Welcome, Tank Shaman!

There was no reason to hesitate and I don't know why I ever did, but now it is here - my very own tank shaman.

If you read my previous post on the subject, I debated whether to reroll an entirely new shaman or just respec the one I had. In the end I opted for the latter, because the prospect of having to redo the totem quests really didn't entice me, also it would've taken a lot longer to get into the real action of tanking with a new character anyway.

Things get trickier if your enemy is resistant to nature damage though.

Respecing my resto shaman into enhancement and gearing her, as much as I could, cost me about 15g. It might sound as little, but it's really not. It's worth every penny though. I wasn't lucky enough to find decent, or decently priced, gear at the Auction House for every gear slot immediately though and had to run with some caster gear. I figured it wasn't too bad since the intellect and stamina on those gear pieces would be handy on a tank as well. Fortunately I ran with few spirit items, for some reason.

My first ever dungeon as a tank shaman was a real trial by fire too - Gnomeregan. Definitely not a good starting dungeon for someone who has never tanked before, but I have, just never as a shaman. How hard can it be, I thought?

Not overly, it turns out. Tank shaman is pretty much exactly what I expected it to be. Really fun! So to elaborate on that thought, how is it going?

As always you need be smart with your totem placements.

Well firstly I really expected there to be a lot more questions, or should I say hesitations, about being tanked by a shaman. But after having tanked 5-6 dungeons I have not heard one peep of doubt as to whether I can pull it off. I guess it helps that I am in my mid-30s, and dungeons still allow you to get away with most things. It probably also helps that tanks are damn scarce, and "tanking" means less of "being the one who takes all the damage" and more of "being the one who takes charge". In fact I always find it interesting when people will ask for a tank for an hour and then still do all the pulling (dps warriors, I am looking at you).

As a tank there are a couple of scenarios you need to handle in an instance, stuff that requires you to keep aggro on one or more targets, interrupt, get ranged threat and of course take a lot of damage. Warrior tanks are usually the prototype around which the other tank-able classes have been designed, or so I like to think, and a tank warrior in Classic has no ranged or aoe threat (I don't really count Demo Shout). What it does have is good single target aggro and damage reduction skills. Tanking 1-3 mobs is usually still not an issue as a warrior as long as you keep retargeting and dishing out your threat fairly evenly. So how does the tank shaman differ?

Well the tank shaman has excellent ranged threat and decent aoe threat. With Chain Lighting you can do a ranged-aoe threat pull which is so handy in low level instances. Earth Shock not only works as a high threat skill, but also as an interrupt with only 6 sec cd. As a shaman you don't have a taunt, but that is very rarely an issue in low level dungeons (I can't say for higher dungeons yet). It only actually becomes problematic if you lose aggro on a boss and that probably only happens if you're unlucky with some resists and misses. 

I can't say for sure if my shaman takes more damage than a "regular" tank.

The tank shaman also lacks any kind of decent damage reduction skills. Improved Stoneskin totem should only really be considered as making up for the lack in armor, but the warrior has both Last Stand (talent) or Shield Wall (skill), which can make a huge difference when shit hits the fan and you overpull. While I've never heard a healer complain, I do find that I miss these skills on my shaman (paladins have things like Lay on Hands. As far as I know druids also lack tanking cooldowns which for some time was considered one of their greatest weaknesses if I recall correctly). 

Totems are also definitely a lot less convenient than shouts or auras. An aura goes along with you, doesn't have to be recast and can't be targeted and destroyed by enemies. On the other hand a paladin/warrior only has the one buff, whereas the shaman can use four different ones at once. As a shaman you have a huge arsenal of really useful totems i.e buffs to drop in very varying situations, things like Tremor Totem, Earthbind Totem or Stoneclaw Totem (which I often use to aid me in multi-pulls). In the end I think the trade-off is pretty balanced, though Stoneskin Totem usually is the only one I use for every fight for mana preserving reasons. And on that note...

Just as with paladins, tanking shamans have one feature that is both one of the best things and the worst things about it - the mana pool. It is easy to burn through in one fight, requiring you to drink often, but I find that you get a feeling for how many Earth Shocks you need to use on an enemy to have it securely at your side. While you could burn five into its face, it's probably enough with two. And maybe not every group-pull needs to be done with a Chain Lightning, just because it is handy. If there are only two targets, a regular pull will probably work just as well and save you a lot of mana. I almost never use Lightning Shield, because it's too expensive. With some mana management I find I don't have to drink more than between every 4-5 pulls, but that is still a lot of drinking. Whether you prefer to have all your threat skills available up-front or have to work it up like warriors and druids do is probably a matter of taste. I do find though that with a good group I can do one long continuous pull through an instance as a warrior, and that would never be possible as a shaman.

Earth Shock is very handy as a tanking skill.

Throughout the handful of instance I've had time to do so far on my shaman it has been a delight though. I have definitely not struggled more than I have with other tank classes, just with different things. And I think that's a great thing. Shaman tanking and warrior tanking are different enough to be quite their own experience. While the essence of pulling and handling mobs is the same, the way you can go about it differs a lot. Which one is easier? I would definitely have to say shaman. Rage management is not for the faint of hearted, and the fact of having all your threat skills available on pull, with good interruptability and ranged threat just makes a lot of the things I think a newbie tank would struggle with a lot easier. Which is more fun? Right now I am enjoying both equally because they are different enough. I've personally always had a soft heart for warrior tanking though, so I doubt shaman tanking will knock it down, but as a kind of odd alternative it is great.

At level 40 I get Stormstrike and I am really looking forward to see how that is going to change my tanking experience, the same way I feel Shield Slam has improved my tanking experience on my warrior. It will change the way I go about it though, since now I pull with an Earth Shock, but with Stormstrike I will want to get that in first (for the damage bonus), meaning my pulls will presumably become more like on my warrior. Changing gear to mail and getting to some more challenging instances will also be interesting, though I did have a shaman tank me in Sunken Temple the other day without any trouble. I am sure it'll be fine.

Rise of the Tank Shaman?

Shaman tanking in WoW is something I have been pondering many times over the years. I wrote about it in my post on "Top 5 Class Roles That Nearly Existed" 9,5 years ago and even wrote a guide on how to play one 11 years ago. For whatever reason though I never got around to, you know, actually play one myself. Was I too chicken? Did I not believe in the concept myself? I'm not sure, but I think the simple answer is that I didn't actually play any tank class back in Vanilla, let alone a half-viable one, and once I got around to loving tanking, shaman tanking wasn't actually a thing anymore. I just missed the window of opportunity the last time around.

If you need any convincing or proof that Blizzard actually thought about this as a possibility, just read any or both of the above posts. Too lazy? Well to quote myself (hey I can be lazy too);

"Shamans actually have a taunt. They have a totem that does nothing but tank. Enhancement shamans prefer two one handers, but can wield shields if they want to, and enhancement shamans used to have a talent that gave them parry and a talent called Shield Specialization which increased their block chance by up to 5%. They have a skill that reduces damage done to them by 30%. And they have a weapon buff that increases their threat by 30% and reduces their damage taken by 5%. Need more proof?"

I have been playing WoW Classic for 1,5 year now though and still no tanking shaman in my roster, what gives! I know, this time I can only blame good old faulty memory. I had completely forgotten these were a thing! Until I stumbled across one, which in fact I have never done in the wild before.

Maybe something like this?

I saw someone looking for a group to some low-level instance, calling themselves a tank. I noticed that their name alluded to being a shaman and a flickering light of an old memory shone up in my brain. It couldn't be? But it was, a real, in the flesh (well not really, but you know what I mean) tanking shaman. I immediately whispered them, asking for details on usefulness and especially how skeptical potential group members were about having a shaman tanking them. According to them, there wasn't really an issue.

This shaman was in their mid-20s, so hadn't really been at it long. Back in the day I mused that tanking as a shaman was only really viable up until level 40. But with how Classic WoW has turned out to be more lenient and easier than Vanilla WoW, and even "real" tanks can play as dps-specs and with dps gear up until 60 without any issues, I think shaman tanking could actually work all the way til end game. Maybe Blizzard wanted it to be an option to sort of bolster out the mid-level availability of tanks? Who knows, either way my fire was re-kindled.

