- Forums
- World of Warcraft
- Class Discussion
- Forcing myself to tank?
Forcing myself to tank?Follow
I’ve been 80 for a week now and here is my tank set.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Kilrogg&n=Vakili
My question for everyone is, Did you enjoy tanking right away?
According to what I’ve read here and other places my gear should be fine for any heroic but I often find myself with many problems.
My biggest thing is losing the control you have as a healer. As tank there is only so many clutch things you can do before you have to rely completely on the healer.
I’ve only tanked 3 heroics and 2 of them went sloppy and one we didn’t even finish.
Now I’m not a hardcore raider, but if a heroic doesn’t go smoothly I get bothered. I do have a new found respect for the great tanks I’ve encountered lately though.
I can’t tell if it’s me or the group, I might try to find a healer I know and have him heal me through a tough heroic (what’s the hardest heroic from a tanks perspective? I’m thinking HoS)
Tl;dr Did you enjoy tanking right away or did it grow on you.
It still hasn't grown on me. I have fairly decent tanking gear, due to many Naxx 25 runs with the same group, eventually a lot of high level tanking gear came my, coupled with emblem purchases.
After speccing into tank and getting def capped I attempted to tank a VOA 25. This was prior to Koralon. I was on the adds, I ran in, attempted to aggro them all, failed to get all four adds, which then killed a few people.
Received mucho grief from the raid, I was allowed to stay as DPS, I vowed never to tank a PUG again, despite many whispers from people saying cheers for trying and such like.
On reflection, I now realise that this was not entirely my fault. When I think back to that fateful night I remember the, almost, instant DPS'ing of Emalon and his adds by many of the people in the raid. The scars have not quite healed yet and I am not keen to jump into tanking with PUGs just yet, but if we have enough people on from the guild one night, I may step up and give it another whirl.
Unfortunately this is the perception of tanking that I now have. I care too much if the adds are not attacking me, spending a lot of time between my rotation and checking that everything is going ok and none of the creatures have slipped through the net and are turning the healers into kebabs. It has made tanking unpleasant for me.
Most of the tanks I run with seem to not care about anyone else in the group as long as they are being healed and nobody screams "MANA BREAK!", until I get into this mindset, I guess I'll avoid it.
I have a nice holy kit in my bank anyway.
After speccing into tank and getting def capped I attempted to tank a VOA 25. This was prior to Koralon. I was on the adds, I ran in, attempted to aggro them all, failed to get all four adds, which then killed a few people.
Received mucho grief from the raid, I was allowed to stay as DPS, I vowed never to tank a PUG again, despite many whispers from people saying cheers for trying and such like.
On reflection, I now realise that this was not entirely my fault. When I think back to that fateful night I remember the, almost, instant DPS'ing of Emalon and his adds by many of the people in the raid. The scars have not quite healed yet and I am not keen to jump into tanking with PUGs just yet, but if we have enough people on from the guild one night, I may step up and give it another whirl.
Unfortunately this is the perception of tanking that I now have. I care too much if the adds are not attacking me, spending a lot of time between my rotation and checking that everything is going ok and none of the creatures have slipped through the net and are turning the healers into kebabs. It has made tanking unpleasant for me.
Most of the tanks I run with seem to not care about anyone else in the group as long as they are being healed and nobody screams "MANA BREAK!", until I get into this mindset, I guess I'll avoid it.
I have a nice holy kit in my bank anyway.
Prot made me un-quit Paladin.
STORY TIME
My first 80 was Paladin, I leveled Ret. At 80 I got some heroics in, bought TSD(With Berserker, back when it was a 2k chant) and full Savage Saronite. I did some poor enchanting/gemming choices(I had no idea what I was doing). Got into some VoA and OS25's eventually getting T7.5 gloves/leggings. I got all the spiffy Heroism and a Valor or two items... but then I got bored.
Leveled Mage to 80. Beasted on Heroics and got into Ulduar. Joined a crappy guild and got sidelined so the "core group" could always go. Got bored. Went back to try out Pally JUST as Conquest hit.
