Mentalities

I tanked Kara for the second or third time last night.  We did well, we got pretty much everything down that we wanted to apart from Nightbane.

I found myself getting very frustrated when we couldn't do it.  I'd pick him up, get threat on as fast as I could, and he'd still turn around and one-shot a DPSer or healer or I'd take a few huge hits and die.  Now... I know it's not all my fault.  I know it's not my fault that people get feared, or that they stand in the charred earth for too long, or that they're out of range or LOS.

But somehow it feels like it.  As a main tank and de facto leader, it feels like I'm the one that keeps failing.  I don't get that so much on my healer, and I REALLY don't get it on my DPS.  It's strange how changing the group role can affect how I feel and how the fights go so much.

It's easy to see why there's often a lack of tanks (and healers), because it's a lot of pressure to get it right.  As a DPS class, you just have to watch your aggro, and that's about it.  Everything else is just you, if you die it's probably because you did something wrong and you typically don't take the whole raid with you (there are exceptions, of course).  As a tank... if you pull wrong, or you stand in the wrong place, or whatever - you can wipe the raid.  As a healer, if you're not quick enough on the heals or you stand in the wrong place - you can also wipe the raid. 

Yet another reason why I encourage people to play all the roles.  If you know the pressure that the tanks/healers are under, even if you decide that you can't do it yourself and stick to pewpewing, you're more likely to understand what's going on and not to point the finger when something goes wrong.