Wiping sucks. It’s going to happen to any Guild of any size at any point. But there are good wipes and then there are bad wipes. I’ve caused my share of bad wipes (but not in my current Guild, obviously, because I know some of them read my blog). Tanks are delicate creatures and have to be treated in a certain way. Even though some tanks might be shall we say aggro challenged, it is better if we merely nod and admit fault even though it isn’t really ours so that the run can be finished. I’ve seen tanks get emo when their ability is questioned and leave the group hanging. Then the group spends a good hour in LFG trying to find a tank to finish out Heroic Slave Pens. Sheesh!
Anyways, I know I’m safe because I don’t think a lot of tanks read my blog (I think).
“Sorry, lag”
It happens sometimes. Our connections do hiccup and we go offline. As healers, we often blame our ISP. Every so often, it isn’t the ISPs fault. You see, there’s this new file sharing technology called bittorrent that we as healers might have forgotten to turn off…
“It’s not you, it’s me”
The tank happens to take about 18000 damage within a space of 2 seconds. There’s nothing we can do about it. 2 seconds is enough time for 1 spell. Sometimes we just can’t keep up with the damage with 1 healer. You just absorb so much punishment that you NEED 2 extra bodies to keep you alive and going. There’s no way around it. On the other hand, maybe I forgot to use my max rank heals.
“It happens to a lot of tanks”
Tanks are used to dying you say? Well, yeah. All tanks are used to it. They’ve died many times and they’ve got the durability loss to prove it. So what if you died? It’s no big deal. Nos Staminitus is a common affliction that affects many tanks. But don’t worry, there’s a special cure. There’s tons of consumables in the markets designed to help get you up. Er, your health that that is.
“Oh your gear is fine”
You look great! Honest! Even though you can’t seem to withstand several crits or crushings in a row, at least your armor is all shiny and stuff! I guess I’ll have to actually work up a sweat to keep you alive.
“You’re the best tank ever!”
I’ve had to say this on more then one occasion. I swear, some tanks seem to have the largest egos in the world. I guess it’s because they’re needed so often. There are some players in the world who have top end gear and top end weapons. But holy cow they just can’t seem to deliver! And I’m not talking about Taurens, either!
Have you ever lied to your tank? Or even your raid/party? Why and what was the situation?
Special thanks to Trackhoof and others who requested to remain anonymous for their input
Don’t think the tanks don’t know when you’re lying and are just playing along to keep the run going themselves, 😉
I recently tanked an SL run, and we got all the way to Murmur with no wipes. We started on Murmur and were going fine without a hitch, when suddenly I noticed my health dropping. I glanced over at my party frame (I can see spellcasts there) and noticed my Mage and Warlock unleashing hell, but my healer just sitting there.
Of course, we wiped, and my healer claimed they were casting heals and were “just about to get one off” when I wiped. I originally wrote it off as lag, — I like to give them the benefit of the doubt — but I know that they RARELY lag, if ever.
“Lag!”
“Running from Doomfires!”
“I was doing my holy light and you died just before it went off. T_T”
“Did you get critted?”
“My BF was downloading porn so my connection locked up. I am so sorry!” – usually true
Healers are like Soprano’s in choirs.. never from any Tenor or Bass will you find that many excuses spouted from the mouth.
Sometimes “I eff’d up” is all that’s needed, but it’s still interesting to see the discourse between tanks and healers.
Heh, well, who hasn’t been there, eh?
If I’m grouped with randoms and i make a mistake i smooth over it by inventing some stuff and try to do better, and usually it works out.
On the other hand, if grouped with friends (this includes my guildmates), I’m honest about my mistakes and apologize accordingly. 😉
It usually goes the other way round, too. If I am with randoms i try to be polite and honest if possible. If running with friends, I will be honest and polite if possible. ^^
“OMG it’s so much harder to keep Paladins up!”
….
I mean “alive.” /sigh
Saladfork: Shoot! I guess the secret’s out! :S
Megan: That’s certainly one way to look at it. I’ve often wondered why soprano’s were like that.
