Loading ...68% of Tanks are Raid Leaders
One of our polls a while back brought that to light. Not all of you still are the leader and some of you are the back up, but ultimately it confirms what a lot of you probably already know. As a tank, you are given the opportunity to lead, often. Some of you are forced to do it, some of you aspire to it and I bet some of you screw it up. In fact, I guarantee it. I screw it up every week, one way or another. It just goes with the territory and it’s nothing to get all worked up over.
The more you develop yourself as a leader, the less of a leader you are.
That’s the truth. We can fight against it and that’s often as leader how we fail, but we can’t escape it. Every step of the way your raid is getting stronger, smarter and requiring you to do/say less. There’s a certain skill as a leader to be willing to let go. A true leader trains leaders. Which isn’t to say that you should stop leading once you’ve developed a competent raid or that you should step down, but instead realize that at some point in time you aren’t going to have to tell people how to play anymore. They will know. Understanding how they grow and what they know is the true challenge.
To that other 32% of you…
If there’s one thing I know for certain, it’s that you will never be as strong a tank as you can be until you are a leader. You don’t have to be THE progression raid leader, but you better be leading your 5 mans at the very least. (something as simple as marking targets even) As your guild progresses, you should take the opportunity to lead the 10 mans and the lesser 25 mans too. That’s the only way you truly get a complete understanding of the content. Not just how the content affects you, but how the content affects every class and in turn how every class affects your own.
April 28th, 2008 at 9:18 am
Leading the raid is something I have been doing since I went protection in the late 50s. I mark the targets, I assign priority and I screw up.
Like Vene says, you will probably do it, I still do it on occasion, usually breaking CC with a bad timed TClap, etc.
Leading is the way to go, learning the encounter and explaining it. (Opera for example for the newly entering is a perfect example of the explanation from hell.)
I would have it no other way, sometimes I forget to do certain things, because I am watching everyone else, making sure the run and encounter will work. But once they learn what is expected of them, and learn what I want and do, leading takes a back seat and you can have honest fun. (Trying to wipe, just to see how good everyone has become for example.)
DPS is boring.
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April 28th, 2008 at 9:19 am
The other 32 percent you mean :). I find this true for the most part. I lead my kara group every week, and the Guild Leader is a Druid tank. Two out of the other 5 officers are tanks as well. As a tank you should know what mobs do and know how you want them taken care of which is why Tanks usually step into the leadership role (except pallys, they just concrate and fall asleep ).
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April 28th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Being a tank, the mantle to lead is thrust upon me from time to time, and tell you the truth after doing it for years, upon years it just burned me out. I am sick of it. When things go wrong everyone is looking at you, when in fact it was people’s fault that didn’t listen to you. I take it to heart to, when we fail I feel that much more worse cause it is mainly because I failed the others as a leader. You get all of the blame, but none of the thanks. It’s a very thankless job tanking, and healing.
These days I find myself logging less and less onto my tank, and more and more on my mage, that I pretty much put into hiding so no one can find me, and ask me to tank something for them.
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April 28th, 2008 at 10:00 am
lewl, thanks Darraxus… fixed.
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April 28th, 2008 at 10:05 am
I’m usually the OT in kara, but i’m usually giving out the general boss strats to the newbies… I’m usually barking out where to go, what to do and what is coming up as well. The MT usually just stays quiet… Until he dies and then he asks me to pick up the boss… Until recently, we were tag teaming maiden.. When he died, i’d have dps stop, i’d pick her up and take the fight to the end.. I was reluctant to switch to dps gear on fears that hed be crushed to death… But ya.. I’m technically not the raid leader, but i act as one, i suppose…
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April 28th, 2008 at 10:07 am
I agree. Tanks are pretty much expected to mark and to lead. The general expectation seems to be that no one rolls a tank with the intention of having someone else simply point them to a target to hold aggro — rather, they are expected to be able to (and want to) manage the entire encounter. Like Krakbak, I’d have it no other way. Sure it’s riskier. You’re gonna look really stupid when all your mistakes are made *very* public and obvious. On big boss fights, every little thing you do will impact the success of the fight (what other class has to mash a shield-block-like equivalent every few seconds just to stay alive?). You will have to understand new fights ahead of time while many people will simply come saying “um..never done this one before. explain, plz?” You will stress over those really hard two or three pulls that you can never seem to get quite right. In the end, though, it’s absolutely worth it and far more rewarding than a DPS class will ever be. I like to go back to my mage on alt runs every once in awhile, but even then, I have to fight the urge to run to the front and start marking for the next pull…
@ the 2nd point: I find that often the times I enjoy a raid the most is when vent has been silent for 15 minutes or more and raid chat about the same aside from the occasional joke. There’s something about being with a group that knows the content and each other so well that we don’t even need to use words anymore to communicate. You’ve become a chain-pulling raid-farming machine.
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April 28th, 2008 at 10:17 am
A rogue in my guild said in Vent last night, “I don’t like tanking, you don’t really get to see what is going on.” I understood partially what he meant…yes we stare at boss crotch a lot, but as a general statement I couldn’t disagree more. To be a good tank you HAVE to be a leader, know EVERYTHING that is going on at all times, mark targets, watch your boss mods, know who is alive, who isn’t, where everyone is, what everyone’s health/mana is at, what debuffs are on the boss, communicate, etc etc, all while doing your own rotation. This goes for any fight, I think. There is so much more a tank can do for a raid than just taking as little damage as possible and generating threat by just knowing these things.
5 mans, especially ones like heroic Mr. T, are a great example. As the tank you need to be the one leading and marking. Each one of those mobs in those 4-5-6 mob trash pulls has different abilities, does different amounts of damage, different kinds of damage, etc etc. You need to be able to think critically about how to best use the CC you have to choose the most effective kill order based on what kind of healer you have, what your strengths are, what kind of DPS you have, etc etc. It’s complicated if you never do it…that’s why we should all be happy to practice!
