Some things your PuG tank wants you to know…

1. Just because I have good gear doesn’t mean you can be stupid.
Yes, Askevar has great gear – wonderful gear.  And that does not give you license to do whatever you want rather than filling your role.

2. Don’t attack my offtargets.  If I don’t have things marked, I can understand you pulling aggro on a single mob.  But purposefully selecting my offtarget to attack because you’re leet?  No.  Charging in and performing high threat AoEs before my DnD is down?  No.  [See Number 1]

3. Do NOT initiate pulls!  A lot of people are doing this lately, whether to speed me along or because their main is a tank and they’re used to it.  If I’m waiting – there’s a reason.  It could be I’m waiting on the healer to get mana, or I’m waiting on a CD.  Either way, if you pull, I’ll taunt once, then the next time I’ll let the mobs swarm you and I’ll pick them up after the fact.  This rule doesn’t change because you’re a healer.  I’ll pay the repair bills to make the point [up to a point anyway], even at 10-15g a death.  [see Number 1]

4.  I’m NOT required to take abuse from random pugs.  Yes, it’s my job to put out as much threat as possible and make the mobs hate me the most and I’ll gladly take that abuse.  If you’re being stupid [See 1,2,3 above], and I let you die, and you proceed to cuss at me, do you honestly think I’m going to stay if the group is unwilling to kick you?  You can find another tank who’d prefer to take your abuse while I wait 15 minutes, get into an insta-group and clear the next instance in 10-15 minutes.  I’m seen a number of dps with the attitude “Shut up and tank” or “Shut up and heal” and they seem to believe that I’m required to do as they say.  No.  I’m not.

5. Cussing out and voting to kick my guildies in the same group will not yield kind results either.  I actually had a group I was healing that on the last boss in HoS, did NOT explain the strat for Abuse the Ooze so guildie and I were under the impression you kill adds until the big oozes spawn.  Explaining that was not the case [since YOU insisted on the achieve 5 seconds before intiating the fight] might have been a good idea, rather than voting to kick the over 4k dps dk and in addition losing your healer – on the final boss.