Tanking For Dummies Part 1: The Basics menu

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  1. #1
    Krazzee's Avatar Banned
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    Tanking For Dummies Part 1: The Basics

    Here is the first part of a tanking guide i found.




    I've noticed that a LOT of new people playing warriors have trouble tanking, especially in instances.

    This guide is designed to get you on your feet and going down the path to tanking like a real pro, being the kind of warrior anyone would love to group with.


    First of all, the basic concepts:

    HEAT:

    Heat is what any activity against a mob generates, attacks, heals cast on people that the mob currently 'hates', debuffs and the like all generate heat. The mob focuses its main attack on the current target with the most heat. As a tank, it is your job to keep the 'aggro', the focus of the mob's aggression on you at all times, and off of the less armored, more damaging characters like rouges and mages, and the healers.


    Most people do most of their heat through damage, not true for a warrior.

    First of all, you have several things that give you a bonus to threat (heat) generation:

    First, there's the built-in 10% (more if you have defiance talent) bonus for simply being in defensive stance, so all of your attacks and abilities will create 110% normal heat. For this reason, you want to spend most of your time in an instance in defensive stance. Def. stance also reduces the damage you take by 10%, making it easier for your healers to keep you alive, and using less of the healer's vital mana supply.

    Quick note here: Be kind to your healer, the less heals they have to cast, the less heat THEY generate and the less mana they burn. Use def. stance, and use a shield with a 1-handed weapon, both give you extra damage avoidance and mitigation that translate to more survivability and less healing required.

    Back to heat:
    Then there are abilities that generate heat FAR in excess of the damage done. "Revenge" only does a dozen or so damage, but generates as much heat as a axe to the head, and it's cheap to use (in rage cost) as well. You can also use Shield Block to create the opportunity to use a revenge. Shield bash not only interrupts spellcasting, but if used to disrupt a caster mob's spells, will make them absolutely LOATHE you. Sunder armor also creates a LOT of heat, and is a staple in most tanking stratagies.

    Using revenge and sunder armor along with normal attacks is often more than enough to keep nearly any mob 'locked' on you even against damage dealing allies several levels over you.

    Instant aggro abilities

    If you LOSE the focus of the mob for any reason, you have several 'instant focus' abilities that force the mob to focus on you, no matter what. They often work by setting your current "heat total" to whatever the current highest is +1, and some (like mocking blow and challanging shout) prevent the mob from changing targets for a certain period as well.

    If you're using sunder armor, revenge and attacking consistantly, you ought to have no problem... but mistakes happen, pets accidentally growel, healers have to spam flashes if something goes pear-shaped, ect.

    Your first line of defense against a breakaway mob is yout taunt. No rage cost, on a quick cooldown, it's perfect for snaring the attention of a mob. If someone else pulled the mob, and you need to get its attention to start tanking it, taunt is perfect. You can use it fairly often, but try to leave it open in case the mob makes a break for your healer.

    You also have mocking blow at mid-levels to force a mob to focus on you. To do this you need at least 4 levels of the "tactical Mastry" talent (EVERY tank should max that out! it allows you to switch stance to use your whole toolkit), if you have more than 20 rage, you switch to battle stance, quickly pop your mocking blow, and then flip back to defensive, building up a little rage so that when the 9-second lock that the mock gives you is up, you can start spamming a lot of sunders and revenges to keep its undivided attention.

    Your weapon of last resort is Challanging shout. It's on a 10-minute cooldown, but it requires little rage, and it forces EVERY mob in a wide area to focus on you for a lockout period simular to a mock. It's great if you're tanking a lot of mobs (see the second part of the guide...)

    With these basic tactics, you ought to be well on your way to tanking most early instances, be sure to stay tuned for more advanced tips and tricks.

    Tanking For Dummies Part 1: The Basics
  2. #2
    juanes's Avatar Member
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    well what you call heat is usually called Threat. I would like to make an important note on Taunt and Chhallenging shout, many people say that the both give what is called "fake" threat (heat) but in truth it does not i have proven it witrh guildies and a couple experiments. Another point is that while in Battle or Berserker stance you generate 80% of threat instead of the 110% or more depending on talents.

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