So, I was chatting with a friend after my raid tonight, and he got to his usual ranting of ‘DPS are all idiots, when I raid I assume 90% of the DPS are going to be incompetent, tanking is so much more difficult and important, yadayadayada’.

Bullshit.  Let’s dispell some dumb-ass myths here, shall we?

1.  DPS do not need to know what is going on in the fight, tanks do.

Since when does a tank need to be more aware of everything that is happening around them than a DPS?  What, my magical ‘Oh look, I’m a ranged DPS!’ bubble means I won’t die in the fire?  Or I won’t die when one of the tanks goes down, because, ’Oh, I’m just a DPS’.  Everyone in the raid should be aware of what is happening around them, regardless of what they do.  Whether I am tanking or DPSing, I have a fairly good awareness of what is going on.  The only time I am more aware of what is happening to other players is when I am healing, because, hey… that’s my job.

2.  Tanking is harder than DPSing.

So you have a much more complex job as a tank?  Let’s see….

All looks very similar to me.  Sure, you are all looking at a different side of the boss.  And you have a slightly different view of the whole ‘aggro’ issue.  But, at the end of the day, tanking isn’t automatically more complex just through the virtue of being a different role.

3.  DPS just aren’t as important as tanks.

Yuh huh.  Tell that to the enrage timer.  Or to the boss who has to ‘have that shield nuked down NOW!’ (hai there, Valkyr Twins!).  Or to your healers when they go OOM because the fight is just taking so damn long (although, according to my friend, if you use mana you must be a ‘bad’ healer…).

It’s people like this that really piss me off.  It’s even more annoying when they are friends.  Seriously…

Oh, and your “Clearly DPS aren’t as important because if you lose one, it’s not an instant wipe?” argument?

Stick it where the sun don’t shine, buddy.

So, I was mucking around a little on Hermia the other day (as I do) when I got asked whether I wanted to come help a friend’s guild out in a Gruul’s Lair run. Specifically, I was asked “How good is Hermia’s gear” to which I replied “somewhat craptastic”. Personally, I don’t even feel comfortable with the idea of taking Hermia into Kara, let alone Gruul’s! However, after much stat discussion and checking, the guild deemed that I was good enough to tank a HKM add, and off I went!

The first order of the day was to suss out if there were any enchanters in the raid and get my chest enchanted so that I had hit the ‘uncrittable’ defense mark, otherwise things could have gotten very nasty. While I got that done, I also grabbed a couple other enchants since I was at the AH (-300g now from the epic mount fund!). I got summoned back there, and ran in the door…

… and then realised that I forgot one of my trinkets. Doh! So, back to the dreaded Shattrath went I (via my inconvenient hearth at SMV), and once again crashed my computer. What a bother. Since my whole computer decided to die as well, I couldn’t even say anything on Vent. Luckily for me, by the time everything loaded waaaay back up, they were still waiting for me. So nice. I am guessing Alorah mentioned that my computer is super poo. I grabbed my trinket, got summoned back, and was all ready to go.

Happily, I didn’t die on any of the trash pulls (Sar nearly always does! She is such a noob). I changed into my SuperSpunkyBearSet, and was asked to tank Kiggler the Crazed. Since this was my first time at tanking something which was serious, I was kinda scared. OK, more than kinda scared! I was very close to getting bear mess all over the floor. I know Gruul isn’t the cleanest guy around, but I still didn’t think he would appreciate it. I was given the sage advice of ‘back to the wall, begin with a moonfire, have fun!’, and off I went.

All seemed to go well for starters. Heals hit me regularly, and I held on to Kiggler for dear life. Then, the DPS started, and things went a little awry. I lost him! I still don’t know how he got away from me, but he did, and went running like mad towards Krosh Firehand. I chased him frantically, spamming Lacerate, and with a good Growl I eventually got him back to me. But boy oh boy was it messy. Then, since I was trying to pull him back to where we started, I got knocked back a few times. Not good, my friends, not good at all. Somehow though, we got him down, I whacked on my cat weapon, and went to work on HKM himself. We got him down first go, so that was pretty good in my book. And I got myself a shiny new kitty helm! Hermia’s first ever epic! Thanks guys.

I had to go to my scheduled raid then on Sar, so I bid my sad farewells and logged off, thinking ‘sure, I didn’t exactly nail that… but I didn’t really fail too badly either’.

So, when we did our fast Sunday runs into Gruul’s and Mag’s, I decided to ask if I could bring Hermia to Mag’s. I figured, hey, I really wouldn’t be tanking all that much, and we didn’t especially need the DPS. Since I was given the big OK, all was well and in I went. I was designated a channeler to tank, and once again, I was sooo scared! The first time, I stood behind my channeler and waited for the go ahead. Imagine my surprise when he took off towards the MT! Eeeeek! I frantically chased him and pulled him back, but boy oh boy did I feel stupid. So, the second time around, I decided to stand in front of him and intercept his path. Up top for thinking, right? Well, once again, I failed. Bah. So off I went, chasing again like an idiot, feeling twice as stupid as I did the first time. We wiped again, affording me a third chance to finally get it right.

Suddenly, I thought. Moonfire! Duh! So I grabbed him this time around with a moonfire pull, not letting him get away from me. Huzzah! I finally succeeded! My competence must have passed on to the rest of the raid, because we downed him, despite a frantic moment where the MT got swatted at 3%. Then everyone got hit by his AoE, since the clickers must have freaked and didn’t click. At 1% there were only a handful of people remaining, and they magically got him down. Phew!

Unfortunately, I didn’t get the perfect end to the night, rolling a ’2′ on my chest piece. Rats.

I guess though that I learned alot over those two runs, and that is the main thing. Moonfire is my friend! So is the mod Itemrack (after a nasty part where I didn’t expect to be tanking anymore, changed into my kitty set, and then was asked to tank an add and didn’t have time to change before the pull). I figure the learning is worth 20 loots!