Tanking 101

Tanking 101
Tanking made easy by Nikopol



The job of tank and healer is to keep the raid members alive using whatever whenever its needed
Your creativity will come in handy, as everyone has a different style of tanking.
Keeping the healer alive is your top priority, if the healer dies the chances of surviving become smaller
as perhaps you won't die with all your tank gear, but your DPS will and then you will die alone without DPS or HealPS.

There are two ways of reducing the amount of damage you take. They include using gems, enchants,gear,skills, and even maneuvers.
(like charge or intervene) to get far away from hot spots when needed, or rush to them when needed.

Mitigation: The reduction of all incoming magic and physical damage.

Armor: All classes benefit from armor. Tank classes receive a bonus to armor when using the right talents and gems.
Armor is a passive defensive skill and since you can't dodge/parry/block all the time, it will come in handy to have armor to back you up.
New tanks should have at least a 55% damage reduction from armor otherwise they should't even try.
Armor should be a tanks priority along with defense cap 540. Recommended 550 for Death Knights.

Block: Increases with Block Value
The chance of blocking an attack is increased with block rating or defense rating.
Block is considered a Mitigation ability because it reduces the damage taken and reducing the chance of being critical hit.
As an attack that is blocked is not possible for it to be a critical hit. Only useful against mobs, not players.
Blocking is not a very powerful ability but it helps increase your total defense and gain powers like rage and mana.

Tip: Use shield blocking improving skills or trinkets to increase the amount of rage or mana that you receive.
Warriors have shield specialization, and paladins have holy shield.

*Skills
Basically any skill that reduces the amount of damage you receive is for damage mitigation.
These skills are used when the tank finds himself/herself in a tight situation, or when there is no need to save the cooldowns.
they could be used to reduce damage being taken, therefore reducing healing done by healer to regenerate some mana.


Avoidance: The reduction of the chance of getting hit by monsters.

*Dodge: Dodge reduces the damage taken by reducing the amount of hits that hit you.
When you dodge an attack the attack fails to hit you completely, there is no damage to be healed, or to be reduced by armor.
Bosses have hit ratings just like players do, but unlike players that can change their items to receive more hit ratting bosses become less likely to hit you
after you cap your dodge.

Example: Fighting a mob that hits for 10k every time. If you have 30% dodge the mob will miss 3 times every 10 swings.
I know 3 times doesn't sound like much but, you have parry,block,armor,and skills for those other 7 times.
Dodge % + Parry % + Trinket = Your chance to get hit becomes smaller.
(don't forget that's your whole plan. to reduce your amount of damage taken.)

*Parry: In order to be able to parry you must be facing the enemy that you want to parry.
Parrying resets the attack swing for the tank. It works almost like dodge, but it also gives a a lot more threat, basically more parry more threat.
Parrying is the art of using your enemies' force against them and tanks must have at least 15% of it in order to be more effective.
Also parrying doesn't have a cooldown, so all incoming frontal attacks have a chance of being parried (Deflected).

Tip: The more the merrier, By making bigger pulls you reduce the time that a raid would take, but most importantly you increase your chance to
parry therefore your chance to do more DPS. Also most classes have AOE damage which is far more powerful. bigger pulls more DPS, more
Rage/Mana or rune power.

Threat: Making Mobs think you are their biggest danger.

DPS: The basic way of getting more threat out of your skills(EX. Thunder clap.)is having more attack power.
Because of this, it's crucial for DPS characters to control their damage, if they burst, they steal agro and make the threat for the whole pull unstable.
Taunt is quite useful in these kind of situations. AOE stuns, and AOE damage from tank helps get threat in multiple targets.
Obviously DPS characters will do more damage than tanks, so the game has built in tank aids, that makes their skills cause a lot more threat.

Tip: A 100 extra DPS from a mage wouldn't be much more threat, but for a tank it gets multiplied. Basically,If you try to do a bit more damage,
you will get a lot more agro.

