Today’s post is a little rant to get something off my chest: Tank moving mobs too much. I hate it. A lot.
Recently in a LFD run the tank was constantly moving the creatures. Now I don’t mean slowly moving them in a reverse circle to gather them up (bears do this, it makes sense), or a tank moving so that nothing is flanking them. Or even adjusting because shitty dps don’t know not to stand in front while the baddies cleave or use flame breaths – I mean constant changing where they stand randomly.
This idiot tank walked forwards, backwards, and sideways through the monster’s hit box so that both he and mobs needed to switch facing all the time. The entire fight against multi-mobs, he walked around constantly. Showing his flank to the mobs, switching around, even bloody jumping from time to time. It was like watching a pvp battle. What made it funny (in a sad way) is that he totally ignored the two melee asking him to stay still. That request just seemed to make him spin and dance more, which made the fights longer, and I suspect he took some serious damage from it too. Yup, an idiot.
I don’t get it, and think its a sign of a bad tank and a player who does not understand the mechanics of tanking.
The tank tip: Gather the melee baddies so they are all in your face, none behind you, and preferably all your team are behind them. ie:
(Tank)–> <— (Angry mobs) <— (melee) <— (healers and range)
This way the melee can hit from behind happily, you can see when the mobs move away, your healers are protected by the melee, and nobody has to move anywhere. All cleaves and spells will only affect the Tank.
I actually run into this quite a bit on my dps toons… It usually is a tank from a PVP realm so I was going to assume it was a PVP thing.
pvp…..also a lot of the new quests teach you to do this. These quests actually prompt you to move around to avoid damage. I’d bet at least some players finish those quests thinking it helps them survive in normal and raid encounters
This drives me absolutely bug-fuck CRAZY. Good Tank runs in, whips around, and stands firm like an oak tree, chaining CDs with one eye on adds/runaway mobs and the other on YouTube. Bad Tank runs around like his ass is on fire screaming “HEALS” with both eyes glued to his own health bar while the mobs munch on healer tartar. Good Tank chain pulls enough to keep the DPS occupied and whispers the healer “feel free to dps if you’re bored, I’m watching your mana bar not move.” Bad Tank hits one mob in group A, runs through groups B and C, then complains about the shitty healer who just kept themselves and 3 dps alive through Armageddon, but due to a lack of 100 yard ’round corners healing range, let Bad Tank die. Don’t be Bad Tank!