Tanking Isn't For Everyone

Several months ago I wrote a long post called "Raid Tanking Isn't for Everyone" that I ultimately didn't put up because I figured it would be too easy for guildies to identify the person I was talking about, but I had an experience last night (through the random Dungeon Finder of course) that reminded me of that older post and parts of it are still relevant.

I ended up joining a heroic OK that was already in progress. For some reason they'd lost a dps, and their tank DCed about a minute after I arrived. After it became apparent he wasn't coming back, we vote kicked him out and our replacement arrived.

He was sporting 25k health.

Obviously an entry level tank. Low enough to be concerning, but not impossible to work with, especially if he knew his stuff. People would just have to be careful.

He trucked over to join us and the first thing I noticed was he was wearing Shoulderguards of Enduring Order. Wait, he's sporting ilevel 245 shoulders and his health is only 25k?

I inspected at him, and besides the shoulders he had only a couple other epics, the CoS shield and a ring, but the only thing socketed was the epic shoulders (with an epic blue gem, so he did it properly). He left his blue helm, which had room for a meta, unsocketed. Not only that, but nothing was enchanted.

Here was someone who plainly wasn't going to bother enhancing anything until it was epic, and here he was to tank our heroic.

Most tanks I talk with or whose blogs I read are raid tanks, they take pride in their gear. To do anything less would be a disservice to the people who depend on them. They get a new drop and it's gemmed and enchanted before the next time you see them, if it's not done in the first five minutes after raid. (If the tank in question is a JC/enchanter it might even happen during the raid itself.) These tanks know they're the first line of defense and the maintenance of their gear is tied more strongly to their ability to do their job than any other role.

Though I wouldn't expect a pug tank who may never raid to have top of the line gems and enchants, when you're just starting out every little bit helps, gives your healer room to breathe. Our healer wasn't well geared either, being completely in blues. A few heavy borean stam kits are cheap compared to most enchants, and six of those would have given him another 1000 health. Green gems might not be fashionable, but they're also cheap.

Surely the thought that more health is better must register even with the newest tank, right? Those gems and kits could pay off in repair bills avoided while he gears himself (he once mentioned how much it cost him to repair). And he should have at least put a kit on his shoulders if he wasn't eligible for a Hodir enchant, since he cared enough to put an epic gem in it.

I kept my thoughts to myself. Perhaps I shouldn't, but I try to give people the benefit of a doubt. Sometimes they look undergeared, but they do their job just fine. The no enchants really bugged me though. It always does when I see a tank without them.

So we continue on our way to deactivate those orbs at the top of the web ramps on the way to the second boss. The tank ends up dying near the end of one the pulls and I pull an emergency bear form, growl, and barkskin to keep the mobs off the rest of the dps. The healer apologizes, saying he got spell locked, and rezzes the tank. I remember that being a problem back when heroics were still hard so this doesn't bother me too much. Both tank and healer are entry level 80s.

We beat the second boss without a problem, and then we entered the big room with all the cultists and their elemental pats.

We cleared the pat at the bottom of the stairs, and from there I usually see tanks grab a stationary cluster of four cultists to our right. What I don't see is the tanks hug the adjacent wall and start pulling the elemental groups.

This tank ignored the group of cultists and attacked the nearest stationary elemental group. This would have been okay if he'd actually pulled them back and up the steps, but we fought them more or less where they stood, which meant that the elemental pat came up behind us and attacked.

Had this been a raid geared tank and healer, it would have been survivable. But being who they were, they could not handle the additional adds. We wiped.

We came back and the tank attacked the same group again. I say attacked, not pulled, because there was no pulling away to fight in a safer area. So we got the adds again and died.

The tank asked, "Where'd they come from?"

The healer's response was partially bleeped out by my swear filter, but did mention that they were the same group of adds we'd just died to two minutes ago.

At this point the tank said he had to repair, so he ported out to repair (which was adventure in itself since he couldn't find an NPC near him to do it). While we waited for him to come back I decided I would start marking pulls for him.

When he did get back I told him to range pull the group of four cultists with the skull. If we cleared them that would give us the safety we needed to pull the elemental pat and then we could ignore the group that he was originally going for.

As I told him which group to pull he had shuffled over towards the elemental group (for the third time!) that we had yet to kill without aggroing adds. He asked why should he pull the marked group instead. And as he did the elementals aggroed on him just from his proximity. And then somehow, someone got knocked into that very group of four cultists, causing them to aggro, and I said "So that doesn't happen."