I immediately started making plans for actually creating a tank shaman. Time is dire though, rumour has it that BC is on its way and while I am intensely hype for it, it would also kill my beloved tank shaman once again, just like it did all those years ago. EDIT: I was actually thinking of Wotlk so guess I still have some time.

The only thing keeping me from rolling a tank shaman this time around is having to do those pesky totem quests again. Some are not so bad, but some are horrendous. Thing is, I already have a shaman at level 35 who has done all the annoying totem quests, but she is resto specced. But I mean, all that is required is throwing some money at her and she would be set, right? I haven't decided just yet but I am very tempted... Maybe soon I can finally play my beloved tank shaman.

WoW Classic Broke Me

My protection warrior is no more...

I don't remember why or when exactly I decided to play a warrior, but my very first one - a tauren male named Vorax - I levelled as dps. It wasn't until max level (70) and half way through Burning Crusade that I decided to try some tanking, initially very reluctantly and extremely nervous. I had my mishaps, my favorite one was trying to tank a heroic with all my skills in rank 1. I had forgotten to train them after a respec (yeah that was a thing!). If my memory serves though it went well enough for me not to entirely give up on it, rather the opposite, I developed an extreme fondness for warrior tanking.

So much so that I decided to level another warrior from scratch, this time protection all the way. I've always held that the best way to learn a new class is to play it from level 1 and for me at least it's definitely worked well. My enjoyment of warrior tanking subsisted throughout my years of playing WoW and I created many new protection warriors simply because I enjoyed tanking dungeons so very much.

While I loved healing in raids, I absolutely loved tanking for everything else in WoW. That's why I knew right from the start that I wanted to play a protection warrior first and foremost when WoW Classic came. Said and done, I rolled myself an orc warrior and started playing.

So I've played protection warrior a lot, especially for the levels between starting out and endgame and lowbie tanking was what I enjoyed best. But looking back at all those memories of tanking I quickly realized that I never actually tanked anything in Vanilla WoW. My knowledge of the original experience of tanking was limited to the rumours of rage starvation that I heard while bumbling about as a newbie priest. Rolling a protection warrior in Classic WoW would thus be a completely new experience to me.

Completely new though? Could it really be that different?

Well... in many ways yes. It is clear to me, having gotten myself to level 20 and looking back at my, so far, four experiences of tanking dungeons, that a lot had changed between Vanilla and Burning Crusade when I took up my shield and sword for the first time. Even back in Burning Crusade I remember thinking that warriors lacked some tools that other tanking classes had for a long time, a ranged silence (like paladins had) for instance (we eventually got that though). But boy do they lack tools in Vanilla WoW!

It's almost like I can see the Blizzard thought process - let's make warriors the tank for endgame and every other tank class can be for up until then (heck, even throw shamans into that mix). Because the harsh reality is that protection warriors are just not very well suited for dungeon tanking. Their shtick is to take one really big bad guy and tank that mofo hard. If you've got one giant dragon swiping at your face (hello Onyxia), being a tank warrior is probably what you want to be. If you've got three mobs out of which two are casters and one can pull other mobs from around you (hello Wailing Caverns), a warrior tank is the last thing you want to be.

It is one thing that the tool set is limited - as a protection warrior I literally have no aoe threat except Demoralizing Shout, Taunt is melee range only and as an orc (and maybe any warrior race) I can't even use ranged weapons without learning them first (how do you pull you ask? Well with your face of course).

Ok, so I just got Cleave at level 20 and I can actually use that in Defensive Stance (yay). But what does that cost? 20 rage!? Hahaha I never have that much rage... That takes me to my main issue with warrior tanking - rage starvation.

See I remember it being mentioned back in the day, and my guess is it was probably so bad it was something every protection warrior I came across mentioned. Or they just talked about it randomly in General Chat. Probably both. And holy macaroley is rage starvation a thing. As a protection warrior I will so easily end up in a cycle of just not being able to do anything. Unless I have Bloodrage ready (which has 1 minute cooldown) I will run into a pack with 0 rage, being able to use exactly one of my skills - Taunt. It takes me 2-3 auto attacks to get enough rage for 1 Sunder Armor. That is 1 Sunder Armor on 1 enemy. If there are more enemies in that pack? Well they've probably run off to the healer by now. Or any dps that can't follow target markers (a lot more common than you'd hope). So I run after a mob trying to Taunt it with my melee range Taunt and while I do that I do exactly zero threat to all the other enemies around us. Because I just. don't. have. aoe. threat. And even if I did I don't have enough rage to use it.

So my main issue is definitely that of rage. I am actually perfectly fine with not having a good aoe tanking tool, I mean I do have Demo Shout after all and that definitely works well enough. But not getting the rage I need to do any of the skills I need is just... not fun. At the moment I run in and just stare at the mobs angrily enough, hoping my ugly face will make them stay around to hit me. The only light in my tanking tunnel is that whatever hits I do get in generate so very much more threat that most players around me (at least if they're my level) that even melee hits can be enough to hold general aggro most of the time. But auto attack swing tanking is not a very fun way of tanking. I feel like a glorified target dummy.

My issue isn't even that tanking is hard. It was hard all the way until Cataclysm, warrior tanking was probably the most difficult for a long time and that is part of what I enjoyed about it. It's not much more difficult now, it's just... a lot more tedious.

I realize it might just be that tanking is this way for any tanking class in Classic. I haven't tried any other so I don't know. But I do know it's not very much fun for warriors at least, and anyone who has tried any other tanking thus far would be very welcome to tell me about that experience.

Things might look up in a couple of more levels, I am only level 20 after all. Looking at the protection talent tree there isn't really much in there that tells me that's the case though. So I am going to use some of my extremely hard earned money to respec into Arms and see if that can work better for tanking (and it's definitely going to work better for questing methinks). I guess it is fitting that WoW Classic would be the first place where I find that protection warrior isn't worth or fun playing. (Disclaimer though, I am absolutely loving WoW Classic and am having so much fun with it overall).

WoW Classic Is Exactly What I Hoped For

This is my 800th post on this blog, pretty crazy when I think about it. The vast majority of those posts are about WoW so it feels fitting that the 800th one would be on me returning to that game.

Now that I've got the opportunity to play some WoW Classic I can actually say it's pretty much what I hoped for. Heck I can't think of any way it's not what I hoped for so I'm going to say it's exactly what I thought it would be and wanted. Anyone remember the comparison I made to going to back to playing Pokémon Red a couple of posts back? I had just tried to play Pokémon Moon and not enjoyed it (the first in the main series I didn't absolutely love) and decided to go back to the roots. Doing so I was still wary that years of QoL changes within the Pokémon series would make the original experience more tedious than fun. That was definitely not the case, it was exactly as much fun as I remembered it and I loved every second of it.

So far, WoW Classic has been exactly like that. It might help that I stopped playing WoW in MoP and haven't played it for years (a month maybe in Legion but had no fun there). The original WoW was a masterpiece of a game for so many reasons. And while WoW eventually evolved for me to be more about the community than the actual game, that is not how I played it back in Vanilla. It wasn't until BC that I got into raiding, having done only very little of Vanilla end-game. My Vanilla experience, I realize now, was about enjoying the actual game and the randomness of random people. There was a social aspect for sure, in the sense that I needed other people to get things done, but other people weren't the reason I logged in to play.

I realize now, playing the game again, that atmosphere is why I play this game. The reason I love games like Thief, Deus Ex and System Shock 2 is atmosphere (and great game play design). No one does world building like Blizzard - when you run from one end to the other (and you'll be doing a lot of running) doing quests about anything and everything you'll feel connected and immersed. Even killing Shambling Horrors on a field or Quilboars in the outback feels like it has a purpose and fills in another piece of the puzzle that is the lore and world around you.

WoW Classic nails the sense of wonder and exploration. Going into a cave full of spiders or camp full of Kolkars I never feel indifferent or like I just want to get it over with. I am always curious about what is hiding behind the next hill, always interested in finding out more. And that is even though I have done these quests and run these areas tens of times in the past!

