Loading ...The Key is Reflecting
If there’s one quality that a great tank has it’s the ability to reflect upon their experiences be they achievements, mistakes, insecurities, inconsistencies or any of a million different things. Blogging has definitely forced me to do this. It’s amazing what you learn and how you grow as a tank, a raid leader and a person from constantly analyzing and reflecting upon this digital world.
Which is why I just love the name of a fellow Darkspearian’s blog, Mirror Shield - Yakra’s Reflections on Tanking.
Previously semi-hidden away as a prominent figure in the Wowhead Warrior community, Yakra some time ago started this blog and started sharing his reflections on tanking and WoW in general. Here’s just a few of my favourite posts there:
- How Much do you “Need” Gear?
- Ability & Experience are beyond Epic
- Achievement Etiquette
- Dual Spec Build 1 of 2: The Defensive / 100% CD Uptime Setup
- Dual Spec Build 2 of 2: The Aggressive Setup
So, I’ve got a challenge for you
Write a post on your guild’s forums about tanking. It doesn’t have to be amazingly insightful or extremely time consuming. Just write something and send me a link to it. If I get enough links sent to me I’ll do a post later featuring a number of these posts. The point though is to take some time to reflect on tanking and to also foster a community of reflection in your guild.
The most important role that this site offers isn’t actually the information on it’s pages, but instead that it gets you to think about tanking. It gets you to consider things that you didn’t previously consider. You don’t have to agree with everything I say here, I don’t expect you to and frankly, I don’t want you to, but I do hope you think about it and don’t discount it and try to look for something to take away from it. (even if it’s “I never want to become THAT guy” 
)
March 5th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Excellent post.
I started a post on my guild forum for people having trouble with what many consider the “basics” of their class (spec, rotations, stat priority etc.), distilling info from elitistjerks, maxdps and other sources into something more palatable for them. So far I’ve only covered hunters and locks, and I’d never thought about stepping back and doing something for tanks. When it came to tanking information I would just point people to relevant guides on tankspot or to blog posts here. I know that I have areas I can improve upon, and doing a similar distillation of tanking information for my guild may help me look at improving myself from a different perspective. Thanks Vene.
Also thanks for putting me on to Yakra’s blog.
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March 5th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Vene - I’m quite honored to be featured in such a way (I clicked the link expecting something about spell reflect).
I’m actually not quite sure what to say, other then I’m glad you have enjoyed some of the things I’ve written, and I plan to continue providing the same mix of tanking thoughts, raiding thoughts, and personal reflections.
Your call for others to contemplate tanking on/with their guilds is certainly noble, and I can’t wait to see what comes of it.
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Veneretio reply on March 5, 2009 1:52 pm:
Ya, don’t change a thing. I particularly enjoy your blog too because LOKI always seems so close to Ibex in terms of progression even back in TBC albeit it you progress a little more than us. And as a result, it’s really easy for me to relate to what you guys are going through and to gain insight from your experiences as well as analyze why I did things different than you did.
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March 5th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
I must admit to you all that when I found out sometime ago that Vene was hosting his own website I was skeptical. A site devoted to tanking? Authored by my tank, Vene? Although my raid time after BC has been severely limited, I have from time to time read through some of the articles here. I must say, congrats. Although I am not a tank nor do I understand the mechanics of it all, I find myself unable to stop reading. “The Vene Rule” from March of 08 from Su and your more recent “Its time to step down…” from Jan 09 are two of my favorite articles. Why? Both of these contain valuable raiding insights that not only apply to tanks, but to healers and dps as well. I wish you continued success with the website. I miss raiding with you old friend and hope my schedule opens back up soon. Until then, may your loots be fat and purple!
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Veneretio reply on March 5, 2009 1:49 pm:
Glad to hear you’ve been following along and that even as a healer, you’ve been getting something out of it. A while back the “stepping down” bit definitely paid off as we just continued to chug along with me gone for 2 weeks due to lack of internet.
Hopefully you can find that time too. We certainly could use our stable Resto-shammy back
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March 5th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
I thought this was going to be about Spell Reflecting!
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March 5th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
lol same here, but it turned out to be very good, i think i can almost agree completely with both vene and yakra
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March 6th, 2009 at 4:50 am
This post actually inspired me to finally create my blog. So thanks Vene, and keep up all the great work. I’d love it if you visited my site (even if it’s in its infancy).