When we inevitably wiped the healer said the tank was the worst he'd ever seen and dropped group, followed immediately by the other two dps. The tank asked what did he do wrong. After all, he was holding aggro.

And I, feeling a bit sorry for him, since he genuinely seemed clueless, told him that there was more to being a tank to holding aggro. It was situational awareness, knowing how to pull the mobs, knowing which mobs to pull, avoiding unwanted adds, avoiding putting the party in a dangerous position.

But despite what I told him he insisted that he had pulled the right pack of mobs and was tanking them in the right spot, lol. (Yes, he did include lol's as he told me he was doing the right thing.)

I didn't know what else to tell him other than he asked for feedback and I gave it. I asked him, if he really did do everything right, then why did everyone leave?

It was blunt, but hopefully I gave him something to think about. I left on that note, because it was late and I should have been in bed already. I could have gotten on my high horse and said I'd tanked this before on both my raid-geared 80s, he was pulling wrong end of story. I could have asked him if he was blowing his tanking cooldowns. I could have said he was undergeared for what he was trying to do. One of my guildies suggested I should have asked him if he was defense capped (probably tough at his stage without enchants).

But there's only so much coaching a person feels up to at 1 am and I wanted to focus on why that specific pull resulted in a repeated wipe. He was undergeared, yeah, but we still could have made it if he played better.

The funny thing is… after one of the wipes, we'd lost a dps and so we had to re-queue. I made sure to queue as both tank and dps, in a vain hope he would have a dps off-spec so the dungeon finder would give me the tanking role and we might actually survive. But he only queued as tank, nothing else.

I realize there are some people who live for tanking, but oddly enough don't seem to have a clue how to do it. I've met them before. The subject of "Raid Tanking Isn't for Everyone" was one of them. That person ran every heroic under the sun, multiple times, wanted badly to raid tank, but had horrible situational awareness, didn't like to take advice on how to spec, and didn't like to read up on tanking strats. But man that person wanted to be a raid tank.

A lot of what makes a good tank comes from practice, so every tank is a nub at some point. One of my old guildies was a fabulous warrior who could tank Shattered Halls so well you'd think he was a paladin (back when only paladins were good AoE tanks), and he liked to tell me how bad he was when he first started.

But this 25k tank in OK must've had at least a few instances under his belt given his shoulders (45 emblems… probably at least eight or nine heroics) so he couldn't have been all that new to it.

I think it takes a certain type of person to be a good tank. A tank needs to be a good observer, because they need to know who and what's happening around them. A tank needs to be adaptable, because sometimes things don't go according to plan. A tank needs to be aware of their strengths and their weaknesses. A tank needs to realize the safety of the rest of the party resides first and foremost in him or herself. A tank needs to go that extra mile that others don't.

I'm not always a good tank, but I've run with tanks who are, and it's not always enough to just hold aggro.

[Druid] My Raid Tanking Debut

Notice anything funny in this picture? (Besides the crappy UI.)



Hana is a bear! And I'm tanking Lord Jaraxxus!

It's not exactly what I expected for my raid tanking debut (not counting the time I bear-tanked Gluth in my moonkin spec/gear). After I made my decision to go feral for my off-spec I made some heroic attempts, figuring that I would pinch tank as an OT if one was needed, but by and large my guild wound its way through Ulduar without me needing to go bear. We had enough backup OTs that we generally got by, and besides, I'd never raid tanked before. Well, I had as Gillien in 10-man Naxx, but never as a bear. I only had a half dozen heroics under my belt; if that.

Thursday night was not a good night. We were short several people due to various circumstances that all decided to converge on one day (and a few people who professed to burnout as well) so our usual 25-man turned into a 10-man Trial of the Champion run for those people who did want to run. Problem was, both our MTs were feeling the burnout and our usual OT didn't have any interest in 10-man. Several people wanted to run though, including me, so I said, "I've never tanked this before, but I think I have the gear."

35k health unbuffed. It seemed like a healthy number. I had two piece T8.5 for my feral set, BIS bear boots from Ulduar (according to Rawr), and other leather pieces I'd picked up in 10 and 25-man Ulduar.