Your DPS is lazy and lame and doesn’t understand the plight of a tank, make sure you’re controlling everything that goes on at all times. (/chuckle)
I don’t know anyone whom I consider to be a great tank that isn’t a good leader. I don’t think it’s possible.
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April 28th, 2008 at 10:48 am
There’s something to be said for having a raid leader that can see more than the bosses knees. A MT’s field of vision is usually pretty limited, plus the number of things that we’re responsible for as an individual class roll isn’t comparable to what a destro lock is doing.
That said, I’m still the default raid leader. Delegate as much as you can though. The more people who are involved with the process the better.
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April 28th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I usually lead the Kara runs on my warrior tank. I recently got into a kara on my newly minted mage and I felt so powerless.
As the tank, I’m able to carry a fairly brisk pace because I can mark and then pull right away. In this case, the RL marked and then there was always a delay where the tank and RL had to communicate that it was ok to pull.
The other thing I noticed is that the RL sets the tone of the raid mood. We are like the host for the evening. One time, I was in quite a poor mood and the run followed suit. Now, I make an effort to be positive and light hearted.
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April 28th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
@ Jadye:
“One time, I was in quite a poor mood and the run followed suit. Now, I make an effort to be positive and light hearted.”
So so true, dude. :/ So true…
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April 28th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
“Some of you are forced to do it”…sums it up. I manage (babysit) teams of up to 50 in RL and don’t necessarily want to in my “fun” time. That being said I love tanking (so much I don’t even have alts except for a bank toon) and successfully managing a fight for the first time is very rewarding.
Our guild has just started Kara (I had to get everything set up for that too, times, consumables, arm twisting, etc.), but my guild is great people, no blaming or fingerpointing! I do tend to use my best friend (mage) to help keep an eye on things happening on the periphery (like while trying to asstank Moroes) and that’s a huge help! The biggest thing I think I bring to the table is being willing to research before the run, help farm mats, not bitch at bad dps/cc (different than positive coaching), and have fun with whatever we’re doing…
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April 28th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
So, I’m confused… Where is the actual tip here? I always knew main tank should lead any raid.. Or at least I’d expect it. We’re the one person that in most circumstances if we die, the raid wipes.
Good post none the less. And I agree, that I barely have to say anything now to my guild. I mark and pull, pretty much.
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April 28th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Not conveyed as well as it could have, I admit Hydrix. I tried something a little different with this post.
The tips I’d like you to take out of this:
- lead if you aren’t the leader
- make mistakes
- don’t defend your mistakes embrace them
- learn what matters to your raid not what you think matters to them
- the goal is to lead less
- don’t hog the glory, give it away, you’ll get more than you need by default
- leading for recognition will make you miserable b/c you’ll never get enough
Never stop leading, it forces you to become a better player.
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April 28th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Good post Ven, you make great points both in the post itself and the supplement comment. I always enjoy reading your stuff.
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April 28th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
I have mixed feelings about this, Veneratio.
On one hand I completely, 100% agree with you. You should be marking and leading in 5/10 man groups. Great tanks are also great leaders, because part of tanking is having control in every situation when you’re tanking. And most importantly, as a raid leader, you are pretty much forced to see things as other classes see things, because for the whole picture to work, you have to direct them to accomplish whatever task they need to do. Point in case is I’ve done a lot of instancing and raiding, and I’ve played with all different kinds and caliber of players. I take note of what the great hunters do, great priests do, etc., and tanking has definitely given me a good insight into the different classes and how they work in a group environment.
The part I disagree with is the implication that main tanks SHOULD be leaders in 25 man raids. I’ve seen it from a few perspectives. I’ve led 25 mans and a warrior, and have also had someone else in the raid be the raid leader. I also play a warlock and have had raids led by the main tank and also by a healer, OT or DPS class.
Being a main tank is definitely a very demanding role and definitely the most hectic and reliant. In my experiences, I’ve found a healer or a ranged DPS to be a better raid leader because during an encounter they usually have a better overall picture of what’s currently happening in the fight. Take Magtheridon for example. Say someone assigned to a cube dies during the fight. Are you, as the main tank, the best person to assign a new person to cover the cube? Probably not, you should be concentrated on Magtheridon’s crotch and surviving. Or on Kael. Are you really the best person to tell your DPS to kill that egg when you need to be surviving that pyroblast? During an encounter you as a main tank need to be focused on your job because even seconds of distraction can wipe the ride. A few seconds of distraction from a healer or DPS won’t have that drastic of an effect usually.
Absolutely all tanks in the raid should be given raid assist so they can mark and organize groups. But on bosses, you can still be a leader without being the “raid leader”. That’s the important point to distinguish. You can still direct the encounter the way that you think will work best, but in order to do that you need to be focused on your job 100%. Have the resto shaman spamming Chain Heal micromanage other vital roles in the encounter. It’ll allow you to do your important job much more effectively.
-Sunderwear-
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April 28th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
So true…
This was THE main reason why I quit DPS on my mage, and started tanking thereafter.
Of course, doing sick DPS also is glorious, but certainly never as much as having the GM shout in Vent to clear up for me to talk.
So far I’ve seen, leading potential follows this pattern
Tanks -> Healers -> DPS
I presume this has something to do with tanking & healing being the spine of the fight.
I dont know, and i digress, but I know this:
Nothing beats being the “point man”, the one charging in at the very front, and the one commanding….
Btw, I came to notice im quite the thread-killer. I posted a question on the goose vs. exec thread, and later on the SSO-neck thread, both of which received no further comments after mine. The SSO wasnt that big a deal but I am still dying to see what a Blazefury with Executioner looks like.
So Pretty Please Somebody Tell me!!!
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April 28th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
@Sunderwear: To quote the post, “The more you develop yourself as a leader, the less of a leader you are.”
