Loading ...Handling the Fast pace of the LFG Tool
I have a theory. Tanks are creatures of habit. We do our tank thing at our tank pace. So, the LFG Tool throwing us into a million different types of pugs on a regular basis has come to something of a rude awakening to those of us that like to smell the roses while tanking.
The Need for Speed
Whether or not you should have to pull fast is a topic for another day. What we’ll look at today is how to pull fast. What makes those of us that can pull at a fast pace able to and what we’re doing different to stay comfortable while completing instances at pug friendly paces.
1. Don’t Loot
Perhaps the least obvious thing to do, stopping clicking on the sparklies is one of the easiest ways to speed up your runs significantly. At the end of a run, all you’ll be missing out on is some gray items to sell since your party members will ensure any items or gold gets looted. The time you save is probably worth more in the long run than the gray items were worth anyway.
2. Don’t wait for mana
Healers need a bit of mana. DPSers need none with bosses being the exception where you should wait a bit. You should always try to take a peak at your healers mana after every other pull, but make sure you’re moving while doing this. If the healer had to rez someone then you’ll likely have to pause for a second. Using abilities like Shield Block, Shockwave and Shield Wall constantly can ensure that you’ll take a lot less damage and keep your healers mana high always.
3. Don’t be texting people
You’re in a run or you’re typing. Not both. You’re a tank. You don’t have time for that. If someone needs to ask you something, they’re more than welcome to jump on Ventrilo and ask. If they don’t have your Ventrilo access then you probably don’t want to talk to them anyway. If you thought that this was about playing while texting on your phone then please just delete your tank right now.
4. Learn to tank and talk
A continuation of the above. You should expect to have to talk and tank at the same time so make sure whatever keybinding you have setup for talking doesn’t limit your ability to tank in any way.
5. Look ahead
When the mobs are low on health, it’s time to start scouting out what you’ll be pulling next. You don’t need to apply threat to anything with 20% health left since even if a DPSer pulls aggro, it’ll be dead before it does them any significant damage.
6. Don’t wait for combat to end
Not only should you be looking ahead when the mobs are nearly dead, but also already getting in position for the next pull. Whether you pull the next group immediately or not really has nothing to do with waiting to get out of combat and instead whether or not pulling it will keep you in range of your healer. If you have to run down 3 flights of stairs for the next group then there’s no point in grabbing them. If they’re in line of sight, go ahead and do it right away. The obvious exception being, if your healer is completely out of mana, if someone is dead or if the next pull is a boss.
7. Stop Tabbing
Target selection can make or break the speed of your run. If you’re trying to tab through everything to get to the new stuff you want to pull then you’re going to end up wasting valuable time. One click of the mouse should grab you exactly the target you want and ensure the pace of your run remains high.
8. Charge
Whenever possible, charge to pull. It’ll not only give you extra rage, but also get you there faster. This gives you more time to generate threat and the sooner you hit the threat threshold to which you can’t be passed by a DPSer… the sooner you can grab the next group.
9. Pull extra close groups
Simply put, if it’s close enough for someone to accidentally aggro it (or intentionally aggro it…) then it’s close enough to be pulled with whatever else you’re pulling. If it’s a group of 3 or a really ugly group of 2 then use your defensive cooldowns.
10. Don’t Wipe
Yes, it’s obvious, but always remember that if you wipe even a single time then all of the corners you cut to speed up your run have been for nothing. Sometimes, the fastest way to tank an instance is going to be sitting and waiting.
11. Wipe
You’ll never know what corners you can cut until they kill you. Part of what has made the fast pulling tanks so fast is that they’ve killed themselves over and over again pushing the boundaries of what is possible. Forget about your health and just keep pulling. Don’t watch the mini-map and just assume they’re behind you. Don’t ask where to go and just make the call yourself.
Get comfortable with “too fast”
Pulling fast isn’t just about completing 5 mans as fast as possible. It’s an important skill for raiding. Many raid encounters include things like gauntlets or waves of adds. The more comfortable you are at quickly picking up group after group of adds… the easier these types of raid encounters are going to be for you.
So, should you have to pull fast? I don’t know.
Is it worth learning to? Absolutely.
January 22nd, 2010 at 4:20 pm
I always take it easy for the first group to see how the DPS is stacking up (you can never tell in PuGs). If it seems that people know what they are doing and can handle the speed then I floor it and keep going.
I’ve stopped looting when I’m pushing the pedal down but some of those trash weapons can vendor for over 3g tho.
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January 22nd, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Re #3 - I concur, and also break this rule all the time. I actually find the best time to do this is in the middle of combat. I generally have a threat lead that auto attack will keep me from losing, so if I need to respond to something because I haven’t bothered hopping in vent, that is when I do it
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January 22nd, 2010 at 4:41 pm
This sounds pretty much exactly as i do. The only three instances i loot in is the new ICC for the hilt (is still around 10k-13k on AH on my server so kinda worth it).
Another tips that i could add is to get the “Dungeon Speedrun” addon and try to beat your own records. Ofc it depends on your group. But if you’re helping a guild alt to farm emblems or just have a good group its kinda fun.
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January 22nd, 2010 at 5:41 pm
Great Post!
I also find that the LFG, has brought together people over geared for the instance, meaning that the high DPSer’s all select different targets to go crazy on (Not my skull target). I have been able to keep aggro most of the time but I have been going crazy clicking on multiple mobs and building aggro.
But I would think a new 80 warrior who would not know the tricks would struggle. Has the new LFG tool made it harder for new tanks?
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Bane reply on January 22, 2010 7:46 pm:
I think the new LFG is too intimidating for new tanks - if you’re not a speed demon, people drop. There needs to be a “Learner” switch on the LFG tool, which would group you with other players learning the instances.
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Starbuck reply on January 23, 2010 3:28 am:
That would be normal mode wouldn’t it?
*$
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Arold reply on January 23, 2010 10:56 am:
I don’t think that counts. Healers and DPS “graduate” from normal mode very quickly anyway, and nowadays there’s not really any reason for DPS people to even do normal mode. Dang near every pug I’ve done in the last few weeks could have easily finished with four; a poor DPS isn’t a problem and they all know it. Hell, when I see poor dps, I get excited that someone might actually need the loot. Even poor heals aren’t really an issue anymore when dps is good.
I’ve tried to tank normal mode just for kicks, and it takes forever to get a group if it ever happens at all. And the guys I gotten the two times I’ve done it were not good enough to support a newb tank generally; only half of the other players were even level 80 (one dinged 80 in HoL on me, that was actually pretty cool) and it seemed like they were new players and not people’s alts. I really couldn’t imagine learning to tank in that environment.
Ciartan reply on January 23, 2010 3:56 pm:
@Bane
“I think the new LFG is too intimidating for new tanks - if you’re not a speed demon, people drop. There needs to be a “Learner” switch on the LFG tool, which would group you with other players learning the instances.”
I just dinged 80 for the first time last Sunday. Since then I progressed quickly through a few days of normal dungeons to learn the fights. Slowly I started mixing in heroics and now today did them exclusively. I just cashed in my first 35 Emblems for the Clutch of Fortification. So I would disagree with it being intimidating.
@Arold
“I really couldn’t imagine learning to tank in that environment.”
This is the only environment I’ve tanked in and seems to me to be the best by far for learning. At first I was forced to cope with low DPS and slow healing while in normal mode. This made sure I paid full attention during each and every pull. And now in heroic I’m learning to keep aggro from over eager DPS players whose gear score dwarfs mine. So, along with some patient players and some helpful advice I believe I am becoming an acceptable tank solely by PuGing.
