Tanking Questions

[alcattle]

First, is tank the hardest role to play in WoW? I can deeppeess any herioc with my hunter, granted with better gear, but my DK is very hard. Seems like you have a lot more to watch when tanking.

Which class is easiest to tank with, either solo or boxing? I am specc'ed Frost DK and there are 6-7 things to watch in rotation besides watching the mobs like all tanks have to do.

[Seldum]

I think alot of people will say paladins is easiest to tank with?

Anyway, I use a druid tank and I'm quite fond of that.

[Mokoi]

Umm.. no healing is probably a lot harder.

A Paladin is a joke, just spam a castsequence and don't ever worry about it. I DC'd on Jarraxus in ToGC10 today and held aggro for over 60 seconds while DCd lol

Bears have a lot of aoe tanking and kick ass.

A DK just need to silence and DG things to him and then /lol his abilities all day while death striking and buffing his group with awesome.

Warriors suck.

=)

/love Fenril

[Svpernova09]

Paladins are the easiest, followed by bears. DKs are probably the hardest, and DKs seem to take a lot more damage than other tanks.

[Seldum]

I can't help but thinking.

A plate wearer which can cast spells hmmm OP :D

[crowdx]

I initially tried a DK as a tank with my original 5 man team and it was way harder than a pally tank, when I moved to the pally it felt like eazimode.
I would like to try my DK again later but as was stated there is a lot more rotations etc to watch for with a DK and he also seemed to take a ton of damage compared to a pally.

[Drizzit]

seldum, how do you tank with your bear (like rotation). Going for my badge gear for tanking next.

[VonHenry]

My main toon, before 5 boxing, is an 80DK. I've run DW Frost DPS, Unholy 2H DPS, Unholy PvP, and Frost Tanking (Both DW and 2H). So, please hear me when I say:

Run. Run fast and far away from DK Tanks! They are okay to solo, but still maybe the hardest tank to solo well. I can't even fathom trying to MBox with them as a Tank personally. The biggest is reason is they take damage in spikes (whereas a druid is a bit more smooth in taking damage IMO). You'll spend WAY too much time focusing on keeping a DK healed than other tasks.

As others have mentioned the Pally is so easy to tank with. You really CAN just macro spam 1 button and do just fine.

Lastly, I agree that healing is trickier/harder than tanking. With tanking, once you get the mechanics down, they are pretty much the same from there on out; now and then you'll have to learn a fight, but not a lot changes. It's about situational awareness, and reaction if things go awry (aggro moves, etc). Healing is situational awareness and prediction. If you are healing people based on "reaction", likely you're wiping groups, especially if you have a DK tanking ;)

My 2 cents, your mileage may vary.

[outdrsyguy1]

pally's are the bomb for tanks. I started with DK, hated it, pally was ezmode. Go pally to learn all this stuff, you won't regret it. I also have druid tank which is decent ( i just basically geared him in a full deadly pvp set and he does fine for the most part).

[Bigfish]

My personal take on tanking difficulty is, from easiest to hardest, Paladin>Druid>Warrior>DK, though I only have a Pally and DK I tank with. DKs are hard because they don't really have much of a rotation going for them. Its doable, but not simple or ideal.

Healers are much worse though, because everying does damage a little differently, and with other people, they have varying degrees of how smart they are about taking damage.

[Jayne]

Just keeping up running along with some of the PuG tanks is a fecking hassle as a healer or DPS xD

[kadaan]

My original team was with a Feral Druid tank, but I switched to Balance/Resto for raiding so I started a DK and now tank with it in Blood spec. I find it much easier (and more fun) than bear tanking.

My bear tank macro was:
/castsequence reset=combat Mangle (Bear), Swipe, Swipe, Swipe
/cast !Maul

I started out with one for trash and one with lacerate instead of swipe for bosses, but never had threat issues with swipe so just left it.

Pros:
- Health pool was higher (~50k vs my DK's 40k)
- AE taunt
- Didn't have to make sure I was defense capped


My DK tank macro is:
/castsequence reset=combat Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Pestilence, Death Strike, Heart Strike, Death Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike
/cast !Rune Strike

Pros:
- Death Grip is an AWESOME tool to have to pull casters in, one thing I hated as a bear tank. D&D is also great on pulls, and D&D+Pestilence is better AE threat AND damage than swipe.
- Heart strike hits 2 targets, so it's almost as good as the maul glyph.
- The extra healing from Death Strike is very nice for boxers. Mine currently heals for 5-6k every ~5 seconds. On bosses that don't hit too hard, it's enough to keep my tank healed without any direct healing.

[Ualaa]

A question on the !Maul and !Rune Strike keys.

In my paladin macro:
/cast [mounted] !Crusader Aura
/cast [nomount] !Retribution Aura

The !Aura, will be cast once and never again, until the mounted/nomounted condition changes.
I can push the macro 10 times in succession, and it is only the one cast.

Does that mean, you want a single Maul or Rune Strike?
Or in the case of combat abilities, does it mean you will push it once and it won't turn off.
And then after having hit, another push will turn it on again?

