Hello all
Im interested in getting some tanking experience, 1st I am a level 67 warrior and been doing mostly general quests and very few instances or group quests due to time constraints, only have an hour or so a night to play, but am interested in starting to tank. Should i go back and tank the lower instances to get the experience or should i stay here in outland. presently im spec'ed as a fury/arms but was thinking of re specing to protection to help in the tanking process, (from what i have read this is a better tank?) and what other skills am i going to need, as a tank I know there must be more to this than being a meatshield like knowing the characteristics of the other players, maybe knowing wich mobs to take or where to pull stuff like that. I know there is a lot of questions here but any advice will be greatly welcomed.
Thanks
Ashkob
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tankspot.com has some useful info on tanking, as does the FAQ if I recall correctly.
7 posts
Thanks Friarduck
Awsome site with lots of information. May take me a little time to digest it all. but didnt see any thing on etiquet of the tank in the group, ie.. is it the tanks responsability to organize the attacks or is this a group decision at the moment? and how about marking and crowd control responsibilities? and would it be a good decision to tank some instances well below my level to get experience or try and learn at the leval Im at?
Thanks
Ashkob
Awsome site with lots of information. May take me a little time to digest it all. but didnt see any thing on etiquet of the tank in the group, ie.. is it the tanks responsability to organize the attacks or is this a group decision at the moment? and how about marking and crowd control responsibilities? and would it be a good decision to tank some instances well below my level to get experience or try and learn at the leval Im at?
Thanks
Ashkob
Normally the Tank is in charge. The tank marks, coordinates the pulls, yadda yadda yadda. That means you mark for CC as well. Basically, you can pick and chose what classes you want to run with, if you start the group. There are some people who are not tanks who will mark for you and lead the way. Thats ok if you don't want to learn and just go with the flow.
Knowing what mobs do what is essential. Knowing what they're immune to, and knowing strats for bosses are good things to know too. Oh, can't forget the good ole TPS measures...l2TPS and you'll be on ur way! Theres more, but I'm at work and can't really elaborate...
Knowing what mobs do what is essential. Knowing what they're immune to, and knowing strats for bosses are good things to know too. Oh, can't forget the good ole TPS measures...l2TPS and you'll be on ur way! Theres more, but I'm at work and can't really elaborate...
Scholar
34 posts
I was in a similar situation when I hit about lvl 60-61 area. I decided to make the switch to prot to be able to learn how to tank effectively, and I've never looked back. People say it means slower leveling, but I've found it has greatly reduced my down-time because I have so much defense, armour etc. that I kill 2-3 times more mobs before needing a heal than I did as an arms spec.
So I suggest if you are serious about tanking, change to prot spec. Reading tankspot will help, but in summary all you have to do is the following:
Shield Slam -> revenge -> devastate -> devastate -> repeat. That is your main tanking sequence, although initially you will need to be spreading the sunders on all the mobs on you (usually I will put 2 sunder on the skull, then go tab around and sunder everything else).
Remember to use TC as initial aggro gain, and use it when it is up. Be careful of breaking CC though.
As for what lvl instances you should do, I recommend starting near the bottom. Ramps is there for people to learn how to tank in an outlands instance, and the instances get progressively harder from there. So I would work from the bottom, get comfortable and work your way up.
It shouldn't be too hard considering you are way overleveled for it, but it will give you the idea of how to tank and how to pull, how to mark etc.
As for marking, it is hard to mark when you have never done the instance before. For this reason I will ask people to mark for me the first time through if they have done it before. I keep close attention to how everything works, and then from then on I can mark very comfortably.
It really just takes practice. Now I could mark on an instance I don't know pretty well (I think). Just make sure you do your research on how the bosses and mobs work (immune to CC etc, and how the bosses work and strategy) to help you mark along the way.
Let people know you are learning how to tank, and they will be happy to help (generally). Tanks are needed so bad they won't be getting rid of you lol.
Also going through the instances should get you a bit of better gear if you are lucky - havn't seen your character so I dunno what you have, but there are a few nice things out there (especially at the instances at your level).
So I suggest if you are serious about tanking, change to prot spec. Reading tankspot will help, but in summary all you have to do is the following:
Shield Slam -> revenge -> devastate -> devastate -> repeat. That is your main tanking sequence, although initially you will need to be spreading the sunders on all the mobs on you (usually I will put 2 sunder on the skull, then go tab around and sunder everything else).
Remember to use TC as initial aggro gain, and use it when it is up. Be careful of breaking CC though.
As for what lvl instances you should do, I recommend starting near the bottom. Ramps is there for people to learn how to tank in an outlands instance, and the instances get progressively harder from there. So I would work from the bottom, get comfortable and work your way up.
It shouldn't be too hard considering you are way overleveled for it, but it will give you the idea of how to tank and how to pull, how to mark etc.
As for marking, it is hard to mark when you have never done the instance before. For this reason I will ask people to mark for me the first time through if they have done it before. I keep close attention to how everything works, and then from then on I can mark very comfortably.
