Lack of "smart" tanks

[doomwarder]

Ok so I grouped with a "Prot" pally for a CoS run the other night. I say "Prot" because the only thing prot about him was the spec. His gear consisted of +agi dps gear, trinks with crit ratings. He had maybe 3 peices of "tank" spec gear. When I asked him what his defense was he replied 478.....ack!! he told me he was close enough to 490 that he would be fine...... at this point I am either thinking I am completely lost or he is. Dont u need 540 defense? I am only 79 but I have 542 ( I know it scales per level ) He said he was prioritizing towards stam. Funny thing is he was level 80 and I was 79 and I had 400 more HP than he did.

So anyway I think myself pretty leet and decide to try and heal him though all the fights.... OMG every other hit he took was a crit it seemed. But I managed to keep him up until he DC'ed. The tanking cloak off the second boss dropped and I was like.... u take it, u need it, because he was in a DPS'ers cloak.

So he dc'ed the last time and one person had to go... so when he came back on he was reassingned to offheals on bosses and dps... we grabbed a priest healer and I tanked the last two bosses without an issue cept when my shield broke 1/2 way through the last boss and I had to switch to my healing one.

Just to verify i am shooting for 535 defense (not defense rating) for heroics and 540 for raids. (or higher, but these numbers just to be uncrittable)


*edited for spelling*

[gilmantor]

he just needs to study a bit to clear himself up on some issues he is unaware of. I usually just send such people here or EJ's.

Its not really possible to play any toon well unless you study up on it. I was aweful did some study 3 years ago, now i have info on tap as i know where to find it. Still learning, but pretty on top of my game. I dont know it all , but i know way more than i did before i started stuying years ago.

Some just cant be bothered and just want to spam buttons.

I organise raids for our guild which means i need to know who is up to it and who is comming up to it. I pretty much send all new raiders to EJ's to sharpen up.

I often get ''i cant find the mage page you are talking about.'' /face palm, get out of our guild

[Duzzit]

he must still be reading burning crusade guides or something >.>.

anyway stupid people are everywhere.

[bondetamp]

The amount of defense you need is always ([enemy level]*5)+(5*25).

So if you tank a raid boss (level 83 in this context) you'll need (83*5)+(5*25)=540.

[veneretio]

Just to verify i am shooting for 535 defense (not defense rating) for heroics and 540 for raids. (or higher, but these numbers just to be uncrittable)

Yes, perhaps next time instead of belittling a clueless tank though, you could just use the search feature.

[doomwarder]

I knew the answer but I was a little confused one the defense and defense rating. Other than that I was just ranting/venting some steam.

It just seems with the abundance of plate gear in WOTLK everyone thinks with some high armor plate they can tank... imo this is not the case...

[TenTonTail]

It sounds like you leared a lot from watching someone else stumble. I also had a similar experience, though I was a hunter at the time. It was that day I decided I wanted to level a tank. Did the resarch, dabbled with paladin's and druids, and ended up level 80 levels as a prot warrior.

Being a tank is hard. You have the most expensive repair bills. From what I've seen there's 3x or more math and research for tanks than other classes (definetly more math on my warrior than my hunter.) In a run you have to watch yourself, all the other mobs, and cast your protective gaze upon the healer the whole run long.

You're the person who kicks the retard out of the group for causing wipes. Not because they made a mistake (over and over,) but because they don't even understand they're ruining moral for the whole group.

You're the person who runs your pocket healer through H Nex 8 days in a row because her healing mace hasn't dropped, and it's the best in game for her at the time. You're the person paying 20+ gold in repairs per wipe.

You're the one who reads WoWHead and knows every boss by heart before you run the run, and also understand the difference between the boss's abilities on H and Reg. You know enough about every class in game to make sure you get not only the right buffs, but how to have a hunter us tranq shot, and a rogue use that poison. And that if there's a priest it can MC, and a lock can seduce, and dogs bite rogues when they get too close trying to sap.

You have your raid markings hot-keyed so you can mark on the fly, to keep the run moving so DPS isn't bored, and because you have three more runs you promised friends you'd do today before you go to bed.

You take pride in being a cornerstone for your guild.You were there when your guild dropped Archivon for the first time a month ago, some of your guildmates had never even raided before that.

Doomwarder nailed it - "everyone thinks with some high armor plate they can tank... imo this is not the case... "

[kolben]

If you haven't made mistakes you either haven't been tanking anything hard enough, haven't tanked long enough, or don't know what the mistakes are.

As for this guy, if this was a "Normal" difficulty instance he may have thought that anyone in plate can tank because Blizzard has pretty much said so. Also realize that Blizzard offers very little supporting statements when they say something like "We want Arms Warriors to be able to tank normal difficulty instances." They don't add.... "with a shield, 1 Hander and 540 defense of course...".

