1. #1
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    How do I suddenly begin tanking

    I want to try my hand at tanking on my PvP geared warrior. How do I "start"? I suppose first of all set my loot spec to protection, but how do I know when I can start tanking LFR and Flex?

  2. #2
    First off, start queuing as a tank on Pandaria Heroics. They are ridiculously easy so you get a lot of leeway to try hone your skills.

    For gear, you don't necessarily need tanking gear obtained from raiding. When SoO first came out, I simply got my paladin a full set of 522 PvP gear, gemmed, enchanted, and reforged it to the appropriate stats, then started running Flex straight away (If you have a full set of 550, you can start running Normals and Heroics if you'd like). But again; start slow and learn your way into tanking. Each tanking spec is different, so check Icy Veins and Noxxic for a quick, 5 minute noob guide as to your rotation, what stats your looking for and such.

    Remember: your job as a tank is to keep the enemy focused on you. You accomplish this through generating threat (Which is a passive buff; Righteous Fury for paladins for example). If a particular mob starts attacking someone else, use taunt on him. For groups of mobs, spam AoE to aggro all of them. I could go deeper, but for now that's the basics of it.
    Last edited by Val the Moofia Boss; 2014-07-06 at 08:26 PM.

  3. #3
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    Grab all the gear you can from the Timeless Isle; that's a good start. Browse drop tables for normal/heroic dungeons for a one-hander and a shield, since those are fairly important pieces of equipment . You can get an epic crafted weapon, and 553 Belt and Legs if you're the rich sort.
    Read a guide or two if you like, but warrior tanking is incredibly simple if you feel like winging it until it starts to work. Run a few dungeons, get a feel for your spec, and then just join LFR (On the group finder interface, specific raids have average iLevel requirements; that's how you know if you're ready or not ). You won't be the worst tank they've ever seen (trust me), and the other tank will hopefully be competent enough.
    Observe, learn, and apologise for your mistakes. You'll know when you're doing it right, and it's a good feeling. =)

    Welcome to the league!

  4. #4
    Cap valor weekly and save it up for Ordos/Celestial gear until you start getting Flex stuff. PvP gear works for tanking dungeons/scenarios. You'll get shit for it, but honestly, the dungeons were soloable by tanks in 496 stuff. Learn what to do, how to deal with boss mechanics, and the rest just comes from experience.

  5. #5
    Do Ordos / Celestials with loot special. set to Prot. You can probably tank Pandaria 5-players and even heroic scenarios in Prot spec with your pvp gear. Use those instances to make sure you got your keybinds/etc set up proper. The Warrior forum here can probably help you out a ton.

    Grab some tank pieces from lfr / flex while dps-ing until you get a decent set. Your ability with it and the content you're running, along with the Healer(s) you get will determine how much actual Prot gear you'll need. No set answer there. Do some experimenting, communicate clearly with whoever you're running with, and see how it plays out.
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  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Count Zero View Post
    You can probably tank Pandaria 5-players and even heroic scenarios in Prot spec with your pvp gear.
    Probably?! You can tank the heroics as a clothie in partial timeless isle, partial levelling greens - I know from experience of the last two chars I geared up.


    OT: Just like Valyrian said; use your PvP gear (assuming you are in some Prideful, or at least Grievous?) until you can replace it with LFR or the 535 timeless gear with good stats. Even then PvP gear is likely to be better though due to the huge stat increase. Trinkets are your main concern at this point.

    Honestly just join the group say you're new to tanking at the start and go at YOUR pace. Don't panic if people pull, die or rage at you - but make sure to accept advice and criticism. Chances are you'll get someone pull and tank most stuff, just take it as practice.

  7. #7
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    PvP gear isn't that bad apart from the secondary stats being wrong.

    Start with going to Icy-Veins Prot warrior guide and reading up on your rotation and CDs, set up actions bars accommodate that, and practice on training dummies to get a feel for the rotation. Also check the section for glyphs/specc if you're unsure, and the section for stat priority.

    Once you're fairly familiar with the basic rotation (10 minutes or so on a training dummy, maybe?) queue for 5-man heroics to get more practice (and do celestials/ordos for loot, don't tank need to tank, just leech). Once you're comfortable holding aggro (having all mobs attacking you), start doing LFR. Loot and skill will come as you go.

    Tanking really isn't as bad as people make it out to be, just ignore the idiots in LFR and ask your co-tank for tactics. Seriously, ask for tactics, that's the one thing you NEED to know as a tank. Don't worry though, for LFR it's mostly "taunt at 3 stacks", it's not complicated, just important.

