Advanced Tanking Topics

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Tanking is one of the most challenging and intense roles that a person can play in the game, yet also one of the most rewarding.  People that choose to become a tank are stepping into very demanding shoes, but though hard work and honed skills can become a player that is revered server-wide as an outstanding asset to any dungeon / raid run.  This guide will focus on theories of how and why to tank, while other guides focus on the specifics of what items to get and what spells to use.

Being an excellent tank demands:

• Practice: Few tanks do well if they only tank occasionally.
• Alertness: The tank must be constantly aware of the battlefield, and respond to changes almost before they happen.
• Work: There is no slack for a tank.  If you can't take the hit you die before you can be healed, and your group dies.  That means you will spend more time than any other role making sure that you have the gear to meet and exceed the fights you will face.
• Keen knowledge of the game: You will spend lots of time reading up on boss fights, searching for where to get your next gear piece, and developing strategies to deal with the abilities of those you fight with and against.
• Leadership: The front of the battle is the ideal place for the leader to be, and is the exact place where tank always is.  Be prepared to brief group members prior to boss fights, give concise and correct direction, and to signal when players must respond to events.
• Self-improving attitude: Tanking is no place for finger-pointers, and sore losers.  A skilled and prepared tank can compensate for a very wide variety of undesirable circumstances and occurences.  A tank should almost always have the mindset that poor performance of the group is a result of their inability to tank in a way that suits the groups needs, capabilities, and habits.  With this attitude the tank will improve themselves, or adjust their strategy, and lead their group to victory.
• More work: As a tank you will burn through lots of consumables (e.g. potions, Runes of Warding, scrolls, etc.), and will have the highest repair bill of your group members.  Be prepared to maintain a steady income to support your tanking expenditures.

The Tank's Main Job

The tank controls and simplifies the battlefield.  If asked, most people will tell you that the tank's main job is holding aggro or being able to take a hard beating.  While both of these things are important factors in success they don't reach the root task that any tank is trying to accomplish.  A good tank uses all their assets to reduce the difficulty of challenges presented by the encounter.  They do this primarily by bringing consistency to the fight.

Tanking in order to bring consistency to a fight is similar to adjusting the sights on a gun.  The fact is that a gun shoots in the same spot every time.  If you clamp a gun in a vise and shoot it, the bullets will all go through nearly the same hole.  If a new shooter is putting holes in the target all over the place, they must be taught to shoot properly so that all the bullets go to the same place, even if that place is not the bullseye.  Once shooter can reliably make a very small group of holes, they have become the same as the vice, and it's a simple matter of adjusting the gun's sights so that the shooter's holes line up with the bullseye.  In tanking, you are working to remove as many of the strange effects and happenings of the fight so that, like the gun's vice or a competent shooter, it becomes a simple matter of aiming at the target and firing to achieve success.

Tools the Tank Uses to Do Their Job

Tanks have a big toolbox when it comes to doing their job, and their tools fall into a number of categories.  Listed in the order of importance:

• Knowledge: The tank understands the abilities of the enemies, how and when they will be used, and what will be done to respond to, or counter-act, them.  Preparation is done by gathering information ahead of time, whenever possible.  When a new situation is encountered, the tank immediately learns from any mistakes they make and uses those lessons to improve their performance.
• Strategy: Developing a sound strategy, and executing it, is important.  It allows the group to respond to known events quickly and efficiently, and reduces the confussion which often leads to failure.
• Aggro: The tank uses anything they can to get to, and stay at, the top of every enemy's threat list  This puts the tank's extra-tough gear into play, and does not allow the enemies to attack players whose gear is not designed to absorb the punishment.  Maintaining aggo on all the enemies involved in the battle also allows the healer to have to heal fewer targets, which is an advantageous situation.
• Abilities: Tanks often have numerous abilities to help steer a deteriorating situation back on the course to success.  Most of these generate large amounts of threat, make the tank or group members extra-tough for short amounts of time, weaken the enemy or make them unable to fight, or return resources to the group.  Some examples are anything that stuns or incapacitates a target so that they can't fight, abilities that disarm or reduce the armor of the enemy, trinkets that boost avoidance or armor by a large amount for a short time, items with special "Use" effects, and debuffs placed on enemies that cause party members' attacks to regenerate health or mana.  There are many more, and the tank should understand each, and use them whenever appropriate.
• Gear: A tank's main set of gear makes them unable to critically hit, reduces the chances that they will take damage, gives them a large amount of health to decrease the chances that they will die when hit, and allows them to generate sufficient aggro to not be overcome on the threat list by other players.
• Extra Gear: Tanks also accumulate extra gear to use in special situations.  Throw almost nothing away, especially if it is impossible to get again.  Some examples include special magic resistance pieces / sets, items that allow some novel ability like fear immunity / underwater breathing / extra pulling capability / etc., and armor that brings the tank to maximum health / avoidance / etc. but isn't part of the normally worn gear set.
  NOTE: New tanks should talk to veteran tanks to learn of items that are useful for tanking, but are otherwise unknown or discarded by the rest of the player community.  You'll be suprised what's out there.
  

 A good tank has all of these things present at all times.  Some may get used more than others, but they all are important often.

