Post by Tit on Dec 25, 2014 11:28:27 GMT
Greetings everyone,
1. How to skill
First of all there is in my eyes a clear difference between tanking a 5 man instance or tanking a 40 man raid when it comes to spending your talent points. There are always small things you can change ofc, but there are the two basic talent sets I use:
http://www.wowprovid...253133530221001 I would use this set for 5 mans.
Why exactly this? Arms should be kinda obvious, tactical mastery is good for stance dancing since you won't have THAT much rage in 5 mans. Protection tree should also be kinda obvious, improved sunder armor for saving rage, improved revenge is very good for stunning in 5 mans, and being more resistant to stuns is good when you have low defence. Improved taunt is good to catch mobs who are running away.
http://www.wowprovid...250110520221051 This is the build is use atm myself.
Why exaclty this? Two points for tactical mastery, nice for stance dancing and itnercepting. If. Why crit? Well, you also gain threat over damage, so having a bit extra crit is nice. Prot tree: should be kinda obvious again, improved taunt for bosses like ebonroc. Rest should be explain itself.
2. When do I use which ability and why? How to tank 2+ mobs?
Okay, this section is really important. First of all you have to know which abilities give threat and approx. how much.
List inc:
- Sunder armor: you gain relative low amount of threat with this ability, but its the perfect support for your DPS classes, so you want to have 5 sunders on the boss/mob. Always.
- Shield Slam: this is your main aggro gain ability, you want to use it whenever you can. Also very nice to catch mobs that you lost aggro off and running to a healer e.g.
- Revenge: also high threat ability, and since you should keep shield block on cooldown, you can use this often. Do it.
- Shield block: Use it whenever you can. Especially vs bosses who can crush, you want this on cooldown because: blocked hits cannot be crushing, never.
- Heroic strike: High threat ability with extra damage. Use this on cooldown also.
So, lets assume you tank some boss, e.g. golemagg in MC. Pretty straight forward. What I usually do on these bosses is: bloodrage, wait until you have 20 rage, enter combat, start the combat with shield slam (highest threat gain as said before), spam sunder armor while you move the boss to the position you want to tank him at and then start your usual rotation.
My usual rotation sounds simple: keep all five of the aboved described abilities on CD. Yes, thats alot hammering on your keyboard.
Now a different scenario: you want to tank a 5 man instance. This is a complete different story, ofc, cause you will rarely handle only one mob. Especially when you are not that experienced you should ask for lead and mark targets to make it alot easiert for you and also your group. Mark like following: Skull = first target, X = second target, square = 3rd target/sheep/sleep, star = 4th target/sheep sleep.
What you do now is: press bloodrage, wait 20 rage, go in and hit the Skull with shieldslam, tab, use sunder armor on X one or two times, tab back to skull, use more of your abilities, and from time to time tab back to X go renew your aggro on that target. If you do that and the ppl in your group stick to it, you should be fine. Versus bigger mob groups its also nice to use demoralizing shout once so they dont hit that hard.
In general as a tank you are usually the first one who gets flamed if ppl die, but most of those guys do not realize tanking is not as easy as shooting frostbolts (no offence against mages, just an example)
Sometimes you will have ppl in your group that will shoot whatever they can at the mobs, even if you didnt aggro em yet. Tell them to slow down a bit, repeatedly.
It is highly annoying as tank to deal with such people but after a few deaths they should know it.
Tanking is an experience thing and you have to be quick, don't get desperate if it doesn't go how you wish that fast, it will take a bit time Posted Image
3. Keybindings
So I lately majorly reworked my keybinds to optimize my tanking. This is how two of my main bars look look:
Now some explanations:
First of all I use a logitech mouse, and what I did is moving back on clicking my mousewheel. One of my other buttons is assigned as backspace.
Now:
1 = heroic strike
2 = shield slam
3 = sunder armor
4 = shield block
5 = revenge
shift-4 = disarm
shift-5 = cleave
shift-5 = shield bash
shift-D = bloodrage
shift-F = last stand
shift-G = shieldwall
shift-2 = berserk-rage-macro
shift-3 = defstance-macro
backspace = shieldslam
shift-S = stoneform
shift-C = shoot
shift-W = AoE-taunt
shift-T = stun
Why this? I can backpaddle via mouse, use shieldslam (highest aggro ability) via mouse also, and all abilities are in close range to 1-5.
My berserk-rage macro is easy, you dance to berserk stance and cast berserker rage. This is how it goes.
/cast berserker stance
/cast berserker rage
My macro to dance back to defstance is simple: /cast defensive stance
Why do you need these? I could not find a way to bind the stance buttons, so thats why I use these. In case a fear is coming (Nefarian, Onyxia) you hammer shift-2, see until berserker rage is casted, then hammer shift-3 to go back to def stance. That's it.
