Post by Viracnis on Aug 1, 2006 15:05:04 GMT -5
I'm going to proof this a dozen more times, I'm sure. And I'll try to keep it short. But if this request runs long, please bear with me. If this is not what this section of the boards are for, I'll delete this.
I've spent a lot of my time on this game crunching the numbers behind how Tanking works. I've learned a lot from Guides, especially the one posted here by Moo, and from "Back" tanking in PUGs to watch how they do it.
From that, I've developed what I consider to be a fairly reliable tanking strategy. Some of the PUGs I've tried it on have disagreed, called me a N00b and offered only the regurgitated "Sunder, man, Sunder!" as feedback. Others have loved it, and it has been hugely successful. So I open it up to the guild to evaluate and provide feedback. Yes, I realize this is a rather blatant admission of my own N00bness, but I won't get better without help.
My typical tanking experiences have been PUGs. Typically these consist of the following breakdown of classes:
1 - Healer Class - Druid, Paladin or Priest
1 - Tank Class - Me
1 - DPS/Pet Class - typically Warlock but the occasional hunter.
2 - DPS only class - Typically Rogue and either a Warlock with pet on passive or a Mage.
So, going forward I'm going to assume this is the typical makeup of a 5 man group. This is verified both through experience and the "Party Building" guides I've read.
Another assumption is that for someone to pull aggro off me they have to have 10% more threat than I do (or 110% of my threat) if within attack rage of the mob (melee range if a fighter mob and casting range if a casting mob) and 30% more than me (or 130% of my threat) if outside that range (caster PC vs fighter mob, for example).
If you see a problem with either of these assumptions, let me know.
The way I envision my strategy working goes something like this:
Step 1: The Pull.
The Warrior (me) pulls using either a body pull (charge) or bloodrage + Gun/Bow. Now, when with a hunter I've had some success with them pulling using their gun, then feigning. After the feign, I use charge or intercept, as the stun effect seems to really piss them off. If the feign fails, or the charge isn't enough to nab them, I taunt/challeningshout/mocking blow and proceed.
The typical pull is between 3 and 4 mobs.
Step 2: Divide and Conquer.
If we're going to sheep, charm, freeze, sap, or otherwise immobilize one of the mobs, this happens now, often at the tail end of Step 1 before the hunter feigns.
Step 3: The Hate.
When I pull this can be somewhat relaxed, but if I've had to taunt it becomes a bit more hectic.
If I have enough rage, I just jump on in to sunders (sunder, man, sunder!). If not, I bloodrage, then start sundering. I've found bloodrage builds a bit more hate than sundering alone.
I sunder the primary, non-sheeped target thrice. If possible, I also hamstring. I then tab through the remaining mobile mobs (3 pull, remember) and sunder each of them once to make sure a heal doesn't yank them off. Then back to the main, for a 4th sunder. At this point I Battle Shout and Intimidating Shout for the buff/debuffs and the added threat that entails. If I have spare rage I'll even Thunderclap.
Step 4: Batter Up.
It is as this point that I give the go-ahead for the DPS'ers to start and for the healer to heal me (sometimes just in the nick of time). I ask that they wait until I've re-targeted the main target and that when they do resume, they focus on that main with me, and not risk pulling the others off. A hunter's mark makes this easier, as it's clear who the primary is.
Step 5: Holding Threat
At this point, with a good group, I settle into a rhythm. Spank the first guy with another sunder to max him out at 5, put one or two more on each of the others, then it's shield block time. Shield-block + Revenge with the occasional sunder on the non-primaries (to hold them) until the main dies. Once he goes down, switch to the one on the right. Once he's gone, the last one, etc. I try to keep Hamstring on the primary in case he should run away, but it's not really high on the priority list unless we're in tight quarters with lots of potential adds.
When this works, it REALLY works. Especially with a good Pet class using their pet to keep any that break loose off the clothies.
Where this strategy falls apart:
Run, Clothie, Run!: Sometimes, something goes wrong and someone other than the tank winds up with aggro they don't want. The biggest mistake I've seen here is they tend to panic. They do what they would do if they were solo, and they blast it and run, trying to shake it. All this does is make me chase them. If I'm chasing them, I'm not sundering/revenging the main or his adds, and it's more likely one of the other ranged DPSers are going to pull one off and this is going to get really complicated. Ranged DPS has to pull 30% more hate than me if outside the Mob's attack range, but the only have to have 10% more if inside their attack range. If I have to run back through my group to pull one off, it's going to fall apart. What I have had success with here is when the person who pulled the aggro just walked up in front of me, to let me know they have aggro. I either taunt or sunder it off (I try sunder first, then taunt and lay on more sunders) then they go back to their original position. During this time, it's best if they don't attack the mob, as that just makes it harder for me to pull it off and also lets me know something is wrong. When my mage stops casting or my rogue stops backstabing, I notice.
Pissing Contests: On more than one occasion I've had people in the group decide that they needed to see who could do the most DPS, or who could do the most damaging backstab, or who could lay down the most AOE etc. With this strategy it's important to ease into the DPS, not just start throwing it out once I've got the sunders on. When this has failed it has been because the DPS classes got trigger happy and stole the threat off me before I had it good and established.
