First Ever Tank....part 2

[kidglock34 3]

I figured I'd do a Part 2 of this since I've managed to move from having never tanked before to now I can't get enough of it. 

I've noticed a few things and wanted as much input as I can get. What has struck me so far is the lack of healers running PUGs at the lvl 60-ish area. It takes forever to get a PUG group together and I haven't been able to keep a healer with us more than 1 run through. I've made some DPS friends through PUGs which is pretty cool, but what is up with the healers???

The second thing is how my damage relates to a few other classes at about the same level. I'm currently lvl 67. I'm able to hold aggro nearly most of the time. I have some PUG members than have a pet with taunt or something but for the most part I am good to go. What I will see are Death Knights and some Warlock/Mages that seem to be doing crazy damage while only being a level or 2 higher than I am. Is that normal or am I undergeared? I haven't quite downloaded a damage meter just yet but from watching the health bar on the enemies I've noticed that those 2 can do some big damage by themselves! So is it a gear issue with me, is it just the nature of their class at that level or are they over-geared with extra goodies figuring their main has helped pay for their current state of their equipment? And with that, any recommendations or just hang in there until I get much higher level when better equipment appears? I have Heirloom for my chest, back, shoulders, weapon and trinkets. I haven't really found any quest gear or dungeon drops that is better that what I have now.

I can't say Thank You enough to everybody that posted advice and encouragement in my first thread. It was very helpful and I've taken a lot of it to heart and put it to work. I have had so much fun doing this...as like most things in life you are leery of...once you try it you only regret NOT doing it sooner. 

[Ulzorn 29]

1 hour ago, kidglock34 said:

 I have Heirloom for my chest, back, shoulders, weapon and trinkets.

There are also head,neck,pants and rings (rings being the hardest to get),might explain the damage

[kidglock34 3]

14 hours ago, Ulzorn said:

There are also head,neck,pants and rings (rings being the hardest to get),might explain the damage

I checked and I did forget to mention I have the neck. When I picked up the Heirloom items I grabbed for this character what I had grabbed for my shaman so it looks like I may have to go find the other Heirloom items. Just hate spending that coin on stuff that I know I'll abandon in another 20 levels or so LOL

After talking to a few friends that tank almost exclusively, they said the bear tank is typically on the lower end of the DPS scale when it comes to tanks. I may not be as far behind as I think I am. But good call on picking up the remaining Heirloom gear. I know at some point the drops will eventually take over so I may just hang tight and see how I fair in upcoming instances as I work my way toward the end game stuff.

By the end of my final run of the night I did manage to push myself up to 2nd on the DPS scale. One of the others in the instance wasn't too happy with another of the party....they kept pulling huge mobs and then running away. They had made the comment about me actually beating him on DPS and it was bad because I was a tank and at a slightly lower level. 

At any rate, I've survived more than I've died and we even ran for a while without a healer after they dropped out...still having a great time!

[DeathsDesign 92]

On 11/7/2017 at 8:38 AM, kidglock34 said:

After talking to a few friends that tank almost exclusively, they said the bear tank is typically on the lower end of the DPS scale when it comes to tanks. I may not be as far behind as I think I am. But good call on picking up the remaining Heirloom gear. I know at some point the drops will eventually take over so I may just hang tight and see how I fair in upcoming instances as I work my way toward the end game stuff.

Your friends are correct, Guardian's are usually on the lower end of the dps meter compared to other tanks (some talent builds with large aoe pulls can put them right up at the top) for most small group to single target pulls.  As long as you are focused on learning how to generate threat (usually just thrash, mangle and swipe on cooldown), manage your rage so that you can keep Ironfur up consistently, and use Frenzied Regeneration as you're taking large spikes of damage, you'll come out alive.

On 11/6/2017 at 2:43 PM, kidglock34 said:

I've noticed a few things and wanted as much input as I can get. What has struck me so far is the lack of healers running PUGs at the lvl 60-ish area. It takes forever to get a PUG group together and I haven't been able to keep a healer with us more than 1 run through. I've made some DPS friends through PUGs which is pretty cool, but what is up with the healers???

Yeah I've run into that on my Monk in the 60's as well, which is why my monk is still 62... I'm lazy and don't want to wait in the queue for that long.  It'll even out by the time you hit max level, the average wait time for both healers and tanks is usually less than a minute for normal and heroic dungeons, and once you hit mythic and mythic+ dungeons you are pretty much guaranteed a spot as long as you're not a tank trying to join a group that has a tank already.

