Basic Tanking (Basic, but it's not THAT simple) Edit:6-18-06

[Guest]

First edit: this information pertains to players geared for PvE, playing in PvE. Raid/PvP gear can cause certain things like super-damaging warriors etc.

Sorry if this is a little pretentious of me to post, but I simply cannot stand warriors who do not know how to hold aggro. Some of the more experienced warriors should feel free to amend this.

The "Duh" stuff:
-If you see a mob go after the healer, go after that mob! If the healer dies, you ALL die! And if you don't...well..a bit of downtime at the very least. If the healer is dying or taking a lot of damage, this is a sign that you are NOT DOING YOUR JOB. If the group is succeeding despite this, it is because of the grace and skill of the other players.
-You will die. You're like the Marines. You're the first in line. Drinking potions if you get nervous is acceptable, but trust the healer. Don't focus on saving yourself. Save others.
-If there is more than one mob, make sure you or someone else is tanking them. If they are unattended, they will go straight for the healer the second they cast ANYTHING on you.
-You have a rage bar for a reason! You should be getting hit! If you were meant to deal damage and ONLY deal damage, you would have an energy bar like a rogue. By the way, rogues can use swords and maces. You wanna just hit stuff all fast and do a lot of melee damage but don't like stealth/trickery/whatever? Make a combat rogue!!!!!

The "Do YOUR job" stuff:
-You are the TANK. NOT THE DAMAGE DEALER. You are INSANE if you think you do more damage than a rogue, mage, hunter, or warlock. Get a damage meter. If you are outdamaging them, it's only because they're surely doing something very wrong.
-As per the first point, the holding aggro with "damage alone" concept is very hard to pull off! Without the tricks of defensive stance, you'll have to be allowed to score a hit or two first so as to not lose aggro. That's kind of annoying. My advice is to start in defensive stance to taunt, hit once or twice (since they're taunted others can do stuff immediately) and burn your rage away. THEN switch to battle or berserker stance and damage away.
-No, a shield isn't necessary. But it makes the healer's job easier. You might notice while in a group that there are other people playing besides you. Empathy: fun in its own way.
-USE ^&#@ING DEFENSIVE STANCE! I don't care WHAT your build is! It's still super useful! You won't combust switching to defensive stance just because you're a 2h'er with mortal strike! Get over it!

The "how to almost never lose threat/you're the effing greatest warrior ever" stuff:
-Trust me. When you say to a rogue, "Don't use feint. Ever. Just backstab them to hell." and they do it...that reaction of shock and appreciation is what being a tank is ALL ABOUT
-Defensive stance.
-Shield.
-Sunder armor first. Up to five times on the long fights. Sunder armor has added threat just like heroic strike. However, sunder armor is INSTANT. Therefore, you get a hit AND a bit of threat and then another hit. If you have a lot of rage, you can blast them 5 times and then they effing want you dead more than anything in the world.
-Revenge. Wait....what? Is that like..an ability or something? Yup. A lot of warriors don't use it, not being in defensive stance and all. It activates upon parrying, dodging, and most importantly...BLOCKING. Having a shield GREATLY increases your opportunities to revenge. Revenge is basically like sunder armor, minus the debuff, and costs only 5 rage. So it's a great thing to throw in now and again since it's so dang cheap.
-Yay! Much hate have I! After all that sundering, revenging, and whatnot, now I can heroic strike! My favorite button to mash! Go me! However, sunder armor once in a while to keep that debuff up. It's a goodun.

The "OMG multiple aggro! Lasers! Pew pew!" stuff:

-Demoralizing shout! Great to make sure you get initial aggro. If someone else is pulling, it'll pull the extras off of the puller. Beyond that, just a debuff
-Go after the elites. The AoE and the damage dealers can handle non-elites well enough
-Pure AoE. In this case, the best thing here is tactical mastery and a good 2h weapon. Charge if you can, then immediately demo shout and switch to berserker stance. Hit berserker rage as that generates more rage from damage. And you'll get a lot from just a few seconds of aggro from the demo shout. Use whirlwind then switch to battle stance for thunderclap. Then switch back for whirlwind etc. In these situations, you ARE a damage dealer as holding aggro on 5+ nonelite mobs is a waste of time
-Thunderclap has no added threat! Don't think it'll suffice when there's area of effect (AoE) spells going off! And don't break the sheep! AGH!
-Cleave has no added threat! I hope you do much damage if this is all you're doing!
-"I win" buttons. Retaliation, Shield Wall, Last Stand...Warriors have a lot of them. Use them wisely for they have MASSIVE cooldown timers.