Uncoordinated Efforts: If someone attacks (accidentally or deliberately) a mob other than the primary, it all falls apart. This is less of a problem with a hunter's mark to show the primary, but still happens. Even when we are all very specific before the pull who the primary is, sometimes people will focus on someone else. This is disasterous.
Pets: Pets have their place. I love having a pet in an instance (especially a good hunter's pet) because it is like having another DPS or a good backup tank.
Shadow Priests: Outside an instance, and even on trash mobs in an instance, these guys are awesome. But my experience has been that when they try to cast on difficult pulls or bosses in instances, they pull lots of threat off me or run out of Mana when I need healed. This makes me die, and feelings get hurt.
Other People Pulling: I've been called a N00b for this more times than I can count. With a few scant exceptions from hunters who have proven their 1337 feign death skills, I've never had a good experience with anyone besides the main tank (me) pulling. Warlocks pull with charm, and it falls apart. Mages pull with sheep, and it falls apart. Hunters pull with pets, traps, guns etc and (you guessed it) it falls apart. It might be inexperience on my part, but if I don't pull I can't seem to get the threat back off.
I've read in various places that initial aggro generates a respectable amount of hate. If someone else pulls, they start with that hate and I start with none. So to get them off I taunt. Since Taunting produces no threat, but just makes them attack me for 6 seconds, it is difficult to get control of 3 mobs back in that short period of time. In practice, I have observed that I'm able to hold it much better when I pull initial aggro. When someone else pulls, I have a hard time getting the aggro to stay off them once they start doing damage again. Since they had a threat advantage on me, it takes less damage for them to wind up breaking the 110% mark and peeling the mob right back off me.
Anyway, there's my strategy and thoughts on Tanking. Please let me know what I can do to improve, paying special attention to where the tanking seems to fall apart. Maybe the PUGs are right, and I'm a N00b. But I think I'm being very scientific in my Cancer Panther N00bsauce.
I've spent a lot of my time on this game crunching the numbers behind how Tanking works. I've learned a lot from Guides, especially the one posted here by Moo, and from "Back" tanking in PUGs to watch how they do it.
From that, I've developed what I consider to be a fairly reliable tanking strategy. Some of the PUGs I've tried it on have disagreed, called me a N00b and offered only the regurgitated "Sunder, man, Sunder!" as feedback. Others have loved it, and it has been hugely successful. So I open it up to the guild to evaluate and provide feedback. Yes, I realize this is a rather blatant admission of my own N00bness, but I won't get better without help.
My typical tanking experiences have been PUGs. Typically these consist of the following breakdown of classes:
1 - Healer Class - Druid, Paladin or Priest
1 - Tank Class - Me
1 - DPS/Pet Class - typically Warlock but the occasional hunter.
2 - DPS only class - Typically Rogue and either a Warlock with pet on passive or a Mage.
So, going forward I'm going to assume this is the typical makeup of a 5 man group. This is verified both through experience and the "Party Building" guides I've read.
Another assumption is that for someone to pull aggro off me they have to have 10% more threat than I do (or 110% of my threat) if within attack rage of the mob (melee range if a fighter mob and casting range if a casting mob) and 30% more than me (or 130% of my threat) if outside that range (caster PC vs fighter mob, for example).
If you see a problem with either of these assumptions, let me know.
The way I envision my strategy working goes something like this:
Step 1: The Pull.
The Warrior (me) pulls using either a body pull (charge) or bloodrage + Gun/Bow. Now, when with a hunter I've had some success with them pulling using their gun, then feigning. After the feign, I use charge or intercept, as the stun effect seems to really piss them off. If the feign fails, or the charge isn't enough to nab them, I taunt/challeningshout/mocking blow and proceed.
The typical pull is between 3 and 4 mobs.
Step 2: Divide and Conquer.
If we're going to sheep, charm, freeze, sap, or otherwise immobilize one of the mobs, this happens now, often at the tail end of Step 1 before the hunter feigns.
Step 3: The Hate.
When I pull this can be somewhat relaxed, but if I've had to taunt it becomes a bit more hectic.
If I have enough rage, I just jump on in to sunders (sunder, man, sunder!). If not, I bloodrage, then start sundering. I've found bloodrage builds a bit more hate than sundering alone.
I sunder the primary, non-sheeped target thrice. If possible, I also hamstring. I then tab through the remaining mobile mobs (3 pull, remember) and sunder each of them once to make sure a heal doesn't yank them off. Then back to the main, for a 4th sunder. At this point I Battle Shout and Intimidating Shout for the buff/debuffs and the added threat that entails. If I have spare rage I'll even Thunderclap.
Step 4: Batter Up.
It is as this point that I give the go-ahead for the DPS'ers to start and for the healer to heal me (sometimes just in the nick of time). I ask that they wait until I've re-targeted the main target and that when they do resume, they focus on that main with me, and not risk pulling the others off. A hunter's mark makes this easier, as it's clear who the primary is.
Step 5: Holding Threat
At this point, with a good group, I settle into a rhythm. Spank the first guy with another sunder to max him out at 5, put one or two more on each of the others, then it's shield block time. Shield-block + Revenge with the occasional sunder on the non-primaries (to hold them) until the main dies. Once he goes down, switch to the one on the right. Once he's gone, the last one, etc. I try to keep Hamstring on the primary in case he should run away, but it's not really high on the priority list unless we're in tight quarters with lots of potential adds.
When this works, it REALLY works. Especially with a good Pet class using their pet to keep any that break loose off the clothies.
Where this strategy falls apart:
Run, Clothie, Run!: Sometimes, something goes wrong and someone other than the tank winds up with aggro they don't want. The biggest mistake I've seen here is they tend to panic. They do what they would do if they were solo, and they blast it and run, trying to shake it. All this does is make me chase them. If I'm chasing them, I'm not sundering/revenging the main or his adds, and it's more likely one of the other ranged DPSers are going to pull one off and this is going to get really complicated. Ranged DPS has to pull 30% more hate than me if outside the Mob's attack range, but the only have to have 10% more if inside their attack range. If I have to run back through my group to pull one off, it's going to fall apart. What I have had success with here is when the person who pulled the aggro just walked up in front of me, to let me know they have aggro. I either taunt or sunder it off (I try sunder first, then taunt and lay on more sunders) then they go back to their original position. During this time, it's best if they don't attack the mob, as that just makes it harder for me to pull it off and also lets me know something is wrong. When my mage stops casting or my rogue stops backstabing, I notice.
Pissing Contests: On more than one occasion I've had people in the group decide that they needed to see who could do the most DPS, or who could do the most damaging backstab, or who could lay down the most AOE etc. With this strategy it's important to ease into the DPS, not just start throwing it out once I've got the sunders on. When this has failed it has been because the DPS classes got trigger happy and stole the threat off me before I had it good and established.
Uncoordinated Efforts: If someone attacks (accidentally or deliberately) a mob other than the primary, it all falls apart. This is less of a problem with a hunter's mark to show the primary, but still happens. Even when we are all very specific before the pull who the primary is, sometimes people will focus on someone else. This is disasterous.
Pets: Pets have their place. I love having a pet in an instance (especially a good hunter's pet) because it is like having another DPS or a good backup tank.
Hunter Pets: I hate growl. When a hunter's pet comes up and taunts the main off me, it is going to fall apart. What I DO like to see is the hunter pet pull one of the adds off me, as long as I know that's what he's doing. I view it as giving the healer a little bit more slack in their mana.
But when the hunter pulls the main, it almost always falls apart and people get their feelings hurt.
Warlock Pets: I've had great experiences with 'locks and Imps. When it's controlled the imp is additional ranged DPS, because the mob won't pull from me unless the ranged DPSer has 30% more hate than I do. And even then, he's going to pull to the Imp, not the warlock, so I've got some wiggle room.
I've had good and bad experiences with the Succubus. It's good when they can charm, however this rarely goes as planned and the Succubus winds up pulling a ton of Aggro that turns the pull into me chasing the warlock until it dies.
The only time I've ever been successfully able to tank an instance with a void-walker out has been when the Blueberry was on passive, just acting as a backup tank for the clothies. Time and again this critter has ruined an otherwise good pull.
Shadow Priests: Outside an instance, and even on trash mobs in an instance, these guys are awesome. But my experience has been that when they try to cast on difficult pulls or bosses in instances, they pull lots of threat off me or run out of Mana when I need healed. This makes me die, and feelings get hurt.
Other People Pulling: I've been called a N00b for this more times than I can count. With a few scant exceptions from hunters who have proven their 1337 feign death skills, I've never had a good experience with anyone besides the main tank (me) pulling. Warlocks pull with charm, and it falls apart. Mages pull with sheep, and it falls apart. Hunters pull with pets, traps, guns etc and (you guessed it) it falls apart. It might be inexperience on my part, but if I don't pull I can't seem to get the threat back off.
I've read in various places that initial aggro generates a respectable amount of hate. If someone else pulls, they start with that hate and I start with none. So to get them off I taunt. Since Taunting produces no threat, but just makes them attack me for 6 seconds, it is difficult to get control of 3 mobs back in that short period of time. In practice, I have observed that I'm able to hold it much better when I pull initial aggro. When someone else pulls, I have a hard time getting the aggro to stay off them once they start doing damage again. Since they had a threat advantage on me, it takes less damage for them to wind up breaking the 110% mark and peeling the mob right back off me.
Anyway, there's my strategy and thoughts on Tanking. Please let me know what I can do to improve, paying special attention to where the tanking seems to fall apart. Maybe the PUGs are right, and I'm a N00b. But I think I'm being very scientific in my Cancer Panther N00bsauce.
I never played a tank class past 10 so I can't offer much advice but it seems liek you know what your doing. It takes practice to learn your character but sounds like your learning fast 
