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Tanking GuideFollow
After reading one of today's forum posts, it occurred to me that we do, in fact, lack any sufficient tanking guide for the site. To that end, I plan to start working on one and finishing it as soon as possible.
by Somnus Sleeper
Table of Contents
What is a tank?
How is a Warrior Any Different From Other Tanking Classes?
Tanking Abilities
The Five Necessities of a Tank
I'm In My First Instance What Should I Do?
Will I Ever Use a Different Stance?
When Do I Need to Spec Prot?
What is Effective Health (EH)?
If I Gear for EH, What About Avoidance?
How Should I Spec?
How Should I Gear Myself?
What Buffs Should I Have?
How Am I Supposed to Lead These People?
What Other Classes can Contribute
What's a Good TPS Rotation?
When Should I Pop my OH **** Button(s)?
Useful Macros
Useful Addons
Good Tanking Sites
Thanks To
More to Come!
What is a Tank?
A tank is any class that holds the attention or "aggro" of mobs within MMO's. This is to allow the other class roles, healers and DPS, to do their respective jobs without being killed/interrupted. Tanks are the highest hp and armor classes, with defensive abilities to boot. Often times, it is only a tank who can take on a boss without being one shotted, and it is the tank that stands in the way between the raid/party and death.
How Are Warriors Different?
Warrior tanks excel as the "boss-tanks" and single-target tanks of most raids. They bring strong survivability, utility, and threat to the table making them the best. While druids excel at offtanking and paladins excel at multi-mob tanking, they have both have several deficiencies in survivability and threat generation that make them less viable for boss-tanking.
Tanking Abilities
Tanking Abilities are broken down into two sections: Those used for generating threat and those used for utility.
Threat Generating Abilities
Cleave- A sweeping attack that does your weapon damage plus X to the target and his nearest ally. Cleave is only used while tanking multiple mobs, not while tanking single ones. Tabbing targets and then using Cleave in conjunction with Shield Slam, Devastate, or Revenge is the best way to tank multiple mobs. However, it's important to note that cleave should never take rage priority over higher threat generating abilities.
Devastate- Sunder the target's armor causing the Sunder Armor effect. In addition, causes 50% of weapon damage plus X for each application of Sunder Armor on the target. The Sunder Armor effect can stack up to 5 times. Devastate is the new and improved Sunder Armor available as a 40 point talent. Devastate should always be used instead of Sunder Armor and the two have exactly the same uses.
Heroic Strike- A strong attack that increases melee damage by X and causes a high amount of threat. This is your rage dumping skill, use it when you have plenty of rage generation but nowhere to put your rage.
Revenge- Instantly counterattack an enemy for X to Y damage and a high amount of threat. Revenge must follow a block, dodge or parry. Revenge is your best threat generating ability at lower levels and second best at high levels. One of the reasons that keeping Shield Block up is important is to allow you to use Revenge on a consistent basis. Revenge should always be on cooldown because it is one of your top threat generating abilities.
Shield Slam- Slam the target with your shield, causing X to Y damage, modified by your shield block value, and dispels 1 magic effect on the target. Also causes a high amount of threat. Shield Slam is the best threat generating skill in a warrior's ******* available as a 30 point talent. It's usually best to open with a Shield Slam and be sure to keep it on cooldown.
Sunder Armor- Sunders the target's armor, reducing it by X per Sunder Armor and causes a high amount of threat. Can be applied up to 5 times. Lasts 30 seconds. Sunder Armor is one of the debuffs that warriors bring to the table and is your third best TPS skill. Use it when Revenge and Shield Slam are on cooldown. Make sure to always havee 5 stacks applied and refresh as needed.
Utility Abilities
Battle Shout- The warrior shouts, increasing the melee attack power of all party members within 20 yards by X. Lasts 2 minutes Always keep this up at early levels, it increases your TPS and is a boon to your group. After level 68, Commanding Shout should be used instead. The only exception to that is if you are DPS for a boss fight and the main tank is a warrior as well. However, be sure to coordinate with other warriors in your party so that your shouts don't overlap.
Berserker Rage- The warrior enters a berserker rage, becoming immune to Fear, Sap and Incapacitate effects and generating extra rage when taking damage. Lasts 10 seconds. While less important now, warriors used to have to stance dance to avoid the frequent fears of some boss fights. This was accomplished by switching to Berserker Stance popping Berserker Rage and then switching back to defensive stance hence the term "stance dancing". With the recent changes to boss fears and Fear Ward, there's less need to stance dance, but it's important to learn how to.
Challenging Shout- Forces all enemies within 10 yards to focus attacks on you for 6 seconds. Useful for giving yourself enough time to Tab/Cleave a pack of mobs to build up threat. It can also be used as an aoe OH **** button to take multiple mobs off of your DPS/healer. It's on a 10 minute cooldown so use it wisely.
Commanding Shout- Increases maximum health of all party members within 20 yards by 1080. Lasts 2 minutes. This is one of the best health increasing buffs in the game, available at level 68. Always keep it up when tanking but, as with Battle Shout, if there are other warriors in your group be sure to coordinate with them.
Demoralizing Shout- Reduces the melee attack power of all enemies within 10 yards by X for 30 seconds. Demoralizing Shout decreases boss damage and by doing so increases your own survivability. It can also give you a slight amount of threat in the initial stages of multi-mob tanking.
Disarm- Disarm the enemy's weapon for 10 seconds. Disarm is rarely used while tanking, but it's important to recognize situations that it can be used in. Almost all mobs that have a weapon will do less damage disarmed than armed. That's great, but disarm has a long cooldown and most mobs are immune. Experiment while using it because some bosses, like Attumen, can have their damage significantly reduced just by keeping them disarmed as much as possible.
Last Stand- When activated, this ability temporarily grants you 30% of your maximum health for 20 seconds. After the effect expires, the health is lost. Last Stand is available as a 10 point talent and is one of the OH **** buttons of the prot warrior's ******** Use it during a transitional phase of a boss fight or to prevent yourself from dieing due to a sudden damage spike.
Intercept- Charge an enemy, causing X damage and stunning it for 3 seconds. Intercept is useful for boss fights that include a knockback that is often combined with either a threat reduction or a nasty ability that's used when nobody is in melee range. By switching to Berserker Stance, Intercepting, and then switching back to Defensive Stance (stance dancing again) you can quickly get back into the fight and regain aggro.
Intervene- Run at high speed towards a party member, intercepting the next melee or ranged attack made against them. Intervene can be used in several ways. It can be used to quickly regain aggro on a mob that's attacking your healer by rushing to them. It can also be used to get out of the range of harmful boss aoe's (not recommended). Finally, Intervene can be used to prevent someone from taking hits and easing healer strain (Gurtogg phase 2 is an example of this).
Mocking Blow- A mocking attack that causes X damage, a moderate amount of threat and forces the target to focus attacks on you for 6 seconds. Similar to Taunt, Mocking Blow allows you reestablish aggro on a mob once aggro has been lost. It's only castable in Battle Stance, so keep that in mind. Also, like Taunt, some mobs will be immune to this ability.
Shield Bash- Bashes the target with your shield for X damage. It also dazes the target and interrupts spellcasting, preventing any spell in that school from being cast for 6 seconds. Use this when tanking spell casters to prevent yourself from taking heavy damage. Warriors take extra damage from spells, so it's important to interrupt casts as often as possible. Some mobs will be immune to this, so don't be disheartened if you are unable to interrupt certain mobs.
Shield Block- Increases chance to block by 75% for 5 seconds, but will only block 1 attacks. This is the most important ability that a tank can use. Shield Block prevents you from eating crushing blows and taking significant amounts of damage. Always keep this up, above all other skills. Speccing into Improved Shield Block is important end game, it gives you another charge allowing you to avoid more crushing blows.
Shield Wall- Reduces the damage taken from melee attacks, ranged attacks and spells by 75% for 10 seconds. Shield Wall is the second of the OH **** buttons for the tanking warrior. It can be the difference between life and death during a phase transition or a hard enrage. Generally, those two situations are the best time to use it, but it can also be used to get a bad pull under control, preventing a wipe.
Taunt- Taunts the target to attack you, but has no effect if the target is already attacking you. Useful for regaining aggro after it's lost, Taunt will put you at the same level of threat that the person you taunted the mob off of was at. Some mobs will be immune to this, so don't rely on it.
Thunder Clap- Blasts nearby enemies increasing the time between their attacks by 10% for X seconds and doing Y damage to them. This ability causes additonal threat and will affect up to 4 targets. Thunder Clap is used to increase your survivability by decreasing a mobs attack speed. To a lesser extent, it can be used to hold multi-mob threat, but it is better to use a Tab/Cleave strategy.
The Five Necessities of a Tank
Tanks need 5 things:
To be Uncrushable
To be Uncrittable
To have knowledge of a fight
To communicate properly with their group
To be threatening
Crushing blows are strikes by bosses that do 1.5 damage and can be very deadly. There is no way to avoid crushing blows save having over 100% avoidance (104.5% to be exact). Luckily, being uncrushable is perhaps the easiest part for a warrior, but it is still a necessity. A naked protection warrior with shield block up should, specced properly, have over 100% avoidance and, as long as shield block is up, never have to eat a crushing blow. There are exceptions to this, but they will be covered later.
Critical strikes from bosses are very similar to critical strikes from players, they deal 1.5 damage to the tank. Unlike crushing blows, however, critical strikes can occur on almost all abilities, not just white hits. This makes being uncrittable even more valuable than being uncrushable. To become uncrittable, there are two defensive requirements. For heroics, the defense required is 485 because the mobs in heroic instances have a max level of 72. For raids, the defense required is 490 because raid mobs have a max level of 73.
Knowledge of a fight is always important to have, especially in end-game raids. If you're tanking Azgalor and don't step out of the rain of fire, it is YOUR FAULT that the raid wipes. Knowledge of all boss encounters in a raid will allow you to maneuver and react accordingly to any of the abilities of a boss. Don't ever come unprepared!
Communication is also crucial to being a tank, especially in a raid which can be comprised of multiple tanks. Assigning cc to certain mobs, offtanks to others, and telling the raid whether or not you may have to move is crucial to a successful fight. Don't be afraid to speak out, even if you're an offtank.
No, it's not in your looks, it's in your gear and your talents. Having defiance and defensive stance up gives you a significant boost to your threat generation. In Battle stance you generate 80% threat from abilities, in Berserker (talented) you generate 70% threat. In Defensive stance, you generate a whopping 130% threat (145% talented). A proper rotation and good gear are necessary to strong TPS (Threat per Second) but that will be discussed later.
My First Instance
First and foremost, realize that almost all of your tanking will be done in defensive stance. Defensive stance increases the threat generated by your abilities whereas the other stances, battle and berserker, lower them. Second, you will almost always have a sword and board equipped when you're tanking. People who tank with two handers are one of several things: someone who doesn't understand their role, someone who highly outgears the instance and can tank through pure damage output, or a druid. Hopefully, by reading this guide, you are none of them except on occasion the middle one.
There are three crucial skills used for threat generation when tanking early instances: Sunder Armor, Heroic Strike, and Revenge. Revenge is the skill that provides the most threat so be sure to always keep it on cooldown. For Sunder Armor, it's best to always have the debuff stacked at 5 and then refresh/use as necessary. Heroic Strike is a rage dump. It's also important to keep up Shield Block, Demoralizing Shout, and Thunder Clap to help with your survivability. As you increase in level, Shield Slam will be added to your tanking repertoire as your highest threat generation move, and Sunder Armor will be replaced by Devastate.
For spell casting mobs its important to Shield Bash them to interrupt their casting and prevent you from taking heavy damage. At level 65, Spell Reflect will generally be the preferred skill to use as it takes the spell and turns it into damage that doubles as threat.
Will I Ever Use a Different Stance?
The short answer: No, all of your threat generation should be done in defensive stance and it is there that you should stay.
The long answer: Yes, in certain boss fights it can be useful to switch to Berserker Stance and use either Intercept or Berserker Rage then switch back to Defensive Stance. Berserker Rage is helpful for avoiding fears from bosses (such as dragons) and Intercept is used to get back into the fight after a knockback.
