Breakfast Topic: Tank anxiety
by Kristal Murphy 
Aug 3rd 2010 at 8:00AM
I leveled my main as a retribution paladin until about level 65, when I picked up two new toys running randoms -- a shield with high defense and block stats, and a one-handed sword with good stats that glowed purple and matched the shield. Yes, I became a tank because I wanted to accessorize. I'm a girl; that's how I roll.
I dual-specced protection, invested in tank gear and said to myself, "How hard is it?" I already had leveled my death knight through every heroic instance repeatedly, so I was confident that I knew the layout and the fights. My husband and I queued for a random with me as a tank and wound up in Hellfire Ramparts. And then it all went bad. I kept getting confused about who to pull first and which direction to go, and the group promptly lost confidence in me. They started playing the "kill them all quick" game, in which they used their hardest-hitting AoE spells to take the mobs out quickly and try to survive through it. Never mind that this tactic usually makes holding hate really difficult! We wiped, the healer left, the warlock and the hunter told me I was the worst tank ever, and I literally cried.
I've ran quite a few instances since then, some successful, some not. Now that I am a new level 80, I am on that perpetual quest to get lots of badges and upgrade my gear -- but I'm still suffering from tanking anxiety.
There seems to be a definite tank shortage on our server. I will wind up running randoms with people wearing far superior gear and who have much more experience. To them, heroics are boring. They rush through and have no patience for this paladin who wants to pause before pulls to size up the mobs, look for coming patrols and check the healer's mana level. They will pull without asking and then expect me to pick up the entire mob perfectly. Sometimes, I'm quick with a Consecration or an Avenger's Shield, and it works out. Sometimes, I'm not able to pick up everything in the mob, and a runaway takes out the healer. That's when the name-calling and insults begin.
Tanking is not all about GearScore or defense rating -- it's about being a leader. Tanks need not only to be ready to step up and take charge of the group by assigning duties and keeping everyone working together as a team, but also be willing to listen to the suggestions of those who might know a different strategy. Sometimes, people are not as kind or cooperative as I would like. As a tank, I need to learn how to harden myself against the criticism from others (or else learn to live with the nervous tic that I am convinced is developing). That has been the biggest obstacle to overcoming my tanking anxiety.
How do you prevent anxiety about a new role from taking over your chance to give it a try?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 14)
Kabuki Joe Aug 3rd 2010 8:05AM
I started with Prot spec at 50. It made things sooooo much easier when it actually came game time in the dungeon. Sadly, I had to backseat that for DPS when I initially hit 80 until I got some badge gear so I could keep threat against all the daily folks but that only took about four days.
Moeru Aug 3rd 2010 10:55AM
Tanking earlier is always the key to me. I learned a lot tanking SM on my pally. Now I MT ICC on her and I have 2 other tanks on 2 different realms...a DK and a warrior. Tanking is a lot of fun to me...less stressful than DPS, but more challenging than healing. I think a lot of tanking is experience though. Knowing what to do with what type of mobs, and what type of damage you need to look out for. And trust. I usually try to have one person I know in the group for trust reasons. That way I can always rely on that ONE person, even if no one else is doing their job.
Didax Aug 3rd 2010 11:18AM
Starting early with (arguably) lower pressure instances is a great tip.
But to be honest, for me the biggest factors affecting taking on a new role are:
--Gear
--Class experience/knowledge
I'm a very successful bear tank, MTing ICC 10s and 25s regularly. I know all of the heroic instances. Every pull, every patrol, every boss.
But tanking on my DK when he had just passed the minimum defense rating requirement, even in normal mode was excruciating.
I don't have the same abilities to hold aggro, and I don't have the gear for it either. With my druid, if an errant DPS pulls 3 or 4 extra mobs, I can generally pick them up, even through AOE, but without the higher gear levels, my DK's DnD, Bloodboil, or even a Deathchilled Howling Blast is not enough to pick them off of overgeared DPS.