Hit Rating: As said earlier about mobs, same applies to you. It doesn't matter if you have 10k attack power, if you are not hit rating caped you will miss
and all your mighty power is rendered useless for that swing. This is Crucial for DPS in order to be more effective, but it plays an even bigger role for the tank.
If a tank fails to hit a mob, he gets no agro from that mob and the healer could get agro, or more commonly, a DPS attacking before agro is stablished gets agro.

Tip: Expertise rating helps reduce the chance enemies will block or parry you in addition to hit rating. This allows for even more threat build-up.


Health: HP, Hit Points, the amount of hit points declares how much damage you can take before you die.
*Stamina: After you've mastered defense cap; the wise thing to do is stack gems that contain stamina, specially Solid Majestic Zircon
or Solid Majestic Zircon.
Depending on your spec,class and skills your hp is modified permanently or buffed for a time.
1 Stamina = 10 Hp

X=Stamina from Gems
Y=Total Stamina from gear and buffs ([Power Word: Fortitude]+ Miner buff [Toughness] +Commanding Shout ) Crude stamina buff
Z= 24% ( Spec HP 9%[Vitality] + 10% [Blessing of Kings] + Tauren 5% Endurance ) Percentage buffs

Formula for Extra HP = X+Y(Z)=(10)
Y= 1600
X= 300 (10x Solid Majestic Zircon )
Z= 24%

24% of 1900 = 456
X+Y(Z)= 2356(10)
Extra HP=23560 + Base Hp (HP without gear) = Total HP





Tanking Enchantments: click for link.
Weapon: 1-Scroll of Enchant Weapon - Blade Ward
2-Enchant Weapon – Titanguard
Head: 1- Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector
Shoulder: 1- Lesser Inscription of the Pinnacle
2-Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle
Cloak: 1-Enchant Cloak – Titanweave
2-Enchant Cloak – Mighty Armor
Chest: 1- Enchant Chest – Greater Defense
2-Enchant Chest – Powerful Stats
Hands: 1-Enchant Gloves – Armsman
Wrist: 1-Enchant Bracer – Major Stamina
Legs: 1-Frosthide Leg Armor
2-Jormungar Leg Armor
Shield: 1- Enchant Shield – Defense
2- Titanium Plating
Feet: 1-Enchant Boots – Tuskarr’s Vitality
2- Enchant Boots – Greater Fortitude


Gems by usable colors: click for link.

Meta: Austere Earthsiege Diamond
Eternal Earthsiege Diamond

Blue: Solid Majestic Zircon
Regal eye of zul

Red: Guardian's Dreadstone
Defender's Dreadstone

Yellow: Stalwart Ametrine
Resolute Ametrine


Talents:

With gear, Gems,and enchants like these, all you require now is tanking skills, which you must learn by playing.
Practice makes perfect, incorrect gear and specs makes the job far harder than it really is.

Here are some Tanking specs for different classes.

Protection Warrior:
The Protector = Spec with Vigilance for those teams that have superior DPS and agro thieves.

The Devastator = As the name says, Based on more damage and threat than protection. My personal choice.

AOE = This spec is based on heavy cleaving thunder clap, and its quite useful when lots of Aoe Threat is needed.

Tip: Tab Then Cleave to hit different targets ( Glyph so cleave hits 3 People)

Protection Paladin:
Holy Blocker = Spec based on holy shield, and Blocking for maximum mana regeneration and threat by holy spells.
Holy Defender = Spec based on reducing the damage team/raid members receive.

Feral Tank Druid:
Infectious Bear = Cookie cutter for bear tanking. Including Clear casting from Resto spec for free skills, extra rage buildup.

Death Knight:
Frost 1Hx2 = Cookie Cutter frost tanking with blood blade barrier for 5% Damage reduction when blood are on cd, and
since blood should be in cd whenever you are fighting, you will have a nice buff.

Unholy Juggernaut = A hybrid tanking class, that is surprisingly effective in AOE Threat and still holds the line.
Unholy + Frost work together like a charm and the talent Black Ice from frost spec helps them even more.

Blood Reaper = Hybrid blood/Frost/ with unholy dodge and longer de-buffs. Experimental build with hysteria not for the tank but
for the best Physical DPS in party/raid.

