Introduction
As – mostly a lurker – on the WoW related subreddits I’ve seen a concerning amount of posts covering toxicity towards tanks in (mostly) M+. While similar for healers I don’t have extensive experience playing healer, so just a tank post. I want to open up a discussion about potential causes, and whether this community perception is deserved. As a long-term enjoyer of tanking I would be disappointed if a false perception dissuaded players from playing the role.
Preface
I’ve been participating in high M+ since the start of BFA when I returned to the game. High M+ in this case is comfortably getting the 0.1% Title with whatever (meta) tank with a comparatively low time investment as I don’t enjoy homework keys. In the meanwhile I keep all my tanks decently updated with gear, usually meaning I do some amount of the highest key needed for the highest gear track (e.g. 10s this season).
To clarify the relevance: I know what “good” tanking looks like, I have played with a mix of pugs and premade groups over the years, and I do keys at (this season’s equivalence) of +10 and higher.
The core of the issue
Tanking has always been a dark horse role. In raid it is usually not the most mechanically complex job, but tanking mistakes are also very often, very costly. In M+ (for 99% of the community) it is also the only role where you are under a constant threat of dying simply by getting hit in the face by packs. Group damage is a factor, but that’s not constant over the course of a run, mostly timer-based and a lot of the time, avoidable. Taking damage as a tank is – mostly – not avoidable. Mitigating your damage intake is, which is a skill expression.
The changes introduced to tanking this expansion aimed to create a higher skill expression for healers involving also tank healing. Taking a shortcut in that argument, it means tanks are less self-reliant. This inherently means that the skill level of the tank has a higher impact on the success of this range of “mid-range” content. A DPS doing their rotation at 50% will do that – 50% of their potential DPS. A tank playing their character at 50% is potentially dead, and with that, the group.
Lastly, there is a “requirement” in pulling packs to tank them, therefore tanks in PUGs have been making the routes.
To summarize, that means tanks in mid-core content need to know: what is dangerous for them, what is dangerous for the group, and with that what packs to pull (and what to pull together) in a reasonable manner for the group and the key level. A factor that increases complexity of these requirements is that reasonable assessment, isn’t. A reasonable pull can turn unreasonable if people do not do their jobs at all. While you can adjust to this over the course of the dungeon, you don’t know beforehand whether people are going to kick or use cooldowns appropriately, and it’s another responsibility to account for while tanking.
Tanking has responsibilities; so what?
While the above points factor into why tanking can be more difficult to step into content with compared to other roles (in M+ you can be reasonably clueless as DPS, which accounts for 60% of the people in the groups), does this really mean they get more blame?
I can personally count the amount of incidents I’ve experienced over the years on one hand, and I would argue half of those could be blamed on me. That’s talking about thousands of keys. I would argue that at that sample size there is more going on than just some personal bias.
Tanking is a punishing role to step in; unprepared. With the resources available, in terms of routes, dangerous packs, basic mitigation rotations and so on, it’s a perfectly valid role to progress on even with the recent tank changes. But while a vastly underperforming DPS can get dragged through a dungeon, that doesn’t apply to a tank. If there is an increased responsibility or level of impact for a role, then playing that role implies you accept that. Frustration with people playing roles that they’re clearly unprepared for is – to an extent – valid.
I don’t condone real toxicity. Frustration with a tank being completely unprepared or dying to every pack, not using their basic mitigation (warriors having no shield block uptime) – that is not toxicity. Playing this game does not give you the privilege or right of dragging people down with you in group content because you think you are entitled to four other people’s time to figure out things you could easily figure out alone. Doing that with friends can be fun, even welcome; expecting that of strangers borders on toxicity.
But Ror, what you’re forgetting to acknowledge is…
We can sit here and argue about whether the responsibility that currently falls on tanks (and to a similar extent, healers) is desirable in M+. But there are no quick fixes to that problem – other than blanket buffing them to such an extent they cannot die in midcore content (which would be problematic).
I want to dispel the notion that tanks experience constant toxicity. We don’t. I think a bit of nuance is needed. Underperforming, unprepared tanks jumping into content they are not equipped to handle, face toxicity. Which is something that happens to all roles. A healer that doesn’t know how to heal will be blamed. A DPS doing half of the damage of another DPS will be blamed. That is the nature of competitive group content, especially in PUGs.
