway I had a great group for regular Halls of Lightning last week. Pug with no 2 people from the same guild. 4 of the 5 knew what they were doing (one guy wouldn’t move out of aoe but whatever ). We wiped several tims on the last boss, one person had to go but she had her boyfriend play her character to help us finish which was really nice. We downed the boss on that last try. And the two shadowpriests passed on the nice wand with +hit to give it to me. Great run and nice people who are on my friends list now.
2 hours…srsly? I may not me in the uber guild ATM but we started frming heroics about a month ago and even learning occulus, which was not fun, none of our runs exceed an hour. Only exception is our most hated instance to heroic AN. That place bugs all the time. We have started the first boss in there multiple times only to have all the mobs come to us at once. We have had it bug where everyone gets cacooned at once.
Anyhoot. Just was suprised when you said 2 hours. Nexus is our favorite farmed heroic right now. All of our healers are taken their for the mace and we compare it to Heroic UB back in BC. EZ badges quick.
Wow, am I first?
Anyway, we have a holy paladin in our group who knows almost every encounter in the game really well, even if he hasn’t done it before. The guy has like 5k achievement points already, I kid you not. He’s a real go-getter. Anyway, recently every heroic he does, he wants the group to try for the achievements (I don’t think anyone refuses). I don’t have a specific story, but he always uses the group (and I’ve been a part of it) abilities to help achieve the really hard stuff. I think that makes running heroics more fun. I get a charge out of seeing the little achievement pop up on screen and in guild chat and the little noise it makes. We got the achievements in Heroic Old Kingdom (which I personally hate with the fire of a thousand suns), and it felt good. :)
What a great post! I was part of a 4man team that 4 manned ever 5 man instance in BC. My wife is an uber hunter than can trap and re-trap like nobody’s business. Our tank and healer were great and I was kitty DPS and off-tank for bigger pulls. We 4 manned everything and it was through CC and careful planning. Now, in WOTLK our tank thinks he’s the rockstar and doesn’t like to use CC.
One HoL run, I was harshly admonished for rooting a mob that broke free and ran to our priest. “DON’T EVER ROOT AGAIN WHEN I AM TANKING!”
Being a relative noob or a glutton I asked why. He responded that the mob then beats on whomever is next to him while rooted. Being a man of simplicity, I responded, “So, maybe that person should move? I’ll re-root until you can either move to it to get aggro or we kill the rest and then you aggro it.”
“What did I just say, Mooriah?! Don’t f*cking root when I tank. EVER!!!”
“Okay, boss.”
Our next pull he didn’t pull enough threat and a heal to him pulled another mob from the back of the pack. No root. Dead priest. Group wipe. “Hey, I did just what you told me to do. Is this what is supposed to happen?”
“STFU and don’t root. I’ve got it under control,” was his reply. I whispered the healer and apologized. She said to kill the tank to shove it, learn to CC or get more threat to take flash heal or quit and dropped group after two more deaths from the exact same situation. It’s funny how we went from CC is critical to the rockstar tank that brags how his DPS is at 1k and doesn’t need CC.
I’m a Paladin Tank and run a blog called HonorsCode that’s been around for a little over a year now. I don’t think of myself as “Rockstar” tank by any means. Generally when I’m AoEing my way through an instance I figured I’m doing what the groups wants, getting them their loot and badges quickly and relatively easily.
One thing to remember is that Paladin tanks don’t have a single target pull. Our Shield Toss hits 3 targets and until you get some practice with it, it’s hard to predict exactly which three targets you are going to hit. This can make CC problematic. Sheep is fine, but Sap is pretty much out of the question and Hunter after Hunter has had trouble pulling the trap mob off of the initial aggro created.
I’m sorry you’ve run into some Paladins with poor attitudes. I would ask that you rethink your sweeping generalizations about an entire class. I’ve met plenty of people with poor attitudes across every class in WoW (even some Druids).
Paladins have had to fight tooth and nail to finally be accepted alongside Druids and Warriors as real tanks. Don’t mistake “Hey guys I can do this, really I can” for “Hey, look at me, I’m a bad @$$ rockstar”
Just a note on warlocks for you in an instance.
They actually do bring quite a bit of CC for you depending on the mob type.
Lots of humanoids? Get the succy out and seduce. I good lock will have a focus macro to keep this going on the marked mob until it’s time to burn it down. This was especially useful for my regular group in Magister’s Terrace.
Got demons or elementals? Get a banish going.
Just have too many? A really good lock can seduce one and fear bounce another. Granted they lose most of thier dps while trying to juggle so much but if it keeps the group alive then go for it.
My regular group through all of BC consisted of Warrior/Priest/Hunter/Lock/Shaman. We managed to pull off an awful lot even when we were completely undergeared for alot of it. Granted, we played together alot and knew each other well enough to know everyone was keeping up his own end. Between the hunter traps, lock’s seduce/banish/fear and the priest’s shackle we had pretty much all the CC we needed.
We had a great tank who actually knew what we all could do and teamwork was the key. Making suggestions on new ways to try things, some experimentation, lots of deaths and tons of patience added up to a huge amount of fun for all of us.
Oh..one more warlock thing. No soulstone on the healer is the WARLOCKS mistake, not the tanks. That should go without saying. The only time I have ever had to ask about the SS was when we had more then one rezzer and the the question was who to put it on. Did I ever forget? Of course I did, but that was MY fault not the tanks for not telling me to.
I know I’m guilty of the pull-a-whole-group mentality. I don’t do it because I think I’m uber-leet or anything like that. In fact, I’m rather critical of my tanking skills. Even though I MT’d all T4 instances pre-nerf and then SSC, Hyjal, and BT post-nerf I still feel I’m average at best. (I just realized how not-modest that sounds. But I honestly don’t mean it in a bragging tone.) Most of my guild disagrees with my assessment of myself, but I take all wipes personally. It’s usually my fault. Even when it isn’t.
My group-pull mentality comes mostly from my confidence in the healers I run with. Our guild isn’t stacked with healers, but the ones we do have are all very, very good. I always believe I can pull an entire group w/o any CC because I have utmost trust in their ability to keep my furry butt alive. If we ever wipe on a trash pull, I take the blame for being too hasty, assign a CC or two if group make-up and mob-type allow, and then we try again and usually get through it while our healer sleeps for a couple minutes.
In running with my guild, I’ve also learned which of our members with CC abilities can be counted on to see when I’m in over my head and save our group without being asked to. Norfin will always lay down a freeze trap in front of the healer, just in case. Evertoad and Plasmacutter will sheep a ranged mob that I can’t LoS and can’t safely run to. Blackout will Death Grip them into the tanking pile at the start of a pull and trust me to pull it off him the moment that 3 seconds is up.
But now that I think about it, you’re right about CCs being fun even when they might not be necessary. In Heroic UK, I love to pull groups with worgs in them by Hibernating the worg. Sure, the worgs are the easiest mobs in the group to bring down. Sure, they don’t pose any real threat to the group at all. And sure, I lose any rage I may have stored up from the last fight by shifting out of bear form to cast the Hibernate. But it’s fun. And I always do it. I need to remember that from now on.
Speaking of Paladins…
I was tanking a pug Heroic Gundrak run the other day (one of my other guildies was in the run and asked me to). There was a ret pally in the group who apparently didn’t think I was going fast enough. I had only run the instance once before and didn’t really have a grip on the mob types and boss strats, so I was being a little more cautious and asking for input and suggestions in each new section of the dungeon. About halfway through the ret Pally would just run up to the next group of mobs as soon as we had finished with the previous ones, which put me in the position of going in to save him each time.
I got a plan for revenge right after we had downed Eck and been coated with his vomit for the achievement. Next pull, sure enough, the ret pally charged in first. I let him die (I think our healer read my mind, because he just stood and watched as well) and then picked up the mobs as they came charging at the rest of us. Everyone in the group ended up getting their “What the Eck?!” achievement except the poor ret pally. Oops…
One thing that I love about warlocks, and will always love about them in instances, is their best CC ever. Not banish – enslave. Enslave is awesome. In some instances warlocks are the best thing in the game because they can enslave one demon and banish another elemental/demon. Two CC for the price of one! I’m sold. I loved doing magister’s terrace when I had a lock. It’s really funny how many locks totally ignore enslave. I know it doesn’t work on a lot of mobs, but it’s worth checking. And who knows, maybe you’ll be able to enslave brutallus.
On the 5-man thing – a while ago I was asked to help out some 60ish druids for their CE rep and getting through some quests – so we went to SPens. It was normal. I’m ridiculously overgeared at this point for it. We’ve got 4 people total – a resto druid, a moonkin, and a silly enhancement shaman. I first try tanking in cat form, which is fun for a while – but imp LotP healed the damage faster than the resto could, so they could still have nothing to do. They got to hibernate random mobs, but it wasn’t the same. It was kinda boring and us being mostly druids, we wanted to fool around a bit.
So on the last boss, after getting a bit of a threat lead, I shifted to aquatic form and tanked it. Aquatic form in T6 hits for about 800 a normal attack! That was more than enough damage to outthreat the other two DPS, and I started needing heals. They had to actually run away from the others when they got targeted by the slime spray. And the healing was actually, like, being needed and stuff. It was a lot of fun. I want to go back there and see how seal form works in T7 gear.
I really do miss a lot of the coordination and harder heroics that needed interesting ideas on how to do things with what you had on hand. Magister’s Terrace was hard – and the arena fight was really hard without certain makeups – but it also made me think a lot more about group comp, abilities, and really stretched my limits on tactical thinking. I ran that place 50 times trying to get my trinkets, and each time was different depending on who was there. One night it’d be a mage/mage/lock. The next it’d be two arms warriors, a warlock. Another time it’d be a hunter/rogue/shaman. Another would be a shaman/spriest/arms. Sometimes there’d be tons of CC, other times there’d be none. It was great.
Honorshammer, I actually read your blog, and like it, and thanks for commenting!
I could just refer you to Mooriah’s story above as being characteristic of what I’m talking about, but you deserve a much better response than that.
You see, I agree with your point that Paladins had it rough a long time, and had to overcome a lot of pre-conceived ideas and prejudice before they were taken seriously. That they have come so far, and accomplished so much over the course of the last two years, is something to applaud. To cheer. To be damn grateful for. A good Paladin is a treasure to cherish. I certainly begged Graimerin and Morthog to main tank Kara enough times to prove that I can respect and admire a good Paladin tank.
As if I gave a shit about proving anything to anyone. Sigh. There goes my street cred, right out the window.
I personally feel there is a big difference between enthusiasm to prove you can hang and overcome stereotypes, and pure arrogance that anyone would dare challenge your decisions as tank or try to make their voice heard in a party, such as in Mooriahs example.
It’s been a long, long time since Paladins were considered useless and feral druids were pushed into a corner and told ‘raid resto or go home’.
Maybe those Paladins that are causing problems, JUST like many of those feral Druids that are doing the exact same thing, have all come along after the great equalizing blow of Burning Crusade. Maybe they did not suffer through the lean years, but have instead jumped onboard the latest hot fad.
Once Warlocks were the insanely OP flavor of the month. It seemed like everyone, and I mean everyone, rolled a Warlock after they were revamped, back when classes used to be picked one at a time for a makeover. Remember that?
