So I got frustrated waiting to find tanks to run 5-mans, on my server it was impossible for a DPS to get in a group. So I decided to reroll a new druid so I could tank and heal if needed to make the LFG process go faster. So my first few runs as a tank went well. Last night I was tanking WC for a group that was not very good. One of the Dps would walk around and pull mops and at one point they hit the fear which caused a wipe. On the next pull the healer left the group( not sure if they DC'ed but they never came back). So I had a big repair bill and incomplete quests right in the middle of the run. My question is "since my server seems low on tanks, should I require a deposit or charge for tanking?" I really don't like the fact that I made several runs from the grave and had a big repair bill because of inconsiderate players. Unfortunately, I don't think I will have time to be in a guild to get consistent players. What do you think? Am I being an A-HOLE?

Charging for something you were planning to do anyway is a judgement call on your part, but charging for tanking in general isn't unheard of. Skarm (tank streamer) recommends it, or at level 60 saying you'll tank, but reserve the first righteous orb drop from Stratholme, or something to that effect.

If I die several times not of my own mistake I ask for a donation voluntarily at the end of the dungeon as opposed to a charge - you’ll find most people are quite reasonable about this.

In all of my time playing Vanilla, Private Servers and Classic I have never ran a dungeon where a member of the party charged us as a requirement for tanking or healing.

Granted, this doesn't mean that you can't. You're entitled to how you spend your time in-game, and you should certainly state your requirements up front. However, I should warn you that I strongly suspect a whopping majority of players will kindly inform you to fuck right off.

teebling wrote: ↑

5 years ago

If I die several times not of my own mistake I ask for a donation voluntarily at the end of the dungeon as opposed to a charge - you’ll find most people are quite reasonable about this.

@teebling, yes this sounds most reasonable. I would be hard pressed to inform the requester to fuck right off in this case.

You should only charge to tank dungeons that you don't need anything from. No one wants to pay to lose gear to you or watch you pick serpentbloom for your quest. It'a borderline a carry service. A healer who's chipping in to pay for a tank reasonably expects not to have to put on his tryhard pants. You need to be in a position where you can essentially say "I have no earthly reason to be here but I do need gold, and you guys need a tank" in order to avoid being an A-Hole, as you say.

vadermader wrote: ↑

5 years ago

One of the Dps would walk around and pull mops and at one point they hit the fear which caused a wipe. On the next pull the healer left the group...

Welcome to tanking....

rijndael wrote: ↑

5 years ago

I have never ran a dungeon where a member of the party charged us as a requirement for tanking or healing.

Seriously? I saw tanks charging ALL the time! How did you not see this on private servers?

but IMO, it is fairly common for a tank to charge to tank a dungeon, or to reserve a drop / loot in exchange for tanking.

I would only charge if I was offering a service. If it's a dungeon I plan to run there is no need.

I honestly thought this was a subject about opening up with "charge" if your tanking... Lol

beached wrote: ↑

5 years ago

rijndael wrote: ↑

5 years ago

I have never ran a dungeon where a member of the party charged us as a requirement for tanking or healing.

Seriously? I saw tanks charging ALL the time! How did you not see this on private servers?

but IMO, it is fairly common for a tank to charge to tank a dungeon, or to reserve a drop / loot in exchange for tanking.

I don't know man - I can easily believe that I had a blind spot there, but it just wasn't happening to me! Could also be that I relied heavily on guildies and RL friends when it came to running dungeons.

BoochieSmash wrote: ↑

5 years ago

You need to be in a position where you can essentially say "I have no earthly reason to be here but I do need gold, and you guys need a tank"

This has always been my stance on it. I never charged for tanking (or healing) unless the content was absolutely irrelevant to me and I over-geared it, because then I feel I'm providing a service, which makes it somewhat 'professional' and I will not be wasting people's times by being undergeared, unpotted, unrepaired, no food, bad talents, taking quest items and so on.

The things that happened to you are just the sticks and stones of tanking. Rage-quits, dc's, ninja-pulls, ignorance about using fears and cc has always been part of it. Everyone is chipping in (or trying to), and I think that just because the tank role is a minority doesn't entitle me (as a tank) to start requesting fees for something I'm going to be doing anyway at that level.

