My experience with 2 alts, aka Why people don't tank

[Shamb]

Since reading the 4.0.6 patch notes over a month ago I've lost a lot of interest in my druid main and I've been playing my mage and warrior alts. Since I hate queues, I PvE as a tank on the warrior.

Mage - Currently 83. I don't care much about gear at all. If it has int I wear it. I don't reforge. Until late in 83, I wore a WoLK-era cloak. I don't enchant at all. I'm specced fire and have not tried arcane at all, or frost in PvE (frost is my pvp spec). I don't worry too much about my spec. I sustain 6-10k overall in dungeons at level 83, doing 9-12k on bosses. My high was 18.4k on Altairus in Vortex Pinnacle. This is far more than is necessary. Dungeon runs go fast & easy. At 83 I'm already doing far more than the 8-10k boss dps people consider the 'minimum' for level 85 heroics.

Warrior - Currently 84. I have respecced my prot spec several times, and am going to do so again later on today. I have deliberated for some time over the best spec. I check the AH daily for gear upgrades. The minute I get one, I reforge it, enchant it, and if applicable gem it.. Everything is gemmed. Belt has a buckle. Everything is enchanted. All properly done, as per the warrior stickies, with a focus on mitigation and avoidance. Smithing is maxed and bracers / gloves have the additional gem slots, which are gemmed. When I dinged 84 I queued for the 3 highest level normal modes and got Halls of Origination. I made the first pull and I got -housed-. The healer and 1 dps survived the first pull. The healer rightfully told me that he was sorry but I just wasn't geared enough. We got another healer. The next pull went much the same, and the healer left wordlessly, followed by 2 of the dps.

Conclusion: At 83, with zero effort expended, my dps class alt is performing at a level more than adequate for 85 heroics. At a similar level, my tank, with a significant amount of effort and gold expended, is not capable of performing at a level adequate for the level 85 normal modes he is capable of queueing for at 84. Blizzard's design places an order of magnitude more burden on the tank than the dps, giving the dps a free ride. It is therefore little wonder that most people choose not to play tanks

You do realize that your mage's dps will go DOWN if you lvl up to 85 right ... not up.
Your crit/hit/haste will drop SOOO low that your dps will drop too. Saying you do 8k-10k now and thinking you'll do the same at lvl 85 is funny to be polite....

At lvl 80 my warlock was doing 17k dps, guess what, I did NOT pull 17k dps when I reached lvl 85 ... dps goes DOWN as you lvl. Then it goes back up as you gear.

Conclusion: Get to lvl 85 before trying to compare plz ... Before that it's all meaningless.

Also, did you ever hear of CC ? Tanks gotta use it now, at least until they are well geared (350+ ilvl ave.)

---------- Post added 2011-02-21 at 07:36 PM ----------

Neither, it's to talk about the discrepancy between what game mechanics ask of dps vs. tanks.

Dps = Tanks.

Both needs the exact same thing.

- Know the fight mechanic, to avoid avoidable dmg.
- Know when to pop cd
- Maximize your dps
- Know how to optimize your gear.

It's the EXACT same thing for both. The only difference lies in the tank marking the target and receiving more damage ...

A dps that doesn't know this is simply a bad player, period.

[Finn mac cool]

My health total is high because unlike other 84s I'm gemmed and enchanted. While I follow the warrior stickies and go for avoidance / mitigation, there is still a stam bonus for doing this, as some hybrid gems with stam are used, as well as a few stam enchants. I also have gotten a leaden despair, but no avoidance/mitigation trinkets.

I'm also a miner.

Further, I'm gemmed and enchanted because unlike a dps, I can't simply coast along without making the effort, perhaps wearing greens well into heroics. And since you're not guaranteed drops in a timely fashion (rather, you're virtually guaranteed not to get them) it's a good idea to buy stuff & enchant what you have as you go. Unlike for dps, for tanks it -does- matter.

If it's "just the nature of the tanking role" and it's causing 45 minute queues, isn't it time to question the nature of the tanking role?

It takes more effort to tank, at least in the beginning, after you do it long enough the effort is gone and it's just routine. The extra gear requirements and effort should help keep scrubs out of the tanking role, not saying it does, just saying it should. Also I think you are focusing FAR too much on gear. Remember it's not what you pull it's how you pull. Stuns and interrupts/silences, CC and LoS, plus tanking cool downs if used correctly will solve ALL your problems, a little bit of well timed RNG never hurts either.

