So I tried to tank my first heroic (UB) on my paladin last night, lets just say, it was not pretty. Granted I was doing it with no CC and an undergeared healer, but still, I'm a pally comon! My main problems were I was getting pummelled for huge damage, and....yeah huge damage, like a clothie in a normal instance. The T6 druid that was dpsing ended up tanking the rest of the instance while i support healed (how embarrasing). So my question is to you, what advice do you have in terms of my gear that will help me with heroics? Also, should I be doing only certain heroics to start with? Maybe UB is too hard for me, but Ramps is not. Just FYI, aggro was not too much of an issue, with pots I was pushing out 230 Spl Dmg, prolly gonna get some Oil next time too for my weapon, so about 260 spell dmg.
Here is my gear and my wife's gear who is my full time healer.
Paladus - 70 Prot Paladin
Ammi - 70 Holy Priest
Edited, Oct 7th 2008 7:15pm by Risto
- Forums
- World of Warcraft
- Class Discussion
- Need Advice On Tanking Heroics
Need Advice On Tanking HeroicsFollow
Scholar
27 posts
Gratz on starting in heroics, although not as successfull as you would wish. I just started tanking heroics too, and can share my experiences and 2 cents:
-Try to get more stamina through gemming with +12sta. Sometimes the gemming bonus is nice, but swapping the 2 non-pure stamina gems in your pants with +12 sta will net you +12 sta. Same on some other gear, although not all. The wrists for instance are fine. Switching to +12 sta gems will only give you an extra +3 sta, while loosing 4 defense
-Try to switch your Coren's lucky coin with a trinket which gives avoidance and/or stamina. BlockVALUE isn't that big a deal for us pally.
-You started with the right instance. UB and SP are considered the 'easier' heroics. I understood that ramps hc ain't that easy because of some nasty large pulls. But trying to go into your first heroic without CC wasn't such a good idea. While I can tank up to 11 mobs in normal instances (with a good healer) I try to keep it at 2-3 mobs in heroics. With 4 mobs i will likely be eating dirt. Mobs hitting you for 2-3K is very hard to heal. A couple of bad damagespikes and you are down 9K health in 2 seconds.
think some of the more experienced players can help you further because I also just started in heroics
-Try to get more stamina through gemming with +12sta. Sometimes the gemming bonus is nice, but swapping the 2 non-pure stamina gems in your pants with +12 sta will net you +12 sta. Same on some other gear, although not all. The wrists for instance are fine. Switching to +12 sta gems will only give you an extra +3 sta, while loosing 4 defense
-Try to switch your Coren's lucky coin with a trinket which gives avoidance and/or stamina. BlockVALUE isn't that big a deal for us pally.
-You started with the right instance. UB and SP are considered the 'easier' heroics. I understood that ramps hc ain't that easy because of some nasty large pulls. But trying to go into your first heroic without CC wasn't such a good idea. While I can tank up to 11 mobs in normal instances (with a good healer) I try to keep it at 2-3 mobs in heroics. With 4 mobs i will likely be eating dirt. Mobs hitting you for 2-3K is very hard to heal. A couple of bad damagespikes and you are down 9K health in 2 seconds.
think some of the more experienced players can help you further because I also just started in heroics
your gear looks ok, you could get some better items (like shield from SSO exalted) but besides keeping holy shield up and keep agro, you did your job
as far as i see it
try finding a better healer, or pull fewer mobs if you can't survive a large pack
as far as i see it
try finding a better healer, or pull fewer mobs if you can't survive a large pack
I'm going to have to say that you are not yet geared for heroics yet.
You have a lot of low level blues at the moment which accounts for your low armour, you've boosted your HP by wearing 2 stam trinkets but this has come at the expense of your avoidance (which again is quite low). What this means is that you are getting hit a lot and not mitigating as much as you would hope to.
My first piece of advice would be to read Losie's sticky.
Then I would say run normal S Labs and SH a fair bit along with Normal Bot for the shoulders. Farm SSO rep for the neck and more importantly the shield.
