Take it easy, Tanks.

[RopeDrink]

Here's how I roll.

-- Phase in, wait for Protection, set healer as focus. All moving / clearly present? Good, off I go.

-- Double pull, assuming I'm confident in my gear vs content. Sometimes I could do more/less - but this is a test phase. If the Healer hasn't spoken then I need to figure them out for myself, much like a Healer needs to get to know their tank, and both need to know the DPS. No point being stingy with mitigation CD's, they make the run go smoother.

-- Looks comfortable and/or are they DPS'ing? We can probably grab more. They're an AFK healbot and/or struggling on actually healing? Same or less. The mistake tanks make is assuming a Healbot means it's safer to pull more, when in reality it simply means that big-ass pack is wailing on you for free and taking a lot longer to die (depending on the DPS alone, of course). More often than not, if you're doing dungeons, you have 1-2 DPS who are there for gear ie. not optimal, so having 1.5 DPS and a no-DPS healer with a triple pack means MP will be burned, downtime adds up and it's quite possible a wipe may happen unless you're some sort of immortal god (and even then, that is slow).


In short, I intend to figure out the group by the time the 1st/2nd group is dead. When I log in as Healer, too many times has a tank darted off for a double pull, sometimes even without waiting for Protection. All this tells me is that they are confident -- which doesn't actually provide any meaningful information in terms of whether we'll get through the day without wasting time running back after an embarrassing wipe.

It doesn't matter WHAT role you play - get to know your team capabilities. It takes one pull (usually) and will lead to smooth sailing. If you're a DPS pulling for the tank, or a tank grabbing triple packs without knowing your Healer, or a Healer who can't find their DPS buttons during downtime, or the healing button during 'oh shit' time, then these things are better learned before you get to the 20minute mark and your fifteenth flame-war sentence before someone rages and nothing gets completed.