Came back to SL for PvP, and that’s been miserable, but I’ve had fun tanking dungeons on alts to level from 50-60 via Threads of Fate. Looking to keep that going and dip my feet into the M+ waters.
I’m looking for some tips on how to be successful, good addons, other resources to help me not n00b it up. My plan is to play through all of the Dungeons on Heroic and low keys to learn the routes and strats in preparation for 9.1, however, I’ve found that most mechanics can just be ignored or aren’t as punishing as they could be at higher keys. What would the community suggest in terms of getting up to speed and being a successful M+ tank?
As for class, I’m debating between Warrior, DK, and Monk as I have all 3 of them at 60, and all are about the same fun-ness for me. Either of these 3 stick out significantly more than the others?
Go to raiderio and look at top tank profiles, lots of them have their twitch streams linked to their accounts. Watch them play, look at their UI, adjust your UI to see what you need to see - which is your call.
A quick few things that will make your life easier:
Good nameplates, plater or threatplates is a good start
WA to see targeted spells on nameplates. So if you are a warrior and can spell reflect an ability, you can see if its on yourself or others.
The ability to track your party’s CD’s. As a tank, I filter out all except major DPS CD’s and key utility like shroud, treants, vortex, etc. because I will adjust pull size if major CD’s are up and vice versa.
As far as class goes, I’d suggest Warrior. They have been buffed a lot recently and traditionally get better in future patches when more secondary stats are introduced on higher ilvl gear. Lots of top streamers have started gearing and playing prot warrior. Nerftank and Andybrew to be specific. Both stream and both are amazing tanks. Watch and learn.
Practise the routes in Heroic and M+2 keys. Treat each run as though it was a +10 so you can get used to Prideful pulls.
Be sure to download Mythic Dungeon Tools so you can import RaiderIO weekly routes or craft your own.
Get the RaiderIO addon as well (even though it’s a pain to update). You’ll learn to appreciate it when running your own keys, even though it gets a lot of flak from the community. For all the bad rep it gets, there’s still nothing better than having an objective, numbers-based look at potential teammates.
Set up a raid marker macro so you can mark/highlight locations or mobs for interrupts, stuns, positioning, etc. Saves typing time.
PuGging is not for everybody. You might have to start off with PuGs, but work towards putting together a regular group so you can push keys together.
I prefer monk-215 after playing warrior-210 and paladin-220. Warrior was great but lacked in pugs that lacked certain tools
When i started doing mythics around 15’s healers would leave my group because i have a “low health pool( 45khp)” before we even started. Yet i took almost no damage.
Stagger is a vary powerful tool and I have been told monks have a passive 10ilvl because of it.
Just food for thought and what to expect from people. Mobility and tankness is amazing with Para, Ring and touch of death
I use the bigwigs/littlewigs/voice pack combo to handle boss and trash mechanic call outs. Weak aura for targeted spells so I can bop/move if it’s melee. Cd tracker for the party. Platter for intelligent nameplates.
I spend a lot of time looking for places I can use my utility. This can make routing vary from tank to tank. I joined a new guild yesterday and they were scared of tyrannical 15 ventunnax. I just told them, “I’m a paladin” and they had no idea the shenanigans I can do on that fight. BoP first bleed, sac second, LoH the third if necessary. The 4th bleed is the first one the healer is alone on. I try to use every skill in my spell book (except turn evil, somewhat useful on occasion, but not many places where a fear for undead is game changing).
I’m pretty sure you two are saying the same thing. Mechanics are too easy to ignore in heroic/low keys because they don’t do a lot of damage. That’s why I always recommend learning by just pushing keys. Sure, if you’ve never seen a dungeon before, give it a shot in heroic or a M0, but hanging around at that level is only going to develop bad habits.
As for addons, you’ll want:
Either Deadly Boss Mods (DBM), or Big/Little Wigs to keep track of important interrupts, boss abilities/mechanics, etc.
Threat Plates, or something similar, so you can see at a glance which mobs you do or do not have aggro on.
Weak Auras, which is almost a sub category of addons. There are tons of useful weak auras, but I particularly recommend getting a weak aura that tracks the interrupts of your group.
Raider IO for recruiting other players who know what they’re doing.
Mythic Dungeon Tools for planning and/or viewing routes. If you don’t have routes yet, you can crib Dratnos’s routes from the raider IO site as a starting point.
Elitism Helper to help you see what you’re doing wrong. Make sure you set it up so that it’s not broadcasting to the group though, as that will trigger some people.
I think that’s a pretty minimal set for successful M+ tanking, but there are tons of useful addons, and I’m sure you’ll get more good suggestions here. =)
The real big brain strat is ignoring the plague bomb in Ickus and seeing if you can kill him before it kills you (I have yet to see this bold strategy pay off in pugs).