Tanks in World of Warcraft have it tough – they have to do more than anyone else. That’s why hardly anyone wants to play Tank.
If you want to tackle group content like raids or dungeons in World of Warcraft, you need a group that ideally is at least somewhat competent. While there are DPS characters like sand on the beach, healers are a bit rarer. However, almost no one plays a Tank.
The reasons for this are manifold. Tanks have a lot of responsibility and must learn far more than other group members. This is an issue that the community is also addressing, as they desire many solutions.
What are the problems of Tanks? When you look at the difficulties faced by Tank players, it quickly becomes clear why Tanks are seen as characters with a lot of responsibility. Not only do they have to set the pace, but they also need to take the perfect route.
After all, in “Mythic+” an optimal amount of enemies must be defeated for the dungeon to be successful. However, memorizing the perfect paths along with the exact enemies to attack or avoid is quite an effort that other roles don’t have, and one of the most frequently mentioned reasons in the WoW Subreddit:
- “I used to love tanking, but not anymore. Route planning is the problem – I just don’t care enough to memorize the optimal routes for every dungeon.
I’m a guy with a job and kids. Who has the time to do homework for a game?” – _Gobulcoque - “Route planning is what made me stop tanking. It’s just 100x more work than for healers or DPS.” – Any_Morning_8866
DPS characters and healers, on the other hand, often manage by simply “following the tank.” While they also have tasks to fulfill, the sheer amount of information that non-tanks need for a dungeon is significantly lower than that of their colleagues who use their faces to provoke enemies.
Another problem is that essential information is not accessible in the game. For every dungeon, a required number of enemies must be defeated. This fills a percentage display that should reach 100% by the end of the dungeon. The catch: how much percentage individual enemies give is not revealed in the game. For that, you either need special interface addons or must do your research on websites beforehand.
More features that primarily help Tanks
It seems clear that Tanks need a little support here, and that should primarily come from in-game features.
How could the Tank problems be solved? The community has some ideas on how to make life easier for Tanks. Some of the most popular approaches so far are:
A feature that allows you to mark a preset path in the world. This way you could see how to navigate through the dungeon – at the push of a button, the path lights up so you never lose your way.
Others don’t see navigation as a problem, but rather the lack of preparation options in the game:
- “Route planning isn’t the problem itself, it’s more because you have to rely on external sources and guides.
You want to incentivize tanking? Then give us a way to do solo practice runs so we can just know the percentages before joining a group. Maybe a version of the instance where only dummies stand or something.” -Dramos11
A final problem is likely also a part of the community that gives Tanks no room to experiment or learn to tank in peace. Because newbie Tanks are often not welcome.
One particularly popular response is this one, which would likely help many a Tank more than anything else:
- “I should be able to delete the character of any player who types “???? Tank?” in chat when I’m playing the normal route and behaving accordingly.” – Hagurusean
Whether Blizzard implements some of the ideas and wishes before the release of the next expansion Midnight remains to be seen. But so far, the developers at least show the intention to make many features a core part of World of Warcraft. Thus, popular features from “Boss Mods” addons will soon become a fixed part of the game.
