If you have any suggestions on how to get more people to play tanks and healers, why don't you go suggest them on the official boards? Complaining does absolutely nothing, especially about a system that hasn't even been implemented yet.

This honestly sounds like a temporary fix for the time being. I doubt that they want to do anything dramatic to the system to fix an issue that's going to work itself out over time (in a few patches, we'll be Wrath-running instances)

What makes you think I haven't offered suggestions MusedMoose?

I don't think adding extra rewards for tanks is the way to go. Tanks already have instant queues and when you compare that to a 40 minute wait you think that would be reason enough to play as a tank. I have a problem with their statement: "We don't feel the tanking and healing roles have any inherent issues that are causing the representation disparity, except that fulfilling them carries more responsibility."

If fulfilling the role of tank or healer really does carry more responsibility then that is what they should continue to try and address. To add this extra incentive without admitting their failure at making the dps role shoulder more of the responsibility for the success or failure of a dungeon run is just annoying, and a failure to address the true problem.

I think it would be very difficult to put more responsibility on the shoulders of DPS unless they, for example, changed how threat worked such that it would be DPS' job to maintain low threat rather than a tank's job to maintain high threat, but it would be a) difficult to implement and b) probably cause more problems than it would solve since there would be a bunch of people who wouldn't know about the change and would consequently just pull aggro all the time and get mad at tanks about it (which I'm pretty sure is the #1 reason why tanks stop tanking for PUG groups - idiots get mad at them all the time for stupid shit).

Either way, I'm not sure that this is such a bad idea - it will definitely encourage tanks who generally only run in guild groups to throw themselves into the PUG pool once and a while, and they won't be able to bring anyone with them to "take" DPS spots if they want to get the rewards. DPS that can be tanks might certainly attempt to tank, but unlike in Wrath where you could get a very well-geared healer to carry a DPSer in a tanking spec through dungeons, you can't really do that yet in Cataclysm. On the other hand, as gear gets better dungeons should become easier and people will be less "afraid" to tank in PUGs or tank period, so this kind of thing may no longer be needed.

@ToyChristoper

You know how we know you don't have any ideas how to fix it? Because you haven't even offered the merest hint of one here, except "they should magically make DPS carry more responsibility". That isn't a suggestion that is a re-statement of the problem.

Hell, if Blizzard did this scrubs like you would be on here bawling your eyes out because you couldn't handle it.

Personally I want to see the much talked about all DPS dungeons just so I can laugh myself to sleep as sub-10% of the DPS population manages to complete them. Most DPS can't grasp concepts like "don't stand in the fire" and so have no chance of actually handling things like grabbing adds before they nuke a healer or laying down unasked for CC.

/signed a feral druid that normally plays DPS because he is sick of getting the blame for retarded DPS.

I play a healer theRaptor and if I didn't master the concept of "don't stand in the fire" everyone would die. DPS should be the same. I'm not saying it would be an easy solution to implement but given that many of the changes blizzard recently made things easier for dps it seems they actually like to make things easier for dps, while maintaining difficulty for tanks and healers.

Speaking as someone who plays solely as a tank/healer, I'd relish the idea of them giving DPS more responsibility to shoulder aside from the random boss where their responsibility is to put out the biggest numbers possible without dying.

But until they figure that out (which would probably require a lot more time and energy than a mid-expansion patch can give), I'm all for rewarding tanks and healers for queuing. I can't stomach doing a daily random anymore just because the majority of the groups I've gotten since this expansion started have made it just that awful for me, and if the complaints I've read on MMO-Champ, here, the official forums, and everywhere else in the WoW-sphere are any indication...I'm not alone.

The real problem to fix is the community of assholes: The people who vote kick budding tanks for not being epic'ed out or requesting CC, the people who vote kick or harrass DPS for not performing at their level even if they're putting out just fine numbers for the dungeon, the tanks who harrass healers who have to sit and drink every pull because they don't want to use CC, etc. And frankly...I have no idea how they can do that.

I think of some ways:

1. Allow pure 5 DD dungeon entry and grant Tank and Healer inside the dungeon
2. Redesign the gameplay, tanking and healing is not the the way to down a boss, remember HToC Faction Champions? There are already interesting encounters that no tanks or healers required.
3. Similar to 2., add only 1 or 2 pure DD dungeons to list, to help digest the DD queue.

@ToyChristopher

Because as I said the majority of the DPS population are terrible players. Blizzard could either make every role equal (tanks hammer single AOE threat button, healers hammer single AoE heal button) and get rid of all the non-terrible players or they can leave things in for those who aren't terrible at the game.

They actually made DPS in general harder in cata by giving most DPS specs an actual rotation or priority system instead of mages for example just hammering a nuke button for maximum DPS, and ret paladins randomly hitting their buttons for insane DPS.

