Problem is a raid has more DPS/healer spots than tank spots + raid tanking is boring and easy, even though some bosses limit healer spots to 4-5.
It's normal that you have less tanks when raid bosses require 1-2, there just isn't much future.

I've totally been on a tanking binge ever since I got around to tanking in WoW. Now its been my go to class for every mmo since.

So I do need to decide what to do with my jedi, go knight or dps thing.

@Stephen Martin: You are absolutely correct. I hate to say it be Recount was the worst thing that could have happened to WoW (Gearscore in WotLK a close second). People are obsessed with those numbers and they don't even require skill to get.

I play solo on most time ia have free... my tank holy cow é solution (elite monster for 3 or 5 player is great)

I don't get it. Threat is trivial to be held against equally geared DDs. Ok so if you're undergeared, it's harder. But in a raid, threat is a non-issue except for the first 20 or so seconds of the fight.

The change... IT DOES NOFINK.

Ok so maybe it makes Halfus HC slightly easier.

as long as the entire game revolves around itemization, blizzard will not do anything significant to solve the problem

I don't understand this change at all....tanking is already the easiest role, I've only been back for 2 weeks and i'm already bored since I never have to pay any attention.

I dislike this change. This won't make tanking easier, it will make dps easier. Right now autopilot dps is a big problem. Not being where you are supposed to, doing what you are supposed to, not because of inexperience but in order to top the chart.

[url=#user_comment_72792]@Doktor42[/url]: That happens to me too (I tank), but I generally make a deal with the healer: you keep me alive, I keep you alive. If you have spare time, heal others, if not, keep only me alive. After clearing trash with only 3 or 4 people alive (healer; tank; 1, maybe 2 dps) they usually learn.

Its not that treath is an issue tbh. I play druid tank for 3 years now. But every time I run a random I set skull + cross. Moron dps just dont get the idea behind the skull and cross. Almost every time u see skull die as last mob. Sorry to say so but like most of DPS are just morons or brainless

p.s. some people play tanks so they can be jerks in random parties, skipping some bosses, ignoring others, because if you kick such an asshole it'll take time to find another one, thus people stick with them even if they dont like it. Though being a healer and dropping him a few times helps.

[url=#user_comment_72802]@JinseiZetsumei[/url] Actually there are good tanks, but to see one you have to have a few idiots in the team who screw up everything (and then tanks saves the day and kicks the bastards, happy end). Though there are much more bad tanks, who dont care about anything other than 1 mob they hit.

Tanking. I liked tanking, just like I liked healing. Made me feel useful. But usually as a healer people would say great heals or something around those lines. Tanking on the other hand was a.... TANKless job :D....

yeah I hate myself too.

Ha, I was a paladin tank. While I loved my retdps (haters gonna hate) I often tanked because no one else wanted to and hence found myself pushed into it when raiding. I liked it anyway because you knew that if you didnt hold agro and position correctly the whole raid would wipe.

[url=#user_comment_72777]@Meh[/url]: Yeah this. Tanking, imo, isn't very hard. Its just the process of becoming a good tank is hard when you have to solo PvE with tank, it takes patience.

Holding aggro isn't the reason I don't run random Heroics as a Blood DK anymore, it's jerks who refuse to DPS the right targets and then blame the tank for wipes when they didn't do an encounter correctly that made me quit tanking for all but guildies. Doesn't happen every run, but it enough.

I don't play WoW, in the MMO(s) I do play tanks have the CCs. The main reason I shy away from tanking is the fact that solo PvE as a tank is painfully slow. Although it's hilarious to gather a pull and let that asshat DD trying to killsteal die by mobs because he doesn't know what taunt looks like.

Querzis has it spot on. It's not so much "hard" to tank as it is "different" if you're accustomed to healing or DPS.

Meh, I'm a warrior, I tank sometimes with my off-spec but I really dont like it. I woudnt say its actually harder as much as its a lot more responsabilities. Its just as hard to be a good dps as it is to be a good tank. But if you screw up as a dps, it doesnt matter. Screw up as a tank, someone die.

Hasn't holding aggro been pretty much a non-issue since WotLK?

Back in my day playing EQ1, the holy trinity was Tanker, healer, support; DPS was just a bonus to make stuff go faster.

what's the name of that birdie thing anyway?

