5 Things Your PuG Tank Wants You To Know …

… and one more thing that your paladin tank really wants you to know!

1.  The better my gear gets, the harder it becomes to tank heroics.  

I realize this seems counter-intuitive.  It has to do with resource management: warrior and druid tanks generate rage from damage, while paladins convert healing into mana via Spiritual Attunement.  (And you thought warlocks were emo?  :p)  As our gear improves, we are able to avoid more and more incoming damage.  Although this is a boon to our survivability, it can be debilitating to our rage or mana (re)gen.

Watch my power bar.  If it’s just a little sliver of red, then I’m rage-starved.  If it’s just a little sliver of blue, then I’m perilously low on mana.  Either way, I’m struggling to maintain my rotation and therefore to build threat.  Give me a two-second head start before you charge into melee range and start Whirlwinding.  Or Divine Storming.  Or FoKing.

On second thought, don’t FoK at all.  This is a T-rated game. 

Also: if my power bar is light blue, then kindly disregard this advice.  I’m a Death Knight, and you can simply /follow me through the instance while I— ...GET OVER HERE! 

2.  The better your gear gets, the harder it becomes to tank heroics. 

I may be running on fumes, but you have enough mana to flood Desolace and more energy than a gnome on Noggenfogger.  Reinstall Omen, dust off your long-neglected aggro dump (that’s Soul Shatter for warlocks, Iceblock for mages, Feign Death for hunters and Death for everyone else) (Vanish never works!) and maybe even toss me a Misdirect every now and then?  Please?  *puppy-dog eyes*

3.  You don’t need to have a full mana bar when I pull the next pack.

If you’re my healer, then rest assured: I’m watching your mana bar even more closely than I’m watching mine.  I won’t pull if you’re empty, but I’m not going to wait for you to drink to full before every trash pack, either.  Unless the DPS are trying to stand in The Bad® or get themselves cleaved, it’s just not necessary.  (And if they are, remember: it’s their own damned fault!) 

If you’re feeling a little light-headed, sit down and have a sip.  I’ll charge ahead — and I promise: I’ll be fine on my own for the few seconds it takes for you to take the edge off. 

If you’re DPS, then … well.  >.>  To be perfectly honest, I’m leaving you behind on purpose.  Sorry about that.  It’s just that if you’re conveniently out of range or mana when I pull the next mob, then I’ll have a few precious seconds to build threat before you come ‘round to peel it off me.

 4.  I get lost a lot, especially in the Old Kingdom. 

Sorry!

 5.  If I am attempting to Line of Sight ("LoS") a pack of trash mobs around a corner or into an alcove or another room, either stand back and do nothing… or simply stack on me. 

This is especially true in Halls of Reflection.  In order for me to LoS a mob, it has to be hating on me.   If you try to smack it with a sword or spell before it’s where I want it to be, then it will turn around and eat. your. face.  (Or, more likely — since I can’t imagine a scenario in which I’d be LoSing melee mobs — shove a fireball down your throat, which is even more unpleasant.) 

Just stack on me.  We can pretend we like each other for the few seconds it takes for the mobs to stagger into position after I’ve gotten their attention with my Divine Frisbee of Avenging Righteousness. 

 6.  This one is paladin specific, but important: Divine Plea has a 60 second cooldown and a 15 second duration.

Glyphed and talented, Divine Plea not only reduces incoming damage by 3%, but also returns 25% of my maximum mana over 15 seconds.  While the damage reduction is a nice-to-have, the mana regen is a HAVE-TO-HAVE.  That's not one but two capital HAVE's (which may actually make one capital WHOLE.  But who's counting?)

Hitting things refreshes Divine Plea, so — hypothetically — I can keep it up for the entire run, returning a fair bit of mana as I’m catapulting myself like an unhittable elven cannonball through packs of rampaging geists.

Of course, this assumes no breaks in combat for less than 15 seconds at a time …

Guys?  This is why I chain pull.  (Until I get lost.  See #4 above.) 

This is also why I’m going to ignore any silly “These are my rules…” macro you might spam at me.  See, you may think it’s “common courtesy” for me to wait patiently while you rummage around in your bags for a piece of stale strudel; dust it off on your robes; take a small, ladylike bite; comb your hair; summon three non-combat pets until you find one that perfectly reflects your current emotional state like a walking, talking emoting Facebook status; and then finally — FINALLY! — deign to click Yes to your own /readycheck.

Um, no.  “Common courtesy” is completing the run quickly and efficiently, with minimal loss of life (unless it’s a rogue’s, of course), a few pleasantries and two Emblems of Frost for the road.  (But I'm sure your hair and your strudel and your two-headed dog are very nice, too!)