Start using proper gems! Blue ones at least. I can understand that putting those on low level gear may not be worth it but the first steps to heroics you really need to push the limits of your gear. It gets a bit easier once you start getting badges regularly.
As a final word, you can probably manage one of the lower heroics but bring plenty of CC and a good healer. I would definitely say that you are nowhere near geared enough to be tanking heroics with no CC (perhaps with a T6 healer behind you....)
Keep up the good work though, gearing a tank is a long, hard, tedious process which is as unforgiving as it is satisfying when you pull it off.
You have a lot of low level blues at the moment which accounts for your low armour, you've boosted your HP by wearing 2 stam trinkets but this has come at the expense of your avoidance (which again is quite low). What this means is that you are getting hit a lot and not mitigating as much as you would hope to.
My first piece of advice would be to read Losie's sticky.
Then I would say run normal S Labs and SH a fair bit along with Normal Bot for the shoulders. Farm SSO rep for the neck and more importantly the shield.
Start using proper gems! Blue ones at least. I can understand that putting those on low level gear may not be worth it but the first steps to heroics you really need to push the limits of your gear. It gets a bit easier once you start getting badges regularly.
As a final word, you can probably manage one of the lower heroics but bring plenty of CC and a good healer. I would definitely say that you are nowhere near geared enough to be tanking heroics with no CC (perhaps with a T6 healer behind you....)
Keep up the good work though, gearing a tank is a long, hard, tedious process which is as unforgiving as it is satisfying when you pull it off.
A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that just because geared up pallies can aoe tank everything in sight (with the healing to back it up of course) that they should be able to do it too. When I first started tanking heroics I used all the CC I had at my disposal, because my gear (and hence survivability) was simply not up to the task of keeping me alive otherwise. I don't mean that to be disparaging, but it is a simple fact of how the game works. Heroics are very unforgiving on tanks, so you need to be very sure of the limits both of your tanking ability and that of your group.
One thing I used to find useful during multiple pulls was to stun the second/third kill target once it was inside my consecrate and let it sit there while we dealt with the first kill. That 6 seconds might not seem much, but believe me, your healer will feel the impact, especially at the start of a pull when spike damage on you is highest.
That said, keep plugging away and I'm sure you'll be running 30min Shattered Halls in no time :)
One thing I used to find useful during multiple pulls was to stun the second/third kill target once it was inside my consecrate and let it sit there while we dealt with the first kill. That 6 seconds might not seem much, but believe me, your healer will feel the impact, especially at the start of a pull when spike damage on you is highest.
That said, keep plugging away and I'm sure you'll be running 30min Shattered Halls in no time :)
Just remember that mobs in heroics hit VERY hard so AOE tanking can be a bit of a disadvantage as you have several of them batting you at once. You also MUST have an appropriately geared healer, undergeared does not cut it unless the tank (you) is overgeared considerably which will give them some leeway.
I remember tanking my first heroic (arca) where my gear was fine for normal instances and we had an weak ish healer.
I pulled the sentinel robot dude and his other friend tagged along for some pally squishing fun. I thought; s'ok I can tank both of em coz I'm a pa..*DEAD*
It takes practice and gear (and a good healer) and you will be fine.
I remember tanking my first heroic (arca) where my gear was fine for normal instances and we had an weak ish healer.
I pulled the sentinel robot dude and his other friend tagged along for some pally squishing fun. I thought; s'ok I can tank both of em coz I'm a pa..*DEAD*
It takes practice and gear (and a good healer) and you will be fine.
SamwiseTheBrave wrote:
I pulled the sentinel robot dude and his other friend tagged along for some pally squishing fun. I thought; s'ok I can tank both of em coz I'm a pa..*DEAD*
That made me laugh.
Sigged s'il vous plais.
