Loading ...Consistency, The Unspoken Bond between Tanks
During our Blood Queen progress on Sunday, I noticed an interesting phenomenon between myself and my offtank. Whenever Blood Queen flew into the air, I’d position myself exactly where I was tanking Blood Queen and my offtank would run behind me about 10 yards and up the stairs. (You have to spread out during this portion of the encounter) It didn’t matter whether a slow reaction to fear left us in a less than ideal setup to accomplish this, we still did it.
Why this struck me as odd is that we never talked about this.
We just did it.
We were Consistent
And you might be thinking… so what? Or perhaps, even being critical of this behavior and questioning our ability to innovate in the heat of battle. But, this is more than a trivial choice. It influences not only the speed in which we can execute the mechanics of the fight, but also creates a domino effect that influences the rest of the raid’s positioning.
Which isn’t to say necessarily that as tanks that we control positioning completely, but it is to say that one of the most important things we as tanks can do is remain consistent in that positioning.
Where we consistently tank bosses and adds during encounters determines where DPSers and Healers instinctively position themselves in the heat of the moment. A consistent tank simplifies the encounter by removing himself as a variable from it. Consistency is the very reason why pugs can struggle so much on “easy mode” content. As individuals, every member of the pug has different instincts on where people will be in an encounter.
How you can Improve Pugs
Your guild does a fight in an unconventional way… that’s great for you guys, but it’s horrible for you to inflict that on your pug. One of the silliest things I have done this expansion was on Emalon in VoA. I pulled the boss over to the adds just before one of the adds was about to be overcharged. This is done to ensure the melee will be beside the adds when they overcharge. It’s something I did for a while after noticing another tank do it and I thought, “That’s clever. One less thing for everyone to think about.”
It wasn’t clever. It was stupid.
No one does Emalon that way. We nearly wiped because I caught our group totally off-guard. Some pugs had trouble targeting the adds when I did this and in their infinite wisdom decided that they’d just keep dpsing the boss instead. Somehow despite an add exploding at the end, we managed to kill the boss. It probably doesn’t surprise you that I was greeted by a number of complaints by the pugs stating “how bad of tank I was”.
And they were right.
Sure, they shouldn’t have stopped doing the most important part of the encounter because I wasn’t doing it the way they were used to, but let’s not kid ourselves, I was the one being inconsistent.
Be wary of Unspoken Consistency
I still remember back in TBC when I first started leading 25 mans and we were working on Gruul. A lot of guilds approached this fight by just doing it as one big free-for-all. I didn’t. Certainly, I tried that for a bit, but that’s not how we ended up killing him. To kill him, I assigned every single ranged DPS to a clock position around the room in sets of 2. They were to be in that area at all times. Many were critical of me “babying” the raid, but after the fact, they couldn’t argue with the results.
Fast forward to now, we’ve killed Blood Princes many times and as many of you know, one of the major mechanics of the fight is to spread out for a portion of it. Every time I’ve done the encounter, I tank the shockwave prince and when he starts casting the empowered version, I stay on top of him. The melee just knows that I take this spot. Or at least the melee I usual have does. When a new melee DPSer came in last week, I found my spot occupied and as a result, we were both promptly shot across the room.
Now sure, the Blood Princes encounter isn’t particular unforgiving so we innovated on the fly and we killed them and it didn’t matter.
This time.
The Lesson in This
Just as being consistent is important, communicating the way in which you will be consistent is equally important. It’s easy to blame the new guy because he doesn’t know the secret hand shake, but you’re kidding yourself, if you actually think it’s solely his fault. If you find yourself struggling with an encounter, stop praying that everyone will just “get it” and take the time to outline everything you do even if you aren’t the Raid Leader. The domino effect is a powerful thing.
“I tank the boss here, I run here, I use cooldowns here, I celebrate here.”
March 1st, 2010 at 3:39 pm
A very thoughtful post Vene. Its hard to understand why pugs sometimes fail so hard on easy content but you’ve presented a very well thought and subsequently well laid out way of explaining that. Thanks for your insight!
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March 1st, 2010 at 3:40 pm
That is a really good post. That is such a good point.
It’s subconscious, in a way, it’s automatic like you said, but the IMPACT is huge.
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March 1st, 2010 at 3:57 pm
I’ve been tanking with a great DK for the better part of the last year (from about XT through IC) and he’s got a very strong possibility for a new job overseas, many many time zones removed from Kirin Tor server time. While I’m happy for him and this great opportunity…I’m thoroughly bummed at the thought of having to train a new tank in all the unspoken cues and mannerisms that he and I built up over so long working together. Some very pertinent points for my consideration here, Vene. Thanks.
