I only play WoW intermittently, so I’m still new to the Dungeon Finder tool.  (In fact, maybe everybody’s new to it?   I don’t know when it was released).    On the surface, it’s a great idea, and it does seem to be working well for me.   In this little burst of WoW time, I decided to play with my gnome warrior, giving her a shield, putting her talents in protection, and having her as a tank.    There’s no point in being a tank without a group to tank for, and that’s where the dungeon finder comes in.   I’m an extremely casual (I play for a month or two every few months, and rarely after 10 o’clock at night), inexperienced (I’m an altaholic, and so I never really get fully to grips with the different classes, and the regular changes), mainly solo player.   I have never done any end game content, ever (back in vanilla WoW, my guild raided too late at night for me).    I don’t want to jump in and sign up for random dungeons with a level 80 character who has more skills than I can fit on my toolbars.    I would be like somebody who has bought a character – coming in new with no idea of what buttons to press and when.   Except with really crap gear.

So, I thought, although I had a higher level warrior, and a paladin and a couple of death knights, I’d start a tank from the beginning, and learn to play it properly.   I might have gone dwarf, but I already had a gnome warrior who had just finished the starter area and had been sitting in Westfall for months (or possibly over a year.  Time flies).   I thought, I’ll get my skills one by one and learn each carefully.     It will be like the old days, when we edged our way carefully through the dungeons, planning our strategy, and trying to work out how to play our class.   I’ll do the Deadmines over and over, until I know exactly what to do and when.

It didn’t work out like that.   I have been getting groups.  Very easily, in fact.   It seems that tanks are in short supply.   I’m not sure why.   I can understand that people don’t want to level as a tank, if they are soloing, but now, with the dungeon finder, it’s possible to do quite a bit of levelling in the dungeons.   Solo questing as a protection specced warrior with a shield is not quite the slow grind I thought it might be – it’s actually rather fun.   And there are three possible tanking classes at the lower levels, warrior, paladin and druid (in bear form), as well as the death knight later on.    Maybe people just find it more fun to play DPS, even if their class is capable of tanking.    Whatever the reason, one of the most satisfying things about the dungeon finder has been that it gets me a group quickly, sometimes instantly.   It’s great for people who only have a short time to play.

So what’s wrong with it?

My first complaint isn’t really about the tool itself.   It works.  It does what it’s supposed to do.  But it doesn’t really do what I wanted it to do.   There has been no careful strategising.   No talking about who’s going to do what.   Not even any sharing of healthstones or food and water.   There’s no time.   I am guessing that instead of playing with a group of new players, I’m almost always playing with a group of alts using the dungeons to level up.     There is none of this one pull at a time business, or mana breaks.   It’s push, push all the way through, and I’ve come to realise that my job as the tank is to keep it going as quickly as possible.   I don’t feel I’m learning much.  If I’m grouped with higher level people I’m finding it difficult to keep aggro, but I’m not sure what to do about that.  I spend a lot of time chasing after mobs, but possibly for no good reason as people seem able to survive better anyway.   Is it worth trying to get aggro off people’s pets and voidwalkers?   Is it part of the strategy that they take some of the damage off the tank?   Or have their owners just left their taunt skill active by mistake?   There’s never really time to discuss.  And Somebody’s Mum needs to stop what she’s doing altogether to type, so no chance of chatting as we go along.

I’m not even learning about specific dungeons, as I’d hoped, as levelling seems to be so quick now, and by the next day, the dungeon I’ve just done will have dropped off the bottom of my random list.    I’m not getting the slow, careful progression through grouping that I’d hoped for.   I can see myself arriving at 80 and still being almost as clueless and inexperienced as I’m now.   Except with a lot more buttons to try to fit on my toolbar.

Apart from the drawbacks, it’s a great idea.   It’s definitely much easier to get a group for dungeons as a casual player now, and the dungeons go quickly and are almost always successful (if not, it’s easy to queue again), even with lower level players.   Once a day there is a reward for a doing a random dungeon (although unfortunately these seem to fit the same slot days in a row, so yet again I have a new set of shoulders.   And they’re tailored to the armor class but not the class – I’ve been getting spellpower and intellect rewards).    Just be aware that you might be grouping with somebody’s mum rather than an experienced player.