Tanking. A general discussion. ( I play Brewmaster Monk )

Community General Discussion
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Now, I only added that I play monk as tank as it’s the only tank I have fun with. Not that it’s the best tank or that I am particularly good at it, but practice can change the worst into the ok.

It’s tanking that I want to talk about. And I’m not talking about etiquette like pulling too much or pulling too little, going to fast or too slow. I’m talking about the ACT of tanking.
On the surface it’s simple. Find enemies, make them hate you and only you, do what your specific tank does best to retain that hate and survive the onslaught. Make sure that where you stand doesn’t get your team hurt. Your team should be able sneer at the enemy from the sidelines and pelt them with dps ( dank poo scraps ) while the healer occasionally hand you a towel and some water until the enemy has had enough and runs home to their mother. Repeat as Necessary.

Now many of my personal problems with tanking can probably be easily remedied by a quick read and a handful of mods but I do have a question. A request for advice.

Not taking mods into consideration or reading about a dungeon/raid before going into it, does anyone have any advice on how to tank properly? Like maybe a flowchart or just some general advice other than what I have already mentioned.

Like imagine this scenario:

You and a group arrive at a dungeon. You read up on some specific enemies and anything specific you have to do to progress the dungeon but what’s this!? Your mods have all broken and you don’t have time to fix the issue and you need to get this dungeon done now!! What advice to follow would help you get through this dungeon with minimal tragedy? (( Assume a team that doesn’t eff things up regardless of what you do ))

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I don’t use mods other than threat plates and dbm

Weakauras will cause lag

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I’ve only vaguely used Weak Auras. I know it’s supposed to be customizable but what exactly does it do?

I’m under the impression it helps with buff/debuff management but best I could tell it just makes the buff larger and I don’t have a problem with what’s given before mods…unless I’m confusing it with a different mod.

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If you’re going in blind… keep it simple.

Face mobs away from the group.
Interrupt as much as you can.
Don’t over-pull.

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I think you should only play with threat plates and dbm for dungeon awareness.

Don’t get into weak auras. I am assuming you are new player. You will only overwhelm yourself.

Do few games with threat player and dbm to understand game mechanics.

Then start with 1 weak aura - tracking your stagger. Then once you are able to keep track of this mechanic, you add more.

Wekasura lets you do almost everything in the game. I don’t use that and I did high keys.

Weakaura is really good if you enjoy it. I like my screen clutter free as I enjoy the game more than having to feel that I need to press that button right now.

But if you are someone who aims to get into Mythic raids. This would be a good add on to get used to.

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I ran it in the hopes that it would help me with Outlaw. It was making a blaring horn sound at me every time I needed to try to refresh roll the bones for a better buff.

What ended up happening is that I still sucked at Outlaw but I ALSO was very annoyed by the game constantly blaring at me. 0/10 would not recommend.

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:exploding_head: OMG I can’t believe it

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I just made 3 weak auras.

I download the pack for warrior. I am like dude I don’t need you tell me my should is not on.

I can macro it to my mount and not have to worry about it.

Just too much of unneeded information.

So you going to tell me after I hit a shield slam I am going to get a buff. Wow.

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Not a new player but tanking is different for different games, even if just in small differences in most cases. BUT I have mainly done dps and some healing in WoW.

Like, I can tank in FFXIV by simply making sure I know some specific mechanics that could kill the party if I don’t know them but I’m not as familiar with the idea in WoW even though tanking is so similar in both. DBM might be all I need to start tanking though. You mentioned Threat Plates and that might be helpful. I assume it helps you with threat management? In FFXIV you can see who you have threat with and how strong by just looking at a colored dot next to the enemies healthbar but I don’t recall anything like that in WoW’s basic ui.

How does weak aura help with stagger that the basic ui doesn’t already do for me? Does it make it more noticeable or give me some alert that maybe I should do something about it?

For the longest time the only mods I have used have only been DBM and a slew of QOL mods like things that help me with inventory management or auction stuff. The only time I have ever felt that maybe I should invest in some mods have been as healer and even then I just needed to stay focused.

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After reading what has been said so far, I think you will be better to look up YouTube video about tanking.

Make sure the YouTuber have at least a decent following since everyone and their grandparents can do YouTube video nowadays.

Some advice you got here are just false or terrible in general.

It is true you don’t “need” add-ons to play wow, but the game is now developed with add-on and weak auras in mind. If you plan on doing low mythic + and normal raid you don’t need anything but if you want to really test yourself some boss fight straight up required them to be half decent at killing the boss…

Most dangerous mechanics has a visual or a sound Q when they are about to happen, but learning 50+ Q’s per season is just dumb when Weakauras and DBM will tell you what’s coming. (E.g Use defensive, move, soak and run away)

Yeah Timmy in his mother’s basement will tell you he raided Mythic Sir without the move weakaura but he was probably Tanking the floor at the time…

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You are probably right, he should look up a streamer who pushes1% content and overwhelm himself.

Addons do cause lag. And weakauras is notorious at that. They forgetting to update it for a year and come back.

For a reason you get in game notice that it will affect your performance?

As a mythic raider you need weak aura.

Wasn’t weak aura that helped Method take down Razagath ?

Tell me more please.

