An All Around Guide To Tanking!
"Tank, you are such a noob!" "Tank, stop being bad!" "Kick the tank!" Do any of these sound familiar to you? World of Warcraft players can be very harsh, rude, pushy and downright mean to say the least.
I can honestly say I have been the pushy one in times of past, but in my veteran years as a WoW player I have learned to control my feelings about a new player and hone them into help toward those new players, especially with Tanks.
In this guide you will learn how to play a Tank class, what not to do as a tank and some key features I believe will make you a successful tank in your World of Warcraft adventures.
In the following sections I will be going over:
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Controlling Adds and Bosses
As a tank you are responsible for the control of "Adds"and "Bosses". Pulling Adds is a pretty easy thing to master. It involves a lot of patience from you as a tank. A careful tank is a functional tank.
Though there is such a thing as too careful, you will need to find a balance that best suites you as a player. Adds will always be in multiples, with casters and melee in the groups.
The best way to pull a group of adds is to throw down a AoE attack, or cleave (Death and Decay, Concentration, Swipe, Keg Smash, Thunder Clap) Getting a cleave out early when pulling adds can be the difference between you having snap aggro, or the dps/healer being pummeled to death by a loose add.
A quick AoE or cleave is extremely beneficial to you as tank. Always plan your attacks before you pull and you should have aggro. Once you have the group of adds situated you will be tab targeting and performing a cleave on each individual add.
This will increase your threat on the group as a whole. If you happen to lose aggro just taunt that loose target, which will bring it back in the group you are cleaving and continue on.
Controlling a dungeon or raid boss is a little different but slightly similar to pulling adds. The difference being you won’t be cleaving the single target or tab targeting.
Pulling the Boss is just a matter of using an attack that generates the most threat on the single target (Death Strike, Shield Slam, Shield of the Righteous and Mangle to name a few) Once you pull a boss you need to keep focus on it and use your most aggro generating attack to keep his attention away from the raid or party.
Once you pull a boss you will need to find a safe and secure area in the room to keep him in place and faced away from the group.