Was it me or the Healer?

First off a link:

Killbilly @ Wow-heroes
(I chose WoW-Heroes because The armory wasn't showing the brewfest trinkets.)

Note* In frost presence I have 23.6k HP and 23k armor and my def is overcapped.

Now the question:

I grouped last night for H Drak'Tharon. Right off the bat the group was whining about me being a DK Tank.

So we started the run (which I had never done, but new I could) and moved swiftly to the first boss (TrollGore?). I made the pull and held aggro but kept dying. We tried three times (twice with a pally healer and once with a priest (shadow...go figure) ) and failed. Of course I was to blame according to the group. So I dropped from the party and went on my way.

I had no problem holding aggro the whole time.

I've always believed that:

"If the healer dies, it's the tanks fault. If the tank dies, it's the healers fault and if the DPS dies, it's their own damn fault"

My question to the tanks here at TankSpot is: Was this bad gear/low health fault of the tank(me) or overly sucky healers? Being kinda new to Tanking, I'm not sure how to tell the difference yet.

Thanks,

Killbilly

"If the healer dies, it's the tanks fault. If the tank dies, it's the healers fault and if the DPS dies, it's their own damn fault"

amen

I'm going to be blunt and call it MAD syndrome (Mutually Assured Destruction).

Your gear is adequate for getting in the door of a heroic, but I wager the paladin was similarly geared. In that situation, you're fighting to stay alive as much as the healer is trying to keep you up. Doesn't mean you did anything wrong, but that both linchpins in the group were over extended badly.

I would take this as a lesson in how folks don't run heroics for gear anymore, but try to push through them at an unreasonable pace if you're not overgeared. Gearing up more is your best option, so you can reach a point where you can compenstate for the healer's gear/abilities. There are a number of gaps in your gear that quest, rep and enchants could improve and don't require you stepping into a heroic atm.

To just trail on your thread here, I am having a problem holding threat in heroics on mobs and ranged dps. Single boss encounters I never lose aggro and roll through everything. It seems to be as my gear gets better the harder it is to hold aggro. I really am at a loss here as it is really annoying when you lose people in your group since dying is so darn expensive I feel terrible for people.

The World of Warcraft Armory

To the OP:

It's worth noting that trollgore does increased periodic damage. If trollgore doesn't die fast enough, it's a wipe. Was your DPS low?

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Originally Posted by Esch

I would take this as a lesson in how folks don't run heroics for gear anymore, but try to push through them at an unreasonable pace if you're not overgeared.

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That's another thing that drove me nuts. Before a few pulls, I'd delay a bit to make sure the group knew their mark (and so casters could mana up) and the pally was complaining that he "didn't want to take 10mins per fight" (more like 2mins downtime between fights, which seems reasonable to me as a few were close to going oom).

Also, I am doing rep stuff, but I'm hoping to supplement with Heroics.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bashal

To the OP:

It's worth noting that trollgore does increased periodic damage. If trollgore doesn't die fast enough, it's a wipe. Was your DPS low?

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I wasn't aware that Trollgore did that.
**Pun Alert** Seems like I should TrollMore.

I was around 1.6k DPS and I was 2nd to another DK (i believe he was around 2.2k). Then followed a Boomkin, S-Priest then pally(on heals). The Boomkin and I were close on DPS.

Sounds like low DPS may have been the real problem. Against a single target, the DPSers really should all be doing more DPS than the tank.

I don't know DK stats, but if you're looking for +def +stam gear you can make serious strides in gear by doing regular ToC over and over again until you get the:

Legs
Hands
Belt
Trinket

Sorry I'm at work and don't have time to link the items.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nethervoid

I don't know DK stats, but if you're looking for +def +stam gear you can make serious strides in gear by doing regular ToC over and over again until you get the:

Legs
Hands
Belt
Trinket

Sorry I'm at work and don't have time to link the items.

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I'll look em up. Thanks.

