Tanking 101

I have been tanking as a paladin in WoW a long time (since about 2005). Not as long as some of you, but longer than most. I regularly tanked Blackrock Depths, Stratholme, and Scholomance before Burning Crusade launched. I tanked Kara and Zul’Aman pre-nerf during Burning Crusade, and I have tanked every encounter in Wrath.

Over the past couple of months, using the Random dungeon tool, which is awesome (thanks Blizz!), I have encountered many people who either don’t know how to play, or don’t care to know how to play. While leveling alts, I usually queue as DPS. In the randoms that I have done as a DPS player, I have seen some truly terrible tanks. I have also seen some good ones, but those seem like they are getting few and far between as the need for Frost Emblems dimishes.

So I decided that I wanted to do my part to try and impart some wisdom to the new tanks in the game. Sometimes these are converted DPS’ers that enjoy the quick queue, sometimes these are new players who have only recently gotten their first character to level 80. Either way, there are certain things that every tank (regardless of class) needs to know and do.

Here are my top 10 keys to being a successful tank:

10. Do your homework – Right or wrong, as a tank you are generally looked at as the leader. This means you need to know the bosses abilities. You more than anyone else need to know the fight’s mechanics. This is the role you have chosen. Take some extra time and make sure that you perform at your best by preparing beforehand.

9. Learn to position mobs – You need to understand that how you position and move mobs will directly affect your party member’s ability to DPS those mobs. Especially if you have a melee DPS’er in your group, don’t move mobs unless absolutely necessary. The less the mobs move, the more your DPS’ers can actually DPS, and the quicker the mobs go down.

8. Face the boss away from the party – This goes hand in hand with Mob positioning, but I felt it was so important that it deserved its own entry. Most bosses have some kind of frontal cone damage ability (cleave, breath, fireball, slime spray, flamethrower, etc . . .). It is imperative that only the tank get hit by these abilities.

7. Learn to strafe – This is important to everyone, not just tanks. Moving backwards is at 50% normal speed. Except for certain specific situations, there is pretty much no reason to ever walk backwards.

6. Know your threat “rotation” – Rotation is in quotes because only one tanking class currently uses a true rotation. The others use a priority system where their abilities are prioritized from most effective to least effective when it comes to generating threat. Get to know how your class most effectively generates threat. Then commit it to muscle memory so that you can generate threat without thinking about it.

5. Learn to produce threat while moving – Once you have that whole strafing thing down, and have committed you threat “rotation” to memory, then learn to combine the two. Get good at moving the mob and continuing to produce threat while moving them. This can be the difference in holding threat or losing it if your DPS’ers outgear you by a sizable margin.

4. Be mindful of your healer – There are few things that frustrate a healer more than a tank that can’t be bothered to wait for his healer to refill their mana pool. One of those things, though, is a tank that constantly moves out of LOS (Line of Sight) of their healer. In any challenging content, the last thing you want is a frustrated healer. So, before starting that next pull, take a peek at your healer’s mana pool. Also, don’t grab a pack of mobs and immediately then duck around a corner. Both of those are bad, m’kay?

3. Never give a boss your back – If you need to run away from a boss, or move a boss, NEVER turn your back to them and run away. You cannot dodge, parry, or block (if a shield user) from behind. Also, you can do little or none of your threat moves (depending on class) while not facing the boss. If you need to move, strafe instead. You move just as fast, but can continue producing threat and will not gimp your dodge and parry.

2. Situational Awareness – “Keep your head on a swivel.” That is what my old football coach used to always tell us. Know where you are, but also know what is going on around you. As a tank, it is your job to grab the attention of every mob that is engaged. DPS’ers tend to do more damage when they are a.) not running for their lives, or b.) still alive. If you are tanking a group and a ranged mob aggros to your healer, you have to do something about that RIGHT NOW. Any mob hitting your healer is a priority.

1. Don’t be a “Rockstar” – This is something that I never would have added before, but there is a new attitude with tanks recently, kinda like most of them think that their shit don’t stink. They figure since tanks are in such demand, that they can act like asshats and still get a group anytime they want. Remember that as a tank, you are still part of a TEAM. Whether it is a 5-man, 10-man, or 25-man, a team is only as strong as its weakest member. I know I would rather group with a tank that has a 4k gear score that is polite and knowledgeable rather than a “rockstar” with a 6k gear score.