1. #1

    How Much Health Should a Tank Have for Regulars? Heroics? Mana?

    Hey guys so I'm currently leveling my Paladin who is level 84 right now and almost half way to 85. He is Protection, so I plan on tanking end-game. I've looked on various sites and even looked through the Protection Field Manual thread on EJ but I haven't found the answer to my question. On average, how much health should I have as a tank going into my first ever regular dungeon at 85, with quest greens? And then how much should I have going into my first ever Heroic?

    And with mana, I think that, if I'm reading right, I should not be getting intellect at all, and I can justify this because of a few proc's we have as Prot pallies for mana regeneration, and I should be depending on Sanctuary for a large portion of my mana regeneration too. So would you say that just the base mana at level 85 with no added intellect would be okay?

  2. #2
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    If you are tanking level-appropriate content, you should have as much health as your possible obtainable gear provides you...

    Sounds complicated? Not really. How could anyone expect a tank to have 140.000 health while the quests and craftable items for his level only provides him with 78.000? Ofcourse, you can (and should) put some cheap enchants and gems on your gear where possible, maybe even reforging some of the less desirable stats.

    If anyone tells you "lulz ur needin moar hp for dis boss" please slap them in the face.
    Repeatedly.

    Unless you still wear your lvl80 blue crafted PvP set; then they can slap you in the face.
    Repeatedly, ofcourse.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Gnowo View Post
    If you are tanking level-appropriate content, you should have as much health as your possible obtainable gear provides you...

    Sounds complicated? Not really. How could anyone expect a tank to have 140.000 health while the quests and craftable items for his level only provides him with 78.000? Ofcourse, you can (and should) put some cheap enchants and gems on your gear where possible, maybe even reforging some of the less desirable stats.

    If anyone tells you "lulz ur needin moar hp for dis boss" please slap them in the face.
    Repeatedly
    Well I have a lot more than 78k health at the moment anyways. And I'm going to reforge into Mastery until the block cap in the priority order that the thread on EJ suggests.

  4. #4
    Warchief Clevername's Avatar
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    forget you have a mana bar, and don't worry about your quest greens for regular dungeons, just try and get at least all the ilvl 318 tank gear you come across upgrades will come fast. For heroics you can do it with avg ilvl of 329 like the requirement says but i'd go with at least 333 to not be a mana sponge and 339 or so before you start the aoe pulls with no cc. Don't forget for heroics you're going to get the 15 percent hp buff and please don't be the guy who gem pure stam because you like sitting in SW with a large healthpool.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Clevername View Post
    forget you have a mana bar, and don't worry about your quest greens for regular dungeons, just try and get at least all the ilvl 318 tank gear you come across upgrades will come fast. For heroics you can do it with avg ilvl of 329 like the requirement says but i'd go with at least 333 to not be a mana sponge and 339 or so before you start the aoe pulls with no cc. Don't forget for heroics you're going to get the 15 percent hp buff and please don't be the guy who gem pure stam because you like sitting in SW with a large healthpool.
    Thanks, this is a helpful post. And I wasn't planning on gemming pure Stamina, I'm a new tank, but I'm not that stupid.

  6. #6
    1. For the sake of the poor souls that have to run randoms through the LFD unlike the rest of us with good guilds, please do not gear anything with intellect on it. Pretend that stat doesn't exist.
    2. For the sake of the poor souls that have to run randoms through the LFD unlike the rest of us with good guilds, please do not worry about your HP too much.
    -If you finish Twilight Highlands, you will have plenty of 333 blues.
    -With those blues, you will have more than enough health to tank normals.
    -As you gear up for heroics, notice how much damage you take and how well healers respond to it. Health isn't as big of a deal as it was in WotlK, and you should not focus on it at the expense of avoidance and mastery stats.

  7. #7
    I can only tell you what our guild's main pally tank has told me. Having high health helps, but it's not the only thing you worry about as a tank these days. Since mastery is an important stat you'll see tanks with lower health, but actually doing better than those guys who stack pure stam.

    Now, as a pally tank doing a regular dungeon at 85 it probably won't matter since everyone will be in quest gear along with you. The places are designed/balanced around that. You'll probably have around 120k. When you get into your heroics you'll probably have around 140-150k. I see tanks in heroic pugs with 198k, but at the same time they're kinda squishy for 198k.

