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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Care and Feeding of Warriors: One warrior's view of the Call to Arms
by Matthew Rossi 
May 7th 2011 at 4:00PM
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.
I doubt it will surprise anyone to discover that I have strong opinions about the new Call to Arms feature for the Dungeon Finder. As a warrior, I play one of the classes that can fill the tanking role, and I have gear that is more than adequate for even the Rise of the Zandalar heroics. As a result, you might expect that I'm out there tanking a load of heroics for instant queues and a chance at free pets and mounts.
You'd be wrong. I haven't queued as a tank since patch 4.1. I have not, of my own will, tanked a single heroic since before February. When I have, it's been for friends or guildmates -- and yes, it's been generally successful. Why am I not tempted by the extra rewards of the CTA? Well, there are three reasons.
I doubt it will surprise anyone to discover that I have strong opinions about the new Call to Arms feature for the Dungeon Finder. As a warrior, I play one of the classes that can fill the tanking role, and I have gear that is more than adequate for even the Rise of the Zandalar heroics. As a result, you might expect that I'm out there tanking a load of heroics for instant queues and a chance at free pets and mounts.
You'd be wrong. I haven't queued as a tank since patch 4.1. I have not, of my own will, tanked a single heroic since before February. When I have, it's been for friends or guildmates -- and yes, it's been generally successful. Why am I not tempted by the extra rewards of the CTA? Well, there are three reasons.
If you've tanked forever, why won't you tank for us?
- The rewards are not in line with my interests. I don't care about rare epic mounts or pets. I have the ones I want and a few I don't but which I ride around on because they're cool. I am the guy who, on the absolutely last reset of the old 20-man ZG, saw the raptor mount drop and passed on it. It was 50/50 odds I'd get it, and I passed without blinking an eye because I just don't care. So trying to buy my services as a tank with mounts and pets is like trying to buy my services as a writer of fiction by promising me all the leaflets I want.
- Even if the rewards were in my interest, they are insufficient to get me to put up with some of you guys. Some of you are awesome. Some of you are funny, do your jobs right, put up solid DPS without ignoring kill order, heal while moving out of Toxic Link. Some of you make the game worth playing. But some of you guys are buzzkills, racists, braggarts, or inept. Some of you are even all of those things at once. It's not worth it to me to take the tanking role and have to explain kill orders and fight mechanics to people who spend 20 minutes talking about rectums during a Zul'Gurub run. Seriously, dude, the reason we kicked you is we didn't want to hear any more about your internal organs and their foibles. I know there are tanks who do all these things, but the great thing about me being DPS in a group with one of those guys is, I can drop and go about my day without being accused of being a prima donna tank.
- Tanking often becomes the equivalent of taking three or four preschoolers into a monster-infested ruin. Seriously, one of the reasons I applaud the new incoming CC changes is that they takes one thing off my tanking plate. I don't care if it makes things easier for the DPS or healers; I'm just relieved that one more of the annoying little tasks that no two groups can agree on will be streamlined.
Raid tanking good, FIRE BAD!!!
I love raid tanking. I love working with another tank or a tank corps, spreading out the duties and responsibilities. I like having a DPS team I can rely on to be responsible with their threat and having healers I can trust. I like knowing who all these people are and knowing what they'll do. While I am as irascible there as I am here, I like to believe they know how much I appreciate everything they do for the raid and its march forward through content.
I do not feel that tanking for a raid is harder or more demanding than healing or DPSing for it, as I've done two of those three roles in this expansion and seen the damage the healers need to address. Everyone comes to play and contributes to our success.
Pugging as a tank denies me, save for rare cases, this feeling of us vs. them. Instead, it becomes me vs. the rest of my group at the same time that it is the group vs. the monsters. The very personality traits that I use as a raid tank -- determination, a desire for perfection, and a willingness to trust my group -- become weapons used against me, harrying my patience and destroying my peace of mind.
If my guildmates and I run a heroic, all is smooth glass water and coordination. I often don't even have to tell them what I want them to do. No pickup group can match this level of understanding. We earned it. We played together and learned one another to get it.