When Do I Need to Spec Protection?
As a rule, if you want to tank end-game instances your raid will more than likely want/need you to be full blown protection, although there are a few exceptions. Fury/Arms warrior can off tank end-level content given the right gear. They will never be as effective as Prot specced warriors, but they are certainly viable, so don't be discouraged. Pre 60, however, there's really no good reason to go Prot. Protection means slower leveling and at earlier levels where an Arms of Fury specced warrior can tank an instance just as well as a Protection specced one.
What is Effective Health?
Effective health is the combination of stamina and the damage reduction of armor resulting in how much damage you can take. In application, it's a type of gearing that focuses on gathering as much hp as possible to deal with the "worse case scenario" of no avoidance. It allows you to take a string of crushing blows/painful hits and survive them. EH is necessary to progress through higher level content than your gear provides for. As your gear improves, so too should your avoidance, and the need for EH gearing should diminish until you're ready to tackle the next set of content.
What About Avoidance?
Gearing for EH doesn't mean disregarding avoidance entirely. Avoidance is an equally important stat for tanking, it helps to level out the "roughness" of EH tanking by preventing hits from landing. As a rule, you should never gear for avoidance when learning/progressing in content. It becomes more important after you learn encounters and can begin to substitute sheer health/armor with avoidance/TPS stats to get smoother runs. Think of avoidance as a way of preventing player error in a sense. It helps to prevent that one crushing blow that killed you and caused a wipe, or that deadly string of blows that all tanks fear.
How Should I Spec?
There are numerous tanking builds, all of which depend upon the preferences of the player. Here are a few: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LA0cZVZ0EtoGMzfxst
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LA0cZVbZ0EtoI0zsxst
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LA0cZVZ0EtsI0zcxst
There are only a few must haves in a prot build, the rest is up to the current necessities and preferences of the player. The must haves are:
5/5 Deflection
3/3 Imp Thunder Clap
5/5 Cruelty
5/5 Anticipation
5/5 Toughness
5/5 Shield Spec
1/1 Last Stand
1/1 Imp Shield Block
3/3 Defiance
1/1 Concussion Blow
5/5 One Handed Weapon Specialization
3/3 Shield Mastery
1/1 Shield Slam
3/3 Focused Rage
5/5 Vitality
1/1 Devastate
The rest are really up to you, I prefer getting Imp Heroic Strike and Imp Sunder as well as putting a few in Imp Demoralizing Shout.
How Should I Gear Myself?
First and foremost, you want to be uncrittable so gear for defense rating first. Once you reach 490 defense, however, defense rapidly loses its luster because its contributions to avoidance are negligible in comparison to actual avoidance rating (dodge and parry) or TPS stats such as hit, crit, and expertise.
Secondly, you want to gear for high stamina and armor. This is because stamina and armor interact linearly. The more armor you have, the better stamina becomes and vice versa. Usually, you should always put the biggest stam gem you can find in your gear sockets, discounting the socket bonus UNLESS it is, in itself a beneficial tanking stat. Also, be sure to keep in mind meta-gem requirements.
Third, you want to gear for avoidance. Having at least 30% dodge and parry combined is a good start for Karazhan, but I've found that avoidance is generally something that you have to get a feel for in order to gear properly.
As you progress through content, you will need higher and higher avoidance to deal with the mobs/bosses you encounter. While high stamina/armor is beneficial, it only gets you to the point that you can tank content ahead of your gear level. As your gear level increases, be sure to replace high stamina gear with more avoidance/threat oriented gear. As a general rule, tier 4, 5, and 6 gear as well as most tanking drops are full of avoidance stats, but keep it in mind.
Finally, you want to gear for TPS. Gearing for TPS should be done ONLY when you can successfully kill a boss. The reason for increasing your TPS is to ensure a faster boss fight and one in which your damage dealers don't have to hold back. Generally, when you're learning, high survivability is more important than high threat because you just want to kill the boss, not kill him in record time. In terms of stats, Expertise > Hit which is about = to crit > Shield Block Value > Strength > Agility. This makes expertise your number one TPS Stat. It also double as a defensive stat because expertise reduces the amount of parries which in turn reduces the amount of times that a bosses' attack speed is increased. Hit is your next most important stat because missing that first shield slam can be VERY VERY bad. After that, just use the above stated formula for gearing for TPS.
Note: You should always carry around 3 sets of gear. One for high EH, one for avoidance, and one for threat generation.
What Buffs Should I Provide?
At earlier levels, potions, flasks, and food are rarely necessary to complete an instance. If you have them, great, but just keeping up Battle Shout is all you need to do. As you get to later levels, there will be three buffs you should always have on you in a raid. Two in instances. They are: The Well Fed buff from Spicy Crawdad and Commanding Shout for instances. A Flask of Fortification should be added during raids.
How Am I Supposed to Lead These People?
Marking is one of the easiest (but most important) roles of tanking/leading a group and most people will expect you, the tank, to do it. The First step is to keybind your marks. Do whatever is easiest but efficient for you. This is how raid leaders mark targets incredibly quickly. Second, set up a marking system with your group. As a general rule, skull is always the primary DPS target, but for all the other symbols anything goes. Be warned, consistency is crucial when marking so be sure to always keep the markings the same. Finally, check with your group to make sure they know what each mark means and how they should react accordingly as well as check that the mark works for each mob (some mobs are immune to certain types of CC).
What Other Classes Bring
Chances are, you're not running a group comprised entirely of warriors, so it's important to know what other classes bring to the table. Keep in mind that the role of a class depends on their spec but (most of) their buffs remain constant. For space's sake, I'm only going to discuss their buffs and their forms of CC and buffs that don't directly impact tanking (such as the boomkin 5% spell crit aura) will likely be left out. If an ability is followed by parentheses, it means that it's an ability available through talents.
Druids- Druids bring two buffs, strong Heal over Time spells, two forms of CC, and impressive offtanking capabilities.
Mark of the Wild- Increases the friendly target's armor by X, all attributes by Y and all resistances by Z for 30 minutes. Overall a good buff, the resistance part is pretty negligible but the armor/stats is a good EH increase.
Thorns- Thorns sprout from the friendly target causing X Nature damage to attackers when hit. Lasts 10 minutes. This one's pretty lackluster, the damage adds a little bit of threat, but I wouldn't be too worried about having this buff.
Leader of the Pack (Feral)- While in Cat, Bear or Dire Bear Form, the Leader of the Pack increases ranged and melee critical chance of all party members within 45 yards by 5%. Feral specced druids will always have this and usually have Improved Pack of the Wild as well. The improved version causes you to heal for 2% of your total health upon landing a critical hit. This is a VERY useful buff.
Entangling Roots- Roots the target in place and causes X Nature damage over Y seconds. Damage caused may interrupt the effect. Only useable outdoors. Since most instances are indoor, you'll rarely see this ability used as CC. In rare cases, however, you'll be glad you have it (such as the scouts in Zul'Aman).
Cyclone- Tosses the enemy target into the air, preventing all action but making them invulnerable for up to 6 seconds. Only one target can be affected by your Cyclone at a time. This is purely used to give you a few seconds to reestablish aggro on a mob focused on your healers. In conventional scenarios you will never see this. Note: available at 70
Hunters- Hunters bring strong ranged DPS, a nature resistance buff, a speed buff, kiting abilities, and melee CC in the form of traps.
Kiting- Good hunters will be able to hold aggro on a mob while moving the mob around an enclosed space. This is known as "kiting". As with Entangling Roots, this is purely a situational skill that hunters should have, but you'll be glad that they can when you need it.
Frost Trap- Place a frost trap that creates an ice slick around itself for 30 seconds when the first enemy approaches it. All enemies within 10 yards will be slowed by 60% while in the area of effect. Trap will exist for 60 seconds. Only one trap can be active at a time.
Not used terribly often, but this can help you deal with runaway mobs as well as help the hunter kite.
Freezing Trap- Place a frost trap that freezes the first enemy that approaches, preventing all action for up to 20 seconds. Any damage caused will break the ice. Trap will exist for 60 seconds. Only one trap can be active at a time. This is the bread and butter trap of hunter CC. In almost every CC scenario this is the trap they'll be using. It's melee ranged so keep in mind that a mob will run at the hunter. Also keep in mind that it's resisted every now and then so keep an eye out.
Aspect of the Wild- The hunter and group members within 30 yards take on the aspect of the wild, increasing Nature resistance by X. Only one Aspect can be active at a time. Another purely situational buff, this is helpful in areas heavy in nature damage such as Temple of Atal'Hakkar, Ahn'Qiraj, and Hydross in Serpentshrine Cavern.
Aspect of the Pack- The hunter and group members within 30 yards take on the aspects of a pack of cheetahs, increasing movement speed by 30%. If a pack member is struck, they will be dazed for 4 seconds. Only one Aspect can be active at a time. This buff is good for running back to where you wiped in an instance and not much else.
Mages- Mages bring high ranged DPS, ranged CC, an intellect buff, and food/water.
Arcane Intellect- Increases the target's Intellect by X for 30 minutes. This buff is utterly useless for warriors but the casters in your group will love it.
Polymorph- Transforms the enemy into a sheep, forcing it to wander around for up to X seconds. While wandering, the sheep cannot attack or cast spells but will regenerate very quickly. Any damage will transform the target back into its normal form. Only one target can be polymorphed at a time. Only works on Beasts, Humanoids and Critters. One of the best forms of ranged CC, Polymorph (Sheep) should almost always be used. Keep in mind that it can break early and be resisted so again, keep an eye out.
Conjure Food/Water- Mages can conjure food and water of approximately your level. Useful for when you forgot to bring food and decreasing down time.
Paladins- Paladins bring impressive multi-mob tanking abilities, the best single-target healing in the game, average DPS, and strong buffs/debuffs in the form of blessings and judgements.
Blessing of Freedom- Places a Blessing on the friendly target, granting immunity to movement impairing effects for 10 seconds. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time. You'll rarely need this buff, but it can, on occasion, save your life or those of other members of your group.
Blessing of Kings (Protection)- Places a Blessing on the friendly target, increasing total stats by 10% for 10 minutes. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time. This is the best buff in the game in my opinion. It causes huge increases in stamina (and thus EH) topping Power Word: Fortitude as well as an increase in avoidance/armor (from the agility) and an increase in threat (from the strength). Always request this buff if applicable (almost all paladins will spec into Prot for this but there are some exceptions).
Blessing of Light- Places a Blessing on the friendly target, increasing the effects of Holy Light spells used on the target by up to X and the effects of Flash of Light spells used on the target by up to Y. Lasts 10 minutes. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time. If you're undergeared or your paladin is this can be useful for closing the gap. If you have more than one paladin (in a raid for example) then this is about equal to Blessing of Sanctuary. Otherwise, request Kings.
Blessing of Might- Places a Blessing on the friendly target, increasing attack power by X for 10 minutes. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time. This is not a tremendously useful buff, but it provides an increase in threat generation/damage. If you already have Kings and Light or Sanctuary you may as well have this buff too.
Blessing of Protection- A targeted party member is protected from all physical attacks for 10 seconds, but during that time they cannot attack or use physical abilities. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time. You will NEVER want this cast on you. In very very very rare cases this can save your life but damage immunity will cause whatever mob(s) you are tanking to run to kill your healers/DPS.
Blessing of Sacrifice- Places a Blessing on the party member, transfering X damage taken per hit to the caster. Lasts 30 seconds. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time. This is a rarely used situational buff that can jar the paladin out of CC (such as Maiden's) to heal you while the rest of your raid is stuck.
Blessing of Salvation- Places a Blessing on the party member, reducing the amount of all threat generated by 30% for 10 minutes. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time. The only instance of using this on a tank that I can think of is when our druid tank for Gruul massively outgeared our warrior who was maintanking. The Druid had to have Salv to fulfill his offtank purposes. You'll probably never see this buff except on your DPS.
Blessing of Sanctuary (Protection)- Places a Blessing on the party member, reducing the amount of all threat generated by 30% for 10 minutes. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time. If you run with a Protection paladin tank (my guild does as do many others) you may as well request this. This buff is imo about equal to Blessing of Light. The extra threat is decent (better than thorns) and the damage reduction will add up.
