Tank to PuG:
| What the tank says | What the tank means | What the PuG hears |
| Let me pull, please. :)* | Pull before I’m ready again and I’m going to start getting really cheap with my taunts. | gogogogogogogogogogogogo |
| Kill order is Skull – Cross – Square | I would like you to kill the skull first, then the cross, then the square. | If you can AoE – DOITDOITDOITNOW!!!1!!1!11
If you can’t AoE, kill the unmarked one, then the square, then the cross, then the skull. |
| CC the moon.** | CC the moon. | MULTISHOT! DEATH AND DECAY! HOOOOLLLLYYYY NNNNOOOVVVVAAAA!!!11!!! |
| Make sure to attack the web/frost tomb/snake wrap to free other party members. | Why am I even talking? I know none of you are even going to notice the web/frost tomb/snake wrap. God I hope the healer doesn’t get it. | Scream like a little girl if you get webbed/frozen/wrapped, but do not respond to the screams if it’s not you.
Especially don’t help the healer. They can heal through it. If the tank gets webbed/frozen/wrapped, DPS harder because she’s not doing any threat right now so you have to make up for it. |
| Attack my target. | ATTACK MY FUCKING TARGET YOU MENTALLY DEFICIENT RECOUNT MONKEY! I’M NOT EVEN ON THAT ONE! IT’S NOT EVEN IN RANGE!
ARRRRRRRRRGGGGHHH! | AoEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
If you can’t AoE, attack anything except the one I’m on. This will help me a lot because stuff will die faster and your DPS will be so awesome because you have a mob all to yourself and I would love you so much. |
| Oh no, my screen! It has frozen! | Fuck this and fuck you.
ALT+F4 | lolololololol im not imba enuf 2 play w/u guys |
| Thanks for the group. | DIAF. | OMG U R SO 1337 I LUV U SO MUCH I WISH I WUZ AS UBR AS U R! |
* Don’t be fooled by the smiley face. It’s a lie. If they have to tell you this, they’re not smiling. Tanks don’t smile.
**This is an archaic reference to a mechanic that has become unfortunately irrelevant to this game. Most PuGs these days won’t even know the acronym and I am not being the least bit sarcastic.
PuG to Tank
| What the PuG says | What the PuG means | What the Tank hears |
| gogogogogogogo | I am ready when you are. Actually I’m ready before you are. Actually, I’m ready now. Pull or I will. | You do not want to party with me. I pull. I can’t understand a kill order or what it’s for. I like to AoE irresponsibly and misdirect on the healer and run into the boss before anyone’s ready then blame the tank when we die.
Bail. Bail now while you still can. |
| Link GS and achievements | My gear score is 32, and I have achieved nothing in game or out. Mostly I am looking for a boost from higher geared, more experienced people.
In exchange, I will make the next thirty minutes of your life a living Hell. | I’m going to bend you over and do unpleasant things to you for the next thirty minutes, while I ride you to free badges and epics. |
| lololololololololololol oops | I pulled the pat and the group behind it and the one on the side, and I am intelligent enough to realize that maybe I shouldn’t have, it’s just we all look so funny, lying here on the floor lifeless. What’s your repair bill at now, tank? 30g? 40?
LoL, hilarious. | I want you to kill me. I really do. Why else would I be this annoying? Please, put me out of everyone’s misery.
You could do it. Just snap my neck. No one needs to know. |
| WTF? Only 40K HP? Noob, lrn to play! | My big brother’s totally a raider. He did that yogurt-siren guy. I know all about raiding and tanking too. I totally do. You should listen to me. I’m smart and OP and awesome. | I don’t know how to count and have no idea what I’m talking about. |
| Just heal through it. | I don’t want to press any buttons that aren’t listed as part of my rotation on this website I read that tells me how to make the numbers on recount go up. That includes paltry things like cleanse, and sheep, and W, A, S, or D.
Those are the duties of a healing bitch. Do I look like a healing bitch? No. I am DPS, and I don’t give a damn about your “dispelling” and “cc” and “not standing in fire”. | I am a douche. Vote kick me. |
| Can I need for off-spec? | I have already clicked need. | Hope you’re a high roller, mother fucker. |
| Dibs on [EPIC X] off the second boss. | I am in here for one thing and one thing only. | I am ditching after the second boss whether he drops my shit or not. |
Aggro Management 
17 comments
Comments feed for this article
January 7, 2010 at 8:40 am
Sophie (Elsen-Terenas-EU)
I lolled all the way through this.
Absolutely fantastic!
January 7, 2010 at 11:42 am
protflashes
Glad you enjoyed it!^^
January 7, 2010 at 11:16 am
crankyhealer
“Just heal through it.” Shudder. When they die, tell them to “walk it off.”