    If you have any specific questions about rotation, mechanics or tactics, post them here

    Edit: I'd highly suggest getting weakauras and copying a setup for prot, makes it much easier to keep track of everything. Also get Tidy Plates tanking mod, will make it really easy to see which mobs you have/don't have aggro on.

    Tidy Plates + Tidy Plates threat module
    WeakAura

    I can post my WeakAura Prot setup, if you need.
    Last edited by Revi; 2014-07-06 at 08:50 PM.

  8. #8
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    You can always try out Proving Grounds first to train yourself in keybinds and familiarity with your tanking spec abilities and cooldowns.

    Once you're comfortable with that, jump into five mans. They're pretty easy so if you fuck up it's unlikely to cause a wipe. On the negative, though, you will likely have trouble with aggro if you end up with any raiding gear dps.


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  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by DFTR View Post
    the other tank will hopefully be competent enough.
    This is the recipe for LFR disaster.

  10. #10
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    Read up the dungeon journal before entering a lfr or flex wing. If you already know the fight as a dps it should be easy to extract the tanking bits from it. As a tank you will stand out if you don't know what to do.

    If you want a nice guide to tanking each fight with flex/normal machanics included, try those videos, they are really good.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLKWgn1xww0
    Last edited by mmocbd24f84edd; 2014-07-07 at 07:41 AM.

  11. #11

  12. #12
    You can probably tank Pandaria 5-players and even heroic scenarios in Prot spec with your pvp gear.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Bearmode View Post
    I want to try my hand at tanking on my PvP geared warrior. How do I "start"? I suppose first of all set my loot spec to protection, but how do I know when I can start tanking LFR and Flex?
    Depending on your PvP gear you should be fine for SoO LFR atleast, gear wise at minimum. Nothing really hurts much in there provided you are over the req ilvl by a little bit.

    Almost everything in tanking comes down to knowing your skills and abilities and working them into the fight correctly. In LFR it wont matter much but in flex and especially normal simple mistakes/bad reactions cause wipes. Simple things like taunt swaps, and being in the correct place are most important, along with timing CD's right. Immerseus for example you want to use atleast a minor CD for his blast, or a big one for a secondary blast. We had issues with a 550 ilvl DK tank in our normals because he wasted antimagic shields on the puddles and was nearly getting one shot by the blast (although did change our guild rule to ' never PuG tank so I can bring my warlock again).

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by bondshai View Post
    You can probably tank Pandaria 5-players and even heroic scenarios in Prot spec with your pvp gear.
    5mans I wouldnt suggest except to learn some abilities or add control. They are such a joke at 550+ I tank them as frost on my DK rather than my main blood spec the inc damage is just so low for current easy to acquire gear (timeless + etc) and if you try to take it slow and learn most likely you will get rude and inconsiderate dps who will start pulling/MD'ing or abusing you which takes the fun out of it.

  14. #14
    I've noticed LFR SoO is very unforgiving for shitty undergeared tanks, unlike previous LFRs. I'd avoid that until you get decent gear.

    Unless you're a blood DK because blood DK :P
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  15. #15
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    Pvp gear is enough for lfr, heck if your 550 pvp geared you can even offtank normal soo.

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bearmode View Post
    I want to try my hand at tanking on my PvP geared warrior. How do I "start"? I suppose first of all set my loot spec to protection, but how do I know when I can start tanking LFR and Flex?
    Here is a step by step guide on what I would do (obviously you could do it differently if you wanted).

    1.) Obtain a set of tank gear 496+.

    If you have good PvP gear (aka 550s) you can skip this part. 550 PvP gear is better for tanking than anything you can pick up until SoO Flex or better.
    Except for trinkets and you obviouly need a shield + 1h (although you probably have the PvP shield + 1h too).

    2.) Reforge your gear.

    Threat generation is probably the most important thing (besides knowing the boss mechanics) while tanking LFR or Flex. So make sure you have the correct hit and expertise caps.

    3.) Look up your single target + multi target rotation.

    Any basic website will do, you don't have to be perfect to tank LFR/Flex.

    Now you are ready for some action. Some have suggested 5mans but I'd avoid them as much as possible. You won't learn anything by facerolling them. Many new tanks think they are doing fine because of their experience in 5man heroics when they are actually doing a really, really bad job.

    4.) Practice in proving grounds bronze and silver (don't bother with gold and above).

