Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But I am equally entitled to disagree. Another WoW blogger recently wrote this comment…
unless the tank is entirely unfamiliar with the instance, or just doesn’t know how to assign CC and pull properly (in which case they’re not a very good tank anyway), there’s no logical reason for anyone other than the tank to be leading. Any decent player should know this, which is why mister I’m-a-DPS-class-but-want-to-be-leader will typically fail in every role they’ve assigned themselves in the first 20 minutes.
Now I’ll agree that the tank should do the pulling, unless you happen to have multiple hunters using a misdirect rotation. However, I object to the idea that a tank should do the marking by default. What makes a tank more able to click a raid icon than anyone else?
Marking targets has nothing to do with tanking. Zero. It has everything to do with understanding the CC capabilities of all of the members of your group, as well as knowing the abilities of the mobs being marked. That knowledge is certainly not exclusive to tanks. A good leader/marker knows how the traps, saps, sheeps, seduces, fears, banishes, shackles, cyclones, mind controls, hibernates, and tanking work, and can make rational and informed decisions about their use. Tanking is just one more form of CC. It doesn’t give any amazing insight into how to set up a pull.
The act of marking targets is simply placing a raid icon over mobs. It doesn’t take a tank to do that. In fact, I think that anyone that assumes a tank is best suited for it just because they are a tank is probably missing out on some innovative and effective pull strategies.
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I used to be a tank (specced arms recently to fit the guild’s need), I’ve been in runs where I had to mark targets and others where someone did it for me.
As far as learning the opulls, I’ve found it way easier when I was the one who did the marking. That way I could know what was teh composition of each pulls. If you know all the pulls and want someone to take over the marking, by all means, go ahead. But if you are new to the place you are visiting. you do teh marking.
Yes this could means bad pulls, and eventual wipes, but in the end, that will make you a better tank / DPS / healer.
I guess it’s everybody’s job to know the pulls. I would just give priority to the tank should in the eventuality nobody knows the place.
When I first started “raiding”, our RL was a rogue who was not only awesome at describing fights but his ability to stealth ahead and mark targets was ideal. Nowadays, I’m usually the one marking and I admit I hated it at first, but it has grown on me. Ultimately I agree though, there’s no rule declaring that the MT can be the only one to mark targets.
I agree that it isn’t rocket science, but I would also have to say that having the tank do it generally makes it easier. Not sure why, but in every run I’ve done it has always just worked slightly better.
Basically marking targets is just issuing instructions. Whether its the tank saying “you sap that guy” or me telling the tank “you tank that guy” makes no difference.
Speculation? I think its a matter of play style matched to personality. Maybe people who play tanks are more take-control type of people. Maybe people who play dps are more sit-back-and-do-as-I’m-told types. Just thinking out loud…