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  1. #1

    Question Question: What is a "soak tank"?

    Hey noob question,

    I was in trade earlier and on my server a guild started saying it was recruiting a soak tank and then put druid and monk in bracket. So something along the lines of "looking for a soak tank (druid/monk) for our raid team."

    What makes them soak tanks and not the plate tanks? They all soak the damage...

  2. #2
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    Never even heard of a soak tank before and i've played this game for 7 years : |

  3. #3
    I am Murloc! Chonar's Avatar
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    I guess it's one of those terms that grew on a specific server and never really caught on outside of it. :/

    Perhaps it's their term for an offtank?
    Looking marvelous in velvet.

  4. #4
    The Patient Tileyfa's Avatar
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    I think it's someone with high health who "soaks" the magic damage. (since armor only reduces physical damage)

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tileyfa View Post
    I think it's someone with high health who "soaks" the magic damage. (since armor only reduces physical damage)
    Thats still doesn't make any sense though since you can just get a dk for that

  6. #6
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    Might just be a weird way of saying offtank, but usually a soak tank was for fights like gruul or patchwerk where the offtank had to stay in 2nd place on threat table to soak up cleaves and prevent melee from dying

  7. #7
    Titan Yunru's Avatar
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    Soak tank is a tank with well---a tank gemming starmina too eat the magic casts from bosses. Bear druids usualy did that job.
    Don't sweat the details!!!

  8. #8
    Back in BC, it was common for the second highest on threat to take large hits commonly known as hateful strikes. These would often actually hit harder than the main attacks, and a druid was often used for this because of their high health. That was your soaker tank. Similar for H Morchok. Needed someone to soak the shared hit.

    As far as currently? Possibly Garalon for soaking swipes.

  9. #9
    Yeah, soaking is when you just eat the damage, don't bother trying to avoid/mitigate it. So basically you have very high stamina and not much else.

    Useful for certain progression fights I guess, though why they want a Monk for that is beyond me, rofl. We have the lowest stamina of all the tanks.

    It just sounds like a guild that has no idea what it's talking about in general.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Counter206 View Post
    Hey noob question,

    I was in trade earlier and on my server a guild started saying it was recruiting a soak tank and then put druid and monk in bracket. So something along the lines of "looking for a soak tank (druid/monk) for our raid team."

    What makes them soak tanks and not the plate tanks? They all soak the damage...
    I think they mean Hybrid, someone that can use the same gear in Tank and DPS specs and competitively switch into each role.

    For a warrior, pala or DK you need a separate set of gear to be on par with other tanks/dps in each role. For a Monk and Druid you just need trinkets and you are good to go (for what they want at least).

  11. #11
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    I only heard the term soak tank used on druids, cause they had a high healthpool and pretty much no other mitigation available.
    So they "soaked" damage alot, but didnt matter cause they had more health than the other tanks by far.

  12. #12
    As others have said, it is usually a player whose sole purpose it to absorb damage, and doesn't do any real tanking.

    I have seen it used as a term for tanks gemming pure stam for progression as well, because they don't "avoid" or "mitigate" much damage, but just rely on healers and their massive HP pools to "soak" damage.

  13. #13
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    "Soaking" is a term used in RPG games generally for the ability to prevent damage, for example via armor. It has also been used for your ability to prevent damage and take in damage, ie. armor and health. It doesn't mean simply the size of your health pool.

    Whether it has the same meaning in the MMO world, I don't know. Unfortunately a lot of RPG (and other) terms which had a specific meaning 20 years ago mean something completely different now when used by people who weren't even alive 20 years ago.
    Last edited by mmoc3ff0cc8be0; 2012-11-16 at 02:14 PM.

  14. #14
    Mechagnome Akshak's Avatar
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    Given I've tanked as a bear, DK and pally (and did the old school KZ Curator bolt tanking as a shadow priest) and always took "Soak Tank" to mean the tank that was there to do nothing more than take a beating. This to me meant gemming out the ass for stamina to take incoming attacks that would normally wipe a tank out. More often than not I did this job when tanking on my DK given the daisy-chaining of "Oh sh**" abilities they had (still have to an extent).

  15. #15
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    I'd guess it's a weird term for an offtank. There are specific fights that have a "soak tank" which would normally refer to a boss cleave of some sort. Patchwerk's hateful strike, Blood Queen's blood-link thing, or any of the various SabreLash type cleave split fights (Garalon, Bonestorm dude).

    Seems like a weird term to me. I can't imagine it just referring to high stamina because any tank can pretty much fill that role now.

  16. #16
    Back in the bc days, we used to have 3 "soaktanks". One magic soaktank and two physical soak tanks meaning it was a char with crapload of magic resistance/ health/ avoidance. Havent heard the term been used in ages though.

  17. #17
    Honorary PvM "Mod" Darsithis's Avatar
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    It usually means offtank, but the only time I've heard it directly applied to a boss is Chimaeron in Blackwing Descent...I was the soak tank for that one 'cause I literally had to soak his attack that would kill the MT.

  18. #18
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    Most likely MMO people have seen the RPG term "soak", then thought it means what happens when a sponge soaks up liquid.

    Then the term has been given to mana sponges, ie. tanks with huge health pools but shitty defenses. Since they "soak up" the mana.

  19. #19
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    i have used the phrase "a soaking taunt" before, because if the main tank has low hp, the offtank taunts, soaks damage and the MT taunts back, this of course is an emergency measure and you would never really call it by name in a fight

    doubt thats what a soak tank means though, probably someone for hateful strikes/mandatory cleave/chimaeron like attacks?

  20. #20
    The Patient
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    I would call a soak tank the 2nd tank in ICC when fighting Blood Queen where she hits both targets. The tank thats got the threat is the MT and OT is the soak tank.

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