10 ways to Prevent Burning Out
One of the best things about being a tank is there is no lack of people wanting to play the game with you. Unfortunately, being highly needed also lends itself to “Burning Out”. It’s something that a lot of your guildmates won’t understand, they’ll even resent you for it at times. Perhaps even think you are selfish for wanting to simply “take a break”, but it’s a real concern as a dedicated tank.
Preventing Burning Out
- Do Pre-BC Instances
- Fish
- DPS on 5 mans
- PvP
- Level an Alt
- Play a Game other than WoW!
- Homework / Chores
- Read a Book
- Post on Forums
- Visit TankingTips.com (I couldn’t resist :p)
What would you add to the list?
September 25th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
“5. Level an alt.”
Man you’re funny Vene…
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September 25th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
go cycling. that’s what I do.
– gyre –
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September 25th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
I’ve been enjoying catching up on all the BC quests I skipped on my road to 70. Seemed all I did lvling was instances. Not a bad way to make some gold either.
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September 26th, 2007 at 1:45 am
This is very solid advice. I’ve been finding myself feeling very burnt out recently, besides farming my own stuff I’ve been helping friends farm aswell as raiding and have been feeling very burnt out on the game. Last week I started leveling my fishing. It was a breath of fresh air. I highly recommend it.
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September 26th, 2007 at 4:22 am
Can I suggest “Get a life”? ;D
Kind of a serious joke. If gaming (wich should be fun and recreational) is burning you out, then quitting for a while is a serious suggestion. I’ll quote the loading screen tips:
“Take all things in life with moderation - even World of Warcraft”
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September 26th, 2007 at 5:07 am
11. Get some RL friends to play WoW with you
It’s really more fun if you have some good friends with whom you can enjoy the game together.
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Raithlyn reply on June 17, 2008 7:28 pm:
Amen to that. The game is a lot more enjoyable with RL friends; my husband and I play MT and MH on raids. It’s not only a lot of fun, it’s also really convenient!
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September 26th, 2007 at 5:21 am
I log on to do daily’s after work each day. Thats 30 minutes. Then I play something else until raid time.
That something else has been Dota, but for the foreseeable future it will be Halo 3
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September 26th, 2007 at 7:12 am
As silly as it might sound to some people, I love farming, it’s relaxing and often rewarding.
Especially when I know it’s for something that will improve my main.
Also, don’t let yourself get into a personally benefitless grind just to please other people. It’s very generous of you, of course, as any tank who’s guild has fallen on hard times know, but it’s just not worth it. For this, I’d say, the best solution is to not label yourself as THE main tank in any guild…let there be more than one tank that can back you up when you’re just not feeling it for the night. It’s cool and all to be the number one big shot, but it will very quickly make you not want to tank at all.
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September 26th, 2007 at 7:59 am
Does anyone else get these kind of people in their guilds, you don’t want to tank their 5 man because you’ve done the instance 50 billion times and then get accused of “never” tanking?
I get this often especially when I play an alt to relieve stress. Usually I respond with “I am exalted with every BC faction that has an instance, clearly you waited to long to start worrying about this place” lol. I just find it funny how selfish some people can be. I am my guild MT and have about 90% raid attendence, am exalted with nearly every BC instance faction with the exception of being 2k away from KoT exalted, and I’ve also accumulated over 100 heroic badges all as a prot warrior yet someone will always say I “never” tank.
I think my biggest way not to burn out though is playing my alt. After I spec’d prot to become the MT after BC launched I had a hard time doing much of anything. It’s pretty slow going as prot. So I power leveled a mage, made all the crafted epics I could, and now I spent most of my non raiding time playing my mage and pvping or ganking:)
Playing another game is cool too. Recently about half our raiding force got on the Team Fortress 2 beta. So we raid and do our thing, then as soon as the raid ends we all log off and join our TF2 server. It’s a lot of fun, especially if your guild is as social as mine is.
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September 26th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Tired of being pressured into doing instance runs? Respec fury. You should have lots of alone time then
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September 27th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
I love this thread because all us tanks know how easy it is to get burned out. Kyrillian, I think we are in the same boat in rep and badges. Then you can add kara night and tk/ gruul night then tk/mag day then a few heriocs in between. Sunders and shield slams begin to get old.