Is it flawless? Well in the sense that nothing has dulled my fun even the slightest, yes. Funnily enough, some things that I knew were a bit of a challenge in Classic and that could potentially drain the fun turned out to not be a problem at all.

Getting money is not easy, but I feel like I am always at the point of where I have just enough. Not enough to indulge myself in blues or even greens, but enough to get my skills when I need them and even buy some food for myself. And what else do I really need?

Enemies are tough, but again I feel like they are just tough enough. Not so difficult that every mob feels like a chore and progression is a slog, but not so easy that I can just pull a camp without some careful planning (or at all).

Like mentioned there is a lot of running, and some quests are quite far away from the quest giver but yet again - this gives me an opportunity to explore the world. The objective isn't right next to me, meaning I might find things I wouldn't otherwise have just by having to go around looking for things. It sets a pace that I find contemplative and almost meditative.

Quest mobs drop rate is horrendous compared to later expansions, but it just means I need to kill more which gives me an excuse to spend more time in each area and also gain more experience doing the quest. To me it's a lot like when I get lost in any of the Metroidvania games, I don't mind it since the experience gained always means there is progression.

Playing with other players means you're taking a chance. You might find someone who is nice or someone who isn't. So far I haven't come across any douchebags. People can run up and snag mobs or herbs/veins but it doesn't even bother me because with that many people questing in the same area it's just going to happen. I've been in several groups for small quests and for dungeons and everyone I've spoken to has been at the very least polite. The dungeon I tanked on my warrior was pretty much the epitome of a great run. Even the few mishaps we had, no one lost their temper or started blaming anyone. I can only hope that it's a sign of how things are, and not just me being lucky for my first few levels.

But there are a few things that have given me pause. You can't use Thunder Clap in Defensive Stance?! WHAT?! Ok, that one actually annoys me a bit. But tanking still went fine for my first (and so far only) try since everyone respected the target markers.

Also I know I am going to want a more efficient way to deal with my bags before long. Something that sorts my stuff and also maybe something that displays what is in my bags without me having to drag it to my bars.

A better way to display dots is probably something I am going to get as well. Right now all I can see is that my target has a debuff, no duration or anything.

So far I've gotten a warlock to 11 and a warrior to 15, both on the horde side. But thinking about all the awesome alliance questing areas like Elwynn Forest, Westfall and Duskwood that I haven't even checked out yet makes me all giddy. I want to take it endlessly slow, I almost wish I could level slower than I already am. Each area I am leaving behind I almost immediately want to return to to run around in some more. I can't describe how happy I am that WoW Classic is a thing but yeah, it's really great.

Top 5 Noob Tank Mistakes

Doing lots of lowbie instances from another perspective than being the tank, has allowed me to see aspiring new tanks on the job, for the first time in a long while. Especially when being the healer do you pay extra attention to what your tank is doing. I am glad of course that there seem to be new tanks at all, although they actually seem to be very few judging from my wait times. We need fresh blood to become as cranky and cynical as the rest of us have become who can carry the joyous flag of tanking with the rest of us. But it has also allowed me to see what new tanks seem to struggle with in particular. You can often spot a new tank easily by some simple mistakes and/or pitfalls that they often fall into. The common factor is that none of these things matter much when you start tanking. You can derp around pretty much and test your ways without it having too much of an impact on your healers mana, your dpsers health or the groups patience. The problem only arises once these tanks think that this is an overall ok way to tank and bring this behavior all the way up in endgame and then they find out that tanking that way will have many people die horrible deaths. In most cases that actually doesn't happen. I suppose simple trial and error will learn some tanks that what they're doing doesn't work, and in other cases it's probably a case of "survival of the fittest" where tanks that constantly fail just give up. But it happens often enough for me to notice it. Here is my top 5 list of typical tank mistakes. 

5. Mobs everywhere, HALP!
A common issue for new tanks and healers alike are that they get paralyzed when too much things are happening at once. Usually it is better to do something, anything really (even /dance for the comic relief), than to just stare in panic as shit hits the fan. And because of how healing and tanking work, I can only recommend you to go dps if you actually feel like you have trouble to improvise, because that is much what healing and tanking is about (and what makes it so much fun imo!). One of the things I love about rerolling a character is that I get a chance to thoroughly get a feel for each skill that the class and role has at their disposal. What I often see people do "wrong" however is that they simply respec a character at max level, which makes it really difficult to find out when to use which skill and how in any other way than the hard way - by failing in pugs (which usually has people give up or not try at all). Most tanks have so much possibilities that aren't been put to good use because the tanks don't think about them or just don't dare to use them because they're not comfortable in their rotation. Heroic Leap for warriors, Hand of Salvation/Protection for paladins, interrupting for all tank classes to mention some very few. In lowbie instances this is most often seen as the tank noticing that someone takes aggro, stopping what he is doing, slowly turning towards the mob (with all the other mobs hitting him in the back) and then standing like that for a couple of seconds while probably trying to target the stray mob, for all I can guess. This is exactly what a lowbie tank should do, try to handle stray mobs, and even if they don't do it pretty, they're at least trying which really is the only way they're going to learn how to do it at all. It does become a problem when people react this way in higher content however, fortunately that does happen rarely.

4. I stood in fire?
Just as multi-tasking is something you have to be good at if you intend to tank, situational awareness is possibly even more important. Panicking because you don't know what to do when everyone around you has aggro except you is one thing, not even noticing that everyone around you has aggro is even worse. In low levels I can only assume that this is because of a mix of lack of experience and lack of decent tanking addons. Some sort of addon that helps you distinguish between targets that have aggro on you and that have aggro on someone else is basically a must have when you're tanking. But situational awareness doesn't limit itself to noticing when your healer is dying, but when you yourself is dying too. Noticing that you're standing in a big pile of fire is just as important for you as for everyone else in the group, although it might be the toughest for the tank to notice because the boss usually covers the entire screen (I can only hope Blizzard soon decides to make bosses semi-transparent as in other games). As the tank you have to know what happens at the far edges of your screen. Unlike the healer who can comfortably tunnel in on their healing frames, the tank really must keep an awareness to everything that happens, while at the same time try to keep addons around to help out with that awareness. It's a fine balance that I find most tanks struggle with their entire tanking career.

3. The One Man Army
This is a classical case of "didn't grow out of being level 20" problem. Up until level 60 or so maybe even 70, the tank really usually is a one man army, especially if you happen to be a paladin or dk with decent self-healabilities. You'll be the one who deals the most damage (by far at low levels), sets the pace of the instance and overall runs around like a maniac killing stuff. Nothing wrong with that, I do that myself and I can only imagine that that actually is a big part to why I enjoy re-leveling prot warriors over and over. The problem is of course when tanks still think they don't need the rest of the group after level 80. There will always be exceptions, but most tanks actually do need to care about the healers mana, some cc and where the rest of the group is before pulling. It's also not ok to assume that just because you had a vastly overpowered group the last time you did this, it'll be ok to treat the next group the same way. I can't say that a certain class of tanks suffer from this behavior more than others, it might be dks at early level 70s then, because they're usually really strong all through their 60s and don't actually have to have tankgear or tankspec to be able to tank. Wrath is getting really easy now too, but all of these tanks will get a surprise once they get to Cata instances.

2. Hurtful tanking behavior
I would've put "using Exorcism while tanking" here, but (un)fortunately it's paladin specific. But all tanks can do things that are very bad for their tanking, or at least for their survivability. The one I see most often is simply turning your back against the mobs. Again, this is something that many tanks "learn" from lowbie tanking. On low levels, mobs rarely do enough damage for you to care where it stands for any other reason than you being able to hit it. As soon as you wish to move from point A to point B you simply do what everyone else does - turn around and run there, not caring about having ten mobs hitting you in the back. Problem is, I know a couple of tanks that still don't know how to properly move from point A to point B all the way up to raiding! They probably learn damn fast that turning your back towards a raid boss isn't as forgiving as turning your back at some trash, but they've never done anything else and so they don't know what else to do. They start backing up instead. I don't know how many times I've heard the raid leader tell the tank "don't backpaddle, strafe!" and the tank just doesn't know how to do it. I'm definitely not saying it is easy, strafing around with your entire screen covered by someones crotch while trying to avoid shit on the ground. But that's probably exactly the reason why tanks should try and start practicing it as soon as possible, and not while they're standing there with the entire raid group counting on them.

