Usually, I am the 'perfectionist tank' in a run. I want things to go perfectly: I want to never lose aggro, I want the DPS to all attack the proper target, I want the healer to, well, okay, I mostly just want the healer to heal us, I'm not looking for anything fancy there. As long as a healer seems to be casting healing spells I'm willing to cut her or him a lot of slack, especially in dungeons like Halls of Reflection where people often die through not moving out of giant, inky pools of blackness on the floor that they stand in as if they were instead duck ponds full of adorable baby ducklings. There are no ducklings in the fetid wells of corruption, guys.

Last night, however, I had a sort of small revelation. First and foremost, I was stressing myself way the heck out over a pick up group with four folks I was likely never to see again. Secondly, the faster you go in a PuG, the less likely perfection is to be attainable, and if four people want speed and one guy wants flawless, you'll get very fast flaws. So that meant I've come up with an entirely new tanking philosophy for the new five mans, and an entirely new way to gear for them. I'd talk about both.

Parte the Firste: Talketh to People...th.

Okay, so the fake old time speech thing? It doesn't work. We won't do that anymore. But frankly, instances are not meant to be dour, grim, silent stormtrooper marches of annihilation. They're supposed to be fun, wacky, bad joke telling stormtrooper marches of annihilation! It's fine to pull fast, especially if the group significantly outgears the place (we'll be talking more about this below) but I've found that in many cases simply typing the occasional line in /p between pulls can actually get four random strangers to talk back to you!

Admittedly, I sounded a bit like a comedian trying to warm up a room before a TV show (I think I said "I like you guys but man you don't talk much") but if you're willing to risk getting aggro from Wink Martindale (see, there's one of those bad jokes now) it can liven the place up significantly. Last night's Halls of Stone run (ugh, not Halls of Stone again) was made significantly easier for me once the group started chattering back and forth at each other between trash pulls because (here's the functional dirty little secret of why this is good for us tanks) it keeps them from running ahead of you.

That's right, there's a reason ol' Matt is telling you to get the group chattering. Chattering = typing. Typing = busy for a couple of seconds, which means they're not running ahead, aggroing packs and then running back to die and get the healer killed because the healer tried to save them and now has mad healer aggro so there's like thirty little stone guys hitting him or her in the face. A group that is talking can still do these kinds of things, it's true, but it's an additional impediment to it, and once you get the ball rolling you often don't have to do more than type the occasional "Wow, that's true" or "lol" and they'll keep it up.

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