Newbie Tanking Questions from FFXIV tank

Gameplay Dungeons, Raids and Scenarios
1

Hi all, for context, I come from FFXIV as a main tank for 6 years now, and recently came to WoW as a newbie in tanking.

I would like to start dabbling in Dungeon contents in WoW.

I’m currently level 63 Paladin Protection. Here’s my generic questions:

  1. Is Tank expected to lead the way going through dungeons?

  2. If yes, any suggestions for newbie who has never experienced any dungeons? In FFXIV, since I’ve played for 6 years, I grew up from low level with the dungeons so I know the way through them, and know all the boss mechanics. For newly released patches or dungeons, I can just watch a guide first.

How does it work for newbie tank in WoW? I think my main concern are 2 things - knowing the way, and boss mechanics. How do I prepare so I don’t wander off aimlessly? Should I be watching guides first? But the dungeons are random, right? And there are over 100+ dungeons for sure, so definitely I cannot be preparing before-hand.

  1. Am I doing this wrong? Should I have been levelling from 1 to 63 through dungeons so that I could learn the dungeon mechanics? It was just questing was so fast and easy, so I got to 63 within just <12 hours of playing.

  2. Is there a concept of wall-to-wall pull in WoW? I think there are no walls separating groups of mobs, right? Is this concept accepted?

  3. Going back to question #2, I’m struggling with the concept of random dungeons. As a level 63, can I queue a low level dungeon so that I can learn? I did this in FFXIV to learn as a healer, so I just kept queuing through low level till mid level so I could learn how to play in a dungeon slowly. Can I do that in WoW, or I’m forced to enter a 63 dungeon immediately?

  4. In a very general sense, for those who play both games, which game is more forgiving for newbie tanks, WoW or FFXIV? Why?

Thanks!

2 Likes
2

for the most part routing falls on the tank. this is way easier and less scary than it sounds. and yeah since youre usually at the front youre leading the pulls
addons like mythic dungeon tools makes it so you can share your routes as lil marked maps

leveling doesnt matter at all. leveling is very disconnected from end game

main dungeon endgame content is m+. you need to kill a certain amount of mobs (count/%). you can find routes online or test the waters as dps to get a feel for them

the dragonflight dungeons in the m+ pool this season are neltharus, halls of infusion, brackenhide hollow, and uldaman. so you can learn them a bit from random dungeon finder i suppose.

dungeons 60-70 are the same pretty much. they dont feel different.
and people dont have high expectations for random dungeons at this point

1 Like
3

  1. yes, you’ll lead. But you can make arrangements with others to mark next pull etc. there’s solutions to most problems. they can lead the way from the rear with markers if you wish.

  2. you can look at minimap, but generally if you go the wrong way, the group will tell you. Tell them at start you havent been here before, pick a direction and go. How does everyone else learn it at the start of a new expansion? we go for it and we discover the way.

  3. i’d just jump in some normals and play them once or twice on lowest difficulty. you cant cause too much trouble there. it’s not that serious.

  4. no idea - I dont play FF

  5. normals are easy enough. you can learn there.

  6. no idea.

2 Likes
4

On #5, if I queue normals, is there a selection of dungeons it will pull from? Or it can be from any dungeon from any base game + expansion?

5

If you queue normal dungeons it will pull from the normal Battle For Azeroth leveling experience pool of dungeons. (Dungeons from the Battle for Azeroth expansion.)

If you spoke with Chromie and chose a timeline, it will pull from that expansion’s pool of dungeons. Warlords of Draenor is currently the fastest leveling experience due to the shorter dungeons and the faster questing experience.

2 Likes
6

FFXIV is a lot more forgiving. Be ready for toxicity, be ready for stupid people and a lot more things to deal with. There are expectations in WOW and if you don’t meet them most people don’t give a flying fig and go right for the insults.

It’s not all bad but the atmosphere is better in FFXIV.

2 Likes
7

Prefacing this by saying whenever Sackless or Shrimpneck show-up with suggestions (even Sosari if he’s still here), I would take their advice at the value of gold and run with it, because they’ve been around for awhile and usually give the best advice when it comes to tanking - they also play Prot Paladin so it’s a good mix.