It’s not to say you have to call out all the shots. A good raid leader delegates.
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April 28th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Vene should join John C. Maxwell on tour. :p
9.9/10 the raid leader mantle does seem to fall to the main tank, or even the healer leader, but the delegation of responsibility is key. For example, you want to make sure that your off-tank is developing their own leadership strengths so that they can lead whenever necessary. For example, if as the MT you die, or as MT, you have to dash AFK for a quick poop during BT trash, heh.
I find that the more I let go of “control” in a raid environment, the more I tend to enjoy the whole experience.
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April 28th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
The bottom line is that you can lead from any class or role in a raid.
What you are pointing out is that the leader needs to have a reasonably deep knowledge of the fight, the roles, and the ability of his/her teammates to play those roles - and that is incredibly hard to do if you’ve never tanked. There also a mindset that is different with the good tanks. They are happiest when the raid channel is quiet, there are zero suprises, and each mob goes down in exact planned order - in short they like the run to be boring (I mean that in a good way). If they are really good they learn how to balance a little danger here and there on purpose to keep the dps monkeys from falling asleep.
The flip side is that the best tanks I have run with also have are accomplished at healing & dps classes/roles and understand the challenges the other roles face in each fight.
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April 28th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Leading well is part of what keeps this game enjoyable for me. Honestly, the content itself becomes rather bothersome at some point and the only real satisfaction to be gained from running it afterward is doing so more effectively, efficiently and elegantly.
This is true in raids, but also I find in 5-mans. It’s satisfying to bring a couple people along on a PUG and have them make comments along the lines of “It’s never gone this smoothly for me,” etc.
In fact, yesterday I was running a Heroic MrT with a PuG Shadow Priest. I explained what marks meant at the beginning and he says “MC is not good in here, please use seduce.”
I proceeded to tell him to just trust me and do what I said, and halfway through the run he commented, “You know, I don’t think I really knew how to CC before today.”
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April 28th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
I have lead raids through trash before in bt only because the officer who normally does it wasn’t there. Any warrior and all warriors in my guild I know can do it. You should be leading kara, 5-mans 100% if the time. I know that the only reason that the warriors in my guild aren’t the leaders of bt ( even tho in a way we are with all the decisons they have us make) is because we dont bear the rank officer or guild master. All warriors should know however how to lead a raid if the situation arises. But I know not doing it myself is alot less stressful. That’s just my bit on the topic
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April 28th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
I played as a hunter for so long (and who tells the hunter to mark? … seriously?) that I had done plenty of content without ever having to mark or give instruction or explain fights then suddenly when I started tanking it was just thrown at me, “hey, you’re the tank, you mark, kthx” at first it scared me because I don’t consider myself much of a leader in game or IRL, but after a while I realised it wasn’t as hard as I thought and I did actually know the content a lot better than I thought.
Still today when people throw leader at me I often feel a bit of a sigh as the weight hits my shoulders, but truth be told I enjoy runs where I lead a hell of a lot more, and I think I’m a far better and more confident tank and person for it.
Awesome post Vene, once again.
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April 28th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
To go along with having to lead less once the raid knows the fight, consider picking up a drill sergeant. Basically whenever I lead I’m more checking to make sure that people have their bufs and are ready for pulls and whatnot, and someone else takes care of the “okay everyone on X, now everyone to star, resheep that mob” stuff. makes it especially easy when you’re tanking a boss and can’t really watch anything but your global cooldown.
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April 29th, 2008 at 12:34 am
I was guild leader and raid leader for some time:
As my Heala-din back in pre-TBC days. I think that healer players make awesome raid leaders as well as they can maintain a constant vigil on what is occuring in the raid - it is common to have all health/mana bars open and monitor the situation from a “safe” distance. Besides - in those days I just pressed Cleanse and 5 minute Buffs
After the release of TBC I played my gnome warrior alt through to 70, protection specced all the way and went group, and raid leader - while still being the guild leader as well. It was very rewarding - but a lot of hard work. I sometimes think that playing the Main Tank, Raid Leading and Guild Leading all at the same time was a little more than I needed to do. Byt for the most part, I shined.
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April 29th, 2008 at 5:00 am
My main is a raid afflic lock and is up raiding Mag now and just about to move into SSC. Out guild was running low on tank and my main basicly being as geared as he can be at the current raid progression decided to make a Tank alt. Whenever i join a normal 5-man i ask to be leader (most the time ppl pass it over happyly lol) But I think the main think ever leader should point out is the exp in that instance. I always point stuff like “I’ve only done this once, was a lil messy but got threw it”, “Never done this point out if I make a mistake” or “done this so many times, do what i say and this will be quick and painless”. I find pointing out stuff before the instance give ppl a understanding of where they have to stand. On any “progressive” stuff for my tank, E.g his first Heroic instance I made sure it was purely guild run. Since they know what I can do and cannot and I know what they can do and cannot. That and I can be shown how to do the instance the best way instead of some back seat tank (yes i’m looking at u dps lol) telling me I’m doing it all wrong but of course doesn’t tell me what I’m doing. Oh hand tip for some ppl, we have all had that toon in our group that is useless and/or arrogant or whatever. Keep a pen and paper nearby and have a to not tank for list. Great when u enter a group and they are in it just turn around and say you don’t tank for that person and either they go or u do. Funny thing is they rarely send the tank away lol. Doing this my way of pulling peoples attatudes together or at least making so i don’t have to put up with it. lil off topic but helpful none the less
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April 29th, 2008 at 5:22 am
@ Galabriel
I actually happen to have a Blazefury with Executioner on it, the real question is how to get you the pic. It does look sweet, especially at full resolution on a 24″ flat panel.
