Tanking the Labs

Well, finally did get the Shadow Labyrinth run under Eld's belt... Now, since he is a prot warrior, I had to tank the instance... Not a problem... Yeah, right...

Well, we wiped, a few times... Quite a few times were due to my fault... We really had a lot of problems with the big room before Blackheart the Inciter when I was doing the pull and trying to handle multi-mobs and Grandmaster Vorpil while I mastered the kiting. I've only done these as a DPS and well, it takes a bit more effort than it looks... But quite amazingly, we managed to one-shot Murmur... I'll attribute that to the great healing rather than my tanking... None of the tanking stuff dropped, but at least the quest reward ain't too shabby...

What I really had a problem with was tanking of multiple mobs... I need to be able to switch targets faster and apply Devastate & the various aggro gaining moves to increase aggro. By the end of the run, think it was better but still needs lots of work... Always room for more improvement, I guess...

Another thing I had problem with was mobs that Fear. I really should look at what stance-dancing/berserker rage should be done. Fear Ward helps but I won't always have a Priest.

You Call THAT a Buff?

Did a couple of AVs last night and quite disappointed in the supposed AV buff. Mainly because it made just about no difference...

We won both games and in the second, it was a close one, so we pulled with two towers still up. Van still went down... So, nothing seems to have changed?

Irregardless of how it is right now, AV is supposed to be a PvP battleground. Yet, it's quite possible to win it, without killing a single player. So, how can it be changed? I'm not sure the old epic 10 hour AVs were that great. For one, it makes the gathering of AV Marks impossible. I like the reinforcement idea, but perhaps Blizz should take that idea further... Firstly, Reinforcements should only be reduced by killing other players. Burning of Towers/Bunkers should not reduce Reinforcements. Then Reinforcements can affect how the 'end-game' plays out. Here are some of my ideas.

Reinforcements buff Van/Drek
One idea is to tie Van/Drek's HP directly to the amount of Reinforcements left for their respective faction. eg. Say Van has 400,000 HP at the start of the BG, with 600 Reinforcements on both sides. When there are 300 Reinforcements left, he will have 200,000 HP, and so on. It can be linear, or reverse logarithmic or whatever. The point is, the more Ally swine you kill, the weaker Van is...

Another possibility is to make it such that Van has some uber abilities, that he will lose as the number of reinforcements tick down. I'll even go as far as suggest that above 350 Reinforcements, Van should have a 'Pally bubble' which cannot be dispelled.

Reinforcements really do Reinforce Van/Drek
In addition to the four warmasters/marshalls, perhaps there should be more NPCs in the room. I'll suggest 4 marshalls who shall despawn based on the number of reinforcements left. Each will despawn when reinforcements drop below 300, 250, 200, and 150 respectively.

Make the defense/burning of Towers/Bunkers Count
Take out the NPCs in the towers/bunkers. If your players are not going to defend them, don't depend on NPCs to do it either. This might have the effect of making the four towers/bunkers in the middle of the map as generally 'given' to the other faction. However, if we buff the tower marshalls/warmasters enough that it makes sense to hold your towers, smart players will begin to actively defend them.

Also, give them greater spell effects that can affect the defense of Van/Drek. Be it in the form of AOE heals, AOE damage to the entire room, etc.

These are just some ideas off the top of my head... I should probably put them in the Suggestions forum, but way too lazy... :p

Anyway, Mart also managed a Heroic Mech run for the 6 badges. It was really funny. We started as 2 pallys, 3 locks, when one of the lock realised he cannot get the key as he is only friendly with Sha'tar (he hasn't dinged 70 for that long...) So, we put out the call for a DPS and got a Ret pally; ie a 2 lock, 3 pally team... We were a bit messy but we got the job done. Killing the fire witch was really messy, with the tank losing aggro at like 3%, and she proceeded to 1-2 shot the healer and the other pally, leaving the 2 locks standing to take her down...

Happy New Year!

So what were you doing when the clock struck 12?

We were right in the middle of downing Grand Warlock Nethekurse... Hahaha... What a way to spend New Year!

Heroics

Not much happened over the weekend, but I had my first (belated) taste of Heroics.

It was only the first boss run for Sethekk Halls, but at least I had the chance to view the trash mob clears which are apparently the real challenge rather than the bosses themselves.

They definitely hit harder and any form of CC would be welcome. Good focused DPS will still be the key though. Without CC, a good tank and healer would be able to compensate. A lot more thinking on your feet will be required since the mobs do tend to have more abilities that will require adaptation.

So, which would make a better tank for Heroics? Honestly, my feel at the moment is Paladin. As long as he can be kept alive, being able to tank multiple mobs looks to be the winner here. My feel is that a Paladin is much more able to front-load Threat, enabling the DPS to start faster and kill faster. However, the Paladin's lower Stamina will require much closer attention from healers.

Other than that, Eld should be finishing off Zangarmarsh soon. To a certain degree, Shev is a bit stuck at the post-40 doldrums (I really hate the 40-60 grind...). Will have to pick up a bit on that slack...

Nerf Locks

Sometimes you don't need a smooth run to have fun...

We had a few wipes last night in SL, including a terrible feared mob pull the boss, and wiping to the 6 man trash clear. BUT, the fight with Murmur was memorable.

We had already wiped one time and it was getting late so it was the last attempt. Hunter died early so it was just Pally tanking, Drood was healing and me and mage were DPSing. At about 3-4%, the tank died... Oops... At the next Resonance, the druid & mage fell, 2%... I thought it's game over, since I had already popped my Healthstone and Health Pot. But was determined to go down fighting.

I was fortunate to be reasonably well-topped up with health but low on mana. So Life-tap, activated my trinket and proceeded to DOT & spam Shadowbolts. Another Resonance came in, was still standing (lock Stam ftw!) and Murmur was at 1%. A few more spam and just when I was about to tear my hair out in frustration for being so close, I realised no more black stuff was coming out of my hands and Murmur was no longer targetted... & a huge spear fell from the sky! Woot!

Of course, it was anti-climatic that my jumper cables failed and I spent like 5 minutes waiting for them to dodge respawns etc. to get enough back to summon the rest... But it was fun... :)

Things every Tank wants non tanks to know

I found this post on the WoW forums, written by Ziloxus (obviously an alt) from Deathwing. Makes a good read on what to do & how to tank...

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This post is something of a cathartic exercise for myself. If someone gets something out of it great, if not that’s fine too. I feel like I got it out of my system before the next pug either way.

Things every warrior tank thinks every non tank should know.
My ability to generate threat over an extended time frame is inversely proportional to your ability to generate threat.
Huh? Ok here is what I mean, we will use a mage for this example but the same applies to rogues hunters, or anything else not a warrior or a bear druid.

As a fight commences both of us have two bars. We both have big full green health bars. Under my health bar is a big empty bar. Under your health bar is a big full blue bar. When you do dmg, it drains your blue bar. When I give or take dmg it fills my red bar. You have all the ammo you need at the start of a fight to make all kinds of threat which will pull all kinds of aggro. I don’t have much ammo to generate threat or take aggro, it takes me a minute.

The difference is that at the beginning of the fight, your threat making resource; mana, is full. You at this moment can activate whatever ability you want and instantly create tons of threat. Mine is empty. My resource, rage, fills up as I give and take dmg. Over the course of the fight I will get a lot to spend, so the longer the fight goes on the more and more threat I make. Problem is at the beginning of the fight I have little or no rage. It takes me time to build the threat to hold aggro off of you.

So what does this mean to you? It means that if you start every pull with your biggest most evil 10 second cast fireball, it’s gonna be real tough for me to get aggro off of you with my empty rage bar.

How to apply this advice: You need to learn to pace your dps. Whether you are a mage or a rogue or a lock whatever (except hunters who feign death whenever the cooldown is up) start off the fight with lighter lower dmg attacks. As the fight wears on rank it up to the bigger meaner stuff. You can do the same amount of dmg, but instead of front loading all of your dps (and threat) back load it.

Seriously, this is the biggest problem I see with every single DPS class in the game. Yes, I can taunt the mob off of you, but then the taunt is on cool down. What if the mob then does an aggro wipe like a knock down and it goes after you? What if it stuns me right after I taunt so I can’t build threat? You should be trying to play in such a way that you don’t ever have to see the warrior taunt outside of extenuating circumstances like aggro wipes.

When not to stun.
Ok so you have a stun button. I’m happy for you, no really I am. Stun buttons are great. You see a mob start to cast a heal or a “Level 5 Death to Tank” stun him, that’s fabulous. You see something chewing on a healer, stun them, awesome. A mob “attempts to run away in fear” go nuts stun lock them to the floor.

So why insist on stunning a mob I just pulled? Why stun the mob I just taunted? Here is what happens when you do that. When I am tanking I don’t really do dmg to make rage. My little red bar fills up when I take dmg. If you stun early in a pull I don’t get pounded on so I don’t gain threat so I don’t hold aggro, so someone like a healer or a mage is going to get the aggro. This wont usually produce a wipe, most mobs you can stun aren’t a big deal, but seriously, why make things more difficult then they need to be?

If you absolutely need a rule of thumb, wait till there are two sunders on a target before you stun it.

What to do when you get aggro.
The tank won’t always hold aggro. That’s a fact. Maybe the tank sucks, maybe he got feared, maybe he got stunned, maybe you just unleashed a cruise missile that crits the target for umpteen gazillion points before the tank had so much as an auto-attack on the mob. Whatever the reason, eventually you are going to have the mob beat on you.

If you are wearing pajamas and the mob is elite I understand the panic that sets in. You don’t want to get two shotted. I don’t want that either. So let me explain first the two things NOT to do.