4. What items should I gather to be good for 40 mans?
Key question, really. Some things in general: I do prefer defence over dodge until you get a good amount of it, because in my eyes its easier for the healers to heal a tank who gets constantly lets say like 1k damage per 3 sec instead of a tank who gets 1.2k damage in 3 sec and then suddenly a 2.5k hit. Defence is your best friend as a tank.
You can get a really awesome blue tankgear from 5 mans with which you can easily tank MC. I will show it in a list below:
Get Tier1,Tier2,Tier3 from vendors.
With that gear you are perfectly prepared for ZG and also MC. You have alot stamina, alot def, some dodge. Just nice overall. In my opinion best-in-slot pre-Raid gear you can get.
5. Enchants
That section is pretty simple: stamina on everything. Head/Pants can be enchanted preraid with 1% dodge or 100 health from DM books. Only thing you should think about is: +7 stamina or 2% block on shield. What you want is 25% block unbuffed, so when using shield block you have 100% block for some attacks. If your guild raids ZG, make sure you save the ZG enchant for sth worth it. Those idols only drop from Mandokir/Jin'do and others want the enchant also, you might want to wait till you have T2 helm/pants to enchant those. +15 agi on wep > crusader, reason see point 6
6. Consumables
For raiding I use alot different stuff:
- Flask of titans: Must-have for 40 man raids. No exceptions.
- Elixir of the brute force: 18 stamina/strength for 1 hour or till death. Rare recipe, expensive (2 gromsblood/2 plaguebloom per pot), but worth it
- Tender wolf steak: stamina+12 food. Easy to get. order at a cook you trust Posted Image
- Rumsey rum black label: a good drink. +12 stamina also, can be bought in southshore inn
- scrolls of stamina IV/protection IV: sounds stupid, but those are cool. ask your guildmembers to send those to tanks. drop from high level mobs Posted Image
- greater stoneshield potion: 2k armor for 2 minutes. Essentiel on bosses like Chrom, you want to keep those on CD
- nature/fire protection pots: pretty nice for resistance encounters like Ragnaros
- elixir of the giants: nice addition
- Lung juice cocktail: +25 stamina, unique, obtainable by quest in blasted lands. I use those on massive dmg encounters like Chromaggus to boost my health to the max
- Elixier of greater agility: +25 agility, means 1,25% dodge. Must-have.
Thanks Agramesch for this guide <3.
Regards,
Wonderwall.
1. How to skill
First of all there is in my eyes a clear difference between tanking a 5 man instance or tanking a 40 man raid when it comes to spending your talent points. There are always small things you can change ofc, but there are the two basic talent sets I use:
http://www.wowprovid...253133530221001 I would use this set for 5 mans.
Why exactly this? Arms should be kinda obvious, tactical mastery is good for stance dancing since you won't have THAT much rage in 5 mans. Protection tree should also be kinda obvious, improved sunder armor for saving rage, improved revenge is very good for stunning in 5 mans, and being more resistant to stuns is good when you have low defence. Improved taunt is good to catch mobs who are running away.
http://www.wowprovid...250110520221051 This is the build is use atm myself.
Why exaclty this? Two points for tactical mastery, nice for stance dancing and itnercepting. If. Why crit? Well, you also gain threat over damage, so having a bit extra crit is nice. Prot tree: should be kinda obvious again, improved taunt for bosses like ebonroc. Rest should be explain itself.
2. When do I use which ability and why? How to tank 2+ mobs?
Okay, this section is really important. First of all you have to know which abilities give threat and approx. how much.
List inc:
- Sunder armor: you gain relative low amount of threat with this ability, but its the perfect support for your DPS classes, so you want to have 5 sunders on the boss/mob. Always.
- Shield Slam: this is your main aggro gain ability, you want to use it whenever you can. Also very nice to catch mobs that you lost aggro off and running to a healer e.g.
- Revenge: also high threat ability, and since you should keep shield block on cooldown, you can use this often. Do it.
- Shield block: Use it whenever you can. Especially vs bosses who can crush, you want this on cooldown because: blocked hits cannot be crushing, never.
- Heroic strike: High threat ability with extra damage. Use this on cooldown also.
So, lets assume you tank some boss, e.g. golemagg in MC. Pretty straight forward. What I usually do on these bosses is: bloodrage, wait until you have 20 rage, enter combat, start the combat with shield slam (highest threat gain as said before), spam sunder armor while you move the boss to the position you want to tank him at and then start your usual rotation.
My usual rotation sounds simple: keep all five of the aboved described abilities on CD. Yes, thats alot hammering on your keyboard.
Now a different scenario: you want to tank a 5 man instance. This is a complete different story, ofc, cause you will rarely handle only one mob. Especially when you are not that experienced you should ask for lead and mark targets to make it alot easiert for you and also your group. Mark like following: Skull = first target, X = second target, square = 3rd target/sheep/sleep, star = 4th target/sheep sleep.