 

[Valks 2,375]

2 hours ago, DeathsDesign said:

Yeah I've run into that on my Monk in the 60's as well, which is why my monk is still 62... I'm lazy and don't want to wait in the queue for that long.  It'll even out by the time you hit max level, the average wait time for both healers and tanks is usually less than a minute for normal and heroic dungeons, and once you hit mythic and mythic+ dungeons you are pretty much guaranteed a spot as long as you're not a tank trying to join a group that has a tank already.

Influx of overgeared Death Knights at 58-65.

[DeathsDesign 92]

25 minutes ago, Blainie said:

Influx of overgeared Death Knights at 58-65.

You just had to trigger my PTSD of WotLK when I wanted to run Ramparts and Blood Furnace as a normal 1/1/3 group and all that could be found were DK's.  "Man you just need 5 blood DKs and you're good!"  Apparently you didn't need a healer back then if you had 5 blood dks....  Oh the flashbacks..

[Valks 2,375]

2 hours ago, DeathsDesign said:

You just had to trigger my PTSD of WotLK when I wanted to run Ramparts and Blood Furnace as a normal 1/1/3 group and all that could be found were DK's.  "Man you just need 5 blood DKs and you're good!"  Apparently you didn't need a healer back then if you had 5 blood dks....  Oh the flashbacks..

You're pretty much guaranteed to have one at that level :p Same for 100 dungeons for DH!

[DeathsDesign 92]

12 hours ago, Blainie said:

You're pretty much guaranteed to have one at that level :p Same for 100 dungeons for DH!

Yep I was there as well, although eventually switched over to druid after a few class/spec changes.  So far at max level the most fun tanking is Druid and DK, DH is fun but I feel like it's missing the hard active mitigation that the others have.

[Valks 2,375]

28 minutes ago, DeathsDesign said:

Yep I was there as well, although eventually switched over to druid after a few class/spec changes.  So far at max level the most fun tanking is Druid and DK, DH is fun but I feel like it's missing the hard active mitigation that the others have.

I mainly only tank on my DH when I want to solo something. Then it becomes really good fun. Other than that, I just DPS and stay on my Monk for tanking.

[Cali 2]

On 11/6/2017 at 3:43 PM, kidglock34 said:

I've noticed a few things and wanted as much input as I can get. What has struck me so far is the lack of healers running PUGs at the lvl 60-ish area. It takes forever to get a PUG group together and I haven't been able to keep a healer with us more than 1 run through. I've made some DPS friends through PUGs which is pretty cool, but what is up with the healers???

As someone who mained a healer (holy priest) until halfway through Legion I will say that 1. Legion hates healers. The Legion dungeons require mobility and most healers cannot cast on the run. So playing a healer can be unrewarding. That could be having an effect on how many are leveling healers.

And 2. Most pug groups don't treat their healers with the respect they deserve. I have come to completely hate pugging, to the point I pretty much refuse to do it. Come on guys, that healer is keeping you alive so you can kill stuff. 1. Don't rag on her if she makes an error and you die. Healing takes a lot of thinking and practice. It's not as simple as "rotate this this this" like dps or tanking. 2. Keep mobs off her. She can't cast and move, so if she's getting attacked you aren't getting healed. 3. When the fight is over don't just run to the next one. Give her time to heal you and recover mana. Remember, she can't cast and move. You end up starting the next fight with half health. Then you die. Not her fault then. 4. Give the healer time to loot at the end of the battle. She's going to look after you first, but she's earned her rewards too. I can't tell you how many times I've not gotten much loot from a dungeon because it was either go without or get left behind. And 5. As tank, check with your healer about how big the pulls she can handle are. If she's newer or lower geared she can't heal you through big pulls. Going a little slower helps her tremendously. Don't let impatient troll-deeps pressure you into trying bigger pulls than the healer can handle or you'll just discourage her and she won't be willing to stay with you.

[kidglock34 3]

 

2 hours ago, Cali said:

As someone who mained a healer (holy priest) until halfway through Legion I will say that 1. Legion hates healers. The Legion dungeons require mobility and most healers cannot cast on the run. So playing a healer can be unrewarding. That could be having an effect on how many are leveling healers.

And 2. Most pug groups don't treat their healers with the respect they deserve. I have come to completely hate pugging, to the point I pretty much refuse to do it. Come on guys, that healer is keeping you alive so you can kill stuff. 1. Don't rag on her if she makes an error and you die. Healing takes a lot of thinking and practice. It's not as simple as "rotate this this this" like dps or tanking. 2. Keep mobs off her. She can't cast and move, so if she's getting attacked you aren't getting healed. 3. When the fight is over don't just run to the next one. Give her time to heal you and recover mana. Remember, she can't cast and move. You end up starting the next fight with half health. Then you die. Not her fault then. 4. Give the healer time to loot at the end of the battle. She's going to look after you first, but she's earned her rewards too. I can't tell you how many times I've not gotten much loot from a dungeon because it was either go without or get left behind. And 5. As tank, check with your healer about how big the pulls she can handle are. If she's newer or lower geared she can't heal you through big pulls. Going a little slower helps her tremendously. Don't let impatient troll-deeps pressure you into trying bigger pulls than the healer can handle or you'll just discourage her and she won't be willing to stay with you.

