Reflecting on 6 or 7 Tanking Mistakes you’ll consistently make
Looking back on our Putricide10 man kill, I’m reminded of a number of mistakes that I made while we went through the learning process. This fight really is an excellent example of a fight where small subtle choices you make can have huge implications.
1. Erratic Boss Movement
There’s no avoiding it… you’re going to have to move bosses sometimes. However, how you do it can make a big difference. If you can develop a rhythm from one attempt to the next then DPSers will pick up on the manner in which you do it and adjust accordingly. Make no mistake a tank with an inconsistent rhythm reduces raid DPS a shockingly high amount. If you’ve ever wondered why PuGs seem to fail even with competent players or your raid fails with a different tank, this is one of the reasons.
2. Too Much Boss Movement
Don’t just move the boss around for the sake of moving him. Just like the above, the more you move the boss, the less DPS the raid can do.
1+2. Out Ranging your Healers
When you move the boss in an erratic fashion and you move him too much, the result is less healing and interrupted heals. Your healers need to know your rhythm just as much as DPSers do and moving the boss too much can be just as damaging to their healing output.
3. Over/Under applying TC/Demo
When we’re doing a fight that encourages us to swap targets, our internal timers can go all out of whack resulting in us either spamming Thunder Clap and Demoralizing Shout or in us forgetting about them. Usually both happen since once we see TC/Demo fall off by accident, we suddenly over spam them both in order to ensure it never happens again. Consider setting the boss as your Focus Frame so you can better monitor this kind of thing even while swapping onto another target.
4. Forgetting Your Personal DPS Matters
When the green ooze is racing towards a player, your dps matters especially on a 10 man level. How quickly you swap to the other dps target can be the difference between the ooze dieing or someone else in your raid.
5. Showing Your Back
When you’re racing around the room after an add, never forget that their is a bigger beast on you at all times. When your back is exposed, you’re avoiding nothing. Sure, it may appear that your healers can handle it, but them having to means that sometimes they’ll be forced to choose saving your life over that of a raid members. When you’re consistently taking shots to the back, your raid will be forced to choose an additional healer over another dps. Always remember that there are more people than just you taking damage at any given time. The more heals you need, the less heals everyone else gets.
6. Forgetting about Shattering Throw
When it’s not your turn to tank, you’ve often got nothing better to do than applying this amazing debuff. I emphasize this ability alone because so often, the window of opportunity to use this is so small that you can easily forget the ability even exists.
Wrap up
When learning new content, we all can forget about the basics at times when focusing on the specifics of an encounter. As important as learning the fight itself is, maintaining a high quality of basic play is even more important. The better you are at the basics the easier the encounter specifics are going to be for you and the rest of your team.
February 11th, 2010 at 11:41 am
Regarding the over/under-use of Thunderclap and Demo Shout; a friend recently showed me a neat trick that I wasn’t aware of before, but which I use on a lot of abilities now. I’ve heard of a few tools that allow you to do this sort of thing, but this is by-far my favourite method…
If you use the DBM boss mod you can create your own timers via the command:
/dbm timer
-the part can be either a flat number of seconds, or in MM:SS format (e.g. 00:30).
So you can create macros for the things you want to be reminded of, e.g.
#showtooltip Thunder Clap
/cast Thunder Clap
/dbm timer 30 Thunder Clap
Stick that on your bar instead of the standard ability and now Thunder Clap’s duration is shown in the same way as standard DBM timers (and highlighted when it’s about to run out).
…maybe this is all common knowledge that I just missed until recently, but figured it was worth sharing in case others weren’t aware of it as I’ve found it very useful.
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Corto reply on February 11, 2010 11:42 am:
/EDIT
…my chosen notation obviously confuses HTML so a correction to the above:
”
/dbm timer TIME TEXT
-the TIME part can be either a flat number of seconds, or in MM:SS format (e.g. 00:30)
”
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Knagh reply on February 11, 2010 12:12 pm:
Be a bit careful with this, if your thunderclap is resisted you will have a timer up telling you something that isn’t true. ClassTimer or similar mods are quite configurable for showing you just the data you want to see, but don’t suffer from this problem (ie they look for the debuff on the mob, not you casting the spell as the trigger).
Perhaps that is a nice way to integrate the two, it would be handy to have the timer move like DBM timers do as they gear near completion. For me, I’ve just gotten used to watching my ClassTimer bars.