What you do now is: press bloodrage, wait 20 rage, go in and hit the Skull with shieldslam, tab, use sunder armor on X one or two times, tab back to skull, use more of your abilities, and from time to time tab back to X go renew your aggro on that target. If you do that and the ppl in your group stick to it, you should be fine. Versus bigger mob groups its also nice to use demoralizing shout once so they dont hit that hard.
In general as a tank you are usually the first one who gets flamed if ppl die, but most of those guys do not realize tanking is not as easy as shooting frostbolts (no offence against mages, just an example)
Sometimes you will have ppl in your group that will shoot whatever they can at the mobs, even if you didnt aggro em yet. Tell them to slow down a bit, repeatedly.
It is highly annoying as tank to deal with such people but after a few deaths they should know it.
Tanking is an experience thing and you have to be quick, don't get desperate if it doesn't go how you wish that fast, it will take a bit time Posted Image
3. Keybindings
So I lately majorly reworked my keybinds to optimize my tanking. This is how two of my main bars look look:
Now some explanations:
First of all I use a logitech mouse, and what I did is moving back on clicking my mousewheel. One of my other buttons is assigned as backspace.
Now:
1 = heroic strike
2 = shield slam
3 = sunder armor
4 = shield block
5 = revenge
shift-4 = disarm
shift-5 = cleave
shift-5 = shield bash
shift-D = bloodrage
shift-F = last stand
shift-G = shieldwall
shift-2 = berserk-rage-macro
shift-3 = defstance-macro
backspace = shieldslam
shift-S = stoneform
shift-C = shoot
shift-W = AoE-taunt
shift-T = stun
Why this? I can backpaddle via mouse, use shieldslam (highest aggro ability) via mouse also, and all abilities are in close range to 1-5.
My berserk-rage macro is easy, you dance to berserk stance and cast berserker rage. This is how it goes.
/cast berserker stance
/cast berserker rage
My macro to dance back to defstance is simple: /cast defensive stance
Why do you need these? I could not find a way to bind the stance buttons, so thats why I use these. In case a fear is coming (Nefarian, Onyxia) you hammer shift-2, see until berserker rage is casted, then hammer shift-3 to go back to def stance. That's it.
4. What items should I gather to be good for 40 mans?
Key question, really. Some things in general: I do prefer defence over dodge until you get a good amount of it, because in my eyes its easier for the healers to heal a tank who gets constantly lets say like 1k damage per 3 sec instead of a tank who gets 1.2k damage in 3 sec and then suddenly a 2.5k hit. Defence is your best friend as a tank.
You can get a really awesome blue tankgear from 5 mans with which you can easily tank MC. I will show it in a list below:
Get Tier1,Tier2,Tier3 from vendors.
With that gear you are perfectly prepared for ZG and also MC. You have alot stamina, alot def, some dodge. Just nice overall. In my opinion best-in-slot pre-Raid gear you can get.
5. Enchants
That section is pretty simple: stamina on everything. Head/Pants can be enchanted preraid with 1% dodge or 100 health from DM books. Only thing you should think about is: +7 stamina or 2% block on shield. What you want is 25% block unbuffed, so when using shield block you have 100% block for some attacks. If your guild raids ZG, make sure you save the ZG enchant for sth worth it. Those idols only drop from Mandokir/Jin'do and others want the enchant also, you might want to wait till you have T2 helm/pants to enchant those. +15 agi on wep > crusader, reason see point 6
6. Consumables
For raiding I use alot different stuff:
- Flask of titans: Must-have for 40 man raids. No exceptions.
- Elixir of the brute force: 18 stamina/strength for 1 hour or till death. Rare recipe, expensive (2 gromsblood/2 plaguebloom per pot), but worth it
- Tender wolf steak: stamina+12 food. Easy to get. order at a cook you trust Posted Image
- Rumsey rum black label: a good drink. +12 stamina also, can be bought in southshore inn
- scrolls of stamina IV/protection IV: sounds stupid, but those are cool. ask your guildmembers to send those to tanks. drop from high level mobs Posted Image
- greater stoneshield potion: 2k armor for 2 minutes. Essentiel on bosses like Chrom, you want to keep those on CD
- nature/fire protection pots: pretty nice for resistance encounters like Ragnaros
- elixir of the giants: nice addition
- Lung juice cocktail: +25 stamina, unique, obtainable by quest in blasted lands. I use those on massive dmg encounters like Chromaggus to boost my health to the max
- Elixier of greater agility: +25 agility, means 1,25% dodge. Must-have.
Thanks Agramesch for this guide <3.
Regards,
Wonderwall.
nice guide, where i also took my tankspecc from