World of Warcraft®

@Dethadder: Agreed. Ever since 4.3 released, CTA has been so dysfunctional that there really is no incentive to queue as healer or tank anymore.

@Iluvtankin: i used to tank. no1 ever told me i sucked which means... :)

@Iluvtankin: I totally agree i just wonder why it only coomes up 50% of my ques yes im q-ing alone

@Iluvtankin: Having done DPS first, and now just starting to tank, I can definitely see where you're coming from as far as annoying party members. Tanks almost have to deal with as much crap as Healers.

@Iluvtankin: ha its the heals fault if they cant heal you you die lose agro every one dies

@Draineus: yeah it is good that the bag is BoA, and yeah also good that it is possible for every role type to get the bag (just rarer for dps to get it). But one misconception that I have noticed from people as reading these comments is that some seem to think that is is a 100% chance that if you run a dungeons with CtA up and you get a bag you are going to 100% guaranteed find a mount or vanity pet inside.

That assumption is far from true. White vanity pets fairly common, I have received 2 in about 10 bags. But mounts, different story all together. Exceptionally low chance of a mount. Granted it is higher than farming strat for barons horse for 10-15 years, making 100's of thousands of gold on enchanting mats, trash and cloth while you are at it. But it is still a very low chance.

@Manbull: Didn't know the game was out for 10-15 years now... =P (just trolling)
But yes, it is true, it is higher of a percentage, I've farmed that crap of a place for that Deathcharger's Reins since I hit 60 and have only seen it drop once, and hell, I lost it, never saw it again, and I ran that place at 70, 80, and now at 85 on my main.

@Draennei: thats what there doing how else do they make the time shorter then thats what there trying to do

@Mjöllnir: That's actually a really cool idea. For people like myself who don't care as much about the whole Horde vs. Alliance theme, it would be very interesting to do some runs with Horde players. Plus, seeing as how I'm a lore nut, most of the endgame bosses aren't defeated by a single faction, it's usually by a combined effort of both.

@Zua: Actually, the drop chance for getting said mount is the EXACT same as it is if you were to do that boss.

@Rodwin: you can get 10 time this bag in 1 day

@Schwarzes: u for got warlocks :P and thank u my repair bills are aweful :P

@Schwarzes: I have a dual weild frost DK and average repair bill after 3 dungeons totalling almost 200 gold cuz tanks who are wearing DS 25 man ilvl gear and still cant tank for crap

@Dranight: DS 10 man and DS 25 man have the exact same item level gear.

@Rohané: I understand what you are saying but something like a tanking mage would have a lot of contradictory, tanking mages a lot of people would think of them as OP, a mage who can take hits in pvp just wouldnt fit the lore either, the next realistic class to start tanking would be a shaman or even a rogue, rogues could just have alot of dodge/parry kind of like a death knight, but then have other spells so that they can take some hits and not be as squishy as they are leather, and shamans already got a couple of aggro gaining spells, they would just have more of a tanking Orb that flies around them.

@Leoanataeus: Aren't there Battle Mages, Mages in Plate somewhere in here... (mage main, so that would be so cool for me =P)
And we have a Druid, DK, Pally, and wait, I'm forgetting something else, oh yes, the original and yet of late underused, the Warrior. I think it is enough tanking classes, it is just that people refuse or rather prefer DPS, it is easier to blame the tanks for something they did or did not do than DPS (never the DPS fault for aggro or whatever) it is always the Tanks stupidity even when there is none or the healer's inability to heal. DPS will always QQ no matter what, truth of the matter is, these damn queues take so damn long as a DPS class, due to lack of people taking on the Tanking/Healing roles. So QQ more DPS (again I remind you, my main is a Mage) this is a good incentive.

@Trece: I rather like it. I just got the Barons mount out of my third ever bag. And plus, your're a druid, so quit QQing and start tanking/healing...

@Faramel: I agree with you on this. I love healing and tanking.

@Stormsurge: Use the gold you don't have to spend on repairs to buy the goodies you crave.

@Stormsurge: Is that also why there are 3x (probably more) DPS in the game than tanks and heals? Or could it possibly be that DPS for the most part are dumb and like to blow their full blue wad bar as quickly as they can with little to no regard on how threat works and what happens to them if the tank with (except pallys) his empty red (aqua or whatever colour that is for DKs) bar loses threat to you because you decided to start casting or dotting up mobs before he/she hits them, and as the caster style DPS you obviously like to open up early with huge spells that like to crit for what in excess of 40-50k (probably more) sometimes.

