A Bad Bad Thing

I've started gearing up my paladin that was boosted to 90. I actually really like tanking on her, because I love throwing my shield around. It's just fun. Throw shields and drop hammers. I love it. I am however not experienced in tanking at the level cap. Usually I just queue as DPS and go along for the ride, but last night I really wanted to finish a step in the legendary quest line, and I could not get a group. I hit that tank button and zoned in almost* completely unprepared to tank those bosses. When the raid was finished I had to tell someone about it, and Rades was there.

I thought my co-tank meant it was their first time tanking in Terrace of the Endless Spring, but in fact they had never before set foot in that raid on any character. Excitement!

I did know a little, so I was able to guide us through killing the trash before the first boss fight. Call them back to fight Tsulong when they were headed up the stairs. We both died to Lei Shi's enrage when she one shot us, but she was still defeated in one attempt. We didn't have a raid wipe until Sha of Fear and that was because I hadn't adequately expressed the importance of standing in the gold circle in front of Sha, which is the one tanking thing I knew going into the zone.

Shout out to Ogmur of Lightbringer for being a good tank with a great attitude, and the rest of our raid for not calling us out on being total nubcakes. I'm sure at least a few of them had to have noticed our lack of skill/knowledge, but no one said anything. We just did our thing and had a good time.

Wrathion thinks I'm hot stuff now, and I'm not about to tell him otherwise. After all, I need my cloak to save me if Corv isn't there.

I feel less hesitant to tank again next time. This was a great experience and a boost for my self confidence. So often LFRs can be brutal and cruel, you hear horror stories of people never wanting to tank one again. It's not all doom and gloom though, sometimes you just get to have some fun.

*DBM is largely to credit for anything I did right as a tank in there.

Temptation

There has been a lot of discussion about the changes to the LFD tool coming with patch 4.1, but one has been a bit more controversial than any others. That's right, I'm going to talk about Call to Arms today.

First, what is Call to Arms?

In patch 4.1 we'll be introducing Dungeon Finder: Call to Arms, a new system intended to lower queue times. 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.

Unless something changes a lot, then more times than not the Call to Arms is going to detect that the queue is short on tanks and possibly healers. Since Cata's launch I've always been standing around waiting on a tank though.

My initial reaction was negative. I couldn't put my finger on what bothered me about this change to the dungeon queue. I mean, I normally play DPS so I wouldn't be getting any sort of goody bag, but on the other hand I would possibly be able to get a LFD group together in under 45 minutes. If I want to play DPS and not just fly around picking flowers and digging in the dirt for fragments of some long lost treasure then I should be happy right?

I've read some great posts on the topic recently, and most of them seemed to have the same bad vibe I got from Call to Arms, they were just more eloquent. I'd link them, but I forgot to bookmark them and I'm having a bugger of a time trying to locate them now.


I know one of my concerns is that I'll end up with more half-wit jerks that are only queuing as tank because they get a goody bag. These will be people that don't even have a proper tank spec that are wearing DPS gear and expecting the rest of the group to "make it work". I've seen plenty of people doing this just to get into an insta-queue much less an insta-queue with perks. Worse yet they might queue as a tank and then try to make someone else do it for them.

Then there's Blizzard offering to pay you in ponies for tanking for a group of strangers. That part kind of sucks since it means you can't play with your friends and still take advantage. I mean, we can get a guild credit with only 3 people in the group being from the same guild, why can't we get tank credit if only 3 people in the group are strangers? I also don't like the fact that I have to choose between guild xp/rep and pretty ponies, but I suppose you can't have your pony and eat it too.

Which leads me to my whole reason for blogging on this topic. I've been bought. Yes, the Call to Arms is a large part of why I am currently leveling a Death Knight, and tanking with her. I was interested in trying out tanking again, but I was feeling gun shy with my warrior. I hadn't warrior tanked since Naxx, and was afraid of all the jerk pugs I've seen tearing me apart if tried to learn the job at 85. I'd toyed with the idea of leveling another warrior a little bit and tanking along the way, but then along comes Call to Arms. I believe we'll see patch 4.1 drop pretty soon, and if I'm going to take advantage of it I'll need to be level 85 and geared up for heroics. By the time the siren's call got to me I didn't have the time to level from 1 to 85, but I'm still a chicken on my warrior. (I usually luck into having the most wonderful sort of people in my pick up groups, but when they have been bad they have really been a kick in the balls kind of bad.)

Death Knights start off at level 55, that means I'm over half way to 85. It's also a class that I've never played before, so it feels a bit new. I think tanking with the Death Knight could give me the confidence to tank with my warrior. I would still need to learn my tanking abilities on her, but I'd have pulls and CC strategies down with my DK first. Also, I've always been a little jealous of my husband's death knight, it always seemed like a cool class to play.

So here I am, maybe 6 days before the patch, at a lowly level of 65. I've tanked a little bit and it's gone well. I'm trying to tank every few days so I don't start losing my nerve, but for the most part I'll be spending my time outside leveling. As a side note I'd like to mention Hellfire Ramparts. This is possibly the best training dungeon ever. If you want to try tanking, and haven't yet just go for it. This dungeon is incredibly short, there aren't too many patrols and packs aren't so big as to be scary for a newbie tank.

Have you thought about leveling a tanking class to see what's in this goody bag? Or do you have a tank you might dust off and put through it's paces again?