Before quitting WoW, I played a Pally. Naturally, I got to experience all 3 roles. And I have to say, while healing allowed me to calm from the usual Ret, being the 'leader' as you walk up to that huge baddy and clash head-on with him simply can't be compared to cowering stand-at-ass DPS. Hella fun.

I prefer healing, tanking is fun but try to keep your team alive is more.

I tend to go for high defense characters, so tank is sorta natural for me, though I only really tanked once in Perfect World, and that's because warriors had a skill that did nothing but attract aggo, so the dps casters could nuke the area around me. I should try the free-sample wow sometime.

I remember only ever getting praises for my healing, probably because I was an elemental specced sham (pvp oriented) and yet I still managed to keep the party alive despite somebody aggroing two groups of adds.

be a successful tank. Every one had one or two little things that if you didn't take just the right action (and it was different for each one), the party would wipe. UGH. It almost felt like work. If I had the time to study WoW bosses, I'd study for my classes instead. Otherwise, I did have fun.

Tankin' was pretty easy for me up through normal 5-mans. So long as the healer did their thing, I knew how to keep aggro and take it back if a DPS'r pulled it. I even had fun in PvP. But what really turned me off in Heroic 5-mans and any raids was how I needed to know every boss inside out for me to

Aa a person devoted to tanking in basically any mmo, I actually feel sorry for most of the dps.

[url=#user_comment_72698]@BC[/url]: Not until you said "taking the hits while letting everyone else keep you buffed and healed." See, that only lasts until the buffer or healer decides to spontaneously AFK, or a squishy DPSer decides to say "I wonder what happens when I stack ALL the damage buffs." Cue impending disaster.

the only hard part of tanking is when your dpser's take the agro cuz theyre damage is in t he 4 digits and you can barely make it in the higher 4 digit damage. monsters, bosses especially, go after whoever does the most damage. the tank needs to use all its threat skills to prevent that.

I laugh when I hear this since I've been a bear tank since I started playing. tank'ns the best. you get to say F U to the boss.

I used to play a fighter/monk in the early days of FFXI, in that i used to tank and pull mobs.
However when i started playing WoW tanking had evolved into an art-form that required FAR more work than a standard fun game should require.

I don't see why people think tanking is so hard. Well, in Wrath, I got it. The DPS was so over powered then that the mere throught of holding aggro against a decent mage was almost frightening. I love my pally tank and the challenge of relearning how to do it properly every patch. ;)

In Vanilla and BC bear tanking was easy. Just mash your main threat key (swipe, mangle or lacerate) and dump extra rage into maul. FFF for your initial threat or if you run out of rage. Only time I ever lost aggro was when the enemy had a deaggro ability or one of the DPS had a huge gear lead.

I play a caster DD as mainchar and a tank as alt, so I know both sides of the medal. To tell
the truth, when DDs "behave" in 5-mans I find it usually much too boring. And yes, losing
aggro to that overgeared Frost DK can be sometimes a bit frustrating, still, one has to try
how to do "better".

I actually tank and the only times they have ever blamed me for epic stupidity when it actually was my fault T_T so i like tanking because i think its even easier than dps i just sit there and annoy everything

Yup, yesterday we wasted several tries at Nefarian because the Hunter was too stupid for MD (Ony went out to search for fine hunter flesh) I admit, if you got a bit of gear tanking is relatively simple.

Tanking isn't hard because of game mechanics. It's just that many players want to pew pew everything mindlessly and blame the tank if they pull all the aggro. Or the healer.

And then complain about long dps queues because noone wants to tank or heal for that sort of player.

Tanking isn't hard.. tanking is boring.

This whole thing stems back to the fact that grouping trough the LFG system, you are bound to run into morons. LOTS OF THEM. And as a tank keeping said morons alive is hard, really hard. Now in a normal enviroment everyone would ridecule the retard. In wow everyone harasses the tank. /facepalm

And for gods sake, threath is not the hard part. Keeping your team alive and controling the figth is the hard part.

