Please help - New to tanking with DPS

[knopstr]

I suck at tanking and dps'ing with my shamans and new DK tank.

Whew, now that I said it, I would like your help getting better at it.

I'm not necessarily bad at one or the other, just at both at the same time. Like a lot of you I held out with my 5 shamans for as long as I could until I realized that I needed a main tank. The adjustment period has been kind of brutal though. I'm finding that while leveling is quite easy as a DK adding in DPS while tanking can be a bit overwhelming and confusing. I've been following James' guide from wow-pro.com for just DK leveling and DPS rotation. I've been very impressed with his guide. No, I'm not a paid advertiser lol.This is my only experience with a tanking type character. I've always played DPS characters.

This is my standard DPS rotation with my DK while taking on anywhere from 1-6 mobs. I'm currently spec'd Unholy (5 0 56) atm. I throw in D&Decay and Unholy Blight depending on the fight. My DK is lvl71 and my shamans are 80.

Icy Touch --> Plague Strike --> Pestilence --> Blood Boil --> Death Strike --> Death Coil --> Death Strike --> Blood Boil --> Blood Boil --> Death Strike --> Death Coil --> Death Strike --> Blood Boil --> Blood Boil

My goal is to be able to run instances by myself as I usually am interrupted quite frequently and don't want to waste other people's time.

I understand the need to gear up my tank should be my #1 priority. At the moment, what I'm trying to do is to level her up but at the same time, have some fun running instances. Here's my armory link: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Wildhammer&n=Laydnblack

Let's say I have the following keys bound ('cause I do but am more than willing to switch); #3 "Icy Touch" #4 Plague Strike #5 Pestilence #6 Blood Boil #7 Death Strike #8 Death Coil

My initial pull for a set of mobs is usually Icy Touch or Death Grip and then the cast sequence in purple up above. What I'd like know is what others do? I'm guessing the days of sequential number mashing for tank isn't going to work while trying to get the shamans to shoot LB's and CL's and heals. I can see that if I'm trying to pull with the #3 which will cast icy touch that if I have that bound to say "Chain Lightning" on the shamans that it's going to get ugly fast. When I pull with Icy touch about 1 sec later I have 4 CL's hitting my 1st mob which usually sends all of the mobs heading for the shamans and totems and then when I try to re-establish aggro, the mobs are either mostly dead or if I do manage to get aggro back beating me down before I figure out "oh snap" I need to heal...in which case spinning up healing takes too long and tank is dead....sigh. At which point, I kill everything with the shamans and rez the tank. I've only attempted instance near Valgarde Keep and would like to try the Nexus as they're lvl 71-73. I keep thinking that I shouldn't be dying so damn fast so frequently, but yes I am.

I'm a big fan of the videos from Hachoo. I'm attempting to emulate some amount of your success, but admittedly am failing hard and fast.

Is the correct way to make pulls in the following order?

1) Maneuver team near intended target - target actual NPC - if say LB lights up as cast-able in the 4 shamans UI's then this is the point to begin making attack
2) Spread out Shaman team in say a horizontal line - throw down necessary totems
3) Pull Trash
4) Try to hold aggro and not die :)

It would be so nice to know what keys you guys have bound and what exactly you are doing that makes you so successful from a button touching experience. I realize that not every fight is the same and that there are always other factors involved.

I would love to have a fight described - say Prince K (shadow bolt/ice tomb) in UK. Chances are someone has, but I'm talking down to the minute details of when I press #3 on my tank's screen to pull what is #3 doing on the slaves. Is the best thing to set up cast sequence macros for the tank and the random cast macros for the slaves. At this point, I really only have macros established to DPS and or heal the Shamans as a group, the DK is new to the group.

Please give me your thoughts and help.

Thank you kindly and again you guys are the best.

[Hachoo]

A lot of your questions can be answered by just watching one of the videos of instance runs in the sticky at the top of this subforum. That will show you how to position, when to pull, etc.

As far as your macro, personally I would not put ANYTHING in a castsequence that relies on runic power, as if you dont have it, you will then get stuck there forever.

The first 5 in your sequence are good - I would just leave those and take the rest off (it will automatically cycle through those 5 over and over again). I also use reset=target so if I switch targets it starts back at icy touch.

Other than that, you REALLY need to put 5 points in frost for toughness - it makes a huge difference. It also helps a TON to put 5 points in bladed armor (blood tree) because it will up your attack power by a large amount which will up your threat.

[Bot]

i dont MB my dk because currently im on mb break till i get tired of solo wrath content but i do tank with my dk and i can tell you that my unholy dk's typical rotation is

DnD (and if theres a caster death grip as close to simultaneous as i can get them)>PS>IT>pestulance>rune tap (i think thats the name)>blood boil>UB
then resume standard dps rotation keeping UB and possibly DnD up if the fight is long

i open with DnD because typically in pugs the dps has gone AoE crazy lately and if i dont open with AoE threat i would inevitably lose a mob or two before i get to pest/bloodboil., but that rotation gives me substantial AoE threat and ive never lost aggro in a 5 man with that rotation. as for binds and macros when i did mb i clicked all my tanks actions (utilising some of my extra mouse buttons as hotkeys) and did dps and healing with keybinds.


edit-i thought of some more stuff

[wowphreak]

yeh could turn
Icy Touch --> Plague Strike --> Pestilence --> Blood Boil --> Death Strike --> Death Coil --> Death Strike --> Blood Boil --> Blood Boil --> Death Strike --> Death Coil --> Death Strike --> Blood Boil --> Blood Boil

into


/castrandom Death Coil
/castsequence Icy Touch, Plague Strike,Pestilence ,Blood Boil , Death Strike , Death Strike ,Blood Boil , Blood Boil , Death Strike , Death Strike , Blood Boil, Blood Boil

put that on one key
then create another cast sequence for yer other chars on the same key
that way what yeh could do is initially click on the key to get aggro then just mash the button for everyone to start dpsing

[Dorffo]

1) Maneuver team near intended target - target actual NPC - if say LB lights up as cast-able in the 4 shamans UI's then this is the point to begin making attack
Oftentimes I will setup my team about 5yds back from their max range, so I have some room to manipulate the pull if needed.



RE - keybinds / button mashing:
I have two keys bound to my tanking macro (both use same macro) and two keys bound to my dps macro on the shams - one key is shared by both, one key is unique to DPS and one is unique to tank - so I can spam my tanky key without DPSing if needed, or spam the tank/dps combo key, or click my tank abilities and spam DPS if needed.

[knopstr]

Dor....would you mind sharing your macros?

Any help at this point would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[daviddoran]

My shamans ara 63 and my DK is 62, but I basically just use /castrandom for now. Once i get higher and get the rest of my abilities, I wanna try out /click. but for now, /castrandom and rapidfire spamming works for me. I just manually add a few DK spells as needed.

At least make one button for that, and make it an emergency fallback while you figure out the ideal setup. I like panic buttons.

[Tizer]

I've just started doing heroics and managed to clear Gundrak last night. My main goal is to keep everything as simple as possible by using a few keys as i can. I'm currently only using "Q" and "E". Q is my DPS key and E being my DPS on 2 shaman and Chain Heal the MT on the other 2 shaman.

Im more keen to do the brute force approach with 4 ele shaman than i have one of them resto. Hachoo's videos are ace and i would recommend watching them!

Best advice would be to keep it simple and try not to bind too many macros away from your movement keys (WASD) in my case. :x

[shaeman]

My DK is lvl71 and my shamans are 80

I think this will be the biggest part of the problem. I suspect your DPS will be significantly outthreating your DK tank, even if you were playing it absolutely perfectly.
Get the omen threatmeter (or other) on all your toons and watch the threat your shaman are doing. This should confirm this.

I would suggest searching the forum for a dps rotation macro for the shaman.
There is a long thread by Fursphere with lots of great information.
Most importantly bind this to a key separate from any that your tank is putting out.
You can concentrate on tanking more fully and have your shamans dpsing by spamming 1 key (or can stop DPS if it looks like they are in danger of outthreating your tank).

Other than that make sure you are in frost presence on the DK. (I know I'm starting the obvious).
If you can get a full set of the cobalt gear (i think it is) for your DK (My dk is only 73 and I tanked with a couple of higher levels with that gear and did fine).

Take your DK out and have your shamans out of group and quest boost him a couple of levels (I'm sure that will make a huge difference too.

[Toned]

I currently run Prot Pally, resto sham, 3 ele shams. I am in the process in between my guild raids/2v2ing of replacing my pally for a DK. Once the DK is able to hold agro off my shamans I'll switch to 4 ele + DK. Here is what I would suggest doing you have a couple options on your key layout.

Option1: Convert your tank rotation into a single macro that you can mash, then bind a shaman dps rotation to that same button.
Then possibly have a second key that has your dk dps rotation and then your shamans with some dpsing others healing. - Down Fall to this Method = If your DK misses a spell you have to wait untill the macro cycles back through, or manually click the spell. -- I use this method currently for the paladin because they are lol easy to tank with.

Button 2 = Tank / Dps Button 5 = Tank /DPS +Heal If you run a Dedicated Healer 2= Riptide and 5 = all the ele shams just dps and the resto sham heals whoever has threat.
Rotation would be like this: 2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2 then tank is taking damage 5,5,5,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,5,5,5,2,2,2,2 etc...

Option2: Using your purple rotation and bindings you listed of like 3-8 or whatever you press. Keep your DK keys as is and then bind your shaman dps rotation macro for 3-8 or whatever you press when tanking. Then use your F1=F5 keys for healing your group ( pretty standard setup all shamans have /cast [target=whoever] lesser healing wave) Upside is you are in control of you dk rotation = more threat, down side = You have a lot of key space taken up on the shamans.

Rotation would be like 3,4,5,6,7,8 whatever else you do then hitting your heal keys accordingly. I usually recommend having F1-F5 bound for healing your group regardless of which setup you use, but then always having a heal whoever has agro button. That you can mash while dpsing /cast [target=focustargettarget] or /cast [TankName-targettarget] or /cast [Target=Targettarget] if you are keeping the mob targeted on the shamans.

Option3: Convert your tank rotation into a single macro that you mash, and then overlay it with your shaman spells. This way you are doing a manual dps rotation on your shamans while the tank is mindlessly mashing your purple tank rotation.
Example:
Shaman Keys
1 = Chain Lightning, 2 = Lightning Bolt, 3 = Lava Burst, 5= All Heal Tank-Targettarget or FocusTargetTarget (should always be the heal the tank button if you are keeping agro) 6 = Wind/Earth Shock, 9= Flame shock
DK Tank Macro bound to 1,2,3,5,9 and then mindfreeze bound to 6 (i'd assume you setup a round robin /castsequence macro or whatever you use to round robin #6).
Upside here = Higher shaman dps... DownSide = Tank Misses a spell your rotation is off /cry.

Rotation would be like this:
Single Mob: 9, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2 (if you have the haste otherwise only 3 lb's), 3, 9, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3 etc.. Any time Tank is taking more damage than you are comfortable with throw in a 5 or 2 5's.

See this thread: Utilizing /click to run concurrent castsequences ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=176062#post176062') for shaman dps rotation macros. If you want a 1 press shaman dps key.

[knopstr]

Hachoo and Toned....

I spent most of my time last night rebuilding my macros, cleaning up UI/Bt4 things and I changed my talents to be more in line with Hachoo's tank. I found that putting points as suggested by Hachoo into Bladed armor and toughness that I gained close to an additional 350-400 AP. I'm 1 bar from 72 so I'll be hitting that tonight. I'm finding that I don't miss unholy blight with the shamans backing me up.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Wildhammer&n=Laydnblack

Here's where I need help. I re-read the entire thread from Hachoo entitled "Hell yes". In it and the previous post from Toned, I think that a single button tanking and dps approach is what will work best for me.
I'm old, lazy, and usually have had a couple of glasses of vino when I'm playing.

My 1st step was to create a tanking macro. I'm just starting out, so I stuck with something easy like the following;

/castsequence Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Pestilence, Blood Boil, Death Strike

I bound this to the #1 key

I then created a /castrandom dps macro like the following (from Fur's original thread);

"Mine" /castrandom Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst, Flame Shock

********************

"Fur's" /castrandom [target=focustarget] Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst, Flame Shock


If you'll notice, mine has no "target". I use the FTL approach to boxing so I'm a bit uncertain as to what I actually need to put. I noticed right away that when I targeted something and had my tank begin her tanking macro that her spells rotated as normal and that the shamans didn't cast anything. More than likely due to the fact that I didn't give them a "target".

If I don't use "focus" what do I need to put in place in order for the shamans to actually begin firing off spells as the tank begins her sequence as both are bound to the #1 key? I don't know the identifier to place in the macro for them to target what the tank is targeting. I see in Toned's reply the following; Looks like one of these is what I'm looking for. Is the syntax correct?

That you can mash while dpsing /cast [target=focustargettarget] or /cast [TankName-targettarget] or /cast [Target=Targettarget] I bound several F# keys to handle healing for each shaman to tank, themselves, and next char in line. I feel like my healing should be ok and I can always manually /cast something should I need to. Things are finally starting to fall into place.

Please help where you can after reading my ramblings. Please be specific with examples as there are probably others who struggle with the simple details as well. Thanks as always.

[Hachoo]

I don't use FTL (never needed it) but don't you have to put the huge FTL code at the beginning of your shaman DPS macro for it to work? You know the one that goes something like:

/assist [target=ToonA,mod:ctrl,mod:alt][target=ToonB,mod:alt,nomod:ctrl] etc etc etc

? That is what will tell your shamans what to target. Otherwise if your shaman have no focus and no target you have to tell them to focus or target something before you can tell them who to attack :)

[puppychow]

you can do a /assist <nameofyourDKtank> at the beginning of your DPS macro and they will assist him. The advantage of a FTL system is that you can swap mains quickly (just by changing to a new window) and you can use your focus for assigning a "burst" target or CC target, neither is necessary for heroics. If you want to arena a lot then FTL is very good, since you can assign focus to their healer, have everyone target someone else, and then quickly swap DPS targets without the other team "knowing" until its too late.

If all you want to run are heroics, then there is no reason to do FTL (imo), just makes everything more complex and there are no situations in which you are going to have your tank die and your team keep going (in clutch times when boss is almost dead and DK dies, you can still just keep boss targeted with your dead DK and spam attack keys and hope boss dies before team does). Stick with your tank having his tanking macros, then all your DPS macros would be something like:

/assist focus OR /assist nameofDK
/castrandom etc, etc,etc

You can set focus to your tank if you ever want to have multiple tanks swap in and out, or you can just hardcode the name - doesn't really make much of a difference imo. Either way will work when you are solo too, although you will get minor UI errors that focus is empty or nameofDK is not in party.

Remember Jamba has stuff to dealing with name assignments in its macros and auto master switch when focuses are set, its powerful stuff and can be used with this. I have a prot pally and a DK tank and I swap betweem them all the time, all my DPS macros are exactly the same and I just have a single macro that assigns focus and Jamba takes care of the rest.

[knopstr]

I have the FTL system in place because I kind of act as the guild enforcer when people are getting ganked. I had it set up for 5 shamans...now I only use the 4. After I came to the forums a couple of months back it began to pique my interest on how to run instances so I gave up a shaman and picked up a DK....which is why I'm so far behind in understanding how to tank and make tank + dps rotations work at the same time.

Yes, the huge code is in place for me using BindPad addon and "hidden" keys. The advantage being that I can just drag LB to the #2 key and they will all fire LB.

Thanks again to all who reply.