Blessing of Wisdom- Places a Blessing on the friendly target, restoring X mana every 5 seconds for 10 minutes. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time.As a warrior you'll never have this buff, but all of your healers and most of your DPS will. Just keep in mind that it exists.
For Seals to effect you they must be judged, so that is the format they will take.
Judgement of Light- Melee attacks made against the target have a chance of causing the attacker to be healed for X. The chance for healing is actually pretty good so this judgement should be used when it can.
Judgement of Wisdom- Attacks and spells used against the target have a chance of restoring X of the attacker's mana. This one's for the caster classes. Like Light, this is a useful buff and should be kept up when possible.
Judgement of the Crusader- Increases Holy damage taken by target by up to X. Retribution specced paladins that judge this will also add a 3% crit chance to melee/ranged attacks and abilities. Otherwise, it just benefits Protection paladins.
Priests- Priests bring healing utility, mana regeneration, and three buffs. Shadow priests also bring strong mana regeneration and (threat allowing) small healing as well.
Power Word: Fortitude- Power infuses the target increasing their Stamina by X for 30 minutes. One of the best stamina increasing buffs in the game, you always want to have this buff if it's available.
Shadow Protection- Increases the target's resistance to Shadow spells by X for 10 minutes. Pretty situational as a buff, but many mobs/bosses use shadow damage so you'll be glad you had this buff fairly often.
Power Word: Shield- Draws on the soul of the party member to shield them, absorbing 1265 damage. Lasts 30 seconds. While the shield holds, spellcasting will not be interrupted by damage. Once shielded, the target cannot be shielded again for 15 seconds. If you can avoid it, never have this cast on you. The damage prevention will rage starve you and the spell is mana inefficient for the priest.
Divine Spirit (Discipline)- Holy power infuses the target, increasing their Spirit by X for 30 minutes. Most holy priests will also have specced into discipline to get this talent. They will also most likely have the improved version of it, which increases spell damage/healing. For a warrior this buff is useless save for slightly decreasing downtime but healing classes will love it.
Shackle Undead- Shackles the target undead enemy for up to X seconds. The shackled unit is unable to move, attack or cast spells. Any damage caused will release the target. Only one target can be shackled at a time. An excellent CC, Shackle is one of the more reliable forms of CC. However, it can (and often will) break early or be resisted so be on your toes to save your priest.
Vampiric Embrace (Shadow)- Afflicts your target with Shadow energy that causes all party members to be healed for 15% of any Shadow spell damage you deal for 60 seconds. Few priests will use this while raiding because the threat it causes is phenomenal. Spriests don't have a strong aggro dump so appreciate this buff when it's used but don't be surprised if it isn't.
Rogues- Rogues bring high melee DPS, melee CC, and the (situational) Wound Poison.
Sap- Incapacitates the target for up to X seconds. Must be stealthed. Only works on Humanoids that are not in combat. Any damage caused will revive the target. Only 1 target may be sapped at a time. A fairly useful form of CC that's used just before a pull. Keep in mind that it cannot be reapplied once broken so pick up the mob as soon as it's free.
Wound Poison- Coats a weapon with poison that lasts for 1 hour. Each strike has a 30% chance of poisoning the enemy, causing X Nature damage and reducing all healing effects used on them by 10% for 15 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times on a single target. Much like Mortal Strike, this debuff prevents bosses from getting enormous heals. This is a purely situational ability because very few bosses either heal or are affected by this poison.
Shamans- Shamans bring totems, the best multi-heal in the game, and average DPS. Shamans have a wide variety of totems but I'll outline some of the important ones.
Resistance Totems- Shamans have resistance totems for fire and frost as well as nature.
Windfury Totem- Summons a Windfury Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster. The totem enchants all party members main-hand weapons with wind, if they are within 20 yards. Each hit has a 20% chance of granting the attacker 1 extra attacks with X extra attack power. Lasts 2 minutes. Windfury is the best damage increasing buff in the game for melee DPS classes. For tanking, however, it can be deadly (to you). Having extra attacks can mean extra parries which in turn means a sped up boss attack. Extra attacks can also mean extra rage and threat generation. Use at your own discretion.
Healing Stream- Summons a Healing Stream Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 2 minutes that heals group members within 20 yards for 18 every 2 seconds. Though it may not seem like much, this totem has enormous healing capabilities. If dropped by a geared Resto shaman, these totems can tick for as much as 130-200 (trinketed). If you have a shaman in your group, don't neglect this totem because it provides an impressive amount of healing.
Strength of Earth- Summons a Strength of Earth Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster. The totem increases the strength of party members within 20 yards by X. Lasts 2 minutes. This totem provides ~1/2 the bonus of Battle Shout. However, it provides strength which scales with Blessing of Kings which Battle Shout does not. The threat increase from extra strength isn't tremendous but depending upon group makeup you may find this totem more useful than Stoneskin.
Stoneskin- Summons a Stoneskin Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster. The totem protects party members within 20 yards, reducing melee damage taken by 43. Lasts 2 minutes. On it's own this totem isn't tremendously useful but combined with Healing Stream it becomes an impressive survival tool. You may opt for it for Strength of Earth depending upon group composition.
Warlocks- Warlocks bring health stones (like a health pot), soul stones, high DPS, and two ranged CC abilities.
Banish- Banishes the enemy target, preventing all action but making it invulnerable for up to X seconds. Only one target can be banished at a time. Only works on Demons and Elementals. A very useful CC when it applies, Banish does not break early so it can safely be used as necessary.
Fear- Strikes fear in the enemy, causing it to run in fear for up to X seconds. Damage caused may interrupt the effect. Only 1 target can be feared at a time. Fear needs to be used very carefully because a feared mob can aggro other packs of mobs. As a general rule, Fear is a last resort form of CC but use it when you need it.
Warrior- Warriors bring shouts, high melee DPS, four debuffs (two of which will most likely be provided by you), and off tanking capabilities.
Mortal Strike (Arms)- A vicious strike that deals weapon damage plus X and wounds the target, reducing the effectiveness of any healing by 50% for 10 seconds. Like Wound Poison, this debuff is purely situational. However, it is (besides slam) the bread and butter of Arms PvE DPS so expect to see it up if you party/raid with an Arms warrior.
Blood Frenzy(Arms)- Your Rend and Deep Wounds abilities also increase all physical damage caused to that target by 4%. Most raids will have an Arms warrior purely to keep this buff up. 4% is a phenomenal increase to damage caused by all physical classes and it will increase your threat generation as well. It's nice to have, but hardly a necessity.
How Should I Keep up TPS?
The Generally accepted rule is to Shield Slam and Revenge when they're not on cooldown and then Devastate when they are. Use Heroic Strike only when you have strong rage generation and need to dump your rage somewhere to not waste it. While generating threat is important, don't forget that keeping Thunder Clap and Demoralizing Shout up is equally necessary. A dead tank is not a threat generating tank. Also, be sure to Spell Reflect abilities that can be reflected, a 6000 damage hit goes a long way for threat.
When Should I Pop My OH **** Button(s)?
Abilities such as Last Stand and Shield Wall are best used in two places: During Phase Transitions in a boss fight to give your healers a break, or at the end of a boss fight when your healers are out of mana or the boss is about to enrage. A quick shield wall can give you another 10 or so seconds during a boss enrage to (hopefully) down the boss. Items such as nightmare seeds can also be useful in
Useful Addons
For Tanking, I only use Omen and Deadly Boss Mods. However, they're the bare bone necessities of tanking.
Useful Macros
This first macro is for taunting mobs onto you depending upon your situation. Left clicking it is a normal taunt. Right clicking it, however, will taunt the target to you but turn off your auto attack. This is useful for mobs that broke out of CC providing time for CC to be reapplied.
/cast [button: 1] taunt
/stopattack [button: 2]
/cast [buttom: 2] taunt
Here's another that switches you to Battle Stance, casts Mocking Blow, and then returns you to defensive stance.
#show Mocking Blow
/cast [nostance:1] Battle Stance; Mocking Blow
/cast [nostance:2]Defensive Stance
For multi-mob tanking, this macro allows you to switch through mobs and apply Sunder Armor as well as Cleave. If you're specced Protection, replace Sunder Armor with Devastate in the cast sequence.
/script SetCVar("targetNearestDistance", 5)
/targetenemy
/startattack
/cast [nostance:2] Defensive Stance
/castsequence reset=6 Sunder Armor, Thunder Clap, Cleave, Sunder Armor
Good Tanking Sites
Here are some good sites to check up on every now and then. Curse is a site to download addons from, the rest are forums.
http://www.wowhead.com/?forums&topic=2399
http://www.tankingtips.com/
http://elitistjerks.com/
http://www.curse.com/
Thanks To
Kingpatzer- for keeping me in line in terms of misinformation.
RpZip- I borrowed most of his guide format and will probably steal his color scheme.
Cinderhelm- For his wonderful tanking site
Vene- For the above reasons.
Anybody else who helped to add, edit, or contribute to the information in this guide.
Edited, Jul 15th 2008 1:52pm by SomnusSleeper
Edited, Jul 15th 2008 1:56pm by SomnusSleeper
Edited, Jul 15th 2008 9:42pm by SomnusSleeper
Edited, Jul 15th 2008 10:52pm by SomnusSleeper
Edited, Jul 23rd 2008 3:24pm by SomnusSleeper
Edited, Jul 24th 2008 2:39pm by SomnusSleeper
Table of Contents
What is a tank?
How is a Warrior Any Different From Other Tanking Classes?
Tanking Abilities
The Five Necessities of a Tank
I'm In My First Instance What Should I Do?
Will I Ever Use a Different Stance?
When Do I Need to Spec Prot?
What is Effective Health (EH)?
If I Gear for EH, What About Avoidance?
How Should I Spec?
How Should I Gear Myself?
What Buffs Should I Have?
How Am I Supposed to Lead These People?
What Other Classes can Contribute
What's a Good TPS Rotation?
When Should I Pop my OH **** Button(s)?
Useful Macros
Useful Addons
Good Tanking Sites
Thanks To
More to Come!
What is a Tank?
A tank is any class that holds the attention or "aggro" of mobs within MMO's. This is to allow the other class roles, healers and DPS, to do their respective jobs without being killed/interrupted. Tanks are the highest hp and armor classes, with defensive abilities to boot. Often times, it is only a tank who can take on a boss without being one shotted, and it is the tank that stands in the way between the raid/party and death.
How Are Warriors Different?
Warrior tanks excel as the "boss-tanks" and single-target tanks of most raids. They bring strong survivability, utility, and threat to the table making them the best. While druids excel at offtanking and paladins excel at multi-mob tanking, they have both have several deficiencies in survivability and threat generation that make them less viable for boss-tanking.
Tanking Abilities
Tanking Abilities are broken down into two sections: Those used for generating threat and those used for utility.
Threat Generating Abilities
Cleave- A sweeping attack that does your weapon damage plus X to the target and his nearest ally. Cleave is only used while tanking multiple mobs, not while tanking single ones. Tabbing targets and then using Cleave in conjunction with Shield Slam, Devastate, or Revenge is the best way to tank multiple mobs. However, it's important to note that cleave should never take rage priority over higher threat generating abilities.
Devastate- Sunder the target's armor causing the Sunder Armor effect. In addition, causes 50% of weapon damage plus X for each application of Sunder Armor on the target. The Sunder Armor effect can stack up to 5 times. Devastate is the new and improved Sunder Armor available as a 40 point talent. Devastate should always be used instead of Sunder Armor and the two have exactly the same uses.
Heroic Strike- A strong attack that increases melee damage by X and causes a high amount of threat. This is your rage dumping skill, use it when you have plenty of rage generation but nowhere to put your rage.
Revenge- Instantly counterattack an enemy for X to Y damage and a high amount of threat. Revenge must follow a block, dodge or parry. Revenge is your best threat generating ability at lower levels and second best at high levels. One of the reasons that keeping Shield Block up is important is to allow you to use Revenge on a consistent basis. Revenge should always be on cooldown because it is one of your top threat generating abilities.