[SilkforCalde]

Since reading the 4.0.6 patch notes over a month ago I've lost a lot of interest in my druid main and I've been playing my mage and warrior alts. Since I hate queues, I PvE as a tank on the warrior.

Mage - Currently 83. I don't care much about gear at all. If it has int I wear it. I don't reforge. Until late in 83, I wore a WoLK-era cloak. I don't enchant at all. I'm specced fire and have not tried arcane at all, or frost in PvE (frost is my pvp spec). I don't worry too much about my spec. I sustain 6-10k overall in dungeons at level 83, doing 9-12k on bosses. My high was 18.4k on Altairus in Vortex Pinnacle. This is far more than is necessary. Dungeon runs go fast & easy. At 83 I'm already doing far more than the 8-10k boss dps people consider the 'minimum' for level 85 heroics.

Warrior - Currently 84. I have respecced my prot spec several times, and am going to do so again later on today. I have deliberated for some time over the best spec. I check the AH daily for gear upgrades. The minute I get one, I reforge it, enchant it, and if applicable gem it.. Everything is gemmed. Belt has a buckle. Everything is enchanted. All properly done, as per the warrior stickies, with a focus on mitigation and avoidance. Smithing is maxed and bracers / gloves have the additional gem slots, which are gemmed. When I dinged 84 I queued for the 3 highest level normal modes and got Halls of Origination. I made the first pull and I got -housed-. The healer and 1 dps survived the first pull. The healer rightfully told me that he was sorry but I just wasn't geared enough. We got another healer. The next pull went much the same, and the healer left wordlessly, followed by 2 of the dps.

Conclusion: At 83, with zero effort expended, my dps class alt is performing at a level more than adequate for 85 heroics. At a similar level, my tank, with a significant amount of effort and gold expended, is not capable of performing at a level adequate for the level 85 normal modes he is capable of queueing for at 84. Blizzard's design places an order of magnitude more burden on the tank than the dps, giving the dps a free ride. It is therefore little wonder that most people choose not to play tanks

Can't say I had the same experience. I typically don't bother respeccing from the choices I blindly made while leveling as a tank until I've been raid tanking for a couple months. I was still wearing a ton of level 80 gear when I started tanking 85 heroics. While leveling, most gear upgrades I got was for dps, so I just used them to boost my ilevel and... it wasn't a problem.

One thing you need to realize is that all talk of avoidance vs stamina goes out the window as soon as you start taking heavy magic damage. Then it's stamina stamina stamina. The trash at the beginning of HoO? Almost all magic damage. You won't want avoidance it'll do NOTHING for you. You want health. And lots of it. And you want to use spell reflect on cooldown, keep the casters locked down with shield bashes and stuns, and do not be afraid to shockwave and heroic leap away and then intervene away until the healer has you to full. Do not be afraid to use cooldowns on trash. You should actually use your cooldowns on trash instead of on bosses.

I think you've been lied to man. People tell new tanks that this isn't WotLK and you don't want to stack stam but in a lot of situations that is EXACTLY what you wanna do.

And, trust me, it could very, very easily be a healer issue.

---------- Post added 2011-02-21 at 09:00 PM ----------

You do realize that your mage's dps will go DOWN if you lvl up to 85 right ... not up.
Your crit/hit/haste will drop SOOO low that your dps will drop too. Saying you do 8k-10k now and thinking you'll do the same at lvl 85 is funny to be polite....

At lvl 80 my warlock was doing 17k dps, guess what, I did NOT pull 17k dps when I reached lvl 85 ... dps goes DOWN as you lvl. Then it goes back up as you gear.

Conclusion: Get to lvl 85 before trying to compare plz ... Before that it's all meaningless.

Also, did you ever hear of CC ? Tanks gotta use it now, at least until they are well geared (350+ ilvl ave.)

---------- Post added 2011-02-21 at 07:36 PM ----------



Dps = Tanks.

Both needs the exact same thing.

- Know the fight mechanic, to avoid avoidable dmg.
- Know when to pop cd
- Maximize your dps
- Know how to optimize your gear.

It's the EXACT same thing for both. The only difference lies in the tank marking the target and receiving more damage ...

A dps that doesn't know this is simply a bad player, period.