Maybe that’s what this is, a few folks jumping on the hot OP sensation, and who are too immature to handle it.
I don’t really know the causes, but I know I’m tired of it and I want it to go away.
Druids were like that. Rolling along all quiet, the most under-represented class, and all of a sudden the furry population exploded overnight, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just due to a newfound love for being covered in purple or brown fur and frequent visits to the vet.
Honorshammer, I’m sorry that I struck a nerve, or made you feel that my post placed your entire class under attack. It was not my intent to cause all Paladins to feel the necessity to stand up and defend themselves.
I had hoped I had stressed that I was talking about an attitude amongst some tanks, and not the class as a whole, an attitude tied intimately to AoE tanking and high survivability.
But I’m sure I didn’t do so enough… and so for every Paladin that tries to provide a good example and does their best to be an open and approachable leader, and who feels I defamed your character, I apologize.
Great post! As a casual non-maxlvl non-raider healer I am limited to 5mans, but still understand the true value and fun that a working group can accomplish.
My story is a bit unusual, in that my all time favorite run EVER was leading a group of 4 level-appropriate guild alts through Deadmines. I am a Disc priest, and as a lvl 72 (at the time) with two 20-ish hunters, mage, and rogue, was the de-facto tank AND healer for the run.
At first, we all tended to let me Dot up all the mobs, shield myself, and wand+smite everything down while I tossed a Prayer of Frizbee around for random party overhealing. This worked, but led to a few delays as I drank back my mana. Death was never really a fear, except a few tense situations in the furnace area with running goblins.
The second time we ran it (trying for the Defias Leather for our rogue), I decided that it was a bit too stressful with the multi-pulls, and it would actually go much faster if we used a bit of group ability. Newly learned Freezing Traps were set, the rogue sapped a few things, and the mage gave me bread and water (oh yeah, and helped sheep). Each individual pull seemed to take a few extra seconds to setup, but overall, the entire run felt smooth, stress-free, and was over much faster than the first run of mass-Aoe and then drink.
Plus, as you mentioned, the second run was much more fun. It turned towards the end into a friendly challenge to see how long the hunters and mage could chain CC, or kite a single mob around the empty instance until we got bored and started getting low on mana. They were competing to crowd control, and forcing me to Mind-Control it just to get control back. Completely awesome time all around.
That, more than any other run, was the most fun and group-solidarity team experience I’ve ever had in my 3 years of Warcraft.
(except a guild reg-Nexus run last week where the DPS had an unspoken pact to mess up intentionally every pull to see how me=healer could handle things but was AWESOME fun. Misdirect on the healer while Taunt on cooldown? o_O Lets see what happens, with a pally rez if needed afterwards! those Crazy guildies! )
God Kenandi, taht sounds hilarious.
You have me wanting to run Deadmines with an all level appropriate group.
Hmm… I think I have a lowbie alt I was leveling somewhere around here….
I’m my guild’s lead Tank spec druid. My heroic group consists of Me, a Prot Warrior, a Resto Druid, a Rogue and a hunter or shadow priest. We don’t just face pull and AoE. We are so comfortable with eachother’s abilities that we usually pull multiple groups at a time and burn them. We will use some clever crow control when necessary, but usually don’t. We all really enjoy doing this and our group finds it more of a challenge to try and kill 7-12 heroic mobs at a time before the healer runs oom.
We used to do the crowd control method, but as our gear improved in Naxx-10, we no longer find it necessary. Our usual rotation is Gundrak, Drak Tharon, Violet Hold, Azjol-Nerub and then Utgarde Keep. We can complete the 5 heroic circuit in about 2.5 hours these days.
@Arylian: Agreed that Warlocks can do fantastic CC. Sadly, though, Fear yo-yo is no longer possible because Curse of Recklessness no longer makes mobs immune to fear. Mobs will no longer “run away in fear”, but they CAN be feared.
As for 5-man success stories… I really can’t think of a specific event right now. I’ve run more PuGs than I can count, and the VAST majority of them have been successful.
I play a Paladin as my main these days, and it is very easy to fall into the “lol wuts CC” point of view, even when it’s obvious the healer is struggling to keep me up. My attitude has changed a bit now that I’m leveling again.
Example: Earlier this week I got invited to a group for AN (normal). They never asked my spec and already had another pally + DK in the group, so I assumed tanking and healing was covered. Final group composition was 3xPaladin, DK, and rogue. We get inside and the question goes out… “who’s tanking”. I was the highest level with the highest HPs, but I didn’t have my tanking gear on me. I DID have my healing mace and shield on me, though. So I volunteered. Anyway, we started out… and wiped on the 3rd pull. We all ran back in and one of the DPS players said “why don’t we get a real tank”. My response: “No, why don’t we use some CC instead of trying to faceroll our way through”.
So I setup CC markers and away we went. We cleared the entire place using with minimal of fuss because I DIDN’T insist on AoE tanking.
Yep, and as a Horde guild, it’s even more fun to watch the alliance folks stare at us with worried expressions as we swam up from Grom’Gol and descended upon the mines of Westfall! The Defias of Farstriders realm have two factions to worry about with our group around!
Hmm, I cant think of too many stories any more. I’ve more or less stopped running 5 mans on my druid because my friends and I overgear them by such a large degree that it would be silly to do anything but AOE zerg them. Which is boring. We also have no use for any of the rewards. Lets hope they release some new 5 mans soon.
Part of the desire for speed pulling is that in a progression guild, you have to spend minimum time on trash so you have maximum time on bosses. If you cant speed pull a 5 man, you’re progression 25 mans will be slow and tedious, compared to guilds who can.
However, one or two instances are still tricky for us (eg old kingdom) and we’ve had to slow down, pay attention to mob names, and set careful kill orders with some CC at times. Thats been nice, and I’ve enjoyed working with the group more closely. My best time recently was in a 10 man naxx I led from start to end, and we one-shotted most of the bosses, which much more success than all previous 10 man guild runs led by older, officer-type players. I had a great crew, hand picked from the guild, who I trusted and liked, and who trusted and liked me. We came together and it was a great experience.
“Lets hope they release some new 5 mans soon.”
ARA… you really did NOT just say that and mean it.
“Blizz, we’ve had this content a whole 1.5 months… I’m booooorrrredddddd….”
“When’s the next expansion due?”
Omigod, I’m stunned. That’s it, I’m walking away from the computer now.
Hey BBB, Im not sure I get your point! However, the next 5 man I run will be probably be normal UK on my 70 prot warrior… and I’m looking forward to it a lot.
While I don’t think we need new 5-mans YET, I hope that we have a new precedent with 5 man MgT added with 25 man Sunwell.
Getting a 5-man instance with every raid would be a nice change.
This one was a while back.
The instance was shattered halls – both the daily and daily noh-heroic. Guild chat states that the group has just gotten past the second boss and needed to replace the dps. My mage (which was arcane specced at the time) joined up with a pally tank, holy priest, hunter and shaman. Somewhat Kara geared at the time.
We decided to pull the side pulls (it was the daily normal to take them out and the priest wanted to get the enchant). After determining the priest could not heal though the mortal strikes even after the sheep and trap, we decided to try something.
End result: 1 mob sheeped, one mob initially trapped, the hunter and shaman kited the third back to the first bosses room, the tank would tank 2 (one of which I would burn as fast a possible). After the first mob died, I moved on to the second on the tank until the frost trap broke, then switched to that mob and slowed and kited it. At this point the hunter and shaman got back and helped me finish that mob. Finish the mob on the tank – then kill the sheeped mob.
And we managed it all 4 times without a death. That was probably the coolest teamwork job I can remember.
I’m in the AOE pull camp. Not a fan of CC unless absolutely needed and very little content in WoTLK really requires it. I’m not sure I agree that its somehow funner if every party member is off trying to do their CC thing or that 5 man heroics or raids are the right place to be learning/trying some new aspect of your class, particularly how to CC a target.
Taking the time to mark every mob for CC adds a lot of time to the instance and leaves more opportunity for players to space out or go AFK. Chain pulling forces people to be on their game and stay engaged until you’re done. It also seems that generally if you try to mark all targets and get everyone to dps in a particular order the group runs into more issues if everything doesn’t go off without a hitch. A sap or sheep breaks unexpectedly and that person has to then stop their DPSing and try to re-CC without getting crapped on. With a good AOE tank those DPS classes can stick to their core and just worry about blowing shit up. If you’re running with a PUG, letting them know up front that you won’t be marking most targets and to just give you a few seconds each pull to establish aggro and then assisting the tank for DPS seems to work for me most of the time.
Generally its the tank’s job to keep the party moving. Ever grouped up with a tank that didn’t get this and you’re having to ask them to pull each time, annoying huh? The group is sitting around between pulls waiting for something to happen.
Doing heroics with slow tanks and full CC just drives me nuts.
My friend Lisri (Windrunner US) is doing something that’s really impressively amazing, and as far as she knows, unique right now – moonkin tanking. I had a chance to watch over her shoulder as she did the first heroic as a tank… Utgarde Keep, with a pug. Resto shaman, rogue, death knight, and… ret pally, I think it was, and I’m pretty sure most of them were geared but not overgeared. (Level 78-80 blues, occasional epics, but not regular raider gear; I think you all know what I mean.)
She’d go in and mark everything up, using all of the available CCs – sap, hex, roots, repentance, hibernate, depending on the makeup of the pull. One thing hit her at a time, for most of it, since a moonkin doesn’t really have the option to let everything just whale on them – no real cooldowns to pop to mitigate it (though Hurricane’s debuff helps somewhat!), lower armor than a “real” tank, and a lower health pool than a “real” tank.
It was amazing. The group was enthusiastic, positive, and having a lot of fun experimenting to figure out what worked best. Wipes happened, but no one seemed to mind much, and far more often it was “oops, rez the one person who fell over” than “oops, we’re all dead.” It was a really different approach to instancing, and it was a lot of fun to watch and make comments over her shoulder!
Me, I tend to do the “pull everything in sight” method for the reason someone else has mentioned – I trust my healers. Though when Lisri and I are running together, we have some creative tanking solutions at times… like those whelps in Oculus, the ones that don’t move once you pull? I’ll tank as many as Swipe can reach, and Lis will hurricane the ones I can’t, and it keeps the healer safe. :) I can also trust her that if one thing sneaks past me, like in the Pinnacle gauntlet, she’ll keep it off the healer, and be able to take the hits long enough to kill it. And if the healer is struggling for whatever reason (OOM, LOS, seriously undergeared, whatever…), I can usually count on getting a couple heals from the boomkin.
I trust my group, really, most of the time. It’s easy to figure out who can and can’t be counted on to pinch-hit when things go wrong, and while I try to make sure they don’t, it’s nice to have that backup plan. I also stress out a lot less when I know that at least one of my group members is on top of things and will help fix things up if I get overwhelmed. (Which happens; I took a break from tanking and am a bit rusty.)
*resumes lurking*
Took a looong time off from non-guild 5 man stuff to level my Prot Paladin (as my mini-guild’s MT) but found myself needing to level my capped Enchanter/Tailor to 65 to unlock the new Wrath patterns.
