Very nice guide!
Very well organized and informative guide! I've always played healers and have considered getting into tanking, and this guide is a great introduction.
>You can accomplish this by strafing (Q and E keybinds by default) or backpedaling to the edge of a pack.Backpedaling should only be used for careful placement of an enemy (or yourself). Strafing will never show your back to an enemy even if you are moving directly away from it (and the animation looks like you are in fact showing your back).One other thing you didint mention is keeping mobs tight-packed and ways to accomplish that: run towards ranged or slowest mob, while gathering all other OR Line of Sight pull - pull a pack and hide behind a corner.Also camera usage - you want to move your camera so that you can see the most (incoming patrols for example).The guide is somewhat misleading for Warriors as it doesnt mention Devastate, which is most basic holding aggro ability.
I didn't read any of the class-specific stuff (except for paladins), but this is spot on. I have a protection paladin and this reads exactly how I play. A must read for any up-and-coming tanks of any class. A great read.
usefull, but probably only for a lowbies, noobs and begginers only :Pany tank with experience and brain could told you all that and much more
Excellent and very detailed guide really good for anyone who has not tried tanking yet.
Wonderful information for beginner tanks. It's not as scary as it looks!
I love the fact that the allies are refered to as "fragile."
Having been a melee class primarily since BC, this is perfect,"Avoid unnecessary movement. Too much movement makes it difficult for damage dealers, particularly melee, to do their jobs,"I hate when tanks move everywhere. I understand some fights, because of the "fire," but having a tank myself I know there isn't excessive movement.
No one guide is going to be the answer all to tanking, this guide does a very good job of answering 80% of the questions and need to know tips to becoming an awesome tank. I have been playing a tank since day one of beta for vanilla, I currently play a guardian druid, blood dk, prot pally and started playing a warrior tank too.It is a demanding spec with little glory, but is the backbone to any raid. Have fun, don't stress the mistakes and the gear will eventually reach you.
Nice guide! Wish this was around when I started my paladin back in vanilla days! :)Many low-level raids & dungeons (at heroic even) can be solo'd once you get comfortable with your proto-pally - even before lvl90. When grouping, make sure you connect with the healers as you should be one of the first in any combat as the agro-taker. Mitigation of damage during group raids is easier once you get your rotation down, but having a healer watch your back is still a good thing. Just don't move around a lot - you're a tank, you should move slow.
This is a very well written, general guide to tanking. I personally have been tanking for 7 years, and in my experience, a tank should NEVER pull with taunt. I like to pull with ranged abilities only, and in my personal experience and opinion, it's important to save the taunt until it's needed. All tanking classes have a ranged ability available to them. For a Warrior, I like to use Heroic Throw to pull with, or even Heroic Leap, depending on where adds are located of course. Druids have Faerie Fire, DK's have Icy Touch/Death Coil, Paladins have Avenger's Shield, and Monk's have Dizzying Haze. It's very important to save your taunting ability for stray mobs that you may miss and will need taunted off of the healer or off of a trigger happy dps'er , or to always have it available to tank swap with an off tank in a raiding situation.
This simple guide helped me move from being a pally healer for 7 years to a tank. I tried out Druid, Pally and Death Knight. For some reason, it's been really hard to find updated information about tanking for WoD, so thank you very much for the help in this guide :)
awesome article. i have always wanted to tank more as a Warrior, but most runs have preferred Paladins. this guide is very informative, not just for the Warr, but the other tank classes as well. and not condescending, like some other WoW sites.again, much thanks for the straightforward tanking info... i for one, appreciate your effort!
Feels like I'm reading Harry Potter book, not a guide. Very TL;DR-y, but generally good guide, except for a few nitpicks...1. DKs"You enjoy a relatively straightforward base rotation that allows you to focus on the correct application of cooldowns to perfect your role."That's really insulting, suggesting that all it takes to play DK is to press the "heal button". But then again, author plays brewmaster, the only class I can tip my hat to."You prefer mitigation through absorption and healing."It's no longer about absorption."You prioritize self-sufficiency over group utility."Healing spelldamage, positioning large clusters of mobs, providing raid cooldown, summoning army to tank for you.How's that lacking in group utility?Should also note that DKs are kings of AoE in this xpack(at least among tanks).2. DruidSo much wall of text, while in reality you can, now even more than in previous expansions, sum up it all to: stack stamina, click the dodge button.Do it right and you might suit to tank a few niche fights. Do it wrong and you are the most useless tank of the expansion.3. MonkNot much to nitpick here... Author's class is best presented.4. PaladinShould've added that paladins have as broken single target burst as DKs have with AoE.5. WarriorsDruids with more flexible mitigation and better translocation. Nuff said.
I dunno Wirxaw, it seems reasonable to call the base DK rotation simple. Really I feel all tanks have a simple core rotation, and it's just a measure of how much depth beyond that rotation exists.That's why I find paladin tanking to be the least interesting (and simplest overall) since they really seem to lack the cooldown variety of the other tanks. (Though admittedly my 95 pally hasn't tanked since the WoD patch, but it sounds like not much has changed.)
Axehilt, the very reason I didn't continue the nitpick is because I admit, that compared to brewmaster, DK "rotation" indeed looks simple. However, the trick about DK "simple" rotation, is that where others merely maintain their mitigation - DKs have to perfectly time their DS with tap dancing. It's almost an art. That's why I felt that "simple" is an understatement.