1. Tanking is only about keeping aggro
What seems to be a typical way of thinking for many new tanks is that all that matters when you tank is that you keep aggro on the mobs. What they completely forget is the very reason to why keeping aggro on the mobs is so important in the first place - to minimize damage to the group. By focusing damage on one target, that also has tools to lower their damage taken, the healers will have a lot easier time to keep everyone alive. A while ago however I did Nexus on my druid and noticed that I had way less trouble healing the group when everyone was taking damage, than when the tank was desperately trying to keep everything on him. Because unfortunately, keeping aggro is far from the only thing a tank has to think about. If you take more damage than the healer can handle, then the mission has still failed. Sometimes, although rarely, it is actually better to let some dps offtank mobs than to try to grab everything yourself, this is especially true for lowbie instances. But what is even more important is to make sure you know exactly how to use your damage reduction cooldowns. The cooldowns are not some sort of bonus that are there to look pretty. They're a crucial part of your tanking rotation and you should know them just as well as you know your Mangle/Crusader Strike/Devastate/Icy Touch. At lower levels most tanks don't even have cooldowns. Warriors for example don't get their Shield Wall until level 48, and using it usually means turning the healer from "bored" to "comatose". Unfortunately this means I often meet tanks who either don't think, or just don't know, how important cooldowns are in endgame. Especially when raiding should tanks always keep their hp in the back of their heads and instantly lunge at their damage reduce cooldowns when they drop too fast (especially if you're prone to the issue of nr 4 in this list). I know very few tanks who are real masters of their cooldowns.  
(Disclaimer: This was written before the aggro nerf announcement, but imo it only proves my point).

Breaking up with threat

I nearly choked on my morning tea when I casually read mmo-champion the other day. Ok, that's not entirely true since it wasn't morning and I didn't have any tea (alas), but you get the idea. So Blizzard has finally decided to get rid of the burden mechanic that is threat. Not remove it alltogether, but make it sufficiently less of an issue that tanks should basically not have to think about it. In case you wondered what I think about this I'll put it like this - I'm happy.

Don't get me wrong, I like threat. The whole idea about threat is really interesting and a good one. But it is designed around two premises that just don't practically work. So theoretically I definitely see why Blizzard ever thought threat was a good idea and why they've decided to keep it for as long as they have. The idea behind threat is A) that there should be a teamwork between players and B) that the tank should have something to do. Looking at the first premise we can see that Blizzard did hand most dpsers (sorry warriors) some sort of tool that would allow them to help tanks with their threating, either it be tank targeted skills like MD and TotT or self targeted skills like FD, Fade or Cower. Because Blizzard initially dreamt about how players would assist eachother in attaining their common goal, how they would struggle in trying to make the experience as pleasurable and easy as possible for everyone involved. *cough* Unfortunately we all know that's not how the vast majority of random pug experiences has turned out, and they never will. If you ever read any of my guides regarding tanking you'll know that my motto as a tank is "the group is the enemy, not the mobs". As a tank you struggle against the other players rather than collaborate with them. Everything you do revolves around how you can trick your fellow group player into making tanking less of a hassle for you. I'll admit that I, in some sort of masochistic way, enjoy this part of tanking. Probably because it keeps tanking challenging. Unlike with healing and dpsing, you can't really outgear instances in the same way as a tank. The challenge depends mostly on the skills of your group. So threat can be fun. But that is only as long as it goes well - as soon you end up in a group where the dpsers only minimally outgear you, you'll have hell. Sometimes I'm even happy that I am the one dealing the most damage in the group, because it means keeping aggro is so easy. It's also a major reason to why I enjoy lowbie tanking so much - threat is no problem at all.

The tools for reducing threat aren't that great either. You could give everyone a Feign Death (and then watch no one use it, as with hunters), but that would remove the whole issue about threat anyway. If everyone could just swipe their threat clean, then why even bother with threat in the first place? Skills like Fade that reduce threat temporarily are very similar to this and also make threat overall kind of moot. Or you could give players a threat reducing mechanic like Cower and Feint, and although I think these skills actually have the most interesting mechanic, by forcing the player to keep an eye on their threat constantly instead of just swiping it clean when they over-aggro, these skills have one huge problem. They're worthless when you need them and you don't need them when they're useful. Cower reduces threat by 10%, but the only time when threat is an issue is usually very early on in a fight. Early on you don't have much threat anyway (just more than the tank) and 10% from barely nothing is nothing. Early on you might get aggro from 2-3 skills, from being good on threat to suddenly having aggro. Cower won't save you. Later on in the fight when you might have a big chunk of threat, the tank is usually so far ahead of you anyway that you don't need to reduce your threat by 10%.

Looking at the second premise we all know that most tanks think that threat is a necessary evil. Much as Blizzard said in their post - no tank wishes to gear for threat and do it only as much as absolutely necessary, because survivability is so much more important. But I understand that they're afraid to make tanking too easy and boring. I will admit that there are plenty of raid bosses that are dreadfully boring to tank, especially if we look at the normal modes. Some bosses you sleep through, like Magmaw and Atramedes. Some bosses require a minimal effort of target switching, like Halfus, V&T, Council, Al'Akir, Nefarian (unless you're the add tank in phase 3), Chimaeron, oh my god the list just goes on. I haven't tanked in FL yet so I'm unsure about that, it seems like a similar mix of challenge and dull staring into a crotch as t11 was. Most of the time, honestly, it's not the tanking part that is challenging, it is surviving all the other things that everyone is trying to avoid that is challenging. As a tank I have to mind the fire and stand in the right place as much as the other guy. I have to think about making the boss face in the right direction as much as the raid has to think about not standing in front of it. And furthermore, threat only has two phases in raiding anyway - the problem phase early on in the fight, where some dpsers might snatch aggro and get insta-gibbed, or the non-problem phase, where after a couple of target switching the tank is so much ahead of threat that no dpser has to worry about it anymore (as mentioned above). So threat in raids is already not working in a good way - it's either too much of a problem or no problem at all.

  
I've said it before too, there is no other role that can be locked out of its own reason to exist in the way a tank can. If I join a group and everyone in the group has aggro but me, for any reason, it makes me rather obsolete. Imagine if you somehow could keep the healer from healing or the dpsers from dpsing? If I end up in a group where no one lets me pull or where I just can't keep aggro I either tell them I might as well go dps, or leave the group. Because I'm not tanking. And unlike with healers and dps, my failure might have nothing to do with skills, but plain old lack of gear. There is nothing I can do on my ilvl 340 tank against Loves threat, and it is equally annoying for both him and me.

So the argument to have threat because it makes tanking more interesting doesn't really work either (as Blizzard also said). It only makes the fight more "interesting" very early on, and does nothing really later on. So what could make the fight more interesting and challenging to a tank throughout the fight instead of just the first 30 seconds? Survivability. As a healer you notice at once the major difference between a tank that knows how to use cooldowns and one that doesn't. Giving the tank more power over their own survivability would definitely make tanking a lot more interesting, and definitely sort between the good and bad tanks in another way. I think the only reason they haven't done this already is because it could make tanks too good. It could make some tanks into one-man armies (hello DKs), because most tanks do good damage and have some sort of self-heal already, increasing their ability to survive by themselves might do them overpowered in solo-pve and/or pvp. But it would make pve-tanking so much more fun. It seems now Blizzard are thinking in the same lines and might implement this kind of skills later on.