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April 29th, 2008 at 7:51 am
Well, Iv’e read just about every response to this thread, and for the most part there is a common theme…agreement that tanks are best to lead. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the person playing the tank makes a great leader. The person behind the toon may not necessarily live a life as a leader, so it may not be something that comes nature. But if they don’t take wipes to heart, with time they will develop a level of comfort that could allow them to potentially be great raid leaders some day.
The nice thing, this could have a positive impact on their level of confidence to be more of a leader in RL.
It is true though that tanks are generally pushed to lead the run, thats probably because its their job to hold aggro on certain mobs, to properly manage a pull and have some degree of success with the run with as few wipes as possible. Thats alot of responsibilty to someone who may be “new” to the game…I mean, there are many people, not just tanks, who still haven’t heard of the term “threat”, and don’t understand how it works. But to keep this response on subject, let’s assume the tank understands this concept.
Someone needs to be able to react quickly when things don’t quite go as planned and it really needs to be the tank, since everyone else is focusing on other important tasks, like healing, CC and DPS’ing.
So I would like to offer my opinion as the difference why its probably best to have the tank lead over anyone else.
To do this I’ll offer an example. First of all, anyone can explain a trash pull, meaning, who should sheep, banish, shackle…whatever. Anyone can mark targets and even direct the tank as to the kill order…BUT…if something goes wrong with the pull, the tanks job is to try and regain control. That could mean he has to use one or more of his limited yet well timed abilities and inform the group at that moment what he wants them to do. This could be something as simple as…”stop dps” if he/she lost aggro, or “re-sheep the moon”, etc…
Someone other than the tank can see if he/she has lost aggro on 1 mob like a boss, show target of target helps with that, but if he/she is trying to manage multiple mobs no one else can really know if he/she has a problem with one or more and needs a moment to regain control. Shattered halls is a good example of that.
Know one will really know what the tank is thinking but he/she will do their best to regain control and THAT is something that comes with practice.
Iv’e played a warrior tank for about 2 years now. Iv’e lead many successful Kara runs, but I have had my share of painful nights filled with wipes.
I have to say though, being a tank is rewarding. You gain alot of respect. I have no regrets being a tank for my guild and wouldnt trade it for the world.
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April 29th, 2008 at 8:13 am
There?s another aspect on the tank being the leader that people miss out. The fact is that the tank is the one who controls the pulling and the pacing of the run. As the tank you set the tempo and the tone that will dictate how the run will go for the rest of the night, as well as all the CC assignments and such. If the tank is assertive, pulling at a brisk pace and marking up CC efficiently then the rest of the raid will follow suit, whether they are the best player on the server of some random PuG you picked up. A good tank always sets a positive tone for the raid by putting trust in his/her teammates to follow when he/she is pushing them to perform better.
Also on the flipside I?ve found that the more TPS you put out on a tank the better the run gets. It is not just the more TPS you do the more dps the dpsers can do, but they are also more comfortable pushing themselves to do more dps because they trust that you can hold the boss, allowing them to push their own limits.
Last week in kara our guild split into two groups, and regardless of how well I tank or geared I am put into the ?B? group along with a couple pugs (because I joined late and the other tanks are officers in the guild). I pretty much chain pulled and multi-mob tanked the entire way and pushed my healers to not slack off. The end result, the ?B? group killed prince while the officers were still on netherspite. Win/win scenario =P
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April 29th, 2008 at 8:21 am
I don’t believe a competent tank can not lead in most forms… I am vehemently against being the ‘raid leader’… this is because I refuse to ‘explain’ a fight… but I mark targets and give direction as needed because ultimately I am in the drivers seat… its nobody else’s responsibility to pull (trash and most bosses).
I have to understand every encounter and some form of rudimentary communication, but speeches before bosses and healing assignments are not my thing.
I used to give orders, but found back in Karazhan that talking is not tanking, and the authoritarian figure is rarely the best leader.
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April 29th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Hey Vene,
Love your post, but I’d like to add something:
Tanks often are leaders, and are often ‘pushed’ in the position due to the function that they have in groups/raids.
However, practially it appears to me that hybrids are better suited for the job. Allow me to elaborate:
Tanks look from a different angle then dps’s do, and so do healers. It’s natural to human nature to shift the point of view from your perspective.
It became apparent in Everquest, leading raids of 80+ people, that delegation is a necessity - I delegated to pullers, tankers, healers, dps’ers etc.. via sub-coordination: Someone was taking care of the healing, someone of the pulling, and so on… The best man for the job.
In WoW, however, raids have been diminished to a meager 25 people. Making it a bit dull to designate liek that when you bave only 24 People to get organized.
However, many tanks don’t have a clue how to set up a healing rotation, or what the ranged DPS needs for a specific encounter. They might not know the strenghts of each specific healer or the need for a tranquil totem for that overaggro’ing lock.
In short: I believe - in WoW - the Point of view of a good druid or a good paladin can actually provide more to raidleading then a tank’s. I know our best RL’s were paladins and feral druids
But perhaps the willingness to take the beating for the party due to your initial pick of class/spec could be pretty determining also… Let’s ponder that a bit
/ww out
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April 29th, 2008 at 9:34 am
@Galabriel
I do agree with some of what you said, tanking and leading are both fun and challenging, which to me makes the game even more fun to play.
Although I am completely against your idea of making a raid role less important then the other. I think that Tanks->Healers->Dps is a bit of bullcrap. In a raid environement exeryone is expected to do a job and if one of these 3 component was slacking your raid would turn ugly pretty quick.
Just my 2 cents.
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April 29th, 2008 at 10:44 am
I’m an idiot, nevermind my post, I completely missread what Galabriel meant, going back to Pre-school now.
