It Is My Artform

In a state of random boredness (yes, boredness is now I word because I said so), I was perusing the MMO Champion forums because you can always find quality entertainment there.  The trolls are always good for a laugh, and the trolls pretending to be offended by the trolls are even more entertaining.

The one thread that caught my eye this morning was one regarding a DPS pulling mobs. Specifically, the OP was an enhancement shaman wondering why tanks and healers get angry with him when he decides to pull more mobs while/before the tank and kill them himself.  I really won't get into the details of all the replies he has gotten to the thread.  You can go read it yourself if you'd like.  Here's a link.

What I want to do instead if offer my own thoughts on the subject.  I could do so on the forums, but honestly I don't even think I have an MMO account and I can't be arsed to create one.  (Yes, I said "can't be arsed".  John is slowly assimilating me into his dialect.  Insert resistance is futile joke here.)

Ok, so in a nutshell, here's the question from the OP:  Why do people get angry when a DPS tries to speed up a run by pulling mobs on his own?

And here are my thoughts on the subject, broken down into bullet comments in no particular order.

• My first comment is a question.  Why is everyone always in such a hurry?  I do not understand why a lot of people deem it necessary to want to finish a dungeon in five minutes flat.  If they are bored with the content, it seems a bit masochistic to queue up for random dungeons then.  If they are merely trying to make some gold quickly, then they are being selfish by affecting the other members of the group in order to speed-up their own personal gain.  If they want to stroke their epeen by showing how big and tough they are, they should go into the dungeon by themselves and solo it.  If they are an impatient person, they should make some friends and run dungeons with them, instead of submitting random strangers to their incessant hyperactivity.  TL;DR:  If they want to pull mobs at THEIR pace, then they should queue up as a tank.
  
• The tank is responsible for the pace and control of the dungeon.  This is going to sound elitist to some of you, I'm sure.  But that's the way I perceive Blizzard's design of the game.  I mean, it's even on the front page of their website:  "You will have greater success with a heavily armored class like a Warrior or Paladin to soak up damage and to lead the party through the dungeon."  In case I've confused any of you, the keywords you're looking at there is "lead the party through the dungeon".
  
• Tanks are in pretty high demand, because the job is both thankless and (to most) not as fun as DPSing.  It also takes a bit more effort than DPSing.  Therefore, the number of tanks available at any time is directly affected by two kinds of people:  Those who just don't like it and would rather blow things up instead, and those who just don't want to put in the time or effort to do it properly.  There's nothing wrong with that.  One of the reasons why I enjoy tanking so much (aside from the fact that I actually DO enjoy it) is because it's a role that's always in demand and makes me feel like I'm actually doing something worthwhile.  To each his own, as they say.  Getting to my point, however, sometimes you will end up in a situation where a DPS person has queued up as a tank simply because they wanted a quick queue.  In those particular situations, as long as all party members involved agree, I don't see any problems with other DPS pulling mobs -- since it's more than likely the "tank" is either too inexperienced at tanking to be effective or really wasn't interested in doing the job in the first place.  Right now we're in-between expansions and the dungeons are not challenging anyway.  So yeah -- have at it in that case!
  
• BUT -- if the tank is actually a new or inexperienced tank who is truly trying to learn what he/she needs to do and improve, then you just need to back the fuck off.  Let the guy/gal learn and do his/her job, because that's why he/she is there.   If you're not sure, trying asking!  If they don't mind, then go crazy.  But if they are trying to learn what they need to do, back off!  Remember that you queued up for a RANDOM DUNGEON. If you randomly get a tank trying to improve their abilities, that's what you were given and you should deal with it.  Taking an extra ten minutes to finish a dungeon isn't going to kill you.
  
• Similarly to my previous point, sometimes a well-geared and experienced tank will run random dungeons in order to "stay frosty".  This is certainly the case for me, and is even more true these days as I've been retuning my own abilities with the drop of the latest patch.  Therefore, while I enjoy being challenged by good DPS, the last thing I want is some asshat deliberately pulling groups before I'm ready for them.  Similarly to how DPS gauges how well they're doing by their DPS, and healers by assuring no one dies, I gauge how well I've done in a dungeon by how I've kept threat, how well I protected the rest of the group, and how smooth I made the run for everyone.  If there's an asshat deliberately making me unable to properly do my job, I become frustrated and annoyed.  If I found myself in this type of situation, I'm sorry to say that most likely I would just leave the group, because I know that if I were to ask the offending party to cease what they were doing, my request would be answered with a rude retort anyway.  So, why would I bother, when I can simply re-queue.  I'm a tank, and my queues are instant anyway.  I guess, in those cases, it's win-win, right?  I mean -- I leave, so that over-zealous DPS can tank the instance now that I'm out of the picture.  Right?  Otherwise, they'll be waiting fifteen minutes or so for another tank, and I don't see that happening since the whole point of the over-zealous DPS doing what he's going is to "speed up" the run.  Right?  My logic is flawless.  Though my sarcasm is more powerful.

To wrap things up a bit, I just want to say that 95% of my random dungeon runs are quite enjoyable.  Across two different battlegroups, I haven't run into many annoying people while tanking.  Unfortunately, the only bad experiences I've had have been as a healer, specifically tanks treating me badly.  But this only serves to make me even more proud of the fact that I'm able to excel at the role without developing the ego that seems to sometimes come with it.  My current guild has dubbed me "the calmest dude in the universe".