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Breakfast Topic: Are you afraid of the PUG?

Dungeon Finder

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

I'll admit it. I'm a chicken.

I wasn't always. Back in the day, I played a paladin, I was in a raiding guild, and I tanked. Lord, how I tanked. I tanked 5-mans. I tanked heroics. I tanked raids. And I loved it! But eventually the guild collapsed, my pally tank became a retadin, and then I took a break.

After I came back to WoW and spent a considerable amount of time with a variety of alts, I realized I missed tanking. So I started a brand new warrior. He was going to be a prot god. I grabbed the right gear. I took the right talents. I was amazing ... when I was alone questing. See, I hadn't tanked in a while, and I was on a new server, so I didn't have the friendly support of a guild group to help me get my feet wet. When I got my first Deadmines quest, I queued in the Dungeon Finder -- and I immediately unqueued. Just one more level. I'd be ready to tank in one more level.

But I didn't tank The Deadmines. Then I didn't tank any other dungeons. And now I'm 70 and still telling myself, One more level. Just one more level.

It's not that I don't know how to tank, and I know that tanking is easier now than ever before, thanks to the recent threat changes. But I also know that PUGs can be heartless and unforgiving. And for some reason, I'm afraid of that heartlessness and ... unforgivingness. Of course, I should just join a guild, but before I get to know them, it'll be just like a PUG, except that my performance will actually matter, which makes it worse. I'm sure that eventually my desire to tank will overcome my fear of tanking, but not today. Maybe at 71.

Is there anything you've wanted to do in game that you've been afraid to do because of the opinions of strangers?