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!)

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