[Dorffo]

assist macro:

/assist [target=dorffo,help,nodead];[target=cyraani,help,nodead];[target=cyraanii,help,nodead];[target=cyraanie,help,nodead];[target=cyraanei,help,nodead];[target=player]


follow macro: (as you can see - used to run a focus based setup, that's commented out at the moment)

/target [target=dorffo,help,nodead];[target=cyraani,help,nodead];[target=cyraanii,help,nodead];[target=cyraanie,help,nodead];[target=cyraanei,help,nodead];[target=dorffo]
#/focus target
#/assist focus
/follow
/run SetView(5);SetView(5)

trash spam:

#showtooltip lava burst
/use [combat] 13
/use [combat] 14
/cast [combat] Elemental Mastery
/castrandom Lightning Bolt,Chain Lightning #comment this line out for bosses if needed
/cast lightning bolt


spam dps key: (calls my assist macro with the first click, then the lightning bolt macro in the 2nd)

#showtooltip Lava Burst
/click MultiBarLeftButton9
/cast [mod] flame shock
/click MultiBarLeftButton10


Sham lesser healing wave macro:

#showtooltip
/cast [mod,target=focustargettarget,help,nodead,exists] lesser healing wave;[target=focustarget,help,nodead,exists] lesser healing wave;[target=focus,help,nodead,exists] lesser healing wave;





pali spam key (mapped to dps spam key):

/startattack
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast [mod] judgement of wisdom
/castrandom [combat] Hammer of Wrath, Hammer of the Righteous, Shield of Righteousness,exorcism,judgement of wisdom
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/run UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

pali pull / concescrate key:

#showtooltip
/startattack
/cast [mod:alt] Avenger's shield;
/castsequence reset=8 Holy Shield,consecration,
/castrandom judgement of light,
/script SetRaidTarget("target",8 )

[knopstr]

Awesome. Thank you Dorffo...

Concise, clear and full of useful examples.

[Toned]

I bound this to the #1 key

I then created a /castrandom dps macro like the following (from Fur's original thread);

"Mine" /castrandom Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst, Flame Shock

********************

"Fur's" /castrandom [target=focustarget] Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst, Flame Shock



This saddens me you are nerfing your own dps.
For the FTL setup and your dps macro you need to add a /click SomeRandomButton# which contains a macro to do your targeting for you, or you need to at the top of the macro:


/target [nomod,target=Toon1], [mod:ctrl, mod:alt, mod:shift, target=Toon2] etc...
/castrandom [target=targettarget] Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst, Flame Shock
/taragetlasttarget

Also I'm assuming you are using hidden buttons. Your /castrandom Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst, Flame Shock should be on each shaman on whatever slot you have it in. Then what I put should be on your hidden button.

[pinotnoir]

Just something to add. Putting your tank spam macro with your dps spam macro is the way to go. I agree what the others have said. Right now I am working on leveling my dk's They are 74 and I have 4 of them with 1 priest. My tank is speced frost and this is the macro I use. The macro is long so I needed to download macaroon. I use macaroon on my other dk's so I have enough space for their cast sequence. I have two tank macros. One macro is for single target and the other is for aoe.

Single Target Macro:

/run SetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX","0")
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Rune Strike
/cast Blood Fury
/run SetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX","1")
/startattack
/follow Focus
/castsequence [target=focustarget] reset=nocombat Plague Strike, Icy Touch, Blood Strike, Blood Strike, Obliterate, Plague Strike, Icy Touch, Obliterate, Obliterate, Frost Strike,

AOE Tank Macro:

/run SetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX","0")
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Rune Strike
/cast Blood Fury
/run SetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX","1")
/follow focus
/startattack
/castsequence [target=focustarget] reset=nocombat Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Pestilence, Howling Blast, Blood Boil, Frost Strike, Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Pestilence, Howling Blast, Blood Boil, Frost Strike

I use focus so it will be diferent than FTL setup. The good thing about macaroon is my dps DK's have their dps macro bound to key 2 and key 3. My tanks Single Target Macro is key 2. My aoe tank macro is key 3. Because I have both key 2 and 3 bound to the One DPS macro it never screws up my sequence if I am shifting from AOE tanking to Single Target Tanking. My advice to you is download macaroon and use it if you need long macros. If you have it great. I chose frost as my tank because my other dk's cover the blood aura and unholy aura. I have all the group buffs each spec dk can offer. The frost tank is very nice right now adding all the special abilities buffs and resist aura to the group. Dk's have many tank options so choose what suits your needs. Goodluck.