One of our ret pallies said he had a decent tank set, and he did. It was also T8 and Ulduar off-set pieces he'd picked up. He was geared and enchanted. 31k health. I'd never seen him tank before, ever, but evidently he took it seriously enough to put a set together.

The healers said let's give it a shot.

So we did.

With two off-spec tanks and some sloppy deaths we still got Icehowl down to 3% on our first attempt. Even then we probably would've killed him if someone hadn't died to his charge, causing him to enrage and then slay me so fast the release button came up before my brain registered what had happened. We beat him though, unlocking the next boss for us, which no one in guild had seen yet; Lord Jaxxarus.

I watched the Tankspot video for this fight a bit nervously. There had never been a boss I'd tanked that I hadn't participated in as a dps or healer first. This was brand new to me. Progression. I like tanking, but it's a high stakes job. Obviously it's easier for me if I have first-hand experience regarding what happens, even if it's from a different point of view. When my raid started discussing whether we stay in for the fire or we kite I didn't know what to say. I just said something to the effect of doing what I saw in the video, which looked like some modest kiting, presumably away from the green fire and volcanoes on the ground.

I was still feeling a bit hazy on what I had to do (even after watching the video), but decided I would just do what I knew to be most important; hold aggro on the boss, blow cooldowns if needed, and don't stand in the green stuff. Surprisingly, that strategy was enough from a MT standpoint. Our pally was the add tank because paladins have far more ways to get snap aggro on recently spawned mobs than a bear (Avenger's Shield, Hand of Reckoning, Righteous Defense…) and he did a fine job picking up adds. Most of the problem seemed to be with the heal team actually. The shaman we semi-pugged (friend of a guildie) kept dying early, leaving us short a healer for the majority of the fight.

Even so, we beat him on our second try. There were only three of us alive at that point, and I was dead after having blown every cooldown I had on top of a healthstone and health pot. If you're gonna die as a tank, that's the way to do it. We were down to a single healer in the final moments of the fight so I really can't blame him for not being able to keep me up, and in any case I held on long enough that the dps was able to finish him in the few seconds that the raid was without a tank.

It felt good.

Maybe we didn't do 25-man, but at least the people who wanted to raid had a good time and got to down a new boss. And I finally got to try out my bear tanking set and see how it held up. I'd have to say I'm relieved to know that I can tank 10-man ToC, because it probably means I'm good for pinch tanking in 25-man Ulduar. Once I was raid buffed I was breaking 45k, which is pretty nice!

[Paladin] Changes to all specs in 3.2

Wow, there's a boatload of stuff here. Too much for me to realistically comment on the whole thing without making this an extremely long blog post, so I'm just going to quote the snippets I find relevant to what I do or what I'll miss. If you want to read the whole post by Eyonix, it's here.

Protection

Ardent Defender has two important changes. The first is that the damage can no longer “skip over” the 35% health level – it will always be reduced. Secondly, it has a new effect that if a blow would kill you, it instead sets you to 30% health. This portion of the ability cannot occur more than once every 2 minutes. Think of it as a Last Stand that you don’t have to push.

I'm not sure I like the idea of a Last Stand I don't have to push. On the one hand it's nice that it'll go up without any thought, and with a 2 minute cooldown it's unlikely that it would proc inconveniently (where you would want to be killed and then not have the proc available when you need it), but on the other I like being in charge of my own destiny. It makes me feel a better player if I push the button that saves my butt rather than the game pushing it for me.

I'm happy with the first change though. Damage leapfrogging over the 35% mark has been one of the reasons Ardent Defender isn't as appealing as it could be. Now that the damage won't leapfrog, it'll likely find its way into more tanking specs.

A second change to Protection is we want to make sure Blessing of Sanctuary is always the tanking blessing of choice. A likely change here is to have it boost stamina as well.

I agree it should be because we spec for it, but the fact it isn't always has never really bothered me. More stamina would help make it more appealing, but it feels like a bit of a bandaid if that's all they're going to do with it. I think something like more avoidance would make it extremely clear that "Hey, you want this for tanking!"

We also recognize that block does not provide the mitigation it once did. While we have long-term plans to change the way block works entirely, in the short term we are doubling the effect of bonus block value on items (so jewelry, but not shields).

I haven't tanked high end content, and though I know a lot about tanking, I'm not tanky enough to have noticed that block value specifically is weaker than it used to be, save that hitting the old 102.4% avoidance (formerly uncrushable, now block capped) isn't what it used to be. I wouldn't dare tank a raid in TBC without the 102.4% avoidance.

