Results tagged “tanking” from Bitter Roots

I tanked Kara for the second or third time last night.  We did well, we got pretty much everything down that we wanted to apart from Nightbane.

 

I found myself getting very frustrated when we couldn't do it.  I'd pick him up, get threat on as fast as I could, and he'd still turn around and one-shot a DPSer or healer or I'd take a few huge hits and die.  Now... I know it's not all my fault.  I know it's not my fault that people get feared, or that they stand in the charred earth for too long, or that they're out of range or LOS.

 

But somehow it feels like it.  As a main tank and de facto leader, it feels like I'm the one that keeps failing.  I don't get that so much on my healer, and I REALLY don't get it on my DPS.  It's strange how changing the group role can affect how I feel and how the fights go so much.

 

It's easy to see why there's often a lack of tanks (and healers), because it's a lot of pressure to get it right.  As a DPS class, you just have to watch your aggro, and that's about it.  Everything else is just you, if you die it's probably because you did something wrong and you typically don't take the whole raid with you (there are exceptions, of course).  As a tank... if you pull wrong, or you stand in the wrong place, or whatever - you can wipe the raid.  As a healer, if you're not quick enough on the heals or you stand in the wrong place - you can also wipe the raid. 

 

Yet another reason why I encourage people to play all the roles.  If you know the pressure that the tanks/healers are under, even if you decide that you can't do it yourself and stick to pewpewing, you're more likely to understand what's going on and not to point the finger when something goes wrong. 

So, I've been coming to realise something over the past few days.

 

I suck in PVP as a warrior.  Oh, I can get in there and whack some people and generally make myself a nuisence, but once I have a rogue or warrior jumping around me, I'm turning in place blindly like an odd, sword-weilding spinning top. 

 

See, I use a combination of the keyboard and the mouse to move.  I use the mouse to look around and the WASD keys to actually move.  So when I need to use abilities, I then sometimes press the numbers, but usually click.  Yup.  I'm a clicker.  There, I said it.

 

When healing, I use HealBot.  I find that it lets me easily keep the tank targeted, and throw HoTs up on the rest of the raid.  In PVP, it means that I can be running around like a loon, playing "ring around the LOS breakers" or "catch the druid" and still click to heal without stopping.  I can keep somebody busy for ages by throwing some HoTs on, shifting to travel form and going madkittydashcrazy.   Toss in a cyclone or roots in there and I'm golden.

 

Even on my hunter, I'm mostly in ranged.  I can kite, using the jump-shot (run, jump-spin, shoot, finish-spin, run), which I use the mouse to move for, but it's not my prefered tactics.

 

Then you come to my warrior.  I'm sure with practice I could get the technique of running circles and spamming my hits, but I'm intending just to PVP with her for my season 1 shield.  So she gets beaten easily by those people who can do that.

 

Looking at PVE, there just aren't many situations where, as a tank, you have to run around.  Maybe Curator, chasing the flares.  Other than that, it's generally pretty small movements.  Even as a healer or ranged DPS, most battles require standing in one spot.  PVP just has rules all of it's own.

 

So, I'll continue to heal in arenas and do it well enough, but I doubt I'll be going Mortal Strike spec'd and rocking with my warrior anytime soon.  And that's okay.  I enjoy tanking, and it's always good to know your own falldowns. 

 

 

Here's something I've noticed with my own tank, and from talking to friends who have tanks.

 

Healers get better gear, their heals get better, they have more mana, it's peachy.

 

DPSers get better gear, they do more damage, they have more health, more mana, et cetera ... peachy.

 

Both roles can be fulfilled in a high-level instances or a slightly lower one.  You can go to Karazhan and then go to Mana Tombs for a friend.

 

But for tanks?  You get better gear.  You take less damage, you have way more health, you can take on tougher and tougher things.  But you go into a lower level instance in that gear and you can't tank for toffee.  Not because you're getting hit, but because you AREN'T getting hit.  So in my case, I don't generate rage, so I can't build any threat.  I'm even finding it happens in level 70 instances on normal now, especially on trash.

 

It's a problem.  I'm finding that I have to wear some of my crappy DPS backup set to be able to generate any rage.  I know that a paladin friend of mine has to do the same to be able to avoid mana starvation.