A need for success
I've had pickup groups where everyone in the group was clearly a skilled player, we were all geared at or above the content's requirements, and yet our egos got in the way and we couldn't get it done. I've had groups where I came into a run with four complete strangers looking at me, all of them barely geared enough to get in the door, and yet it worked.
It comes down to a simple yet completely unenforceable, intangible need for group success. You have to be able to do your role and let everyone else do theirs and trust them to do it. This is not a requirement of perfection. Mistakes can happen and can be dealt with if the group communicates succinctly and works to correct them, and wipes can be overcome quickly and recovered from. What makes it all so much harder and what makes me not want to tank for pick up groups is when individuals put their egos ahead of success.
Efficient communication vs. yammering
Hopefully if you've bothered to stick around this long, you've realized that I do not blame all of this on any one role in the group. You're more likely to get a disruptive DPSer over a disruptive tank or healer by the simple fact that there are three DPSers in the group, not because being a skilled DPSer is easy or what have you.
The problem is a simple one. Pickup groups start out at a disadvantage in that they are often mostly or completely strangers, with no easy way to bring about the "raid mentality" of communication and group understanding. This isn't insurmountable. If it were, we'd have no good PUGs. And it's not the responsibility of some of the players in the group; it's the responsibility of all of them.
As a tank, I like it when groups stop talking when I'm trying to explain a pull, mark targets, and tell them I'm pulling. Groups that do this and pay attention to the kill order -- I love you guys. One ZG run that I ended up tanking started out extremely poorly, with a tank who managed to be offensive on so many levels that his own guildmate voted to kick him, and I ended up tanking simply to keep the group moving. (So no, I didn't get my bribe.) Once that disruptive tank was gone, the group was amenable to my specific quick-and-dirty fight explanations, marking (I generally only mark the first kill target and any CC) and even occasional odd joke. I grew so comfortable with them and they with me that when a tank finally showed up just before we pulled Zanzil, I was actually somewhat sad to go back to DPS. If it hadn't been 5 a.m. my time by the time Jindo died, I'd have run with them again, even in the tanking role.
So I guess, in the end, I will tank for you if you take the time to treat me like a person. And likewise, if your tank won't treat you like people, don't be afraid of queue times. A good group is one with respect and communication. A bad group is just wipes with nothing learned and your time wasted. No one wants that.
The Call to Arms isn't really going to make groups good. Only we can do that. All the Dungeon Finder does is give us the opportunity.
At the center of the dury of battle stand the warriors: protection, arms and fury. Check out more strategies and tips especially for warriors, including Cataclysm 101 for DPS warriors, a guide to new reputation gear for warriors, and a look back at six years of warrior trends.
Filed under: Warrior, (Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 4)
Therinor May 7th 2011 6:52PM
I totally agree to that article, and I have commented before on the reasons why I dont tank PUGs anymore, which are pretty much described in the article.
I do like ElderTankre's attitude as well, and its nice to think that way, but I think there is a limit to it. Example: last week, I talked about queueing with my low lvl pally and running a lvl 15 or so instance with a PUG. Two mages in there, from the same guild, and they were pulling like crazy, pulling adds etc. Everytime I ran towards a new mob, Id see frostbolts fly by, and yes, it was challenging to get aggro on those mobs, and to take over the adds etc.
At first, it felt like extra-training, but it started to become a) stressful and b) frustrating when one of those mages started complaining about me not taking aggro fast enough (not always easy when they blast away at adds... not only pulling them, but building up serious TPS before I even got a chance to get to them). And yes, Id love to go "oh, cool, nice training", but if it gets to the point where people just go nuts and expect me to protect them and just tag along, picking up aggro on everything they pull, it stops being fun.
It happens a lot in low lvl dungeons, but it does in lvl 85 ones too, and I just dont get it. I mean, is it really the "i wanna beat the recount meter" mentality? Is it the "Ok, I queued, but I only have 10 min of time (or attention span), so I wanna get through this, so lemme pull moar adds"? I really dont know.