    You're fine on mana. Your gear won't have any int or anything to boost it. One of the big mana hogs can be consecration if you don't have talent points to reduce the cost. Our tank didn't have it talented because he took talents to increase his movement speed (boot enchant at the time for stam and movement speed was real expensive), but has since upgraded his enchant and talents, and has no problems with consecration mana loses.

    Personally, I don't look at a tank's HP to determine if they're good. If they know the trash pulls, the boss fights, can mark targets, knows his abilities and when to use them, and generates good threat for his gear... all these I value more than a tank's stam, which means I'd boot you if you were terribad at any of these.

    Don't let my pet be a better tank than you : )

    hehe, good luck.

  8. #8
    No intellect for prot paladins, you are correct in that. Worry less about health (mana sponge!) and more about dodge/parry/mastery (yay avoidance and mitigation!). Your gear will give you enough health to live through anything a mob can throw at you, which means you can't be one or two shot. That means -> save healer mana by lowering damage intake!

    You want to find a sweet spot between avoidance and mastery. If you avoid more often, you take spikier damage. If you block more often, you mitigate more hits by a lot! Since you aren't tanking raids, I would aim for 11-12% dodge/parry each, balanced to even out DR, and since you have no talents that make you favor one over the other, that works nicely. Btw, DR kicks in for dodge and parry really hard at 15%, so there is no real need currently (even in raids) to go higher than 15% each buffed. Before that 15% mark, its just a slight (but still present) DR. After you hit your dodge/parry goal, just spam mastery!

    Also, don't worry about a lot of hit and expertise. If you have aggro problems, you are more likely to be doing something wrong with your abilities/talents than not having enough hit/expertise. I reforge all my hit/expertise away for raids.

  9. #9
    Immortal Zka's Avatar
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    EJ doesn't care about leveling or 5mans, that's why there is no info. You can tank normals pretty much in any quested gear you have.

  10. #10
    I am Murloc! Xuvial's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Clevername View Post
    please don't be the guy who gem pure stam because you like sitting in SW with a large healthpool.
    Aw man you got me -_-
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  11. #11
    Actually for 5mans (both normal and heroic) you should not care about hp at all. People who argue for high hp just don't realize how long it takes a single healer to heal up 100k hp even when the tank gets zero dmg in that time. if you don't run around in wotlk gear you will never have to few hp for 5 mans. If tanks die in 5 man it is either because they "stand in shit", don't interrupt something that needs interrupting or the dps the tank takes is higher than the hps the healer can pump into him.

    For the first two hp doesn't help, at least not in the long run, and for the third, which is the only interesting one anyway if you dont fail hard, going for hp is actually what gets you killed. In that scenario you want as much mitigation and avoidance as possible. And hp offers none at all.

    So go for highest ilvl strength plate (for gods sake, stay away from int plate if you are not holy speced) with def ratings to get your armor up and if you have the choice (or gem stuff) prefer mastery over the other ratings (including stamina) because that is actually a really strong tank rating for all but bear tanks.

  12. #12
    Warchief Muis's Avatar
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    Gear for normals it doesn't matter, I tanked all the instances on my paladin from 80 to 85 with the gear I had from WoTLK. As for HC's, having 330 ilevel equipped made me feel quite comfortable to tank instances (on my warrior atleast). Just don't be afraid to ask/use CC on trash so you can judge the damage received & taken.

    Reforge/prioritze mastery over dodge/parry and you'll do fine.

  13. #13
    well I have 2 sets of trinkets , 2 - 487 stam trinket which i use when i am with a guildy healer , as even though i am at 220k hp in random , I take bit more spiky damage then when I have mirror(330 something mastery) + throngus' finger (220 parry + dodge proc) and have around 190k hp.

    And for gems dont gem pure stam at all .. my gemming is -
    blue- mastery/stam
    yellow - mastery
    red - parry/mastery
    prismatic- mastery

    This is not wrath , stam stacking leads to a unhappy healer , get as close to 102.2 avoidance as possible then start stacking stam.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Dumanias View Post
    Well I have a lot more than 78k health at the moment anyways. And I'm going to reforge into Mastery until the block cap in the priority order that the thread on EJ suggests.
    You'll want a bit of expertise as well. You don't need hit, but I've found having around 20 expertise (including the 10 from the glyph) to be nice. Don't bother reforging to much into expertise, though. Later on you'll get plenty be default on your gear.