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March 1st, 2010 at 5:17 pm
Another brilliant column. Reminding me of things I rarely yet should really be thinking about.
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March 1st, 2010 at 5:19 pm
Would really like to see a post about your thoughts on preemptive cooldown usage including external cooldowns. I know I could use loads of work in that area.
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Dread reply on March 2, 2010 6:17 am:
I know my healers could use a lot of work i n that area. ^.^
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March 1st, 2010 at 9:17 pm
Haha! I noticed exactly the same thing in BQL, except I am the OT. My MT has never told me where to position myself, but I always put myself about 10 yards behind him on the stairs. Then I move back in when blood whirl is done.
I tend to ask too many questions because I like to be completely clear on what I’m doing, but I always think this makes my MT and I work a lot better together - because in the fight at least he knows I’m doing exactly what I should be, and if I’m not, I fix it.
I find it much easier to tank with someone, whether I am MTing or OTing, when I have an instinctive handle on how they will approach a certain encounter.
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March 1st, 2010 at 10:38 pm
True story- when you get this bond between tanks, its like a readycheck being completed instantaneously: the offtank nods at the tank, and the fun begins.
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Lujanera reply on March 2, 2010 11:27 am:
Absolutely. It can, unfortunately, also work in reverse: your trusted fellow tank stops raiding and the magic ends.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 3:01 am
I definitely agree with that point.
I’m a healer, and I know that I often “expect” some things to be done in specific ways.
Of course, I’m trained to react to events (that’s what to be a healer means), but I know I’m doing better when I know where everyone will position, who will use which cd at which time, etc.
Sometimes, we don’t need to specify it explicitely. We know eachother’s habits, and that’s fine. Sometimes, I prefer to determines everything in advance (especially for crucial cooldowns on the MT, like Festergut, or Mirmiron). But knowing people, and what they do, is really really important for me.
That’s the same for dps. I know the one from my guild which will stay in fire / cleaves / etc., and I know they’ll require some more heals. That’s also the same for healers : I know how much weight they can carry, and how much importance for they gives to their personnal survival.
But the most importance one is the MT : he settles the crucial part of positionning (the boss), he gives the speed of the run (even for boss, when movement is involved), and he is the one that usually MUST survives at all cost.
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Haylo reply on March 4, 2010 6:52 pm:
“I’m a healer, and I know that I often “expect” some things to be done in specific ways.”
^ This ^
Unless I know that something different is going to happen, I won’t react as quickly. There’s been a few times where the DPS deliberately takes aggro from the tank, we let them get pwned. I won’t heal/bubble and the tank doesn’t taunt until they’re dead. Lrn2assist.
So I think there can be an unspoken bond between healer and tank as well.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 4:15 am
I too tried a stupid strat during Emalon, I moved the adds over to Emalon, so that I could DPS the boss, result? A kitty druid went bear, aoe taunted, got gibbed
Second result? The healers stopped healing me because they’d assumed I died. I died.
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Dread reply on March 2, 2010 10:58 am:
Kinda looks like your druid and healers are dumb.
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Vivilros reply on March 3, 2010 8:03 am:
Well, yea, I can’t really blame the druid for assuming shit had gone wrong, I didn’t exactly say “Hey I’m going to run over here and sunder up the boss” I didn’t even plan it, but…. seriously were you clicking my character to heal me or something?
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March 2nd, 2010 at 4:52 am
I distinctly recall this issue happening to us on a fairly routine Hodir kill, back in 3.1. It actually happened between our healers (where, arguably, it’s more important) as we had a brand new Restoration shaman in the raid.
Basically, we’d always had a Discipline priest concentrating on me alone, with the other two raid healers ignoring me and dealing solely with the raid. The new shammy, however, came from a guild that had all the healers helping each other; so when he topped me off, he assumed that the tank healer would help with the hunter who was low.
That didn’t happen. The hunter died. It was explanation time.
The thing is, a few people originally blamed the shammy for it until I piped up and said, actually, it’s my fault for not being clear on what was expected of him. Lo and behold, every encounter after that, he performed really well and is a nicely accomplished healer.
I love this post, Vene, ‘cos it touches on a number of themes I’ve been trying to hammer into my raid groups for a while now - whatever you do, be consistent. Even if someone is consistently bad, that’s okay because your raid will learn to account for that person not pulling their weight.
But right up there with consistency, is clarity.
Make sure every raider knows what they’re doing before the pull.
That way, flaws are easily identified when the plan falls apart.