The only time in vanilla I've seen plate repair costs being covered by others rather than the tank was guilds covering those costs in raids. Maybe Teebs 'donation' idea works, I've never tried or seen it. But yea, tanking is a hard life.

Thanks for the feedback guys! I am having a great time with classic. I think I will just accept the roll for what it is! Take the good groups with the bad groups.;)

Zanthir wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Charging for something you were planning to do anyway is a judgement call on your part, but charging for tanking in general isn't unheard of. Skarm (tank streamer) recommends it, or at level 60 saying you'll tank, but reserve the first righteous orb drop from Stratholme, or something to that effect.

This is exactly what I did during several SM Cathedral runs, calling dibs on Mograine's shield. It was probably a bit unnecessary given that non-tanks don't usually roll on tanking shields anyway.

vadermader wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Take the good groups with the bad groups.;)

As a tank, heck as a player, I literally fill my friends list with competent people as I run dungeons and put in a note "Good Tank, Good Healer, Good DPS". I ALWAYS pm these guys first when I need to run a group. Usually I will only 'pug' out one or 2 spots in the 5 man, as the guild and the friends list makes up 3-4 of the spots if not all 5.

I have insulated myself from a lot of the horribleness of tanking as a result. Being in a guild that is mostly made up of current mythic retail radiers, or people returning who have done progressive raiding in vanilla, bc, and wotlk, I don't have a lot of the problems that are SOOOO common with dungeon pugs. the dps doesnt do the initial pull. I dont even have to speak, ill just chuck a moon up and people know what to do. AOE doesnt take place when it is innapropriet, healers announce oom and off heals come in, or people stun mobs so I can shift out of bear pop regrowth and shift back in, Skull and X are followed EXCLUSIVELY, and locks and priests know not to dot off mobs until after they see fearie fire on the mobs. get into a guild like this, put these types of peeps on your list, and your dungeons will be smooth as butter. You can even run back to back dungeons in less time than it takes to run a single pug.

Kall wrote: ↑

5 years ago

This has always been my stance on it. I never charged for tanking (or healing) unless the content was absolutely irrelevant to me and I over-geared it, because then I feel I'm providing a service, which makes it somewhat 'professional' and I will not be wasting people's times by being undergeared, unpotted, unrepaired, no food, bad talents, taking quest items and so on.

BoochieSmash wrote: ↑

5 years ago

You need to be in a position where you can essentially say "I have no earthly reason to be here but I do need gold, and you guys need a tank" in order to avoid being an A-Hole, as you say.

Yes, I must soften my original position - I agree with both the points above. There are circumstances in which I can see myself paying a tank for this kind of service, but I don't think the demand is going to be very high for OP to expect that he can regularly charge for tanking.

I understand your frustration. Tanking 5 mans so far for me has been mostly good, with a sprinkle of anger on top. Some of the players I've come across are still trying to rush at a BFA pace. I can tell when they don't understand how threat works in Classic and open up on two mobs with an AoE ability the moment I've charged in. Then I'm chasing after X, blowing taunt, trying to get rage, and the whole thing just feels messy. I have come across some great players though. Mages who resheep on the money, classes that know to use their de-threat abilities before they pull threat, etc.

As for charging, I agree with what's been said. I won't charge as I'm leveling, unless I'm re-running a much low level per request. I've already started getting whispers asking for me to help run lower level dungeons. I'll probably do this at 60 a fair amount to make gold on the side.

I usually tank everything so I don't run into this. But if I saw any player trying to charge gold to join an instance I'd laugh him out of the group. And if that meant I couldn't run that dungeon that night then so be it. I'm not paying other people to play with me, I don't care what kind of value they bring. If this means I gotta play with subpar players than that's just how it's gonna go.

But do what you want. If you can get people to pay you to play then I respect your hustle. But I'm not paying you or others running your hustle out of principle. I'd rather go level fishing or something if that's how its gonna be.

