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 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.
I will say, not as criticism of dps, but constructively I hope: if dps will just wait about 3 secs for lower lvl to mid lvl tanks to build a bit of rage, I get a lot fewer runners.
That the OG Death and Taxes crew or just a new incarnation using the name? I remember a lot of info about vanilla raiding coming from them back in the day. Interesting see who all classic has brought back.
Now I let party know I will stay on the mob(s) I have. If anyone brings a runner back, I taunt.
Is that good or bad technique?
Edit, add: in SM Lib and Arm I ask the dps to hold a tighter ring near where I will pull LOS. This allows me to Taunt much easier. Taunt has a pretty short radius.
I think it’s good. I mentioned this a bit in my guide, but in general, I think it’s best to prioritize your taunts for pulling off the healer, and you know if you leave a pack of 2-3 to run after a straggler, because some rogue is 25 yards away, 1v1ing it, then the healer is going to pull aggro, because well… they are healing (which generates a lot of threat).
The only issue with letting a DPS tank what it pulls and maybe die is that the healer may feel obliged to heal. That’s lack of experience by the healer. If you just let the dps die, or actually perform their role properly and run the mob they accidentally pulled aggro on to the tank, then you’ll have much less trouble maintaining high levels of threat on the mobs you’re tanking.
Another thing I see a lot of is ranged dps standing in melee range, which will pull higher threat than if they stand at their intended range.
It really doesn’t matter who tanks a caster since none of the tanks in Classic really have any damage mitigation against casters anyway. The biggest downside is that normally when all damage hits the tank the healer just has 1 target to focus on: by splitting the incoming damage it can result in more mana wasted on overhealing multiple targets.
That said, you mentioned SM Lib/Arm. Diviners are the only “real” (very little melee) casters and they like to mana burn so you often want to burn them pretty quickly (they’re squishy anyway). If you want to skull them and just let the DPS handle them them that’s probably fine.
Other thing to mention is there are a lot of healing mobs in SM so you may want to do some CC anyway, particularly if you’re in a low-damage group and not AoEing.