Return of the Tank

I got burnt out on tanking a while back.

You see, my first character to reach 80 was Myrtrix, my Death Knight, and my personality leads me to filling the spot that needs the most filling; How could I not end up tanking? I geared up in heroics and started tanking Naxxramas with my guild, and had a generally great time. We made it into Ulduar—4 bosses in—before the guild fell apart for various issues outside of raiding. This was all well and good though, because I was getting tired of tanking, and that spot wasn’t in such need anymore either.

With the guild fallen apart and no raids scheduled, I took the time to level my Hunter, and eventually started PUGing raids without worrying about locking myself to a non-guild group. And so my DK sat unused.

Ulduar came with patch 3.1, which came out in April of 2009. That means that my DK sat virtually unused for eight months—You’d better believe the game has changed in that time. But with the usefulness of the Dungeon Finder system, combined with the speed of the queue time for tanks, I couldn’t resist dusting off my old tank and playing him.

I believe things have changed in that time— at least now I do.

Dungeons go as fast as a tank possibly can, aggro is fast and loose, and there’s new dungeons to top it off. But in the end, what I’ve found matters the most is your attitude. I’m certainly not a bad tank. I was farming the original WOTLK heroics with guild members, and so it was only a little time of practice before those came back. I admit I am pretty stupid when it comes to Pit of Saron though. I know that Forgemaster Garfrost needs to face away from the group, but not like I know that if I’m on the far right of Violet Hold, I should get more towards the middle so that I can catch the far left squad, should it spawn. At the same time, however, I’m willing to listen to criticism and learn from my mistakes. I readily admit my own faults and mistakes, and then work to remedy them, as well as let the group know all this.

And surprisingly, even the people pushing to move at breakneck pace are patient and understanding with me. It’s an exchange: If I choose not to be a wall for them to bash their head into, they give me their patience. At the same time, If the healer doesn’t keep me alive (reasonably) or the DPS pulls aggro off me and dies, I provide both my own constructive criticism, as well as patience for them.

So I offer to you all the secret to a good PUG: Give it your best and come with a humble and patient attitude. The rest will fall into place.