Tanking...how??

[deej]

Ello,

I have a very pressing problem...I've been playing WOW for 4 years (on and off), and if Im honest, never really tanked, the odd botched runs through MC (yeah ages ago!). I've hit 85. The simple, stand there and hit it days are over, and more a mob control thing going on now.

The problem is I've always wanted to go through 5-man, raids etc, but never had the gear or the 'know how' to play my role in the groups. The bottom line is I cant tank!!

So the question is where does one start? Especially when they're lvl 85? I've started collecting a few 'good' pieces for the role (avg ilvl of 335), but the bottom line is its the know how Im lacking.

The guild im with, are well, never on anymore, and how do u sell urself when you cant do ur role?

I'm reaching out for help (if its possible).

Thanks in advance
Deej

[Gothiceur]

Well I'd suggest that you keep getting some gear to start out with, browsing around on forums, especially those that are about your specific class, such as mmo-champion, elitistjerks, and of course tankspot
Familiarize yourself with the tanking spec, the abilities and the control, I'd suggest going into a lower level dungeon and get a feel/train mob positioning and control.
Then when you feel 'ready', see if someone you know wants to come for a run, ask in trade/guild, or queue up for one of the easier dungeons and from there you should know what needs to be done to progress even more

[jeffersonian000]

Start tanking regular dungeons with friends, to learn what the role's job is and to get use to how your class tanks. Ask them questions like "how was my tanking that time?" and "what should we have done differently?" and "was I too squishy?". I also recommend checking out askmrrobot.com to see what gems, enchants, and reforging might help your tank set, and to see which pieces of gear are worth getting for your class (which may or may not be best in slot). The one thing you do need above all other considerations is time tanking. Tank at every opportunity, ask questions, try out new strategies, research you role and your class, and don't be afraid to change.

Once you think you've nail regulars, tank heroics. Ask questions. Research. Tweak your gear. Tweak your play style. Tank.

You'll see the difference and the experience will become quite rewarding. And once you have Herics down, raid.

SJ

[Loganisis]

Deej - I don't know if you're a DK/Warrior/Bear/Pally - but you can probably pick up a few tips out of the link in my signature - but it's a bit of reading ;-)

[swelt]

There's been a fairly nice set of blogs on wow insider lately. Although they are in the warrior category, the blogs are fairly generic about tanking, especially the first two:

http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/03/19/th...anking-part-1/
http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/03/26/th...anking-part-2/

[Griff]

Or, if you've really got no tanking gear at all, queue as dps for a bit and roll on offspec/build up your JP and valor to pick up some gear. Take the opportunity to watch how the tank in the group works. Watch what they do that seems to work and what doesn't work and think about why. Alot of tanking is just the same as any other class..pushing the buttons on your abilities. The other, more intangible part, comes from managing pulls and positioning to keep your group safe or knowing when a healer might need a hand and that knowledge comes only through experience.

Make sure your cata reps are exalted, you can get some decent tanking epics that way and you'll need some of them for enchants anyways

[Reev]

Practice practice practice.

Also, keep in mind that a lot of what makes good tanks very good comes down to leadership. Learn the places you'll tank like the back of your hand, every pull. Set up marks before every pull, and do it based on the needs of the pull, not randomly. Once you're strong as a tank, you might be able to use the marks less in certain situations, but you should never stop using them entirely, because they are a large part of what brings cohesion to a group. Know how the boss fights all work, and think after every fight what you could have done differently to make the fight easier for the dps and healer. Your job as a tank is to make the run easy and smooth for everyone else in the dungeon. Positioning, cooldown usage, debuffing, interrupts, and verbal directions all add up to make the run easier on the others. Always be looking for a way to improve, and never scoff at others giving you advice. If you're sure they don't know what they're talking about or it's something you know already, just thank them for their input and move on.

Do this over and over until tanking is something you could do in your sleep, then start looking at apping to a guild, or running PuG and semi-PuG raids. If you're a good tank, you'll get noticed, and eventually someone will ask you to join them. When that happens, make sure you know the fights in the raids every bit as well as you know the 5 mans you've been tanking, and think about the fights from the angle of a dps and a healer as well. You can get a lot of info for those by watching vids of the bossfights and reading the associated threads.

[Travelsize]

Tanking is really easy ONCE YOU GET THE HANG OF IT.

To this end, I recommend finding some friends/guildies to run regs with you (maybe on alts so you don't have to deal with the threat production of geared 85s at first). Dungeon finder pugs generally aren't forgiving of new tanks (even when a lot of the crap that happens isn't the tank's fault), and I think that attitude (and that stupidity) is a large part of why there aren't more tanks running around in the dungeon finder.