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Verata reply on February 28, 2010 7:40 pm:
I use NeedtoKnow addon for that works great
Arold reply on February 11, 2010 1:42 pm:
Oh wow, I never knew about that! I’ll set it up today. It’ll be need to have a Rend timer for my off-spec too.
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Kavtor reply on February 11, 2010 1:36 pm:
There are a lot of different ways to show timers on your buffs / debuffs. Just make sure you use -something- so you can watch what’s happening.
Poweraura’s is an incredible mod that can track anything you want, however you want.
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FOXmenot reply on February 11, 2010 7:37 pm:
Certainly agree with Kavtor here. Poweraura is a very powerful tool to remind us of what ability is not apply, procs or cooldown up. All you have to do is messing it with for some time and you’ll surely love what this little addon can do for you. Personality, I set Poweraura to track the availibily of SS, Revenge, Devastate (up to 5 stacks), Commanding Shout and the duration of my CD. And it works wonder for both tanks and dps warriors
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Mookey reply on February 12, 2010 4:07 am:
Auracle aswel
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Onlyhuman reply on February 12, 2010 7:34 pm:
I use Satrina’s Buff Frames for TC,Demo Shout, Sunders, procs, trinkets, etc.
It requires some additional setup but as a result I can set exactly what I want
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_urutLuivroY/S3YOHnnpERI/AAAAAAAAAWo/G9uDHbxdJLw/WoWScrnShot_012310_003043.jpg
Nami reply on February 12, 2010 7:13 am:
Personally i use PowerAuras to create/refresh the timer for both Demo, TC and Sunder Armor, however once you deselect the target you will miss the timer, but since I use a mouse over devastate macro and cleave when I run after the slimes it isn’t that much of a hassle.
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Shragster reply on February 15, 2010 9:50 pm:
Actually, the best addon for this is the NeedtoKnow Addon. It is VERY customizable, very straightforward, and also clean looking. I have used it for 2 years without any problems
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Krazeymann reply on February 20, 2010 9:55 pm:
I use the combo of NeedtoKnow and PowerAuras Classic to track my cooldowns and appliable de-buff’s. NeedtoKnow tracks my demoshout, t-clap and Commanding Shout. Power Aura’s track’s my cooldowns for SS, Shckwve, t-clap and Shield Block. I also track my trinks with it as well so i can see as soon as they are off cooldown as well. Works great for trinks w/ a use ability. I know of more people that forget to use their trinks because of cooldowns and only use it perhaps once per fight vs. 2-3 times easy depending on the fight.
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Lindentree reply on February 21, 2010 9:58 am:
I use a combination of PowerAuras and Quartz - PowerAuras to yell at me when a debuff’s not on, and Quartz for my timers.
I’m actually not all that happy with Quartz - I probably just don’t have it customized to my satisfaction - but it’s the only addon I know of which includes a swing timer, which is nice to have around for my dps spec and for tanking wave fights (Cleave).
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February 11th, 2010 at 11:55 am
about the erratic boss movement - is the pathing issue fixed? because i’m still having problem with bosses being very twitchy. for instance, tanking two blood princes gives me fits trying to keep them both in front of me.
that being said, i have to CONSTANTLY remind myself to keep still in other fights. what is it about tanking that brings out A.D.D.?
and while i’ll agree with you about switching your dps to something with really low health like the jaraxxus portals, i can’t see it mattering on the green slimes - the most you’ll get in on them is a few swings, and if you chase them you’re almost forced to turn your back to the professor - violating rule 5. just make sure your abom driver is whacking them.
#6 - great point, i almost always forget that one.
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Kavtor reply on February 11, 2010 1:37 pm:
The pathing issue is better, but not fixed.
But every bit of DPS helps on the green slimes. Not too mention stacking sunders if the abom can’t put up the armour debuff. And it’s easy enough to strafe towards something, such that you’re moving forward, but don’t have your back to the boss that’s chasing you.
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marklar reply on February 11, 2010 2:54 pm:
interesting - i guess this isn’t the right place to discuss it, but i’d be interested in hearing about what strategy you guys are using that involves the tank having that much time to melee the green slime. i think the way we’re doing it, a tank would get 4-5 GCD’s max before it was dead.
now in phase 3, i absolutely try to maximize my dps because that’s really the part of the fight where it matters.
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February 11th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
I’m terribly guilty of #3 (over) and #6. I’m so used to hitting TC just about every CD from doing so many heroics lately. I have probably used Shattering Throw 5 or 6 times since we got the ability. There are plenty of places where it would make a really big difference (Icehowl when he’s stunned, especially).