Pallys don't really have that issue because they get to start with full mana, that being said I think it is fair to say that paladins have their own drawbacks to initial threat gen (I could be wrong, never really played a pally and never really plan to play one, I have opinions about pallys, and that style of talk doesn’t belong on a public medium such as this). But rage and runic power tanks (aka the rest of them) start with a fat 0 against their name (before enrages and such), if all skills cost a number significantly greater than 0 on this little mysterious red (blue-ish) bar, and we start with 0, how is it you think we can generate initial threat faster than a squishie clothie or in your case slightly squishie mail wearer with a full blue wad bar that you can’t seem to hold for 5-10 seconds to allow the one who has to do the job that is least represented to do it and not blow a gasket and rage quit on the reason of idiotic dps (which is generally for me the DPS that A: can’t hold their wad, and more importantly the many racist and rude DPS that start dribbling garbage in party chat after a problem just because they can or because they believe they are the best thing since pre sliced cheese).

Now you may be wondering why I never mentioned orange or yellow bars.. Well simple.. Yellow bars refer to kitties and rogues, and well they are melee DPS. And well for some reason the vast majority of melee DPS know that if they walk up behind something with a red name tag that does significant damage to them because they are not geared for mitigation and attack it before the tank does, chances are they are going to be cactus before the healer even knew what was happening. And orange bars are now hunters, and well every hunter bar like 1 or 2 that I have run with knows what MD is so it doesn’t matter anyway that and the ones that don’t generally don’t attack first. However casters with full mana bars seem to be living in the sub level 20 mentality zone where if they hit something before a tank does it is ok... Either the tank can pull it off you before it gets to you or it will die before it gets to you. Here's the problem with that, yes a tank can taunt and pull it off you.. IF YOU DONT HIT IT AGAIN. A tank generally will not and probably cannot out initial (by initial i mean initial, before rage generation kicks in and before vengeance kicks in) threat most casters. And because you pulled it the mob walks out of melee range (or runs) and once that happens the taunt returns them to same threat as you, but the mob is then classed as range to the tank and melee to you so as if my magic the tank has to generate 30% of your threat to pull it back while you only have to generate 10% of his to maintain it's attention, if you hit it again for 10k adding 10k aggro the tank with his limited rage and low vengeance has to generate 10k aggro to equal you plus 30k threat to pull it back before you hit it a 3rd time. That or run in to you, which is infinitely harder to do because most DPS run away from the tank thus increasing the range the tank travels and the time taken to get it back), I don’t know of a tanking class other than DKs with death grip that can generate 30k threat with a single ability at range while having 0 RP or rage and no vengeance. (Druids certainly can’t, Feral Faerie Fire is our only range skill in bear and it does what like 15k threat top assuming it hits for 11k crit).

Personally I am of one mind. If a DPS pulls it off me I figure it will come right back to me after it is done killing the person who pulled it in the first place (either that or i run with the one taunt or you’re toast rule, IE you pull it initially I will taunt once after that you still don’t learn.. You know flashing red screen trying to alert you to the fact your lifespan may be about to be measured in mere seconds, you tank it and you like it. If I am with my friend who is generally healing, chances are not only are you tanking it and liking it but you’re not getting healed to boot.) That rule for me applied when DPS pull mobs before I have a chance to hit it.

Part 2:

DPS often seem to forget, that while us Tanks get our little (now 500%) buff to threat, for those first few seconds (sometimes 1-2 tops, but in some cases up to 5-10 based on the burst dps rate of the DPS in the group) tanks have to build up to good threat generation.. Oh yes but vengeance you say, well yes the new buff has made that stack up faster. However, at the time of your post vengeance never did stack that well. It took lots of time and generally lots of damage taken to get it up to max level. Nowadays if you get hit for 30k it is immediately 3/4 full which is good for initial threat, but it doesn’t automatically make us immune to losing threat in the early periods of the fight especially when a DPS pre 4.2 in ilvl 353 gear could pump out a single spell and dump 90k threat on a mob. With the new patch to threat as well in a heroic run it only takes 2 parrys or dodges or rarely misses (as in the mob missing the tank with a hit) or a combination of the 3 in a row to essentially allow a tank to drop most if not all of his vengeance. It is now based around a percentage of the damage taken in the last few seconds combined with the last 2 hits taken. In raids it takes a while to go down. In 5 man heroics most times it doesn’t get past half way up and when you fully mitigate incoming damage by any means it is all gone in a heartbeat.

Save a thought for 5.0 when rage generation changes completely, damage taken and non white hits/crits will then no longer generate rage, only white hits and crits will. If you continue on the same path as now then you are going to alienate more tanks than ever before.

