Real (low level) Tanks of Genius: Mr. I Don't Need Mail To Tank Guy

Unnecessary Blogage Presents: 
Real (low level) Tanks of Genius: Mr. I Don't Need Mail To Tank Warrior Guy

(Real [low level] Tanks of Genius)

Today we salute you, Mr. I Don't Need Mail To Tank warrior guy.

( Mr. I Don't Need Mail To Tank warrior guy)

Some would say that you shouldn't tank in leather, but for you it's all about the stamina.

(I got more HPs now!)

Those leather DPS classes in the group complaining about your new shiny loot? They're just jealous!

(They were plus crit legs)

While people try to explain to you why mail is better for tanking you cough up some phony mathematical equation to prove why you're right and they are wrong.

(Look at me with my numbers!)

So crack open an ice cold Bud Light, Mr. Leather Tanking warrior. You may not have good armor for tanking, but you sure got a lot of HPs now.

( Mr. I Don't Need Mail To Tank warrior guy)

So recently I've been guilty of leveling up another alt. With the new LFG system I've heard from lots of the other WoW Bloggers I talk to that it's pretty fun to do. So a few days ago I cleared a character space on my server and started a little hunter. Yesterday I got a group for the Deadmines. The group seemed to be full of people who actually knew how to play.

Our group started with a druid tank, a dps warrior, a healing paladin, an ele (?) shaman and myself. As we progressed the druid tank actually had to leave and the warrior became our tank. It just so happened that the switch was made in the foundry right before a boss.

That is where the fun comes in. We downed Gilnid and he dropped Smelting Pants (76 armor, 8 stamina and +7 crit rating). You may recall that in the last patch, there is no longer a armor class limitation on rolls.. The shaman, the warrior and myself rolled Need. The warrior won them. Of course this was met with indignation.

The warrior explained that he needed the legs for tanking. I couldn't believe it.. I knew he couldn't be that much of a noob I mean.. he had Bind of Account items so this wasn't his main. I calmly explained to him that he would be MUCH better off tanking in mail than leather and expected him to hand them over to the highest roller on the item, I was horribly mistaken. This guy HONESTLY believed they were better for tanking because of the stamina on the item. I informed him that as someone who played a tank for the main I knew what I was talking about and although the item did have a good amount of stamina it was just silly to choose HP over armor, since with more armor you'd take less hard hits and this would be better than just more HP. He replied that his main was also a tank and spewed some mathematical formula as to why he was correct and I was wrong.

I was stupefied, really there are not people this uneducated playing WoW.. I thought for a minute and considered that maybe his main was a druid tank and he might be a bit confused. I asked him what his main was and he replied a Death Knight.
I died inside at those words. I too play a Death Knight.. my main is a Death Knight tank. Anyone who plays WoW also knows how most DK tanks (or just DKs in general) are horribly bad at their class. The cliché really bothers me because it is hard to win people over especially when it comes to tanking, and here I was conversing with one such idiot who perpetuated the stereotype.


There was no winning, this guy was just an idiot. For the good of the group and for the sake of getting my stupid quest done I shut up and just continued the group. At Mr. Smite I was tempted to roll need on a 2 handed axe, Smite's Reaver, just to irk the Warrior and claim that I needed it for hit rating.. but it's just not really my style. I'm no ninja. I did however throw in a comment about how if I used "warrior logic" I'd roll need on the item even though the rest of the stats were useless for me.

At the end of the instance I also realized how much of a waste the legs were on the warrior even more so because the quest reward for him was Chausses of Westfall which were surely better for tanking than those leather legs. So I said the following:

Well duh I was sad because I didn't get the crit; IT'S A STAT THAT HUNTERS USE FOR DPS their main and only reason for existing! But honestly what was the most painful was that his main was a Death Knight tank.

Oh well a pity for the legs, it gets better because this guy is actually still wearing them (he must not have taken the mail reward) or it could be the REAL reason he needed on them was for DPS as he is currently specced to arms.

