Loading ...Multi-Tanking: 5 ways its NOT your fault.
There is a lot of things to keep track of while tanking and as a result, it is going to be your fault that the party died, often. However, just as often a group decides to make tanking nearly impossible especially when it comes to tanking multiple targets. Here’s a few situations where its not your fault along with some creative ways to “educate” your party.
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Unfocused Firing
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The DPS Contest
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Fear-fest
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Slow CCing
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DPS that likes to Pull
The DPS isn’t attacking the same target. (this includes rogues that Blade Flurry, warriors that Whirlwind, etc)
Solution: Tank only one target. If they complain, tell them that you’ll tank more when they DPS less.
The DPS has decided that whoever gets the highest score wins!
Solution: Tank Everything except the Primary Target. If they complain, tell them they need to kill stuff faster.
Your party has decided to fear on every pull.
Solution: Tank only the Primary Target. Their fears can handle the rest.
The Crowd Control is applied once all the mobs are on top of you rendering Thunderclap and Cleave nearly useless.
Solution: Keeping pulling the mobs back until the CCed mobs are far, far away. If this is the first pull of the instance, run out.
The player has decided that they’d rather have everything running at them. This includes pre-emptive application of Crowd Control that puts you in combat.
Solution: Let the person who pulled die then start tanking.
Now I’m sure that you guys have a few more fun ones to share too so don’t be afraid to leave them in the comments along with some horror stories 
July 11th, 2007 at 11:11 am
Yep yep, I agree.
If you’re a good tank you more than likely have made a lot of friends to run heroics with.
If so you probably have pretty decent luck as far as putting groups together goes. Also, at least on my server, the people who farm heroics are usually actually really good players for the most part. A lot of pulls in some heroics are harder than most in Kara, IMO.
I personally won’t tank a 5 man unless I either know and trust the leader or I am the leader. I religiously mark all the targets and I make it a point to strategically focus fire and CC the mobs in a particular order based on what classes we have available and what mobs we’re fighting. My guildies and heroic buddies never seem to complain because it always goes smoothly.
Raid icons FTW!
If I was in a PUG that just absolutely wasn’t listening and acting like a bunch of buttheads…well…
Guys? GUYS?
LAG LAAAAG LAG LAG…
Alt+F4
If you know it’s not your fault don’t let anyone blame you! Besides, we all know tanks > all.
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July 11th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
you use cleave?
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July 11th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Well, although cleave only causes standard damage aggro (if you’re choosing to ignore the additional threat we generate in defensive stance with talents)… imagine if you’re tanking multiple mobs that are kinda kicking your ass… For example the un-CCable dual pulls in Heroic Pens, UB, Sethekk, etc. You more than likely have quite a bit of unused rage even after making sure you always use Shield Block and Shield Slam when they are cooled. So, since cleave does not trigger the global CD and you more than likely have a very fast weapon…why not dump some rage and use it.
Can’t hurt, right? If it makes you feel better I’m sure throwing on a HS from time to time is still a good idea. 
Also, if you’re tanking more than 2 mobs, cleave is all the more valuable.
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July 11th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Yup, I definitely use cleave. It is perfect for situations where the primary target is going to require basically my full attention and I can’t afford to be triggering the global cooldown to keep aggro on the 2nd mob. It also is usable in a lot more situations than Thunderclap.
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July 11th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Ya beat me to it Tara
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July 11th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
hm never used it.. makes sense really i just never did anything but hs
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July 12th, 2007 at 5:17 am
Hmm, definitely a violator of all 5 of those on my warlock..
^____________________^
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July 12th, 2007 at 7:56 am
Rofl @ the DPS contest.
What usually happens is this. I’m on my warlock getting ready to soar past Vene on threat, pull aggro, then as the mob who will one shot anything not in plate reaches the caster group I’ll hit soulshatter. Nobody in the world has fast enough reflexes to hit their iceblocks and soulshatters in time.
Winning the dps charts AND racking up nice repair bills for everyone else FTW!!
Of course, this problem could easily be resolved with a Troll tank. Because we all know of course that nobody can pull aggro off of a troll who uses beserking.
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July 12th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
How many of these did you write with me specifically in mind???
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July 12th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
There are many offenders… Skeletaur and Speidel definitely make the list. I’d be a way worse tank without them… but I’d also have a full head of hair and the 10 years I lost of my life back.
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July 25th, 2007 at 10:59 am
just a note, cleave DOES have a threat modifier on itm similar to HS.
Each cleave does an additional 160 threat, split between 2 targets it two targets get hit (80 bonus threat per target).
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July 26th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Cleave FTW. It’s the “two target” Heroic Strike.