Shield Slam- Slam the target with your shield, causing X to Y damage, modified by your shield block value, and dispels 1 magic effect on the target. Also causes a high amount of threat. Shield Slam is the best threat generating skill in a warrior's ******* available as a 30 point talent. It's usually best to open with a Shield Slam and be sure to keep it on cooldown.
Sunder Armor- Sunders the target's armor, reducing it by X per Sunder Armor and causes a high amount of threat. Can be applied up to 5 times. Lasts 30 seconds. Sunder Armor is one of the debuffs that warriors bring to the table and is your third best TPS skill. Use it when Revenge and Shield Slam are on cooldown. Make sure to always havee 5 stacks applied and refresh as needed.
Utility Abilities
Battle Shout- The warrior shouts, increasing the melee attack power of all party members within 20 yards by X. Lasts 2 minutes Always keep this up at early levels, it increases your TPS and is a boon to your group. After level 68, Commanding Shout should be used instead. The only exception to that is if you are DPS for a boss fight and the main tank is a warrior as well. However, be sure to coordinate with other warriors in your party so that your shouts don't overlap.
Berserker Rage- The warrior enters a berserker rage, becoming immune to Fear, Sap and Incapacitate effects and generating extra rage when taking damage. Lasts 10 seconds. While less important now, warriors used to have to stance dance to avoid the frequent fears of some boss fights. This was accomplished by switching to Berserker Stance popping Berserker Rage and then switching back to defensive stance hence the term "stance dancing". With the recent changes to boss fears and Fear Ward, there's less need to stance dance, but it's important to learn how to.
Challenging Shout- Forces all enemies within 10 yards to focus attacks on you for 6 seconds. Useful for giving yourself enough time to Tab/Cleave a pack of mobs to build up threat. It can also be used as an aoe OH **** button to take multiple mobs off of your DPS/healer. It's on a 10 minute cooldown so use it wisely.
Commanding Shout- Increases maximum health of all party members within 20 yards by 1080. Lasts 2 minutes. This is one of the best health increasing buffs in the game, available at level 68. Always keep it up when tanking but, as with Battle Shout, if there are other warriors in your group be sure to coordinate with them.
Demoralizing Shout- Reduces the melee attack power of all enemies within 10 yards by X for 30 seconds. Demoralizing Shout decreases boss damage and by doing so increases your own survivability. It can also give you a slight amount of threat in the initial stages of multi-mob tanking.
Disarm- Disarm the enemy's weapon for 10 seconds. Disarm is rarely used while tanking, but it's important to recognize situations that it can be used in. Almost all mobs that have a weapon will do less damage disarmed than armed. That's great, but disarm has a long cooldown and most mobs are immune. Experiment while using it because some bosses, like Attumen, can have their damage significantly reduced just by keeping them disarmed as much as possible.
Last Stand- When activated, this ability temporarily grants you 30% of your maximum health for 20 seconds. After the effect expires, the health is lost. Last Stand is available as a 10 point talent and is one of the OH **** buttons of the prot warrior's ******** Use it during a transitional phase of a boss fight or to prevent yourself from dieing due to a sudden damage spike.
Intercept- Charge an enemy, causing X damage and stunning it for 3 seconds. Intercept is useful for boss fights that include a knockback that is often combined with either a threat reduction or a nasty ability that's used when nobody is in melee range. By switching to Berserker Stance, Intercepting, and then switching back to Defensive Stance (stance dancing again) you can quickly get back into the fight and regain aggro.
Intervene- Run at high speed towards a party member, intercepting the next melee or ranged attack made against them. Intervene can be used in several ways. It can be used to quickly regain aggro on a mob that's attacking your healer by rushing to them. It can also be used to get out of the range of harmful boss aoe's (not recommended). Finally, Intervene can be used to prevent someone from taking hits and easing healer strain (Gurtogg phase 2 is an example of this).
Mocking Blow- A mocking attack that causes X damage, a moderate amount of threat and forces the target to focus attacks on you for 6 seconds. Similar to Taunt, Mocking Blow allows you reestablish aggro on a mob once aggro has been lost. It's only castable in Battle Stance, so keep that in mind. Also, like Taunt, some mobs will be immune to this ability.
Shield Bash- Bashes the target with your shield for X damage. It also dazes the target and interrupts spellcasting, preventing any spell in that school from being cast for 6 seconds. Use this when tanking spell casters to prevent yourself from taking heavy damage. Warriors take extra damage from spells, so it's important to interrupt casts as often as possible. Some mobs will be immune to this, so don't be disheartened if you are unable to interrupt certain mobs.
Shield Block- Increases chance to block by 75% for 5 seconds, but will only block 1 attacks. This is the most important ability that a tank can use. Shield Block prevents you from eating crushing blows and taking significant amounts of damage. Always keep this up, above all other skills. Speccing into Improved Shield Block is important end game, it gives you another charge allowing you to avoid more crushing blows.
Shield Wall- Reduces the damage taken from melee attacks, ranged attacks and spells by 75% for 10 seconds. Shield Wall is the second of the OH **** buttons for the tanking warrior. It can be the difference between life and death during a phase transition or a hard enrage. Generally, those two situations are the best time to use it, but it can also be used to get a bad pull under control, preventing a wipe.
Taunt- Taunts the target to attack you, but has no effect if the target is already attacking you. Useful for regaining aggro after it's lost, Taunt will put you at the same level of threat that the person you taunted the mob off of was at. Some mobs will be immune to this, so don't rely on it.
Thunder Clap- Blasts nearby enemies increasing the time between their attacks by 10% for X seconds and doing Y damage to them. This ability causes additonal threat and will affect up to 4 targets. Thunder Clap is used to increase your survivability by decreasing a mobs attack speed. To a lesser extent, it can be used to hold multi-mob threat, but it is better to use a Tab/Cleave strategy.
The Five Necessities of a Tank
Tanks need 5 things:
To be Uncrushable
To be Uncrittable
To have knowledge of a fight
To communicate properly with their group
To be threatening
Crushing blows are strikes by bosses that do 1.5 damage and can be very deadly. There is no way to avoid crushing blows save having over 100% avoidance (104.5% to be exact). Luckily, being uncrushable is perhaps the easiest part for a warrior, but it is still a necessity. A naked protection warrior with shield block up should, specced properly, have over 100% avoidance and, as long as shield block is up, never have to eat a crushing blow. There are exceptions to this, but they will be covered later.
Critical strikes from bosses are very similar to critical strikes from players, they deal 1.5 damage to the tank. Unlike crushing blows, however, critical strikes can occur on almost all abilities, not just white hits. This makes being uncrittable even more valuable than being uncrushable. To become uncrittable, there are two defensive requirements. For heroics, the defense required is 485 because the mobs in heroic instances have a max level of 72. For raids, the defense required is 490 because raid mobs have a max level of 73.
Knowledge of a fight is always important to have, especially in end-game raids. If you're tanking Azgalor and don't step out of the rain of fire, it is YOUR FAULT that the raid wipes. Knowledge of all boss encounters in a raid will allow you to maneuver and react accordingly to any of the abilities of a boss. Don't ever come unprepared!
Communication is also crucial to being a tank, especially in a raid which can be comprised of multiple tanks. Assigning cc to certain mobs, offtanks to others, and telling the raid whether or not you may have to move is crucial to a successful fight. Don't be afraid to speak out, even if you're an offtank.
No, it's not in your looks, it's in your gear and your talents. Having defiance and defensive stance up gives you a significant boost to your threat generation. In Battle stance you generate 80% threat from abilities, in Berserker (talented) you generate 70% threat. In Defensive stance, you generate a whopping 130% threat (145% talented). A proper rotation and good gear are necessary to strong TPS (Threat per Second) but that will be discussed later.
My First Instance
First and foremost, realize that almost all of your tanking will be done in defensive stance. Defensive stance increases the threat generated by your abilities whereas the other stances, battle and berserker, lower them. Second, you will almost always have a sword and board equipped when you're tanking. People who tank with two handers are one of several things: someone who doesn't understand their role, someone who highly outgears the instance and can tank through pure damage output, or a druid. Hopefully, by reading this guide, you are none of them except on occasion the middle one.
There are three crucial skills used for threat generation when tanking early instances: Sunder Armor, Heroic Strike, and Revenge. Revenge is the skill that provides the most threat so be sure to always keep it on cooldown. For Sunder Armor, it's best to always have the debuff stacked at 5 and then refresh/use as necessary. Heroic Strike is a rage dump. It's also important to keep up Shield Block, Demoralizing Shout, and Thunder Clap to help with your survivability. As you increase in level, Shield Slam will be added to your tanking repertoire as your highest threat generation move, and Sunder Armor will be replaced by Devastate.
For spell casting mobs its important to Shield Bash them to interrupt their casting and prevent you from taking heavy damage. At level 65, Spell Reflect will generally be the preferred skill to use as it takes the spell and turns it into damage that doubles as threat.
Will I Ever Use a Different Stance?
The short answer: No, all of your threat generation should be done in defensive stance and it is there that you should stay.
The long answer: Yes, in certain boss fights it can be useful to switch to Berserker Stance and use either Intercept or Berserker Rage then switch back to Defensive Stance. Berserker Rage is helpful for avoiding fears from bosses (such as dragons) and Intercept is used to get back into the fight after a knockback.
When Do I Need to Spec Protection?
As a rule, if you want to tank end-game instances your raid will more than likely want/need you to be full blown protection, although there are a few exceptions. Fury/Arms warrior can off tank end-level content given the right gear. They will never be as effective as Prot specced warriors, but they are certainly viable, so don't be discouraged. Pre 60, however, there's really no good reason to go Prot. Protection means slower leveling and at earlier levels where an Arms of Fury specced warrior can tank an instance just as well as a Protection specced one.
What is Effective Health?
Effective health is the combination of stamina and the damage reduction of armor resulting in how much damage you can take. In application, it's a type of gearing that focuses on gathering as much hp as possible to deal with the "worse case scenario" of no avoidance. It allows you to take a string of crushing blows/painful hits and survive them. EH is necessary to progress through higher level content than your gear provides for. As your gear improves, so too should your avoidance, and the need for EH gearing should diminish until you're ready to tackle the next set of content.
What About Avoidance?
Gearing for EH doesn't mean disregarding avoidance entirely. Avoidance is an equally important stat for tanking, it helps to level out the "roughness" of EH tanking by preventing hits from landing. As a rule, you should never gear for avoidance when learning/progressing in content. It becomes more important after you learn encounters and can begin to substitute sheer health/armor with avoidance/TPS stats to get smoother runs. Think of avoidance as a way of preventing player error in a sense. It helps to prevent that one crushing blow that killed you and caused a wipe, or that deadly string of blows that all tanks fear.
How Should I Spec?
There are numerous tanking builds, all of which depend upon the preferences of the player. Here are a few: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LA0cZVZ0EtoGMzfxst
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LA0cZVbZ0EtoI0zsxst
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LA0cZVZ0EtsI0zcxst
There are only a few must haves in a prot build, the rest is up to the current necessities and preferences of the player. The must haves are:
5/5 Deflection
3/3 Imp Thunder Clap
5/5 Cruelty
5/5 Anticipation
5/5 Toughness
5/5 Shield Spec
1/1 Last Stand
1/1 Imp Shield Block
3/3 Defiance
1/1 Concussion Blow
5/5 One Handed Weapon Specialization
3/3 Shield Mastery
1/1 Shield Slam
3/3 Focused Rage
5/5 Vitality
1/1 Devastate
The rest are really up to you, I prefer getting Imp Heroic Strike and Imp Sunder as well as putting a few in Imp Demoralizing Shout.
How Should I Gear Myself?
First and foremost, you want to be uncrittable so gear for defense rating first. Once you reach 490 defense, however, defense rapidly loses its luster because its contributions to avoidance are negligible in comparison to actual avoidance rating (dodge and parry) or TPS stats such as hit, crit, and expertise.
Secondly, you want to gear for high stamina and armor. This is because stamina and armor interact linearly. The more armor you have, the better stamina becomes and vice versa. Usually, you should always put the biggest stam gem you can find in your gear sockets, discounting the socket bonus UNLESS it is, in itself a beneficial tanking stat. Also, be sure to keep in mind meta-gem requirements.