I have no clue if my pace is fast enough but I haven’t been kicked as of yet (in spite of several wipes). For someone such as myself the dungeon finder has changed everything. All of a sudden I can: get gear I couldn’t get before; see fights I’ve only read about; play with people at a level far beyond mine; and enjoy tanking in the real sense of the word.
I always knew I would forever be a PuG tank, my schedule won’t allow anything else. But now I know that being a Pug tank doesn’t end with blues at 80.
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Arold reply on January 24, 2010 11:18 am:
o rly? Well nevermind what I said then. I guess the will and desire to tank can overcome any obstacle.
thebitterfig reply on January 24, 2010 9:40 pm:
There is a “learner” switch. It’s called “regular Lich King dungeon.” A friend of mine has been leveling a paladin tank partly with LFD - his first tank. I’ve been tanking since back when heroics dropped Emblems of Heroism, and I can tell you that leveling through tanking can teach you a lot about how to tank well. He doesn’t have the gear yet, but he’s more skilled than a lot of full epic tanks I see around.
Clint reply on January 25, 2010 7:52 am:
@Ciartan
Good story. I had similar experiences during TBC (sans-LFG tool). Behind the leveling curve, Shattered Halls as a warrior tank… talk about having a demanding group - man they were upset when i made the hunter trap, the rogue sap, and the mage sheep.
Fizzilator reply on February 2, 2010 8:16 pm:
I have found the LFG tool very intimidating as a new tank. I’ve been running as a pretty lousy DPS to try and not hold everyone back and the couple of time I tried to tank people outright left just from seeing my relatively low health.
Dideyedie reply on February 19, 2010 2:57 pm:
It’s good that some people are having a great experience tanking heroics with the Dungeon Finder (or PUG Finder, as I like to call it).
I will say that my experience has been almost binary — it’s either great, or awful.
I dinged 80 about 3 weeks ago now with my 3rd 80 — a deathknight — that I specifically leveled up to tank heroics. I’ve tanked before in BC and WotLK with my warrior both heroics and raids.
My DK is pretty well geared now for heroics (4/5 T8.5, badge gear + Icecrown heroic gear), so it is less of an issue, but while I was gearing up, it could be a serious problem. I felt like macroing in “If you let me get aggro on the group it will go better — after I hit the first mob, count to 3…then drop your aoe pew pew”. I had people pulling for me (and not the hunter md’ing)…and people single target nuking the 3rd or 4th target while the 1st was still alive. To be honest, I almost put the DK back in the freezer — but then I tanked H-PoS one night after a couple of cocktails. After a very mouthy, cocky warlock called me fail for doing 2k dps (note, I was tanking….and he was doing 2.8k….honestly, my warlock can probably wand auto-attack 2.8k)…I decided it was time to stop being reactionary and start leading as the tank. I told the lock to “please grab my target if you’re going to single target dps…or pew pew them in kill order…skull, then x…and I don’t care after that.” His response “go go fail tank.” So I whispered to the healer on a melee heavy pull — “Do not, under any circumstances heal the lock if he pulls aggro on this pull.” You can imagine what comes next — he targets one of the non-marked mobs and goes all out…pulls aggro…I let him get killed then deathgrip the mob back to me and we finish the pull. After more mouthing and bad behavior I stopped prior to the next boss pull and said to the group “I’m not having fun. I’m not a good tank when I have lower overall threat because I’m wasting valuable threat-building runes and cool-downs to keep the lock from getting killed because he’s being lazy and not targeting my target OR using the marked kill-order. If this continues, either he leaves or I leave. If he leaves we queue for a dps, fill instantly and finish our run. If I leave you queue for a new tank — and you wait for 10-15 minutes — then you still have the lock to deal with.” The lock responded with “Sorry, bad day — don’t boot me.”
I’ve done a similar thing since then with a ret pally who kept pulling packs while I runes on CD. Different immediate action (someone initiated a kick vote) but same end reaction (much quieter, quicker run).
This is not to say I advocate people being aggressive and holding the tank thing over people’s heads — but to say that I definitely wouldn’t be shy about leading — and as a leader let people know that there are choices and then implications. Be a good little pug dps and I happily tank for you all day, pulling as quickly as I can and taunting if you pull mobs off of me. Be a nasty little pug dps and I let you die (please deposit 25g for repair m’kay) and then either leave myself or vote you off.
Queues for dps are long. Queues for tanks are short. Don’t take abuse from pugs.
January 22nd, 2010 at 6:52 pm
One thing that may only be true in my mind…
I gear for block value in all heroics other than the ICCs…and sometimes I change to that if the group is fine.
I seem to get higher numbers from the dps I group with if I queue for the dungeon in my Heroic set than my Progression set.
I assume it has to do w/ the overall gear score you have and the group compensates slightly on their gearscore.
*shrug*
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Dread reply on January 25, 2010 10:59 am:
I believe it goes by all the gear your character owns in the backpack and bank slots as well, rather than just what you have on you.
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January 22nd, 2010 at 10:34 pm
Great post, and really something good for new tanks to read. I would however caution new tanks to dictate a slower pace in some of the newer heroics. The old ones… I’ve seen trash pulled and killed with a clothy tanking after I came back from AFK once. On an alt, I saw a feral cat tank in feral dps gear the entirety of Violet Hold, without ever going bear form. Another run, a Ret Pally tanked the latter half of DTK after a tank DC’d. In old heroics, pull crazy-fast, unless you are fresh 80 and new to tanking. In the newer heroics, I’ve seen decently-geared tanks get chewed up by trash/bosses because of bad heals or a lack of knowing what the trash/boss does.
Some thoughts on some points…
1. I have many poor poor guildmates with no gold because they don’t loot, and don’t have income from selling gray items. If someone can’t wait for you to loot, then let them die. I’ve posted in comments here before about how I steadily make gold without losing it, and I don’t do anything but the cooking and fishing daily each day… and sell trash loot. You make an average of 25-40g per Heroic, depending on how much trash and what drops. Repairs take a cut from there, depending on if you wiped or how many times.
*I don’t see saving time as a factor, since we Tanks insta-queue. This is also a good reason to leave a bad group in favor of just re-queuing. At most you wait 15 min or less for the debuff.
8. Charge, Tclap, Shockwave, click a target nearby and Heroic Throw, Tclap again, click and devastate/shield slam/hstrike mobs while stunned (you have multiple abilities, use one on each), and when they come outta stun, spell reflect if any casters exist. Don’t waste rage either, if you are overly geared you may not earn enough rage (especially with stunned mobs) to keep spamming abilities. Take off some Tank gear and throw on DPS gear if you have it.
Go at your own pace. You determine what “fast” is. If someone pulls faster than you like, simply let them die. This can be a challenge with over-geared people in heroics, they may just tank the mobs themselves. But its the principle of the thing. If you are a tank, you dictate pace, not some overzealous DPS. They will learn that slower is faster, if their version of fast means they die. Wiping is good if it gets the point home that you don’t want to do things the way the DPS want to. Challenging yourself is great as long as you have a good healer. Too many pugs via dungeon finder have a healer with a 12k mana pool that can’t even keep an ICC10/25 geared tank with 52k hp alive.
All in all, you will be a better tank for running the Heroic Daily Random with a PUG. I actually don’t go with guildies on purpose, because I know their tendencies and we work as a team. I become sharper by going into a pug with people that have no idea what to do, do their own thing or turn trash pulls into boss-fight length encounters. I’ve killed a few bosses with everyone laying dead on the ground, and it is amazingly good practice for CD priority and managing bosses/adds/trash without heals.
