Officers' Quarters: Tanks for nothing
by Scott Andrews 
Sep 15th 2008 at 11:00AM
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.The Tank Shortage of 2008 -- is it worse than the Tank Shortage of 2007? Over the past two years, few guilds haven't felt the sting of being shorthanded on the front lines. Blizzard's response has been to give us the Death Knight, a class that supposedly will be able to tank with any talent tree. And while many of us are enjoying them on the beta servers, everyone in live is still struggling. As more and more players take a break from WoW prior to the expansion, it's a problem that's only getting worse.
In these desperate times, it seems like raiding guilds are taking anybody that can equip a shield or go bear. But even today, some tanks are so terrible that it's just not worth keeping them on the roster. One reader wants to know how to let a bad tank go.
Hi Scott,
I'm faced with a bit of a conundrum with regards to a warrior in our guild. I'll start from the beginning:
I'm an officer and the Warrior class leader in a small PvE guild on Burning Steppes EU, which has been trying to break into 25-man content before Lich King. As we needed tanks we've been accepting warriors with little experience and gear in order to train them up and get them ready for raid tanking. So far we've had good success, with a number of pre-Kara tanks, including myself, now at the level of MT'ing up to prince. (I downed Prince my first night of tanking him :D)
Now my problem comes in the form of a warrior who is on trial. He's not a bad tank, at least not in instances. But when it comes to Off-tanking in Kara, he's awful.
He's ignoring markings, failing to listen to tactics, and seems to be in a dream world all the time.
Last night for example on Moroes, we had no priests so had to work with the adds a little differently. [. . .] Unfortunately, things went a little pear-shaped. OT tanked the prot warrior, but ignored Moroes. So i got gouged, Moroes went on a killing spree. Somehow we didn't wipe, but it was a VERY messy fight.
Then came Opera, and our event was Oz. OT on Tinman, as always, but when Tinman was rusted, and I say in /raidwarning "Kite him! Run around!", our OT, who has done this fight before, ran literally AROUND the Tinman. I wish i was lying but I'm not. He ran in circles around the Tinman.
In summary, this guy is awful. And he has to be kicked, which falls to my job. The problem is, I don't really know how to kick him. I don't want to be a jerk, but we have spent so much time trying to sort him out that we've neglected other areas, and i don't have the patience to deal with him anymore.
Any advice?
Cheers,
Meatshiéld of Burning Steppes
<Laddercoins>
Tanking, more than any other role in a raid, is about being "heads up." You have to know what to do when everything goes right, but even more important is knowing what to do when everything goes wrong. Players who can't even do the former are going to be useless for the latter.
Off-tanks especially need to be good at this, because they're the last line of defense if the main tank goes down. Some players have a tough time adjusting to OT'ing. They're used to running 5-player dungeons where they are the main tanks, so playing a secondary role is foreign.
Even so, it sounds like your OT is having a longer adjustment period than usual. It's possible he could turn around given enough time and energy, but it sounds like you've already invested a lot of that with little to show for it. One could say it's not just your off-tank who's running in circles.
So, Meatshield, there are two ways to go about this: the direct way and the indirect way.
Here's the direct way. You whisper your warrior and tell him that you're very sorry but it's just not working out. If he asks you why, it sounds like you have a mountain of evidence and anecdotes to toss his way. By no means should you overwhelm him with an onslaught of criticism. After all, you're letting him go and that's critical enough. However, the only way this player will improve is if he is told where he's falling short so he can make adjustments for the next guild that gives him a chance.
In many ways this approach is more honest. However, there are the advantages to taking a different approach.
Instead of either taking him on raids or booting him, you can just bench him for a while. Explain to him why, with several concrete examples like you included in your e-mail. Be respectful at all times, but hammer home the point that this player can't be part of a raid if he can't follow instructions. Emphasize that he's part of a team that's counting on him, and that he's letting the team down.
Of course, this is assuming you actually have a suitable replacement . . .