Third, you want to gear for avoidance. Having at least 30% dodge and parry combined is a good start for Karazhan, but I've found that avoidance is generally something that you have to get a feel for in order to gear properly.
As you progress through content, you will need higher and higher avoidance to deal with the mobs/bosses you encounter. While high stamina/armor is beneficial, it only gets you to the point that you can tank content ahead of your gear level. As your gear level increases, be sure to replace high stamina gear with more avoidance/threat oriented gear. As a general rule, tier 4, 5, and 6 gear as well as most tanking drops are full of avoidance stats, but keep it in mind.
Finally, you want to gear for TPS. Gearing for TPS should be done ONLY when you can successfully kill a boss. The reason for increasing your TPS is to ensure a faster boss fight and one in which your damage dealers don't have to hold back. Generally, when you're learning, high survivability is more important than high threat because you just want to kill the boss, not kill him in record time. In terms of stats, Expertise > Hit which is about = to crit > Shield Block Value > Strength > Agility. This makes expertise your number one TPS Stat. It also double as a defensive stat because expertise reduces the amount of parries which in turn reduces the amount of times that a bosses' attack speed is increased. Hit is your next most important stat because missing that first shield slam can be VERY VERY bad. After that, just use the above stated formula for gearing for TPS.
Note: You should always carry around 3 sets of gear. One for high EH, one for avoidance, and one for threat generation.
What Buffs Should I Provide?
At earlier levels, potions, flasks, and food are rarely necessary to complete an instance. If you have them, great, but just keeping up Battle Shout is all you need to do. As you get to later levels, there will be three buffs you should always have on you in a raid. Two in instances. They are: The Well Fed buff from Spicy Crawdad and Commanding Shout for instances. A Flask of Fortification should be added during raids.
How Am I Supposed to Lead These People?
Marking is one of the easiest (but most important) roles of tanking/leading a group and most people will expect you, the tank, to do it. The First step is to keybind your marks. Do whatever is easiest but efficient for you. This is how raid leaders mark targets incredibly quickly. Second, set up a marking system with your group. As a general rule, skull is always the primary DPS target, but for all the other symbols anything goes. Be warned, consistency is crucial when marking so be sure to always keep the markings the same. Finally, check with your group to make sure they know what each mark means and how they should react accordingly as well as check that the mark works for each mob (some mobs are immune to certain types of CC).
What Other Classes Bring
Chances are, you're not running a group comprised entirely of warriors, so it's important to know what other classes bring to the table. Keep in mind that the role of a class depends on their spec but (most of) their buffs remain constant. For space's sake, I'm only going to discuss their buffs and their forms of CC and buffs that don't directly impact tanking (such as the boomkin 5% spell crit aura) will likely be left out. If an ability is followed by parentheses, it means that it's an ability available through talents.
Druids- Druids bring two buffs, strong Heal over Time spells, two forms of CC, and impressive offtanking capabilities.
Mark of the Wild- Increases the friendly target's armor by X, all attributes by Y and all resistances by Z for 30 minutes. Overall a good buff, the resistance part is pretty negligible but the armor/stats is a good EH increase.
Thorns- Thorns sprout from the friendly target causing X Nature damage to attackers when hit. Lasts 10 minutes. This one's pretty lackluster, the damage adds a little bit of threat, but I wouldn't be too worried about having this buff.
Leader of the Pack (Feral)- While in Cat, Bear or Dire Bear Form, the Leader of the Pack increases ranged and melee critical chance of all party members within 45 yards by 5%. Feral specced druids will always have this and usually have Improved Pack of the Wild as well. The improved version causes you to heal for 2% of your total health upon landing a critical hit. This is a VERY useful buff.
Entangling Roots- Roots the target in place and causes X Nature damage over Y seconds. Damage caused may interrupt the effect. Only useable outdoors. Since most instances are indoor, you'll rarely see this ability used as CC. In rare cases, however, you'll be glad you have it (such as the scouts in Zul'Aman).
Cyclone- Tosses the enemy target into the air, preventing all action but making them invulnerable for up to 6 seconds. Only one target can be affected by your Cyclone at a time. This is purely used to give you a few seconds to reestablish aggro on a mob focused on your healers. In conventional scenarios you will never see this. Note: available at 70
Hunters- Hunters bring strong ranged DPS, a nature resistance buff, a speed buff, kiting abilities, and melee CC in the form of traps.
Kiting- Good hunters will be able to hold aggro on a mob while moving the mob around an enclosed space. This is known as "kiting". As with Entangling Roots, this is purely a situational skill that hunters should have, but you'll be glad that they can when you need it.
Frost Trap- Place a frost trap that creates an ice slick around itself for 30 seconds when the first enemy approaches it. All enemies within 10 yards will be slowed by 60% while in the area of effect. Trap will exist for 60 seconds. Only one trap can be active at a time.
Not used terribly often, but this can help you deal with runaway mobs as well as help the hunter kite.
Freezing Trap- Place a frost trap that freezes the first enemy that approaches, preventing all action for up to 20 seconds. Any damage caused will break the ice. Trap will exist for 60 seconds. Only one trap can be active at a time. This is the bread and butter trap of hunter CC. In almost every CC scenario this is the trap they'll be using. It's melee ranged so keep in mind that a mob will run at the hunter. Also keep in mind that it's resisted every now and then so keep an eye out.
Aspect of the Wild- The hunter and group members within 30 yards take on the aspect of the wild, increasing Nature resistance by X. Only one Aspect can be active at a time. Another purely situational buff, this is helpful in areas heavy in nature damage such as Temple of Atal'Hakkar, Ahn'Qiraj, and Hydross in Serpentshrine Cavern.
Aspect of the Pack- The hunter and group members within 30 yards take on the aspects of a pack of cheetahs, increasing movement speed by 30%. If a pack member is struck, they will be dazed for 4 seconds. Only one Aspect can be active at a time. This buff is good for running back to where you wiped in an instance and not much else.
Mages- Mages bring high ranged DPS, ranged CC, an intellect buff, and food/water.
Arcane Intellect- Increases the target's Intellect by X for 30 minutes. This buff is utterly useless for warriors but the casters in your group will love it.
Polymorph- Transforms the enemy into a sheep, forcing it to wander around for up to X seconds. While wandering, the sheep cannot attack or cast spells but will regenerate very quickly. Any damage will transform the target back into its normal form. Only one target can be polymorphed at a time. Only works on Beasts, Humanoids and Critters. One of the best forms of ranged CC, Polymorph (Sheep) should almost always be used. Keep in mind that it can break early and be resisted so again, keep an eye out.
Conjure Food/Water- Mages can conjure food and water of approximately your level. Useful for when you forgot to bring food and decreasing down time.
Paladins- Paladins bring impressive multi-mob tanking abilities, the best single-target healing in the game, average DPS, and strong buffs/debuffs in the form of blessings and judgements.
Blessing of Freedom- Places a Blessing on the friendly target, granting immunity to movement impairing effects for 10 seconds. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time. You'll rarely need this buff, but it can, on occasion, save your life or those of other members of your group.
Blessing of Kings (Protection)- Places a Blessing on the friendly target, increasing total stats by 10% for 10 minutes. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time. This is the best buff in the game in my opinion. It causes huge increases in stamina (and thus EH) topping Power Word: Fortitude as well as an increase in avoidance/armor (from the agility) and an increase in threat (from the strength). Always request this buff if applicable (almost all paladins will spec into Prot for this but there are some exceptions).
Blessing of Light- Places a Blessing on the friendly target, increasing the effects of Holy Light spells used on the target by up to X and the effects of Flash of Light spells used on the target by up to Y. Lasts 10 minutes. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time. If you're undergeared or your paladin is this can be useful for closing the gap. If you have more than one paladin (in a raid for example) then this is about equal to Blessing of Sanctuary. Otherwise, request Kings.
Blessing of Might- Places a Blessing on the friendly target, increasing attack power by X for 10 minutes. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time. This is not a tremendously useful buff, but it provides an increase in threat generation/damage. If you already have Kings and Light or Sanctuary you may as well have this buff too.
Blessing of Protection- A targeted party member is protected from all physical attacks for 10 seconds, but during that time they cannot attack or use physical abilities. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time. You will NEVER want this cast on you. In very very very rare cases this can save your life but damage immunity will cause whatever mob(s) you are tanking to run to kill your healers/DPS.
Blessing of Sacrifice- Places a Blessing on the party member, transfering X damage taken per hit to the caster. Lasts 30 seconds. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time. This is a rarely used situational buff that can jar the paladin out of CC (such as Maiden's) to heal you while the rest of your raid is stuck.
Blessing of Salvation- Places a Blessing on the party member, reducing the amount of all threat generated by 30% for 10 minutes. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time. The only instance of using this on a tank that I can think of is when our druid tank for Gruul massively outgeared our warrior who was maintanking. The Druid had to have Salv to fulfill his offtank purposes. You'll probably never see this buff except on your DPS.
Blessing of Sanctuary (Protection)- Places a Blessing on the party member, reducing the amount of all threat generated by 30% for 10 minutes. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time. If you run with a Protection paladin tank (my guild does as do many others) you may as well request this. This buff is imo about equal to Blessing of Light. The extra threat is decent (better than thorns) and the damage reduction will add up.
Blessing of Wisdom- Places a Blessing on the friendly target, restoring X mana every 5 seconds for 10 minutes. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time.As a warrior you'll never have this buff, but all of your healers and most of your DPS will. Just keep in mind that it exists.
For Seals to effect you they must be judged, so that is the format they will take.
Judgement of Light- Melee attacks made against the target have a chance of causing the attacker to be healed for X. The chance for healing is actually pretty good so this judgement should be used when it can.
Judgement of Wisdom- Attacks and spells used against the target have a chance of restoring X of the attacker's mana. This one's for the caster classes. Like Light, this is a useful buff and should be kept up when possible.
Judgement of the Crusader- Increases Holy damage taken by target by up to X. Retribution specced paladins that judge this will also add a 3% crit chance to melee/ranged attacks and abilities. Otherwise, it just benefits Protection paladins.
Priests- Priests bring healing utility, mana regeneration, and three buffs. Shadow priests also bring strong mana regeneration and (threat allowing) small healing as well.
Power Word: Fortitude- Power infuses the target increasing their Stamina by X for 30 minutes. One of the best stamina increasing buffs in the game, you always want to have this buff if it's available.
Shadow Protection- Increases the target's resistance to Shadow spells by X for 10 minutes. Pretty situational as a buff, but many mobs/bosses use shadow damage so you'll be glad you had this buff fairly often.
Power Word: Shield- Draws on the soul of the party member to shield them, absorbing 1265 damage. Lasts 30 seconds. While the shield holds, spellcasting will not be interrupted by damage. Once shielded, the target cannot be shielded again for 15 seconds. If you can avoid it, never have this cast on you. The damage prevention will rage starve you and the spell is mana inefficient for the priest.
Divine Spirit (Discipline)- Holy power infuses the target, increasing their Spirit by X for 30 minutes. Most holy priests will also have specced into discipline to get this talent. They will also most likely have the improved version of it, which increases spell damage/healing. For a warrior this buff is useless save for slightly decreasing downtime but healing classes will love it.
Shackle Undead- Shackles the target undead enemy for up to X seconds. The shackled unit is unable to move, attack or cast spells. Any damage caused will release the target. Only one target can be shackled at a time. An excellent CC, Shackle is one of the more reliable forms of CC. However, it can (and often will) break early or be resisted so be on your toes to save your priest.
Vampiric Embrace (Shadow)- Afflicts your target with Shadow energy that causes all party members to be healed for 15% of any Shadow spell damage you deal for 60 seconds. Few priests will use this while raiding because the threat it causes is phenomenal. Spriests don't have a strong aggro dump so appreciate this buff when it's used but don't be surprised if it isn't.
Rogues- Rogues bring high melee DPS, melee CC, and the (situational) Wound Poison.
