In case the link does not work:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24038612592&sid=1&pageNo=41
Near the bottom of the page.

- “Hey, Mr. Mage, please don’t frost nova the mobs I’m dragging with me”
- “Sorry, pure reflex. I do that when melee stuff starts running my way”

You wanna be the bad-ass tank? Sure, go ahead, but at some point I need to do some damage, and if my completely untalented blizzard starts pulling stuff off you, and you don’t tell me what’s safe – I can only icelance and guesstimate for so long :(

Don’t even get me started on dual-wielding DK-tanks that are in blues. I know it becomes valid at certain gear levels. Blue ain’t it, apparently…

Thank you for putting into words what has caused me hundreds of hours of frustration as a paladin tank. Why mage, why do you think you’re DPS is so elite that you don’t have to contribute to downing the adds on Lady Deathwhisper after you were told to two times? Why did you argue with the raid leader about it? Why do you make everyone in the raid stand around for a half-hour playing Peggle and taking random AFKs while you debate the merits of your DPS being solely on the boss? Do you even realize (you know who you are) that most of us could produce elite DPS if we didn’t down the adds? Yes, we could all not do our jobs in the raid, simply DPS (heals and tanks are going DPS too…screw it) and we WILL DIE. But god, lets find out as a group of 25 people, who will grace the number one position on the Recount meter. If I wanted to know that – I’d invite 25 people to the training dummies in Stormwind!

I’ve spent the past 5 years levelling and having fun with every class in the game, and it’s given me a great perspective of what (and what not) to do in a group. Tanking provided me with the insights of the dificulties and responsibilities of the one who keeps the damage focused on oneself, and learns to mitigate that damage as to not overtax the healer. Healing gave me the responsibility of not only keeping everyone alive, but doing that in concert with a tank’s pulling techniques as not to draw mob aggro away from the tank with a poorly timed heal.

Tanking and healing gave me PHENOMENAL insight into how to dps. Learning how to help your group best by using aggro misdirection, cc, damage timing, patience, and understanding. Many responses to your blog highlight the need to focus more on Omen, and less on Recount. I truly miss fights like Moroes in Kara where, at the end of the fight, and Moroes is down, you’re surrounded by raid members who are heartily congratulating those who actually contributed to the group’s success the most. No, not the person who topped the dps meter. The rogue who threw the timely blind. The priest who maintained a shackle while healing that poor garroted mage. The hunter who chain trapped the mortal strike warrior through the entire fight while still peppering shots at Moroes.

God I miss the days of CC and marked targets. Sure, they slowed down instances. So what? I don’t understand the mentality. The math just doesn’t work out for me. As a dps you’ll sit in the LFD queue for 20 minutes, and then when you finally get the chance to do exactly what you queued for…. you want to make the time in the instance as short as possible! It makes no sense to me. Give me a dpser who enjoys CC and I’ll show you someone who wants to play the game, not just marvel at how his new shineys look.

When I’m tanking, I’ll still use a skull marking macro to ensure that people have an idea of what my first target is, where my aggro priority is going to be on each fight opening. Often enough, I’ll get the odd confused remark from the rogue/paladin/dk/whatever who goes to town on an unmarked mob ” I thought that you wanted to tank skull so I left it alone”. Alright, fair enough, I didn’t explain. Kill skull. If I don’t mark anything else, that’s fine, I’m happy with the rest being randomly attacked, as I’ll have aggro on those fine and dandy by the time you’re done with skull. But please, kill that skull. He’s marked for many reasons. One could be that he’s a pain in the arse mob that drops aggro and kills random people… like healers (skirmishers in AN). Or he’s a caster that’ll knock the tank down to 1/2 health if he gets his cast off (spell-slingers in OK). Stuff like that, I’ve done my research. I’ve run the instances. I’ve tanked, dps’d and healed them. I know that mob’s going to give us all grief, so let’s kill the skull.

There’s always been a “noobs are bad, and we have every right to look down upon them” part of WoW. It’s part of the culture we have. I’ve levelled enough toons, endured the shots here and there taken at my gear, or my dps… but I’ve only paid attention to shots taken at my playstyle. I.e. ” um, standing in stuff that isn’t ground coloured…that’d be a bad thing…noob ” After being rezzed by the healer and given that particular form of advice oh so many years ago, it’s stuck with me to this day.

Face it, gear doesn’t a game make. Earning that gear? Sure, you worked hard at it, finally downing whatever boss your raid group was on. The gods of luck shined down upon you twice, in that the gear you wanted drop actually DID drop, and you won it throw a high roll, or a loot system that happened to favor you that day. Congratulations. Now go out and use that gear in the way you earned it. With teamwork.

Unfortunately, those uber-l33t d-bag DPS who consistently ruin LFDs probably only read EJ, not Big Bear Butt Blogger. :(
The very CONCEPT of team-play is alien to them, because it’s not WHY they play. They play to feel superior to others, not work with them – trying to explain that would probably result in “lol wut” (at least, I think that’s how you speak their language…). The whole dungeon and team system is simply a framework for them to be provided with competitors to gloat over – the tank serves as an anchor for damage so that these guys can get to the business of feeling badass without having to think about the consequences.