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April 29th, 2008 at 11:55 am
@white
a successful leader is not limited by class. knowing all components of a fight and who is in the raid is up to the individual. for example, i played a hunter/warrior/warlock through naxx, and i could easily set up a healing rotation for loatheb. its up to the individual to understand how other classes work, and in most cases, benefits the raid that much more.
that being said, i would say people who have played different classes do tend to have more knowledge about how to anticipate doing their job successfully. understanding the mechanics of a tank makes it much easier to heal a tank, and in general, knowing every aspect of a fight makes you a better leader overall; raiding is a group effort, just because you may not have to deal with a certain aspect of a fight, doesnt mean that knowing about it wont potentially help you/your raid succeed.
i guess the point is you dont have to play a hybrid class to be aware of everything that is going on. while it may help to be more “forced” (since you yourself are capable of more than 1 role), the best leaders are those who understand the value of approaching an encounter from every perspective.
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April 29th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Before I jump in let me say that I am really only talking about boss fights and the minority of progression raiders. I also feel a little bad because the only time I make a post on this board it feels like I am playing devil’s advocate. But what fun is a discussion where everyone says “I agree”.
I think having the MT be the raid leader when you are doing real progression content is a terrible idea. For the vast majority of raiders it will work out just fine but for the tiny minority that is doing bleeding edge stuff it just doesn’t work.
I agree that a tank has some control over a raid whether they want it or not so it is natural to extend that to being raid leader. And when you are doing content for which there is a ton of info available and has been nerfed a couple times so the margin for error is pretty big then having the MT do the job is totally fine. But on bleeding edge stuff the margin for error is razor thin and there is so much information that the tank has to take absorb to simply tank well that if they have to be a raid leader also then something is going to slip.
Someone else brought up Magtheridon and I think that fight is a great example of what I am talking about. If you go in there today it is pretty easy to marshal the whole thing while staring at boss crotch. But if you were doing the fight a year ago then there was simply too much going on for the tank to make on-the-fly adjustments and still do their job as a tank as well as they need to. Being able to make those adjustments in the middle of the boss fight is the most important job of a raid leader. When the margin for error is tiny and a mistake happens, the response has to be immediate and correct or else it is going to wipe the raid. If you are delegating the most important part of the raid leader’s job, then who is leading the raid? (again, trash is trash, I am talking about boss fights)
The second most important job of a raid leader is adjusting the strategy during the learning attempts on a boss. To do that well it really helps to be able to see the entire battlefield so you can see who is standing in the wrong place or moving in the wrong direction or isn’t moving fast enough or any number of little things. It is possible for the tank to pull that stuff off with some fancy camera work but it is so much easier for a ranged class to do it.
At the end of the day leadership isn’t something that comes with any particular class and tanks are often going to have leadership thrust upon them due to the nature of their role in the raid, but in a min/max-bleeding edge raid, having the MT be the raid leader simply is not the best option.
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April 29th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
exodus-kt.com (my old guild)
main tank is the gm and primary raid leader, and exodus is somewhere in the top 15 worldwide. imo, its far more dependent on the individual than the class/spec you play.
also, depends on your supporting raider base. the less informed the raiders you raid with, the harder job you will have as leader telling them what to do.
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April 29th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
I never said it wasn’t possible, just that its not min/max
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April 29th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
I could probably be a RL (MT of kara group 2) but I’m content being what I am. People recognize my competence and skill and that translates to respect.
I also don’t have a working mic for whatever reason, so having a RL that has to resort to typing isn’t the best course of action.
I just realized that the backup RL has left our guild. I might have to RL after all.
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April 29th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
I agree 100% with Rochelle. I’ve maintained for the past, almost 3 years now, that having the MT as the RL is a terrible way to do things. There are advantages, and having the tanks play an active roll in moving the raid through trash is vital, but the MT is about the absolute worst player to make lead the raid.
But when I first stepped up into raid leading on the way to Lucifron it was because I could do the job, and it remains that way today.
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April 29th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
@Kavtor and Rochelle:
“The second most important job of a raid leader is adjusting the strategy during the learning attempts on a boss.”
– This is merely about communication and trust. Having seen what happened helps, but is not essential and the reason why the tank is best is b/c of your 1st point.
“Being able to make those adjustments in the middle of the boss fight is the most important job of a raid leader.”
– This is where the MT excels by knowing the relationship between the incoming damage you are taking, the heals you are receiving, the cooldowns you are having to use and the output of dps in relation to the threat that is being generated. No other player has as complete a picture of this as the tank. It’s something no other role can know and it’s the reason why on farm or bleeding edge content it’s 100% best to have the MT as the primary raid leader.
Definitely, a strong raid leader understands how and when to delegate, but when it all comes down to it knowing the relationship between your health and the bosses and all those factors is only known by you and can never be properly understood by anyone else no matter how well they can see if someone is too slow moving out of fire. It’s why you’ll always know better than anyone whether to battle rez a healer or a dpser. It’s why you’ll always know better than anyone whether to call a wipe, use bloodlust or a soulstone.
Basically, I think you guys are longing too much for what you don’t see and seriously devaluing the information only your eyes is capable of seeing.
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April 29th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
“I think having the MT be the raid leader when you are doing real progression content is a terrible idea”
Better tell Kungen.
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April 29th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
I think tanks more often find themselves the group/raid leaders because of the nature of the class. It’s kinda weird having your fearless leader barking orders while standing 40+ yards away. The MT is literally and physically leading the way, so it’ only natural that s/he becomes the raid leader. But like many people have said, delegating responsibility and trusting others is extremely important.
It just seems to be a much more appealing attitude having the tank as the leader. You get the attitude of “I’m pulling now, try and keep up,” which is totally badass
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April 29th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
I have a response for Vene, but I have to put words to paper.
I just wanted to quickly respond to the Kungen comment which I knew would come up. There is an interview somewhere on the internet in which he says that he is never the MT when his raid is learning a new encounter. Zucchero (sp?) tanks until they are ready to push for a kill and then Kungen takes over.