Sap- Incapacitates the target for up to X seconds. Must be stealthed. Only works on Humanoids that are not in combat. Any damage caused will revive the target. Only 1 target may be sapped at a time. A fairly useful form of CC that's used just before a pull. Keep in mind that it cannot be reapplied once broken so pick up the mob as soon as it's free.
Wound Poison- Coats a weapon with poison that lasts for 1 hour. Each strike has a 30% chance of poisoning the enemy, causing X Nature damage and reducing all healing effects used on them by 10% for 15 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times on a single target. Much like Mortal Strike, this debuff prevents bosses from getting enormous heals. This is a purely situational ability because very few bosses either heal or are affected by this poison.
Shamans- Shamans bring totems, the best multi-heal in the game, and average DPS. Shamans have a wide variety of totems but I'll outline some of the important ones.
Resistance Totems- Shamans have resistance totems for fire and frost as well as nature.
Windfury Totem- Summons a Windfury Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster. The totem enchants all party members main-hand weapons with wind, if they are within 20 yards. Each hit has a 20% chance of granting the attacker 1 extra attacks with X extra attack power. Lasts 2 minutes. Windfury is the best damage increasing buff in the game for melee DPS classes. For tanking, however, it can be deadly (to you). Having extra attacks can mean extra parries which in turn means a sped up boss attack. Extra attacks can also mean extra rage and threat generation. Use at your own discretion.
Healing Stream- Summons a Healing Stream Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 2 minutes that heals group members within 20 yards for 18 every 2 seconds. Though it may not seem like much, this totem has enormous healing capabilities. If dropped by a geared Resto shaman, these totems can tick for as much as 130-200 (trinketed). If you have a shaman in your group, don't neglect this totem because it provides an impressive amount of healing.
Strength of Earth- Summons a Strength of Earth Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster. The totem increases the strength of party members within 20 yards by X. Lasts 2 minutes. This totem provides ~1/2 the bonus of Battle Shout. However, it provides strength which scales with Blessing of Kings which Battle Shout does not. The threat increase from extra strength isn't tremendous but depending upon group makeup you may find this totem more useful than Stoneskin.
Stoneskin- Summons a Stoneskin Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster. The totem protects party members within 20 yards, reducing melee damage taken by 43. Lasts 2 minutes. On it's own this totem isn't tremendously useful but combined with Healing Stream it becomes an impressive survival tool. You may opt for it for Strength of Earth depending upon group composition.
Warlocks- Warlocks bring health stones (like a health pot), soul stones, high DPS, and two ranged CC abilities.
Banish- Banishes the enemy target, preventing all action but making it invulnerable for up to X seconds. Only one target can be banished at a time. Only works on Demons and Elementals. A very useful CC when it applies, Banish does not break early so it can safely be used as necessary.
Fear- Strikes fear in the enemy, causing it to run in fear for up to X seconds. Damage caused may interrupt the effect. Only 1 target can be feared at a time. Fear needs to be used very carefully because a feared mob can aggro other packs of mobs. As a general rule, Fear is a last resort form of CC but use it when you need it.
Warrior- Warriors bring shouts, high melee DPS, four debuffs (two of which will most likely be provided by you), and off tanking capabilities.
Mortal Strike (Arms)- A vicious strike that deals weapon damage plus X and wounds the target, reducing the effectiveness of any healing by 50% for 10 seconds. Like Wound Poison, this debuff is purely situational. However, it is (besides slam) the bread and butter of Arms PvE DPS so expect to see it up if you party/raid with an Arms warrior.
Blood Frenzy(Arms)- Your Rend and Deep Wounds abilities also increase all physical damage caused to that target by 4%. Most raids will have an Arms warrior purely to keep this buff up. 4% is a phenomenal increase to damage caused by all physical classes and it will increase your threat generation as well. It's nice to have, but hardly a necessity.
How Should I Keep up TPS?
The Generally accepted rule is to Shield Slam and Revenge when they're not on cooldown and then Devastate when they are. Use Heroic Strike only when you have strong rage generation and need to dump your rage somewhere to not waste it. While generating threat is important, don't forget that keeping Thunder Clap and Demoralizing Shout up is equally necessary. A dead tank is not a threat generating tank. Also, be sure to Spell Reflect abilities that can be reflected, a 6000 damage hit goes a long way for threat.
When Should I Pop My OH **** Button(s)?
Abilities such as Last Stand and Shield Wall are best used in two places: During Phase Transitions in a boss fight to give your healers a break, or at the end of a boss fight when your healers are out of mana or the boss is about to enrage. A quick shield wall can give you another 10 or so seconds during a boss enrage to (hopefully) down the boss. Items such as nightmare seeds can also be useful in
Useful Addons
For Tanking, I only use Omen and Deadly Boss Mods. However, they're the bare bone necessities of tanking.
Useful Macros
This first macro is for taunting mobs onto you depending upon your situation. Left clicking it is a normal taunt. Right clicking it, however, will taunt the target to you but turn off your auto attack. This is useful for mobs that broke out of CC providing time for CC to be reapplied.
/cast [button: 1] taunt
/stopattack [button: 2]
/cast [buttom: 2] taunt
Here's another that switches you to Battle Stance, casts Mocking Blow, and then returns you to defensive stance.
#show Mocking Blow
/cast [nostance:1] Battle Stance; Mocking Blow
/cast [nostance:2]Defensive Stance
For multi-mob tanking, this macro allows you to switch through mobs and apply Sunder Armor as well as Cleave. If you're specced Protection, replace Sunder Armor with Devastate in the cast sequence.
/script SetCVar("targetNearestDistance", 5)
/targetenemy
/startattack
/cast [nostance:2] Defensive Stance
/castsequence reset=6 Sunder Armor, Thunder Clap, Cleave, Sunder Armor
Good Tanking Sites
Here are some good sites to check up on every now and then. Curse is a site to download addons from, the rest are forums.
http://www.wowhead.com/?forums&topic=2399
http://www.tankingtips.com/
http://elitistjerks.com/
http://www.curse.com/
Thanks To
Kingpatzer- for keeping me in line in terms of misinformation.
RpZip- I borrowed most of his guide format and will probably steal his color scheme.
Cinderhelm- For his wonderful tanking site
Vene- For the above reasons.
Anybody else who helped to add, edit, or contribute to the information in this guide.
Edited, Jul 15th 2008 1:52pm by SomnusSleeper
Edited, Jul 15th 2008 1:56pm by SomnusSleeper
Edited, Jul 15th 2008 9:42pm by SomnusSleeper
Edited, Jul 15th 2008 10:52pm by SomnusSleeper
Edited, Jul 23rd 2008 3:24pm by SomnusSleeper
Edited, Jul 24th 2008 2:39pm by SomnusSleeper
I need to go back to work, but more will be added to the other classes section, the macro section, and the mods section. Once I feel like I've finished those I'll start neatening it up.
Edited, Jul 15th 2008 10:53pm by SomnusSleeper
Edited, Jul 15th 2008 10:53pm by SomnusSleeper
Sweet, thanks, I was just looking for one of these as I mentioned in another thread today.
/rate-ups for jooo
/rate-ups for jooo
This is a good start, but I hope you go into much more detail when you add on to this. There are a lot of facets of tanking, including understanding what CC you have available.
Couple of ideas off the top of my head:
1) Marking
2) Other class CC/buffs/abilities
3) Shield Spike vs Stamina enchant
4) This is purely focused on raid tanking. By that level, you should know how to tank. Maybe you could put a few pointers in there for new tanks (i.e. ones that want to tank instances while leveling).
5) Spell interrupts
6) Disarm
7) Intercept
8) Taunt
9) Macros
10) I'm sure there are more. This will be a living guide for a while, which is awesome. Again, thatnks for taking the initiative.
Couple of ideas off the top of my head:
1) Marking
2) Other class CC/buffs/abilities
3) Shield Spike vs Stamina enchant
4) This is purely focused on raid tanking. By that level, you should know how to tank. Maybe you could put a few pointers in there for new tanks (i.e. ones that want to tank instances while leveling).
5) Spell interrupts
6) Disarm
7) Intercept
8) Taunt
9) Macros
10) I'm sure there are more. This will be a living guide for a while, which is awesome. Again, thatnks for taking the initiative.
YJMark wrote:
This is a good start, but I hope you go into much more detail when you add on to this. There are a lot of facets of tanking, including understanding what CC you have available.
Couple of ideas off the top of my head:
1) Marking
2) Other class CC/buffs/abilities
3) Shield Spike vs Stamina enchant
4) This is purely focused on raid tanking. By that level, you should know how to tank. Maybe you could put a few pointers in there for new tanks (i.e. ones that want to tank instances while leveling).
5) Spell interrupts
6) Disarm
7) Intercept
8) Taunt
9) Macros
10) I'm sure there are more. This will be a living guide for a while, which is awesome. Again, thatnks for taking the initiative.
Couple of ideas off the top of my head:
1) Marking
2) Other class CC/buffs/abilities
3) Shield Spike vs Stamina enchant
4) This is purely focused on raid tanking. By that level, you should know how to tank. Maybe you could put a few pointers in there for new tanks (i.e. ones that want to tank instances while leveling).
5) Spell interrupts
6) Disarm
7) Intercept
8) Taunt
9) Macros
10) I'm sure there are more. This will be a living guide for a while, which is awesome. Again, thatnks for taking the initiative.
10) Use of Rend as an Agro Builder, and why you should spec Imp Rend in any respectable Tanking build :-D
*just kidding ppl, relax ;->*
lol
Kidding aside though - does anyone actually use Rend in PvE? I don't think I've ever used that ability. Even while soloing. I know it's good for PvP (i.e. a DoT to keep rogues from disappearing), but have never used it in PvE.
Kidding aside though - does anyone actually use Rend in PvE? I don't think I've ever used that ability. Even while soloing. I know it's good for PvP (i.e. a DoT to keep rogues from disappearing), but have never used it in PvE.
YJMark wrote:
lol
Kidding aside though - does anyone actually use Rend in PvE? I don't think I've ever used that ability. Even while soloing. I know it's good for PvP (i.e. a DoT to keep rogues from disappearing), but have never used it in PvE.
Kidding aside though - does anyone actually use Rend in PvE? I don't think I've ever used that ability. Even while soloing. I know it's good for PvP (i.e. a DoT to keep rogues from disappearing), but have never used it in PvE.
Yeah, you use it when you first start - it's actually pretty good (being pretty much the only special aside from Heroic Strike) ... after about level 20, you realise it's a pointless waste of a keystrike.
Quote:
[]Why is Effective Health More Important than Avoidance?[/
Not for the reasons stated, or at least not without qualification.
When entering new content, EH is the only way to go. Stack armor and avoidance and don't worry about avoidance. But once content is known and the level of spike damage is understood, avoidance becomes more and more important.
Your big error is in getting the effect wrong: is EH leads to spiky damage because stuff will eat through those shield blocks and land a few nasty blows in a row.
Avoidance levels out those spikes, making them less likely, and thus less spikey. Some of those blows will be avoided and won't land. Avoidance lowers variance.
From a healer's point of view, a tank stacked in Defense/Dodge/Parry/Agility is a more efficient object. On a fight they know inside and out, the healer will have an easier time healing this tank assuming the bare health minimums are met.
They key here is health minimums. What stacking armor and stamina do is get you to the health minimums so you can get to the progression gear that will allow you to balance your stats back out to something that is more reasonable and get content on farm status. Gearing for EH is the way to go when doing progression content because it gets you into the content faster. But if you're farming content, avoidance is the way to go for making the raid more efficient, provided you can do so without sacrificing health minimums for the content (which is almost always doable in content appropriate gear.).
EH is not purely superior to avoidance. It serves a different purpose. EH is for getting in the door. Avoidance is for farming it.
All that said, Blizzard's itemization strategy is such that content appropriate gear will almost always have plenty of avoidance for the content -- which is in large part why it is said that EH is the better strategy. Not because avoidance is less important, but because gemming for avoidance is really a bit silly when the gear already comes with what is needed.
I know very few tanks who manage to hit 18k HP unbuffed who aren't also sporting some equally impressive avoidance numbers.