Maybe we could re-package your post as part of a ‘L33t DPSer Intervention’ script! For friends and families of asshats who care about them and want them to stop being asshats. We could do up pamphlets…

There’s one line I think we can all take to our LFDs for the tl;dr crowd:
“If you don’t like the pace of the random you got, then only run with friends. If you don’t have any friends willing to run with you, then maybe you need to think about why that is.”

I’ve soloed a few outland dungeons to try to teach myself how-to-tank.
Recently, I killed Azuregos in Azshara by myself while looking for a
j/c recipe. (Other world dragons were too hard for me to solo.)
Soloing is not very fun or practical for me as a tank because I’m not
learning how to tank.

Anyway, I come to BBB to learn and get tips. My bear is neglected
and I’m playing my shadow priest to learn the layout and dynamics
of heroic dungeons. It’s kinda hard to tank when you don’t know where
you are going or what’s gonna be there when you arrive.

–Not giving up on my bear and plan to get the Polar gear made
today and then I’m gonna tank ‘The Lord of Ahune’ holiday boss
as many times as I can.
LOL I do hope I don’t get vote kicked before I can learn more
about how to tank in a group.

Thank you bigbearbutt for providing bear tank info on your blog.

–Cynsia on armory in case anyone would like to advise me
about my gear.

1. My job is to keep the tank alive and by doing that keep myself alive in order to keep the tank alive.
If you are DPS and your DPS is more important than the success of the run, just leave, in fact don’t bother to queue at all. If you pull aggro once then I’ll heal you, if you do it a couple times I’ll still heal you but only if everyone else is doing ok. If you consistently pull aggro then I’ll still heal you but you will be at the bottom of my priority list. If you die from pulling aggro it will be your problem, I’m tired of feeling bad because you died when it is caused by you not knowing how to manage your aggro.

2. It is not my job to run after the tank while he chain pulls the entire instance.
When you tank a run you need to be aware that *most* good healers are good because they actually care about keeping everyone alive. If you as a tank are trying to be “uber” and run an instance as fast as you can physically move through it, then find another healer. I’m tired of feeling bad because I have to let people die in order to keep up. It’s not fun and the point of playing the game is to have fun. You don’t need to wait five minutes between pulls but at the same time you don’t need to run the instance in one pull.

3. It is my job to show up ready to run but not within 2 seconds of entering an instance.
I need a couple minutes at the beginning of a run to make sure that I have buffs on everyone, that everyone has buffed me correctly (priests like might? really?), that I have the correct spec and that my bars are set for healing. Give me that 1-2 minutes and I’ll be ready to go, or even just ask if everyone is ready. You will make my day. I’m tired of using mana pots so I can chase the group that walked in and started pulling.

4. It is my job to manage my own aggro but it is EVERYONES job to help me do that.
Making me heal 4 people instead of just the tank will cause me to aggro mobs (and over heal for that matter). Over heal just means that it will take longer to complete the run (more time drinking to get mana or waiting for people to run back because I was OOM). Aggro for a healer that is only healing the tank is MY fault. If a mob is attacking the healer it is the tank AND the DPS’s job to get that mob off them. Better yet prevent it from ever reaching the healer and THAT is the responsibility of the DPS pure and simple. If I am running with a mage I expect that mage to be 1-2 yards away from me pretty much all the time. If a mob heads for me, I expect that mage to pull that aggro or crowd control it and in turn I will make sure that the mage is alive to do it. Same for any DPS with CC abilities. Its up to the DPS to decide who is on healer watch but I expect it to be done. I’m tired of being dead because a player that has CC doesn’t bother because it makes their DPS lower when they have to “waste” time protecting the healer.

5. It is my job to follow the TANK, the TANK sets the pace and I support the TANK throughout the run.
When I run an instance you can always find me in the same place. I’m always about the same distance from the tank, never right on his big bear butt, but always within healing distance. If he moves the mobs and that takes his big bear butt out of my line of sight I will move to adjust because he is MY tank and I’ll keep him alive. Its his job to know when that is necessary and I will trust his judgement. MY tank isn’t going to die while I have any way to keep that from happening. But if DPS moves out of my line of sight then you will not get heals. I will not sacrifice others (especially the tank or myself) to try to save you.

6. It is EVERYONES job to help out new people.
Think back to your first few runs when you were brand new. You sucked. People helped you learn, you may have put in the effort to learn even more by reading forums, experimenting with different styles or whatever but other players helped you in game. Your over-inflated ego is not an excuse to treat new people like they are worthless or stupid. HELP them politely. Offer suggestions without berating them. You sucked when you started, now you get to pay back your debt, from others helping you, by helping newer players. One of my in game friends plays a hunter, she is very good at her class and does very good DPS but she was hell to run with. After we talked for a while I mentioned that it would be good if she protected the healer. Her reply was that no one had ever asked her to do that before and from that point on she developed group awareness very quickly. Later she told me that her raiding guilds GM had complemented her for the vast improvement in her playing style. Just because someone “sucks” doesn’t mean that they don’t want to get better. HELP them if they are willing to learn.

Sorry if this sounds like ranting. I didn’t intend it to be. It is amazing to me that (except for new people) this sort of stuff is still an issue. But it is.