Tanking With the General Public

A Tanks Guide To Surviving LFD/LFR:

So we all have been there, whether as a Tank, DPS, or Healer, that point in a LFG where we realize some of the people in the group clearly have no understanding of what they are doing let alone the mechanics of the dungeon/raid. We have also been witness to or been the person who's sole goal is to get in and out as quickly as possible but have made it slower by causing a wipe.

Today we will go over ways to survive in the wonderful tool known as LFG

Tip 1: Gauge the Group
Most dungeons and raids have a big trash pull the first couple pulls in that if done right are survivable. With this pull pay attention to how quickly mobs go down and why (if they are) people are dying. Use this pull as a base for what to expect the rest of the run. If the group can handle the group with all mobs dying relatively quickly your raid isn't dying to cleaves, ground effects or the like, and healers are having an easy time keeping you up. Then you can try bolder pulls to expedite the run.

Tip 2: Know Your Role
Yes you are a tank, and as such there is this unspoken rule that the tank is leader and they should know every pull regardless of what the rest of the raid knows. But more importantly know specifically your job, this is important because a lot of the responsibilities of the Tank during a boss encounter is the difference between a wipe or not, for example not standing in the water on Jin'rokh while actively tanking him or not standing there taking a beating from him while you have Static Wound. The more you know about your job in group the better because when things start to go wrong in a LFG or even a regular run the first person who gets the blame are the tanks (then the healers and DPS is never to blame /s).

Tip 3: Don't Go In Expecting Much
Keep you expectations low and you wont be disappointed. I rarely enter a LFG expecting a quick run, especially after Cataclysm. It has made things much more enjoyable even if now my play time is more limited then it was back in TBC and WotLK. I don't expect to run the 5 dungeons I need to cap valor for the week in the hour and half I have before raid, and frankly it make me less stressed and I enjoy my play time more.

Tip 4: Keep Calm and Tank On
So lately I have been in group where for some reason or another the DPS is unhappy with how quickly I am pulling because I follow Tip 1. And decide that they would like to go ahead and pull more mobs, especially in Throne of Thunder trash before Megaera. I always have some DPS running ahead of the group to ring the bell and pull the Mogu spirit guarding it, without checking to see how much trash the group as unintentionally pulled behind them, some people just cant run and avoid trash at the same time. So I let the guy who ran ahead and pulled tank the the Mogu on their own while I work on the trash that was pulled, if they die oh well if not then good for them. I just don't enjoy the stress of picking up adds that were unnecessarily pulled ahead of time. The best times are when the guy pulling complaining about smaller pulls taking longer (they usually don't) is causing wipes (which do take longer) because he decides to pull groups and then they aggro the healers. I guess what I am saying is don't let the guy who is in a rush dictate how stressful your run is tank what you are comfortable pulling and let the guy die, hopefully healers are worried about the raid and you will let the guy learn that what he is doing is not okay.

So there it is yes not a gameplay or statistcal look at surving LFGs but a social one, which some times is the harder obstacle to overcome and if you ever encounter some one who is rude, disruptive and uses hate speech report, Report, REPORT!!! them. Yes so Blizzard may not ban them but hey its a quick way to ignore them for the rest of the run.