Is tanking hard? Seriously... I'm not trolling.

[Cortano]

can you list me a few of the "HARDER" fights to tank in ICC?

One of the real complaints I have in ICC is that tanking has become a "non-skill" role. The skill requirements for the rest of the raid are much higher... lot of movement, target changes, positioning, etc.

[Richmond]

I've never really touched the Moonkin tree, i mean i leveled 72-78 with it, but that was back on the WoTLK launch but i healed through the back end of TBC and early WoTLK and then had abit of feral DPS and eventually settled on tanking and i've downed the LK on 10 man. So i've seen most of the current game

IMO

Healing is by far the most difficult out the three, mainly because if people die its down to 2 things, they did something stupid or you didn't heal them (it will usually be the first but they'll blame you anyway). I'm speaking specifically from a 10 man PoV because 2 healing 10 man HC's its pretty difficult. In 25 man is easy mode.

When you go into the realms of 25 man, especially when you go with your guild, DPS is quite easily the hardest to play, even if you have a pretty simple rotation. Mainly because being competitive means having to be ontop of your game all of the time. Especially when you have someone of the same class in your raid...

Tanking is EASY, especially as a bear. I've got a warrior at 60 ish and a DK at 70 ish and both of those are alot harder to tank with than a druid. You keep threat off the DPS, you pop a CD at the right time and you take the loots. The is no 'rotation' or priority system with a feral tank, you just make sure your lacerates dont fall off, keep demo Roar up and then just hit the rest of your buttons.

People who think druid tanking is hard should attempt tanking as a DK

[Deleted]

it's annoying, but from a raiding paladin perspective. It's a joke.

I think the only thing it requires is better awareness and positioning, but once you have your spot, punch rotation and spam buttons for 10 minutes.

[bavarcarus]

IMO a good tank will know mechanics of the fight that many people in the raid never need to know. If you really know the fight you'll know exactly what you need to be doing, even if things go horribly wrong. In that aspect it can be kind of hard.

When you start, you should figure out where you wanna put your buttons (assuming you're not a clicker) so you can move (and strafe) while maintaining a rotation. Do it from the start, and avoid problems getting used to things later.

I plan on playing a druid in cata as a main. I kind of want to get into tanking.

Is it hard though? Like end game pve tanking.

for example, how much harder is it to tank lich king or ruby sanctum than to dps or heal those kind of fights.

which is the hardest part of pve? tank, heal, or dps?

i know some will say none, but... im just asking. thanks

[velde046]

^^This is very true.



You're mad!

What other PvE role do you

* Not only have to have perfect awareness of all the buffs, casts and procs available on you AND your target? But also,
* Have to have a strong understanding of key class pulling, threat and recovery spells in your arsenal, especially taunting between tanks?
* Have to be aware of not only every mechanic in every fight as well as the mechanics of specific kinds of monsters in order to determine whether to spell reflect, apply or not apply specific debuffs, or ask for the application of CC, what CC to use and when it needs to break?
* Have to have perfect awareness of not only new adds but also their relative distance and the timing of when and how to pick up the adds without causing a raid wipe?
* Have to have the self-awareness and confidence regarding your class to know when you already have far too much on your plate and dynamically assign tanking responsibilities to others? As MT, even if other tanks know what they are meant to be doing it, you still have to time transfers back and forth to perfection.
* Have to work your cooldowns in synergy with your healers to ensure that the damage you are taking is not creating a huge strain on their ability to keep you up but also whether its sapping other non-tank healers who feel forced to help and therefore risk causing others to die. Sometimes this is an acceptable loss, other times it is not - you have to decide dynamically?
* Have to know not only bog standard perfect-fight threat rotations but also how to intertwine survival cooldowns and threat when a boss becomes most dangerous (e.g. phase transitions and enrages when boss is almost gone)?
* Have to know how to kite, using LoS (line of sight) for pulls and raid damage avoidance, positioning (against cones, cleaves)?
* Have to have a high raid awareness knowing where all your healers are as the priority group to keep damage away from at almost all cost?
* Have to have a high raid awareness knowing where all your silly dps are, including ranged, to ensure that if someone unexpectedly pulls you're there ASAP to pick up?
* Have to have a great raid awareness (+confidence+control) to know that you are tactically in charge of the raid, not the other way around, and that if e.g. the raid gets too close to even one mob who can Fear or cause loss of control of the raid, and wipes, you will most likely be blamed?
* Have to understand many key interacting statistics in gearing your tanking spec and how they impact your gameplay, threat and survival: misses, dodge, parry, mitigation, block, armor, effective health, diminishing returns, what does strength give you, what does agility give you, crit etc?
* Have to understand nature, abilities, gearing and experience of the group for the current instance you are tanking for so you can decide whether to aoe or single target tank? Whether to give mana breaks or chain pull with no downtime?
* Have to be able to keep an eye on your threat numbers at all times to know if you are losing the threat lead to dps or other tanks and whether to dish out warnings all the while doing your normal tanking activities?

