ICC continues well for us.
I have nothing better to do while waiting for the raid to asemble than sit there and trash talk Tirion. But there’s nothing terriblyamusing to report on that front just yet, so let’s turn our attention to…
THE BABY BEAR. Having multiple healers AND tanks, I’ve learned to be considerate of my healer’s mana. This is usually the mark of a Good Tank ™. I’m starting to understand why so many tanks are confused on this issue, however…
Well, okay! This happened to be in Mana Tombs (I believe) and those first couple of pulls almost always seem to come en masse. I guess a bear is just so adorable and hug-worthy that any mob within line of sight feels left out and comes to say hi.
Yeah you “managed” okay….
/facepalm
I feel that it’s always wise to start an instance will full mana and get a feel for the tank over a couple of pulls before you go “lol, I am fine with only a smidge of mana!” If I hadn’t been quick with the oh shit buttons, that would have been a wipe…on the first pull of mana tombs. Becuase someone felt like yelling “gogogo” at me instead of drinking.
/boggle
Silly people.
I Like Bubbles 
#1 by Delerius on July 22, 2010 - 9:55 am
People are idiots. Heh. I’m glad I won’t run into that healer in my pugs :P
#2 by Achloryn on July 22, 2010 - 11:04 am
Blocking with your face is fun. Dealing with idiot healers isn’t. BUT, to borrow a line from someone else’s blog (I think it was from DGmy<3), you don't learn to tank well from the well-oiled pugs. You learn to tank (or heal for that matter) well from the shitty pugs where people are fighting you for aggro and the healer feels like telling you to pull with no mana (lol.. wtf seriously) and you have to hit your oshit buttons on occasion.
#3 by Lique on July 22, 2010 - 11:30 am
Bleh. I’m not a fantastic tank, but I’m a good healer and yeah. Dumb. Get a feel for the pug before you say you need no mana. (Or perhaps the instance. Not that I know about how stuff pulls (see previous comment about not being a fantastic tank) being the “not paying attention to where we are ever” kind of healer.)
#4 by LabRat on July 22, 2010 - 2:13 pm
After three classes’ worth of tanking in LFD, I have entirely ceased listening to dubious advice from healers who think they are still 80.
Yeah, this makes me Dickhead Tank, but I found our parties wiped a lot less when I started using my own judgment.
#5 by Escobar on July 22, 2010 - 2:25 pm
Sounds like you were in Auchenei Crypts. It’s hard to forget that front room full of Crazy Mass Pulls of DOOOOOOOM! That huge open room, where the pulls would start big enough, and then something would randomly spawn and pat over, and bring friends. If you lived, you had one side of the room clear. If you died, it was Bitterness and Recrimination Central. The memories of repeated runs in there with my tree when she was leveling to 70, healing my pally tank then-boyfriend, have scarred me for life.
I remember those learning days, around Ulduar with the release of dual specs. I was healing for several hours a night, and then tanking heroics for my guildies’ undergeared alts. I was very fortunate in that my first steps into tanking were taken with people I knew, so I got a lot of patience, mostly for slow pulling. I had also healed and dpsed Northrend heroics so much that I knew the layouts like the back of my hand, so at least there weren’t a lot of people getting randomly popped in the face because I had no clue what I was seeing. Still, it was hard in the beginning, as I was trying to not suck at bear.
I also remember the first actual pugs I tanked, and that a couple of times, I ended up in tears. Yes, I was a bear with thin skin. Shut up.
No matter what, I always give a quick look at the tank (or healer) before we start so I know what kind of work I’m going to have to do. But that’s at 80. It’s a little harder in a lowbie instance when the tank leaves my poor little priest in the dust while he chain pulls like he’s in 277 and it’s Marrowgar trash. It’s easy to forget that there’s a time when you actually have to be conscientious of things like healer mana. But you do when you traipsing through Zul Farrak. Tanks that ask about my mana get my undying love.
I’m horribly biased, but bear is fun. I didn’t do it at lower levels, though, so that part is interesting to hear about. :)
#6 by Liadan on July 23, 2010 - 1:37 am
You know it’s bad in low levels when your healer tells you you’re the first tank that day who ‘allows’ her a mana break and hugs you…
#7 by Mikita on July 23, 2010 - 1:39 am
I had the other side of the problem, Tanks that dont stop. Ya go Mana please… off he goes, next pull mana … off he goes.
