The Daily Quest: Listening to the tank
by Adam Holisky 
Jan 15th 2010 at 5:00PM
- Blessing of Kings make a great point, PUGs often defer to the tank, even more so in lowbie groups.
- WoW Europe has come out with this week's community news and community events.
- Digit4L.net has a great guide to playing WoW over a 3G/HSDPA connection.
- Matticus looks at the holy priest Renew spec.
- WoW in an Hour continues their look at the recommended tool to play WoW in an hour.
Filed under: The Daily Quest
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Moo Jan 15th 2010 5:47PM
"Blessing of Kings make a great point, PUGs often defer to the tank"
Great point!
In other news, the sky is blue!
Ringo Flinthammer Jan 15th 2010 6:57PM
It's not news; it's musings on why it might be so.
Byron Jan 15th 2010 9:19PM
It's the only role in the instance that can actually play the game w/out without waiting for someone else to do something first. DPS have to wait for the tank to attack mobs, and healers have nothing to do until the tank attacks.
So the tank is naturally out front leading the way, setting the pace and the tone of the run. Everyone just extrapolates from that and assumes the tank also actually knows how to lead the way, and defer to the tank at least until/unless the tank demonstrates s/he's not good at that, doesn't know where to go or what to do, etc.
In those latter cases, someone will either step up and lead, or the group will muddle through and/or fail and disband.
Cyanea Jan 15th 2010 5:53PM
I always thought of the Tank as the Commander, fearlessly leading the charge into battle...
But the healer as the general, ready to step in should the Commander's decisions be wrong.
But maybe that's cause I'm a healer. :3
Byron Jan 15th 2010 9:19PM
Depending on the content, healers usually have a better overall view of what's going on. They're standing back from the action, can see the entire raid in their monitor, have detailed raid frames showing what's happening to individual members, can spot problems quickly that way, and like tanks they have less tendancy for tunnel-vision than dps do.
While good tanks should have raid frames too, they're not necessarily as detailed as healers'. The MT will also be standing at the foot of a two-story boss mob w/ most of his field-of-view obscured by that. A good MT will continuously rotate his camera 360 degrees to see what's happening, but much of his attention is also focused on his health bar, the boss's cast bar, and the combat text.
OT's on the other hand are often on par w/ healers' raid awareness, since it's their particular job to watch for and pro/react to the unexpected.
Sleutel Jan 15th 2010 6:49PM
Of course tanks end up as de facto group leaders. Game mechanics don't allow for anything else. If the tank is determined to do things Their Own Way, God Dammit, no power on earth is going to stop them, because anyone else is going to die as soon as they get to a boss, assuming they're lucky enough, skilled enough, and geared enough that the trash doesn't kill them.
What I usually find to help with getting people to listen when I'm on my Mage and not my Prot War is wiping once when people didn't pay attention to what I told them the first time.
Ringo Flinthammer Jan 15th 2010 7:03PM
"If the tank is determined to do things Their Own Way, God Dammit, no power on earth is going to stop them"
Other than the healer who sits back and says "whatever, dude."
Sleutel Jan 15th 2010 8:12PM
"Other than the healer who sits back and says 'whatever, dude.'"
Well, the DPS could sit on their hands, too. The point is that if your tank doesn't want to do things your way, nothing can make them. You can become ineffectual or leave the group, but the tank is always going to be the one setting the pace of the runs, unless they voluntarily hand that power over to someone else.* And even then, when someone else is directing, they're still the one doing the actual pulling.
*Yes, yes, a DPS can pull with some kind of threat-redirect talent aimed at the tank. But only a couple of classes have that, and it's not going to force the tank to hold that aggro, and these abilities have cooldowns.