*  *  *

This post is dedicated to Keaton, who loves me enough not to say "I told you so."

Circle of Tanks: Failtank Edition

Dämmerung of Children of Wrath has created a tanking version of Miss Medicina's wildly popular Circle of Healers meme — and, lo and behold, he tagged me! 

I was initially excited by the prospect of laying my healing helm aside for a few minutes and donning my tanking hat (even though I never show it in-game; with hair like mine, would you?), but as I sat down to fill it out, I realized something:

I'm a healer.

(Hi, my name is: Mistress of the Obvious...)

I may moonlight as a petite meatshield in color-coordinated plate, but my true passion is healing — and not with Bacon, either! 

With water balloons. 

And lasers.

Suffice it to say, the tanking version of the survey was a lot harder for me to complete than the healing-themed original.  I really had to think about my answers — and occasionally cheat seek inspiration in my feedreader as I scoured tankadin blogs for insight.

In the end, I decided not to pretend like I knew I was doing and just answer honestly.  Failtank mode, engaged!

* What is the name, class, and spec of your primary tank?
Larissyn is my adorable red-headed pixie of a protection paladin, currently specced 0/53/18. 

* What is your usual tanking environment?
10-man raids and 5-man heroics.  I've MT'd VoA 25 a time or three, but that's the extent of my 25-man tanking experience.  A healer at heart, I just don't have the confidence to tank PuG 25's; I need a little more in-guild experience under my Indestructible Plate Girdle first.  (WTB alt ToC25, PST.)

* What is your favorite encounter to tank, and why?
Off-tank duty on Ignis is a blast!  Surreality favors what we've come to call the "Zaiko Manuever," in honor of the Death Knight tank who didn't realize that he had to kite molten constructs into water.  My job is simply to pick up the constructs as they spawn and hold them — for the entire duration of the fight.  I've had as many as six or seven beating on me at once!  /flex

... I know this is a lame answer.  I'm sorry.  ;.;  Keep in mind that it's coming from someone who raided as a warlock throughout The Burning Crusade and died every time a boss so much blinked in her general direction.  The sheer novelty of surviving has yet to wear off.  D:

* What is your least favorite encounter to tank, and why?
The Beasts of Northrend, because I can never remember which jormunger is Acidmaw and which is Dreadscale.  I've caused more than one wipe on this fight because of my, uh, "selective" memory.  (Sorry Forrest!)  >.< 

... Actually, while writing this, I came up with a pitiful little mnemonic: Dreadscale is the Jormunger I dread tanking (see what I did there?), because the added responsibility of freeing paralyzed raiders whenever I'm afflicted with Burning Bile intimidates me. 

* What do you think is the biggest strength of your class, and why?
I think it was Ghostcrawler who described facing a pladin as a three-phase fight, and it's true (or will be until 3.3).  I absolutely love being the last Elf standing when the fight has gone to hell and everyone around me is asploding in flames — sometimes literally.  Moar wipes?  Yes, please!  

* What do you think is the biggest weakness of your class, and why?
Warriors have intercept.  Druids have feral charge.  Death Knights have GETOVERHERENAO!
Paladins have overly expressive ears that droop when we cry or pout.

/pout

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel is the best tanking assignment for you?
Alas, the only 25-man raid I've tanked is VoA. Failtank is fail.

In 10's, I'm often on off-tank duty — which I actually really enjoy, because off-tanking is often more interesting than main-tanking. I love OTing fights like Lord Jaraxxus, because even though I don't have a super-cool gap closer like SOME CLASSES I COULD MENTION /glare, I'd still rather go Hand of Reckoning!, Avenger's Shield!, Hand of Reckoning! and nom on some fel fire elementals.  It beats standing in one spot and repeatedly shield slamming eredar ankles.

* What tanking class do you enjoy tanking with the most?
Feral druids.  In part because my fiance plays one, and tanking with him is fun (when it isn't incredibly stressful, because he still hasn't learned how to read my mind.  Get on that.  Please.).  But mostly because I know I'll get first dibs on tanking plate.

Tangential aside: Dämmerung thinks that druids make poor tanking companions because the class's iconic abilities (battle rezz and Innervate foremost among them) can't be used in feral forms.  This is true; they can't be.  But the inherent limitation has given rise to a whole new class of druid tank called Hero Bear®.  Hero Bears can drop out of form, cast Rebirth or Innervate and go bear again while main-tanking a raid boss.  It takes precise timing to expend the GCD inside of the boss's swing timer, but it can be done.  I've been on the receiving end of more than one such Innervate or battle rezz.  (Thanks, bear. <3)

What is your worst habit as a tank?
Even with 4pt9, I am far too conservative with my cooldowns — to the point that, in the heat of battle, I occasionally forget I have them until after I accept the out of combat rezz ...