An important thing to note about warriors is their dependency on their equipment. The first character I ever made is a warrior, and at some point I got very behind on finding good gear for him. He became harder to solo than a priest, and about as damage absorbant as a rogue. He was, essentially, completely broken. While this won't help you get to 60, here's Kosath's take on gear for high-end content:

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Eh, but since then I've been on quite the path of discovery and taking money from my alts so my warrior is now quite the speedy grinder and a damn good tank. All I can say about finding gear up to then is to run a lot of instances. And get the Wingblade! You're horde you lucky SOB! I wish my warrior could have had a Wingblade! All I got were these damn pants and a 2h Mace. 2h'ers are not good for soloing. Really, they're not good for anything but PvP in MY opinion, but whatever.



I guess I should have done a druid one first, but whatever! Druids aren't picked to be main tank! I guess I could do that, a shaman, and a paladin one at some point. But first I'd have to make a paladin...

[Eveline]

((What a great guide, and a fun read! Thank you Urlacher! From what I have heard adventuring with Kosath, this all sounds right to me. As a warlock, I love a good warrior! They let me go all out with spells the way I am meant to!

...Oh, and do not go make a palladin. I veto that idea before you even seriously consider it!))

[Guest]

Just a few things from me. First off, improved heroic strike is great. 12 or 13 rage instead of 15 will help hold aggro. Second, the more that hits you, the more rage you get! True, you have to really trust your healers, but unless the mobs hit annihilatingly hard, try keep everything on you and not set off tanks. You get more rage, hold more aggro, and make the healers job easier. Like you said with sunder armor, put on five then do it again ever so often. In this case, sunder lasts 30 seconds, so be sure to drop another one within that time, and be very careful to watch for the animation that it landed. In some of the higher instances, sunder doesn't always land, so you may have to repeat a few times.
-Multiple Aggro. This is the hardest thing to do as a MT. First things first, contrary to popular belief, this is NOT all on the main tank. The entire group affects this. If your in a small five man group on easier instances, use the MT as the MA as well. If anyone attacks anything else, it will automatically peel off the tank. If multiple people do this, it becomes hell to try tank. Remember, taunt can only be done every 10 seconds (8 if your prot speced), and trying to pick up 4 targets which are still being attacked by different people just won't happen. I've been in many hellish UBRS runs because no one used assist. The other bad thing that can happen in groups is other classes using their high threat skills while still targeting the MT/MA's target. Nothing is worse then tanking in a group where the priest uses mind blast..... Other then that, when you make the pull, bring everything to you, taunt, demoralizing shout, drop a few sunders, then if your confident your main target is on you, switch a target, drop a taunt and instantly return to the main target. Every few hits hit another target, sunder another one, just cause some threat to override the healer aggro. Keep most of your attention on the main target, but just try the odd hit/sunder/taunt/heroic strike here and there. The other CRITICAL thing here is that no matter what, the warrior pull. That way everything sets aggro to the warrior. The tank won't have to go chase down everything that's now following a mage who sheep pulled for example. If any group members do pull stuff off the warrior first thing, either by nuking it or whatnot before the tank gets hit, there's almost nothing a tank can do. A tank doesn't get rage through doing damage, they make rage by getting hit. Since rage is critical for holding aggro, if someone pulls stuff off the tank before he even gets hit... it gets messy.
-Another key thing: if your in a larger group with multiple tanks, don't have both tanks taunting the same target. Aggro fights don't help anyone. To my experience, they even make the target more likely to bolt for another person, usually a healer. The other downside to this is that the healers are concentrating usually on the main tank, and if you keep pulling off, they might not catch it quick enough and next thing you know the group is down a member. I'd just like to put in here that our guild has AMAZING healers and they catch this quite well, but I've been in many pickup groups where the other warrior dies... often.
-Shamans: I realize you wear mail armor and that you think you can be tanks, but just because you can take more hits then the average person doesn't mean you should. By going nuke happy, sure you raise your DPS and peel something off the tank trying to prove that you in your mighty armor can tank, your really making things harder on the whole group. First off, theres now two targets for the healers to watch out for, and the MT will now be generating a lot less rage, making it harder to hold the rest of the targets. That being said, not all shamans do this, and we do have many wonderful ones here as well .
-DPS aggro holding. Yup... it can be done, and as I've found often unintentionally. Also, if your just DPS aggro holding, there's a better chance you'll die... ask anyone in ZG with me, heh.
-AOE pulls. Your only real use is the first 3 seconds of a pull. Pull them, bring them all to you and demoralizing shout. This will make them hit the AOEers for less damage and put them all in a small area. If your a tauren, war stomp right as the AOE begins. This will buy two uninterupted seconds for the AOErs. After that, stand back and watch the fireworks because there's not much else you can do.