With a group of friends who know going in ahead of time that you're learning, you'll be able to pull at your own pace, get used to your abilities, timing etc. I'm not sure if you want to roll with other tanks, though. While we're more likely to be really helpful when it comes to tanking advice, we're not used to having to hold our threat off on anything, and we're generally excited to get to use our dps specs and (our generally excellent) offspec gear that has been gathering dust in our bags. Also tanking classes generally don't have threat drops in their dps specs. So you'll end up with great advice, but you may have some issues stopping them from tanking a couple mobs in each pull until you get your threat rotation down (or if you're a bear tank, until their aoe threat gets buffed).

If this happens, don't get frustrated. Your buddies who normally have to tank will be more than understanding of your mess-ups as you are learning, and will relish the opportunity to play another spec (usually).

The most important thing is to accept that you'll be messing up until you get the hang of things, and to run with a group of people who can laugh about it instead of some jerk going "OMG WTF NOOB TANK" and dropping group.

[gigglepants]

I cannot recommend the addon Tidy Plates enough. IMO, this is the best first step you can take to becoming a good tank. It really helped me out and I know most tanks use it.

http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-a...at-plates.aspx

Basically it shows via color of the mob nameplate if you; have aggro, are about to lose aggro/ have lost aggro/ another tank in the group has aggro.

Deej - What class do you want to tank as? Have you tried tanking at all in this class? what problems are you encountering? The Lower level dungeons 81-85's in reg shouldnt pose much problem even if you only have enough tanking gear to fill half your slots. pvp gear would work well here aswell and with rep gear you should be well geared to attempt the tanking spec of your class.

[Banterloft]

You really should start by trolling thru the HALP! Forums here. Any questions you could fathom about tanking has been asked and answered thousands of times over in that forum.

[Contravene]

Deej I started a mage got him to level 40 and decided I couldn't live another minute without being a Paladin Tank. I didn't know anything back then so it was hard to start this game as a tank but I was hungry for it. but just realize you already know the game so this will help.. You have a big leg up but it will still require a lot of research and work.. For the actual dungeons Youtube is your friend.

[deej]

Hi guys,

(just back from a small break)

Thanks for the replies, its been a great help. I've downloaded all the addons that have been suggested and gone as far as redesigning my UI. Which have helped alot, but I cannot get used to TidyPlates, far too much clutter, especially if you have a group pull.

I've managed to speak to a few guildies, and so far I can get 3 people on my side for a few weekly runs, surprisingly no shortage of mages. Of the few runs that we have done, they've found it hard to pull agro off me and they're totally decked out. Im sure that they're just being nice (which I dont mind).

I've built up a mage to lvl 67 along side my warrior, but ever since my account was hacked and lost my gear (blizz kindly gave me 500g to replace all my gear, which was nice, but theres no gear to buy on AH anymore). So I cant do any runs to 'watch' other tanks doing it properly.

In relation to gear, I dont have any DPS, i've literally just played the game to 'my style' which when I reflect back on, was not the best (fun and challenging tho). I've not managed to gather any gear appropriately geared for DPS. In my current gear, I frequently get 10-12k hits, avg 6-8k. In what I term as DPS gear, I only get the occasional 18-22k, avg 6-8k.

Here's my char if anyone wants a peek:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...treri/advanced

[Spazlord]

Tanking is great fun, a few things to know:

How much damage can you take. I had a look at your gear, and it's coming along, but you'll take a fair bit of damage from a full 5 pack of heroic trash. So CC is helpful. CC a caster or two. To this purpose, keybind the raid marks (I keybind 6 of them to my numpad) - go to Interface - Keyboard and they are towards the bottom of the list I think). Now you can quickly mark a skull, a moon and say a square on each pull - tell the mage and hunter to sheep and trap anytime they see their mark. Adjust to what CC you want / have available in the group. Nothing worse than a tank who marks real slow, and types in chat each and every pull what CC they need etc. Be quick, be assertive, and make sure you pull your mobs away from the CC so you don't accidentally break it. Learn to pull using LOS (line of sight), moving around a corner to draw casters to you. Learn which mobs stun on the pull and stun them first. Learn which mobs heal, or hex and either kill them first, or CC them, or interrupt them well. Learn to quickly position mobs and keep them well placed so your DPS can go to town. TIP: use strafe + mouselook to move in a small circle which corrals mobs into a tightly packed group, and then stun/daze them in place.

Aggro. Next thing to worry about. Every loose mob = your mob. If they aren't CCd they better be hitting you. I mark a skull, and I make sure I hit it first with one significant move (I have a warrior, and I use devastate). Now you might have 3 mobs, so use your TAB key, hit them all, and make sure to come quickly back to skull and hit him a few more times as DPS get underway. This is kind of hard/awkward when you first start out, but you get better at it, it's second nature after a while. Use Omen (thread mod), and practise quickly understanding the threat situation, hitting mobs that you need a good lead on, and allowing secondary moves like Thunderclap / Concecrate / Cleaves etc to build threat on mobs that will die later. With regards to hit/expertise - you won't get hit-capped (8%) and you'll be lucky to find enough expertise (aim for 26). I have 4% hit and 16 expertise and I would like just a little bit more, but you sacrifice mitigation so it's a fine line. Experience will tell you what you need but a good rotation is infinitely better than gearing for threat, so you just need "enough".