Right now threat is iffy. Nothing can annoy me more than just not being able to keep aggro, regardless of what I do. My Taunt button goes hot, and after a while I just can't be bothered anylonger. I can only imagine the amount of players who've given up on tanking because the whole idea of threating seemed too overwhelming to them, the whole idea of having to fight every player in the group just didn't sound very appealing (gee, I wonder why?). Tanking shouldn't be about the struggle for threat, it's about doing nice pulls, locking down the right mobs, leading the group through an instance in a smooth way and staying alive while taking a beating. Right now, threat is designed to be regarded as part of a boss mechanic, part of the fight and that everyone has to work together to overcome. This is very rarely what actually happens, and I am glad that Blizzard have finally realized this (although I would've really wished for threat to work, because like I said, as a mechanic it's an interesting one). Instead, everyone is frustrated at this pink elephant in the room that no one wants to acknowledge but it's there and you have to get around it somehow.

Will it make tanking too easy? This is really what I was dreading when I initially read about the change. But then I thought - is keeping aggro the only tricky thing about tanking? Definitely not, as I wrote above there are tons of things to do as a tank already, and most of the time I've thought of threat as something frustrating rather than fun. I'm happy when I keep aggro of course, but I'd be equally happy if I could unload all my focus onto using my survivabililty skills at the right time, moving around in the right way, not standing in shit, keeping the pace through an instance and knowing that the dpsers can fully focus on just doing dps (which they were anyway, but still). As a tank we definitely have way more things to think about already than the average dpser/healer (although that isn't always true in raids). The change hasn't made tanking EZ-mode, as a tank I'll still have to combat the ninja-pullers, the random afking healer and the no-ccing dps as much as before.

Speccing Protection Warrior - So many choices!

Me and Love are currently enjoying the warrior tanking fun together. Well not ingame together, since any heroic group only really needs one tank. But being able to discuss the fine intricasies of the class and the way we play it does add something extra to it. I've always wanted to have a buddy priest with whom I could go all nerdy in raids, discussing what talent would be more efficient in what situation and why... but alas, fate did not reward me with such a raiding best friend forever. Instead I turn to you priest bloggers, and that has worked well so far. But now I have finally found a soulmate in one of my other favorite classes, the prot warrior! This is good, because there are way less prot warrior blogs out there than there are healing priest ones, or maybe I just suck at finding them (tips appreciated!).

This newfound companionship in my protiness has allowed me to look at my own warrior with new eyes. Things I didn't think much about earlier have suddenly become really interesting, this time I've especially delved deeper into the matter of talent choice. Turns out, there are loads of interesting choices for the prot warrior to make, and they all have their pros and cons. Blizzard did state in early Cata that they had remodeled the talent trees with precisely this in mind - players were supposed to be able to tailor their role somewhat with their last talent points. In a few cases they've really succeeded, and eventhough there's usually a best-best spec (and there probably always will be), the prot choices really show that you can pick your last talents based on how you want to play your tank and what areas you want to buff. Here is a rundown of the talents I find interesting at the moment, and some thoughts on why you should pick it and why not.

Even when discussing the basic warrior spec we'll run into a couple of cross roads, depending on whether you want to focus on raiding or instancing. I won't go into much detail regarding these choices this time around but for example, I'd choose Incite for raiding and Blood & Thunder for instancing. For raiding I might grab Impending Victory, but skip Thunderstruck and vice versa if I prefer to do instances. For raiding I might go with Safeguard, and how many points I want in Shield Specialization really depends on what I think about my rage generation. I probably wouldn't take Vigilance for instancing. Although I've already discussed them somewhat in my Protection Warrior Guide, I'd like to take a closer look at some of these talents specifically here.

War Academy
[Threat] - The only thing this would boost for a prot warrior is our Devastate, which I personally don't use very often. To me Devastate has always been more of a filler, especially once the Sunder Armor stack is up, and I spend a lot more time using my other skills and turning to Devastate only when I have nothing else to do, or am rage starved. Boosting one of my least used skills by a moderate amount of damage doesn't seem very alluring to me. If we add 15% damage to my Devastate usage across some dungeons, it'll look like this;

• Lost City: 1,5% dmg increase.
• Blackrock Caverns: 1,7% dmg increase.
• Lost City2: 1,8% dmg increase.
• Blackrock Caverns2: 1,5% dmg increase.
• Stonecore: 1,2% dmg increase.

Depending on Devastate usage, I don't see this to increase our damage by much more than 2% at best. Is that worth 3 tp? Perhaps if you happen to use Devastate more than the common prot warrior, but considering Shield Slam and Revenge have higher threat, you'll always go for those first. I wouldn't recommend this talent unless you really want some extra damage.

Field Dressing
[Survivability] - To me this is a no brainer. In nearly any situation you will want to improve your survivability as a tank, and getting 6% extra healing from any source is dang useful. Best thing about it is that it is a reliable source of survivability (unlike Blood Craze) because it simply increases the size of the heals you get, which as long as you get heals, is very useful.

Blitz
[Utility] - I initially wrote this off as a pvp talent, but taking a second look at it I am not so sure. This is definitely a utility talent, but it holds some useful possibilites. Getting some extra rage when charging is very handy of course, because it is during the first 10 ish seconds that we establish our most important threat base. Once we've got the first seconds covered, it's usually pretty easy to keep the aggro. If you don't get initial threat you will have hell since no threat means no rage which means no threat. Blitz will also stun 1/2 extra of the closest mobs which I've noticed is both good and bad. It's good in that it allows you to make sure that at least three mobs will be exactly where you want them to be when you charge in, no matter what your dpsers or healer might do. On the other hand it also means that two mobs won't be rushing into your arms when you charge in, but will stand a little bit away being stunned, possibly out of melee range. By being stunned, they will also not give you rage and procs, which the extra rage gained from Blitz is supposed to cover somewhat I'm guessing. Fortunately, in nearly all cases you'll reach them with cleave, thunder clap, shockwave and demo shout anyway, and the extra rage gives you enough for a good start - so I think the gains definitely outweigh the downs on this talent. If you think that the initial first seconds of the pull is what you're having issues with, this is a very handy talent. But of course, only as long as you think you'll do a lot of charging on mob packs, which means this isn't very useful for raiding.

Second Wind
[Survivability] - I remember having this in my prot spec back in Wrath (or was it possibly even back in BC). Nowadays I don't feel like we get stunned or immobilized often enough (although sometimes it feels like it's all the time, like some of the trash packs in Vortex Pinnacle) for this talent to be worth it, even less in raids. What I need when I get stunned isn't extra rage, it's some sort of way to keep aggro and increase my survivability. Second Wind does give you some health when stunned, but I think these talent points can be better spent elsewhere.

Deep Wounds
[Threat] - I remember many tanks specced into this back in Wrath for the extra threat it provided, so I was ready to give it another go. The results weren't as good as they used to be. For both me and Love, Deep Wounds made up no more than 3% of our total damage, at best. This isn't odd at all when you think about it, because Deep Wounds is heavily reliant on crit, and neither me nor Love has above 2% at the moment. Where would we get it? We don't have any agility or crit gear at all. Some talents increase the crit chance of our skills, but that's about all we have. Through talents and in a raid group, a tanking warrior could still hope to get up to 15-20% crit, but that doesn't solve the second issue of Deep Wounds. It's based on weapon damage, and tank weapons aren't known for their high damage. Deep Wounds is designed to work the best with a chunky, slow 2hander. But Deep Wounds is still among the better threat stats to choose from, so if you really want more threat/dps, this is what you should take.

Blood Craze
[Survivability] - More survivability = good right? Overall yes, but we have to make sure it is worth it too. Because of how Blood Craze works, it is the most useful when you're being hit by as many attacks as possible. Since it is a proc, you won't really know when you'll get the heal and can't count on it to save you when needed. Blood Craze should mainly be seen as a cushion on which you can lean while the healers do their job. Question is of course, how small is this cushion? Too small to be worth the talent points? I gathered some numbers and compared them to healing received total from the healer, and also how much of BC that was overheal to get a feel for the overall effectiviness. Let's take a look;

• Halls of Origination: 481k hp healed - 12% of healers total heal - 10% overheal.
• Lost City1: 296k hp healed - 3,4% of healer - 4% overheal
• Blackrock Caverns: 343k hp healed - 5% of healer - 14% overheal
• Lost City2: 449k hp healed - 5% of healer - 11% overheal
• Vortex Pinnacle: 597k hp healed - 11% of healer - 6% overheal

Rough numbers, so what can they tell us? First of all, that the overheal of Blood Craze is fairly low. After all, BC procs when you're getting hit, so it makes sense that you need some healing when it starts ticking in. Secondly, it seems to make out roughly 6-7% of the healing needed in an instance, but with a lot of variation. Remember that these numbers are taken from heroics where I usually tank several targets, and they are probably not correct for a raid tanking warrior. But for instance tanking I think this talent is worth the points to get some extra survivability.