So after that one, I just sit down and drink and you guessed it, off he goes…. On his own, as usually half or all the dps waits with me …
Wft heals heals arghhhh…. then the rant why didnt you heal me…
I was drinking mana so I could heal you, told you a couple of times. By that stage the dps start on him and he behaves after that. A new tank is born
cheers
#8 by Echo on July 23, 2010 - 3:29 am
I had a poorly geared warrior wait for my mana on my druid in UK the other day.
I was shocked, but then I looked at what he was doing, what skills he was using etc and whilst he wasn’t perfection he was a Good Tank ™. It was cool after the easy to heal jackasses with BoA shit and a stiffy for pulling the entire first room of UK. We spent most of the run whispering each other about how fail the dps was :D
To be honest I find it easier to save groups DPSing than healing on the druid. As boomkin with starfall and hurricane, when that asshole tank pulls everything in sight I can kill them hopefully as he dies and if not, I can knockback and hopefully sprint away while the rest of the dps handle the mobs on low health.
#9 by Jaedia on July 23, 2010 - 7:08 am
Similar ish thing last night when I did a Gundrak on my Rogue.We had a Druid healer and a Warrior tank (and me, a Ret pala, and a Hunter). The tank pulled, died, and we wiped. The healer said he should be more careful. So the Warrior and Ret Pala switched, the Paladin tanked. We got the trash cleared and on the first boss, everybody was hit by poison nova. Yes, including the fecking healer. I was watching my health bar not go up (aside from the Druid’s aoe heal, and my health potion). The Druid, again, blamed the tank. This time I called him up on it, because if he can’t be arsed to even throw the party rejuvs, then it’s hardly the tank’s fault we wiped. He got pissy and left, because “41k healing isn’t nothing lol”. Right, ok. The Warrior and Paladin swapped back, we got a Shaman healer and a Shadow Priest and wiped on the trash before the second boss. Okay, so the Warrior took a shit tonne of damage but the healer left again. This time they requeued, the Priest decided to heal and they got in a new tank and it was much easier. At least the Warrior could admit he wasn’t completely upto it. Can’t stand it when people fail and blame anybody but themselves.
#10 by Zephyrius on July 23, 2010 - 7:40 am
I like to call it “Heroic Alt Syndrome” or in non medical terms, being a jackass. I’ve found that I come across more crappy tanks than I do crappy healers though. While levelling my rogue feint was literally on CD constantly in some runs. Failtard tanks r not pr0 k.
PS, stop thinking that stam stacking will let you tank while levelling, especially through northrend!!
/endrant
#11 by Golle on July 23, 2010 - 10:36 am
We had this Arms Warrior as tank in a Ramparts run I was in. I was on my lvl 61 blood DK.
After a couple of pulls with the warrior running around like a maniac hitting everything, apparently threat was something unknown to him, I silently went into Frost Presence and sort of went tanking, with our lovely arms warr pulling everything. I just sort of relaxed picked up every mob after he had pulled them and shortly after the instance had been cleared.
It all went very well, and I guess the only one who noticed I had went tanking was the healer. It felt good being that guy in the background taking care of everything.
#12 by Nzete on July 24, 2010 - 2:41 pm
When I was leveling my dk (needed more professions – someone had to make the flasks after the server transfer), I started all dungeons with a series of statements.
I am the tank. Please don’t pull for me.
If the healer doesn’t have mana, we don’t go anywhere.
If D&D is on cooldown, I don’t do big pulls – have patience.
You need to wait 3 global cooldowns before you aoe… watch for pestilience.
(And prior to getting my “real taunt”)… death gripped is reserved for casters in patrols that add or for saving the healer… if you aren’t the healer, I don’t have a way of saving you.
…
If the dps listened, well and good. If not, they sometimes died… oh well.
#13 by Daken on July 27, 2010 - 12:02 am
I noticed the low mana thing when I was levelling my tank as well. It seemed to start popping up around the level 55 mark and lasted until I hit 80.
The BC dungeons were the worst in my tanking experience. You stop ask if the healer needs mana and get one of three possible outcomes, 1) i’m fine, 2) gogogogogogogOGOOO or 3) no response at all. You then wait for a response only to have a DPS pull for you. It’s funny how many of the ‘I’m fine with 10% mana’ healers seem to change their tune when they go OOM and stop healing. Then suddenly its the tanks fault ‘why’d you pull so many idiot?’. ‘Because you said you were fine and I didn’t want to pull one bad guy at a time’.