Breakfast Topic: I tank, you tank, she tanks
by Jennie Lees 
Jun 9th 2006 at 6:00AM
Quote of the evening last night: "we need war druids cant tank". (Of course, two druids proceeded to tank, presumably confusing this particular group member.)What defines a 'good' tank? What do you look for when selecting which group member should take on the onerous duty of being hit a lot? As a tank, what do you look for in a group?
Having spent much of my time until level 60 in PuGs, I have something of a fear of tanking. Despite being a feral druid (for the most part), my experiences with random people have been universally dismal. To give you some idea, the best run I'd had for a long time was the Stockades, an instance which is loathed by many players.
From the tank's point of view, it really helps to have group members who understand -- and listen. Those who realise it takes time to build up aggro, and don't rush in immediately with killer DPS. Those who realise that sometimes the squishies shouldn't do all the pulling. Those who appreciate the problems of adds -- or too much to handle -- and yell if they're in trouble. I've encountered everything from crazy DPS shadow priests to tanking mages, and most of it puts me off tanking with strangers -- but it's a dirty job, and someone's gotta do it.
Filed under: Druid, Warrior, Odds and ends, Instances
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kostarico Jun 9th 2006 6:18AM
As i think, good tank can be found only through experience. It is impossible to say if a person can tank good or nor with only a look at his equip. Yes equip matters, but unskilled and well-equiped person can't tank. Actually having a good tank means a 50% of succes nearly at every encounter
Mike Jun 9th 2006 7:13AM
My main (and only active) character is a warrior. Arms specced, but good enough to tank the non end-game instances. Like all the other roles in a successful instance group, tanking is infinitely harder to do when the others don't do their jobs. Tanking is infinitely easier to do when you don't have Shamans and Rogues mixing it up in melee. As a Warrior, you love Mages, Warlocks, and Hunters in the group. Especially Warlocks that use imp familiars. Long range DPS is the name of the game. When too many people start getting in close to melee, it's harder to tank effectively because tanking effectively means switching targets and stance often to build aggro. Switching targets gets a lot trickier when there are more people involved in melee. Plus, if you lose aggro to a ranged DPSer, you can tell right away, i.e. the target starts running towards the caster/hunter.
I'm sure I have lots more to say on the subject of tanking, but that's enough for now :)
Snapdragon Jun 9th 2006 10:00AM
Any shadow priest who's pulling aggro off of the tank doesn't know what he/she is doing. I've run ZG before where I've dealt the most damage and still managed to take the least. That's a combination of excellent tanking and good aggro management.
Trapman Jun 9th 2006 11:14AM
I'm a feral Druid. I have tanked instances numerous times. The only really bad experience I had was UBRS. This was because the groups ran into serious issues.
Other times things have worked out fine. I noticed half the warriors are still DPS specced so I'm often a better choice.
Only problem with Druids is that we take crits often. Some times the Healer can't keep up because someone else got aggro (Rogues and Mages who can't use restraint).
Brad Jun 9th 2006 11:23AM
This is a pretty easy question. Assuming that everyone is around the same level range, the tank should know how to hold aggro on a proper pull. This isn't to say that DPSers shouldn't know how to manage aggro, because they should, but if the tank is only hitting one target, that isn't tanking. He should be able to be nimble, grabbing mobs that stray towards the squishies, etc. Further, and maybe this is only a personal preference, but my guild and I move quickly. Down time should be short, and we shouldn't be hearing "ready?" before every single pull. If the tank knows what he is doing, he can guage the next pull and understand how "ready" the group needs to be. There's nothing quite like finishing UBRS and LBRS combined in 3 hours. The key to a good run begins with the tank, whether is warrior, paladin, or druid.
