I’m seeing some pretty good ideas in dual tanking:
Do this instead of cc either? at least in dungeons up to RFD or Ulda??
Thoughts anyone on this for speeding up runs?
[FYI: I am 38 lvl tank now and tried this in SM successfully in Lib and Arm]
Just let 5 pets tank and forget warriors are a thing until raids.
This isn’t a new concept… it’s called off-tanking…
I remember very early wow… when a lot of the playerbase came from EQ.
People would outright request off-tanks for dungeons…and Pullers.
I mean if your group is cool with it then sure, why not?
Hunter pets can actually take a few hits and even a shaman with a shield can hold decent threat with rockbiter weapon.
Not everything was all super hard set in classic spec and role wise, so just have fun.
Shaman can maintank dungeons if they spec and gear for it pretty easily… might have a rough time doing 10-mans though
I had 2 tanks one or two times. It…works.
Basically in dungeons if the main tank sucks and cant keep aggro on their own it helps to keep aggro on 2 people instead of 5. The main tank most likely bailed near the end when he finally saw the paly using righteous fury. So its not a huge bonus and kinda annoying to the real tank but go ahead and do whatever if you have other friends with you. Just dont surprise tanks saying you are a dps and than go tank everything in dungeons.
For raids iunno yet. Off tanking raids is somewhat different than 2 people in a dungeon with a tank spec. So its kinda already happening to some extent but more coordinated.
Yeah, that’s one of the best things about a melee cleave group. Anyone can pop a shield and def stance/bear form if need be, and mostly just burn…
Maybe if you had trusted group of friends that were OK with a Shaman tank, sure.
But you’d have to go spend money to respec and then you’d be running a completely worthless tank spec for doing anything but tanking 5 mans… Is it worth it? Probably easier just to find a real tank.
Yes I know off-tanking but thought that OT-ing was more of a raid task.
I agree it is mostly semantics maybe , because typical in SM the melee tank pulls monk etc with LOS and the caster follows , dps then get on caster while tank tries to hold aggro on both , tanks lose rage pretty fast at least up to lvl 40 so lots of runners can occur
I’m not saying the tank isn’t at fault for some of those runners (I know I have lost aggro by not cycling fast enough) , but dps can also pull aggro quick by engaging too soon, too.
So this is just a bit different because the idea is the OT here intentionally locks onto the caster as soon as both mobs are pulled and holds the caster near to tank while the dps first take down the caster , this allows tank to help hold both in place, or even 3 or 4 mobs, without any runners
And it eliminates the confusion of who pulled the extra aggro , so maybe helps with tensions in pugs anyway
Wouldn’t it slow things down, since you’ve got split DPS and a healer working overtime to keep two tanks up? In a 10-man UBRS, go for it. For 5 mans, better to burn one target faster.
I think it definitely puts more pressure on the healers
But , tank cannot stay on the skull without losing aggro on the others , so generally tank seems to focus on the caster first , while cycling. This is more like tank just stays on X mostly and helps hold the others in place , tank shouldn’t need too much healing that way , but I haven’t discussed it much with healers
The healers, when I tried it, were ok. It’s so easy to wipe in SM if mobs don’t stay in one place and things get chaotic , (duh … but true, esp true I think for SM)
I’m looking for better ways with 5 man parties to keep pulled mobs in one group while dps still blasts away early without waiting much
Group up the melee on the casters, then the tank can cleave/shout and keep things on them. Use Skull and Xross to mark current and next focus, and burn hard. AOE’ers can AOE without the tank losing aggro, or they’re in melee range to taunt before the mob can run. Also, everyone should have CTM installed so the tank can track threat roughly.
Not necessarily. As a mage I’m typically holding back a LOT. I could easily pull double my dps if I was able to go all out on a pull and not instantly have everything on me, and the upper limit on my dps is limited only by the number of mobs I’m allowed to hit at a time.
While leveling there is little to no difference between a plate wearing melee dps and a tank. They use the same gear, and the same specs. Most even tank with a 2h it seems, though I’m not really sure why. My warrior held threat fine with a 1h/shield in DM last night. You’ll obviously have more damage needing to be healed if you’re multitanking and AoE’ing mobs instead of CC’ing and killing them one at a time… but it’s also a hell of a lot faster.
Generally that is what I try doing. But cleave is pretty slow, demo shout I hit as soon as its up (meaning I have enough rage). And I cycle with Sunder. Still it is hard for tanks to keep rage up enough not to lose a runner. And then if I chase, for taunt, it doesn’t work well.
It does help if dps form a pretty tight ring around where I plan to pull or where I plan to just charge and hold.
Even if you’re single target DPSing mobs down, splash damage from many effects can increase DPS.
If the tank and healer can stay alive, you don’t need CC. That’s not a question for DPS pulling aggro, and in fact, CC makes the healer pull more aggro.
If your tank can’t survive aggro on all mobs, then use CC, otherwise, don’t.
I know rockbiter pulls a lot of threat, but I’d be curious to see this at mid-high levels, where tanks start becoming more relevant.
Do you have recommendations around a rotation, core tanking spells, gear, macros, etc.? I wrote up a low-level Classic Warrior Tanking Guide and would be interested to see something similar for Shaman, though I suspect they wouldn’t really be as viable after mid-levels.
I just counterspell so the tank can grab it while it runs through his group.
I will look at your guide. I’m too new at tanking to offer much advice. I think I have learned how to get 2 or 3 mobs together at start, hit demo shout first, then cycle each one for Sunder. Then I try not to use last of my rage by over spamming Demo or Sunder.
Edit add: I have seen Druids hold aggro in groups up to 5 better than I can hold it for groups up to 3. Why is that? Or am I just too slow??
If I don’t keep cycling though, I don’t build rage. I have to hit or be hit to get rage.
Oh, I start with Bloodrage ofc to get the first Demo shout.
At lower levels, shield/1hander vs 2hander seems really to be quite preference based, and doesn’t matter a whole lot for healing. Depending on the tanking style, macros, comfort with stance dancing, etc. someone may be better at tanking with a 2hander or sword/shield combo.
E.g. if you’re unable to swap weapons to interrupt a cast with Shield Bash, you’ll probably be a better low level tank with a sword & board.
Or if you charge in on the pull, generating 15 rage, and aren’t talented 5/5 Tactical Mastery, then you’ll have to Demo Shout or Sunder before changing stances or lose your rage. Some tanks might not be comfortable with such micro-management, and may prefer favoring a 2 hander.
But yeah, as long as you’re managing threat reasonably well enough to hold aggro, and pull off the healer, you’re doing your job as a tank in low level dungeons.
Its fine. I’ve used my voidwalker as the main tank for SM runs. A good group can clear up to level 60 using a Warlock or hunter pet as the tank no problem. We even used a hunter pet to tank onyxia a few times back in vanilla.