At this point, he may decide to quit on his own, absolving you of the responsibility. However, if he sticks around, stewing on the bench for a couple of weeks might actually help your words to sink in. Maybe, just maybe, he'll realize he needs to improve his listening skills and his execution.
After a few weeks riding the pine, have a conversation with him and ask him if he thinks he's ready to try again. Then give him one more chance to prove that he can get the job done. But ideally you'll have someone online ready to jump in and replace him if he still fails at off-tanking. There's no need to make nine other people suffer through a full run just to be polite.
One advantage to this method is that you might be able to turn him around and get an adequate tank out of it. When it comes to Kara, adequate is all you need. Another advantage is that your raiders will see that, in your guild, there are consequences to bad play that wastes people's time -- but also that you were fair about it. No one will be able to say that you didn't give him every opportunity to be part of the team.
I get the impression that you've never had to kick someone before, Meatshield. It's like all those cliches from spy movies when they say, "The first time you kill someone is the hardest. After that, it gets easier." Well, it's true about kicking someone, too. Good luck!
/salute
Send Scott your guild-related questions, conundrums, ideas, and suggestions at scott.andrews@weblogsinc.com. You may find your question the subject of next week's Officers' Quarters! For more WoW Insider gameplay columns, click here.Filed under: Officers' Quarters (Guild Leadership)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Frank Smith Sep 15th 2008 11:11AM
tell him that "the officers" (very mysterious, them, but they give you someone else to blame :p ) feel he didn't perform up to expectations and thank him for his time. whenever i had to fire someone i liked or didn't want to be "mean" to for whatever reason, i usually asked them to gquit and told them i'd give them a good reference.
of course, he could turn into a whiney forum-bomb no matter how you handle it but at least it'd reinforce he was someone you didn't want around long-term.
mindbasher Sep 15th 2008 1:05PM
I always always switch on forum moderation for people who are being removed from any group. If they post something incendiary, just turn off their access.
If you can't turn on moderation, just turn of their access.
Kav Sep 15th 2008 11:34AM
stop being a freaking girl about it and kick him because he fails. tell him so or he'll never get better.
dpak Sep 20th 2008 2:56PM
This is the hard part of leadership, one that is easy to criticize unless you are there.
Here is one approach:
Bench him as OT until:
1 - he studies all the fights, watching vidoes of them.
2 - he asks questions, about them.
3 - give him another shot.
Also, remember, teaching is easy, teaching well...it another story (all those who say that silly "those who can" quote....are talking about bad instructors).
A good insightful student will ask "do you mean this or this?"...but an even better teacher will say things more clearly (this happens in raids ALL THE TIME).
If you are past this point, suck up the responsibility of leadership, and cut him.
Cutting someone who is not a jerk is always hard.
Only a jerk can easily cut someone who is not.
Sonmerlong Sep 16th 2008 9:54AM
So buried further back in the comments a guy claims that this kind of attitude is what makes raiding feel like work, and how we are all d-bags for caring about the performance of a raider instead of just having fun.
Here is what i said to him about this topic.
""
Not to seem like a d-bag, but it sounds like you might have been "that guy" once (maybe you still are, maybe not).
So let me explain why people care about performance.
Would you like to spend HOURS (literally) trying to have fun and kill boss's, only to have one member of a raid ruin it for the rest of the players?
Now (for my case) extend that effort out over the course of 2 years, and extend the size to 25 mans, and think about black temple. Where one freaking guy who cant get his head around the game makes 24 other people spend gold on repairs.
Gold they WOULDNT have to go farm where it not for "that guy".
Its not about being mean or Judgemental, its about not wanting to have "that guy" in the raid and have him ruini the fun for everyone else in the raid/guild.
My guild (the one i run), has a casual side to it.
If you ARE "that guy" but you are still a very nice person, you can be on the casual side, and once content is on farm we will drag you through it.
You will get to hang around and raid occasionally, we are not going to expunge you from the guild.
But we are NOT going to punish the dedicated skilled high attendance people just to see if "that guy" will learn this run, or this run, or this run. etc....