January 7, 2010 at 11:44 am
protflashes
ROFL! That’s a brilliant response. ^^ I will have to take your advice on that!
January 7, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Linedan
Beautiful. You win the Internets.
January 7, 2010 at 8:59 pm
protflashes
I’m honoured! LoL ^^
January 8, 2010 at 9:04 am
Chastity
The death of CC really confuses me. It particularly saddens me in the new ICC heroics. People get really confused at the large trash packs that do lots of damage and are all like “oh no, if only there was some way of making these fights easier, possibly some way to reduce the size of these trash packs”
January 8, 2010 at 5:51 pm
protflashes
I think the really sad thing is the thought of CCing in the 5-mans there never occured to me, and I’m someone who used to want someone to CC SOMETHING on every pull (back in BC when I first started tanking for actual groups that didn’t consist of people I knew well). It just honestly has not been part of this game for even a moment from the get-go and it’s completely fallen off the radar.
I think Blizzard knows it, too, and I’ve seen a blue post or two where they express some degree of regret over it. It wasn’t something planned, I think, just something that happens. They say it’ll matter again in Cataclysm, and I sincerely hope that’s true.
My fear is that people have gotten too used to AOEing indiscriminately, though, and won’t want to go back to the days when they had to actually think about a pull before and as it was happening, then position the mobs and your damage carefully. We barely have to follow a kill order these days and if you’re geared enough you can get all the way through an instance without one (never mind the extra strain on the tank/healer without it).
It feels kinda like we’re instancing without consequences right now, and I deeply hope that Cataclysm just destroys those players who haven’t bothered to learn the finer skills (or, you know, any at all) that used to matter and hopefully will again.
January 8, 2010 at 9:38 am
Shayzani
I almost died reading this I laughed so hard.
Tanks don’t smile and pretty much all the “what the tank hears” bits are solid gold.
January 8, 2010 at 5:52 pm
protflashes
Thanks for the comment! I’m glad you enjoyed it! ^^
And I am completely honest about the smiling thing. I can’t remember the last time I smiled while tanking an instance, LoL. It tends to be a stress-fest these days!
January 11, 2010 at 12:09 am
Auden
This is brilliant, really.
I get to smile when I’m tanking because I only tank for my friends. I never smile when I’m healing, even with my friends. I have been a much happier person since I started leveling my mage and quit trying to heal PuGs.
I wish I got to sheep things more often. I started playing after WotLK so I haven’t seen much CC happening.
January 18, 2010 at 9:18 pm
protflashes
LoL…yeah, I felt briefly bad when I wrote that, since I smile if I’m with some of my friends in particular. But it’s rare when the group is comprised only of them. Usually we have to grab at least one or two PuGs, and that’s where the fireworks start. ^^
And you’ll be able to sheep soon (I hope)! Cataclysm is supposed to bring CC back – I shall cling to that until release day and hope it’s true!
January 19, 2010 at 1:46 pm
nitro
Wow :D
I pugged H HOR the other day and pug was: priest(holy), rogue, hunter, shammy(enh). I said: Rogue cc hunter(mob), hunter cc mage(mob), everybody on priest first.
Shouldn’t have been simpler. Well, here is how it went:
Healer shackled hunter who was killing him bad, rogue kept backstabbing the shackled hunter(mob), breaking cc, and the shammy(enh) was throwing chainheals around to help.
Took us 3 wipes for the rogue to ask what “CC” was… :(
Now, the hunter was ice trapping the mage, the shammy even though dps was helping on heals, and the heals was actually participating in CC!
But I still have a very bad impression about that pug… I mean… shouldn’t H HOR be easiest of all with a Master CC class like a lolrogue??? I mean… CC???
Danthu of Dawnbringer
January 22, 2010 at 5:51 pm
protflashes
“Took us 3 wipes for the rogue to ask what “CC” was”
ROFL! That is simultaneously the saddest and funniest thing I’ve heard all day. ^^ I can’t blame him for not knowing, though. If he’s relatively new to the game, or even just to instancing, it’s entirely conceivable for him to not know.
I hate hHoR so much. :(
February 23, 2010 at 1:00 am
tobeume
This is so awesome! I need to macro this URL to /p for my pugs to read from now on. As a Disc Priest and a Bear Tank, I feel your pain!
PS -> Random people who touch my shackled riflemen in HoR are vote kicked if they do it again after being politely told not to. That little fence is not for decoration. ><
February 24, 2010 at 6:20 pm
protflashes
ROFL! I would be livid if we took the time to CC in there and they broke it. I would happily vote right along with you!
February 23, 2010 at 11:43 am
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