9 ways to Stay a Sharp Tank
Siona requests, “Give us 60+ tanks some tips on what we should be doing now to perfect our tanking skills.”
Great topic Siona, here goes 
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PvP a little, but not a lot
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Mark targets
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Be the Puller
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Pull quickly
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Save everyone
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Do a variety of challenging content
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Multi-target tank whenever possible
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Use Cooldowns and Consumables aggressively and often
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Pug
The Player vs Player aspect of this game is very different from the PvE aspect. By PvPing a little, you’ll keep skills like intercepting, hamstringing, and utilizing line of sight fresh in your brain. It gives you a different perspective on how to approach certain encounters in the PvE world you find yourself wrapped in so much.
The marking targets is vital because you’ll be forced to learn and understand the kill order of a pull. It acts as a refresher as to what each mob does because as you mark them you have to ask yourself, “Why is he the 1st target to kill? Why is he the 2nd?”
Being the puller keeps you used to the mobility of tanking. It keeps you sharp on where you have to start a pull and where you have to position yourself relative to your group throughout the progress of a pull. Nothing can be more damaging to a tank’s skills than running with a solid hunter that simply misdirects everything to you so you can stand there like a rock. Tanking is about more than how much damage you can take.
Keeping the pace of the run going means that you don’t have time to go off into lala land and you’ll maintain your focus on what’s important… tanking. (and your team will maintain their focus on dpsing and healing) A nice steady pace for a run makes a world of difference towards a smooth run.
Yes, I know its annoying when that dpser pulls aggro for the 10th time, but you have to save them. By always trying to save everyone you’ll be forced to learn and maintain techniques that can save everyone. Not only does letting a player die slow down the run, it’s addictive. You’ll get used to being able to allow people to die because most of the time you’ll still succeed on a pull. It’s a lazy tanking style and it’s the difference between a successful kill and a walk back from the graveyard with everyone playing the blame game.
It’s not enough to simply master Heroic Shattered Halls and do it over and over again and revel in your awesomeness. If you want to stay at your best, you need to be doing the whole rainbow of heroic 5 mans. If you haven’t done a particular heroic, do it. While, yes, you can easily get all the badges you need by running Heroic Mechanar until you are blue in the face, this doesn’t help you.
Yes, we all know that any number of dpsers can show off their magical kiting prowess, but you shouldn’t care. Multi-target tanking is one of the most challenging aspects of tanking as a warrior. You should not every be afraid of doing it and the reality is that you need to know how to do it in a variety of different ways based on the types of mobs you are fighting. There exists very situations that you can’t multi-target tank regardless of your gear.
While some like to call popping pots and blowing last stand a crutch, they are dead wrong. If you aren’t using these frequently and aggressively then when that magical situation arises that you really need them, you won’t instinctively use them. It has to be second nature and the only way it becomes second nature is by using them. A little word for the wise, use Challenging Shout before Mocking Blow even on a single target. Challenging Shout doesn’t care if the target isn’t directly in front of you and it can’t be parried or dodged. Often times if you take the time to use Mocking Blow, the person you are trying to save is already dead. If you are worried about the incoming damage of too many mobs then follow up Challenging Shout with Shield Wall.
A pick up group, PuG for short, is certainly a term you are familiar with and I’m sure you avoid them like the plague. Don’t. This goes for even pugging an extra player for your 4 man squad. Yes, PuGs are probably going to screw up a million different things on your run, but they are also going to keep you sharp in all of the different aspects I’ve listed above. Nothing keeps your tanking skills duller than a perfect group that knows exactly how to communicate with each other.
October 5th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Oh, good post, I completely agree with all of it and try to practice these things regularly.
Personally, I think a warrior tank that used stuff like intercept and hamstring to tank is awesome.
You don’t see it very often, but not only does it make you look cool and look like you know what you’re doing, but it can be amazing for multi-mob management.
One of my friends is making a prot warrior and he was asking me for advice one night… Apparently the MT of the guild he’s in doesn’t have Last Stand. He asked me why and I pretty much just said, “Um…cause he’s stupid?” He said the warrior said it was like a crutch and that he should never have to use it. I responded with, “Does he never die?” Last Stand is like a SUPER pot, plus it increases your survivability drastically with heals for a lengthy duration. Any warrior should know when tanking a hard-hitting boss, you need to be able to pop those cooldowns in less than a second at times. Getting good use out of your CDs is definitely a measure of skill, I think.
I can’t count the number of times Last Stand, Mocking Blow, Challenging Shout, and Shield Wall has saved my raid.
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October 5th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
“4. Pull Quickly”
Don’t let Sioux see this thread.
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October 5th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Well…make sure your peeps have mana…cause um…pulling when your DPS/healers don’t have mana makes you an obnoxious tank. hehe
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October 5th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Healers crying about not having an entirely full mana bar to start a trash pull is obnoxious as well.
For example, our main priest has a macro to yell at Vene to make sure he doesn’t pull… lole
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October 5th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Part of being a good tank is keeping yourself and your teammates comfortable. Suffice to say sometimes I listen to the macro, sometimes I don’t.
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October 6th, 2007 at 4:46 am
Personally I hate dpsers who constantly whine if I’m not on a new trash pull the instant the previous one dies. Sure, staying focused is important but I’m playing a game and trying to have fun so I think I deserve little breaks sometime unless I’m really on a mission to get it done as fast as possible.
