Aoe Tanking...

Had a dps warrior run in front of me on a 5-pull, die, and near wipe us right before he /dc'd.

Since the mobs didn't initially attack me, I recieved no rage, bloodrage was down, aoe taunt down, so it was near impossible to gain threat on all mobs before they knocked out a couple of clothies.

Ive kind of run into this problem as of late with the influx of Ret Pallies. Been several times lately where I will have 3 of them in a group, and I have to constantly remind them to let me get a couple of hits in so I can keep threat over them.

I actually bumped a mage the other night because he kept pulling instead of letting me. And grabbing threat before I could let the npc casters LoS around the corner to me.

Im not really sure if Its something that can be changed exept for just telling to group to back off a sec, till threat is established. As a somewhat competent Warrior, I dont think I should ever have to fight for Threat. Bosses, are never a problem. And Ive been getting faster with my Intervene, and smarter with my Vigilance.

What are some of your teqniques here?...

Also, with multiple mobs, I havn't been using cc lately. I Bloodrage, charge, ThunderClap, Shockwave, couple cleaves/devestates, and thunderclaps whenever they cooldown.

Kill orders help, but sometimes im to lazy to mark the pulls. And even when I do some pugs, dps ignore the kill order and kill others before skull. Then I have to switch targets more with that...

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Originally Posted by Neverending

What are some of your teqniques here?...

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I try not to do instances with idiots. Seems to work most of the time. :o

yea runnign with guildies is a good way to control people. but in a pug i play it safe and save cooldowns for situations caused by mindless dps'ers..

I would save bloodrage for until after you charge or for floating rage between pulls (if the group is good enough for chain pulling). and i dont shockwave until the mobs have hit me a few times. This allows for t-clap, dev/cleave, some damage shield to go off. Then i ususally shockwave followed by a t-clap. By this point you should be ahead of threat on heals for the pull and just focusing on kill target/ next to kill

It was kind of funny, that warrior was on my ignore list and I couldn't remember why.

After he pulled that, he sent me a tell asking if I was going to ignore him again. I replied, "Umm... yeah."

I only put people on ignore for obvious reasons, one being if I don't want to group with them again.

This is just one of the things that comes with the job if you are gonna tank pugs. They can actually be quite rewarding because you meet new players but can be frustrating when those players act like clowns or cant do their job right. Do what you have to do to get your group through the dungeon and put the really obnoxious players on your ignore list. As for tactics during bad pulls with no rage; First off if one of your dps members is pulling before you do and they are not asked to or a hunter with misdirect up they need to be warned or kicked accordingly. Second, during said pull there are several ways to get some snap aggro. Warbringer comes to mind first, just back off a bit and charge to get a little bit of rage offhand to start some kind of rotation, shield slam one target then target another and taunt, once you get enough rage start Thunderclap and Shockwave going. Hopefully at that point the dps hasnt panicked and starting aoeing or something and you should have no problem rounding them up. If they are scattered use intervene and charge again when its off cooldown to round them up, if you are on some sort of communication device tell your dps to hold off till you gather them. (This is all of course if your aoe taunt is on cooldown). By this time you should have enough aggro to start your regular rotation.

I also advise in these types of groups where people are acting dumb to use Vigilance on your poor healer...if dps is getting themselves killed because of aggro and acting stupid let them but try and save your healer while he struggles to keep everyone up.

Unfortunately, this comes with being a tank that does anything outside of guild.

The most useful advice I can give you is the 3 strike system. Give them 2 warnings, then they strike out and lose their tank. Plain and simple. If your server is anything like mine, tanks are in the highest demand and leaving the group will put a major hitch into the rest of their instance and hopefully, emphasis on hopefully, the people who did not do what they're supposed to do get the idea and fix themselves.

Go about it diplomatically though, possibly let them know you run a 3 strike system in advance. Each time I leave a group over something like this (happened alot recently thanks to the 3.0 patch and the recruit a friend system taking people to 70 without much effort), I explain to each person why I left.

