New tank, doing LFG "low-level" instances?

[Mesar]

I'm just getting into tanking with my level 80 druid and wanted to start easy.

Would it be a good idea to start with the lower level non-heroic dungeons in LFG to learn the tactics and mechanics of tanking with a over-geared tank (I'm almost fully T9) with a group that is less likely to pull threat from you?

Would people get irritated that they would get a serious exp penalty with a level 80 tank in a level 72 instance (Utgarde Keep or Nexus etc.)? And would I really learn the right things if it is too easy?

[Miraii]

Think most people below 80 would be glad when they see a level 80 tank in the team, a little less exp for them but faster and more secure run.
As for the plan of going through normal instances instead of heroics, I don't see a problem with that if you're not sure on how to tank the encounters... You can easily do it in Heroics too... At least in my battlegroup there is usually no problem as long as the person announces it before the run begins

[Tinytankz]

No-one will hate on you being 80 in their run it can cut the time in half. I accidentally que'd for a normal a few days ago and the lowbies loved me. It actually got me into a pug cause someone on their main remembered me and let me OT for the weekly. Learning wise it can help for sure. Did you not level as a druid tank? The mechanics shuold be fairly simple (mangle lacerate and swipe it isnt the hardest) but, i can understand practicing you can manually Que for some low runs if it is a real learning issue.

[Errvalunia]

Personally, I hate when higher levels are around because I do levelling dungeons to blow stuff up, frankly. My warlock is lvl 74. I like to make things explode with seed of corruption, and the faster the tank damages the less i get to blow stuff up. And that makes my super long wait less worth it. Would I rather have a 10 min wait and a 20 min dungeon or a 10 min wait and a 10 min dungeon? I like to spend more time blowing stuff up and getting better at being a warlock. If you're trying to "carry" people through you're not making the DPS learn how to watch aggro or the healer learn how to heal.

[Tinytankz]

I can see what your saying but, the majority of players just wanna hit 80. So a blazing fast run for them is a blessing, also do what you can to hold onto your group once done you can all que together again i do that all the time when i finally get a good group i try to keep as many as possible.

[Phydeaux]

With the zergfest that is the heroics of today. I would imagine it's difficult to learn how to actually tank doing heroics.

[Metasynaptic]

As a priest healer from 70-80, every time I saw a 80 tank in the lfg, I went WOO HOO.

[Maèl]

Tanking in lower level instances will teach you nothing. If you are already in your T9s then you can actually SOLO(try it!) Nexus/normal.

If it is practice you are after then you WANT to be challenged. Sometimes you screw up. Sometimes you don't. But you don't want to screw up in the same way twice

Take for instance the slope of death in PoS. this is a place of dread when you first get there. Once you have done it a couple of times you have a routine. You charge this mob, stun that mob and round up the jolly lot of them. You won't learn this when there is the "if something weird happens I can finish the dungeon on my lonesome self" thought looming in the back of your head. On the contrary. Once stuff becomes too easy you will pick up bad habits that will kill you when you are facing a true challenge. That has been killing groups since 2005
And I guess you want to be going places?

If you screw up, are too tough to heal, get booted for not having 7k GS in H UK, well...just requeue. Find another PUG group. That's what they are for. If you are being laughed at, come here and we will laugh at them back.

But DO NOT try to learn the ropes in content you can solo.

[Ozonekiller]

I recently started tanking on my druid as well. I leveled moonkin and raided resto. I hadn't been in bear form since the early levels. I was nervous to start as well. I know how brutal Pugs can be. I started after I got the T9 4 piece sets as well. But the only normal instance I did (with guildies) was ToC5 for the Black Heart trinket. I ran it over and over until I got it. Mentally I had to reach the "screw it" point before I started doing randoms with pugs. This came after I watched some pretty fail tanks while I was queuing up as moonkin. I normally deem a tank as fail despite the experience and gear score. They have to pretty much be tools. They treat other people badly because they are the "tank". It's utter hogwash, but there's a lot of them out there and I knew I wouldn't be one of them.

I can tell you that the non-ICC heroics are easy to tank. Run around and spam swipe until you get enough initial threat. All of the other tanking classes are not mobile AoE threat makers like us bears are. Use that to your advantage. You can keep the AoE happy DPS players from grabbing threat off of you during the pull that way.

Aloft or other threat nameplate add-ons help you after the pull. Have growl ready to go on mobs that still have a decent heath pool. Don't taunt the mobs that won't live much longer. Tab target switching to apply Maul/Mangle and keep the swipes up. If a DPS consistently pulls of you or for you, let them die. Save the growl for when the healer picks up the add. If you have issues keeping threat during the fight and you have a hunter or rogue in your group, politely ask for tricks or misdirect. You can also skull a target and ask the dps to burn the skull down and then AoE. Communication is very helpful.