That is exaggerating it a bit. At the moment I truly believe healing is harder than tanking, if done right. Of course as a tank you are the single point of failure lots of times if you do die or not hold aggro on mobs. But to be honest, it's not that hard these days. The one thing that you need to be good at is take a lot of verbal abuse or people that 'know better' than you. It can be quite frustrating to be continually shouted at with 'go faster', 'go slower', 'pull more', 'pull less', 'stand here'etc.
This can be quite disturbing in the early days of tanking, but if you can get through that, tanking is fun and not as hard as a lot of people would want you to believe. Only thing I consider the big difference with for example DPS is that you need to be more focused. BUt truly I think that tanking in Wrath is quite easy once you get some practice and learn the fights.
Like I said, I think healing may be harder these days than tanking in some situations or fights depending on your class.

Just give it a try but.... do it with some guildies or friends. THey will be more forgiving if you do make mistakes. AFter you get some experience then try dungeon finder and be happily amazed by the less than 1 second queue times

[underdogba]

One of the real complaints I have in ICC is that tanking has become a "non-skill" role. The skill requirements for the rest of the raid are much higher... lot of movement, target changes, positioning, etc.

That's not true at all.

- On heroic deathwhisper, you need to be able to gauge your rate of threat building / coordinate with tricks and MD to create smooth tank transitions because the boss is untauntable.

- On Saurfang (both regular and moreso heroic) you have to understand how to taunt the boss and maintain threat with only single-target moves and time going back to multitarget moves correctly with when adds clear / no more knockbacks are happening. On heroic 10, because of the possible lack of stuns, you might even have to be part of managing one add while still swapping and maintaining threat on the boss correctly.

- On Rotface, one tank has to understand how to kite, and the other may have to reposition based on the position of that other tank.

- On Festergut, you have to understand how to contribute dps with the buff on while not tanking without pulling aggro, and you are just as much a part of the spore coordination while the other tank has the boss.

- On Putricide one tank has to learn the mechanics of a vehicle, and guage energy intake against pool growth (which is actually very challenging on heroic mode)

- On Dreamwalker, you have to be very good at picking things up and maintaining threat in the face of chaos near the end of the fight.

- On Sindragosa you have to be good at positioning and rotating the dragon when it lands, and coordinating swaps.

- On Lich King, you have to be good at picking things up, building threat while frequently repositioning, coordinating swaps on heroic mode, and if the OT in phase one you have to have a good understanding of the disease mechanic.

All of these functions require a much deeper understanding of game mechanics to perform optimally than anything dps or healers are called on to do. I'm not necessarily implying that any of this is super-hard, but you do have to have some level of understanding to perform reliably.

[sicness]

Taking isn't necessarily hard, but there are minor things to tanking that you can't really learn until you actually tank unfortunately. Mob placement for instance isn't something you can just teach someone without doing it themselves. It also requires a higher level of awareness than other roles. Being prepare for an extra add or whatever mechanic comes up during the encounter can be the difference in a good tank and a great tank.

