Tank talk: interesting thoughts on raid tanking

Raid tanks quickly learn that Us Vs. Them encapsulates two sets of Them: you're fighting the mobs and the boss, but you're also fighting your own raid. Your gear may improve, but that doesn't necessarily mean that your job is going to get easier. Different fight mechanics from boss to boss cetainly ensure this, but weirdly enough, gear improvements may very well make your job tougher than it was previously, and the raid's DPS gear improvements always make your job harder.

http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/06/12/tank-talk-the-better-and-lesser-angels-of-our-nature/

@@ Have mercy on me, your threats are so high I don't know how long I can hold them >.<

I lol'ed at this portion (emphasis is mine):


"Myself," I think, sitting in front of Teron Gorefiend and watching him glower at us from just beyond aggro range, "Here is a 2H mob that typically melees for 6-9K and can crush me for 10K+. He wants to kill us all and has, in the past, succeeded admirably. I like my healers. I don't want them to send me hate mail. They have to heal raid damage from Doom Blossoms on top of my sorry carcass. High armor sounds good here, yes?"

Yes, nods the angel on my right shoulder, the Angel of Mitigation ("Bob"), the one who rescues puppies from wells, is driven to ecstasy by a raid-buffed dodge rate of 50%+, wants the heal team to be happy, and eggs me into pushing armor unto levels as yet unreached by man. Armor up! 35K! Lots of dodge! This horrid, horrid boss hits ever so hard! The healers have so much damage to heal on this fight! Do the right thing, Allie! -- he chants, jumping up and down, admonitory finger held high -- DO THE RIGHT THING!

Bob is the guiding light of all new tanks and their heart and conscience forever after, world without end. Love that little guy.

You f%#^@%g twit! bellows the angel on my left shoulder, the Angel of Threat Generation ("Larry"). Larry is more the cynical type. He knows that the Hunters aren't going to Feign Death. He doesn't believe the Warlocks have Soulshatter hotkeyed. He's aware there are reasons we have to BoP people on Illidan. He snickers at the notion of anyone watching Omen, and has total faith that the DPS would happily replace my furry butt with a tanking rogue if they could. Let's get real! Half this raid blows chunks at doing constructs! This is a DPS race before that guy, you know the one, gets Shadow of Death and sends constructs spewing all over the raid like a drunk freshman at a frat party! Expertise! Hit! Crit! Forget the armor! The healers will hate this fight no matter what you do!

interesting link and a good read lol

im siding with 'larry'

I love this article. Amazing read. Can't help but smile while reading. Bob & Larry. (I wonder if she watches Veggietales as well.)

As a rather green 70, mitigation first, TPS second. Dead tank = 0 TPS. 102.4 avoidance. & because pallies rely so much on block, we have to keep it up. & with the issue of gems, stam > spell damage? Decisions decisions...

Before I get carried away with QQing, thank you for the awesome link. =)

larry is a cynic. but personally i feel we shouldn't be pampering/encouraging bad habits (i.e. not soul shatter, not watch omen). that said, it's two extremes that we don't really need to go to, i'm never gonna drop all my armor just to up my tps nor am i ever gonna have more def than i need, just need a few tweaks here and there.

overall i guess druid has it easier, as all i need to do once i'm armor cap (which is easy once you have T4) is to stack agility, as agi = armor (mitigation), agi = dodge (avoidance), agi = crit/ap (TPS).

Reminds me of the good age old tanking days.

Warriors imo has the most difficult time in terms of mix stats, and also varies with type of boss encounters, and also use diff skills on diff raids.

With dodge, parry, Shield Block Rating and Value, (aka avoidance), Defence, +hit, +expertise, Stam, Str, Agi, Armor form all part of consideration.

Especially with newbie raiders/players, its tough to sometimes explain why certain classes have to do this, and why diff tank classes play differently, and some are better at 5 mens and some are crap.

Missed my warrior, but hey Pally tanking is damn fun too (and much easier)

IMO,

5 Mens / Seasoned Raids
Pally > Druid > Warrior

New / Large Scale Raids
Warrior > Druid > Pally