Also, I am sure that attitude has caused them to experience quite a few wipes, so I dunno why they dont change?
A guildie keeps telling me that Im too nice, that I should yell at those people and tell them to stop it, to really let them have it, but am I asking for too much when I wish this stuff would stop?
I definitely love the challenge of working with good DPS, I dont mind the rush of keeping aggro on mobs when the DPS put out a lot of DPS, but that ninja-pulling, stand in the fire stuff etc. I can do without.
If those guys would at least ask both the healer and the tank whether theyre ok with it, it wouldnt be as bad, but that "tank, if u dont pull, I will" attitude sucks and takes the fun out of the whole thing.
It can be fun to run instances even with a pug, it can be smooth and fast when people know what to do, use their abilities (I mean the OTHER stuff than the uber-DPS-spells, like CC, threat-reducing abilities etc), and watch out a little bit to make sure no one gets in trouble (as res or wipes usually slow down stuff a lot), but it seems like that is too much, as if its a totally alien thought that the guys they end up wiht in a PUG are NOT ok with that stuff.
I keep going back, trying to pug, as I love tanking, love the challenge and the role, and every time, it ends in disaster because of ninja-pulling, bad attitude, groups falling apart etc. Maybe its just me, but even when I dont say anything and just play along, it ends in trouble, so I dont queue anymore, as it feels like every time I try again, it just is the same stuff over and over. And no, I dont think its my tanking skills, as there isnt much I can do when some guy in the group leeeeroys it and aggros the boss with the healer being at less than 5% mana...guess its too much to ask for people to at least glance at peoples health/mana whatever before they pull.
Just my opinion though, kudos to all the tanks who stick to it and either are better leaders than I am, or have more patience =)
Therinor May 7th 2011 6:55PM
and sorry for rambling and that whole wall of text! =)
Cennic May 7th 2011 11:44PM
I don't really see anything wrong with telling the other people in the group how you feel about it. You don't have to be mean about it. Just being honest would probably go a long way. Worst case scenario is they'll leave (or best case, depending on how you look at it) and you at least have a chance to get someone that actually knows how to handle their dps and are willing to wait for you to gain aggro. I don't tank PuGs anymore, but everytime I get into a group with a dps that has that bull**** "gogogo" attitude, it really gets under my skin. Seriously. If you're in a hurry, this isn't the game for you. There is nothing more evident about playing this game than the fact that it involves a large investment of time. I can understand not wanting to sit around for 10 minutes in between pulls, but trying to pull immediately after a mob dies whether the tank is ready or the healer has mana or not is just plain stupid and almost always counter productive. You wouldn't hit the detonate button on a bunch of TNT while the people putting it into place were still standing right next to it, right? It's the same idea. As far as I'm concerned, you have every right to tell people how you feel about their "performance", especially if yours isn't in question even despite theirs making it difficult for you. Like I said, you don't have to be mean or even aggressive about it. If it were me, I'd just give them an ultimatum. Either they can smarten up and actually be an asset instead of a burden, or I can leave, get an instant queue, and they can sit in their 30 minute queue again. For someone thats in such a hurry, I can't imagine that option will be appealing. Although admittedly, I also wouldn't be surprised if they took it anyway, despite it being a perfect example of cutting off their nose to spite their face. I'm sure that at times they will call you self entitled or a "prima donna tank", but so what? You're not either of those things just because you want the run to go smoothly. You're not implying that you're better than them, you're stating the truth about the obvious (by no fault of your own and that just being the way it is) that you're willing to take advantage of if they can't do what they should be doing anyway.
Therinor May 8th 2011 5:09AM
Cennic
Thanks a lot for your reply! TBH, I HAVE tried that, many times actually. Yes, I have been strict a few times, even though I hated the fact that I was forced to start yelling at people... I did, but it didnt work. In the case of the two mages I talked about, I told them that they a) had to stop pulling adds and b) that its harder to take aggro of them if they unload dps on adds they aggro so they have tons of threat before I even get there.