DSitC: You’re waaaaaay too nice =). But I suppose that’s a good thing.
Phae: Haha, yes. Paladins are one of a kind. No idea how Druids do it :O.
Although it’s on rare occasion that I let ANYONE die *snickerStupidNon-OmenUsingMagesnicker*, I think my favorite excuse would have to be, “Sorry guys, I accidentally hit my Windows Key and it minimized WoW.”
Although, I guess I shouldn’t have mentioned that I got a new spiffy keyboard that fixes that problem…I’ll have to come up with another excuse now! 🙂
Im friggen awesome
My favorites are the “you died right before it went off…” or my other (actually true most the time) “Well, if you would wait and make sure your healer had mana before the pull this might not have happened…”
“I was…waiting to make sure you had enough threat….”
*dead silence*
Sometimes I’m so flabbergasted that someone just pulled 12 mobs that I just can’t heal. Then it’s SPAMSPAMSPAM. Sometimes I’m just totally spacing out, or falling asleep. Heroic mech is so mind-numbing after the 4000th run.
Mostly with me it’s real lag.
Vishero: I know exactly what you mean. But I’ve had cases where my heal actually went off and my tank died. I’m assuming the damage they took surpassed the heal the landed.
LiLi: Grab a prot pally. They’re awesome :D!
Ok this isn’t my proudest moment but one I feel I need to share. Kynze is my Holy Priest and I was asked to come in and help my raid leader and his friend with a PuG H SetHalls because their healer just wasn’t working. I was still quite new to the guild so I wanted to make a good impression. So on our first trash pull after the first boss something runs by my window and distracts me, meanwhile I look back at my computer and the tank is almost dead. I never got a chance to get my heal off and we wiped. I got a few, “ummmmm healz” comments but not wanting to look like a total tool infront of my new guildies I lied and said my cat jumped on my keyboard causing the group to wipe. Like I said not my finest moment, but I told my newfound raid leader at a later date what really happened and we had a good laugh.
Rules of blame:
When the tank dies, its always the healer’s fault
When the dps sucks, its always the tank’s fault
When the healer is oom, its always the tank/dps’ fault
vicious cycle! 😛
kilm: That’s so true.
Im a Paladin Tank and remember I learn all the while lies healers use. Yeap I’ve heard them all and new ones every day when in heroics pugging away.
I have my tanking addons to keep my eyes on the healer and only ever use it when healer start saying white lies. Got Recount….. It says it all. When pugging away in heroics is where I’ve found may problem healers. However I’ve found very excellent healers as well. When you run lots of heroics as a training ground you can tell over time as a tank when the healer is asleep as when they telling you while lies. I can always see their cast bar when I’m sitting at less than half health and wonder just what they doing.
Last few runs in heroic SP had a healer priest that would let me die on almost ever boglord and group pull. His excuse….. “Tank need better gear. Tank need more armor. Tank need more health” I was like dude learn to heal. Then he was like “what heal should I use?” I was like you kidding me, I’m a tank not a healer. Guy was like “I heal in Kara all the time and i heal fine in Kara” I say well Kara is Kara but in Heroics mobs hit like damn asteroids which is way harder hitting than Kara. At 3 boss we finally dropped him for our guild Druid. Healing way much better. I didn’t like his white lies he was telling me.
Between tanks and healers I think you find the biggest bonds OR the biggest rifts. On my runs If I make a mistake as the tank I will own up to it even if we didn’t wipe. Would say sorry I over pulled, bad pull, or whatever. When healers tell me lies and I know it….. I start distrusting my healer and start keeping my finger over my Lay of Hands or pot. Never good that is. If healer goofed up say so, if was distracted admit it. Last thing a good healer want is for a good tank you know to start distrusting them when they keep letting tank die.
In Kara my healer for some damn reason keep doing that to me withing first 10 sec of pull. It annoy the damn heck out of me to say the least especially when I’m watching my health drop drop drop drop and wander what the he’ll is the healer doing. Result I’m not keep to want to run with that healer again in Kara or in heroics. Own up to it if you make a mistake, that’s more forgiving than lying to me with white lies.