Tanking is – for me, and for a lot of tanks I know – the most rewarding role in the game. I would be a bit careful with the doomsayers that seem to garner a lot of sympathy. Instead I would argue there are many tools available, and many progression pathways available to comfortably adjust to the level of content you intend to do without ever really exposing yourself. Follow that, and I can almost guarantee you, you’ll 1. will not be flamed or blamed and 2. have a lot of fun playing the most interesting role in the game.
submitted by /u/Rorplays
[link] [comments]
r/wow Introduction As – mostly a lurker – on the WoW related subreddits I’ve seen a concerning amount of posts covering toxicity towards tanks in (mostly) M+. While similar for healers I don’t have extensive experience playing healer, so just a tank post. I want to open up a discussion about potential causes, and whether this community perception is deserved. As a long-term enjoyer of tanking I would be disappointed if a false perception dissuaded players from playing the role. Preface I’ve been participating in high M+ since the start of BFA when I returned to the game. High M+ in this case is comfortably getting the 0.1% Title with whatever (meta) tank with a comparatively low time investment as I don’t enjoy homework keys. In the meanwhile I keep all my tanks decently updated with gear, usually meaning I do some amount of the highest key needed for the highest gear track (e.g. 10s this season). To clarify the relevance: I know what “good” tanking looks like, I have played with a mix of pugs and premade groups over the years, and I do keys at (this season’s equivalence) of +10 and higher. The core of the issue Tanking has always been a dark horse role. In raid it is usually not the most mechanically complex job, but tanking mistakes are also very often, very costly. In M+ (for 99% of the community) it is also the only role where you are under a constant threat of dying simply by getting hit in the face by packs. Group damage is a factor, but that’s not constant over the course of a run, mostly timer-based and a lot of the time, avoidable. Taking damage as a tank is – mostly – not avoidable. Mitigating your damage intake is, which is a skill expression. The changes introduced to tanking this expansion aimed to create a higher skill expression for healers involving also tank healing. Taking a shortcut in that argument, it means tanks are less self-reliant. This inherently means that the skill level of the tank has a higher impact on the success of this range of “mid-range” content. A DPS doing their rotation at 50% will do that – 50% of their potential DPS. A tank playing their character at 50% is potentially dead, and with that, the group. Lastly, there is a “requirement” in pulling packs to tank them, therefore tanks in PUGs have been making the routes. To summarize, that means tanks in mid-core content need to know: what is dangerous for them, what is dangerous for the group, and with that what packs to pull (and what to pull together) in a reasonable manner for the group and the key level. A factor that increases complexity of these requirements is that reasonable assessment, isn’t. A reasonable pull can turn unreasonable if people do not do their jobs at all. While you can adjust to this over the course of the dungeon, you don’t know beforehand whether people are going to kick or use cooldowns appropriately, and it’s another responsibility to account for while tanking. Tanking has responsibilities; so what? While the above points factor into why tanking can be more difficult to step into content with compared to other roles (in M+ you can be reasonably clueless as DPS, which accounts for 60% of the people in the groups), does this really mean they get more blame? I can personally count the amount of incidents I’ve experienced over the years on one hand, and I would argue half of those could be blamed on me. That’s talking about thousands of keys. I would argue that at that sample size there is more going on than just some personal bias. Tanking is a punishing role to step in; unprepared. With the resources available, in terms of routes, dangerous packs, basic mitigation rotations and so on, it’s a perfectly valid role to progress on even with the recent tank changes. But while a vastly underperforming DPS can get dragged through a dungeon, that doesn’t apply to a tank. If there is an increased responsibility or level of impact for a role, then playing that role implies you accept that. Frustration with people playing roles that they’re clearly unprepared for is – to an extent – valid. I don’t condone real toxicity. Frustration with a tank being completely unprepared or dying to every pack, not using their basic mitigation (warriors having no shield block uptime) – that is not toxicity. Playing this game does not give you the privilege or right of dragging people down with you in group content because you think you are entitled to four other people’s time to figure out things you could easily figure out alone. Doing that with friends can be fun, even welcome; expecting that of strangers borders on toxicity. But Ror, what you’re forgetting to acknowledge is… We can sit here and argue about whether the responsibility that currently falls on tanks (and to a similar extent, healers) is desirable in M+. But there are no quick fixes to that problem – other than blanket buffing them to such an extent they cannot die in midcore content (which would be problematic). I want to dispel the notion that tanks experience constant toxicity. We don’t. I think a bit of nuance is needed. Underperforming, unprepared tanks jumping into content they are not equipped to handle, face toxicity. Which is something that happens to all roles. A healer that doesn’t know how to heal will be blamed. A DPS doing half of the damage of another DPS will be blamed. That is the nature of competitive group content, especially in PUGs. Tanking is – for me, and for a lot of tanks I know – the most rewarding role in the game. I would be a bit careful with the doomsayers that seem to garner a lot of sympathy. Instead I would argue there are many tools available, and many progression pathways available to comfortably adjust to the level of content you intend to do without ever really exposing yourself. Follow that, and I can almost guarantee you, you’ll 1. will not be flamed or blamed and 2. have a lot of fun playing the most interesting role in the game. submitted by /u/Rorplays [link] [comments]
Introduction
As – mostly a lurker – on the WoW related subreddits I’ve seen a concerning amount of posts covering toxicity towards tanks in (mostly) M+. While similar for healers I don’t have extensive experience playing healer, so just a tank post. I want to open up a discussion about potential causes, and whether this community perception is deserved. As a long-term enjoyer of tanking I would be disappointed if a false perception dissuaded players from playing the role.