However, I got replies like "Its your job to pull and if you dont, I will".
I have threatened to leave before, and usually, someone would ask me to not leave, and I didnt, only to see the same behaviour by the others continue.
So even though I might not sound like it, I have told people very clearly to cut it out, even it it did make me sound like a primadonna, but it works very rarely in my experience...either they just go on, start to argue forth and back, or try to be more sneaky with their add-pulling etc.
Also, tbh, if I do mark a killorder (and do it quickly), and people totally ignore it, how much more often do I have to remind them to stick to the kill order? Its not that they dont know that you kill skull first, they just simply ignore it, and at that point, its not my job anymore to tell them that it would be better team-work to stick to the kill-order. I guess Im too impatient? =) Lets face it, a lot of those people know what they do,a nd that its not exactly teamwork or easy on tank and healer, and still do it... so why do I have to point it out when they know what they do? it just gets tiring if you have to do it again and again...
Thank you so much for your reply, I know exactly what you mean, and you are right, tanks shoudl speak their mind before they drop the towel, but in my case, I did, and usually got arguments or more of the same behaviour, so Im outta there =)
Orrdeath May 7th 2011 7:07PM
I agree with the write up. I play in a raiding guild. We expect a lot from all of our players, but nothing we dont expect from ourselves. This is how we build our guild on the backs of skilled players. We have been able to clear all the content so far, and a few heroic bosses. This is due simply to players doing there jobs at the right time. Tanks, healers and dps. This type of team work makes the game worth playing. Makes friendships stronger.
Random heroics, people arnt accountable to anyone. Before the dungeon finder heroics were the perfect time to do guild recruiting. Just picking people up in trade. They were from your server, they didn't want to be know as a bad player.
I feel that maybe we don't need a guild finder addon, maybe we just don't need a dungeon finder addon.
Even with this guild finder thing, people get offended when we want to run 3-4 heroics with them before they get a guild inv. Those are my two sense. Less is more. Less heroics but better quality ones would make the game more enjoyable to play.
uncaringbear May 7th 2011 7:26PM
You summed it up perfectly, Matt. The one thing that I will add is that your concerns are not exclusive to people in the role of tanks. I will not heal dungeons these days for the reasons you've covered so well. Sadly, I won't DPS them, either. At the end of the day, I have zero desire to put up with the negativity so often encountered in PuGs regardless of my role.
I think Blizzard really missed the mark with the 5 mans in this expansion. The challenge of working together in group should be focused on raids, not dungeons. I'm happy to put up with countless wipes and frustrating encounters on raid nights, but I sure as hell don't need that in 5 mans. Dungeons should be used as a mechanic for gearing up players in a reasonably easy and accessible manner, not mini raid encounters that ultimately frustrate a large percentage of everyday players.
Sorcha May 9th 2011 5:34AM
I find this comment interesting. I don't think that easier heroics would solve the problem. Case in point: my tanking warrior is currently 79 and is blasting through LK normals. These dungeons are easy, nobody could call them anything else. Because it's easy, I had 3 runs of HoL yesterday where a hunter (different hunter each time) would run ahead and pull packs, not misdirect them onto me or anything just pull them and have his pet tank them. Because he knows he's not going to die as a result. I was pulling like a madwoman already because if you take the time to type 'Hi guys! Let me know when you're ready!' you get either silence or 'gogo ffs noob'. One literally ran from the golem boss through the gauntlet room, brought all of them to life at once, grabbed the two packs of elementals from the next room and proceeded to tank them. That is not fun for me as a tank. That doesn't allow me to do what I enjoy doing, which is set the pace through the instance and control the mobs.
uncaringbear May 9th 2011 9:35PM
@Sorcha
My point is that the LK dungeons were just the right level of difficulty. You could go into any of them with any PuG group and have a very decent chance of success and be able to collect your badges. If DPS chose to be silly and irresponsible, it didn't always result in a wipe. They didn't require 2 to 3 hours of grief like the Cata dungeons. As a tank, you still have the ability to set the pace in a LK dungeon - don't let an idiot ruin it for you. Also, you're going to love running Cata dungeons if you enjoy being in the driver's seat as a tank.
