Tanks and dps

I noticed lately that there are a lot of new tanks using the lfd tool.  Actually, since the last weekend, and barring any guild groups that i may have joined, every LFD pug group comes with a new, or barely new tank.  Some are new tanks due to switching specs, and learning the ropes on a character that normall DPS or heals. others are leveling up thier 80 and are slowly learning the fights from the point of view of a tank.  this is great. 

What i can deduce from this trend is that more and more dps will finally get to see what its like for a tank in a heroic setting.  Although some dps may only see tanks as, simply, another dps with less damage but more armor.  okay, less damage in most cases. but definitely with more armor. dps do see tanks as more like them and less like healers.  in a way, this is true.  and it brings a lot of people to switch specs or finally level that level 80 warrior they havent touched in six months.  

but what does this all mean to the rest of us? this is not an influx of new tanks.  no, if it was an influx to the already flowing and always dynamic tanking population of our battlegroup, then i am sure the dps queue times will drop from 30 minutes to 20, or even 15... maybe 10!  but it hasnt.  "always dynamic" is key, since i believe the population flow of tanks using the whole LFD tool adheres to the FIFO method of inventory management.  or whatever accounting-related methodologies relates.

FIFO is simply an acronym for first-in-first-out.  to help me illustrate, let's backtrack several months.  shortly after the expansion hit, there was a big shakeup in the community as to who does what role.  really, as some wrath tanks found out that they just arent the tanks they're cut out to be in wrath (and subsequently rolled dps) or the healers who had infinite mana in wrath simply couldnt handle the increased difficulty of healing Throne of the Tides... normal, people began switching around specs and characters in order to find the right fit for them.  Some, however, moved from wrath to cata without much of a problem, including tanks and healers.  DPS adjusted from spamming AoE spells to actually using a priority system.  The planets may have alligned sometime during the past few months, but i was unaware. People were actually doing what they're supposed to--what they're designed to do.  And those were the ones first in.

The tank would walk into a dungeon as a tank, with a tank's mentality and skillset.  The same goes for the healers, who have since learned to cope with limited mana, expensive heals and sometimes stupid dps.  The dps, likewise, learned that some folks really had to be crowd controlled, standing in bursting purple crap is bad and damage reduction cooldowns are just as important as damage increasing cooldowns.  Interrupts skyrocketed to an all-time high.  They played through the instances, got gear, got better, understood fights, learned what their limits are, when they can stand in bad and when they need to really run away.  They learned fight mechanics and figured out what they had to do in their own role to make the encounter a successful encounter. 

Then they moved on to heroics.  Random dungeons that used to take 15 minutes in wrath now take about an hour in cata... or more.  in any event, these guys eventually get better gear, earn rep gear and fill out the remaining slots with justice point gear.  they move on to raiding or slow down on the heroic grind.  they dont need anything else from JPs.  they might need chaos orbs or something to improve their offspec gear, but the end result remains--they slowly stop running heroic pugs.  they are the first outs. 

The first ins and the first outs are one and the same.  The process is cycled through so that the tanks, who started off with some 300-333 tanking gear became fully geared with 345's, some 359 rep and raid gear.  And eventually, running the same heroics over again will not give them any significant gain.  There is nothing left to upgrade through heroics or justice points.  and so they leave the LFD population.  they may end up coming back on an alt just to dps, or to heal. or maybe even to tank.  but they do come back one way or another. 

Let's assume for a moment that the rate of flow, or flow of tanks coming in (and ultimately going out) to use the LFD system is faster than the flow of DPS going through the system.  i believe this to actually be the case due to the population imbalance of tanks to dps.  lets use tanks to dps as our only comparison.  you can also use healers in this, but the result will still be the same.  tanks, who usually get instant queues will ultimately gain all the gear they need faster than healers or dps, even if they get absolutely zero drops from heroic pugs, they'll still get JPs which will turn into gear eventually.  a tank can usually just gear himself up through the LFD in less than a week of play.  no waiting.  so they gear up and leave the population, a dare say, 200% faster than a dps who has to wait 30 minutes in the queue (and i wont even talk about the wait if the group turns out bad, its a double penalty for the dps). 

So after a week, the tank leaves the LFD population.  but the DPS is still there.  see the problem?  He'll be fully geared in about two weeks if he diligently waits.  Maybe longer if he walks away to pee, only to come back and find out that he has missed his queue.  then, he has to start all over.  but lets not count all the little variables prolonging the dps' plight.  lets just say he takes 2x longer to gear up.  then, he'll be out of the LFD population cycle.  okay. that's not so bad.  but lets not forget the initial problem as to why he has these long waits in the first place.  the entire wow population using the LFD is not exactly 1 tank for every 3 dps.  its 1 tank for every 30 dps.  or more.   30 is my guess. 

Tangent:  One solution to this is to change the group composition.  Instead of three damage dealers, we can have four or five.  this will make the groups a 6 or 7 man duneon experience.  now 6 has a nice ring to it because it's an even number, but 7 is a little more obscure.  we like multiples, and the fact that 7 is a prime number makes it that much more of an odd choice.  in any case, this can solve the "flow" as well as the population imbalance in regards to dungeon groups.

Back to the topic at hand.  what is the topic, btw?  who knows.  i was trying to talk about the significance of how the new tanks now are really just that, new.  and i was trying to show how this came about, with FIFO and flow rates and population ratios and things like that.  okay. got it. 

Anyway, i am on my fourth DPS to level up to 85 (and consequently, to gear up until i cant go any further with heroics) and running her through normal dungeons.  its a mage, level 81, tearing up the place with her sheep and blast wave and all that great stuff.  but just for the orbs, i run heroics on my dps.  the 30 minute waits remain.  when we finally do get the group, half of the time the tank will say they're new, or learning, or never done this as tank or in a heroic.  etc.  

What i see is this.   That after about six months since the expansion, the dps pool has finally cycled and they have now finally begain to gear their alts (some of which are tanks).   Now this dps pool will include all the people who are comfortable as dps, leveling their various dps characters, and having finally run out of dps characters, are willing to finally level that tank they never had a chance to touch (because dps is sooo much fun, or that tanking is soooo much work, or whatevers). 

I know... all that typing just to illustrate a flawed analysis and faulty hypothesis.  but hey, its thursday, my boss is out of the office and i have nothing to do.  have a great day everyone!