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March 6th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Yakra is awesome! Vene too!
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March 6th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Unfortunately my guild’s forums can be accessed by guild members only
and there is not a lot of tank activity on them. That’s why I read your blog
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March 6th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
haha, yeah, I love to write posts like this in my guild forum. The problem is I’m the only warrior tank in the guild. I still do it occasionally, but I enjoy the feedback, and can’t get it on the guild forums. Also, where I just started raid tanking in wrath, I can’t keep up with TS and EJ level discussions about warriors. I absolutely love this blog, and I’ll admit when I do type up some posts on the guild forum they’re pretty heavily influenced by this.
I used to want to start a blog for my mage, but never had the time, and being in a social rather than raiding guild makes it tough, because I’m always lagging behind everyone else in progression. But anyway, good post as usual, and especially thanks for pointing out another good site. I read a couple of the articles you linked and I might have to start reading yakra’s blog
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March 6th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
I actually started my blog about a month ago in order to do some coherent reflecting that might receive some feedback.
I told my guild about it, but I think the only one who reads it is my RL friend/coworker/Fury Warrior.
Check it out and please critique my posts. I’m pretty sure they don’t suck, but how would I know without feed back
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March 8th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
I too have started putting some of my thoughts to paper as it were, Mostly just my guildies check it out but hey, at least someone is right? =)
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March 9th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
My guild forum is closed… Guess what, you get my post here! I’ll keep it brief(ish)
I don’t want to be a Death Knight
I play a Warrior tank, that is how I describe my toon, it is what I do. This is a Good Thing ™. My guildy plays a Death Knight tank, it is also a Good Thing ™.
These two tanks are similar, we both wear plate, we both have high avoidance and we both roll on the same gear. The two tanks are also dissimilar, I block, I have passive damage reduction talents and stance, I rely more on static threat modifiers. He relies more on damage to do his threat and more on CD’s to survive, more active damage reduction if you will.
Apparently, the active damage reduction abilities make him a more powerful tank in progression content (that is not what this post is about).
We have excellent passive damage reduction, one could even call us the masters of passive damage reduction. It is what we specialize in, it is what our talents, our glyphs, our history reflects. It is shown on our toons (wanna hit me? Gotta get through that shield first) that is what Warrior tanking is about.
It may be that other tanks are more ‘powerful’ than us (that is not what this post is about).
It may be that we need to be buffed, or other tanks nerfed (that is not what this post is about).
So what is this post about?
This post is about my shield, my raison d’etre. I hit things with my shield, things hit my shield, all goes well. I have an extremely powerful CD that relies on my shield, this is also a Good Thing ™. Shields are the quintessential warrior tool, we have been hitting things with, and having things hit our shield for a very long time. During this time warrior tanking has developed, has evolved, has taken on a certain flavor.
The feel, the jive, the experience of playing. I like being the passive damage reduction tank, I like my shield, I like static threat modifiers. This post is telling people this, I don’t want to see the Glyph of Last Stand and the Glyph of Shield Wall turn warrior tanks into pseudo Death Knights.
Don’t do it to us, if we need to be changed, change us, but don’t you dare change the feel of the class.
Blizzard, you did so well with Protection warriors in patch 3.0.X please, please keep the feel of the class right.
Remember 300!
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March 24th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
so I’m pretty much a lemming. I learned to tank mostly from reading your posts over the last few months (and some of the older ones, thanks for not deleting them), and so I probably hold your opinion over most, except maybe cider, whose videos definitely helped me in Naxx, but I haven’t really seen you two disagree much anyway.
That’s not to say I don’t think for myself, but it is to say that you said “start a blog!” and so I did lol. It’s mostly about my tank, with a few mage posts mixed in. Once my mage hits 80, it might even out to a more 50/50 type thing, but I’m guessing it will still be somewhat biased to my warrior, as I’m pretty much hooked on tanking now.
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Veneretio reply on March 24, 2009 2:54 pm:
Ya, I noticed you added a link to your last comment and checked it out. Looks like you’re off to a great start! It’s always interesting to read a new blogger’s perspective on the community as a whole. It paints a more complete picture of your take on tanking and the game in general than the scattered comments I get to read from people here.
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