Tanking Guide

[Damien 1,514]

This thread is for comments about our Tanking Guide.

[Guest Bud]

"Fallen off of platforms"

That was brilliant! Thanks a lot for a great guide!

[Guest Ann]

Thanks for the guide! I feel better about taking on the tanking role now. I have been playing WoW for about 5 years and in that time I have played just about every class and spec--except tank. Hopefully I can be a good one with some practice.

[Vlad 411]

"Fallen off of platforms"

That was brilliant! Thanks a lot for a great guide!

Thank you very much!

Thanks for the guide! I feel better about taking on the tanking role now. I have been playing WoW for about 5 years and in that time I have played just about every class and spec--except tank. Hopefully I can be a good one with some practice.

You are welcome! I'm sure you can be a great tank. The most important things are confidence and perseverance! And also reading our guides a lot :)

[Guest Chrömie]

Meeeeerci

Thanks a lot for that guide,

really helpful, maybe as useful as the war prot guide

[Vlad 411]

Meeeeerci

Thanks a lot for that guide,

really helpful, maybe as useful as the war prot guide

Thank you :)

[jpsika08 2]

Thank you for the great guide, I'm not a hardcore wow player so it takes me more time to really adapt to different classes and rotations. (Basically I was pushing evey available button on the bars LOL).

I was about to drop my Death Knight toon, though I wanted to give it one more chance using Blood Presence and taking a tank role, your guide was the only real read I could find on the net and has helped ever since; my DK now is my main character and the one I'm having the most fun with.

Between the tanking guide and class guides you're really have done a great job.

thanks again and keep it up with the great reads.

Edited November 5, 2012 by jpsika08

[Vlad 411]

Thank you for the great guide, I'm not a hardcore wow player so it takes me more time to really adapt to different classes and rotations. (Basically I was pushing evey available button on the bars LOL).

I was about to drop my Death Knight toon, though I wanted to give it one more chance using Blood Presence and taking a tank role, your guide was the only real read I could find on the net and has helped ever since; my DK now is my main character and the one I'm having the most fun with.

Between the tanking guide and class guides you're really have done a great job.

thanks again and keep it up with the great reads.

Thank you very much for your post. I'm really glad that the guide(s) helped!

[Guest PISTICK]

Thank you for a brilliant guide to the insight of what a good/great tank is. I personaly need to get over the shy attribute, but by learning the encounter i earn confidence. Its nice to hear its ok to screw up occassionaly and not get the BAN- HAMMER from chat or worse guildys. Thanks again mate

[Vlad 411]

My pleasure :)

[Guest Aderila]

Excellent post.

I think that you should mention the high importance of +hit and +expertise, which was glossed over in your guide. A phenomenal tank is one who doesn't have to fight for threat with anyone except his partner tank. The thing is, +hit and +expertise make a night-and-day difference in the threat generation a tank can produce, as RNG will factor less, then not at all. Vengeance could give me 500% attack power, and it doesn't matter if I have 10 seconds of dodged and parried attacks, which I've had as a tank. If you have an extremely high DPS group, then even at the end of an encounter, a tank can be just barely above his top DPSers. Hit and expertise can absolutely help mitigate that.

Any time you have RNG, you will have spikes in your threat generation, which you also touched on in your post. Tanks WILL have more consistent DPS and threat generation when they get closer to +hit and +exp cap.

Additionally, perhaps it wouldn't hurt (since this is a general guide) to touch on avoidance?

Well written, excellent, excellent post!

[Vlad 411]

Excellent post.

I think that you should mention the high importance of +hit and +expertise, which was glossed over in your guide. A phenomenal tank is one who doesn't have to fight for threat with anyone except his partner tank. The thing is, +hit and +expertise make a night-and-day difference in the threat generation a tank can produce, as RNG will factor less, then not at all. Vengeance could give me 500% attack power, and it doesn't matter if I have 10 seconds of dodged and parried attacks, which I've had as a tank. If you have an extremely high DPS group, then even at the end of an encounter, a tank can be just barely above his top DPSers. Hit and expertise can absolutely help mitigate that.

Any time you have RNG, you will have spikes in your threat generation, which you also touched on in your post. Tanks WILL have more consistent DPS and threat generation when they get closer to +hit and +exp cap.

Additionally, perhaps it wouldn't hurt (since this is a general guide) to touch on avoidance?

Well written, excellent, excellent post!

Thank you very much for your kind words. The reason why I didn't put emphasis on this is because I tried to keep the guide a bit separate from the technical aspects of playing specific classes. This makes it so that someone won't read the tanking guide, see how good Expertise/Hit are, then go check his particular class' guide and see that they're not actually very high in the priority (like a Paladin build that advocates avoidance, or whatever else may happen with stat priorities in the future). It's also one fewer article than can go out of date with each stat shift :)

I will, however, make some more general points about Expertise and Hit, based on your post, since it's very useful! Thank you again.