Risto wrote:
So I tried to tank my first heroic (UB) on my paladin last night, lets just say, it was not pretty. Granted I was doing it with no CC and an undergeared healer, but still, I'm a pally comon! My main problems were I was getting pummelled for huge damage, and....yeah huge damage, like a clothie in a normal instance. The T6 druid that was dpsing ended up tanking the rest of the instance while i support healed (how embarrasing). So my question is to you, what advice do you have in terms of my gear that will help me with heroics? Also, should I be doing only certain heroics to start with? Maybe UB is too hard for me, but Ramps is not. Just FYI, aggro was not too much of an issue, with pots I was pushing out 230 Spl Dmg, prolly gonna get some Oil next time too for my weapon, so about 260 spell dmg.
Umm, many of the most troublesome pulls in heroic UB are beasts... Druids can cc those.
To add to the wise comments above, Coren's Lucky Coin and its +59 block value aren't helping you any. If you have anything else at your disposal with +stamina or any avoidance (e.g., that green Regal Protectorate from HFP), it would be worth equipping that instead. (Hold onto the Coin though for post-BC tanking mechanics will apparently make it worthwhile).
Overall, it seems like you're at the cusp of being able to tank heroics. As such, don't forget to look critically at the DPS you bring with you. You and your wife aren't capable of carrying any dead weight at this point.
As others have said:
Heroics without CC = need to over-gear it.
If you are not T4+ geared, then bring CC. And plenty of it.
I'm sure your wife was also having a heart attack. Watching health bars drop that fast is tough on a healer.
Also, like Hoyadin said - use the stuns available to you. You have HoJ. Druids have Cyclone. Priest can MC. etc... There are many options available, and you should use them to their fullest. The first 10 seconds of each encounter is the most critical to survive. That is when incoming damage is at its maximum. If you can take one mob out of the equation, you just increased your survivability significantly.
I would try heroic UB again if I were you. Or maybe Heroic Bot. Bot is very straight forward, and very Pally friendly.
Heroics without CC = need to over-gear it.
If you are not T4+ geared, then bring CC. And plenty of it.
I'm sure your wife was also having a heart attack. Watching health bars drop that fast is tough on a healer.
Also, like Hoyadin said - use the stuns available to you. You have HoJ. Druids have Cyclone. Priest can MC. etc... There are many options available, and you should use them to their fullest. The first 10 seconds of each encounter is the most critical to survive. That is when incoming damage is at its maximum. If you can take one mob out of the equation, you just increased your survivability significantly.
I would try heroic UB again if I were you. Or maybe Heroic Bot. Bot is very straight forward, and very Pally friendly.
bawbaag wrote:
I'm going to have to say that you are not yet geared for heroics yet.
You have a lot of low level blues at the moment which accounts for your low armour, you've boosted your HP by wearing 2 stam trinkets but this has come at the expense of your avoidance (which again is quite low). What this means is that you are getting hit a lot and not mitigating as much as you would hope to.
My first piece of advice would be to read Losie's sticky.
Then I would say run normal S Labs and SH a fair bit along with Normal Bot for the shoulders. Farm SSO rep for the neck and more importantly the shield.
Start using proper gems! Blue ones at least. I can understand that putting those on low level gear may not be worth it but the first steps to heroics you really need to push the limits of your gear. It gets a bit easier once you start getting badges regularly.
As a final word, you can probably manage one of the lower heroics but bring plenty of CC and a good healer. I would definitely say that you are nowhere near geared enough to be tanking heroics with no CC (perhaps with a T6 healer behind you....)
Keep up the good work though, gearing a tank is a long, hard, tedious process which is as unforgiving as it is satisfying when you pull it off.
You have a lot of low level blues at the moment which accounts for your low armour, you've boosted your HP by wearing 2 stam trinkets but this has come at the expense of your avoidance (which again is quite low). What this means is that you are getting hit a lot and not mitigating as much as you would hope to.
My first piece of advice would be to read Losie's sticky.
Then I would say run normal S Labs and SH a fair bit along with Normal Bot for the shoulders. Farm SSO rep for the neck and more importantly the shield.