[Arvandor]

Its not really possible to play any toon well unless you study up on it.

Not necessarily true. The first time I did any actual research on my druid, he was already level 50-60 and I'd done alot of 5-man tanking. Now, granted, bear tanking isn't what I'd call rocket science, but what I figured out on my own turned out to be exactly what everyone suggested to do as standard. The cat rotation I devised from watching the numbers fly and doing mental math also turned out to be the correct one. Same thing happened with my deathknight. I bought WotLK, dove in, rolled my deathknight, played him up into Northrend before going on the forums, and well... again, rotations aren't rocket science, I managed to figure out all the standard stuff just from questing.

Someone has to be the pioneer of how stuff works, or else there's no source material to study off of. WoW is a simple enough game, that anyone who puts their mind to it could be perfectly great at their class with little or no research at all. The problem is, most people don't care that much, and really, who can blame them? It is just a game afterall. That's perhaps the biggest difference between them and us. Tanks seem more inclined to care, and the ones who don't care tend to stick out much more horribly than bad dps does.

The one thing where research really has helped me isn't with how to play, but how to spec (and gear, in the case of tanking). Some talents that sound good don't look so hot once you start putting them to the napkin math (which I'm terrible at, especially if I don't know the game's damage formulas), and on the other hand, some talents that don't sound too impressive are truly must haves.

[Jalousie]

The amount of defense you need is always ([enemy level]*5)+(5*25).

So if you tank a raid boss (level 83 in this context) you'll need (83*5)+(5*25)=540.

THIS. I have been looking for something like that forever. Thank you.

[Tristessa]

I dunno, it seems that there are less "smart DPS" than there are "smart tanks" out there. Tanks are forced to think and re-think while pulling, tanking, and using cooldowns--but when shit hits the fan during the fight, it's often the other classes that pick up the slack.

Example: the Hunter who proactively traps an extra add and kites another. The DK who Death Grip-pulls the caster for the Warrior Tank who's got his Heroic Throw on cooldown. The Shadow Priest who MC-tanks an add mid-fight. The Warlock who CCs an add with never-ending Fears.

All these seem to be missing in WotLK with the (relatively) easier dungeons.

[klor]

Not necessarily true. The first time I did any actual research on my druid, he was already level 50-60 and I'd done alot of 5-man tanking.

The game starts at 80. Just like at 70, it was a whole new ball game from 1-69. I tanked everything up until 65 as arms, had very little problems with it, then switched to fury/15defense at 65 and kept going til 70. Heck I even tried tanking Karazhan with the same spec at 70 with something like 410 defense. Up until that point, no research had been needed.

There will always be those uneducated in a class, its how you approach it that makes you the better person of the situation. I cant say I always approach scenarios like this the correct way, which is to send them to find the correct information, but alot of times I try. Depends on my mood at that point

[Madoxx]

I dunno, it seems that there are less "smart DPS" than there are "smart tanks" out there. Tanks are forced to think and re-think while pulling, tanking, and using cooldowns--but when shit hits the fan during the fight, it's often the other classes that pick up the slack.

Example: the Hunter who proactively traps an extra add and kites another. The DK who Death Grip-pulls the caster for the Warrior Tank who's got his Heroic Throw on cooldown. The Shadow Priest who MC-tanks an add mid-fight. The Warlock who CCs an add with never-ending Fears.

All these seem to be missing in WotLK with the (relatively) easier dungeons.

to Quote the old saying , you hit the nail on the head, the amount of instances i run now Pugs wise were people done try to CC or sap or fear they all just want to AOE spam dps and hammer through it is unreal no though seems t o go into it anymore at all

[Zyffyr]

The lack of CC saddens me.

My main is a Mage, and it has been since release day. My first priority has always been CC. I think nothing of holding one mob sheeped for 5+ minutes while continuing to DPS the current target.

These days, I practically have to beg groups to let me CC a mob. Even when we just got done with an identical pack that killed 3 of us off. If I go ahead and CC it anyway I can count on the Warlock or Shadow Priest DoTing it, or the tank running the other mobs over to it and Thunderclaping or Consecrating once he notices that he is missing one.

This isn't an issue of a lack of "Smart DPS' or "Smart Tanks" or "Smart Healers". It is more of an issue that the less than smart players are able to progress farther and faster than they could in the past. That leads to running into more of them than ever before.

[CyCy]

Okay so you pugged one group with someone who needed to learn his class........so that justifies an entire thread named "lack of smart tanks"?

Maybe it's just me......but IM confused.