[Guest musha]

awsome guide, i can now work at my failings and understanding of my roll. I always seem to be OT as i have in the past took it to heart with raid failings. listen to the tank follow his lead and we all will go a lot ferther

[Guest Glendine]

I've always played DPS. I've recently taken on tanking. The best thing about your guides is that it is useful at all levels; too often guides are not applicable to all levels. There is no way I would take my 90 Fury Warrior and switch to Protection without any prior tank experience. Having played both melee and ranged DPS in a number of settings gave me some insight into how tanking is done. Your Guide filled in many of the gaps and answered many of my questions.

Thank you, once again for a great guide.

[Rocums 1]

Regarding Weakend Blows. Death Knights apply it with Blood Plague, not Blood Boil. See Scarlet Fever:

Causes your Blood Boil to refresh your diseases on targets it damages, and your Blood Plague to also afflict enemies with Weakened Blows.

[Vlad 411]

awsome guide, i can now work at my failings and understanding of my roll. I always seem to be OT as i have in the past took it to heart with raid failings. listen to the tank follow his lead and we all will go a lot ferther

 

Thank you very much for your kind words.

 

I've always played DPS. I've recently taken on tanking. The best thing about your guides is that it is useful at all levels; too often guides are not applicable to all levels. There is no way I would take my 90 Fury Warrior and switch to Protection without any prior tank experience. Having played both melee and ranged DPS in a number of settings gave me some insight into how tanking is done. Your Guide filled in many of the gaps and answered many of my questions. Thank you, once again for a great guide.

 

Thank you for your compliments. I'm glad to know you found the guide helpful. I'm sure you'll be a great tank!

 

Regarding Weakend Blows. Death Knights apply it with Blood Plague, not Blood Boil. See Scarlet Fever:

Causes your Blood Boil to refresh your diseases on targets it damages, and your Blood Plague to also afflict enemies with Weakened Blows.

 

Thanks a lot for pointing this out. I've rectified it in the guide, and it should go live soon!

[Guest Thepan]

Should be required reading before selecting a tanking spec IMO (been tanking for a while still fun to read) 

[cramerscott 1]

Great Guide. I was a ranged dps for a while, running with my guild mates, when a tank in a random dungeon was doing a poor job. He said, you've never done this, this is hard! You try it once! I said fine I win! Came here, 5 days later at level 90, found him again and tanked for him in a dungeon. Made a new friend that day.

[qevers 0]

Thanks for this guide. It is very helpful!

 

In paragraph 5.2 (Ability Rotation) you state that paladins apply Weakened Blows using Hammer of the Righteous. Since a recent patch (5.3, 5.4?) Crusader Strike also applies Weakened Blows.

[Aetonyx 0]

I think this guide is well written and informative, however it fails to address the environment differences between tanking for your guild and then tanking for LFR. The fact is, most people are using LFR to get geared and learn their class better at a high level of play so that they maybe do the more difficult level raids. The problems that tanks face in LFR raids are a different and arguably the most stressful of all roles. In an LFR, there are 25 people at most: 17 DPS, 6 Healers and only 2 Tanks.  Juxtaposing this with the fact that we are in the front the most (barring illegitimate pulls from DPS), we are the most visible. And we have a lot of stress that derives from this. People in an LFR setting are absolutely atrocious toward new players. Tanks HAVE to know what they are doing or risked getting kicked. Tanks HAVE to keep things moving at a fast pace (to the point where half the time you can't even explain to new tanks the mechanics without someone saying "GOGOGOGO!!" or risked getting kicked. And yet if someone dies (whether it be to their own mistake) even worse, you will hear kick the tank more than anything. 

 

I love my class and role and wouldn't do anything else to be honest. But this guide should also touch upon how to properly deal with the less than cordial nature of people in LFR raids. The attitudes I have seen are causing many curious new tanks to just go to DPS because it's easier. You can look on the Tank forums on the front page RIGHT NOW and see threads about how LFR has contributed to the toxic tanking community we face today. We deal with rude DPS, healers and other tanks who refuse to communicate with you. I would strongly suggest you consider adding this into your guide. Thank you. 

[Guest Guest]

Guide should probably add a section on what Active Mitigation is and an explanation for each tanking class. 

[Guest jarex]

http://nolifeat90.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/throne-of-thunder-lfr-guide-part-1-last.html

 

not sure if that will link properly but found this website with guides to all the specific MoP boss fights absolutly ace for new tanks 

[Guest Schatzie]

Easily the most empowering tank guide I have come across.  

 

Reading it makes me want to hire you for our company!  That exact company which keeps me from having much time to evolve into the lust-of-all-healers-and-raids tank I yearn to be. However, you've given me ... and many others a chance to be just a little sexier in the tank business.  

 

I will be following ALL your posts ..so i hope you're consistent!

[Beachninja 0]

Hi there,

 

I'm not sure on which forum to ask this question, but here goes... 

 

In LFR SoO, it seems some of the bosses don't actually require a tank switch. Do you know which boss fights in LFR do not require this?

 

Thanks!

[Brewmonksta 157]

All the bosses except Protectors and Spoils have a tank switch mechanic.

With gear you can mostly ignore it in LFR.