I just want to say that by no means do I claim to be the perfect tank, I know I'm not. These are just a few of my opinions and some other people might have different sugestions. Kosath is a great person to talk to about tanking. As with everything, there's always exceptions. Some fights may need offtanks, and a place like ZG is full of exceptions.

[Guest]

Yes, I should mention something of the rage system. It just goes to show that the warrior is MEANT to tank because being hit grants much more rage. Chances are that a warrior that tanks properly will actually outdamage a DPS warrior just because of the superior rage generation!

Some of your points, Umu, involved the other people in the group. It wasn't really a goal of mine to make a WoW grouping guide, just a tanking guide. And I won't go into talent builds either. Because then I'd just be saying "EFF MORTAL STRIKE! BAAGHGHGHG!" a lot. I'm kinda biased in that way.

Also, some how both of us forgot the magic of challenging shout. Hm.

I'll update this when I see/think of huge changes to make.

[Kosath]

This is a fairly good guide, although while I understand the frustration Urlacher, it may be better to write guides that don't sound like you're yelling at someone.

Umu is very right about aggro being the entire groups job. Just one person attacking the wrong target will throw you off a lot, but with everyone focused on a single target I have held aggro on 10 opponents at once. It is ok to have one thing attacking the main assist (who should NOT be the main tank) as long as it is not a cloth wearer. Switching targets and cycling through is the key.

Also, it may surprise some people that I almost never use heroic strike. Cycling shield slam, sunder, and revenge can hold any boss. Using heroic strike would help with damage though, as on most bosses it is easy to have infinite rage. But it's a matter of the global cooldown, and not fitting it into the chain before the first one has reset.

Finally, this is only half of tanking.... the aggro holding part. The other half is taking damage, which is mainly about gear. I'll be posting a guide on that shortly.

[Guest]

This is a fairly good guide, although while I understand the frustration Urlacher, it may be better to write guides that don't sound like you're yelling at someone.

*laugh* It's sort of intrinsic of my character and writing style. Also, it illustrates how people feel when a warrior fails. Most of the groups when I'm Aramaki and we're yelling at the warrior are depressing. They always blame the rest of the group. :?

Umu is very right about aggro being the entire groups job. Just one person attacking the wrong target will throw you off a lot, but with everyone focused on a single target I have held aggro on 10 opponents at once. It is ok to have one thing attacking the main assist (who should NOT be the main tank) as long as it is not a cloth wearer. Switching targets and cycling through is the key.

Eh....but...will a rogue come read a guide on warrior tanking? Why would he? I don't know. What you two are saying would require broadening the topic.

Also, it may surprise some people that I almost never use heroic strike. Cycling shield slam, sunder, and revenge can hold any boss. Using heroic strike would help with damage though, as on most bosses it is easy to have infinite rage. But it's a matter of the global cooldown, and not fitting it into the chain before the first one has reset.

*laugh* Word.

Finally, this is only half of tanking.... the aggro holding part. The other half is taking damage, which is mainly about gear. I'll be posting a guide on that shortly.

Indeed. I'll have to put a link in to yours :wink:

[Guest]

Lil' update.

[Guest]

I just want to add:

Having my first 'main' be a protection speced warrior from the begining (and on a PvP server, no less), I want to stress that with Blizard's money-sink system for re-specing, anyone who chooses to be prot spec before 50+ needs more help than your average bear.

