Build some patience, you’ll need it. Always take a warlock, so atleast one wipe per 30 min you wont need to corpse run
I tanked some on my Warrior in Vanilla, TBC & WotLK & it felt pretty stressful in a bad way a lot of the time. Healing (or dps) stress under clutch circumstances doesn’t bother me, but tanking stress does for some reason. Go figure.
My suggestion is level a healer too so you know just how much you can stress their mana.
Oh and keybind a few markers and mark every pack as you pull it.
General tips:
DPS players are extremely aggressive, you need to be more aggressive.
If you have mana users let them sit down to drink before you pull.
Make it a habit to always check your healers mana bar.
Don’t chin check(pull too much) healers you don’t know, some people don’t do well under duress.
If playing a warrior:
Consider engineering, shield spikes, learn to charge/tclap/zerk stance WW/D stance. Practice that over and over.
Your aoe threat is just gonna be bad. If you have DPS that don’t respect that you need to GET hit in order to generate threat, then mind their name and don’t run with them again.
If you have a priest that power word shields you before every pull even though you ask them not to, right click it off. You need that initial rage.
Don’t gear for dodge/defense just because it is “tank gear.” Warrior and Paladins in early stages that gear like this tend to be very spotty on how they take damage and it stresses healers. Gear for parry, shield block, stamina, and armor where you can. Don’t gimp yourself on threat to be OVER defensive. Parry haste is a thing. When you parry an attack your next attack is faster.
You’re going to generate less threat as you get better gear because you’re taking less damage, just the nature of the beast with warrior tanks.
For Druids,
Gear stamina and armor. Again, use some cat DPS pieces if you aren’t dying. Threat generation > everything if you aren’t dying. Doesn’t matter how tanky you are if you can’t hold threat with REASONABLE DPS.
You’re a druid. Use regrowth/rejuv before larger pulls. You can pull with hurricane as well. Anything to get initial aggro. Learn to powershift if you have 0 rage and someone body aggros.
You’re a bear, act like it.
For Paladins,
Most of the warrior points apply about defense, but Paladins have less defensive CDs but do not have a problem with aoe threat. The first thing you need to conquer as a paladin is not being one shot, but Paladins scale very very well with gear.
Spell power weapon.
Consecrate and ret aura is not enough for single target threat. What warriors and druids lack for aoe threat, you lack for single target threat.
If DPS are being apes, then tell them to calm down.
That’s about all I can think of off the top of my head.
Nice thread. Thanks to OP for making it, and thanks to all contributors. I’m glad I found it and hope to improve as a result.
As a DPS you just focus on what you do and you do it well. As a tank you will end up knowing what ever class can do and what they should do. The raid / dungeon will live or die based on how well you play.
For warrior tanking at least, when it’s time to tank in TBC, spec full prot. It’s absolutely amazing how much easier it is to hold aggro and survive.
Oh and bind your marks! It’s right in menu > keybinds
Don’t start with a shield that’s nearly broken. Coordinate with your teammates. And for Christ’s sake, don’t bubble if you’re a paladin tank.
Maybe you are forgetting what the gouge ability does. It completely drops aggro and the mobs make a beeline to the healer. In rare cases such as this, turning your back towards the mobs is the way.
If your taking to much damage, you should use some CC.
You use flares/aoe/perception and just fight them without pulling other packs. Or just cc it or kill it first since they die fast.
Knowledge is power.
You could have 1 arm but if you know the ins and outs of all the BC instances then you’ll be in the upper 20-30% of tanks. Knowing which mobs to focus, to kick, when to charge in and when to LoS. That’s the main thing that makes a great tank.
As for classes. I enjoy warrior, much harder but way more interactive and fun IMO. You have great mobility and lots of tool to help you control the fight, and some OP defensives.
Prot Paladin is the best in 5mans, has utility (healing, res, buffs, etc) GODLIKE aoe dps (and as a result aoe aggro) and is much easier to play. But take it from someone who has mained a Paladin for all of wow, when I say TBC prot Paladin is easy I mean b-o-r-I-n-g. Very simple stand still and hit a couple buttons. Oh and you’ll be drinking after every pull.
Feral bear druid is a damn near perfect mix of the two previous classes styles.
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