 

Solution?  I'm not sure.  Maybe make it a protection-type talent that not only do you generate rage/mana when you get hit, but you also generate it when you dodge, parry or block.  That's about all I can think of.

I spent some time on Yolana yesterday, tanking Arcatraz.  We were in there for a mage friend but I walked out with the chestpiece of the bold.  It was pretty cool though, because I went in with Airbringer, Megawatt and Daelin and a priest that we found on the LFG channel.  I've been having really good luck with PUGs lately.  When Mega and I came out of Kara on Thursday I was asked to tank an Old Hillsbrad run, and that was an amazing group.  Then not long after Yol hit 70 I went to Botanica with one friend and three PUG'ers, and that was GREAT. 

 

I've found that putting together a PUG on a tank feels better to me.  As a tank you have a lot of control over the group... generally you're the one marking things, you do the pulling (unless you have an over-enthusiastic DPS/CC'er) and so you're setting the pace.  As a healer you just kinda stay behind the rest and drink a lot, hoping the tank doesn't pull when you're on 10% mana. 

 

I then spent some time with Megawatt on his newly-respecced level 65 resto druid.  He'd been levelling with his wife who plays a holy priest, so he has pretty much no healing gear right now.  I forsee many instance runs this week.  I spent a happy half an hour or so going over the theories and practices of healing as a resto druid (lifebloom, lifebloom, lifebloom, rejuv, regrowth, lifebloom, repeat until sick). 

 

Once he gets this character to 70, he'll join me and a few of our other friends in having the "Holy Trio" of characters - a tank, a DPS and a healer.

 

I've mentioned before, but I really love having the three characters.  It also works incredibly well when we want to do an instance, because we can fill in those three roles between us and then take pretty much anyone for the other two spots.  Admosmori also has a healer and is working on a tank, and so are a few of my other friends.  Admittedly, sometimes it leads to alt-itis where the individual characters suffer because you're spreading the time too thin, but I think around 3 is the magic number. 

 

Of course, I'm aiming to get my currently-63 warlock up to 70 at some point soonish, just because I want to rock the raiding damage meters, but we won't talk about that right now.

 

Big bugger, ain't he?  There's a picture of me tanking Prince for the first time.  Well, technically the third time (The first time I accidently pulled him before we were ready, second time I got an infernal dropped a bit too close).  Now that was a scary fight, especially in stage 2.  My health was going up and down like a kangaroo in the mating season.  It was scarier than when I heal it.  Not to mention that I nearly wet myself when we misdirect-pulled him and I saw him thundering towards me.  EEK.

 

I found Shade of Aran a lot harder to tank than to heal.  I couldn't see what was going on nearly as much as when I'm bouncing around the edge like a deranged chipmunk on the Shade Carousel.  Like the magnetic pull thing he does, the last time he did it I didn't even notice, I was too busy watching my cooldowns.  Getting thrown up in the air was kinda fun, though.  Thank goodness for a recently popped shield wall.

 

I did some exploring in Karazhan yesterday too.  I'd never been up the stairs behind Attumen before.  It's an alternate route to Moroes, but I don't think it would be worth it unless you were going in just to go to him and no further, because you'd still have to clear all the stuff between him and Opera/Maiden.

 

I did find some cool stuff back there though, like a locked door marked "Sergeant's Quarters" and a Sergeant-At-Arms Bennett (For anyone who doesn't know, Bennett is my RL surname). 

 

I love running around Kara when it's cleared.  If you've not tried it, you should.  Once you get past the library it can be a pain, because Illhoof and Netherspite's stuff respawns if you don't clear them.  Even just looking at the architecture between the front door and the library is worth it, though.  It's amazingly well designed.

 

 

So, last night I main tanked in Karazhan for the first time.  It was one of the scariest things I've ever done in WoW.  During the pulls to Attumen, my hands were shaking.  It took me until Moroes to calm down and start enjoying it.  I've been to Kara X amount of times, but mostly as a healer and occasionally a DPS, so I just don't know it from the front, so to speak.  It also helped that I had great healers and damage-dealers backing me up, and my co-raid leader was in there to help me with the marking.