    PGs have the advantage that you can do them solo so nobody will bitch at you if you make a mistake. They will teach you to pop defensive CDs at certain times and to taunt mobs that run away. Those are the two major tank skills you should be able to perform (besides holding threat which isn't hard if you did step 2 and 3).

    5.) Research boss mechanics that are important to tanks BEFORE doing the fights.

    This can be done rather quickly if you only wish to tank LFR/Flex since most bosses apply stacking debuffs to tanks (basic taunt swap mechanic). But BE THOUROUGH!!! Nothing is more annoying to the group (and will get you kicked) than a tank that doesn't know a certain mechanic and wipes the raid.

    If you did that you are good to go for LFR. And depending on how well you do step 5 even Flex / Normals.
    In the end raiding is mostly about knowing boss mechanics.
    Last edited by mmocb100f50513; 2014-07-07 at 09:41 AM.

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bearmode View Post
    I want to try my hand at tanking on my PvP geared warrior. How do I "start"? I suppose first of all set my loot spec to protection, but how do I know when I can start tanking LFR and Flex?

    Worse thing you could possibly do is to attempt to learn to tank in LFR. Do it with friends, or at least a Flex level pug. LFR is a massive clusterfuck of people, majority of which play badly. Run few roics as people have suggested, mostly to gain some confidence and get used to your rotation/prio. Then go straight to Flex. Gear wise, PVP gear is just fine for starters in flex, just make sure it's properly gemmed/enchanted and reforged for your tanking spec. Only concern are tanking trinkets - get on of TI, and buy one with justice points from the Shieldwall Offensive and you are set.

    Only a seasoned tank can stay sane in LFR if you ask me - people constantly over aggro, pull for you, mele dpses from the front, everyone screams at tanks and healers blaming them for their own failures. If you want to enjoy the new role, avoid LFR until you are confident in your tanking.

    Few tips:
    - always turn whatever you are tanking away from the raid, keep en eye on mobs that go astray,
    - use your taunt only when required - to get a mob of someone, not randomly;
    - keep en eye on the healers, stay in range of your healer, or a healer depending on the situation
    - let repeatedly over-agrroing dps die - funny how fast they learn after a corpse run or two;
    - same goes for idiotic mele that insists on attacking whatever you are tanking standing on top of you; not only putting themselves in line of fire, but actually getting parried lol
    - do consider mele when moving out of ground effects - they need space either at the back or the sides, when avoiding stuff on the ground, you need to position mobs in such a way that gives mele the space they need to dps; the fact that you are out of fire, doesn't mean the mob is accessible from any other side but the front
    - try not to swing the mobs around 360%, a lot of mobs cleave and doing so causes unnecessary group damage, at times even a wipe
    - certain types of mobs, not only cleave, but have a nasty tail swipe - example Thok - when taunting off the other tank, make sure you are where he is, not at the back of the mob - a very popular tactic with pug tanks, who then wonder why half the raid is dead
    - when cotanking whatever, if it's time for the other tank to take over, once he/she taunts, stop your button mashing for a moment, let them get lead, else you risk overaggroing again while their taunt is on cd, often leading to unhealthy amounts of damage or death - this is especially true if you outgear the other tank, or happen to play a class with faster threat gen, or are simply better at playing
    - use your defensive cd - don't just rely on healers to see you through big spikes - you have tools to sustain yourself as well
    - if your co-tank pulls a whole group, feel free to pick some mobs off him, if they pull one mob, do not taunt it off them, it's rude and pointless
    - if you happen to meet a hero tank type, that treats the other as a mere stack drop utility on bosses, let them die - it will stop, or he will leave - either way, it's a win, win
    - use DBM timer or just a RW macro to pull bosses with - it's not just courtesy, it allows everyone to prepare for the pull = bigger chance of success, especially in pugs
    - communicate with the other tank - who takes what, how many stacks you should taunt on etc - makes for a flowless run
    - use your interrupts/stuns/knockbacks
    - learn how to pull caster mobs to you - stunning them 20 yards away from the pack is not necessarily ideal

    And last, grab yourself a healer, and go to TI, Blazing Way is a great place to practice tanking - round up lots of mobs on your mount, pick a safe spot to stop, and try to gather them up, control the casters, avoid the rain of fire, breath, whatnot; keep em all off your healer, interrupt what you can, choose kill priority, use you cds. Give it an hour, and you'll have a good dose of tanking xp.

    You can quite happily do this without a healer as well, should you not have a volunteer, just go easy on the pulls initially. With a healer, and 530+ gear you can round up half the area, alone, not so much.

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