Loading ...The Mail Bag: Beasts, Sets, Expertise and not getting to do Naxx
With another podcast comes another influx of questions worthy of answering so here’s some of the more interesting ones with my responses. I’ve edited some a little bit just in case those asking the questions wanted to be anonymous.
Mail #1: Beasts
Hey Vene, i’m currently tanking Beasts in ToGC25 and was wondering if you have some advice.. The Raid Leader is drooling at the chance to get a pally tank to replace me and i don’t want that to happen.. This is since Gormok does a good amount of damage to a tank with 50k+ buffed health and ~27-29k armor. I was wondering if you tanked this encounter before and have succeeded that you can post up a quick piece of advice to help warrior tanks get through this encounter without too many scratches and not too butt hurt that they were splat in 2 shots.
Now I’ll admit, we’ve yet to best this fight, but since it has nothing to do with tanks living or not, I’ll share my experience with you. We rotate between having 2 Warriors and having a Warrior (myself) plus a Death Knight tank Gormok. When I first started learning this fight, I was worried that I’d see the instanta-gibs that everyone talks about, but thankfully, this hasn’t happened to me. We’ve approached this fight in a number of ways, but the best approach is the following:
The first tank picks up Gormok and tanks him until he’s got 2 of the dot at which point the second tank takes him. From here on out, you’re switching back and forth as soon as possible. Eventually, the second tank is going to end up with 4 stacks of the dot at which time I recommend having a paladin use Blessing of Protection to remove the stacks. This will allow the second tank to take Gormok back with the first tank only having 2 stacks late in the fight. It has the benefit of also ensuring that neither tank transitions into phase 2 with too many stacks of the dot. (Once you do make this transition, it’s worth removing the first tanks stacks as well)
Now the above probably reads fairly similar to what most guilds do. Where I believe we’ve enjoyed our tanks living more than most guilds is that not only do we use our own cooldowns proactively on the later impales, but also we have the luxury of running 4 priests among our healing team. (3 holy, 1 discipline) The Holy Priests especially are useful in this as they consistently give us Guardian Spirit whenever we’re high on stacks even if it’s early in the fight and because they’ve glyphed into it, their Guardian Spirit is available late in the fight too. So, our tanks survival is a combination of both our tanks, but also our healers being aggressive with their cooldowns and being speced properly so that we all get to re-use our cooldowns frequently.
Mail #2: Sets
Loved the podcast. I’m going to send some more love to my healers now!
Also been working on my healer as well.
Which 4 pieces do you go for to get the 4 piece set bonus for tier 9/9.5?
The obvious ones are the Shoulders, Gloves and Chest. They’re by far the best itemized. From there, we’re left with a decision between either the helm and the legs. The helm is the better itemized of the two and would be my recommendation with the other 3.
You may be interested in picking up the legs because they feature hit and there’s so little hit out there at this item tier, but it’s not worth it. When you’re wearing your hit cap set, you’ll rarely being wearing 4 pieces of tier 9 and even when you are there are better places to get hit rating like your wrists, back, neck and weapon. (Hope you didn’t throw away your Titanguard)
You may also be interested in picking up the legs because they feature block value whereas the shoulders do not, but it’s not worth getting the legs for that reason either. The shoulders offer more overall avoidance and block rating than the legs do which is what we’re really looking for in a block set. We want all of our attacks to be blocked or avoided. We don’t want this set to feature high amounts of block value at the expense of that.
Mail #3 & 4: Expertise
I have seen some lack in my tps as of late. I think it could be to the fact that my expertise isn’t up to par (21 iirc) but I am not sure. Maybe you have some suggestions/pointers I haven’t tried yet.
Quick question. From what I’ve read on tankspot forums it’s pretty important for prot warriors to have (at least) 26 expertise. Recently my buddy has told me that he MTs with significantly less than 26 exp and experiences no threat issues. Is that true? Do I need to have 26 exp or can I MT ToC 10/25 with 16 exp or less? Thanks
First read up on one of my old articles: http://www.tankingtips.com/2009/01/07/expertise-is-always-better-than-hit/ I suspect that both of you are pursuing hit rating at times when you could be getting expertise instead which is a mistake especially if you’re under 26 expertise skill.
Now to address your questions or more to the point, to let the address themselves. The first question suggests that lack of expertise is why his tps is low whereas the the second question suggest expertise isn’t necessary. Who’s right?
Neither of them.
As I wrote a while back on threat, threat rarely has anything to do with a person’s gear. Low threat is usually caused by pushing the wrong buttons or pushing the right buttons too slow. The larger problem though is that low is a relative term and what is low threat in one situation may not be low threat in another. To the first question, I suggest you check out the link at the start of this paragraph and give it a read through. I’m not implying you’re new to 80, but that post has the same answers I’d end up re-typing here.
So, why is the second person wrong too? They’re neglecting the survival aspect of expertise as well as ignoring the dps benefits of reaching the soft cap on expertise too. This is especially an error if he’s doing it in order to acquire more hit. That said, there isn’t a magical number of expertise that you need to tank ToC10/25 with. Expertise isn’t like defense. No tanking stat really is. So, I have no idea if you’re ready for ToC10/25 and whether you had 16, 26 or 46 expertise, I still couldn’t really tell you. However in my experience, if you’re willing to ask the question, you’re probably ready. If you can convince your healers to do it, you’re probably ready. If your healers don’t resist and cringe a little, you’re probably overgeared for the content, in fact!
The reality is, 99% of the WoW population always outgears the content they do. There’s no better indication of this than the world first raid guilds that always are getting their kills with worse gear than you’re using. Which isn’t to say you don’t need any gear, of course you do, but it is to say that it’s rarely gear that’s going to hold you back. Which leads me to my final point, if you’re asking me if it’s okay for you to skip Naxx or Ulduar and head straight for ToC10/25, no, it’s not okay. The best gear may not be there, but the best experience is. Do as much content as you can, that’s going to prepare you far more for Icecrown than an extra piece of item level 245 loot.
Mail #5: Not getting to do Naxx
Ok so I read up on getting geared for Naxx. I got 540 defense after week of hustling. What I don’t understand now is why everyone tell me that I’m not ready for Naxx? I though 540 was the minimum I needed to be considered for tanking. Everyone tell me I need 33-38k just the tank Naxx. I was also told that I couldn’t do heroics because of my low health. I’m so pissed right now because I read up on everything for the last 3 weeks. I know certain tank pieces I have are blues. I’m getting the 8.5 chest and Helm this week. But what am I doing wrong. Where I’m going to find 5k more of health? Just to do heroics? Can someone guide me here or give updated guide of requirements? Sorry about my tone…..I’m just really pissed about this because I really want to get some exp as tank and move to the next level.
You must walk before you can run.
Now I know that you’ve done a decent number of heroics, frankly, a lot more than most people that send me an email like this, but I’d still keep doing them and more to the point, do the ones you’ve been avoiding. You know which ones I’m talking about. However, your larger issue is your attitude. You’ve been 80 less than a month and you expect to tank instead of someone else because you’ve hit 540 defense. You’ve got to understand that if pugs are telling you that you can’t tank, that’s the way it goes, pugs always want overgeared tanks, but if guildies are telling you that you can’t tank then they don’t trust you yet. You have to earn their trust. It takes more than gear to tank, a lot more. Basically, saying you lack the gear is just a nice way of saying, you’re new.
And you are new. Accept that. Run heroics. Over and over and over again. Bide your time, you’ll get your chance. There’s really no rush. After all, you’ll get better gear from farming emblems anyway. Eventually, you definitely should do Naxx and eventually, you’ll get that chance… just be patient. It’s very possible your first Naxx run will end up being a face smashing, speed run and you won’t learn a damn thing from it anyway. My point is check your attitude. Tanking is a privilege. It’s a responsibility that’s earned. The last thing you want to do is throw a fit, stir up a bunch of drama and get into a raid that way.
I’ve seen a lot of people go that route. You know what happens? Your guild dies or your guild kicks you. You travel from guild to guild, you maybe make your own guild, but in the end, you accomplish nothing and you stop tanking to pvp. You blame everyone else except the person responsible, yourself. Great tanks aren’t great tanks because they’re raiding. They’re great because they’ve endured the mental bumps and bruises of time. They’ve learned to take responsibility for their attitude and their actions and through doing so, they’ve learned how to make others trust them.
So until next time folks, remember, it’s a people game.
November 17th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
I particularly liked the answers about expertise/hit and threat.
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November 17th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
A quick tip on the Heroic NRB encounter.
I am a warrior tank that tanks it with a Paladin…. although any well geared tank will do.
We have the paladin tank first and go to three stacks. That allows me to charge in battlestance, get up 5 sunders and then shattering throw. After that, my job is to get back to defensive, keep Tclap, demo shout, commanding shout up and 5 stacks of sunder.
I taunt and I have it for exactly 4 stacks. Depending on the RNG, you can handle 2 impales without dying… (Although the second one will hurt. If in doubt, use last stand). There are 10 seconds between impales. Shield wall lasts 12 seconds. With 1 second left before the third impale, use shield wall. You will be protected through the 4th impale. The other tank needs to grab it right at 4 impales on you (when his drops off).
Our pally tank then stacks it to 3 impales and gets a cooldown from a priest or paladin (Guardian Spirit, Pain Suppression, Hand of Sacrifice) similar to plasma blast on Mimi. He them bubbles and takes it to 3 again.
After that, I pick it up. He took 3, I took 4, he took 4 and then 2 more. There should only be 1 or 2 left. You can either tank that without cooldowns or call for a similar one as the pally.
That means you can two tank the fight, use 2 external (non tank) cooldowns and get through the fight. After Gormak dies, have another pally bubble you (remember to click off the bubble!) and now you are tanking worms with no impale bleeds and the pallys are almost done (he cant rebubble).
We use a range tank for acidmaw and the pally and I dual tank dread. That way one can tank and the other can run the fire debuff around (Intervene FTW). I can scoot across the room and get back VERY quickly. Have all melee on dread (to avoid the tail wipe) and ranged on acid. Warlocks are great range tanks. After the first burrow, EVERYONE is on acidmaw and you bloodlust. Get him down before they burrow again and you have yourself a ballgame.
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Eamonn reply on November 17, 2009 6:11 pm:
Just want to check your Impale order. Is this correct:
Paladin goes to 3.
Warrior goes to 4 using Shield Wall to cover last impales 3 and 4.
Paladin goes to 3 using a healer cooldown for the 3rd impale.
Paladin bubbles, cancels immediately and goes to 3 again.
Warrior tanks last 2-4 using healer cooldowns if needed.
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mookey reply on November 18, 2009 1:52 am:
We do this way with bit changed system.
1) I take him to 2 stacks on me
2) OT (either pala or war) takes 4
3) I take and take 4 again
4) OT takes 1
5) I take one (sometimes not)
There are two BIG/HUGE hints here:
Armor:
Armor, armor and if I didn’t mention - even more armor. There are 2 abilities with stun/loss of avoidance mechanics in this fight - first is staggering stomp and 2nd is on P3 Ferocious But… Ok right, stamina is fine and you will soak it more with bigger pool but armor will reduce that damage and your healers will bread much more and wont get heart attack each time. Getting pieces like cloak from Nax, legs from Ulduar and armor trinket from badges can get you up to 33~K raid buffed with Black Heart proc and armor pot you are close to 45K armor which I think is armor cap. Use it AND abuse it.
All big cooldowns except pain suppression lasts for 12 seconds, while impale timer is on 10 sec break. Use cooldown for 2 impales when you have to. This way you can easily tank 3rd and 4th impale without problems.
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Eamonn reply on November 18, 2009 6:27 am:
I think you must be leaving something out here. Thats only 12 impales total (assuming you take that one at step 5). That would mean you are getting him down with 30 seconds remaining on the spawn timer for the jormungaur. I won’t say its not possible but the DPS required to kill him that fast would be pretty insane.