But I've yet to hit the 102.4% avoidance on Gillien and I've comfortably tanked all of Naxx 10 and bits of Naxx 25. I think I could even do parts of Ulduar 10. So blocking? Not what it used to be.


Holy

First, we are changing Flash of Light so that it places a heal-over-time effect on any target with Sacred Shield on them (the effect will be similar to Sheathe of Light). This should make Flash see a little more use.

I'm going to hope this means "in addition to" FoL's normal effect. If FoL is otherwise left alone this will give us a nice buffer on our tanks while we heal someone else. But would the HoT portion stack (say like a druid's Lifebloom, up to three stacks) or just be over-written by repeated FoL spamming? If it will not stack for a single pally, will it stack for multiples?

When I'm tank healing, I don't normally weave FoLs into my Holy Lights. If I need to use multiple HLs it's generally too risky to go for a FoL. And if I'm FoL healing, it doesn't seem like the HoT portion will be that useful unless it stacks. The HoT works best as a buffer, which means I have to leave the tank to heal someone else to get the most out of it. Fortunately, leaving the tank to heal someone else is more viable now thanks to this:

Second, and more importantly, we are changing the way Beacon of Light works. Currently, it does not count over-healing on the target. We are changing that. In other words, if you place Holy Light on a rogue who is already at full health, it will still have the full effect on a tank with Beacon of Light on them. This is a huge buff, particularly when you consider the Holy Light glyph which allows for a small amount of “splash” healing. This effect isn’t common when you use Holy Light on a tank because the tank is often standing alone. But if you heal the melee, you are likely to get a lot more total healing from this effect (while still healing the tank through Beacon of Light).

Now healing other people will not risk the life of the tank because overheals will continue to heal the tank. I'm extremely happy with this change because I'm the sort of person who likes to heal as much of the raid as reasonably possible while still keeping my assignment up. I hate to see anyone die as a healer, even if that person was not my assignment. (Exception being deaths due to stupidity.)

Bonus for arena: Since you do not have to be in line of sight with the beacon target in order for the beacon to get heals, it'll now be possible to overheal someone with the Light's Beacon buff (which shows that heals on this person will be mirrored on the Beacon of Light) and still heal the beacon target.

For instance, I run 3v3 with a DK and a hunter. The DK might run around pillars and such chasing after people, making it difficult for me to heal him, but he'll still be close enough for the hunter and me to be affected by Light's Beacon. With patch 3.2 I'll be able to heal myself or the hunter even if we're at full and still heal the DK who is LOS from me.

Blizzard is also looking into letting multiple Beacons of Light (from different paladins) stack on a particular target. For a Naxx or Ulduar raid I don't think this should be necessary, since there are often 2-3 tanks, and a healthy variety of healer types, but this will be nice for VoA pugs or Malygos runs which run the risk of having more holy pallies than tanks to Beacon. One horrible 25-man VoA run I was on ended up with five paladin healers. Ugh...

With the Beacon of Light change, the paladin can provide a lot more raid or party healing. To adjust for this, we are going to reduce the amount of mana returned by Illumination. If you use Holy Light too recklessly (such as on targets who don’t require that much healing) you do risk burning out of mana too quickly. Of course, they will still have Divine Plea and other mana regeneration mechanics.

These changes should lead to healing as Holy being more dynamic – you are going to be targeting a lot more group members than just the tank, while still providing massive healing on the tank. However, you won’t be able to just constantly spam your biggest heals, at least not on the more challenging encounters. There is an opportunity here for skilled players to really do some outstanding healing as paladins, but it’s going to take a little more effort.

I rarely have an issue with PvE mana, and I've always healed with my PvP holy/prot spec (which results in me having a lower crit than most holy PvE paladins), so if Blizzard wants us to care about mana, this is a good place to hit us. I like caring about mana, it makes gameplay more interesting, so all this sounds fine to me.

And these changes will give me free license to play my holy paladin the way I like playing him; tossing out heals on the raid and still keeping the tank alive. (I love beacon, what can I say?) Earlier I couldn't always risk it because I would be risking the tank, but now it's all open season!


Retribution

First, Exorcism has a cast time of 1.5 seconds but can be used on players again. This will let paladins use it in PvP, but not while moving towards a target.