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February 11th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
I been guilty of outranging healers a few times, you never want to admit that stuff, it’s such a silly mistake and sometimes humbling.
#4- Hands down, necessity on Putricide 10 if you’re new to it. You’d probably add an extra 1000-1500 DPS on the ooze, and since no one’s attacking the boss at the time you’re not losing threat. Warbringer is great for getting in the zone and giving yourself valuable seconds to reposition.
#5- While I don’t personally turn my back, it’s less bad than it was in BC or Vanilla. Back in BC there were crushing blows that were only negated by blocking, dodging, parrying or being missed, any attack that connected had a 15% chance to be a crush. With the new mechanic on crushing blows, this is less of a threat. So while it’s still not good to turn your back, at least it’s less bad.
#6- Shattering Throw is teh hawt.
If I didn’t mention a number, I totally agreed/liked it the way it was. Great post Vene!
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February 11th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Great post, thanks.
One point you want to be weary off tho, if your raid-members are ArP-capped, it probably isn’t worth the effort using Shattering Throw. If they aren’t however, there is no acceptable excuse not to use it ;-).
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Kobeathris reply on February 11, 2010 1:13 pm:
I may be wrong on this, and if I am, someone can correct me, but Shattering throw, sunder, and ff, all apply to boss armor before ArP is calculated, and ArP cannot reduce boss armor to 0 on its own.
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Randul the Dwarf reply on February 11, 2010 2:08 pm:
You are correct. It’s never bad to use Shattering Throw.
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Dread reply on February 11, 2010 3:14 pm:
Additionally, most mutilate rogues aren’t intentionally stacking ArP anyway, so it’s a small buff to them especially.
Rudiculous reply on February 12, 2010 6:36 am:
I did some reading up, and I stand corrected :-). I thought 100% ArP was actually 100% reduction in armour. I will be using Shattering Throw even more then! (I already was in most raids anyway ;-))
February 11th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
#3 - I’m more guilty of overusing these, TC especially, than underusing them, mostly like another posted mention in running so many heroics lately.
Another time I realize I’m guilty of this is during a lengthy tank switch, especially one like Festergut where I switch to Berserker stance and CAN’T thunder clap. Our pally off-tank isn’t spec’d into the Pally talent that slows boss attacks, so she relies on me to keep TC up, something I’ve found I neglect, which is quite bad during a 3-inhale Festergut.
#4+5 - In regards to DPS’ing Putricides green oozes, it’s not that much trouble usually to turn your camera and, once the ooze has it’s target, quickly click your mouse to change directions and warbringer charge. 90% of the time Putricide doesn’t get a swing in for the millisecond I’m turned before I’ve charged out of range, and my ~1500-2000 DPS really -can- make the difference between an ooze popping or not.
#6 - I’m with a lot of others in the boat where I completely forget this ability existed. I was taking a break from WoW at the time this ability was introduced (3.1 I think?) and I didn’t even have it trained until a month or so after I came back and saw the talent in my trainer’s window. But now I have a good macro for switching to Battle to throw it, especially useful for tank switches on Saurfang (during his 30% frenzy), or Festergut and more. Time it up with a Bloodlust, you’re doing your physical DPS a huge favor.
Macro:
#showtooltip Shattering Throw
/cast [nostance:1] Battle Stance; Shattering Throw
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Brugamenn reply on February 16, 2010 12:01 pm:
I’m confused. It appears that your using this to switch to battle stance and use ST with one button. I may not be remembering this correctly (I can’t log in to double check) but unless you have points in tacticle mastery you wouldn’t have enough rage for the ST to work. Shouldn’t there be a bloodrage in there somewhere?
I’ve had to tweak my build lately to get improved demo in for progression fights but even before i did that tactical mastery was a poor choice of talent point allocation.
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Dread reply on February 16, 2010 12:09 pm:
A white hit will usually make up the difference. I think the poster is referring to the times when he’s not tanking specifically, such as phase changes on festergut.
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February 11th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Kiting a boss properly (short, controlled small movements) so your melee can consistently keep in contact with your mob is really important. It’s very frustrating to loose 10 seconds of DPS time because the tank kites the mob half way across the room. Not only do you loose that DPS, but now the melee are targets of Maleable Goo, or other fun ranged stuff, but they’re more focused on getting back into contact with the boss, and more likely to make some sort of additional mistake.
Another thing to remember is stairs. It’s really easy to stand at the top of a set of stairs and LoS your healer. Usually it’s on trash, so it isn’t fatal, but it’s going to irritate them, and force them to run up the stairs into LoS, and melee range of the tanks, which may not be the safest choice.