That is a good point about the lack of upcoming healers. I have a lvl 110 Shaman and her first 90 levels was as Resto. I switched to Elemental to better help the guild I joined and even the little I did before switching was much harder than before. 

I've tried to recall my experience as a healer (it was back at the release of Cataclysm) and I'd like to be the Tank that actually works WITH the heals instead of just running balls out through the place. I've tried to make it a habit to whisper the healer and let them know to be vocal about when they need mana or if I'm going to fast for them. And I've also tried just interacting and talking to the group...congratulations to anyone that levels up and all that and thanking everybody for good DPS. By doing that I ran into a Night Elf Druidess name Cutiefoot or Cuddlefoot or something like that and we ran 6 or 8 instances together all back to back. It was one of the best moments so far. Chances are with it being a PUG I'll never get a random again with her but it was cool to have done that and made a friend.

All in all I am absolutely enjoying the hell out of taking with my Druid. Hit level 74 last night mid-instance run and I'm questing in areas that I had forgotten about it had been so long since I'd been there. Again, I really appreciate everybody's encouragement and words of wisdom during this! It has been awesome fun!

 

[DeathsDesign 92]

4 hours ago, Cali said:

As someone who mained a healer (holy priest) until halfway through Legion I will say that 1. Legion hates healers. The Legion dungeons require mobility and most healers cannot cast on the run. So playing a healer can be unrewarding. That could be having an effect on how many are leveling healers.

And 2. Most pug groups don't treat their healers with the respect they deserve. I have come to completely hate pugging, to the point I pretty much refuse to do it. Come on guys, that healer is keeping you alive so you can kill stuff. 1. Don't rag on her if she makes an error and you die. Healing takes a lot of thinking and practice. It's not as simple as "rotate this this this" like dps or tanking. 2. Keep mobs off her. She can't cast and move, so if she's getting attacked you aren't getting healed. 3. When the fight is over don't just run to the next one. Give her time to heal you and recover mana. Remember, she can't cast and move. You end up starting the next fight with half health. Then you die. Not her fault then. 4. Give the healer time to loot at the end of the battle. She's going to look after you first, but she's earned her rewards too. I can't tell you how many times I've not gotten much loot from a dungeon because it was either go without or get left behind. And 5. As tank, check with your healer about how big the pulls she can handle are. If she's newer or lower geared she can't heal you through big pulls. Going a little slower helps her tremendously. Don't let impatient troll-deeps pressure you into trying bigger pulls than the healer can handle or you'll just discourage her and she won't be willing to stay with you.

This is the exact reason that I quit healing on the classes that I usually heal on.  I.E. My shaman has been a healer since wrath/cata if I remember right...  Something changed with Legion and it didn't feel right.  Back when Mythic+ was a hardcore progression thing at the beginning I can't tell you how many groups yelled and screamed at me for dying to big pulls, stupid pulls, and just in general "I'M NOT STANDING IN FIRE YOU'RE JUST NOT HEALING FAST ENOUGH"  "Dude... you died to fire because you didn't move, and I healed the tank instead." "Well you suck as a healer"  ... "you have been removed from the group"  well fudge....  Sorry more PTSD triggers lol but anyways I get it,   Currently I'm geared enough that as long as the healer has half their mana I can manage the rest of my self heals, however doing M+ content I try not to rush any faster than necessary.  It could take 30-45 seconds to pull an aoe pack and kill it (depending on affixes and how good the dps is) but it only takes 1 second to wipe the group.  At that point you've virtually doubled the time to kill the current pack.

At this point in the expansion, most healers are geared enough that they can handle bigger pulls, however  my philosphy is that I don't pull anything more than I couldn't handle without a healer.  If I can handle a 3 pack  pull without a healer, then I'm definitely pulling it with a healer, if I can't handle it, healer or not, I'm not pulling it.

If you start smaller and work your way to larger pulls in the dungeon the healer will let you know if it's too much or too little usually.  A lot of times if you start smaller healers will tell you to pull bigger, if you pull too much they'll yell and scream, just politely apologize and pull smaller and the issue is usually resolved.