James Jun 9th 2006 12:14PM
My main is a 49 (almost 50, woohoo!) warrior and I just respecced for protection. The first thing I did after respec was to run through ZF with some guildies. We had:
49 warrior
44 mage
46 warlock
60 mage
No one died, though we didn't do the hard bosses. My problem is that I've had to tank so much without a proper priest, that I get used to doing everything wrong. When I actually have a good group with a priest, hunter, mage, rogue, etc. then I get all mixed up with the roles. By the way, in a group of five, what percentage of damage should I be taking compared to others? I use DamageMeters, and I usually average mid to high 50% damage taken, with the other 40% or so spread out among the DPS'ers. Is this too low, or too high? Thanks for any advice!
Kallell (Kalecgos server)
Snapdragon Jun 9th 2006 12:34PM
In a group of 5, with a priest, I've seen good tanks take anywhere from 50-70% of the damage. The second most important number is how much damage your priest has taken. If it's above 10-12%, then either the priest isn't managing aggro well, or the tank needs to watch the priest more closely.
CRod Jun 9th 2006 12:50PM
Hey you know what, instead of yelling at people on how to tank learn how to control your DPS lol! If Im with a druid tank Im going to hold back slightly and start a bit later than a warrior who can drop 5 sunders in a flash. Yes some people cant tank (notice I didnt point out people playing druids or warriors. Its the persons skill. We have a feral that tanks our end game as one of our OT and does a bang up job. Just thought I put that out there. Its not always the tanks fault.
Burgdorn Jun 9th 2006 2:33PM
There is a lot involved at least for 2 of the hybrids that are designed with tanking in their realm of possibilities. The biggest thing you need to know is your place in tanking; are you MTing a 5 man? Are you ready to OT a bad pull in MC? Being prepared for a situation is important because it allows you to know what combination of skills you need to use to do your job effectively.
Another thing people don't know is that, all tanks offer differnt abilities to the mix of their tanking. Druids can weaken armor, and minimize their damage while still doing damage to the enemy, in this way they have some similar methods of agro management but they can stack some DoTs during the pull to maintain agro. Paladins are even greater, because we are all about doing damage, straight unmitigated damage. We are ment to play every single ability that can offer holy damage down, and what is even better unlike Warriors we are designed around actually being pummelled, +Def increases dodge and the less we get hit the less we deal in holy.
Warriors are just designed around offering a debuff that offers high agro (sunder) for their agro management. Now I'm saving my Warrior for the expansion so I won't say I know everything about them, but from my understanding that is the slight jist of it.
Oh but to define a good tank is simple, any class that is capable of tanking that understands and communicates their abilities and how the group should manage them for the tank to effectively protect the group.
Mike Jun 12th 2006 7:19AM
There's a lot more to warrior aggro management and warrior tanking in general than just sunder armor. There's Revenge, an instant attack after you dodge, block, or parry an enemy attack which is also high threat. There's Disarm, which is high threat and obviously serves as a debuff. There's Shield Bash, which is high threat and interrupts casting (very important). There's Shield Block and Shield Wall, which increase block percentages for a brief time so you can get in a Revenge to increase threat. There's Demoralizing Shout, which can be used to gain initial aggro and is also a nice attack power debuff. There's Cleave, Sweeping Strikes, and Whirlwind, which allow a warrior to fight multiple enemies at once to keep multiple enemies aggro. That's not even getting into swicthing stances efficiently to maintain aggro and raise DPS.
To say that Warriors are designed around Sunder Armor is somewhat true since that is a main tool in aggro management because it's cheap and effective and it stacks. But a good warrior tank uses lots more than just Sunder. But to your credit, you did admit you didn't know everything about them. Now you know more ;)
Dan Jun 29th 2006 4:15AM
I agree with an earlier post regarding having pure ranged in a party making it easier to see if anyone has pulled aggro. I'm a feral druid, and one morning i ran SFK and BFD over and over again with 3 mages and a priest and not a single person died. A good tank just needs to make sure nobody else has good aggro, i just spam swipe over and over while watching everyone's health bars to make sure no one is taking damage. I now have 4 cloth wearers on my friends list who I regularly group with.