The more we can do as tanks to keep from placing stress and unnessisary adjustments on the rest of the raid, the better they’ll be able to pay attention to the other things that are going to kill them, and to do their job.
The more predictable and easy to play with we are, the easier it is on everyone else to play well.
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February 11th, 2010 at 7:24 pm
I never used Shattering Throw until I read about the idea on one of your posts, and now I use it every opportunity I get. Anything to boost raid damage is great, especially as I tank with another warrior and we can chain it on fights like Saurfang.
For anyone that hasn’t started doing it at every opportunity, it will feel weird the first time you switch stances whilst tanking (it really did for me at least), but if your not getting hit then there’s no real reason not to be in battle stance doing 10% extra damage. It also opens up hamstring which can be useful for adds on Saurfang.
Keep up the great posts Vene, you show us that there’s always ways to be better
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Belak reply on February 12, 2010 8:25 am:
It’s also situational, but while you’re in battle stance for shattering throw, it might be a good time to fire off another often-neglected move - Retaliation. You obviously need to wait until the boss is about to return to you (shortly before a Saurfang taunt or during a Rotface vomit move, for example), but as low as prot warrior dps tends to be, every little bit helps.
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Everblue reply on February 12, 2010 9:00 am:
Retaliation is also situationally good for dps warriors - try it on marrowgar’s bonestorm, for instance.
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Nimchip reply on February 13, 2010 4:55 pm:
ive found retaliation isnt really worth it since it only counters on landed hits and most of the hits get avoided, however with the chill of the throne debuff it might be worth it so who knows.
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February 11th, 2010 at 8:18 pm
As to Number 3: Get Satrina Buff Frames. Setup a separate Frame for buffs/debuffs and set it to only show buffs/debuffs that YOU apply. Then modify it to display how you want (I have icon + bar + timer on bar), and you can easily keep track of when TClap and Demo fall off, as well as Sunders, etc. Basically anything you can apply.
Number 5: Charge/Intercept to the add, then quickly turn to face it so the incoming large boss/mob will also be in front of you. If you hafta run, you should be strafing and hammering abilities as you go.
Number 6: Use it, but know WHEN to use it. Any point where you can pop Battle Stance is fine, but if you can time it with other debuffs or raid buffs (like Blood Lust) you’ll do even more to help total raid DPS (depending on how much melee you have).
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Bihn reply on February 14, 2010 1:46 pm:
I find Auracle to be a much better addon for tracking debuffs. It can track by category, so any “strong” -AP debuff, -armor debuff, or -melee haste debuff will show up in the window.
Very useful if you have multiple debuffs in a raid (you do), as it will show anything that overwrites your debuffs (i.e. spec’d demo, or vindication).
When there are several debuffs that do the same thing, you don’t want to only be tracking yours.
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Cleaved reply on February 15, 2010 7:43 pm:
Satrina can be setup to do the same thing. You can specify which buffs/debuffs you want to show up. Therefore if one is up and you don’t need to use your particular buff/debuff, you can see that as well. There are 2 settings… debuffs you put up and debuffs you are capable of putting up. Then, on top of that you can add individual debuffs.
Since I use Satrina for my buffs/debuffs on top of the screen, I kill 2 birds with one stone. Auracle sounds like it might be a little easier to setup and view, but that is another addon and I try to run as lean as possible.
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Bihn reply on February 16, 2010 8:09 am:
I didn’t realize SBF could do that!
Auracle is definitely easier to set up from what you’re describing, though, so I guess there’s that. I’ll have to check out the SBF functionality.
Dread reply on February 16, 2010 11:02 am:
I use 7 or 8 different SBF frames myself, saves me using additional addons for a lot of functions.
February 12th, 2010 at 4:11 am
Green:
Ooze spawn and aggros > charge it.
Apply 4 sunders (glyph devastate)
Follow ooze so it’s explosion will kick you in opposite direction.
Orange:
Ooze spawn and aggros > charge it.
Apply 4 sunders (glyph devastate)
Follow orange so that splash damage is hitting Professor
You can always ditch chocking gas bombs in the mid of room this way also.
Tank boss in position whenever possibile so that player using abomination is able to swing it on Professor - it helps a lot.
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Bihn reply on February 14, 2010 1:48 pm:
If you do that every green ooze spawn, you will encounter a situation where the bombs drop in an inopportune spot. Make sure you monitor ability timers if you are trying this.