Another thing. where you keeping him and the group away from the bodies on the floor? He explodes them from time to time.. they hurt! Alot! In fact even running Drak Keep with guildies who have been in there before i always warn about that cause somebody almost always stands next to the bodies... and dies.....

as to your question ... we can give advice on what to look at, gear, play style, healer gear, dps, etc. but en the end only you can answer your own question and when you can responsibly tell if it was you or the healer or the dps then you will have taken a big step in your tanking education. ohh anad sometimes it is everybody collective fault. :) at any rate every wipe should be a learning experience at least for you a tank.

@Zaubade

The priest, Pally and Boomkin were off the stairs(ranged) where as I and the other DK were in Melee range on the stairs picking up the adds as they came down the steps.


I know I need more work as a tank. That comes with time and runs.

Although, After everyone's input, I'm more inclined to believe the entire group was at fault, even if they were blaming me. Which is fine. It's only a dungeon. at least now I know better what to look for.

As many have said before me, you will eventually learn when a wipe was your fault, the healers fault, or everyone collectively.

It is your job to know the fights before you step into a dungeon, raid, etc.

A great tank learns how to keep others from failing by using the fight mechanics to make the fight easier for everyone else. ie keeping the boss from the bodies reduces the healing the pally has to do on you and the dps, thus increasing the chance for success.

Heroics will get easier as gear gets better. However, the scenario plays out in every end-game setting. If your eyes are set on end game raid tanking, you need to learn how to decipher wipes. Was there a cooldown you could have used? Did the boss have a buff that should have been dispelled? Was the dps standing in fire? Were you standing in fire? Did low DPS cause the healers to oom?

Take it a step further and know how to avoid those situations before you step inside the raid/dungeon. Nothing frustraits me more than a tank not knowing a fight.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by killbilly

@Zaubade

The priest, Pally and Boomkin were off the stairs(ranged) where as I and the other DK were in Melee range on the stairs picking up the adds as they came down the steps.

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Try kitting him around the room. When you kill the first group of adds move him about 15 yards away down the stairs away from any other bodies every time adds come kill them and repeat.. .. if you have a few piles of the adds near you and they all explode you're dead!


(and so you know... I know this from experience... was very well geared at them time.. in a normal version... just decided to stay put and dps through him... well geared raid healer was with me.. some lower lvl dps... 3 piles of adds... they all exploded all hit for 6k or so each.... full health to dead just like that.. I was wtf? hehe live and learn right.)

23k is low HP to be tanking heroics, but a reasonable healer could get you through it anyway, especially on an easy boss like Trollgore. So I think my answer to you is that you are a little low gearwise, but it's really the healing that is causing the wipe.

One other thing to note is that DKs seem to take a lot more spike damage than other tanks at low gear levels, or at least that's what I've observed while healing. That could just be a perception issue, but a lot of healers feel that way. At the other end of the spectrum I've healed DKs that never seemed to take any damage at all hardly. Either way, a healer even in quest blues should be able to keep you up through DTK, which is one of the easier heroics.

yes 23k is a bit low although buffed you are closer to the range to start out in, however at the gear lvl you have you have to follow a set strategy that will reduce incoming damage to you and everybody else and know you limitations as far as which dungeons you can go into... note that I believe you are capable of H DTK, but the healer is going to be stressed a bit especially if the dps output of the group is low thus making the encounters longer.

With all that said there are a few things to point out and reiterate.

1. your gear does need improvement as was stated before. I will not insult you by telling you what needs to be improved now. (if help is needed there are threads on gear for the different tank classes, or just ask I am sure many can help) I will say that the first thing I would do is get a better wep, Titansteel comes to mind as an easily obtainable upgrade.

2. strategy... even when you are well geared learn them, know them, love them, use them.

3. You have the right attitude... you came to this web site to ask if you where at fault and did not just assume the grouped sucked... you want to improve. That I think is one of the foundations for any good tank. always ask, "can I do better?" I would encourage you or any new tank to never assume it is the healer or the group, have confidence in what you do know but be honest when you are at fault and use the wipes to learn and improve.

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Originally Posted by Reev

23k is low HP to be tanking heroics, but a reasonable healer...

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erm... not to be sarcastic but are you serious???

I seem to remember myself hitting H DTK with about 18-20k HP (although it might have been more but definitely lower than 23k) without any issues... heck, if my memory serves me right, I was also tanking Naxx10 with 20k HP... I also remember a time when people had to gear up through heroics instead of just pugging reg ToC5 and h ToC5 for an almost full set of epics...

that said, I feel that many people now-a-days are basing gear as experience and skill... I can understand that it does show that you've been there, but it doesn't tell if you've been obscenely carried or if you're pulling 1.5k dps from gear that is supposedly giving you 3.5k dps...

p.s. sry i got a bit angsty but i've been meeting many people who are lazy to heal or dps, and expect to get loot while alt-tabbing to their youtube channels... there are also those who just plainly don't have a clue about their stuff, but i'm not going there...

24k isn't too low to run heroics.

It is too low to run heroics by brute-forcing them an ignoring tactics.

Trollgore has a stacking buff that makes him do more damage. The buff stacks by a skill that he does. Every enemy he hits with the skill adds 1 point to the stack. The adds are his enemies.
Conclusion: You want Trollgore to not see the adds, or he will kill you.
Consume - Spell - World of Warcraft

Also, a dps doing less then 2k dps is lazy, stupid or both. It's possible to do 2k dps on boss dummies shortly after you ding 80. On a stationary fight like Trollgore, you should do more.

Consume (Trollgore's AoE buff) is LoS based. You can avoid buffing him up by having your entire group hide around one side of the stairs every 15 seconds, right before he casts consume. In this manner, he only gains one stack of the consume buff each time from having only the tank in range, in addition to the entire group avoiding the AoE damage. I do not believe that the zombie adds contribute to the Consume buff, and that they are only there for the purposes of corpse explosion.

Inexperienced holy paladins often struggle healing more than one person at once during group-wide damage spikes, this may have contributed to your failure, as its possible the healer neglected your health for the sake of healing up the DPS. If as mentioned in this thread, both you and the healer were at similar gear levels, this lack of attention can cause the tank death if the HPS is roughly the same as DTPS.

23K hitpoints is not too low to be tanking heroics. But to succeed, you should know as much about the fights as you can so that you are assisting your group, rather than hindering them. One less point of failure, as they say.

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Originally Posted by Jameak

Inexperienced holy paladins often struggle healing more than one person at once during group-wide damage spikes, this may have contributed to your failure, as its possible the healer neglected your health for the sake of healing up the DPS. If as mentioned in this thread, both you and the healer were at similar gear levels, this lack of attention can cause the tank death if the HPS is roughly the same as DTPS.

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This. I've done quite a few runs both as a tank and a healer. 23k life is fine DEPENDING ON YOUR HEALER. To be blunt, I don't trust pug Paladin healers. Most of them play Paladin healer because they were told they had great hps and longevety. This doesn't change the fact that they can't heal while moving and that they struggle with group damage. Couple this with inexperience in the ancient art of triage and you have got a dead tank on your hands.
A Paladin who heals thru TOC5 while geared for that instance wihtout losing anybody is a great healer indeed. Could've been so much greater as a Priest or Druid, tho.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jameak

23K hitpoints is not too low to be tanking heroics. But to succeed, you should know as much about the fights as you can so that you are assisting your group, rather than hindering them. One less point of failure, as they say.

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With 23k hp you WILL have to know when to pop a CD. That in turn means you need to know the fight. You may read about the fight mechanics on the web but you'd stille have to wipe to make your own experiences. My advice is, team up with a fledgeling healer(Disc Priest would be nice for the damage spike prevention). Do not listen to stuff you hear in trade and only listen to pug DDs when the seem to have an actual clue what they are talking about.

Buckle up. You are going thru a school of hard knocks and setbacks every tank has to survive. give it two weeks and you will have enough experience to survive this.