Mitigation. Because you're doing aggro so good, everything is hitting you and you are taking the full brunt of the damage. Mitigation is a) gearing correctly (stam/avoidance/block/armor) and b) using your moves to minimise incoming damage. I have a warrior, so for me that means:

Shield Block, on CD - also doubles as a threat boost
Thunderclap (-Attack Speed) / Demo Shout (-AP)
Shield Bash - Interrupt
Spell Reflect - Awwww shit.
Concussion Blow / Shockwave - Stun / AOE Stun
Intimidating Shout - Fear (in place with glyph)
Charge / Intercept /Intervene - mobility / stun / complete avoidance from a pack of angry orcs / etc
Trinkets - +Dodge / +Resist / etc
Shield Wall / Last Stand / Enraged Regen

Paladin's have all kinds of moves. Point is, MINIMISE the incoming damage. Use everything you have to stay alive and control the group. On a regular trash pack this is overkill, BUT practise is invaluable, and when the time comes that your hunter got feared into two other packs and all of a sudden there's 13 rampaging mobs all up in your face, you will be the tank that AOE taunts, gets the entire lot under control and stays alive until your DPS can bring them down. Best feeling in the game <3

Wall of text >.>

[Brainstew]

I found that I transitioned into tanking quite well because I used to heal. When you heal you realise pretty quickly how good a tank is and you start picking up on the things good tanks do that are different to other tanks. So over the years of healing I just learnt the tanking role, ie how to pull properly gain aggro, control mobs and mark out just by watching other tanks from my guild during raids. When it came to actual tanking I just had a word with the tanks about the specifics of the class and abilities or a spell "rotation" After that just run content you are outgeared for until your comfortable.

Oh and most importantly know the tactics for fights.

[Bovinity]

Roll up a lowbie warrior and start leveling via tanking instances. =D

Seriously though, it's a great training ground. Very forgiving (you won't wipe while learning how to deal with terrible DPS, overpulls, etc) and you'll learn how to tank with very few tools so as you gain more tools it's just icing on the cake.

The approach is a little extreme perhaps, but it really does work.

[deej]

Thanks again for the replies.

I been through a few instances, and still have problems keeping hold of a mob of 5. Especially when there are casters in the mob. How do you keep, say a group of mobs in check without constantly running from piller to post and chasing down casters etc.

Is there a rotation of damage/agro that I should be using? If so, what is best?

Low level dungeons are not a problem, I can pretty much keep a hold of anything on the loose, especially as the peeps I run with are lower level'ed.

Thanks again.

[Griff]

If you're a warrior, you can typically tank casters with spell reflect. It'll top healer aggro easily if you keep it on cooldown and they are casting offensively at you. The only snafus are if the caster is close enough for AOE splash, or if some clueless DPS wanders afield and starts to beat on the caster.

Also, you can always charge a caster, shield slam his face and then intercept back to the melee pack but this kind of maneuver requires a reliable healer and some practice on your part.

[Reev]

If you're a warrior, you can typically tank casters with spell reflect. It'll top healer aggro easily if you keep it on cooldown and they are casting offensively at you. The only snafus are if the caster is close enough for AOE splash, or if some clueless DPS wanders afield and starts to beat on the caster.

It has a 25 second cooldown now.

[Tsurichan]

I believe this is a good starter's guide:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...arrior-Tanking
It's updated for 4.1, visual aides
both this and the primer (suggested by Loganisis) gives different levels of details and hopefully will help you deej

[PimpJuice4]

Roll up a lowbie warrior and start leveling via tanking instances. =D

Seriously though, it's a great training ground. Very forgiving (you won't wipe while learning how to deal with terrible DPS, overpulls, etc) and you'll learn how to tank with very few tools so as you gain more tools it's just icing on the cake.

The approach is a little extreme perhaps, but it really does work.

ya,i tried lvling a warrior tanking thru instances once.if i think about it now,maybe one of the reasons why i quit my warrior was because of the blood presance dps death grip happy dks in outlands.or i just got tired of the wonderful community that looking for group had and i ended up quitting but yeah.i got to like,lvl 67 and just quit playing

but that seems to kinda be a trend whenever i make alts.i get to a certain level and just stop lvling.its usually outlands,but i figured i recently made a alt.and feral druid tanking right now is pretty easy so if worse comes to worse i can always just tank thru outlands and hope i dont stop at northrend,oh and speaking of outlands and dks.what would be the level where dks stop dpsing in blood presance and being death grip happy,because i think im gonna stop tanking when i hit outlands(unless i cant stand leveling in hellfire penninsula and cant find any quests in zangarmarsh.then ill just tank anyway)and pick it back up when i get to the level that dks relize that blood isnt the dps presance and death gripping every mob doesnt do anything but really piss your tank off