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September 28th, 2007 at 6:07 am
It’s pretty boring to go back and tank Kara after getting into some of the funner tanking assignments. I have a lot of fun on Al’ar, Karathress, Morogrim, Lurker, etc. Although after a few wipes I would rather hang myself than do Al’ar phase 1 again.
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October 1st, 2007 at 12:48 pm
I try to do non-tanky stuff to not get burned out too - just maxxed my fishing and got the lobster pet, I farm for the firefly pet sometimes (no luck yet), I do all the quests (sigh - there is one you need to be exalted with Sporeggar to get, working on it slowly), I am now exalted with Frostwolf, I have a better dps set than lots of dps warriors (but not enchanted/socketted to the max yet), and I go and wander around in Desolace sometimes (I like it there).
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October 2nd, 2007 at 12:55 pm
I spent a ridiculous amount of time pre BC fishing on a tiny island off the coast of Azshara. Fishing FTW!
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December 19th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
11. Quit
Maybe. I’m thinking about it. I know I’m addicted; hell, I think the majority of us know it. Does it ever cross your minds to just walk away? I used to scoff at the idea: what would I do with all the free time if I didn’t have WoW? This game is perfect for those of us who like to excel, who want to push forward, who aren’t content to remain mediocre. We make the time to play this game, because it rewards us in ways that television, or going out, or career does not. I’m not being sarcastic either. I found a comfort zone in WoW that really made me happy, and I was able to balance my life around the game.
But the game does have a price. A little less sleep, a little more irritability. Forsaking a few more RL things. Little things, but they add up. The sum total is that, in looking back, I’m a bit different, and a bit “less” than who I used to be. Don’t know how else to say it.
Am I falling for the addiction hype? If I were to quit the game, would it honestly make me a better person? Or do I simply need to re-balance my game time?
I don’t want to quit. But if I were to, would it be a good thing?
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December 19th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
My personal plan for reducing WoW time and therefore freeing up time for other RL stuff is staying right away from alts. I’ve got my main and my main alt to a point where from a character development point of view there’s little for them outside raiding, so I’ll be logging in and out for raids and the occassional dailies to cover expenses.
With the faster levelling in 2.3 I had plans for paladin, druid, and rogue alts… hmm, and maybe a priest, but I don’t want WoW to continue to dominate all my free time. It’s cool that a game like WoW has no ‘end’ where you just say, ‘ok, won that game, done’ and walk away, but it’s also dangerous because every time you accomplish something you just find more things to work at.
Btw, I love your 2nd paragraph, it’s a good way of putting it, and you’re right that all the little things do add up, so I figure if I can take time away from WoW little bits at a time, that too will add up.
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December 20th, 2007 at 10:27 am
i knew i can’t dedicate every waking hour to WoW when I started playing so i play it as such. If I can’t play, I say I can’t. I usually set a cut-off point for myself. If I know that an instance/raid/quest will go far past that cut-off point, then i refuse. If it will end around that cutoff time, maybe +/- 30min or so, then I usually accept. Some ppl think I’m an a-hole for doing this, but because of the age range of the ppl that play this game (HS, college, working ppl) there will be ppl that don’t understand that ppl can’t be playing this game 24/7.
I’m kinda having fun progressing on the horde side of the ball when I have progressed as far as I think i will on the ally side with my priest with my work schedule and other stuff in mind.. We’ll see what happens with WotLK, but i’m leaning towards Warhammer atm.
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January 3rd, 2008 at 6:48 am
Best way to turn away from the addiction is to find an extra thing to pass your time. Something bigger and better…
I started to play basketball again and started to take some evening classes. It frees up the need to sit behind to pc.
Wow is more fun then tv or doing chores. But RL still has better things to give then wow. Get out there to reduces the wow time
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March 5th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
I had some massive burnout tanking and literally walked away from WOW for 2 months. I’m just coming back to it and only raiding 2 days a week.
I’ve also taken to playing opposite faction alts on another server with some RL friends. It’s fun to see the game from the “other side” with my lock, hunter or druid, where no one can find me or ask to tank heroics for their dps alts
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March 24th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Sadly I started an alt several months ago after a nice realm server crash. A warlock…. oh dear sweet, sweet god! How i love that warlock. Gone are the days of 20minute fights to kill lvl 70 mobs. Now I have those wonderful big crits. Well after several months of straight loc play I got back on my prot warrior for one more attempt at that damn sun eater. Wow what time off does to your skills. I suck now! So i find myself starting to tank low level instances just to get the feel back. Oh how sad!
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