If there are people who did their job, and you still want to run the instance, I ask them if they would like to start a new group for the instance and try again.

Your AOE tanking is more than likely on par, and more than likely you're not doing anything wrong. So this is the most I can give you :)

Some tanks dont like this method, or prefer a less confrontational method, but I find that this helps alot when you're encountering problems with pugs, especially now with the lack of CC and new AOE tanking options.

just because the game has been made somewhat trivial to overgeared players doesn't mean you can be a dumbass. Kick the people and move on. To be honest you don't even need them there, it's a group effort, and if he's not gonna partake in the group rules, he can do it on his own. Gear/level/timeplayed != know how to play.

I am not sure how you were put in the situation with absolutely no abilities to generate rage. Charge has a 15 second cooldown and its pretty rare you will kill an entire pull in 15 seconds from the start. Then you got bloodrage if for some reason you cant get at range for a charge. If anything you can simply taunt the closest mob and hope you don't avoid its attack for some extra rage. The only situation I can think of where you lose control of a pack of mobs is if someone pulls another group or patrol during a fight which will usually charge right at the healer, and both thunderclap and shockwave are on cooldown. In those situations I use challenging shout and if the group if I feel I really need to step it up the aoe threat, I'll use retaliation too. If you have absolutely nothing up your sleeve, a demo shout could possibly buy a few seconds but the threat on it is very low.

I find that that the big weakness in warrior aoe tanking is when you have a constant stream of adds, with only a few aoe abilities.

if they can tank it let them, if they cannot they die. If they pull and die and wipe the group then you point finger at them and tell them to stop it or you're out. Either one of 3 things will happen.

a. they can tank it and you'll clear it pretty fast. Usually a good indication the instance is easy and trivial and does not require tanking

b. they pull and die and stop doing that shit

c. they pull and wipe the group and they get kicked or the group falls apart.

Either way, you'll be able to complete the run in a reasonable amount of time :)

My solution to the OP is A) Don't group with 3 ret pallies because they were probably holy pre-3.0 and really really suck at it.

Point B- Let me put it in perspective. When the 3.0 PTR came out I was giddy as hell to test my new abilities, so after working out solo on mobs for a bit I pugged my first heroic- Underbog. Running modless of course, I started marking the trash. The DPS just went nuts on it without a care in the world. After the second pull I kindly say "please kill the skull first, then the X...". When the healer spoke up, "I think we need a new tank." Meaning I wasn't up to par. I was shocked at first but then I realized the little shit was right and I needed to step up my game. So I stopped marking, pulled 2-4 groups of mobs at a time, and proceeded to clear every heroic in the game in about 2.5 hours with pugs and badly geared ret paladins.

What I'm getting at is it could be the players who are pulling ahead of you are used to tanks that are comfortable with moving fast through these 5 mans and are getting impatient--which is still their fault I'm just trying to provide insight. My suggestion is be a little more reckless, your healers got buffed in 3.0 too. I'm mostly AOEing the 5 mans at this point it's kind of a joke. I ran Drak'Tharon (spelling?) one time, underleveled and drunk (I hardly remember the entire thing). But I'm told we cleared it in 25 minutes and had 0 deaths and everyone had a good time. Now I don't like to make a habit of doing that stuff under the influence of alcohol but once in a while I don't mind, especially in 5 mans.

In closing, pull faster, kick noobs, and let your skill speak for itself because if you got it, you know it.

This is something I think takes a little transition as well. Most good tanks are used to the rhythm of marking, being methodical, and repeating the process from group to group for a smooth transition. However, the game has changed slightly, so feel free to change your tactics. As Dreador mentioned, sometimes the best way to go through an instance if you feel that your healer isn't stressed out is to just jump in and use our wonderful new AOE skills. As long as your healer isn't freaking out in trying to keep you alive, don't give the chance for your DPSers to pull. Rush in and do your thing. If you feel that the healer can't keep up, or if you find that it's getting a bit rocky, then fall back to a more conservative stance. (Mark, etc.)