To answer your main questions from my perspective

1 - Yes the tank will set the pace for the dungeon, that includes the route and the amount of mobs pulled. Similar to FFXIV, except as you go up in key level you’ll go from boss-to-boss pulling mobs to doing singular packs that have certain setup.

2 - Watch guides. I recommend dorky, he’s an MDI Tank (https://www.youtube.com/@Dorki) but there’s a lot of people that make guides and routes on how to learn.

3 - You will feel like you’re doing it incorrectly, but tanking is also one of the hardest roles to fill in WoW, ESPECIALLY in Dungeons. The more you learn, the easier it will become, and the more confident you’ll be in it.

Think of it like this. You’re going to feel fresh to it at first, but once you’ve mastered the basics, you’ll be able to extrapolate and find new things that you can do to help yourself and your group - faster routes, better CC, etc.

4- Wall to Wall pulling is viable, but there’s also a lot of stuff you can skip along the way, so it’s best to know what you can and cannot pull (like limit testing). Take into account caster mobs that will range the group, healer mobs that will make the pull take longer, buff mobs that will stack the damage up to the point of being unhealable, or even just mobs that like to fixate / kill your group. Mandatory interrupts, things like that.

If you can identify what mobs do what, mostly through experience, then you can answer the question of “can I wall to wall here” or “can I pull 2-3 packs here”.

5 - There’s no automatic level scaling in wow like there is in FF outside of Timewalking, so you’ll be doing dungeon content that is meant for your level.

6 - FFXIV is a more forgiving in terms of dungeon tanking because it’s more linear, raid tanking it’s a lot harder. WoW dungeon tanking is a lot less forgiving because it’s incredibly open, while raid tanking is a lot more linear.

Hope this helps :wave:

2 Likes
8

Thank you for this, extremely helpful.

I had some feeling about #6, because dungeon tanking in FFXIV is very formulaic - wall-to-wall + boss avoid red circles.

For WoW, from the videos I’ve seen, there are more unique and dungeon-specific quirks, specific events you have to do or click, to progress the path, that may be blockers for complete newbie. These are cases that may cause impatience from those who don’t like to see a newbie tank leading the way.

I saw a video where you have to drink something to make the boss easier or not enraged, and I was like, if I didn’t watch that, I would have missed and gone straight to the boss.

1 Like
9

You’re also going to find that mechanically WOW has more of a learning curve than FFXIV. You’re likely not going to find one shot mechanics on normal mode but numbers do matter and the number of rezzes are a lot more limited.

So it’s a trade off of sorts. You’re not pressed as hard to succeed mechanically but your numbers do matter and the amount of mistakes you can make are usually less.

10

it’s easier to just do it and identify the gaps than to try to pre-solve every problem,

go run into a problem first.

1 Like
11

Tanking is considered pretty difficult to get into because you are expected to know everything about the dungeon and not knowing what your doing will wipe the group which kind of moves into my next point the fact that the community is extremely unforgiving towards people making mistakes and as the tank your mistakes are much more noticeable which also creates a fear factor that makes tanks rare. Granted its not the hardest role hardest is healer easily those guys deserve medals

2 Likes
12

Yup, for sure there is an anxiety factor from me here which is why I am researching and trying to prepare.

But I guess Robokappa has a point here. At some point, maybe it’s better to just jump in first and see what breaks, and go from there.

13

you’re the tank.

the others exist only to serve you.

arguably, they are just props in your personalized universe, really.

one thing an experienced tank knows: their words mean nothing. you decide if they live or die. Sometimes they need to be reminded. Muhahahahahahahaha. You never insult the tank, the lunch lady or HR.

2 Likes
14

Well anxiety/fear is something you will have to break eventually because even after you figure everything out you will make occasional mistakes I still make mistakes from time to time and the dps call me trash when I do it just comes with the territory.

But yeah its super fun once you figure everything out and I highly reccomend it

15

First off, I think you are over thinking things especially for leveling dungeons. In all seriousness, just jump in and start moving. Most of the dungeons are linear and if you go off course the group will generally correct you quickly. The dungeon maps can help you out as well.

You only need to worry about “leading” the group once you hit max level and start pushing harder content. That goes with finding out pre-determined routes as well.