And if it’s the same person consistently…
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March 2nd, 2010 at 6:16 am
Through the entirety of BC and up through Ulduar in WotLK, I had been tanking along side best friend paladin tank, Aaesop. We had real synergy and had come into our BC guild as a package deal, taking over the main tank positions of previous deserters. We never had to talk unless s*** hit the fan, and even then the snap reactions were key, and people kind of saw that from the outside. Or maybe they didn’t. Aaesop plays his rogue now as his main (and we’re on horde now, his pally is alliance). In this new guild I am still forming relationships with the tanks that we have, so far I don’t foresee any problems. Their best-geared tank before I came actually approached me (me, being the new guy) and asked if I noticed if he was making any nub mistakes or if his tanking was ok. Then he told me he had been playing since Sept 09. TBH I didn’t believe him because he’s pretty damn good. We’ll get it figured out, it’s just nuance. Great post Vene.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 10:59 am
I love me some good off-tanks. As the generally excepted MT for runs I do I love having a solid 2nd in command as a tank. Developing that synergy is a wonderful thing.
I recently got invited into a 25Man ICC as an OT. One of the first things I did was pick out the two other tanks and watch how they operated. I focused on keeping up TC/Demo shout and then after that moving with them, anticipating where I needed to be, what was happening and trying to be there for them at the right times. This along with having the tanks providing very helpful information allowed us to kill bosses I hadn’t even done before acting as the 2nd Tank.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 2:43 pm
As usual a good post Vene.
The post acutally eludes to the fact that consistency isn’t just for the tanks and I personally feel this is a very important point.
We have always found that when the same group of us raided together our results were better. We all worked to the same tune/rhthym, and almost seemed to instinctively know what everyone else was doing. Once we got a fight once, we almost always got the fight!
It even gets to a point that there is no vent chatter about the fight, just general crap talk.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 11:57 pm
I can relate to the consistency and synergy of the raid group. The guild I’m in is relatively small and can’t really get a full 25 man raid without pugging a few in.
We do have a solid 10 man team that have been together for most of WotLK and we all know how everyone acts/reacts to most situations. But recently we’ve gotten another 10 man group going with a few alts, but mostly its newer members that have gotten geared up and want to raid.
We’ve been trying to split up the more experienced raiders from the original group and mixing in the new raiders in the hopes of smoother runs, but its rough going.
Us “old timers” will get the young pups straightened out, but sometimes when it all goes pear shaped I’m left trying to figure out where my OT buggered off to instead of just knowing where he is and what he’s doing.
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March 3rd, 2010 at 9:21 am
[I]”I skim read the articles here, I read how you tanked Emalon here, I stopped reading here, Noob tank here.”[/I]
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March 3rd, 2010 at 9:53 am
“I tank the boss here, I run here, I use cooldowns here, I celebrate here.” I’m going to use that explanation for my next raid.
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Bhig reply on March 3, 2010 1:09 pm:
This reminds us of our standard plan on new encounters.
A: “Anyone know anything about this fight?
ALL: “Nope”
A: “So what’s the plan.”
B: “Tank Sh*t. Heal Sh*t. Sort out the kinks next run.”
ALL: “ROFL” /charge
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Verata reply on March 4, 2010 3:55 pm:
Bhig.. I’m still laughing cuz that happens soooo much. LOL
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March 3rd, 2010 at 11:53 am
I noticed this mainly on Anub in TOC25. The OT would grab one add and I would OT the other. We never cross taunted. The OT missed one run and the OT we brought in cross taunted every time. It took 2-3 wipes before we worked out a system.
imo, consistant healers and tank are the key to any raid’s success.
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March 3rd, 2010 at 12:30 pm
I tanked with my brother for about a year, greatest partner I ever had. We stayed in a crappy guild for months just to raid tank together, alas the crappyness caught up and we had to take different paths; but I am always on the lookout for a decent guild that needs 2 tanks.
Always good times. I could just “tell” what he was going to do. It was sweet.
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March 3rd, 2010 at 1:03 pm
Great article. It reminds me of how any given person will go to the same city, same bank, same auctioneer, and even the same mailbox.
You can see how the effect passes on to the rest of the raid if you just sit back and take a look during a farm encounter. In the same consistent 10-man, I’ve noticed my healers and ranged standing in the same areas, melee standing abreast in the same order, and how they move makes it seem like dejavu since I saw the same things last week.
The consistency carries everywhere too, there are moments where I’m about to die, but there’s that feeling in the back of my head that a nuke heal is coming for me, just because I know the healers that well, and I hold off on using emergency cooldowns for other parts of the fights. Because of this, low health warnings don’t even make me skip a beat in terms of threat or mobility, and cooldowns are saved for other more damaging parts of the fight.