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Krazeymann reply on February 20, 2010 10:07 pm:
In my experience, I can switch to the oozes in P1. However switching in P2 can become a hazard when he starts dropping bombs in the middle of the room. In P2 my guild has asked me not to switch and instead get the boss out of the way for a few when he is going to drop the bombs, so we controll where the bombs are being dropped and it has made that aspect of it much more controlled.
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February 12th, 2010 at 10:55 am
#6 for sure.
I am completely guilty of having forgotten it.
As MT and RL I’m a bit embarrassed, not to mention I had to call our 25 man after a 3 percent wipe…we had 3 warrior tanks…coulda shoulda…
./sigh
Thanks for the reminder!
~Patch
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February 12th, 2010 at 12:25 pm
I drive the abom on putricide… and I have to say I’m a bit confused about tank dps on the ooze. From what I’ve seen the abom’s sunder ability doesn’t stack with the warrior ability so the tank applying the debuff means the abom can’t. Generally my dps on the ooze as the abomination is the difference between the ooze hitting the target or not. I can usually bring the ooze down to 80% before it has finished targeting and then I try to get in some debuffs on putricide as we cross paths before heading off to drink the puddles.
Oh and as a side note to groups with rogues… rogues can vanish as putricide is casting tear gas and they won’t get hit by it. This lets them dps on the ooze or boss making the transitions easier.
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marklar reply on February 12, 2010 2:29 pm:
yeah, i agree. in this fight abom dps >>> tank dps on adds, and i almost always have 5 stacks of slash up before the ooze even gets its cast off.
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February 13th, 2010 at 11:44 pm
Regarding #3 and #6; and further to the original comments about tracking cooldowns and the availability of your abilities; I’ve looked into this in some detail now and the best solution was actually already available in a mod that I already used: MiksScrollingBattleText (MSBT).
In addition to the great dmg/heal in/out feedback it provides, it has a fantastic Triggers facility that can be used to configure all sorts of different messages.
For example, to track when Thunder Clap falls off a target: Setup a new trigger with a name like: “Debuff Lost - Thunder Clap (%r)”; for an “Aura Removal” event where the skill name is “Thunder Clap”.
Then if Thunder Clap falls off a target you get a text warning like this: “Debuff Lost - Thunder Clap (Festergut)”.
The whole thing is configurable so you can set different text alert locations, fonts, and even alert sounds. I’ve used the mod to setup alerts for:
- Lost debuffs on targets, like TClap and Demo Shout
- Lost buffs, like Commanding and Battle Shouts
- Skill cooldowns, like Shield Block, Shockwave (and, yes, Shattering Throw !)
- Procs, like SnB and (for my Fury offspec) Bloodsurge
Having tried a variety of mods like PowerAuras and the DBM Timer method mentioned in the comments above, my opinion is that the MSBT triggers work better than all of them - it’s configurable to suit any situation/class/ability; and so far I haven’t found a single thing that I can’t setup using the mod.
So, fwiw, if you’re looking for some solutions to this sort of problem I *strongly* recommend taking a look at MiksScrollingBattleText.
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Cytherea reply on February 14, 2010 10:06 am:
“For example, to track when Thunder Clap falls off a target: Setup a new trigger with a name like: “Debuff Lost - Thunder Clap (%r)”; for an “Aura Removal” event where the skill name is “Thunder Clap”.
Then if Thunder Clap falls off a target you get a text warning like this: “Debuff Lost - Thunder Clap (Festergut)”.”
How can I create a trigger that no spam when you kill the target?.
Killing multiple adds generate a lot of spam of debuff expired -_-U .
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Corto reply on February 17, 2010 12:13 pm:
That is one small problem with this method - you get the debuff expired message when a mob dies, which can lead to a bit of spam when taking down trash.
I looked into solving it and found a reply from the mod’s author, basically saying that it’s currently not possible to get around this because the combat log reports the debuff removal *before* the mob death.
P.S. +1 vote for Satrina’s Buff Frames, I use this too - I just like the extra feedback from the MSBT triggers, particularly for procs, cooldowns and reminding me to re-apply things like Battle Shout.
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Dread reply on February 18, 2010 10:26 am:
What trash have you encountered where those debuffs are crucial? I’m not trying to bash or anything but I usually believe the context these discussions revolve around are bosses.