Which would have been much less daunting if he wasn’t a Holy/Disc Priest being played by someone who just doesn’t get the whole Shadow thing.
So I jumped in to LFG about a week after Wrath shipped and found 500 DKs, 1 lonely Warlock and me looking for BC groups. So, there I am, running Ramparts/SP/UB in 4 DK + 1 Priest groups. 4 people, mostly skilled-already 70+ players, running their shiny new DKs around as they learned the skills and talents.
Amazing fun. None of us were learning the instances, all of us were casual about the “it happens” parts (it took us 4 wipes on the first Ramparts run to figure out that the Gargoyles were flying up and aggroing the platform right above the entry and pulling half the instance to us right about the time we reached the Houndmaster) and I leveled from mid 61 to 65 in about 3 days of instance only casual play.
Enjoying that much more than the “I have a right to complete this instance in 9 minutes or less” twits that I keep running into in Nexus/UK. :)
Blog rocks, keep up the good work.
–Echo
I will say that I see your point in entirety, BBB. You’re right, it is absolutely no fun to effectively sit on auto-follow while someone shows off how absolutely badass they are. You get so little from the game that way, leaving you to focus solely on damage meters to assure you that you belong where you are. It is very probably disheartening to be relegated to that when you are looking to participate more.
However, Honorshammer has a very good point. Most of the people I PuG with could give a rat’s behind about making the most of the content in front of them. They *like* watching damage meters. They are there to get badges and loot, and flex epeen when they can. In those groups, which are at the very least the majority I end up with nowadays, if you aren’t a “rockstar tank” they’d just as soon wait for someone else to come along. A lot of people are willing to wait quite a while to spend less time in an instance, which is very ironic in its own right. In fact, in my experience, non-rockstars are viewed as subpar, incompetent, and an inconvenience.
Chalk it up to the laziness of many players who PuG. They don’t want to be the one to leave their Dalaran reverie to summon others. They’ll avoid any responsibility they can, including group leadership/marking. They don’t want to CC, and they’ll complain bitterly about the tank’s inadequacy if they have to do so. They just want to cruise along, pew-pew, and collect the fruits of said rockstar’s labors (not to mention the poor chain-smoking healer in the back). Wipes are, needless to say, always someone else’s fault, and usually either the tank’s or the healer’s, pending who you talk to. No one explicitly takes responsibility for anything, but all will likely blame the tank if the group fails. Its implied that the leader is responsible for success or failure, always.
The tank is out front, and every minor error, mistake, and misclick is plain to see. Every chink in the armor subject to the discussion and condemnation of others. Every time the group dies, it will be a direct reflection on the tank. They are the leader. They should know every pull in every instance by rote, every obscure boss should be memorized. Anything less, and they don’t get invited to come play again.
What kind of tank does this environ produce? What if you really *are* a fairly capable tank?
CC has always been a minimal usage kind of thing for me when I tanked. CC was an extra moving part, an extra chance for a group to fail and wipe, and it requires something that no PuG is likely to have: Trust. The tank has to trust the CCer to follow through, to not let that angry mob get to the healer, no matter what. That mob is a responsibility. The CCer has to trust that the tank will do everything he can to relieve the CCer of that burden as quickly as possible. Invariably, 1 or the other fail that trust, and it happens often enough that it becomes painful. So, when it could be avoided, it was. Now it can almost always be avoided.
What I’m saying BBB, is that when I tank, I am your “rockstar” tank. I don’t do it because I don’t want others to have fun. Quite the contrary. I do it because I am the one who all will blame when the endeavor fails. I do it because I think winning is more fun, and I don’t trust anyone else to win it for me without proving themselves, and they will have little oppurtunity to prove themselves, if they can at all, because in order to have the oppurtunity to prove themselves, they have to have the oppurtunity to fail. I do everything I can to eliminate their failure from the equation.
When someone performs well, I’ll praise them, but if their good performance was response to my failure, if they stepped up where I fell short, then I’ll take note. I’ll do my best to eliminate that failure next time, because I don’t want to rely on them to cover my weakness, and I don’t want them feeling that they really need to do so.
If I have all the responsibility, then I require all the power, and I’m unlikely to let any of either go. Its MY good name and reputation on the line, my ability, not just to have fun now, but also in the not so distant future, when I look for a group for another instance. I now have 2 tanks, a Protection Warrior and a Frost Death Knight, but my attitude has been the same on both. Its not a matter of being a glory hound or an attention whore, its a matter of not wanting to be associated with poor performance.
Having met my share of asshat tanks in my time, I really do have to agree that the majority of them have been Paladins. Certainly there must be some prima-donna warriors, bears and DKs out there, but I’ve met a grand total of 3 tanking DKs, haven’t seen a Druid tank since Wrath launched, and I think warrior tanking is still a bit too twitchy for them to have the time to devote to berating other group members. (rule of thumb: If your warrior is texting, he’s not tanking.) I do have a protection paladin alt myself though, and I really have to admit, that after tanking as a warrior, paladin tanking is almost too easy.
Of course, I’ve probably met just as many asshat dps people as well, but as they weigh in at about 3 for a dollar, they can generally be ignored.
I think the real issue is that Paladins became the FotM tank in the latter half of TBC’s life-span, and because it was so easy to tank as a paladin once you got the gear together, we now have a bundle of people playing tanks that wouldn’t have otherwise had the patience to stick it out in the other tanking classes. A lack of patience being one of the more common asshat qualities, it shouldn’t really surprise anyone that we now have more asshat tanks than before.
As I said, I have a paladin tank alt, but my first character to ever hit the level cap, way back before TBC was even on the radar, was a protection specced warrior. I’m pretty certain that when I hit 60, warriors didn’t even have Shield Slam on their talent tree yet, or if we did, it didn’t scale with BV the way it does now. I played Horde back then, and for a while I was the only tank in a small guild that never saw 40-man raid content. We did hit ZG once or twice with another guild, but the biggest thing I ever really ran was 15-man UBRS and 10-man Scholo/Strat. (Then they nerfed them to 10 and 5 man respectively.) That guild unfortunately suffered a slow collapse as people were either drawn or drifted away, and I’ve since switch factions and servers, but I do miss the old guard occasionally.
Something I developed while tanking for that guild and assorted PuGs was a pretty comprehensive set of “tank values”. The list looks an awful lot like BBB’s description of a good group leader, honestly. I took pains to establish a good working knowledge of other classes’ mechanics, and of the content we were running, and I tried to adjust strategies in the field as much as possible to account for what resources I had at hand. The presence or absence of certain CC abilities, for instance, drastically changed my desired kill order.
On the flipside, I did develop a certain “My way or the High-way” attitude to running PuGs. Tanking, to me, was a responsibility. It wasn’t necessarily that I was the most important person in the group, but I was the first line of defense, and even though I knew I was pretty damned good at it, I also knew that I required the cooperation of my whole group to do my job. Back in the old days, tank threat wasn’t the monstrous thing it is today. DPS who hit the wrong target too hard died (usually when I stopped making the effort to save them, I’ll admit), and that target didn’t always cooperate and come back to me afterwards. It was also the fact that in a party consisting of 4 total strangers and myself, I figure the only person I can be absolutely 100% certain is actually competent is me. I also wasn’t willing to waste my time, or the time of any cool people I might meet, with asshats who couldn’t follow instructions or listen to reason. That said, I didn’t boot people from my group without warning, because it didn’t make sense to me to simply release a player with bad grouping habits back into the PuG wilderness without trying to explain things. Sometimes, what seems like an asshat is just an inexperienced player, and it’s always satisfying when you managed to teach them something useful. (People who didn’t learn, however, tended to die alot in my groups.)
Also, many asshats will flee in the face of reasonableness of their own accord, usually to try and find a tank who puts up with them and doesn’t talk so much, but it’s far more satisfying when they drop group themselves.
Nowadays I play a Warlock as my main, and in the days of raid-marking I generally expect the tank to have the group leader spot simply because I feel they should have the final call on what order things get dropped in. They, after all, are the ones generating the aggro. The actual “leader”, however, can be someone totally different. My expectations of tanks (based on what I expected of myself in that role) generally leads me to expect them to lead, but I will happily offer advice to inexperienced group members, tanks or otherwise. (One of my greatest challenges, which I still haven’t quite licked, is getting people to remember that they have the damned healthstones, and to use them occasionally.)
I am not a huge fan of the zerg AoE instance run just because it always feels like people are rushing to get it over with. I only get the chance to run a couple of instances a week so I don’t want to wish the time away and buzz through something without having time to enjoy it. In fact, my favourite 5-man instances are those that turn into a “Hey, while we’re all grouped, does anyone want to do those group quests” and becomes a rolling adventure through group content.
One of the great things about playing a multiple player game is the way that other classes can surprise you with their different abilities. The first time I saw our boomkin use hibernate for CC in ZA was a real buzz. And I love being in a group when someone says “Wow, what just happened?” on finding an exciting new way to use someone’s class abilities. As an alliance resto shaman, I am used to running in groups where people have no idea what my spells are, so having people be interested in what you can offer to the group rather than just saying “Drop windfury noob” is really refreshing.
My favourite 5-man story recently has already been featured on your blog – it was that absolute wipefest of a regular MrT run where nothing was going right and we didn’t manage to even get to the last boss, let alone down him. The thing that made it really fun was obviously not the achievement of finishing it. It wasn’t quick, it wasn’t easy. The enjoyment was because with us for whatever reason not being able to get things done with the “standard” strategy, we were having to plan and toss ideas around for novel solutions to get around our total fail. One thing that I love to hear on a run is “Well sure, I am happy to give it a shot that way, let’s see how we do”. There is a sense of problem solving and group solidarity that comes from having to try and solve a problem together.
Hi, my name is Korsic, and I’m your rockstar tank.
I’m a paladin. I run out, throw my shield, and piss excellence all over the ground. I chain-pull until my healer says he’s out of mana. I know hunters can trap, I know rogues can sap, and I know mages can sheep. Why do I do what I do then? Not to deprive other classes of their utility, but because they expect it of me. Groups don’t want to run instances anymore, they just want their loot and they want to leave.
The funnest instance run I’ve ever done was Heroic MgT. The group was myself tanking, a resto druid, 2 mages and a warlock. One mage always sheeped moon, the other always turtle’d star. Our warlock would enslave the succubi whenever they were in the pull, and we occasionally used her to tank a mob also.
During the 5v5 fight, I would strap on my holy gear and heal. I’d even tank Kael in my holy gear that way I could help heal the second half of the fight. Was it necessary? No. Why did I do it? Because it was viable, and I love doing more than just running in and screaming HIT ME HIT ME HIT ME at the mob. It’s another aspect of my class, and I love it.
I recognize that these other classes have utility outside of Blizzard, Volley, and Hurricane. The problem is, nobody wants to use them, and Blizzard is catering to these people. They are even going out of their way to try to make other classes aoe viable.
Until this mindset stops or we get more challenging five man content, you’ll keep seeing more and more rockstar tanks, and I’ll keep the chain-pulls coming.
Korsic
I agree with Ruune about the fun factor. I am in the dungeon for fun. I am not anywhere near the “speed run” level yet. I want to see the sights, have fun with guildies in a stress free environment, get nice loot (of course), and generally enjoy myself.
