What's your HP?

One of the most irritating questions ever devised by mainkind, is "What's your HP?"

I always seemed to get asked this question when PuGging (thankfully, I don't PuG much anymore), although less now that 3.2 and 3.2.2 has hit the live servers, and I'm sure that many of you tanks out there have been asked this countless times too.

Let me reiterate again: HP is NOT everything. It is a good estimate of the tank's level of gear, but it is not the be-all end-all solution to every instance and raid. Avoidance, armour, and HP all go hand-in-hand, and to speak of one without mentioning the rest, is to be ignorant. This goes to show how many other people out there are so ignorant so uninformed about the way tanking works, that they have to ask this everytime they want to find a tank.

To illustrate, let me cite an extreme example:

Assume you have two tanks, A and B. They both have the same amount of avoidance and armour, but tank A is 44k HP fully buffed, while tank B is 50k HP fully buffed. Let's assume they are both tanking Anub'arak in normal ToC-10. Anub'arak hits hard, roughly 17k-19k on a well-geared tank. Now, as we all know, avoidance can, and will, fail sometimes. Suppose the healers are incapacitated, and tank A takes 3 consecutive hits in a row without healing (no cooldowns involved). No question about it, the tank dies, right?

Let's put tank B in the same situation. He also takes 3 consecutive hits without healing. The result? Tank B also dies.

The point I'm trying to make here, is that you could have 1 million HP, but if you don't know how to reduce incoming damage, then you're screwed.

Tanking is not about how much damage you can take. It is about taking as little damage as possible and still keep ticking.