Honestly, it's a lot of fun to rip things up if we're able to! Save the conservative planning for the places that really need it. Chances are, you'll have plenty of that to go around in the future. Live it up as a wrecking ball while you still can.

Yeah, your right... I know I'm not the best tank, I haven't gotten any complaints, but there is always room for improvement. I have always been protection Prior BC when we were raiding ZG.

Sometimes when dps keeps pulling before me, I get a bit agitated and let them tank it and then pick up the mobs once they are dead.

Probably not the nicest thing, but I think I need to be a bit more strict anyhow. Tanks are always the leaders, and are only as capable as their healers. Maybe everyone else is expendable.

I think as well I need to respec. With the changes as of 3.0, my talent build needs some updating. I was mostly pure protection with 5/5 cruelty. After doing some research on other builds. I see where I can improve.

I did abandon my Tank for over a year and made mains out of a lock and a mage. It kind of felt like coming home when I hopped back on my Protection Warrior.

And I dont think speed of pulls during instances is a problem with my groups. I usually blow right past dungeons. Using shortcuts to make it quicker, and I pick up adds 95% of the time before it reaches another party member.


Thanks for the advice. Its great to get some perspective from other fellow tanks. :)

Edit: Actually Dreador, I think I might go with your build, but Im not sure on Improved Heroic Strike vs. Iron Will.

I'm a big fan of letting them die when they screw up hard like that, once the gold stacks up in a nice fat repair bill they might think twice. Also I don't want to sound like I was coming off condescending at all, sometimes they way I put things can sound that way lol.

As far as my spec at 80 (one of the two) is going to be an 12/8/51 impale, the other will probably be more tuned for boss tanking with puncture and maybe improved shouts or who knows what. GL man and I'm glad you decided to go back to your tank!

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Originally Posted by Dreador

I'm a big fan of letting them die when they screw up hard like that, once the gold stacks up in a nice fat repair bill they might think twice.

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This.

Though... then again I'm a fan of picking someone at random (or that has a 'non-character name' such as 'xxmastajoexx') and letting them die just because I can. *Great* conversation starter

I think it's important to keep in mind that there might be 2 sides to the story. If your DPS are getting itchy and ahead of you, is it because you are being slow? If you pull quickly and efficiently, there should be no need for them to get initial agro and mess things up. Likewise if you are losing agro, is it because you aren't putting out enough threat, perhaps you need to switch in some more threat gear on the trash, etc.

Once you are confident in your own performance, it's time to lay down the law to those DPS that aren't behaving. Be clear, polite but firm. You are the one the pulls and if they are going over the top on damage, blowing cooldowns before you've even laid a finger on the target etc, then tell them to calm down. If you have problems with them all attacking different targets, I find it handy to hotkey "skull" and mark the target I'm building most threat on.

The respec helped ALOT. With my improved crits, (I added the minor glyph that makes the thunderclap radius bigger) and better talent setup, I was having no problems.

My Warrior is 73, and last night I was in a 5man with a 75,76, and 2 77s and they almost never pulled aggro off of me. Even when I would grab 5 pulls and not mark. Twice I would pull 5 and the silly lock or hunters pet would accidently pull another group. We would have 10 mobs in Nerub, and I would keep them All on me. I think the second time, one clothie died. I cant wait to hit 80 and have the full talent spec. I also dumped those 12hp/15hp with some of the 21hp gems. Life is good... :)

/tear /sniffle

So proud :)

Cider had posted a great video on pulling multiple mobs, positioning, and using our aoe abilities effectively. It might be in the news archive forums, but he did his demonstration in undead Strat (old strat, not new) and showed pro use of LoS, using thunderclap, charge, shockwave and cleave. Definitely worth checking out.