12

I don’t want this to come off as condescending because it isn’t intended to but knowing the route and knowing which mobs do what is a big part of tank responsibility. Practicing in m0 is probably what you want to do until you know the dungeons inside and out. That is if you’re unwilling to spend time watching dungeon guides or using addons like Mythic Dungeon Tools that you can make routes in or import routes from other tanks. Tanks like Quazii and Tactyks usually make videos for every dungeon and usually includes pug friendly routes.

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First, I didn’t think this was condescending, it was just helpful info/suggestion.

Second, I agree with knowing the mobs and stuff is a big part…I think my biggest issue as a player is knowing the routes and that can be solved with practice.

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I play all 6 tanks mostly, this warlock and a spriest when one of my friends want to tank. So what I do is usually watch a guide on the dungeon, especially if they’re new dungeons I have never done before. Knowledge is power so they say. I would just start with one guide on Youtube, and the go practice that dungeon. Then rinse repeat for the others. That way you don’t overwhelm yourself with too much info all at once by watching 8 straight guides about all the dungeons. Like I said, Quazii and Tactyks make helpful content on Youtube fit for all skill level of tanks.

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I do most of my “figuring things out” while doing random heroic queues as my primary gear-up phase for m0s, then go on a m0 tour for whatever gear I may be lucky enough to get during the lockout week, and finally settle on a route while doing +2s.

Alternately, when I’m not happy with the routes I have tried, I just switch to my rsham and spy on other tanks.

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Again, with the misinformation.

Not all YouTuber push 1% content …

Some very decent tanks stream and are doing keys 8-12 daily. (Hardly no 1% players in that bracket)

Weakauras can cause lag if your ram isn’t sufficient or your cpu is too old. It is something that used a lot of it. If you are well equipped you won’t feel a thing. I personally don’t have a war machine, but I always get 32gb of ram because I keep a lot of tabs open on Brave (similar to chrome) for build and stuff and it also help with Weakauras. My Cpu isn’t NASA grade but wow is cpu intensive, if you keep upgrade your GPU and never the cpu you will also get issues. The best computer for wow nowadays are Mac with the ARM architecture cpu… I wonder why. (Sarcasm) (Nvidia new cpu chip will be ARM base hmmm)

You can also choose which auras you load at what time. Some auras will indeed kill your fps but make test for yourself there is no one size fit all.

If you never clean your Weakauras yes you will have way too many stored but that’s like your fridge, sometimes you need to trash what has spoiled. (Btw this is an incredible good week to clean your Weakauras since we are leaving Drafonflight) Uninstall the one that are only for DF or older xpac and start looking for the new auras for TWW…

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Yeah that works too.

M0 has a daily reset now so that is super helpful for gearing/learning too. Much better than a weekly lockout. I only suggest m0 because the mobs generally live longer and do more damage so it is easier to see how much you should be pulling and what pulls you need CD’s for.

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DBM is moot once you run the dungeon a handful of times. Everything DBM will alert you to, the game also signals. DBM just makes those things more audio centric and attention toon drawing.

Weak auras is not required to play any tank or heal through portals. I don’t use any except a BDK one for blood shield that is moot after certain key levels. I’ve taken multiple classes/specs through portal difficulty in DF (blood dk and mistweaver).

I use details to check end of dungeon summaries, but rarely do I check it during a run unless we’re failing so I can find out why, and fix it (myself or in chat).

If you plan on swapping around classes or specs, keep a familiar load out for everyone.

My personal:
1 - interupt
2 - taunt
3 - movement ability or displacement effect (roll, death grip, etc)
4:7 core rotational abilities with no CD or minimal CD. In order of lowest to highest priority.
8 - aoe (or dispel on heals). I have a shift+8 modifier for a second aoe ability I’d I need it.
11 - movement speed cooldown (tigers lust or deaths advance)

The bar above my main abilities has defensive cooldowns in the left side in order of CD length. Dps CDs are in the right in order of CD length. This bae is just above my main ability bar. Includes trinkets and potions.

3rd bar above that is healing abilities and potions, in order of magnitude, from left to right. Right side of the bar is rando combat junk I may want (like BR) or cooldowns I want to track that I have bound to my mouse wheel. This is where I place CC too, which usually ends up in the middle ish if that upper bar (paralyzing touch, choas nova, storm bolt, etc).

I bind whatever ground circle ability the class has to mousewheel. So it’s ring of peace, death and decay, blizzard, heroic leap, etc. if there are multiple (like VDH) I have them set to mousewheel plus a modifier like shift or control.

Never use alt as a modifier so you can keep the self cast default setting. So on my dk, dnd is alt mouseheeel at me. If I need it to pull it’s just mousewheel and click where I want it.

I never have to relearn the basics this way. I’m always pressing the same keys to interact with the world. This way I can wholly focus on the dungeon and what’s going on. I use a gaming mouse and press my abilities via my mouse. I turn my character with my mouse.

Keybind/click whatever major CDs you want. I personally click but keybind a for everything is superior.

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i wrote this a while back. It might be useful to you

i will add that the plater addon is very useful, nearly mandatory, for tanking. it tells you which mobs you have aggro on and your threat status on specific mobs. when you are trying to gather and hold a pack, it shows you which ones need more love.

fwiw: i have gotten 5 of the 6 tanking classes to 2-2.5k rating at some point in DF, with the presently ironic exception of brew :slight_smile: