Comments on: 68% of Tanks are Raid Leaders

By: Alkahn

Alkahn — Fri, 09 May 2008 23:32:27 +0000

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.

By: Kavtor

Kavtor — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:14:50 +0000

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.

By: Dezdemone

Dezdemone — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:22:22 +0000

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.

By: Tankette

Tankette — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:02:58 +0000

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.

By: admin

admin — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:59:37 +0000

Haedes, you have just inspired the newest poll along the left side of the site

By: Haedes

Haedes — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:46:17 +0000

And how many of these MT/raid leaders are also officers in their guild?
I’m willing to bet quite a bit….

By: Wakoo of Alonsus PvE EU

Wakoo of Alonsus PvE EU — Wed, 07 May 2008 09:02:24 +0000

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.

By: Dezdemone

Dezdemone — Tue, 06 May 2008 23:51:42 +0000

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

By: Dezdemone

Dezdemone — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:59:52 +0000

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.

By: Torianno

Torianno — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:43:58 +0000

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.