[thinus]

A question on the !Maul and !Rune Strike keys.

In my paladin macro:
/cast [mounted] !Crusader Aura
/cast [nomount] !Retribution Aura

The !Aura, will be cast once and never again, until the mounted/nomounted condition changes.
I can push the macro 10 times in succession, and it is only the one cast.

Does that mean, you want a single Maul or Rune Strike?
Or in the case of combat abilities, does it mean you will push it once and it won't turn off.
And then after having hit, another push will turn it on again?

!Rune Strike - this is a left over from when Rune Strike was a toggle. It isn't a toggle anymore and the ! shouldn't be there really.

[Ualaa]

How about with Maul?
Does that mean you get one maul and that is it?
Or it won't unpress the button before it finishes, but that you can maul several times in one fight?

[thinus]

With both Rune Strike and Maul the abilties used to affect the next melee swing. I don't think that this is still the case. When it affected the next swing the ability was a toggle and the ! was necessary to prevent the ability from being toggled on and then off if you hit the macro twice before your next melee swing.

I am fairly certain that this is no longer the case with Rune Strike, not sure about Maul.

[thinus]

/cast [mounted] !Crusader Aura
/cast [nomount] !Retribution Aura

The !Aura, will be cast once and never again, until the mounted/nomounted condition changes.
I can push the macro 10 times in succession, and it is only the one cast.

I don't think it has anything to do with the changing of your mounted/nomounted state. Try the following:
- mount up and run the macro above
- manually change your Aura to Ret by clicking it
- run the macro again

Does your aura change back to Crusader? The ! will check if the aura is active, if it is then it does nothing, if it is not then it makes the aura active. The mounted/nomounted state is just for you to control which aura you want to be active but does not in essence affect the behaviour of the !.

With Maul and Rune Strike the idea is the same. The ! makes Maul / Rune Strike active so it will trigger on the next melee swing and the ! will prevent setting these abilities back to inactive if the command is triggered again before the next melee swing.

But...

I don't think it is necessary, it might have been at some stage but I don't think that is the case today. As far as I know.

[Ualaa]

That makes sense, thanks.

If I change to a non Crusader Aura, while mounted.
Pressing the macro switches back to Crusader.

Checking if the key is active, makes sense.
With maul, it is supposed to increase the damage of your next melee swing.
But if it is pressed again before the swing occurs, it doesn't usually maul.
I'll mess around with including !Maul in the bear sequence.

I've decided to switch the Balance to Ferals.
And am building macros and adapting my IS Boxer configuration to melee.
Ideally have bear/cat moves on the same hotkeys which work well together.
And a toggle, to switch between either form on a per toon basis.
Cat is the dps, but bear is nice when you are focused by melee.
Anyway, tweaking macros today..

Thanks for the input.

[mmmbox]

Honestly i think DPS is the hardest.

you can get by as a crapy tank as long as you have the gear, you can get by as a crappy healer as long as you at least heal.

But as a crappy dps you will get fired ASAP from any raid.

in ICC you can get by with both average healers and tanks, but if your DPS suck then all encounters will become a pita.

Tho my experience is limited as to having played tank, healer and dps in ICC 10

[alcattle]

I agree in one way, once you can hold aggro, you have done your job. Healing varies with the damage and threat, and how many times you have to change targets. Dps can put out enough DPS or they fail. Is it harder to put out more DPS? Not really, doing things right and having a good gear level will raise your DPS. I guess my point is starting out, what is hardest? Gear and skill Level my toons are close, but the tank cannot run most regular dungeons and the hunter has done most of the heriocs.

[Svpernova09]

A question on the !Maul and !Rune Strike keys.

In my paladin macro:
/cast [mounted] !Crusader Aura
/cast [nomount] !Retribution Aura

The !Aura, will be cast once and never again, until the mounted/nomounted condition changes.
I can push the macro 10 times in succession, and it is only the one cast.

Does that mean, you want a single Maul or Rune Strike?
Or in the case of combat abilities, does it mean you will push it once and it won't turn off.
And then after having hit, another push will turn it on again?


!Rune Strike - this is a left over from when Rune Strike was a toggle. It isn't a toggle anymore and the ! shouldn't be there really.


Same for Maul, !Maul does absolutely nothing now that Maul is not canceled by any other ability.

[Multibocks]

Paladins ftw, although I have been tanking ICC25 raids with my DK and i've gotten pretty good with it. DK tanks are a strange breed, but honestly you can go to pwnwear.com and check the rotation and write a castsequence for them. Why? Well their rotations are usally long, but if an ability fails to connect you just go to the next strike anyways. Never had aggro problems with it. although tanking has turned easymode since the days of aggro management.

[Jheusse]

That makes sense, thanks.

If I change to a non Crusader Aura, while mounted.
Pressing the macro switches back to Crusader.

Checking if the key is active, makes sense.
With maul, it is supposed to increase the damage of your next melee swing.
But if it is pressed again before the swing occurs, it doesn't usually maul.
I'll mess around with including !Maul in the bear sequence.