[Berzerker]

Zyffyr - come run with me and I'll let you CC (what's scary is you actually happen to be on my server :P) -- I'm even still in the habit (usually) of pulling the group away from sheep (or now penguins) so I don't TC them (or more often the rogue and fury warrior hitting them with fan and whirlwind, respectively).

I actually miss the day when more strategy was involved in fights - more strategy than "charge and AOE" anyway. It feels like we started this expansion already out-gearing so many of the instances (and that's with me coming in with only Kara/badge gear). I understand blizz was trying to avoid the "oh, we can't run shat halls because we only have one CC" roadblocks that some of us had before, but by the same token they've drastically improved the CC available to groups as well -- ret paladins, shamans, mages, hunters, rogues, priests - all have good CC options available, depending on the situation. Throw in a DK or warrior for DPS and they can even OT 1-2 mobs without major hassle to lighten the beating if/when necessary.

And yet none of it really seems generally necessary on even 1/3 of the heroics wearing just decent gear from quests and normal dungeons. I actually had to explain to a shadow priest in a hCoS run a few weeks back that when I said "you have triangle" I meant to shackle, not kill it! /boggle

It's not surprising that there is a shortage of smart players, though, when they've dumbed the game down like they have. On the one hand, as a casual player (in a casual guild) I appreciate that more content has been opened up to me, but as a semi-skilled player (if I may say so myself) I still feel cheated of a sense of accomplishment on some of these fights - though I think the achievements and "hard-mode" fights will help me immensely on that count, once I get time to get my groups up to that level to try more.

[doomwarder]

Okay so you pugged one group with someone who needed to learn his class........so that justifies an entire thread named "lack of smart tanks"?

Maybe it's just me......but IM confused.

OK OK so the thread name was because I was upset atm... But a RL friend of mine who happens to be pugging into a guild runs of Nax 25 and he has run a lot more instances as a healer as I have as a tank... even when I am in instances way above my level he loves healing for me... For example he was running HoL (reg mind you) with a Prot warrior tank. They were wiping on trash... turns out he wasn't even in defensive stance and was spamming dps abilities, and he had the nerve to blame my RL friend for bad heals... btw here is a link for my bud's armory page... as you will see he is quite capable of healing a level 80 instance <Zeelazi>
yet when I was level 76 he took me in there and with similarly leveled dps (75 s priest, 77 hunter, and a 77 DK) we did just fine...

He has told me other horror stories of "wanabe tanks" He now sits there and looks at thier gear to verify they have the required defense to be able to be uncrittable before accepting the invitation. But then again there are a lot of decent tanks that take the time to do the math. They take the time to gear for the encounters they want to tank. They post on sites like this to learn... I by no means am the ultimate tank, do I wanna be?...not really... but I wanna be sucessful at what I do.

My goals as a tank are to get a guild together that can have 10 man naxx on farm status as we are a small guild, and are getting ready to start heavy recruiting. If we get enough people that are talented enough to raid then maybe we can go for 25man naxx.

In short there isn't a "lack of smart tanks" but there is an abundance of dumb tanks that spec prot for the heck of it...fail and go back to dps.

[Natortot]

I consider myself a decent tank and the problem I run into is trigger happy dps. The last time I ran a heroic it was VH and we had an arc/fire mage who thought it would be a thrilling idea to Fball-PoMPyro-Fblast before the mob even got to me. This caused a chain reaction of fail through the entire group shooting anything with an e-pulse. I finally got control of the situation and we continued. This happened 2-3 more times. Long story short, bad dps can make a tank look bad. Bad dps can, however, make you look like god if you know what you are doing.

[Thrin]

Don't take this the wrong way but if your in a guild that can't do 10 man naxx you might have a few problems you need to consider.

Naxx is one of the easiest instances I have ever seen, as long as your walking in there with the mentality that you would have had setting foot into SWP.

Do your research, learn the strats, get the appropriate gear, and the instance becomes cake walk. Assuming the other members follow suit.

[doomwarder]

Don't take this the wrong way but if your in a guild that can't do 10 man naxx you might have a few problems you need to consider.

Naxx is one of the easiest instances I have ever seen, as long as your walking in there with the mentality that you would have had setting foot into SWP.

Do your research, learn the strats, get the appropriate gear, and the instance becomes cake walk. Assuming the other members follow suit.

I hope you are not talking to me... It is kinda hard to guild run in naxx if you only have one level 80 member in the guild, I just turned 80(making me the 2nd 80) and have a little over 540 defense so I am considering grabbing our other 80 who has over 1.8k Spell Power healer and pugging the rest 2nite. I have read many of the strats and am looking forward to it learning the fights in person.

Wish me luck!!

P.S. dont armory me as I forgot to change out all of my healing gear.