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Dreador reply on January 25, 2010 7:27 am:
As far as looting, if your guildmates are broke, it’s because they are lazy. Gold is a joke in this expansion. Even if you have no professions at all, simply doing the randoms + Wintergrasp can net you plenty with little effort in the form of epic gems. Even uncut off-color gems fetch a minimum of 100 gold on the AH and there’s always a market. Either way, you should have professions, and even as a minimalist you can make a profit.
For instance, I am a miner/JC. I farm about 45 minutes/day for ore. I prospect all the ore, cut and sell epic and blue gems, and sell green gems if they are up for 5g/each or more at the time. I smelt titansteel and sell the bars (full profit) and I do my JC daily to sell a dragon’s eye. That combined with all the epic gems I get per day to throw up on the AH. Again, I will state that with minimal effort
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Cleaved reply on January 25, 2010 8:10 am:
I am lazy as well, and pack-rat away most things instead of selling them. I still steadily earn gold rather than lose it, even with wipes and repairs being considered. I think other people waste their gold and don’t do the little things that steadily keep you in the black instead of the red.
If I actually sold most of the stuff I have, I might have even more gold. But what’s the point? I have a lot of gold and nothing to spend it on atm. Epic flying on every alt, Traveler’s Tundra Mammoth, and with an army of alts I farm every craftable/consumable, so I never have to spend gold on it. At least I’ll have a good stock for Cataclysm and profession leveling
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January 23rd, 2010 at 12:04 am
I normally pull fast and in large numbers since I feel even if the healer and DPS are weak I can handle it.
But it does have limits and I am constantly testing them.
For example today I pulled the entire room before King Yim in Heroic UP. The pat was down their too and got the Abomb in the corner.
With the fears and all the casters it proved too much and we wiped. So in the future Ill break it up a bit. However as Vene says if you don’t push your limits you will never know what your actually capable of.
Though when you do something you thought you couldn’t by testing your limits, it feels really good!
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mister six reply on January 23, 2010 12:09 pm:
There are challenge pulls like that room that you can do easily if you have faith in your healers and dps. It’s such challenge pulls that really speed up speed runs.
Disagree with Vene on the no tabbing comment. Mouse to select the guy you want to start on sure (say a flamebearer in PoS or a healer in HoR) but after that tab is bread and butter for obvious reasons. Especially in aoe-fests.
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mister six reply on January 23, 2010 12:13 pm:
Other challenge pulls include the the PoS gauntlet in one pull not two, the full gauntlet in CoS in one very long pull, the mob packs near Jagoda in OK, etc. It’s moments like these that warriors can feel like paladins. Great for building skill and confidence in your aoe tanking. And it’s all possible from internalizing the large majority of Vene’s suggestions above.
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Veneretio reply on January 25, 2010 2:33 am:
Ya, once you’re actually engaged on a pack, tabbing is fine. Although personally, I rarely ever tab aoe pulls anymore. It doesn’t feel reliable enough since AOE tanking seems to be more about responding to who is doing single target dps to the wrong target than it is doing enough AOE threat to handle AOE damage.
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January 23rd, 2010 at 12:07 am
O and have some fun for lords sake its a heroic!
2 friends and I did a late night one and ended up doing this:
http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f125/61924-hardmode-heroics-dtk.html
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ix reply on January 23, 2010 8:49 am:
Indeed. In a way it’s normal that you go fast because most people are there to farm badges (at least I usually am) but doing the new instances for the first time was a rude awakening indeed. You haven’t even run this instance before and there’s the DPS shouting at you for going too fast or *gasp* wiping.
Most of my fellow tanks have taken to vote to kick if a DPS gets in their face. You almost always get agreement from all other members and the rest will be more careful with what they so. I would prefer for the game mechanics to somehow encourage civility really, but I guess you’ll only get that when the encounters are hard enough, i.e. in the big raids. Not that I ever PUG those, I hear that’s sometimes a similar experience.
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January 23rd, 2010 at 3:55 am
#1
I always loot. Always.
Not looting is, in my opinion, the worst thing you can do. Greys sell for several g a piece, cloth can be sent to a tailor alt or made into bandages to then vendor, greens can be disenchanted or vendored, etc. The extra one to two seconds per mob that it takes to loot are definitely worth it considering the extra wealth you can accumulate.
Yesterday evening after ICC10 I did a quick daily heroic with some guildies. We ended up doing CoT4 with me on healing duties on my druid. My druid has skinning as a profession, so I was looking forward to the trash mobs before the third boss (the dragons), only to find out that NO ONE in my group was looting. “We want to finish here as fast as possible and then go to bed”. Never mind that 50% of the time is spent waiting for Arthas to finish his monologues.
Just as a comparison, I’ve been raiding for a year now with the other four people in the group. I probably have more gold than the four of them combined. And not having any gold issues is definitely an asset.
#3 Auto walk is your friend. I can’t think of a single instance where you can’t use auto walk at least a few times. Also a short pause in using your abilities to type during a boss encounter is acceptable if you first peek at omen to make sure no one will overaggro.
Chatting is something that I personally do at all times. I think it is quite rude not to answer people that message you. During progress raids that are hard(er) to tank I sometimes set up a DND which explains why I can’t respond, but during farm content or 5 mans I always reply.
I understand that most of these points are addressed to more inexperienced tanks, but even in that case when talking about speed of completion I think your DPSers and your healer are the limiting factor, and not how quick the tank is at pulling.
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thelordpsy reply on January 24, 2010 10:38 am:
NO. Bad. Don’t loot. Each Emblem of Triumph you get is worth 20 gold. If you speedrun heroics, you’ll average out to 24 emblems an hour, or almost 500g/h on emblems alone. Plus finishing dungeons gives you a set amount of gold.
Point being, you’ll decrease your g/h if you waste time looting because you’ll get less badges per hour and you’ll piss everyone off just so you can fill your bags with trash. If you need gold, there are much easier ways to get it that don’t waste other peoples’ time.
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January 23rd, 2010 at 6:16 am
Personally I think the pace of the group should be set at the tanks pace, if the dps have a problem with it, they can roll a tank >.>. If the dps pull extra groups let them die, intervene people to lower there threat so they attack the idiot that pulled if you have to. If your group has a problem with how the speed of the group is going, then deal with it, tank decides the speed end of story.
I enjoy rambo pulling on my warrior though especially if my friend is healing me. Like drop down and skip hte first few mobs in UP, pull the entire hallway, then go pull the a bomb + the pack next to the stairs and the patting one if you cna get it before the first boss engages :P. Things like that, its very fun :P.
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January 23rd, 2010 at 7:00 am
I do agree that tanks need to learn to move at a good clip. When a mob is at 30%, there’s no need to keep hitting… move along!
That being said, the frantic pace of five mans these days has shown me terrible flaws in players, the most common being the inability to adjust your play to a group. I mostly dps on my rogue and I’ve had several groups disintigrate because the fussing going on between tanks and healers. It’s absurd when making a simple adjustment to how you tank would solve the issue. Slowing down slightly for a healer that can’t seem to keep up still makes for a faster run than ticking off a slow group and being booted, or having them desert the ship.
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January 23rd, 2010 at 7:44 am
The new LFG tool is a great way of gearing up but I had never thought of it improving my skills in either how quickly I could move the group forward or improve my abilities to reduce incoming dmg when things get a little wrong.
