Stop Tanking. Start Watching.
I’ve had this epiphany that WoW players always need to be doing something. This results in:
- Dpsers always mashing buttons as fast as possible.
- Healers always needing to heal someone.
- Tanks always needing to tank something.
The problem is that a lot of times, this is a bad thing. I won’t go into any detail though on aggro happy dpsers or unfocused healers since this site is about tanks.
What’s Over-Tanking?
Over-Tanking is when a tank continues focusing on a mob that’s already being tanked that doesn’t require a 2nd tank to actively generate threat on the mob. (there are exceptions of course, but this basic definition should suffice)
What’s wrong with Over-Tanking?
The problem with Over-Tanking is that it really is just sucky dps. You may be active and in the fray, but you aren’t always being helpful. As a tank you have to realize that you are a very unique member of the raid. In particular, you represent one of the raid’s most durable members with a versatile set of life saving talents. The most common situation where Over-Tanking occurs, but should not occur is Trash Mobs.
What do I do instead?
A Trash Pull is usually comprised of 2 or more mobs that need to be Tanked and/or Crowd Controlled. 25 man content takes this a step further featuring as many as 4 or more mobs. It’s at the 25 man level that Over-Tanking becomes especially poor play because at this point you actually have another job you can do often other than Over-Tank.
You can watch Sheeps.
How do I watch a Sheep?
- Turn off your auto-attack.
- Target the mob and stand beside it.
- Wait.
If the Sheep (or whatever else kind of CC it may be) breaks then simply throw a taunt on it, but nothing else. This will cause the mob to attack you rather than potentially 1 shotting a dpser or healer. It’s important you only taunt the mob though because that way the CCer can immediately re-sheep without fear of you breaking it. The best thing about doing this is that not only are you going to keep other members of your raid alive, but you’ll also be in prime position when it’s time to start tanking the CCed mob. This is going to allow the dpsers to start killing the mob faster and will all but eliminate over aggressive dpsers from getting themselves and others killed.
It can be boring work, but it’s the little things that make a good tank, Great.
January 9th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
I think this advice (the part about watching) applies to raid bosses as well, especially Attumen and Opera (R&J) where you have a boss spawn in the middle of the fight. My job is pretty much to pick up attumen and Romulo when they spawn so i have to watch or see clothie/rogue death.
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January 9th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Absolutely, I can remember cases where the offtanking is DPSsing Midnight while waiting for Attumen, and Attumen spawns right in the middle of the global cooldown, or g-d forbid your taunt is on cooldown because you either used it earlier, or fat fingered it. I’ve been adjusting my play style to get away from the ring-middle-index finger-rotation to using the mouse more. This helps me keep a better eye on what’s currently being cast.
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January 9th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
I like it.
Next time we’re doing SSC trash packs I might throw the suggestion at our tanks (I’m there on my hunter, my tank’s still working up the courage to tank NBane much less 25-mans, lol)
The comment that wow players always need to be doing something is quite true as well. Interesting how fights like Leo are effectively testing peoples ability to know when they should stop and scratch themselves for a few seconds.
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January 10th, 2008 at 2:44 am
Just one more step I’d add to that…tell the cc’er what you are doing. Some might automatically try to re-cc the mob, others might not if it looks like you are tanking it.
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January 10th, 2008 at 3:01 am
the other tanks of my guild didnt understand this. If they are in raid they need to smash buttons.
nice post.
soz 4 my english
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January 10th, 2008 at 3:21 am
My priests absolutely love this when they are on shackle duty and throwing heals in Kara
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January 10th, 2008 at 8:08 am
The DPSers in my raid are absolutely the type that need to be mashing buttons. If they see me targetting something new they will assume its time to go and that’s how sheep get DoTed. Instead of targetting the sheep and waiting next to it, I will be aware of where all the sheep or CC mobs are then I go auto-attack one of the mobs being off-tanked to fill up my rage bar.
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January 10th, 2008 at 8:33 am
In addition to standing beside the sheep, it’s often worthwhile to stand in the middle of the main raid, so you can pick up anything that gets loose. The Gruul’s Lair trash is a good example where your most important tank can be the one sitting in the middle of the raid, waiting for a de-agro.
In other situations, you’d want to get on another tanked mob, and just auto attack it, so you’ve got lots of rage for the next pull. Having enough rage to spell reflect, thunderclap, and throw around some threat on a few mobs quickly really makes a difference in Hyjal waves.
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January 10th, 2008 at 8:47 am
We do something similar, but a little different even in 10 mans. On a 4 pull, where 2 are CCed and 2 are tanked, the Tank on the “skull” mob goes and breaks one of the CCed mobs while the DPS moves to the X mob. When the X mob dies, that tank picks up the last CCed mob and breaks it.