Non-instant isn't so great, but it's still a ranged attack and I'm sure I'll use this in arena. The cast time makes it a risk against any team that can lock me out of my holy school, but it'll help when I'm clear to use it and my team needs a little dps.

Fourth, we are removing Seal of Blood and Seal of the Martyr. The damage recoil increasingly felt like a liability in PvE, and wasn’t serving to offset the massive burst damage capable in PvP. We are buffing Seal of Vengeance / Corruption and redesigning Seal of Command with the expectation that these are now the seals of choice for PvP and PvE. Righteousness can remain a tanking seal.

Righteousness is a tanking seal? The only action bar I keep it on is the one I use when I'm soloing. I've heard it's better than Vengeance/Corruption on trash that's due to die before all five stacks gets up, but I'm too lazy to change my keybindings for it.

But with the buff to Vengeance/Corruption… phew… that's going to make some tasty threat. I'll probably drop my Armsman enchant (been thinking about it anyway) and replace it with the soon-to-be buffed Reticulated Armor Webbing.

There's a part of me that feels I'm about to miss out on an opportunity to understand what Seal of Blood is all about. I have never been ret, and have a ret set that is middling at best. I only put it together because I got so many Naxx 10 leftovers that people said should go to me on the off-chance I would ever use them. I might put that set on and tool around Icecrown for a little while and smack myself with SoB just to see what it's like.

While I've been writing this, the patch notes for 3.2 have gone up and it's a long list of stuff. We'll have to see how it all plays out.

4-Manning Sartharion

My guild isn't really known for doing raid achievements. We might go for a few of them, we might not. Whether or not we do depends on how far out of reach the achievement is and whether or not there's loot involved. But 4-manning Sarth has got to be nuttiest way to earn Less is More, which is what I did last night.

Apparently one night some of my guildies had done a 5-man Sarth because they couldn't get enough people for a 10-man and decided to try anyway. They succeeded and said it really wasn't all that hard, so they thought they'd try again this week.

Problem was... there was even less interest. We mostly run Ulduar these days and OS/Naxx/EoE runs are typically limited to alts. In actuality, there was only one person who really wanted to go and the rest of us who went were roped into the job because that's what happens when you're not just guildies, but friends too.

The disc priest pulled in a feral druid, a survival hunter, and me (on my paladin). I'm normally holy, but switched to my prot off-spec so we'd have a second tank, so our group make-up was really two tanks, one dps, and one healer. I'd say that's pretty close to the bear minimum you can get away with without resorting to some crazy stuff. (I think it could be possible to 3-man Sarth with the right hybrid dps also acting as the OT, but I don't want to think about how long that would take.)

We cleared all the trash, just the four of us, and it was pretty lethal. We wiped on our first pull. The dragonkin packs are murderous for an undermanned team. Normally raids don't worry about those flaming spheres and just heal through the damage, but with only one healer and one dps (so the mobs died much slower) this wasn't practical so the druid and I kited the dragons away from the flame spheres whenever they spawned.

I would have to use Divine Protection at some point in every pull, guaranteed, and even used Lay on Hands to keep myself alive. After a couple of those awful dragonkin packs it dawned on us that I really should have my Fire Resistance Aura up instead of Devotion. Preventing the damage in the first place would be much more useful than the extra armor and healing.

Fortunately, it turns out that our first wipe was the only wipe of the night (though I did die during the second dragonkin pull, which is what promptly the fire resist discussion).

The big drakonoid pairs were less trouble. Initially the druid would grab one and I the other, which is traditional for clearing OS, but because there was no one else to de-curse we changed it up so we could kill them faster. (Even undermanned, we did have the dps to burn through the healing, but that was taking too long for our patience.)

We decided I would tank both of them so the druid could de-curse and dps in kitty form. It still took a few minutes to down each pair, but not nearly as long as if we'd tried the burn without de-cursing method. The priest also found it much easier to heal a single tank rather than two of them.

The drakes themselves were fairly straightforward, with only a mild adaptation of existing strats.

For Vesperon, the druid tanked the drake and when the portal opened up I would wait for be shielded and then the hunter and I would jump through the portal and kill the acolyte, knowing I wouldn't get healed again until we killed him. This did not turn out to be an issue. The dps was good and I used Judgement of Light to give myself a small health return. I usually came out a little over half health.

We had to jump in more times than we would with a full 10-man raid, but we never felt in any danger, even though we had less than half the people we were supposed to.

Tenebron was a different story. We thought this one would be relatively simple, and in a way it was. We planned to do this one just like in a normal 10-man. Druid would tank the boss and I'd drop a Consecrate to pick up the whelp adds.

Everything went as expected except for the fact that we had a lot of adds because we didn't have the dps to kill the boss fast enough to prevent more than one spawn. We had a full three or four waves of whelps on us by the end and cut it really close. I had one of those crazy moments where I almost died, time was slowing down, and I didn't know how we were going to make it, but I found my Lay on Hands about the same time the priest hit me with Pain Suppression.

We ended the fight with the druid and I hovering around 10-15% health and somehow no one died. Not a single whelp had gotten free, but there were so many of them our druid ended up eating a couple void zones just because he couldn't see where he was standing. I remember calling out over vent "Blackleaf! Void!" out of fear he would eat it so bad we wouldn't be able to recover.

As crazy as the Tenebron fight was, Shadron was the drake that proved to be the most mind-numbing, due to the fact he goes immune with his acolyte was up. We knew we would repeat the jumping in and out of the portal that we did with Vesperon, but because of how long it would take to kill the add, and because of Shadron's immunity, we generally would only get a few seconds of uninterupted dps between portals. It took us about 14 minutes just to kill this guy and by the end of it we wanted to stab our eyes out.

Like Vesperon, we didn't get any feeling of danger with Shadron. It just took so long... and by this time we'd been in Obsidian Sanctum for about an hour. I didn't say anything at the time (for which the priest later said he was grateful), but I realized that we'd been in here so long that if we wiped on Sartharion all the trash packs would probably respawn.

The priest said the last time he'd come for the 5-man it had taken them about 12 minutes to kill Sarth, and with one less dps it wouldn't be surprising if it took us longer. He'd actually become more skeptical about our chances after having cleared all the trash and the drakes because he said that 4-man OS was turning out much, much harder than 5-man. The loss of the extra dps really hurt.

Still, we were going to give it a shot. The druid was going to take Sarth, and I'd grab the adds. By this time it was 1am, I was getting pretty tired, and add duty on Sartharion is one of the crappiest tanking jobs there is, but hey...

We ran in, let the druid position the boss, and opened up with our dps.

Doing Sarth with four people is much the same as with ten. Dodge lava waves. Pick up the little fire elementals that spawn everywhere except where you'd like them to be. The exception was that when I got enough adds on me I was supposed to drag them over to Sarth to make sure that the hunter could hit the boss while simultaneously AoE-ing the elementals.

I got carried off by lava waves twice over the course of the fight, which I largely blame on the fact it was past 1am, but since it wasn't a drakes up fight, the damage wasn't as bad and the priest said afterwards that in all honesty he hadn't noticed.

No doubt due to all the pummeling I was taking anyway from the elementals.

After about twelve minutes, the same amount of time as the previous 5-man run, we downed Sartharion. For our trouble we got a [Dragon Hide Bag] (given to the priest, who was the only person who didn't have it), [Crimson Steel] (given to the hunter because no one else could use it), [Gloves of the Last Vanquisher] (given to the druid for off-set purposes), and the requisite [Satchel of Spoils] (which I won on a greed roll).

Unfortunately the [Majestic Dragon Figurine] the priest had wanted didn't drop, so I have a feeling he's going to be asking for more Sartharion runs in the future, but I think after last night the four of us were in agreement that even though we did have a lot fun, let's never 4-man Sarth again.

[Paladin] Tanking Nexus at 70 as Holy

I wasn't going to start leveling my paladin until I finished up questing on my druid (still have Storm Peaks and Icecrown to go), but while I was chugging along a group of lower level guildies consisting of two dps and a healer started a Nexus party, and they were short a tank and one more. All the 80s were on a heroic spree and I wanted to help out, so I offered to switch to Gillien.

In officer chat I remarked, "This is going to be either interesting or a complete failure." Someone amusingly pointed out that it could be an interesting failure too. My fellow officers know my penchant for doing things off-spec.

So I logged on Gillien and put on his tanking gear. Sure enough, 490 defense, so he's uncrittable against anything up to level 73, which should be fine for Nexus. It was Kara/heroic gear so I figured I should be all right for mitigation. I had some concerns though, just because I hadn't tanked an instance since the 3.0.2 patch unless one counts the Headless Horseman fight.