I've decided to switch the Balance to Ferals.
And am building macros and adapting my IS Boxer configuration to melee.
Ideally have bear/cat moves on the same hotkeys which work well together.
And a toggle, to switch between either form on a per toon basis.
Cat is the dps, but bear is nice when you are focused by melee.
Anyway, tweaking macros today..

Thanks for the input.


Dammit ualaa you're making me go "Hmmm"

While the traditional pally/shammy team is leveling I also have 4 L60 boomkins on my alt accounts gathering dust.
My main has an ICC geared feral on it.

You're making me wonder how fast the bear could boost the kids and run them as feral. Also wonder how much healing procs the 5 of them would generate (my raiding cat runs about 60% crit and not far off in bear).

Biggest barrier to druid multi for me is the shifting management and how that echos through quickbars, especially since I've used Dominos to have 2 separate bars that follow the shift state (1 thru = and Shift1 thru shift=).

Worthwhile project I'll be interested in how it turns out.

[Svpernova09]

Biggest barrier to druid multi for me is the shifting management and how that echos through quickbars, especially since I've used Dominos to have 2 separate bars that follow the shift state (1 thru = and Shift1 thru shift=).

Worthwhile project I'll be interested in how it turns out.


If you're tanking in bearform and you shift out. It means you just died. There really isn't much reason to shift out (unless you need to dash to something and charge is on CD when you aren't tanking, or when your not tanking and you absolutely must innervate someone)

[Jayne]

If you're tanking in bearform and you shift out. It means you just died. There really isn't much reason to shift out (unless you need to dash to something and charge is on CD when you aren't tanking, or when your not tanking and you absolutely must innervate someone)

Ooo so true. Memories: First time doing heroic Utgarde Pinnacle with my team... Fire a few harpoons, get him down and then... o' shit forgot to switch to bear form again. Dead. Happy days - though I still sometimes forget it! :D

[Catamer]

I vote pally->bear as the two easiest, and lets face it the most versatile.
if you choose not be a tank you can easily dual spec and a great healer.

Pally generate threat by just standing there and letting stuff beat on them.
Warriors need too much micro management, they require procs and or combos.
DKs are fun but they can't use a shield.

[Jheusse]

If you're tanking in bearform and you shift out. It means you just died. There really isn't much reason to shift out (unless you need to dash to something and charge is on CD when you aren't tanking, or when your not tanking and you absolutely must innervate someone)

Yeah ain't that the truth. From old memories of trying to time the bearpot macro in TBC to shift out and pot between boss swings (this was before you could potion or use items without shifting out).

More looking at the slaves than the tank, he's got the simplest job in the world. But if the kitty slaves need to drop some hots on the bear or travelform hightail it or even "oops I critted too much time to bear up", there's just a lot of potential configurations.

At the end of the day I don't think it'll matter too much to my guys, since the raiding feral will outthreat the snot out of the other 4 for a long long time and likely will do bear form and spec in cat gear until at least the HoR level instances. And though my pally is questing/instancing at level with his shammies, the bear would be flatly boosting the baby kitties.

Definitely keep us advised.

Oh and to the original post, no doubt at all that paladin is the easiest tank to play/box, and I agree with the druid being second. The one button pally tanking macro is at least 4 different places on this site, and super's one button bear tanking macro is in the macro compendium, which he used to tank through ulduar when it was current content.

[alcattle]

So I guess the question now is, is DK too hard to learn tanking or do I just sux, and stick with the Huntard

[Jheusse]

NO such thing as too hard.

Only question is where your personal valuation of headache vs. payoff falls.

DK has greater learning curve and configuration to effectively tank the referenced content compared to a paladin or a bear.

But a DK can do it, people have done it with multibox.

It's just a matter of whether your tolerance for the tinkering phase to get proficient is high enough, or you just want to go smack things.

[Steph]

I play all four tank classes and have all in raid-shape (4.7-5.6k gearscore).

For a multiboxer, I'd recommend a bear tank. No question about it. Here is why:
- SWIPE: 360 degree spammable aoe that moves with you.
(hammer hits only stuff in front of you, consecration and dnd stay in place. shockwave is only frontal cone).

You simply have less attention needed for targetting of mobs, planning your tanking spots and the like. That is quite handy when you may be distracted by dpsing and healing =]

[alcattle]

Good Points. I see the biggest challenge I face is picking up trash quickly. The bosses are only hard when I have to watch health, which I then have to change strikes I use. The last fail was in HoL I think, you walk into a room of frozen mobs and then they just start running at the group, 4-5 at a time. Maybe there is a better way than going all the way in, but that wipe and I got kicked. I am getting better, even killed Chillmaw today. I will try to work on the Feral group, which has it's own challenges.

[Seldum]

I have a simple tanking macro (at some point I need to redo this) on "2", and have a separate key for swipe "1".

And thats it actually. Then ofcause I have a seperate key for the taunt ability etc. but the main key "2" which is also the dps key for my boomkins is the one I use the most.