Populating the tank group
Posted 06-06-2008 at 03:39 PM by Rayne
I'm the primary tank for our raid force. We're currently 3/4, 5/6, 1/5, 1/9 to give you an idea of our progression. Next week is all SSC week with the idea of taking down Vashj. I also act as what I consider to be the assistant raid leader. When I assert myself I have a fair amount of influence, but normally I prefer to do my job and monitor the others as best I can (I focus on tanking and the interaction with the healers, I leave the DPS to the raid leader).
Last night during a farm of TK aimed at progressing a lot of people on the quest, a Hunter got stuck into my group and grumbled when I asked the Resto Shaman for WF. I thought about it for a minute, then swapped myself with the feral in the melee group so I could get WF and the hunter and druids GOA. Normally I wouldn't do such, but it was VR and we don't exactly rely upon the melee to carry the day for us, so didn't feel terrible about robbing them their 5%.
Today folks were talking about their ideal group makeups and got me to thinking. We typically have three Shamans, one of each spec. The Enh Shaman goes with the melee dps group, the Ele Shaman the caster dps, and I snag the Resto for myself instead of allowing her to go to the Healing group. I have her drop WF on all trash and some boss fights, switching to GoA on less threat sensitive fights (e.g. FLK).
Besides grabbing the Shaman I don't really ask for any other buffs. I typically get the overflow DPS (we have a surplus of Fury Warriors) and a feral on the nights we run two. Well, on our board a Pally healer was again pitching putting the Tree in our group, which I generally don't care one way or the other.
I usually don't push for buffs because my survivability is really up to the healers. The days of premature tank death are generally long gone (such as when we were doing Gruul months ago or first started learning Lurker).
However, I noticed when tanking Naj'entus a week ago the damage output was kicked up considerably. Same for Supremus. Again, they kept me up (in several recent wipes the Resto Shaman and I were the last standing - she's also a regular in my 5-man). And I've read that for the Kael fight I'll probably need to buff my HPs up considerably (usually at 21k fully buffed/flasked in tank gear - as opposed to threat gear). So I've considered perhaps grabbing a Lock with an Imp for that fight.
Is it customary to stack the tank group? I mean, should I be grabbing a Pally with Devotion, a Lock with an Imp out, holding on to the Shaman and adding a Tree? I'm wondering if on those fights that are rated for more healers (e.g. Al'ar), if I'd do more benefit to the raid by putting the Resto with some healers and snagging the Tree. That would add a fair amout of healing to me for that group. Would it offset the loss of dodge? WF is very nice, but only rarely are we really threat capped (Rage is the last fight that gave us any trouble with threat, fixed it with Hunters). Generally once I get my lead I ask her to switch to GoA.
Just curious how other raids stack their tank groups and the others too for that matter.
Last night during a farm of TK aimed at progressing a lot of people on the quest, a Hunter got stuck into my group and grumbled when I asked the Resto Shaman for WF. I thought about it for a minute, then swapped myself with the feral in the melee group so I could get WF and the hunter and druids GOA. Normally I wouldn't do such, but it was VR and we don't exactly rely upon the melee to carry the day for us, so didn't feel terrible about robbing them their 5%.
Today folks were talking about their ideal group makeups and got me to thinking. We typically have three Shamans, one of each spec. The Enh Shaman goes with the melee dps group, the Ele Shaman the caster dps, and I snag the Resto for myself instead of allowing her to go to the Healing group. I have her drop WF on all trash and some boss fights, switching to GoA on less threat sensitive fights (e.g. FLK).
Besides grabbing the Shaman I don't really ask for any other buffs. I typically get the overflow DPS (we have a surplus of Fury Warriors) and a feral on the nights we run two. Well, on our board a Pally healer was again pitching putting the Tree in our group, which I generally don't care one way or the other.
I usually don't push for buffs because my survivability is really up to the healers. The days of premature tank death are generally long gone (such as when we were doing Gruul months ago or first started learning Lurker).
However, I noticed when tanking Naj'entus a week ago the damage output was kicked up considerably. Same for Supremus. Again, they kept me up (in several recent wipes the Resto Shaman and I were the last standing - she's also a regular in my 5-man). And I've read that for the Kael fight I'll probably need to buff my HPs up considerably (usually at 21k fully buffed/flasked in tank gear - as opposed to threat gear). So I've considered perhaps grabbing a Lock with an Imp for that fight.
Is it customary to stack the tank group? I mean, should I be grabbing a Pally with Devotion, a Lock with an Imp out, holding on to the Shaman and adding a Tree? I'm wondering if on those fights that are rated for more healers (e.g. Al'ar), if I'd do more benefit to the raid by putting the Resto with some healers and snagging the Tree. That would add a fair amout of healing to me for that group. Would it offset the loss of dodge? WF is very nice, but only rarely are we really threat capped (Rage is the last fight that gave us any trouble with threat, fixed it with Hunters). Generally once I get my lead I ask her to switch to GoA.
Just curious how other raids stack their tank groups and the others too for that matter.
Total Comments 4
Comments
 | We run 1xprot warrior 2xferal druids and have a holy paladin speccing prot when needed. Our tank group is usually: Me (prot warrior) Feral Druid Resto Druid 2xHunters (nowhere else to put them usually) The other feral is in the melee group with: Feral Druid Arms Warrior Enhancement Shammy 2xRogues When we have the prot paladin he usually goes into my group or into a healer group for shadow priest, depending on what we're doing and how much mana he needs. And then he replaces the resto druid or a hunter, also depending on the fight. The only fights where I get a shammy is Bloodboil and Felmyst for WF, need the extra threat, and then I grab the enh shammy. |
Posted 06-06-2008 at 07:10 PM by Tharr  Updated 06-06-2008 at 07:16 PM by Tharr |
| | There's a thread on EJ right now discussing stacking melee groups. It has diverged into stacking hunter and tank groups as well, complete with tons of sims crunching the overall raid benefit of each scenario. In my guild, the tank group is basically a dump for 3 tanks + 2 people that didn't fit in any other group. |
Posted 06-07-2008 at 03:39 AM by Rak  |
| | 4/5 and 6/9, MT and normally thrown with healers. dps grps get priority first, maybe a SP in the healer grp if required but there's no tank grpa. I've tanked everything up to archi and reliquary and haven't ever needed a stacked tank group. |
| Posted 06-07-2008 at 10:23 AM by bludwork |
| | we toss all the tanks in the same group since 3.0 to benefit from imp SR and were at the same progression as Rak. Group stacking is pretty much gone bar a very few abilities that are party/group only. |
| Posted 11-07-2008 at 05:41 PM by Shadevarr |
Recent Blog Entries by Rayne
- The best thing I ever did to improve my tanking: (06-20-2008)
- Populating the tank group (06-06-2008)
- Black Temple, pretty cool (06-02-2008)
- Anetheron dead (05-23-2008)
- Finally, Al'ar down (05-19-2008)
