The Tank's Pledge (a damned fool's idealistic notion)

[Reaver_Bharash]

Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
Through Foresight and Awareness I shall be free.

Fixed that for you -_^

Double fixed!

That's a bit better

[Februs]

I promise to know my place, and to understand that without healing and Dps characters with me, I will not be able to complete anything...

Tell that to Warriors. They seem to do okay all by themselves.

In any case, I don't subscribe to the same wishy-washy attitudes. I'm no one's servant. I have no use for humility. I don't care about leading, and the only reason I lead or teach anyone in dungeons is for speed, efficiency, and a general distaste for weakness. I tank because I selfishly enjoy the job, and because I like to test how far I can tow the line. For that, I only need the power and experience required to hold myself to my own standard of excellence (which fluctuates whenever I see fit, and may or may not include an urge to surpass tanks who have impressed me). In that regard, my only pledge is to myself, and that pledge is to be as damn good as I can possibly be. If the rest of the group wants to tag along, great. Feel free to impress me. I'm waiting.

[Kosmos992k]

I have no use for humility. I don't care about leading, and the only reason I lead or teach anyone in dungeons is for speed, efficiency, and a general distaste for weakness. I tank because I selfishly enjoy the job, and because I like to test how far I can tow the line. For that, I only need the power and experience required to hold myself to my own standard of excellence (which fluctuates whenever I see fit, and may or may not include an urge to surpass tanks who have impressed me). In that regard, my only pledge is to myself, and that pledge is to be as damn good as I can possibly be. If the rest of the group wants to tag along, great. Feel free to impress me. I'm waiting.

Primadonna or sarcasm? If the former, you give tanks a bad name by being that way, if the latter then I never want to play poker with you because you have a very good dead-pan delivery.

[Februs]

Primadonna or sarcasm? If the former, you give tanks a bad name by being that way, if the latter then I never want to play poker with you because you have a very good dead-pan delivery.

To be fair, it's kind of hard to get sarcasm across in text format... I suppose I could use emojis...Though, primadonna is also a bit of a leap, and certainly does not speak badly for Tanks.

Playing to and for your own personal standard of excellence is no more or less inflated or self-important than giving a pledge to the benefit of the party. Do you honestly think the party cares? Most casual runs are completed without the party saying any more than "Hello!" and "Ty4p!" If you get a noob in the group, someone (not just the tank) pipes up and says "Yo! you're doing that wrong. Try X,Y,Z instead. Okay? Partycheck? Good. Let's go," and it's all quiet till the ending. No one cares about some self-righteous pledge made, supposedly, for their benefit. They care if you can do the job.

It also doesn't downplay the relevance of having a personal standard. You can pretend to be some kind of leader, or some kind of noble "servant," all you like, but it doesn't change the fact that if you want to fill that role you have to be good enough to back it up. In the end, it achieves the same thing. It's just a different method. If you really want to lead, than lead by example. When I tow a line, I do it so others can follow, and I'm totally fine with meeting the line if someone else is towing it better than I am. All you're doing by selfishly wanting to get better is inspiring the people around you to pick up their feet.

[Kabooa]

Playing to and for your own personal standard of excellence.

This is because we cannot control other players. We can attempt to help them should they be beneath that standard, or improve should they be above.

This is why complexity for the sake of complexity is terrible, but complexity out of necessity is grand.

It fuels a positive loop of Trying -> Learning -> Doing -> Trying. We try things. We learn if they work. We do to see if they work everywhere or in a niche. We try more things. It is this loop of trying to be better not for anyone's sake but our own that a game becomes a game again, because it's not about what someone else wants from us. It's what -we- want from ourselves.

There is no purer form of gaming than that. A game isn't just 'for fun'. 'For fun' applies to so many things it cannot be a definitive measure. Getting -better- is the purest form of gaming, because no one loads up a game to suck at it.

Hats off to this guy.

[ApolloGenX]

Oh, please...you run off to the glory... who is going to help the healer with the dps's diapers??

I KID! I KID!! =P <3 dps!!

[Brightshadow]

I am batman the Dark Knight

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

I like the OP's idea.

I always said anyone can take up the armor and weapons, but what really makes a tank is the desire and ability to focus and mitigate incoming threat to your party. No, no one ever crowned us Team Leader, but we're not the frontmen for nothing. We're the Avant Garde, and that makes what we do and how we do it an important thing. No more or less than healers or DPS, yes, but important all the same. Perfection isn't a requirement, but the standard is high, higher than most are willing to accept. So I commend someone who wants to embrace a more positive approach to what's largely been a dirty job.

Consider me signed and pledged.

[Syzygian]

I feel like so many of the threads on the forums right now about str-vs-vit are irrelevant to any good tank with a head on his/her shoulders. A tanks job first and foremost, from plain mentality standpoint, is to be adaptable. Its your job to facilitate maximum performance from the rest of the party, as Layla says, like a utility job, using your tools to help the party in whatever fashion works best for them.

It may be ambiguous from posts I've made elsewhere, but I'm actually a very turtle-minded tank. But I never wear fending. Always melds/slaying. And I routinely drop Grit when I know I can get away with it. Why? Cause that's what the meta, the raid tier, and my static wants, and that's what I've adapted to. Regardless of stats, as long as I'm fulfilling the needs of my group, I could give a shit what gear I've got on. As long as I'm enabling them to meet their full potential, I consider myself as having met mine.

[Iagainsti]

Tell that to Warriors. They seem to do okay all by themselves.

In any case, I don't subscribe to the same wishy-washy attitudes. I'm no one's servant. I have no use for humility. I don't care about leading, and the only reason I lead or teach anyone in dungeons is for speed, efficiency, and a general distaste for weakness. I tank because I selfishly enjoy the job, and because I like to test how far I can tow the line. For that, I only need the power and experience required to hold myself to my own standard of excellence (which fluctuates whenever I see fit, and may or may not include an urge to surpass tanks who have impressed me). In that regard, my only pledge is to myself, and that pledge is to be as damn good as I can possibly be. If the rest of the group wants to tag along, great. Feel free to impress me. I'm waiting.