Nah, your dps will go up at 85. Mine did on every toon. My shaman will be my next one and it was like this: 79 - 3k dps, 80 - 6k dps, 81 - 7k dps, 82 -8k dps and I just dpsed a boss at 84 and pulled 12k dps. My DK definitely went way up as soon as he hit 85, even in the same gear.

And no, tanks definitely do not need to use CC in normal mode dungeons.

[gibbie99]

I think the gist of the OP was that dps was pretty easy while tanking is a different animal entirely. As someone who has done all 3 roles quite a bit, tanking is just balls to the wall tough, versus heals/dps. I'm really enjoying my healer now. Sure i cry a bit over my tree form and so forth, but there is so much less pressure now. If i screw up, hey, the tank wasn't geared enough (or the dps was standing in fire). Versus if the tank screws up...Well holy hell, let him have it. I can't think of a single fight that is even challenging to heal on, versus just about every boss you could ever name when you tank.

That's just the way the game is designed. Way too much emphasis on the tank carrying everyone. I hate it personally. I'd much rather dps or heal than tank, at least nowadays. In Wraith it was equally trivial.

[slosh]

I'm not going to read through all of this, but in many cases trash is more demanding on the healer than the boss. (fyi I tank and heal)

Bosses actually don't deal that much damage if you know the mechanics of the fights. I can complete boss attempts with 80+% mana easily on a decent group. Trash, on the other hand, can absolutely bound the crap out of you unless you use a lot of CC.

My suggestions:

1) Use CC. Your runs will go faster because your healer isn't always stopping for mana.

2) If #1 isn't enough, use defensive cooldowns. Again, trash often does more DPS than bosses. Use your cooldowns and self-heal as much as possible. Even your longer cooldowns are shorter than the run-back + rebuff time taken due to a wipe.

[god of lock and pala]

4 words.... less QQ more pewpew!!!!

[gibbie99]

I was still wearing a ton of level 80 gear when I started tanking 85 heroics. While leveling, most gear upgrades I got was for dps, so I just used them to boost my ilevel and... it wasn't a problem.

And, trust me, it could very, very easily be a healer issue.

---------- Post added 2011-02-21 at 09:00 PM ----------



Nah, your dps will go up at 85. Mine did on every toon. My shaman will be my next one and it was like this: 79 - 3k dps, 80 - 6k dps, 81 - 7k dps, 82 -8k dps and I just dpsed a boss at 84 and pulled 12k dps. My DK definitely went way up as soon as he hit 85, even in the same gear.

And no, tanks definitely do not need to use CC in normal mode dungeons.

Okay first off, unless you had 277 gear you are going to want the nice rep stuff on your way to 85. The difference in stamina in an unenchanted 83ish blue versus a fully buffed ilvl250 piece is 50-100 stamina. I can kinda see how you could enchant/gem with cata stuff for ilvl 260/270 ICC25 stuff. But the blues from cata are just as good, and at ilvl 318/333 its kinda essentially to get that upgrade.

Second off, the HOO trash could use some CC, even in normals, esp when the tank is undergeared. Its a team effort. The healers are complaining there is too much incoming damage. Then you are doing something wrong. Either CC or burn down the fireball guy first, or offtank. I see this alot from non-healers, the usual 'you suck, learn to heal' mantra. Well, there is only so much heals we can do so quickly. The game is balanced around that. If you are taking more damage than it is reasonable to heal through, the devs did not design it that way, ergo you are doing something wrong. More CC or OT or interrupts or defensive CDs or trinkets or throw gnomes at em (this always distracts the mobs).

Third off, dps always drops as you level if you use the same gear. That is just common sense. In Cata it drops off the freaking cliff. Sure if you go from wraith greens to cata greens there will be a very nice dps upgrade.

[SilkforCalde]

I'm not going to read through all of this, but in many cases trash is more demanding on the healer than the boss. (fyi I tank and heal)

Bosses actually don't deal that much damage if you know the mechanics of the fights. I can complete boss attempts with 80+% mana easily on a decent group. Trash, on the other hand, can absolutely bound the crap out of you unless you use a lot of CC.

My suggestions:

1) Use CC. Your runs will go faster because your healer isn't always stopping for mana.

2) If #1 isn't enough, use defensive cooldowns. Again, trash often does more DPS than bosses. Use your cooldowns and self-heal as much as possible. Even your longer cooldowns are shorter than the run-back + rebuff time taken due to a wipe.

Nah don't CC. I am leveling a healer right now, a level 84 shaman, and I loathe tanks that use CC.