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while tanking?
DPS who refuse to follow kill order and then scream at me when I let a stray mob chew on their face. "Oh, I thought you wanted to tank that one?  Teehee." /bats eyes

* Do you feel your class/spec is balanced with respect to the other tanking classes?
I don't know much about the other tank classes, to be honest.  I can tell you that from a healer's perspective, no tank is easier to heal than a well-geared prot paladin.  My earth shield has solo healed Eanin through many an Oculus run (pre-nerf, no less!).

* What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a tank?
This deserves a flow chart.  Amber's collecting submissions, right?

* What do you think is the biggest misconception that people have with your tanking class?
That it's easy to take a beating day in and day out and still look this. good.  Also, what he said.  (Basically, that paladins are no longer the AoE add tanks that they were back in TBC.  No one does AoE snap aggro better than a protection warrior — no matter how much our resident corpse-turned-cow complains about it.)

* What do you think is the toughest thing for new players of your class to learn about tanking?
 How and when to use all of the tools in our arsenal outside of the 969 rotation.  I'm not going to lie: I tank-by-macro, with my 9 abilities keybound to S and my 6 abilities keybound to S.  Tanking looks a lot like this: "SDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSD."  I'm still not comfortable using my other skills in a raid environment.  (Case in point: I had to open my spellbook mid-fight when our mage called for Hand of Salvation.  /shameface)

* If someone were to evaluate your tanking ability via tools like fraps, recount, and World of Logs, what tendencies would they notice?
Unfortunate (and embarassing!) periods of downtime, when I'm hopping around like a tree druid and trying to figure out what I do next.  "Oh, oh, my add is dead!  Should I go whack on Big Bad's shins a bit?  Or just stand here and wait for the next Little Bad to spawn?"  *looks around*  "I know!  I'll refresh Judgement of Ligh— ooo, look, my reflection in my sword!  Is that hair out of place?!"

Stamina or Avoidance, and why?
Stamina.

* Which tanking class do you understand the least?
Warriors.  I have a level 80 druid and a level 69 death knight, both of whom have tanked at some point in their (admittedly limited) WoW careers.  But I haven't the slightest clue what warriors do, other than stand around glowering and looking stern (or huggable, in Linedan's case, but I have a thing for Tauren males).

* What addons or macros do you currently use to aid you in tanking?
You mean, besides SDSDSDSDSD ... >.>  Grid, believe it or not.  I use Grid to see who other than me has aggro and clique to cast Righteous Defense.  It really helps with the pick up.  Also, the usuals: Omen, Recount, DBM and PALLYPOWER.  (Dear PuG Pallies without PallyPower, H8.)

* Do you strive for a balance in tanking stats, or do you stack some higher than others, and why?
I stack stamina, first and foremost.  Then avoidance stats, then hit — although I'm sorely lacking in the hit department right now.  I would love to be a serious enough tank to have separate EH and BV sets, but ... alas!  I'm just not that hardcore into plate . (Leather, now...)

Oh, we're done?  Okay, on to the tag: Keaton.  (If you can't remember the password to your blog, at least answer in the comments.  If you love me.  But no pressure!)

To my fellow paladin tanks …

To my fellow paladin tanks,

Just because we can tank and heal doesn't mean we should tank and heal at the same time. 

There are a whole host of reasons that this is a bad idea:

1. It's rude.  If you want to solo the instance, solo the instance!  Otherwise, trust your healer to do her job before you end up on her blacklist, which I guarantee she shares with other healers of her acquaintance.  Every server has an underground chapter of the Angry Healers' Club, and woe to you if you become known in AHC circles as That Tank®.
2. It's counter-productive.  You see, when we're casting, we're not blocking.  And when we're not blocking, we're taking huge amounts of unnecessary damage — so while you may think you're "helping" your healer with those Flash of Lights, what you're actually doing is making her life much harder than it needs to be.  
3. Two words: Divine Plea.  In addition to wasting your healer's mana (which is a precious, precious commodity), you're also wasting yours, first by expending it unnecessarily, and then again by failing to keep Divine Plea active.  (You do have Divine Plea glyphed, don't you?  If so, you're losing the 3% damage reduction, too.  See #2 above.)
4. Did I mention its rude?  Because it is.  If you don't have faith in a healer — especially for some asinine reason, like "she's not a druid" — then don't group with her.  Chances are, you'll be doing both of you a favor.