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October 17th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
” If they complain, tell them they need to kill stuff faster.” That really made me laugh ^^
This week Ive been in 1, maybe 2 good groups. The rest just made me angry :p Now I’ve started saying that I assume they want the mob if they pull a mob thats not marked with the skull symbol.
At least I can empty my rage bar on my students: http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff134/koriac/angrytank.jpg
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October 19th, 2007 at 2:53 am
K, just saw this post and laughed so incredibly hard. The date works perfectly to when our GM came back from vacation and the heroics we did where I learned how much you hate fear. I, on the other hand, love fear. My fear button is very close to my other “all important keys” I use while playing. Aoe Steamvaults anyone?? lol
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October 22nd, 2007 at 2:05 pm
I don’t really mind the dps contest… always fun to join in, really push myself to stay ahead of them in threat, and keep the mob under control if they pull it off me. Certainly makes things more interesting.
Point 4 is definitely among my top pet peeves as a tank… in fact, it is only clearly beaten by when my dps, in the same situation, decides to stun or immobilize the mobs that are not crowd controlled while I’m trying to move them away from the cc.
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November 19th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
I only save healers, their threat is unavoidable, and they must be well protected. They return the favor, and all is well. Dps that can’t manage their threat (MB crit, VE mind flaying Spriests or stunlock rouges), die on every pull.
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December 21st, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Number 5 is my number 1 . Let em die! If theyre smart they wont do it again
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April 28th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
[…] a mage and rogue and never used CC once just because I felt like it /shrug Oh and always remember: Multi-Tanking: 5 ways its NOT your fault - TankingTips.com __________________ “Do you know what your sin is?” “Ah hell, I’m a fan of all seven. But right […]
April 29th, 2008 at 3:50 am
Umm… ok I’m guilty, I posted a link to this article on the Nihilum Forums… why did it appear here all weird-like?
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April 29th, 2008 at 6:53 am
They’re called trackbacks. My early posts don’t have them disabled. It’s nothing to worry about… some blogs use them.. some don’t.
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April 29th, 2008 at 8:59 am
I don’t know why everyone always thinks that to multi tank as a warrior, you have to tab target revenge, tab heroic strike, tab tab tab…
I NEVER have to do this. You only have to outthreat the healer, and let me tell you, as long as you aren’t a gimp tank taking TOO much damage (read perfect balance between incoming damage reduction and rage generation) you should be able to get off using thunderclap on every cooldown (you get two attacks in between each).
Of course, if I have excess rage I’ll throw in a cleave, but when it comes to heroics, I simply don’t need to tab around 90% of the time. I typically never use CC in slave pens, underbog or ramparts. But that’s just me. Maybe it’s a gear thing? I dunno.
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April 29th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Probably hard to tell if it’s a gear thing or a skill thing because I’m guessing you’ve collected decent amounts of both at a similar rate, but yeah I know what you mean. I like hitting all ‘off’ targets with a devastate at least (and I click to target, I can’t stand tab targetting when I’m tanking but that’s just me) but other than that I just, as you say, throw in cleaves where my rage will allow and TC a lot.
I quite enjoy multi-tanking, keeps me on my toes
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May 1st, 2008 at 7:10 pm
I think gear helps to pass a specific gap. I’ve recently started guild heroics in mostly blue gear, but with a good healer.
Every pull of 3+ mobs is a real challenge. The first seconds of the pull especially.
In my case, it’s a race against healing threat. Our priest knows it and tries to heal at the last moment, but since my gear is quite poor, he usually has to after only a couple of seconds to keep me alive. Sometimes I don’t even have all targets I’m supposed to tank at melee range…
Some tips that may be useful if you have the same problem, some may or not apply depending on your group:
- if possible (no sap), use dynamite to pull, engineer can make some usable by non engineer. About 250 damage on each mobs; compared to one only with a standard ranged weapon pull.
- don’t waste the threat generated by bloodrage, ie don’t use before mobs get in range.
- If you have a “increase dodge/parry/block rating” trinket, use it after the pull. This will potentially delay the first heal.
I’m sure this will get easier once I get more avoidance, but since I don’t have time to invest in raiding, I have to wait for badges to stack.
But do I really want better gear ? This will make all that fun part go away
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August 1st, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Number 5 wins in my book. Any Enhancement Shammys that got lost and ended up here, yes it was me that gave you a 30g repair bill. You have omen, I see it.. Why didn’t you?
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PieterB reply on August 2, 2008 3:59 am:
Because as dps it’s you job to stay under the tank on Omen, it’s not the tanks job to stay above dps.
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