Single target boss fights are easy for bears to keep threat on, not much to say here except get Lacerate up to 5 stacks as soon as possible while still keeping Maul/Mangle on cooldown. Start off with a FFF and a demo roar.

For those tricky ICC heroics, you should encourage single target dps by marking the kill order. FFF skull! The marks need to be killed before AoE DPS starts. HoR is a pain no matter where you pull it. I personally prefer the hall. It's difficult to keep marks up for dps so you should communicate the kill order before the event. This is also a good place to run around to gather everything up on the pull so you can to keep the DPS from AoE at the start of the pull. Remember that the hunters and mages don't move unless you LoS them. Use FFF on them first. Barkskin on the pull helps the healer keep you alive here since your moving. You might want to work these on normal until you get the hang of it.

The thing I can not stress enough is that bears can not let the mob groups come to them and gain instant threat like a paladin or DK can. We need to pull on the move to dictate when the DPS can start AoE. Have your route planned out before hand. Healers are used to tanks that don't move as much as we do though. Educate them if you see that healing is a problem. But watch your health and be ready to use survival cool-downs if needed. All healers have the ability to deal with your high movement pulls (shields and hots) they just might not be used to bear healing.

I am sure other more experienced tanks can offer more advice. I wanted to share what I have learned since I was in a the same boat as you recently. Good luck!

[sifuedition]

I think you already have a good grasp of the pros and cons just from your question. To give you the input I can see (and I have done this when my pally was a new 80 as well):

If you run normals, which is not a bad idea, remember that you are doing it to learn a certain amount of muscle memory for your tanking skills as well as to learn the pulls in a non-threatening environment. Be on the lookout for all of those pulls where you skipped a mob and the rest of the party aggroed it or you pulled pack A but pack B came with it. Practice your cds even if you don't strickly need them but you might in the heroic version. You might even encourage the rest of the party to do their best to mess up the run. Take the opportunity to learn to recover from a bad pull with the rest of the party playing the part of the retards you will encounter in heroics from time to time.

These will not teach you how to deal with the ICC25 geared dps'ers, etc that you may encounter in heroics. Just remember the reason you are there. If that is not what you need, then don't waste your time there.

Also, if you don't have it, Tidy Plates with Threat Plates is amazing for tanking. You can set it up so that the name plates visually change based on threat and this makes tanking a whole new world.

[Mesar]

Thanks for all the input.

I think I will at least try a couple of normal instances and just be conscious of what I'm doing to not pick up too many bad habits. If it is too easy, I just move into the heroics and try my best.

Also, the Threat Plates looks like a really good addon, does it display when you are about to loose threat on a mob even if it isn't your target?
That would be really helpful, I'm currently running Omen but that just gives you the threat for you current target so not ideal for a tank....

While we're at it, any other addon that is a really nice to have for tanking?

Thanks.

[sifuedition]

Yes it does but the accuracy is reduced. Most times it will scale from green to yellow as your threat gets weak on the mob and red if you lose it (assuming you are in tank mode, dps mode is opposite). However, you will occassionally have a green plated mob peel off as it is having to do some estimates because the Blizzard API does not give data for a mob that is not targeted by anyone or at least mouse-overed.

I believe the rest of the addons for tanking are preference based. Some like taunt tattle are interesting to see if anyone taunts off of you, hero tells you when anyone uses cds and can announce when you use yours, some will announce when taunts fail, etc.

Tauntmaster is an interesting one you might look into. It provides a set of player frames that you can click to taunt off of that person. However, it works by taunting Target of Target. For an AoE class or healer, the mob they have aggro on may not be their direct target so it isn't a perfect solution.

[geeksbsmrt]

I made the switch recently as well from kitty to bear. I went straight into heroics but usually took a guild healer with me. This made me feel a little more comfortable because I knew their play style and could talk to them in Vent if necessary.

Feral Charge + swipe spam trash. While running in on a boss FFF, queue maul and mangle as youre in range gives a good threat lead. Lacerate to 5 asap keeping mangle on CD. FFF adds threat with every reapply so keep it on CD as much as possible while maintaining your 5 count Lacerate. Keep Maul queued with more than 45-50 rage.

If a DPS pulls off me I usually taunt it back the first or second time. If it is continuous I let the mob hit them once or twice then bring them back. They usually get the point after that. If not let them keep the mob till all the others are dead. I will always taunt off the healer. Move at a pace that you are comfortable with and if someone else pulls, they tank it the whole time (I switch to kitty and dps.) If they die then I'll go bear and pick it up.

If you wipe, mark it up as a learning experience, things go bad it happens. If someone leaves because of it, so be it. The longest re-queue I have seen for another healer was about a minute. If you let them know you are still learning the pull but are geared for content most other players will go with your pace. They were there at one point as well.