Optìm of Shadowsong EU, you sir are either incredibly stupid, or just a ninja. Either way, I hope I never have the displeasure of grouping with you again.

Tanks! You're Welcome

No it's not a typo.. it's a play on words, you'll get it later :p

My current main character in World of Warcraft is a Death Knight Tank by the name of Raevn (Terenas EU). I had played every raid role except a tank previous to this character (previous mains included a Combat Rogue and a Holy Priest) and created her with the intention to tank. Things went well and I felt as if I picked up fast on tanking (being that I had tanked before in Ever Quest it wasn't totally new to me). I had a lot of fun raiding in a guild alliance of three guilds. However, that alliance eventually fell apart due to drama in one of the guilds and that left me with not much of anything left to do on my tank so I started leveling up an alt, a caster dps (something I hadn't played before), Landriana (Terenas EU).

I played this character a lot and basically focused on her until she was 80.. I did so many PuGs (as DPS was much easier than tanking) and once I reached full Tier 9 had nothing else to do on her being that I play casually and am not in a REAL guild (my guild is just for friends and my alts). That left me with only one thing to do: go back to farming heroics for Emblems of Triumph to get my DK in full tier 9.

But there was one problem.. I was rusty. I hadn't played my tank in so long I lost all confidence in myself as a tank, and being that my tanking meant PuGing I was even more weary.

I had seen as a DPS how pushy everyone was with the tank "Pull!" "Go! Go! Go!" and instantly leaving the group if one tiny mistake was made. DPS no longer respected aggro and expected that they should be able to go full out straight from the pull with the tank having no issue at all.

I actually really like this post on the EU realms Guide: Don't Spank the Tank because I can sympathize A LOT with this guide.

I decided the best way for me to build confidence was to just tank, except even though I didn't need much from them, I would tank the new Ice Crown 5 mans in normal mode. My belief was that most the people in normals were probably there for the first time and would be a bit more forgiving, patient and lenient. I queued for Forge of Souls and got my group.

I must have actually been really lucky that day because I ended up getting an entire group of people totally new to the instance (a double edged sword to be honest, but I was feeling nice that day) the only people who knew it were me (the DK tank) and my husband (on his hunter).

While it sucked that I had to explain everything and mark the mobs that needed to die first it at least meant I wasn't going to have some asshole to keep yelling "go!" at me. I got to take my time when I felt like, wait for death and decay to come back up and I felt relaxed.

The instance over all went pretty well except for the Devourer of Souls, sadly despite repeatedly saying "DO NOT DPS DURING MIRRORED SOUL" one of the dpses went right on and killed our healer (who also happened to be standing in the purple crap). Luckily enough my husband and I were so out geared for the instance it didn't make that big of a difference.

When it was over the others wanted to continue (of course, they had a well geared tank and the quests), I was still feeling nice and in need of the tanking warm up so I went ahead.

Another instance of going at my own pace, explaining bosses (and in some cases) mobs (the 4-packs before the tunnel in PoS). It went well.

We decided to press on to Halls of Reflection, and explained fights. As usual someone asked if we would fight the Lick King. Personally, I liked how when I first came I had no idea how the story would pan out. It was like a rush running from the Lich King at the end and then thinking I had to tank him. Therefore I make it a point to NEVER ruin how that instance ends for anyone. I just winked and said "You'll see.."

The waves went rather well considering that is usually pretty hard for people when they first come, but the line of sight trick kind of eats half that fun. It was late for me so we employed it as generally people prefer things easier.

Before we could run up the hall to the Lich King though one of our group members had to leave, and that is when I was pretty much floored:

 

It felt really nice to actually have someone appreciate the extra effort that goes into teaching tactics to players and thank you for tanking. Generally people are pretty abusive to their tanks and this was a welcome change. It made my transition back to playing my tank a more enjoyable experience. ♥