Is it hard to learn to tank Flex / NM's?

[taybox]

I have always healed and dps'd. The idea of being a tank has always interested me. I have tanked random heroics. I'm always too chicken to try and do anything else. Seems like when you fail as a tank, everyone notices and are immediately ridiculed?

Should I stick to healing and dps? Or is it worth it to learn to tank?

[Maizoku]

Learning to tank is fine, if anything its more forgiving once you get it down (by that i mean tanking cd's, threat, positioning etc).

No one will care much if ur doing sub optimal dmg (cutting edge will though)

but be warned, LFR Stigma; Blame the tanks for wipes, blame the tanks for tank deaths. People blame not enough tanks (:S ?)

But its a fun thing, people are afraid because it seems that your taking charge, but your just doing your role like others are, just its more obvious.

[Haywire5714]

"but be warned, LFR Stigma; Blame the healers for wipes"

[eschatological]

Tanking is more fun this xpac (IMO) than it ever has been. It's harder to be bad, nowadays, true, but a good tank is *very* noticeable. Going straight into tanking flex/normals without ever doing LFR might be a bit of a leap, though.

I would wait til you're around 530ish before you try venturing into he first few wings of Flex. Wing 4 might need more, Paragons and Garrosh hit *hard*.

[Allarius]

Make sure you're with friends or you probably will not enjoy learning to tank.

[adynn]

Tanking is more fun this xpac (IMO) than it ever has been. It's harder to be bad, nowadays, true, but a good tank is *very* noticeable. Going straight into tanking flex/normals without ever doing LFR might be a bit of a leap, though.

I would wait til you're around 530ish before you try venturing into he first few wings of Flex. Wing 4 might need more, Paragons and Garrosh hit *hard*.

530ish is what you'd want to be for flex 4, for the previous flex's you can get away with lower gear too, maybe 510 for flex 1 I'd guess. Although if you haven't had experience tanking these bosses then maybe you'd want to be a bit higher.

[Blueobelisk]

Raids are easy, stand around and hit your cooldown rotation well.

Dungeon tanking is actually the hardest. I found that I had to get some experience with the dungeon to find the best patterns/rotations that worked best for me.

Of course, this is my sole opinion and I haven't played this game since Cata...but yeah, go for it. When in doubt, just make sure you watch a few video guides and read dungeon journal. Or better yet, have a pro tank friend who will give you tips and tricks.

[jazzyy]

Tanking has definitely been a lot more active this tier than T15.... Sha of Pride comes to mind in terms of stuff. Tanking also feels a little less forgiving this tier as well in a lot of tank swap mechanics like say Sha or Nazgrim, but that's mostly heroic concerned stuff.

There are pros of being a tank like insta queues and you'll constantly have people looking for you in raid groups, etc. Make sure you cuddle kindly with your other tank. It sounds fairly flamboyant but really develop a relationship with your other tank and be bros, I tanked during T15 and my OT was a fairly pleasurable guy and even though we made a lot of mistakes we had a ton of fun. In my heroic raiding group we have two tanks who don't get along too well so there tends to be a spark ignite a fire every other botched pull where the two tanks may go at it.


In terms of important skills to get down especially in Siege you need to have a great deal of add control. Garrosh comes to mind in terms of your DPS getting smacked around by the adds, it's important to know your CDs and when to pop them especially, which requires knowing the fight mechanics where you have to pop cds (Execute on Nazgrim, etc)

A good guide for tanking SoO on LFR/Flex/Normals:
http://sunniersartofwar.com/blog/201...-of-orgrimmar/
^ Sunnier calls it a quick and dirty tanking guide but in reality it's a fucking bible for tanking Siege. This is the best way to make sure your runs go smooth and you make few mistakes.

[Odina]

Tanking this expac is liek a 3 step process

1 Learn your rotation that will give resources

2 learn to use resources properly with your active mitigation and when to pop CD's

3 Once you have 1 and 2 down start to figure out how you can squeeze out as much dps as possible

It is WAY more fun than "stand here getting hit while healers heal me and I do next to no dmg" that tanking was in the past IMO!

Best way to learn as well is find some quality videos from the POV of the tanking class you choose and try to do what they do. Look at WOL of them as well so you can see what CD's buffs and debuffs they keep up and try copying it as best you can.

[Deleted]

Tacticwise it isnt hard, I think you should try it out in LFR first to get the feel of it.

If you already know to keep the rotation going while actively mitigating damage you shouldnt fear trying.

[Tinsoul]

It's worth a try. I've been tanking a flex run for my guild. Nice change of pace.

Flex is an excellent place to do figure it out. The mechanics are pretty forgiving. The environment is generally good (go with some guildmates). And if your flexes are anything like mine, you tend to be oversubscribed with healers.

Do not start with LFR. It's a poor environment for learning the tank position. Unless you are queueing with a bunch of guildmates (including the other tank).

[Deleted]

On the two tanks I leveled, I went to LFR with both of them. One of them ToT at the time, the other SoO now. Just read up a quick tanking guide and try LFR. Tanking is as easy as DPSing, but instead of 6-7 damage buttons you have 2 or 3 and a few spec-specific tanking buttons. Other than taunting at the right moments, that's all you need to tank. The rest is the usual stat and spell priorities etc.

Once you get the hang of tanking the bosses in LFR, you can pretty much step into flex. Just know your limit. I spent maybe 2 weeks in LFR before I tried tanking flex, and it's as ridiculously easy.

Although I agree that LFR is a very toxic environment to learn tanking in. I was kicked twice in those two weeks, one was a tank telling me to tank adds on Nazgrim (yeah, right?). The other one was the other tank not taking Siegecrafter off me, so I died, my gear went partially red, a guy posted his healing leather claiming I was wearing it -> kick.