What this “leapfrog” style means is that by the time the DPS assist train gets to any mob but the first one, the tank has built a reasonable amount of threat, and they can go completely berzerk and blow cooldowns if they want to, with no fear of getting agro.
You obviously couldnt do this if your CCed mobs had a special ability you were overly concerned with.
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January 10th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Don’t just stand next to a sheep while watching it. Make a mouseover Sunder Armor macro, target one of the other tanks mobs, and start mouse over-Sundering the cc’ed mob. It will go for you directly if the cc breaks (it won’t break cause of your sundering). When (if) you run out of rage, go bash the other tanks mobs till you have enough rage to continue SA’ing the cc (or cc’s).
You wouldn’t believe how many mages/priests (and the occational druid) I’ve saved this way.
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January 10th, 2008 at 10:22 am
While I agree that over-tanking/bad dpsing from a prot warrior is generally a bad thing there are a few other things you can do aside from just watch the flock. If I have rage I prefer to throw up 5 sunders on our druid and paladin tank targets so when our melee dps gets to them they die as fast as possible.
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January 10th, 2008 at 10:28 am
I don’t know if Hyjal is the best example of what to do when you aren’t tanking something. Unless your guild does something different from mine, you never ever ever have nothing to do during the Hyjal trash. Except for maybe the gargoyle waves at the horde encampment.
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January 10th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Good suggestion. When playing second tank and I don’t have a target I focus on keeping T-Clap and demo shout up for the MT so that he can focus more on threat generation.
Watching the CC is something that doesn’t occur to many folks but can be the difference between a wipe and a clean clear of the trash.
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January 10th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Amen to this. Been doing it for a while now whenever possible and it seriously helps. For those of you druid offtanks out there, you can add to this by using faerie fire on all CC’d mobs to put yourself on their threat list without breaking the CC. (since for whatever reason, sheep and shackle really doesn’t seem to have much of any threat associated with them… Faerie Fire Feral will put you way past 130% of the mage/priest.)
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January 10th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Intelligent use of intervene can be a raid saver as well. For example, on Fathom-Lord Karathress, I tank the shaman as MT since he does the most damage per second and is prone to spiking the tank to death. We kill the Shaman first so for the remainder of the fight, I don’t really have a job. What I do is roam the area and fill many voids.
We kite karathress back and forth once he gains the Spitfire totem, so I go over there and bandage healers while they are running so they can concentrate on the tank. I’ll also be ready to intervene the Karathress tank if he should spike low for some reason. Then I will rotate over to the priest add for an extra focused interupt on his heal.
On Morogrim whoever isn’t tanking Morogrim usually intervene our pally tank before the murlocs come for some added mitigation, then he puts demo/tc on the murlocs.
On Al’ar entering P2, I intervene the person we assign to go all out and have highest threat so there is a little cushion if we should get a bad taunt resist.
Typically we have one mage or lock who always gets agro on aoe assignments, so we’ll throw him an intervene or two.
I love intervene. I view it as an instant heal for however much damage we absorb. On some bosses that can be equivelent to an instant greater heal lol.
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January 10th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I like to spectator-tank when one of our Huntards decides to go ape**** on a mob when I am LOS pulling…meaning I watch him die then I pick up the mob. Funny how the new ones always forget to FD.
But I completely agree with watching sheep. Great way to ensure people don’t die needlessly.
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January 11th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
does that really work? mouseover sunder? the sunder doesn’t break the sheep with the damage it does? Interesting that fairy fire doesn’t break it either. Unless, I am reading this all wrong?
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January 11th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
You can do a little more damage when stuck in tanking gear by having a button or macro to change out your tanking weap, shield and ranged to your dps ones, and being in zerker stance. You can still switch back with a single key/click if you need to grab that broken sheep. Also, if you don’t have a tanking target that pull so are in dps gear but need to pick up something then you can switch to tank weaps, with a few heals you should be ok. We also like to break and grab the next target when the previous gets below 20%. It may make sense, but I’m not going to just stand around. I love the Big Brother addon - it has really helped to know who breaks cc (hunter pets lightning breath, argh!).
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January 11th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
What has always bugged me about tanking in raids (or at least how all the other non-tank members of the raid group percieve it) is that having a skilled Off-Tank is more important than a skilled Main Tank as long as the gear is there for many fights, but ultimately it’s the Main Tank that gets all the “glory”.
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January 12th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
I generally don’t watch sheeps, when im offtanking. I’ve conditioned myself to react to situations, rather than set myself up for them to happen. When im off tanking, I DW, and fuel up for the next mob, TCing, shouting, and depending on the fight I will intervene, or taunt off the MT if he’s in trouble.
For instance, with gruuls lair, we would bring in a warrior MT, druid OT, and myself as an OT for the trash, during the fight I would DW and keep shouts and TC up, When he silences, I would hit my macro for sword and board, intervene, and shield block. every bit helps..and I’ve saved the MT’s ass many a time.