It has massively helped me understand the mechanics and slightly change my play style (used to charge, slam, TC then SW but now charge SW, TC then start hitting each target with at least 1 special) along with making me more aware of surroundings and ability to adjust to what the group are doing - this has all been reflected in any raids I am MT’ing where I feel far more comfortable knowing I am quicker to react and more flexible than ever before.
All in all the LFG tool is great but I am getting bored of lazy dps’ers
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January 23rd, 2010 at 11:12 am
I used to get complaints about being a “slow” tank, but since I rarely pugged I just made my friends suffer. Now that the ultimate super badge farm is on, we don’t have the luxuries we used to. Anymore, everyone is fully decked in Conquest gear or almost there, and the only way to keep up with the DPS’s gear is to do what they do and go go go. This applies both the the number of dungeons to run and the speed we run them.
Now I’m lucky enough to be a pretty good tank anyway, so I’ve been able to make the transition without much difficulty. I don’t know how a newb could ever get going in this day and age though. I would never recommend a tank class to someone rolling thier first WoW toon.
Hopefully the next expansion will be more friendly to noob tanks. I think with the changes to crit-reduction and larger health pools, it will easier for tanks to get the basics down anyway.
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Veneretio reply on January 25, 2010 2:27 am:
I think the real key is getting back to instances where mobs hit hard enough that CC is required again. Then the expectation to pull quickly disappears almost completely. The latter part of Old Kingdoms is probably the only instance I can think of where pulling multiple groups is actually dangerous. More instances need to be like that.
I don’t think there’s really any avoiding heroics turning into an aoe-fest at the end of an expansion. This is just always going to be a tough time for new tanks.
I should note though that the basics of tanking in WotLK are already significantly easier than they were in TBC. So, it’s all relative.
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January 23rd, 2010 at 3:30 pm
I have three gear sets saved - ProtDPS, Trash and Boss. Well I have more, like a max iLvl set, and my arms set, but those will do for now.
Obviously boss set is at least 540 def and is my ICC tanking set of choice.
Trash is 535 with whatever dps gear i can throw in whilst keeping at the def cap for trash/raid heroics - usually swapping the MH weap for a slow big hitter (since cleave is based on weapon damage), trinkets, ranged weapon (and with the huge def on recent gear) a couple of other pieces like neck. This set, combined with swapping cleave (glyphed for 3 targets) for HS when tanking packs, is awesome on ICC trash once everyone has their blood up. I have had comments from the dps about how can a warrior tank be doing 5k on aoe packs. The answer is, partly, shockwave - its based on Attack Power, which gets increased dramatically in prot spec. Adding high strength dps gear and trinkets which proc ~1k AP every 2min means a lot of dps, especially since shockwave hits every mob thats close enough in front of you - every mob.
The rotation i use is charge, TC to get initial threat, wait for them to gather up on me (while using heroic throw and taunt+spell reflect to make any casters agro me - see TankPlates addon for help if you cant tell whats on you). Once they’ve grouped up, unload Shockwave, shield slam, cleave spam under TC is up which is often only a second or two, then cleave constantly popping SS, revenge and conc blow as they light up. Stop cleaving when you have only one target left. This is not a strict rotation, you go with your instinct after a while about whats going to lay down the most damage to the most number of mobs. When they are low, I slow down the pace to ensure I can go into the next pull with maximum rage or as close as possible. If a pally or dk pulls, or its a line of sight pull around a corner, having the rage to start your rotation without charging is crucial - TC, SW. Just dont shockwave first or you stun mobs outside your melee range making it hard to get threat on them - TC first to let them run to you (Heroic Throw to silence casters, or taunt with spell reflect up to make sure their first cast reflects on them, building hate on you and not the healer), then shockwave them so you cleave and next TC hits everything.
Now, to get to the topic, in heroics (mainly the old ones, I still take it easy in the new ones because most groups arent geared for them yet and the fights can take a lot longer), I will start in my trash set, using similar tactics as for raid trash above. If I can see that the healer is good, I’ll ask if I can tank in my dps set. They usually say ’sure’ - it puts them on notice that you’ll be taking slightly more damage and avoids them letting you die through boredom. Most good healers actually like it because healing old heroics with geared tanks can get quite boring and this, combined with chain pulling, makes it a lot more fun. Even if you wipe by accident, most people usually agree they had more fun in a frantic firefight than they’ve had for a long time.
My ProtDPS set, the set I equip in old heroics, is basically my full Arms dps set (mine is about 5200GS) with my 2H swapped for my slow DPS 1H and my tanking shield, staying in Prot. With this set, I can usually top the meter in the heroic in primarily aoe runs like CoS. Because of my mobility I have usually engaged the entire pack, TC and laid down my devastating SW (based on like 6k AP) and several cleaves before the rest of the dps can even warm up. This also helps avoid threat issues.
Even if your dps set isnt too good, the extra AP from select items can make a huge difference to AP based AOE threat with a slow high damage 1H for cleave spam. You still have access to all your tanking moves and cooldowns in Prot, and as long as your healer can keep you up its very hard for the raid to ever take much damage if you stay on top of ranged adds with heroic throw, charge, intercept and taunt/spell reflect.
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Pachi reply on January 25, 2010 6:20 am:
Yes cleave is based on weapon damage, but also on weapon speed, faster HM means more cleaves, more cleave multipliers, and more threat over all.
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January 23rd, 2010 at 6:07 pm
I quit playing not long before Ulduar came out, had health issues and was burnt out. Had decent gear, Mid Naxx, all the heroic and 10 man badge stuff.
Came back a week ago, and ran my first LFG dungeon, and was just amazed.
I finally got to run the way I like to run, which is fast and mean. When I quit the only way I could run heroics like this was with better geared guildies.
One thing I have found tho, is that gear has outpaced skill and intelligence. Allowing the tank to establish aggro before blasting with AoEs is out the window, and it’s always the tanks fault when things go south.
I agree with Arold, a new tank would get eaten alive, I adjusted to take into account stupidity, mostly by going even faster than I would have before, and making faceroll macros for AoE tanking.
Still, is less painful than pugging was when I left.
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January 23rd, 2010 at 9:19 pm
Hm..I already do 1,2,4,5, 6-10.
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January 24th, 2010 at 6:14 am
Stopped reading when you said “just delete your tank right now” if you thought otherwise of a badly worded paragraph header. That’s just ignorant. You are hardly in a position to be holier than thou when talking about tanking to others.
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thelordpsy reply on January 24, 2010 10:41 am:
Jokes are hard to understand
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Osprey reply on January 25, 2010 12:15 am:
Vene explicitly mentioned that this is a how-to-tank-heroics-quickest post. And all the pointers he gives are indeed pointers to speed up a run. He also explicitly says that the question if a tank should run like this is not answered here. I have to admit that when I was reading this topic I was under the impression that it was all sarcasm building up to a dequalification of the behavior of the described way of tanking. Though i am sure Vene’s post is not lacking some sarcasm here and there.
I agree with you, Melville, that the way Vene describes blasting through heroics is ignorant of other important reasons for playing the game we love; social aspects above all for me. I love to be the “mature” part of a pug. Find the right pace, help the needy and things like that. I hope there will be a topic soon to counter the “a-social” nature of handling-the-fast-pace-of-the-lfg-tool
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Veneretio reply on January 25, 2010 2:19 am:
There likely won’t be a counter post because I don’t think it’d really have anything new to offer that numerous sites haven’t said already. The reason I approached this topic is because heroic discussion seems to have degenerated into slow makes you social and fast makes you an elitist jerk. Perhaps, it’s a necessary backlash by the social community to keep the jerks in check, but my worry was that something was being lost amongst the socially acceptable slowness.
