I've decided to place my Warrior, Paladin, and Druid into semi-retirement, and to make my Mage my new main. That's two less tanks on two servers and one less healer. In fact, I've respecced the Warrior and Paladin to Arms/Fury and pure Retribution, because I'll likely only break them out to do quests for cash or some PVP.
What prompted me to do this? The primary reason isn't really any great dissatisfaction with tanking or healing, as I enjoy both those roles, but simply a matter of time. Focusing on one character will allow me to advance further in the game and get great gear all that much faster. And a certain weariness of tanking and healing.
OK, so why the Mage? I could've gone with my Warrior, Paladin, Druid or Hunter as main. The first three are already level 70, and geared for the roles they're most in demand for, and the Hunter is 61 and easy enough to level. In terms of gearing, mages have some nice things going for them with epic tailoring items, and reputation items in the Burning Crusade, and I spend a lot of time soloing at weird hours, so that's a huge benefit. The other reason is that I'm frankly sick of tanking and healing for PUGs, and I tend to do more PUGs than guild runs.
Let's face it, good PUGs are the exception. As a tank, you constantly have to fight your own group for control of the mobs, because your DPS is incapable of focus firing, causing mobs to run amok bouncing between the DPS and the healer trying to keep them alive. DPSers constantly shoot incoming mobs before you can even land a single sunder on them, or stun them before they get to you. And let's not forget jumpy DPSers pulling while you're still marking or setting up a pull, or worse yet, waiting for a pat to clear. It's even better when two of your DPS pull before you're ready, and pull different mobs. Heck, sometimes I'm waiting for the cooldown on my Bloodrage when my hyperactive PUG DPSers pull. Guess what? If that taunt gets resisted, I've got no rage to use anything else to get aggro on the mob. Enjoy your corpse run.
Healing in PUGs is only a slightly better proposition. All of the above problems from DPSers usually culminate in a dead healer due to spreading heals over the whole group and getting excessive healing aggro. Then you have the truly bad tanks who can't tank more than a single mob, as if it's hard to locate the Demoralizing Shout button or Thunderclap. I've lost count of the times I've been slammed by three or more mobs after tossing a single Flash of Light. That's just sad. Sometimes, even under the best of circumstances, you're going to get aggro as a healer. Fortunately, most if not all DPS classes have some form of crowd control or snare they can use to get those mobs off you. But do they? Nope, too busy watching their damage meters.
Anyway, next time you're in a group with three DPSers (and I may be one of them!) looking for that elusive tank and healer, think about how much a little awareness that a dungeon is a group effort can go towards solving the mysterious tanking and healing shortage.