As a new healer my gear is somewhat questionable (along with my skills), and any form of cc which decreases the incomming damage is just fine with me. It does stress me out a bit when the tank is loosing health and I see the melee take a 12k hit, a pet die, and the warlock loosing life (still don’t know what that’s about lol). Anyway, it IS nice to see some cool abilities used. The sap/freeze arrow pull was really neat (and alot less stressful).
Some day I will be doing “badge farming speed runs”, but that day is not today. BTW that was my first complete heroic as a healer.
I am so amazed by the people that apparently read what I wrote, and either took it as Paladin bashing, or decided it was a bash against anyone that likes speed running or AoE tanking without CC, and just totally blew off the POINT, which was about self centered tanks that do whatever they want HOW they want NO MATTER WHAT THE OTHER PLAYERS IN THE GROUP MAY WANT TO DO.
Go ahead. Tell me again how you tank without CC. Guess what, more than half the damn time SO DO I. Because more than half the time THE GROUP WANTS TO GET TO THE BOSS FAST.
BUT are you tanking that way REGARDLESS OF WHAT THE OTHER PEOPLE IN THE GROUP WANT? Do you ram your way of doing things down their throat? Huh?
If not, then why are you stroking your epeen about tanking without CC or bitching that CC takes too long for your group so everyone should stop using it or acting like if people do want to use it they suck?
Do you get the idea that I’m a little miffed? Maybe? A little?
Seriously, maybe it’s time to shut down the damn blog.
And yes, I am deleting the more incredibly offensive comments. I am practising censorship.
A good rule of thumb? Don’t use the f-word or swear directly at me in your comment. It has a much higher likelihood of being posted.
I apologize to those of you that only see the above comments and think I’m teeing off solely based on them.
Oh, and Korsic I loved your comment. That sounds awesome. You might actually take what I meant by rockstar tank, and turn it into a compliment.
I try my hardest to help my group excel, no matter what we’re doing.
I agree with you wholeheartedly.
If more tanks (or people in general) could understand that they aren’t the only one playing thing game, the community would be alot nicer, and not just in instances and groups.
I play a DPS class (a hunter specifically) in a small guild of friends, we dont regularly have enough players on at a time to do guild runs so im afraid PUG is a way of life for most of us. which means, unfortunately, that i have come across more than my fair share of primadona tanks.
i think the biggest problem with pugs is that there is no team cohesion, so if we do wipe we dont sit and figure out why we wiped and then decide how to fix it. instead it seems the fashion to blame whoever has the fewest epics and then leave without warning and i hate it passionately.
dont get me wrong ive run with some genuinely nice people who are on my friends list and who i run with whenever i can but these people seem to be few and far between which has led to me becoming totally dissalusioned with the whole idea of heroics and left me playing my alts most of the time.
My fondest memory of a 5 man was a pug of shadow labs heroic. it was about 2 am and i was knackered and a little grumpy so i was reluctant to run but id played with the tank a few times and enjoyed it so went ahead. to cut a long story short, the bear tanked magnificently, i was called upon to do some trapping which was a refreshing change (i was late to 70 so most people i ran heroics with seemed to out gear them negating any cc on hand) and we cleared it without a hitch i went to bed a happy hunter, my faith in pugs somewhat strengthened. sadly ive yet to see this in Wrath but i hold on to a slim strand of hope.
Nexus.
1 Furry tank, 2 shadow Priest, 1 Holy Priest, 1 Prot warrior.
Intro to group:
Rock up in caster gear, declare that you’re the tank, watch the healer have the equivalent of a pixelated cardiac arrest. THEN, swtich to tanking gear and smile.
Pull sequence:(this instace is mainly dragonkins)
Hibernate -> bear -> Nature’s grasp -> move back away from 2 x CCed dragonkin mob. Tank n spank :P
Warrior proceeds to tank remaining mob and swipe does quite nicely for hitting multiples when you put in maul infront of it.
yea.. it’s a wierd group, no, we’re all guildmates :P
and besides, it was kinda fun..cept the damn bear had to sit and drink mana water just like the clothies which amused the warrior no end :P even more fun was when I had all 3 priest healing both the tanks :)
I know exactly what you mean. This is pretty much why I quit playing my hunter. Everything that was fun about the character was no longer being used, and just DPSing is incredibly boring. I was looking forward to getting to do some more challenging five-mans in Wrath, but the AOE tanking continues to rule the roost.
Maybe the next group I go on I’ll suggest this. :D
My favourite 5-man wasn’t a 5-man at all, it was a 2-man. Early in my WoW experience, not long after the BC expansion on a brand spanking new server, I was invited to do the Deadmines. I had never set foot in the place, nor had my party mate. I did know that it was supposed to be a group effort but, after asking a couple of times in the local channel with no response, we decided to go it just the two of us. So just my level 21 hunter (huntard really) and a level 28 hunter entered my first ever instance. With only party chat for communication, we slowly and carefully worked our way throught the tunnels and rooms of the Deadmines… We took out everything all the way to Smite, who we wiped on four times before deciding to call it. That toon wasn’t my first hunter, nor was it my last, and i have long since forgotten the name that toon and the other hunters name as well, but i will never forget the experience.
Hiya, …
Yeah i didn’t read the whole blog post, or the comments. But I do want to share an interesting group dynamic I am often a part of.
I run with a resto shammie who is infinitely confident in his ability to keep any sort of tank alive. Usually its me (hunter) and him and we pug a tank and 2 dps. He doesn’t care what tank we pug but is very insistent that we get excellent dps. Good dps kills the enemies fast and doesn’t pull aggro from the tank, and since he keeps the tank alive everything goes well.
Anyways, yeah the tanks in my groups are not the rockstars, they’re just kindof along for the ride while the rockstar dps kills everything efficiently and the rockstar healer keeps everyone alive. Its different and fun.
Up until the recent WotLK Feral Talent Tree insanity, and the accompanying Rogue loots, I played a Druid tank as my main. Rib was still the first toon that I levelled to 80, and he still gets some use, but I’m admittedly playing the Shaman a lot more these days. I think that the whole AOE tank thing is really taking some of the fun out of being a bear these days, even if the death of CC and the unveiling of shorter instances means that lolspeedruns are so much more available than they ever were before.
Back in the days of BC heroics, though – if you were a bear, you HAD to be a CC master. Not that you couldn’t take the beating, that was easy. I had no trouble at all dealing with mitigation on the 3 mobs I was swiping, and whomever else was along for the ride. Outside of that, it was dicey. 4-5 in the pull? Hope you have CC for 2 of em, and enough DPS to burn down one of your current targets before that CC’d mob breaks and joins the melee, because swipe only hits 3! Either that, or Hurricane the whole pull and either tab-target your swipes to try and distrubute threat across the pull in enough of a quantity that the healing aggro doesn’t pull someone from you, all the while making sure that your primary dps target gets enough aggro to keep you in front… and the whole time, dealing with the bear-only mechanic (and if you aren’t a Druid, you just don’t understand this ’til you see it) of just how much of the screen is occupied by your own meaty ass when you back into a corner to make sure that you dont get punted, or to keep those swipees in front of you. Good times. I can remeber the joy I felt once I figured out (thank you to The Rambling Bear, here) how to use Starfire’s cast time to nuke mob #2 on your threat list, Moonfire another, and then go bear for the good times!
I know that it was a definite learning experience, and took a lot of practice and dedication to really get good at it. Now? Toss shield + Consecrate + Lolshieldblock = win. That, or Thunderclap X 200, Shockwave when possible, and w/e else it is that Warriors do (sorry, I still have 3 classes under 70! I dont understand them quite so much!). Gear is better, mobs play nicer and talents are tankier. Sure it allows for any old Joe to tank now, it seems… but it also feels like some of the bloom is off the rose to be a tank. It used to be one hell of a badge of honor if you were a Raid Tank. Those that were had earned it, through much grinding, practice and – bottom line – hard work. I can still remember the nervous feeling that I had the first times that I was tapped to tank Gruul and Magtheridon. I was proud of the fact that, on almost any given kara run, I’d get the call to tank Nightbane – even if I was doing the rest of the run on an alt. It’s so ridiculously easy and underskilled to tank the content so far, it’s no wonder that wipefest occurs when you ask a tank to do something outside of just standing there and getting beat on. Take Anub’Rekhan, for instance. If you can train your main tank for the kiting on Locust Swarm – a pretty easy task, given – then it’s fairly easy. Suffice to say, it seems that even this mechanic is proving difficult for some. I’ve even had times on this fight where picking up the add has been difficult for some tanks. Kind fo reminds me of the part in “Top Gun”, when he leaks about pilots getting too dependant on missiles, so they lose dogfighting skills…
*Anyhow*, my favorite 5-man moment to date happened in Utgarde Pinnacle, Heroic. It’s kind of a limited team experience, but it was epic as hell to me. The boss? Skadi. Yeah, that one. Harpoons, gauntlets and proto-drakes, oh my! Anyhow, I’m running on my Shaman, but I’m running Elemental. Resto Druid, Prot Paladin, Ret Paladin and a Frost Mage are the rest of the group. We’re all pretty good players; the Ret Pally is a guild Raid Leader, and regularly at or near the top of any WWS Raid report for us. The Druid is also good (he’s a High Warlord, after all). Pallytank is the only non-guild, but a friend of the Druid – and he’s got the “Loremaster” title, so I know that he’s got a handle on things. As to the Mage, that’s my wife. Anyhow, we’ve reached the back end of the gauntlet and I’m on harpoon duty. As I fire the kill shot on the proto-drake and Skadi dismounts to melee, I turn to notice that the tank is in the doorway to pick up the adds that have spawned. before he can react, Skadi lands behind the Paladins, right on top of the Druid and Mage – and immediately aggros onto them, killing both outright. He’s at about 95% health, and our Healer is down and out, with no possibility or a rez or soulstone. Normally, this is Wipe City, population: me. Still, I know what kind of DPS this Ret Paladin is capable of, and I was quick enough to switch into healing that we’re at least set up for the fight – so we decided to give ‘em hell. I should state that my Elemental spec doesn’t place any points into the Restoration tree; in fact, in hindsight, I didn’t even have the presence of mind to switch from Flametongue Weapon to Earthliving Weapon. What I did do was abuse my GCD! I did what I could to keep the Ret Pally high enough on health that he wouldn’t get one-shotted by a whirlwind (usually via a Chain Heal here and there), and threw everything else into the tank or myself. it’s a fortunate thing that an Elemental Shaman in largely Resto gear has a ridiculous mana pool, especially with that Ret Pally proccing replenishment. Still, I burned through everything, plus a Runic Mana pot just to keep us all up. Both Pallies used their LoH at opportune times to supplement my efforts, and we had him down to about 10% when I finally died (on something like the 4th or 5th whirlwind). Fortunately, dying was fortuitous, as ankhing actually brought me back with more mana than I had before I bought it! That was enough for me to keep the tank alive for the last bit it took to bring the beast down.