 

I do have to say ... Tanking Curator was far easier than damaging or healing in that fight.  All I had to do was stand in one place and generate hate.  It was very nice not to have to worry about the flares.

 

Personally, I think that the more roles you can play in a game, the better you become at it.  I'd reccommend anyone to try tanking or healing if all they've done is DPS, just because it gives you such a different scope on WoW.  I find that because I've tanked, I watch my aggro.  Because I've healed, I watch my line of sight.  Because I've damaged/crowd controlled, I know where to pull things to.  Being a different role in a group situation is almost like you're playing a different game.

Time for my most recent level 70, my Draenei.

 

 

Name: Yolana

Age: Around 50.

 

Background:

 

Yolana lived with her family in Shattrath City, studying along with many of her age as a servent of the Light.  To her continuing distress, she displayed little aptitude for any type of magic, although her skill with a variety of weapons was undisputed.  Because of this "handicap" as her family saw it, she seldom left the city and never took part in any fighting, even sparring.  Yolana looked up to her older brother, Admosmori, who was a gifted weilder of arcane forces. 

 

Things proceeded quietly until the corruption of the orcs and the attack of Shattrath City.  Yolana, Admosmori and two of their brothers escaped the slaughter, but most of their family were killed.  They went into hiding with the rest of the Draenei, until the prophet Valen led his followers to take the Exodar and travel to the continent of Kalimdor.  Yolana joined the parties that turned the crashed ship into a new home, while Admosmori left to learn the art of shamanism and to fight against the demonic forces in their old home.

 

To her surprise, Yolana learned that the elves of their new home did not revere magic in the same way as her people.  She trained with the Sentinels of Darnassus and then travelled to the Eastern Kingdoms and there continued her pursuit of the techniques that the humans, dwarves and gnomes could teach her.

 

The road was long and hard, adapting to a new place and new people.  Yolana explored as much of this new world as she could, venturing into the depths of ruined temples and the heights of snowy mountains, learning how best to fight against the magic-users and demons that threatened this world as well as her own.

 

The Draenei aquired many new scars, but eventually she saddled her steed, a horse that she had been given by a greatful farmer of Elwynn forest, and she travelled to the blasted lands to pass through the opened portal.

 

When she saw the devastation that had been wreaked on the once-beautiful world, Yolana threw herself into the fight.  She travelled to the reconstructed Shattrath city and allied herself with the Sha'tar. 

 

While in Shadowmoon Valley with a druid she had befriended, Yolana was almost overcome by a pack of fire elementals.  Just as the two of them were about to fall, the elementals were struck by a storm of lightning and destroyed.  To her surprise, their savior was her own brother, Admosmori.  Impressed by her swift progress and abilities, Admos allowed his sister to join him in the fight, and the two of them now battle side by side along with their other allies.

 

OOC Background:

 

Yolana is my third 70.  I started her to try out being a warrior, and because I wanted to have a tanking class along with my healer and DPS.  I levelled her as MS/prot (I liked being able to solo, but also being able to strap on a shield and tank) and ended up respeccing to full protection at level 69, when I tanked Shadow Lab for my Kara key piece.  Since then I've not looked back.  Devastate and shield slam are just delicious for building hate.  I have to admit that the temptation to go to a PVP spec and rock the BGs appeals to me, though.

 

Why a Draenei?  Well, I always loved the look and feel of the new races.  Most draenei at level 70 are shamen, and I wanted something different.  I also already have two elves at level 70, two humans at mid-to-high levels and I find dwarves and gnomes hard to play because of the low perspective of their heights.  Playing a draenei female warrior makes me feel incredibly heroic, too.  Even if she does squeak too much when she gets hit.

 

I'm about ready to begin tanking in Karazhan with her, and I'm hoping to gear her up as one of our tanks.  We don't have many warriors in the guild that raid.  I'm still considering her as a DPS warrior, but right now I prefer tanking.  

My dearest Devastate,

 

Since mine eyes first beheld thy wonderous visage, my life hath remained enraptured by thy countenance.  I could not have hoped to contemplate thy skill in gargantuan building of threat.  Nor didst I believe that, even when lonesome, thy uses would be many.  While thou knowest that mine affections are shared by thy brother, Shield Slam, my greatest love wilst always be thine.

Yours forever,

 

Yolana.