Battle Trance (which I couldn't find an icon for)
[Threat] - Just as with Deep Wounds and Incite, this talents usefulness relies completely on our crit, which is very, very low. I don't think the extra rage gain from this talent is significant enough to warrant using 3 tp into it. If you're that desperate for rage there's definitely better choices (Booming Voice, Shield Spec for example). If we assume I'd use the proc on my most expensive skill (Heroic Strike or Cleave), every time (which is ideal, but very difficult to succeed with), the rage gain from Battle Trance would result in;

• Lost City: 19 crits = 0,5 extra rps.
• Blackrock Caverns: 18 crits = 0,6 extra rps.
• Lost City2: 20 crits = 0,5 extra rps.
• Blackrock Caverns2: 26 crits = 0,5 extra rps.
• Stonecore: 23 crits = 0,5 extra rps.

This was calculated by converting all my Shield Slam crits into corresponding rage (10 SS crits = 300 rage) and dividing it by my active combat time. I think it is pretty safe to say that the extra rage gain from Battle Trance is extremely low, at best, and my results come close to the EJ estimate; "Under ideal conditions, will only conserve 1 rage per second (or 1.5 during Inner Rage). Only useful if your rage income is extremely low." Not a recommended talent.

Booming Voice
[Threat] - It's unfortunate that prot tanks don't have access to this talent more early on in the levels, because that is mostly when we could need the ability to cast our Shouts more often. In endgame tanking I'd probably always forget to recast it unless I had an addon that reminded me, simply because I very rarely need that extra rage.

Rude Interruption
[Threat] - Possibly quite useful, but also very reliant on how often you get to interrupt. Some raid bosses require a lot of interrupts, like Maloriak and Nefarian in p2, but otherwise you probably won't be interrupting very often in a raid environment. So what about instancing then? Looking at most heroics nowadays, it seems like just about every pack has some sort of mob that requires some sort of interrupting. The possibilities to get this buff are rather promising. From testing I can tell of another added benefit - you will get less annoyed at your fellow dpsers when they fail to help you interrupt, you might possibly even get annoyed if they do so! Kidding of course, but seriously - this talent will turn you into a ninja interrupter in no time. I don't waste any opportunity to interrupt a cast if I can help it. Let's look at some numbers;

• Vortex Pinnacle: 10 Pummel = 150 sec buff or 16% uptime over total combat time.
• Deadmines: 14 Pummel = 210 sec buff or 11,5% uptime over total combat time.
• Halls of Origination = 12 Pummels = 180 buff or 10% uptime over total combat time.
• Shadowfang Keep = 36 Pummels = 540 sec uptime or 27% over total combat time.
• Lost City = 8 Pummels = 120 sec buff or 11% over total combat time.

These are idealized numbers of course. First of all I'm assuming you'll get to spend the entire buff in combat doing damage with it, which on the other hand nearly always is true. Secondly I'm assuming the buffs won't overlap, which probably also nearly always is true since Pummel has 10 second cooldown and Rude Interruption a 15 second uptime (with only 1 tp, and I wouldn't take more anyway)), it is difficult to cut. As a final verdict I would say that the average uptime of Rude Interruption, if you use Pummel when you get the opportunity and don't have a trigger happy interrupter already in your group, is about 10% at least. Where does it leave us? With a rough 0,5% dps increase. Not very fancy unfortunately.

Piercing Howl
[Utility] - As with Blitz, this could be used as a helpful tool when trying to gain control over unruly mobs. You really have to take a look at your own tanking situation and see if you feel like this could help you out, personally I don't feel like I need it, but being able to slow an unlimited amount of enemies close to you could be perfect for when that fire mage decides to steal all aggro with some burst aoe. On the other hand, maybe that is was Challenging Shout is for. I'd consider this mainly a pvp talent.
 
Incite
[Threat] - Just as with Deep Wounds, Incite relies heavily on your crit. It also relies on how often you use Heroic Strike. Heroic Strike and Cleave are basically two versions of the same skill, where one will hit one target a little harder and the other will hit two (or three if you've glyphed it) targets for a little less. Therefore, you'll mostly use Heroic Strike against single target mobs, which usually only is bosses unless you have some special reason to avoid using Cleave like cc and such. In heroics I use Heroic Strike very rarely, actually nearly only against bosses. Most of the fights are made out of mob groups that consist of more than one mob, so I use Cleave a lot more. In raids the relationship is the opposite however - here you will mostly use Heroic Strike. If we also consider that eventhough most tank warriors run around with very low crit, the one surrounding where their crit might actually get half decent would be in a raid. My numbers from heroics show that Incite is a dps increase of less than 1%. Simplified we could therefore say that the threat increase also is less than 1%. I don't think the numbers are significantly higher for raiding warriors, a rough estimation based on our MT shows numbers around 1-2%. On the other hand one might still consider it more useful than for example Blood & Thunder in a raiding environment.

How to Pull - HoO 1st Trash Pack

Love has recently found the joy in warrior tanking again and turbo leveled it to 85. Now that we both regularly do heroics we often end up in discussions on how to best tank certain situations, both in terms of skill usage but mostly regarding how to do some smooth pulling. I've discussed the matters of pulling before, and said back then that good pulling is a whole art in itself. Mastering it as a tank will make any pug you do a lot more enjoyable. When a pull goes wrong, which can be due to any number of reasons, I often try to analyze it and think about how I can do it better the next time. How you want to do a pull depends on a number of factors, so check out my post on that subject if you want to know more. But me and Love also agreed that there is really nothing better to explain a procedure than a good old practical example. Which pulls did we think were difficult, and how would we handle them (although Love, being all manly and all, doesn't think any pull is difficult)? I hate to have to put this disclaimer in so many of my posts, but people leave me no choice. There is a difference between difficult and more difficult than something else, just so you know. So when I say "pull X is more difficult than pull Y" I am not saying "I can't handle pull x, help l2p".

In what hopefully becomes a little series, I intend to explain how I would go through with some of the more difficult pulls currently in WoW. This is assuming you don't have any cc or other help from the rest of the group and would have to take the entire pull in one go by your own means, something we're seeing more and more of in instances. If you do have cc in your group just remove one mob factor from the pull calculation. Because I currently do heroics on both paladin, dk and warrior and I will have Love help me with the druid PoV, this will explain the pull from all the tank classes view.

First out is the first mob pack in Halls of Origination. Personally, I feel like all the mob packs of this constellation in HoO are a pain in the ass. Not only do they have one of the most annoying sort of mob - the ranged melee - they also deal a butt load of damage. If I'd ever recommend you to use cc in a heroic, this would be it. But assuming you don't have that luxury this is how I would do the pull;

Mob Pack: Consists of - Temple Fireshaper (ranged caster), Temple Runecaster (melee healer), Temple Shadowlancer (melee) and Temple Swiftstalker (ranged melee). The packs usually consist of one of each (but not always!), where two are melee (which will move to you) and two are not (which means you have to silence them or move to  them). The rest of these mob packs in HoO don't all have a Fireshaper, which only makes the pull easier.
Surroundings: In most regards you have to fight this pack in an open area, without possibilities to line of sight. This does add some difficulties to classes with few ranged silences or other abilities that allow them to move ranged mobs, like warrior and druids. You could possibly corner the entire pack if you move back far enough, assuming the rest of the group will allow you. Remember, the further the mobs have to run to get to you, the more likely it is that someone else in the group will get aggro.
Goal: Since you have two ranged, out of which only one is reliably moveable, you have to gather the group of mobs around the one that is more difficult to move, in this case the Temple Swiftstalker. The killing order isn't extremely important since all mobs do a lot of damage and has some sort of annoying skill. You should therefor aim to mark the mobs so that it fits your pull the best way. My general recommendation is to mark the Temple Swiftstalker for first kill, since it won't move away if people get aggro from it and you can therefor regain aggro from it relatively easy.