Simply put, there are skills to be learned from tanking quickly. It’s a good thing if you’re capable of doing heroics fast and saying, “I could if I wanted to” is not the same as actually doing it. You should be comfortable tanking at a very fast pace and if you aren’t, you’ve got more to learn.
I knew this post like my “how to get into an end-game guild” post would step on some toes, but I’m not going to avoid topics because they might involve discussing some less than friendly practices.
Ultimately, I’m going to give you something to think about and it’s up to you to decide whether or not it’s in your best interest to do it.
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Goodmann reply on January 26, 2010 9:00 pm:
Like a wise man told me at a young age:
Eat the meat son and spit out the bones!…
January 24th, 2010 at 9:02 am
To anyone wondering how fast you can tank instances I thoroughly reccomend watching the Ensidia Vs. Method Battle of the Best that took place back in Ulduar. The youtube video of it is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRA8jfPd5cE&feature=related (it is about an hour in total). The in game footage is entirely from the viewpoint of Kungen or Sco and you can see two of the best tanks in the game competing in a speed run through Ulduar 10. I have watched it several times already and every time I go back to it I learn something new.
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Eamonn reply on January 24, 2010 9:30 am:
By the way, a couple of things I would add to Vene’s list.
1. Use Intimidating Shout
If you are going fast you will make mistakes. Someone will aggro a patrol, while you have thunderclap on cooldown, or you will totally miss with your shockwave for some stupid reason. Intimidating has a short cooldown and can save a wipe very easily.
2. Shockwave once, and only once per pack.
Never ever (ever) use shockwave except on the initial pull of a pack. You want every single pack you pull to start with charge-thunderclap-shockwave-(something)-thunderclap. Tanks who struggle on AoE threat in heroics are usually the ones who end up having to pull with shockwave on cooldown because they used it when the last pack was nearly dead.
3. Use heroic throw as a pulling tool, as a ranged taunt and to get a caster to move to you.
4. Use Bloodrage and Berserker Rage
If you are having any sort of rage problems using Berserker Rage at the end of a pack will often ensure you have a full rage bar for the next pull which makes life really easy. Bloodrage I tend to use more if I go out of rage mid fight rather than to keep rage up between pulls.
5. Accept that being fast is important.
A lot of tanks when expected to go fast react with indignation. They say they are the tank, they control the pace of the run and anyone who doesn’t like it can go take a jump. The problem is that being able to move and react quickly is an incredibly important of being a good tank. Fractions of a second delay in picking up an add or using a defensive cooldown or trinket can easily add up to the difference between wiping and success. You can not learn to react quickly by going slowly. The only way to improve your reaction times is to push yourself out of your comfort zone. You should always be trying to go a tiny bit faster than you think you can handle. If you make a mistake and wipe, who cares, it is only a pug heroic with a bunch of strangers you will never see again. Trying to learn to react quickly is much better done in heroics than in your guild raids. Looking bad in a heroic costs you nothing. Looking bad in a raid could cost you your position as tank.
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Veneretio reply on January 25, 2010 2:38 am:
Shockwaving only a single time per pack is such an important practice. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is using that 2nd Shockwave just as a pull is about to finish. It’s inevitable that the next group is about to go a little less than ideal.
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January 24th, 2010 at 9:42 am
charge +intercept!
if you are only using charge you are too slow^^
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thelordpsy reply on January 24, 2010 10:42 am:
Convince your healer to stand forward and intervene to him
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January 24th, 2010 at 7:36 pm
A good post as usual.
First, my one suggestion for newer tanks, or for groups that are being particularly difficult. Hot key the skull raid mark and mark the first target of each pull. I would hazard to say that any dps worth their spit will know that the skull means first to die. Even more important on a pull with healers or spell casters.
Secondly.
I still can’t decide if I like or dislike the whole LFG thing.
I finally got my Pug pet, and decided that I still really don’t want to pug if I can help it. Admittedly pugging with 100 different people has made me more tolerant and less of a habitual perfectionist, but I still find the well disciplined and geared guild runs are the fastest and the most fun.
I know with my raiders that I can pull like a crazy man. There’s something strangely entertaining about tanking upwards of 12 mobs and HAVING to pop cooldowns to survive, but knowing that you will survive. (And if you don’t, you know everyone else will be rolling around laughing)
But yes. Pugs… A previous commenter mentioned how they’d noticed that gear had outpaced skill, and this is still my one biggest gripe. During my self imposed pug only sessions, I came across numerous DPSers (and even one healer) who wanted me to pull faster. So I did, and they couldn’t keep up. DPS became woefully low and they were really struggling to keep up with my pace. Often it was just myself, the healer and one dps trying to kill four mobs for upwards of 30 seconds before the other two would catch up!
This is trumped by the healer I spoke of, who wanted us to go faster, and then couldn’t get me above half health (a constant stream of cooldown cycling was the only thing keeping me alive), and no, he wasn’t dpsing at the same time (that’s a whole other entertaining situation, a healer dpsing more than healing).
But the biggest winner of the day. The DPS who start AOE dps the moment I reach the mobs to start tanking and who continue to AOE dps while I’m stunned/knocked back and they have pulled threat, or quite simply can’t attack the one target I have marked.
Oh yes. I don’t miss pugging. But it can be fun, and it is definitely a learning tool. I just really pray that 50% of those people I ran with don’t raid the same way they 5 man… If they do, I seriously pity their raid leaders.
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January 24th, 2010 at 9:27 pm
Last time I ran FoS, the healer was complaining that I was pulling too fast, saying that “I shouldn’t be running like I was late for the bus.” My response to this was “but how will I catch the agro train, then?” I slowed down a touch after that, but when the healer lagged behind us a bit right before the first boss and everyone else was just sitting there, ready to pull, I piped up with a “Come on, we’re going to miss the bus!”
I’m more than willing to pull as fast as I can, so long as the healer can keep up. Not that hard for them to do, though, when I tank with a mix of ToC25/ICC10 gear. My guildies know full an well that I might pull three packs at once, if someone so much as mentions the word “bored” while I’m tanking.
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January 25th, 2010 at 1:49 am
i put a spec together for blasting through heroics (only thing i do these days is the daily hero.. but actually not even that anymore). however this is how you do it: spec into cleave, imp thunderclap, imp critical chance, add the cleaving glpyh, add the shockwave glyph. spec into the shout that slows all mobs down in aoe range. now go like this: charge & blood-to-rage, thunderclap & cleave, cleave, cleave & demoshout, cleave, cleave & thunderclap, cleave & slowing shout -> charge next group and repeat. keep shockwave for trouble or use it instead of the first or last thunderclap .. but it will get you rage problems when done frequently.
that way you will drag a bunch of mobs behind you all the time and dps can work it while running. this may get you in trouble when there is more then 3 regular mobs… but on instances like utgarde keep this works very nicely.
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January 25th, 2010 at 2:03 am
While reading this, Vene, I wasn’t sure if you were serious or not. Quite frankly, the day I start running at the pace of the faceless “go go go” brigade is the day I quit the game.
I’ve already earned my stripes, so to speak, as a tank; I don’t feel I have anything to prove to anyone. Pulling everything in sight and then hoping the healer will hold on or keep up isn’t clever or impressive and, being blunt, I find it horribly inconsiderate. Said healer could be slightly undergeared, just learning, playing on an alt or simply not that good a player. You gain far more respect from someone you try and help, as opposed to trying to hinder.
