Tanks are dumb

Response to: Hero Moments: What it means to be a tank

I've had my fair share of "last man standing" as a tank (I mean we're the tank that's kinda our job and what what we're built for!), but none of them compare to the times I've seen the dps and heals use a clever and perfectly executed combination of survival skills to keep the fight going long after the tank (or tanks) have hit the floor and that boss was still up at 5% hp or more.  A mage who knows to kite with Blink then Iceblock passing off threat to the rogue who takes it to the face the whole duration of his Evasion then Vanishing. The lock who wisely hits his Demonic Portal to kite as long as he can before using Soulshatter and bouncing that threat to the hunter who taunts with his pet and feigns death. Perhaps dps warrior/dk/druid had the foresight to stance/presence/bear swap and takes over aggro and soaks the rest as long as they can while the healers are busting out every last sliver of that blue bar to keep alive anyone they can until that boss finally joins the tanks dead on the floor. That's pretty awesome! Ya, tanks being the last ones alive in an encounter is slightly less impressive to the things I've seen dps and healers pull off tier after tier. I'm thinking back to our rogue evasion tanking LK in 25s for his last 5mill hp after our tank died in the throne room. That was before transition when LK "wipes" the raid.

Tanks should be careful not to break their arms patting themselves on the back. The role has been largely automated. Here's your threat, it's just a given. Here's your CD's, some are longer than others, but often you don't even have to use em all. Most of the work of being a tank is done before you even enter a raid by setting up your gear properly. The rest is just swap when you get this debuff, swap back when it's over. Hit this CD when this attack happens, which is conveniently about as often as it takes your CD to come up again. That's about it. My favorite part of being a tank is how mind-numbingly simple it is and the satchels you get from randoms. Seriously, the only roll I can perform while paying more attention to the TV than the game. I mean I can half ass it on my dps but I don't like being shown up on the meters so I pay attention. You don't really have any competition as a tank. It's mostly pass/fail. Either you died or the boss died, everything else is kinda irrelevant. And that suits me just fine. This fear of being a tank is highly unfounded at this point of the game. You want an easy role, quick gear and all that glory? Roll a tank (especially a blood dk)! You won't regret it, but you'll probably get bored very quickly if you don't have a TV in the same room as your computer.