Prior to that patch, I knew exactly where I stood on building threat, because spell damage was something I could easily relate to as a holy paladin. One of my talents even increased it. Now that prot paladins rely on attack power to do holy damage... well, for one thing I'm still swinging [Gavel ofNaaru Blessings] around because it has a fair bit of stamina and I don't have a new tanking weapon yet. Supposedly my threat would still be good though, since the prot paladins survived the change just fine.

We started the instance all right, but wiped embarrassingly hard on an early pull. I was quite frankly horrified because the first thing that goes through my mind when I die as a tank is that my mitigation is horrible, I underestimated the need for CC, I suck, etc.

Actually, we just needed to mark the kill order. I hadn't been given lead, so when I suggested that I could mark the targets, I got it, and then progress went much more smoothly. We did have one more wipe, but that was the rhino pet's fault for bringing adds (turn off knockback in instances please!).

Once we got into a rhythm, tanking became fun again. I felt a little spastic once we got to Keristrasza though. She has a debuff she puts on all the party members where they take damage from cold if they stand still too long. Even though I knew this and had done this fight before as a healer, for some reason my skull got particularly thick shortly after the fight started and I didn't keep moving after I positioned her. Then I wondered why I was taking so much damage and blowing all my emergency buttons just to stay alive.

After a mental bonk on the head I started shifting around, side to side, front and back. I hated doing that because we had two melee dps and it's rough on them having to reposition themselves every time the boss moves, but once I started dancing around healing me became much easier.

Overall though, I think it was a good experience. And thanks to a quest that was shared I now have a nice new pair of shoulders. Finally hit 12k health in tanking gear! Haha!

[Paladin] Headless Horseman Totally Tankable as Holy

Next time somebody says "LF tank for HH" I just might be tempted to volunteer.

I was invited on Hana to an HH run by some out-of-guild friends, former Bloodlüsters, and we did our five runs. It was late in the night so I doubted I'd go on another run with Gillien, so I offered to bring him in for a sixth summon. Our tank was convinced to switch to his mage so we could get a seventh summon by his girlfriend, who has been on several of Gillien's holy tanking runs. When he asked who would tank without him, she replied, "Gillien will tank!"

This was followed by a short exchange about whether or not Gillien was still holy to which I replied that I always tank as holy. I'm not sure he realized I wasn't joking. (Though to be honest, once dual specs come out, Gillien will have an actual prot spec.)

So we ran in there and though I was initially a little concerned about how much damage I would take, it turned out that it was completely unnecessary. A holy paladin in Kara-level tanking gear and no damage reduction or avoidance talents can totally take Headless Horseman.

And wow the threat! This was Gillien's first real fight as a tank since the patch and his threat was through the roof. I remember as my party members got better geared I used to have to struggle to stay on top of threat. Now it's all cake, and I don't have Holy Shield to give me reflective damage.

I hadn't tanked much post-patch, just because there hasn't been a need to. One of our druids that dinged 70 decided he'd go feral for PvE and one of our officers decided to go prot with his warrior so we've been oddly stuffed with tanks of late (not that I'm complaining). It's not like it was when I was leveling Gillien and I tanked every single instance in Outland because we otherwise wouldn't have one. My post-patch tanking prior to Headless Horseman was limited to an UBRS fun run to get the Jenkins title.

So I wasn't sure how my new 53/8/0 spec would do for tanking. I chose it for PvP, more specifically arena, in hopes of getting another piece of S4 before the xpac lands (so far, arena stability has sucked so I actually can't tell if my spec is working :P), and I was lacking the Toughness talent to increase my armor. My 8 points in Protection are for Blessing of Kings and Stoicism. Not exactly tanking goodness there. Fortunately, the increased threat formerly from Improved Righteous Fury is now hard baked into the paladin's base Righteous Fury so I was only missing the 6% damage reduction by not taking it.

Though I did manage to tank all the whelplings for my Jenkins title, fighting an actual 70 boss would arguably be tougher, especially since the Headless Horseman was, at least last year, considered the same difficulty as a heroic boss, and I'd never tanked a heroic as holy.

But it all worked out.

I'd kept multiple tanking sets prior to patch 3.0.2 and as expected, post-patch the stats on them changed a lot. The downside was, out of my three tanking sets (avoidance, threat, and middle of the road) only my avoidance set allowed me to remain uncrittable. I anticipated losing the 20 points of defense from the change to Anticipation, but I didn't think I would lose more than that, which is what actually happened.