We just /roll for blame – highest roll is at fault.
“You’re the best tank ever: I’ve had to say this on more then one occasion. I swear, some tanks seem to have the largest egos in the world. I guess it’s because they’re needed so often.”
We don’t necessarily have big egos, we just want some recognition once in a while. 😛 Like when I tanked heroic SH last time with a pug I felt I was doing a good job with my abilities and whatnot. No wipes, no mistakes, no nothing. On the second boss, the untauntable one, people started saying the healer was so great for keeping them up, and my heart sank. :p (though he was good ofc) As I like to say, you never notice if a tank is good, but you will quickly notice if he is bad.
I don’t know, I get quite a bit of recognition for my tanking abilities. Same with our guild’s warrior main tank. Mostly from the healers (though half of the time they’re complaining of boredom. . . I once caused a wipe by shifting out of form after my shaman healer said “Dammit, Surania, take more damage!”)
I’m probably not typical but when the raid wipes because I didn’t get enough heals I am usually just thinking, “at least the wipe wasn’t my fault this time”. lol
Great site. and with a new priest its already coming in handy.
As a lock who has run all the way to hyjal now I can say even at these levels, there are tanks who insist on stacking tiny bits of stamina (yes stam is importaint but won’t save you when you are gettting smacked repeatedly for 14k damage) instead of mitigation.
Time and time again, dude we have geared up great. goes to za and dies. Even with great healers.
I took a friend in a guild run, guy was in half blues, but uses an 11 button mouse, aka all of his moves not just out there randomly mashing buttons hoping to “tank sumt” and was socketed fine.
We rolled right through the first four avitars with him as OT.
Sumt to be said for tank skills sockets and builds.
So, my funny story is that I have a resto druid (which I lvled first) and now a pally tank. I know all the lies a healer can tell. I also know how bad some healers are. Let me tell you, tanking scares the u know what out of me sometimes when I know the healer I’m running with is bad. Btw, resto druids have the best line of all:
“what u expect me to keep the tank up with 1k rejuv tick? where are my other healers?”
I actually don’t lie to tanks much, mostly because I tend to run only with tanks in my guild and they’re all great. (One isn’t so hot, but she’s just learning to ropes and she apologizes constantly. After killing Omor from 40% in Heroic Ramps with me at no mana because the Warlock didn’t banish the felpuppies, she apologized. It’s nuts.) Occasionally I run into problems because the folks I tend to heal for like stacking avoidance and go for lots of threat over lots of stamina because we have really excellent DPS, so if they get smacked by two or three hits in a row my heart starts doing calisthenics.
I have a great relationship with the tank I usually do runs with…..we are married IRL!!!! 😉
I can give him a hard time as he sits next to me and constantly shout ‘they’re on me!!!!’ at him…..he comes running to my aid!!!
Best combo ever!!! 😉
I must admit though, I tend to blame myself for wipes (even if not my fault), although I agree with those who say guild groups are easier!
The day I hit 70 as a paladin tank I went on a few instance runs.
Took a priest from the guild I was in at the time, named Rayt. He had the primal mooncloth thing going on, so I had to be extra careful of his health.
As we ran instances and got better gear, we were able to tackle more. As my gear improved, I could tank more mobs at once, and he was able to heal me through it.
When I left that guild for 25man raiding, I convinced him to come with me. That was when the 25man guild was about to start working on HKM, end of April. We dropped him first night, then Gruul. now, three months later, we’re working on Archimonde, with 4/5 Hyjal and 4/9 BT down.
I remember the first time we did Heroic Shattered Halls and I AOE-tanked it all without CC. He pretty much had to spam max rank Greater Heal on me to keep me up.
Now, his healing power and my avoidance and armor are at a level where he can keep me up through the biggest of the pulls in that instance using nothing more than Renew and PoM, with an occasional downranked Greater Heal.
We’ve come a long way, and he’s contributed to the guild success more than I think he knows.