1 Like
16

Just to throw this out there, you’re probably not going to learn anything from doing Normal, or even Heroic dungeons, except that the DPS like to do the pulls for you if they think you are going too slow, and then you have to pick up all the mess. If you can get past that without it driving you nuts, you might pick up a little bit of the path through the dungeon, but that’s pretty much it. And maybe not even that, depending on how bad the DPS make it for you.

This is often a problem in regular Mythic (“M0”) and lower M+ keys as well.

That being said, JUST DO IT! Jump in, tank a dungeon, mention you’re new, and either ppl will help you, or just make the run miserable lol. 50/50 shot!

And don’t feel bad about not knowing in Normal/Heroic/M0 because dude, I get people in M+10s/11s that have no flippin clue, and the fact they have completed ANY M+ runs is 100% because they got carried lol.

1 Like
17

Yes, but only in so much as you’ll be pulling each pack and generally determining the pace. In terms of what to pull, a non tank can “lead” in chat and by placing marks. If you mention at the start that you’re new and have never seen a dungeon often a more experienced player will assist you.

No, you’re fine. Most of the dungeons aren’t used outside of leveling. Going from 60 to 70, there shouldn’t be any more than the current slate of 8 dungeons available as part of the Dragonflight storyline. These 8 will be the only ones in the normal, and heroic LFG automated group finder, and in the player made Mythic dungeons. Heroic and Mythic are available at the level cap of 70. Once you have some experience with the dungeons and some gear, you could explore M+, where 4 of the current dungeons are combined with 4 revamped dungeons from eariler eras in an infinitely scaling system of increasing difficulty and rewards. There are a lot of online resources available if you decide to progress down this path. In any event, you don’t need to know 100+ dungeons, just 8 or so at a time.

Boss to boss is what it’s more generally known as here, but until you’re comfortable with the dungeons and the capacity to control and survive large pulls I would recommend just doing a pack or two at a time. Some packs can be combined easily and some are death traps waiting to happen without significant understanding of the trash abilities and coordination of the group to manage them.

The system is fundamentally different. All of the old dungeons still exist, but queuing will only place you in the current difficulty for your level, which is actually all you need to be learning at this point anyway.

I briefly played FFXIV, so I have a little perspective, but I definitely don’t have an equal footing in both games. That said, I think the tanking toolkit is more robust in WoW, with mechanics that seem better integrated into the game world artistically. However, there is definitely more clarity in the FF mechanics, they just look more artificial to me and I didn’t like them as much. The FF community was very accepting, but I also clarified at the beginning of each run that I was new and didn’t know the way. I’m not sure what the response would have been if I just charged in and didn’t play the way they were expecting. Much is said about the toxic culture toward tanks in WoW, and people can definitely be rude about mistakes high profile roles are making. That said however, I think it stems from the misplaced assumption that every other player is just as experienced as the angry person and that the mistakes are from bad play instead of just inexperience. In my experiences, if you communicate that you’re new and would welcome help before, during, and after, a lot of people will actually step up and give you a hand. But like others have said, if you do get some toxic people, just try to tune them out and let it roll off your back. Everyone has to start somewhere, and mistakes are part of learning. Put the people that can’t understand that on ignore and they have one less tank in their future.

I’m happy to discuss anything with you in game if you’d like as well. You can add me on bnet: Zothar#1524. I made the switch to tanking full time last expansion, so my growing pains are more recent than some of the more veteran tanks.

3 Likes
18

I’m gonna disagree pretty hard with people about the difficulty of tanking here vs ffxiv. In leveling dungeons in wow you tend to be way more powerful than the dungeon itself.

It’s kind of a hard flip, where in FFXIV, you outgear expert dungeons and they become faceroll tome grinds, but the leveling dungeons are actually dangerous and require a lot more CD planning (not ARR, but once you hit 65+ dungeons things hurt hard in leveling dungeons without proper CD useage thanks to level sync).

Whereas in wow I can pull wall to wall with 0 CD’s in leveling and generally be fine. But then you get into endgame dungeons and they scale a lot harder thanks to m+ system.

2 Likes
19

Thank you so much this is super helpful - that means I can actually just prepare since it’s only limited to these 8 dungeons. I thought it’s pulling randomly all of dungeons in WoW.

20

off-topic but in Beginner Chat somebody asked about personal loot. Since there’s no rolling, does it mean that whoever loots the boss first keeps all the loot? THAT would be what hell looks like :slight_smile: