Prior to the whole new pug system, I did a lot of pugs before. Its all part of gearing my small army of alts. Granted groups form faster, but assholes are all the same no matter what server you are on. But recently I have been encountering a sort of new trend where tanks want to chain pull everything. Depending on the gear and skill of the tank its not a bad thing. I have often done this with Bushidox, a tank that I have deemed a one of the best bear tanks on my server. Maybe its not true, but for the most part I don’t have to worry about pulling agro off him unless I do something really stupid. Not to mention Meriones, possible my weakest healing alt (I would rather be a moonkin and I really have not worked on a restore set), can keep Bushidox alive in most instances. There are other tanks that come to mind that are just as good, though most of them I know have been around since the beginning of wow. All of which are pretty good at keeping an eye on the mana users in their team.

Gear wise Rasbora is the best geared and as of today got the first piece of t10 of all my alts, Larus not far behind, soon I will be able to use triumph emblems towards ret. Sadly I used my frost emblems to replace my level 75 blue alchemy trinket. Asides for the lost of haste I am sure it will be as much or mana then I would get extra from the mana pots bonus of the trinket. Its my hope when the patch for Ruby Sanctum comes out I will be able to get triumph badges in heroics I hope either get a better shield from drops or they will have a better shield by trinkets. But hopefully not before I get 2 pieces of t9 ret set. I tend to think the patch will be released in July.

Today one of these chain pulling tanks was in Larus’s random pugs. The heroic: The Nexus. Which is great I want to finish off my healing gear to start working on a ret set. Before you think I am whining the tanks is a warrior that has 27 k health, and what gear I had a time to get a glimpse of what is a level 70 badge shield or the rep shield, which I was sure, looked familiar. When we finale killed the last boss he disappeared before I could look at the rest of the gear. I got distracted as a tanking friend of mine was offering to queue friends for faster groups, and I jumped onto Vulpes. I meant to get a look at his profile but forgot to write his name down. Sure tanks can do heroics at that level, but usually not chain pulling. Granted I was able to keep him alive through most of it. However on the elemental boss mana boss I got distracted and he was killed in seconds, luckily a melee dps death knight took over tanking (and actually took a lot less damage). The whole way I was using endless mana pots and using divine plea to keep my mana reserves at maximum. But there were no breaks in these endless chain pulls except to rez his stupid ass.

Then there was Friday on Rasbora, a bear tank. He thought it was a good idea to chain pull all the way through Halls of Lighting. He did not bother to check with me to see if I could heal through 3 different groups of mobs, not to mention the first boss that has a wonderful aoe attack. He could not possible have known that the dps could keep up with all his pulls. Right as soon as we loaded into the instance he headed straight towards the mobs. Yes, I kept everyone alive. Mana did not become a big issue until the room after the 3^rd boss. I made it clear I needed an innervate, however it did not come from the bear tank, but the moonkin. Considering the moonkin really needed to keep the innervate for himself as his own mana levels were pretty low. The bear tank should have stop for a second to give me his as its not much use to a bear tank. After killing the last boss the tank had the nerve to wait around while I went around looting stuff, never mind he did not stop to loot.

I encounter these tanks all the time on alts lately. The problem is that most of the time it fails. One tank this Friday had the nerve to call Pandion’s group noobs prior to dropping group after one wipe. However the group was in agreement that he was a noob, and he should have advised us he was going to pull a bunch of groups, not to mention been prepared to pull the one group he missed that decided to yank the healer. I tried to pull to misdirect what I could to the tank and even try to get Hobbes to take the rest, ice trapping was out of the question with all the aoe going on. But the tree was soon kindling. Re-queuing we soon had a better geared and skilled tank, that actually asked if we were ready before boss pulls.

I am not an expert on tanks, but I know what makes me uncomfortable as a healer: Tanks with less then 35k health pre toc, usually 40 k or less for any tank toc and beyond. Though the health points are not always an indicator of skill, I have seen tanks in a hand full of epics out perform tanks that are full epics.