Bought dual-spec, set up Prot. Dropped Mining and Skinning and power'd Blacksmithing and JC to 450 in two days. Bought Titansteel Helm/Shield/Boots and luckily had a few extra tanking items sitting in bank from Naxx25(Sapphiron legs ftw!) bought some rep items(Wyrmrest Chest owned) spammed UP for Red Sword of Courage(only to get Last Laugh 2 weeks later, woot).
From that moment on I hardcore tanked anything and everything. Tanking is the most fun thing in the entire game...
...until you hit SERIOUS content.
When my current guild recruited me, they demanded me as Ret and I was in basically garbage Ret gear (2 pvp rings, pvp bracers, 4pc T7.5 with OS25+1 Helm) so I bought Titansteel and ran my *** off. We run Uld10/25 Hard Modes and TotC10/25 so sometimes I got asked to go tank.
At first it was YAY! I LOVE tanking and Ret is my offspec anyhow! Well I had never tanked TotC before so it was harsh and with FPS dipping down to 1-5 sometimes(dinosaur PC) picking up adds was hell so I had to main tank. I did well but it was stressful and my guild is, shall we say, not very gentle on mistakes.
So now, we recruited another fulltime offtank and I'm Ret full time unless we do a 10man(and I volunteer) and I prefer it. In Heroics and Naxx and the like, even some fights in Uld, tanking is the greatest thing. You don't worry about anything but keeping yourself up and the mob on you. When you get into the intense fights though it is stressful and sometimes nice to relax and just button mash as DPS.
-----
tl;dr version:
Tanking is tons of fun in early content. The harder the content, the more stressful it is. Same as healing. If you enjoy a challenge, tanking is for you. Especially with the gear some people have now making threat ridiculously hard.
Give it a try. If you DO NOT like it, don't do it. Only tanks who enjoy tanking are good at it.
STORY TIME
My first 80 was Paladin, I leveled Ret. At 80 I got some heroics in, bought TSD(With Berserker, back when it was a 2k chant) and full Savage Saronite. I did some poor enchanting/gemming choices(I had no idea what I was doing). Got into some VoA and OS25's eventually getting T7.5 gloves/leggings. I got all the spiffy Heroism and a Valor or two items... but then I got bored.
Leveled Mage to 80. Beasted on Heroics and got into Ulduar. Joined a crappy guild and got sidelined so the "core group" could always go. Got bored. Went back to try out Pally JUST as Conquest hit.
Bought dual-spec, set up Prot. Dropped Mining and Skinning and power'd Blacksmithing and JC to 450 in two days. Bought Titansteel Helm/Shield/Boots and luckily had a few extra tanking items sitting in bank from Naxx25(Sapphiron legs ftw!) bought some rep items(Wyrmrest Chest owned) spammed UP for Red Sword of Courage(only to get Last Laugh 2 weeks later, woot).
From that moment on I hardcore tanked anything and everything. Tanking is the most fun thing in the entire game...
...until you hit SERIOUS content.
When my current guild recruited me, they demanded me as Ret and I was in basically garbage Ret gear (2 pvp rings, pvp bracers, 4pc T7.5 with OS25+1 Helm) so I bought Titansteel and ran my *** off. We run Uld10/25 Hard Modes and TotC10/25 so sometimes I got asked to go tank.
At first it was YAY! I LOVE tanking and Ret is my offspec anyhow! Well I had never tanked TotC before so it was harsh and with FPS dipping down to 1-5 sometimes(dinosaur PC) picking up adds was hell so I had to main tank. I did well but it was stressful and my guild is, shall we say, not very gentle on mistakes.
So now, we recruited another fulltime offtank and I'm Ret full time unless we do a 10man(and I volunteer) and I prefer it. In Heroics and Naxx and the like, even some fights in Uld, tanking is the greatest thing. You don't worry about anything but keeping yourself up and the mob on you. When you get into the intense fights though it is stressful and sometimes nice to relax and just button mash as DPS.
-----
tl;dr version:
Tanking is tons of fun in early content. The harder the content, the more stressful it is. Same as healing. If you enjoy a challenge, tanking is for you. Especially with the gear some people have now making threat ridiculously hard.
Give it a try. If you DO NOT like it, don't do it. Only tanks who enjoy tanking are good at it.
