Some words from an old tank
decided to write this post after seeing so many threads about the lack of tanks for 5-man dungeons.
This is a story that starts back in 2004.
When I started playing in the fall of 2004, durring the Open Beta tests, I was young and clueless and had absolutely no idea that games like this had tanks, damage dealers, and healers. NO KIDDING! I picked a Paladin because that was what I used to play in DnD, especially in Neverwinter Nights.
I probably don’t need to explain the frustration I felt during original Classic when my class could basically only heal… Well, I did try tanking. I tanked Stratholme and Scholomance, if I remember correctly. But never UBRS, let’s say.
A few years later, during TBC, I started healing exclusively. And immediately I ran into the same problem — I had to spam Trade Chat for half an hour or more just to find a tank. The server wasn’t big, and it was absolutely awful. Tanks had prestige. People treated them like a valuable resource.
And that’s when I decided to become a tank!
But, as I said, I was young and clueless and believed that only Warriors could tank. Yes, exactly — during the early days of original TBC there were very few, if any, Paladin tanks around.
After a month or two of leveling from scratch, I had a level 70 Warrior! And from that point until today, that’s the only thing I’ve really been able to play. I’ve already forgotten how to heal.
So what are my observations after almost 20 years of playing as a tank?
Couple of things:
As a tank, you’re not only playing against the game — in at least 50% of 5-man dungeons, you’re also playing against your teammates. That’s the bitter truth.
Dungeon failures are almost always considered your fault — you didn’t explain things well enough, you didn’t cover the mistakes of the DPS players.
There have always been, and there always will be, DPS players who actively play against you in every possible way — attacking the wrong target, pulling before you, etc. There’s a slight difference in player mentality compared to 20 years ago, but the end result is the same.
Generally speaking, tanking is the best role in the game if you actually want to play the game — you don’t wait for groups, you find parties almost instantly, and you actually have to understand the mechanics instead of just coasting through content.
And now to the question: “Why aren’t there enough tanks for 5-man dungeons?”
In my opinion, the answer is simple and trivial — raids require too few tanks. And usually those tanks are also the guild leaders or raid leaders, already geared, and with no real need to run 5-mans.
Personally, even now, it was extremely difficult for me to find a guild as a Warrior tank that actually needed one. The other option would be to create my own guild.
That’s simply how the game is designed, and this is not a new problem. Over the years, Blizzard has made different attempts to solve it — some more successful than others.
But overall, the situation is not much different from what it was 20 years ago.