[bavarcarus]

can you list me a few of the "HARDER" fights to tank in ICC?

Keeping adds on deathwhisper, depending on strat staying in range on heals, realizing the mob has turned in to the state puff marshmellow man, and coaxing melee to interrupt at the end.

Saurfang, if you're friendly, timing your taunt to see if you can help range with the adds...although as a bear if you're good you can go cat and get a rotation in between tank swaps.

watching timing and the health of Put since dps will not, in my experience, avoid the yellow bomb debuff or stop so he can transition properly.

repositioning on princes takes at least a little intelligence when a shock zone gets put in a bad spot

LK repositioning is very critical during defiles and valks. It can also be difficult managing little adds in phase one with the other tank, if you're on LK you have to make sure you do enough damage to keep him while not interfereing with the add tank getting the little adds. Raging spirits can be a pain to get to in time.

Halion shadow phase requires some skill to keep the boss (and thus the raid) in the right place while maintaining a rotations. I haven't had alot of practice with it yet but initially at least I consider it pretty difficult.

[underdogba]

Taking isn't necessarily hard, but there are minor things to tanking that you can't really learn until you actually tank unfortunately. Mob placement for instance isn't something you can just teach someone without doing it themselves. It also requires a higher level of awareness than other roles. Being prepare for an extra add or whatever mechanic comes up during the encounter can be the difference in a good tank and a great tank.

This is the kind of stuff that people take for granted, because if you're an experience tank, these skills become second nature.

[Leeróy]

Pushing a class to it's limits however, squeezing the extra few % of dps your class/gear set is capable of is down to dedication, practice and research - since any monkey can learn a simple unchanging series of buttons to press, and given time can easily do it well. People are bad because they just don't care as much as others, they don't put in the research, don't care if they are dead for 75% of the fight as long as they still get to roll on loot, and don't care what their dps is.

Agreed. I hate when i do 13k dps on Saurfang and some random hunter does 6k dps and when DBW drop he gets it...

[DUNDER]

I think that it is harder to be melee dps in a fight where the target is moving then tanking it. Even tho I have played my fury warrior since Vanilla and just picked up tanking I find tanking easier. Might just be where I have my skills on my keyboard interfering while moving as dps. Thos I push more damage then most in ICC 25 gear while I have mostly gear on par with icc 10, except for my weapons, jewlery and a few more items.

[Novamh]

imo as a tank there is far more pressure on you to be good than there is in other roles, as most people mentioned if u screw up more likely people will blame you and the grp/raid will wipe. As a dps u may be able to get away going into a fight not knowing what to do as u can normally just follow other people, however as a tank u have to research the fight and make sure u know exactly whats going to happen and what ur supposed to do.
As far as actually fighting goes it can vary from fight to fight, u must have great awareness and response time and be able to pull trash and hold aggro at a good rate to keep people interested as you are basically the head of the raid as noone can continue until the tanks have started, also u must be able to coordinate all your CDs and figure out which ones you will use when e.g LKs soulreaper or Festergut 25HC, as there are big bursts of damage at these points u need to be able to time ur cds right, on fester while he has inhaled everything u must time it so u always have a CD up to avoid being one shotted, on LK u must figure out when u will be able to use ur CDs next and which one would be best for whats about to happen.
Overall if u can handle the pressure and everything else then you can tank, also its one of the most fun roles to play especially prot warrior

sorry for any mistakes

[underdogba]

Maybe a good nuance to bring up in the light of the discussion is to differentiate between something being "harder" in general versus "requiring more responsibility"?

[Shampayne1985]

I have only tanked up to LK on 10 normal and BQL on ICC25 normal...as a warrior and druid, I find tanking on warrior at least the threat portion being a warrior easier...the only trash that can be frustrating in there I think is the Blood Wing trash...that place SUCKS

Only fights I would say requires any actual thought to tank would be Putricide, Sindy(If your using 2 tank strat), and LK.