Do the dps and healers REALLY want tanking to be easier? Common people, think about it for a sec. The major reason tanks do what we do, is becaus of the challenge and that we are a key member of the group. If tanking is made easier, all you will have is retarded DK's claiming they soloed RAG!

i laughed so hard to the dog

I've not played an MMO, but I thought tanking was meant to be easy.
Phsyical attack and a lot of defense and get enemy focus on you and then just whack away at them while taking the hits and letting everyone else keep you buffed and healed.
Am I mistaken?

lol

meh, thats not it at all. It is the lack of challenge that bore them out I think. for a dps there is always room for improvement, you can deal 100 more dps by clever time management and perfecting your rotation. Healers and tanks can only keep people alive. to binary to be a challenge.

That's why I'm always the healin' bot.

It's not my fault that the pull was bad and we wipe. I'm just keeping everyone as healthy as possible. You're the idiot for dragging the whole instance to us.

I agree with Smarre, I have leveled 4 tanks and I hate pugging, too many idiot dps (lets pull for the tank, and blame him for when I die) and healers who have no place healing ("go, i can heal you, wtf you died, obviously your fault").

...]
See that shield? How about I can actually USE it in PvP, like hiding behind it while a flame ball is coming? Or give me more defensive options with a shield instead of a passive dmg reduction?

Why do DPS need all the CC effects? Give them to tanks. DPS will always DPS, give them to tanks!

I mostly tank. I like BIG NUMBERS (dps) too, but tanking is fun. What should happen though for tanks is this:
- make tanking valid for grinding, questing and PvP too!

If a tanking skills work in PvP too, or a tank get special skills for PvP only, then more people will tank.
...]

Tanking isn't hard, that's not the reason why there is no tanks in the LFD, it's the idiots you meet in the LFD groups that make me as a tank hate tanking pugs. Of course most of the pugs are ok but the asshat minority who make tanking them living hell make me not to even want to bother...

The only reason I ever tank is because dumping all of the aggro onto the DPS idiots who can't shut up for one second about how everything is never their fault makes for great rageface.

People hate even the modicum of responsibility combined with the fact that, for tanking, it doesn't translate over into other parts of the game.

dps and healing work in pve, pvp, and grinding (for dps. Tanking only works when tanking.

This will not increase the number of tanks in the long run.

I dunno, I always found tanking to be a lot of fun, never understood the difficulty some people place on it. It was also a safer way to guarantee success in PuGs, and secure more loot.

Then again, the greater population of WoW (and most mmo's) is god awful.

@Toddius Zho

Simple, the last panes showing a simple toy where it can swing up and down over and over again, and his beak can be used to press a single button.

So the joke here is Tanking is so simple now all you need to do is pressing one simple button.

I sure as hell wouldn't group with that tank.

I heard that some guy working at a nuclear power plant left him in charge of the core ventilation. He almost caused a meltdown!

WHERE ARE TEH PONIES????? 2 Comics without ponies what has the world come to????????

I don't understand the last panel.

No, it's not easy to be DD.It's a stuoid concept, and those who believe that as a dogma are the ones that piss off people as ElitistTank, and myself.

is idiot ranged on Akil'Zon and Nalorakk standing 30 yards away instead of closer to the boss, not gimping my DPS with time off target. "Furthest" is relative, not absolute. People don't seem to understand that (not really surprising).

I like tanking. A lot, actually. But I refuse to babysit idiots who can't be bothered to assist me without a floating lucky charm over a monster's head, who can't CC without the same, and who can't actually use their interrupts. It's much less frustrating as a DPS where all I have to worry about

Warlocks are sexy, awesome and the best class in WoW. And ever.

I think it may bring some people back but the underlying problem is that perceived anonymity cause some people to be downright asshats. I have a friend that plays a dk tank and enjoys it (while I am pretty much burned out) and he aways is surprised that people are just jerks.

Its easy to be DD, you need no brains and you are free to yell at healer or tank if something happens. Its also tanks fault if you dont focus target coz "he cant hold agro, n00b"

p.s. also, ENGORGE

The reason people don't like to tank is because the tanks job is to keep people alive, but you can't hold aggro on stupid.

I had to give up WoW for grad school back in 2010 just before Cataclysm. I played since the original open beta and frankly tanking evolved to be easier each step of the way but nobody in their right mind tanks because it's an abusive relationship from the get-go.

Now there is strip.

No image for a moment because he was just after uploading the comic, and the host site needed a moment to get it up there for show.

Forgot to link the strip huh?

Invisible comic is invisible.

I'm here, why isn't the strip?