Baltymare May 7th 2011 7:29PM
I gave up running dungeons of any sort because of all of this nonsensical behavior. Tanks blame DPS, DPS blames Tanks, Healers gripe at both, all because:
1. Different people have played the game for different amounts of time, often switching roles to find what they like to do and either feel proficient at, or what they would like to improve their performance on. This means that not everyone is equally capable at their given role.
2. Different people have different degrees of investment in their gameplay. Some prefer to meticulously calculate every possible outcome to every possible scenario that could be encountered and match spell and ability cooldowns to kill orders in specific dungeons, and some people just like to go in, burn down a target by spamming one spell over and over again. This means that not everyone plays the game in the same way.
3. Everyone thinks that the game either revolves around their playstyle, or it should. This means that everyone has an opinion about how the game should be played, and in their own mind they are not only correct, they are then obliged to tell other people how they should be playing their game. This behavior is only exacerbated in the PUG system, since the matching system provides and guarantees anonymity.
As far as I'm concerned, when I hit level cap with my toons (and I have several) that means I win WoW and can go PVP. At least I know in advance I'll be dealing with juveniles who measure their self esteem in E-peen there, and can reduce my expectations about dealing with other human beings accordingly.
tannarl May 7th 2011 8:10PM
Seriously man, you are one bitter jaded individual.
I've rarely had a bad group in the new troll instances. the odd wipe here and there, but if it was automatic success, why bother?
Most groups are pretty good, and 30secs to agree simple stuff like who kills hatchers on dragonhawk boss is all it generally takes.
I've tanked, healed and dps'd both instances, and tanking it is by far and away the easiest of the three roles. healing is a right pain sometimes, and dps has more responsibility than before, which is great. tanking is generally keep aggro and dont stand in crap.
You really really need to get over yourself. I may be completely misjudging you, but you come across as one of those Prima dona tanks. its not a good thing.
Chairman Kaga May 8th 2011 2:21AM
Trust me, you are the very lucky exception and not the rule.
Most of the players in LFD make the denizens of Jersey Shore look like nuclear physicists.
Sharlatan May 7th 2011 8:16PM
I've only done the new instances in LFG due to me leaving my raid guild because of real life not letting me raid. So I jumped on an alt and have been running them in appropriate gear (no a single piece of raid gear). My druid is a mainspec feral with cat/bear hybrid spec and a resto offspec so I've tanked and healed and dps'd them.
Its been the most fun I've had in wow in a long time. Not had a fail group yet.
hell, I got my warbear today in a pug. Every dps 20K+ (I was dps in that run too), tank was good, fast but not reckless, and healer was able to keep pace. No discussion of cc or tactics, people just did their jobs and reacted well to each other. That kind of synergy is what I love, it was teamwork without the normal planning or commumication, it was brilliant.
MsMoo May 7th 2011 9:57PM
I cant agree with you more on several points, I stopped tanking in wrath after everything became AOE pulls. I wasn't particularly skilled at generating burst threat and often the dps would rip the agro from me leaving me playing a game of catch up the whole dungeon. But raids I could tank fine. The coordination of the dps knowing how and when to CC and the healer knowing just the right moment to pop cool downs is when it was fun, Cata has exacerbated the (Im sorry to use the word) Stupid player problem, that was borne out of wrath. There is such a thing as too easy.
Necromann May 7th 2011 10:46PM
I hate people telling me what they think I can and can't do, with no experience themselves. I was dpsing on my priest and the tank wanted me to MC elementals and a boss. I told him I couldn't, but he kept insisting I could. For some reason, he didn't want me to MC the humanoids I could. MC is the most powerful cc in the game, as well as the most spell, and I love to use it.
