Rogue tanking? Get ready to Parry! Dodge! Spin!
by Dan O'Halloran 
Oct 8th 2007 at 10:30AM
Parry! Dodge! Spin! is an entertaining and informational rogue blog written by Valenna. He has brought up an interesting idea: in some instances, in some situations, rogues can be viable main tanks. To understand this better, you first have to read his earlier post: Dirty Tricks To Surviving. This should be required reading for every rogue that out aggros the tank in a PuG. Obvious to some, but then you come across a rogue that doesn't understand why they are getting rezzed every five minutes.
After that, check out Dirty Tricks To Tanking. Valenna recommends the Surviving tricks minus the deaggro moves. Then he recommends piling up the Stamina gear, a Medallion of the Alliance to remove impairments and have some heavy dps and a back up tank along. With this set up, he has tanked Old Hillsbrad and Steamvault.
Any one else tried a non-standard role and survived? Any other Rogues pull off the tanking role with some cleverness and forethought?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Matthew Rossi Oct 8th 2007 10:37AM
I would be unable to resist taunting mobs off of a rogue tank every time taunt was up. I wouldn't care if it wiped the run, any rogue who wanted to tank would need to endure what every tank with an overzealous rogue has. Oh, you have solid aggro? *Now you don't.*
It's just as well I'll probably never run with one, as I admit this is a childish attitude.
IKoNN Oct 8th 2007 10:42AM
Well technically the rogue serves as a vital tool to the tank. It's main job might look like heavy DPS output but that is more secondary even though it isn't far from it. The main thing the rogue does is kind of create a buffer between the tank and the healers/ranged DPS. The main role is the keep the enemy in the melee area and away from the healers. Sure they may die but they still have a better chance of surviving then the mage or priest the mob might go to.
The Anonymous Oct 8th 2007 1:21PM
Problems:
- Rogues whilst having decent dodge, don't have the same total avoidance as a decently geared tank. Result: More damage taken.
- Even if you do focus on avoidance (go dodge crazy), you can't hit 100% sustained avoidance (although you can hit early 90s). And most likely any hit that goes through will crush for a hell of a lot, especially since it will gimp your stamina.
- Spiky damage is much harder to heal.
Heilig Oct 8th 2007 10:56AM
If you think being a secondary meatshield is a rogue's main job in an instance, you need to reroll. A Rogue's main job in an instance is DPS WITHOUT drawing aggro, period. Every single fight is a race between the mobs' health bar and the healer's mana bar. Whoever goes empty first loses. If you draw aggro and die, a 5-man's DPS can be cut literally in half. That makes it more likely, not less, that the healer is going to die, because then the tank gets no heals and all hell breaks loose.
Any tank worth his salt will keep aggro off the healers and ranged. Even if the mobs turn to go for them, there is enough time because of the distance involved to bring them back, whether it's a taunt, intercept, charge, Avenger's shield, whatever. Since you are standing right behind the mob, all they have to do to pound you is turn around. Two big hits = one dead rogue (or almost dead, which might be worse), one freaked out party, one seriously depressed healer, and one very pissed off tank.
Unless you seriously outgear or outlevel your tank, you should not be pulling aggro, EVER. And if either of those situations are the case, you really should know better than to go all out and draw that aggro. If you are on even footing with your tank and STILL are drawing aggro, you need to find a new tank.
Dan B. Oct 8th 2007 11:22AM
Evasion Tanking can be useful for mobs that can't be CC'd, if a true second tank wasn't available, like the last time I ran Heroic Sethekk, a rogue able to keep one of the un-CCable guards occupied, and off of my fuzzy bear butt (our healer wasn't able to heal me with both of them pounding on me).
kaeru Oct 8th 2007 11:24AM
Valenna is a she :P You might want to edit that.
Richard Oct 8th 2007 11:37AM
@1
tl;dnr
Condensed version: QQ
zarmy Oct 8th 2007 11:58AM
i've offtank gruul for 3 hurtful strikes, 2 of which were without evasion if that counts
futura Oct 8th 2007 12:15PM
I (70 rogue) helped main tank the last 5% of Gruul with the raid half wiped.
It was the coolest raid experience I've had. After evasion ran up, which worked 100%, I dodged and parried for the next 15 to 20 blows in a row. Insane.
The last 5% of a Gruul burn doesn't seem like a lot, but when all the tanks and half the dps are gone, it didn't seem possible. From when I stepped in, I think it took something like 45 seconds, so that would make it roughly 30 seconds without any evasion. Everyone was laughing and cheering =)
I had a lot of luck going for me that night, as I'm sure itt wouldn't happen again givin the same circumstances. But the feeling of that and from the rest of the raid team looking at me like WTF. It was awesome.
my2cents Oct 8th 2007 12:23PM
Great, now we're going to have even MORE rogues pulling aggro in instances. Thanks for encouraging them ;)
Ashankt Oct 8th 2007 2:08PM
Tanked mobs I've done:
Razuvious until a priest MC'd add could grab aggro
Last 3% of Maexenna (very very funny)
Tanked all of DM North with a hunter trapping and a mage sheeping - very funny at 60 with a 53 feral druid healing.