[kidglock34 3]

20 hours ago, DeathsDesign said:

This is the exact reason that I quit healing on the classes that I usually heal on.  I.E. My shaman has been a healer since wrath/cata if I remember right...  Something changed with Legion and it didn't feel right.  Back when Mythic+ was a hardcore progression thing at the beginning I can't tell you how many groups yelled and screamed at me for dying to big pulls, stupid pulls, and just in general "I'M NOT STANDING IN FIRE YOU'RE JUST NOT HEALING FAST ENOUGH"  "Dude... you died to fire because you didn't move, and I healed the tank instead." "Well you suck as a healer"  ... "you have been removed from the group"  well fudge....  Sorry more PTSD triggers lol but anyways I get it,   Currently I'm geared enough that as long as the healer has half their mana I can manage the rest of my self heals, however doing M+ content I try not to rush any faster than necessary.  It could take 30-45 seconds to pull an aoe pack and kill it (depending on affixes and how good the dps is) but it only takes 1 second to wipe the group.  At that point you've virtually doubled the time to kill the current pack.

At this point in the expansion, most healers are geared enough that they can handle bigger pulls, however  my philosphy is that I don't pull anything more than I couldn't handle without a healer.  If I can handle a 3 pack  pull without a healer, then I'm definitely pulling it with a healer, if I can't handle it, healer or not, I'm not pulling it.

If you start smaller and work your way to larger pulls in the dungeon the healer will let you know if it's too much or too little usually.  A lot of times if you start smaller healers will tell you to pull bigger, if you pull too much they'll yell and scream, just politely apologize and pull smaller and the issue is usually resolved.

Isn't that the downside of PUGs? Communication between members? I know I've tried to be very vocal in the past and now even more so that I've picked up tanking. In fact, the best and longest set of back to back instance runs I've done was where I started talking to the healer first thing and would check in with them periodically letting them know to shout if things got too rough or they needed a break. We ended up doing somewhere about 6 or 8 in a row and had to quick when adulting took over and someone had to go to work the next morning.

Hopefully people come here and read comments like this and remember that not everybody is a packed and stacked mythic+ raider out slumming with the PUGs and that this is here for everybody to learn and enjoy. My biggest hurdles are learning the game mechanics as it pertains to the individual instances and the bosses/mobs in them and not getting lost. I like to go at a bit more of a plodding pace as well. I'd engage every mob if I could looking for opportunities to grab more loot/money/transmogs but it doesn't appear everybody shares my same thought process... I haven't had anybody yell at me so far although I get the feeling they wish I'd move along a little better...but then again it appears the only people doing that are over-geared DK and Mages LOL

[Valks 2,375]

On 11/10/2017 at 7:29 PM, kidglock34 said:

Isn't that the downside of PUGs? Communication between members? I know I've tried to be very vocal in the past and now even more so that I've picked up tanking. In fact, the best and longest set of back to back instance runs I've done was where I started talking to the healer first thing and would check in with them periodically letting them know to shout if things got too rough or they needed a break. We ended up doing somewhere about 6 or 8 in a row and had to quick when adulting took over and someone had to go to work the next morning.

Very few people talk in LFG, since they'll never see the 4 people ever again, most likely. They just queue, do their dungeon and leave again unless you can give them a free quick queue.

[kidglock34 3]

On 11/11/2017 at 8:52 PM, Blainie said:

Very few people talk in LFG, since they'll never see the 4 people ever again, most likely. They just queue, do their dungeon and leave again unless you can give them a free quick queue.

You got that right on the money. Only LFG I've seen talk is when the healer wants to keep running and since I'm a tank..that equals Instant Queues! Any other time there is nothing. 

I don't want to sound like 'That Player' but man I can see why people, especially Tanks and Healer, get upset at DPS with pets. It was fun running with them but man I think we died 2 or 3 times when the pet pulled a couple of extra mobs that overwhelmed be and the healer. 

I've managed to get lost in Throne of Tides (don't ask me how I've only been there a hundred times), forgot about kiting Karsh Steelbender through the fire in Blackrock Caverns, tanked through a couple of Heroic Wrath of the Lich King instances that I didn't remember...died twice. But it has been incredibly fun.

I'm a hair away from lvl 85. Been slowly moving through Northrend, specifically Grizzly Hills and Storm Peaks to get a lot of the story/content that I either missed out on my first run through years ago or that I skipped completely when I leveled out of that. Man there is some great stuff, and I forgot how much I liked the Grizzly Hills area.

[Valks 2,375]

On 11/13/2017 at 6:35 PM, kidglock34 said:

But it has been incredibly fun.

That's the only part that matters!