World of Warcraft™

I'm actually an alt (my main's a healer), but I was just curious to see some of the responses after seeing the "Why do you heal?" thread on the healing forum.

For me, I made a prot paladin because none of the other friends I played with tanked. That way, we always had a group. Having never tried it before, I came to realize I really liked it. I'm not an egoist and I don't necessarily to do it to feel important, but I do feel like that as a tank I have the most awareness as to what's going on, as compared to when I play my healer.

That's really about all I can think of for the moment. How about you, other tanks out there?

^ I've always been a healer for my friends. I decided to go tanking just because I wanted to see where the fun was. I do enjoy a lot. My main is a holy/prot pally and I do enjoy her a lot. I made this ally alt to just see how it is on alliance side and I was planning to keep her as a dps but I enjoyed tanking on her more then dpsing. Now working on prot gear while waiting for cata to bring her horde side as a lil gob!

I wanted to start tanking to give it a shot, after dpsing and healing. i loved it. I like trying to keep the pull under control.

because I'm paranoid and don't trust other people to do it. Also I'm an egomaniac with a hint of narcissism.

My DPS sucked and I wanted to raid.

I'm a control freak...and the instant queues are nice. This could just be my server, but in PUGs the tanks seem to be clueless half of the time. To put it bluntly, when I'm running with my guild I dps because that's where I am most needed, but in PUGs I like to tank simply because nothing can wipe a raid faster than a tank that doesn't know what they are doing.

I healed for several years in vanilla/early BC and needed a change. Now I just honestly don't trust too many tanks out there when I go ret/holy.

I see things go down that newer tanks should've learned in rfc/mara/scholo/kara/etc. I don't blame them, though. I just don't trust them. Blizzard does a poor job of teaching new tanks the required "tools of the trade" in my opinion.

because im forced to or i cant raid. our raid tanks both ended up getting real jobs back in june before summer killed attendance, so i tank until we can get new ones, but we decided to wait until cata instead of mass recruiting beforehand.

I'm a masochist, and I enjoy being beaten on.

i started playing wow right before bc came out and when i did get to the max level i decided to tank im not sure why but i did and i got alot of feedback from healers telling me i was really good at it in comparison to other tanks they'd grouped with and i had alot of fun doing it, so i stuck with is and is one of my favorite things to do in the game, i like being that pro tank that out do's the other experiences you've had

I do it because I hate dying, ever since I've started playing games. In WoW, it was just a logical progression from AE grinding to tanking instances. Since then, I've come to appreciate the control I have over a situation, and trust myself more than anyone outside of my guild to make sure something goes right.

I used to play a warlock in Vanilla, before omen and soulshatter existed. My MT/GL was always pissed at the amount of aggro I got, especially at Broodlord in BWL. He kept telling me that if I liked aggro so much, I should tank.

This continued in BC. Gruul's lair and Prince in Kara, even with Soulshatter, I was eating dirt before long. So I finally tried tanking and it stuck.

I've never been much of a dpser, the only toon I have that does so is my hunter. I got tired of people competing to be on top of the dps meters, so I decided to grind my pally more, and that's when I realized that I love tanking. I mostly do it for myself, I'm not really tanking for my guild quite yet, and I haven't really done much of raid tanking either. *shrugs*

Been tanking since vanilla, first on my warrior, now all 4 classes.

At first it was out of necessity. We're a fairly small guild of friends/family and we had one tank, our old GM. Due to IRL issues he had to quit playing and i ended up being the new GM... and we had no tank. I had a 60 arms warrior that i'd dabbled in tanking on for something to do (gogo old 31/5/15 spec :P) and, well, hello guild MT.

By the end of BC we had a few people with alts that could tank but none really wanted to do it or liked doing it. By this time i was tanking on 3 classes and was pretty good at it. It was somewhat telling for our guild structure in that i burned out on tanking in the last 5 months or so of BC and our guild runs in heroics, karazhan semi-pugs etc. dropped to effectively zero. I'd suck it up and do it occasionally to help people out with quests, attunements etc. occasionally but i didn't really pick it back up till 3.0 hit.

Enter wrath. Leveled a dk with my other 3 tanks. Never really burned out that hard again but still a bit. The advent of LFD was one of the singular greatest and worst things ever put into the game. Guildies could now find their own tanks if i needed a break and i could get groups as any spec i wanted... but the LFG community went into the toilet and flushed. I've probably done ten times as many groups in wrath as i have before it simply because of how easy it is to get in groups now... but i've dealt with fifty times the morons i'm used to. The bonus being i never have to see any of them again, my ignore list keeps them away and i can still do guild runs anytime i want. Also pugging as a healer/dps i notice an elitist twitch in me... after tanking for 5 years it REALLY irks me to see a crap tank, especially if he's not really even trying (hello Mr. Dps DK... in dps gear... blue dps gear... dps spec... in tank presence... that hit the shield button... i hate you sooooooo much...).





Anyway, storytime over. Now a TL;DR lol.

TL;DR:

at first it was because no one else would do it.
then it was because i enjoyed it
now its because i don't trust another LFD moron to do it right.

last 5 years of groups in a nutshell :P

To put it simply: I tank because I don't trust others to not mess up.

because I'm paranoid and don't trust other people to do it. Also I'm an egomaniac with a hint of narcissism.

I'm a control freak...

I'm a masochist, and I enjoy being beaten on.

I've come to appreciate the control I have over a situation, and trust myself more than anyone outside of my guild to make sure something goes right.

Been playing a rogue since the beginning of WoW, and was planning to play him for cata as well until a few things happen in our guild and we where short on tank. GM asked me if I could tank for cata and i said sure.

I'm a glutton for punishment becuase I got tired of waiting for other tanks to log on.

I'd been dps since vanilla until just recently. Dungeons started feeling very one dimensional to me, hitting this thing is more important than hitting that thing, when done hitting that thing move on to hit this thing, aoe that stuff. Tanking provided a way for me to learn a new skill and gain more perspective on encounters while still letting me be in the thick of the combat.