It’s extremely rare I get a complaint about my speed of pulling and said complaint is yet to come from a healer. If I’m going at a pace the healer is comfortable with, the DPS can either live with it or they can leave - they’re easy to replace. At the end of the day, if you think 15 to 20 minutes is too long to complete a heroic (the average time of my runs, including the Oculus) then you shouldn’t queue.
And a note about looting:
I always loot everything. Not only do I like the 25+ gold that comes by looting, I like keeping my enchanters happy with the materials I give them and keeping alts happy by getting them a few blues to smooth their respective transitions.
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Veneretio reply on January 25, 2010 2:50 am:
On looting, everyone else will loot the greens, blues and epics for you. I’m not advocating passing on loot that’s already up for roll. A lot of the reason I still do 5 mans outside of chatting with people on Ventrilo is to supply our guild bank with enchanting mats.
This guide wasn’t intended as a “you must play this way”, but instead was a piece discussing ways that people could increase their pull/run speed. Yes, it’s true I could have wrote a guide saying, “pull at the pace you want to and don’t listen to the pugs no matter how many times you get kicked”, but then what about the person that wants to go faster? What’s wrong with helping out the guy that hates the fact that he’s going too slow for his group?
I feel like there’s a lot of folks that hate what I’m saying here because they hate that they get pressured at all. Like you said, you’ve already earned your right to tank and you don’t feel like a pug has any right to tell you how to play.
Fair enough.
But consider that there are many, many people out there that are totally new to tanking or just came back into this crazy fast paced world and they’d like some help on how to meet the wants/needs of the pug community. They’d like to know how to earn their stripes in their own mind.
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Zellviren reply on January 25, 2010 7:30 am:
Hi, Vene.
I hope you haven’t misunderstood when I said I feel I’ve earned my tanking stripes. I don’t believe I’ve nothing to learn or that I’m now at the stage where nobody can tell me how to play a bit better; quite the opposite. It’s a fact that there are still occasions where someone will say or do something that makes me think I could react differently or more efficiently. In fact, I often find that the ONLY time I learn anything is when something happens that wipes me. However, there is a speed that a group is generally comfortable with and a speed that people are not. I can invariably judge this within the first couple of pulls and the only times I’ve ever gotten “go go go”, it’s come from a single person. If the pace is fine for four people, I’m sure as hell not speeding up for one DPS who’s being impatient.
Every time I’m in a PuG, I expect people to pressure me. I don’t bother marking any more, so that forces me to build multi-mob threat as quickly as possible to ensure I’m not losing mobs. In fact, many half-decent DPS consider it something of a challenge to pull off a geared tank and that’s the game we’re currently tanking (top raiding guild on our server has numerous members that like to do it by attacking the very second you pull; yet, they don’t do it when they’re actually raiding with their guild).
I know your blog is only really intended to help people to pull a bit faster in a world where PuG DPS seem to want the run completed five minutes ago. But I always tell our newly dinged tanks to hit 80, get geared up a bit and then do a few days of purely PuG runs. In saying that, I also suggest that they tell the group they join that they’re a new tank and will need the support of their group mates. More often that not, this is all that’s required to make for a smoother run that teaches the new tank a lot more than rushing every pull, getting it half right and causing the healer a multitude of headaches.
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Dreador reply on January 25, 2010 7:10 am:
Good read…missed the point completely but hey, I had nothing better to do with that 30 seconds.
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Zellviren reply on January 25, 2010 7:31 am:
I wouldn’t bother reading my reply to Vene’s, then - it’s a 60 second effort at least. :O
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January 25th, 2010 at 3:02 am
Gotta say Vene, you make it sound like it’s set in stone and that every second counts.
Now I totally agree speed is important but really think about it, you are forcing every single person in the group to adept to your pace without any consideration to anyone else in the group?
1. Don’t Loot
As mentioned, many a group will adopt the same mentality and end up NOONE looting, which potentionally just results in you getting NO enchant mats or vendor stuff.
2. Don’t wait for mana
It’s ideal to have good dps. Some hunters, moonkin, mages tend to unload quite heavily on trash, and those packs go down in seconds which is all good. Frequently you will notice the mage or whoever sitting down to drink immediately after you exit combat. This he does to ensure that hes not oom, might have evoc on CD and perhaps he wants to avoid getting complained at about his “sucky dps”. If you don’t wait for them, how can they do their job as well as you can yours?
When I go DPS, I for one absolutely hate having to follow tanks with mobs on them inch by inch, just because he cant stand still for 10 seconds and he MUST BE “already getting in position for the next pull” NAO!
1. Not everyone has insta-cast nukes either
2. Most people operate with -30yard ranges, if they start dps-ing right when they get in range (you know.. to do their job well as you) and you pull away from them, you mess up their spells
My point really is : will it be better to complete the run in 19minutes at a comfortable pace to ALL 5/5 in group or going by GOGOGOGO mentality and finishing 16 minutes at a comfortable pace to YOU ALONE and rushing 4/5 others?
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Veneretio reply on January 25, 2010 3:19 am:
I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a run where no one looted.
You do have a valid concern regarding mana in that a dpser with none all the time will slow down your run. However, the reason I advocate not waiting for dpser mana is because realistically a dpser is only going oom if they’re using their high burst, low efficiency damage spells. I don’t have any interest in letting people play in such a way that allows them to maximize their burst threat potential nor do I feel that playing in such a way results in a faster run overall.
Keep in mind though, this post is a guide for tanks that want to speed up their runs. I clearly stated at the start of the post that “Whether or not you should have to pull fast is a topic for another day.”
This post really isn’t going out to tanks trying to “bully” their groups so much as it’s going out to tanks trying to avoid getting bullied by other players for pulling too slow.
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Psy reply on January 25, 2010 11:13 am:
It’s standard practice that the people carrying the group don’t loot because they’re moving too fast and the people who are getting carried and pulling sub-2k DPS loot the bodies in return for quick badges and the ability to sponge blues no one wants.
I don’t know why there’s so much resistance to the “don’t loot” philosophy =\
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Dread reply on January 25, 2010 12:23 pm:
Had a boomkin that only used hurricane last night. Kept asking why I moved the mobs every time he cast his AOE. I simply told him I’m keeping the run moving and if that method of DPSing isn’t working to try something else…ended with me topping the DPS as a prot warrior for the entire run.
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January 25th, 2010 at 6:08 am
I can run these places fast, no doubt about that. There are only two things that limit me in the capacity.
Bad DPS or bad heals.
1) Last night I got into a heroic Nexus. The paladin healer with 30k mana said he would appreciate it if I chainpulled and made the instance go faster. I said I planned on it anyway. After the first boss it became clear I was top DPS (and the moonkin actually asked to stop for mana, to which he was denied leaving combat). Run took about 25 minutes because things refused to die. I suppose when your highest-used ability is Hurricane or Death and Decay that kind of thing happens.
2) I’ve run with priests who either A) have no clue about their rotation and therefore their mana regen is just horrid, or B) they just don’t have the capacity to heal on the move and keep up. I had one about 1 month after 3.3 that wiped us twice then complained he had never run PoS heroic before. This was a morning “speed run” to get my frosties before work, I had to leave the group because learning the guantlet with him was going to be terrible and I was going to be late if I stayed.
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January 25th, 2010 at 6:37 am
Interesting post. I’m no slouch as regards speed but I have to tell you, DPS yelling “gogogo” just make me want to punch a baby in the face.
But I recognise what you’re trying to do here; tanks should push themselves, a tank that doesn’t know his limits is more dangerous than one who does.