Quote:
Secondly, you want to gear for high stamina and armor. Always put the biggest stam gem you can find in your gear sockets, discounting the socket bonus UNLESS it is, in itself a beneficial tanking stat. Rarely will you find that to be the case
I've yet to see a tanking set that had socket bonuses for spell haste :)
The key is to examine what you get/lose for different gemming strategies in a specific piece, and to keep in mind any meta-gem requirements you might have.
Edited, Jul 15th 2008 6:47pm by kingpatzer
The point of the avoidance versus EH tanking was not to disqualify avoidance as an effective tool in the tank ******* but to nudge the readers in the right direction. Gearing for avoidance is almost never the way to go. Also, I fail to see how an Avoidance tank could be less spiky than an EH tank. An EH tank will take a constant, steady stream of blows whereas an avoidance tank will take no to few blows for a portion of the combat and then have a long string of blows that cripples them.
17 posts
Thanks for this great tanking guide!
I try to read as much i can on tanking and there are tons of info on numbers percentage and so on. I really appreciate that you write in a easy way to understand. In the best of worlds all tanks should know exactly every number, know absolutely everything all mobs do and so on but i just cant get time to everything. Id love to if u did the same at the topics YJMARK is suggesting, something like does and donts for a tank. Example - make sure you remove the aoe buff that reduces threat with 30% (i dont know the name of that spell is)
What should the tank do if he is holding aggro on 2-3 mobs and an addon mob goes for the healer? Run and help healer? hope that if i as tank hold my 3 mobs the rest must fix that?(in 5 groups i havent seen many offtanks before lvl 70).
I think it would get a little better understanding for the thinking of a good tank. i Havent seen anything like this before on the guides ive read so far
As i said in the beginning i like what u have done so far, keep up the god work.
Looking for more from a guy that loves tanking but cant put as much time into it as i would like to
Krarob
I try to read as much i can on tanking and there are tons of info on numbers percentage and so on. I really appreciate that you write in a easy way to understand. In the best of worlds all tanks should know exactly every number, know absolutely everything all mobs do and so on but i just cant get time to everything. Id love to if u did the same at the topics YJMARK is suggesting, something like does and donts for a tank. Example - make sure you remove the aoe buff that reduces threat with 30% (i dont know the name of that spell is)
What should the tank do if he is holding aggro on 2-3 mobs and an addon mob goes for the healer? Run and help healer? hope that if i as tank hold my 3 mobs the rest must fix that?(in 5 groups i havent seen many offtanks before lvl 70).
I think it would get a little better understanding for the thinking of a good tank. i Havent seen anything like this before on the guides ive read so far
As i said in the beginning i like what u have done so far, keep up the god work.
Looking for more from a guy that loves tanking but cant put as much time into it as i would like to
Krarob
26 posts
As a tank you are obligated to save the others taking DMG. So if a healer gets aggro its because you didn't build enough threat on the attacking mob. So you must go and take the mob off the healer. The rest of the party should continue killing the Skull target or whatever the current target was. Then you can return tanking on the other mob. Anyway the usual practice is to kill the non elite mobs first then moving on the elites. Meanwhile the warrior is tanking the elites. And so on. Healer taking damage is not healing you and its a wipe if you don't take care of it. This is for the 5 man instances.
The raids have different strategies and there are assigned off tanks to the adds.
Edited, Jul 16th 2008 7:58am by Metosa
EDIT:
True, I was talking about the scenario when healer gets agro. Building threat as DPS is your problem I agree, but if it is a tough fight its better to get control back ;) one way or another. The CC option is well...most of the cases already drained, but if it's available you should use it.
Edited, Jul 16th 2008 9:49am by Metosa
Edited, Jul 16th 2008 9:57am by Metosa
The raids have different strategies and there are assigned off tanks to the adds.
Edited, Jul 16th 2008 7:58am by Metosa
EDIT:
Quote:
Respectfully, I disagree. As a tank, you are obligated to build threat and take the direct hits from the mobs. If a DPS is pulling aggro because they are an idiot, then I let them tank the mob they pulled. It's the DPS's job to not pull aggro.
True, I was talking about the scenario when healer gets agro. Building threat as DPS is your problem I agree, but if it is a tough fight its better to get control back ;) one way or another. The CC option is well...most of the cases already drained, but if it's available you should use it.
Edited, Jul 16th 2008 9:49am by Metosa
Edited, Jul 16th 2008 9:57am by Metosa
Quote:
As a tank you are obligated to save the others taking DMG.
Respectfully, I disagree. As a tank, you are obligated to build threat and take the direct hits from the mobs. If a DPS is pulling aggro because they are an idiot, then I let them tank the mob they pulled. It's the DPS's job to not pull aggro.
If a healer pulls aggro (since heals cause AoE threat), then you definitely need to go save them. Intercept is a key skill for that.
Of course, if adds come into play, then it's a whole different story. Personally, I like to mark adds for CC instead of adding them to the tank list. If that isn't possible, then I'll grab them.
Quote:
Also, I fail to see how an Avoidance tank could be less spiky than an EH tank. An EH tank will take a constant, steady stream of blows whereas an avoidance tank will take no to few blows for a portion of the combat and then have a long string of blows that cripples them.
You have it backwards.
If you're geared entirely for EH with minimal avoidance, then you are open to a string of crushing blows that eat through your shield block charges. Say you get a string of 5 crushing blows in a row. 2 are eaten by your shield block charges, and 3 get through.
If you're geared for minimal health requirements but have high avoidance, and you get that same string of crushing blows, your shield block east 2, and you have a much higher chance to have 1 or 2 or even all 3 of the remaining blows simply MISS. Now, it's not very likely to see someone get avoidance so high that it moves crushing blows off the combat table but passively uncrushable is possible though not desirable due to the way itemization works. But consider someone who's avoidance is high enough that passively uncrushable is achieved. That same string of hits results in nothing but white damage because crushing blows aren't a possible outcome!
Gearing for avoidance on known content makes the healer's job easier and more efficient because it levels out the spikes.
Moreover, in 25 man content, avoidance scales better than stamina. Stamina a static amount of HP gain which becomes proportionately less relevant the greater the damage per hit taken. If I use a 15 stam gem in a red socket on a piece where I lose +6 dodge by not having the socket bonus I've given up just slightly less than 1% pure avoidance for 150 hps. Now, in a situation where I'm getting hit for 500 a pop, that 150 can really be a lifesaver, it's basically 1/2 of a hit given the way armor and stamina interact. But I am losing 16 dodge by not having a Subtle Crimson Spinel there. 18 dodge is 1% so let's use 1% just to make the math easier. If I'm getting hit for 5k a shot, that 150 hps is pretty meaningless. But that 1% avoidance is still 1% avoidance, no matter what the base white damage for a particular boss is.
Consider a fight where special attacks hit for up to 8000 and where white damage hits for about 4500. A tank with roughly 21k of hps would be able to barely live through a special attack followed by normal white damage x2 and a curshing blow.
If that tank has 45% avoidance (which fairly low) the chance of all that landing in a row is .55^4 or about 9%. A tank with 65% avoidance would have .35^4 or 1.5% of that happening. The low avoidance tank is going to take that kind of series of shots 6x more frequently than the higher avoidance tank.
But 65% avoidance isn't really stacked for avoidance, at those kinds of damage levels that's only slightly more than what comes on gear to begin with. If you gear for avoidance, you can probably push that up to 80% by sacrificing stam and a bit of armor. At 80% the tank will have .2^4 = .16%!! In other words, if you can get 80% avoidance you'll take that series of shots (on average) less than 2 times in every 1000 hits. Compared to 90 times in every 1000 hits for the stam tank. That means that the avoidance tank can have significantly fewer hps to have an equivalent survivability chance.
But that doesn't mean that there isn't some base level of hps that is essential. White damage is going to happen, you have to be able to survive it. Special attacks will happen, you need to be able to survive one. Healers will get silenced or interrupted. Crushing blows will happen (if not passively uncrushable), you have to be able to survive one. There is a floor for hps and armor that the tank needs to meet to survive. But once that is achieved, avoidance scales better than EH.
So again, EH for progression content (where you are merely at the EH floor or only slightly above it) is the way to go. But once you are above the EH floor, avoidance takes that content to farm status.
Edited, Jul 16th 2008 11:58am by kingpatzer
Yes, but you miss my point. You yourself stated it in your first post. Almost all of the gear for that portion of content comes with avoidance. That avoidance is often enough or more than enough to allow you to EH tank and yet still sport high avoidance values. When tanking, I hit slightly over 20k buffed but still sport ~66% avoidance. Thus my point that it's better to gear for EH and then for threat than to gear for avoidance.
Quote:
Yes, but you miss my point. You yourself stated it in your first post. Almost all of the gear for that portion of content comes with avoidance. That avoidance is often enough or more than enough to allow you to EH tank and yet still sport high avoidance values. When tanking, I hit slightly over 20k buffed but still sport ~66% avoidance. Thus my point that it's better to gear for EH and then for threat than to gear for avoidance.
And you're missing my point.
I am not denying the utility of EH gear selections for progression content.
However, that is not all people do. Once you have done the content enough to know what's what, it is in the raid's interest for you to toss on your avoidance gear and sacrifice excessive EH for avoidance for content that you know well enough to move to farm status, as that will make the raid more efficient and eliminate damage spikes.
You have simply false statement in your guide: EH gearing has far more damage spikes than avoidance gearing and you claim otherwise.
You state that "all fights are generally easier with an Effective Health tank rather than an Avoidance one," yet that is not the case. Once you have adequate health, more avoidance makes every fight at that progression level easier precisely because it lowers spikes in damage. I gave you the math to demonstrate that point.
I do not disagree with your main point if that point is that for progression content EH is the way to go. But you fail to actually state that outright. You also fail to understand the utility of avoidance for quite a lot of content. If a guild has SSC on farm status and are trying to figure out BT, you'll do a lot better in Gruul and parts of SSC in avoidance gear and a lot better in BT in EH gear. Presuming you aren't going to go below the EH minimums when you put on your avoidance set.
If your point is that EH is better always. You're simply wrong. EH has it's place and is absolutely what you need to be gearing towards for progression content (as I've said repeatedly). But that doesn't make it best for all situations nor does it make avoidance the wrong choice for all situations. The case is not that simplistic.
If your view is correct, then you believe that the Thoriumweave Cloak with it's 35 stamina and 350 armor is better than the Gilded Thorium Cloak with only 30 stamina, 350 armor, and 24 defense. But that's simply not the case. The Gilded Thorium Cloak is a far superior item.
You'd replace Iron Gauntlets of the Maiden with Vengeful Gladiator's Plate Gauntlets.?
Edited, Jul 16th 2008 1:38pm by kingpatzer
Point taken minus the last bit. I'll edit that part of the guide as soon as I get back to working on it. I'm gonna be busy for the next day or two.
SomnusSleeper wrote:
Tanking Guide by Somnus Sleeper
Are you going to wikify the guide?
Personally, I'm a fan of pushing threat in my gear on farm content, rather than avoidance. Then again, I trust my healers and have always been very aggressive in terms of threat. I've also got some hardcore DPS behind me, so I don't have a choice. If I were to opt avoidance on farm, I would never keep up with their TPS output.
Just putting this out there, as this is another viable option to gear for once you reached EH minimums for a zone. Some people choose avoidance, I choose to make the fights shorter.
Just putting this out there, as this is another viable option to gear for once you reached EH minimums for a zone. Some people choose avoidance, I choose to make the fights shorter.
Well, you should never push avoidance past the point where you have the rage you need, of course.
But that point is important as well, and just goes to show that when talking content that is on farm status, there's a lot of gear configurations other than EH that make sense.
But that point is important as well, and just goes to show that when talking content that is on farm status, there's a lot of gear configurations other than EH that make sense.
Quote:
and just goes to show that when talking content that is on farm status, there's a lot of gear configurations other than EH that make sense.
I kind of thought this guide was to help out "new" tanks. When you have stuff on farm status, you are probably not in need of a tanking guide like this. Isn't that information just going to confuse a new tank starting up?
I thought this guide was going to be designed so that a new warrior could read it, and get an idea of how to tank, some tips and tricks (maybe even a couple pieces of key gear to pick up while leveling), and things to help them on their way.