---------- Post added 2011-02-21 at 09:22 PM ----------

Third off, dps always drops as you level if you use the same gear. That is just common sense. In Cata it drops off the freaking cliff. Sure if you go from wraith greens to cata greens there will be a very nice dps upgrade.

No, it really doesn't. Maybe it did for you. Didn't for me. PEBKAC?

[groovecode]

Background about me, I tanked most of ICC as a druid (with my guild). Before we downed LK, I leveled up and geared out a warrior (initially wanted a warrior just for the druid/warr 2's arena). Before switching to the warrior, I tanked with my druid since TBC, and even in Vanilla when my guild would let me (usually had to go resto).

I took my warrior to 85 first, as a tank, and tanked instances nearly the whole way to 85. Next was a resto shaman, which I healed all the instances while leveling, but do quite a few less as I was questing more (as elem). Now I'm bringing up my shadow priest.

I haven't noticed much difference in difficulty, other than the warrior has a lot of options at his disposal. However, I did most instances with my guild, so the quality of the dps in these cases was much higher than what you experienced in HoO. They could use CC properly, could stay out of fires, and could dps targets in the proper order. In fact, them being able to do these things was a huge part of our successful runs.

That being said, I think there's a problem with your claim. As you've stated, the dps failed miserably in your HoO trash pull, with respect to CC. You weren't able to recover, most (all?) tanks wouldn't have been able to given that situation. But you insist this is a tanking problem. Dps failed to meet the challenge of playing their class, therefore the tanking role is too hard? I don't follow. Also, it's not like the dps in your situation continued on to get loot. They failed, and the group fell apart. They weren't doing 12k dps on the last boss; they didn't get to the last boss.

It sounds to me like everyone had a role to fill in your situation, a few people failed to perform the role properly, and the whole effort was unsuccessful. It also sounds like you want tanking to be easier, so let's go with that. Framing that desire within the context of the failed HoO attempt. Tanking made easier allows you to pull that first group successfully, despite dps not being able to CC. Now dps is no longer required to CC. Now the job of dps is even easier than it was to start with. Now we're back to your post again, and tanking is harder than dps.

tl;dr - Your tanking was probably fine, and you could even spend less effort in being successful if the dps did their job correctly. The issue isn't that tanking is too hard.

[Deleted]

To be frank on the OP, a mage is a dam sight easier to play than a tank. Just because you can hit the meters by spamming the same buttons all day and by just been a silly high damage class, doesn't mean you'll be able to know jack about tanking. It's an art!

SilkforCalde - seriously you hate people who use CC. Do you know what game you are playing? You're a healer and you don't like CC? CC is a serious part of heroics, if you want to zerg, don't go in my group as I and others with me do things properly.

Gibbie - prefer to heal than tank. Be careful what you wish for. I tank and heal on a druid and you'd be surprised how quick the DPS or Tank are willing to blame you for a death when THEY get it wrong. Last night I had a HoO heroic and the tank refused to use CC. I managed to keep up though despite the tanks incompetence. However one mob the DPS shaman overaggroed like crazy and died in 3 hits. 80% / 50% death, in rapid succession way before any heal or pre-HOT could save him. His first reaction is to blame the healer despite (a) not watching his aggro and (b) dying in 3 hits suggesting dodgy gear and serious over-aggro. Needless to say, he was a tosser, given the usual "get lost" treatment, kicked out and we subsequently aced the entire dungeon including all skippable bosses. Result.

[jeffason]

i didn't have such problem on my dk (main is a lock). i leveled from 80-85 spamming lfd tool and tanking in almost all dps gear most of the way through. did this with very little cc. maybe you're doing something wrong on your warrior or problem specific to that class? my dk was lollerific.

[Deleted]

i didn't have such problem on my dk (main is a lock). i leveled from 80-85 spamming lfd tool and tanking in almost all dps gear most of the way through. did this with very little cc. maybe you're doing something wrong on your warrior or problem specific to that class? my dk was lollerific.

I did the same with my DK and it was quite hilarious topping damage meters while tanking normals. Not the same story with warrior though, sometimes threat generation is a real struggle with lots of missess and sometimes damage taken is quite high. DK just has so awesome cooldowns to mitigate that damage.
***
What comes to mage, it took a few weeks to gear myself up to be able to do the same numbers as 85 than I was making as 84 with mostly 333 gear.