Sometimes I wonder what plane of reality Blizzard’s World of Warcraft developers exist in. Alternatively, what they’ve been smoking because they're obviously not playing the same game we are and, today, they announced a new feature being added to 4.1 in the form of the Dungeon Finder: Call to Arms.

If Cataclysm can be said to have been mired by one feature - aside from it's unfinishedness - it’s gotta be the whopping queues for the Dungeon Finder. Here’s an example, I play as a Boomkin Druid and it can take 45 minutes for me to find a group but my best friend - a tank - can do it in 45 seconds. Before the latest expansion, I could do one dungeon and queue for the next with just enough time to sell off the vendor trash while waiting. Now ... well ... it's one of the major reasons I'm a casual gamer.

The idea behind this new mechanic is that you queue as normal but if - ha! - one spec is needed more than another, say - for the sake of arguments - tanks then a notice will come up and if you happen to play as a tank, you get extra rewards for doing so. In the last few months, tanks have been making use of their scarcity. Walk into Stormwind and Orgrimmar and chat is flooded by offers to run dungeons for sometimes outrageous prices. Fair enough, it’s an economy. I might not like it but the laws of supply and demand exist in Azeroth for a reason. And now Blizzard has decided to reward them a second time with the promise of pets, cash, flasks and rare mounts.

I don’t get it.

The only winners are the tanks.

The problem here is the shortage is one-sided. In an ideal world, one far from Azeroth’s shores, the classes needed would change. One morning you might need more healers, the next evening DPS but instead it’s always tanks. Even worse, there’s currently no limit on how many times you can accept the Call to Arms, where as the Dungeon Finder only allows you seven rewards per week. It might stop tanks /ragequitting but it’ll also only increase their greed. It’s certainly unlikely to solve the current problem in wait times.

Even worse, Blizzard doesn’t seem to understand this. Very few tanks are going to be bothered by the flasks or even the pets and mounts. Well, okay, if they happen to be collectors, it might work for a little while but it will only be a temporary thing. They’re going to be motivated by getting twice the pay. It’s certainly not going to do much to help the wait times and it still means that if you, like me, only have a single main or don’t dual-spec as a tank or a healer. Well, you’re still gonna be screwed.