Learn the abilities and strategies, get gear, and above all else, tell your party that you're fresh and you may need them to take it easy.
Elmouth Aug 3rd 2010 12:06PM
I lvl's as prot from lvl 20 on back 4 years ago.
I learned pretty much everything there was to learn the hard way and I have to say, in the end, tanks are indeed meant to be leaders.
You have to know what your group can handle and what you can't. Recount, Deadly Boss Mod and Omen are a tank's best friend to see what kind of group you got.
Now as far as your threat problems go, Paladins shouldn't have those. here are a couple of suggestions to those pallies running heroics and having trouble.
1 - Don't ever use seal of wisdom, this is shit for tanking, only protadins with 6k gearscore use it because they're not getting hurt enough by the mobs to gain mana. Anyone else has no business ever using this. Its bad.
2 - Spec 00/53/18, pick up seal of command, path of justice and 3/3 Crusade. use seal of command for your heroics and i can almost guarantee you won't have problems with those nasty warriors ever again.
3 - Get a slow dps weapon, with high end damage for optimal Hammer of the Righteous damage and easier SoC procs. All those tanks you see running around with fast weapons are raiders, for heroics and trash, slow weapons are better.
4 - Macro your Righteous Defense spell as follow :
#showtooltip Righteous Defense
/cast [target=focus] Righteous Defense
And put the macro on an accessible keybind. This will be your "Oh shit that guy's a retard" button or "Damn they're going straight for the healer" button. Now set whoever the person thats stealing aggro from you as your focus and enjoy the easy one button push that gets everything back to you.
Last, don't be afraid to chain pull (too many times have I seen tanks afraid of the mobs). Paladins are the best chain pullers, hell, we were meant to be chain pullers with the way Divine Plea works. If you have doubts that your healer has a low mana pool at the start of the instance, give them wisdom instead of kings so they won't bother you too much during the run.
Now only chain pull if you're confident in your ability to hold aggro.
Groups like fast, steady, knowledgeable tanks.
GI_Prophet Aug 3rd 2010 1:49PM
When it comes to tanking Mad-Eye says it best: Constant vigilance!
Draelan Aug 3rd 2010 2:11PM
@ Elmouth
Some good tips. Although, my anxiety with chain-pulling has nothing to do with me being "afraid of the mobs" on any of my tanking toons. My anxiety there has to do with the stupidity of the DPS. Here's a hint, DPS. If I haven't tossed down my Consecrate or DnD, that means I HAVEN'T FINISHED GATHERING MOBS and it is NOT ok to start AoEing. The most annoying part is, they normally don't give a shit at this point because "herocis r a joke lol" and either they keep being stupid, or they get worse. Bah!
Thankfully, I haven't run into nearly as many of these jerks lately.
Shmorrior Aug 3rd 2010 5:41PM
I think it's important to realize that anxiety is not necessarily a bad thing. Being anxious indicates that you care about your performance. I began tanking back in the early days of Wrath and I remember being pretty anxious the first few dungeons.
The best thing you can do when trying a new role is to be aware of your performance and constantly try to improve. Seek out experienced tanks of a similar class if you have questions about certain bosses or pulls. Read up on fights. Check out the Tankspot forums and videos. If you've ever listened to the WoW Insider podcast, Matthew Rossi is living proof that tanks will happily talk for hours about tanking.
Lastly, while many people have mentioned to not worry about overgeared dps pulling off you, don't also fall into the trap of blaming anything that goes wrong on the rest of the party. Be honest with yourself if a pull or boss fight goes wrong and strive to not repeat any mistakes. As a little experiment, I've been running my daily heroic on my warrior using as much of my old Naxx level gear as I had left. I rarely have trouble holding threat or surviving chain pulling. The mantra of skill > gear still true even for tanks.