Once you are raid tanking, you are well beyond the scope of what this guide should cover. Or, at least make that a completely separate section at the bottom, and clarify that it is for experienced raid tanks.
Ok, on to my next comment:
you state that:
Cleave followed by a Shield Slam, Devastate, or Revenge is the best way to tank multiple mobs.
First the math:
The threat value of an ability is (innate threat + damage) * stance mods * buff mods
For a comparison test, we'll assume that buff mods are the same and can safetly be ignored.
For the sake of simplicity I am ignoring weapon normalization for these calculations. Since all of the special abilities would have their damage increased by the same relative amount due to normalization, the effect can be safely ignored. If someone want's to see the math to include normalization and armor mitigation, I can provide those. But the net effect is the same in terms of relative differences.
The stance mod for a warrior in defensive stance with 3/3 in Defiance is 149.5%
So we are comparing the values of (innate threat + damage) * stance mods.
Let's assume our warrior is above the soft cap for hit and expertise, so none of these attacks will be parried or miss. Again it makes the math easier, all it does is stop us from multiplying each equation by the miss and parry chances.
For our weapon, let's take an descent tanking weapon, something like Inuuro's blade which hits for 80-120 @ 1.4 seconds. We'll use the average damage of 100 with an additional 90 damage from Attack Power (which puts the Attack power around 900, an average value for a Kara geared prot tank).
For threat values based on your recommendation:
The innate threat for Devastate is calculated per Sunder that is on the mob: 119/134/148/162/176.
We'll start with the assumption that this is an initial pull, so the innate devastate threat will be 119.
Devastate also gets the threat from sunder armor, which is 301. So the initial devastate innate threat is 420 (119 + 301).
Cleave is 130 threat split between the two mobs and does weapon damage +70 to both mobs.
Since we're talking the same weapon damage, the only question at hand is if any attacks happen between the cleave and the devastate attack. And the answer is no, Cleave is not on the Global cooldown, but Devastate and Shield Slam are.
So let's look at some options with 2 mobs, A and B. We'll assume that you timed your initial pull perfectly after using bloodrage with improved bloodrage, so the mob is there with you having 26 rage.
Option 1: Cleave + Devastate over 3 swings.
Cleave uses 20 rage. After the Cleave we have threat of (130 + 270 ) * 146.5% / 2 or 293 threat to both targets and 6 rage.
Since Cleave is not on the Global Cool Down we can Devastate on the next attack swing at 1.4 seconds on one target provided we have the rage.
We may or may not generate rage. Let's say we have 50% avoidance (a low value) and we're fighting trash that hits for 500 a pop. We'll take 1 hit from two mobs, so our rage generated will be (2.5 * 500 / 274.7 ) = 4 (Blizzard always rounds down).
Cleave is a special attack. Special attacks don't generate rage, so we get no rage from the outgoing damage.
Devastate requires 15 rage, we have 12. So we will just get in a normal swing, and we'll do our 200 damage on mob A. White damage threat is just damage * 146.5 % or 293 threat on mob A.
We again get 4 rage from our average incoming damage. In addition we have made a white attack so we should get (((3.75 * 200) / 274.4) + ((3.5 * 1.4)/2)) = 4.95 (blizzard round down, so thats 4 real threat) for a total of 8 incoming threat. That plus the 12 means we now have 20 rage.
With 20 rage, we can use devastate on the next attack. Devastate causes (420 + 200/2) * 146.5% or 761 threat on mob A.
So after 3 attacks, target A has 1054 threat (293 + 761) and target B has 293 threat we have 5 rage.
Option 2: Devastate + Devastate over 3 swings
We start out with the same rage of 26.
We Devastate mob B for 761 threat using 15 rage. We now have 26 - 15 = 11 rage.
We take the same damage giving us 15 rage.
We devastate mob A for 761 threat using our 15 rage. We now have 0 rage and mob A has 908 threat
We get 4 incoming rage and no outgoing rage due to devastate being a special attack.
We do a white attack on mob A giving mob A 293 threat.
So now, target A has 1054 threat (293 + 761) and target B has 761 threat and we have 4 rage.
So, for the cost of 1 additional rage point, we deal 260% more threat on target B.
---------------------
Now, maybe your thinking "But I have focused rage at 3/3 reducing the cost of my offensive abilities by 3 rage each." So now, you get an additional 468 threat (761 - 293) on target A.
It doesn't matter. Option 2 will be able to toss in a Revenge. Revenge's threat* is (200 + 460) * 146.5% = 966 - 293 = 673 more threat on target A. In otherword, Option B pulls even farther ahead.
* An average value assuming one-handed specialization at 3/3 and a kara level shield block rating.
Using Cleave is a bad idea. Cleave is some of the worst threat per rage on the warrior talent tree and is only useful in the middle of a fight when you have plenty of rage. It is a horrible idea to start a multi-target encounter with rage intensive abilities. Learn to tab target!
** edit to fix a math error :)
Edited, Jul 17th 2008 12:53pm by kingpatzer
you state that:
Cleave followed by a Shield Slam, Devastate, or Revenge is the best way to tank multiple mobs.
First the math:
The threat value of an ability is (innate threat + damage) * stance mods * buff mods
For a comparison test, we'll assume that buff mods are the same and can safetly be ignored.
For the sake of simplicity I am ignoring weapon normalization for these calculations. Since all of the special abilities would have their damage increased by the same relative amount due to normalization, the effect can be safely ignored. If someone want's to see the math to include normalization and armor mitigation, I can provide those. But the net effect is the same in terms of relative differences.
The stance mod for a warrior in defensive stance with 3/3 in Defiance is 149.5%
So we are comparing the values of (innate threat + damage) * stance mods.
Let's assume our warrior is above the soft cap for hit and expertise, so none of these attacks will be parried or miss. Again it makes the math easier, all it does is stop us from multiplying each equation by the miss and parry chances.
For our weapon, let's take an descent tanking weapon, something like Inuuro's blade which hits for 80-120 @ 1.4 seconds. We'll use the average damage of 100 with an additional 90 damage from Attack Power (which puts the Attack power around 900, an average value for a Kara geared prot tank).
For threat values based on your recommendation:
The innate threat for Devastate is calculated per Sunder that is on the mob: 119/134/148/162/176.
We'll start with the assumption that this is an initial pull, so the innate devastate threat will be 119.
Devastate also gets the threat from sunder armor, which is 301. So the initial devastate innate threat is 420 (119 + 301).
Cleave is 130 threat split between the two mobs and does weapon damage +70 to both mobs.
Since we're talking the same weapon damage, the only question at hand is if any attacks happen between the cleave and the devastate attack. And the answer is no, Cleave is not on the Global cooldown, but Devastate and Shield Slam are.
So let's look at some options with 2 mobs, A and B. We'll assume that you timed your initial pull perfectly after using bloodrage with improved bloodrage, so the mob is there with you having 26 rage.
Option 1: Cleave + Devastate over 3 swings.
Cleave uses 20 rage. After the Cleave we have threat of (130 + 270 ) * 146.5% / 2 or 293 threat to both targets and 6 rage.
Since Cleave is not on the Global Cool Down we can Devastate on the next attack swing at 1.4 seconds on one target provided we have the rage.
We may or may not generate rage. Let's say we have 50% avoidance (a low value) and we're fighting trash that hits for 500 a pop. We'll take 1 hit from two mobs, so our rage generated will be (2.5 * 500 / 274.7 ) = 4 (Blizzard always rounds down).
Cleave is a special attack. Special attacks don't generate rage, so we get no rage from the outgoing damage.
Devastate requires 15 rage, we have 12. So we will just get in a normal swing, and we'll do our 200 damage on mob A. White damage threat is just damage * 146.5 % or 293 threat on mob A.
We again get 4 rage from our average incoming damage. In addition we have made a white attack so we should get (((3.75 * 200) / 274.4) + ((3.5 * 1.4)/2)) = 4.95 (blizzard round down, so thats 4 real threat) for a total of 8 incoming threat. That plus the 12 means we now have 20 rage.
With 20 rage, we can use devastate on the next attack. Devastate causes (420 + 200/2) * 146.5% or 761 threat on mob A.
So after 3 attacks, target A has 1054 threat (293 + 761) and target B has 293 threat we have 5 rage.
Option 2: Devastate + Devastate over 3 swings
We start out with the same rage of 26.
We Devastate mob B for 761 threat using 15 rage. We now have 26 - 15 = 11 rage.
We take the same damage giving us 15 rage.
We devastate mob A for 761 threat using our 15 rage. We now have 0 rage and mob A has 908 threat
We get 4 incoming rage and no outgoing rage due to devastate being a special attack.
We do a white attack on mob A giving mob A 293 threat.
So now, target A has 1054 threat (293 + 761) and target B has 761 threat and we have 4 rage.
So, for the cost of 1 additional rage point, we deal 260% more threat on target B.
---------------------
Now, maybe your thinking "But I have focused rage at 3/3 reducing the cost of my offensive abilities by 3 rage each." So now, you get an additional 468 threat (761 - 293) on target A.
It doesn't matter. Option 2 will be able to toss in a Revenge. Revenge's threat* is (200 + 460) * 146.5% = 966 - 293 = 673 more threat on target A. In otherword, Option B pulls even farther ahead.
* An average value assuming one-handed specialization at 3/3 and a kara level shield block rating.
Using Cleave is a bad idea. Cleave is some of the worst threat per rage on the warrior talent tree and is only useful in the middle of a fight when you have plenty of rage. It is a horrible idea to start a multi-target encounter with rage intensive abilities. Learn to tab target!
** edit to fix a math error :)
Edited, Jul 17th 2008 12:53pm by kingpatzer
Quote:
I kind of thought this guide was to help out "new" tanks. When you have stuff on farm status, you are probably not in need of a tanking guide like this. Isn't that information just going to confuse a new tank starting up?
Most "new" tanks really only start tanking in their mid-60s these days, since (a) few warriors level in prot spec and (b) few instances are run during early levels. Given that reality, most tanks start tanking in an environment where stuff will quickly move to farm status. It takes very little time to go from questing and doing non-heroics for adequate blue gear to tanking Kara and heroics. Once that starts, things like the easier heroic instances quickly move to "farm" status for that level of progression.
And it's only a few weeks more (if the tank is in a progression guild) to get into ZA from Kara. It is not unreasonable to see a warrior from just starting tanking to having low end heroics and kara on farm status. But that same tank will still be learning a lot of the basics.
I've seen a lot of tanks get into Gruul's not knowing the best threat rotation or how to multi-tank or understanding the need for multiple gear sets or understanding EH etc.
Those are "new" tanks, given the way leveling works in the game today.
Quote:
I've seen a lot of tanks get into Gruul's not knowing the best threat rotation or how to multi-tank or understanding the need for multiple gear sets or understanding EH etc.
Those are "new" tanks, given the way leveling works in the game today.
Those are "new" tanks, given the way leveling works in the game today.
Good point. I retract my last statement.
kingpatzer wrote:
Quote:
I kind of thought this guide was to help out "new" tanks. When you have stuff on farm status, you are probably not in need of a tanking guide like this. Isn't that information just going to confuse a new tank starting up?
Most "new" tanks really only start tanking in their mid-60s these days, since (a) few warriors level in prot spec and (b) few instances are run during early levels. Given that reality, most tanks start tanking in an environment where stuff will quickly move to farm status. It takes very little time to go from questing and doing non-heroics for adequate blue gear to tanking Kara and heroics. Once that starts, things like the easier heroic instances quickly move to "farm" status for that level of progression.
And it's only a few weeks more (if the tank is in a progression guild) to get into ZA from Kara. It is not unreasonable to see a warrior from just starting tanking to having low end heroics and kara on farm status. But that same tank will still be learning a lot of the basics.
I've seen a lot of tanks get into Gruul's not knowing the best threat rotation or how to multi-tank or understanding the need for multiple gear sets or understanding EH etc.
Those are "new" tanks, given the way leveling works in the game today.
Let me see if I have what you said right: I have a warrior that's lower level than 60, so I shouldn't even bother to try to learn to tank with a non-prot build.
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