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Tips for rookie tank.


crazedjunky

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Never tunnel vision on one target, and always AOE tank. It doesn't matter what AC you are, you should be tanking every enemy. To do that while fighting on the front line, you'll have to always check over your shoulder to see what straggler enemies are running toward the healers/rDPS.

 

Apart from actually tanking the enemies, it should be your goal to 1) take steady damage; if you leaped into a pack and immediately lost half your health, that was your fault, you need to pull better, and you need to manage your cooldowns better 2) pull fast, with no confusion or cc disarray 3) stack up/group up enemies for easy control and burning.

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The best advice I ever got for dealing with Leeroy marauders and sentinels is this:

 

Let them leap in and die a few times. They will either learn their lesson or they will quit, whereupon you can re-queue for a better player.

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Don't taunt first.

 

Many tanks open with a taunt. Taunt builds a % of threat above the highest threat on the list. Taunting at the start is a waste. Go through a full ration and then taunt (or before hand if target switches)

 

Turn target of target on and keep it in a place that you can easily see. Make sure you are always aware of who your target is focused on.

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On trash pulls, the mob of largest concern, 90% of the time, is the one beating on your healer.

 

Take the time to learn fight mechanics, find tricks and learn when you'll want def cds the most. It will help get things done as quickly and smoothly as possible.

 

Pace fps/ ops so you keep moving but not so fast that people feel rushed. It's surprising how good of a tank such an arbitrary skill makes you look.

 

For ops, it's not about you having aggro, but the tanks having aggro. I know some tanks that feel like they have to have aggro on everything. As long as one of the tanks has aggro and neither is dying, things are fine. Learning to watch for the stray mob running around in the raid is huge here.

 

Keep running your healer and watch other tanks. You'll pick up a lot of good tricks that others have figured out.

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Something really non-intuitive that I had to be knocked upside the head with while tanking TfB: go into your Preferences and find the camera control for how far out you can zoom your camera and put the slider all the way to the right. This will maximize your ability to zoom out.

 

As another commenter said, tunnel-vision can be a huge issue, and the default field of view is just not wide enough, in my experience, to be able to keep an eye on everything. I can't play with it all the way out like the person I tank with, but I have found that for my personal base state I like it to be a little farther out than game default.

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Something really non-intuitive that I had to be knocked upside the head with while tanking TfB: go into your Preferences and find the camera control for how far out you can zoom your camera and put the slider all the way to the right. This will maximize your ability to zoom out.

 

As another commenter said, tunnel-vision can be a huge issue, and the default field of view is just not wide enough, in my experience, to be able to keep an eye on everything. I can't play with it all the way out like the person I tank with, but I have found that for my personal base state I like it to be a little farther out than game default.

 

For sure. On TFB last boss seeing the adds come in, where the sput is, where all the different things at play are is key. More so if you are calling things out in a raid.

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Don't taunt first.

 

Many tanks open with a taunt. Taunt builds a % of threat above the highest threat on the list. Taunting at the start is a waste. Go through a full ration and then taunt (or before hand if target switches)

 

A corollary of this is to go back through your abilities and know which ones generate high aggro and open with some of these.

Edited by Bilirubin
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IMO, one of the most important aspects of tanking is dungeon knowledge.

Tank classes are usually fairly easy to play mechanics-wise, but the difficulty comes in the fact that you'll lead the party.

 

Players always tend to follow the tank. (and with good reason) Make sure you know what the mobs do, how you should pull groups, whether you need CC on certain packs, etc.

 

Know the tactics!!!!!

 

The fun thing about tanking is, once you're used to it, and you've done all dungeons a few times, you'll move fast trough them, and tanking it all becomes like a big dance (at least that's how it feels to me). When I'm tanking in MMO's, it feels like I'm playing with the mobs, especially when playing a class with aoe stun/cc (warrior tank in WoW for example). Pull them together and position them right where you want them to be, aoe stun, kill, repeat.

 

Once you get the hang of it and you feel comfortable, you'll start enjoying it immensely :)

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1st off, don't be bothered by a bad fps/ops run. Occasionally, they will happen, especially when you're in the learning state. I've been tanking in MMO's for over a decade now, and consider myself a very capable tank. That being said, there's a little bit of learning involved with a new role or new game. I know there was for me and i'm still learning. Take your time, communicate with your party. Letting them know that you are in the process of learning and accepting constructive criticism will go a long way. You will make mistakes, that is fine as long as you learn from them. ;)

 

Good luck out there.

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Don't taunt first.

 

Many tanks open with a taunt. Taunt builds a % of threat above the highest threat on the list. Taunting at the start is a waste. Go through a full ration and then taunt (or before hand if target switches)

 

Turn target of target on and keep it in a place that you can easily see. Make sure you are always aware of who your target is focused on.

 

So very much this... and seriously, don't pull with your taunt, ever.

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