On cutting tanks some slack

My paladin had almost a level of rested xp, yesterday, and I was itching to get her some levels, so I totally caved and bought her dual spec. She is now prot/ret, and it feels oh so wrong! I completely fail at being a retadin! But she is now level 82 and I've done two dungeons as dps so far and I realized I much prefer to tank in dungeons. 

Watching other tanks do an awful job is just too painful, and makes me wanna slap my shield on just to show em how it's done! - Wow, that sounds vaguely condescending! - I mean maybe they don't know the dungeons that much, and it's only reg, and I'm used to the heroic version, but it's killing me to see the small mistakes they make that I wouldn't make. And then I think about the mistakes I do and don't know about, and then I feel bad for thinking like that and I'm ashamed of myself. 

Bad, bad Lyr!

It can be hard to be a good tank. I know how much crap ppl give tanks in groups. I should really cut some slack to my fellow tanks, now shouldn't I? It's like it's a completely different mindset. When I'm tanking, I'm really hatin' on those stupid dps making my job a nightmare. When I'm dps'ing and the tank is doing a bad job, it annoys me to no end. 

Only recently - since I started tanking to be exact - I've realized how tough it can be to a fairly new tank. To position mobs correctly, to know when to taunt and stuff. Spine comes to mind. I hate when the tank does stupid stuff like getting all nine stacks of blood when the Amalgamation is at full health, or when he fails to bring the exploding Amalgamation close enough to the armour. But maybe it's just that overwhelming. Moving the mob to the bloods might not be an easy thing to do for an inexperienced tank. Maybe it's his first time actually doing the fight and even though he researched it, he just doesn't have enough practice to execute it properly. Or maybe he just panicked. Or maybe it just comes more naturally for some than others.

We are pretty quick to kick a "failing" tank in the Raid Finder. Because everyone wants stuff to go quickly. No time to waste. "I want my easy loot and VPs and get the hell out so I can re-queue with my ten thousand alts." Because if we wanted to spend hours in a raid, we'd be doing heroic progression. But I guess if we'd just let them try again, they might learn from their mistakes. But we usually don't even give them the benefit of the doubt. It's a harsh world, people. Be good fast, or get thrown out. That's why I'm never going to tank a raid for strangers. I'd get eaten alive. 

So to all of you tanks out there, queueing as a tank for the Raid Finder, you have my utmost respect.

Unless you really fail, of course. - You know, the ones for which there is no hope - In which case I'ma vote to kick you.

Perspective

I've been pretty busy in game in the last couple of days. I've been working a lot on my bucket list in order to get as much stuff done as possible. And I've had a lot of fun doing it. 

Back in December when I started playing Swtor, I was very bored with WoW. I didn't feel like levelling new toons, the guild I was in was slowly dying, and I just didn't have anything to do in game anymore. Swtor was great, and for three whole months, it made me happy to discover new places, try out different playstyles and get engrossed in my character's stories.

But then, in the fourth month, when everyone started talking about Mists of Pandaria beta, I started missing WoW. I hadn't logged on in a couple of weeks, and I decided to give it another try. In a matter of minutes, Swtor became inadequate. Insufficient.

So my time in Swtor just made me realize how much I love WoW, and how much stuff I enjoy doing in Azeroth. Ever since I came back, I've been farming, levelling, raiding with the Raid Finder, gearing up my characters, and just having a blast. 

This week, I've farmed cloth in Tol Barad and in Icecrown to make bigger bags for my characters, and for some reason, it didn't bore me to tears. I actually enjoyed it and had a couple sessions of "farm all the cloth!" I also farmed elementals in Wintergrasp to gather mats for my blacksmith. I ran BC dungeons for hours to work on my reputations. Working on professions and achievements is suddenly entertaining, when a couple of months ago, it felt like a chore. I levelled fishing in a couple days, and it seemed to go fast! Admittedly, I was watching Supernatural on my second monitor the whole time. I never tire of looking at Dean.

But I digress.

I've levelled my paladin to a whoopin' level 75, and have tanked a couple of dungeons. I'm glad I can't get Nexus or Utgard Keep anymore as randoms because I'm sick of those. They are the only dungeons you can get for something like four levels. Old Kingdom turned out to be fairly chaotic. Especially the first boss. Many mobs, handle it! I think I'm doing a good job, though. I sometimes pull a bit more than I can chew, but not on purpose, honest. And we always survive. Either I'm decent at tanking, or I always get great healers. Maybe a little bit of both? Ya, that's good for my self-esteem. Drak'tharon Keep was a lot of fun to tank,  even with a dk trying to tank everything, and a healer drooling over the fact that I was a girl tank. Sigh. When I got Violet Hold, I was like "Nice! Never tanked this before!" And then I remembered. And I had a tiny moment of "Oh God what was I thinking?" But it went well. The group was on the second boss when I walked in. Maybe I should consider getting an offspec for my paladin, but I've been prot since level 10, and I'm not a fan of ret. I haven't quested since level 15, either. I kinda like the idea of having only one spec. If I even just buy her dual spec, I know I'm gonna end up healing or some shit like that and I really don't want that to happen.