I mean if you want to charge, you're free to. But I'm never grouping with a tank that's charging. Just my preference.

rijndael wrote: ↑

5 years ago

You're entitled to how you spend your time in-game, and you should certainly state your requirements up front.

I completely agree that you need to make your intentions clear up front. Having said that, saying that you will charge DPS/Healers repair bills for deaths will probably reduce your invites to lower than what they were as a DPS looking for a group. Your experience wasn't the average experience, and has probably left you jaded. Typically you will run dungeons without deaths, or maybe 1 or 2 at worst. You will regularly clear dungeons with no wipes and collect plenty of loot to vendor to more than cover any repair bills.

End game you can certainly be a little more... entitled. Like others have said you can reserve items/consumables to cover your supply/demand costs and your time/repair bills.

If you are charging for a dungeon, then you should be selling a service. Similar to mages selling portals / food, or selling profession cooldowns.

This means that you are professional, well geared, and know what you are doing. This also implies that you don't really get anything out of that dungeon, so you are purely doing it for the rest of the group.

Mid-level zone issue
I can't see people paying for a tank below level 45-50 zones. They are just easy to do with ANY warrior (heck even a 2H one), plus many are most likely broke from buying their first mount.

RFD+ things get a bit trickier. If the tank selling a service has no use of the drops from the dungeon, then we assume they are overgeared/overleveled for that place. Let us assume a level 50 well-geared tank is selling Maraudon full clear, for 2g per person. Assuming that all 4 players are willing to buy the service, that is 8g earned (+drops). Now a full Maraudon clear is probably gonna take you 1 hour. Is doing something that has little value to your character for 8g+drops worth it? I mean, I much rather be questing as Arms when I can earn more XP + probably better gold.

Obviously you'll still get many people around those levels giving you the middle finger for asking 2g for "doing your job", so there's that as well.

Endgame dungeons
By endgame I mean BRD/Strat/Scholo/U&LBRS. So we are still assuming you need no gear from these places.
How much are you charging at this rate, and is it worth your time? Lets say 10g per run. That's 40g. Is it REALLY worth your time to charge 40g for a dungeon at max level..? This is still assuming people will pay you 10g for a run.

As written by others as well, I think it's more common to reserve an item. First orb drop for strat-live, for instance. Or doing groups by "reserving" an item (not for yourself), only to sell it to someone else. Again I think it feels somewhat icky.

I think at the end, the demand is going to create a market for this. Not the supply.
If people are going to say "LF TANK X DUNGEON PAYING 10G PER PERSON!", you can bet that there will be a supply.
If tanks just start saying "OFFERING TANKING X DUNGEON 10G PER PERSON" they will get ridiculed on trade/world chat, so I can see some people not wanting that associated with their characters.

This depends on the market. If a tank can charge for the run and fills his group - its fair to charge. If its not fair, people wouldnt join. The same logic can be applied to any reserves or anything else. So long as the tank is clear about his intentions before the run, and people join the group and accept those terms - the terms are fair. If people disagree, they wont join and therefore the run wont take place.

Everyone's entitled to do anything they want in the game, doesn't mean I won't voice my opinion about it.

Personally as a Tank, both warrior and paladin I feel its my duty to serve my guild for 5-mans, as well as friends and my server.

Tanks who demand payment upfront I just find greedy as hell. I personally don't feel or see where this entitlement comes from unless you're litterally being forced to respec. I've never supported or interacted with these kind of people.

Now there is usually group ettique when it comes to your tanks. Their repair bills are usually pretty high. Sometimes doubleing if not trippling your average clothie dps. If the run goes south it's usually fair to tip the tank or allow the tank to snag a piece of vendor loot that can cover the repair bill and maybe a little more.

I also donate light-consumes to people who are tanking for me.

I also believe in giving the tank the first orb in Strat live is also a fair deal and fair incentive for tanks to come help out in that particular instance.

Tanks are not having a hard time making money, its extremely easy. Specailly as most warriors are geared to the teeth and can solo farm majority of their consumes with ease. So if a warrior selling their body uses "this is the only way i can make gold" then they're covering up the fact that they're lazy.