I was Ret/Holy for a long time, but I always managed to pick up tank peices on the side. One night in my last guild that was small and casual before Ulduar came out we needed a offtank for Nax 10.
So I respeced, threw on my third offset stuff and went to town. The main tank died early on Heigen, I picked him up and danced until he was dead. Then on KT the main tank died while I was offtanking the bugs. I picked him up and tanked both bugs and KT. Now we had no naxx 25 gear in our guild, and at that time KT was still serious biz. I had to blow every cooldown in my ******* to survive. We got it done and everyone was really stoked. I felt so clutch. My first time tanking a raid in WoTLK and I was pulling hero moves, to save the day from our main tank. It was a rush, I loved it.
These days I am in a slightly less casual guild that does 25 mans, its still not a true hardcore raiding guild but we have allot of fun and down most bosses.
I was Ret/holy again for a while becuase they were shy on healers most nights. Guess what happened? ALmost every fugging night they were like Shozin can you heal tonight? Thats what I get for being one of the top healers every time they made me heal lol. The bad thing was I realized I hate healing.
So I switched my offspec back to prot and told my raid leader that I don't heal. Either I DPS or I tank, thats it. Since then I'm having way more fun again. I mostly DPS since I am usually in our top 3 if not 1 on damage done. But occasionaly I tank in our ten mans or to get the daily done before raid.
I like DPS best, it's always been my first love in MMO's. But Pally tanking is a nice change of pace as well imo. Healing... its not for me.
So I respeced, threw on my third offset stuff and went to town. The main tank died early on Heigen, I picked him up and danced until he was dead. Then on KT the main tank died while I was offtanking the bugs. I picked him up and tanked both bugs and KT. Now we had no naxx 25 gear in our guild, and at that time KT was still serious biz. I had to blow every cooldown in my ******* to survive. We got it done and everyone was really stoked. I felt so clutch. My first time tanking a raid in WoTLK and I was pulling hero moves, to save the day from our main tank. It was a rush, I loved it.
These days I am in a slightly less casual guild that does 25 mans, its still not a true hardcore raiding guild but we have allot of fun and down most bosses.
I was Ret/holy again for a while becuase they were shy on healers most nights. Guess what happened? ALmost every fugging night they were like Shozin can you heal tonight? Thats what I get for being one of the top healers every time they made me heal lol. The bad thing was I realized I hate healing.
So I switched my offspec back to prot and told my raid leader that I don't heal. Either I DPS or I tank, thats it. Since then I'm having way more fun again. I mostly DPS since I am usually in our top 3 if not 1 on damage done. But occasionaly I tank in our ten mans or to get the daily done before raid.
I like DPS best, it's always been my first love in MMO's. But Pally tanking is a nice change of pace as well imo. Healing... its not for me.
Very well put. It seems I feel the same way about tanking as you do about healing and vice versa
If it’s not fun it’s not fun, not any gear items in the world can change that.
My other class is a priest and I’ve never even melee’d in a raid/heroic before so it’s just really weird angle being in the thick of things. I’m use to checking out the scenery, standing on a table, or going through my bags…as a tank it feels like if I stop even a second I did something wrong ïŠ
I’ve got some decent ret items too, I might try that as an off spec. But I really enjoy the healing role, just wanted to branch out my game a little bit…
If it’s not fun it’s not fun, not any gear items in the world can change that.
My other class is a priest and I’ve never even melee’d in a raid/heroic before so it’s just really weird angle being in the thick of things. I’m use to checking out the scenery, standing on a table, or going through my bags…as a tank it feels like if I stop even a second I did something wrong ïŠ
I’ve got some decent ret items too, I might try that as an off spec. But I really enjoy the healing role, just wanted to branch out my game a little bit…
I've never healed before as a paladin (tried it as a priest for a little while, but disliked it), but tanking... I love tanking.
I've done up to about half of Naxx10 (my character, as wow-heroes claims, is good enough to OT Uld10, but not enough guildies up that high), and so far I still enjoy tanking. lol.
Now, Naxx10 isn't "serious" but still... we'll see.
I've also done OS10 off-tank (I want to MT it sometime), and that wasn't too bad either, though trying to gather up all the fire elementals can be a PITA sometimes.