The main issue I think is that I need a new tanking weapon since spell damage just doesn't seem to be where it's at anymore. I tossed aside my old [Crystalforged Sword] and used my [Gavel of Naaru Blessings] against Headless Horseman because it would give me better threat (even though it was still spell damage) and stamina, but what I could have really used is something more strength on it.

For holy tanking Seal of Corruption seems to be where it's at now, much like prot tanking. Even in my old threat set where I have more spell damage, it still makes sense to use Corruption over Righteous, which makes me wonder if that seal even has a use as holy dps anymore. I'll have to try running some tests when I'm in my full holy set. It'll be useful to know come Northrend.

Will I Be Holy Tanking in WotLK?

I joke about this with my guildies, that I'm the holy pally concerned with how well I'll be able to tank in WotLK. Supposedly it'll be easier, because the additional 30% threat from holy damage that is currently given by Improved Righteous Fury will now be hard baked into the regular Righteous Fury, but the Prot tree has been buffed so much in comparision to Holy I'm afraid that it might lure me away. And if the Prot tree is that good, will a tank need all of those talents just to do a 5-man?

One of the reasons I like being a hybrid is that I can do offspec things to allow flexibility in what I do for 5-mans. Seriously, it's so much easier getting a group off the ground if someone can do multiple roles… and knows how to do them.

For example (and a bit of a digression), I was trying to do a normal Magister's Terrace run because I wanted a particular healing drop and I joined a pug. We had three DPS and me, and we were trying to find a tank. I had already tanked the majority of the BC 5-mans as 41/19 (because I hate respeccing and couldn’t figure out where to put the last point) and while I figured MgT would be more difficult I knew I had the gear for it. My group, faced with the possibility they would otherwise not go at all, agreed to let me holy tank it and we'd look for a healer. We got another holy paladin.

As a courtesy, if I holy tank with a pug healer I always let them know I'm off-spec; not so much because I think I'm going to get pancaked and they need fair warning, so much as I don't want them to think I'm hiding something. I always follow this disclosure with a mention of which 70 instances I have successfully tanked with this very spec so they know the level of my capability. This paladin didn't freak out about me being holy, but he asked if he could tank instead. He'd even respec prot. Ordinarily this would sound like a good thing, except that he also told me he'd never tanked before and wanted to try it out.

I had all kinds of concerns, because Magister's Terrace is not exactly a training wheels instance for a first time tank, it's borderline heroic, but we gave him a shot. We died on the second pull. He had respeced, but his gear was unfortunately crap, being a hodgepodge of things he'd found and none of it enchanted/gemmed. He died so fast I barely had time to get off a heal, and it wasn't enough to keep him up. (Tip for newbie pally tanks: Just because you can AoE tank doesn't mean you'll survive it.)

He switched back to holy to heal, I put on my avoidance set (this being MgT I was expecting to get hit enough that I'd need the extra dodge/parry/etc), and even though I was still holy spec, I successfully tanked Magister's Terrace.

Having done so was certainly a feather in my cap, but what concerns me is...

Will I be able to do this in WotLK? Will I be able to tank the hardest normal 5-man as holy? It sounds contradictory considering that I'm not specced for it, but I don't want to tank in situations where I think it'll endanger the party. My tanking gear is all gemmed and enchanted to the same degree I maintain my healing gear. When I tank I use wizard oil and stam food, even though I'm just doing 5-mans. I even maintain two tanking sets, one for avoidance and one for threat, to use based on what the situation calls for. It's just my spec is only 19 points into Prot. My goal was never to be a raid tank, but a suitable replacement in a 5-man.

The change to Blessing of Sanctuary concerns me because I won't have it as a holy tank (and if a prot tank is in the party to provide it, I won't be the one tanking). If that's now a tanking staple, is there the possibility I'll no longer get enough mana back from Spiritual Attunement? Prot pallies might not have to worry about their mana pools anymore, but I will. The change in Seal of Righteousness to draw on attack power in addition to spell power concerns me as well, because I don't what my threat's going to look like. Most, if not all, my tanking gear is going to change.

Of course there's a good possibility Gillien will not tank prior to Northrend now that he has most everything he needs out of Outland, but I'll be terribly disappointed if he gets to Utgarde Keep and can't tank a thing.