Don’t nuke the thing with another cruise missile! You just pulled aggro so why go nuts trying to dps the thing to the floor before it can kill you? This isn’t a lvl 11 Defias Pillager, most likely you wont take it down in time. What you WILL do, is generate another gajillion points of threat that the tank needs to top to get it off of you. Stop hurting it. If you have a threat mitigator (cower, feint, fade, feign death) use it, if not. Just hold still for a sec. It wont be for very long, soon enough you will be sticking it full of sharp metal things or setting the mob on fire again. Just don’t make it harder for the tank to get the thing off of you.

Don’t run for the hills! I am a bit baffled as to where this gut reaction comes from. When you were lvl 40 did you outrun a bear or something? I don’t think you did. Do you think if you run far enough you will drop aggro? In an instance an elite mob will not drop aggro until you are dead or until you have left the instance. Running won’t keep the mob from chewing on your keester the whole time you run around, really it won’t. The mob runs the exact same speed you do. Guess who else runs the exact same speed you do. That’s right, me!

So if train A leaves Phoenix at 5:10 a.m. Pacific time headed east at 45 miles per hour, and Train B leaves San Diego at 5:10 a.m. Pacific time headed east at 45 miles per hour, at what point does train B catch up to Train A? That’s right! Never! So when train A dies in a monstrous fireball or twisted metal and diesel fuel, it is probably even going to blame train B for not saving it.

You need to run TOWARD the tank, at the very least hold still.

Ok Pally OT, bear OT or other Warr OT, when should you taunt off of me?
Um, really close to never. Why on earth are you taunting off of me? Are you trying to prove a point? Are you trying to demonstrate that you can tank as well as me? Great for you! You have tank buttons too. Now I have to burn my taunt to pull the mob back off of you so you don’t die, or so the healer doesn’t waste mana on you. Now my taunt is in cool down if I need it.

The only time you should taunt off the main tank is if I ask you to. When will that happen? Only if the healer dies and I need to bandage, or if it’s a fight that requires a tank rotation. That’s it.

Now of course there are times when things are confusing, something is chewing on the healer and you are trying to save the day and I taunt and then you do too. That’s fine, you did the right thing in saving the healer, don’t beat yourself up about it, you don’t need to apologize to me for it either. I saw what happened, I’m 4% smarter than I look.

When should you bubble me?
I hope this is a priest asking this, I really don’t need divine intervention thanks. If you bubble me I don’t get threat from taking damage. Don’t bubble me before a pull. Don’t bubble me early in a pull. If my bar is mostly red, sure if you think I need the extra mitigation and there isn’t time for a real heal, bubble me.

Don’t BOP me please, it’s a fantastic way to kill healers.

The pull.
Sometimes we aren’t going to fight the mob out where it is standing. Some times I will even shoot the mob and then duck behind a corner. This is not the universal “unleash your mana wielding ranged casting might” signal. What probably happened is I saw a little blue bar under the mob out there; I want him to come to me so I shot him, then broke line of sight. If you shoot him, guess what, he will stand right where he is and shoot back. Then I have to go out there and risk pulling the whole room to get him off of you unless you figure out how to duck behind corners too, that is assuming that the Moonkin and the Hunter standing next to you didn’t just take your cue and unload their blue wad all over the mob you just launched WWIII on.

The sheep
We pull 3 mobs on accident. You can sheep or seduce or scattershot or whatever. That’s a fabulous idea. Don’t sheep the thing I am beating on! You know what will happen? It will break and I will already have another move queued up behind the move that broke the sheep which will break the next sheep you are trying to do since you didn’t change targets. You might not be familiar with the “F” key. Click me, then click “F”, now you are targeted on my target, so target something else, anything else and sheep that.

Multi mob pull
Ok so we just got more than we can handle and I am tanking 3 mobs with no offtank. Attack my target would you? I only have so much rage to spread around. If you start shooting something that I am not concentrating on your going to pull aggro, then I have to decide whether I let you die, or whether I go pull it off of you and risk letting the rest of the party die while they keep attacking the thing I was attacking. The “F” key works great for this too.

The off tanks target
Just because I am the main tank does not mean that my target is the most important target to kill. In fact, often it is the opposite. I am the main tank because I take the best beating. The Hunters wind serpent that is tanking that other orc over there wont hold up as well as me. His target needs to die first. My target should be the last one to die. Those other tanks aren’t built to take the abuse I do, help them out. I will be ok, I have all kinds of squishies watching my back. Seriously, go fight the other guy’s target.

Shadow Priests
Vampiric embrace is not healing period. I don't care what your best friend or class leader told you. Sure, if there is a real healer around, go nuts spamming mind flay all day long. But if you are the only healer, freaking heal. VE will keep everyone alive that is not me. When I am tanking 3 elite mobs at once, and you think you are going to keep me alive with just VE, we will all die a horrible death. But, sure enough after the wipe, you are still in shadow form pew pewing from the back. Oh, and if you are not the main healer, but the MH dies, guess what? You are now the MH! Congratulations! Your job has just changed, now you need to drop out of shadow and keep me alive, and VE still won't cut it.

Just a few things that some folks that don’t play tanks don’t seem to grasp. Use these tips for fun and profit, or ignore them, that’s fine too, I don't care. Unless you are in my pug.