This is my first time tanking in Classic. I get the general idea of what tanking is and how its executed, but there is always room for improvement.
I know to face all mobs, including ads, away from the rest of the group in order to avoid cleave. Also, to use taunt only when the mob targets someone else. I also know that its best to use cleave and any AoE attacks or effects to generate as much AoE threat as possible.
What else do you think I should think about?
Also, this whole discussion about “tanking two-handed” VS “sword and board” has kinda made me worried about if I am doing something wrong. As a Troll Warrior, i usually stick with sword and board since it does increase armor and allows me to use Shield Bash; however, to what degree does using a two-handed over a sword and board really matter? I was always told to use shields when tanking just about anything. “Mitigation is key,” they said.
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Use a throwing/ranged wepon to pull at times. Tell youre group to target the se target as you
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Ah, yes! I almost forgot about that!
Make sure to bind the raid targets to your keyboard. Tell your group the kill order, “Skull -> Cross -> sheep Square” etc.
Really as a tank, communication is key. You are the defacto leader. Just tell everyone how you want the run to go.
Oh heck no! Tell them to target skull, and you put a skull (bind it and a few other common ones to keys) on whatever you have the most threat on or is the biggest threat to the group and needs to die yesterday.
I don’t know about other thanks, but when I do it, I am cycling targets constantly to get sunders/revenges etc on them so they don’t decide to go play touchy feeley with the healer, especially the next one in the kill order when the first is near done. If the group “assists” on my target, they will all be hitting different targets, and that…is bad, mmmkay?
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I just spam Demo shout and dont worry about aoe threat.
Since RFC, I’ve been using a mixture of taunt, sunder armor, rend, and demo shout to keep threat high. I’ve gone sword and board most of that time. Just remember one of the golden rules of tanking: your job is NOT to do damage, but to allow the damage-dealers and healers in your party to act unimpeded. Don’t focus too hard on trying to kill one enemy at the expense of losing control over the other mobs. Cycle targets constantly and hit all of them with sunder armor, taunt, & rend.
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This also discourages melee from attacking from the front. This isnt your responsibility, but I see lots of melee standing right next to the tank stabbing the boss/mob in the face.
I’ve tanked 4 times already on this guy (two RFCs and two WCs, I’m 21 atm) and I found tanking (at least at these low levels) to be pretty stressful.
In retail, I tank decently high dungeons (think 16 or 17 was my highest) and it’s VERY different than Classic.
In Classic, the bosses and trash pretty much only do damage to one person, so the tank. In retail, EVERYONE needs to know what they are doing or they can be one shotted, in Classic if you don’t know what you’re doing, the tank will die.
In retail, as the tank, I’m usually one of the last ones to die because I’m excellent at keeping myself alive. The DPS usually die before me. In Classic, I die all the frickin time and the DPS usually then kites and stuff and finishes off the mob. This is not fun for me. It’s like they put ALL OF THE PUNISHMENT for messing up on the tank. Tank messes up and doesn’t hit CD? Tank dies. Healer messes up and heals too slow or runs OOM? Tank dies. DPS messes up and doesn’t CC? Tank dies.
I can understand why so many groups are LF tanks. It’s just not as fun in Classic. I’d rather DPS too.
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If the DPS doesn’t manage their own threat all they get is a bubble and renew from me. Mana management is fairly important and I can’t be wasting mana healing that mage that wants to blizzard immediately.
If you have a party member that is constantly pulling aggro and has not responded to constructive criticism then employ the old saying, “You spank it you tank it”
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I would say spatial awareness. 2 things I do is to zoom out the camera quite far out to be able to see more things on screen. I also turn my camera around to look in different directions to look out for patrols. Of course, this is lower on the priority list after securing threat, positioning self and boss, and doing mechanics.
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spam battle shout for aoe threat pulls, also if you get that idiot dps/healer screaming about not doing the “2hd meta” just do yourself a favor and leave then or kickem.
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And then if you think you might do multiple runs of a dungeon, remember to pack a whole crap-load of arrows, hehe
Sunder armor. It generates absurd threat. Spam it.
On a serious note, say you pull a pack of 3 mobs. Before the pull you mark one skull and another X, pull with your ranged weapon or if you have Tactical Mastery you use a charge/D Stance macro.
Now you begin to tank. So how do you hold 3 mobs effectively? Sunder skull, sunder X, Sunder last mob. Rotating sunder and using revenge procs while burning excess rage with cleave will help you maintain threat better, along with Demo Shout.
Use LoS anywhere you can, caster mobs are aggravating and will be easier to deal with if you get them to run to you.
Edit: This might help you with the fundamentals.
cleave is actually a bad way to get aoe threat unless you got a ton of rage, even if your 1h weapon is slow… though, if you’re using a 2h, I’m not sure if thats still the case
what you’re supposed to do is tab sunder/revenge, with a priority for revenge
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Don’t know about you guys but we all know leveling a warrior sucks, and rage generation sucked in low lvl tanking at least for me. I didn’t have enough rage to spam sunder for threat.
single mobs/boss my rotation was rend > revenge> sunder x3
multiple mobs tabbing revenge procs > battle shout spam
battle shout does ~55 threat per party member buffed so that’s up to 275 threat for 10 rage
Make a Sunder Armor macro.
Bind Skull to it. I think the following works (it will generate a script warning, ignore it): /run SetRaidTarget(“focus”,8)
So (do not put rank number, it will default to highest)
/cast Sunder Armor
/run SetRaidTarget(“focus”,8)
You should be able to use Cleave/Shouts to keep aggro on the rest. If DPS refuse to stick to your target, let them do the bloody tanking. Taunt, IMO, should only be needed if the healer grabs aggro.
At level 27, a shield added 11% mitigation to my total which is pretty significant (as well as being able to block), so don’t sleep on it.
If you’re underleveled in dungeons don’t try to 2H tank. If your level = last boss level you’re probably safe to 2h tank for most of the dungeon.
Ignore the “it generates more threat” when using 2h. 1h may generate slightly less, but it is more consistent overall. I’ve found charge + miss + parry to be 7+ seconds of ZERO extra rage using a 2h on some pulls thanks to RNG. In the current meta the mobs are already AoE’d to 50% by that point and your frantically trying to regain control.
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