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Unger reply on November 19, 2009 5:43 pm:
Actually I believe the Gormak encounter is 150 seconds and since he doesnt impale the moment you pull him, you get 10 free seconds. After that, if you kill him 1 second before the worms spawn, you only have to take (I believe) 13 impales.
Clint reply on November 18, 2009 10:28 am:
One thing I like to do on beasts is clear the bleed the ol’ fashioned way… ie… somewhere towards the middle / end of that phase, let one of the tanks take ALL the bleed stacks and start chaining cooldowns and pumping healing into them. I got up to 6 or 7 stacks before I went down.
(for context, we had 2 warrior tanks, no pally in raid {lol i know}, and were druid heavy)
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Brute reply on November 24, 2009 3:51 pm:
If you don’t have a /cancelaura macro ready to remove the bubble (while most mainspec tanks do, some offspec don’t), your pally can use BoP to clear stacks followed immediately with a Hand of Freedom to remove the BoP.
My raid group has done it with all combinations of warriors, pallies and druids though no DK to date but it wouldn’t be an issue. We go to 4 stack each time, using a CD to get through the later stacks, trying to overlap as much as possible. E.g. 12 sec Shieldwall covering 2 impales.
It also helps to give your healers a warning before you taunt so that they are prepared for the tank transition and heal appropriately (we do at around 3-5 secs to go so that they can burn a few GCDs if they need to). Some tank deaths have occured due to healers being unaware of the incoming taunt and not pre-empting the incoming damage.
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November 17th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
As for #1 (Beasts). 50k hp buffed with only 27-29k armor might be another culprit. Maybe try shuffling few items with +stam for +armor?
I’m still using Saronite Plated Legguards on this fight even with 258ilvl version of Legguards of Feverish Dedication, because of that added armor (been using ol, good Cloak of the Shadowed Sun too).
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Furiat/Vege reply on November 17, 2009 3:46 pm:
Ofc double potting armor pots is another obvious way of lowering damage. I drink one before pull and save second for Icehowl (that bastard hits like a truck too).
Our tanks’ transition is quite typical on this fight. MT1 starts and gets 4 stacks, then MT2 (usually that’s me on that fight) taunts Gormok and gets his 4 stacks. MT1 should have his debuff finished by that time and taunts him back. MT2 gets his bubble and waits for 4 Impale stacks on MT1, then taunts Gormok back. MT1 gets his bubble, MT2 shouldn’t have more than 3 Impale stacks till the end of that phase (we kill him on second turn of MT1 tanking atm, so it’s even easier).
I’m using Last Stand, Enraged Regen, use on Glyph, sometimes use on Satrina’s and Stoneform on my first transition, saving glyphed and talented Shield Wall for my second turn.
At least that’s what worked for us.
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Cleaved reply on November 17, 2009 11:54 pm:
We do this very same thing and it works like a charm. I think Vene’s setup is best for guilds just getting to the content without the best of gear though. It allows for more fall-backs and less chance.
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Furiat/Vege reply on November 17, 2009 3:49 pm:
Ah, last thing to be noted: tanked it together with warrior, bear and dk as a second tank. Used other configurations too: bear+dk, all tanks were viable.
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November 17th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
What we do on Northern beasts is having 3 tanks. We swap on 2 debuffs, at no point during Gormok fight any of us ahs more then 2 stacks, and when he goes down last tank gets a pally bubble to get rid of debuff and be ready for worms. That way you don’t really have to worry about having specific tank classes or extent of using cooldowns to prevent tank insta gibs on Gormok.
On worms we have 1 tank on Acid and 2 on Dreadscale, those 2 rotate when 1 gets Bile the other taunts and first one goes somewhere i middle so anyone who gets poison can have it cleansed.
Good luck with the fight!
A
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Adrale reply on November 18, 2009 6:59 am:
We also use 3 tanks… it seemed like an obvious solution in a 25man raid.
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Furious reply on November 18, 2009 8:47 am:
we do this too - works great. The dps loss to the raid of 3 tanks vs 2 is not insurmountable, and it makes healing and coordinating much simpler.
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Furiat/Vege reply on November 19, 2009 4:25 am:
Whole instance is doable with two tanks, three seems to be too much for most of the instance (2/3 of beasts, Jaraxxus, Twins, Anub most of times are suited for two tanks), as you loose dps. Three tanks were too much for us for hard modes, as we needed more dps.
And 3 tanks on Gormok have yet another issue. You need more healers on tanks, that might lower your overall dps too. Our main tanks’ healing team is made from two pallies, each healing one of tanks with beacon on second.
So if you can spare yet another healer and dps, then sure, use 3 tanks, but as you can see, every solution have weaknesses.
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Furiat/Vege reply on November 19, 2009 4:27 am:
“Our main tanks’ healing team is made from two pallies, each healing one of tanks with beacon on second.” With the rest of healing team helping and on raid healing (5 healers on that fight). That makes all healing assigment easier with less targets to heal.
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Aethor reply on November 19, 2009 6:30 am:
Without stacking buffs up to 4 healing on the ones not tanking is not that big a deal, as it’s just the dot form 2 stacks, so no need to assign 3 healears for 3 tanks, just normal spam on MT and raid healers can take care of tanks not tanking atm. You are right about 3 being to much on some of other fights, but with dual spec it’s not an issue, just be sure your tanks have decent gear and proper 2nd spec so they can dps when needed, same goes for healers aswell. Flexibility is the key!
A
Furiat/Vege reply on November 19, 2009 7:13 am:
Sometimes tank’s second spec is another tankish spec. I know mine is. And you can’t change spec in fight, which means one (and later two) tank is doing nothing. Third tank on bugs phase brings nothing, same on Icehowl.
Farva reply on November 19, 2009 2:32 pm:
We do the same as Aethor in my guild, 3 tanks. Same rotation as he uses for Gormok, and same for the worms (bugs as you say Furiat).
While I won’t argue your point about 3 tanks not serving much purpose for Icehowl (other than 1 more tank left should the other 2 die), we’ve found it very useful for P2 with the worms, just as Aethor says above.
Drae reply on November 20, 2009 6:30 am:
We also use 3 tanks for NRB, the 2 stack bleed is not hard to heal through and is handled by our raid healers. It’s a very simple rotation for the tanks, and no-one is ever in a situation to die from the bleed, additionally more of the impales are mitigated by a SW type cooldown (6 impales total). Since each tank only ends up tanking 2 times (maybe 3 if your dps is weaker) you can have cooldowns active for every impale without resorting to externals.
3 tanks is also useful for the worms. We use a tank swap on dreadscale after bile so the tank is free to clear toxin without dreadscale beating on him. Ditto for the acidmaw tank wehn he get toxined.
November 17th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
people are spoiled by badge-filled tanks these days. i was tanking heroics back when they dropped emblems of heroism, in my mix of blues and 200-purples with 26k hp and doing fine. now, they’ll probably not even bother with tanks who were tanking heroics when the DPS were barely breaking 1500 much less 3500, thus putting more of a strain on healer mana due to longer fights, when healers had less mana. people used to go into Naxx barely better than that too. of course, they’d wipe and have to work hard on progression (lol naxx progression), but they did.
to heck with “walk before you can run.” there are people out there who can run just fine, but we’re so used to being overgeared that we forget this fact.
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Veneretio reply on November 17, 2009 6:42 pm:
You missed the point.
I’m not saying he’s undergeared, he’s not, but that’s not what he needs to hear. He has to earn his guild’s trust. Like it or not, that’s done by doing heroic after heroic and getting the best gems/enchants/gears you can before raiding. That’s how you show you’re dedicated. There’s nothing saying people have to give you a chance. You have to earn that chance and when you get it, learn from it.
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thebitterfig reply on November 17, 2009 7:43 pm:
i guess i did miss that part of it. apologies to that end. i think too many of us see so much gear fetishism that we leap to that conclusion when we see something sorta like it.
that said, when you as a guild have someone who is dedicated and working hard on gearing etc, and you think they are gear-wise ready, you gotta give them a boss or two. being the (n+1)st tank and always being the one sat down sucks. it isn’t about gear so much as never getting either [1] the raid experience they need to continue tanking raids [2] a chance to prove themselves. throw them up against Anub’rehkan in Naxx or Sarth in OS. Grobbulus would be another great one, as that’s a solid teaching fight.
i guess it cuts both ways. if your guild still isn’t having you tank anything when you’re over 33k unbuffed hp, 50% chance to completely avoid an attack, all epic gems and best enchantments, and so on, plus being there to tank any guildies through heroics to demonstrate non-gear dedication, then it is time for the guild to meet that dedication with raiding. perhaps not progression raids, but Ulduar and Naxx as appropriate to build experience and trust on both sides. either that, or the guild should just be honest that another tank for the relevant content isn’t needed, offer other a slot for other roles as skill/gear/guild needs allow, or part amicably.
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Bhig reply on November 17, 2009 8:18 pm:
I agree with what Vene is saying about trust and “reputation”. I get to tank all sorts of heroics and even Naxx on my alt warrior tank. He’s still got sub ilvl200 stuff, and even had one green until recently. The only reason I still tank with him is because everyone knows that I can tank.
Personally, I feel too many people feel they’re more capable than they are because of their gear. I’m sure there are some dps warriors out there witha pretty flash off set who reckon they could tank stuff really well even though they’ve never tanked a day in their lives.
November 17th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
To that last question I have to disclose my disagreement. A number of 33k+ Health for heroics is not “a little overgeared”, it’s totally ridiculous. When some pug on my server (admittedly tanks are in high demand) tells me I’m not geared enough I laugh em in the face and do some dailies or just idle in Dalaran before wasting my time with those.
I’ve tanked all heroics with 28k (and 540ish defense, still a few blues between random epics), with perfect healers and with awful healers. I’ve tanked Emalon when he came out with a Druid solo-healing. The tank does not have to be totally overgeared.
You’re basically telling to suck it up and live with that. I’d say on most realms it’s better to educate your pugs. Every little bit helps. Don’t give in to the madness of achievement linking and “tank needs X HP”. Maybe I’m spoiled because I’m in a decently well-known guild and also have guildies around often, but I’d rather not tank than be put through heroics, then 10man Naxx, then 25man Naxx, then 10man Ulduar, then only ToC.
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Veneretio reply on November 17, 2009 6:37 pm:
Yes, you’re 33k+ health for heroics is crazy, but then I’m not telling him to not do heroics. In fact, quite the opposite, I am telling him to do heroics and really all of my advice was directed at him assuming that his guild was the one giving him flak not necessarily just pugs. And as to whether you’re spoiled or not, I don’t think you are, your situation is by no means uncommon, but I do think you’re hurting yourself skipping steps.
The point of doing Naxx and Ulduar is for experience. Although I should point out that I never said you had to do both 10 and 25 mans, but I do strongly believe you should tank every single fight in both Naxx and Ulduar multiple times. Furthermore, you should really go out of your way to learn Malygos with a not insanely geared group as it’s a great tank test too.
As you said, every little bit helps. Every little bit can help yourself. It’s foolish to believe the problem is only pugs. The whole point of my last answer was to take some personal responsibility. Don’t expect people to just hand you the right to tank, earn it and accept that everyone has something to teach you.
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BlindseerJB reply on November 18, 2009 7:56 am:
It seems though, that he has been unable to tank heroics…
“I was also told that I couldn’t do heroics because of my low health.”
I see this same issue on my warrior. People want Ulduar/ToC geared tanks to run heroics, which makes it hard for anyone new to tanking to get the groups for the experience. It’s easy to dps heroics for badges to get the gear, but it makes it difficult to learn how to tank.
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November 17th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
As has been said, armour is awesome on Gormok. If you’re worried about dieing, and not using indestructable pots, you’re doing it wrong. The armour trinket is great too.
Also, make sure you’re timing your CD’s around impales. 12 second CD’s can protect you from 2 impales, so there’s really no risk of dieing.
And, I tanked Naxx for the first time at 23k health. Everyone did when we first hit 80. Although, convincing a pug to let you tank at a lower gear level when they can find a better geared tank may be tough. You just have to keep at it, and keep collecting gear and badges.
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November 17th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
I feel the pain of the person\s who wrote mail#5. I left my warr at 70 and re-rolled a dk of the opposite faction to play with friends. I’m a casual player and I didnt start right when WotLK came out so I was a lil behind everyone when I did get to 80. However I had no problems doin heroics and tanking 10man naxx with guildies. Yet over the summer I decided to go back to my warr and lvl him to 80, get to deff cap. Now the server he is on suffers from this terrible mod called ‘GearScore’, and got tons of crap about how I didnt have the gear to tank heroics. Was I all epiced out? nope, but I know how to tank. Was I anymore geared than when i started heroics on my dk? nope. It seems to me that people become lazy, and just want to afk through heroics and content that is not the bleeding edge. This game has become a joke for the most part. CC? what the heck is CC? FF? what is that? Anyone remember lvl60 instances? Or Heroics Shattered Halls? To the people that wrote you emails like #5 I say ‘Keep your chin up. Tank when you can and let people think what they want. Learn from your mistakes. And stupid people in pugs WILL make you a better tank! Just make sure you learn the basics not just of tanking but the game itself.’
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Lifeliss reply on December 15, 2009 5:42 pm:
All this talk is over and over of course with the new gear comes new expectations from dps and heals alike. I deal with this the easiest way I know how. You simply state ” I know how to tank and the gear does not define my ability.” If that statement is not accepted, do not argue, fuss, or cause a conflict that will ultimately show your ignorance and disgrace your guild’s name; just accept it and move onto a group that does accept you and do what you know how to do. TANK the crap out of heroics. I have started tanking at about 21,000 health in heroics and never looked back.
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November 17th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Perhaps an addendum to Mail #5 re: not getting to tank Naxx:
I agree with you Vene, but I might even go a little further. Why even do Naxx for gear? When I started up my warrior again after a 9-month break, I had 23k and was barely heroic-ready. I challenged myself to gear out without stepping foot in a 10-man or higher. Thanks to heroics, daily heroics, daily quests and actually useful craftables (your gear lists were a great resource), I never stepped foot in Naxx 10 for items. The very first raid I tanked for WotLK was Ony 10. And I had about 34k hp by then.
So try the route less traveled and earn your gear badge by badge. By the end, you’ll be glad you earned it.
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November 17th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
3 Tank the beasts is your best bet on the 1st fight. With duel spec this shouldn’t be a problem but 2 tanking it just seems super tough.
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November 17th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
If you have the income to support it, heroic gear (mostly HToC) + crafted items will get you ready for anything up through ToC. We cleared 10man ToC last week with both tanks having less than 33k unbuffed (war + DK). Both were very experienced with the zone and had our usual MT guiding them through it though. As Vene said, gear is rarely the issue. If you don’t have the experience though, then you’ve just got to put in the time and practice.
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November 18th, 2009 at 12:29 am
Set1
First time I tanked naxx was 24 hours after I turned 80. Never had a tank before and although I raided since vanilla that was a scary experience. I had 30324 life 10 men raid buffed. Now a days I hear ppl requiring more than 30-36K health for heroics. It is a phase, the population has gotten lazy, they dont want to work, watch omen or cc or carefully pull. There is nothing you can do. I agree with Vene, it will take time to make a name for yourself, have people trust your abilities more than your gear… run heroics if your good, you will get invited back. One day by accident I had my RP-set on and the question of my health never came to be, ppl were told I’m good and I got in on reputation, but that reputation has to be earned, and it sucks but it does take time.
There are two stages to being the best tank:
stage one: you are the best tank
stage two: you don’t need to prove it anymore.
Good luck and be patient you will need a lot of it when you start tanking progression style raids.
Set2
About the T9 choice, I found that there are tank shoulders in 10Toc(and togc) that drop with one and two sockets respectively, they have block,parry def as stats and I am currently using them with helmet+legs for shield block value and chest gloves for avoidance… I found this change to gib my initial threat of each fight (boss parry of that crucial SS or Dev) but over all busted my survivability, I have about 2300 BV and that gives me a chance to block 10K from boss hits, which I found very neat (I have 11 Exp) and my raids understand that my threat generation is slow for the first 10 sec, they have adjusted. I would look into them ^^
Ali
PS sorry for the long thing…
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November 18th, 2009 at 4:21 am
rofl Vene I love “Mail #5: Not getting to do Naxx” Post. Your answer to it is both humorous and true. You don’t know how often I hear that. My problem with that though is that if you only have a tank spec, it’ll be hard for you to run heroics as a dps to get tank gear (since your dps is next to nothing). Like you said…walk before you run…eventually Tanks will begin to “run” raids
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November 18th, 2009 at 5:37 am
I agree with the answer to #5, and I know the feeling a bit as well. I leveled a prot warrior as an alt, but since he hit 80 he’s really become my main. And I can’t repeat it enough, “Gear is easy, Experience is what’s important!” Does it suck having people think you can’t tank? Yes it does. But exactly as Vene said, you have to build up that reputation, and gain people’s confidence. You also need to build confidence in yourself. As a tank you need to get to the point where you just react, you don’t think about every little thing. And you can only get to that point by repetition.
Experience is one of those things you can’t short-cut.
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November 18th, 2009 at 6:54 am
Regarding Beasts, the most important part (if we consider that you gear appropriately) is use of CDs in a proactive manner, both yours and others from the raid. A tank getting hit at 60k in 0.5s isn’t going to be saved by any healing, such a death can be directly attributed to lack of CDs.
My guild downed them recently, we had success both with 2 and 3 tanks (1 more tank = 1 healer less) but settled on a 3 tank setup in order to have an easier time with the worms (OT3 taunts when fire worm OT gets the debuff).
I mostly agree on #5 on the guild side (if that is his problem), somewhat less on the pug side (though there isn’t much you can actually do on that side).
That being said, i found it quite easy to reach a level of gear where no pug should refuse you on reasons of gear alone. My warrior is a 3rd toon, i levelled him to 80 mid october, and was able to reach 34-35k unbuffed + MT Vezax 3 weeks after (with a reroll raid from another guild). This did cost some money (Ulduar belt and boots, ToC bracers, BoE ulduar cloak and OS ring), some luck on heroic 5-mans + ToC5 farming, and having anticipated pug mentality by getting my hands on the 2 stam brewfest trinkets, but at 34-35k unbuffed no pug should refuse you on reasons of gear alone.
At the moment, i haven’t anything equiped that isn’t from badges or heroics, and am still missing some upgrades even from there. And appart from the trinkets, my gear does put me as good for anything up to ToC25 normal. I do older content for fun, alternative set options, tier sets and such plus a few upgrades, but in terms of gear level i’m good for pugs doing ToC25. A bit sad in a way, but that’s how things are at the moment and the 3.3 instances will probably make this even more pronounced.
So, gear being relatively easy to get, it’s indeed reputation or guild adaptability and such that will help you further.
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November 18th, 2009 at 8:10 am
for question #5. I am at 8.5 badge gear. and I never put a foot in nax10 or 25 but I went trough uldar10, since my guild is full of 24+ age people. so we are kinda casual players. our first try at uldar we did 4 boses easy. and that was omfg how good I am lol.
the problem is that people don´t want to do middle content and everyone wants to go directly to toc 10.
I also have tanked koralon10 and 25. piece of cake. really. the only one that is hard to tank is emalon I think it is the most dificult of the three ´coz the adds. but I handle rally good.
now I am waiting for patch 3.3 to get some easy badged from heroic to have tier9 in my warrior
guys tank everything or at least try it! expirience > gear
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November 18th, 2009 at 9:20 am
I think the questions about Heroic Beasts and about expertise vis-a-vis threat are not as much about your tanks, as they are about your raid’s DPS.
Gormok is trivial to three-tank, each tank taking two stacks before rotating. It’s incredibly stable, and the strategy doesn’t strongly prefer one or more Prot Paladins. Each tank only tanks 20 seconds of every minute so one or more cooldowns/trinkets will always be up for Impale applications (this is especially important during the later stages when Mounting Anger is stacked to non-trivial stages).
The obvious downside is one more tank equals one fewer DPS, which can mean 5-10k less overall raid DPS, depending on how much your third tank’s Feral/Boom/Fury/DK/Ret spec can push out. If your DPSers are bad, the raid might not get Gormok down before the worms activate. So making the tanking of Gormok trivial depends on your DPSers not being terrible.
Tank TPS is another problem solved by great DPS, because with great DPS, your Rogues will complain less about burning Tricks on the tank instead of trading it among themselves. Threat is just never a problem with Rogues rotating their tricks onto me, even when I’ve dropped every threat stat possible for more survival.
That being said, the value of expertise cannot be overstated. A thread on Maintankadin (http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/forum/index.php?f=6&t=25611&rb_v=viewtopic) showed that expertise is actually a significant avoidance stat. The specific math pertains to Paladins, but the principles apply to Warriors too. As such, I tend to strongly prefer expertise gear over other gear. In fact, there’s no fight in current content except Algalon where I wear 4T9, preferring instead to use gloves/shoulders/legs with Beasts chest and badge helm; and I’d switch out legs for Jaraxxus legs if they were real and not mythical.
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November 18th, 2009 at 9:31 am
So… in regards to Mail #3. The first query was from me. I realized a few things about what was going on with my tps:
1) The expertise was affecting it, if only slightly. It was more of a “I have Imp Revenge and I am not using it instead of devastate.” Doing this made my craptastic 6k tps go up to it’s normal 7k tps.
2) FWIW, I didn’t realize I was in my EH set….fail.
3) I have a set that is specifically setup for threat and avoidance (26 expertise 225 hit and 85% avoidance) which is what I should have been wearing.
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November 18th, 2009 at 10:30 am
I see alot of people talking about tank health/gearscore for heroics. The issue really is where we are in this xpac. By now most tanks (that have been playing in the xpac) have at the very least ilvl 232. I know on our server its not that PUGers are lazy it’s that they want the most bang for their buck when running a heroic. Heroics take 15-20 per with a well geared grp so more return on your time (I know it’s not fair to new tanks)
The whole over gearing heroics is nothing new as well. The same thing happened in BC once we all got t6 and could just smash our way through H Shattered Halls and H Shadowlabs (which were tough before you out geared them). Heck after farming BT raids such as ZA that were hard became trivial as well. Again it is a product of where we are in the xpac.
I feel for the tanks that are trying to break into raiding now that we are into WOTLK for over a year. Most ‘progression’ guilds are set on tanks atm getting ready for Arthas not looking to take on a new one. The best time to be a tank is when an xpac comes out and everyone’s gear is basically reset. Then you can EARN your spot as a tank from the beginning.
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November 18th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Right now heroics offer a fun alternative for an experienced tank. I like to PUG them with a minimum of defense (535) and load up on crit and block value. Reiteratively crushing the hapless mobs for 11k+ Shield Slams often puts me at the top of the DPS.
I can’t realistically exceed the DPS pumped out by my guildies, or even come close. PUGs, however, often provide moments of hilarity and an ego boost as they realize that myself and the healer are doing 90% of the work.
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November 18th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Stacking armor + double potting Indesctructible Potions and smart cooldown use is how we tank Gormok.
As to the being under-geared for heroics… You’re a tank, it’s not LFG it’s LFM
Agree on the expansion comments. At the beginning of LK I think I had around 23K HP and 22K armor as a shiny new level 80, a week after launch. It’s certainly not that these pathetic heroics require Ulduar/CC gear - it’s that a year later that’s where the average tank who has been playing since launch is at. Be patient, tank what you can with friends and guildies - tank a lot - prepare for Cataclysm. An expansion is the best time to make your move for a raid tank spot anyway - as others have said at +1 year nobody needs tanks for raids especially not now with 4 classes.
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Dreador reply on November 19, 2009 9:30 am:
Quote: As to the being under-geared for heroics… You’re a tank, it’s not LFG it’s LFM
x2.
Ciderhelm had written, back in the day, in Fortifications on the Warrior forums to buck up and take command. Tanking is the natural position of leadership, and as a tank, you need to expect to be expected to lead. That said, every day when it’s time to pug the daily heroic, I go to trade chat and type: LF heals and DPS H xxxxx daily.
Amazingly, I fill the group in 5 minutes or less.
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Casttello reply on November 19, 2009 9:54 am:
I always get a chuckle as a tank and a healer when i see “lfm random h. need tank and heals”. 3 dps is not a group.
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Seph reply on November 19, 2009 2:13 pm:
You know what makes me mad is when I see a warrior in LFG channel looking for a tank……. YOUR A WARRIOR Learn2tank!
Furious reply on November 23, 2009 9:59 am:
my favorite is when you find those 3 dps in the LFG tool and its a combination of 3 dk/warrior/paladin/druids. mind-boggling that between them they don’t have a tank or heal spec available. I had one the other day which was 4 tank-capable classes begging in /trade for a … tank. At least one of them manned up and volunteered to heal
Dreador reply on November 19, 2009 10:33 am:
Also to add to that; I got invited as a tank to a 25 man Ony pug on Tuesday, along with 2 other tanks that had a slightly higher gearscore. One tank kept asking about assignments in raid chat, and other people kept asking “who’s MT?”, over and over. And I watched as no one answered either questions, so I spoke up.
“Holye tank the left side whelps, I’ll get the right, Brusk get the elites.”
“Who’s on Ony?”
“I am, do a ready check and let’s go.”
See what I did there? No one assumed command, so I took it. They were waiting for this inexperienced, undergeared, underskilled raid leader to make a determination based on things he did not understand.
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Manicus reply on November 20, 2009 11:20 am:
^^ This.
Assume command. DPS and healers know squat about the fight. You do. You are the only thing keeping everyone from being eaten by baddies. Use it to your advantage.
November 20th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Long time reader, first time poster. Love this site Vene.
As regards the first question about a warrior tanking Northrend Beasts, I am a warrior who has been successfully tanking it for a few weeks. These are the things I have learned.
On Gormok, we use a 3-6-X rotation and 2 tanks. Our first tank (a paladin quite often) takes the first 3 impales, and I taunt. I then hold Gormok through 6 implaes, using the following cooldown rotation:
0: Pop an armor pot right before the first impale.
1-2: Nothing. If you die here, healing is failing.
3: Shield block
4: Trinkets (Satrina’s/Juggernaught & Heart of Iron for me)
5: The big one. At 1 second before the 5th impale I chain Last Stand and Shield Wall together. If you get gibbed, it will usually be on 5. Trinket effects should still be up when #5 hits.
6: Enraged Regen, Stoneskin, whatever is left. Last Stand and Shield Wall will still be up if you timed it right.
At this point the first tank taunts it back off of me, and a ret paladin uses HoP on me to clear the bleeds. The reason this method works is because the most dangerous thign in phase 1 is tank transitions. Healers lose time every time you taunt needing to reapply HoTs, etc. Fewer tanks is better.
The other tank tanks him through to the very end. If your DPS is insufficient to kill the Snobolds and Gormok before the worms come out, leave the 4th Snobold out. If that Snobold is on a healer, be ready to use cooldowns to keep them and the tanks alive until DPS can help. Once Gormok goes down, zerg the Snobold down before the worms activate.
As for the final phase, Icehowl, the best thign a tank can do is to watch for Ferocious Butt. If this is applied to the other tank, you need to TAUNT. one thign to watch for is every time after he hits the wall the tanks need to recongregate in the middle. As soon as he reaches a tank he will do the headbutt every time. Be ready to taunt and save the other tank’s life.
That’s all I have…good luck!
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John reply on November 20, 2009 2:57 pm:
And one more quick thing: as the offtank during the 3rd set of impales you can watch the other tank closely. Intervene is VERY powerful here. If you time it right you can actually take an Impale and save their life. I usually watch the timer very closely along with the other tank’s HP. If he is low within 1 second of an expected impale, I intervene to him and take either the impale or the followup melee swing. Either way, he lives. Do NOT do this if you have a glyphed Intervene for some reason though!
Also, Vigilance. Put it on the other tank after you finish your impales. No DPS should be high enough to be an issue at that point because of the distraction of the snobolds. You can cut the other tank’s damage by a full 3%.
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November 23rd, 2009 at 9:25 am
It seems like the majority of posters are using two tanks. We moved to three early on in our work with this encounter and it helped us stabilize things immensely. I guess it pushes us closer to enrage but we’ve made the timer every time.
You just swap tanks after two stacks.
1) DPS doesn’t necessarily drop as much as you might think. Compare your worst dps player to the tank dps. He’s maybe double. We’re talking 2k raid dps at most. If it’s a warrior tank, that takes care of sunder duty, worth 500 dps right there.
2) The timers feel tight but they aren’t, and dps can be increased a lot with some organization. If everyone is alive the whole fight, you will smash the timer. Having a third tank increases the likelihood of everyone being alive, by taking stress off the healers and allowing good positioning in phase 2.
3) Phase two. The first fire debuff is going to go on a tank. Have the spare tank taunt, and send the debuffed tank to the center of the room (which you’ve left open). Then anyone with poison can get there easily. If a tank gets poison (one of the dangerous situations in this encounter) then your spare tank taunts off him, kites the boss, and someone can easily get in to free the poisoned tank without toasting the entire melee team.