Aruhgulah Aug 3rd 2010 6:15PM
@Elmouth:
You forgot the Most Important Part of that macro: typing in the following command, right at the start of the PUG:
/focus healername
That turns RD into the OHSHIT button for the healer; if DPS can't learn to manage their aggro, that's NOT the tank's fault (Hand of Reckoning is enough of a taunt for such DPS).
To quote a very wise group of tanks: "Tank dies, Healer's fault. Healer dies, Tank's fault. DPS dies, it's their own damn fault for pulling aggro."
One way the writer could avoid a lot of what he describes is to TELL folks at the start of the PUG that she's a new tank and still learning. The asshats will drop group -- good riddance. The good ones will stick it out & offer advice & go slower.
TonyMcS Aug 3rd 2010 11:59PM
One of the good things about starting a new healer is you can do tons of practice in battlegrounds before venturing into heroics and raids and the nasty epithets.
Tanking however, requires practice and some positive support, suggestions and criticisms from your team mates. You are unlikely to get this in pugs. If you want to learn to tank as painlessly as possible, then you need to group with friends or helpful guildies and be prepared to learn from your mistakes.
With 5 level 80s and a couple of L70 odd alts, I find myself tanking rarely and only if asked to by the guild or I'm helping out a group I know. I tank mainly on my prot pally, but used to be a bear tank and also tank rarely on my DK. When I do venture into a pug, I have to put up with all the normal ass-hats: the speed freaks, the melee who think they're tanks, the spellcasters who seem to have the same belief and all the morons who don't know anything about tanking, let alone their own role.
You also need to know the layout of each instance and who you are pulling and marking. I may have been through all the heroics, TOTC and most of ICC on my boomkin, but unless I actively pay attention to what the tank is doing, I will have no clue as to what to do first when I'm the tank.
Another trap with alts is trying to remember what buffs to put on for this tank. I've certainly been guilty of shifting into my pally, putting on Sanctuary and a seal and then wondering why it seems so difficult - yup Righteous Fury just wasn't there and I can only agree with the noob comments flying at me.
Playing multiple toons as DPS, Healer and Tank certainly gives you a better perspective and certainly increases your tolerance.
Now if I could only find in real life that stupid Ele shaman who thought he'd tank Violet Hold ;-)
Emile Aug 5th 2010 10:12AM
@ Elmouth
3 - Get a slow dps weapon, with high end damage for optimal Hammer of the Righteous damage and easier SoC procs. All those tanks you see running around with fast weapons are raiders, for heroics and trash, slow weapons are better.
This is only partially true. I'm a prot(MS)/holy(OS) paladin and am not entirely sure how SoC works (procrate etc.) but Hammer of the Righteous calculates of weapon dps, not weapon damage.
Also if you don't spec that deep in retri but take Seals of the Pure in holy, you'll be tanking with Seal of Vengeance which does x% of weapon damage per hit, which comes down to the same thing, no matter if it's slow or fast: weapon dps determines the threat from it.
If you do use SoC, a slow weapon might be better but won't be by far cos (I did some research while writing) the 2 extra hits will only be applied on melee attacks, shield of righteousness and on the main target of hammer of the righteous.
Gamer am I Aug 3rd 2010 8:07AM
When I was trying out healing for the first time, back when healers were in shorter supply than tanks on my realm, I prepared for it by getting the best gear I could without going into heroics (so I wouldn't burden my group with an under-geared healer) and arming myself with information. I read healing guides online so I wouldn't be going in without any knowledge of what I was doing, and even calculated the efficiency of all of my spells myself, so I would know which ones were best to use. The key, though, was definitely information; that made me much less anxious about healing with no experience.
zubbiefish Aug 3rd 2010 8:32AM
This is essentialy the same thing that I did when I decided I wanted to tank. I tried out brand new tanks twice, once on a DK and then later a Paladin. The only thing I would add to this is make sure you inform your dungeon group that you're new and to please go gentle on you. If they don't like it then you may be in for a vote-kick but I found most times that people were OK with it.