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April 29th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
I would disagree, as a main tank you have alot to handle and generally dealing with HUGE bosses that obstruct any real view of whats going on
i feel its important to ba a leader as a tank but not THE leader as in raid leader.
5 mans the tank usally needs to lead, DPS generaly has no clue or care on what to mark or why other then what they can or cant CC.
10 mans you generally cant really get away with anything less then assist
25 mans i will always think tanks have much more to do then be raid leader
ive been in a few guilds and guidless the last few weeks (by choice working on my fast flyer via fury) ive been raiding with quite a few guilds and the one i left had the best setup raid leader being a resto shaman who was diffrent then the GM _Shout out 2 Luka and Caly
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April 29th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Nowadays incoming tank DPS is just a small part of the encounter. Tanks and healers should have a fair amount of practice with that by now, and the ability to handle that themselves. It’s the overarching raid strategy that’s far more important, and the tank doesn’t have near the visual cues of other characters.
Not to mention the near one button warlocks, shaman, and mages who can actually do something useful. =P
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April 29th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Zooki must be a god to tank Sacrolash solo.
I know that’s just a single example but you’d know better than I that there would be plenty of other encounters where it simply wouldn’t be doable to say, “ok, you tank I’ll just watch/dps”.
Anyway, we’re all getting way off topic here, the point of the original article and Vene’s ’summary post’ was simply to encourage tanks to take on leadership as a way of improving themselves and offering a few tips on how to do so.
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April 29th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
haha excellent point Talisman
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April 30th, 2008 at 5:49 am
“Zucchero (sp?) tanks until they are ready to push for a kill and then Kungen takes over.”
Wow. Maybe it’s just me, but…talk about having your glory stolen after doing the dirty work.
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April 30th, 2008 at 6:28 am
I’m siding with tanks not being raid leaders. As true as it may be that many tanks are raid leads, I’ve personally seen just as many quit the game due to burn out. As Rochelle stated, my opinion comes from a raiding standpoint as we are working on Kalecgos. Pulling trash, marking targets, etc - no problem running that. During a boss fight, tanks can easily assist the raid leader by reporting what is happening to them.
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April 30th, 2008 at 9:50 am
I have a bad history using metaphors and I know that if I try to make one know it will probably get turned out somehow… but I am going to do it anyway (http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26032.html ?)
Its a sports metaphor and I have been trying to figure out how I want to word it for the last 30 minutes with no luck. So I will give the bare bones, no elaboration version:
The tank is like the captain of a sports teams while the raid leader is like the coach.
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April 30th, 2008 at 10:13 am
“Being able to make those adjustments in the middle of the boss fight is the most important job of a raid leader.”
…is what the captain of a sports team does.
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April 30th, 2008 at 11:03 am
a good team can make up for a bad captain. a good raid cannot help a main tank do his job, and thus the raid will fail. ie, arguably the most important member of any raid is the main tank, whereas in sports, the team effort is what counts (bolstered by a strong captain, but much more reliant on the teams performance). although i get the reference, i still believe the best raid leaders are those whom are capable of handling the job, and saying that main tanks make bad raid leaders is an overstatement.
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April 30th, 2008 at 11:56 am
@ dwight, Yes a bad tank can make a raid fail but dont tell your healer or your dps that any encounter isn’t a team effort. Doesn’t matter how wonderful a tank you are if you dont have 24 people on your side you’re getting splatted. Whether you’re captain or coach you still need your team and you will definately get further in either role by acknowledging that fact.
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April 30th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
In a top 25 raid, all 25 people ‘get it’. Each person in the raid understands all the mechanics of the fight and he knows his role and the role of the guy next to him. He has a feel for the flow of the fight (alliteration ftw) and knows if it is going well or not and can react properly to anything that happens. As you move outside the top 25 the number of people who ‘get it’ in a given raid starts to drop. When you are looking at the 250-500 band maybe only 10-15 people ‘get it’. When you get to the raids that are 8+ months behind, maybe only 3-5 people in the raid really ‘get it’. The MT, by virtue of his job, tends to be one of the people who ‘get it’ regardless of where the raid you are looking at sits.
The raid leader absolutely needs to be someone who ‘gets it’. An MT is going to be a leader to some degree by virtue of their role. For the majority of guilds the MT is one of the few people who ‘get it’ which makes them the obvious choice for raid leader. But when you are talking about bleeding edge progression at least 90% of the raid ‘gets it’ so the choice of raid leader is no longer obvious.
Any person only has so much bandwidth. You can only pay attention to so many things at once. The raid leader role isn’t something at which you can slack off - it requires as much of your attention as you can possibly give it if you want to be good at it. Tanking is exactly the same way. No class can /afk-autoshoot their way through a raid anymore but most classes require a lot less attention and micromanagement than tanking. So, in a min/max raid, where everyone ‘gets it’, the tank is not going to be the best raid leader simply because they can’t dedicate as much attention to leading the raid as another class could.
Dwigt - please try not to twist my argument - I never said that MT makes a bad raid leader and I never said that MT should not ever be a raid leader. All I am saying is that in a bleeding edge raid, the MT is not the best choice.
Talisman - I realize that this argument isn’t precisely along the lines of the original post. The original post was good and the tips in the ’summary post’ were good. Nobody is disputing that which means there is no point talking about it. The current theme is sparking interest and causing a discussion. I think thats a good thing.
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April 30th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Indeed. I’m a raid leader, and a main tank. It’s not a ‘bad’ way to do it. But there’s only so much I can do, or see. Having the tank as the raid leader is suboptimal, because other players with fewer responsibilities can dedicate more resources into being a great raid leader than the main tank can.
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April 30th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
When I first hit 70 I joined a Kara guild where the raid leader was an elemental shaman who had a voice like Barry White. That was by far the best choice.
