Enforcing The Golden Rule

We all have times in our lives when we think about doing something but we don't do it for one reason or another. For example, buying a new car, going on vacation, looking for a new job, etc. Often times, we experience an event that tips the scale and forces us to act. For me, that "something" was starting this blog and that "experience" was a recent PUG.

Three guild members and myself, at the tanking spot, jumped in the LFD queue for a daily random. We found ourselves in Old Kingdom with a very well geared warlock by the name of Jusplane - Blackhand. Before I tell the story, I want to note that when I see a gear score of 5500+ I don't immediately think "cool, this should be an easy run", as many of you might suspect. Instead, I think "good lord, I hope this isn't one of those annoying impatient jerks". The latter is usually the case for good reason. A player of that level isn't looking for triumph badges or upgrades from drops, he/she is there for their 2 frost badges. And in this case, the same was true for me.

Back to the story...I tossed Vigilance on the warlock, made sure my healer was ready and we started killing spiders. We quickly dropped Elder Nadox and things were going swimmingly. We continued on toward those elevated platforms that contain 4 mobs guarding a sphere that has to be deactivated in order to get to Prince Taldaram. Now if you have ever killed these mobs with a caster, you know that they have a silence ability that seems to last forever! Our healer was caught with the silence, unfortunately, and I died. He was able to keep the rest of the group up to finish off that pack of trash. As I was being rezzed and getting a fresh food buff, the annoyance began. "C'mon guys, lets go!", says our eager warlock. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and guessed that he didn't notice I died and replied with "I died, settle down."

We continued with killing the Prince and heading toward "the mushroom boss". On the hill down, our warlock's pet aggroed a patrol that led to our healer dying because I was tanking swamp things and couldn't get back up the hill quick enough. Now who's wasting time? We took down the mushroom dude and headed toward Jedoga Shadowseeker. The warlock didn't care for my preference to allow mana users to drink and pulled a pack of trash mobs intentionally.

Now here is the lesson for today: for all of you trick trading rogues and misdirecting hunters that think you will control the pace of the kills, we (tanks around the world) hate you. We despise you. You are the sole reason that it takes so freakin' long to get a tank in the LFD queue. Your job is simple, use your abilities to reduce the hit points on the mobs that the tank has aggoed until they die. That is it. Period. If you don't use a threat meter, that's all good, just run towards us when something starts running towards you. We get parried, we miss, we tab target too fast, we make mistakes. We know it is our job to get that mob looking at us again and we pride ourselves on our ability to do it effectively. It is the essence (and the fun) of tanking.

Jusplane, this is where my patience ran out and you crossed the line of disrespecting the rest of the group. And I am sure this is where you thought I was a bad tank because I didn't charge in and thunderstomp my arse off. I was enjoying the moment as I watched your health meter drop and was hoping to see you die. Lucky for you, our healer is a much kinder soul than I am. His joy comes from keeping the green bars green and was not willing to let you go down. I stepped in and pulled the aggro to save his life, not yours. And for every other time you pulled aggro after that, I let you have it. I mean who am I to deprive you of your wants and desires?

The 15-minute timer was up and you were too ignorant to realize that you were in a group of guildies that held the power to make you have to get back into the LFD queue for 30 minutes and start all over again for your beloved frost badges. As tempted as we were to kick you for making my job and the healers job more difficult, we put our epeen aside and finished the dungeon with you.

Your cowardly parting words were an inspiration to us all:




Of course it was painful, but it had nothing to do with my tanking.