It really just takes practice. Now I could mark on an instance I don't know pretty well (I think). Just make sure you do your research on how the bosses and mobs work (immune to CC etc, and how the bosses work and strategy) to help you mark along the way.
Let people know you are learning how to tank, and they will be happy to help (generally). Tanks are needed so bad they won't be getting rid of you lol.
Also going through the instances should get you a bit of better gear if you are lucky - havn't seen your character so I dunno what you have, but there are a few nice things out there (especially at the instances at your level).
7 posts
Thanks for all the info!
Changed to prot spec last night and found i can do a lot more damage especially with sunder, but went and tried to tank mana tombs and failed terribly. Think I'll take Chosenx's advice and start at ramps and work from there. I still need to work out my attack order and put my actions on the bottom bar so its easy to use I will try setting things up so "Shield Slam -> revenge -> devastate -> devastate -> repeat" will be easy to do but any other recommendations would be great too. Thanks again
Ashkob
lvl 68 warrior
will try and work out how to get my character information so it can be seen here as well I know that would help with the advice I am getting. Happy Hunting.
Changed to prot spec last night and found i can do a lot more damage especially with sunder, but went and tried to tank mana tombs and failed terribly. Think I'll take Chosenx's advice and start at ramps and work from there. I still need to work out my attack order and put my actions on the bottom bar so its easy to use I will try setting things up so "Shield Slam -> revenge -> devastate -> devastate -> repeat" will be easy to do but any other recommendations would be great too. Thanks again
Ashkob
lvl 68 warrior
will try and work out how to get my character information so it can be seen here as well I know that would help with the advice I am getting. Happy Hunting.
I'm not an expert in tanking by any means - my experience with tanking only goes as far as tanking BM the other day after I finally bit the bullet and re-specced to prot - but I will say that you will not kill things faster as prot. You don't need to heal as much, true, but when I was fury, I was killing things about 5 times faster. There's no comparison in the damage output department. And when you're fury you get sweeping strikes, so you pop that, use some whirlwinds and cleaves, and groups of mobs may as well not exist. It's a lot of fun. I wish I could find the WWS from a recent Kara run where I was in there with our guild's main warrior tank, who, at the time, honestly had a better dps set than I did, but I wasted him in damage on Aran. Nothing against him, of course, but prot spec just isn't meant for dps.
I mash a ton of buttons when tanking. There's often more to it than just following some preset order of button mashing, however. You need to understand the abilities you have, and how much threat they generate, so that you can use them as they come available to you (i.e., off cooldown).
As others have mentioned, generally a group will want the tank to lead. Leading means marking mobs for kill order, or cc, or whatever your strategy for defeating them may be. My rule of thumb is healers first, then casters, then ranged dps, then melee dps. But you will come up with your own. Always make use of your available cc. In some cases you may have to try and tank 4 mobs at once, but that's not ideal. Use as much cc as you possibly can, and try not to break others' cc (such as with thunderclap when you're too close). It's probably obvious, but typical cc methods include: sheep (mage), trap (hunter), seduce (warlock), and sap (rogue). Use the mob markers (available in the drop down box if you click on the mob) to identify which target is sheeped, sapped, main target, second target, etc. And stick with the scheme!
Learn how to pull, because in most cases you will be pulling (occasionally a hunter can misdirect pull for you, but it has a cooldown and if you're in a groove you won't be able to use it consistently). This can mean pulling via line of sight, to grab casters, charging in, or standing at range and pulling with a bow/gun.
After the pull, the real fun begins. This is where the button mashing happens, and you have to know what you can and should do, and then react accordingly. Being a tank means being in control of the action, which can be a lot of fun, or it can be really frustrating. I wish you the best of luck. /salute!
Marroweater
As others have mentioned, generally a group will want the tank to lead. Leading means marking mobs for kill order, or cc, or whatever your strategy for defeating them may be. My rule of thumb is healers first, then casters, then ranged dps, then melee dps. But you will come up with your own. Always make use of your available cc. In some cases you may have to try and tank 4 mobs at once, but that's not ideal. Use as much cc as you possibly can, and try not to break others' cc (such as with thunderclap when you're too close). It's probably obvious, but typical cc methods include: sheep (mage), trap (hunter), seduce (warlock), and sap (rogue). Use the mob markers (available in the drop down box if you click on the mob) to identify which target is sheeped, sapped, main target, second target, etc. And stick with the scheme!
Learn how to pull, because in most cases you will be pulling (occasionally a hunter can misdirect pull for you, but it has a cooldown and if you're in a groove you won't be able to use it consistently). This can mean pulling via line of sight, to grab casters, charging in, or standing at range and pulling with a bow/gun.
After the pull, the real fun begins. This is where the button mashing happens, and you have to know what you can and should do, and then react accordingly. Being a tank means being in control of the action, which can be a lot of fun, or it can be really frustrating. I wish you the best of luck. /salute!
Marroweater
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