Finally, my cutie druid got lots and lots of gear from the Raid Finder. If I could get my hands on a trinket and the staff off of Deathwing, I would be thrilled. There was a trinket I desperately wanted for my mage, and it took months before I won the roll. My druid? Got it on her first try. What's this, Blizz? Is this your way of telling me I should play my druid more? Message received. Loud and clear.

Too much or not enough

When Mad and I switched servers, we both created new alts. What else can you do on a new server? 

As expected, my baby shaman picked skinning and leatherworking as her professions and I've been having lots of fun farming leather with her. I often made up to two levels per farming session just by getting enough mats to make 50 points of leatherworking. The only part I didn't enjoy as much was the part where I had to kill Nyxondra's Broodlings in Badlands, just behind New Kargath. There's an elite there that kept aggroing me, and even though I had no problem killing her whatsoever, it took a pretty long time, and it felt like a waste of time, as she didn't give more leathers than the small, quickly killed ones. Although, those bastards are swarming the place, and you can't ever run out of mobs to kill, so it was pretty quick nonetheless, even though I needed over 400 leathers from them.

The shamy is now level 71 and healing Northrend dungeons for Mad's dk tank. Outland went by so fast I barely felt it. Mad was tanking and I was healing, so we just chain-dungeon'd our way to 70. We probably won't do the same for Northrend, though, and will probably add some questing into the mix. Healing isn't my favourite thing in the world, and I could really use a break and just go an destroy monsters and collect their hide.

The second alt I rolled was a prot paladin which is now level 60! I got tired of running BRD - which is the only instance you get for something like 6 or seven levels -  so I went to quest for a while in Blasted Land and it was pretty nice. The Tainted Forest looks kinda cool, too.

For the record, questing as prot is fucking amazing. Avenger’s Shield procs and does insane amount of damage, and I ended up two-shotting mobs of my level.

After that I started tanking Ramparts and the Blood Furnace. It went pretty smoothly. Except for the stupid DKs dying to every single mother fucking bombs in BF. Or the fucktard hunter that pulled everything in sight "because I wasn't pulling fast enough". /stranglekittens

Healers never complained about my tanking, and they never looked to struggle at all. I was also pretty proud of myself for not snapping at the DK that kept death gripping mobs THAT I WAS TANKING OMG LEARN TO DEATH GRIP FOR FUCK’S SAKE!!! THERE’S A CASTER RIGHT THERE! DG IT!! NOT THE MELEE I HAD AGGRO ON!!! 

Tanking makes me rage more than anything else in this game. People just have no respect for tanks whatsoever. (At lower levels anyway. I have yet to level a tank to the max level.) And after that they wonder why there are so few tanks out there. Some groups are great, and don't "order" me to pull faster, or just don't plain pull shit - while I'm waiting for Avenger's Shield to come off cooldown - and then complain that I didn't pick it up. 

Because you just know that if I catch you pulling shit on purpose, I'm letting you tank it. I've heard people complain about tanks that do that, that it's the tank's problem no matter what, but I completely, violently, disagree. I don't have to put up with people's shit. That's not what I signed up for. You wanna be a dick and pull half the instance? Go for it. But don't expect me to clean up your mess. The low level mage aggroes by accident? The lock's pet decided to misbehave and runs into a pack of mob? Eh, no worries, shit happens. But don't stand there, tab-targettting and shooting mobs that weren't pulled yet, and think for just one fucking second that I'll go out of my way to taunt them off you.

I didn't intend this to be a "bitch about fucktards in pugs" post, but there it is. I love to tank. It's a lot of fun. Healers are usually great and really know their stuff, and I can count on them when the shit hits the fan. But for some reason, the dps are often complete idiots and I wonder why that is.

Adventures in Tankingland

Be vewy quiet, I'm hunting dwagons.

I’m having a total blast tanking with my paladin. Avenger's shield is just so amazingly good. But as I level and get more tanking experience, I’ve come to realize certain things.

- I loooooove tanking. Like I never thought I would.

- Avenger's shield is one of my favourite abilities in game.

- I hate boomkins. With a fucking passion. Typhoon my mobs one more time and I swear I’m letting you tank them all. One of them was pulling everything in sight by typhooning half dead mobs into packs of mobs. The healer was frantically filling green bars while I was taunting all the mobs to me. Let’s do this again never, mkay?

- Same thing applies to elemental shaman and their thunderfuck of doom.

- I also hate frost mages that frost nova mobs before they can reach me, which makes it hard to keep aggro on all of them.

- I hate warriors that taunt off me. When they are dps.

- I hate mage and hunters (or any ranged class, really) pulling shit at random just because they can.

- I hate most people, period. The healer that tells me to pull half the fucking instance cuz he’s bored, the dps that pull ahead of me and bitch when they die (cuz I don’t taunt off you if you pull on purpose.), and I hate every single person rolling on gear they don’t fucking need just because they can.

And I’ve just realized that soon I’ll have to deal with noob Death Knights too, with their death grip and their DnD of doom. /shudder