Warrior
This pull is fairly easy as a warrior. You could charge in at either of the first three mobs and do your general threating rotation but since you can't get the Temple Swiftstalker to move to you, you will have to move to him. Silence the Temple Fireshaper with a heroic throw to the face (talented of course) and voila. This is my recommendation for the pull;

1. Mark the Swiftstalker
2. Use Commanding/Battle Shout for rage
3. Charge Swiftstalker
4. Rend Swiftstalker
5. Heroic Throw Fireshaper
6. Thunder Clap and keep tanking them on the Swiftstalker

They should now be neatly gathered. This type of pulling should be usable on any of the four-mob
packs in HoO.

Paladin
Believe it or not, this pull could actually turn out to be slightly tricky as a paladin. As a paladin, your way to get first to the mobs comes from Avenger's Shield, where warrior and druids have Charge and dks have Death & Decay. This time around, you will have to save your Avenger's Shield to be able to silence the Temple Fireshaper however, which means you won't be able to use it on the other mobs for first threat! If your dpsers follow your marks this should turn out to be a small problem hopefully.

1. Because this pull deals a lot of damage, it could be wise to start out with Divine Plea.
2. Run in, judge one of the melee targets (Runecaster or Shadowlancer)
3. Hammer of the Righteous on them when they're close enough to be hit
4. Consecration once you're by the Swiftstalker
5. Avenger's Shield on the Fireshaper

See picture above for details.

Death Knight
This pull is probably the simplest for a DK who has the tools to get fast aggro on and reposition any of the mobs. Eventhough you could move the Swiftstalker to you, it is better to move the Fireshaper because he is in the back. Less running is good!

1. Drop Death & Decay on the Swiftstalker while running towards him.
2. Use Anti Magic Shell
3. Use Icy Touch on Swiftstalker
4. Use Plague Strike
5. Death Grip Fireshaper to you
6. Pestilence on Swiftstalker

See picture above for details.

Druid
Lacking a proper ranged silence, you will have the most trouble with this pull as a druid by far.  There are two ways to deal with this group of mobs which depends mainly on the dps in your group. You will probably have to accept that you won't be able to gather the group in a satisfactory manner.

Procedure A - The Gathering

1. Run to the Swiftstalker don't charge!
2. Faerie Fire Feral on Fireshaper
3. Get some initial aggro on the three mobs through Swipe and Thrash (throw in Maul if you have the rage).
4. Charge the Fireshaper and interrupt its cast
5. Start moving it back to the Swiftstalker, unless it seems like it is almost dead anyway.

Procedure B - The Ranged

1. Charge onto the Swiftstalker
2. Faerie Fire Feral on Fireshaper
3. Tank the mobs on Swiftstalker, use Swipe, Thrash, Maul and Mangle.
4. Use Faerie Fire Feral on cooldown on the Fireshaper
5. When Swiftstalker is dead, move to Fireshaper.

See picture above for details.

But Zinn, what if I do have some cc?
Knowing how to deal with the pull without any help from your group is good. I might sound negative, but you should never really count on getting any help, so being able to deal with a pull as much  as possible on your own is the first step towards avoiding unecessary frustration. Fortunately, there usually are at least some competent puggers in every group. If you do have some cc I would go with ccing the Swiftstalker, mainly since the Fireshaper is un-ccable. If you even have a second cc, you can go with either of the other two, they're both about equally annoying.

What's wrong with you, druid? Part 3

Something is amiss in druid land. Although balance and resto druids seem to be doing ok (which isn't the same as saying they're perfectly fine), something doesn't feel right about feral druids at the moment. My relationship to druids has always been characterized by a dichotomic attitude. On one hand I love the idea of being a little bit of everything, and the reason my first main was a druid was because I wanted to be able to bring everything to a group - be the jack of all trades. On the other hand, I quickly learned that Blizzard didn't seem to be certain themselves how they wanted druids to be these jack of all trades. At first, druids did a little bit of everything, just not as good as everyone else. That turned out to be a bad idea, because having someone who was a little less good at everything, but that could fill every role turned out to be a lot less valuable than just bringing "the real deal" to the group. Back in Vanilla, balance and feral druids were hardly ever heard of, only as some for fun out of instance and raid specs. So Blizzard started designing the various trees to actually be able to stand alone, giving restos their tree form and balance their chicken form. But while they focused their efforts into making the balance trees and resto trees into real healing and dps trees, feral druids got stuck in their Pinocchio shape, and never really got turned into real classes. Although Blizzard have actually adressed a lot of the things I was whining about before, I somehow feel like bears have returned to the role they had in Vanilla - doing the same thing, only not as good. Why do I say this? Let me see if I can explain.

My frustration with bears has a long history and I'll admit that it might be completely personal and not founded in any real issues with bears. I like bear tanking the least, so that I wouldn't even put it on my top 4 list, eventhough there are only 4 tank classes. It would be 1. DK, 2. Warrior, 3. Paladin, 15. Druid. But that doesn't have to mean anything. I don't enjoy rogues either, and there isn't anything majorly wrong about them just because I don't like playing them (but I bet I'm going to hear I'm wrong about that ;)). My aversion towards bear tanking (which are based on reasons I'll get to in a moment) have given me a general distrust towards bear tanks however. In raids I just don't like having to heal a feral bear as much as I like healing the other classes. In instances that becomes even more of a problem, when paladins and dks can basically take care of themselves, and warriors ... well warriors at least are good raid tanks. Bears on the other hand just lack so much. The one thing that I felt made bears better than all the other classes was that they had "free" crit immunity throughout Wrath, something that made less difference in raids but was very welcome in lowie instances. Now, all tank classes have that. Don't get me wrong, my aversion to bears aren't in any way connected to what I may feel to the player who plays it. Love has mained feral bear many times for example.

Bears weren't always the worst of the four. Back in BC when bears had humongous hp-pools, most raids didn't want any other tank. But then they changed it so that bear tanks has about the same hp as all the tanks. The reason bears had more hp and armor than paladins and warriors (no dks back then) was to compensate for the fact that they didn't have block or parry. Instead they used their face as avoidance, taking bigger blows than their fellow tanks, but having more hp to soak it with. When they removed the extra hp, Blizzard still had to figure a way to compensate for the fact that bears still didn't have block or parry, so they introduced Savage Defense. Problem is, SD isn't as good as block and parry. One reason most holydins dislike their mastery at the moment is because if a bigger shield procs, it will replace a smaller, rather than adding to it. Blizzard tried compensating by making the shields bigger overall, but somehow that just doesn't cut it. SD takes this one step further since it must actively be applied through crits, meaning it's not passive like parry, dodge and block. Also, any shield will replace an old one, whether it be smaller or bigger. They've at least changed it so that shields will be fully soaked before going away, previously any attack, no matter how small, would remove a shield. That way, an attack of 1 damage could remove a shield worth 30k absorb. But that's a small comfort for a skill that still has a lot of issues surrounding it. Eventhough I don't want to paint the devil on the wall, as we say in sweden, there is still a difference between how much damage bear tanks take and how much damage every other class takes. The harder the boss hits, the bigger the difference. And that's not the only problem with bear tanking at the moment.

The problem about bear tanking is the fact that you have to be a bear. Warriors had long suffered under the fact that they had to use different stances to be able to access all their skills. In Vanilla, stance dancing was standard procedure for warrior tanks, having to switch between stances to be able to charge and gain access to other useful tanking tools. Warriors started pointing to paladins and asking why they didn't have to go through all that trouble. So Blizzard thought - "Hmm, maybe we shouldn't make it so troublesome for warriors to use those tanking tools" and made loads of previously out of range tools available in defensive stance. But for some reason they forgot about the bears. Bears are currently the only tank class that has to drop their tanking abilities to gain access to some utility. Innervate, Rebirth and Tranquility are currently all out of reach for the tanking bear. As comparison, Dks just got a combat res, which they can use in any stance, warriors got a raid cooldown (Rallying Cry) which they can use in any stance and protadins have a special raid cooldown that is available to them when they're tanking. Paladins can also shield fellow party members and use some (albeit mediocre) group healing if needed (LoH, Wog and Holy Radiance). Bears are now the only tank class limited solely to tanking, without being able to bring any utility to the group. This makes it feel like a waste of druid potential to use them for tanking, when they could've been healer/dpser and have free access to all those utility tools.

