Back in Wrath Duane loved Warcraft and has always been a bit of an instance junkie. He did change his main from the DPS God class of the week to the OP pally tank. Now to be fair, Duane was a really good mage and like myself just got bored of raiding on a mage because the rotation as arcane was the old 1,1,1,2 that you could macro so you could watch TV and raid, another guildie did this one ICC raid and let his 4 year old play while he was on the phone one a Lady Deathwhisper kill and still out DPS'd 6 others. He wasn't so good on his paladin at first but with practice and some gear he became a reasonable, if occassionally reckless tank who did specialise in chain pulling and actively encouraged the AoEing down of vast numbers of mobsvast numbers.
When Cataclysm launched, Duane levelled his paladin furiously capped mining and blacksmithing real quick and was 85 before most of us. We finally caught him up and went instancing and had a few teething troubles on the normal mode 85 dungeons because Duane didn't like CC as it slowed us down and refused to accept that slow steady progress was actually quicker than recovering from a chaotic pull.
As more people hit 85, people started to group more and Duane sometimes missed out on these guild runs because he was pugging some random instance when groups formed and needless to say his success in them was low. Then one evening last week, Duane announced he was quitting tanking heroics because the random puggers were awful players but he would continue to tank normals for guildies.
This was a shock and a big disappointment as we were ready for raiding but had lost one of our main tanks, but Saturday Knight Fever are not a strict guild and if someone doesn't want to play their "main" we're not going to try to force the issue as that only creates bad feeling all round. Duane announced that he was switching to his elemental/resto shaman, which at least gave us another healer so the tank loss was mitigated somewhat.
For me this situation raises a real dilema. Cata is absolutely awesome and the fact that the content is tough means it provides a fun challenge. The other reality is that for some the past 2 years of weak zergfesting content simply is not fun and is making some good players to reconsider the class they prefer to play and if it is putting off tanks and healers that is only bad for the rest of us. I'm just happy that I toughed it out and stuck to the healing role I love so much and haven't contributed to the problem.
/salute Duane you'll be missed and I hope you'll be back tanking soon.
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