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January 13th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Love the creative use of Intervene, will sure try that. About the mouse-over, yes, it works, and no, Sunder Armor does not, and have never, done any damage.
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January 13th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
I use mouseover sunder but never knew it doesn`t break cc,i guess you also have to turned autoattack option off in the interface menu,right?This is very ncie hint and i have to try it out,thanks.
About overtanking,depends on situations,but im usually helping to keep tc/demo up.Most of the time im just using autoattack to get full rage and when his mob gets to under 20% i go wake next in line and build enough threat so dps doesn` need to wait and can kill it asap.This goes only for sheeps,if there is banish present i`m just standing next to it waiting for it to break,taunt it so lock has enough time to banish it again without getting killed.
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January 14th, 2008 at 12:23 am
Oh, that’s where the “target one of the other tanks’ mobs” part comes in. Else it will turn autoattack on, yeah. But target another tanks mob, and start mouse-over sundering.
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January 14th, 2008 at 3:34 am
Intervene is very nice, both if you’re trying to keep second on threat and to help taking some damage off the MT.
On Gruul and Voidreaver, I keep Intervene on constant cooldown and it helps me imensely with my rage generation.
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January 14th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Funny enough, I was pulled in on part of a Kara run my guild did this weekend as an OT, and we had enough CC for all mobs, so I told the raid that I was going to babysit the CC’ed mobs, and I was accused of being lazy. /sigh
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January 14th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Some Tanks have too much air in them that they want to be Tanking and MT all the time.
In short, an Ego Tank is a bad Tank.
I dun belive in OT/MT term, I think every encounter requires different Tanks like Pally or Druid. Since Warrior are good for single mob tanking, it would be the right choice for warrior to tank bosses.
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January 15th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
When I mark something to be CCed I expect the person doing the CC to keep it that way. Mages and Locks I have seen use some nice CC macros to reapply their CC just before it were to break without losing their current target along with addons with timers for their CC duration left and what not. Believe they use focus for targeting functions in regard to that.
This may seem harsh but we all have our roles to fill and were given abilities to fulfill those roles. If the tank is to take the responsibility away from all the classes with CC then it just breeds bad other players. If I took much of the responsibility off a CCer then they get sloppy and just CC the initial pull and slack off the rest of the fight assuming I will be keeping the mobs aggroed to me. While this makes me a better tank and my healer johnny on the spot it means the CCers get sloppy for the next group they are with.
If all the CCers are doing to the mob is CCing it I have yet to find one I couldn’t pull off the CCer with a taunt, challenging shout, mocking blow, shield slam, revenge, devastate, etc. pick one or more hehe.
Just my two cents and I am believer that not all responsibility should fall on one person, it is a group effort and therefore the responsibility should be spread out evenly.
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January 15th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
I’m going to have to say that Lego’s view here is a bit short-sighted (at least in a guild situation). If you look at a raid only in terms of “this is my job and that is your job”, you will be bound to fail at some point. Everyone’s job should be to make the raid a success, and that includes helping others in case of problems. Everyone’s going to have problems at some point, whether it’s accidentally targetting the wrong mob, or having the Polymorph resisted 3 times in a row. I try and prepare for situations where I can help out in whatever way I can (concussion blow something marked for CC to give a bit extra time, taunt an early break, etc.), just as I expect the CC’ers to look for ways they can help (hunters dropping traps in front of healers, rogues kidney punching a MC’ed player, etc).
A contingency plan should include more than blaming someone for a failure.
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January 16th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
You can use sunder armor on a mob while it is CCed and not break the CC. gain aggro before it breaks!!!!
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February 20th, 2008 at 11:51 am
“What has always bugged me about tanking in raids (or at least how all the other non-tank members of the raid group percieve it) is that having a skilled Off-Tank is more important than a skilled Main Tank as long as the gear is there for many fights, but ultimately it
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March 16th, 2008 at 11:25 am
I love good conversation like this. I was really of the same opinion as Lego as I was reading through this post, but after reading Dahler’s comments, I have a bit of a different perspective. I will say that in a 5-man PUG, I am more inclined to agree with Lego. Everyone has a job to do and should focus on it, but to Dahler’s point, in a guild raid, everyone should do that little something extra that their class offers to make the raid a success. The great part about guilds is the opportunity to repeatedly run together to learn what those somethings are and how best to use them.
Having had to shackle in Kara, it would certainly be nice that an early break of my shackle wouldn’t lead to an untimely death for me, since the tank would already have some aggro.
As a DPSer, I also appreciate a tank having aggro prior to the break of the CC, as mentioned, since that will allow me to do max damage.
Face melting…woooohooo!
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