lederhosen

So, I was running a random heroic dungeon on my warlock. As usual, the party leader was also tank (= heavily-armoured person whose job is to keep monsters occupied and keep damage away from the squishy healers and damage-dealers). At one point our healer, following somewhat behind the rest of the party, accidentally managed to catch the attention of a grumpy-looking tree monster. So, how does our heroic tank/leader deal with this?

(1) Use a 'taunt' ability to distract the critter from the healer.
(2) Charge in and beat on the monster to get its attention.
(3) Stand still and offer cool leadership and sound tactical advice, like the following:

Party Leader:********-Spinebreaker: OMFG
Party Leader:********-Spinebreaker: NO
Party Leader:********-Spinebreaker: LET HIM DIE I WILL RES
Party Leader:********-Spinebreaker: OMG

In the end I poked the monster enough to pull him towards the rest of us, including the tank, who then had to do something about it. But seriously, wtf?

so I would never, ever let the tanks die on purpose. Not as such.

However, if you're the sort of tank who chain pulls Naxx 25 trash without checking whether Grobbulus is about to throw a crapload of slimes behind the party, thus causing heavy damage to the entire party while getting healers stunned by abominations, then complains about 'no heals', then charges on to the next trash without giving me time to resurrect the healer who got killed, then gets me killed twice in quick succession by overpulling and inability to hold aggro, then ninja pulls Patchwerk without checking whether the healers have mana, then gets half the party killed by Hateful Strikes because you didn't realise the fight actually needs three tanks...

...well, in that case I might 'decide to concentrate on raid heals', IYKWIM.

(being home sick does not improve my mood.)

Mostly in case I accidentally delete these, but may be useful to somebody. ( Macros I use while tanking. )

The new random pug generator takes a lot of the waiting out of finding a group, and I like not having to find my own way to the dungeon.

The ability to pug with people from other servers has also taught me a lot about how customs differ from place to place. In the interests of greater understanding, some of the quaint and bizarre customs of my own server (Kirin Tor):

- Healers are not responsible for pulling monsters. That would be the tank's job.
- Hunters, also, are not responsible for pulling monsters (unless specifically asked). That would be the tank's job.
- Frozen orbs are a 'greed' item, not 'need'.

I do think the "+5% to everything for pugging" buff was a very good idea on Blizzard's part, and the new title "The Patient" makes me chuckle...

One thing I do love about WoW is the random mammoth parades through Dalaran :-)