Too bad he quit…raiding just isn’t the same…
And to contribute, I think there are a number of responsibilities that come under the heading ‘Raid Leader’. Among these are choosing a strategy, explaining the strategy, assigning targets, setting up healing rotation, assigning and monitoring crowd control, pacing pulls, group make-up, loot decisions, situational awareness during boss fights (calling out bombs, fire patches, phase switches, adds, etc), calling out battle rezzes/DIs, and so on.
These responsibilities are usually split and will vary on the raid members and the content attempted. Blanket statements about best this or best that don’t illuminate these nuances, I think.
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April 30th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Just a comment on Kav’s comment about the tank being the sub-optimal raid leader. The raid needs one player to be the focal point. Whether we are leading 5, 10, or 25man runs, it’s going to be extremely rare not to be that focal point.
Doing everything is a quick way to burn out, and I admire the tanks who lead 25 man runs regularly. The point i’m trying to get to is that you should be having other members of your raid helping you as quickly as you can build that relationship. Just a small group to help off load some tasks can bring back a lot of the fun for the MT.
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April 30th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Vene, you mentioned delegating earlier up, and that triggered a snyapse. Here’s my tip related to that. On tough fights with a lot of CC going on, like Moroes in particular, or Wizard of Oz, I always pick one of my dps officers to call the kill order. I do the marking beforehand, but he still calls it out. Not only does it allow the raid to focus -reminding those people who go “oh sorry I didn’t know we weren’t supposed to dot the shackled paladin”- but it also allows for flexibility. The dps I delegate to “call it out” can see how fast the adds are dropping, and we can decide whether to keep two targets shackled or kill them all.
And particularly on the moroes fight having him call out kill orders allows me to focus on making sure both the OT and me are avoiding getting knocked out at the same time.
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May 1st, 2008 at 9:31 am
Back in the day it seemed to me and I have been tanking since day one that in PRE-BC, Tanks weren’t looked on as the leaders as much, my raiding guild had a Hunter Raid Leader, and he was the bomb. Canadian though and we had a good laugh sometimes at his expense, eh. I think POST-BC is where tanks started to take more and more of the leadership role.
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May 1st, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Woot for Canadians! That might explain why he was suck a great leader
I too am a Canuck hehe. Interesting post to say the lease.
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May 1st, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Well folks this is my maiden post here. I just have become a recent frequenter to this site and I say its pretty informatitve.
In reguards to the topic at hand I am the GM/Raidleader of a T5 progressing guild. We will be downing Vashj tonight I expect as we got her to 10% on tuesday. Pre- BC I playes a main healer role and an MT/OT role but was never a raid leader. Upon coming back to Wow a good 6 months after it was released I have filled the role of a shadow priest and currently a hunter. I have always lead raids in this aspect. While back in EQ and other games most times MT is defaulted raid leader because they are recognized as the Alpha out front leading the troops .. always assumed that the MT has their stuff together and knows whats best for the raids.
For some reason I my guild has been plauged with flaky, premadona tanks since our first step into kara. Some have been stellar tanks could tank anything you put infront of them but leaderskill and ability to reason things was just not in their bag of tricks. If it was not written on a web site in a strat it didnt exist. Reguardless of what some people might say not all cookie cutter strats you read about an encounter work for all guilds.
So myself leading from a ranged dps point of view(Hunter) it allows me to always keep an overview on whats going on. Making adjustments on the fly when a key person goes down. Our guild does very well with that. One member even made the joke if I were to come up behind him in a grocery store and started saying “(Insert Name here) Back up … Back up” he wouldnt even think twice at the sound of my voice and would start backing up. I got a good chuckle out of that to say the least. Everyone has different styles of leading and what not. When you find out what works fo ryour guild you go with it. And this brings me to my current situation.
In all the games I have played from EQ/EQ2/WoW/Vanguard to name a few it always comes full circle to where I always end up in a tanking role. Mostly because I am always there and if not that its cause im always there and in a leadership role. I dont know why I am plagued with this curse. You would think I would learn by now not to fight it and concede the point that I will remain a tank for the rest of my mmo career.
While we have found a solid tank it has been dropped in my lap again to most likely be filling a role of OT and MT when needed. And I am concerned how this is going to effect the way I lead. Not the trash pulls or what not but more of the encounters where the tank really has no time to do other things. Our raid force has grown accustom to the way I lead now and it could be a bit of a learning curve with me in a tank role. None the less im sure it will all work out but I have not MTed since BWL days. Having class leads to deligate stuff to in a raid situation is so important and im very thankful to have competent class leads.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out for myself and my guild. I have told the officers that they might get more raid stuff dumped on them if I do infact have to become tank/raid leader. With fights with enrage timers and various other little tricks blizzard throws at us being jonny on the spot with TPS and what not is key. Anyway sorry for the long babbling post I just thought it was funny how most tanks said they were raid leaders and here i am ranged dps leading headed towards the tanking role.
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May 1st, 2008 at 9:17 pm
I actually like the MT as the raid leader. As the stated “MAIN” tank for a raid, that automatically gives you the attention and respect of the raid. You’re the one tanking the boss that the other 24 people want to kill. /bow Delegation is key though, it’s a great idea to have others share in doing invites, group arrangements, marking, things like that, but when it comes down to it, the raid has to know that when you make a call, it should not be questioned during the fight.
Other classes can certainly lead the raid, call the shots, but ultimately they must make sure the MT is ready. The raid will wait for the MT since there is only one of you, they will not wait for 1 healer or 1 dpser.
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May 5th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
@Talisman’s first post.
Back in the day before we got those fancy marks, the hunter always marked the targets.
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May 5th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Back in my old school mage days, we used to mark our sheep with detect magic.
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May 6th, 2008 at 5:19 am
Ah the old school days of trying to get 8 warlocks on all of Garr’s adds with one hunters mark to designate who targets what, and then not losing that target. Good times, good times.