Stack +Defense Until Uncrittable

Important facts about Defense: 

• Players gain 5 Defense Skill for every level they gain, so a level 80 player, tank or not, will have 400 Defense Skill.
• Defense Skill adds more chance for the player to be missed by, dodge, parry, and block incoming attacks.
• Gear and items do not normally include Defense Skill, they include Defense Rating.  It takes a certain amount of Defense Rating to make one point of Defense Skill, and it varies based on the player's level.
• When the system determines how a monster has hit the player while attacking, it follows the Attack Table.  According to the Attack Table, the system determines one type of result at a time, and in a very specific order.  The order is:
  Miss, Dodge, Parry, Glancing Blow (only players and pets versus mobs), Block, Critical (200% damage), Crushing Blow (150% damage; only mobs versus players and pets), Ordinary hit
• Defense Skill decreases the chance of receiving critical hits from any level attacker by 0.04% per point that the target's Defense skill exceeds the attacker's Weapon Skill.  Defense Skill and Weapon Skill are both calculated by the simple formula (Level * 5).
• Boss monsters are considered to be 3 levels higher than the player, regardless of the player's level, or the level of the dungeon.  For example, a level 80 player running the level 60 raid dungeon Molten Core, will be attacked by the boss as if the boss was level 83.
• Monsters have a base 5% chance to critically hit a player that is the same level as them. Monsters gain a 0.2% chance to critically hit a player for every level they are above the player. Because bosses are considered 3 levels higher than the player, they will have a 5.6% chance to critically hit the player.  To overcome the defecit, the tank player must stack Defense Skill, reducing the boss's advantage by 0.04% per skill point.  (5.6 / 0.4) = 140.  It requires 140 Defense Skill ABOVE the player's base (Level * 5) to become uncrittable.

What all this information is telling you is that a level 80 tank will need a minimum of 540 Defense Skill to become uncrittable.  At level 80, the 140 Defense Skill required to take the player from their base 400 to 540 can be aquired from a minimum of 689 Defense Rating from gear.

Marking: Kill Order IS Important

If we accept that the primary role of the tank is bringing control and consistency to the battlefield, it makes perfect sense that kill order is very important, and that marking the kill order is a responsibility that that the tank is in the best place to fulfill.

Few people usually want to mark.  Part of that is because selecting each monster, right-clicking their picture, and choosing a raid icon is slow and cumbersome.  Make it easier for yourself by binding keys to the three most common icons: Skull, Cross (X), and Square.  If you use the WASD keys for movement, it's easiest to bind CFR to these.  This can be done from the Key Bindings menu.

With these key bindings, it's very easy to mark.  Simply select the first mob you want the group to kill with the mouse, hit your Skull marking key, select the second mob, hit the Cross (X) key, and so on.  The advantage of this is also that monsters can be marked even as they are running toward the group, even if only Skull is marked.

Marking Tips:

• Mark every pull.  This works toward consistency.
• Insist that the group always follow kill order.  If people are not following kill order, politely ask them to, and remind them of what order you are expecting them to follow.
• The standard kill order is Skull, Cross (X), Square, Moon, Triangle, Diamond, Circle, then Star.
  
  
• Always mark something.  Marking something Skull, even the wrong thing, is better than marking nothing.  This will cause the group, especially the DPS, to focus on one target which will kill it faster.  Each target that dies removes a portion of the damage the tank is taking.
• Mark targets in an order that kills the least controllable, or most dangerous, first, and moves to most controllable, or least dangerous, last.
• Mark anything that fears, stuns, disorients, or uses some other ability that reduces the ability of the tank or group to fight (e.g. mana drain) to be killed first.
• Mark casters to be killed first, since the group is usually not geared to combat magic damage.
• Mark all other ranged enemies, usually "hunter"-types, to be killed following casters, but before melee.
• Melee monsters should be marked last, or not marked at all, since the tank is geared specifically to counteract melee attack.
• Mark any patrol you see.  Usually Star, or another icon at the "end" of the kill order, is used so that it doesn't interfere with normal marking.  The raid icons can be seen through most walls and objects, making it far easier to see when a patrol is coming.
• If the group is good at following kill order, it is sometimes wise and possible to mark a ranged mob to be killed first, and then not try to hold aggro on that mob at all.  The group will usually kill it quickly, before it has a chance to do serious damage to the party.  This is only advisable on mobs that use nearly no melee abilities.

Setting up your User Interface (UI)

Setting up your user interface well is a great suggestion for anyone.  It's especially important for the tank, since tanking is already a busy job.  Saving time pressing buttons is extra time you have to keep an eye on the battle.

Each tank is unique, and will have a unique style of how they do things.  Because of this, the most important thing to keep in mind is not exactly where your ability buttons go, but how you play, and how you can arrange your buttons to best suit you in the majority of combat situations.

Here are some suggestions to consider:

• Arrange your buttons to clump those that are most used, or often used together, in one area together.  One strategy is to put most used spells near the center of the interface, and radiate out to least used.
• Be sure to turn on your extra action bars at the bottom and sides of the interface. 
• Be sure to drag trinket buttons from the character panel onto action bar slots, for easy access.
• Keep "emergency use" buttons where they are easily identifiable, and accessible.  A good spot is on the ends of the action bars.
• Make macros to self-cast spells that need to be targeted on yourself quickly in emergencies (e.g. Lay on Hands, Cleanse).  I caution people against turning on the "Auto Self-Cast" interface feature. When "Auto Self-Cast" is off, and you try to cast a targetable spell / ability, but have a monster targeted, you get the "glove" icon to select a target.  If you hold the ALT key and try to cast the same ability, when "Auto Self-Cast" is off, it will automatically target and cast on yourself.  However, when "Auto Self-Cast" is on, the reverse is not true.  Trying to cast a targetable spell with a monster selected results in casting on yourself.  Holding ALT and trying to cast a spell DOES NOT bring up the glove, but will just also cast on yourself.  With "Auto Self-Cast" enabled, the only way to cast on someone else is to first taget them, and cast.  Switching targets off of the monster is a bad move for a tank.

More coming soon...