I once got a HoL pug where the resto druid was chain pulling mobs ahead of me, sometimes two groups at a time, running back to dump them in my lap (most notably this included the first boss, his adds, and two platforms worth of mobs)
My initial reaction was to chew that guy out and kick him to the kerb. But then I decided to put my head down, go along with it and see if I could deal with whatever he threw at me. Fastest run there I think I’ve had, no wipes, and quite the ride, though not something I’d want to repeat often. So I appreciate your stance in this post, I’ve tanked for five years and know where you’re coming from.
However.
While it’s good to push yourself and find your ragged edge, it’s also important to know that as the tank, you have the power to dictate your own pace. My point is, new tanks reading this article may come away feeling that speed puling is the right way, or only way, to tank acceptably. If they can’t pull it off, what then?
Chainpulling jerk tanks, inconsiderate and heedless of their groups, give us all a bad name. It might be misconstrued that you endorse that type of behaviour in this post.
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Cleaved reply on January 25, 2010 8:25 am:
I like my own pace, and I’m very patient and not always in a hurry. I can pull fsat, but I don’t really need to. I’m running my one heroic daily for Frost Emblems and not trying to go for the record on heroics-per-day.
If I have a DPS or Healer that thinks they can pull, I let them… if they live, great, if they die, I just continue on without them until they run back in.
I had a Druid healer run ahead and pull a third pack when I already had 2 packs, so I just let him die, saying: “I think I’ll pull from here on out, sound good?”
I’ve had a Ret Pally go bonkers and pull everything, I just put him on /follow and let him pull/tank the whole place. This ended when he ran up against a boss, got destroyed and I taunted and we continued on… with me pulling/tanking.
As I said, I’m very patient. I’ll let people wipe 5 times to get a point across, even at my own expense in repair bills. Though most of the time I’m the last one standing finishing off the mobs/boss. It isn’t about being elitist either, its about doing things the right way. I go on the principle that I am the tank and I will pull and at my pace. If the DPS/Heals don’t like it, then they can die and prove my point that “faster is slower, sometimes.”
Go at your own pace, and establish it however you like
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January 25th, 2010 at 6:44 am
We need a blog post on HoR and how you have to educate your dps to kill Priest, Merc, Mage first then kill Hunter and footman last. I cant tell you how many arsehats I get that starts in on the footman first only to pull agro as I try to gather up all the mobs. I have to educate them every time.
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Dreador reply on January 25, 2010 7:07 am:
That’s going to go on until cataclysm, I’m afraid. But TBH you should kill the mercs first as they pose the biggest threat, then the priests second.
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Cleaved reply on January 25, 2010 8:21 am:
Biggest issue in HoR is over-zealous DPS stepping out from LOS before all the mobs arrive. I don’t have any issues holding threat on all the mobs, as long as they wait for all the mobs to arrive. Disarming the Hunter is good too, if you charge, disarm, intervene/intercept back.
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Dreador reply on January 25, 2010 8:53 am:
I can’t stand the LOS method, I lose more than half my view and mobility. Rather just have everyone stack in the entrance, melee and priest mobs run in, the mage is silenced a moment later, and the hunter is quickly charged and stunned.
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Steele reply on January 25, 2010 9:17 am:
Try it and hug with the party in the middle… just stand there and thunderclap when they arrive.. if not for some overly stupid dps youll have them between your legs, shockwave and then can pull off a charge or heroic throw on the ranged. fairly easy, i never had problems with this, though i had a lot of problems as described by people too stupid to LoS in the niche or hitting out from entrance before i smacked all the mobs… i now insist on tanking in the middle, can also stand on this thing in the middle there to make an even sexier impression =) give it a try!
Dread reply on January 25, 2010 11:04 am:
That’s how I used to do it, more chaotic than just having the group stand in front of the front door though, honestly. Standing around the center, the mobs are coming at you from all sides usually. When you’re right in the front, they are more or less coming from one side, counting a hunter and mage, 2 at most. You can gather up the two closest mobs first, silence and charge/stun/disarm at your leisure. Granted, there are some groups of server-side puggers that will just be asses about targeting and aggro, but you can’t really do much aside from leaving (last group I was in just attacked whatever they wanted, I let a couple die because of it).
January 25th, 2010 at 7:11 am
The whole pulling fast LFG thing has burnt me out on tanking so now I dps instead.
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January 25th, 2010 at 8:14 am
I think ultimately the overall goal in tanking (well, in a lot of things, really) should be bettering yourself. Vene had another blog about picking the instance you perform the weakest in and running it each day until its your strongest (or at least until you can do it in a terrible pug and hold everything together yourself - I paraphrase.) I think it’s a similar concept here. Most of us (myself included, I hope) haven’t yet reached our full potential, but its easy to fall into a rut of doing things the same way because that’s the way you do them. I don’t see a problem with offering pointers to those who think being able to tank faster runs will make them a better tank. For myself, I can attest that it does do wonders for your reaction time and your overall tanking thought processes. I enjoy tanking because it’s always been the headiest part of the party/raid trinity anyway. I find pushing my speed helps keep it that way despite outgearing a lot of the content by a pretty far margin.
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January 25th, 2010 at 8:26 am
I tanked a 12 minute Heroic Nexus last night. I love chain pulling and getting out. Another funny thing I do if the healer is up for it is mount at the top of the stairs after the Dino boss in DTK. I then ride my mount over every mob and aggro the entire floor. It is important that everyone know that you are doing this.
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Dreador reply on January 25, 2010 8:54 am:
Gonna try that one tonight
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January 25th, 2010 at 9:34 am
What is funny is I have been speed pulling these heroics for weeks on my warrior and i never stop. people thank me at the end for the speed. The funny part is that the other day I switched over to my level 31 pally ret tank and started speed pulling SMGY and got through the first room and people didnt know what to do! They were running around all crazy. I had pulled all four rooms LOS around the corner into the hall boss and all. They were yelling at me to slow down
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January 25th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Great article. Chain pulling is important for raids and tanks have been doing it since Molten Core.
“If you’re trying to tab through everything to get to the new stuff you want to pull then you’re going to end up wasting valuable time.”
Perhaps, or you are doing it wrong. I can tab any target I want with one press of the key. Tab will select the target directly in front of you. And that’s the key - face the mob you want targeted. I learned to for the Nef adds in phase one in classic wow. I believe Nef’s adds were the first streaming adds encounter in a raid.
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January 25th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
I noticed a few posts about the “Don’t wait for mana” part… And personally I agree with Vene. If the DPS are ooming after only a few pulls then I think they’re doing something wrong. I always fall back to my guildies. I’ve run whole instances where it seems no one stopped for mana. Not even after a boss fight.
Personally the only mana bar I watch is the healers. Usually a quick check after each pull to make sure they still have some and I’m off.
Also, I’d like to ask a bit about definition…
It sounds like some people are classifying chain pulls and one group after another with little or no break. (perhaps just long enough out of combat to allow those pesky mana users to start drinking)
And others seem to be think it’s about pulling multiple groups at the same time. (admittedly VERY fun)
The first one I call chain pulling, and the second I term as big or mass pulls (for lack of a more entertaining term).
I think chain pulling is a very important skill, faster the better (as long as people aren’t dying). Very useful for raid trash, I get a little bored when I have to stop after a pull to wait for people. Often on raid trash I just ignore the odd one or two people who are left behind and while moving for the next group I’m telling my companion tank (and the rest of the raid) what I want to do next. A quick warning I’m pulling “x” mob and we’re back at it. I know back in Kara chain pulling was practically a must. The groups I ran with would often only get a few tries at a boss before respawn, so speed through trash was essential.
