[Nekt]

A little while ago I joined a raiding guild and hoped to start my way though the progression. I had entry level Kara gear and was pretty excited. Now a couple of months later, I’m stalled. My guild has moved on to ZA. I don’t have the gear for it. I have ok Kara Gear, but It’s not ready for ZA. My skills aren’t ready either. I’ve Off Tanked about a dozen Kara runs. I’ve MT’d most of the Non-Heroic 5-Mans.

In my thoughts I belong doing Heroics. The trouble is that it’s bloody murder finding a group. I’m looking for a recommendation.

Should I quit my guild and find a more remedial group? Should I just get used to spending weeks trying to get an entry level Heroic Pug Group (Steam Vaults, Slave Pens or Underbog)?

I don’t know if the game has hit a lull or if I’m going about it the wrong way, but spending day after day after day in the LFG Channel is starting to get to me.

[madocks]

you need a guild that understands your problems, try to tank some of the easier heroics like Mech or SV. Take plenty of cc, not the perfect setup, but this is nice....

Mech: Lock, Mage, rogue

SV: Mage, hunter, rogue

Ramparts: Mage, hunter, rogue

That will get u the tanking sword etc, bracers and will give you the skill needed to drop a CC and multi tank. You can also get badges and look to improve your set.

But if your guildies arent willing to help you out and run heroics with you, then find a new home where your appreciated

[mero12513]

Welcome to the dead zone. It's a plateau that many tanks hit. Here's how I ended up getting over the hump (although I'm only barely over it now).

1. Run the daily heroic every day. I've never been on WoW for more than 3 hours and NOT seen "LF Tank Heroic daily" in trade chat.
2. When you do a heroic daily that goes well, add those people to your friends list. Whisper them whenever you want to do heroics. If they seem annoyed, don't whisper again. If they are excited about coming to another heroic with you, keep whispering them.
3. Always do more Kara. 22 badges is amazing. If your guild has in fact "moved on" and are not doing Kara anymore, then you need to pug it.

Do as many 5-mans as possible--they are the best learning tool. And don't be afraid of ZA. It's a huge gear check, but especially as a main tank, it's really simple. In Kara, a lot of weird crap goes on. Netherspite has rotations and moving, Moroes has tough second aggro and adds, Shade has nothing to do with tanking, etc. From my limited experience in ZA, when you tank there, all you do is stand in one place and get hit in the face. That rhymed, and I am done.

[LittleMan]

I agree with the posters above... The" dead zone " sucks.. I did the best I could with what I had.. I stacked nothing but stam gems after 490 defense to push me close as I coulld get to 13 k hp unbuffed then soon as I was close to 13 K i started pushing heroics hard. until you get close it is gonna be really hard to find a group but keep looking. Use stam food and elixirs to help out when you are able to get a willing group.

Maybe if you have a friend who has a decent geared heaer you'll be able to work something out.. One piece a badge gear will go a long ways.

Painful stuff but it will pay off in the end if you stick with it.
I personaly would make a good effort to get your guildies to help by roughing out some heroics with you. If you find they are unwiling to help then you can either chose to stay in the guild and deal with pug groups or move into a guild more willing to put some time and energy into helping you get out of the dead zone.

best of luck.

[Nekt]

Thank you all.

[Forklift]

If you've done kara 12 times, that's 250+ badges, plus all the loot from kara. How are you still undergeared?

I tanked heroics in mostly blues and a couple greens, and the S2 shield. It was hell in the beginning, just finding people who were willing to run with an 11k HP tank who was using resilience to get to uncrittable. Along the way I picked up the S4 belt and the S2 shoulders.

After doing enough heroics, I bought the 100 badge chest. Then I started doing kara. This was about three weeks ago. In the three weeks since, I've continued to run heroics and do kara every week. With the badges from the heroics and kara, I've bought the the 100 badge pants, the 35 badge bracers, and the 60 badge belt. I've also gotten the Commendation from doing MGT, and I bought the furies deck. I got battlescar from the first kara I ran, the shade ring the second time, and then nothing until last night--got KD, maiden gauntlets, and choker all at once.

Just do your homework, plan out what you want to buy with badges ahead of time, fill strategic holes with pvp gear (still using s2 shoulders and shield), and be diligent about heroics/dailies.

[protonly]

The dead zone isn't as bad as it used to be prior to the "badges explosion." You might try finding over geared PUGs for kara/za/gruul/mag. Hell I went into a gruuls as full protection to do dps ("keep tclap and demo/commanding shouts up - that's all we want"). Lost the roll on the shield by 2 points lol.

Don't feel too bad though. Tanks have it the worst but the gear will eventually drop for yuo.

[ebs2002]

Yeah, with 250 badges, you should have at least 2 very good pieces of gear, and one or two of the cheaper pieces. Or, you could have up to 5 good pieces if you went with neck/bracers/auto-blocker/2.4belt/2.4ring. That plus any upgrades you picked up in heroics should be fine.

Also note: heroics were not meant to lead into Karazhan; in fact, Karazhan was in the game before heroic dungeons were in place! If you've gotten gear in Karazhan, and you were geared well enough to off-tank the trash there, then you should be fine in most of the heroics. Don't be shy.

[protonly]

Source: ebs2002 Also note: heroics were not meant to lead into Karazhan; in fact, Karazhan was in the game before heroic dungeons were in place!

It is rather odd that this is the design but I've believed that was the case every since my first heroic (and last heroic) on my paladin.

[Stubbi]

A bit surprised ... moving on from Kara to ZA is like saying you don't want 500 free gold a week. Kara = 22 badges = 1.46 epic gems to fill sockets on new gear dropped in ZA or a nice chunk of gold on AH. ZA resets every 3 days, there is space in the rotation to slot in a Kara run without messing with any ZA runs. As they are all geared (i presume), all the gear drops will be either void crystals (cash) or gear for you (ideal). At the same time, gems/badges are piling up in the bank for the other 9.

Gearing up a tank requires a hell of a lot of work. We are the most gear dependant class. No one else owes you the time of day, but at the same time you join a guild because it takes 10 or 25 to make a Raid. If your guild isn't up to the task of making a slot for you, find another guild that has a use for you.

Pugging Kara will probably not get you much in the way of results ... those pugging it tend to expect people capable of a MT role. If you can find one great, but don't expect it and as it is saved once it smack the first boss down, going on a bad run means you are locked out for a week. Better to convince the guild to run it as getting folks together for 2 nights or adjusting what toons are in the raid is much easier in a guild.

Heroics are a sure thing, get a bad one, who cares, it will be unlocked again tomorrow. Work the easy ones, you will likely be in with folks in the same situation as yourself and they will be more understanding of your plight. They are either there for a specific item or badges. Even with no progression, you are still learning your skills and learning how other classes interact which will make you a better tank.

Think like this:

15 badges = 1 gem, gems sell for 300+ gold, translated: 1 badge = 20+ gold.

As long as your wipe repairs is < 20 gold per badge while it may seem very painfull, you are actually making progress.

[Doc309]

if your guild is planning to move to 25s they'll need more than 10 geared ppl. from the sounds of your 1st post its the same ten doing ZA... a kara geared tank can tank the eagle and the bear. if they got one group going 6/6 in ZA every three days, add a second group doing 2-4/6 then start mixing the teams ... you'll all have to work together in 25s
also providing the guild can get 25 on at raid time, GL/ML is less of a jump in progression.