4) Phase three. The third tank is pretty useless here, but if you get to this phase with everyone alive, then the kill is in sight.
5) Stabilizing the tank rotation allows you to feel safe enough with 6 healers, and if you still need the dps, have one of those healers dps instead of healing ridiculous levels of dot damage. Also, not having to bubble your tanks like crazy saves the paladin tanks from getting debuffed — so they can do their shield-wall thing in phase 2.
6) Tank death in phase 2 is not a wipe if you have a spare.
It seems to me that many raid teams are worried about an enrage timer when they can’t clear phase one reliably. Getting the confidence up and getting long attempts in is the most important thing you can do, and the best approach to that is a third tank.
Of course you have to beat the phase 1 and phase 2 timers. Tricks for that are to a) kill only the first four snobolds (clear the other two as worms show) and b) put melee on the kited add in phase 2, so they don’t eat knockbacks and get dps reduced. Further we bloodlust phase 2 to limit the number of submerges, since submerges cost a lot of time.
Phase three make sure healers are dpsing on crashes.
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November 23rd, 2009 at 9:29 am
One more thing. While you’re learning the fight, bloodlust during phase one, and get your priests to throw their two dots on the boss. You can’t learn a fight while you are dead. Once you’ve learned the fight, THEN worry about boosting your dps to the required levels. You’ll find that’s easy.
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Brute reply on November 24, 2009 4:11 pm:
Marking Snobolds..
While you are waiting in line for your turn to taunt and begin tanking… mark Snobolds.
With nameplates on, you will see that Gormok picks up the Snobold from off his back, hold them in his left hand a moment, before throwing them into the raid.
While the snobold is in his hand, the nameplate is active and you can target/mark the snobold. Depending on your raid group, and especially in PuGs, this can improve your DPS time on snobolds by having the raid switch earlier/more easily.
While Gormokk is a tank/healer gear check in Uld gear, by the time you have some TOC gear tank death becomes less of an issue, its about coordinated DPS and reducing avoidable raid damage.
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November 24th, 2009 at 10:51 am
About Mail #5.
I understand the “build trust” point, and I think the advice is sound. But I can also see the Mail5’s point, my counterquestion(s) as a prot warrior would be:
- If I have to be overgeared for Naxx in order to do Naxx, what will Naxx actually teach me (other than: hey, look, badges - and don’t stand in the fire!)
- I’m tanking Ulduar-10. If you need me to be in that gear to run Heroics (I’ve accidentally done that), then I’ll suck as tank - not enough rage => not enough threat (especially with those trigger happy AoE DPSers who blizzard/whirlwind as I’m running into the mobs).
On another note, why the heck doesn’t anyone run Naxx-25 anymore. I’m an Orc. I WANT/NEED/GIMME “Last Laugh”
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Bhig reply on November 25, 2009 1:18 pm:
On Naxx:
If you have never run naxx before (as any role) then there is still plenty to learn. Even with our group who’ve been together since the start of WotLK we still have people die in naxx. Not often, but there are deaths.
A few points:
1) Usually the whole group overgears naxx, which means that dps is quite high, but this also challenges tanks on initial threat. Getting your “rotation” correct in the first 10 seconds is pretty paramount. After the first 10 seconds or so it’s pretty much a cakewalk for threat. Learning to pull fast and hard is pretty much a must. Nothing worse than lucky DPS crits during a boss pull (or missing the first shield slam), DPS pulling threat and getting themselves killed. (Can also teach those trigger happy DPS to calm the F down. I will often let people die if they pull threat way too soon in the encounter.)
2) Some of the fights are still more about co-ordination and odd roles. Instructor, Gluth, and Grob come to mind. On Instructor your healers need to be on to it, particularly if you’re only running one. Gluth, depending on your strat will still require some odd efforts. Grob, you can now solo tank it easily, but will still need everyone else to do the right thing or there will be deaths.
3) It’s fun. Run less than a full group, try to speed run the whole place, take all the new DPS in the guild. If a lot of people in the raid don’t know the fights then Naxx will still claim plenty of souls.
We try to run Naxx, particularly for the alts and newbies to the raiding world. We find it a good fun place, that can be cleared quickly, but will still teach people some basics, even if they overgear the place.
On tank heroics in uld gear…
BIGGER PULLS! RAWR!
Yeah.. when I tank heroics firstly I chuck on the block set (wishing I hadn’t DE’d all those bits nows…), which is usually lower gear… and then I proceed to pull waaaaay too much stuff… It’s usually a laugh, especially when I over do it and die…
If we’ve got and A tank and healer in the group some of the pulls (and the speed of the pulls) get a bit ridiculous. E.G. H UK entrance, tanking every single one of those guys (I think there’s between 8 and 9 of em, and some do a knockdown/stun).
Well. That’d be my counterquestion answers.
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December 3rd, 2009 at 12:52 pm
We just got Heroic Beasts down for the first time the other night and I wanted to share how we approached it and let others know that a Warrior tank did it! (I was the warrior)
Stacks:
Paladin - 3 Stacks (No Cd’s just healing)
Warrior - 4 Stacks (5 sec into 2nd Impale, use Last Stand.)
Paladin - 4 Stacks (Pain Suppression used after the 3rd stack. Use BoP to clear stacks after 4)
Warrior -2 Stacks (Use Shield wall a few sec in before the first impale lands. Then Satrina’s a few sec later. I also carried a nightmare seed in case. Got a BoP from a ret pally to clear stacks just before worms came out.)
2 tanks, none of them with stacks when worms come out. 1 external CD and x2 BoP’s.
Ive heard of the range tank on the worms, never tried it.
Pally takes Acid and I take Dread.
When they go under we swap. When Acid is dead I stay to the side if needed to pick up Dread and prepare for Icehowl pickup.
I will say this, after 4 years of tanking that was the most intense encounter Ive ever done. A total blast. The pressure is on, you have new bosses on set timers, an enrage, sprays, and keeping threat on Icehowl.
I want more encounters like this.
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