Once you manage to get past the realy new stage tanking becomes much easier. That said, I do not tank these days, it is just not my cup of tea.
On a related note, up until I had a 2nd max level character I only ever healed in dungeons and raids. When wrath came out I went through the exact same sort of anxiety. Even though I had healed in BC heroics with no trouble, Wrath heroics scared the crap out of me. Study up some, it will take the edge off and once you have a bit more gear and a bit more skill you will also have a lot more practice.
Oh, and remember, those folks who give you a tought time in a dungeon are only hurting themselves. You still get some practice and all the rest, they manage to screw themselves out of time and emblems by working against and not with you.
Elmouth Aug 3rd 2010 12:10PM
This is how it should normally be done, back at the start of wrath tanks struggled to get 20k hp to get into heroics. People farming regular 80 dungeons werent rare.
Too often nowadays do you see a healer or dps rocking 2k Gearscore with like 12k mana that has no business being in heroics whatsoever.
Eisengel Aug 3rd 2010 2:39PM
I hear you there, Gamer, info is important, but you also need some idea about how to use your abilities. I mean, it's one thing to read the tooltip on Shield Bash, it's another to know when to use it effectively.
I've tanked on three of WoW's 4 tanks (still staring at that level 1 pally in my stable), and even though they have many similar mechanics, they all work differently. I honestly think the author here didn't respect how difficult tanking can be. Tanking really isn't in the by-the-numbers pulls where you could substitute a drinking bird and still come off fine, tanking is in the oh-sh** moments when you need to make a snap decision or wipe the group. That's when knowledge of game mechanics and your class pays off.
There is a definite base skill set to tanking, but that alone doesn't allow you to hop from class to class. It would be as if you randomly hopped into a motocross tournament because you speed-race motorcycles, and expected to finish (and/or live). The two sports do both involve a basic skillset, riding a motorcycle, but the physical and mental demands as well as what you need to make the motorcycle DO in each sport are totally different.
For what it's worth, I view DKs as 'gadget tanks'. They have so many little skills and abilities it seems almost like they have a button for every situation. I'm not down on them for that, I like my DK tank, but tanking on a DK is entirely different from tanking on a Druid, where you have nowhere near the number of distinct tools as a DK. You have no silence, your AoE threat costs you resource instead of giving it to you, you have no real interrupts and one medium/long-CD stun. Sure they're both tanks, but swapping between them isn't all that easy.
Tanking on a different class isn't just like driving the car with a different color. Some classes are closer than others, but it's pretty unlikely you'll be able to figure out all the little intricacies all in one go - that takes time and practice.
Byron Aug 3rd 2010 6:33PM
@Eisengel - DK's and Warriors are both 'gadget tanks', in that they have many more useful tanking abilities than Druids and Paladins. That's just the cost to Druids and Pallies of being hybrid classes.
To oversimplify a bit, when each class has, say 60 abilities, DK's and Wars will get 30 dps ones and 30 tank ones, whereas Pallies will get 20 healing ones, 20 dps, and 20 tank ones, and Druids will get something like 20 healing, 20 boomkin, 10 cat, and 10 bear. (That's far from accurate but you get the idea).
Both my 80s are tanks - DK and War - and both are a lot of fun. I also have a 40 Prot pally and a 77 Bear Druid I've been trying to tank my way to 80. The pally so far is too easy to be fun, but the druid is certainly the most challenging of all tank classes (and to me, more boring) b/c of the relative lack of gadgets.
But I salute Druid tanks for doing the job with so fewer tools than any of the other three classes. And /second your point that tanking well requires learning not only tanking, but the class as well.
deluded spider Aug 4th 2010 2:45AM
I actually got all the way to 80 as just a Shadow priest (healing, literally, ONCE in all that time - Razorfen Kraul). Then I decided to figure out how to really heal, as Disc.