Cleaved reply on February 16, 2010 5:52 pm:
I find it easier to monitor the Satrina Buff Frame that I setup as detailed in my post further up in reply to Bihn. This way I can monitor the buffs/debuffs proactively instead of only noticing when they fall off. Ideally you should refresh them before they fall off, for maximum effectiveness. With raid-buffs like Commanding or Battle Shout, this is really important. Whereas with debuffs it really isn’t about damage done, but damage received (except in the case of Sunders). It may not seem like a lot, but those debuffs falling off for 2 seconds amounts to more incoming damage… and it would add up over a long fight.
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February 14th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
I use a mod called ” Need to Know ” to keep track of my own debuff’s on a boss or add. Also check out Classic Power Aura’s.
As for keeping Demo shout up on a boss, Most Ret Pally’s now a days are spec’d into Vindication wich is the same debuff as improved demo show and doesn’t stack w/ demo. If your Ret Pally’s aren’t spec’d into it, ask if they can. It’s not much of if any dps loss.
Also keep in mind that the professor fight is a 6+ min fight. As a prot warrior MT and RL. My opening sequence is as follow’s. Shatter Throw, Heroic Throw, Shield block and Shield Slam.
If you have any other warriors in there, have them chain there shatter throw’s after yours. Carefull not to overlap. Since Shatter is 5min cooldown. It will be back up for the burn in phase 3.
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February 16th, 2010 at 2:21 am
Thanks, nice post. I’ve written a little about learning to tank, and 1 & 2 come down to consistency, as you mention.
Re not LoS’ing your healers on stairs (one of the comments), sometimes tanks are careful not to LoS themselves, but need to move the boss/trash a little further to ensure that the melee and pets aren’t LoS from the healers too.
Whether you charge into a boss fight or not, be consistent about it so your team mates know what to expect.
Be confident and calm, even when all around you may be losing their heads (cue Rudyard Kipling ‘If’ poem!).
I’m having the most fun as a tank in WoW, by far..and getting back to the basics of tanking is good grounding for us all, new and old.
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February 16th, 2010 at 11:37 am
Thanks for posting this Vene, great reminders. I’m proud to say that thanks to this article I actually remembered to Shattering Throw last night while my other tank had Saurfang which was right after calling for Bloodlust. He dropped from 30% to about 15% faster than he ever has. It was an easy 1-Mark kill. I’m sure there were other contributing factors, but combining Bloodlust with 5 stacks of Sunder and a Shattering Throw with a rogue, a DPS DK and a Retadin all chomping at the bit makes for a very noticeable damage spike.
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February 19th, 2010 at 7:04 am
On a side note, but has anyone else had trouble with the LK moving too much? I mean I can sit there for a minute not moving, and he’ll somehow manage to walk around me and starting hitting me from my side, or even worse my back. While this is not a major drama for me, the melee dps have to constantly move. At the moment I’m blaming Australia’s crap net!
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Seph reply on March 2, 2010 8:46 am:
We just got to Arthas last night and yes we had an issue with him moving. He kept circling around me and I was planted in the same spot. Clever/evil design or just a pathing issue??!?!? MWAHAHAHAHAHA!
P.S. He is so awesome, can’t wait to kill him this week
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February 20th, 2010 at 8:31 pm
Great post vene,
about the kiting path, i just try to be consistent - i follow my own logical rules, they can be hard to explain.. impossible almost. Too many variables…
Nice you posted this, i was just sitting with beer in hand, pondering about how to explain it to my melee peeps, and here you are talking about it.
Thanks.
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February 21st, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Another good post reminding me of things.
I am very guilty of #6. In fact, like others, I’ve probably used Shatt Throw about 3 times since it was introduced. I always forget to swap stances in fights like festergut (both out of and into def stance).
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March 2nd, 2010 at 10:30 am
“Personal DPS Matters”
I learned this on TOGC, when I was always assigned to tank Jaraxxus. Trouble target switching, low DPS, etc = too many adds. I always dragged the boss over, and I figured I’d throw my prot DPS on the portal too! I mean, when you have a solid threat lead and you’re right there anyways, your DPS should be where it matters most.
“Erratic / too much boss movement” - Man, this is so true. Jaraxxus was, similarly, a nice learning fight for me (I’m a new tank, haha). I used to move J way too much. As I learned the fight more, I learned to move him less and less. I find that moving things less panicy, more calmly, and more purposefully - and less, but effectively - is a nice sign of how much I have learned.
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May 20th, 2010 at 7:56 am
#6 Don’t forget to use Retaliation when you’re about to start tanking, and Recklessness when you’re not. These two aren’t as big as Shattering Throw, but definately helpful.
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