Preface
I’ve been participating in high M+ since the start of BFA when I returned to the game. High M+ in this case is comfortably getting the 0.1% Title with whatever (meta) tank with a comparatively low time investment as I don’t enjoy homework keys. In the meanwhile I keep all my tanks decently updated with gear, usually meaning I do some amount of the highest key needed for the highest gear track (e.g. 10s this season).
To clarify the relevance: I know what “good” tanking looks like, I have played with a mix of pugs and premade groups over the years, and I do keys at (this season’s equivalence) of +10 and higher.
The core of the issue
Tanking has always been a dark horse role. In raid it is usually not the most mechanically complex job, but tanking mistakes are also very often, very costly. In M+ (for 99% of the community) it is also the only role where you are under a constant threat of dying simply by getting hit in the face by packs. Group damage is a factor, but that’s not constant over the course of a run, mostly timer-based and a lot of the time, avoidable. Taking damage as a tank is – mostly – not avoidable. Mitigating your damage intake is, which is a skill expression.
The changes introduced to tanking this expansion aimed to create a higher skill expression for healers involving also tank healing. Taking a shortcut in that argument, it means tanks are less self-reliant. This inherently means that the skill level of the tank has a higher impact on the success of this range of “mid-range” content. A DPS doing their rotation at 50% will do that – 50% of their potential DPS. A tank playing their character at 50% is potentially dead, and with that, the group.
Lastly, there is a “requirement” in pulling packs to tank them, therefore tanks in PUGs have been making the routes.
To summarize, that means tanks in mid-core content need to know: what is dangerous for them, what is dangerous for the group, and with that what packs to pull (and what to pull together) in a reasonable manner for the group and the key level. A factor that increases complexity of these requirements is that reasonable assessment, isn’t. A reasonable pull can turn unreasonable if people do not do their jobs at all. While you can adjust to this over the course of the dungeon, you don’t know beforehand whether people are going to kick or use cooldowns appropriately, and it’s another responsibility to account for while tanking.
Tanking has responsibilities; so what?
While the above points factor into why tanking can be more difficult to step into content with compared to other roles (in M+ you can be reasonably clueless as DPS, which accounts for 60% of the people in the groups), does this really mean they get more blame?
I can personally count the amount of incidents I’ve experienced over the years on one hand, and I would argue half of those could be blamed on me. That’s talking about thousands of keys. I would argue that at that sample size there is more going on than just some personal bias.
Tanking is a punishing role to step in; unprepared. With the resources available, in terms of routes, dangerous packs, basic mitigation rotations and so on, it’s a perfectly valid role to progress on even with the recent tank changes. But while a vastly underperforming DPS can get dragged through a dungeon, that doesn’t apply to a tank. If there is an increased responsibility or level of impact for a role, then playing that role implies you accept that. Frustration with people playing roles that they’re clearly unprepared for is – to an extent – valid.
I don’t condone real toxicity. Frustration with a tank being completely unprepared or dying to every pack, not using their basic mitigation (warriors having no shield block uptime) – that is not toxicity. Playing this game does not give you the privilege or right of dragging people down with you in group content because you think you are entitled to four other people’s time to figure out things you could easily figure out alone. Doing that with friends can be fun, even welcome; expecting that of strangers borders on toxicity.
But Ror, what you’re forgetting to acknowledge is…
We can sit here and argue about whether the responsibility that currently falls on tanks (and to a similar extent, healers) is desirable in M+. But there are no quick fixes to that problem – other than blanket buffing them to such an extent they cannot die in midcore content (which would be problematic).
I want to dispel the notion that tanks experience constant toxicity. We don’t. I think a bit of nuance is needed. Underperforming, unprepared tanks jumping into content they are not equipped to handle, face toxicity. Which is something that happens to all roles. A healer that doesn’t know how to heal will be blamed. A DPS doing half of the damage of another DPS will be blamed. That is the nature of competitive group content, especially in PUGs.
Tanking is – for me, and for a lot of tanks I know – the most rewarding role in the game. I would be a bit careful with the doomsayers that seem to garner a lot of sympathy. Instead I would argue there are many tools available, and many progression pathways available to comfortably adjust to the level of content you intend to do without ever really exposing yourself. Follow that, and I can almost guarantee you, you’ll 1. will not be flamed or blamed and 2. have a lot of fun playing the most interesting role in the game.
submitted by /u/Rorplays
[link] [comments]