Shortage of tanks a myth - thoughts?

[Ashkendor]

I've had exactly 3 people ask in the last 3 months. So it's more correct than incorrect.

In your experience, maybe. I ask all the time. I run into people that ask pretty frequently, too.

It's a pretty subjective observation.

I didn't say it was impossible, I said that the healing requirements are greater for two melee. If they aren't geared for speedpulls, they get squished. BRD/SMN overall don't have as many AOE tools, but they also don't stand in AOE's. SMN pets do however, their pets do not show up in the party list, so it's up to the SMN to heal their own pet if it's getting wrecked.

Healing requirements are only greater for melee if they stand in cleaves and aoe's, which admittedly they have more opportunity to do. If they dodge like they should be, there's no difference whatsoever. Any DPS that routinely refuses to dodge AoE's because "mah deeps" is basically a mana sponge that deserves to hit the floor.

The opinion is that a healer who is not healing (eg DPS'ing, or just jumping around doing nothing productive) is abandoning their job, and a DPS who needs to heal themselves or others is a reflection of that job being abandoned, thus dragging down DPS because now the DPS has to stop DPS'ing.

Yeah, but who ever mentioned DPS having to heal because healers aren't? I said something about popping Second Wind if you DO happen to get hit, which is off the GCD and doesn't take away from your DPS in any way. In any case, putting up some DPS and still keeping up the heals isn't all that hard to do so I don't see what the issue with healers DPS'ing is.

If there is a lull in combat where no damage is being taken (see several phases of ST in CT) then obviously the healers and tanks have opportunity to DPS, even though their input is not needed and not required. If they are needed to add DPS, then the DPS themselves are weak. In a 24 person Raid like ST and WoD, where there are 15 DPS... means multiple DPS aren't carrying their weight.

Honestly, I don't care if my input is "not needed and not required". If I'm not tanking or healing, I'm DPS'ing.

I've seen it happen where a WoD instance will start, make it past the first trash room and then abandon at Angra Mainyu because NONE of the tanks came prepared to tank. Were they all wearing DPS gear? Were they all using their DPS stance? The healing requirements go past the point of being able to save the situation when you also have Healers who only jumped into the Healer queue for the fast queue and only want to DPS too. Fortunately that exact scenario has happened only once in my experience.

Even if the tank is wearing DPS gear, who cares? It's freaking WoD. You don't need 10k+ hps to tank it. I don't normally go in there to MT myself; I prefer to make sure adds are picked up. If we just stand there staring at each other before the boss with all 3 tanks shuffling their feet, I'll just shrug and pull and pray the other tanks know how to OT. When I queue on Scholar, I rarely leave Cleric Stance even when my alliance's tank is MT. I'd rather put up some unneeded DPS than spam some unneeded heals. Overhealing is basically a waste of time; I mayaswell do the Manderville and go afk.

In short, players should come prepared before they queue for the job they select. Don't expect to be carried, or for the other tanks/healers to do your job for you. It's insane enough when you run ST or WoD and only one Tank came prepared. Players wearing crafting gear or some ilevel 55 gear parts in ilevel 90 content ... seriously why?

Eh. i55 gear is one thing, that may be someone new that's gearing up and if RNGesus is being unkind to them with the pieces that they're able to replace, there's not a whole lot they can do about that until they grind enough tomes. Crafting gear I agree with you on, though. I usually take it upon myself to say something to people that are in crafting gear; if they refuse to change it, I initiate a kick. If you aren't going to wear gear that's even got relevant stats, you can gtfo.