Basic rule of thumb, if the tanks total threat (yes this will require you to look at something like Omen or equivalent... I Sure it will not be too hard to manage) is below 400k (raid) maybe 300k in 5 man heroics, expect that any decent crits from you could topple him and he won’t be able to get it back off you.. That is until you are cactus on the ground QQing about poor tanking and the next thing you are seeing in party chat is "QQ the tank left, now another 45 mins in the queue".

Next time that happens, ask yourself this... Are the party members all dead? If so rewind 30 seconds and then ask yourself.. Did I or another DPS in the party blow their wad too quickly and cause the whole thing then instantly QQ in party about crap tanking?

If you answered yes to any of those then, perhaps it is time you rolled a tank and ran some LFD dungeons and saw just how alarmingly high in occurrences those events are. Maybe then you will understand that, while yes there are tanks out there, they just don’t queue with DPS they don’t know because of the unusually high chance they will get... No offence, DPS like you and end up wiping all night long.

Ok now to finish my rant, Most of what I said above applies to LFD groups only and even then only to about 90% of the caster based DPS in them, so to the few that do make tanking LFD randoms enjoyable... I salute you and thank you... Keep up the good work...

Also as a druid tank I am at an even more disadvantage than the others (I think DKs are almost in the same boat, but i don’t have a DK tank so can’t really comment there). My charge costs rage and doesn’t generate it unlike a warrior who can charge and get his 40 rage plus battle shout. For me I enter bear form and use my enrage skill (which makes me take more damage) to get my 40 rage tops after 10 seconds and I have to spend some of it just to charge. Most of my decent aggro generating abilities cost 25+ rage (I think except maul, I don’t really pay attention to that). But one other thing that comes with druid tanking is far less mitigation than other tanks. We don’t get Parry, or Block at all. We are perma fixed to 0.00% and do not have the ability to parry or block anything. All we get is Dodge, we used to have a higher HP pool and higher armour to help mitigate that but then along came Cataclysm and those features were shafted leaving us with straight dodge only.

Part 3:
Now after all that is done, if you had actually read the original blog post you would have seen the words "Call to Arms will automatically detect which class role is currently the least represented in the queue, and offer them additional rewards for entering the Dungeon Finder queue and completing a random level-85 Heroic dungeon." and "Any time the Dungeon Finder queue is longer than a few minutes for level-85 Heroics, the Call to Arms system kicks in and determines which role is the least represented. In the case of tanking being the least represented role, the "Call to Arms: Tanks" icon will display in the Dungeon Finder UI menu where class roles are selected, and will also display on the UI when the queue pops and you are selected to enter a dungeon."

Those are at the very top of the blog in paragraph one and two, so are DPS being shafted... No they are not. Why do you not see your beloved DPS role being called to Arms? Because you are never looking when there is more tanks and heals than DPS in the queues (it does happen, believe me). Can you get Call to Arms: Damage? Certainly, if they are the lowest represented role in the queues you will get it and tanks/heals will not. I have even seen it just after a realm restart were for maybe a minute or two all 3 roles were represented by Call to Arms, but then as more and more people came back on the heals one went away and the DPS one stayed for about 5 mins then that went away and the tank one stayed. But none of them were lit by the time I finished my first zandom after about 25 mins.

Now before you or any other DPS go replying to this wall of text, think about what you are going to type. If it is anything along the lines of insisting you are innocent of these acts and being rather inflammatory and antagonistic about it then chances are you are the exact DPS mentality that I am referring to in this wall (of text).

Ok rant over.... I think.

PS: To all those who are in the minority that this rant doesn’t apply to.. Sorry for the Wall of text, I just have had enough of the usual DPS QQ matches about tanks when none of them are willing to give it a crack and do a good job at it themselves.

@Manbull: In response to your wall of text which I liked you forgot about tank assisting. I have seen it so many times and done it a few times myself. Where Dps just randomly attack a mob when they are with a AoE tank and the tank is not focusing on that one cause they are trying to help the healer by killing the one more of a threat to them ( ranged/casting mobs). Tanks are more able survive longer with melee on them but not ranged/casters. I have played as all the tank classes Pally is easier cause of mana bar but playing as a druid, warrior and DK tank not so much. Takes more time for them to acquire aggro. Druid tanks by far being at the bottom of the threat hold cause of the rage expense and not much rage gain. I support all the people out there who are running as tanks and be willing to put up with the DPS. I have quit tanking myself cause of the DPS you have mentioned. And at times if I am in a dungeon with a tank from my own server and we wipe a good amount of times I am willing to give up some gold to help them out cause it is easier for me to got out and kill 10-15 mobs to get my repair bill than it will be for a tank.

@Manbull: I agree to you PS at the end. The rest, I just did not want to read it. Too long.