Start using proper gems! Blue ones at least. I can understand that putting those on low level gear may not be worth it but the first steps to heroics you really need to push the limits of your gear. It gets a bit easier once you start getting badges regularly.
As a final word, you can probably manage one of the lower heroics but bring plenty of CC and a good healer. I would definitely say that you are nowhere near geared enough to be tanking heroics with no CC (perhaps with a T6 healer behind you....)
Keep up the good work though, gearing a tank is a long, hard, tedious process which is as unforgiving as it is satisfying when you pull it off.
I am going to disagree and say your gear is more than sufficient for H SP and H UB for sure. You need a really good healer to keep you up though. The first time I made it all the way through H UB my gear wasn't even as good as yours, but the healer was a holy priest with probably +1400 to +1500 bonus healing. As long as you are keeping your rotations correct you should be fine in H SP or H UB with a GOOD healer and competent DPS that can get the bosses down reasonably quickly without drawing aggro.
Superior Wizard Oil and an Adepts Elixer are good things to use, and using Devo Aura instead of Ret Aura will give you more armor (and in a week it will give the healers and extra 6% healing to anyone in the group too!)
The main thing for a tank in any heroic is the outcome is totally healer-dependent. If they can keep you up and you can hold threat, you won't have any problems. An undergeared healer will kill you though.
Edit: Also, CC is a BIG bonus. Not really needed for 2-pulls, helpful for 3-pulls, absolutely necessary for 4- or 5-pulls. The better the CC, the less mobs are hitting you. A rogue and a mage, or even 2 mages in the group makes life (and living) much easier. You CAN do it with your current gear though. Getting exalted with SSO for the shield and necklace is never a bad idea and doesn't take long, so do that, but don't give up on heroics! Just get a better healer and some CC in the group and make sure to mark the harder targets (such as casters) for CC. You will get it done!
Edited, Oct 8th 2008 12:56pm by jeromesimina
One other edit... avoidance isn't THAT big a deal in heroics as the bosses don't crush. It DOES still help, but as long as you have 490+ def (which you do) you at least aren't eating crits.
Edited, Oct 8th 2008 12:57pm by jeromesimina
Ok... I am having an edit-fest with this today! If your healer is your wife, help her research whatever PvP and/or PvE gear she can get to get her healing up to the +1300 to +1500 range, and I would also recommend Healbot or something similar. Will make it much easier for her to heal proactively instead of reactively and will even flash 1 second ahead of time when anyone is about to get a DoT/Debuff that she can dispell. You may have to run some regular instances to help her gear up more, but some of those will probably net you better gear as well, so do some research together and run some normals (AND heroics when you can) and you will both benefit greatly. If your wife doesn't mind doing some PvP, the +423 healing mace with a +81 healing enchant is just ridiculous for a healer... that is over +500 healing by itself!
Edited, Oct 8th 2008 1:05pm by jeromesimina
Edited, Oct 8th 2008 1:57pm by jeromesimina
Edited, Oct 15th 2008 9:50am by jeromesimina
Another note on getting the PvP healing mace... My holy priest friend found that he was quite squishy in BGs, and it takes 20 EOTS marks and 25.2K honor for that mace. His solution was to run through crowds doing successive Holy Novas followed by running back through the crowd and using fear.
Anything that his holy nova hit that subsequently died was counted as an HK and really built up his honor quickly. The running through crowds using multiple Nova's followed by fear also made it easier for ranged dps to down people of the opposing faction. He also healed people of the same faction in these BGs, so he became rather popular in EOTS and AV for about 4 or 5 days until he got that mace and got OUT of there :)
http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=32964;source=live
Anything that his holy nova hit that subsequently died was counted as an HK and really built up his honor quickly. The running through crowds using multiple Nova's followed by fear also made it easier for ranged dps to down people of the opposing faction. He also healed people of the same faction in these BGs, so he became rather popular in EOTS and AV for about 4 or 5 days until he got that mace and got OUT of there :)
http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=32964;source=live
EotS is awesome for priests. I am contantly getting MC'd off the edges of doom there.....I hate priests....
jeromesimina wrote:
One other edit... avoidance isn't THAT big a deal in heroics as the bosses don't crush. It DOES still help, but as long as you have 490+ def (which you do) you at least aren't eating crits.