Also if you're going to be charging a premium at all. Actually be geared aswell as be good at tanking. I knew a lot of tanks on private servers that tried to cash grab this way but cant properly tank at the very least.


TDLR: If you sit in ironforge all day spamming "pay me to play the game" you're a lazy bastard.


Also if you're on deviate delight and you find yourself stuck on the possibility of having to pay for a Tank, check to see if I am on. "Casp" i'll tank any 50-60 dungeon for free if i'm not currently busy or tanking already.

Join my runs in EU Skullflame Alliance, all runs for free and you will enjoy them too ;).

killerduki wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Join my runs in EU Skullflame Alliance, all runs for free and you will enjoy them too ;).

He is not looking for a tank, he is the tank charging the money.

Really? Are you going to pay the healer that keeps you alive to tank? How about the DPS' that are damaging the heck out of the mob while you stand there and try to hold aggro? Here's some advice go run the dungeon alone with your big badder than everyone else tank and see how long you make it without others to help. Bad players are bad players, it happens so just get over it. Maybe you aren't that great either if you have problems holding aggro. Ever think about that?

Zacheous wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Really? Are you going to pay the healer that keeps you alive to tank? How about the DPS' that are damaging the heck out of the mob while you stand there and try to hold aggro? Here's some advice go run the dungeon alone with your big badder than everyone else tank and see how long you make it without others to help. Bad players are bad players, it happens so just get over it. Maybe you aren't that great either if you have problems holding aggro. Ever think about that?

I love how incredulous some people get about this concept. If mages can charge for portals, then why can't warriors charge for tanking? They are providing you a service. Blizzard has been paying people to tank random dungeons for like 4 expansions now using the group finder's "vital role" reward system or whatever tf it's called. This may shock you, but a lot of warriors would rather dps than tank. They are giving up some fun to make the dungeon work. I will personally never pay for a tank, but that's my choice. It's the same concept as reserving gear in dungeons. Some people get all bent out of shape over it, but it's a logical way of forming a group. You end up with a group of people that self selected because they don't care about whatever gear you are reserving. They get to run the dungeon, and you get no competition for your loot.

Will charging for tanking probably make it a lot harder for you to find a group? Absolutely. I would laugh my way right on to the next group if anyone tried to charge for a run. But is it morally wrong to charge for providing tanking services? Absolutely not. And Zach, the reason no one is ever going to pay a healer and especially not dps is because you are not providing a service, as there is an effectively infinite supply of dps, because the majority of players find that role more fun. I would be absolutely shocked if you ever found anyone willing to pay for dps. I would not be surprised to see people paying for a tank, because there is and always has been a shortage of tanks. That's the World of Warcraft we play.

Edit: Ya know what? You've inspired me to do a little social experimentation now. I'm going to level my warrior alt enough for Deadmines and WC and see how difficult it is to find a group if I charge for tanking.

JollyResolve6 wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Telvaine wrote: ↑

5 years ago

If mages can charge for portals, then why can't warriors charge for tanking? They are providing you a service.

That isn't really equivalent.
A mage gets 0 benefit from opening a portal for you unless you pay them.
Tanks may be more in demand than the other roles, but they need to run dungeons just as much as everyone else does.

Telvaine wrote: ↑

5 years ago

no one is ever going to pay a healer and especially not dps is because you are not providing a service

There is no logical difference between the "service" a DPS or healer provides and the "service" and tank provides.
The fact that fewer people are willing to tank than DPS or heal doesn't make what they do a service.

There is equivalence there. It's not exactly the same, but at the end of the day, people need portals, and people need tanks. That's what matters, supply and demand. Mages have the only supply of portals. Classes that can tank have the only supply of tanking ability. Again, I'm not going to pay for a tank, but if people can get away with charging to tank then why shouldn't they?

There is a logical difference between the service a dps or healer provide and the service a tank provides. Again, it's supply and demand. There is no demand for dps, because the supply is effectively infinite. No demand = no value. Healers are much more in demand than dps, and if a healer wanted to charge I don't see why they shouldn't, except that the supply to demand ratio for healers is much less drastic than for tanks, so I find it much less likely that players would be willing to pay for a healer.