Sadly, the best way to use a feral druid right now is having them go hero bear. It's ironic that what bring bears down are that they excell over the other tanks in being able to quickly and efficiently swap between dpsing and decent tanking, since in a sense that is exactly what druids should be all about. But it also means that people don't want to bring players who love to just tank or dps with their druids. Here is something mentioned by Sunnier at A Sunnier Bear as an anecdote, but it exactly describes the problem;

'I spend about half my progression raids as cat, half as bear. While I think part of this is due to my guild's Divine Guardian guilt ("we really like bears, but Divine Guardian is just so overpowered that we're forced to use two paladin tanks; here, have a dps cookie"), it's unmistakeable that bears bring the best off tank dps around'

When hardcore raid guilds don't want feral druids it doesn't mean that we have to care, but it still means that there are reasons not to choose feral druids, or no reasons to choose them - and that's not how it should be. Currently, bears don't have any edge towards the other tank classes as long as they're main tanking, and as Rax of Raid Trauma asks us - why bring someone you don't need? One of our main tanks is a feral druid, and our guild will bring him any day of course. But there is still no denying that he is more useful to us as an off tank rather than the main tank, and that feral druids have problems competing with other tanks for the MT spots. Should we accept that that is the role Blizzard have designed for bears? That maybe that is the only way to play a bear druid? That maybe it shouldn't be seen as something hampering, but rather as something that sets feral druids out as special compared to other tanks?

If not, the solution to the problem is actually rather simple. Just make bears work like any other tank class, giving them access to all or some of their utility tools while still being in bear form, and using rage as resource instead. Rebirth = 50 rage, Tranquility = 70 rage, Innervate = 40 rage, just to throw a suggestion out there.

Tanking Guide - Shields level 15-85 (Cataclysm Update)

This is an updated version of my old post, new shields have been added, some shields removed (that no longer exist in the game) and level requirements adjusted!

I decided to list them by level, since that's probably the easiest to follow. But if you're looking for shields that drop in a certain location just push ctrl+F and write the abbreviation e.g. WC, BFD, BRD, AH (Auction House that is) and etc. If you're looking for a certain boss drop just write the name of the boss. Remember that quest reward shields usually are obtainable at low levels although it requires you to do a higher level instance, which means that even if you can take the quest for the shield at level 20, you might have to be several levels higher to do the quest (depending on how boosted you can be).

• Shields with mostly caster stats not included (although some of them are ok for tanking).
  
• Shields from heroic Outland instances not included, since no one does them anymore.
  
• Shields of green quality not included (since they're generally not very good).
  
• Shields from raids not included.
  
• Shields from PvP rewards not included.
  
• Shields are all of blue quality unless stated otherwise.
  

Level requirement - name (location, mob)

15 - Gold-plated Buckler (DM, Miner Johnson (Rare))
16 - Kresh's Back (WC, Kresh), Worn Turtle Shell Shield (WC, Kresh), Commander's Crest (SFK, Commander Springvale)
17 – Darkshore Warder's Shield (Quest, The Battle for Darkshore (horde)), Shield of Azsharan Conquest (The Conquest of Azshara (alliance))
19 - Redbeard Crest (AH, BoE)
20 – Shield Against the Evil Presence (Nightmare of the Deeps (horde), Blackfathom Villainy (alliance))
24 - Thermaplugg's Central Core (GR, Mekgineer Thermaplugg)
25 - Shield of Thorsen (AH, BoE)
26 - Resplendent Guardian (AH, BoE)
29 – Shield of Comrades (Quest, Stripping Their Defenses (horde)), Shield of the Righteous Cause (Quest, The Only True Path (alliance)).
33 - Skullance Shield (AH, BoE)
35 - Battered Viking Shield (Uldaman, Olaf), Olaf's All Purpose Shield (Uldaman, Olaf), Aegis of the Scarlet Commander (SM Cath, Scarlet Commander Mograine)
36 - The Green Tower (AH, BoE (epic)), Shield of Maraudon (Maraudon, Princess Theradras)
40 - Aegis of Battle (Quest, Venom to Undercity (horde only)), Savage Boar's Guard (RFD, Ragglesnout (rare)), Intricately Runed Shield (Scholomance, Ras Frostwhisper), Petrified Bark Shield (Dire Maul, Tendris Warpwood)
41 - Blackskull Shield (Ah, BoE (epic))
44 - Troll Protector (AH, BoE), Barrier Shield (Dire Maul, Tribute Run)
45 - Wall of the Dead (AH, BoE (epic))
47 - Stoneshell Guard (BRD, Roccor)
48 – Crest of Retribution (Stratholme, Ramstein), Husk of Nerub'enkan (Strat, Nerub'enkan)
49 - Aegis of Stormwind (AH, BoE)
51 - Rock Golem Bulwark (BRD, Panzor the Invincible)
54 - Skullflame Shield (AH, BoE (epic)), Avalanchion's Stony Hide (Azshara, Avalanchion)
55 - Draconian Deflector (UBRS, General Drakkisath)
56 - Milli's Shield (Quest, Shards of the Felvine), Avalanchion's Stony Hide (AH, BoE)
57 - Intricately Runed Shield (Scholo, Ras Frostwhisper), Darrowshire Strongguard (Quest, The Lich, Ras Frostwhisper)
60 - Jagged Obsidian Shield (Crafted (epic))
62 - Petrified Lichen Guard (Rep with Sporeggar)
64 - Shield of the Void (MT, Pandemonius)
65 - Shield of the Wayward Footman (AH, BoE)
68 - Platinum Shield of the Valorous (SL, Ambassador Hellmaw)
70 - Netherwing Protector's Shield (Quest, Ally of the Netherwing), Aegis of the Sunbird (Bot, High Botanist Freywinn), Ogri'la Aegis (Rep with Ogri'la), Silvermoon Crest Shield (SL, Murmur)
72 - Bulwark of the Tormented God (Quest, Ursoc the Bear God (level 73 req for alliance))
73 - Saronite Defender (AH, Crafted)
75 - Riot Shield (VH, Xevozz)
76 - Blade-Binding Bulwark (AH, BoE)
77 - Saronite Bulwark (Crafted)
78 - Bulwark of the Warchief (rep with Horde Expedition (horde only)), Shield of the Lion-hearted (rep with Alliance Vanguard (alliance only)), Leeka's Shield (CoS, Malganis Chest), Shield of the Iron Maiden (Blackrock Caverns, Rom'ogg Bonecrusher)
83 – Bulwark of the Primordial Mound (Halls of Origination, Earthrager Ptah)
84 – Truthbreaker Shield (Quest, A Villain Unmasked (alliance)), Twilight Mirrorshield (Quest, Traitor´s Bait (horde))
85 – Elementium Earthguard (AH, Crafted), Extinct Turtle Shield (Archaeology), Shield of Four Grey Towers (JP Vendor), Blockade's Lost Shield (AH, BoE (epic))

Removed or changed shields in Cataclysm
18 - Arctic Buckler (Quest, Blackfathom Villainy) REMOVED
23 - Marbled Buckler (Quest, A vengeful fate (horde), The Crone of the Kraul (alliance)) REMOVED
27 - Heart of Agamaggan (RFK, Charlga Razorflank) CHANGED
30 - Vigilant Buckler (Quest, Malin's request (alliance only)) REMOVED
32 - Pit Fighter's Shield (Quest, Trol'kalar (horde only)) REMOVED
55 - Argent Defender (Quest, The Argent Hold) REMOVED
57 - Dreadguard's Protector (DM West, Lord Hel'Nurath) REMOVED?

If you notice anything incorrect, please tell me :)
Thanks to Wowhead.com for helping me do this list!