Are others being unrealistic or am I being over-sensitive?

My main target for my paladin is tanking heroics with the possibility of tanking some Kara/ZA runs later on. To this end I have found that actually gear FOR heroics by DOING heroics is a bit of a slow process. However, I really feel that I am starting to hit my stride and I am relatively confident that I can tank any heroic provided I have a good group and a competant healer.

I started my foray into heroics a few weeks ago with 12K HP, 12K armor and an OK mix of avoidance and block. I started to see the jerkiness of certain groups right away when certain groups decked out in PvP epics would complain that "i take so much damage" or "I am killing their mana." With the same gear, I would run the same instances (SP mostly, but also some Mech and UB) and everything would go smoothly.

Since that time, I have geared up my pally pretty nicely. I've picked up the stats that I need to be an effective tank- 12K HP became 14.6 K. 12 K armor became 14K armor. I've tanked most of the heroics out there, with SV and SH as the only ones that I have yet to run that people actually do (I don't count Sethekk or Crypts, as I have never ever seen anyone looking for a group). So, anyway, I am feeling pretty confident in my ability to get the job done, which brings me to my question-generating story.

I finish my heroic BM (daily) run yesterday without incident. Belt didn't drop (boo). After turning in the quest, I immediately start back up trolling the Trade and LFG channels. I choose UB, Mech and Bot, type "tank" in the comments field and get to searching. Then this exchange occurs:

/w him to me Bot? Need tank then we're good to go.
/w me to him Sure.
/w him to me How's your gear? How much HP do you have? (This is where I start to get kinda pissed.)
/w me to him Pretty well geared. Mostly blues, a few epics. I've got 14.6K HP and 14 K armor.
/LFG him to LFG LFM- need tank for Bot and we're good to go. Must have good gear.

Now, I am not saying that I am superman and totally outgear the instances that we are running, but come on! Given the fact that I have already successfully tanked Botanica (easy) and have picked up a pretty good amount of gear, I really don't see how anyone could say "Yeah- we need more HP and armor in order to successfully finish this 5-man."

So, am I delusional? Am I wrong to think that any PUG when faced with the choice of a 14K HP and Armor (plus a willingness to use consumables) tank or having to wait another 20 minutes in LFG for something better should be confident that the former is the way to go? Or are people so warped/lazy that the minimum requirements for heroics now require you to totally outgear the place to even bother?

Do I have any business getting pissed off at the guy?

(PS- Shortly after I was given the cold shoulder by that guy, I joined a group that finished SP, Arc and Bot (got my shoulders!) in succession without incident.)

People in LFG normally know shit about what you need to be able to tank. My (macroed) answer is: "How's your healers gear?"
Obviously you know what you can achive with your gear, so just tell people your gear is sufficient if they ask (and your gear is^^).
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Cearn - 70 pew pew Spankadin! - EU Anetheron

It dont matter where you from its where you at~

People suck.
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Quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur (Anything said in Latin seems deep)

You're being oversensitive. If you've already tanked heroic bot (and grats, it's an annoying instance) you know your gear and skill is sufficient. If someone else says otherwise, they're wrong. You factually know that to be true.

If they don't want you to tank something you've already successfully tanked, it's their loss. A good tank can find an instance without a problem.

15k HP is plenty for a pug, as most geared tank don't do pugs (at least on my server). You actually have a very decent gear and it is enough to tank any heroic, even with a sub-par pvp-geared healer.

You are better geared than the random pugger, and chances are that you were better geared than them.

I suspect they were more afraid by your class than by your HP, and a warior with 15k HP would have been accepted into the group.

And btw botanica is 5 tokens, very good token/time ratio, and a lot of packs can be AOEed.
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Before our stam bump, I used to tank heroics (including bot) with barely over 10k health. Even now, I only have about 14k health in what I run 5 mans in. Some people are just stupid. /shrug. I know just last week I got passed on by a kara pug that "needed a druid or warrior to tank."

Next time instead of saying, "Sure" ask if the healer is wearing any PvP gear. If they don't know, ask their name and Armory them.

It's much more fun when you're doing the rejecting.
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Heroic Bot is an awesome instance for a paladin tank. I run that one every day in about an hour and never use any cc. I never used cc from when I had about 14k hit points on. Everything in there can be aoe'd down.

By the way my favorite heroic pull in the game is in there, the three groups of flesh beasts before Laj? Yea I pull all three of those at once. If you haven't done it you should, it's a blast. Must have a decent healer though =)
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I did two groups, not all three. I didn't want to freak people out or wipe the group, since we had a perfect run up to that point. I've been thinking about doing all 3.

Ask him what the names of the rest of the group are.
Tell them then to leave grp and invite them, sucks when the one complaining about your gear is the healer

a few weeks ago I had a kara group looking for a tank just to kill prince. Since it was monday, i was unsaved and could use the last 3 badges for my belt, i said "I'll go. 15k unbuffed hp(18k with kings+fort) and 16k armor, 50% avoidance and 400 spell damage".
the reply to me was "sorry we don't want to wipe, warrior tank plz"

people suck. Don't let it get into you.
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Quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur (Anything said in Latin seems deep)

You'd be amazed what people will turn away as "not good enough" with insufficient data. The other warrior tank in my guild went out to do his heroic daily quest last week. A random group invites him, then another warrior gets auto-added through the LFM system. The group leader sends my guildmate a tell saying, "Mort, can you tank?" He replies with, "I think so!" There was a pause, presumably with the group leader sending a tell to the other warrior. Then in party chat, "Ok, <random warrior> is tanking, he's got some gear for it. Mort, can you dps?" He cracked up and relayed the whole story to the guild. Then his internet went out for half an hour.

So yeah, this guy: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Illidan&n=morteunious was turned down to tank a heroic mech. Bulwark of Azzinoth, full tier 6, but the group leader didn't want to take the time to even look at his unit frames and see a guy with 17k unbuffed health. THAT'S how little info some of these pickup leaders run off.

-Splug
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(Usually) Prot warrior: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Illidan&n=Splug

I wouldn't let ppl who don't know how the game is played decide wheter *you* think you're a good tank or not.

Honestly there's no reason you shouldn't be wearing the hat yourself. As a tank you should be building your groups not asking to get invited! It gets a bit uncomfy when you get invited to a PUG and can tell right away your group is gonna make a 40 minute heroic take 2 hours. (Especially if you're too polite to drop a group after accepting an invite...LIKE ME!)

Just make friends with your server's PUG healers and then it'll be you picking who gets to go and who doesn't. This way you can build groups that fit better and speed up your runs instead of having to deal with whatever random batch of dps you happen to get invited to tank for.