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Thread: Tank like a pro

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    Tank like a pro

    World of Warcraft Gold Free Guide


    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:

    HATE:

    Hate is what any activity against a mob generates, attacks, heals cast on people that the

    mob currently 'hates', debuffs and the like all generate hate. The mob focuses its main

    attack on the current target with the most hate. 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 hate through damage, not true for a warrior.

    First of all, you have several things that give you a bonus to threat (hate) 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 hate. 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 hate

    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 hate:
    Then there are abilities that generate hate FAR in excess of the damage done. "Revenge" only

    does a dozen or so damage, but generates as much hate 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 hate, 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 "hate 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 your 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-second 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.

    In above guide I showed you the basics of tanking, the skills that will carry you through

    tanking a single mob, and locking them up well, the basic skills that you develop during

    your first instances (Like the deadmines or Ragefire Chasm) and will STILL matter when

    you're a level 60 tanking ragnaros.

    In this segment I'm going to tell you how you can tank multiple opponents simultainiously.
    In later instances especially, and even in a few spots in the early ones, there are places

    where multiple enemies in one pull WILL happen, it's unavoidible.

    The focus of multi-tanking is to focus most of your hate on a single mob, which is the one

    everyone else ought to be attacking, as well as creating enough threat on the other mobs to

    overcome the hate generated by heals.
    Quick note:
    Players with abilities that take a mob out of the fight (Rouges with sap, mages with

    polymorph and warlocks with banish on things that can be banished) can make your life a lot

    simpler, but you'll be FAR more effective if you learn not to rely on these things.
    First of all, you should select your primary target. Selection here is often with the help

    of your group's MA, or main assist player. This player makes sure that everyone is focusing

    on one target, the one that is being tanked the 'strongest' so that you only have incidental

    hate to worry about on your secondary targets.

    Second, you need to get everyone's attention. AoE (area of effect) abilities like

    Demoralizing shout, Thunderclap, Whirlwind and cleave (for 2 targets) help a lot here.
    First, the good news, you're going to have between 2 and 5 mobs wailing on you, which means

    that you'll have rage absolutely pouring in. That means that you can afford to use expensive

    abilities like cleave early and often. When tanking 2 targets, cleave will be the mainstay

    of your efforts. You will probably easily have the rage to use the sunder armors and

    revenges you need to lock that primary target, and still hit cleave everytime it lights up.

    You might have to lay off the comparitively expensive sunders in favor of revenge and shield

    bash (even against non-casters, ESPECIALLY if you have the talent to improve a bash's hate

    by 100%) so you can cleave more often.

    If you're up against 3 or more, cleave alone won't do it, swapping to berserker stance for a

    whirlwind works if you're over level 35 (If I recall correctly), but other times, you're

    going to have to manually retarget for a sunder or 2. Using the 'tab' key is vital here,

    manually clicking into a melee is often no better than random target selection, but the tab

    key makes sure you target the next enemy, not that big voidwalker blocking your line of

    sight on the baddie, or the mob next to the one that needs sundering.

    Your instant aggro abilities are pretty weak for multi-tanking, taunt is good for stopping a

    runner, but you won't hold them long unless you follow it up with some strong rage

    generation.
    The ones with lockouts, those are much much better.

    A mocking blow can often tip the scale of a fight that you're losing control of, making it

    so you have 9 seconds where you can ignore that mob and focus on the others before popping

    back to it for a sundercombo.
    Challanging shout, is, as always your last resort, on a 10-minute timer, you can't really

    rely on it, but when you absolutely, positively need ALL the mob's attention NOW, accept no

    subsitutes.
    Quick tip: If you're in a group with another warrior, on a tough pull, assigning one of you

    as 'offtank' and splitting the mob cluster up between you can save you a LOT of headache,

    even if he only takes a mob or 2 and leads them away from the main melee and tanks them

    there, he can save you the hassle of having to manage too many mobs.

  2. #2
    Puk Guy Proplus's Avatar
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    Thanks, started a new Orc Warrior (lvl12 atm) so this will be handy.

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