I'm a Bad Tank

I'm a Fury warrior with a gearscore around 4,700 at the moment--and yes, the gear I've got is all DPS-oriented. I'm certain this is part of the problem. Nonetheless...

I bought dual spec for Protection because my guild doesn't have many tanks. Did okay when off-tanking with them in raids, and learned to use Vigilance for fun and profit. In order to practice solo tanking, I decided it would be smart to go into a lower-level Lich King dungeon at Normal difficulty. So I picked Azjol-Nerub--the level is around 72-75, so even in DPS gear I figured the stats I had would still compensate. Plus it was a dungeon I'd been in plenty of times, I knew the fights, etc.

The other PUG members were thrilled to see me--at first. They were still game to give it a shot when I explained I was a first-timer (I have no complaints about the group members at all), and off we went. We never got past the first boss.

I had done some research, had most of the glyphs I needed in place, and put Vigilance on the healer. Made sure I was in Defensive Stance. I'd already arranged my action bars for a good rotation. I used Challenging Shout and Taunt. Tried my best to tab from one mob to the next, but the cooldowns on CS and and Taunt were longer than I'd hoped. Spammed Heroic Strike and Thunder Clap as often as they were up. But I still had a mob peel off from the group and go after the healer. Got him back, killed that first group, everything seemed to be going okay. But soon I lost another mob, the healer died, and we wiped.

No one quit the group, and we all tried again. The same thing happened, I died early and tried to run back in, only to find my party members retreating toward the entrance with the boss in hot pursuit. I tried to grab aggro, died, and quit the group before subjecting them to any more misery.

Problem #1 is surely my gear, and I'm resigned to the fact of having to acquire and carry around two sets of gear. (Acquisition time will therefore double for both sets, blurg.) Problem #2, I think, is that I was not successfully tabbing to each mob in a group in order to get threat on them, and I'm not sure what the solution to that might be. I downloaded TidyPlates/ThreatPlates yesterday, but I haven't tried to tank yet with that up, and I'm worried that in a big crowd I won't be able to see the plates well enough for them to be effective.

Anyone have any ideas? I don't want to give up on tanking, though that was certainly my first reaction--my guild still needs a tank, and I hate giving up on things in general. Are there any macros out there that might help with the tabbing-selecting thing?

Thanks very much...

I am no warrior tank, but I did want to give you a possible ray of hope here. Was it an Anub'ar Skirmisher? If so:

Anub'ar Skirmisher - Backstab, # Fixate

Link Fixate to your party, if they blame the tank for "not tanking the skirmisher".
(Taken from Wowhead)

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Originally Posted by thereby

I'm a Fury warrior with a gearscore around 4,700 at the moment--and yes, the gear I've got is all DPS-oriented. I'm certain this is part of the problem. Nonetheless...

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Leave GS at the door before entering. Do not ever mention that accursed term in here if you wish to get help. And if you still refuse, go read up about the "Undergeared" guild who downs ICC bosses in blues.

Tanking is about proper spec, gear, and most importantly, SKILL, and believe me it is skill. You need more situational awareness than you are used to. You have the right idea, that it is something best learned when you overgear content at the start, but don't get too discouraged at your first scraped knee.

Read this site, it's a warrior tank's heaven (we try to cover all tanks, but warriors get extra love around here).

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I bought dual spec for Protection because my guild doesn't have many tanks. Did okay when off-tanking with them in raids, and learned to use Vigilance for fun and profit. In order to practice solo tanking, I decided it would be smart to go into a lower-level Lich King dungeon at Normal difficulty. So I picked Azjol-Nerub--the level is around 72-75, so even in DPS gear I figured the stats I had would still compensate. Plus it was a dungeon I'd been in plenty of times, I knew the fights, etc.

The other PUG members were thrilled to see me--at first. They were still game to give it a shot when I explained I was a first-timer (I have no complaints about the group members at all), and off we went. We never got past the first boss.

I had done some research, had most of the glyphs I needed in place, and put Vigilance on the healer. Made sure I was in Defensive Stance. I'd already arranged my action bars for a good rotation. I used Challenging Shout and Taunt. Tried my best to tab from one mob to the next, but the cooldowns on CS and and Taunt were longer than I'd hoped. Spammed Heroic Strike and Thunder Clap as often as they were up. But I still had a mob peel off from the group and go after the healer. Got him back, killed that first group, everything seemed to be going okay. But soon I lost another mob, the healer died, and we wiped.

No one quit the group, and we all tried again. The same thing happened, I died early and tried to run back in, only to find my party members retreating toward the entrance with the boss in hot pursuit. I tried to grab aggro, died, and quit the group before subjecting them to any more misery.

Problem #1 is surely my gear, and I'm resigned to the fact of having to acquire and carry around two sets of gear. (Acquisition time will therefore double for both sets, blurg.)

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No, and no. First off link your armory and we can comment. Second, most tanks around here with full ICC gear PUT ON dps gear to tank heroics, if you are coming from the opposite direction you shouldn't be too far off the mark.

As for acquisition time, this is false. Two reasons:
-Continue to raid as DPS. Since there are always more DPS than tanks, you will always end up having tank gear sharded as raids get on farm status, just snag them as offsets. Yes this does mean you have to carry two sets, but with enough diligent raiding (doing both 10 and 25, ICC as well as ToC if available, or even just running heroics), you can probably get a good portion of a tank set in 2-3 weeks.
-Spend your frost badges on DPS set, and your triumph badges on tank set. If you are getting upgrades only through frost badges, this means triumph badges are useless to you otherwise, might as well build a tank set with it.

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Problem #2, I think, is that I was not successfully tabbing to each mob in a group in order to get threat on them, and I'm not sure what the solution to that might be. I downloaded TidyPlates/ThreatPlates yesterday, but I haven't tried to tank yet with that up, and I'm worried that in a big crowd I won't be able to see the plates well enough for them to be effective.

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If tanking multiple mobs, between Thunderclap, Shockwave, damage shield, and cleave, you should have no issues holding threat. Spam those abilities more often. Tab Targetting will take time for you to master, but it's an effective tool even for Paladins/Unholy DKs who have few issues with AoE.

TidyPlates/ThreatPlates is an excellent addon, just try it and you will get used to it.

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Anyone have any ideas? I don't want to give up on tanking, though that was certainly my first reaction--my guild still needs a tank, and I hate giving up on things in general. Are there any macros out there that might help with the tabbing-selecting thing?

Thanks very much...

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-Don't give up and be patient. Keep to it, you will learn the skills required to tank, if you practice, practice, practice.
-Stop trying to macro stuff. There is a time to macro it, but not to be used as crutch for not knowing how to tank. Warriors inherently are the most challenging tank to master, because they need to push so many buttons (Frost DKs are pretty close).
-Read these forums, including tanking guides. There are so many in here I won't bother listing them.
-Collect tank gear, even blue ones. You need to get to 535 defense rating for heroics, and 540 for raids. Even if it means putting on a few blues instead of DPS epics. Follow Ciderhelm's Easy 540 guide to gearing if need be.

Insahnity--thanks for the thorough responses. Here's the Armory link: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...ger&cn=Thereby

Yeah, I entered gearscore with some trepidation--it would probably have been more useful to say I was mostly in Tier 9 DPS gear. I particularly liked the idea about using triumph emblems to help get the tank gear.

Overall, you seem to be telling me what I figured the real answer was gonna be: I've got to simply get better at tanking, and I've got to do it the hard way. (Drat!) I've begun looking at the TankSpot guides but there's a lot to go through, and a lot of it involves math that makes my poor head spin. I'll definitely check out the Ciderhelm gear guide.

Thanks again, much appreciated.

Hrm. Interesting. I've never played a warrior but I'm guessing a possible main flaw might be a slight misunderstanding in what tanks must do. Apart from protecting the other group members, but they must be able to protect themselves. If you can't do one, don't expect to do the other. ^^ But like, what I'm trying to say is, in your prot spec. It seems like you've spent some talent points on dealing damage/threat generation where they could be spent on damage mitigation/reduction. Apart from that, a gear overhaul is needed. But for the mean time just tank in that gear. I mean, anyone in plate can tank :) The just gotta know how to pull, maintain threat, and handle scatters. :L My situation is the other way around, I DPS in tank gear to grab tank gear cause i cbf tanking. I do well enough to pull 2k. I guess its all about Skill&Spec. Ether way, you're going to fine. :)

Maybe you should read some guides here on takspot about tanking rotations etc.
http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.p...-Warrior-guide for example would be a good start.

As iiwasPULL said you probably misunderstood how or what a tank is doing so before writing page after page how to tank I give you the advice to read some guides first.

Besides the theory of Warrior tanking you need to understand that practice is one of the important things to get familiar with your role.

If you want to continue to learn how to tank in low level dungeons your gear is a not an issue as long as you have a one hand weapon and a shield in your hands.

As said before awareness is the most important skill you need to have if you want to be at least a decent tank.

Last but not least never put Vigilance on a healer because this skill is foremost a tool to generate threat and not to protect someone. Put it on the player that generates the most threat. If you don't have omen already install it so you can see which players are endangered of pulling aggro.

And no offense but the armory profile looks terrible maybe you also want to read a fury guide.

First, as has been said already, DONT GIVE UP!

You will wipe horribly, and while your learning some of them may be your fault entirely, but do NOT get discouraged. Take these experiences, do your best to understand WHY they occurred, and how to prevent it in the future.

This video, made by Ciderhelm, is one of the first places I send all new tanks when they ask where to start. It will tell you more than ANYONE on these forums can, and help you a ton while you practice in heroics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf1pWQhJdhQ

Most of the other tips I could give have already been stated, so ill refrain from repeating them, but keep at it!

Best of luck!

One thing Insahnty mentioned that I believe gets over looked by the vast majority of WoW players, maybe humans in general, is situational awareness. I believe it to be a the most important skill a tank MUST have. You can have a flawless threat rotation and the best gear available and it will amount to nothing if you don't have situational awareness.

Becoming a good tank takes time and effort. Knowing what mobs need to die first in a trash pull, knowing which spell should be spell reflected and which should be interrupted, where you should position the mobs so you do not face pull the patrol, how to move a boss so dps up time can be maximized, knowing when to use your defensive cool downs, being able to gauge the ability of the pug healer....those are but a few of the things a good tank knows how to do and is capable of.

Some suggestions after looking at your armory profile.

When tanking alot of five man heroics I found glyph of shockwave, glyph of cleave, and glyph of blocking to be a very good aoe threat setup.

I would take the two points out of cruelty and put them into shield specialization.

Also put vigilance on the highest threat producing dps player in your group not the healer.

Becoming a good tank takes effort and is an ongoing process for all of us, but if knowing that all of the effort you put into being a good tank is making it possible for your group to down bosses, and getting tells from your healers mid fight asking you to take some damage because they are bored and didn't bring their hit gear is all the thanks you need... then welcome brother.

Just keep on trying, and if all the above doesn't work, you can aswell change the dungeon of you'r choice. Both OK and AN are instances where situational awareness is very important, and that you only recieve by hours and hours of tanking.