Although, the unknown is partially the reason why I kind of like PUGs. Though I usually pug content one tier below my current, the unpredictability of the group in general forces me to adapt and do things I don’t normally do. This helps me overall especially with progression encounters. It’s kind of like PvPing to keep the senses sharp and to develop better awareness.
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March 4th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
There is a bond between tanks. I’ve noticed one between healers too, but not quite the same. DPS are more competitive.
Even if pugging a raid you’ll chat with the other tank, and I’ve noticed that it’s usually very friendly. Whether to agree on how many stacks of a debuff to taunt on, who’s taking boss, who’s taking adds etc. But it starts with saying hi.
Sometimes you both realise that you haven’t done the encounter before, or have done it as dps/heals and never tanked it. You chat about how to wing it, without the raid needing to know that you’re not quite sure what you’re doing. Tanks need to confident in the face of adversity, so concerns are more likely to be expressed in private. That creates the bond I think. Relying on one another, and optimism and confidence in the face of shared challenges, like the bonds created in real life.
When guild tanking, you get used to the patterns and habits of the other tanks. You may call a taunt on vent the first time or two, and then not bother, if you trust the other tank to be vigilant.
You have your favourite healers too, the ones that you can count on to notice that you’ve charged in to that massive trash pack, that you’re line of sighting, that you need to be topped off on the move, or that you’ve moved slightly out of range to let the melee and pets get out of the fire. Tanks and tank healers rely on each other too, although you may not have time to chat much. It creates a bond between you.
Do take the time to thank your healers for doing well. Healing can be like making sure the trains run on time, people only notice when they don’t. Thank them in /ra for preventing a wipe, or whisper thanks to your assigned healer when they keep you up despite the odds. As a healer in a past life, I know that it makes a ton of difference to your motivation!
Chev
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Verata reply on March 8, 2010 3:21 pm:
Well said Chev, very well said.
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March 4th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
great post Vene. I completely agree with the “dont be silent” concept. It’s always a raid plus when the tanks (and all for that matter) communicate effectively. A few mins spent before a boss pull greatly increases the chance of success and in turn Puggies to want to run with you again, should you need to PuG.. I always “briefly” let the other tanks know what “we usually do” for say.. ToTC/ICC Bosses
Again great post Vene
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March 15th, 2010 at 8:57 pm
Of all the unspoken bonds I prefer the bond between tank and healer.
Using CDs right when you’ve seen someone else take gobs of damage and you realize they’re going to need to be busy elsewhere for a few precious seconds… It’s gratifying when sometimes they actually whisper you afterwards with a “I see what you did there. :)” Or when they know to hold off on agroing because your threat isn’t built up yet, or when it comse to managing the gaggle of DPS and their crazy antics.
You used to see it more often in 5-mans (I say ‘used to’. Now every man and his dog is 5.5k+ gearscore and just drags a heroic instance with them with all the grace and finesse of a monkey f*cking a football), where the ratio is 1 to 1 and you alone control the pulls instead of a raid leader. Checking mana levels, getting a feel for when you’re stressing the healer or whether they’re busy playing bejewelled mod while hitting 1, 1, 2. DG’ing some extra mob packs into the fray to make things interesting for them.
I have a couple favourite healers who I can do anything with, even survived some blown enrage timers when DPS just wasn’t up to scratch. Those same healers have clearly had issues adjusting to combined-guilds’ other main tanks, even though those guys are better-geared. (Well. Massive stam pools anyway, I haven’t checked their avoidance. They may have fallen into the tanktrap of thinking moar HP = moar tanky, but I hope not. It’s us tanks’ version of the dps epeen comparison.)
This article has got me thinking I might need to sit down and chat to those guys and find out exactly what it is we do together that makes things work so well. Who knows… during a mutual appreciation session we might even be able to find a way to do it better.
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Rios reply on March 15, 2010 10:31 pm:
Er… or it can be best to let sleeping dogs lie. When broaching the subjectt with my favourite healer, he chuckles, “Yes… and I can also tell when you’ve guffed your rotation. It takes you nearly two rotations to get your threat output back to nominal.”
Damn, I was hoping no-one would notice things like that…
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March 16th, 2010 at 9:04 am
I agree that there is a bond between tanks, and that consistency helps a lot. I recently tanked Lord Marrowgar with a pug group without voice chat, and was amazed at the synergy when both tanks instinctively moved out of the coldflame in the same direction every time, staying perfectly stacked with no typing needed. A week later, I did the same fight on a guild run with voice chat, and despite agreeing ahead of time to a “left, right, then left” series of movements, found the fight much harder. Sometimes, things just click between tanks, and sometimes not.
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