I hated tanking, though, back when I was in the 'gearing up' phase, when I had 26k health, and barely enough avoidances to do heroics, it was hell. Dipping down to 10-20% health every trash pull wasn't exactly what I'd call fun. Wiping to bosses and laying on the ground praying they can finish off the last 10% isn't fun either.
Edited, Oct 9th 2009 6:39pm by Zariamnk
I've done up to about half of Naxx10 (my character, as wow-heroes claims, is good enough to OT Uld10, but not enough guildies up that high), and so far I still enjoy tanking. lol.
Now, Naxx10 isn't "serious" but still... we'll see.
I've also done OS10 off-tank (I want to MT it sometime), and that wasn't too bad either, though trying to gather up all the fire elementals can be a PITA sometimes.
I hated tanking, though, back when I was in the 'gearing up' phase, when I had 26k health, and barely enough avoidances to do heroics, it was hell. Dipping down to 10-20% health every trash pull wasn't exactly what I'd call fun. Wiping to bosses and laying on the ground praying they can finish off the last 10% isn't fun either.
Edited, Oct 9th 2009 6:39pm by Zariamnk
Funny enough I prefer tanking with my Warrior, but I switched to Protection on my Paladin as well.
I guess I'm getting bored with DPS, though I still enjoy the occasional DPS epeen run on my Death Knight.
On the question whether I enjoyed it from the start or not, I'd have to say yes and no. I started tanking on my Druid and didn't enjoy it at all. This was back when some Draenei crashed in Azeroth and we set sails for a planet torn to shreds and it was quite different back then.
Furthermore, I don't actually enjoy tanking on my Paladin. Yes, it's very easy to handle AOE pulls, but leveling as Protection is a bore, to be honest. My Warrior, though, can round up a bunch of mobs and kill them in seconds thanks to massive attacks and procs. Also, the style of the Warrior appeals to me more. I prefer mashing buttons and looking for procs rather than grinding on a rotation.
This isn't recruiting propaganda, though, or at least it wasn't my intention. My point is that if you don't find tanking with your Paladin fun, perhaps one of the three other tanking classes appeal to you instead?
I guess I'm getting bored with DPS, though I still enjoy the occasional DPS epeen run on my Death Knight.
On the question whether I enjoyed it from the start or not, I'd have to say yes and no. I started tanking on my Druid and didn't enjoy it at all. This was back when some Draenei crashed in Azeroth and we set sails for a planet torn to shreds and it was quite different back then.
Furthermore, I don't actually enjoy tanking on my Paladin. Yes, it's very easy to handle AOE pulls, but leveling as Protection is a bore, to be honest. My Warrior, though, can round up a bunch of mobs and kill them in seconds thanks to massive attacks and procs. Also, the style of the Warrior appeals to me more. I prefer mashing buttons and looking for procs rather than grinding on a rotation.
This isn't recruiting propaganda, though, or at least it wasn't my intention. My point is that if you don't find tanking with your Paladin fun, perhaps one of the three other tanking classes appeal to you instead?
Please "talk up" if your comprehension white-shifts. I will use simple-happy language-words to help you understand.
Personally, I love tanking. Always have. Back in vanilla WoW I did the best I could with what we had at the time: I was a "tank" for 5/10 man dungeons with a Ret/Holy spec (because calling Prot back then "terribad" was an understatement ...).
As soon as Prot was made an actually viable tanking spec, even if only meant for trash/AOE tanking, the first thing I did was change my spec and start looking at how to make my gear as good as I could for that role. I find DPSing fun too, and not only is that my duel spec but I also have various alts to DPS with, but tanking I think will always be my preferred role. Some people love it like I do, others can't stand it. It might grow on you, it might not.
As soon as Prot was made an actually viable tanking spec, even if only meant for trash/AOE tanking, the first thing I did was change my spec and start looking at how to make my gear as good as I could for that role. I find DPSing fun too, and not only is that my duel spec but I also have various alts to DPS with, but tanking I think will always be my preferred role. Some people love it like I do, others can't stand it. It might grow on you, it might not.
Recent Visitors: 129
All times are in CST
Anonymous Guests (129)
- Forums
- World of Warcraft
- Class Discussion
- Forcing myself to tank?
© 2024 Fanbyte LLC