Tip: Macro Hysteria to be casted on your focus target, and keep the top DPS in chart as your Focus target.
By increasing the top DPS damage by 20% your party will kill the mob faster,
therefore reducing damage taken in total.

Classes: Tauren/Orc/Troll/Blood elf/Undead
Class is the least important of all the things, you could be a troll/undead tank and still be amazing but their
racial don't benefit tank class as well as other classes can.

By order of best tanking classes.

1- Tauren: The big bull looking ones, their racial skills include AOE Stun skill, which is super useful, and 5% HP bonus
and nature damage resistance which makes Tauren the most appealing of all tanking classes.

2- Orc: The green ones that look like aliens, or Shrek. Orcs look amazing in plate armor and their racial skills include
an Enrage effect for more damage (Threat) and a stun recistance.
Tip: Use an axe or a fist weapon to receive bonus expertise. (more threat)

3- Blood Elf: The only class that can be a paladin in 3.3.5a for the horde, we have no other choice if you want to be a paladin,
nonetheless AOE silence with mana regeneration and magic damage reduction do come in handy for a tank that
relies in mana for power.

4- Troll: Trolls are the best caster class for the horde with a 20% Attack/Cast speed buff from a racial skill. Most people
think that 20% haste is not so useful for melee but haste is the speed that you hit, the more hits you land in 1 second
the higher your DPS(threat) will be. Also trolls have increased regeneration,Damage against beasts,and reduced
duration of movement slowing effects which makes them a good choice for PVP.

5-Undead: The best PVP class for the horde, they have immunity to fear/sleep/charm with racial skill and that saves a trinket spot
Resistance to shadow damage,Underwater breathing, and they can eat the people they kill even while during combat.


Macro/Key-binds: These are not necessary but they help a lot when used correctly. Since key-binds and macros are in the subject of
personal choice you will have to choose the ones you find more fitting for you.

Some macros i find useful for Warrior tanking are the following.
1- Warbringer macro: Warbringer is my favorite skill from the protection spec for warriors, the ability to charge, intercept, intervene all in one
button is amazingly helpful.

#showtooltip charge
/castsequence reset=15 [harm] Charge, Intercept, Charge; [help] Intervene;

2-Thunder clap macro: Thunder clap has a 6 second cd that cannot be reseted/lowered in anyway, so this macro exploits that by
using the time in between TC to use cleave, and as soon as TC is back up use it, for more threat generation.
With addition to !Revenge to use revenge as a priority. Revenge hits two targets and for a lot.

#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=6 Thunder Clap,Cleave,Cleave,Cleave,Cleave,cleave
/cast !revenge

3- Retaliation Defense: Retaliation is a skill that must be used in battle stance, but it has so much use for tanking that i decided to make this macro.

#showtooltip Retaliation
/cast [stance] Retaliation; Battle Stance
/cast Defensive Stance

4- Heroic strike/Revenge: Heroic strike is a good way of dumping rage when you are getting more than you can use. With the aid of this macro
You will miss less revenge procs thus improving your threat and dps. But i recommend you keep an additional
key bind for Revenge since the macro doesn't work if you are not spamming it.

#showtooltip Heroic strike
/cast heroic strike
/cast !revenge

5-Devastate/Shield slam: Same as the previous macro but with 2 different skills.

#showtooltip Devastate
/castsequence reset=target/2 devastate,devastate,devastate
/cast !shield slam

6-Taunt/Mock: Taunt is effective to make mobs attack you even if they are far away, but with this macro when they are close to you, it also
casts mocking blow on your target for additional agro.

#showtooltip taunt
/cast [target=mouseover,harm,nodead] Taunt; Taunt
/cast mocking blow




Good luck, if you have any questions ask me in the guild.

Nikopol :Tauren Warrior tank
Anesthesia : Blood Elf Paladin Healer

Dude... i know i was never a tank... but damn this made me feel so noobie :P
Awesome guide for those who want to become a tank in the guild
damn nice!

/clap

ikuno

p.s.: YES i eat the ppl i kill so what ;D

far most the best tanking guide ived ever read true on many aspects hail for nikopol,