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May 6th, 2008 at 7:51 am
Wow you had 8 warlocks for Garr? I dont think we ever had more then 4 for him back in the day. Locks werent as popular at least for my old guild back then. But yeah got to love the good times to getting everthing marked and having one person lose it.
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May 6th, 2008 at 8:58 am
By the time we were on Nef, we were AOE’ing Garr’s adds.
Our RL then was a rogue. Now, it’s a hunter and myself.
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May 6th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Aww ya… Hunter mark for pulls in MC. =D
In addition, i think being a tank really sets you up to succeed in other classes if you wish to pursue them later. It gives you excellent insight as to what is supposed to happen in a boss fight, excellent recognition of threat level, solid understanding of threat mechanics and the knowledge to still lead the raid. I’m going as a mage in kara soon, but i will be the training wheels for the new up and coming tanks in our guild.
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May 6th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
I couldn’t have said it better myself, Hao. I’ve been MT for guild Kara runs for the past 11 months…and I’m finally able to run on my feral DPS druid. It’s cool to experience things on the other side of the bridge, so to speak. Watching my threat is so easy…so when a Mage pulls and dies, I chuckle.
They still make me leader sometimes, cuz I can stealth mark…and that’s a good thing for those Shade pulls going up to Aran and beyond. As for being the tanking trainer…yah, that’s me, lol. I’ve already gotten 3 people to copy my spec, so they’ll be ready when their gear is up to par.
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May 6th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
I partially agree with you Vene. Personally, I hate to lead raids, I always hated it. I’d much rather have the offtank do all the leading, so I can focus on what I am best at, and that is putting loads of threat into the big fat boss in front of me. I do well in raids, so people don’t necassarily need to lead.
However, I agree with you that a tank needs at least som leader skills, but not necassarily the ability to tell people to go there and there. Rather, I think a tank needs to be able to know what is going on around him, and he also has to know strengths and weaknesses of other classes, so that he can make his, to help all classes to perform at their best.
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May 6th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
This has probably been beaten to death LOL, but I do want to point out the point Vene & Siouxzen made about delegation. One of the main arguments against having the MT be the RL is that all he/she can see are the knees of the boss, and it’s a valid point.
However a good raid leader can say something to the effect of ” can you call out on vent if happens”
For example, on fights where people have to move during a certain cast time I will have a dps call that out, or if there’s a certain time that healers are going to have to be more focused on me I will have a healer call that out. The key is delegation and to be the organizer more than the “leader”
A dpser couldn’t equally delegate that responsibility, the reality is as a tank a lot of time you have a better feel for how capable people in the raid are to lead than another class might have since you have a pulse on each aspect of the raid.
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May 6th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
uh ok… I meant to say:
However a good raid leader can say something to the effect of “X can you call out on vent if Y happens please”
/hide from html
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May 7th, 2008 at 2:02 am
I have been group leader ever since I dinged 70 and were proud of Murmur going down in normal mode. I must admit, when I first dinged 70 or did my first heroic I was pretty worried about marking wrong and being laughed at. Now it comes natural, I expect to be made party leader the second I join the daily heroic group. I do the inviting, organizing and leading in Karazhan. It’s so natural to me, it would be so weird if I wasn’t leading.
Any tank that doesn’t know how to lead needs to learn to or respec in my opinion. I’m not sure why exactly tanks should be the leaders, maybe it’s because they are the ones who pull, I’m not sure but what I do know is that all tanks now are expected to lead the group.
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May 9th, 2008 at 9:46 am
And how many of these MT/raid leaders are also officers in their guild?
I’m willing to bet quite a bit….
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May 9th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Haedes, you have just inspired the newest poll along the left side of the site
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May 9th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Most of our raid leaders are not tanks. For me, it is hard enough knowing what I am supposed to do without screwing up too much without the extra burden of knowing what everyone else is supposed to do. That said, I’ve lead Kara raids a couple times, which is getting easier. The more run throughs the more I remember all the pulls and boss fights. I doubt I will ever be raid leader on new content though and that is fine by me.
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May 9th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Haha, good point Haedes. Actually for a long time I was told my guild wanted me to be an officer but couldn’t make make me one cuz it would look bad if every single tank in the guild was an officer. =P I am now an assistant officer LOL.
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May 9th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Need a third option. Because I’m not an officer!
Be neat to see how many of us are dumb enough to have gotten stuck with being GM as well.
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May 9th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
In my last guild (pre-BC) I was the MT and raid lead, and I never felt it held me back much (on fights like Vael, being dead 1 minute in made it easier to just watch and lead, actually :P), and generally speaking I think I had a good feel for how to direct things.
Fast forward to BC, and I ended up leading on my holy priest (later as a shadow priest) and I had no issue leading up through the end part of T5 from that perspective. Then a couple months back we had a guild split and the MT changed and my warrior (then an alt) had to fill in on a couple runs. Even before the split, it seemed to me the MT had a very partial view of the fight and ultimately was less informed as to what was going on as the DPSers on the run.
Let me tell you, going from the perspective of a DPSer to that of a warrior was a shock. Even though I’d done it before, doing it again after having that nice wide view was miserable. Not to mention I’m inordinately fond of mind vision for marking, but I digress…
Having done a bit more leading from my warrior again, I noticed that trash clearing was faster, but for bosses I just ask the other officers to handle it, since my view of a fight is useless for all but tanking concerns on most things. It can be done (I’ve done it) but it pales in comparison to leading from a DPSer (esp ranged) or even a healer. But at the same time, being able to “set the pace” on trash is very valuable. I think for raid leading on bosses, the best leading role is DPS > healer > tank, based on visibility and the number of things that you’re juggling, whereas for trash, tank > healer > DPS.
So having a tank that can ‘lead’ at least for trash is golden, but when it’s boss time, having a raid leader w/ a better view is amazing. Try leading from a DPS alt and see.
10-mans and 5-mans tho? Tank leads 100% all the way, if possible.
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