If you have ever tapped into your holy side, then you may be aware of the healer's mantra:

WE CAN'T HEAL STUPID.

Healers are fond of saying can't, but won't is often closer to the truth.  Either way, you're still dead.  And stupid.

Please, don't be stupid. 

Love,
Larissyn

You Have To Have Balls.

When I first started hinting to my friends that I might like to try my hand at tanking, their reactions ranged from supportive to skeptical to downright derisive. 

I appreciated the support, of course.  I even understood the skepticism.

As for the derision?  Totally warranted. 

As I may have mentioned a time or two before, my spatial and situational awareness leave a lot to be desired.  Like, a lot a lot.  Liluye doesn’t even bother to warn me (in her low and oh-so sultry Tauren voice) when we’re out of range or facing the wrong way anymore: she just sighs and summons her fire elemental, who — in spite of his unfortunate predilection for targeting the raid boss two zones over — makes me look like a virtual bloodhound.

Suffice it to say: I’m a disaster in melee range.  Not an “oh, was that a tremor? in Southern California” disaster, either.  I’m talking a full-blown, off-the-Richter-scale earthquake, followed by a tsunami the likes of which it would take an ark (or alien intervention) to survive.

That’s why I play a warlock.  And a resto shaman.  And quite possibly a critchicken, if I can come to terms with that ungainly waddle.

I'm comfortable at range.  It's where I belong.

... and yet, for some reason — one I can’t begin to explain — I really, really wanted to tank. 

I toyed with the idea for weeks: talking myself into it, talking myself out of it, and occasionally pausing to /peer searchingly at my level 79 battleground twink (who had accumulated a lifetime total of 28K honor, because that’s how much I loathe PvP). 

(Which begs the question: why twink?  Because engineering goggles and a two-handed axe look badass when paired with a full set of Savage Saronite — that’s why!  And no one mocks you for being 79 in crafted PvP gear: “Oh, look at that adorable red-headed pixie of a paladin twirling her axe in Dalaran.  She’s wearing crafted blues and the best enchants that gold can buy; she must be a fearsome battleground twink.  I bet her main’s geared to the nines.”

You have to admit, that sounds a lot better than “lol, scrub.”)

Anyway, the urge to yank Larissyn out of the battleground queues (read: the Dalaran pet shop, where she spent her days hiding from the battlemasters, nurturing her deserter status and petting kittens) and plop her down in Icecrown with a full quest log and some conjured hardtack was pretty strong. 

I know I drove poor Ignus (our MT-turned-rogue-turned-tyrannical-loot-master) crazy with my indecision.  Whereas my dad would say “Make a decision, October!”,  Ignus simply nodded, smiled (as much as a corpse with a half-rotted jawbone can smile, I suppose), and gave me the same, patient advice over and over again:

“No one fucking cares.”

No, that’s not what he said.  Although, in hindsight, I’m not sure where he found the restraint. 

What he actually said was it was a win-win situation for him: if I chose one way, then his warrior twink would have a healbot, and if I chose the other, then his paladin healer would have a tank. (Did I mention he's also a bit of an altoholic?)

Then he gave me a rather unique piece of advice:

“But if you’re going to tank, you have to have balls.”

… but Ignus, sweetie.  I’m a girl.

“It doesn’t matter.”  He was adamant.  “You have to have balls.”

*   *   *

Today — three tiers of content and four pieces of T9 later — I think it finally understand what he meant.  And, ironically (or perhaps appropriately), it took choking completely to drive the message home.

It’s not so much about balls as it is confidence (which for guys is the same thing, metaphorically speaking).  I realize this is going to sound stupidly obvious to any veteran tanks who might be reading, but it wasn’t for me:

Tanks are the de facto leaders in any group.

We may not be raid leaders or even assists.  We may have someone more knowledgeable or more experienced assigning marks and roles.  But we’re still front and center.  We’re still leading the charge.  We're still responsible for setting the pace of the run, as well as for positioning bosses and adds and initiating the group’s response to the million and one things that can go wrong — or right!, because phase changes count too! — over the course of a single encounter.

We don’t have to know exactly what we’re doing all of the time (let’s face it, no one does — raiding is all about improvising), but we sure as hell have to be able to fake it.

I learned this quickly while PuGing heroics.  As long as I pulled quickly, managed to hold aggro and acted like I knew what I was doing, it didn’t matter that I couldn’t remember how some of the boss fights worked or that I was literally shaking with nerves for the entire duration of a run.  No one had the slightest clue, and I actually received compliments on my tanking ... even when I thought I'd performed horribly and was keeping a running mental inventory of all my stupid little (and not so little) mistakes.

