I hate being a Frog

Had some fun learning how to tank with my new warrior.  A few people from my guild all had characters in their 40s so we decided to do some dungeon leveling with a group of all of us, me on my Prot Warrior.  So far, from the little bit I've experienced I enjoy tanking on my Warrior more then I do my bear for one reason.  It costs rage to charge as a bear, it generates rage when you charge as a warrior.  To anyone that might have never tanked that is a huge difference and totally changes how things are handled.

Sure, at level 44 I still have to stance dance as my warrior because I can not use charge in defensive stance yet but that is not much of an issue.  I made a macro for it to make my life easier.  The charge really helps in many ways.  First and foremost it gets me to the packs before the DPS can start going medieval on their asses. 

As my bear I would have to enrage to charge in and then wait to get hit.  This brings two problems.  One, I used my rage to get into there so now I have to wait before I can drop a swipe to get some aggro going as I now have no rage.  The other is that the enrage is now on cooldown so if I need rage in a rush I do not have my quick access to rage button to use.  So often I would run in and use the enrage as an oh shit button should one of the DPS open up AoE before I get there.  That happens all the time.  Not once in a while but all the time, nearly every pull DPS will be pew pewing away before I even made contact with the mobs.  It is beyond annoying.  The Warrior does not have this issue.  I charge, it generates rage so I can thunder clap and then I move about my way of tagging them all with a rend or sunder or whatever when I get some more rage.  If only a bear had the same option I would love it.

Doing ZF was fun.  Not only was it exciting to tank the stairs at level for the first time ever but the fact no one died on it was even more exciting.  I was so afraid of that really.  We did well over all but there were many scary moments.  A few times a wayward DPS would step to far back and bring some added attention, but I picked it up.  Heck, I think I actually started to get a little good at noticing when someone was going to bring adds.  I was expecting it which made it easier to pick up.  If I had a good aggro lead on the packs we were working on I would just go auto attack and let my rage build so I had it ready to pick them up if need be.  Not sure if that is how I am supposed to do it, but it worked for me. 

I even got into looking at all angles more often so I can see where pats are coming from.  I would even preemptively pick them up before they decided to take notice to what was going on and maybe go for someone else besides me.  We only wiped once when we ended up with like 12 or so mobs on us and I kept getting turned into a frog.

I hate being a frog.  I picked up the target I was going for and 5 visitors came instantly so I grabbed them as well and thunder clapped to get their attention.  Then, bam, I'm a frog and the mobs are going all over the place again.  As soon as I get out of my frog form I go around and collect them all up with all the new friends they brought to the battle from running all over the place.  I would thunder clap, tab sunder as many as I could, and then bam, I am a frog.  They all go haywire and everyone is scrambling all over the place again.  Once I get out again I continue the process, gather them all back up, get aggro on all of them again and it starts to look like a nice clean AoE burn when I become a frog again.

The entire battle was like that.  Grab aggro, become a frog, grab aggro again, become a frog.  Over and over until we all died.  I spent most of that battle as a frog.  I really hate being a frog.  You know as a DPS, which is what I really am at heart, if I get turned into a frog I just sit back and light a smoke and wait for it to wear off.  No big deal.  As a tank, getting turned into a frog gets everyone killed sometimes and even when I am in frog form I am spamming my thunderclap button so the second I come out and I try and grab some attention.  I am in panic mode.  Everyone is dying and it is all my fault.  Okay, I know it is not my fault, but that is sure as hell what it feels like.  Even with all those mobs we would have survived I am sure, if only I were not a frog.  Heck, if I were not a frog for even 15 seconds we could have handled it.  I was never out of frog form for more then 2 global cooldowns.  Which means I never had long to get stuff done.  While it was not my fault it sure feels like it.  Sometimes tanking is just not fun, like when you are a frog.  Frog tanking sucks.