I really have to disagree a little here. In principle, you're never worried about crushing blows in Heroics. In practice, even regular hits by Heroic mobs HURT a lot. In these cases, avoidance is like CC... if you have it, use it.
Your healer will thank you.
One other note on avoidance and mitigation:
Block value is nice, it raises the amount of damage mitigated by your shield.
Block RATING is nicer, it raises your % chance to block. Block rating is more important to you right now than block value. Block rating is probably the easiest thing for you to stack right now for avoidance with the right equipment. Your trinkets could definitely be better. It is possible when you did the HFP quest that you did not take "Regal Protectorate" as a quest reward, but that would be a good one for defense. Dabiri's Enigma is good, Figurine of the Colossus is good.
As far as neck goes, the SSO pendant of resolve is great for heroics, the CE Rep neck (Strength of the Untamed) is good for early gearing for Kara. One of your rings would have to be swapped out with Andormu's tear for Kara as well. Losie's sticky has all of the details for this and really is a must-read for any Prot Paladin.
Block value is nice, it raises the amount of damage mitigated by your shield.
Block RATING is nicer, it raises your % chance to block. Block rating is more important to you right now than block value. Block rating is probably the easiest thing for you to stack right now for avoidance with the right equipment. Your trinkets could definitely be better. It is possible when you did the HFP quest that you did not take "Regal Protectorate" as a quest reward, but that would be a good one for defense. Dabiri's Enigma is good, Figurine of the Colossus is good.
As far as neck goes, the SSO pendant of resolve is great for heroics, the CE Rep neck (Strength of the Untamed) is good for early gearing for Kara. One of your rings would have to be swapped out with Andormu's tear for Kara as well. Losie's sticky has all of the details for this and really is a must-read for any Prot Paladin.
Quote:
no CC and an undergeared healer
I more or less stopped reading right there. Several others have offered good points/counter-points that are valid input. Your gear is fine for starting heroics. But, heroics without a decent healer and no cc are trouble unless you're majorly over-geared. I'm not a pally tank, but I've dps'd (hunter), healed (pally), and tanked (druid) heroics. I would say that under-geared tanks and/or under-geared healers are the biggest reason for problems.
In this case, I'm sorry to say, your under-geared healer wife is the most likely problem. Help her replace those pre-70 blues and I think she'll have an easier time of it. Her tailoring is one sure-fire way to get some excellent upgrades. Help her get that maxed and run some BGs for welfare epics also.
People keep claiming my wife's toon is undergeared, but the fact is I think this isn't really the case. With our first run I was just making it way to hard for her and she was still able to keep me up for the most part. I was pulling full groups in UB with no CC at all. Each one hitting me for 2-3k and she was able to keep me up for 3-4 pulls before our luck finally ran out.
Ran our 2nd heroic a few nights ago and we had mage and rogue CC and we used it for every pull above 2 mobs. We were flawless with no wipes, my wife's priests Mana rarely dropping below 50% and we had all undergeared dps.
You guys take it easy on the Mrs....she is after all my wife and she does a great job healing, more than a WHOLE lot of healers I've partied with. After reviewing these posts and my performance after a 2nd run, I would say the first runs problems were based soley on me trying to tank like a T6 pally when I am barely geared for a heroic at all. Healer was not the problem whatsoever.
Ran our 2nd heroic a few nights ago and we had mage and rogue CC and we used it for every pull above 2 mobs. We were flawless with no wipes, my wife's priests Mana rarely dropping below 50% and we had all undergeared dps.
You guys take it easy on the Mrs....she is after all my wife and she does a great job healing, more than a WHOLE lot of healers I've partied with. After reviewing these posts and my performance after a 2nd run, I would say the first runs problems were based soley on me trying to tank like a T6 pally when I am barely geared for a heroic at all. Healer was not the problem whatsoever.