If you’re dps you can pretty much afk and whisper with people during the pull while I’m doing my best to multi-mob tank a group so it’s not suprising they’re the ones complaining. Deciding the next pull and marking is another thing they don’t have to care about… Chat & nuke away and complain…
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October 6th, 2007 at 9:48 am
Well, with my main being a DPSer and my alt being a prot warrior, I tend to tank the way I like to dps. That is, nice quick pulls. The only thing I really check for is the CCers to be ready. The way I like to do it, is steamroll to the boss, then take a little break to regroup.
I just think its good habit to pull quickly because once you get past the heroic 5 man level, speed is a much bigger factor. The faster you can clear trash mobs in those 25 man raids, the more attempts you’re going to get on progression bosses. And even if you’re talking about pulling your 100th clear of Kara, going quickly is still important. You can probably shave off an hour or so just by pulling quickly.
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October 6th, 2007 at 10:16 am
I’m the healer you speak of and I see this!!!
Part of the reason for the macro is due to crazy dps’ers (Speidel) using aoe and getting one or more extra groups. This normally isn’t a problem if the healer has mana to heal for it. There are some instances that it’s more important for mana than others. I would like to point out that I will also push a tank to pull faster if the run is inching along at a snails pace!
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October 6th, 2007 at 11:09 am
I think if I started grouping with pugs it would quickly kill the enjoyment of the game. There are some really stupid people out there.
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October 8th, 2007 at 5:21 am
Pulling quickly is a hard thing to do sometimes. I feel this is my single biggest flaw since I am a bit slow. One thing I have started with is that I state at the start of an instance that: “I am going to pull next grp asap if all have 50% mana or more. Anyone need longer break say OOM or similar”.
Since I mostly - almost exclusively - do PuGs, this is something I get flamed about regularly. It has happened in the same run that I am both flamed for pulling to slowly as going before heal has full mana…
About crutches: Nobody wants crutches voluntarily, but if Magtheridon breaks your leg - they are sure nice to have =D
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October 8th, 2007 at 7:03 am
I do not agree with number 5 unless this is a pug that you never group with. If you are grouping with guild players whom you also raid with they need to be working on CC skills. I found that if I continue to save everyone the following things happen.
1. CC classes never learn how to kite. Mages, Locks, SPs and Hunters can all kite very well if they learn their art. I kept saving this one hunter so often when his first trap failed or when he pulled agro that he cant kite to save his life now. Im forcing him to do it whenever we group now and he is getting better.
2. You have to train people to watch the threat. On some raids you absolutely cant pull agro off the tank or DPS too early. If you are in some heroics and DPS pulls its also game over. Dont save them, let them die. They will get it figured out soon enough.
3. Control. DPSers need to learn how to control their dps. If you are a RAID tankyou probably have some pretty insane gear. You can dish out more TPS than most any DPSer can keep up with. SO they dont learn how to control themselves. They just go wide open from start to finish. When these folks go group with another tank they pull agro. I always hear them complain in guild chat about how the tank they are stuck with is sooo crappy.
So keep in mind your place in the group. If you feel that your skills are on par, DONT SAVE EVERYONE. It helps them build the skills they will need in raids where you CANT save them.
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October 8th, 2007 at 10:10 am
My main is my prot warrior, but I also have a mage I run with often and my first character was a healer.
It is just as much the responsibility of the healer/DPSer to drink quickly between pulls as it is for the tank to give them a little time to do so.
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October 8th, 2007 at 10:15 am
@Max: I certainly won’t deny you have a point bud, but the list is about improving yourself. It’s a selfish list really nonetheless I know for myself that I’ve learned more techniques from saving fools than from letting them die. That being said, I’m certainly not afraid to let them know they are a fool after I’ve saved their life
But perhaps you’ve said it better… combine 5 + 9 and everyone wins
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October 8th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
I am all for self improvement but I found that my group mates started to rely on my skills to save the pulls every time. Then when we went to raid and SHTF they would just stand around and get 1 shotted. I understand what youre saying and practiced properly will certianly rebuild those skills from the days where improved taunt was not “optional”.
We do what we call tuning runs. All pulls are chain pulls until someone yells OOM. The first few pulls are marked and CC is owned explicitly until we reach that mark in the kill order, or the member yells for help. Once we are comfortable with the mobs pulls are done sans marks to practice sorting. Tank gets healer/first dps, mage sheeps caster, hunter grabs melee. Best of all we do it in our craptacular gear and NO VENT! This is also the time where we try new unorthodox boss pulls and setups. We do a little review after the run to say what works and what doesnt.
Something else to try is doing a heroic with only a 3/4 man team.
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October 8th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
That sounds a little too hardcore for my blood…
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October 15th, 2007 at 11:49 am
Multi-Target Tanking is something every tank should know how to do. I’ve found my guild and the pugs I run with appreciate when you can effectively retain hate on two or more targets at once. It’s a tricky skill to master, but one that in a pinch can keep your healer from being smashed into kibble.
I do agree that 5+9 are more effective together, because PuG’s are hit or miss. Sometimes you get huntards, other times you get amazing players. Running Steamvaults last night with an alt we had a tank that was new to tanking so it was a learning experience for him, those of us that had experience tanking were giving him pointers and such and he had learned a great deal by the end and already you could see improvements.
Either way, all these tips are very handy, whether you use them in a raid or not really doesn’t matter, but just like professional boxers who practice a variety of punches and combos, but might only use a full there’s always those tricks they can pull out in a pinch that might mean the difference between the belt and a 10 count.
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