I also find the deathwhisper fight with adds phase faceroll...again this is all normal modes, Saurfang fight can be frustrating if your taunt misses though. Also, as a bear on Saurfang it's rough as if you have maul glyphed you have to really time your mauls b4 and after the blood beasts are out of your range.

I find it comical when say a mutilate rogue or arcane mage says tanking is faceroll and dps takes "skill". To the people who say target switching is hard, please STFU...Only role I haven't played up to the later bosses in ICC is healing, as I don't feel comfortable healing raids.

[underdogba]

I find it comical when say a mutilate rogue or arcane mage says tanking is faceroll and dps takes "skill". To the people who say target switching is hard, please STFU...Only role I haven't played up to the later bosses in ICC is healing, as I don't feel comfortable healing raids.

This observation totally jives with my experience. I normally tank in a raid environment, but when I dps on an alt in a pug or alt run, it feels like a low-pressure vacation.

[Cyphran]

I first started tanking as a Bear in BC heroics. I raided resto and specced feral to tank heroics with my Resto shaman flatmate. It was easy enough to learn back in BC, but I had the added benefit of learning how to pull with 2 other classes CCing, and how to manage my 3target Swipe and 1target Maul. I raid tanked up to Kael eventually while I was raid healing Sunwell.

Tanking back in BC was fairly fun. It was easy enough to manage, and soon enough I was powering through instances. Because there was no dungeon finder and I was running as a Tank Healer combo, I could pick and choose whatever dps I wanted to take to any heroic. In BC we used the raid icons, and they Worked... You killed Skull... then X... then whatever the fuck I wanted you to kill next. It was awesome being the tank. We were the big dick back in BC.

In Wrath I (happily) went back to healing until ICC. But since switching to feral I've tanked Naxx_>Uldar>ToC>ICC to LK... Tanking is simple..... one of the first page posters made a huge list of shit a tank has to pay attention to... wonderful as it is, no fucking way. Most of a tanks job is done when they collect/chant/gem their gear. After that its a matter of stand here and move when you have to... even cooldowns are pretty trivial for the most part (Fester was one of three ICC fights that you kinda had to use em before the buffs came in. But even then... is he 3x normal size? Yes. Use a CD... Tho, I'll admit I enjoyed juggling Enrage and Barkskin on the LK's Soul Reaper).

If you can DPS like a pro, and heal like a champion... you'll be an excellent tank in the first two days of spec switching. If you're an average dpser and average healer, then you'll be an average tank.

[Sal]

Thanks guys for the quick replies. I was just nervous about tanking in a raid. i think i will focus 10 man instead of 25. 10 man would be easier right? since its same lockout, that makes me happy

They are supposedly making 10 man more difficult, so that it will match the same "difficulty" as 25 man.

[SGimley]

Also, if you measure difficulty by "rotation" then the only hard spec in the game is the feral cat and possibly shadow priest played well.

Simply put LOL. Cat dps is easy and shadow priests rotation ranks easier than an arcane mage. Mages need to wait on procs to maximize dps, spriest dot and mind flay spam then re-dot. The only rotation I hear is remotely difficult is a Moonkin's because they have 2 rotations, 1 with procs 1 without and their dps heavily relies on procs.

[Shampayne1985]

This observation totally jives with my experience. I normally tank in a raid environment, but when I dps on an alt in a pug or alt run, it feels like a low-pressure vacation.

I know, the 3 dps classes I have played on in ICC are rogue, mage, and elemental shaman...I get so bored. have occasionally dpsed on warrior too but mainly tank on warrior and druid in raids.

[FrozenFlames]

Tanking is the same as dps only you need to focus on other things and overal tanking is less forgiving then dps is. Also if one dps fucks up it would normally not be a wipe (assuming its not a dps race) but when a tank dies theres a very big chance theres a wipe.