The other *really* good one that I can remember – a Magtheridon run where a melee DPS ran over top of my position when I was Main Tanking him, with Mags at something like 6% health – and the random cave-in target (which is never supposed to be the main tank) happened to be that guy, on my position. Net result: cave in on MT for like 25K, GG dr00d. Mags started running willy-nilly on the raid, cleaving and one-shotting anyone in his path before the tank that had been on the 5th Channeler was able to pick him up (coincidentally, same guy with the Ret Pally in the prior story, but on his Warrior). people screaming all manner of stuff into vent (”Blow cooldowns! Get him down!”)…. Kill shot winds up going to a Resto Shaman spamming Lightning Bolt. Only people left alive? That Warrior tank and two Resto Shammies. Epic, baby.
I need to break from 5 man format, and give an old story or two from my guild’s kara days. With an important point in your teamwork unity… NEVER GIVE UP!
There is a tendency I’ve noticed in a few pugs and even amoung some guild players that if you pull more then what you originally planned, or that if someone in the group dies it’s all over. However if everyone knows their class, espcally the hybrid class players… it is truely amazing what kinda crap you can pull yourself out of.
I wasn’t the tank, I used to be a priest healer, and switched to shadow for raiding kara. Tanks were both warriors with an assortment of other class dps. Also for this story, we were not very well geared for kara… several DPS had several greens on still. The Tanks were pretty well geared to start doing kara… and healers were similarly geared. But no one could be called overgeared for the place.
We were taking on ushers at the starting area for the opera event. I was to shackle 1 usher and we double tank the other one like normal. Well, shackle ended early, while I was refreshing it… and the usher managed to get off his DK chain pull ability on me, which put me just far enough into agro range of the walking usher… so we had three to deal with now. To make matters worse, a hunter’s pet bugs out and launches a full on assult with a group of dancers that we didn’t clear. The healer called out over vent to just give up and wipe cause it was over… but the tank and myself (both good friends in RL and on that weekend playing in the same room) both call out on vent to keep fighting and give it everyhting we had.
I had to fade quickly and get back to the tank, so he could pick up 1 usher… and I re-shackle the other one. The tanks split up (to finish the first usher, and take up the second one) The enhancement shaman puts on a shield and drops his defensive totems and earth elemental to help off tank the second usher. The kitty DPS turns bear and holds the attention of the dancers… and dps unleashes alot of tricks that normally don’t get pulled (i.e. hunter frost trap for mobility, mage water elementals, priest shadow pet, battlerezes from both druids) I even popped out of shadowform to do DPS/Healing hybrid and trying to keep mana up for the rest of the party.
We managed to finish off the entire lot of baddies, although not without a bloody nose. The main tank was dead, the off tank had about 100HP left, the healers (including myself) were dead, the shaman was dead rezed and redead. The only ones left standing was the off tank, the rogue (who vanished at 200hp and unleahed more dps to finish the job), and the gnome mage (which surprised everyone since he was usually first to pull agro and die in the group), who was also an engeneer… which means we didn’t have run back into the intance, because he had his handy goblin jumper cables on hand to rez a rezzer. (thus proving that teamwork also entails having professions that you’re willing to pull out).
A similar story happened later at Shade of Aran… someone moved durring flamewreath, which wiped out 5 members of the raid early on, leaving me the shadowpriest and the enhancement shaman to heal… it again required most “Oh Crap!” buttons be pushed… including a few “It’s the end of the world as we know it” buttons. But the tank once again said, “Don’t give up yet!” and we downed him somehow. One thing that helped was having raid assists who were dead switch the parties around so we could all get the passive buffs and totem effects and mana regen.
Aside from the main peice of advice, the experiences illustrated to me that hybrids indeed have their place in a raid (back when pure classes were more prefered). The lack of pure dps/healing was outshadowed by the versitility they possessed to fill in gaps needed was priceless. Shamans espcally were often scoffed for not having crowd control, but being able to buff up the party with 4 different buffs that could rotate as the situation needed was awsome. Being able to heal, DPS, and cancel casting was also just huge. Druids… well read this blog for their awsomeness… Palis not as versitile, but still useful in most situations.
This is mainly in relation to the rockstar ideal in this blog. I completely disagree with you :(. I absolutely despise instances where we have to stop, mark, and cc. This method has 2 major flaws; firstly there can be errors in marking, caster mobs are not marked for cc and thus pull more adds when they do not run to the tank as expected, resulting in a “rockstar” pull anyway, just with more adds. Secondly mobs can dispel and resist CC or one player may forget to reapply CC, this only results in the healer having more aggro than the tank and getting 2 shot, leaving multiple mobs up without a healer. Finally it takes FOREVER. I can’t even comprehend a 2 hour nexus run, maybe i’m an elitist, maybe I’m lucky, maybe i know the right people but nobody i have ever run with has taken 2 hours to clear an instance.
Wiping; a fact of wow, usually caused by mistakes on players behalf, poor gear, incredibly hard bosses, unusual mob patterns or just plain old, horrible, RNG.
Now to compare the two tanking styles.
Your strategy of CC has far more room for player error with the CC.
Poor gear is going to wipe a group whether CCing or not, however, as I am sure someone will point this out, AOE pulling (aoe chain pulling more so) seems to puts more strain on your healer; yes the damage will be far burstier, the intensity longer but the atcual fight will be FAR shorter. I have seen hunters do 4x the damage when volleying than one target. Hypothetically speaking if you take 3 hunters (or any other aoe class) as your dps the pulls will go around 4x faster but involve the same amount of healing, possibly less because of more chances to proc talents that increase mitigation. DPS is hardly a problem in most instances, especially trash, and if its your dps’ gear your worried about for TRASH pulling…(which is the essence of aoe pulling)…your going to have serious problems on high intensity boss fights. Now onto the tank’s gear an undergeared tank is aways going to make healing, and therefore the instance harder. If a prot pally/warrior were to run into one of the heroics in quest greens the group is going to have serious problems. This is where it boils down to the tank recognising that he is not geared enough to tank this instance. AOE pulling is definently the flavour of the month at the moment and i would hazzard a guess that 95% of people are loving it. You can only push a person so far, my breaking point is around 5 wipes for a heroic (which in WOTLK has only happened in HOL with a pally heals lol) some people will break faster, some will stick around forever but in that group of 5 your bound to have 1 or 2 that will crack and break the group. It comes down to the tank then getting BLUES from some level 80 normals and the easier heroics. Its not like you need full naxx 25 epics to AOE chain pull with ease. I have seen great ret pallys who have taken blue gear their tanks dont want from instances and tank fine with a mediocre healer.
Bosses are pretty much irrelevant in this topic as they are all single pulls.
Unusual mob patterns also benifit AOE tanking. If a pat walks up to the combat zone if a tank is aoe tanking they just jump in the aoe and they are attacking the tank from the start. If tanks are single tanking he will have to run around rounding up the adds WITHOUT using aoe…because thats what they are doing…not aoeing…wihtout an extremely good tank this is unlikely to happen without a party member dieing.
Finally RNG…the whole world’s friend and enemy. This has the ability to make or break EVERY team and the only way to minimise the effects of RNG are to gear up, the tank should become uncrittable, dps hit capped etc.
With your final argument, people should be allowed to try their class out i have absolutely nothing to rebut. I am definently not one of those people but i know they exist. I love raiding, trying new content, making the same content harder (I’m looking at you sarth with 3 drakes) raiding is designed to be challenging and although its not all that challenging i still find it fun. That is where i like to spend my time. Instances, although they pose some troubles to new players anybody with a few weeks at 80 is most likely to be over them and running them for badges. I would much rather spend my time raiding, trying sarth with 3 drakes, than taking agonising time over pulls in a 5man where all I’m after is badges.
Sorry for the rant. As you can guess I have no story remotely like yours yet, as i complete the heroic dungeon achievements i may get a few. I just felt i had to post to defend us AOE lovers :)
keep up the rest of your work (it’s good)
Joey
I have become addicted to speed runs, but I’m not a tank; I’m a healer. It’s partly mercenary — more badges in less time. It’s partly, I admit, an ego thing — I take pride in being able to keep the tank up through greater-than-usual damage, and in having plenty of mana left to keep moving afterwards.
But I can honestly say that more than anything else, it’s about having fun. It’s fun to push the limits; it’s fun to take risks; it’s fun to take instances by storm, rather than slowly and carefully. Some groups don’t enjoy this, but I think there are more that do.
A few days ago I got my Bronze Drake with five minutes to spare; the previous day, I healed a Heroic Nexus run from start to finish in 33 minutes. Both groups had a blast. There’s a mutual respect that develops between the tank and healer especially, but also for the DPS that can keep up this kind of pace. And it’s not about numbers as much as it’s about the players’ willingness to push the envelope a bit.
The DPS will still have plenty of chances to shine, in much more significant ways than mere crowd control assignments. Take this situation: a patrol comes around the corner, and we notice too late to avoid it. The mage sheeps one of the mobs on his own initiative. The other one runs straight at me. The shaman helps heal me up after the first brutal hit. There isn’t a second, because the death knight grips the mob and off-tanks it until we have the battle under control again.
THAT is the kind of teamwork experience that really makes the game for me. Every DPS just did something beyond the usual, and they weren’t just following instructions; they were using their classes’ abilities to make plays. If it’s a PUG, I guarantee there will be some friends added after the run.
Hello, I’m Blue and I’m a beginner. *hello Blue*
I got as far as half Kara before Wrath hit, I never did a 70 heroic simply becuase when I was ready for that content, noone I knew was willing to teach the new player how to do it, we’re waiting for Wrath.
For this round I was ready to go, and go I did, and managed to hit 80 with the rest of my guildies and hoped that I’d be included in their runs. And luckily, my guild likes me. So I have for the last week been running heroics and loving every second! Like on the last boss on Violet Hold and noone was clear on where the dragon would appear, and she appeared with her nose on the healer. One look, and the healer died. Earlier on the first boss the tank shouts “Follow Me!” and we all go Wut? and die. Or last nights Violet Hold Heroic where the dps-warrior dies on the first boss, releases and resses outside the door so we complete the rest of the instance on four people.
But you know why I have so much fun? Because of who the group is made up of. My group is not made up of a DK, two warriro tanks, two holy priests, a badass rouge, a rockstar palla-tank. No, my group is made up of my neighbour that loves his dog and his girlfriend, a family (father-son-daughter) living not far from me where the daughter and I have discussed here homework, another couple that are my neighbours with three kids so they break off from time to time to check on the kiddies. That’s my group. That’s why I like to play. And the fact that after a good run, we can all go for coffee together :)
And oh, I’m a shadowpriest, can’t schakle to save my life, so the healer-priest does the schakling…
And oh, about marking taking a long time. Most, if not all of our thrash-pulls end with the tank at full health so while the healers (mostly just me) drink to top up the mana, the tank marks and when we start moving around, he pulls. Doesn’t get much faster than that.
I. Am a new tank.
(And I”m a DK. Always wanted to tank, never found a class I liked to do it before.)
I don’t know if anyone truly understands what it’s like to be a brand-new tank, clear out of the gate – but man, it’s a new experience, let me tell you. Going from hunter to plate is an utter and complete world of difference… but I digress.
I got into a guild-plus-pickup-group Utegarde Keep (normal) on Sunday. Oddly, I was one of the Pickups for it (While I knew members of the group, I certainly wasn’t in a guild with ‘em or anything – never run with them before).. and was set up to be the tank for the run. “Fair warning,” I told the bunch, “This is my first time main-tanking an instance run.”