Necromann May 7th 2011 10:47PM
Most fun spell*
Seefer79 May 7th 2011 11:59PM
I refuse to tank pugs, and here is why..........Wrath of the Lich King, it gave the mentality of "Go go go" and "Must top the DPS meter charts to flex my epeen at all costs" Cata went the direct opposite direction, now it requires team work, cc, threat management, and patience, sadly most people did not break the WOTLK bad habits and we are where we are.
Chairman Kaga May 8th 2011 1:56AM
An article on nothing but point 2 in the list would have probably resonated with 90% of us.
I play this game for fun. Failure doesn't necessarily bother me, or dealing with less experienced players -- sometimes that stuff is part of the fun. But dealing with assclowns is not. Taking verbal abuse from some elitist jackwagon over my gearscore is not. Being ignored by an idiot who won't accept reasonable advice or instruction from anyone is not.
No one in their right mind would sign up to take abuse, but that's about half of what LFD is. I choose not to waste the effort on it.
Twill May 8th 2011 4:48AM
The big issue is the current time commitment.
There is no way in Hell I can put in 1-2+ HOURS to finish an instance. it just isn't going to happen. A 5 man shouldn't take more time that it takes my raid to do the entire BoT or BWD.
krko May 8th 2011 5:45AM
I can't sympathize at all with the article. Most of the PUGs I've had from the RDF were generally successful, especially after the 15% luck of the draw. I can count on one hand the number of PUGs that have failed after that. But then I again I've never actually experienced the 40-50 minute queues. (The longest I've experienced is 35 minutes during peak hours. On off-peak hours its more of 25 minutes) Heck, I've yet to encounter any of bigots, foul-mouthed people, braggarts, and other bad sorts. Most of the time its a silent run, marked only by questions of "r?", "everyone know fight?", and "sheep circle, sap star". I guess tanks go through a lot more groups of people so when they get a bad group it stays with you forever.
Lipstick May 8th 2011 5:57AM
One of the truly great thinks about this game, is that we intermix with so many different people, with so many different perspectives and experience. Unless you joined the game with a bunch of people you know in real life, and no one ever speaks to anyone else in game, more than likely the people you count amongst your raid team now -- started out as a stranger.
This is one of the reasons why I dislike the "I hate pugs" mentality. Many of my favorite people in game I met by chance. I leveled my character almost entirely through pugging, in the days prior to LFG. I was always whispering people I didn't know and spamming trade chat with funny quips to get people to come run dungeons with me. Since LFG was introduced I can count on one hand the times I've cued as a DPS.
I'm a healer, not a tank. And it makes me sad to read articles like this, just as it makes me sad when I read the "I'm going to dps" threads on the healer forum. I pug nearly every day. I'm not even going to lie or pretend that I haven't had some rough groups. I've also had really great groups too -- and found people where everything just meshed. By closing the door in the face of the bad, you close your door to the face of good and great as well. As I pug more than anyone else I know -- I can say you are quite literally cutting off your nose to spite your face. I really think you're missing out.
One thing that I felt was missing from this article was personal accountability. There were QUITE a few lines complaining about all the players you've run into that you didn't enjoy playing with -- and lines discussing other players lack of skill - rude behavior, etc but nothing which addressed your own. I'm sorry, but I don't buy that. I am a really good healer -- many people have called me amazing -- but I still make mistakes. I'm not perfect and I don't know anyone who is. I've missed a cool down -- I've lagged -- I've misjudged the timing on a heal cast time and lost someone by .5 of a sec. Stuff happens.
There was too much of a "you all suck, cause you're not me or my friends...." kind of attitude in this. I think the reason why pugs, struggle -- is because of this kind of attitude. People go into them thinking they're perfect and everyone else is a scrub or a screw up.
You're right -- it takes slightly more communication in a pug than in a guild group. But in my experience, not a whole lot more. I isn't my "job" as a healer to teach the newbies how to play, and how not to stand in the bad -- but I've taught more than a few groups how to do the fights. There's always at least one person at the end that is grateful a geared, competent healer showed them the ropes. I am 100% positive that there would be grateful puggers out there, who would be grateful to a tank for doing the same.