""
James A. Sep 15th 2008 11:14AM
A third possible solution, and one we did with a tank that helped us out when we needed him most but had a lot of problems listed above.
Move him to a dps role. We had kitted him out with a lot of good tanking gear so we made him bring it along to every raid but for the most part we just had him dps on fights and OT when the pull required just one extra tank. It seemed like he was a happier player in this role as well because we weren't yelling at him as much for silly mistakes. Of course without any aggro dumps his trips to dreamland may be pretty costly but in general in most fights all that ends up happening is the boss turns around, punches the guy in the forehead, and goes back to the tank. Eventually he learns that if he doesn't want huge repair bills he'll watch his aggro.
Meatshiéld Sep 15th 2008 11:15AM
Aye, thats what we did. Eventually we let him have another shot at it and nothing had changed, so we had to (politely and amicably) give him the old heave-ho.
Since then we've been recruiting more, and got some EXCELLENT warriors in, and paladins / druids too, enough to farm all T4 content, ZA, and move into SSC/TK.
Cthu Sep 15th 2008 11:19AM
If is reading wowinsider right now, than your job is already done x)
Araten Sep 16th 2008 12:10PM
That's pretty much my thought, "Call him out on a major website be sure to use your server name, your name, and your guild name. Be specific about incidents where you think he's a moron." If he doesn't quit after reading this / having people laugh at him in Shattrath general chat, then you have nothing to worry about. He has so little self esteem that you can just ignore him and he'll never bother you. Either way your passive aggressive tactics worked!
Marc Sep 15th 2008 12:14PM
Make sure to let him know where he went wrong or he'll never improve and make the next guild suffer.
Alex Sep 15th 2008 4:29PM
I'd come up with specific examples before gkicking the guy. See if he can act on those, if he can then he might work out all right.
If this dude is good in 5 mans, then it might be a case of burnout. I'll describe my mild case below. I'm getting so sick of specs that can't CC worth a damn. Watching my DPS friends outgear me through arenas and battlegrounds makes me want to tear my hair out. Finally, getting the blame for every wipe is no fun either. The other day I got to the point where on a Steamvaults badge run I instituded a "you draw aggro, you die" policy.
I've avoided serious tanking since then. Hopefully a week off from WoW and a new guild will fix it. Maybe have the guy re-spec fury/ret/balance for a week or two?
Reynald Sep 16th 2008 4:23AM
If the DPS is too busy topping the DPS meter chart instead of watching Omen they're not in it to work as a group anyway. After a warning or two I state just the same: You aggro it, you tank it.
To reply to the topic, if a tank doesn't get the fights and he's serious about his role in the raid, have him watch some youtube video's (those that come with instructions) about that specific boss. That's how I learned all my Kara fights before I set foot in Kara. Your guild might do the fight different, and you won't be a better tank because of it per definition, but at least you understand the fight better.
Ahoni Sep 15th 2008 11:37AM
Its real easy for a new player to be confused be terminology. At 60 my main was a hunter. The first time I encountered the term "kiting" was in UBRS when I was asked to kite Drak. I had only been playing a couple months, hadn't run many instances, and this was the first time I heard the term kite. Had no idea what it was or how to do it. Needless to say, my kiting record on Drak was about 50%, and I thought I was doing good. LOL.
Sometimes we assume everyone knows what we are talking about, but it isn't always true. It's pretty obvious this tank didn't know what kiting was, and in the middle of Kara is the wrong place to discuss that.
Brings up a good point though ... is there a lexicon available to help noobs with stuff like this?
Marcelo Abans Sep 15th 2008 11:49AM
This is where the responsibility needs to fall on leadership. At some point during our lifetime it's been desirable not show leadership. if he isn't listening to what he needs to do to be a good tank then he's a liability which means he's hurting the raid, and the goal of the guild.