(Before someone goes ‘learn2play’… you try getting an instance group in BC these days. Heh. And on /those/, I wasn’t trusted to main tank. Instead? Offtank and DPS by the score.)
We had a /blast/. The group knew their classes, knew what they /should/ be doing even when I didn’t (soulstones? Healthstones? Er. Sure! Why not!) – and even put up with me getting them killed with an overeager boss pull that we somehow pulled out of our rear ends and swotting the healer when an AOE pull on non-elite mobs went strange. They let me try a dozen different tactics, even suggesting their own ways of doin’ stuff – and you know? They even /suggested/ crowd control as a way to help learn how to hang on to aggro with my skill set.
And it was a /blast/. They /insisted/ I take the big axe drop at the end, they laughed when we wiped, they danced when we dragged down bosses, they teased the mage over not DPSing enough when he was the last one standing on a boss pull.
All I know is – it’s experiences like that that make me want to play. People having a good time in the midst of challenge, enjoying the run even when things /aren’t/ absolutely perfect.
Grimm
For me, tanking IS the game. As you say BBB, tanks are expected to mark therefore “lead” by default….and for me there is no bigger thrill in the game than “leading” a group into instance. I am typically modest, but after about 70% 5-man PuG runs i get /w from 2 or 3 folk saying my tanking/marking is exemplary.
However, there are so many players that don’t appreciate how difficult tanking at top level is, how contstantly AWARE you must be to do a good job and keep your team safe from harm. I am always complimented for my ability to mark DURING combat if needed (shortcut the marks to NumPad, speeds it along :D) and even then i still get some random player telling me to “hurry the f**k up and mark”.
I personally think there is a massive difference between the way that players treat eachother on EU and US realms, Hellfire EU has decended into outright nastiness and underhand tactics, with little to no respect for players with genuine skill. But there are still some diamonds in the rough, i have been lucky enough to form bonds with players since WoW was very first released, an age of relative niavity, where EVERYONE needed someone elses help.
Anyways i just moved house so i’m on hiatus from WoW until i can sort out the net, so at least i am getting a rest from the crazy in-game politics that surrounds dungeons :D
Hey guys,
First post up here, read this page alot. I am a druid, i’ve tanked in BC, I currently switch (Way too often for my bank =P) Between Resto and balance. just had to say BBB, you make a very strong point here. and wanted to share one of my favorite instance runs. It was a complete whipefest all night long. group composition was 2 balance druids (Me one), a resto druid, a feral tank, and a mage. we were planning on doing a tour of heroics starting with H AN. all of us new the instance, but we couldn’t get past that first boss pull. we had to try everything under the sun. CC was flying left right and center. Mobs start running forward, 2 roots go off, mage is trying to “Freeze” the last in place. whatever the “Plan” was that we came up with, It always seemed to culminate into us whiping at the end. all of us play together TO have fun, so while the dieing is going on we are all in vent laughing and joking about everything. after about 2 hours of non-stop dieing we set our sights somewhere else and completed other Heroics, but i remember the realization dawning on me as we left that instance:
THIS is what i play the game for.
THIS is what i pay my $15 a month for.
The laughs, and the fun. who cares if we couldn’t do it? we were to busy trying to get the bandage specced mage to heal to worry about how much repair bills were, or how much time we “Lost” getting no badges or “Phat loots”. we were having more fun doing things “Our” way (Listening to each other and trying all sorts of new things) . That was the most fun i’ve had in an instance. i believe this was what you were looking for, when you asked for teamwork. we don’t always have the greatest group compostion for everything, but whovere is in is throwing new idea’s out for trying to tackle a boss or set of trash mobs a different way than what’s “Normal”.
~Kug
PS. Thanks for your posting BBB, sitting here reading your post day in ussually sits true for my experiences and always offers new insight into the world. makes me wish i could get into a group with you once for a Heroic or 2. =P
Very well written post, as always. :)
I used to date a Feral Druid. Hot damn, was he conceited! He used to hand-choose all his Heroic members (I only got in because we were sleeping together, I’m sure) and the instant they’d do something he didn’t approve of, they were kicked without warning after being brutally insulted into the ground.
One day, on our alts, we ran through SFK. There was a hunter in our group who seemed to be underperforming, and my ex, who was sitting beside me, wouldn’t shut up about him and how much he sucked and how he was about to kick him because he was useless and stupid.
I gave him my best, “Do it for me” look and said, “Please don’t kick him, it’s only SFK and I just think this is his first character”. My ex whined for a while, but agreed he’d wait until the hunter really messed up. Finally, as if on cue, the hunter pulled the wrong mobs, and my ex kicked him after bitching him out. It seemed as though the hunter didn’t understand, and it took him a long time to type responses. I’d assumed he just didn’t speak English as a first language.
A few minutes later, my ex gets a whisper from that hunter, saying, “Why did you kick my little brother out of the group?? He’s crying!” It turns out the hunter had let his little 8 year old brother play on his toon, and not only did he not understand the game, but my ex had called him all kinds of horrible. The poor kid was bawling, and the brother was irate as my ex tried to justify his actions.
Needless to say, I simply glanced over at my ex, said WTG asshole, smiled, and kept playing. He reinvited the hunter, and I gave my ex a hug.
My main during BC was a feral tank, which was born out of the need to have a tank as our MT left our guild. I tanked through BC instances in normal and heroic mode. After we got another tank (a warrior) we started doing Karazhan and I also went into some bigger raids. All went well. After patch 3.0, it was fun nuking down everything in instances, which was fun as well.
Then Wrath hit, and the instances were more or less nuked down. I quickly leveled to 80 and after some runs through level 80 instances, we started doing heroics. All fine so far. However, the groups I rolled with expected me to tank all groups without CC. CC was out, AoE is the way to go. It’s fun for some time, but it gets boring in the long run.
However, during the past few weeks, I’ve feeling more and more uncomfortable with tanking, especially when it comes to PUGs. I have to trust them to take down the groups fast enough in order to survive. And with the new mantra being “prerequisite for heroics and raiding is reaching level 80 – you will get pulled through” it’s not always easy to get a decent PUG. When demanding some kind of experience, skills or gear people are telling me to chill out, everything can be AoE’d to death.
I love my bear, but I’ve hardly been playing it for the past weeks, because of this “aoe-nuke-the-instance-down” stuff. I’m playing some alts now and having a good time with it.
I certainly hope you didn’t take my post as bashing you, flexing e-peen, or saying that “rockstar AoE zerg race” tanking is the only way to go. It was not my intent, and I certainly don’t want you to shut down the blog.
It was an explanation for the other side of the coin (well, not *everyone* on the other side). Your post caused a moment of introspection, and I realized *I* was, in many ways, who you were referring to. In truth, I’d prefer that others led while I tanked, and often it actually makes more sense than the tank *always* being in the lead. I don’t really want all that control and responsibility all the time, but if I have 1 then I want the other. I truly love it when I see someone else step up to the task at hand. Some of my favorite encounters have been when pulls fell into chaos and suddenly everyone had to pull out the stops in order to come out victorious. Currently, scenarios like that are rare.
I think the last time that genuinely happened was well before patch 2.4, for me. In the Armory wing of Scarlet Monastery. Runners got out of hand, and we ended up pulling greater and greater portions of the entire instance. I was level 36 or 37 at the time, as was the rest of the group. The Mage would sheep a caster that was sitting too far away for me to pick up, the hunter would trap and kite, and I did my best, as a Warrior to keep the attention of about 12 angry mobs that were pounding the snot out of me, while the (Feral) Druid did his healery best to keep me alive. Everyone pulled together instead of falling apart, everyone stood their ground, no one gave up, and it was great, in spite of being a true PuG group.
As I grew better and better at tanking, and as content got nerfed further and further into the ground, it became just a distant memory. Its not that I never wipe, or never botch a pull. I do it all the time. But usually its simply a matter of me correcting something I did in the encounter, not something someone else did or did not do.
Fact is, if people I run with want to participate more, I’ve never heard them say so. So few take any initiative, and are more than satisfied if they’re just rocking the damage meter, or keeping little green bars green. If someone wants more out of a dungeon than what they are getting, they have to pipe up. 1 thing I won’t take responsibility for is whether or not people are having as much fun as they can. That is up to them.
Remember there are many of us that understand the point of your current blog themes as you write them. It would be a travesty if you stopped writing. Thanks as always for sharing.
Personally I can’t stand rushed runs, I’m not playing to be the best and compete against everyone else, I’m playing to have fun for a leisure activity. I want to take a look at the instance, the architecture, the little corners, the grand scenes… see what the mobs are doing before we smash them into the ground. Not rush to the end for phat loots and badgers tyvm. We have some of that sort in our guild now and they basically alienate those who want to do more of the “Roleplaying” in MMORPG.
Last night we did have a very good run with a pally tank. He took his time, marked up the primary, secondary kills etc and even used some crowd control. Because none of us knew the instance there was a fair amount of discussion about bosses, and no recriminations when we wiped. The hunter asked if he could try out his frost arrow and was duly given a symbol to try on, I got to hex something for fun. We even discussed doing the achievement on the big dinosaur in Drak’Tharon Keep, but decided against it because we were playing for fun and wanted to take things easy, instead of being pressured into trying something very hard just for the sake of it.
It was my first time in HoL, and things had been going very smoothly for a PUG. We cruised through Volkhan and Ionar… and then we reached Loken. Loken, as is his wont, beat us brutally the first two times. Then came the third attempt.
We still didn’t really have the timing down for balancing the back and forth between Loken’s two AOE effects. I personally died with about 40%. Another DPS went down even sooner, and when our healer bought it with 10% left it looked like Loken had our number once again.
But what Loken didn’t count on was: The Greatest Death Knight Ever.
The DK had pretty much been our shepherd the entire run, but what he did on the third Loken attempt goes way above and beyond in my book.
I’m just getting ready to release when suddenly I notice I’m getting rezzed. Yes, the DK actually had the presence of mind to use Raise Dead to get me back in the fight for one last stab at finishing off Loken.
Then the DK fell. But, sure enough, Shadow of Death kicked in, and now it was two zombies vs. Loken at 5%.
Loken went down, and it wasn’t even close.
I love running totally unbalanced parties in level appropriate content, especially with guildies on Vent.
The most fun instance I ever ran was Deadmines with five level 18-19 mages 3 1/2 years ago. We did not complete the run – Mr Smite (sp?) just owned us – but playing ping-pong aggro and using a bandage rotation healing startegy was just priceless.
The most fun instance I had last year was heroic Slave Pens with my protection warrior tanking, a restoratiion druid healing, and 3 warlocks fearing EVERYTHING in sight. Trash pulls lasted forever because adds would inevariably come. The idea was for each warlock to fear one mob and then fear the closest mobs when adds arrived. Total chaos by design! I used intervene, intercept, mocking blow, and taunt more often than I did in any other instance or raid. One wipe and a few additional warlock deaths only. This run was publicized on the guild MotD a few days in advance and many guild members contributed mana potions to help with the expected longer than usual pulls.