They tried to put more responsibility on DPS by adding back CC but DPS players whined about it so much that the actual implementation was minimal and it still fell on the tank/healer leader to designate targets. It isn't the TBC system where you would pick up patrolling adds and smart DPS needed to CC them before the healer died.

@cyanea85 I play as my healer almost every day also. I've gotten bad groups and good groups. Damage dealers do too. Does that mean tanks/healers deserve special rewards? Is that going to make the dungeon more fun to tank?

Like you say it's not going to make people stop acting like jerks.

I think tanking is perfect the way it is. I'd be rather put out if Blizzard changed it.

The reason I don't tank for LFG is because of:

a. Rude people.
b. Rude people.
c. Rude people.
d. All of the above.

The carrot Blizzard is dangling may make me PUG more often but not by much. And it isn't because tanking is broken, it's because I end up dealing with rude players who can't even bother to type my toon's name and refer to me as "tank" and are rude to people in new gear or who haven't done the fights.

And though it isn't always the DPS - I have seen it be healers, I have seen it be tanks - most times it is the DPS, especially those who have never, ever played as a healer or a tank.

Quick check: would you say that you encounter bad tanks and bad healers about equally, and about three times as many bad DPS?

If so, it may be that all the roles have equal representation in the "idiot" stakes, it's just that you get 1 tank, 1 healer and 3 DPS in a 5-man and all of "the DPS" end up being placed in the same pot!

(I mainly play tank/healer, by the way, so I'm not an apologist for DPS)

@Shryndael

How are you able to divine they have never been healers or tanks? If it seems like there are more DPS behaving badly the reason why seems obvious to me: there are simply more DPS in any group and with a higher population it probably just seems like more of them are jerks when, in reality, the role doesn't determine how kind/unkind or tolerant someone is.

I tank, heal, and DPS and I see people filling those roles and behaving just as badly as each other. One thing I have found, however, is most people have an alt who is a tank or healer - that also is obvious when part of their rudeness includes "well, on my tank/healer main/alt I do X and I don't suck". For those who don't, however, being a tank/healer doesn't give anyone better understanding of everything, nor does being a DPS, but I've met plenty who had a better idea of instance/raid issues than a lot of tanks or healers.

Toy said: "I don't think adding extra rewards for tanks is the way to go. Tanks already have instant queues and when you compare that to a 40 minute wait you think that would be reason enough to play as a tank."

No wait time is not the reason I play a tank. I play because I love the challenge and I've been a tank long before dungeon finder was even an idea.

Second, my tank needs absolutely nothing from random heroics (I do heroic raids) and I have no reason to do 5mans at all. But with this change I WILL definitely queue for a heroic when there's a call tanks. You get a geared tank - I might get a rare mount: a win-win situation ;)

(point of this post wasn't to tell "how awesome am I" but rather to demonstrate how great this idea might be. This will keep overgeared tanks and healers running 5mans for a while)

@ToyChristoper

How about this argument then. Blizzard knows what they are doing and tanks/healers just need to do their jobs properly. I know people in every tanking as well as healing class/spec that do their job flawlessly. Jerks will be jerks, but if you stop sucking these people will shut the hell up.

People were downing bosses in pugs before all the nerfs took place. Quit complaining

The problem is not with the gameplay, the problem is with people, and that is not fixable. Blizzard will never be able to force people to be polite or to listen or to work together so there's only so much they can do to make que times shorter. This may work. It's worth a try and I'm sorry for every rude Tank you've ever had to deal with but I have never kicked anyone from a group ever unless they were Dc'd for over 5 min. There are good tanks out there but it's true that the majority of the time they have to put up with a lot of stress to PuG so if this helps que times I think that's all we can ask for. No revolutionary change to gameplay is ever going to stop the GO GO guy from yelling or the non threat watching DPS from pulling or the arrogant Tank from facepulling unless the game is dumbed down to holding your hand through it all. Lets be realistic with our requests from Blizzard, they are not God :)

I did specifically say I've seen rude tanks/healers, too (postscript). However, in my experience the majority has been within the dps. I don't know. Maybe I've been blessed -- I've never seen the horrible experiences people have shared here, about tanks. The worst was one I had who was in full Ulduar heroic tank gear who got a group of my guildies who had just hit 80 and weren't geared. He pulled a bunch of mobs and left, and the feral druid shifted to bear and we completed the instance that way.

But when it comes to rude DPS? Aaaugh. Even when I'm DPS...I've run in to it.

I dunno. I don't demand to be treated like a demigod because I'm a tank - but you'd think people would treat you nicely considering they just waited 40 minutes in queue.