Tanking for Dummies

My main Horde toon is a lvl 24 Tauren Warrior, and I'm reaching the point where I get requests to join a group for instances. So far I've kept at bay, partly because the whispers came at the most inconvenient times and partly... because I've no clue at all how I'm supposed to tank.

I know a bit about it, learned through observation of the Feral Druid that we used to have in our 4-people group. The tank tries to keep aggro on as many as possible, and if one should escape to a squishy then he goes after it. But how can a tank get (and keep!) aggro on so many mobs at once? And how many mobs should they reasonably be expected to tank at the same time? I do know that I have things like Thunder Clap, but they require rage which I don't have at the beginning. Is there perhaps a trick I don't know of that will give the tank insta-aggro on all mobs attacking the group?

So, to summarise.. I need the 'How To Tank' basics. If anyone could provide those, or a link to a guide that has them, I'd be most appreciative.

Oh, if you need to know certain details, my armoury link is here.|||I'm going to suggest you read the thread "Tanking 101" in the Warrior guides. Quite a bit of it won't apply to low level tanking, but the concepts are all there and do apply. There's just too much to cover to try to cover it here.

I will give one very important bit of advice. Make sure that you pull. Until someone does something (buff you, heal you, or damage a mob), all the mobs will come straight for you. That will let you get some rage so you can use Thunder Clap. The other people in the group have to give you a few seconds to get all the mobs attention. If they start attacking as soon as you pull, then your job just became far more difficult and complicated. The only exceptions to this that I can think of would be if someone is attempting to crowd control a mob (except for sap, they should all still do this after you pull, but before the mobs reach you), or they can one or two shot the mob in question (non-elite imps are often fair game for whoever picks them off first).

Hope that helps. Tanking can be a stressful job if your group won't cooperate.|||I asked the same thing here not all that long ago and got some great and very useful advice.

1. Make sure you are in defensive stance.

2. Use sword and board.

3. Just keep at it and don't let bad groups throw you off balance.

4. I went arms with 5 points in fury for the crit. Not as fast to level as fury but better if you like to instance. Not that a fury warrior can't tank 1-69.

I am sure I will think of something else as soon as I hit submit.|||Improved Thunder Clap is one of your best friends in an instance, when you're supposed to keep multiple mobs on you. Just make sure to do so, while out of range of cc'd mobs.

Need rage? That's what bloodrage can help you with. It's not much, but combined with the pull and the mobs trying to whomp you, it's enough to get off that first thunderclap, once that's been done, and you refresh periodically, then they tend to stick like glue. Unless someone is overnuking. You can go round and hand out sunders as well, but I find that Thunder Clap combined with Cleave and my occasional crit tends to be enough to keep mobs on me.|||Thanks all, especially for the link to Tanking 101. I've already read half of it, and learned a few things already. :)

I think I'll ask about in my guild if there's anyone who'll want to join me in practising tanking, like in RFC or WC or so. I'd rather try this thing out with people who understand that I need to learn the ropes, rather than with a pug that depends on my skill to survive.|||Tanking in instances that are below your level is a good way to practice and develop your skills in a more forgiving environment.|||If you manage to get some Sunders in on other mobs then the main target, you are doing better then 90% of the tanks you encounter in pug's ;)

With my (prot) paladin I practiced tanking when I grouped with one other guy, just taunting mobs of for educational reasons. I think another thing to think of is that Thunderclap is great, but not next to a sheep. You need to use that shout there.|||Oh and it might also be prudent that you learn how to steer the mobs. When I'm on my Forsaken warrior, I tend to move the mobs around. Done by way of sunders, heroic strikes, thunder claps etc.

I tend to move them as far away from the cc'd mobs as I can and also make sure that there's plenty of space from the healers. so if I get a mob peeling off due to an overheal, that I got the space/time to compensate for it. Same applies to potential runners, switch out to battle stance, apply hamstring, switch back to def stance.

Even was asked to tank in ZF at level 47, and we had a duo of warlocks who were seriously overnuking and making it hard for me to maintain control. At the end of the run (no wipes*, I might add), I'd still taken a little more than 90% of all the damage inflicted upon our party. So, I guess I did ok..

*: Maybe one semi-wipe. Shammy had to self-rez, Paladin healer had to use the soulstone.

But that was in part due to a patrol joining up, and with one of locks having gone nuke crazy, so I was having a hard time, keeping my initial 4 mobs under control, patrol of 3 meant I ended up with 6 of them on me. One mob critted, pally was trying to keep the last mob off of his own backside so couldn't heal, and I went down myself.|||Tanking is easy really, just read all your spells before you begin and make sure they are all readily available, understand what each of your spells and stances do before attempting instances.

If you begin tanking early in instances such as WC, or even RFC you can learn the basics without suffering so many wipes. Paladins tank differently than Warriors I think it goes like.

Warrior = Tanks through rage attacks and damage

Paladin = Tanks through holy damage, damage in general and by being struck.

Druid = Tanks through damage and growl.

And thus Warriors are best tanking single large enemies, they take a hit the best and can hold a single unit with ease. Paladins tank groups or aoe mobs the best and druids are more versatile tankers, best for off tanking but also can serve as main-tanks and great when they get in a pinch (move from bear form to normal form to heal or cat form to run away).

But by simply playing you should pick up tanking with ease and you will learn new skills and such as you go, like they say though keep the mobs your tanking away from crowd controlled mobs so aoe can be done and attempt to keep them away from casters to give you reaction time, to be considered a good tank you should be recieving 70 to 80% of the damage in a normal non-70 instance, 90%+ if the entire group is caster.

Great way for practicing, get an off-tank to help tank. For instance a prot paladin in early levels can whip out some amazing damage (I topped the dps charts every time in my 30's-40's as prot paladin) or a arms warrior, thus if you do lose aggro they can peel it off caster/healer if you become forgetful or incapacitated.|||There is absolutely 0 need to use a sword and shield for anything except the biggest bosses until the level 40+ instances, a 2 handed weapon or dual wielding in defensive stance is just as effective with only a tiny difference in damage taken. It's good practice of course, but if you are having problems with agro or it's just taking too long, you can always have that option.

Thunderclap and Cleave are good on the pull for the initial threat, but if you are in a pug without assisting your best bet is to constantly tab with heroic strike / sunder armor. If everyone is nuking on one mob, I normally focus on the *other* mobs, wait for them to pull agro, then taunt it back. This lets you build agro in alternate areas without anyone trying to catch up, but you have to be fast with the taunt key.

Never put points in protection while you are levelling, the tree is one of the worst in WoW for levelling, with very little difference in 5 man mitigation or threat aside from 2 deeper talents (Defiance and Devastate) that come at the cost of greatly hindering your solo ability. If you want tank oriented solo friendly talents, get Imp. Demo and Piercing Howl in the fury tree, and Improved Heroic Strike in the Arms tree.

The expertise talent is also a nice TPS increase as well.

Don't be afraid to "spam" keys. I have heroic strike and devastate (sunder for you) side by side and I still smash them over and over for 90% of my WoW play time.

You also want the fastest one handed weapon possible, with decent DPS, the other stats don't matter. Make sure you are levelled up with the weapon skill.