It's not recommended and that's for certain but there have been a few times where we've been on the hit list after the tank(s) have gone down and then it's pop evasion time!
Phaelia Oct 8th 2007 1:15PM
I think the point of the article isn't that people should go "/1 LFTank (Rogue preferred)." She's saying that, in a less than optimal group configuration when you can't find a more traditional tank Rogues can fill in for non-heroic instances. Those jumping up and down and turning red in the face can't have possibly have read the article.
MightyIdle Oct 8th 2007 1:12PM
My ret pally has done a lot of tanking for my guild while our warriors were out drinking and getting fat. It requires a good healer without any serious nervous conditions, but it is viable.
Back when we had an extra holy priest laying around in the guild, I would bring my holy man along in instances as holy DPS. I didn't do too badly.
MechChef Oct 8th 2007 1:15PM
I tanked Gruul for the duration of evasion last night. Dodgod, doodge, doodge, doodge, parry, doodge, WHACK for 16k, dead.
Back on topic, I guess rogue tanking is something to do if you're bored and regular instances aren't challenging anymore. Perhaps we can start a movement to begin spreading propaganda that rogues are the new tanking class and are theatening to take another slice of the Warrior's pie with pallies and druids. :hehe: And then, we just sit back and watch the QQ.
Lenina Oct 8th 2007 1:18PM
When I was leveling my Priest as shadow, I was running Underbog with my guild. We were at that boss with the feral druid add, and our healer (Resto shaman) hit a lag spike and the tank died right as the main guy died, but the druid was still up at like 60% health. He quickly owned our mage and lock, then he came to me.
I proceeded to tank him all the way down with the shaman using low rank heals and melee attacking so he didn't pull aggro =P. We were on vent and everyone was laughing their asses off. It's times like that that make the game really enjoyable =D
Scelerat Oct 8th 2007 1:29PM
Tanking when I'm not necessarily supposed to is one of my all time favorite things as a rogue. I do it a bunch in Kara, be it tanking all the little helpers of Moroes, those ethereal dudes up by Netherspite, or my favorite, just tanking Netherspite. I
erin Oct 8th 2007 1:34PM
Rogue tanking can be compared to Shadowpriest Healing .. it can be done but it's not ideal.
With the right gear at 60 I was able to get my dodge chance to 103% with evade and ghostly strike. It was a lifesaver in some instances where the tank died when the boss was nearly dead, not to mention very nice solo'ing.
Now I'm 70 I can tank Scholomance for my guildies ;)
@Heilig - I think you missed the point of this article. Go back to reading the warrior column.
One of the most important parts of a rogues job is crowd control. Tanking is crowd control. We're not just talking sap since cheapshot, kidney shot, blind, gouge and evade can be extremely useful in instances too.
If a tank loses aggro and a mob goes for the healer, obviously it's the tank's job to get aggro back, but I move to intercept the mob anyway. If I can incapacitate it long enough for the tank to pick it up again that's great, the healer lives and we continue because I deviated from my main job of doing dps for 2 seconds. I consider it my part of my job to stop loose mobs killing the healer ... especially if the tank can't .. better off with me dead than the healer even, at the very least. Evade is our saviour though. A quick gouge or blind can be a wipe-saver too ... in Karazhan if a tank loses a mob for a second or two for example. Being a rogue that can react to this sort of eventuality separates the nubrogue from the experienced rogue in my opinion, and being able to tank for short periods of time is very useful indeed.
Kryptonls Oct 8th 2007 3:56PM
I have tanked: (at 70, ofc, full PvE gear & spec)
- All mobs in Mechanar (normal, and some heroic)
- All Caster mobs in Heroic Ramparts
- All Moroes adds in Kara (yes, even Crispin)
- Curator spawned adds (with some great AR gear)
... and lots of other stuff I can't think of right now. It's great fun to hold insane aggro, do mega dps and still survive. Rogue tanks ftw!
Katsuya Kaiba Oct 8th 2007 4:36PM
I've tanked before with my Rogue. As the highest level in my Guild, I kinda have to for the good of the lower level members of the guild. But I don't mind, I'm a alchemist and stock up on scrolls that enemies drop so tanking and drawing fire from them is very easy.
Heilig Oct 8th 2007 5:13PM
@ 16
I was responding to #2, should've marked that. The article is great, it's all about good fun to be had.
When #2 says "It's main job might look like heavy DPS output but that is more secondary even though it isn't far from it," I have to step in on that. Anybody that thinks that is a rogue's main job is out of their mind.
BTW, my tank is a pally, not a warrior. Warriors are one-trick ponies ;)