Quote:
You guys take it easy on the Mrs....she is after all my wife and she does a great job healing, more than a WHOLE lot of healers I've partied with. After reviewing these posts and my performance after a 2nd run, I would say the first runs problems were based soley on me trying to tank like a T6 pally when I am barely geared for a heroic at all. Healer was not the problem whatsoever.
I don't think anyone was trying to make derrogatory comments about your wife's healing. I found out that gearing up a tank was (for me anyhow) harder than any other role. A DPS might get away with some greens in some HCs, a tank or a healer will probably not. Once you get some badge gear CC becomes irrelevant (slowly but it does) and your need for a tops healer decreases too. Incidentally, your gear looks good for HCs.
UB, SP and Mech (IMO) are great places to start your HC tanking career. Stick around those, do some Kara if you can, and in a meagre 10 HC runs most of your problems will be over. For the time being, try to have a mage in your HC runs, I'd say.
Good luck!
I don't think that people were putting down your wife. +1200 HB is the bare minimum needed to enter heroics, and you need CC. +1400 is more where you want to be, and have some CC. If you don't have CC, you probaby want even more.
That's all people were driving at.
That's all people were driving at.
Risto wrote:
People keep claiming my wife's toon is undergeared, but the fact is I think this isn't really the case. With our first run I was just making it way to hard for her and she was still able to keep me up for the most part. I was pulling full groups in UB with no CC at all. Each one hitting me for 2-3k and she was able to keep me up for 3-4 pulls before our luck finally ran out.
Ran our 2nd heroic a few nights ago and we had mage and rogue CC and we used it for every pull above 2 mobs. We were flawless with no wipes, my wife's priests Mana rarely dropping below 50% and we had all undergeared dps.
You guys take it easy on the Mrs....she is after all my wife and she does a great job healing, more than a WHOLE lot of healers I've partied with. After reviewing these posts and my performance after a 2nd run, I would say the first runs problems were based soley on me trying to tank like a T6 pally when I am barely geared for a heroic at all. Healer was not the problem whatsoever.
Ran our 2nd heroic a few nights ago and we had mage and rogue CC and we used it for every pull above 2 mobs. We were flawless with no wipes, my wife's priests Mana rarely dropping below 50% and we had all undergeared dps.
You guys take it easy on the Mrs....she is after all my wife and she does a great job healing, more than a WHOLE lot of healers I've partied with. After reviewing these posts and my performance after a 2nd run, I would say the first runs problems were based soley on me trying to tank like a T6 pally when I am barely geared for a heroic at all. Healer was not the problem whatsoever.
We weren't trying to be overly hard on your wife... it is just very true that if you are a Prot Pally with SUFFICIENT gear for heroics but you are not using ANY CC, your healer is going to have to have +1500 bonus healing to keep you up (note that the number has now changed with the conversion of everything to Spellpower, but I am not sure what the new number is...)
You learned by trying that by having CC available, it made life MUCH easier because you had less damage incoming. Rogues can sap, Mages can sheep, Druids can hibernate beasts, etc. The less incoming damage on you, the easier the heroic. Glad to hear you had a "Flawless Victory" on your 2nd run.
I also agree that UB, SP, and Mech are the easiest heroics. Do those a few times each and then work your way up to Ramps and Bot, then start doing some of the "hard" ones. You will do fine!
Edit: Especially now that the new patch is out, I cannot recommend enough trying to get a Kara group together. You can REALLY upgrade your equipment fast with some good luck on drops and accumulate a LOT of badges. It is also just plain FUN! Once you have a mix of Kara/Badge gear for both you and your wife, you will be able to do the "easier" heroics in your sleep if you have reasonable dps/cc.
Edited, Oct 15th 2008 10:02am by jeromesimina
Recent Visitors: 125
All times are in CST
Anonymous Guests (125)
- Forums
- World of Warcraft
- Class Discussion
- Need Advice On Tanking Heroics
© 2024 Fanbyte LLC