Ironically, guild runs were much messier for me, at least in the beginning.  Unlike the randoms that I picked up in /trade or LFG, my guildies knew that I was anxious and inexperienced.  I couldn’t bluff my way through content with them, and so my confidence tanked (no pun intended) and I found myself making floundering in the same instances that I had PuG’d smoothly many times before.

Because my guildies are awesome, they didn’t hold it against me.  But you can better believe I did. 

Still, practice — lots and lots and lots of practice — eventually forced me into some semblance of competence, and I settled comfortably into the off-tank role, usually for one of the guild’s warrior alts (hitherto, and affectionately, known as The Beast). 

And then … I became complacent. 

Confession time: I’ve never been a natural leader.  I’m much more inclined to follow.  The only reason I “lead” the guild now is because I created it, and I’m far too possessive of my creation to turn it over to someone else (who will inevitably do it wrong).  (Yes, I’m neurotic.)  (Sorry, Bear.)

Because I’m a natural follower, being an off-tank suited me.  The Beast made the decisions.  I just followed his lead; pushed my 6 and 9 buttons really, really hard; and watched the bosses roll over.  I also collected some very nice tank loot in the process — and a whole lot of spellpower plate.  (Seriously, Naxx/Ulduar/ToC.  I can see you’re trying to tell me something, but I don’t want to hear it!)

But then, two weeks ago, something I hadn’t anticipated happened:

The Beast missed an alt run!

Since The Beast is actually the alt of the Superforsaken Azargoth, the running joke — which may or may not be a joke /shiftyeyes — is that he had to miss the raid to save a reporter in distress or possibly to bench press an asteroid.  He said it was a “family thing,” but that seems a rather mundane explanation and I’m not buying it.  There’s only so much a pair of glasses will hide, Mr. Kent.

Anyway, I ended up tanking with a feral druid: an excellent tank, to be sure, but one I’m much less accustomed to working with than The Beast.  I didn’t realize this until much later, when Elam pointed it out to me, but the druid-in-question also generally considers himself an off-tank as well.

So here we had two alt off-tanks who have played together extensively on their mains but never actually co-tanked, attempting to do just that.  And each of us clearly thought the other was entitled to lead — or, rather, I thought he was as the more senior tank.  He seemed to be deferring to me, too, but that could just be because he's nice and I'm bossy.

I’m not going to sugarcoat this: I choked.  Big time.  After a miscommunication about tanking assignments led to a wipe (we both picked up Acidmaw, then both switched to Dreadscale when we realized he was untanked), my confidence shattered into a zillion tiny pieces and I proceeded to make all kinds of mistakes on the same fight I one-shot the very first time I tanked it.

I forgot to refresh Seal of Corruption before a pull, missed my first Judgment and lost Gormokk to healing aggro.

Wipe.

I became completely and inexplicably disoriented mid-fight and started to chase after the wrong Jormunger ... again.

Wipe.

I pulled aggro on Dreadscale after a burrow phase and ended up getting the entire raid sprayed with burning bile.

Wipe.

It was a mess, and while we eventually managed to pull it together and complete the instance (and will no doubt do much better the next time), it wasn’t without a lot of pulling of hair and gnashing of teeth and even some exasperated “WTF TANKS?!” from my usually equanimous raid.

I've confessed before that I deal with my insecurities and not infrequent failures in-game by being "cheerfully self-deprecating."  It's not something I'm conciously aware of as I do it, but rather something I notice in hindsight — often after someone remarks "You're really hard on yourself, aren't you?"  I think the subconcious justification is that if make fun of myself first, others are less likely to do so because I already have it covered.

The thing is ... that doesn't work when you're tanking. 

When you screw up as a tank, everyone sees it.  Often right before it sends them sprawling across the raid zone.  They know exactly what you did wrong — and they expect you to know what you did wrong, too (so you don't do it again) — but they don't want to to hear you disparage yourself on Vent for 10 minutes afterwards.  They want you to apologize, recover and do it right the next time. 

I realize this is true for everyone.  I hate hearing the holy paladin whine about his screw-ups as much as I hate hearing the prote—... okay, our progression protadin doesn't make mistakes.  But you know what I mean.

Still, it's especially true for tanks. 

As a tank, you have to be prepared to lead.  You have to be confident enough in your abilities to make split-second decisions, and — even more importantly — to realize that even if your decision turns out to be wrong, it was still better to make one than to allow paralyzing indecision to wipe the raid.

In other words?  You have to have balls.

Thanks, Ignus.  I get it now.