The best CC pulls we’ve had last year was with a 10k health, 11k armor, ~410 defense paladin tanking Heroic Botanica in 2.3. I was healing with my holy priest, and DPS was one beast mastery hunter, one survival hunter, a and enhancement shaman. We moved slowly because of the fragility of the tank. We discussed startegy before most pulls and tried various strategies such as dual pets with growl on off tanking the same mob, misdirecting to a pet positioned away and doomed to die, both hunters kiting the melee group with the paladin peeling one off at a time, and other fun stuff. We wiped twice early in the run but we became more proficient working as a group and managed to to complete the instance with no more wipes. It was in a way the most satisfying heroic I ever ran because only my priest and the beast mastery hunter were really geared for heroics, the rest of the group should have been running normal instances at their gear level.
I am an uber-casual feral druid, with about 5 hours per week of play time, in a pretty big guild with about 10 of my RL friends who are in the leadership. Whenever I wanted to run an instance I would either be “run through” or would be told that I should just concentrate on levelling. Now, I’m finally level 80 and am slowly gearing up for “heroics” for my first time. I also just bought the cold weather flying and artisan riding skills for all of my gold and was really surprised that I have to go through a quest chain that will take me multiple days worth of play time to finally fly fast. Somehow, I was under the impression that paying that much entitled me to flying fast in birdie form. It was good though, that I actually had to do more and figure more out, it makes the result worth more. The same is true of instances, I know that my buddies will be kind as I mess up in heroics, but I have never done an instance for real before so it would be very disappointing if they only do “speedruns.” It’s the struggle to do instances well that makes me want them, if they are too easy then the end result isn’t as … well… epic.
To be honest, I probably read this blog for more time per week than I spend actually playing WOW.
Looks like you hit a nerve with this one John. I’ve been fortunate to only have run into a single tank as you describe. Most of the tanks I deal with are nice folks who take the meat shield job seriously. I have a friend who plays a feral tank and I love running instances with him.
The highlight of my instancing career was heroic botanica, my group from the guild got it to the point where we only CC’d 2 mobs out of a four mob pull. This because the tank wanted a second mob for rage generation and the healer could handle the damage. We got so good at that instance we could clear it in under an hour.
More recently, heroic HoL. Pug group, no one from the same guild, DK tank. We go for the “Kill him, kill him, kill him some more” method for Loken. I put up Aspect of the Wild, ele shaman helps with healing. When he fell over only the DK tank and a DK DPS were still alive, but it was awesome.
The only jerk I’ve really dealt with was in heroic UK. We went in, he pulled two groups and promptly died because the healer couldn’t keep up. He called us all names and then left the party. We got another tank, used a little CC (Freezing Arrow FTW) and completed the instance no problem.
I like tanks to be party leads simply because they know how many mobs they can handle at any one time. If they want me to trap a mob I’m happy to oblige. If someone other than the tank marks targets things tend to be worse since a DPS has no idea how many mobs the tank is able to handle at one time until it’s too late.
My 2c.
First off, I love the tripple B…
I’m a bear tank doing heroics and gearing up for someday raiding. As many posters have noted, I tend to be the de facto leader of whatever party I’m in. My bff is a discipline priest and we generally pug our DPS when we run heroics, so we have a grab-bag of CC and competence each time.
I usually use CC for ranged mobs because they annoy me and I don’t want to deal with them. I like to keep the runs moving quickly, so I generally designate symbols and mark up while people loot and drink. I am pretty well-geared for the heroics I run and my healer is just about there, so CC is not really neccesary most of the time. I still like to use it though. The fights tend to be quicker and less stressful.
Odly enough, some of my favorite fights have been the ones when CC failed. A rogue we were grouping with was going to sap a mob in AZN and hardcore failed. While running back with like five guys on her she somehow managed to type, “We’ve been discovered!” Gathering up the mobs and trying to survive while the priest kept me and the poor rogue alive was crazy fun. Especially because I was laughing so hard I could barely type.
One of my new loves (though it pushes me towards solo-tank-from-hell status) is pulling with roots. I love to watch the mob sit their seething at me while I pound away at his buddies. The first time I did it was at the instruction of another feral who was running as DPs with us. Of course, the mob resisted my root and we had to scramble to survive, but it was fun.
I always feel bad when I run with hunters. Many of them have no idea how to use their abilities. A friend of mine is an 80 BM hunter who has never cast misdirect or successfully trapped in an instance. I know there are some amazing hunters and I’ve probably run with them and not known it. I don’t trust them to use their traps. On some runs, I’ve asked hunters if they would be comfortable trapping and I’ve yet to get more than an “I could try…” It’s a shame how many players are not comfortable using their own abilities.
Great post!
While I have fun doing instances in Wrath, I do feel the AoE strategy lacking. Just stand back and dps whichever the tank is targeting. It gets rather boring. I miss the strategy and CCs. I miss seeing somebody step up and really play their class well when things go down the crapper. DPS wasn’t always “just the dps”. You’re right, one used to be able to stand out, not just for massive damage, but for being a good team player. Now that doesn’t come into play and people have become very disposable if one is not a tank or healer. And that is just sad.
Just thought I’d share my experiences on this topic.
I’m new to tanking. The guild I’m in is small and throughout Burning Crusade we mostly ran with a pally tank. I was playing a warlock back then and was amazed that we could run Botanica easily for 5 badges and all the time we used aoe, not because the pally was a rockstar, simply because it was the easiest and quickest way to get through and get the badges we needed to upgrade gear. The pally however didn’t really want to be a tank. He enjoyed a retri spec and doing pvp, so I decided that I’d level a warrior and offer to tank instances for the guild.
I managed to get to 70 a couple of weeks before Wrath came out. Did a couple of easy instances to get used to some of the tanking rotations then went into Northrend. On the way to 80 I tanked a few instances with guildies to get the gear I’d need to help me become uncrittable, to learn the proper way to tank and keep aggro on groups of mobs. At no point did I mark for CC. I marked for a kill order, to help us get them down most efficiently, but I’d been so used to running heroics and even Kara without using much CC that I just didn’t consider it and it wasn’t needed. Some of the guildies I ran with wanted it done quickly so pressed me to keep going. I found it a good test of my tanking skills and no one really piped up much about CC.
Fast forward to heroics and thankfully things have changed. Because of the jump in difficulty and because we’re taking in undergeared dps and healers we have to use CC and I like it. I like it being easier. I like that people have other roles to consider. Sure it’s slower, sure it doesn’t make me the centre of attention, but it works and it’s fun. Everyone’s enjoying the runs, people are getting badges and buying rewards. The pally who used to tank is sublimely happy using his retri spec to dish out a ton of damage. Life is good, and that’s what the game is about for me. I do run the instances, I do tend to tell people the strategies because I’ve read up about them in preparation. I do however always encourage people to feedback their thoughts about things and tell me if they reckon they have an ability that’ll help.
A lot of people want to speed through instances, they want aoe pulls and they want them quick to get the maximum amount of badges. Good luck to them, but for my money they’re missing some of the fun parts of the game. They are also one of the reasons I don’t do PUG groups, because I simply don’t want the pressure and abuse that comes from that kind of instance run.
Thanks for this article and your site in general. I decided to switch to a Feral Druid tank for Wrath having spent my raiding career as a Holy Priest healing through BT. I am still levelling and learning as a tank, having fallen completely in love with AoE tanking. So much so, that I just assume that everyone wants chain-pulls and speed runs. I have fallen victim to the insidious rockstar tanking philosophy, without even knowing it!
The primary goal is for everyone to have fun. My first main character was a Warlock so I understand completely the point about utilizing everyone’s abilities. I was proud of the fact I could effectively seduce CC raids/heroics, yet few raid leaders used me for that. Hardly at all. And even the Banish didn’t come out as much as I would like. I know what that feels like, I should know better. It’s just been a while.
My guild has surpassed me and doing heroics and raids already and I’m trying to catch up. That means the dreaded PUG life for me! And yes, most of the time I am expected to lead the run. Mark it up, tell them what to do. I have MT’d several instance runs, and I have just assumed that people want to get in and out as fast as possible. So far, I haven’t heard any complaints yet, but perhaps they were just silently being frustrated about not being as utilitarian as they would like. Maybe they’re just afraid to speak up in fear that everyone else on the run just wants in and out fast and they don’t want to be the one that slows the machine down. Maybe if they just had the opportunity to speak up the group would find that’s not the case.
This article has given me enough pause to at least ASK what the rest of the group wants at the start of a PUG run. That’s fair, isn’t it?
Thanks again BBB. I subscribe via RSS and I enjoy all of your articles and personal experiences. I feel like I have learned a lot from your sharing them. Keep them coming!
Tanking on my druid in BC, I became skilled at holding large groups via swipe/tab attacks while carefully positioning mobs to not break CC. Tanking felt like an art form, with subtly and finesse. I know a great paladin tank that can place a consecrate perfectly next to CC’d mobs without breaking them. Now I see CC getting broken by tanks left and right. Even when marked, seconds later its broken. The button mash, I win, AoE tanking makes me sad. I think its the new tanks that are making it less fun, and the old tanks that miss the way it was.
I could recount many stories of great teamwork and skill in BC. Healing a heroic UK is most notable instance I have in WotLK. We had a prot warrior, ret paladin, rogue, hunter, and my holy paladin. The RET is tossing down consecrate in his rotation to pull maximum DPS and somehow we wind up pulling adds. The adds agro on and burn the RET down almost instantly and tank right after. The rogue, our guild leader and wickedly good player, throws out all the stops. Kidney shot, blind, evasion tanking. The hunter’s pet goes into off-tank mode and traps go out. I toss out my hammer of justice for a short stun. When the dust settled the mobs were dead and the 3 of us were still standing. It seems like the only time our skills get pushed like this now is when things go wrong, but its fun when it does.
Howdi – I’m a paladin – and I like to use whatever tools are available – and that means CC/slow pulls…until such time as the GROUP….decides it’s time to move faster. :) Seriously – I can not stand PuG’s where one person – tank or not – enforces their will above the others.
Seriously tho… I’ve said this alot to anyone that’s been in a group with me, consecrate has sometimes made me a lazy tank – and I can definately see bad habits formed when someone ‘relies’ on consecrate for CC. Consecrate is great for dealing with mobs that co-operate and stay bunched, keeping aggro on the tanky. But it also shouldn’t become a crutch that enables a tank to ‘hey yall, watch this pull’.
I agree 100% with what BBB put down here. Guess what, our hunter trapper in our guild…loves to trap. The new remote method, chain traps in front of our healer etc. Our mage…sometimes likes to sheep -when he’s not competing on DPS meters ;) ….all kidding aside ..ALL classes like to feel useful and contribute in whatever way they can. If than means CC- a good player, and more important..smart tank…should let his entire team shine.