Also in all honesty if the class leader feels he can't handle it then he shouldn't be allowed to be class leader; part of being a leader is leading not winning popularity contest. If you let your class down by being a bad class leader then you let the rest of the people down. So those tanks, class leader and the non listening tank, needs to shape up or move out.
alt255 Sep 15th 2008 11:50AM
I didnt read what insider had to say about this because i just dont care... I think you should have a talk with the tank, dont boot him because he doesnt know how to kite and doesnt know the Moroes fight. He's new and at this point in the game that's what your going to be able to pick up. You have to learn sometime so have some patients and get the guy trained up, he might be a great asset to your guild in WOTLK.
Fletch Sep 15th 2008 11:50AM
Does the tank fully understand you? If you say he is a good tank in instances there may be some translation issues that are causing him to act erratically in the raid. Some of the things you have said may indicate that his English may be the problem, for example his rather too literal translation of 'Kite him! Run around!'. In a lot of the cases I have encountered where people were not responding to instructions it has often been a language problem.
zappo Sep 15th 2008 12:15PM
Agreed on the English part. I mean the "run around" gag seems like it would almost be a goof off point, but it sounds like he actually didn't understand the slang term. I could be wrong but the fact that this guy does fine in 5 mans indicates that he's at least of decent skill level.
A significant portion of the problems involved seem to be communication related. I think it's quite possible that the problem may be because this guy has a language barrier, not because he doesn't get what is being said because he's spaced out.
mrluohua Sep 15th 2008 12:16PM
The original question said
"He's ignoring markings, failing to listen to tactics, and seems to be in a dream world all the time."
That makes it sound like it's not just once, its multiple times. I would agree, if that was the warriors first attempt at kiting Tinman and maybe only first attempts at Moroes, then perhaps he deserves a 2nd or 3rd chance to learn and get better.
The email made it sound like this is an ongoing problem with this warrior who has had multiple chances, has been explained what to do at every fight and just won't listen or try.
One thing my guild does when running kara/za, as we have a lot of alts who run, is to explain every boss fight every time. I know it gets boring, but really, how long does it take to summarize the fights, especially for kara?
I hate the process of gkicking myself, but it's best to bite the nail and confront him and say that he is down to his double secret probation and must pay attention. Whatever you decide, be upfront and clear.
JSG Sep 15th 2008 12:17PM
Just make it simple and honest.
Tell him you need a tank, and he isn't working out in that role for Raiding. Ask him if he even LIKES tanking- he may not.
If he does, tell him he needs to practice more, and wish him luck. If he doesn't, can he stay with the guild as a DPS? Suggest he go DPS instead, and if there isn't a DPS spot, wish him well.
Being an officer DOES involve occasionally being the bad guy. Some people just don't have it in them to do that, which is cool... but someone needs to be the bad guy. That's the problem with balance in a guild- there are people who actually get off on being jerks and gkicking people. So it's nice that you are thoughtful about it... but at the same time you have to balance that against what you are trying to build.
That's why I say to just be nice, and be honest. If he gets angry, you can gkick with a clear conscience. Or he might take your advice and use it. Either way, you've been honest with him and yourself.
Jarviswabi Sep 15th 2008 12:24PM
It sounds like perhaps a lack of preparation/communication before the fights. If your raid warning was the first he'd been told to kite the guy, then you didn't prepare him sufficiently. Our raid leaders do an excellent job of reviewing each boss fight before we start and giving people a chance to say if they don't understand something. We're a T5/T6 guild, but we STILL ask people if they know the Kara fights when we're doing gear/badge runs, since everybody is new at some point.
You cannot fairly expect someone to properly execute a boss fight based on in-the-moment instructions. It's the duty of the raid leaders to review the strat at the start and ask everyone if they get it. If everyone says yes and THEN fucks up, then you have an issue to deal with, but even then, there are legit reasons for something going pear-shaped.
The best raid leaders/officers are the ones with patience who remember when they had no idea what was going on, and allow the guild members to make mistakes and learn from them. The only time you should boot someone is when they say they understand something and they really don't, or when they're simply not paying attention.