    As for HP, you'll want to have about 150k (this can be your total when buffed, not unbuffed) when going into your first random heroic. That allows you to survive those abilities such as shock blast on the first boss in Throne of the Tides. Found this to be safer then to expect all players to be able to interrupt. I did this before we all got rebuke, though. If you can use it properly, you can get away with a lot less.

    Remember, avoidance > stamina in cata. Don't neglect socket bonuses just for stamina.

  15. #15
    I had to learn that the hard way too ... never use elitistjerks for prot paladin info. Since you mentioned that i assume you are a paladin.

    http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.c...rb_v=viewtopic

    this guide about tank stages and gearing should pretty much answer all your questions about gear .

  16. #16
    My paladin is in the same boat you are, running regulars to level as prot, hes lvl 84, and sitting at 93k'ish unbuffed, over 100k with kings, just from levels/dungeon drops.

    I was running them at 83 with around 75k health though so I wouldn't be too concerned if you're around that

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dumanias View Post
    And I'm going to reforge into Mastery until the block cap in the priority order that the thread on EJ suggests.
    Reforging into Mastery is ok, but don't expect reaching block cap before heroics, after them or whenever in nearest future

  18. #18
    Well I hit 85 today and I queued up for a regular.

    I got into a Lost City of Tol'Vir group and let everyone know that I was a new tank and this was my first time running a Cataclysm regular. Everyone was really supportive and told me to take my time and get it done. They were really nice and I actually managed to do a pretty good job keeping aggro. We only wiped once on the first boss because we forgot to clear some trash next to him.

    So I was happy because we completed it and everyone was really supportive and didn't criticize me at all. So I joined another group and got into Halls of Origination. The first thing someone said when I joined was, "OMG! We lost a 114k tank for 112k tank!" followed by someone saying "Dude we can't do this you don't have good gear", and then one guy started bragging about his Paladin tank who had a high average iLvL so I left that group. Now I'm scared to join another one. :S

  19. #19
    I'm a healer and I've seen tanks in normals range from 110k to 145k (heroics I've seen 140k-190k). If you're in that range, I'd say you're fine. Expertise, hit, etc are nice, but I wouldn't worry about it until you start getting normal and heroic dungeon geared. Expertise and hit only really matter in raids these days anyway so not an issue when you first start off in normal dungeons.

    I actually healed a normal Grim Batol with a level 84 druid tank with no CC. Think he had like 110k hp. Shocked me that we never wiped. The guy knew how to use his cooldowns which made things drastically easier on me.

    If you have low hp and have issues, just use CC more. Learn to use your cooldowns as well. Earlier you learn to use the DPS to CC and use your cooldowns, the better off you are when you get into heroics and later into raids. As a paladin, you may want to learn to use rebuke, too. Some casters can have pretty nasty attacks that can take you down pretty quick at lower gear levels. Saves the healer from having a heart attack if you interrupt mob casts. I know I get frustrated when the tank dies to something that could've been interrupted. And if I know the tank has an interrupt, it angers me even more because his death was avoidable, he just didn't care to do anything to avoid it.

    Basically, hp matters little when you use what is available to you. Use CC. Use cooldowns. Interrupt hard hitting casts. Avoid ground AoEs like void zones. People can throw stats at you all they want. Any player that knows how to play can easily do something in lesser gear. Many have already proven that heroics can be done in quest greens and really don't need dungeon blues. Many of the top guilds have already downed all the content available in far less gear than anyone doing it now has. Just know your class and you'll be fine. As time goes on, you'll get better gear and will be even better at your role.

  20. #20
    Immortal Tharkkun's Avatar
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    I started heroics with 115k health as a bear tank. Did BH 10 with I think 126k. Was rough but still doable. I even had a shaman healing me through all those heroics being the worst of all the healers and we managed fine.

    Just be prepared to use your cooldowns on trash and bosses. Figure out the best time to use them and interrupt everything you can. It will help a lot in the healer mana department.
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