To be honest – AOE tanking, while an awesome tool, sometimes dumbs the encounters down too much . Once a group however is comfortable with how things are going, and everyone wants to just ‘blow the next group up’ – then go ahead and do it, if all agree. I greatly prefer to play with folks who’s know how to play the game, and when things go wrong – and that means each class knowing all their tools and having them at the ready.
btw – again – long time no chat BBB :) hope all is well -
I am looking forward to reading all the stories when I have more time. But seriously? QQ more! Whaaaaaambulance! I am a druid tank also, I pull everything all the time when it’s trash, if I see a hunter using single target dps, I tell them to freakin volley already. Is it because I’m “uberleet”? NO it’s because trash shouldn’t take 500 freaking steps to kill! Blizz has done a great job of making instances fun, challenging and FAST…..with the right group. All of the things you mentioned are still alive and well, but like the entire game, they’ve changed. AOE is a godsend for those of us who want to get in, get our badges and get out. It’s no longer trash pulls and cc that set players apart, it’s consistent high dps on bosses, good tanking, good healing, and handling of the crazy boss mechanics. And by the way, if your healer can’t keep you alive with 4 mobs on you for the 10-15 seconds it takes to AOE them down, they may not suck, (probably they do) but if they don’t, your gear does and wtf were you doing tanking heroics anyways?
Joys of being a druid.
I am a cat DPS girl. I leveled my druid to be a kitty cat, when they told me I couldn’t raid I said watch me and became (I hope) a valued member of my raiding team. A couple of weeks ago I think we were running UP (though I’m not 100% sure). It was a PuG (I know it’s supposed to be a good story right? It is!).
A couple members of the PuG were from one of ‘those’ guilds I’m sure every server has, the pompus I’m the best thing since sliced bread worship me kind of attitude and I was dreading what was to come.
Our healer was new to pally healing but all the DPS was good on not screwing up the agro for the tank and the healer could just focus on him. There were a couple of times when things got really hairy and I pulled out the ’swiss army knife’ joys of being a druid. Adds we didn’t mean to pull, beared out and took them, the healer was having problems, I popped out of cat form and tossed a couple HoTs on. The shadow priest took a moment to bubble me when I was in bear form tanking adds back to the tank to get from me. The hunter would lay an ice trap by the healer just in case something came after him.
We all used little tricks of our respective trades and made the run a success, even when things blow up in your face and you still see the run as smooth becuase everyone did what they could do to make sure EVERYONE won.
The healer had been from ‘that’ guild I mentioned earlier and I received a whisper thanking me for being one of the best druids he’s run with for making the most of what the class had to offer. Not only was I pleased on my behalf (who dosen’t like to hear nice things about themselves?) but on the guild’s behalf as well that just because something might have a less desireable rep, dosen’t mean that everyone is going to be an asshat.
It is good to have expectations broken, to challenge the diversity of classes that don’t normally get challenged or used in quite the way you thought they would use them but work.
Honestly the most fun I have in groups is going into runs when everyone is under level for the content. My first WotLK run on my hunter was Old Kingdom with an entire group of 70’s. Granted we were all well geared from BC but trash mobs didn’t die in 2 seconds and boss fights took a good 5-6 minutes instead of 1-2. Another memorable run was running Shadow Labs with a bunch of guild members and we were all 68.
So as far as CC useage goes… I don’t like using when I’m tanking because it means I have to rely on other people to do their job properly and I can’t count all the times I’ve seen that end in disaster. If its too much for me to tank I’ll get CC or if its someone I know can handle it. When it comes to healing… again I don’t like using CC but for different reasons. Healing gets very very boring when the tank is just getting beat on by 1 mob at a time. If the incoming damage can be healed witha single renew and I have to read a book or lolsmite to remain awake its not fun. The only exception to that is if the tank is brain dead and can’t aoe tank and I get aggro. If dps gets aggro it doesn’t bother me it gives me something else to do. When I dps… I totally agree with you. I WANT to use my CC. Regardless of who I am on I will keep an eye on what is going on around me. If there is a ranged mob that the tank isn’t hitting I’ll trap/shackle/sheep/blind etc.
Oh and Honors no hunter ever should have an issue pulling a mob off of the tank to trap it. Hunters are the only non tank class in the game with a taunt, those who don’t use it likely don’t know about it. Distracting shot doesn’t just generate aggro anymore its a full on taunt now.
One of my favorite times was with my mage. We were about level 67ish and had two hunters (one level 70), a rogue, and a resto druid. All were guild members and looking for a tank to run Shattered Halls for quite a while, but could not find one. So I jokingly asked if I could tank with my mage. Well, they were either bored or intrigued enough to consider it. I was also kind of excited since I had never run that instance before. So there we were, lots of DPS, a Healer and no tank in sight. Well, we started off with a few saps and some ice traps, the occasional pig.(Much cooler than sheep). It wasn’t too hard since there were only a few mobs at the start. Well, then we started running into more and more mobs and it was getting very difficult to CC all of them. The only tanks we had were the two pets from the hunters, and while offering some protection, they didn’t have the armor needed to last very long. So we wiped. Several times in fact, while we had more CC than usual, the mobs were still over powering the pets.
So, I offered to tank. The hunters would drop some traps, and I would hit the crowd with a blizzard and maneuver then to run over the traps. This would pull two out of the pack and the rest would follow me as I made my way back to the beginning of the instance, stopping every now and then to AoE just to make sure I still had their attention. Meanwhile, the rest of the party was able to tank them one at a time with the pet and burn them down before the other trap broke. I would hit the zone start, AoE, and then teleport though the mob running back to the party where I would find 2 fresh traps. A quick teleport through the crowd and I would repeat my previous trip while the party took care of their new guests.
This tactic worked great all the way up to the gauntlet where we were just overwhelmed by numbers. We did get to the boss at the end of the tunnel though, but by then we were hurting. It was a great run and forced us to use every trick we had to get as far as we did. I know we didn’t finish the instance, but each one of us counted it as a win.
I don’t understand why Blizz has moved towards giving every class good CC options if face-pulling AOE tanking like this is viable.
My gear never got past the Clefthoof set in BC, plus some nice quest blues and a couple of cheap badge items. I could OT Kara and tank some of the lower level heroics easily enough, but anything beyond that was really out of the question. But there were times when by buddies in their purples would need a tank for the daily heroic, and after waiting thirty minutes, decided that an undergeared tank was better than none at all.
My hp would deplete scarily quickly and I’d be lucky to never lose aggro the whole fight, thanks to the T6 rogue spamming his DPS macros, but I didn’t mind that. It made me a better tank—forced me to remember every cooldown I had, bust out every trick I could think of, keep a close eye on the threat meters. What I did mind was the occasional kid who got pissed off when I COULDN’T speed run the instance, who insulted me and my gear if I marked and asked for CC. I spent a lot of time learning how to tank well, and now here they were insisting that I just get on with it … all the while insinuating that I’m a lazy chump ’cause I’m not sporting purples in every slot. I had owned the game barely six months. My /played was under two weeks. Screw off.
Most fun I’ve had in a five-man wasn’t on my tank—tanking, especially in those days, was too damn stressful to enjoy, and I felt like I was being judged incompetent every time I missed a keypress or got the marks wrong. It was my fire mage. Level 66, in Mana-Tombs. It’s 2 am, I was about to log, but hey, I really need the consortium rep and my buddy recently respecced to resto and wants to try it out. So it’s me, the tree, a lock, and two DK’s. Now I’m wary of locks, and twice wary of Death Noobs, but what the hell, let’s give it a shot. First few trash pulls and they seem pretty competent. I’m tired. I begin to get lazy. It’s not too long before I realize that, even if I’m not watching Omen too closely and tabbing to the wrong target every now and then, the group is collectively good enough to handle it. And I think everyone else realized this too.
And that’s when the fun began.
Every pull, each of us would do something wrong. On purpose. And then everyone else would have to scramble to fix it. I yanked aggro every other pull. The tank would “forget” to see a pat or pull while the healer was drinking. The lock would fear for no good reason. But the real kicker? We did it all with style! One of the DK’s made a point of exploding every corpse on the ground (including mine, twice). After one death, the tree exclaimed “where’s your god now, mage??” We had a dance-off during the escort quest. The chatter was lively and entertaining.
We never wiped, but we were on our toes the entire time, and everyone enjoyed the run immensely.
I half agree with you.
I had an elemental shaman all through BC and i always wanted a warrior so i leveled one very slowly. Infact i never reached 70 with him till just after the xpac.
You probably never knew the frustration of trying to find a group as an elemental shaman. I would be in LFG for hours before i finally got into a run. Now im a valued member of a group, not a non-cc burden. Do i use Hex? Rarely, its not important anymore. What i do use is my totems. Poison on all groups, drop poison cleansing, disease, do the same. These mobs fear? drop tremor etc. I don’t think chain pulling and no cc is a bad thing, infact i think its the best thing to happen to this game.
I liked to run instances with my friends. It was me, prot warrior, healing priest and 2 hunters. Try doing Heroic Magister’s terrace with that group. With certain combos in the pvp fight it was impossible. Wipes upon wipes. I want to run with my friends, not with some pug just because he is a mage and we need the CC.
As for my warrior, I tank whenever a guildie needs one. And I do have the rockstar mentality sometimes. There are very few pulls that require CC. But if its needed, i use whatever is available. For example on the 4 pull before the 1st boss in heroic UK. I can tank all four without CC, but if one of the rune casters is hexed or sheeped it makes it a little easier. so if i have it available, i will use either of those.
But i like being able to tank for my friends now, instead of having to go into LFG and saying “need 1 more DPS/CC” and not take my friends enhancement shaman because of the lack of CC.
BBB, I think you’ve just come up with an idea for a post without even knowing it.
Your blog is to help out your fuzzy fellow bear tanks be better tanks… how about a post outlining all of the other classes’ CC that they could make use of?
I’ve pugged a LOT since Wrath came out, and haven’t seen one bear tank. But I have seen many, many tanks who flat-out didn’t know that hunters now had a freezing trap they could toss from afar. Who didn’t know that shammies could frog a mob and better yet, that that frog could stay CC’d through such abuse as Volley and Whirlwinds. Who didn’t know that druids could put beasts and dragonkin to sleep, or cyclone something, or slap down some roots.
I love how Blizzard has changed all of the instances so that they all take almost exactly an hour to complete even if you’re a bit undergeared for them (except for H-VH… 20 minute badges FTW!). It makes it easier to get a quick group together and have some fun even if no one has three hours to commit to something. But like you say, it’s also encouraged the “AoE Zerg” mentality… and a lot of new tanks are coming into this atmosphere and never even learning that other classes HAVE these forms of CC.
A “Here’s How Your Other Group Members Can Help You Out” post would probably be golden, eye-opening info for them.
I know this is an old post but I just found my way over here and I feel I want to comment, at least on some of the comments I’ve read.
I usually run as a healer, I even was resto all the way from 1-70 and from 70-80, and I absolutely hate chainpulling tanks. The only reason at all for it is when we have to beat a timer but mostly it’s just a huge stressfactor for me trying to find the time to loot the mobs and still keep up with the tank. I just hate it!
However, as you’ve said, not everyone is that bad and I gets so happy every time I happen to get a tank that give me that 1-2s break before their next pull. I’m not saying I like to wait on people, because I don’t, but a short stop to let everyone catch their breath and see where the mobs are before the pull does wonders. Hell, I even got a tank lately who, in addition to not chainpulling, both kept an eye on peoples mana and gave a warning when he pulled. Since he also were a decent tank he went straight on to my frineds list
Btw, you’ll find me on Lightbringer EU if you look