There is a reason you should love your tank, and it’s not only because they keep the big dragon for marching over and biting your head off. Tanks are the natural and expected leaders, not just for WoW but for any game. They have the thickest armor, biggest shields, and most health, so if there is someone who should go first and aggro the mob it’s them.
In a raid there might be someone other than a tank assigned as Raid Leader, but his leading just include deciding tactics, picking boss order, and assigning loot. The actual leading (being at the front of the raid, urging them on) is always on the shoulders of the tank. There are no hunters that are running ahead and misdirecting everything, it’s up to the tank to run the right way and to set the pace. He has to be aware that dead people get the time to be ressed, that mana classes get the time to regen mana, lazy people to be summoned, tables and healthstones to be handed out, and everything like that. If you as a tank stand around and wait too long people will start yelling at him to go (you don’t have all day!), and if you move too fast people will yell at you to slow down.
Tanking is not for anyone, at least not main tanking. You are the natural leader of the group, and everyone expect you to know all the tactics, the correct way to move through an instance, what trash that can be avoided and what should be cleared for safety, all the pats movement and time (god forbid that you tank a pack and a pat comes along).
Take a large raid instance filled with bosses for example. Every boss in there got a gimmick, be it to face him a certain way, kite him when he starts an ability, interrupt a certain spell, run out of his AoE, or hundreds of other gimmicks that separate the boss from others. A melee DPS might have to pay attention to some of them (like the AoE), a ranged DPS less than that, and a healer can probably ignore everything except to know when the tank is taking more damage. But who has to have perfect knowledge of all this stuff? The tank.
The success of the raid lies heavily on their shoulders, so pay them some goddamn respect.
(No, I don’t currently play a tank, but I have done it in the ol’ days.)
Ardua
/ August 23, 2009You know, the weird this is in my experience tanks aren’t the leader. Oh all your point are correct and they should be, but more often than not I find myself playing with tanks who are pleased to tank but leave most of the tactical considerations to someone else or are outright passive when not punching something for great justice.
That said I pride myself on out aggroing any tank, anywhere, in any game.