I'm a real-life girl and I admit I act girly sometimes and panic or get my feelings hurt if I don't know what to do and people cuss me out. So I like to try and be prepared. I did a lot of homework and asked a decent Disc healer in my guild for some tips, and I read some Elitist Jerks stuff. Then I convinced some guildies to run some regular Northrend instances with me.
Once I felt okay with that, I eventually got the courage to queue up for regular Northrend dungeons, without any guildies. At that point I *way* outgeared everyone else and I felt a little stupid to be in those lowbie dungeons, but it gave me a little bit of wiggle room if I made a massive noob mistake. I did that for quite a while to get used to healing for strangers.
It took at least a week or two before I finally felt confident enough to run a heroic with guildies, and then finally random heroics with 4 people I didn't know. It turns out I'm a totally competent healer, but I'm glad I took baby steps. Ironically, I much prefer healing to DPSing now.
mechabahamut Aug 3rd 2010 8:09AM
Tanking ....
I choose to tank because my fiance did it. He was so good at it, and I wanted to try. I decided to try with my Death Knight. Probably the worst choose for a starting tank.
It was so hard at the beginning. I started to notice that I hated people more and more as time went on because people were so impatient in randoms. This was back in December and January, I believe.
Since then, I've overcome the gearing problem that came with a fresh 80, I know MT ICC, and I love it. I still get nervous once in a while, but nothing like I used to.
Tanking... tanking I dunno how to explain it. Ya haveta be a leader, yeah, but ya haveta be able to have thick skin like you stated too.
I cried a few times too, because of insults thrown at me. :C So don't feel bad. Maybe it's a female tank thing.
In all honesty, I'd love to see more female tanks. I don't see to many on my server.
Thanks for this article! Nicely written and it made me think back. It's hard, but hun, once you get you get the hang of 80, it becomes so much fun.
Glaras Aug 3rd 2010 8:28AM
Crying might be a "female thing", but feeling hurt because of the comments that people will heap on you when they think you're doing poorly isn't. I've come close to completely quitting online gaming because of the treatment I've received on rare occasions.
See, I've actually *done* "tanking". I was an active member of the SCA doing armored combat, and I've stood in the gap on the fields at Pennsic, the sole sword-n-board man with a pair of polearm fighters behind me, and held off small charges while praying that the reinforcements were close. Sure, our swords were rattan, but we were swinging them full speed, and taking them full contact. I still have my shield, battered to hell, in the garage. Good times, good times...
So when I catch a load of crap from someone who thought I should be able to pull the entire instance at once so he could AoE to his heart's content, I always wonder if he'd be so brave to my face. And I'm betting he wouldn't be. It's the "John Gabriel's 'Greater Internet F**kwad Theory'" (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/)
Sleutel Aug 3rd 2010 8:46AM
Female tank, and I've never cried because of comments thrown my way. Of course, I also don't get a lot of legitimate negative comments. :D
High-five for other women tanks, though! Woooooooo! /flex
For anybody in a new role: The best thing you can do is to WARN YOU GROUP ahead of time. Make a macro that you can hit as soon as you zone in: "/p Hi guys! I'm still learning this role, so please be patient with me. I might want to take things a bit slow." If you're a tank and not comfortable with AOE packs, for the love of god, MARK TARGETS and give a kill order. If the DPS doesn't know what mob to hit, they're going to assume you're cool with AOE; if you tell them what to attack and they ignore you, then it becomes their mistake, not yours. Same goes with asking for CCs.
Basically, be honest with your groupmates, and don't be afraid to make good use of the game's mechanics.
straw Aug 3rd 2010 8:53AM
This is a small quibble, but I find it very irritating when other girls (such as in this article and thread) describe a personal characteristic (like accessorizing and crying) and then conclude that it's "girly" or "a girl thing". Whatever there is about you is *you* thing - own your personality. Characteristics and preferences don't necessarily apply to an entire gender.
I feel the same way for assumptions about guys (including the implicit assumptions that come with calling something a "girl thing" - guys can cry, too).