Big pulls on the other hand are just for fun. I will usually warn the group, pop a CD or two and go for gold… They’re fun and they make some crazy numbers…
So to conclude. I like chain pulling. I don’t like when people try to force mass pulls. Usually I try to watch them die… it’s far more entertaining… healer or dps…
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January 26th, 2010 at 9:52 am
Last night I got into HOL, priest asked me before we started if I would be speedpulling. I said nothing, then pulled the first 3 packs AND the boss while he was electrified and tanked it all. He stopped asking. Run took 15 minutes tops.
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January 26th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
I have one issue with the article above:
“Forget about your health and just keep pulling. Don’t watch the mini-map and just assume they’re behind you.’
I am currently working on a warrior tank. My main is a healer and I have gotten yelled at by tanks who die because they pull without me being near them because they got overzealous while I’m rezzing someone or the like. I will let a tank die if they are not paying attention to where the healer is. In my opinion, a good tank not only keeps an eye on healer’s mana, but also keeps an eye out for healer aggro and if the healer is within range to heal them.
If this is kept in mind, chain pulling is a snap and majority of wipes can be avoided.
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Dread reply on January 27, 2010 6:07 am:
Rezzing someone is an extenuating circumstance, and if the tank pulls while you’re rezzing he should be kicked anyway. The article isn’t about mindlessness, because the ones that will actually benefit from it are already aware of the fact that they need to be situationally aware.
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January 27th, 2010 at 10:33 am
#3
I did think you were talking about texting on the phone, and i thought it weird. I thought this because i have never ever heard this word used in the context of wow. Ever.
No I will not delete my tank. I am new to tanking and still learning….. oh wait isnt that who this site is geared for? HMmmmmmm Take it back Vene! =)
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Veneretio reply on January 27, 2010 4:17 pm:
lol, I was implying that if you text on your cellphone while tanking you should do it because it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of. Suffice to say, it was a joke.
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Dread reply on January 28, 2010 6:25 am:
In DTK the other day this DK kept asking me about all these upgrades for his tanking offspec, and replying ended up costing me some aggro, so the final thing I said to him was “can you please stop talking now? Do some dps instead…”. Ended up putting him on ignore, and his holy paladin friend was trying to berate me for being mean, which I said I wasn’t, just making sure we’re playing our best so we don’t have a whack run. Well that wasn’t good enough, proceeded to call me every name he could think of, then let me die on King Dred, so I left. 15 minute timer was up since the DK wouldn’t shut his trap and I got into a new one, their loss. And I won’t have to group with either, ever again.
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January 28th, 2010 at 11:12 pm
Pretty much agree with everything but the no looting part. I no longer do dailies as a result of mostly running with an enchanter - that disenchanted stuff is what makes you some money. Of course there is zero discussion, click and go i’ve never noticed it take any real additional time.
If that’s your preference though and you think it saves that much time, more power to you.
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February 2nd, 2010 at 8:13 am
Coming at this from the healer standpoint now, I have to say speed runs are getting a bit ridiculous.
It’s one thing when you have the ability, and the gear to pull it off, I am finding a lot of tanks now don’t. And they get mad if you ask them anything about their setup.
It’s one thing if your gear is good enough that I don’t have to burn half my mana every trash pull. I was grouped with a pally tank last night with under 30k health fully buffed, and 500 defense. The guy was getting the snot pounded out of him by trash on every pull. I inspected his gear, and when I asked what his def was, he got all pissy and said 500, and said his resilience made up for it. When I tried to calmly explain it doesn’t quite work that way, he made some comment about not having any problems running other stuff earlier, and I just said to hell with it and we kept going.
First boss, we barely make through, DPS is decent, but the tank was getting hit so hard I had to concentrate everything on him. Not too big an issue with chain heal normally, but these guys spread out so far from each other that it was iffy at best. One of the DPSers started talking about getting a guildie of his in full raid gear to heal, and I told them where they could stick it and left. It shouldn’t take full t9+ gear to heal heroic UP, even on a speed run.
That is the worst I have encountered so far, but there have been a few other tanks that were so worried about speed that completely forget about the rest of the group.
And as for not looting, one bad run is enough to kill that idea. Altho now, some of these tanks are trying to go so fast that no one gets a chance to loot, so you lose out on cash as well as vendor trash.
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Dread reply on February 2, 2010 9:19 am:
That guy sounded pretty bad, sorry. You will expend most of your mana on every pull with me (t9/t10 264 gear), but it’s because I’ll pull 4 and 5 groups of trash and sometimes a boss as well in one pull.
As for not looting, the vendor trash is greens, don’t D/E because they’re almost worthless as dust now on the AH. I just greed them and vendor for 5-10 gold each.
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February 2nd, 2010 at 11:47 am
I love the group tool. Best new feature for me ever. Married with kids = not a ton of game time, but now I can get in a group within 5 seconds and have my 2 frost in
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February 2nd, 2010 at 11:53 am
Odd 1/2 my post was cut off. In less than 30 minutes (Oh I used the less than sign - could be the issue).
I have found that most groups early in the morning are excellent. I figure a lot of “older” players like myself are getting those fronst prior to work eaach day. The groups later in the morning or in the early afternoon are not as well geared.
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February 10th, 2010 at 10:28 am
2 cents from an outsider.
I’m not a tank - I’m a shadow/holy priest with ICC 25 gear and 5500 gear score.
I join LFD for the frost emblems but also because it’s handy to gather enchant mats and frostweave that I need to craft/enchant gear for my alts.
What I am getting these days is tanks who charge 3 packs of mobs before I have finished buffing group, even worse if I have had to respec for healing (that puts me at 0 mana).
Pull fast / finish the instance fast? That’s more than fine, but don’t exaggerate, I don’t like leaving dead dps on the ground because I don’t have 20 seconds for ressing and healing them back. If you think it’s too long, state at first that if one dies he will have to run.
Give a minute to get ready at instance start, and then you’ll be able to go fast and have everyone ready. And you can’t expect people to avoid looting to save 3 minutes.
In short, keeping a fast steady pace is good, but not so fast that it makes the experience painful for your healer. Those runs where no one writes ONE word in the whole instance in party chat are a horror: we are supposed to be playing & having fun: we are not getting paid more for completing an instance in 14 minutes instead of 17.
Gogogo players, welcome to my ignore list.
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February 10th, 2010 at 10:52 am
On the looting subject
One question- if someone wants to do chain heroics to get the highest possible number of triumph emblems in the shortest possible time (which is of course fine), why doesn’t he form a group with well geared guildies instead of expecting the people from random servers to do what HE wants?
I don’t mind if you don’t need the loot, but I find extremely boring to do the same thing for hours in a row, so my way of getting game money is a mix: daily heroic, fish and cook, Wintergrasp, weekly raid, herb and skin, sell stuff (I have 4 characters). I don’t see why I have to keep to your schedule: I prefer finishing a heroic in 19 minutes with a laugh than in 16 in total silence and running like a madman…
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February 18th, 2010 at 6:19 am
What frustrates me more than anything is how often i find myself getting in random runs and being top dps and or damage done - that’s just really sad in a lot of cases; and it happens more often than not on my server.
When I’m with a geared group i spice up heroic runs; like pulling the 2nd AND 3rd boss in Heroic UP at the SAME TIME … yes it can be done fairly easily if you aren’t running with under geared people or idiots; and it makes the mundane a little more interesting again.
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Dread reply on February 18, 2010 6:36 am:
That’s a good one!
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