Going Prot before 50 or so is alot like a priest going holy before 60. It can be done, definately, but it'll make soloing -very- hard. Having a great tank is just as good as having a great healer IMHO, so do Ironsong a favor and help out any Prot speced warriors who are in a slump and need help. It'll help us all in the long run.

[Guest]

quite simply use taunt to hold mob while you are gaining agro,
from there use sunder armor and revenge if you are using a shield which helped build/hold agro,
next save challenging shout for those times you need to pull mobs off everone but dont save it as your cooldown will allow multiple uses,
also using something that stacks with sunder armor like an annihilator helps a lot,
another thing that many forget is challenging blow if you have it,
lastly this is how i do it and i can build/hold agro fairly easily but everyones different.
i taunt then sunder with revenge to build up my agro with sometimes using challenging blow if i need to hold 2 mobs,
from there i just basically use the sunder revenge and taunt every now and then after the cooldown has run out to make sure mobs stay put and others can do the dps needed.
i alternate my taunts on 2 mobs usually while keeping a close eye on others life as it is the healers job to watch mine,
if we all do this the pull will go very easily and all mobs will be dropped in the fastest time and most efficient way possible(altho mistakes do occur but a good group can quickly recover with a few well placed instructions).

feel free to comment as i know it will be done but this is how i get the job done and there are times where dual weilding an annhilator and serethil with lifesteal and crusader on them helps aid with keeping me up (everything that might aid the healer helps )

in short use taunt,sunder,revenge with challenging blow and shout sparingly when they are called for, and the tanks job it to watch others life,while the healers job is to watch the tanks life very simple.

while tanking i tend to use all my +defense gear which usually makes my defense 310+81 which tends to offest when i dont use a shield and greatly -aids when i do.

[Guest]

and just to add a small tidbit of gear information:

altho doing all the higher end instances like molen core and so forth can gain you good gear for tanking it is not needed.

you can do the normal instances and have stuff crafted and easily gain +100 to defense with time.

[Guest]

Going Prot before 50 or so is alot like a priest going holy before 60. It can be done, definately, but it'll make soloing -very- hard.

Aramaki has been holy spec'ing since day one. I guess I figured Wacky Aramaki would be in groups 95% of the time. Oi...what folly.

And how hard would soloing be with a prot warrior at 43? Having 31 in prot (with 5 points in 1h weapons) and 3 points in imp heroic strike, I was thinking DW'ing in berserker stance would still be kinda decent. But I could be very wrong. I once talked to someone about grinding as a prot warrior. They compared it to grinding as a paladin *shudder*

Having a great tank is just as good as having a great healer IMHO...

I'd say it's MORE important to have a good tank. A good tank makes the whole group's life easier, while a good healer mostly makes the tank's life easier. Although a healing guide would seem prudent :wink:

And Felegund, I do believe you mean "mocking blow".

[Guest]

Well i know what it does and remembering the exact name isnt as important as making sure my group all stay up which is my main concern.

[Guest]

Yes, well it took my Prot Warrior ALOT of effort to get to 43, and despite numerous re-specings to get an optimal build, it was always tough (no 'magic build' seemed to work).
Having engineering helped alot though.

But regarding the healing/tank combo...

Knowing what I know about healing, and knowing what I know about tanking, I feel that a group could consist of just these two and still be OK. Any other random combination together would have much more difficulty in an instance. As long as the warrior has rage and the priest is conserving mana, they can go for quite awhile and keep a good pace.

[Zarraema]

(( The problem with writing a "Guide to Healing" ...is that every single healer has a style...and cramping that style 'breaks' the healer...yes, a good healer can learn new tricks, but they still put their own flair and their own feel into it.

Best described by (I can't remember who!) someone in the ironsong priest channel as "Whacking Moles"...

That's not to say that every tank doesn't have their own style, too...but tanking is much more technical and ..er.. hands-on (?) than whacking moles all day Healing is easy... health bar goes down...cast spell...health bar goes up...mana bar goes down. ))

[Guest]

Yes and no. There are definately wrong ways to heal. People think they're using a different "style", but it's actually ignorance.

I'll put one up if you're too shy *snicker*