Warcraft Tanking. When everything goes wrong….

But yet it still turns out right.

That’s what just happened to me. The tale.. after the button.

So, having tanked from 0-100 (see our previous article announcing my first tank character, and setting out a tank’s goals), I had gotten into a comfortable groove with my tanking character. I can do most content, and the last bits is just learning fight tactics, so I can do it properly. Up until a little bit ago, I felt very comfortable. I was in control.

And then I lost all control, and went for the ride, and it turned out awesome.

I mentioned in the previous article that there are a type of player that responsible tanks absolutely hate. They LOATHE it with all their souls. And that’s the overgeared (usually, a DPS) who decides that you’re going TOO SLOW.. so he’s going to help by pulling multiple mobs at the same time. Yes, mobs you know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about until they’re practically past you and rushing towards your poor healer like the truck heading for Wile E Coyote in those old Road Runner cartoons.

So, that happened to me tonight, repeatedly, leading me down the rabbit hole of “Oh WHERE THE @*@%%@#% did these mobs come from?” So why am I shaking my head ruefully, and telling this tale rather then screaming, vein pumping out of my neck about the good-for-nothing blanketyblank who effed things up for us?

Because tonight, it was the HEALER who was overgeared.

“Just pull everything. I can heal it” he said. And proceeded down this path, pulling mobs and running them back towards me until I started doing it, just to keep ahead of him.

And you know what? He COULD heal through it. And it was crazy. It completely lacked control. We were fighting a boss, and several monsters you’re supposed to defeat BEFORE the boss, all at the same time. It was chaotic. It was insane.

And it was the most fun I ever had tanking, I think.

I’m backing down the hallway, fighting off five monsters, watching the healer keep me topped up even if I backed up into the next group of monsters. He was playing the most powerful healing class currently in the game (Mistweaver Monk, a class that can actually solo heal the most difficult fight in the game currently, mythic (20 man) Archimonde.)

Finally at the end, I said “Before the endboss, I just wanted to say something. This dungeon went against everything I was taught, and everything I learned as a tank. And I had a blast. Thank you”.

The response was “Yeah, I get that a lot”

I’m still shaking my head.